The Road to 1984 Under the Semblance of Conservation

To establish a social and behavioral sciences research program at the Department of Energy, and for other purposes. (Introduced in House)

HR 3247 IH

111th CONGRESS

1st Session
H. R. 3247
To establish a social and behavioral sciences research program at the Department of Energy, and for other purposes.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

July 17, 2009

Mr. BAIRD introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Science and Technology

A BILL

To establish a social and behavioral sciences research program at the Department of Energy, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES RESEARCH PROGRAM.

(a) In General- The Secretary shall establish a social and behavioral sciences research program to identify and understand social and behavioral factors that influence energy consumption and acceptance and adoption rates of new energy technologies, and to promote the utilization of the results of social and behavioral research to improve the design, development, demonstration, and application of energy technologies.

(b) Director- The Secretary shall appoint or designate a Director of Social and Behavioral Research to carry out the program established under this section.

(c) Duties of the Director- The Director shall--

• (1) develop a research plan in accordance with section 2;


• (2) implement the research program under this section;


• (3) work with the relevant Department of Energy program offices to integrate the results of social and behavioral research into their work;


• (4) develop tools, practices, and information to apply and integrate the results of social and behavioral research into programs that--

(A) design, develop, and demonstrate technologies that supply energy and improve energy efficiency; and

(B) provide information on energy consumption to consumers; and

• (5) assist the Secretary in awarding research grants under section 3.
  SEC. 2. RESEARCH PLAN.

(a) In General- The Director, in consultation with the Advisory Committee established under section 4, shall develop a research plan and, not later than 9 months after the date of enactment of this Act, transmit such plan to the Congress. Prior to finalizing the research plan, the Director shall publish a draft of the proposed research plan in the Federal Register with a public comment period of not less than 30 days.

(b) Contents of Research Plan- The research plan shall--

• (1) set forth priorities and a schedule for carrying out the research program under section 1 and the research grant program under section 3;


• (2) address social and behavioral factors that influence--


• (A) patterns of energy consumption by individuals, households, and businesses; and

(B) decisions to implement energy conservation measures,
including the factors that influence decisions to adopt energy efficient technologies and practices;

• (3) include a description of the mechanisms the Department will use to integrate the findings of social and behavioral research into other relevant Department programs; and


• (4) include responses to comments received during the public comment period.

(c) Review and Revision- The Director shall review the research plan every 5 years and revise the plan as appropriate.

SEC. 3. SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL RESEARCH GRANTS.

(a) In General- The Secretary shall provide grants to support social and behavioral research consistent with the research plan developed under section 2.

(b) Awards- Grant awards under this section may be for a period up to 3 years. The Secretary shall award grants through a competitive, merit-based, peer-reviewed process.

(c) Authorization of Appropriations- There are authorized to be appropriated to the Secretary to carry out this section $10,000,000 for each of fiscal years 2010 through 2015.

SEC. 4. SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL RESEARCH ADVISORY COMMITTEE.

(a) Establishment- The Secretary shall establish an Advisory Committee composed of experts in relevant fields--

• (1) to advise the Secretary and the Director on priority areas for research;


• (2) to assist the Director in the development of the research plan under section 2; and


• (3) to provide other assistance and advice as requested by the Secretary or the Director.

(b) Federal Advisory Committee Act- Section 14 of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (5 U.S.C. App.) shall not apply to the Advisory Committee established under subsection (a) until 3 years after the date the Advisory Committee is established.

Great article by an Australian scientist

Global warming is the new religion of First World urban elites

Geologist Ian Plimer takes a contrary view, arguing that man-made climate change is a con trick perpetuated by environmentalists

By Jonathan Manthorpe, Vancouver Sun
July 28, 2009

Ian Plimer has outraged the ayatollahs of purist environmentalism, the Torquemadas of the doctrine of global warming, and he seems to relish the damnation they heap on him.
Plimer is a geologist, professor of mining geology at Adelaide University, and he may well be Australia's best-known and most notorious academic.

Plimer, you see, is an unremitting critic of "anthropogenic global warming" -- man-made climate change to you and me -- and the current environmental orthodoxy that if we change our polluting ways, global warming can be reversed.

It is, of course, not new to have a highly qualified scientist saying that global warming is an entirely natural phenomenon with many precedents in history. Many have made the argument, too, that it is rubbish to contend human behaviour is causing the current climate change. And it has often been well argued that it is totally ridiculous to suppose that changes in human behaviour -- cleaning up our act through expensive slight-of-hand taxation tricks -- can reverse the trend.

But most of these scientific and academic voices have fallen silent in the face of environmental Jacobinism. Purging humankind of its supposed sins of environmental degradation has become a religion with a fanatical and often intolerant priesthood, especially among the First World urban elites.

But Plimer shows no sign of giving way to this orthodoxy and has just published the latest of his six books and 60 academic papers on the subject of global warming. This book, Heaven and Earth -- Global Warming: The Missing Science, draws together much of his previous work. It springs especially from A Short History of Plant Earth, which was based on a decade of radio broadcasts in Australia.

That book, published in 2001, was a best-seller and won several prizes. But Plimer found it hard to find anyone willing to publish this latest book, so intimidating has the environmental lobby become.

But he did eventually find a small publishing house willing to take the gamble and the book has already sold about 30,000 copies in Australia. It seems also to be doing well in Britain and the United States in the first days of publication.

Plimer presents the proposition that anthropogenic global warming is little more than a con trick on the public perpetrated by fundamentalist environmentalists and callously adopted by politicians and government officials who love nothing more than an issue that causes public anxiety.

While environmentalists for the most part draw their conclusions based on climate information gathered in the last few hundred years, geologists, Plimer says, have a time frame stretching back many thousands of millions of years.

The dynamic and changing character of the Earth's climate has always been known by geologists. These changes are cyclical and random, he says. They are not caused or significantly affected by human behaviour.

Polar ice, for example, has been present on the Earth for less than 20 per cent of geological time, Plimer writes. Plus, animal extinctions are an entirely normal part of the Earth's evolution.

(Plimer, by the way, is also a vehement anti-creationist and has been hauled into court for disrupting meetings by religious leaders and evangelists who claim the Bible is literal truth.)

Plimer gets especially upset about carbon dioxide, its role in Earth's daily life and the supposed effects on climate of human manufacture of the gas. He says atmospheric carbon dioxide is now at the lowest levels it has been for 500 million years, and that atmospheric carbon dioxide is only 0.001 per cent of the total amount of the chemical held in the oceans, surface rocks, soils and various life forms. Indeed, Plimer says carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, but a plant food. Plants eat carbon dioxide and excrete oxygen. Human activity, he says, contributes only the tiniest fraction to even the atmospheric presence of carbon dioxide.

There is no problem with global warming, Plimer says repeatedly. He points out that for humans periods of global warming have been times of abundance when civilization made leaps forward. Ice ages, in contrast, have been times when human development slowed or even declined.

So global warming, says Plimer, is something humans should welcome and embrace as a harbinger of good times to come.

A Moron For All Seasons

During his speech at a National Press Club luncheon, House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.), questioned the point of lawmakers reading the health care bill:

“I love these members, they get up and say, ‘Read the bill,’” said
Conyers.

“What good is reading the bill if it’s a thousand pages and you don’t
have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the
bill?”

Hey Conyers, if it is too hard to read the bill and even harder to understand it; VOTE NO!

Well, at least Conyers is stupid enough to attempt and explain why doesn't read important bills. The rest just make believe that they care. What a despicable conglomerate of dunces.

See Video

In case you are not familiar with this clown:

In letters sent separately to the House Ethics Committee, the FBI, and the US Attorney's office by two former aides of Conyers, they alleged that Conyers used his staff to work on several local and state campaigns and forced them to baby-sit and chauffeur his children.

In late December 2006, Conyers "accepted responsibility" for possibly violating House rules. A statement issued December 29, 2006, by the House Ethics Committee Chairman Doc Hasting (R-Wash.) and Ranking Minority Member Howard Berman (D-Calif.), said that Conyers acknowledged what he characterized as a "lack of clarity" in his communications with staff members regarding their official duties and responsibilities, and accepted responsibility for his actions. In deciding to drop the matter, Hastings and Berman state: After reviewing the information gathered during the inquiry, and in light of Representative Conyers’ cooperation with the inquiry, we have concluded that this matter should be resolved through the issuance of this public statement and the agreement by Representative Conyers to take a number of additional, significant steps to ensure that his office complies with all rules and standards regarding campaign and personal work by congressional staff.

Israelis Protest Against Obama!

I contrast with the Jewish community in the United States, Israeli Jews, and particularly the Orthodox fringe, see in Obama and his policies an existential threat to the survival of the Jewish state.

Read Article

NO COMMENT!!!

Read this article and ask yourself what would be the headlines if the records broken were in reverse.

Read Article

And while we are on the subject...

Read Article

A Conspiracy of Silence: U.S. Media and Honor Killings

Several weeks ago, reports from Kingston, Ontario, told the story of three sisters aged 13 to 19 and another female relative, age 50, immigrants from Afghanistan, who had drowned in the Rideau Canal near Kingston. The supposedly heartsick parents told the police that their daughters had taken the car without permission, and had drowned in this accident. Today, CJAD, a Montreal radio station, reports that the parents were arrested on their way to the airport in an attempt to flee the country.

The police are investigating these deaths as honor killings.

Meanwhile, as Mark Steyn reports:

"Police say 14-year-old Kinza Kaianad died Monday evening at Kingston General Hospital as a result of injuries she sustained Saturday in a hotel pool in Gananoque, roughly 30 kilometres east of Kingston.

Her mother, 43-year-old Naila Yasmin, died in hospital on Sunday. Yasmin, Kaianad and another daughter, age 11, were found unconscious in the indoor hotel pool just before 9 a.m. Saturday.

There would seem to be a statistically improbable number of multiple drownings of
female members of Muslim families in Kingston this summer. If you're a young
female Muslim, and you have any say in the matter, you might want to vacation
elsewhere.

[UPDATE: The third Muslim girl found in the swimming pool has died. That's seven drowned young Muslim females showing up in the same morgue within a month. In other circumstances, they'd be planning the movie with Ashley Judd or some such as the crusading feminist Assistant DA. But as the M-word's involved I expect poor Zainab Shafi and the rest will be quickly forgotten.]"

It is difficult to ascertain the number of honor killing that are taking place in Western Europe, and North and South America, but we can be sure that it is large. Actually, one would be too many.

The question that arises is why have these killings not become the topic of investigative reporting and feminist rage? Is it that the liberal left is seeing this just as part of accepting multiculturalism and the fact that Islam condones this treatment of women?

If so, why are they not willing to accept Judeo-Christian multicultural values when dealing with homosexuality and abortion.

I am more inclined to believe that the the lack of reporting has more to do with the campaign for intimidation subsidized by the Saudis and which involves lengthy and costly litigation.

The video of the beheading of Daniel Pearl probably is there too, in the back of journalist's minds.

Okay , let's go back to investigating real crimes.

Let's start in Cambridge and the horrendous and brutal treatment of professor Gates where the police acted stupidly.

For Radical Muslims: The Constitution has to go!

The 2009 Hizb ut-Tahrir conference featured an illuminating exchange between a questioner from the audience and a conference speaker. Their identities were not immediately available.

Transcript:

Audience Member: "Would you get rid of the Constitution for Shariah, yes or no?"

Imam: "Over the Muslim world? Yes, it would be gone."

Audience Member: "And so if the United States was a Muslim world, the Constitution would be gone?"

Imam: "If the United States was in the Muslim world, the Muslims who are here would be calling and happy to see the Shariah applied, yes we would."

Audience Member: "And the Constitution gone. That's all. "

Imam: "Yes as Muslims they would be long gone."

Audience Member: 'You answered."

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