If you had any doubt that global warming is a religion, and not a science, then the leaked emails from the University of East Anglia will not surprise you. These emails show a concerted effort to hide inconvenient data and use statistical “tricks” to make the data match the perceived notions of the investigators.

And don’t get me started on the global warming “time-out” that has the whole environmental community in a panic. For ten years, the global climate has not gotten warmer, and the environmentalists are seeing their schemes dissolve in inconvenient data.

Green is the new Red. It’s all a scam to put you under their control, you evil, energy-using human.

More at the Air Vent.

Hacked E-Mail Is New Fodder for Climate Dispute – NYTimes.com.

Hundreds of private e-mail messages and documents hacked from a computer server at a British university are causing a stir among global warming skeptics, who say they show that climate scientists conspired to overstate the case for a human influence on climate change.

The e-mail messages, attributed to prominent American and British climate researchers, include discussions of scientific data and whether it should be released, exchanges about how best to combat the arguments of skeptics, and casual comments — in some cases derisive — about specific people known for their skeptical views. Drafts of scientific papers and a photo collage that portrays climate skeptics on an ice floe were also among the hacked data, some of which dates back 13 years.

In one e-mail exchange, a scientist writes of using a statistical “trick” in a chart illustrating a recent sharp warming trend. In another, a scientist refers to climate skeptics as “idiots.”

Some skeptics asserted Friday that the correspondence revealed an effort to withhold scientific information. “This is not a smoking gun; this is a mushroom cloud,” said Patrick J. Michaels, a climatologist who has long faulted evidence pointing to human-driven warming and is criticized in the documents.

OK, I screwed up the first one. This demotivator has the real Joe Cassano.

Ron “End the Fed” Paul gets a huge victory in the House as the Financial Services Committee votes to audit the Federal Reserve.

Timothy Geithner will be looking for a new job in a few months. Count on it.

House Attacks Fed, Treasury – WSJ.com.

Political frustration over the rescue of Wall Street and high unemployment erupted in Congress Thursday, with one committee threatening to impose tighter scrutiny on the Federal Reserve and another excoriating Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

The House Financial Services Committee voted, 43-26, to approve a measure sponsored by Texas Republican Ron Paul, vociferously opposed by the Fed, that would direct the congressional Government Accountability Office to expand its audits of the Fed to include decisions about interest rates and lending to individual banks. The Fed says the provision threatens its ability to make monetary policy without political interference.

The vote was the latest blow to the central bank, which has been become a lightning rod for politicians responding to popular anger that Wall Street was bailed out while the public was not. The Fed faces a stinging backlash from legislators from both parties who argue that has too much power and too little oversight. On Thursday, the Senate Banking Committee began debating legislation that would largely remove the Fed from bank supervision over the objections of both the Fed and the Obama administration.

The long rumored Apple Tablet makes another vaporware appearance in Wired, this time with the news that it’s delayed by the addition of an OLED display.

Here’s the obligatory photoshop:

iTablet Gains OLED Display, Delayed Until Late 2010 | Gadget Lab | Wired.com.

If an unannounced product exists solely in the minds of speculative journalists and know-nothing analysts, can it be “delayed”? If so, then the fabled Apple tablet has just seen a setback to its non-existent launch date, pushing it to the second half of 2010.

The source? Component manufacturers for the iTablet, who, according to Digitimes, say that Apple has changed its mind on the product range (partway through production, it would seem) and decided to confuse customers with a split product launch.

Instead of the usual Apple strategy of launching one product, letting it run for a few years, and only then adding more lines (think iPod, which was on sale for two years before the Mini joined it, and iPhone, which is still the only iPhone), Digitimes’ sources claim that there will be two tablets at launch. One with a TFT screen will measure 10.6-inches and one with an OLED screen will measure 9.7-inches.

The recession really sucks if you’re a California college student. I wonder how many students will have to drop out?

Regents Raise Tuition 32 Percent in California – NYTimes.com.

The University of California Board of Regents approved a plan on Thursday to raise undergraduate fees — the equivalent of tuition — 32 percent by next fall, to help make up for steep cuts in state funding.

The state allocation for the 10-campus system, one of the leading public university systems in the nation, was cut $813 million, or 20 percent, this year, leading to a hiring freeze, furloughs and layoffs.

The impact on the University of California campuses has been dramatic: faculty hiring is not keeping up with enrollment demand, and many course sections have been eliminated. Instructional budgets are being reduced by $139 million, with 1,900 employees laid off, 3,800 positions eliminated and hiring deferred for nearly 1,600 positions, most of them faculty.

The Pirate Bay has shut down its BitTorrent tracker, in favor of a decentralized system. And it helps get the Swedish prosecutors off their back.

Pirate Bay Retires World’s Largest BitTorrent Tracker | Threat Level | Wired.com.

Operators of The Pirate Bay shuttered the site’s BitTorrent tracker on Tuesday, six years after it was founded.

Trackers — the servers that bootstrap each BitTorrent download — are no longer necessary with enhancements like DHT and PEX that allow peers to locate one another without accessing a central server, site operators wrote in the Bay’s blog.

“Now that the decentralized system for finding peers is so well developed, TPB has decided that there is no need to run a tracker anymore, so it will remain down!” reads the announcement. “It’s the end of an era.”

“This is what we consider to be the future,” the Bay wrote. “Faster and more stability for the users because there is no central point to rely upon.”

Yes, this new technology will make us lots of friends around the world, as we dump a 500 lb smart bomb on an alleged terrorist and kill 240 civilians, only to find the terrorist skipped out a few seconds before the bomb arrived.

Army Eyes Missiles Filled With Flying Spy Bots | Danger Room | Wired.com.

For the last few years, the U.S. military has been working on technologies and procedures that would allow them to conduct “prompt global strikes” — hits on targets anywhere in the world, in less than an hour. But Congress strongly objected the primary striker, a modified version of the Trident nuclear missile, because it would look and fly too much like an atomic attacker. Any shot contained the potential to inadvertently start World War III. Presumably, this Army project might start with a different sort of a missile, to avoid this wee issue.

Drones being shot out of missiles might mean a larger geographic range for surveillance, all in real time. But until the drones can analyze their own video, new robo-missiles won’t help the glut of data that’s coming in faster than personnel can scan it. Last year, chairman of the JASON Defense Advisory Group Roy F. Schwitters warned that “analysts are not currently equipped to cope with gobs of data and parse them in real time. This problem only will worsen as more surveillance aircraft are deployed.”

Just when you thought the Nanny State bureaucrats couldn’t possibly get any stupider, along comes the FDA’s proposed ban on alcoholic beverages with, get this, caffeine, in them.

Rum and coke. We’ve been drinking this concoction since coca cola was invented. No harm other than a few brain cells.

Duh! Get a real job.

Caffeine, Alcohol Drinks Targeted – WSJ.com.

The Food and Drug Administration is taking aim at caffeinated alcoholic drinks, saying it will pull them off the market unless manufacturers can prove the beverages are safe to drink.

On Friday, the FDA sent letters to nearly 30 companies, giving them 30 days to provide evidence that their drinks don't pose health or safety risks. The FDA hasn’t approved the use of caffeine in alcoholic beverages, and companies might have to show that experts generally think mixing caffeine and alcohol is safe for consumers.

The fast-growing segment includes United Brands Co.’s Joose, and Phusion Projects LLC’s Four Loko, both flavored malt beverages. “We are taking a look at the legal basis for the marketing of the products,” Joshua Sharfstein, the FDA’s principal deputy commissioner, told reporters.

A United Brands spokesman said it hadn’t received the FDA letter and declined to comment. Phusion Projects didn’t respond to requests for comment.