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Insider Report from Newsmax.com

Headlines (Scroll down for complete stories):
1. California Bill Outlaws Gay Counseling
2. Federal Report: 'Green Jobs' Include Trash Collectors
3. Taxes Now Higher Than Food, Clothing, Shelter Costs
4. U.S. Immigration Policies Raise Risk of Terrorist Attack
5. More Than Half of World's Population Now Lives in Cities
6. We Heard: Andrew Cuomo, News Corp.

1. California Bill Outlaws Gay Counseling

A bill before the California Senate would make it a crime to counsel gay young people about changing their sexual orientation.

California Senate Bill 1172 bans "reparative therapy" administered to patients under age 18 by therapists, psychologists, counselors, and parents. Violators could be subject to arrest, fines, and possible jail time.

The sponsor of the bill, Democrat Ted Lieu, said it helps raise public awareness of the "junk science" that purports to change a person's sexual orientation.

"Under the guise of a California license, some therapists are taking advantage of vulnerable people by pushing dangerous sexual orientation-change efforts," he said after the bill passed out of the California Senate Business, Professions and Economic Development Committee on Tuesday.

But Brad Dacus, president of the Pacific Justice Institute of Sacramento, vows to challenge the constitutionality of the bill if it passes the legislature.

"This legislation is a grotesque violation of the rights of parents over their children," he said after testifying against the bill.

"It specifically prohibits any child under the age of 18 who struggles with homosexuality from getting any kind of professional counseling at all. In fact, it also subjects parents to possibly having their children permanently removed from them if it is found that the parents were not accepting of a child's perception of being homosexual and the parents want the child to get counseling."

The bill states that reparative therapy poses "critical health risks" to gay people, including "shame," "disappointment," and "increased self-hatred."

But the California Psychological Association, the California Association for Licensed Professional Clinical Counselors, and the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapy oppose the bill, terming it an unwarranted intrusion.

"The fact that this bill is opposed by many of the professional organizations that normally are quite liberal on homosexuality indicates how extreme this legislation is," Peter Sprigg, senior fellow for cultural studies at the Family Research Council, told CNS News.

"It really flies in the face of a fundamental ethical principle within the counseling profession, which is the autonomy of the client in determining the goals for treatment."

2. Federal Report: 'Green Jobs' Include Trash Collectors

A recent Bureau of Labor Statistics report counts 3.1 million green jobs in the U.S. economy, but the BLS defines these jobs so broadly that it includes even school bus drivers and trash collectors as "green" workers.

"Cheerleaders for the president's program of green jobs mandates and spending point to the study as confirmation of green jobs' economic importance," said David W. Kreutzer, Research Fellow in Energy Economics and Climate Change in the Center for Data Analysis at The Heritage Foundation.

Kreutzer takes issue with the report as "an effort to count the number of green jobs as a way of justifying subsidies and mandates."

"Just a little digging into the data shows that only a small fraction of the 3.1 million jobs could have been created by green subsidies and mandates."

The BLS study defines green jobs as those "in businesses that produce goods or provide services that benefit the environment or conserve natural resources."

Using this definition, the BLS counts 43,658 jobs in steel mills as green because the industry uses scrap steel and can be classified as an active recycler.

Similarly, 27 percent of all paper mill jobs, 30,473, are counted as green because mills use recycled paper.

Steel and paper mill jobs "do not fit in with the rhetoric of the new, clean economy that green jobs proponents use to justify expensive green policies -- the sort of policies that brought the Solyndra debacle," Kreutzer writes in the Heritage Foundation report.

The electric power generation industry is said to have 44,152 green jobs, but only 4,700 are in renewable power generation.

The nuclear power industry has 35,755 green jobs, according to the BLS, but since no new plants have been built in the past 30 years, those jobs "are clearly not the result of any green energy or green jobs programs," Kreutzer points out.

Other jobs considered to be green by the BLS include those in used merchandise stores (106,865 jobs), waste collection (116,293), school and employee bus transportation (160,896), leisure and hospitality (22,510), office furniture sales (14,888), septic tank cleaning and portable toilet servicing (13,313), radio and television broadcasting (9,297), fruit and tree nut farming (12,176), and social advocacy organizations (20,704).

Kreutzer concludes that the BLS's "definition and collection mechanisms raise serious questions about how green those jobs are and whether their count can be a useful measure of the importance of green jobs in America's economy and the effectiveness of green jobs policies."

3. Taxes Now Higher Than Food, Clothing, Shelter Costs

This year Americans will pay more in total taxes than they spend for food, clothing, and shelter combined, illustrating what the Tax Foundation calls the "growing cost of government."

Total outlays for taxes in 2012 will be about $4.04 trillion, which is $152 billion more than Americans will spend on housing, food, and clothing.

"Relative to the basic cost of living, taxes have increased considerably in recent decades," the foundation states in a new report.

In 1929, Americans paid $10.1 billion in taxes while outlays for food, clothing, and shelter totaled $41.6 billion.

The cost of those essentials surpassed tax collections every year after that until 1981, when the $858.3 billion paid in taxes narrowly surpassed the $854.4 spent on food, clothing, and shelter.

Seven years later, in 1988, taxes again surpassed outlays on essentials, and they remained larger than food, clothing, and shelter costs every year until 2009, when the economic slowdown reduced tax collections.

But after a two-year gap, taxes are once again trumping spending for food, clothing, and housing.

The Tax Foundation also points out that transfer payments -- government outlays that Americans can use to purchase food, clothing, and housing, among other things -- have increased considerably in recent decades.

In 1929, transfer payments accounted for just 0.5 percent of private outlays on food, clothing, and shelter. By 1965, when Medicare began, the percentage had grown to about 11 percent. Today it is close to 35 percent.

"Consumption data, which comes from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, includes private consumption that is paid for with government transfer payments from assistance programs such as Medicare," Kevin Duncan of the Tax Foundation observes.

"This leads to double counting, as the taxes that finance these programs and the increased consumption that those taxes fund are included in both tax and consumption figures, respectively.

"Despite these limitations, the comparison of tax costs to the basic cost of living provides a useful illustration of the growing cost of government."

4. U.S. Immigration Policies Raise Risk of Terrorist Attack

A troubling report discloses that U.S. immigration policies continue to permit the entry of aliens from nations potentially harboring terrorists -- including even the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The report from the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) says that since 2001, more than 2.5 million people have been allowed to enter the United States from 16 Muslim nations in and around the Middle East.

The CIS examines the threat of Iran reacting to sanctions or other punitive moves with an attack against America, orchestrated by Iran or its proxies or sympathizers in other countries. The report states that the attack could come as a result of "our present immigration policies, which favor vast in-flows of individuals, even from nations known to harbor, or provide an ambient environment for, a whole host of terrorist organizations and their affiliates."

"Most Americans would be surprised by the size of the flow of aliens that have continued to come into the United States from countries of special interest to our homeland security since 9/11."

According to the CIS, admissions of "refugees and non-immigrants" from the 16 Muslim nations to the United States numbered more than 300,000 in 2010 alone. They included 21,919 from Iran, 24,178 from Iraq, 30,735 from Lebanon, 63,250 from Pakistan, and 91,936 from Saudi Arabia.

In addition, 36,001 citizens of those nations were granted lawful permanent resident alien status in 2010 -- obtained through marriage to a U.S. citizen, for example -- including 7,097 from Iran and 11,633 from Pakistan.

From 2001 through 2010, the number of non-immigrant and refugee admissions, plus lawful permanent resident alien status grants, for people from the 16 countries has totaled 2,579,601. This includes 285,641 from Iran, 151,210 from Iraq, 297,461 from Lebanon, 423,284 from Saudi Arabia, 773,167 from Pakistan, and 105,425 from Syria.

"It is noteworthy that during the decade that ended in 2010, there were nearly 290,000 admissions of Iranians who made their way to the United States, at a time when our two countries don't even maintain diplomatic relations and we are still routinely referred to by the supreme leader and the president of Iran as 'the Great Satan,'" the CIS report states.

Lebanon, home to designated terrorist organization Hezbollah, sent even more aliens to our shores, with almost 300,000 admissions, according to the report.

The CIS concludes: "If one were to expand the list to include arrival flows from other, equally problematic countries whose citizens pose special concerns to the United States, such as Nigeria, Somalia, Sudan, Indonesia, and even Venezuela, the total would grow by many millions.

"There seems to be a disconnect in the administration's thinking, an inability to . . . understand that U.S. immigration policies have the capability to substantially strengthen, or to significantly undermine, our national security."

5. More Than Half of World's Population Now Lives in Cities

The latest edition of the publication Demographia World Urban Areas shows that the migration of rural people to urban areas continues, with 26 of those areas now considered "megacities."

"Around the world, people continue to seek the promise of better economic outcomes in urban areas," the New Geography website observes.

"United Nations forecasts indicate that another 2.5 billion people will be added to urban areas by 2050, while rural areas will be reduced in population by 300 million.

"The world's urban population is expected to rise from today's nearly 53 percent of total population to 67 percent, and more than 90 percent of the urban growth is expected to be in less developed nations."

Urban areas are defined by Demographia World Urban Areas as areas of continuous urban development within a labor market. They are not metropolitan areas, which can include non-urban or rural territory. Urban areas in essence stretch beyond the confines of a city to include all contiguous built-up areas.

Megacities are urban areas with a population greater than 10 million. Tokyo has been the world's largest urban area since 1955, when it displaced New York, and it now has a population of 37.1 million.

The second most populous urban area is Jakarta, Indonesia, with 26 million, followed by Seoul-Incheon, South Korea, with 22.5 million; Delhi, India (22.2 million); Manila, Philippines (21.9 million); and Shanghai, China (20.8 million).

The most populous urban area in the United States, New York, is seventh on the list with 20.4 million. Los Angeles is No. 17 (14.9 million) and Chicago is No. 27 (10.7 million).

The largest urban area in Europe is Moscow (15.5 million), followed by Paris (10.7 million).

The world's most densely populated urban area is Dhaka, Bangladesh, which has 15.4 million people occupying a land area of just 134 square miles, giving it a density of 115,000 per square mile.

Dhaka's slums, however, are estimated to have a density of 2.7 million per square mile. At this density, all of the world's 3.7 billion urban residents could be accommodated in an area about the size of the Washington, D.C., urban area, according to New Geography.

Surprisingly, New York has the lowest density of any megacity, 4,600 per square mile. Atlanta is the least dense urban area with a population over 2.5 million (1,800 per square mile), just ahead of Boston (2,220).

New York also reigns as the urban area with the largest "urban footprint," or land area, with 4,495 square miles, followed by Tokyo (3,300 square miles), Chicago (2,647), and Atlanta (2,645).

Among the megacities, Mumbai, India, has the smallest land area after Dhaka, with 211 square miles.

6. We Heard...

THAT New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is writing an autobiography expected to be published in 2014.

Cuomo, who was elected in 2010, is working on the book with his former secretary and political confidant Steve Cohen, according to the New York Post.

Interestingly, the Post is also reporting that Fred Dicker, the paper's Albany bureau chief, has signed a deal to write a biography of Cuomo scheduled for release next year, and he will have the cooperation of the governor and his staff.

THAT the phone-hacking scandal has not hurt News Corporation's bottom line -- Rupert Murdoch's media empire reported a 47 percent increase in profits in the quarter ending on March 31.

The company said its net income was $937 million in the quarter, up from $639 million in the same period a year earlier, the New York Times' Media Decoder reported.

The rise was largely attributable to gains at cable television channels, including Fox News.

The solid earnings came despite the $63 million News Corp. had to spend on hacking-related costs in the quarter, the paidContent website reported.

In the first nine months of fiscal 2012, the company spent $167 million on costs related to the closing of The News of the World in Britain last summer and other outlays related to the hacking scandal.

Insider Report from Newsmax.com

Headlines (Scroll down for complete stories):
1. Obama's Former Girlfriends Dish on Young Barack
2. Bill Clinton Lauds Another Former President
3. Forbes Lists 'Best Franchises for the Buck'
4. Pew Poll: Federal Government 'Mostly Corrupt'
5. We Heard: Rush Limbaugh, Vogue magazine, TV Viewing

1. Obama's Former Girlfriends Dish on Young Barack

A new book about young Barack Obama reveals intimate details of his early love life through the eyes of two women he romanced in New York.

"Barack Obama: The Story," by Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post journalist David Maraniss, chronicles Obama's life in the early 1980s after he transferred from Occidental College in California to Columbia University in Manhattan.

In 1982, coed Alex McNear -- who had met the future president at Occidental -- came to spend the summer in New York and contacted Obama, Maraniss discloses in an adaptation from his book published in Vanity Fair magazine.

They met at an Italian restaurant and "we sat and talked and ate and drank wine," McNear told Maraniss. "Or at least I drank wine. I think he drank something stronger.

"We walked slowly back to my apartment and said goodbye. After that we started spending much more time together."

When the summer ended McNear returned to California, although they carried on a long-distance relationship through a series of letters. But the romance had fizzled by December 1983, when Obama met Genevieve Cook at a party in Manhattan's East Village.

Brown-haired, hazel-eyed Cook, who at 25 was three years older than Obama, was the daughter of prominent Australian diplomat.

They had dinner a few days after the party, Cook recalled.

In a Jan. 22, 1984 entry in her journal, Cook wrote: "I really like him more and more -- he may worry about posturing and void inside but he is a brimming and integrated character."

A Feb. 25 entry stated: "The sexual warmth is definitely there but the rest of it has sharp edges and I'm finding it all unsettling and finding myself wanting to withdraw from it all."

Then on March 22: "Barack -- still intrigues me, but so much going on beneath the surface, out of reach. Guarded, controlled."

That spring Cook moved out of her mother's Manhattan apartment and into a brownstone in Brooklyn, where Obama spent much of his time, according to Maraniss. "When she told him that she loved him, his response was not 'I love you, too' but 'thank you,'" he writes.

In the fall of 1984, Cook began a teaching job at a public school in Brooklyn, and shortly after that Obama quit his job at Business International, a firm providing newsletters and reference materials for corporations. He moved in with Cook for a brief period before leaving for the Christmas holidays in Hawaii, and again lived in her apartment when he returned.

But the relationship had begun to sour. Cook: "My take on it had always been that I pushed him away, found him not to be 'enough,' had chafed at his withheld-ness, his lack of spontaneity, which, eventually, I imagined might be assuaged, or certain elements of it might be, by living together."

At the end of March 1985, Cook moved to another apartment in Brooklyn, and Obama moved to Manhattan. The relationship was nearing an end.

Later that year, Obama left New York and headed west for a community organizing job in Chicago. He took along a white cable-knit sweater Cook had given him for Christmas, Maraniss writes.

"It would comfort him in the cold Chicago winter."

2. Bill Clinton Lauds Another Former President

Bill Clinton has glowing praise for a new book about another U.S. president, Lyndon Johnson -- and for LBJ himself.

The book is "The Passage of Power," the fourth installment in what Clinton calls Robert Caro's "brilliant series" on Johnson. The work spans the period from shortly before the 1960 election that put John Kennedy in the White House to a few months after he was assassinated and Johnson became president.

"Among the most interesting and important episodes Caro chronicles are those involving the new president's ability to maneuver bills out of legislative committees and onto the floor of the House and Senate for a vote," Clinton writes in an article published in the New York Times Sunday Book Review.

"Few Americans in our history have matched Johnson's knowledge of how to move legislation, and legislators.

"In sparkling detail, Caro shows the president's genius for getting to people -- friends, foes and everyone in between -- and how he used it to achieve his goals."

Caro also delves into the "tribulation" LBJ faced as vice president, when he had little to do and was generally shunned by members of the Kennedy administration, including Robert Kennedy -- who "despised" Johnson, Clinton points out.

But "for a few brief years" after he became president, Clinton writes, "Lyndon Johnson, once a fairly conventional Southern Democrat, constrained by his constituents and his overriding hunger for power, rose above his political past and personal limitations to embrace and promote his boyhood dreams of opportunity and equality for all Americans."

LBJ used his power to pass the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, the open housing law, the antipoverty legislation, Medicare and Medicaid, Head Start and much more, Clinton notes, adding: "Even when we parted company over the Vietnam War, I never hated LBJ the way many young people of my generation came to. I couldn't.

"What he did to advance civil rights and equal opportunity was too important. I remain grateful to him. LBJ got to me, and after all these years, he still does."

3. Forbes Lists 'Best Franchises for the Buck'

When it comes to popular franchises, McDonald's, Burger King and 7-Eleven might be first to come to mind, but according to Forbes magazine, the "best franchise for the buck" is one that many Americans have never heard of: Snap-on.

The Kenosha, Wis.-based company provides stores-on-wheels that sell tools to professional mechanics. Each Snap-on truck is equipped with wireless Internet access and a DVD player for product demonstrations. There were 3,392 trucks in service as of the beginning of last year, and the average initial investment was $135,390.

Forbes states: "With the help of Robert Bond, chief executive of the World Franchising Network (a franchise database) and publisher of Bond's Franchise Guide, we waded through data on 110 of the most established names to find 20 that deliver the biggest bang for a competent operator's investment buck."

Forbes used these criteria to rate the franchises: average initial investment (franchise fees plus equipment costs); total locations (the more the better); closure rate (the number of closings in the last three reported fiscal years divided by the total number of existing locations); growth in the number of U.S. outlets in the last three years; and the number of training hours as a percentage of startup cost (the more support from the home office, the better).

The number of Snap-on closings in the last three fiscal years: 0.

Following Snap-on, the top "franchises for the buck" are:

• 7-Eleven, the largest franchisor (by outlets) in the world. The number of U.S. locations as of the beginning of last year was 6,142, and the average initial investment was $393,800.
• Aaron's. This chain sells and leases furniture, televisions and household appliances. The number of locations at the beginning of 2011 was 1,749, and the average initial investment was $420,725.
• Panera, which sells homemade baked goods, sandwiches and salads. Average initial investment: $1,447,770. U.S. locations as of 12/28/10: 1,379.
• Servpro, which cleans buildings and homes after fires, floods and other natural disasters. Average initial investment: $156,250. U.S. locations as of 12/31/10: 1,571.
• McDonald's. Surprisingly, the hamburger chain had 367 closings in the last three fiscal years. Average initial investment: $1,480,625. U.S. locations as of 12/31/10: 14,016.
• Liberty Tax Service, a tax preparation chain featuring employees who dress up like the Statue of Liberty and wave signs. Average initial investment: $63,350. U.S. locations as of 4/30/11: 3,592.
• Merry Maids. A unit of ServiceMaster, it provides home and window-cleaning services. Average initial investment: $66,600. U.S. locations as of 12/31/10: 943.
• The Maids International, another home cleaner. Average initial investment: $106,420. U.S. locations as of 9/30/10: 1,053.
• Jimmy John's, a dine-in sandwich shop chain. Average initial investment: $395,500. U.S. locations as of 12/31/10: 1,130.

As for other well-known franchises, Jack in the Box is No. 12 on the list, Dunkin' Donuts is 13, and Burger King, 14.

4. Pew Poll: Federal Government 'Mostly Corrupt'

The favorable rating of the federal government has sunk to just 33 percent, the lowest positive rating in 15 years, a new poll from the Pew Research Center reveals.

At the same time, Americans' opinion about state and local governments remains mostly favorable.

Two years ago, about two-thirds of Americans had a favorable view of all three levels of government -- federal, state, and local. But in the new survey, nearly two-thirds have an unfavorable opinion of Washington.

Among Republicans, just 20 percent have a favorable view of the federal government, while 51 percent of Democrats and 27 percent of independents agree with that assessment.

In contrast, 52 percent of respondents said they still have a favorable view of state government, and 61 percent feel that way about their local government.

"The gap between favorable ratings of the federal government and state and local governments is wider than ever," Pew observes.

While 49 percent believe their state government is mostly honest and 37 percent say it is mostly corrupt, a majority of those polled said the federal government is mostly corrupt.

Similarly, 38 percent of Americans think their state government is "generally efficient," but just 24 percent say that about the federal government.

And while 33 percent say state government is "careful with the people's money," only 17 percent say that about the government in Washington.

Interestingly, 56 percent of respondents who live in a state where the governor and a majority in both legislative chambers are Republicans say they have a favorable rating of state government, but in states where the governor and legislature are Democratic that figure drops to 47 percent.

As for the federal government's rating, 53 percent of Republicans held a favorable view of Washington as recently as April 2008, when George W. Bush was president.

Pew notes: "Since Barack Obama's first year in office, public assessments of the federal government have dropped nine points, with most of the change among Democrats and independents."

5. We Heard...

THAT Rush Limbaugh and his listeners have donated nearly $3.3 million to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society -- including $400,000 from the talk radio host himself.

Each year Rush dedicates one radio program to talk about the work the organization is doing to find a cure for leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin's disease and myeloma, and to improve the quality of life for patients and their families, Radio Ink reported.

This year was Limbaugh's 22nd Cure-a-Thon, and he has now raised more than $34 million for the organization.

THAT Vogue magazine, considered by many as the world's top arbiter of style, has responded to criticism of the modeling industry by banning too-skinny and too-young models from its pages.

Publisher Conde Nast announced on Thursday that Vogue editors have agreed to "not knowingly work with models under the age of 16 or who appear to have an eating disorder."

And Conde Nast International Chairman Jonathan Newhouse said in a statement: "Vogue believes that good health is beautiful."

THAT for the first time in 20 years, the number of "TV households" in the United States dropped last year, to 114.7 million from 115.9 million in 2010.

And that figure has fallen further, to 114.1 million so far this year, according to The Nielsen Company.

A "TV household" is defined as one with at least one television set and a cable, satellite or antenna connection.

The data, according to The New York Times, "is sure to be pored over by television and Internet executives for evidence of changes in consumer behavior."

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Headlines (Scroll down for complete stories):
1. Rick Perry Eyeing White House Run in 2016
2. Climate Change Alarmist Recants: 'I Made a Mistake'
3. China Hacked Blueprints for U.S. Fighter Jets
4. Obama Spends $8.3 Billion to Hide Medicare Cuts
5. U.S., Europe Gird for 'Carbon Trade War'
6. Germany to Publish 'Mein Kampf' Again

1. Rick Perry Eyeing White House Run in 2016

Texas Gov. Rick Perry's disclosure that he's "really interested" in running for president again in 2016 has some observers wondering if he thinks Mitt Romney won't unseat President Barack Obama in November.

In a recent interview with CBS 11 News in Dallas-Fort Worth, Perry said: "2016 is way down the road, but I'll assure you one thing -- if I decide to run for the presidency in 2016, I'll be in way before the summer of 2016, 2015 even."

Reporter Jack Fink asked: "It sounds like you're really interested?"

Perry responded: "Yeah, I am. I love this country. As long as my health stays good, as it is, and my family is supportive, I'm certainly going to give it a good examination."

Perry announced in August 2011 that he would run for president in 2012, but dropped out of the race on Jan. 9 and endorsed Newt Gingrich.

Commenting on his talk of another run in 2016, the Houston Chronicle observed: "Statements like that don't make it seem like Perry has much faith in a Republican winning the presidential election this November. And if he does [win], it doesn't seem like he has much faith in Romney being a very good president."

Another Romney rival for the 2012 GOP nomination, Rick Santorum, has also suggested he is considering a run in 2016, telling Fox News: "I feel like a young man, and hopefully I feel like a young man four years from now."

As for whether Perry will run for re-election for governor in 2014, Perry told CBS: "I'm certainly going to give that the appropriate consideration. My instincts are very positive towards it right now."

2. Climate Change Alarmist Recants: 'I Made a Mistake'

British environmental expert James Lovelock now admits he was an "alarmist" regarding global warming -- and says Al Gore was too.

Lovelock previously worked for NASA and became a guru to the environmental movement with his "Gaia" theory of the Earth as a single organism. In 2007 Time magazine named Lovelock one of its "Heroes of the Environment," and he won the Geological Society of London's Wollaston Medal in 2006 for his writings on the Gaia theory.

That year he wrote an article in a British newspaper asserting that "before this century is over billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable."

But in an interview this week with MSNBC, Lovelock said a book he is now writing will reflect his new opinion that global warming has not occurred as he had expected.

"The problem is we don't know what the climate is doing," he said. "We thought we knew 20 years ago. That led to some alarmist books -- mine included -- because it looked clear-cut, but it hasn't happened.

"The climate is doing its usual tricks. There's nothing much really happening yet. We were supposed to be halfway toward a frying world now.

"The world has not warmed up very much since the millennium. Twelve years is a reasonable time. [The temperature] has stayed almost constant, whereas it should have been rising. Carbon dioxide is rising, no question about that.

"We will have global warming, but it's been deferred a bit."

MSNBC reported: "He pointed to Gore's 'An Inconvenient Truth' and Tim Flannery's 'The Weather Makers' as other examples of 'alarmist' forecasts of the future."

Lovelock also declared in the interview that "as an independent and a loner," he did not mind saying, "All right, I made a mistake," adding that university or government scientists might fear that admission of such a mistake could jeopardize their funding.

In response to Lovelock's interview, the Climate Depot website stated: "MSNBC, perhaps the most unlikely of news sources, reports on what may be seen as the official end of the manmade global warming fear movement."

3. China Hacked Blueprints for U.S. Fighter Jets

Chinese hackers stole the blueprints for America's new Joint Strike Fighter planes, the F-35 and F-22 -- an example of cyberattacks that can "devastate our nation," a leading congressman disclosed.

"I think it's important that the American people have a better idea of what is at risk," Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, chairman of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations and Management, said at a subcommittee hearing on Tuesday.

"When I look at the theft of intellectual property to the tune of $1 trillion, that's a serious economic issue for the United States.

"When I look at countries like China, who have stolen our Joint Strike Fighters, F-35 and F-22s, stolen those blueprints so they can manufacture those planes and then guard against those planes.

"Make no mistake, America is under attack by digital bombs. There are several things the American public should understand about these attacks. They are real, stealthy and persistent and can devastate our nation.

"China's cyber warfare capabilities and the espionage campaigns they have undertaken are the most prevalent of any nation state actor. China has created citizen hacker groups, engaged in cyberespionage, established cyberwar military units."

In addition to stealing vital information on America's weapons programs and security, he warned that cyberattacks could also blow up natural gas pipelines, derail trains, hack financial systems, and cause chemical plants to leak toxins, The Hill reported.

Larry Wortzel, a member of the United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission, told the House Foreign Affairs Committee at a March 28 hearing that the People's Liberation Army of China has made cyberattacks a "cornerstone" of its operations.

A commission report noted that Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and British Aerospace and Engineering have reportedly experienced penetrations from China-based hackers in the past three years.

Newsmax reported last August that the Internet security firm McAfee had uncovered the largest series of cyberattacks ever -- for five years hackers infiltrated 72 organizations including defense firms and the American government -- and security experts pointed to China as the culprit.

At Tuesday's subcommittee hearing, security experts told the panel that Russia, Iran and North Korea are also experimenting with cyberattacks, Voice of America News reported.

They said threats to the U.S. electric power grid and mass transportation systems could come from foreign intelligence services, anti-American computer hackers and terrorists.

4. Obama Spends $8.3 Billion to Hide Medicare Cuts

The Obama administration is spending $8.3 billion to hide a key provision of Obamacare -- deep cuts in Medicare Advantage -- until after the November election.

Medicare Advantage offers seniors the option of choosing private insurance companies as an alternative to the government-run Medicare insurance program. So far 12 million seniors have enrolled in the program.

But President Obama has attacked the program, stating in a 2009 speech that it offers "unwarranted subsidies" that "do everything to pad [insurance companies'] profits and nothing to improve your care."

So it came as no surprise when Obama's healthcare reform plan sliced $145 billion from Medicare Advantage over the next 10 years. Medicare's own actuary reported that Obamacare would force more than 7 million seniors off their private plans and back into traditional Medicare as insurers flee the market, according to Investor's Business Daily (IBD).

To hide the cuts from seniors who would face losing Medicare Advantage just before the November election, the administration pumped $8.3 billion back into the program through "bonuses" to Medicare Advantage plans.

Those "bonuses" will make up for more than 70 percent of Obamacare's scheduled Medicare Advantage cuts, and keep the program running through the election.

The plan is so "transparently political" that the Government Accountability Office has urged the Health and Human Services Department to cancel it altogether, IBD reported, adding: "Canceling is just the beginning.

"The bigger question lawmakers must answer is this: Can it really be legal for a Cabinet agency to spend $8.3 billion in taxpayer money simply to help Obama get re-elected?"

5. U.S., Europe Gird for 'Carbon Trade War'

The European Union is setting off a confrontation with outside nations -- including the United States -- by demanding that all airlines pay a carbon tax when crossing EU airspace and landing at EU airports.

"The new EU system is portentous. It is an extension of the continent's cap-and-trade system from domestic sources to the international arena," according to Claude Barfield, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI).

"Though other nations protested as the rules were being formulated, the new legislation went into effect on January 1, 2012" and the tax will start being collected in 2013.

Significantly, the tax based on carbon emissions will be levied not just on the miles flown in EU airspace, but for the entire length of an aircraft's flight, Barfield reveals in an article headlined "The First Carbon Trade War?" in The American, the journal of the AEI.

That means a Korean Air jet, for instance, will have to pay a tax based not on the few hundred miles it flies over the EU but over the entire trip of several thousand miles from Korea to Europe.

The 27-member EU's action has produced threats of retaliation. More than 20 nations, including the United States, China, Russia, India, Brazil, and South Africa, have met twice to discuss responses. The countries cited potential retaliatory actions including banning airlines from paying the tax and imposing commensurate levies on EU airlines flying in their airspace.

China and India have already banned their airlines from paying the tax, Russia has threatened to cancel air rights for EU airlines flying over Siberia, and China has delayed and possibly will cancel aircraft contracts with the European aerospace company Airbus worth $12 billion.

On the other hand, "the United States has equivocated," Barfield disclosed. "The House passed a bill making it illegal for U.S. airlines to comply with the EU scheme. But the State Department has thus far resisted efforts to bring the matter before the international body that sets rules for international airspace, the U.N.'s International Civil Aviation Organization.

"The Obama administration can drag its heels only so long before pressure from U.S. airlines and their supporters in Congress (particularly in an election year) becomes politically dangerous."

The Wall Street Journal observed: "Europe can help spark a global trade war nobody can afford over a tax nobody needs in furtherance of an anticarbon nirvana that never will come to pass."

6. Germany to Publish 'Mein Kampf' Again

Germany will officially publish Adolf Hitler's book "Mein Kampf" for the first time since the end of World War II.

Hitler wrote the first part of "Mein Kampf" ("My Struggle") in 1923, while he was serving a prison sentence for attempting to overthrow the government. The second part was written a year later, after his release.

When the war ended, the rights to the anti-Semitic book became the property of the Bavarian state government, which nationalized the Nazi publication house and prohibited further publication of the work.

That prohibition remains in place today. But the rights to the book are scheduled to expire in 2015, 70 years after Hitler's death, and there are concerns that neo-Nazi groups will begin publishing and distributing copies of the work to advance anti-Semitic agendas, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports.

To counter that, the government will publish an annotated edition of the book, containing warnings to readers about the dangers of Hitler's racist doctrine.

The government will also publish a special version of the book for schools, which will emphasize the "worldwide catastrophe brought about by this way of thinking," according to Bavarian Finance Minister Markus Soeder.

An English translation will be available as well.

Bavaria will ask publishers and bookstores not to print or sell other versions of the book beside the annotated version, according to Haaretz.

Much of Hitler's 720-page book deals with the "struggle between races" and "the Jewish problem" in Germany and the rest of the world. It was originally titled "Four and a Half Years of Struggle Against Lies, Stupidity, and Cowardice."