Climate Weapons: More Than Just a Conspiracy Theory?

'Far-reaching hypotheses arise naturally in the situation. Venezuelan leader H. Chavez was ridiculed for attributing the Haiti earthquake to the impact of HAARP but, for example, similar suspicions crept in following the 2008 earthquake in China's Sichuan province.

Moreover, there is evidence that the US climate influence program not only spans a number of countries and regions but is also partially based in space.

For instance, the X-37B unmanned vehicle orbited on April 22, 2010 reportedly carries new types of laser weaponry. According to New York Times, the Pentagon rejects any connection between X-37B and whatever combat weapons but recognizes that its purpose is to support ground operations and to handle a number of auxiliary tasks.

The vehicle was built 11 years ago as a part of a NASA program which was taken over by the US Air Force 6 years ago and completely classified.'

Read more: Climate Weapons: More Than Just a Conspiracy Theory?

Collecting Rainwater Now Illegal in Many American States

'As bizarre as it sounds, laws restricting property owners from "diverting" water that falls on their own homes and land have been on the books for quite some time in many Western states of the US.

Only recently, as droughts and renewed interest in water conservation methods have become more common, have individuals and business owners started butting heads with law enforcement over the practice of collecting rainwater for personal use.

Check out this YouTube video of a news report out of Salt Lake City, Utah, about the issue. It's illegal in Utah to divert rainwater without a valid water right, and Mark Miller of Mark Miller Toyota, found this out the hard way.'

Read more: Collecting Rainwater Now Illegal in Many States as Big Government Claims Ownership Over Our Water

Home of the Free - Land of the Brave, eh! I wonder how long before our state governments catch on. Maybe there is a reason behind the grants offered to homeowners who put in water tanks. Registered rain water users!

The Fun Police!

Got to hand it to the Greens in Tassie – their first decision in the new Government is to withdraw the sponsorship of the Hawks who play a couple of AFL games a year in Launceston.

Now I know some people back the Hawks, and that Tasmanians like to go to the football when they turn up in that State, but why would the Greens go out of their way to make sure the club pulls out and leaves.

Lots of people have claimed the Greens are the anti-fun party - this just tends to prove it!

And again, give it to the Greens, their leader Nick McKimm conned the Government to give them one cabinet post. But then he used the Constitution to split it and put his girlfriend into the Ministry under the “delegation” powers of a minister. A very clever "let's keep it all in the family" move... But let’s wait until they have to make some serious decisions.

Anyway, we can see the Greens priorities have nothing to do with the well being of the state or workers - they're much more about stopping people enjoying themselves and feathering their own nest.

What next? They'll probably want to stop helicopters flying over wilderness areas because Greenie bushwalkers are out there and it might disturb their “experience”. Or maybe they'll bring back their old favourite - and demand the removal of trout from all streams in Tasmania because they are feral - not to mention the deer as well.

This item courtesy of: The Shooters and Fishers Party

http://www.shootersandfishers.org.au/blog/the-greens-now-theyre-the-fun-police.aspx

Catholic Sex Scandal as Undercover Reporter 'Films Priests at Gay Clubs and Having Casual Flings'

Caught in the act: A priest - still wearing his dog collar - approaches a gay 'accomplice' of the undercover reporter as their casual affair is caught on camera in the Italian magazine Panorama's footage

'A gay priest sex scandal has rocked the Catholic Church in Italy today after a weekly news magazine released details of a shock investigation it had carried out. Using hidden cameras, a journalist from Panorama magazine - owned by Italian Prime Minister and media baron Silvio Berlusconi - filmed three priests as they attended gay nightspots and had casual sex.

Today there was no immediate comment from the Italian Bishops Conference and the Vatican - which has been rocked by a series of sex scandals involving paedophile priests since the start of the year.

The article describes how the reporter was assisted by a gay 'accomplice' as they 'gate-crashed the wild nights of a number of priests in Rome who live a surprising double-life.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1297083/Gay-priest-sex-scandal-undercover-Berlusconi-reporter-films-clerics-gay-clubs.html#ixzz0uwdouOHB

Read more: Catholic Sex Scandal as Berlusconi's Undercover Reporter 'Films Priests at Gay Clubs and Having Casual Flings'

Court Drops German Bishop Probe

People always have reasons for their actions. Below are my reasons for passing on information I come across about the paedophile elements in the Catholic church.

My mother, a staunch Catholic with six children and a pisspot, philandering husband, was struck down with stomach cancer in the late 1950's. In this era cancer was a death sentance!

Five little kids were lovingly taken care of for months by some of the most wonderful people any country town could ever produce.

Some were Catholic families and some were Anglican families.

All were loving, beautiful families and took such wonderful care of my younger brothers and sisters I am forever in debt to them. I was the oldest child and for some reason I was sent to a Catholic orphanage nearby run by the Sisters of Mercy. I saw some strange things happen there that I didn't really understand at the time.

Mum eventually recovered and all the children moved back into the family home. Mum told me many years later that she had prayed the Rosary twice a day as she was recovering and had promised God that if she recovered she would make sure her children were always raised as Catholics and always sent to Catholic schools.

So all six kids always attended Catholic schools, at primary level The Sisters of Mercy and what a misnomer they were! The only mercy was when we begged for it when being caned. My three younger brothers later told me of some of the floggings they got, first at the hands of the sisters and later on in secondary school at the hands of the Marist Brothers etc.

I was shipped off to a Catholic boarding school for my seconday education. I made friends with a boy in my class who had an older brother at the school and he quickly made us aware of the "leanings" of some ot the priests, brothers, and some of the older students.

We used to joke about "dodging Father Rileys cock". To some of the boys who didn't have the animal cunning of others it wasn't a joke!


Here is a news item from www.presstv in the States. The link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=135821&sectionid=351020604

'German prosecutors have dropped a probe into allegations that the country's top cleric, Freiburg Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, hired a pedophile priest. "The investigation into Freiburg Archbishop Robert Zollitsch has been closed," the Associated Press quoted Prosecutor Christoph Hettenbach as saying in a statement released Wednesday.

An anonymous complaint had accused the 71-year-old Zollitsch of reappointing a priest in 1987 known to have sexually abused minors in the 1960s. "Since no concrete abuse cases or victims' names have come to light from the priest's second period in Birnau from 1987 to 1992, there are no grounds for holding Dr Zollitsch criminally responsible," Hettenbach said in the statement.

"Neither was there any evidence that the archbishop, who was head of Church personnel in the area at the time, acted in the knowledge that the priest might commit new offences," the prosecutor added.

Nevertheless, Zollitsch had earlier admitted his mistakes in dealing with allegations of sexual abuse against the alleged pedophile priest, saying that he should have probed the case more intensely.

Vatican has repeatedly faced accusations of sexual abuse across Europe and the US during the past year.

Last March, Pope Benedict XVI himself was involved in allegations of ignoring an abuse case in 1980.

Amid such controversies, the closure of Zollitsch's inquiry comes as a relief to the Catholic Church. '

Cold Snap Freezes South America – Beaches Whitened, Some Areas Experience Snow For First Time in Living Memory

The most famous beach of Argentina, Mar del Plata, was whitened by the snow in the morning of July 15th 2010.

Despite scenes like the above we still have University Educated morons who will not research outside the narrow confines of their stilted minds. They are like Chicken Little running around crying out "The sky is falling! The sky is falling!" (read Global warming, naughty people, punish, punish!)



Watts Up With That reports as follows:

"A brutal and historical cold snap has so far caused 80 deaths in South America, according to international news agencies. Temperatures have been much below normal for over a week in vast areas of the continent. In Chile, the Aysen region was affected early last week by the worst snowstorm in 30 years. The snow accumulation reached 5 feet in Balmaceda and the Army was called to rescue people trapped by the snow.

In Argentina, the snow in the region of Mendoza, famous for its winery, was described by local meterologists as the heaviest in a decade. The temperature in the morning of July 16th was the lowest in the city of Buenos Aires since 1991: -1.5C. The cold snap caused a record demand for energy and Argentina had to import electricity from Brazil. Many industries in Argentina were shut down due to gas shortage.

It snowed in nearly all the provinces of Argentina, an extremely rare event. It snowed even in the western part of the province of Buenos Aires and Southern Santa Fe, in cities at sea level.


The snow was heavy even in Northern Argentina. In Santiago Del Estero, according to media reports, some areas experienced snow for the first time in living memory. In the province of Tucuman, some town saw snow for the first time since 1921 (Gaceta de Tucuman newspaper)."

Read the full report below before you rush out and vote for a carbon tax! :

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/20/cold-snap-freezes-south-america-beaches-whitened-some-areas-experience-snow-for-the-first-time-in-living-memory/

Katie's Gardens

It all began in third grade, when Katie Stagliano's 40-pound cabbage fed 275 homeless people. Now, Katie's six gardens have produced over 4,000 pounds of vegetables to feed the needy.

When Katie Stagliano was in third grade, she planted a cabbage in her family's small garden. When it grew to an astounding 40 pounds, she donated it to a soup kitchen, where it was made into meals for 275 people (with the help of ham and rice). "I thought, 'Wow, with that one cabbage I helped feed that many people?'" says Katie, now entering sixth grade. "I could do much more than that."

So Katie started planting vegetable gardens as part of her nonprofit Katie's Krops — she has six right now — including one the length of a football field at her school in her hometown of Summerville, S.C. Classmates, her family and other people in the community help plant and water, and Bonnie Plants donates seedlings.

This past year, Katie took her commitment to a new level: she has given soup kitchens over 2,000 pounds of lettuce, tomatoes and other vegetables. Katie and her helpers are now harvesting the spring planting, and another 1,200 pounds will be donated by October.

See the rest of this great story at:

http://www.tonic.com/article/katies-krops-katie-stagliano-11-grows-donates-tons-veggies-to-homeless/

Cheap Government Housing!

Prime Minister Julia Gillard has announced in her Building Better Regional Cities Program that two hundred million dollars will be set aside to build 15,000 homes.

I'd like to see that. Houses for $13,500 each!

Should be nearly as interesting as the home insulation and schools debacles.

Ya Shoulda Stayed in Rock Music Peter!

The Australian Government and the NSW Forestry Service were presenting an alternative to NSW sheep farmers for controlling the dingo population.



It seems that after years of the sheep farmers using the tried and true methods of shooting and/or trapping the predators, the Labour Government (Peter Garrett - Environmental Minister), the NSW Forestry Service and the Greens tree-huggers had a 'more humane' solution.



What they proposed was for the animals to be captured alive, the males would then be castrated and let loose again. Therefore the population would be controlled.



This was ACTUALLY proposed to the NSW Sheep farmers Association and Farming Association by the Federal Government and the NSW Forestry Service.



All of the sheep farmers thought about this amazing idea for a couple of minutes. Finally, one of the old boys in the back of the conference room stood up, tipped his hat back and said, ‘Mr Garrett, son, I don't think you understand our problem. Those dingo’s ain't f***in' our sheep - they're eatin' 'em.'



You should have been there to hear the roar of laughter as Mr Peter Garrett and the members of the NSW Forestry Service , the Greens and the other "tree huggers" left the meeting very "sheepishly".

Arizona Turns Off Speed Cameras

With the NSW Road and Traffic Authority rushing to implement more speed cameras, mobile ones this time with a tolerance of less then 3 kph, here is an interesting article from the US, the cash grab capitol of the world (however Australia is right up their clacker!)

'A spokesman for Jan Brewer, the state's Republican governor, said she "was uncomfortable with the intrusive nature of the system", which was inherited from her Democratic predecessor.

Opening in October 2008, the scheme was first in the United States to use speed cameras across a whole state. Amid objections of Big Brother-ism, numerous cameras were vandalised, while the operator of a van carrying a mobile camera was shot dead in a lay-by in April 2009.'

Read more: Arizona Turns Off Speed Cameras

Upcoming False Flag? Put Options Placed On Energy Companies

'Just as the three days before 9/11 there was unusual amounts of trading going on with American Airlines (goldmansucks) we are seeing the same type of action this time with power companies. This as Obama suporters say an act of terrorism is the only thing that will save him.'

Read more: Upcoming False Flag? Put Options Placed On Energy Companies

Collapse in Living Standards in America: More Poverty By Any Measure

'More than 15 million Americans are unemployed, homelessness has increased by 50 percent in some cities, and 38 million people are receiving food stamps, more than at any time in the program’s almost 50-year history.

Evidence of rising economic hardship is ample. There’s one commonly used standard for measuring it: the U.S. Census Bureau’s poverty rate. It guides much of federal and state spending aimed at helping those unable to make a decent living.'

This is what happens to a country that borrowed so much money it is having trouble repaying the interest, let alone the principle!

At last count, according to Barnaby Joyce, the Federal Labor Government is borrowing 95 MILLION DOLLARS A DAY!

Senator Joyce also reports " The budget that the Deputy Prime Minister handed down two months ago forecast borrowing of $150 million a day for the next financial year. Gillard is already on track to smash Rudd’s record and things look like getting worse before they get better."

Move over America, here we come!

Read more: Collapse in Living Standards in America: More Poverty By Any Measure

Robin Williams Immigration Plan

You gotta love Robin Williams........Even if he's nuts! Leave it to Robin Williams to come up with the perfect plan while wearing a shirt that says 'I love New York ' in Arabic:-

'I see a lot of people yelling for peace, but I have not heard of a plan for peace. So, here's one plan.'

1). 'The US/ UK/ AUSTRALIA will apologize to the world for our 'interference' in their affairs, past & present. You know, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Tojo, Noriega, Milosevic, Hussein and the rest of those 'good 'ole' boys', we will never 'interfere' again.

2). We will withdraw our troops from all over the world, starting with Germany , South Korea , the Middle East , and the Philippines . They don't want us there. We would station troops at our borders. No one allowed sneaking through holes in the fence.

3). All illegal aliens have 90 days to get their affairs together and leave. We'll give them a free trip home. After 90 days the remainder will be gathered up and deported immediately, regardless of whom or where they are from. They're illegal!!! France will welcome them...

4). All future visitors will be thoroughly checked and limited to 90 days unless given a special permit!!!! No one from a terrorist nation will be allowed in. If you don't like it there, change it yourself and don't hide here. Asylum would never be available to anyone. We don't need any more cab drivers or shopping trolley collectors.

5). No foreign 'students' over age 21. The older ones are the bombers. If they don't attend classes, they get a 'D' and it's back home, baby.

6). The US / UK / Australia will make a strong effort to become self-sufficient energy wise. This will include developing nonpolluting sources of energy, but will require a temporary drilling of oil in the Alaskan wilderness. The caribou will have to cope for a while. No more deep sea wells but!

7). Offer Saudi Arabia and other oil producing countries $10 a barrel for their oil. If they don't like it, we go someplace else. They can go somewhere else to sell their production. (About a week of the wells filling up the storage sites would be enough).


8). If there is a famine or other natural catastrophe in the world, we will not 'interfere.' They can pray to Allah or whomever, for seeds, rain, cement or whatever they need. Besides most of what we give them is stolen or given to the army. The people who need it most get very little, if anything. Look at Haitii.

9). Ship the UN Headquarters to an isolated island someplace. We don't need the spies and fair weather friends here. Besides, the building would make a good homeless shelter or lockup for illegal aliens.

10) All Americans must go to charm and beauty school. That way, no one can call us 'Ugly Americans' any longer. The Language we speak is ENGLISH...learn it...or LEAVE... Now, isn't that a winner of a plan?

'The Statue of Liberty is no longer saying 'Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses.' She's got a baseball bat and she's yelling, 'you want a piece of me? C’mon baby, bring it on'!

Every international airport will have a huge map of Australia at Arrivals. Printed across the map will be the greeting,

“Piss Off, We’re Full”!

Actually Robin Williams didn’t say that in his plan, that's Splitpins idea.

No Plans to House 1.9 Million homeless Haitians

I wonder where all the money raised in Australia and for that matter, the rest of the world, for Haitian relief has gone to?

Here is an news item that I doubt you will find in our mainstream media. More items like this will appear on this site.

'We are in one of the hottest parts of this whole side of Haiti. I was here today at high noon and the crushed white gravel that is underfoot in this camp is just blinding and the heat is shocking. And this is where about 10,000 people have been relocated after they were sent away from another camp in Port-au-Prince. About one in seven has been left homeless and displaced from the January 12th earthquake, and most of them have created temporary housing.

Now, six months later, in the middle of earthquake season, the government’s response, that is, the Haitian government and the U.S. government as well as the United Nations, has been this—has been to move people from one set of temporary housing, plastic tarps that are damaged in the wind and the rains, to another set of temporary housing. And there is absolutely no plan anywhere in the country for permanent housing for the 1.9 million people who are left victims.'

Read more: There is No Plan For Permanently Housing the 1.9 Million Haitians Who Lost Their Homes in the Quake

Bless You Father For You Have Sinned!

'The Vatican and the Belgian Catholic hierarchy are squealing like stuck pigs over the police raid last week on the home of the former head of Belgium's eight million Catholics. The cops seized a personal computer and documents belonging to Cardinal Godfried Danneels.

Police also raided the archdiocesan palace near Brussels, and the crypt of the cathedral at Mechelen.They confiscated 450 files containing reports of paedophile offences by members of clergy.

Squeal? The bishops ought to be grateful the police weren't kicking in heads as well as kicking in doors.

In April Cardinal Danneels' close friend, Monsignor Roger Vangheluwe, the Bishop of Bruges, admitted to having molested children for years, both before and after he became a bishop. In a country which has never recovered from the shock and shame of the Dutroux case, in which legal fumbling -- and perhaps corruption -- by police and prosecutors left a murderous, torturing paedophile loose for years to imprison and rape young girls, patience has run out.'

Read more: Belgian Prelate Perverts And Their Catechism Kiddie Porn

BP To Cut Claim Payments

'BP's latest move isn't going to win the beleagured oil giant any popularity points. As oil continues to spew into the Gulf, BP has said it will significantly cut payments on claims to those impacted by the disaster because of problems with their paperwork, the Associated Press reported

Read more: BP to Cut Payments on 40,000 Claims of Individuals Affected by Oil Spill, Cites Paperwork Problems

Harvard Professor: ‘Exploit Gulf Disaster For Carbon Tax’

Harvard Professor Kenneth Rogoff Illuminati Stooge!

Top elitist and Harvard Professor Kenneth Rogoff has shamefully called for the BP oil spill disaster to be exploited in order to create political momentum behind a carbon tax, even going to the lengths of embracing the nightmare scenario of hurricanes pushing the oil onshore as a way to create political momentum behind Obama’s dreaded “green economy”.

In an opinion piece for the Korea Times, Rogoff sensationally warns that failure to exploit the tragedy for political ends would represent a “lost opportunity,” a startling display of mercenary indiscretion, and a shining example of what we warned about from the very beginning, that elitists would waste little time in pointing to heart-rendering images of oil-covered birds and dead wildlife as part of a crass stunt to push their consumption tax agenda.

Rogoff is a Bilderberg Group member, having attended the 2006 conference of global elitists in Germany. He is also a regular attendee of Trilateral Commission meetings. Rogoff is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and writes for the group’s publication Foreign Affairs. He is currently Professor of Economics at Harvard University, having previously served as an economist at the International Monetary Fund, and at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve.'

Read more: Harvard Professor: ‘Exploit Gulf Disaster For Carbon Tax’

BP Postcard

Dutch Agency Admits Mistake in UN Climate Report

THE HAGUE, Netherlands – A leading Dutch environmental agency, taking the blame for one of the glaring errors that undermined the credibility of a seminal U.N. report on climate change, said Monday it has discovered more mistakes and urged the panel to be more careful.

Mistakes discovered in the 3,000-page report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change last year fed into an atmosphere of skepticism over the reliability of climate scientists who have been warning for many years that human-induced emissions of greenhouse gases could have catastrophic consequences, including rising sea levels, drought and the extinction of nearly one-third of the Earth's species.

The errors put scientists on the defensive in the months before a major summit on climate change in Copenhagen in December, which met with only limited success on agreeing how to limit carbon emissions and contain the worst effects of global warming.

Boiled-down version of the full IPCC report, a synthesis meant as a guideline for policymakers, included conclusions drawn from "expert judgments" that were not always clearly sourced or transparent.

With some conclusions, "we can't say it's plainly wrong. We don't know," and can't tell from the supporting text, Hajer said. The IPCC should "be careful making generalizations."

The IPCC said it will "pay close attention" to the agency's recommendations to tighten up review procedures.

The Dutch agency accepted responsibility for one mistake by the IPCC when it reported in 2005 that 55 percent of the Netherlands is below sea level, when only 26 percent is. The report should have said 55 percent is prone to flooding, including river flooding.

The mistake happened when a long report was compressed into a short one, and two figures were meshed into one. "Something was lost, and it wasn't spotted," said Hajer.

The second previously reported error claimed the Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035, which the Dutch agency partly traced to a report on the likely shrinking of glaciers by the year 2350.

The review, which lasted five months, also found several other errors in the IPCC report on regional impacts of climate change — one of four separate IPCC reports in 2007.

The original report said global warming will put 75 million to 250 million Africans at risk of severe water shortages in the next 10 years, but a recalculation showed that range should be 90 million to 220 million, the agency said.

Another error it found involved the effect of wind turbulence on anchovy fisheries on Africa's west coast.

The Dutch agency said it examined 32 conclusions in the summary for policy makers on the impact of climate change in eight regions.

It said future IPCC reports should have a more robust review process and should look more closely at where information comes from. It also recommended more investment in monitoring global warming in developing countries.

Gore Probed (?) Over Sex Allegations.

Dontcha luv it! I wonder where he was "probed" and did he enjoy it?

Former US vice president Al Gore was the subject of a 2006 sex crime investigation but the inquiry stalled after his accuser declined to be interviewed by police, prosecutors said on Wednesday.

Michael Schrunk, District Attorney for Multnomah County in northwestern Oregon state, confirmed in a prepared statement that Gore had been accused of "unwanted sexual contact" in late 2006 and early 2007.

"We were told the woman was not willing to be interviewed by the Portland Police Bureau and did not want a criminal investigation to proceed," Schrunk said in the statement.

The disclosure follows revelations in the National Enquirer tabloid about a masseuse who complained of a sexual advances by Gore during an incident at a Portland Hotel in 2006.

Schrunk said police in Portland had carried out a further investigation into the incident in 2009.

"If the complainant and the Portland Police Bureau wish to pursue the possibility of a criminal prosecution, additional investigation by the Bureau will be necessary and will be discussed with the Portland Police Bureau," the prosecutor said.

Gore, 62, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007, earlier this month confirmed he was separating from wife Tipper after four decades of marriage, an announcement that caused widespread surprise among political observers.

Labor Finally Announces Their ETS

I have stolen this from a press release from Barnaby Joyce. I didn't ask permission but stuff him! He should be proud to grace these auspicious pages(?)

"The Labor party have announced for Australia their new ETS.

It has changed from what they originally proposed, but in the philosophical vacuum of ideas where all previous Labor virtues are up for sale if the popularity price is right, its metamorphous is true to form.

The ETS was initially the Emissions Trading Scheme, which was a plan to cool the planet from a room in Canberra, now it has morphed slightly and become the East Timor Solution. So it has gone from their Climate Policy to their Immigration Policy.

Why East Timor? Well I suppose no one from Reykjavik in Iceland was answering the phone when they did the call around. It is not surprising that only a couple of people in Dili know about this policy as well. Surely if they announce the East Timor Solution enough times somebody in Australia will believe it is a well considered policy.

Everything the Labor party is doing of late is becoming more and more erratic and implausible. Faceless backroom men change a first term Prime Minister for the first time in Australia’s history. The costing of major tax policies such as the RSPT has figures that are so rubbery that apparently a 25% reduction in the tax rate, with a doubling of a base line tax free exemption, only brings an approximate 10% reduction in the revenue stream to Treasury. Australia is apparently supposed to believe this and still hold the Labor party as the honest broker for the nation’s figures. Labor has a projected budget surplus in 2012-13 that has about as much chance of getting up as the ambulance at the Melbourne Cup.

A former convenor of the left -wing organisation Socialist Forum, South Australia, is now to be believed as having had a Saul-like conversion of her most ardent views on the road to the Lodge in the last fortnight. Australia gets all this and more for approximately $150 million a day in extra borrowing on top of the nation’s gross debt currently at $147.833 billion.

The Labor party no longer means anything. It has become pathos. It is a caricature of its former self where it takes its true believers for granted and will say anything to beguile others into believing something that it is not. It offers no more than a mercenary desire for the faceless men of Sussex Street, Sydney, to attain their prize of power. If they achieve their goal Australia will experience the similar imbroglios that plague a dysfunctional NSW government.

Amazongate: the Smoking Gun

More than five months after the IPCC was accused of making assertions on the fate of the Amazon forest on the basis of a non-peer reviewed WWF report, it now appears that the original source of the IPPC's claim is a Brazilian educational website which was taken down in 2003 (pictured - click to enlarge).

Furthermore, it appears that this is the only source of the IPCC's claim that made up the basis of "Amazongate" – that the IPCC was, once again, using unsubstantiated material which exaggerated the threat. This website, therefore, is the "smoking gun", the latest evidence to suggest that the IPCC is breaking its own rules.

Interestingly, when the "Amazongate" story was broken on this blog on 25/26 January, we had no way of knowing that the trail would eventually lead to a defunct Brazilian website. It was the official denials of our story that gave the clue, and they did not really get underway until 31 January when The Sunday Times published its report headed: "UN climate panel shamed by bogus rainforest claim,"

Then the paper had charged that the IPCC warning that global warming "might wipe out 40% of the Amazon rainforest" was based on an unsubstantiated claim, made in a WWF report.

Starting with the IPCC claim that: "Up to 40% of the Amazonian forests could react drastically to even a slight reduction in precipitation," this had been was referenced to the WWF report which asserted: "Up to 40% of the Brazilian forest is extremely sensitive to small reductions in the amount of rainfall."

Now, the WWF was claiming that the source for this statement was "Fire in the Amazon, a 1999 overview of Amazon fire issues from the respected Instituto de Pesquisa Ambiental da Amazônia (IPAM – Amazon Environmental Research Institute)." The source quotation read: "Probably 30 to 40% of the forests of the Brazilian Amazon are sensitive to small reductions in the amount of rainfall."

The claim was repeated on 7 February in a Sunday Times letter from David Nussbaum, the chief executive of WWF-UK, who then used a curious form of words. "This," he asserted – referring to the Fire in the Amazon statement - "is fully supported by peer-reviewed literature." Contrary to the Sunday Times's "suggestion," it was not a "bogus" claim.

Nussbaum did acknowledge, however, that a reference to Fire in the Amazon as the source of the 40% claim was omitted during the editing of the Global Review of Forest Fires.

The lead author of the report, Andrew Rowell, also pitched in, again using a curious form of words for his contribution. The paper, he claimed, had "ignored credible evidence" that the 40% figure was correct and "also ignored evidence that the figure had been backed up by peer-reviewed research both before and after our publication."

Even then, careful textual deconstruction indicated that no one was actually asserting that the source of the 40%, Fire in the Amazon, was actually peer reviewed – merely that it was "supported" or "backed up" by peer-reviewed work, the exact nature of which was always somewhat vague.

We were thus able to charge that Fire in the Amazon was not itself peer reviewed, thus arguing that the IPCC was relying on a WWF report which was not peer reviewed, which in turn was relying on another document which was also not peer reviewed.