Oil-Qaeda & MOMCOM Conspire To Commit Depraved-Heart Murder- 3

"They conspired to ..."

I. Introduction

Conspiracy theorists are tasked with showing that two or more people planned to work together toward bringing about events that would end up being a crime.

Those conspiracy theorists must prove, with evidence, that particular events took place.

Here, I am talking about professional conspiracy theorists, such as an Attorney General or assistant Attorney General.

Those who work for the United States Department of Justice (DOJ), or who work for state departments of justice.

They are professionals who initiate one fourth of all federal criminal prosecutions using conspiracy theories.

In addition to that, in these United States, a significant percentage of state criminal prosecutions are also conspiracy theories about crimes.

These are the official conspiracy theorists who work in the federal and state courts of the nation every day.

A law review article points out the essential elements of thousands of conspiracy theories which send conspirators to federal and state prisons every year:

Over one-quarter of all federal criminal prosecutions and a large number of state cases involve prosecutions for conspiracy.
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Consider how a law school textbook might introduce the elements of traditional conspiracy law: Imagine that Joe and Sandra agree to rob a bank. From the moment of agreement, they can be found guilty of conspiracy even if they never commit the robbery (it’s called “inchoate liability”). Even if the bank goes out of business, they can still be liable for the conspiracy (“impossibility” is not a defense). Joe can be liable for other crimes that Sandra commits to further the conspiracy’s objective, like hot-wiring a getaway car (it’s called “Pinkerton” liability, after a 1946 Supreme Court case involving tax offenses). He can’t evade liability by staying home on the day of the robbery (a conspirator has to take an affirmative step to “withdraw”). And if the bank heist takes place, both Joe and Sandra can be charged with bank robbery and with the separate crime of conspiracy, each of which carries its own punishment (the crime of conspiracy doesn’t “merge” with the underlying crime). Why should conspiracy liability begin at the moment of “agreement,” before any crime is committed? Why can a conspirator be charged with both the inchoate offense of conspiracy and the robbery? Why should the law punish conspirators even if it’s impossible for them to commit the crime they planned? Why is withdrawal from a conspiracy so difficult?

(On The Origin of "Conspiracy Theory", quoting Conspiracy Theory, 112 Yale L.J. 1307, 2003). That said, the conspiracies that give rise to these prosecutions go very deep into American culture, where the notion of "too big to jail" has taken root, and has now grown into a misty forest.

II. Recent Examples

Once Attorney General, Eric Holder, let the cat out of the bag while testifying under oath to congress, saying in essence "I can't prosecute the big banks because they are too big to fail" (Everybody's Got A Holder Heart - 3, Why didn't Eric Holder do more to prosecute big banks?).

The infiltration of corruption into officialdom starts lower than that, for example, in some state Attorney General offices:

The letter to the Environmental Protection Agency from Attorney General Scott Pruitt of Oklahoma carried a blunt accusation: Federal regulators were grossly overestimating the amount of air pollution caused by energy companies drilling new natural gas wells in his state.

But Mr. Pruitt left out one critical point. The three-page letter was written by lawyers for Devon Energy, one of Oklahoma’s biggest oil and gas companies, and was delivered to him by Devon’s chief of lobbying.

“Outstanding!” William F. Whitsitt, who at the time directed government relations at the company, said in a note to Mr. Pruitt’s office. The attorney general’s staff had taken Devon’s draft, copied it onto state government stationery with only a few word changes, and sent it to Washington with the attorney general’s signature. “The timing of the letter is great, given our meeting this Friday with both E.P.A. and the White House.”

Mr. Whitsitt then added, “Please pass along Devon’s thanks to Attorney General Pruitt.”

(Energy Firms in Secretive Alliance With Attorneys General). Millions of American homes were impacted by the bank crimes, and millions of Americans suffer health problems due to the operations of the corrupter / conspirator in chief, Oil-Qaeda.

III. Oil-Qaeda Is A Bastard Child of Big Tobacco,

And a Bastard Brother of Big Cancer

The first two videos below are recordings of presentations given by a professor of the history of science.

Specifically, those two videos present a history of "Big Tobacco" as it relates to climate change.

They do so in the sense of how Big Momma Tobacco passed on to "Big Oil" (Oil-Qaeda - its bastard child), the propaganda baton (The Deceit Business).

In other Dredd Blog posts, I have looked back into history a bit further than those two videos, and have found "Big Tobacco" to be a very old cultural disease:

Now comes “The Barbarous Years,” the next installment. It circles back to a period that most Americans don’t hear much about in school: the chaotic decades from the establishment of Jamestown (England’s first permanent colony in the Americas) in 1607 up to King Philip’s War (the vicious conflict that effectively expelled Indians from New England) in 1675-76. Bailyn’s goal is to show how a jumble of migrants, “low and high born,” sought “to recreate, if not to improve, in this remote and, to them, barbarous environment, the life they had known before.” As the title indicates, the story is as grim as it is fascinating: a group portrait in tones of greed, desperation and brutality. In recent years conservative writers dismayed by historical revisionism have flooded stores with books extolling the character and sagacity of America’s founders. “The Barbarous Years” is not one of them.

“Death was everywhere,” Bailyn writes of Jamestown. The colony was a commercial enterprise, started by the Virginia Company with the sort of careful financial evaluation that in the more recent past was the hallmark of the dot-com boom.

English people kept coming anyway, lured by a discovery that the Crown and company hated: tobacco. Hip, fun, disdained by stuffy authorities and wildly addictive, the smoking weed was an ideal consumer product. Thousands of migrants were willing to risk death for the chance to cash in on England’s squadrons of new nicotine junkies. The Chesapeake Bay became a barely governed swarm of semi-independent tobacco fiefs, owned by families, operated by squads of indentured servants, all squabbling with one another, Protestants against Catholics, English against other Europeans, everyone against Indians.
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"The addiction to oil ... at least to the wealth and to the products made accessible to us by oil ... look at the negative consequences on the environment we are destroying the very Earth that we inhabit for the sake of that addiction. Now these addictions are far more devastating in the social consequences than the cocaine or heroin habits of my ... patients. Yet they are rewarded and considered to be respectable. The tobacco company executive that shows a higher profit will get a much bigger reward ... doesn't face any negative consequences legally or otherwise ... in fact is a respected member of the board of several other corporations ... but tobacco smoke related diseases kill 5.5 million people around the world every year. In the United States they kill 400,000 people a year".
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"And these people are addicted to what? To profit, to such a degree are they addicted that they are actually in denial about the impact of their activities, which is typical for addicts, is denial. And that is the respectable one. It is respectable to be addicted to profit no matter what the cost. So what is acceptable and what is respectable is a highly arbitrary phenomenon in our society. And it seems like the greater the harm the more respectable the addiction" (Dr. Maté).

(A History of Oil Addiction - 4). As their conspiracies developed along with their technology, they eventually began to destroy the environment.

Thereafter they began to conspire to cover up the scientific reality of what they were doing to the base of life on Earth:

Internal fossil fuel industry memos reveal decades of disinformation — a deliberate campaign to deceive the public that continues even today.

For nearly three decades, many of the world's largest fossil fuel companies have knowingly worked to deceive the public about the realities and risks of climate change.

Their deceptive tactics are now highlighted in this set of seven "deception dossiers"—collections of internal company and trade association documents that have either been leaked to the public, come to light through lawsuits, or been disclosed through Freedom of Information (FOIA) requests.

Each collection provides an illuminating inside look at this coordinated campaign of deception, an effort underwritten by ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, BP, Shell, Peabody Energy, and other members of the fossil fuel industry.

(The Authoritarianism of Climate Change). This is the largest such incident in the history of civilization.

IV. Can Anything Be Done About It?

The third video, below, is from the floor of the Senate, and was given by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse.

He points out that the current U.S. Attorney General is the same lawyer who beat "Big Tobacco" in federal court.

These types of  "tom toms" (drums of inquiry) are being heard in some state departments of justice too.

Several federal senators have even asked the federal Attorney General to take action against Oil-Qaeda now:

More Oil Companies a Focus of Climate Investigations?

Consumer Watchdog Asks California Attorney General and US Attorneys to Investigate Oil Industry for Mail Fraud in Effort to Defeat Climate Change Legislation

Oil-Qaeda and MOMCOM have psychopathic mental fingerprints about victims

This may be interrupted by the current, ongoing presidential election as follows, IMO: If Bernie Sanders is elected the investigations and inquiries into the depraved heart murder-by-Oil-Qaeda will proceed.

On the other hand, if Clinton, or members of the other circus, is or are elected, the "too big to jail" song will be revised.

The conspirators with continue unabated.

V. Conclusion

Whether or not the efforts to bring Oil-Qaeda to justice will end the same way it did for Big Tobacco, that end result will not be benign.

Oil-Qaeda has already set in motion the damaging system that has impaired the climate which civilization has existed within for these several thousand years (of human civilizations).

All that remains now is to stop, or not, the murder-suicide that Oil-Qaeda is bringing upon the world (Civilization Is Now On Suicide Watch, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8).

I mean, at least with facing suicide we have a choice ... so let's get rid of the murderers (by definition we cannot murder ourselves) ... then deal with the issues of suicide.

We may have a chance to decide not to commit suicide, even if as potential murder victims we do not have any choice.

Well then, lets Stop the murders!

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.

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Senator Whitehouse and Dr. Naomi Oreskes on the history and culpability of psychopaths within Big Tobacco, Big Oil, and the U.S.eh? :

From UCSD:

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From Harvard:

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From DC:

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The Extinction of Chesapeake Bay Islands

Did God do this?

The Dredd Blog series on extinction of U.S.eh? coastal cities and sea ports draws gasps.

People wonder who could do such a thing to the "city on a hill" that brings "peace and light" to the world.

As I have written, one side explains the long-ongoing scientific subject matter by saying that a certain addiction is at the oil base of it.

"Oil-Qaeda" means "the oil base," which is the private empire that created and now perpetuates civilization's addiction to fossil fuels (MOMCOM: The Private Parts, 2, 3, 4, 5).

Since circa the late 1800's Oil-Qaeda has been the source of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW), induced by those fossil fuels that are in, on, around, and through us (A Closer Look At MOMCOM's DNA - 2).

Modern Engineering Feats

Fossil fuels, their premier product line, is said to generate green house gases (GHG) when burned.

The other side says that God, through Barbara Streisand (yes for real), is doing it just because "He is still on His throne"  (Evangelist / Senator Inhofe).

Choose your side of the coin, but either way you choose, melting ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, as well as melting glaciers in various mountain locales, are the means to the end.

Strong but vulnerable

The end we call extinction (The Extinction of Charleston, ... Philadelphia, ... Washington, D.C., ... Robust Sea Ports, ... Boston, ... Miami, ... Manzanillo, ... Houston).

The situation is not theoretical on Tangier, one of many disappearing Islands in Chesapeake Bay.

Soon enough, it too will become another one on the list of thirteen or so islands that have already gone under the Chesapeake Bay.

They are gone due to sea level rise (SLR):

Noah Bradshaw knows what the rising waters of the Chesapeake Bay can do to a community.

The 68-year-old city inspector grew up in a house in town that had been moved from nearby Holland Island a century ago.

Bay Bridge: Access point inundation by SLR

“Holland Island is gone,” Bradshaw said. “It’s underwater.”

The last house disappeared into the bay two years ago, marking the demise of an island once 5 miles long and home to a fishing community of 300 residents.

Now, rising sea levels and sinking land, the same forces that doomed the island, threaten Crisfield, its seafood industry and its 2,710 residents. And a newly discovered tidal pattern puts them in greater peril than previously known.

“This is our home, and eventually, this will be underwater,” said Bradshaw, a bespectacled, balding man with a white beard. “We know that, because the sea level is rising.”

(Sea level, sinking land). Like everywhere else on the east coast, SLR puts Maryland’s waterfront shoreline and island communities at risk.

At risk yesterday:

ALL OVER LOW-LYING DORCHESTER COUNTY, residents are living on

"the high water isn't just coming. It's already here"

the edge. One skid off the road puts a car in a marsh. Parking in the wrong place during the wrong arc of a tide cycle can lead to a flooded car. Water that used to just graze residents' yards now comes up to the porches; it's just a matter of time, they know, before it comes into the houses.

Here, in the land of narrow marshes and proud working waterfront towns, the high water isn't just coming. It's already here.
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And more high water is coming. A scientific panel concluded in 2013 that sea level on Maryland's coasts is likely to rise over the next century by 3.7 feet and as much as 5.7 feet.

(Chesapeake Quarterly). Do you think, like Senator Inhofe and his cadre of deniers, that "God is punishing these people," and if so punishing them for what?

That is a strange view of "God is Love," a strange view which some Texans also have:

"Life in Lubbock, Texas, taught me two things: One is that God loves you and you're going to burn in hell. The other is that sex is the most awful, filthy thing on earth and you should save it for someone you love."

(Butch Hancock). My view is that Oil-Qaeda is the villain who is responsible for AGW and SLR (Oil-Qaeda: The Indictment).

A view which is gaining some official traction lately  (Oil-Qaeda & MOMCOM Conspire To Commit Depraved-Heart Murder- 2).

BTW, a previous post also discussed the Chesapeake Bay area (Will This Float Your Boat - 10).

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Oil-Qaeda & MOMCOM Conspire To Commit Depraved-Heart Murder- 2

Depraved Heart Murder, Inc.

When I started this series I had no idea it would get some traction, or be associated with subject matter that is getting some traction (Oil-Qaeda & MOMCOM Conspire To Commit Depraved-Heart Murder).

But, now it seems that the subject just might evolve into part of the public conversation.

Considering that Dredd Blog, the Union of Concerned Scientists, Dr. Naomi Oreskes, and many others have "let the cat out of the bag" after becoming citizen journalists, group-supported investigative journalists, socially conscious teachers, civic caretakers, or other entities with care and concern for people everywhere.

Now. senators and others are calling for a Civil RICO Investigation of Oil-Qaeda, (and why not a criminal investigation as well?):

Sanders Calls for Investigation of 'Potential Corporate Fraud' by Exxon

Petition: Prosecute Exxon For Deliberate Climate Denial

Democrats Request a DOJ Investigation Into ExxonMobil, Alleging Climate Science Coverup

Big Tobacco Is Guilty of Conspiracy

Prison for Exxon Execs? Lawmakers Seek Probe of Oil Giant for Hiding Knowledge of Climate Change

Exxon’s Climate Cover-Up Should Be Investigated By DOJ, Tobacco Prosecutor Says

The Wrong Road Taken

(H/T Desi @ Brad Blog)

Spread the word.

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.

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Senator Whitehouse and Dr. Naomi Oreskes on the history and culpability of psychopaths within Big Tobacco, Big Oil, and the U.S.eh? :

From DC:

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From UCSD:

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From Harvard:

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The Methane Hydrate / Clathrate Controversy - 2

Fig. 1 Source: NOAA ESRL

In this series we ponder the almost inexplicable dearth of long-term scientific research associated with atmospheric methane (CH₄).

The sources of CH₄ in the atmosphere are not as well known as the sources of CO₂ are (Fig. 2), nor are the records as extensive for CH₄ (Fig. 1).

The watchers at Moana Loa observatory, in Hawaii, keep records for both of those green house gases (GHG) and are considered to be a standard source of information (Moana Loa CO₂).

Fig. 2 Source NOAA

In the first post of this series, it was pointed out that methane (hydrate, clathrate, etc.) research in the Arctic is in its infancy:

Currently, scientists do not have a tool to say with certainty how much, or if any, atmospheric methane comes from hydrates.
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No one can yet say with certainty how the methane release in the Arctic will develop with global warming, either in the ocean or on the land. This research is still in its in­fancy.

(The Methane Hydrate / Clathrate Controversy, quoting experts). The official keeper of GHG levels at Moana Loa indicates that it is a ho-hum compared to CO₂:

Methane was steadily increasing in the 1980's, it's growth rate slowed in the 1990's, and it has had a near-zero growth rate for the last few years.

(NOAA ESRL). At this time competent researchers use inexact language in several categories:

"In this paper we present 2 years of data obtained during the late summer period (September 2003 and September 2004) for the East Siberian Arctic shelf (ESAS). According to our data, the surface layer of shelf water was supersaturated up to 2500% relative to the present average atmospheric methane content of 1.85 ppm, pointing to the rivers as a strong source of dissolved methane which comes from watersheds which are underlain with permafrost. Anomalously high concentrations (up to 154 nM or 4400% supersaturation) of dissolved methane in the bottom layer of shelf water at a few sites suggest that the bottom layer is somehow affected by near-bottom sources. The net flux of methane from this area of the East Siberian Arctic shelf can reach up to 13.7 × 104 g CH4 km− 2 from plume areas during the period of ice free water, and thus is in the upper range of the estimated global marine methane release. Ongoing environmental change might affect the methane marine cycle since significant changes in the thermal regime of bottom sediments within a few sites were registered. Correlation between calculated methane storage within the water column and both integrated salinity values (r = 0.61) and integrated values of dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) (r = 0.62) suggest that higher concentrations of dissolved methane were mostly derived from the marine environment, likely due to in-situ production or release from decaying submarine gas hydrates deposits. The calculated late summer potential methane emissions tend to vary from year to year, reflecting most likely the effect of changing hydrological and meteorological conditions (temperature, wind) on the ESAS rather than riverine export of dissolved methane. We point out additional sources of methane in this region such as submarine taliks, ice complex retreat, submarine permafrost itself and decaying gas hydrates deposits."

(Sharkova). Arctic methane research is increasing rapidly, so tools and methods should improve over time, so that more exact language can be used.

The research into this potentially dangerous area is not as mature, by any stretch of the imagination, as sea level change (SLC) research is.

Tidal gages have been used for over a hundred years, satellites of all sorts (e.g. GRACE, Cryosat-2, etc.) have measured the sources of sea level rise (SLR) and sea level fall (SLF), and they are well known without controversy.

Those who rant on about the "non-issue" of SLC but "the human species destroying methane danger" will be seen, and should be seen, as kooks by public infrastructure managers.

That is because SLC is a known clear and present danger (a must-read for that perspective: You Are Here - 5).

An expert on SLC addresses those issues (which are relatively hidden in plain sight) in one video below (Mitrovica), and an expert on Arctic methane release does the same in the other video (Sharkova).

The previous post in this series is here.

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The Methane Hydrate / Clathrate Controversy

Methane Hydrate / Clathrate

I. Background

Observers of the warming oceans have considered many impacts which that warming will have.

On one issue, their are two camps, one saying hydrates will substantially contribute to human extinction, and the other saying it will not.

In other words, the verbal battle lines are well defined.

However, we have to look closer if we want to understand the issues.

So let's take a look.

I am not ready to conclude in this post, rather, I am only laying the issue out on the table for consideration at this time.

II. Basic Views of the Two Camps

A. The Clathrate Catastrophe Camp

The Nature Bats Last blog sets forth the near term human extinction (NTHE) position:

By 15 December 2013, methane bubbling up from the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean had sufficient force to prevent sea ice from forming in the area. Nearly two years after his initial, oft-disparaged analysis, Malcolm Light concluded on 22 December 2013, “we have passed the methane hydrate tipping point and are now accelerating into extinction as the methane hydrate ‘Clathrate Gun’ has begun firing volleys of methane into the Arctic atmosphere.” According to Light’s analysis in late 2013, the temperature of Earth’s atmosphere will resemble that of Venus before 2100.

(Nature Bats Last). The "clathrate gun" reference is sometimes called a hypothesis (Clathrate Gun Hypothesis).

B. The "Nothing To See Here, Move Along Folks" Camp 

This camp has some formidable members too, who plainly say that the other camp is a bit over the top:

News stories and Web postings have raised concerns that climate warming will release large volumes of methane from gas hydrates, kicking off a chain reaction of warming and methane releases. But recent research indicates that most of the world’s gas hydrate deposits should remain stable for the next few thousand years. Of the gas hydrates likely to become unstable, few are likely to release methane that could reach the atmosphere and intensify climate warming.

(USGS: Why a Methane Catastrophe Is Unlikely). Ok, we see that distinct debate lines, on a very important subject, have been drawn.

III. The Admitted Unknowns

A. How Much

The USGS indicates that there are no tools with which to determine which source current atmospheric methane comes from:

The atmospheric concentration of methane, like that of carbon dioxide, has increased since the onset of the Industrial Revolution (fig. 5). Methane in the atmosphere comes from many sources, including wetlands, rice cultivation, termites, cows and other ruminants, forest fires, and fossil fuel production (fig. 6). Some researchers have estimated that up to 2 percent of atmospheric methane may originate with dissociation of global gas hydrates. Currently, scientists do not have a tool to say with certainty how much, or if any, atmospheric methane comes from hydrates.

(USGS: Gas Hydrates and Climate Warming, emphasis added). Of the "2 percent" of atmospheric methane in the air we breathe, it is not known how much of it comes from methane hydrates that have broken down and released their caged methane.

B. Lack of Research and Data?

A lot of attention is being paid to the matter, however, some say the science has not yet matured:

In the field of methane emission research today, the Arctic is one of the most important regions worldwide. It is believed that methane occurs there both in the form of gas hydrate in the sea and as free gas trapped in the deep-frozen permafrost. Methane deposits in permafrost and hydrates are considered to be very sensitive in the expansive shallow-shelf regions, because with the relatively low pressures it would only take a small temperature change to release large amounts of methane. In addition, new methane is continuously being produced because the Arctic regions are rich in organic material that is decomposed by microbes in the sediment. The activity of these microbes and thus the biological release rates of methane are also stimulated by increases in temperature. Hence methane emissions in the Arctic have multiple sources. International scientific consortia are now being established involving researchers from various disciplines – chemists, biologists, geologists, geophysicists, meteorologists – which are intensively addressing this problem. No one can yet say with certainty how the methane release in the Arctic will develop with global warming, either in the ocean or on the land. This research is still in its in­fancy.

(World Ocean Review, p. 2, emphasis added). How such an important issue leaves scientists in the dark because of methane clathrate research immaturity is troubling.

C. Jury Still Out?

One good place to observe the dynamic back and forth is a Guardian piece:

Can scientists overcome huge uncertainties to pin down how close, or far, we might be to a tipping point?

About a week ago, climate scientist Michael Tobis wrote a critique of my 'Seven facts about the Arctic methane time bomb' following a twitter exchange with him and Chris Colose, author of an article at Skeptical Science arguing that the core scenario of a new Nature paper by Gail Whiteman et. al on the economic costs of Arctic climate change is extremely unlikely.

Much of this debate kicked off because the said Nature paper advances a hypothetical scenario for an abrupt Arctic methane release over either a decade or several decades of about 50 gigatonnes (Gt), and argues specifically that such a scenario is "likely." My own attempt to understand the literature convinced me that the scenario should be viewed as a serious possibility.

Tobis on the other hand is the latest amongst several scientists offering scathing criticisms of that scenario, which in his own words is "as close to impossible as anything in earth science; actual geophysics refutes it."

He begins with my first point, 1. The 50 Gigatonne decadal methane pulse scenario was posited by four Arctic specialists, and is considered plausible by Met Office scientists.

Tobis writes that the Review of Geophysics paper I cite says

"Arctic thawing may release in excess of 50 GT of C [Carbon], a very serious matter... But Ahmed refers to the paper in support of a very different assertion, that 50 GT of methane would be released... But the paper to which he points says nothing of the sort. I conclude that he doesn't really know what he is talking about. Specifically he has already shown that he is confused about the distinction between methane releases and CO2 releases."

However, the carbon release scenarios from permafrost explored by the paper include both methane and carbon. Here's what the paper says:

"The most important determinant of whether release of frozen carbon happens as CO2 or CH4 [methane] is whether decomposition proceeds aerobically or anaerobically... In anaerobic conditions, a greater proportion of soil organic carbon decomposition is released as CH4, although not all of it necessarily reaches the atmosphere."

Following this paragraph, the paper cites several scenarios for large-scale releases from permafrost carbon, including the 50-100 Gt carbon release I mentioned.

(Why The Jury's Still Out). The jury is out for some people, but not out for others it would seem.

IV. Some Other Scientists Speak Out Boldly

An expert on the Siberian Arctic methane hydrate scenario has published some papers indicating that a serious condition exists:

Extremely high concentrations of methane (up to 8 ppm) in the atmospheric layer above the sea surface along with anomalously high concentrations of dissolved methane in the water column (up to 560 nM, or 12000% of super saturation), registered during a summertime cruise over the ESS in September 2005, were analyzed together with available data obtained during previous and subsequent expeditions to distinguish between possible methane sources of different origin, potential, and mobility. Using indirect evidence it was shown that one such source may be highly potential and extremely mobile shallow methane hydrates, whose stability zone is seabed permafrost-related and could be disturbed upon permafrost development, degradation, and thawing. Further immobilization of stored methane could cause abrupt methane release and unpredictable climatic consequences.

(Geophysical Research Abstracts, by Shakhova et al., PDF; cf this). I will refer to one other scientist before closing:

Paul Beckwith, a climatology and meteorology professor at the University of Ottawa, Canada, is an engineer and physicist who researches abrupt climate change in both the present day and in the paleoclimatology records of the deep past.

“It is my view that our climate system is in early stages of abrupt climate change that, unchecked, will lead to a temperature rise of 5 to 6 degrees Celsius within a decade or two,” Beckwith told me. “Obviously, such a large change in the climate system will have unprecedented effects on the health and well-being of every plant and animal on our planet.”

(The Methane Monster Roars). This year is still struggling to become the record year, by having the lowest Arctic sea ice extent of all other years.

That is, the lowest since the recent record was set in the year 2012 (Arctic Ice Extent: 2015 Struggles For First Place - 2).

V. Conclusion

The Obama Administration's allowing Arctic area drilling to find more of the poison that is threatening civilization was a deadly event, all their promises to cut poison GHG emissions notwithstanding.

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Dr. Shakhova camp:

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ObamaCare: Good Foreign Policy - 4

A Heart Grown Cold

Background

In this series I have been looking at aspects of the inexplicable word storms crossing America from left to right and from right to left.

While, as usual, the world is watching.

That is why I used the word "inexplicable."

Some of our conversations and deeds perplex the humane minds of the world because those conversations exhibit the crass, careless, brazen, and psychopathic aspects of a culture that cares nothing about anything else except their own exceptionalism.

Even though:

"Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness."

(Martin Luther King Jr.). As Senator Bernie Sanders points out:

“The Affordable Care Act has made modest improvements in American health care since it took effect. Twenty million Americans have gained insurance under the law, including young people who can stay on their parents' policies and others who may no longer be denied insurance because of pre-existing conditions. The law also has expanded access to primary care to some 4 million more Americans through community health centers that also provide dental care, low-cost prescription drugs and mental health counseling.

“But the United States remains, shamefully, the only major country on Earth that does not guarantee health care to all its people as a right. And because of the profiteering of the pharmaceutical industry and private insurance companies, the United States spends almost twice as much per capita on health care as any other nation, while our life expectancy, infant mortality and preventable deaths are higher than most other countries. If our goal is to provide high-quality health care for all Americans in a cost-effective way, we must move toward a single-payer system.

“The health insurance lobby and other opponents of single-payer care make it sound scary. It's not. In fact, a large, single-payer system already exists in the United States: It's called Medicare. People enrolled in the system give it high marks. More importantly, it has succeeded in providing near-universal coverage to Americans over age 65.

(Medicare for All). What Dr. King and Senator Sanders are expressing is their hurt due to U.S. policy that is:

"A disregard for human suffering in the pursuit of profit."

(David Puttnam). This is the core lack of values that is at the heart of the demise of American reputation (Decline of U.S. Reputation - Why?).

Supreme Court Decision In King v. Burwell

Yesterday's U.S. Supreme Court decision in King v. Burwell was the talk of the town, but so much of that talk was more evidence of the dumbing down of the U.S. public.

It was a simple case of statutory construction, that is, the strange way of saying one government branch interpreting a statute written by another branch of government must do so with intellectual honesty and respect:

It is ... the Court’s task to determine the correct reading of Section 36B. If the statutory language is plain, the Court must enforce it according to its terms. But often times the meaning—or ambiguity—of certain words or phrases may only become evident when placed in context. So when deciding whether the language is plain, the Court must read the words “in their context and with a view to their place in the overall statutory scheme.”

When read in context, the phrase “an Exchange established by the State under [42 U. S. C. §18031]” is properly viewed as ambiguous. The phrase may be limited in its reach to State Exchanges. But it could also refer to all Exchanges—both State and Federal—for purposes of the tax credits. If a State chooses not to follow the directive in Section 18031 to establish an Exchange, the Act tells the Secretary of Health and Human Services to establish “such Exchange.” §18041. And by using the words “such Exchange,” the Act indicates that State and Federal Exchanges should be the same.
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The Court ... must do its best, “bearing in mind the ‘fundamental canon of statutory construction that the words of a statute must be read in their context and with a view to their place in the over all statutory scheme.’”

(King v Burwell, 576 U.S. ___ , 2015, emphasis added). The inability to read in context is a problem of reading comprehension.

Good reading comprehension is composed of being able to comprehend the totality of a text and the proper impact which subtextual components should have.

The rabid myopia which engendered the notion that Congress' use of those four words should mandate the destruction of the health care of thousands or millions of Americans is shameful and violent.

Blowhard Presidential Candidates

One has to wonder about how much the American reputation has suffered in the eyes of the world since psychopaths have chosen to make their way into public life (When You Are Governed By Psychopaths - 2).

Country after country has called in the U.S. Ambassador for an explanation as to why a "freedom loving" country has to disrespect its own citizens as well as the citizens and governments of "its friends" by spying on them.

Oh, I get it, "the constitution is so quaint" in the U.S.eh?

Conclusion

Today the murdered are being honored in Charleston even as others debate whether the flag of the hatemongering and warmongering racists of long ago should be honored by flying their battle flag today (Symbolic Racism: A Look At The Science - 10).

The previous post in this series is here.

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Senator Sanders:

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Oil-Qaeda & MOMCOM Conspire To Commit Depraved-Heart Murder

MOMCOM, are we in good hands with Oil-State?

Today's post deals with one of those subjects that our mind can't easily wrap itself around:

"In United States law, depraved-heart murder, also known as depraved-indifference murder, is an action where a defendant acts with a "depraved indifference" to human life and where such act results in a death. In a depraved-heart murder a defendant commits an act even though they know their act runs an unusually high risk of causing death or serious bodily harm to someone else. If the risk of death or bodily harm is great enough, ignoring it demonstrates a "depraved indifference" to human life and the resulting death is considered to have been committed with malice aforethought. In most states, depraved-heart killings constitute second-degree murder."

(Wikipedia, Depraved Heart Murder, emphasis added). The notion of conspiracy is also becoming more and more difficult to understand too, even though "[o]ver one-quarter of all federal criminal prosecutions and a large number of state cases involve prosecutions for conspiracy" (On The Origin of "Conspiracy Theory", 2, 3, 4).

This subject matter has been discussed in a related Dredd Blog series (MOMCOM's Mass Suicide & Murder Pact, 2, 3, 4, 5).

Perhaps the subject can be understood better if I point out that there are degrees of murder (e.g. first, second, third):

"Criminal homicide takes many forms including accidental or purposeful murder. The crime committed in a criminal homicide is determined by the mental state of the committing person and the extent of the crime."

(Wikipedia, Criminal Homicide, emphasis added). For example, the murder charges in Baltimore against government officials (police), involve one of those degrees of murder, which is second degree, depraved-heart murder.

The beginning point in the analysis of this type of murder is criminal negligence:

"Department of Just Us"

To constitute a crime, there must be an actus reus (Latin for "guilty act") accompanied by the mens rea ["guilty mind"]. Negligence shows the least level of culpability, intention being the most serious, and recklessness being of intermediate seriousness, overlapping with gross negligence. The distinction between recklessness and criminal negligence lies in the presence or absence of foresight as to the prohibited consequences.

(Wikipedia, Criminal negligence, emphasis added). Is there evidence that burning fossil fuels is the cause of greenhouse gas pollution, sufficient to give a reasonable person "a heads up", i.e. foresight?

Which is to ask, "is human death a reasonably foreseeable result of such pollution?"

The presstitutes and McTell News still grapple with an understanding of where they are (You Are Here), but does that excuse the federal government?

McTell News journalists are continually failing to comprehend that there is clear and convincing evidence, and even evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, that an alleged murder-suicide pact is a real threat, not a mere suspicion:

The Obama administration on Monday gave conditional approval to allow Shell to start drilling for oil off the Alaskan coast this summer, a major victory for the petroleum industry and a devastating blow to environmentalists.

(New York Times, "NYT", 5/11/15). NYT coverage here constitutes a false frame, which wrongly considers the matter to be nothing but a political struggle between the petroleum industry and environmentalists.

To the contrary, a European newspaper (3rd most read in the world @2012),  calls this issue The Biggest Story In The World.

Which shows that this NYT perspective is a very brain-dead notion, because they too are directly in the cross hairs of AGW along with the rest of us (Will This Float Your Boat - 10, FERC Plan To Limit Overpopulation?).

Do the prestitutes, McTell News, and OIl-Qaeda, really think that only environmentalists have died in the past, are dying now, and will continue to die in the future from AGW induced catastrophe, caused by the use of fossil fuels?

Either way, their professional lunacy is surpassed by the Obama Administration Environmental Policy, which is also in bed will all manner of madness:

The move came just four months after the Obama administration opened up a portion of the Atlantic Coast to new offshore drilling.

(ibid, NYT, 5/11/15). "Drill Baby Drill" was considered to be the bumper sticker of lunatics when Obama was running for President.

But, now this Pontius Pilot has made it a fundamental policy of his administration, even though he says he is aware that it is the greatest threat to civilization:

And no challenge -- no challenge -- poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change.

2014 was the planet’s warmest year on record. Now, one year doesn’t make a trend, but this does: 14 of the 15 warmest years on record have all fallen in the first 15 years of this century.

I’ve heard some folks try to dodge the evidence by saying they’re not

Smoke signals have been sent 100 yrs.

scientists; that we don’t have enough information to act. Well, I’m not a scientist, either. But you know what, I know a lot of really good scientists at NASA, and at NOAA, and at our major universities. And the best scientists in the world are all telling us that our activities are changing the climate, and if we don’t act forcefully, we’ll continue to see rising oceans, longer, hotter heat waves, dangerous droughts and floods, and massive disruptions that can trigger greater migration and conflict and hunger around the globe. The Pentagon says that climate change poses immediate risks to our national security. We should act like it.

(Global Warming Induced Climate Change Is A Matter of Law). When combined with a policy of enhancing the activity that produces climate change, this speech contains evidence of reckless indifference ("depraved indifference") toward human lives.

Allowing fossil fuel drilling in known danger zones, or anywhere else for that matter (which at best will worsen climate change damage and death even if no accidents take place during drilling), is a criminal, depraved-heart mentality (Global Warming Induced Climate Change Is A Matter of Law) .

Busted in the B.S. booth

Based on what Obama has said in public during his tenure, his administration has morphed into a depraved-heart criminal enterprise.

It has become one of many governments that should be prosecuted along with the criminal minds of Oil-Qaeda.

It looks as though our fate (Stockholm Syndrome on Steroids?, 2) is to be governed by psychopaths until this is all over (When You Are Governed By Psychopaths, 2, 3, 4).

The next post in this series is here.

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An exception: Senator Sheldon Whitehouse:

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Economic War Of The Pacific - 5

Regular readers know that Dredd Blog has been watching events on the economic front from time to time.

Events that show the damage our lusty military spending is doing to our economy.

Various aspects of this phenomenon concern world currency, various import-export aspects of international trade, and the incessant waste caused my military madmen who want to murder and plunder across the globe.

Whether or not one wants to argue that these economic results are the affect of decline of one nation, the rise of another, or the rise of many, the essence of what we have been talking about is:

"This is not a book about the decline of America, but rather about the rise of everyone else."

(A Decline Of The American Republic, 2, 3, quoting Fareed Zakaria). I think that the predictions of the founders indicates a decline caused by imperialism, warmongering, and draining the economy of the middle class (The Greatest Source Of Power Toxins?).

In other words, the plundering of the 99% in America by the 1%.

One statistic of the data, which Dredd Blog has pointed out, is that the U.S. is no longer number one, rather, China is an economic power now:

Hang on to your hats, America.

And throw away that big, fat styrofoam finger while you’re about it.

There’s no easy way to say this, so I’ll just say it: We’re no longer No. 1. Today, we’re No. 2. Yes, it’s official. The Chinese economy just

Review Due - On Sale Now

overtook the United States economy to become the largest in the world. For the first time since Ulysses S. Grant was president, America is not the leading economic power on the planet.

It just happened — and almost nobody noticed.

The International Monetary Fund recently released the latest numbers for the world economy. And when you measure national economic output in “real” terms of goods and services, China will this year produce $17.6 trillion — compared with $17.4 trillion for the U.S.A.

As recently as 2000, we produced nearly three times as much as the Chinese.

To put the numbers slightly differently, China now accounts for 16.5% of the global economy when measured in real purchasing-power terms, compared with 16.3% for the U.S.

This latest economic earthquake follows the development last year when China surpassed the U.S. for the first time in terms of global trade.

(Economic War Of The Pacific - 4, quoting Market Watch). The economists from Cygnus who "helped" to get us into this mess are morphing into apologists (e.g. Forbes).

But, outside their clueless bubble there are volumes of reality available (‘Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis’, Capital, a book by Thomas Piketty).

Meanwhile, as usual, China is not sitting or holding back, they are still on the move:

"Protests over democracy in Hong Kong may be preoccupying the Chinese leadership, but a subject of still greater international importance is being played out this week behind closed doors in Washington. China is bidding to enter the heart of global finance by establishing its currency, the renminbi, as part of an ubiquitous monetary unit used in official transactions around the world." - USA Today

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"China is calling for a global currency to replace the dominant dollar, showing a growing assertiveness on revamping the world economy ahead of next week's London summit on the financial crisis.

The surprise proposal by Beijing's central bank governor reflects unease about its vast holdings of U.S. government bonds and adds to Chinese pressure to overhaul a global financial system dominated by the dollar and Western governments. Both the United States and the European Union brushed off the idea.

The world economic crisis shows the "inherent vulnerabilities and systemic risks in the existing international monetary system," Gov. Zhou Xiaochuan said in an essay released Monday by the bank. He recommended creating a currency made up of a basket of global currencies and controlled by the International Monetary Fund and said it would help "to achieve the objective of safeguarding global economic and financial stability."

Zhou did not mention the dollar by name. But in an unusual step, the essay was published in both Chinese and English, making clear it was meant for a foreign audience." - ABC News

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"China-rmb-world-currency

March 4, 2015
Bangkok, Thailand

When I arrived to Bangkok the other day, coming down the motorway from the airport I saw a huge billboard—and it floored me.

The billboard was from the Bank of China. It said: “RMB: New Choice; The World Currency”

Given that the Bank of China is more than 70% owned by the government of the People’s Republic of China, I find this very significant.

It means that China is literally advertising its currency overseas, and it’s making sure that everyone landing at one of the world’s busiest airports sees it. They know that the future belongs to them and they’re flaunting it." - Simon Black

That notion of becoming independent of the world currency, the U.S. dollar, has caused recent wars (MOMCOM and The Sins of Libya, 2, 3, cf. a discussion of "the foreigner trance": Comparing a Group-Mind Trance to a Cultural Amygdala).

That is especially so when mixed with the psychotic lust and greed for crude oil, the poison that is destroying the ecosystem and global climate system (The Peak Of The Oil Wars, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12).

The forefathers clearly warned us against exactly what is taking place today:

"Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.

War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied: and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people.

The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and of morals, engendered by both.

No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

Those truths are well established." - James Madison

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“Experience has shown that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.” – Thomas Jefferson

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"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy." - James Madison

We have become a warmongering neoFeudalistic empire (American Feudalism, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11).

An empire that is committing suicide by waging wars to acquire the poison crude oil that is destroying the only habitat we must preserve in order to survive.

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.

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"Stepping In A Slide Zone", by The Moody Blues

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On This Date Some Years Ago

Once upon a time

Occasionally we take a look at the past on Dredd Blog to see how much things are the same or how much things have changed.

One thing going on back then that we did not know about, which we know now, is that psychologists, who are supposed to be doctors were torturing people as if that was their calling (Psychologists Torture).

The stress of 911 developed weird religious reactions in some folks, more so than in others (examples of weirdness: Hypothesis: The Cultural Amygdala - 2, Hypothesis: The Cultural Amygdala - 4).

Anyway, here are three Dredd Blog posts from this date in 2009:

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We Killed More Of US Than They Did

In a recent article here we asked who is the enemy, took ourselves back to a very popular president who warned us to beware of militarism, and mused that we would be better off economically if we just invaded ourselves.

The military is very stingy with data which they think puts them in a bad light. For instance, they have not been allowing the public to even view coffins of the dead coming back from Iraq.

But they, for some reason, have had to disclose that suicides killed more soldiers last month than the wars did:

"The Army is investigating a stunning number of suicides in January — a count that could surpass all combat deaths on America's two warfronts last month."

(Fox News). I think we must congratulate them for not covering up this news item.

The old saying that "many hands lighten the load" reminds me that they would do well to let many psychiatrists and psychoanalysts, in and out of the military, take a meaningful look at this trend.

Then do some treatment.

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Supreme Arrogance

One of the Supremes who instilled us with Bush II in 2000 via the decision in the still infamous Bush v Gore case, scolded a student who asked him a question during a question and answer session.

Justice Scalia has often said of the Bush v Gore decision, "get over it", when asked about it, as if it was the stare decisis maximus case of all time.

It is as if he has no intellectual position on it, but says we must live with it and that is that. A case that should not be talked about in terms of a good or bad decision?

We are trying to "get over it" Scalia, but your boy just will not go away. His wars are still with us, his voodoo economy is still with us, and his corruption is still with us.

Thank you so much o supreme one for your gift of Bush II to the American people.

One that keeps on giving us pain and suffering to this very day.

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President Warns Republicans

The President is becoming relentless in his focus on the political posturing the republicans are conducting.

They seem to think their stonewalling and threatening to filibuster is good politics, but Obama seems to think it is voodoo economics.

He said:

President Barack Obama warned on Thursday that failure to act on an economic recovery package could plunge the nation into a long-lasting recession that might prove irreversible, a fresh call to a recalcitrant Congress to move quickly.

In an op-ed in The Washington Post, the president argued that each day without his stimulus package, now exceeding $900 billion in the Senate, Americans lose more jobs, savings and homes. He painted a bleak picture if lawmakers do nothing.

(The Star, emphasis added). The voters clearly stated which ideas they want and trust and which they do not.

Senate and House republicans seem to have not received that memo yet.

President Obama also issued and executive directive which will put some wind into the sails of the ship of state.

He directed them to use all dispatch to save energy and promulgate regulations toward that end.

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That's all folks. Except for a timely song:

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