Fat people cause global warming

It must be true - it's in the newspaper. Fat people cause global warming. According to the UK newspaper The Sun. Now for an item by item debunking of this garbage.

1) Overweight people are also more likely to drive, adding to environmental damage."

Uh, okay. Prove it. It may be a valid premise but give me some numbers. There IS this;

Edwards and colleague Ian Roberts wrote in the letter that "more transportation fuel energy will be used to transport the increased mass of the obese population, which will increase even further if, as is likely, the overweight people in response to their increased body mass choose to walk less and drive more."

Okay, that's a hard scientific fact because a scientist said it. No data, he just said it - it must be true. Wait, this is the same Edwards in 2008 in an ABC article shovelling the same schlock in 2008 he is shovelling in 2009.

(2) "Dr Phil Edwards, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said: “Moving about in a heavy body is like driving in a gas guzzler."

The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine? Brushing your teeth and rubbing banana peels on your skin for therapeutic use? Okay that was hasty. Perhaps it's not a two bit school just because it has a silly name. You can see the school's Annual Report from 2007-2008 here and judge for yourself. They are not a fly-by-night college. They are in fact an agenda driven institute. The agenda? Money.

(3) "Each fat person is said to be responsible for emitting a tonne more of climate-warming carbon dioxide per year than a thin one. It means an extra BILLION TONNES of CO2 a year is created, according to World Health Organisation estimates of overweight people."

Estimated. Res ipsa loquitor. (If you don't know Latin, look it up - I had to endure a whole year of it.)

(4) "The scientists say providing extra grub for them to guzzle adds to carbon emissions that heat up the world, melting polar ice caps, raising sea levels and killing rain forests."

They are flatulent and therefore irresponsible. Sort of like the report in The Sun.

(5) "And researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine say wealthy nations like the US and Britain are getting fatter by the decade."

Here's the rub - blame America and Britain. Why didn't they just start there and save everyone the time?

(6) "Dr Phil Edwards said: “Food production accounts for about one fifth of greenhouse gases."

Doctor Phil Edwards is a tool. I want to just leave it at that, but allow me to debunk. Greenhouse gases according to the Energy Information Association (which conveniently glosses over this paragraph and launches into supposedly damning stats about CO2); 

Many chemical compounds found in the Earth’s atmosphere act as “greenhouse gases.” These gases allow sunlight to enter the atmosphere freely. When sunlight strikes the Earth’s surface, some of it is re-radiated back towards space as infrared radiation (heat). Greenhouse gases absorb this infrared radiation and trap the heat in the atmosphere. Many gases exhibit these “greenhouse” properties. Some of them occur in nature (water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide), while others are exclusively human made (certain industrial gases). Over time, if atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases remain relatively stable, the amount of energy sent from the sun to the Earth’s surface should be about the same as the amount of energy radiated back into space, leaving the temperature of the Earth’s surface roughly constant.

Water vapor? The same water vapor that accounts for 1% of the atmosphere, whereas CO2 represents 0.035%. The same water vapor that represents 28.57 times the greenhouse gases as CO2. [Those people advocating hydrogen powered vehicles maybe should think again if they are scared of man made global warming.]

Where does Dr. Edwards' data come from regarding greenhouse gases and food production? Does it include the water vapor in the calculation? There's no indication that it does or does not. Clarification would be nice.

(7) " 'We need to do a lot more to reverse the global trend towards fatness. It is a key factor in the battle to reduce carbon emissions and slow climate change.

'It is time we took account of the amount we are eating.

'This is about over-consumption by the wealthy countries. And the world demand for meat is increasing to match that of Britain and America.' 

Blame America and Britain again. Yawn.

(8) Throw in a picture of a polar bear on a melting piece of ice with a caption about ice melting.

Except that Antarctic ice is expanding. Significantly.

(9) Add some panic;

"Australian Professor Paul Zimmet predicted a disastrous obesity pandemic back in 2006.

And Oxfam warned yesterday that the number of people hit by climate-related disasters will soar by more than half in the next six years to 375 million."

Based on what? Where is the journalism in this scrap heap of an article. I investigated this in 30 minutes on the Internet. I found a few things that would at the very least raise some questions before I would consider printing this.

Clearly the investigative work on this story was not done, or not considered, or not in line with the political beliefs of the writer and/or the paper. And they wonder why the public has lost faith in journalists. If they bothered to investigate that too, they would get an answer without too much effort. Whether it's bias or sheer sloth, this type of reporting is inexcusably bad. 

So there.

They must think you're really stupid!

During the election campaign then candidate Obama agreed with John McCain that spending cuts were necessary but that they required a scalpel as opposed to a hatchet. He has remained, sadly, true to his word. (Unlike his word about opposing pork barrel spending).

After presiding over a massive debt run-up, both actual and planned, it would seem bigger cuts are necessary - to the point of rolling back the recent budget-busting plans. Actually, that should be patently obvious.

But for many, it is clearly not. And for those many who gave President Obama his mandate, these cuts are for you. It fully displays the contempt elite Democrats and the White House hold for you. They think you are stupid enough to fall for this. Here's why.

Those who see the need for spending cuts will not be placated or fooled by this charade of a $100 million spending cut versus a 2010 budget spend of $3.5 trillion. We haven't been fooled, but you have.

To put it in perspective via analogy, suppose you decided that instead of a new $20,000 car you decided to buy a pricier $35,000 model. You did this because the slick salesman who sold you on the expensive model promised he would sharpen his pencil and knock some money off the price and you'd get more for your money. Its a far better deal. So he rolls up his sleeves, works his magic and gets a price reduction for you. He takes it to his boss (because its above his pay grade) and gets agreement. Boy are you getting a deal! Your car has been reduced by $1! You only have to pay 34,999! But don't listen to your brother-in-law telling you its a rip off. Our commercials (the press) wouldn't lie. This is an awesome opportunity!

Those ratios are the equivalent of what the President is doing with this bogus cutback decree.

The press will now shamelessly try to start selling Obama as a fiscal restraint guy. Watch MSNBC tonight to see (if you can stomach it). They will do it with straight faces because they want the car sale too, or else they are just as stupid as the voters who somehow believed that they were going to get something for nothing.

You've been duped. You were wrong to vote for this pack of jackals (car salesmen is too good a description for these people). Face up to it because you've already bought the car now. You need to get into the right mind set before you realize that on top of it all, the car is a lemon.

Enjoy.

Shoe time: Israel, Iran and America

Compare and contrast the following. Iran's leader is a racist. He wants Israel destroyed. Israel is not going to back down from the threat. President Obama wants dialogue. The U.N. has a surprise in store for Ahmedinijad.

Background: Netanyahu vs Ahmedinijad



Obama's reach out:



And Ahmedinijad's response at a UN anti-racism conference:



And a possible shoe toss moment!



Unlike the President, some people at the UN seem to have developed a sense of moral absolutism (i.e. grown a pair).

Backdoor socialism - ask Rick

Is this Government as investor or is it backdoor socialism?

NEW YORK (AP) -- American International Group Inc. completed a sale of preferred stock and issued warrants to the Treasury Department as part of a previously announced plan to receive additional financial support from the government according to a regulatory filing submitted Monday.

New York-based AIG said in the Securities and Exchange Commission filing that it sold preferred stock and issued warrants to the government on Friday in exchange for $29.84 billion. The new funds are now immediately available for AIG's use.

The additional funding was announced last month when AIG disclosed a fourth-quarter loss of $61.7 billion, the largest ever quarterly corporate loss in U.S. history.

As part of the deal, AIG must avoid bankruptcy and the government must remain the majority owner of the insurer. The agreement also restricts AIG's ability to
repurchase stock and requires limits on corporate expenses, lobbying and
executive compensation.

Government investment, backdoor socialism? That depends. Ask Rick Wagoner and see what sort of answer you get.

Recovery tipping point? Not just yet.

The economy could be rebounding. Or not;

NEW YORK (AP) -- Investors are having doubts about banks' profit reports, and wondering whether their better-than-expected performance mask larger problems with bad debt.

Stocks fell sharply early Monday as investors sold financial stocks and looked to lock in profits after a six-week rally. The major indexes slid about 2 percent, including the Dow Jones industrial average, which fell 175 points.

It's still too early to call. But if all we've seen from the Obama administration so far is smoke and mirrors (the smoke being burning money, the mirrors being their continual misdirection plays to the press and the public), then no one should expect the economy to recover unless it's actually doing so on it's own.

Obama's budget solution?

What's the opposite of a tempest in a teapot? Well there's this;

WASHINGTON (AP) - A senior administration officials says President Barack Obama is ready to ask federal department and agency chiefs to find $100 million to cut from the budget when he holds his first formal Cabinet meeting.

The official previewed Topic A for Monday's Cabinet meeting on grounds of anonymity because it will be a private session. He said Obama will be reminding Cabinet members that financially-pressed families are looking to the government to spend their money wisely.

The president's first formal Cabinet meeting is being held just days after a series of "Tea Party" demonstrations across the country in which protesters challenged the administration over it's massive spending. A cut of $100 million in a multitrillion-dollar federal budget likely will be criticized by Obama's opponents as inadequate.

Then there's the old saying 'don't pee on a forest fire'. The example and the saying convey about the same level of effort at the government's fiscal inferno.