I have ‘un-stickied’ the article about the Easy Guide to the Politics and Science of Global Warming.
You can still find it by clicking on the link.
It is clear to all except the most violently irrational or funding dependent warming alarmists that there is no correlation between human produced CO2 and changes in global temperature over the last century.
However there is general agreement that there has been some warming, about 0.6 of one degree Celsius, over the last century.
If human activity has not caused this temperature increase, what has?
If we can learn what has caused past temperature change, we should be able to predict future change, and prepare for it.
Neither the UK Met Office nor the Australian Bureau of Meteorology have had much success in predicting recent seasonal changes.
This is because both Met Office and BOM predictions are based on ideology – theories about what the weather should be doing – rather than observations of what the weather really is doing.
Has anyone got it right?
Yes. In a letter posted on Jon Ray’s Greenie Watch, astrophysicist Piers Corbin writes:
Further to Newsnight tonight (7th Jan 2010) where the Met Office and BBC so-called expert lied about the reality of long-range forecasting:
We at WeatherAction predicted this very cold weather SIX months ago using solar activity (nothing to do with CO2) and added extra detail weeks ahead. Our forecasts of EXTREME events are consistently 85% reliable.
There is no need for the UK and Europe to be unprepared and run out of salt. The consequent suffering and road deaths are a direct consequence of the Met Office and BBC failed science and litany of lies.
Would the BBC care to hear from us as to why the Met Office fail, fail and fail again in medium and long range forecasting and when this cold weather will end and then return? I Suspect not. Would you care to consider the following –
1. The Met Office statement on Newsnight that they ‘verify’ their climate forecasts against past dates
2. That the said past data was fraudulently produced by, for example, the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia and exposed in the CLIMATEGATE files..
3. It is therefore unsurprising that the Met Offices climate and season ahead forecasts fail fail and fail again. They are rooted in failed science and falsified data.
– The world has been cooling for at least 7 years while CO2 has been rising – contrary to their foreacst.
– The floody ‘non barbecue’ summers of 2007, 2008 and 2009 and the cold winter 08/09 and now 09/10 were ALL the opposite of the Met office forecast and ALL as predicted by WeatherAction months ahead. Met Office scored 0/5 and WeatherAction scored 5/5.
4. The failed Met Office forecast for this winter and the consequent unnecessary suffering and road deaths should be laid at the feet of the University of East Anglia, the Met Office and the BBC — and charges of collective manslaughter be issued.
Piers is understandably angry. Accurate forecasting, that is, forecasting based on observation rather than ideology, saves lives.
You can check the accuracy of Pier’s own predictions at Weather Action.
Piers uses ‘predictable aspects of solar activity – particle and magnetic effects from the Sun – as the basis for forecasting weather many months and even years in advance.’
This works for two main reasons. More solar activity means the sun produces more heat and light.
More solar activity also means fewer cosmic rays reaching Earth.
Cosmic rays encourage the development of clouds. Clouds reduce the temperature. So more solar activity means less cosmic rays, which means fewer clouds, which means higher temperatures.
There is no meaningful correlation between human production of CO2 and changes in temperature. There is a very close correlation between decrease in cosmic rays and increase in temperature:
KFC Australia have withdrawn a TV ad after claims it was racist.
Except that it isn’t racist. At all. Not remotely.
You would only think this was racist if you viewed it through a large number of racist assumptions. Or with the assumption that US stereotypes about African Americans apply in Australia to any non-European people.
The people in the ad are West Indians. Unsurprisingly, they are supporting the West Indies cricket team. The white guy is not West Indian. He is supporting the Australian cricket team. As in most sporting events, people tend to sit with people who support the same team they do.
Would this be an uncomfortable situation? Oh yes. Would sharing food everyone enjoys make a difference? Maybe. It’s pretty obvious the West Indians are having a good time anyway.
The misperceptions of a few whiners in the US don’t make a perfectly innocent and amusing ad into something suspicious.
KFC should have told the whiners to sod off.
Caving into pressure to cut the ad looks like an admission they had done something wrong.
Rasmussen Reports finds that 45% of voters surveyed believe people chosen at random from the phone book would do a better job than current members of the US Congress.
A commenter on Don Surber’s blog agrees – as long as the names are chosen from the yellow pages ‘At least they can run a business.’
Some business experience is certainly desirable. Someone who has run a successful business knows about cost control, profits, how people are employed and why, where taxes come from, etc, etc. Their ideas about the economy are based on experience, and they have views about economic management which have been shown to work – otherwise they would be out of business.
According to a report published on Forbes.com, the current US administration has the lowest ever percentage of high level appointees with business experience:
Given the economic power the US government wields, and the infuence the US economy has on world financial systems, this is worrying.
It would be interesting to see a similar graph showing business experience in Australian Federal cabinets over the last century.
And it would be interesting to see how many Australians think people picked at random from the yellow pages would do a better job than the Rudd government.
I saw this a few years ago, but came across it again today and thought you might enjoy it:
Toddler Property Rules
If I like it, it’s mine.
If it’s near me, it’s mine.
If I can take it from you, it’s mine.
If I had it before, it’s mine.
If it looks like mine, it’s mine.
If I saw it first, it’s mine.
If I am doing or building something, all the pieces are mine.
If you have something and you put it down, it’s mine.
If it is mine, it must never appear to be yours in any way.
If it’s broken, it’s yours.
If it’s broken, where’s mine?
A recent Malaysian court ruled that a Catholic newspaper could continue to use the world ‘Allah’ for God. Bombings of churches naturally ensued.
Allah is simply the Arabic word for God. It was used by Jews and Christians for hundreds of years before Mohammed came along.
But some Malaysians believe that use of the word Allah by non-Muslim religions may encourage people to think that those religions are acceptable alternatives.
In English, this would be like the Catholic church burning down Mormon temples because they have been using the word ‘God’ for God.
Religious freedom is guaranteed to non-Muslims under the Malay constitution, but Malays are Muslim by definition – Malaysia is a Muslim country – and Malays are not permitted to convert.
Strange how the liberal media seems to think it is perfectly OK for Malaysia, Pakistan, Iran, etc, etc, to be Muslim nations, but that it is racist for Israel to be a Jewish nation.
There are some positives, however.
First, in the court’s recognition that under the Malaysian constitution, other religions had the right to use the word Allah for God.
Second, in the clear statements by many Malaysian political leaders and journalists that this kind of violence is not acceptable.
The problem is that many Muslims know very well that Mohammed would have found it acceptable. And Mohammed is the model for every Muslim, not the constitution of any country, even a Muslim one.
Every couple of weeks I seem to pique the interest of some absolute raving nutter.
It usually goes something like this. I post an article on some current news item. The Queen spends $10 million on curtains for Windsor Castle, for example (she hasn’t, as far as I know). So I write a few words about whether the British public are getting good value for money from their Queen.
A couple of days later there is a long and outraged comment, demanding to know why I have used a word that is offensive to the whole gay commuity. Don’t I care that gay people have been oppressed for centuries?
Then there will be several paragraphs detailing incidents of oppression of homosexuals, and perhaps a quote or two from the Magna Carta thrown in for good measure.
Shortly afterwards I will find that this comment has been emailed to a couple of hundred people, pointing out what a hopeless homophobe I am.
Then there will be several more comments detailing at rambling and incoherent length, the hideous oppressions to which the gay community is still subjected. Some of these will include unpleasant personal insults directed at me and any other commenters who have asked what the heck is going through this person’s mind.
Some of those comments I will not allow through. Of course this proves what an unspeakable bastard I am, imposing my views on the gay community, using the power of censorship to silence the oppressed.
There may even be a little exchange demanding to know why I didn’t discuss my inflammatory and biased views with representatives of the gay community before publishing them.
I’ll reply that what I said was in response to a news article, and I was just expressing my own opinion. Others are welcome to do the same, and if any members of the gay community do want to speak with me, I’d be more than happy to talk with them.
That’s typical of my kind of ego-centric gender focussed personality, I’ll be told.
It’s very well for me to sit back and expect the oppressed minority to come to me. I wouldn’t think of making the effort to go to them, would I?
By now there will have been several more comments by the same person, perhaps on different articles.
For example, if I have written about climate change, I will be asked why I have, once again, failed to include the gay perspective, which will be detailed at length.
If I write about agricultural policy in Africa, my homophobia means I won’t even give passing recogniton to the plight of gay rice planters in Swaziland. My fortnightly weirdo will thoughtfully fill in the gaps, while continuing to send examples of my perfidious lack of concern to his or her extensive mailing list.
After the first couple of exchanges I usually recognise the pattern, and ask politely that the person stop emailing me. That request will be ignored.
Eventually, a week or so after I stop publishing any more comments and answering any more emails, my nutter will go away, presumably to pester some other blogger or public figure about why he or she is participating in the marginalisation of an oppressed minority by refusing to acknowledge the extensive gay contribution to highway traffic planning.
And then I’ll have a bit of peace for a week or so till the next nutter comes along.
When I was at Flinders University in the early 80s I spent most of my time in the Philosophy Department. It was a Marxist department.
Being a unique individual who was able to think for myself, I thought exactly what I was told, and became a Sandinista supporting, land rights demanding, tree hugging member of the Socialist Workers’ Party – the only political party of which I have ever been a member.
I enrolled in Women’s Studies (and I was dutifully grateful for the opportunity to do so – not every university allowed men to participate).
I only lasted a couple of months. Not because I found it challenging – I had already read Greer and Friedan, and knew that men, especially white men, were the scum of the earth, rapists and pillagers who had never done anything good – but because even as an obedient little left-wing clone, I found it mind bogglingly dumb.
Mary Daly was a leader in the mind-bogglingly dumb, Elvis has left the building version of feminism. Germaine Greer was strikingly obvious, but not competely nuts, so I had no trouble with her.
Ten years later doing post-graduate studies at the University of Queensland, we were still being invited to draw from the deep well of Dalyan drivel.
Here are a couple of samples of drivel from an article on the Millenium Project:
It is also of obvious significance that other lethal purifying medicine is working to ensure an even earlier extinction of women. Now that the model of female moral purity has been converted into pure sexual availability, the Purifiers have produced The Pill. This is known to increase risks of …[long list of claims] … Premenopausal Pill-popping thus prepares the way for premature death, the ultimate purification.
(The writer of the article notes: One of the feminists loons that I was forced to associate with told me that using only female subjects in clinical trials of contraceptive pills was an example of how the patriarchy treated women as disposable, worthless objects. My questions about the usefulness of including men in trials designed to test the disruption of embryo attachment to the endometrium were brushed aside as examples of patriarchal ignorance.)
Dreadful, Deadless Women are the ones who have never stopped trying and who have continued to Hope. Our Hope is vigorous and active, and it is sustained and continually inspired by the Outrageous Courage of our Sisters/Foresisters who are ever more intensely Present to us, beckoning and Daring us to move further into The Fifth Spiral Galaxy. They are Calling us to continue our work of Metapatriarchal Metamorphosis Here and Now. This will require a New/Archaic Awakening.
It is never right to rejoice in the death of another, and I don’t rejoice in Mary Daly’s. I am sorry that so much of her life was wasted in pointless resentment and silliness.
I hope now that she knows the truth, she is able to find peace, and accept the certainty of being loved and valued by the Father God she so vehemently rejected on Earth.
Research shows the small amount of electro-magnetic radiation from mobile phones may help prevent Alzheimer’s Disease.
So that’s yet another failed science scare.
Although, to be fair, I’m not sure it was ever scientists who were behind the mobile phones will fry your brain theory. I think that was Richard Branson. The same guy who made a fortune selling mobile phones.
But never mind, even if mobile phones aren’t scary any more, and no one believes the global warming stuff any more, new science scares can always be found.
But scientists in Britain have really excelled themselves with this one.
A star called T Pyxidis 3260 light years away might explode in a supernova some time in the next 100 years. Maybe.
If it does, it might explode with force of a billion billion billion megatons of TNT. Some good highlights to look forward to in the MTV best explosion category that year.
If it does, the explosion could, possibly, in about four or five thousand years, strip away the ozone layer from the Earth.
And then we’ll all die. Perhaps.
Plenty of funding opportunities there, chaps.
Sadly, the black hole at the centre of the Milky Way is not chewing its way through the galaxy as quickly as previously thought.
Ah well, there’s still the Large Hadron Collider to worry about. Or use as an excuse for sex.
US Homeland Security Chief Janet Napolitano claimed ‘the system worked’ in relation to the near miss bombing attempt on Northwest flight 253 on Christmas Day.
It did, but only to the extent that once the plot was foiled by courageous passengers, the threat was communicated to other planes, airports and travellers.
The ‘system’ did not work to stop the attack from occurring – that was purely luck.
So I can understand Obama’s angry claim that “We dodged a bullet, but just barely. It was averted by brave individuals, not because the system worked and that is not acceptable.”
Obama said he would not tolerate any finger pointing amongst security staff. Again, fair enough.
What is less fair is Obama’s vehemently and publicly pointing the finger at those same security personel, making it clear he blames them for this failure.
It is less fair not only because it was rude and unneccesary, but because clear policy directives from the top have made it virtually impossible for security staff to do their jobs.
If staff are forbidden to profile on the basis of race, forbidden to profile on the basis of religion or nationality, what are they to do?
Rely on second hand information? Well yes, to some extent.
As Napolitano points out, Abdulmutallab was on a ‘tied list,’ on the basis of such information. But there are over half a million people on that list.
And whatever US security staff did would not have mattered anyway.
Abdulmutallab was checked in and boarded the plane to Detroit in Amsterdam. Increased check-in security procedures in the US, increased information sharing, or even race/religion/country profiling, would not have made any difference.
So what exactly were Obama’s security staff getting blasted for?
I’m sure I don’t know. But it certainly made him look as if he was serious.
The bow of the Ady Gil was sheared off in a collision with a Japanese whaling vessel. It is taking on water, but all crew members have been rescued.
It’s not fair, says anti-whaling person Paul Watson, from the Steve Irwin mother ship, ‘this seriously escalates the whole situation.’
Of course the protest vessel was quietly minding its own business at the time … No?
Actually, the Ady Gil was launching projectiles at the Nisshin Maru and attempting to entangle its propellers with rope.
What sort of projectiles? By the protestors own admission, some of them were chemical containing projectiles:
Earlier the campaigners – who are trying to stop Japan’s whaling fleet – said they threw chemicals onto the whaling boat to prevent it being used.
So we have a high speed anti-whaling vessel circling a commercial ship while throwing out ropes to entangle its propellors and tossing chemicals on to its decks, when there is a collision. Whose fault is this?
The Japanese are certainly not in any doubt.
Japan’s Fisheries Agency said:
“These acts of sabotage that threaten our country’s whaling ships and crew were extremely dangerous. It is totally unforgivable.”
Apart from the unforgiveable part – nothing is unforgiveable – I agree. Not only that the protestors are to blame, but that the anti-whaling protest is hypocritical.
There is no shortage of Minke whales – in fact they reduce the krill vailable for other endangered species.
Whales have similar intelligence to other grazing animals like cows.
A modern harpoon kills quickly, and no more painfully than halal methods of killing sheep, goats and cattle.
So if the protestors eat beef, what basis do they have for complaint about Japan’s carefully managed whale harvest?
Could it be racism? Cultural insensitivity? Or just plain old hypocrisy?
Who rammed who?
The Ady Gil is a much faster, smaller, more nimble boat. If they didn’t deliberately ram the Japanese ship, they certainly put themselves in its way.
The report cites half a dozen pieces of research that demonstrate pretty conclusively that children do better in terms of mental health and social adjustment when their fathers as well as their mothers are involved in their upbringing. Children are 40 per cent more likely to suffer mental health problems if they do not have contact with one parent. Girls are more likely to have healthy relationships with men – as you’d expect – if their fathers are part of their lives.
According to research from Marjorie Gunnoe, professor of psychology at Calvin College in the US State of Michigan, children smacked before the age of six perform better at school when they are teenagers. They are also more likely to do voluntary work and to want to go to university than their peers.
Professor Gunnoe interviewed 2,600 teenagers about being spanked. She found that when participants’ answers were compared with their behavior, such as academic success, optimism about the future, antisocial behavior, violence and bouts of depression, those who had been physically disciplined only between the ages of two and six performed best on all the positive measures.
No surprises in either case, really – it’s about being loved, feeling secure, and having clear boundaries.
The Burj Dubai (Dubai Tower) really is an amazing accomplishment.
Earlier in 2009 Dubai looked like it was on the verge of a financial meltdown. It was rescued by Sheik Khalifa of Abu Dhabi. The tower has been renamed the Burj Khalifa in his honour.
At 2700 feet it is massively taller than the previous record holder, Taipei 101, which stands at about 1500 feet.
And all those windows are being washed by an Australian company, Cox Gomyl.
Cox Gomyl spent $12 million designing and installing gondolas on telescopic booms which can reach every part of the tower.
The 2009 Darwin Award winners have been announced.
These are given to people who have done the gene pool a favour by removing themselves from it.
I know it is not fair to laugh, but you just can’t help it.
Traffic was moving slowly on southbound I-95. Shawn M. had recently left a Pompano Beach bar, and now he was stuck in traffic. As the saying goes, you don’t buy beer–you just rent it, and Shawn couldn’t wait another moment to relieve himself. “I need to take a leak,” he told his friends.
Traffic was deadlocked, so the waterlogged man climbed out, put his hand on the divider, and jumped over the low concrete wall… only to fall 65 feet to his death. “He probably thought there was a road, but there wasn’t,” said a Fort Lauderdale police spokesman. The car was idling on an overpass above the railroad lines.
His mother shared her attempt thoughts. “Shawn didn’t do a whole lot for a living. He got along on his charm, just like his father.”
Though his death was tragic, Shawn’s downfall proves the old adage: Look before you leak!
Back to work today for the first time in two weeks. A queue of urgent computer problems to fix.
Customers come first, so posting will be light today!