Former Apartheid Spy Appointed to Head UN Climate Change Effort

This week, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, South Africa’s tourism minister, was nominated to head the United Nations Framework on Climate Change (UNFCC). Van Schalkwyk is a former apartheid operative who bartered his way into the black majority government by helping it smear its democratic opposition. He is a statist bureaucrat who is one of the most unpopular political figures in the new South Africa. He is just right for the job.

There is no one better to put in charge of the entire political enterprise of climate change as it is collapsing amidst failed negotiations and accusations of fraud. Van Schalkwyk will be sure to hasten the end. He did the same when he took over the rump of South Africa’s National Party, the party of apartheid, and led it to crushing defeat. He gave up and joined the African National Congress (ANC) government in return for his ministry.

That was bad news for South Africans, as Van Schalkwyk encouraged other politicians to defect from the country’s leading opposition parties to join the corrupt and hegemonic  ANC. (An angry public began referring to those who crossed the floor for political favors as “crosstitutes.”) But it is good news for critics of the UN climate change bureaucracy, who now have a target who personifies everything there is to dislike about the system.

(more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | Tweet this |

Tags: african national congress, bureaucrat, centre for civil society, climate change skeptics, climate gate
Posted Mar 9th 2010 at 11:55 am in Environment, News, Politics | 8685856 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/jpollak/2010/03/09/former-apartheid-spy-appointed-to-head-un-climate-change-effort/Former+Apartheid+Spy+Appointed+to+Head+UN+Climate+Change+Effort2010-03-09+19%3A55%3A21Joel+B.+Pollak

President L-Dopa

It was a busy week for the global jihad. Thursday the mullahs’ mouthpiece, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, announced that the Islamic Republic of Iran had enriched uranium and was now a “nuclear state.”

I cannot believe the impotent West allowed this to happen. Someone padlock the UN – what’s the point? Just to fleece us? There was supposed to be some benefit to our putting up with all the thieving and embezzling, not to mention the raping and human trafficking of the UN “peacekeepers.”

Imagine Islam with nuclear weapon in a post-American world. What a time for America to have such a weakling in the White House.

(more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | Tweet this |

Tags: Barack Obama, Doha, Hillary Clinton, Iran, islamic republic of Iran
Posted Feb 13th 2010 at 10:18 am in Defense, News, Obama, Politics | 74466290 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/pgeller/2010/02/13/president-l-dopa/President+L-Dopa2010-02-13+18%3A18%3A49Pamela+Geller

Where Has Susan Rice, our UN Ambassador, Been This Past Year?

This week marks the one year anniversary of Susan Rice’s confirmation by the United States Senate to represent the American people at the United Nations.  Over the past 12 months, the U.S. has faced some serious foreign policy challenges such as Iran’s nuclear ambitions, North Korea’s ongoing nuclear weapons’ tests, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, freezing terrorists’ assets world-wide and now the on-going disaster in Haiti.  But while the UN struggles to find common ground on these and other important issues, Susan Rice has chosen to spend several days of the work week over the last year in Washington, DC hanging out at the White House and not engaging seriously in New York at the UN.

Rice started off her tenure at the UN with a glamour spread in Vogue Magazine by famed photographer Annie Leibovitz showing her kicking back in an empty Security Council Chamber.  It was this silly piece that first signaled to the UN reporters and diplomats that Rice was in New York to have fun and participate in the events that Upper East Side diplomats do.  While Rice does commute from Washington, DC every week, she lives in the penthouse of the Waldorf Astoria when in New York.  She also has the largest Washington, DC office and staff of any U.S. Ambassador to the UN in history.  She regularly attends White House social functions appearing as the Disney character “Goofy” at this year’s White House Halloween Party and attended multiple Christmas Parties at The White House this holiday season.
(more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | Tweet this |

Tags: iranian sanctions, John Bolton, Susan Rice, UN Negotiations, UN peacekeeping
Posted Jan 22nd 2010 at 9:59 am in News, Obama, Politics | 6411093 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/rgrenell/2010/01/22/where-has-susan-rice-our-un-ambassador-been-this-past-year/Where+Has+Susan+Rice%2C+our+UN+Ambassador%2C+Been+This+Past+Year%3F2010-01-22+17%3A59%3A43Richard++Grenell

The Toothless Visas Viper

After a series of successful and unsuccessful jihad attacks across this great nation, on Christmas day the crotch bomber struck, attempting to explode a bomb hidden in his underwear while landing in Detroit on Northwest Flight 253. And so after months of ignoring the jihad against America and pretending that nothing was happening, Barack Obama sprang into action — with useless, toothless reform.

In the wake of the Christmas Day bomber’s attempted attack, the US Visas Viper terrorist reporting program criteria have been broadened.

The Visas Viper program is used by the Department of State and other national agencies to place on “watch lists” known or suspected international terrorists in unclassified and classified government look out systems such as CLASS (Consular Lookout and Support Systems).

So it’s a good thing that Obama is broadening the criteria for reporting terrorists in this program, isn’t it? Actually, no. Make no mistake: it is not going to help whatsoever. Obama’s “tough” new criteria don’t let us filter out potential terrorists using minimal profiling criteria.

(more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | Tweet this |

Tags: Barack Obama, Christmas terror attack, Detroit terror attack, Gitmo, global warming
Posted Jan 15th 2010 at 9:34 am in Defense, Obama | 6021445 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/pgeller/2010/01/15/the-toothless-visas-viper/The+Toothless+Visas+Viper++2010-01-15+17%3A34%3A20Pamela+Geller

Copenhagen Shock: Greens Given US Government Badges to Gain Access

P.J. O’Rourke attended the World Environment Summit in Rio de Janiero in 1992, the confab that gave us the first “global warming” treaty, a document which Kyoto amended and the ongoing Copenhagen meeting is also to amend to get Kyoto II. There, he wrote, in the scrum caused by typical UN ineptitude an earnest lass cried out something along the lines of “this is what life would be like in an overpopulated world!” To which O’Rourke replied, no, dear, this is what life would be like in a world run by the United Nations.

Well, similarly, you may by now have heard that Copenhagen is proceeding in even worse than normal fashion, thanks to 45,00 attendees — either Party, Observer or Media — having been accredited. The hall being used holds 15,000. The spillover is not so much from the welfare-seeking countries and their delegates but delegates from non-governmental organizations (NGOs). These include mostly green pressure groups but also groups like the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the Chamber of Commerce.

(more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | Tweet this |

Tags: Al Gore, climate change, Competitive Enterprise Institute, Copenhagen blizzard, Copenhagen conference
Posted Dec 18th 2009 at 11:53 am in Environment, News, Obama | 4919420 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/chorner/2009/12/18/copenhagen-shock-greens-given-us-government-badges-to-gain-access/Copenhagen+Shock%3A+Greens+Given+US+Government+Badges+to+Gain+Access2009-12-18+19%3A53%3A26Christopher+C.+Horner

Disputed Science Can Lead to Disastrous Decisions in Copenhagen

As President Obama jets off to Denmark for the UN’s climate conference, I hope he will take some time as he flies over the Atlantic Ocean to revisit the science that led him to this trip.

The EPA sure didn’t.

Last week, unelected officials at the EPA abruptly put an end to honest debate by unilaterally declaring carbon dioxide a “harmful substance” and putting themselves in position to begin regulating emissions from every business and farm in America.

In making this rash decision, they have relied heavily upon findings by climate-change scientists that have been subsequently discredited by the scientists’ own e-mails, which indicate data manipulation and the exile of fellow researchers who didn’t agree with the group’s accepted, foregone conclusions.

As governor of a state that will be unfairly and dramatically impacted by the EPA’s ill-informed decision – one that will cost each Texas family $1,136 annually in higher costs and eliminate as many as 400,000 Texas jobs – this is simply unacceptable.

(more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | Tweet this |

Tags: Barack Obama, cap-and-trade, carbon caps, carbon emissions, climate change
Posted Dec 17th 2009 at 10:29 am in Environment, Featured Story | 48490235 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/rperry/2009/12/17/disputed-science-can-lead-to-disastrous-decisions-in-copenhagen/Disputed+Science+Can+Lead+to+Disastrous+Decisions+in+Copenhagen2009-12-17+18%3A29%3A20Gov.+Rick+Perry+%28R-TX%29

US Deal In Copenhagen Wrong For Our Country

All across this nation, families and businesses are struggling to make ends meet. Millions of Americans have lost their jobs and many more worry that they will be next. But Americans are meeting these times with courage and by putting first things first, at least everywhere but the White House.

It is astonishing that in the midst of the worst recession in 26 years, this administration and Democrat leaders continue to advance job-killing proposals like the national energy tax and will carry that message to the global warming convention in Copenhagen.

Rather than making a priority of creating jobs, the president plans to attend negotiations at the United Nation’s convention on climate change in Denmark. This decision is wrong on several levels. The administration’s participation in the Copenhagen negotiations raises a number of concerns that the president should address before catching his flight.

(more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | Tweet this |

Tags: cap-and-trade, carbon emissions, climate change, Copenhagen, economic recessions
Posted Dec 16th 2009 at 2:13 pm in Congress, Environment, Featured Story, Obama | 4767452 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/mpence/2009/12/16/us-deal-in-copenhagen-wrong-for-our-country/US+Deal+In+Copenhagen+Wrong+For+Our+Country2009-12-16+22%3A13%3A13Rep.+Mike+Pence+%28R-IN%29

Monday Open Thread: UN Edition

Today, in 1946, the UN General Assembly voted to establish its headquarters in New York City. (Parking enforcement would never be the same.)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | Tweet this |

Tags: diplomatic immunity, UN General Assembly, United Nations
Posted Dec 14th 2009 at 4:28 am in Open Threads | 4571048 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/publius/2009/12/14/monday-open-thread-un-edition/Monday+Open+Thread%3A+UN+Edition2009-12-14+12%3A28%3A08Publius

UN Security Stops Journalist’s Questions About ClimateGate

A Stanford Professor has used United Nation security officers to silence a journalist asking him “inconvenient questions”  during a press briefing at the climate change conference in Copenhagen.

Professor Stephen Schneider’s assistant requested armed UN security officers who held film maker Phelim McAleer, ordered him to stop filming and prevented further questioning after the press conference where the Stanford academic was launching a book.

McAleer, a veteran journalist and film maker, has recently made a documentary “Not Evil Just Wrong’ which takes a sceptical look at the science and politics behind Global Warming concerns.

(more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | Tweet this |

Tags: Al Gore, climate change, climate emails, global warming, Inconvenient Truth
Posted Dec 11th 2009 at 10:13 am in Environment, Exclusives, News, Politics | 44722720 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/mikeflynn/2009/12/11/un-security-stops-journalists-questions-about-climategate/UN+Security+Stops+Journalist%27s+Questions+About+ClimateGate2009-12-11+18%3A13%3A16Mike+Flynn

ClimateGate and the UN: New Red Scare over Green Lies

Believe it or not, the UN just whined that climategate is the Russian’s fault. It appears that the United Nation’s position is that the obvious cover-up of the false doctrine that is global warming perpetrated by global warming “scientists” is not the fault of the lying scientists, but that of the assumed “paid” Russian hacker that hacked the globaloney scientist’s emails and exposed the cover-up to the world. Convoluted reasoning, no?

Remember when you were a child and your Mother discovered through hearing about it from the neighbors that you were doing something you weren’t supposed to be doing? Remember how instead of taking responsibility for your actions you cried that it wasn’t right that someone narced on you? Well, that is the same sort of childish, facile reasoning that the UN has employed to explain away this climaegate scandal.

Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, a vice-chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), recently said that the hacked emails from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) were obtained and hyped by Russia in order to “destroy public confidence” in the “science” of man-made global warming… or is it now “climate change”? It’s hard to keep up with their constant name changing as they look for more sellable rhetoric.

(more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | Tweet this |

Tags: Al Gore, anti-capitalism, cap-and-trade, climate emails, climate gate
Posted Dec 7th 2009 at 7:33 pm in Culture, Economics, Environment, News | 4204699 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/wthuston/2009/12/07/climategate-and-the-un-new-red-scare-over-green-lies/ClimateGate+and+the+UN%3A+New+Red+Scare+over+Green+Lies2009-12-08+02%3A33%3A56Warner+Todd++Huston

Pork Report November 19, 2009: Party Cruise Edition

“Are caged chickens miserable?,” asks three-year study funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture

Party cruise ship receives $123,000 stimulus grant to protect it from terrorist attacks; “We feel that we’re really a low threat for a terrorist incident,” says owner, “but the stimulus was a nice perk.”

U.S. government made more than $98 billion in erroneous payments this year alone

Federal grant intended to prevent tobacco use spent on junkets, tribal elections, and publishing a newspaper

(more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | Tweet this |

Tags: Department of Agriculture, federal grant, federal waste, party cruise, skate park
Posted Nov 19th 2009 at 12:21 pm in Pork Report | 3374218 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/porkreport/2009/11/19/pork-report-november-19-2009-party-cruise-edition/Pork+Report+November+19%2C+2009%3A+Party+Cruise+Edition2009-11-19+19%3A21%3A39The+Pork+Report

Kyoto II, the Obama Administration and the Constitution

I have one item of suggested reading before passing judgment on the occasionally strident internet-sensation that is the commentary by Lord Monckton on the draft negotiating text for an anticipated U.S. signature in December — certain to be delayed, to July — on a successor to the Kyoto Protocol (discussed with Monckton on BreitbartTV here). That instrument is of course the “global treaty” assigning economically damaging responsibilities to 35 industrialized countries (the titans Iceland, Luxembourg, Slovenia, Slovakia…) but not 155 others (such as tiny China, India, Mexico, South Korea, Brazil, Indonesia…) .

The reason I suggest this is because one of the more hot-button items Monckton raises, the Kyotophile desire to get around at least half of the allegedly out-dated concept of Article II “advice and consent”, has, despite certain parties insisting that Monckton’s commentary offers nothing of interest…move along now…for more than a year been telegraphed by Obamaphile activists. It was even alluded to in a paper by someone who now carries the title of our nation’s “Climate Envoy” (really). And now the Obama administration is reported to have briefed European diplomats to be ready to accommodate certain delays and procedures that this would require.

First, allow me to note one particular, relevant specific on which I differ with Lord Monckton’s assessment. That is the notion that the administration would just adopt Kyoto through domestic legislation. He may just be short-handing it here, which if so, I understand, but it is important to get the specifics on the record. It is of course the point of the Waxman-Markey and Kerry-Boxer cap-and-trade bills to adopt Kyoto’s principal obligation of carbon dioxide emission reduction, though these bills’ only international components are direct and indirect wealth transfers of a few billion dollars a year to other countries. There are no substantive sovereignty implications, outside of certain energy security concerns.

(more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | Tweet this |

Tags: Al Gore, cap-and-trade, carbon emissions, climate change, Copenhagen
Posted Oct 26th 2009 at 7:30 am in Environment, Justice/Legal, Politics | 2085019 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/chorner/2009/10/26/kyoto-ii-the-obama-administration-and-the-constitution/Kyoto+II%2C+the+Obama+Administration+and+the+Constitution2009-10-26+14%3A30%3A27Christopher+C.+Horner

No More Nukes: The Fantastical Dream of Barack Obama, Aged 48 and 1/6

When President Obama first announced his desire to rid the world of nuclear weapons, I laughed out loud. After all, what’s not to chuckle at?

Would he next offer future generations the gift of flight, like Britain’s Natural Law Party, or promise to abolish death like would-be Russian presidential candidate Grigory Grabovoi, shortly before he was jailed for accepting money to reincarnate a non-existent victim of the Beslan Tragedy?

Of course not, I thought. It’s just the usual political waffle, nothing to waste time thinking about. The president was striking a pose, attempting to sound statesmanlike, that sort of thing. All politicians indulge in this type of empty, grandstanding rhetoric and Obama’s personal weakness for it is well established. Meanwhile he had presented Russia with an opportunity to get rid of a lot of old weapons they didn’t really want any more, without losing face. Perhaps that was the plan: a conciliatory gesture to the Bear in the hope that it would help in other areas. Good luck with that, by the way.

(more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | Tweet this |

Tags: Beslan Tragedy, Fox News, G-20, Gaddafi, Gordon Brown
Posted Oct 1st 2009 at 7:00 am in Defense, Media Criticism, News, Obama, Political Humor | 1073466 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/dkalder/2009/10/01/no-more-nukes-the-fantastical-dream-of-barack-obama-aged-48-and-16/No+More+Nukes%3A+The+Fantastical+Dream+of+Barack+Obama%2C+Aged+48+and+1%2F62009-10-01+14%3A00%3A58Daniel+Kalder

Is Obama the Next Woodrow Wilson?

At the end of last week, I was watching President Obama’s speech before the United Nations. I must admit it was given with eloquence and was quite moving. However, for the most part it was rhetoric and the dreams of an idealistic man in Fantasyland. I do not want to really beat a dead horse, but as stated in my last article about the ideology of liberals, President Obama’s foreign policy completely ignores reality. It is almost delusional. Obama dreams about everything being utopian, but ignores the writings on the wall. And, in the process he insults our trusted ally Israel by demanding it stop building settlements without requiring the Palestinians to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist.

The speech was also very Wilsonian. I could imagine the words of Woodrow Wilson pitching the League of Nations to the United States Congress after the end of World War One. The League of Nations “is a definite guaranty of peace. It is a definite guaranty by word against aggression. It is a definite guaranty against the things which have just come near bringing the whole structure of civilization into ruin. Its purposes do not for a moment lie vague. Its purposes are declared, and its powers are unmistakable. It is not in contemplation that this should be merely a league to secure the peace of the world. It is a league which can be used for cooperation in any international matter.” In fact, parts of President Obama’s speech today mirrored these themes exactly. (more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | Tweet this |

Tags: Gaza Strip, Hamas, Israel, League of Nations, Obama
Posted Sep 27th 2009 at 9:36 am in History, Obama, Politics | 9170122 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/fdemartini/2009/09/27/is-obama-the-next-woodrow-wilson/Is+Obama+the+Next+Woodrow+Wilson%3F2009-09-27+16%3A36%3A55Frank+DeMartini

Who Is and Isn’t Qualified to Speak on Global Warming

Mere days before Senators Barbara Boxer and John Kerry are scheduled to introduce their version of controversial global warming “cap-and-trade” legislation — if several months after EPA whistle-blower Dr. Alan Carlin drew attention to the fact that the recent published scientific literature presents a decided tilt against prevailing “global warming” scientific wisdom — the New York Times has run a piece diminishing Dr. Carlin’s stature and findings.

This meme is picked up by those running with the Times’ “news”. For example, today’s trade press outlet “E&E Daily” styles their #2 story this way: “Employee lacked credentials for endangerment views”.

That’s odd.

Carlin has been with EPA since its inception in the early 1970s, having earned a degree in physics from CalTech. His lack of the same qualifications implicitly possessed by our law-givers comes from his having gone on to attain a PhD in economics from MIT.

This is different than the Times’ (and others’) treatment of and lack of interest in the academic training of the individual regularly cited without such “just an economist” commentary as a leading and essentially unimpeachable authority, the economist and former railway engineer Rajendra Pachauri. The Times has even hailed Pachauri in the past as the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s chief “climatologist”. Climatology is a specialty field if ever there was one but a qualification which Pachauri, for all of his other virtues toiling for years in the UN vineyards, attained by virtue of being appointed to head the IPCC. This is unfairly disparate treatment.

(more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | Tweet this |

Tags: CalTech, Climatology, Dr. Alan Carlin, EPA, IPCC
Posted Sep 25th 2009 at 11:23 am in Environment, Media Criticism, Politics | 863064 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/chorner/2009/09/25/who-is-and-isnt-qualified-to-speak-on-global-warming/Who+Is+and+Isn%27t+Qualified+to+Speak+on+Global+Warming2009-09-25+18%3A23%3A55Christopher+C.+Horner