Dear, stubborn RJ, I appreciate your efforts in quoting me but you haven't actually proven what you claim. Nevermind I'm sure in your own mind you scored a conclusive victory. Whatever the confused Bush hater Higgs may say the scientific community is a lot more flexible than most, certainly than you and your knee jerk party lineism.
I guess you dispute the 'consensus' on Newtonian gravity (ps to save you from embarrasing yourself the theory of relativity didn't dismantle Newton's laws) and on nuclear technology and on quantum mechanics and on evolution (actually as a knee jerk kind of guy I'm sure you reject that one) and on thermodynamics...
FYI I've followed numerous links from this site re:AGW and solid evaluations are at a minimum and the few scientists who post here seem encumbered by the very bais you are so critical of, it's just that it's a bias you aprove of so you don't care. Sorry RJ I'm not that convenient.

I can be sure I have it right because I have witnessed consistent lying from ONE SIDE of the debate over many, many years.

 There is only one reason one side keeps lying to me, while the other side points out exactly their lies. I am in no mood to go hunting for you now, sorry. Maybe someone else would like to help you.

Here the site is somewhat honest about the costs, not sure where you got 2 billion but I'm sure it's there, but this is 3.4 billion or in that range, and the actual cost is 5 billion. Sorry I don't have a link for that 5B information, and if you already found 2 billion, and here's the link to 3.4 billion, then the data is once again the problem.

 I guess the answer for you from me is I don't like liars when I catch them. I'll try to give you a quick example. A year ago or so there was a big hullaballoo in the press over a new study on Greenland by two global warming scientist geeks who found "the entire place was melting away"... the press went on and on about it, how Greenland ice would disappear soon.

 I found some articles by searching with google after seeing something here, and searched their names, and got to their study, and their statements,the main one being hidden in the babbling " We believe our study can be extrapolated to the entire Greenland icemass ."

 I checked with the online mapping software and the sat. pics exactly the (I found out tiny) spot they studied, and found it to be the WARMEST spot on an ISLAND off the southwest lower side of Greenland, where WARM ocean currents rush past and melt the ice at the time of the year they were "studying it".

 After the hour or two it took for me to get all that I posted it here.

 Now, the reporters I am more than certain did FAR LESS research than I did, since they had all sorts of wild lies based on their own ideas in their articles. "TOTAL ICE MELTDOWN OF GREENLAND UNDERWAY" was the general idea of the headline and articles.

 I concluded, since the two geeks themselves HAD to slip the idea that they defended their study in the sense that "they believe" it could be extrapolated to the entire icemass covering Greenland, but gave no backup other than their OPINION in that case, and their opinion obviously contradicts even remotely juvenile common sense, I didn't buy the massive BS at all. All the "cover wording" in their other statements led me to believe they were lying their a$$e$ off, as well, to get as much attention as possible, and surely the press helped them along with selective quoting wether or not they liked it.  They tried to make it sound like they studied the entire gigantic mass of Greenland ice, and that the entire thing was melting, and the reporters made sure they made it sound ever more so. But when I actually checked their study and the tiny warmest SW island off the coast and in the ocean water stream on the south side of it that they actually studied, the whole gigantic house of false cards collapsed before me.

 I read all the dang little internet comments and libby true believers under all the articles with allowed blogging and when I could,  put in my "NEWS" there, as well, pointing out the gigantic BS.

 So, after years and years of that Art, I have already made a decision on the issue.

 That's the real reason why you are having apparently, such a hardtime identifying "the real data", because the real data is very thin, and very speculative, and most often very politcally slanted with OPINION added to the tiny bit of collection of uncertain data that carries more error and blind holes than is allowable to even form an accurate picture of a single second in time of "world tempterature".

 Somehow, checking the southern side of a tiny island one ten or twenty - thousandth the size of Greenland, off the coast and on the spring ocean current southern side, then claiming the observed melting in the hot spot during a warm year is proof positive the entire Greenland icemass is about to collapse just doesn't cut it for me.

 I have found time and time again, without exception, the scenario above, in various forms and flavors. Just try to get these people to talk about the changes the ~12 year sunspot cycle makes in weather anymore. It's like putting a stake through their vampire heart to even mention that. 

 I guess you'll just have to keep plugging away, it is frustrating and I understand what you are saying as far as wanting a definitive answer, but it just isn't out there. What is there is a maniac overhyping and desire for total control over nations economic energy engines, with the threat that if it isn't given over, we're all going to die very soon. Al Gore has publicly said so, time and again. I've watched his minions say so live on c-span. Elemental Extinction Event - is what they call it. "Just like the dinosaurs died out" -- then you find out, they're "political scientists" - as IS the person heading up that site linked, and testified with deception in front of the congressional committee demolibs for 4 hours pretending to be a real science - scientist, instead of a left wing political hack, which he was, and Christopher Shays (R) NAILED him on the lie.

 There are countless examples I've come across. Well, if it was so real and true, then their side could tell the truth without a problem, but of course, they cannot, since then their crisis and catastrophe predictions as well as their proclaimed required Kyoto solution (which by their own data is no solution at all) would be put to the lie that it is. 

Another one I went through here on this site was the "collapse of the southpole icecap" - where the news was bleating like dripping icecream cones on a hot beach. I went and CHECKED the amount of ice claimed melted ( which sounded like a gigantic amount and proved the  destruction of our world ) with the "total ice" down there in square miles. Well, the gigantic disappearing icemass turned out to be something like one forty thousandth or one three hundred thousandth of the total. It was absolutely laughable when I just did a simple AREA calculation.

 HUNDREDS of examples as above I have come across. When someone is continuously lying to me, in massive fashion, with slick and cover wording, and I take the time to dig and find it out, I tend to become convinced there is a reason they are lying in such a massive way. A tiny bit here or there, off a bit remembering or close enough is OK - no problem - but this stuff amounts to wholesale massive deception.

And my original point was based on utility; so which came first, the chicken or the egg?  As always, these types of conversations veer off path and we are forced to spend worthless time clarifying and detailing previous remarks.  I included Charles Wheelan as a source because he strikes me as a fairly liberal economist.  I figured the economic principle of maximizing one's utility is redundant and fairly cliché' by now.  But if we can't even get past that original statement, then I'm afraid we'll never see eye to eye.

So let me say this, I believe the variables that you dub "insignificant components" (water vapor, solar activity) are indeed significant.  The supporting links are posted ad nauseam in NB and I tend to believe there is a true debate amongst apolitical and non-funded scientists from both sides.  Unfortunately, all too often the discussion turns into a "I have more scientists on my side" and "My article is more credible than yours" quagmire.  I try and steer away from that and position my comments from a different angle.

Try not to read too much into the federal funding tea leaves.  Flip your scenario around and tell me what would happen if Bush completely cut all funding to the AGW cause.  Would there not be a blood letting from the entire MSM and moral elitists?  Bush (Karl Rove) is smart enough to know political suicide when he sees it.  At one time George Bush wanted to be known as the "Education President."  What did he do to try and acquire this title (generally speaking) - his administration allocated more money toward education spending than the previous president.  I imagine every president hereafter will do the same.

Politics is an appeasement business.  I have absolutely no problem with Bush (or any president for that matter) dedicating a fraction of a percent of our multi-trillion dollar budget toward environmental matters.  I like clean air just as much as the next guy.  But let us not draw a direct correlation from federal funding to one's political prowess.  For 40 years our government subsidized Angora Goat farmers.  Should I extrapolate the same cause and effect? 

And yes, I know quoting failed predictions proves nothing.  Did you honestly think I would use one 19th century scientist as a back-drop for my case?  Don't mistake scientific value for anecdotal value.  Or in economics, it's called tripping over a dollar to pick up a dime.