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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brumar89 who wrote (939018)

6/9/2016 4:19:17 PM

From: FJB

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Brumar89

Respond to of 1574575

U.S. Taxpayers Are Funding Iran’s Military
Power Line by John Hinderaker

Eli Lake uncovers the latest Iran scandal:

One of the unexpected results of President Barack Obama’s new opening to Iran is that U.S. taxpayers are now funding both sides of the Middle East’s arms race. The U.S. is deliberately subsidizing defense spending for allies like Egypt and Israel. Now the U.S. is inadvertently paying for some of Iran’s military expenditures as well.

It all starts with $1.7 billion the U.S. Treasury wired to Iran’s Central Bank in January….

For months it was unclear what Iran’s government would do with this money. But last month the mystery was solved when Iran’s Guardian Council approved the government’s 2017 budget that instructed Iran’s Central Bank to transfer the $1.7 billion to the military.

Saeed Ghasseminejad, an associate fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, spotted the budget item. He told me the development was widely reported in Iran by numerous sources including the state-funded news services.

It is important to note that this is above and beyond the $100 billion (or whatever the number turns out to be) that Iran has received or will receive in unfrozen assets. These are US taxpayer dollars:

Republicans and some Democrats who opposed Obama’s nuclear deal have argued that the end of some sanctions would help to fund Iran’s military. But at least that was Iran’s money already (albeit frozen in overseas bank accounts). The $1.7 billion that Treasury transferred to Iran in January is different.

A portion of it, $400 million, came from a trust fund comprising money paid by the government of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, a U.S. ally, for arms sold to Iran before the 1979 revolution. Those sales were cut off in 1979 after revolutionaries took over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and held the American staff hostage for 444 days. The remaining $1.3 billion represents interest on the $400 million principle over more than 36 years.
***
According to a letter from the State Department to Representative Mike Pompeo, a Republican who has called for an investigation into the January payment, that money came out of something known as the Judgment Fund, which is “a source of funding to pay judgments and claims against the United States when there is no other source of funding.”

The rationale for payment of this $1.7 billion to Iran is unclear, but the timing suggests that it was paid in exchange for release of American prisoners:

In January, many observers, including Pompeo, said the transfer was more like a ransom payment because it coincided with the release of five Americans detained in Iran. The Iranian commander of the Basiji militia, Mohammad Reza Naghdi, said at the time: “Taking this much money back was in return for the release of the American spies.” The White House disputed this claim and said the payment was independent of the negotiation to release the American prisoners.

As usual, Iran’s government is more credible than our own.

One more thing I hadn’t realized: in the wake of the nuclear deal with the Obama administration, Iran has nearly doubled its military budget.

Iran’s 2017 $19 billion defense budget has increased by 90 percent from 2016, according to Ghasseminejad.

We now know where $1.7 billion of that came from.

The mullahs don’t think their number one security issue is global warming, so we can assume that our $1.7 billion, along with the unfrozen assets, will be spent effectively to undermine the interests of the U.S. and its allies.

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To: Brumar89 who wrote (939018)	6/9/2016 4:23:44 PM
From: Brumar89	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1574575

Veteran German Geologist On Models: Forcing For Solar Activity Likely Will Have To Be “Drastically Increased”! [ The discredited Mann hockey stick chart erased the MWP & LIA. The studies this geologist has listed shows the MWP was real and worldwide. ] By P Gosselin on 8. June 2016 German geologist and the author of climate science-critical book The Neglected Sun, Dr. Sebastian Lüning has entered his Medieval Warming Period Map in the French government sponsored contest “ 100 Projects For The Climate“. Right: Dr. Sebastian Lüning. Photo Die kalte Sonne. Within the scope of the 100 Projects For The Climate campaign, French Minister of Environment Ségolène Royal created an Internet platform that has the aim of promoting the 100 most innovative citizens’ initiatives for climate. This is all taking place as part of the April 2016 Environment Conference in Paris. Background here. Lüning’s outstanding Medieval Warming Period (MWP) climate mapping tool allows users to click on any of the numerous flags on the map to call up studies that examine the Medieval Warm Period climate for the that particular area. Please vote for Dr. Lüning’s project here(The “Vote” button is at bottom right side, click on “Crush”) Clearly the studies are showing that the MWP was a global phenomenon, and not one that was isolated in the North Atlantic – as some scientists have tried to have us believe. INTERVIEWI posed some questions to Dr. Lüning about the project, and his fascinating answers follow: What caused you to start the project? The climate of the past 1000 years is still surprisingly poorly understood. Especially the Medieval Warm Period (MWP: 1000-1200 AD) lends itself as a key analogue to be compared with the 20th century warming. Which areas have warmed, which cooled during the MWP, and possible reasons. The project aims to come up with maps integrating a great number of studies which have been all too often ignored up to now.” What surprises if any, did you find? At least half of all studies focus on changes in hydro-climate. Studies with information and trends on temperature are less frequent than I thought. About 95% of all temperature studies found a warming during the Medieval Warm Period. However there are also some case studies which found cooling. In most cases the cooling is associated with cold meltwater from glaciers that has cooled fjords. In other local cases wind direction changed and coastal upwelling brought colder waters to the surface. It is very important to distinguish regional trends from local developments and their origins.” In your opinion, have the IPCC and models taken the MWP accurately into account? Once the data acquisition and mapping is completed, I will take a close look at the AR5 IPCC report to better understand the IPCC database and reporting.” So far, does your analysis show the MWP was global? Yes. Especially the wide distribution of MWP warming in Antarctica was surprisingly obvious. It becomes ever clearer that the MWP was not restricted to the Northern Hemisphere. Apart from the temperature curve, the MWP also led to major changes in hydro-climate. This is probably the second key result of the mapping so far. Areas with trends of wetter and drier climate during the MWP can be mapped out, which previously were not always identified systematically.” Do you think the IPCC needs to revise it’s view of the MWP? The MWP warming is already recognized by the IPCC. Deep inside the AR5 report the authors admit that the models cannot reproduce the amount of warming identified in the case studies. The new MWP mapping will help to interpret the MWP on a much higher level of detail. It will help to compare apples to apples, and avoid averaging across regions with opposite trends, e.g. in hydro-climate. It will be easier to detect outliers, data errors, interpretation issues and age dating problems.” What implications could your findings have for the models. It is fundamental that climate models reproduce the past climate before they are used for future climate modelling. Noteworthy: solar activity during the MWP was equally high as during the late 20th century warming while it declined significantly during the cold Little Ice Age. The global MWP results will help to calibrate the climate models. It is likely that radiative forcing (RF) for solar activity changes has to be drastically increased while the RF of CO2 would have to be reduced accordingly. Climate modellers have to accept this challenge and be open for pragmatic solutions, independent of political constraints and implications.” Little wonder CO2 climate forcing has been significantly revised downwards over the past decade. The science is catching up to reality, but the politics will need some more time.” - See more at: http://notrickszone.com/2016/06/08/veteran-german-geologist-in-models-forcing-for-solar-activity-likely-will-have-to-be-drastically-increased/#sthash.E7wA82hg.dpuf MWP map showing the studies that show the MWP was a worldwide phenomenom: https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1akI_yGSUlO_qEvrmrIYv9kHknq4