Handing Over Spy Resources For Free - What?

CIA resources are being used for WHAT? You have got to be kidding me, the New York Times is trumpeting the reversal of another Bush Administration policy. An order to the CIA that will allow members of the leading intelligentsia access to top secret satellite data, to watch arctic melting?

Let me see if I have this correct. The New York Times (1) is breaking the news that the current administration is reversing the previous administration's treatment of CIA resources by placing CIA intelligence gathering resources in the hands of some sixty academic "smarty pants" to study what else... the failed science of global warming.

"Dr. Untersteiner (Professor from University of Washington ) will be able to take active moving picture views of the Arctic. He said (in recent New York Times article)... that Arctic thaws (emphasis mine) will open new fisheries and sea lanes for shipping..." Did I read that correctly, someone out there is still trying to tell us that the arctic is thawing? What part of the fact that the earth isn't warming and has been cooling for the past ten years, don't they understand?

Let's take a look at recent news stories: Vermont has 33 inches of snow dumped on it in one overnight snow storm, setting an all time record. Iowa temperatures are a solid 30 degrees below normal, temperatures in negative double digits this month. Seoul Korea is buried under the heaviest snowfall (11 inches) since they started measuring this type of weather in 1937. Beijing, China is the coldest it has been in 40 years. the temperature is running at a minus 16 degrees Fahrenheit. And what of Miami, for crying in your fruity cocktails, they are having their coldest weather in a decade.

So in spite of the obvious facts in front of them, the current administration's CIA, wants to reverse the Bush administration's decision to conserve the satellite's use to something actually related to the security of the nation, to making spy data available to Al Gore and his friends.

No matter the weather outside their windows, some folks in Washington are upset that there are actually people willing to be naysayers of the adventure. They are making the usual blanket objections, such as Bush was anti-environment and this really doesn't take away from the search for terrorists. This is really just using the information that is already there... free for the taking... using what no one is looking at... compelling arguments, perhaps.

Dr. Untersteiner added that the federal government had already adopted one of the prior report's "recommendations - to have reconnaissance satellites follow particular ice floes as they drift through the Arctic basin rather than just monitor static sites." Let me say that slowly for those who are upset with any opposition to this redirection of security assets.

Dr. Untersteiner stated that the government has decided to re-task the satellites to follow particular ice floes. The last time I checked the cost to re-task a satellite was a whole lot more than "free."

So much for simply making free "useless" already gathered information available to our "smarty pant" professors. More waste and abuse of my tax dollars for the continuation of studies attempting to prop up a failed science. Can someone get me a sweater, it is really "warming" up out here.