Posted on Friday, October 12, 2001 10:29:22 AM by Fixit

PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUES

"Propaganda Techniques" is based upon "Appendix I: PSYOP Techniques" from "Psychological Operations Field Manual No.33-1" published by Headquarters; Department of the Army, in Washington DC, on 31 August 1979
(from http://www.zoehouse.com/is/sco/proptech.html)

Knowledge of propaganda techniques is necessary to improve one's own propaganda and to uncover enemy PSYOP stratagems. Techniques, however, are not substitutes for the procedures in PSYOP planning, development, or dissemination.

Techniques may be categorized as:

Characteristics of the content self-evident. additional information is required to recognize the characteristics of this type of propaganda. "Name calling" and the use of slogans are techniques of this nature.

Additional information required to be recognized. Additional information is required by the target or analyst for the use of this technique to be recognized. "Lying" is an example of this technique. The audience or analyst must have additional information in order to know whether a lie is being told.

Evident only after extended output. "Change of pace" is an example of this technique. Neither the audience nor the analyst can know that a change of pace has taken place until various amounts of propaganda have been brought into focus.

Nature of the arguments used. An argument is a reason, or a series of reasons, offered as to why the audience should behave, believe, or think in a certain manner. An argument is expressed or implied.

Inferred intent of the originator. This technique refers to the effect the propagandist wishes to achieve on the target audience. "Divisive" and "unifying" propaganda fall within this technique. It might also be classified on the basis of the effect it has on an audience.

SELF-EVIDENT TECHNIQUE

Appeal to Authority. Appeals to authority cite prominent figures to support a position idea, argument, or course of action.

Assertion. Assertions are positive statements presented as fact. They imply that what is stated is self-evident and needs no further proof. Assertions may or may not be true.

Bandwagon and Inevitable Victory. Bandwagon-and-inevitable-victory appeals attempt to persuade the target audience to take a course of action "everyone else is taking." "Join the crowd." This technique reinforces people's natural desire to be on the winning side. This technique is used to convince the audience that a program is an expression of an irresistible mass movement and that it is in their interest to join. "Inevitable victory" invites those not already on the bandwagon to join those already on the road to certain victory. Those already, or partially, on the bandwagon are reassured that staying aboard is the best course of action.

Obtain Disapproval. This technique is used to get the audience to disapprove an action or idea by suggesting the idea is popular with groups hated, feared, or held in contempt by the target audience. Thus, if a group which supports a policy is led to believe that undesirable, subversive, or contemptible people also support it, the members of the group might decide to change their position.

Glittering Generalities. Glittering generalities are intensely emotionally appealing words so closely associated with highly valued concepts and beliefs that they carry conviction without supporting information or reason. They appeal to such emotions as love of country, home; desire for peace, freedom, glory, honor, etc. They ask for approval without examination of the reason. Though the words and phrases are vague and suggest different things to different people, their connotation is always favorable: "The concepts and programs of the propagandist are always good, desirable, virtuous."
Generalities may gain or lose effectiveness with changes in conditions. They must, therefore, be responsive to current conditions. Phrases which called up pleasant associations at one time may evoke unpleasant or unfavorable connotations at another, particularly if their frame of reference has been altered.

Vagueness. Generalities are deliberately vague so that the audience may supply its own interpretations. The intention is to move the audience by use of undefined phrases, without analyzing their validity or attempting to determine their reasonableness or application.

Rationalization. Individuals or groups may use favorable generalities to rationalize questionable acts or beliefs. Vague and pleasant phrases are often used to justify such actions or beliefs.

Simplification. Favorable generalities are used to provide simple answers to complex social, political, economic, or military problems.

Transfer. This is a technique of projecting positive or negative qualities (praise or blame) of a person, entity, object, or value (an individual, group, organization, nation, patriotism, etc.) to another in order to make the second more acceptable or to discredit it. This technique is generally used to transfer blame from one member of a conflict to another. It evokes an emotional response which stimulates the target to identify with recognized authorities.

Least of Evils. This is a technique of acknowledging that the course of action being taken is perhaps undesirable but that any alternative would result in an outcome far worse. This technique is generally used to explain the need for sacrifices or to justify the seemingly harsh actions that displease the target audience or restrict personal liberties. Projecting blame on the enemy for the unpleasant or restrictive conditions is usually coupled with this technique.

Name Calling or Substitutions of Names or Moral Labels. This technique attempts to arouse prejudices in an audience by labeling the object of the propaganda campaign as something the target audience fears, hates, loathes, or finds undesirable.

• Types of name calling:
  -Direct name calling is used when the audience is sympathetic or neutral. It is a simple, straightforward attack on an opponent or opposing idea.
  -Indirect name calling is used when direct name calling would antagonize the audience. It is a label for the degree of attack between direct name calling and insinuation. Sarcasm and ridicule are employed with this technique.
  -Cartoons, illustrations, and photographs are used in name calling, often with deadly effect.

• Dangers inherent in name calling: In its extreme form, name calling may indicate that the propagandist has lost his sense of proportion or is unable to conduct a positive campaign. Before using this technique, the propagandist must weigh the benefits against the possible harmful results. It is best to avoid use of this device. The obstacles are formidable, based primarily on the human tendency to close ranks against a stranger. For example, a group may despise, dislike, or even hate one of its leaders, even openly criticize him, but may (and probably will) resent any non group member who criticizes and makes disparaging remarks against that leader.

Pinpointing the Enemy: This is a form of simplification in which a complex situation is reduced to the point where the "enemy" is unequivocally identified. For example, the president of country X is forced to declare a state of emergency in order to protect the peaceful people of his country from the brutal, unprovoked aggression by the leaders of country.

Plain Folks or Common Man: The "plain folks" or "common man" approach attempts to convince the audience that the propagandist's positions reflect the common sense of the people. It is designed to win the confidence of the audience by communicating in the common manner and style of the audience. Propagandists use ordinary language and mannerisms (and clothes in face-to-face and audiovisual communications) in attempting to identify their point of view with that of the average person. With the plain folks device, the propagandist can win the confidence of persons who resent or distrust foreign sounding, intellectual speech, words, or mannerisms.

The audience can be persuaded to identify its interests with those of the propagandist:

• Presenting soldiers as plain folks. The propagandist wants to make the enemy feel he is fighting against soldiers who are "decent, everyday folks" much like himself; this helps to counter themes that paint the opponent as a "bloodthirsty" killer.
  
• Presenting civilians as plain folks. The "plain folks" or "common man" device also can help to convince the enemy that the opposing nation is not composed of arrogant, immoral, deceitful, aggressive, warmongering people, but of people like himself, wishing to live at peace.
  
• Humanizing leaders. This technique paints a more human portrait of US and friendly military and civilian leaders. It humanizes them so that the audience looks upon them as similar human beings or, preferably, as kind, wise, fatherly figures.
  

Categories of Plain Folk Devices:

• Vernacular. This is the contemporary language of a specific region or people as it is commonly spoken or written and includes songs, idioms, and jokes. The current vernacular of the specific target audience must be used.
  
• Dialect. Dialect is a variation in pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary from the norm of a region or nation. When used by the propagandist, perfection is required. This technique is best left to those to whom the dialect is native, because native level speakers are generally the best users of dialects in propaganda appeals.
  
• Errors. Scholastic pronunciation, enunciation, and delivery give the impression of being artificial. To give the impression of spontaneity, deliberately hesitate between phrases, stammer, or mispronounce words. When not overdone, the effect is one of deep sincerity. Errors in written material may be made only when they are commonly made by members of the reading audience. Generally, errors should be restricted to colloquialisms.
  
• Homey words. Homey words are forms of "virtue words" used in the everyday life of the average man. These words are familiar ones, such as "home," "family," "children," "farm," "neighbors," or cultural equivalents. They evoke a favorable emotional response and help transfer the sympathies of the audience to the propagandist. Homey words are widely used to evoke nostalgia. Care must be taken to assure that homey messages addressed to enemy troops do not also have the same effect on US/friendly forces.

If the propaganda or the propagandist lacks naturalness, there may be an adverse backlash. The audience may resent what it considers attempts to mock it, its language, and its ways.

Social Disapproval. This is a technique by which the propagandist marshals group acceptance and suggests that attitudes or actions contrary to the one outlined will result in social rejection, disapproval, or outright ostracism. The latter, ostracism, is a control practice widely used within peer groups and traditional societies.

Virtue Words. These are words in the value system of the target audience which tend to produce a positive image when attached to a person or issue. Peace, happiness, security, wise leadership, freedom, etc., are virtue words.

Slogans. A slogan is a brief striking phrase that may include labeling and stereotyping. If ideas can be sloganized, they should be, as good slogans are self-perpetuating.

Testimonials. Testimonials are quotations, in or out of context, especially cited to support or reject a given policy, action, program, or personality. The reputation or the role (expert, respected public figure, etc.) of the individual giving the statement is exploited. The testimonial places the official sanction of a respected person or authority on a propaganda message. This is done in an effort to cause the target audience to identify itself with the authority or to accept the authority's opinions and beliefs as its own. Several types of testimonials are:

Official Sanction. The testimonial authority must have given the endorsement or be clearly on record as having approved the attributed idea, concept, action, or belief.

Four factors are involved:

• Accomplishment. People have confidence in an authority who has demonstrated outstanding ability and proficiency in his field. This accomplishment should be related to the subject of the testimonial.
  
• Identification with the target. People have greater confidence in an authority with whom they have a common bond. For example, the soldier more readily trusts an officer with whom he has undergone similar arduous experiences than a civilian authority on military subjects.
  
• Position of authority. The official position of authority may instill confidence in the testimony; i.e., head of state, division commander, etc.
  
• Inanimate objects. Inanimate objects may be used in the testimonial device. In such cases, the propagandist seeks to transfer physical attributes of an inanimate object to the message. The Rock of Gibraltar, for example, is a type of inanimate object associated with steadfast strength.

Personal Sources of Testimonial Authority:

• Enemy leaders. The enemy target audience will generally place great value on its high level military leaders as a source of information.
  
• Fellow soldiers. Because of their common experiences, soldiers form a bond of comradeship. As a result, those in the armed forces are inclined to pay close attention to what other soldiers have to say.
  
• Opposing leaders. Testimonials of leaders of the opposing nation are of particular value in messages that outline war aims and objectives for administering the enemy nation after it capitulates.
  
• Famous scholars, writers, and other personalities. Frequently, statements of civilians known to the target as authoritative or famous scholars, writers, scientists, commentators, etc., can be effectively used in propaganda messages.

Nonpersonal Sources of Testimonial Authority:
Institutions, ideologies, national flags, religious, and other nonpersonal sources are often used. The creeds, beliefs, principles, or dogmas of respected authorities or other public figures may make effective propaganda testimonials.

Factors To Be Considered:

• Plausibility. The testimonial must be plausible to the target audience. The esteem in which an authority is held by the target audience will not always transfer an implausible testimonial into effective propaganda.
  
• False testimonials. Never use false testimonials. Highly selective testimonials? Yes. Lies (fabrications)? Never. Fabricated (false) testimonials are extremely vulnerable because their lack of authenticity makes them easy to challenge and discredit.

PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUES WHICH ARE BASED ON CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CONTENT BUT WHICH REQUIRE ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THE PART OF AN ANALYST TO BE RECOGNIZED

Incredible truths. There are times when the unbelievable (incredible) truth not only can but should be used.

Among these occasions are:

• When the psychological operator is certain that a vitally important event will take place.
• A catastrophic event, or one of significant tactical or strategic importance, unfavorable to the enemy has occurred and the news has been hidden from the enemy public or troops.
• The enemy government has denied or glossed over an event detrimental to its cause.

A double-cutting edge. This technique has a double-cutting edge: It increases the credibility of the US/friendly psychological operator while decreasing the credibility of the enemy to the enemy's target audience. Advanced security clearance must be obtained before using this technique so that operations or projects will not be jeopardized or compromised. Actually, propagandists using this technique will normally require access to special compartmented information and facilities to avoid compromise of other sensitive operations or projects of agencies of the US Government.
Though such news will be incredible to the enemy public, it should be given full play by the psychological operator. This event and its significance will eventually become known to the enemy public in spite of government efforts to hide it. The public will recall (the psychological operator will "help" the recall process) that the incredible news was received from US/allied sources. They will also recall the deception of their government. The prime requirement in using this technique is that the disseminated incredible truth must be or be certain to become a reality.

Insinuation. Insinuation is used to create or stir up the suspicions of the target audience against ideas, groups, or individuals in order to divide an enemy. The propagandist hints, suggests, and implies, allowing the audience to draw its own conclusions. Latent suspicions and cleavages within the enemy camp are exploited in an attempt to structure them into active expressions of disunity which weaken the enemy's war effort.

• Exploitable vulnerabilities. Potential cleavages which may be exploited include the following:

  
  - Political differences between the enemy nation and its allies or satellites.

  - Ethnic and regional differences.

  - Religious, political, economic, or social differences.

  - History of civilian animosity or unfair treatment toward enemy soldiers.

  - Comforts available to rear area soldiers and not available to combat soldiers.

  - People versus the bureaucracy or hierarchy.

  - Political differences between the ruling elite, between coalitions members, or between rulers and those out of power.

  - Differences showing a few benefiting at the expense of the general populace.

  - Unequal or inequitable tax burdens, or the high level of taxes. The audience should be informed of hidden taxes.

  - The scarcity of consumer goods for the general public and their availability to the various elites and the dishonest.

  - Costs of present government policies in terms of lost opportunities to accomplish constructive socially desirable goals.

  - The powerlessness of the individual. (This may be used to split the audience from the policies of its government by disassociating its members from those policies.) This technique could be used in preparing a campaign to gain opposition to those government policies.

• Insinuation devices. A number of devices are available to exploit these and similar vulnerabilities:

  
  - Leading questions: The propagandist may ask questions which suggest only one possible answer. Thus, the question, "What is there to do now that your unit is surrounded and you are completely cut off?" insinuates that surrender or desertion is the only reasonable alternative to annihilation.

  - Humor: Humor can be an effective form of insinuation. Jokes and cartoons about the enemy find a ready audience among those persons in the target country or military camp who normally reject straightforward accusations or assertions. Jokes about totalitarian leaders and their subordinates often spread with ease and rapidity. However, the psychological operator must realize that appreciation of humor differs among target groups and so keep humor within the appropriate cultural context.

  - Pure motives. This technique makes it clear that the side represented by the propagandist is acting in the best interests of the target audience, insinuating that the enemy is acting to the contrary. For example, the propagandist can use the theme that a satellite force fighting on the side of the enemy is insuring the continued subjugation of its country by helping the common enemy.

  - Guilt by association: Guilt by association links a person, group, or idea to other persons, groups, or ideas repugnant to the target audience. The insinuation is that the connection is not mutual, accidental, or superficial.

  - Rumor: Malicious rumors are also a potentially effective form of insinuation.

  - Pictorial and photographic propaganda: A photograph, picture, or cartoon can often insinuate a derogatory charge more effectively than words. The combination of words and photograph, picture, or cartoon can be far more effective. In this content, selected and composite photographs can be extremely effective.

  - Vocal: Radio propagandists can artfully suggest a derogatory notion, not only with the words they use, but also by the way in which they deliver them. Significant pauses, tonal inflections, sarcastic pronunciation, ridiculing enunciation, can be more subtle than written insinuation.

Card stacking or selective omission. This is the process of choosing from a variety of facts only those which support the propagandist's purpose. In using this technique, facts are selected and presented which most effectively strengthen and authenticate the point of view of the propagandist. It includes the collection of all available material pertaining to a subject and the selection of that material which most effectively supports the propaganda line. Card stacking, case making, and censorship are all forms of selection. Success or failure depends on how successful the propagandist is in selecting facts or "cards" and presenting or "stacking" them.

• Increase prestige. In time of armed conflict, leading personalities, economic and social systems, and other institutions making up a nation are constantly subjected to propaganda attacks. Card stacking is used to counter these attacks by publicizing and reiterating the best qualities of the institutions, concepts, or persons being attacked. Like most propaganda techniques, card stacking is used to supplement other methods.
  
• The technique may also be used to describe a subject as virtuous or evil and to give simple answers to a complicated subject.
  
• An intelligent propagandist makes his case by imaginative selection of facts. The work of the card stacker in using selected facts is divided into two main phases:
  - First, the propagandist selects only favorable facts and presents them to the target in such a manner as to obtain a desired reaction.
  - Second, the propagandist uses these facts as a basis for conclusions, trying to lead the audience into accepting the conclusions by accepting the facts presented.

Presenting the other side. Some persons in a target audience believe that neither belligerent is entirely virtuous. To them propaganda solely in terms of right and wrong may not be credible. Agreement with minor aspects of the enemy's point of view may overcome this cynicism. Another use of presenting the other side is to reduce the impact of propaganda that opposing propagandists are likely to be card stacking (selective omission).

Lying and distortion. Lying is stating as truth that which is contrary to fact. For example, assertions may be lies. This technique will not be used by US personnel. It is presented for use of the analyst of enemy propaganda.

Simplification. This is a technique in which the many facts of a situation are reduced so the right or wrong, good or evil, of an act or decision is obvious to all. This technique (simplification) provides simple solutions for complex problems. By suggesting apparently simple solutions for complex problems, this technique offers simplified interpretations of events, ideas, concepts, or personalities. Statements are positive and firm; qualifying words are never used.

Simplification may be used to sway uneducated and educated audiences. This is true because many persons are well educated or highly skilled, trained specialists in a specific field, but the limitations of time and energy often force them to turn to and accept simplifications to understand, relate, and react to other areas of interest.

(continued on next post)

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/546409/posts#self_evident_technique

Climate Alarmists Finally Admit The Debate Is Not Over

But establishment media organs continue to invoke South Park’s Officer Barbrady; “Move along, nothing to see here”

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Top climate alarmists have conceded that the climategate scandal represents a huge blow to the global warming movement and that the debate is not over, and yet establishment media organs are still invoking South Park’s Officer Barbrady in downplaying the story despite the fact that it clearly illustrates how evidence which directly disproves global warming is being censored by agenda-driven scientists.

The Guardian’s George Monbiot, a climate change zealot and a staunch defender of the faith, concedes that the science now needs “reanalyising” and that CRU Director Phil Jones should resign.

“It’s no use pretending that this isn’t a major blow. The emails extracted by a hacker from the climatic research unit at the University of East Anglia could scarcely be more damaging. I am now convinced that they are genuine, and I’m dismayed and deeply shaken by them,” writes Monbiot.

“Yes, the messages were obtained illegally. Yes, all of us say things in emails that would be excruciating if made public. Yes, some of the comments have been taken out of context. But there are some messages that require no spin to make them look bad. There appears to be evidence here of attempts to prevent scientific data from being released, and even to destroy material that was subject to a freedom of information request.”

“Worse still, some of the emails suggest efforts to prevent the publication of work by climate sceptics, or to keep it out of a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. I believe that the head of the unit, Phil Jones, should now resign. Some of the data discussed in the emails should be re-analysed.”

Another prominent global warming alarmist, Tim Flannery, now admits that there are holes in the “science is settled” mantra.

“We’re dealing with an incomplete understanding of the way the earth system works… When we come to the last few years when we haven’t seen a continuation of that (warming) trend we don’t understand all of the factors that create earth’s climate…We just don’t understand the way the whole system works… See, these people work with models, computer modelling. So when the computer modelling and the real world data disagree you’ve got a very interesting problem… Sure for the last 10 years we’ve gone through a slight cooling trend,” said Flannery.

“And on these now-admitted uncertainties we must scrap all coal-fired generators, impose massive new taxes, shut entire industries, hand billions to the UN and change the way we live?” asks Andrew Bolt.

(ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW)

However, while some alarmists have embarked on a course of damage control, the establishment has closed ranks and, after failing in their efforts to float the hoax that the emails were manufactured, are now ludicrously invoking South Park’s Officer Barbrady and crying in unison, “Move along, nothing to see here!”

In an article entitled, Hacked climate e-mails awkward, not game changer, Reuters’ Timothy Gardner writes, “Revelation of a series of embarrassing e-mails by climate scientists provides fodder for critics, but experts believe the issue will not hurt the U.S. climate bill’s chance for passage or efforts to forge a global climate change deal.”

Oh really? With numerous influential individuals calling for criminal investigations, and with climate alarmists themselves admitting that scientists closely affiliated with the UN IPCC exposed by the hacked emails should resign, only the wilfully naive could believe that this will not hamper the Copenhagen agenda for a global carbon tax, which was already being derailed before the scandal broke.

The latest to weigh in on the controversy was prominent skeptic Lord Monkton, who labeled the CRU scientists crooks who should be criminally prosecuted. “They are not merely bad scientists — they are crooks. And crooks who have perpetrated their crimes at the expense of British and U.S. taxpayers,” writes Monckton. “With Professor Fred Singer, who founded the U.S. Satellite Weather Service, I have reported them to the UK’s Information Commissioner, with a request that he investigate their offenses and, if thought fit, prosecute.”

The Reuters story quotes Anthony Leiserowitz, the director of the Yale Project on Climate Change, who claims there is no smoking gun contained in the emails, despite the fact that they expose how scientists used “tricks” to “hide the decline” in global temperatures.

In another email, a scientist talks about changing temperature data on a graph in order to disguise evidence of global cooling that has been in play for the last few years.

“I’ll maybe cut the last few points off the filtered curve before I give the talk again as that’s trending down as a result of the end effects and the recent cold-ish years.”

To Leiserowitz, this isn’t evidence of conspiracy, merely “embarrassment” which would “provide fodder for the 2 to 3 percent of the general public that are hard-core climate change doubters.”

In reality, polls show that a huge and growing number of both Americans and Brits are “climate change doubters.” A recent Pew Research Center survey showed that only 36 per cent of Americans believe man is to blame for climate change, whereas in Britain, “Only 41 percent accept as an established scientific fact that global warming is taking place and is largely man-made.”

Far from being a tiny minority, as Leiserowitz claims, climate change skeptics are now in the majority, as belief in global warming alarmism whittles away increasingly to the fringe.

The Reuters story also quotes Kevin Book, an analyst at ClearView Energy Partners, LLC, who characterizes the scandal as “scientists behaving badly.”

“This does nothing to the U.S. climate bill, which will be decided mostly by economic forces, not environmental ones,” said Book.

Precisely – this has nothing to do with the environment and everything to do with companies like ClearView getting fat off the spoils of the climate fraud that they are intimately invested in. Obviously, to the scientists at the CRU, it has little to do with the environment either, since they are more than willing to block FOIA requests, change data and hide evidence of global cooling in order to make the science fit their agenda.

To dismiss this as “behaving badly” shows unparalleled ignorance of what science is supposed to be all about, namely empiricism, not bias and fraud, which is exactly what the global warming movement has now come to represent.

We Are Change Colorado @ Al Gore Book Signing – Activist Rips Up Al’s Book in Front of His Face

Youtube
Tuesday, Nov 24th, 2009

With more and more people changing their minds about man-ma de global warming as a consequence of the increase in juvenile alarmist propaganda on behalf of the warmists, Al Gore’s lies are increasingly being confronted in the public arena.

Alex Jones: Americans have a gun to their heads

Russia Today
Tuesday, Nov 24th, 2009

The fall of the Republic, Obama’s unkept promises and lies, the economic crisis as part of a bigger new world order strategy, the swine flu hoax, the fraud behind the fed – Alex Jones talks about all this in an exclusive interview with RT’s Anastasia Churkina.

By Aaron Klein
© 2009 WorldNetDaily

Cass Sunstein

TEL AVIV – Websites should be obliged to remove "false rumors" while libel laws should be altered to make it easier to sue for spreading such "rumors," argued Cass Sunstein, Obama's regulatory czar.

In his recently released book, "On Rumors," Sunstein specifically cited as a primary example of "absurd" and "hateful" remarks, reports by "right-wing websites" alleging an association between President Obama and Weatherman terrorist Bill Ayers.

He also singled out radio talker Sean Hannity for "attacking" Obama regarding the president's "alleged associations."

Ayers became a name in last year's presidential campaign when it was disclosed the radical worked closely with Obama for years. Obama also was said to have launched his political career at a 1995 fundraiser in Ayers' apartment

.

(Story continues below)

As WND reported, Obama and Ayers sat together on the board of a Chicago nonprofit, the Woods Fund. Ayers also was a founder of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, where Obama was appointed as its first chairman in 1995.

Ayers reportedly was involved in hiring Obama for the CAC – a job the future president later touted as qualifying him to run for public office.

WND columnist Jack Cashill has produced a series of persuasive arguments that it was Ayers who ghostwrote Obama's award-winning autobiography "Dreams from My Father."

However, such reports were characterized by Sunstein as "absurd" charges for which corrective measures can be taken.

Sunstein's book – reviewed by WND – was released in September, after he was already installed as the administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.

"In the era of the Internet, it has become easy to spread false or misleading rumors about almost anyone," Sunstein writes.

"Some right-wing websites liked to make absurd and hateful remarks about the alleged relationship between Barack Obama and the former radical Bill Ayers; one of the websites' goals was undoubtedly to attract more viewers," he writes.

Sunstein continues: "On the Internet as well as on talk radio, altruistic propagators are easy to find; they play an especially large role in the political domain. When Sean Hannity, the television talk show host, attacked Barack Obama because of his alleged associations, one of his goals might have been to promote values and causes that he cherishes."

Sunstein presents multiple new measures he argues can be used to stop the spread of "rumors."

He contends "freedom usually works, but in some contexts, it is an incomplete corrective."

Sunstein proposes the imposition of a "chilling effect" on "damaging rumors" – or the use of strong "corrective" measures to deter future rumormongers.

For websites, Sunstein suggests a "right to notice and take down" in which "those who run websites would be obliged to take down falsehoods upon notice."

Sunstein also argues for the "right to demand a retraction after a clear demonstration that a statement is both false and damaging." But he does not explain which agency would determine whether any statement is false and damaging.

Sunstein further pushes for "deterrence" through making libel lawsuits easier to bring.

Sunstein drafted 'New Deal Fairness Doctrine'

Sunstein's proposals outlined in his book "On Rumors" were not the first of his writings to recommend regulating talk radio or the news media.

WND previously reported Sunstein drew up a "First Amendment New Deal" – a new "Fairness Doctrine" that would include the establishment of a panel of "nonpartisan experts" to ensure "diversity of view" on the airwaves.

Sunstein compared the need for the government to regulate broadcasting to the moral obligation of the U.S. to impose new rules that outlawed segregation.

Sunstein's radical proposal, set forth in his 1993 book "The Partial Constitution," received no news media attention and scant scrutiny until the WND report.

In the book, Sunstein outwardly favors and promotes the "Fairness Doctrine," the abolished FCC policy that required holders of broadcast licenses to present controversial issues of public importance in a manner the government deemed "equitable and balanced."

Sunstein introduces what he terms his "First Amendment New Deal" to regulate broadcasting in the U.S.

His proposal, which focuses largely on television, includes a government requirement that "purely commercial stations provide financial subsidies to public television or to commercial stations that agree to provide less profitable but high-quality programming."

Sunstein wrote it is "worthwhile to consider more dramatic approaches as well."

He proposes "compulsory public-affairs programming, right of reply, content review by nonpartisan experts or guidelines to encourage attention to public issues and diversity of view."

The Obama czar argues his regulation proposals for broadcasting are actually presented within the spirit of the Constitution.

"It seems quite possible that a law that contained regulatory remedies would promote rather than undermine the 'freedom of speech,'" he writes.

Sunstein compares the need for the government to regulate broadcasting to the moral obligation of the government stepping in to end segregation.

Writes Sunstein: "The idea that government should be neutral among all forms of speech seems right in the abstract, but as frequently applied it is no more plausible than the idea that it should be neutral between the associational interests of blacks and those of whites under conditions of segregation."

Sunstein contends the landmark case that brought about the Fairness Doctrine, Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. Federal Communications Commission, "stresses not the autonomy of broadcasters (made possible only by current ownership rights), but instead the need to promote democratic self-government by ensuring that people are presented with a broad range of views about public issues."

He continues: "In a market system, this goal may be compromised. It is hardly clear that 'the freedom of speech' is promoted by a regime in which people are permitted to speak only if other people are willing to pay enough to allow them to be heard."

In his book, Sunstein slams the U.S. courts' unwillingness to "require something like a Fairness Doctrine" to be a result of "the judiciary's lack of democratic pedigree, lack of fact-finding powers and limited remedial authority."

He clarifies he is not arguing the government should be free to regulate broadcasting however it chooses.

"Regulation designed to eliminate a particular viewpoint would of course be out of bounds. All viewpoint discrimination would be banned," Sunstein writes.

But, he says, "at the very least, regulative 'fairness doctrines' would raise no real doubts" constitutionally.

Fox News Host Glenn Beck is launching plans for a major political organizing effort that will feature cross-country seminars, conventions and political rallies that focus on educating voters on conservative issues and leading libertarian speakers.

Beck told The New York Times that he would promote voter registration drives and sponsor a series of seven conventions across the country featuring what he described as libertarian speakers.

In Florida on Saturday he held a rally in The Villages in Florida, north of Orlando, in which he promoted his recently released book, “Arguing With Idiots.” He also announced another book to come next August filled with conservative policy proposals gathered from the conventions.

The new conventions would resemble educational seminars, and while many speakers will endorse positions he supports, Beck told the Times he would not endorse them for political office. He would not say whether particular candidates for office in the 2010 midterm elections would be invited to speak at the conventions or the August rally.

“You’re going to learn about finance,” Beck told the crowd Saturday. “You’re going to learn about community organizing. You’re going to learn everything we need to know if you want to be a politician.”

Beck said that now that he as used his television and radio shows to lay out his list of the country’s impending problems — deficit spending, health care legislation that will “destroy” the economy, a dearth of “personal responsibility” — he wants to also provide solutions.

Already, Mr. Beck’s page on FoxNews.com features what it calls “In or Out 2010,” a “simple challenge” for lawmakers. It includes a pledge to back a freeze in government spending; oppose all tax increases “until our economy has rebounded”; and support stricter immigration enforcement.

© 2009 Newsmax. All rights reserved

While Palin's book sales are skyrocketing, the media seem intent on "putting stink" on her parade.
Photo credit: Newsweek

While the Sarah Palin whirlwind book tour continues and her poll numbers are rising, according to Fox News Channel's Steve Doocy on Friday morning, newspapers, magazines and broadcast journalists are dissecting her bestselling book Going Rogue.

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MEDIA MATTERS
'Saturday Night Live' scorches Obama policies
NBC comedy show ruthless in satire of president's plans

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By Joe Kovacs
© 2009 WorldNetDaily

The foreign leader also ridiculed Obama's "Cash for Clunkers" car-incentive program, and issued a warning about the money the U.S. owes to China: "Just so there is no misunderstanding, you are not allowed to pay us back in clunkers."

"I assure you. You're going to get your money," stressed Obama.

Sensing he was being lied to, Hu through his interpreter asked a similar question three times, including: "Do I look like Mrs. Obama? Then why are you trying to do sex to me like I was Mrs. Obama? Just do it. Get it over with."

Just a year ago during the presidential campaign, the prime target of "Saturday Night Live" was then–Alaska governor Sarah Palin who was not only spoofed by Tina Fey, but also featured in a controversial skit where New York Times reporters sought to probe the possibility Palin's husband, Todd, was having sex with the couple's own daughters.

One WND reader commented: "I did have a problem with 'SNL' lampooning Palin last year. I've got to change my mind now that they demonstrated they're Equal Opportunity Lampooners. The recent skit was funnier 'n hell."

Note: The contact link for NBC is here.

Climatic Research Unit Hacked E Mails & Data

Wikileaks
Sunday, November 22, 2009

Summary

DOWNLOAD/VIEW FULL FILE FROM

fastest (Sweden), current site, slow (US), Finland, Netherlands, Poland, Tonga, Europe, SSL, Tor

RELATED: Hacked Emails Show Climate Science Ridden with Rancor

RELATED: Caught red-handed in a monumental fraud, disgraced Climategate scientists settle on a ludicrous defense

RELATED: E-mail leak turns up heat on global warming advocates

RELATED: Stolen e-mails reveal venomous feelings toward climate skeptics

RELATED: CLIMATE BOMBSHELL: Hacker leaks thousands of emails showing conspiracy to “hide” the real data on manmade climate change

Al Gore: ‘I’m gonna start acting crazy’

David Edwards and Gavin Dahl
Raw Story
Monday, Nov 23rd, 2009

Al Gore details the ways that we can address climate change in his new book Our Choice. But on Saturday Night Live he said he has a new backup plan.

“I’m gonna start acting crazy. I think it’s crazy that our politicians aren’t more worried about the climate crisis,” he told host Seth Meyers. “So it’s time for us to out-crazy the crazies.”

One of his ideas for mildly amusing stunts involved dumping ice water on members of Congress with a note saying, “We’re melting, love the glaciers.”

His other idea was reminiscent of many environmentalist demonstrations, with a silly twist. “I’m gonna start planting trees in politicians’ front yards… in the middle of the night… and tape toy guns to the branches pointed to the door,” he warned. “So when they wake up and walk out of their houses in the morning, they’ll think it’s the forests coming to get their revenge.”

He eventually admitted his pranks were outlandish and hit on four key points.

“We need to cut back on the burning of coal and oil and start using renewable energy. We need to stop deforestation and plant billions of trees. We have to become more efficient and stop wasting so much energy. We need to stop factory farming and start using sustainable agriculture.”

He insisted, however, that if we don’t stop the climate crisis, “Instead of science, I’m going with crazy.”

This video is from NBC’s Saturday Night Live, broadcast Nov. 21, 2009.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/al-gore-%e2%80%98i%e2%80%99m-gonna-start-acting-crazy%e2%80%99.html

Call For Independent Inquiry Into Climategate as Global Warming Fraud Implodes

Hacked emails discussed manipulating data to “hide the decline” in global temperatures

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Monday, November 23, 2009

Calls for an independent inquiry into what is being dubbed “Climategate” are growing as the foundation for man-made global warming implodes following the release of emails which prove researchers colluded to manipulate data in order to “hide the decline” in global temperatures.

Former British chancellor Lord Lawson was the latest to demand an impartial investigation be launched into the scandal, which arrives just weeks before the UN climate conference in Copenhagen. “They should set up a public inquiry under someone who is totally respected and get to the truth,” he told the BBC Radio Four Today programme.

The emails were leaked at the end of last week after hackers penetrated the servers of the Climatic Research Unit, which is based at the University of East Anglia, in eastern England. The CRU is described as one of the leading climate research bodies in the world.

The hacked documents and communications reveal how top scientists conspired to falsify data in the face of declining global temperatures in order to prop up the premise that man-made factors are driving climate change. Others illustrate how they embarked on a venomous and coordinated campaign to ostracize climate skeptics and use their influence to keep dissenting reports from appearing in peer-reviewed journals, as well as using cronyism to avoid compliance with Freedom of Information Act requests.

As expected, the establishment media has gone into whitewash overdrive, characterizing the emails as evidence of “rancor” amongst the climate community and focusing on some of the lesser emails while ignoring the true significance of what has been revealed.

Organizations with close ties to the CRU have engaged in psychological terrorism by fearmongering about the planet with doomsday scenarios, illustrating their argument with outlandish propaganda animation videos which show pets drowning and others that show computer-generated polar bears crashing to earth in a throwback to 9/11 victims jumping from the towers, when in reality polar bear population figures are thriving.

“One of the emails under scrutiny, written by Phil Jones, the centre’s director, in 1999, reads: “I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature [the science journal] trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie, from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline,” reports the London Telegraph.

The author admitted to the Associated Press that the e mail was genuine.

In another example, researchers discuss data that is “artificially adjusted to look closer to the real temperatures”. Apparently, the “real temperatures” are whatever global warming cheerleaders want them to be.

As Anthony Watts writes, attempts to claim e mails are “out of context,” as the defense has been from CRU, cannot apply in this instance.

You can claim an email you wrote years ago isn’t accurate saying it was “taken out of context”, but a programmer making notes in the code does so that he/she can document what the code is actually doing at that stage, so that anyone who looks at it later can figure out why this function doesn’t plot past 1960. In this case, it is not allowing all of the temperature data to be plotted. Growing season data (summer months when the new tree rings are formed) past 1960 is thrown out because “these will be artificially adjusted to look closer to the real temperatures”, which implies some post processing routine.

Spin that, spin it to the moon if you want. I’ll believe programmer notes over the word of somebody who stands to gain from suggesting there’s nothing “untowards” about it.

Either the data tells the story of nature or it does not. Data that has been “artificially adjusted to look closer to the real temperatures” is false data, yielding a false result.

Another email discusses changing temperature data to fix “blips” in studies so as to make them conform with expectations, which of course is the cardinal sin of scientific research.

“Conspiracy, collusion in exaggerating warming data, possibly illegal destruction of embarrassing information, organized resistance to disclosure, manipulation of data, private admissions of flaws in their public claims and much more” was revealed in the 61 megabites of confidential files released on the Internet for anyone to read, writes Andrew Bolt.

(ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW)

Another email appears to celebrate the death of climate change skeptic John L Daly, with the words, “In an odd way this is cheering news.”

In another communication, the author expresses his fantasy to “beat the crap out of” climate change skeptics.

In another exchange, researchers appear to discuss ways to discredit James Saiers of the Geophysical Research Letters journal, by means of an academic witch hunt, because of his sympathies with climate change skeptics.

“If you think that Saiers is in the greenhouse skeptics camp, then, if we can find documentary evidence of this, we could go through official AGU channels to get him ousted.”

Other emails express doubt about whether the world is really heating up and infer that data needs to be reinterpreted.

“The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate.”

Scientists discuss trying to disguise historical data that contradicts the man-made climate change thesis, such as the Medieval Warm Period (MWP), which must be ‘contained’ according to one email.

Suppression of evidence is also discussed, with scientists resolving to delete embarrassing emails.

“And, perhaps most reprehensibly,” writes James Delingpole, a long series of communications discussing how best to squeeze dissenting scientists out of the peer review process. How, in other words, to create a scientific climate in which anyone who disagrees with AGW can be written off as a crank, whose views do not have a scrap of authority.”

“This was the danger of always criticising the skeptics for not publishing in the “peer-reviewed literature”. Obviously, they found a solution to that–take over a journal! So what do we do about this? I think we have to stop considering “Climate Research” as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal. We would also need to consider what we tell or request of our more reasonable colleagues who currently sit on the editorial board…What do others think?”

“I will be emailing the journal to tell them I’m having nothing more to do with it until they rid themselves of this troublesome editor.”“It results from this journal having a number of editors. The responsible one for this is a well-known skeptic in NZ. He has let a few papers through by Michaels and Gray in the past. I’ve had words with Hans von Storch about this, but got nowhere. Another thing to discuss in Nice!”

Scientists also “discussed ways of dodging Freedom of Information Act requests to release temperature data,” reports the Daily Mail.

The emails show that scientists relied on cronyism and cosying up to FOIA officials to prevent them from being forced to release data.

“When the FOI requests began here, the FOI person said we had to abide by the requests,’ the email says. “It took a couple of half-hour sessions to convince them otherwise.”

“Once they became aware of the types of people we were dealing with, everyone at UEA became very supportive. I’ve got to know the FOI person quite well and the chief librarian – who deals with appeals.”

It is important to stress that this compendium merely scratches the surface of the monumental levels of fraud that have been exposed as a result of the hacked emails.

People will look back on this moment as the beginning of the end for global warming alarmism and the agenda to implement draconian measures of regulation and control along with the levy of a global carbon tax.

Many more revelations will be forthcoming as a result of this leak, and the desperate effort on behalf of the establishment to whitewash the whole issue will only end up making the damage worse.

Source: NY Times

WASHINGTON — The United States government is financing its more than trillion-dollar-a-year borrowing with i.o.u.’s on terms that seem too good to be true.

But that happy situation, aided by ultralow interest rates, may not last much longer.

Treasury officials now face a trifecta of headaches: a mountain of new debt, a balloon of short-term borrowings that come due in the months ahead, and interest rates that are sure to climb back to normal as soon as the Federal Reserve decides that the emergency has passed.

Even as Treasury officials are racing to lock in today’s low rates by exchanging short-term borrowings for long-term bonds, the government faces a payment shock similar to those that sent legions of overstretched homeowners into default on their mortgages.

With the national debt now topping $12 trillion, the White House estimates that the government’s tab for servicing the debt will exceed $700 billion a year in 2019, up from $202 billion this year, even if annual budget deficits shrink drastically. Other forecasters say the figure could be much higher.

In concrete terms, an additional $500 billion a year in interest expense would total more than the combined federal budgets this year for education, energy, homeland security and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The potential for rapidly escalating interest payouts is just one of the wrenching challenges facing the United States after decades of living beyond its means.

The surge in borrowing over the last year or two is widely judged to have been a necessary response to the financial crisis and the deep recession, and there is still a raging debate over how aggressively to bring down deficits over the next few years. But there is little doubt that the United States’ long-term budget crisis is becoming too big to postpone.

Americans now have to climb out of two deep holes: as debt-loaded consumers, whose personal wealth sank along with housing and stock prices; and as taxpayers, whose government debt has almost doubled in the last two years alone, just as costs tied to benefits for retiring baby boomers are set to explode.

The competing demands could deepen political battles over the size and role of the government, the trade-offs between taxes and spending, the choices between helping older generations versus younger ones, and the bottom-line questions about who should ultimately shoulder the burden.

“The government is on teaser rates,” said Robert Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a nonpartisan group that advocates lower deficits. “We’re taking out a huge mortgage right now, but we won’t feel the pain until later.”

So far, the demand for Treasury securities from investors and other governments around the world has remained strong enough to hold down the interest rates that the United States must offer to sell them. Indeed, the government paid less interest on its debt this year than in 2008, even though it added almost $2 trillion in debt.

The government’s average interest rate on new borrowing last year fell below 1 percent. For short-term i.o.u.’s like one-month Treasury bills, its average rate was only sixteen-hundredths of a percent.

“All of the auction results have been solid,” said Matthew Rutherford, the Treasury’s deputy assistant secretary in charge of finance operations. “Investor demand has been very broad, and it’s been increasing in the last couple of years.”

The problem, many analysts say, is that record government deficits have arrived just as the long-feared explosion begins in spending on benefits under Medicare and Social Security. The nation’s oldest baby boomers are approaching 65, setting off what experts have warned for years will be a fiscal nightmare for the government.

“What a good country or a good squirrel should be doing is stashing away nuts for the winter,” said William H. Gross, managing director of the Pimco Group, the giant bond-management firm. “The United States is not only not saving nuts, it’s eating the ones left over from the last winter.”

The current low rates on the country’s debt were caused by temporary factors that are already beginning to fade. One factor was the economic crisis itself, which caused panicked investors around the world to plow their money into the comparative safety of Treasury bills and notes. Even though the United States was the epicenter of the global crisis, investors viewed Treasury securities as the least dangerous place to park their money.

On top of that, the Fed used almost every tool in its arsenal to push interest rates down even further. It cut the overnight federal funds rate, the rate at which banks lend reserves to one another, to almost zero. And to reduce longer-term rates, it bought more than $1.5 trillion worth of Treasury bonds and government-guaranteed securities linked to mortgages.

Those conditions are already beginning to change. Global investors are shifting money into riskier investments like stocks and corporate bonds, and they have been pouring money into fast-growing countries like Brazil and China.

The Fed, meanwhile, is already halting its efforts at tamping down long-term interest rates. Fed officials ended their $300 billion program to buy up Treasury bonds last month, and they have announced plans to stop buying mortgage-backed securities by the end of next March.

Eventually, though probably not until at least mid-2010, the Fed will also start raising its benchmark interest rate back to more historically normal levels.

The United States will not be the only government competing to refinance huge debt. Japan, Germany, Britain and other industrialized countries have even higher government debt loads, measured as a share of their gross domestic product, and they too borrowed heavily to combat the financial crisis and economic downturn. As the global economy recovers and businesses raise capital to finance their growth, all that new government debt is likely to put more upward pressure on interest rates.

Even a small increase in interest rates has a big impact. An increase of one percentage point in the Treasury’s average cost of borrowing would cost American taxpayers an extra $80 billion this year — about equal to the combined budgets of the Department of Energy and the Department of Education.

But that could seem like a relatively modest pinch. Alan Levenson, chief economist at T. Rowe Price, estimated that the Treasury’s tab for debt service this year would have been $221 billion higher if it had faced the same interest rates as it did last year.

The White House estimates that the government will have to borrow about $3.5 trillion more over the next three years. On top of that, the Treasury has to refinance, or roll over, a huge amount of short-term debt that was issued during the financial crisis. Treasury officials estimate that about 36 percent of the government’s marketable debt — about $1.6 trillion — is coming due in the months ahead.

To lock in low interest rates in the years ahead, Treasury officials are trying to replace one-month and three-month bills with 10-year and 30-year Treasury securities. That strategy will save taxpayers money in the long run. But it pushes up costs drastically in the short run, because interest rates are higher for long-term debt.

Adding to the pressure, the Fed is set to begin reversing some of the policies it has been using to prop up the economy. Wall Street firms advising the Treasury recently estimated that the Fed’s purchases of Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities pushed down long-term interest rates by about one-half of a percentage point. Removing that support could in itself add $40 billion to the government’s annual tab for debt service.

This month, the Treasury Department’s private-sector advisory committee on debt management warned of the risks ahead.

“Inflation, higher interest rate and rollover risk should be the primary concerns,” declared the Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee, a group of market experts that provide guidance to the government, on Nov. 4.

“Clever debt management strategy,” the group said, “can’t completely substitute for prudent fiscal policy.”

He cites an e-mail: "This was the danger of always criticizing the skeptics for not publishing in the 'peer-reviewed literature.' Obviously, they found a solution to that – take over a journal! So what do we do about this? I think we have to stop considering 'Climate Research' as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal. We would also need to consider what we tell or request of our more reasonable colleagues who currently sit on the editorial board …What do others think?"

Myron Ebell, of the GlobalWarming.org website where "cooler heads prevail," said the e-mails are "shocking."

"Its kind of interesting to learn that petty politics seems to be more prevalent in the scientific community than in the political community," he said.

The documents, he said, "raise a huge number of questions about the integrity of a lot of people in the alarmist community.

"What I've seen there is a very strong effort to manage the issue by scientists and not as a scientific issues. It's very improper," he said. " One of the criticisms is that we need scientists to be scientist, and policy can be handled in public debate."

Delingpole observes the world "is currently cooling; electorates are increasingly reluctant to support eco-policies leading to more oppressive regulation, higher taxes and higher utility bills; the tide is turning against Al Gore's Anthropogenic Global Warming theory. The so-called 'skeptical' view is now also the majority view."

Phil Jones, head of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, confirmed to Investigate magazine the documents appeared authentic.

"It was a hacker. We were aware of this about three or four days ago that someone had hacked into our system and taken and copied loads of data files and e-mails," he said.

"It's completely illegal for somebody to hack into our system," he told the magazine

But Jones denied there was any attempt to mislead or conceal.

"They're talking about proxy data going further back in time, a thousand years, and it's just about how you add on the last few years, because when you get proxy data you sample things like tree rings and ice cores, and they don't always have the last few years," he said.

Jones said he could not recall what he meant when he wrote about a plan to "hide the decline."

In the e-mail, dated 10 years ago, Jones wrote: "Once Tim's got a diagram here we'll send that either later today or first thing tomorrow. I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd [sic] from1961 for Keith's to hide the decline. Mike's series got the annual land and marine values while the other two got April-Sept for NH land N of 20N. The latter two are real for 1999, while the estimate for 1999 for NH combined is +0.44C wrt 61-90. The Global estimate for 1999 with data through Oct is +0.35C cf. 0.57 for 1998. Thanks for the comments, Ray. Cheers, Phil Prof. Phil Jones Climatic Research Unit."

The documents also included a message dated last month from Kevin Trenberth to Michal Mann about the "U-turn on climate" by Britain's BBC News.

"Well I have my own article on where the heck is global warming? We are asking that here in Boulder where we have broken records the past two days for the coldest days on record. We had 4 inches of snow. The high the last 2 days was below 30F and the normal is 69F, and it smashed the previous records for these days by 10F. The low was about 18F and also a record low, well below the previous record low. This is January weather (see the Rockies baseball playoff game was canceled on saturday and then played last night in below freezing weather)."

Despite the advocacy of a financially vested former vice president, Al Gore, and others, public opinion about whether mankind is causing an ultimately catastrophic rise in global temperatures is shifting.

U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, has urged members of Congress to consider the joint opinion of nearly 32,000 scientists, including more than 9,000 Ph.D.s, who believe humans likely have little or nothing to do with any "global warming."

The Petition Project, launched some 10 years ago when the first few thousand signatures were gathered, has steadily grown without any special effort or campaign.

But in the last few years, and especially because of the release of Gore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth," the campaign has been reinvigorated.

"Mr. Gore's movie, asserting a 'consensus' and 'settled science' in agreement about human-caused global warming, conveyed the claims about human-caused global warming to ordinary movie goers and to public school children, to whom the film was widely distributed. Unfortunately, Mr. Gore's movie contains many very serious incorrect claims which no informed, honest scientist could endorse," project spokesman and founder Art Robinson has told WND.

Robinson, a research professor of chemistry, co-founded the Linus Pauling Institute of Science and Medicine with Linus Pauling in 1973, and later co-founded the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine.

Paul cited the petition results in his statement to Congress.

"Our energy policies must be based upon scientific truth – not fictional movies or self-interested international agendas," Paul said. "They should be based upon the accomplishments of technological free enterprise that have provided our modern civilization, including our energy industries. That free enterprise must not be hindered by bogus claims about imaginary disasters."

The petition states: "There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth."

Robinson has warned of serious political and economic consequencesof assuming "global warming" results from mankind's actions.

"The campaign to severely ration hydrocarbon energy technology has now been markedly expanded," he said. "In the course of this campaign, many scientifically invalid claims about impending climate emergencies are being made. Simultaneously, proposed political actions to severely reduce hydrocarbon use now threaten the prosperity of Americans and the very existence of hundreds of millions of people in poorer countries," he told WND.

Warned Paul, "Above all, we must never forget our contract with the American people – the Constitution that provides the sole source of legitimacy of our government. That Constitution requires that we preserve the basic human rights of our people – including the right to freely manufacture, use, and sell energy produced by any means they devise – including nuclear, hydrocarbon, solar, wind, or even bicycle generators.

"While it is evident that the human right to produce and use energy does not extend to activities that actually endanger the climate of the Earth upon which we all depend, bogus claims about climate dangers should not be used as a justification to further limit the American people's freedom," Paul said.

Mikhail Lesin, a media adviser and former minister, is the most senior official to leave the Medvedev administration. In 2004 he was appointed a presidential adviser by Mr Putin - who is now Prime Minister but still considered the real power in the land - and he was reappointed a week after Mr Medvedev took office in May last year.

In a terse, one-line statement announcing the departure, the Kremlin said Mr Lesin had been "relieved of his duties at his own request". However, Interfax news agency quoted a source within the government as saying he had been fired because he "disregarded the rules and ethical principles of civil service".

The source said Mr Lesin, who has extensive media business interests, had "engaged in abuse of office in resolving matters not connected with his official duties".

The Vedomosti newspaper said Mr Medvedev had ordered Mr Lesin to be dismissed over conflicts of interest. In his annual address to parliament last week, Mr Medvedev condemned corruption as a "social evil" that threatened Russia's future and he pledged to sack officials who abused public office.

Mr Lesin, 51, declined to comment on the reasons for his departure, saying he was bound by "certain commitments". He added: "I have no moral right to depart from those commitments."

Analysts are waiting to see if this is an isolated decision or the start of a wider clear-out as Mr Medvedev seeks to flex his muscles and build his own Kremlin team to give him greater independence from Mr Putin.

The President inherited almost his entire staff from Mr Putin and has made no significant changes after 18 months in office.

Most Russians expect him to stand aside at the 2012 election, to allow Mr Putin to return to the Kremlin. But his state of the nation address, calling for urgent economic and political reform, was seen as a coded criticism of his mentor.

Mr Lesin was a trusted figure under Mr Putin. He was press and television minister throughout Mr Putin's first term as president, when the Kremlin took almost total control of Russia's media. He was a presidential adviser throughout his second term.

He also served under former president Boris Yeltsin, first as the Kremlin's public relations chief and later as the deputy head of Russian state television and radio.

He founded one of Russia's leading TV advertising agencies in 1990 and organised commercial deals for the KVN comedy talent show, one of the country's most popular programs. He was also credited with the idea of establishing the state-funded, 24-hour, English-language television news channel Russia Today.

The Times