July 23, 2008
Two views on climate change
Paul Rako is the Technical Editor of EDN Magazine (Electronic Design News — one of the leading industry monthly magazines)
In today's post, he comments on an editorial in a competing magazine and proceeds to tear it apart:
Politics, faith, and the engineer
Our esteemed competitor EETimes has an editorial about intelligent design and global warming. Kenton Williston points out that Darwin and the theory of evolution is settled science and so is global warming theory. By this he must mean anthropogenic global warming (AGW) because he says we have to do something and do it good and hard or disaster awaits. He points out that some engineers have the temerity to doubt AGW and he condescendingly feels sorry for them, since they are obviously being as unscientific as the people that peddle creationism and intelligent design.
Before I add my two cents, I would like to point out a little foible in his strawman. Now, I am a Darwin guy 100%, but lets’ face it, if you push and push and push on science you go to physics and then past relativity and quantum mechanics to get to—- superstring theory. Nice theory, actually it is hypothesis. A lot of nice math. A lot of idea people. But there can be no possible testing of the hypothesis and therefore no science. Sorry, it bothers me too, but since we can’t test superstring theory it is indistinguishable from the religions that say God snapped her fingers 10,000 years ago and everything came into being just as it is today.
Funny thing is that, faced with the same facts as Kenton Williston, I draw the exact opposite conclusion. In fact AGW is far more a religious movement that a scientific one. Now please, before you greenies start foaming at the mouth and bite out chunks of the carpet, I am not saying climate theory is religious, or disputing the fact that the world certainly seems to be warming. There are tons of good science going on that examines the relationships of CO2, water vapor, cosmic rays, volcanic activity, asteroid impact and sunspot activity on global climate. But there are two religious wings. One is the global warming skeptics that think that absolutely nothing is going on and that we should not even care about these issues. The other religious wing is the global warming alarmists, who make a very tortured leaps of faith to come to the conclusion that not only should we do something, we should do just what they want us to do and do it right away.
Paul then proceeds to carefully examine what is being said by the AGWers and then to dismantle each point one by one, all the while providing links to the original source materials.
A good read…
Meet Spencer Elden
Spencer who?
Oh… Nevermind…
NPR has a nice article on him and a current photo age 17:
waterBOB
Very clever idea — from the waterBOB website:
Never be without water in an emergency
The waterBOB™ is a water containment system that holds up to 100 gallons of fresh drinking water in any standard bathtub in the event of an emergency. Constructed of heavy duty food grade plastic, the waterBOB™ keeps water fresh and clean for drinking, cooking, washing and flushing. Water stored in an open bathtub, with dirt, soap film and exposure to debris will spoil and become useless.
During a hurricane or tropical storm, water main breaks and storm surges can interrupt or even contaminate your water supply. It is during these conditions the waterBOB™ may be used for temporary water storage. Constructed of heavy duty plastic that is FDA compliant for food storage, the waterBOB™ keeps water fresh and clean for up to 4 weeks.
The waterBOB™ is very easy to use. Simply lay the liner in any standard bathtub, attach the fill sock to the faucet and fill the bladder to capacity, which takes approximately 20 minutes. A siphon pump is included to easily dispense the water into jugs or pitchers. Never wait in line again to buy expensive bottled water! Be prepared with the waterBOB™.
$30 — you can order at the waterBOB website.
Career change - how not to do it
From the Las Vegas Sun:
Would-be Vegas hitman’s story ends in Irish jail
Card dealer’s strategy: Double-cross clients
We all nurse private ambitions. Essam Ahmed Eid, a 53-year-old Egyptian man living in Vegas and dealing poker at the Bellagio, dreamed of becoming a hit man. He longed to take off the casino clown suit, the Nehru shirt and simpering smile — and replace them with a gun and a grimace.
So Eid did what any enterprising 21st century contract killer would: He created a Web site — www.hitmanforhire.net — and waited for the clients to come.
They did. And what happened next went so wrong, backfired so badly, that it was the subject of almost every cover article in every newspaper in the country — Ireland, that is. That’s where Eid’s final contract to kill flopped fantastically.
The story is straight supermarket thriller, full of half-predictable twists, jealous girlfriends, wealthy businessmen and Eid armed with not a gun, but poison. While several Irish newspapers have spent the past year digesting every angle of the story, the American press has largely ignored it. And so Eid is infamous in another country but has been anonymous here — until now.
What follows has been combed from Irish and U.S. court documents, as well as a mountain of international newspaper articles and correspondence with foreign reporters covering the case. Despite the mountain of papers, the rationale behind Eid’s hit man ambitions is hardly clarified by the reading. What unfolds, however, should intrigue anyone who likes to read paperback mysteries or watch people fall on their faces, because this story is a bit of both.
What follows is something out of the X Files mashed up with the Keystone Cops…
July 22, 2008
Consensus on Anthropogenic Global Warming
Finally, more and more people are actually clueing into the facts and seeing that we have been in a cooling trend for the last ten years. There are a lot of things that influence our Climate and CO2 is a very minor component.
From Marc Morano writing at the Inhofe Environment & Public Works blog:
Gore’s (Really) Inconvenient Timing – ‘Consensus’ On Man-Made Global Warming Collapses in 2008
U.N. Warning of 10-Year 'Climate Tipping Point' Began in 1989
Former Vice-President Al Gore came to Washington on July 17, 2008, to deliver yet another speech warning of the “climate crisis.”
“The leading experts predict that we have less than 10 years to make dramatic changes in our global warming pollution lest we lose our ability to ever recover from this environmental crisis,” Gore stated. But the former Vice President, who has been warning of a 10-year “tipping point” for several years now, appears to be unaware that the United Nations already started the 10-year countdown — in 1989!
According to July 5, 1989, article in the Miami Herald, the then-director of the New York office of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), Noel Brown, warned of a “10-year window of opportunity to solve” global warming. According to the 1989 article, “A senior U.N. environmental official says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000. Coastal flooding and crop failures would create an exodus of ‘eco-refugees,’ threatening political chaos.” (LINK) & (LINK)
While Gore repeats his standard stump speech promoting man-made climate fears, much of the international science community is now openly dissenting from human caused global warming fears.
What follows is a two-page list with excerpts and links of over 90 separate reports claiming that the present Global Warming hysteria is just that, that the arctic ice (and polar bears) are fine, that there was once a lot more CO2 than there is now, that water vapor is much more of a greenhouse gas than CO2, that the Sun is the major driver of our Climate, yadda, yadda, yadda…
The Goreacle needs to wake up and smell the cappuccino.
It just ain't happening.
The idea that humans. through their activity, could have a major effect on the climate of this planet is pure fucking hubris…
Reporting from the "First Intergalactic Spacewar Olympics"
Wonderful and prophetic flashback from Stewart Brand written in 1972:
S P A C E W A R
Fanatic Life and Symbolic Death Among the Computer Bums
by Stewart Brand
Ready or not, computers are coming to the people.
That's good news, maybe the best since psychedelics. It's way off the track of the “Computers - Threat or menace? school of liberal criticism but surprisingly in line with the romantic fantasies of the forefathers of the science such as Norbert Wiener, Warren McCulloch, J.C.R. Licklider, John von Neumann and Vannevar Bush.
The trend owes its health to an odd array of influences: The youthful fervor and firm dis-Establishmentarianism of the freaks who design computer science; an astonishingly enlightened research program from the very top of the Defense Department; an unexpected market-Banking movement by the manufacturers of small calculating machines, and an irrepressible midnight phenomenon known as Spacewar.
Reliably, at any nighttime moment (i.e. non-business hours) in North America hundreds of computer technicians are effectively out of their bodies, locked in life-or-Death space combat computer-projected onto cathode ray tube display screens, for hours at a time, ruining their eyes, numbing their fingers in frenzied mashing of control buttons, joyously slaying their friend and wasting their employers' valuable computer time. Something basic is going on.
An observation on Hackers (the good kind):
The Hackers
I'm guessing that Alan Kay at Xerox Research Center (more on them shortly) has a line on it, defining the standard Computer Bum: “About as straight as you'd expect hotrodders to look. It's that kind of fanaticism. A true hacker is not a group person. He's a person who loves to stay up all night, he and the machine in a love-hate relationship… They're kids who tended to be brilliant but not very interested in conventional goals. And computing is just a fabulous place for that, because it's a place where you don't have to be a Ph.D. or anything else. It's a place where you can still be an artisan. People are willing to pay you if you're any good at all, and you have plenty of time for screwing around.”
The hackers are the technicians of this science - “It's a term of derision and also the ultimate compliment.” They are the ones who translate human demands into code that the machines can understand and act on. They are legion. Fanatics with a potent new toy. A mobile new-found elite, with its own apparat, language and character, its own legends and humor. Those magnificent men with their flying machines, scouting a leading edge of technology which has an odd softness to it; outlaw country, where rules are not decree or routine so much as the starker demands of what's possible.
A good insight into the culture of the time. A fun time — I was in Boston working several jobs, one of which was with a company called American Used Computers run by Sonny Monnison and Bill Grinker. They originally purchased out-of-lease IBM big iron and then turned around and sold them to companies that needed to expand their mainframe systems but who were abandoned by IBM who wanted them to upgrade to the latest and greatest. Great business plan and it made them a lot of money. They bought into the whole Microprocessor thing big-time and opened one of the first large personal computer stores int he Boston area. I worked there couple evenings/week (I was also working for a large public aquarium at the time).
Like I said, a fun time!
Light posting tonight
An online music store had a blow-out sale of an older but excellent music workstation.
Mine arrived this morning.
I have a few entries in the queue but that will be it for today…
July 21, 2008
OMG -- went into town today to see The Dark Knight
See it on the big screen - it was amazing…
It runs about 2.5 hours so there is time to get deep into each of the characters. Excellent, dark story and the CG and SFX are drop-dead gorgeous.
While watching the movie, I was impressed by the soundtrack and it turns out that two of my favorite composers collaborated — Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard…
July 20, 2008
The Chinese involvement in Africa
Let me give you a hint — it is not good for Africa
From the New York Times:
China’s Trade in Africa Carries a Price Tag
The courtyard in front of the Zambia China Mulungushi Textiles factory is so quiet, even at midday, that the fluttering of the ragged Chinese and Zambian flags is the only sound hanging in the air.
The factory used to roar. From the day it opened more than 20 years ago, the vast compound had shuddered to the whir of rollers and the clatter of mechanical weaving machines spooling out millions of yards of brightly colored African cloth.
Today, only the cotton gin still runs, with the company’s Chinese managers buying raw cotton for export to China’s humming textile industry. Nobody can say when or even if the factory here will reopen.
“We are back where we started,” said Wilfred Collins Wonani, who leads the Chamber of Commerce here, sighing at the loss of one of the city’s biggest employers. “Sending raw materials out, bringing cheap manufactured goods in. This isn’t progress. It is colonialism.”
Another article from the London Daily Mail:
How China's taking over Africa, and why the West should be VERY worried
On June 5, 1873, in a letter to The Times, Sir Francis Galton, the cousin of Charles Darwin and a distinguished African explorer in his own right, outlined a daring (if by today's standards utterly offensive) new method to 'tame' and colonise what was then known as the Dark Continent.
'My proposal is to make the encouragement of Chinese settlements of Africa a part of our national policy, in the belief that the Chinese immigrants would not only maintain their position, but that they would multiply and their descendants supplant the inferior Negro race,' wrote Galton.
'I should expect that the African seaboard, now sparsely occupied by lazy, palavering savages, might in a few years be tenanted by industrious, order-loving Chinese, living either as a semidetached dependency of China, or else in perfect freedom under their own law.'
And more:
Yet Sir Francis Galton, it now appears, was ahead of his time. His vision is coming true - if not in the way he imagined. An astonishing invasion of Africa is now under way.
In the greatest movement of people the world has ever seen, China is secretly working to turn the entire continent into a new colony.
Reminiscent of the West's imperial push in the 18th and 19th centuries - but on a much more dramatic, determined scale - China's rulers believe Africa can become a 'satellite' state, solving its own problems of over-population and shortage of natural resources at a stroke.
With little fanfare, a staggering 750,000 Chinese have settled in Africa over the past decade. More are on the way.
The strategy has been carefully devised by officials in Beijing, where one expert has estimated that China will eventually need to send 300 million people to Africa to solve the problems of over-population and pollution.
The plans appear on track. Across Africa, the red flag of China is flying. Lucrative deals are being struck to buy its commodities - oil, platinum, gold and minerals. New embassies and air routes are opening up. The continent's new Chinese elite can be seen everywhere, shopping at their own expensive boutiques, driving Mercedes and BMW limousines, sending their children to exclusive private schools.
The pot-holed roads are cluttered with Chinese buses, taking people to markets filled with cheap Chinese goods. More than a thousand miles of new Chinese railroads are crisscrossing the continent, carrying billions of tons of illegally-logged timber, diamonds and gold.
Zimbabwe is at the heart of this:
Take, for example, Zimbabwe. Recently, a giant container ship from China was due to deliver its cargo of three million rounds of AK-47 ammunition, 3,000 rocket-propelled grenades and 1,500 mortars to President Robert Mugabe's regime.
After an international outcry, the vessel, the An Yue Jiang, was forced to return to China, despite Beijing's insistence that the arms consignment was a 'normal commercial deal'.
Indeed, the 77-ton arms shipment would have been small beer - a fraction of China's help to Mugabe. He already has high-tech, Chinese-built helicopter gunships and fighter jets to use against his people.
Fortunately, this is drawing some high-profile attention in the USA.
From the New York Times:
Spielberg Drops Out as Adviser to Beijing Olympics in Dispute Over Darfur Conflict
Steven Spielberg said Tuesday that he was withdrawing as an artistic adviser to the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, after almost a year of trying unsuccessfully to prod President Hu Jintao of China to do more to try to end Sudan’s attacks in the Darfur region.
Mr. Spielberg’s decision, and the public way he announced it, is a blow to China, which has said that its relationship with Sudan should not be linked to the Olympics, which have become a source of national pride.
In a statement sent to the Chinese ambassador and the Beijing Olympic committee on Tuesday, Mr. Spielberg said that his “conscience will not allow me to continue with business as usual.”
“Sudan’s government bears the bulk of the responsibility for these ongoing crimes but the international community, and particularly China, should be doing more to end the continuing human suffering there,” the statement said. “China’s economic, military and diplomatic ties to the government of Sudan continue to provide it with the opportunity and obligation to press for change.”
Good on Mr. Spielberg for standing up and saying what needs to be said…
District of Columbia v. Heller - a bit of background
Wonderful commentary in the Wall Street Journal regarding the lawyer who argued for Dick Heller in the Supreme Court case:
How a Young Lawyer Saved the Second Amendment
For decades the Second Amendment might as well have been called the Second-Class Amendment. The U.S. Supreme Court spent the late 20th century expansively interpreting the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Eighth amendments, not to mention unenumerated rights ranging from travel to sexual privacy. But not until last month did the court hold that the Second Amendment means what it says: that “the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”
What took so long? I put the question to Alan Gura, the 37-year-old wunderkind lawyer who represented the plaintiffs in District of Columbia v. Heller.
A fascinating read on many levels…
July 19, 2008
Schadenfreude, thy name is Budweiser
How a piss-poor beer grew to be #1 in America solely on marketing and underselling the local craft competition and how it has finally sold out to the Belgians.
A nice writeup at Salon:
The rise and fall of an American beer
Before it was bought by Belgium's InBev, Budweiser trampled local breweries across this land. Who's crying in their (piss) beer now?
I did my heaviest drinking before I turned 21. I had the motivation: I was spinning my wheels in community college. I had the opportunity: My best friend was already losing his hair, so he never got carded. And the gas station in my neighborhood sold a beer I could afford on my $3.35-an-hour video clerk's salary: Falstaff. Twelve stubby brown torpedoes of Fort Wayne water, subtly flavored with hops and barley, packaged in a plastic yellow tray. Under every bottle cap was a rebus (“It's [heart] 2 [bell] [leaf]”) that was fun to solve before the first beer, but not worth the trouble by the fifth or sixth.
Falstaff was once the third biggest brewery in America. George Will drank it when he was a teenager, as hard as it is to imagine George Will as a teenager. It even outsold Budweiser in St. Louis. But Falstaff no longer exists. The last bottle was capped in 2005. The only remnant I know of is a faded mural on the East Side of Chicago.
Ever since Budweiser was sold to Belgian brewing monster InBev on Sunday, beer drinkers have been sighing that a piece of Americana has been lost. They've got it all wrong. During its rise to President for Life of Beers, Budweiser ended up crushing dozens of local brands that formed part of this country's colorful drinking heritage.
A fun bit of history… I am more on the side of craft beers, Budweiser has always been crap. I was out for Chinese food about a year ago and Bud was the only option for draft beer. It was still crap. OK but not good. Definitely not a great craft beer.
Drilling for oil in Los Angeles
Interesting story — as the price of Oil rises, it becomes economical to reopen wells that were closed earlier. A lot of these are in urbanized areas of California.
From MS NBC:
Los Angeles is home to new rush of oil drilling
As energy prices surge, hidden rigs trap fertile fields under city
Remember how Jed Clampett and his family struck “black gold” and moved to Beverly Hills? Today the black gold is IN Beverly Hills.
Beverly Hills is one of the most fertile oil fields in Los Angeles, producing nearly a million barrels a year. Many wells are camouflaged or hidden inside buildings. One on the property of Beverly Hills High School is covered in quilt-like floral blankets.
Not far from here, in Wilmington, they churn out far more oil — in fact, the Department of Energy calls Wilmington the third largest oil field in the 48 contiguous states. Who knew?
Most of California's oil comes from the central part of the state (think Daniel Day Lewis in “There Will Be Blood”), but with oil prices so high, all over Los Angeles people are digging, or restarting, wells — even ones that only turn out 10 barrels a day. The state turns out 660,000 barrels a day, but that's down nearly half from the peak in 1985.
We have a lot of oil and there is a lot more under the ocean. Why we are not drilling for it beggars the imagination…
Two cool moves by Pope Benedict XVI
I like this guy — he has stones.
From CNN/Associated Press:
Pope says sorry for 'evil' of clergy sex abuse
Pope Benedict XVI apologized Saturday to victims of child sex abuse by Roman Catholic clergy, describing their acts as “evil” and a grave betrayal of trust.
“I would like to pause to acknowledge the shame which we have all felt as a result of the sexual abuse of minors by some clergy and religious in this country,” Benedict said during an address at a Mass in Australia.
“I am deeply sorry for the pain and suffering the victims have endured,” the pope said. “I assure them as their pastor that I too share in their suffering.”
He said those responsible for these “evils must be brought to justice.”
There have been lots of apologies (justifiably so) at the Diocese level but to have an apology from the top guy speaks volumes, especially his comment about those responsible for these evils. At that level of openness and trust between clergy and parishioner, it's not a lifestyle choice, it's a betrayal.
And it is a Papal twofer with this other story from CNN/Associated Press:
Pope Benedict: I'm praying for Anglican church
Pope Benedict XVI said Saturday that he is praying there will not be any more rifts in the Anglican community following the recent Church of England decision on women bishops.
Answering questions from journalists aboard his flight to Australia, Benedict touched briefly on the turmoil in the Anglican church.
“I am praying so that there are no more schisms and fractures” within the Anglican community, Benedict said.
On Monday, the Church of England's ruling body voted its support for women to become bishops. That stance risks causing further division among Anglicans, since traditionalists are opposed to that idea.
The Episcopal Church, the Anglican body in the U.S., is led by a woman, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori.
The Anglican Communion, a 77 million-member family of churches that trace their roots to the Church of England, is also wrestling with other contentious issues — gay clergy and the blessing of same-sex marriages.
Benedict said he did not want to “interfere” in the debate.
Readers of this blog should be aware of my feelings towards what the Anglican Church has turned into: here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.
Being forced to scrimp on food
Hat tip to Maggie's Farm for the link to this story of institutionalized poverty in Ohio.
From Gateway Pundit:
Poor Ohio Family Forced to Scrimp On Food
Angelica Hernandez (left) and her mother, Gloria Nunez, struggle to make ends meet on a very limited budget. (NPR)
NPR aired a sad piece on the Nunez family in Ohio who can no longer afford meat.
It's a good thing they're a radio channel.
Gloria Nunez has never worked. She says that since her car broke down (imagine that?) her daughter can't look for a job either.
And, they're scrimping on food:The rising cost of food means their money gets them about a third fewer bags of groceries — $100 used to buy about 12 bags of groceries, but now it's more like seven or eight.They could probably do just fine with a few bags less of groceries, but that's just me.
A little walking probably wouldn't hurt either.
And we wonder what is wrong with America these days.
Get fit, get an education (high-school GED at least), turn off the TV and get interested in something (reading, a hobby or craft). Stretch your brain and you will find lots of people wanting to hire you.
Live an institutionalized indulgent life and you get what you pay for — nothing.
July 18, 2008
We have a comment - 'Devices'
I posted about a recent letter to the Journal of the American Physical Society from Christopher Monckton of Brenchley. Please note that a Letter is not subject to the same peer-review process as a Paper. Not every letter gets published though, there is a review process — just not as stringent.
Anyway, reader 'Devices' replied:
That is a “smackdown”? Its dribble. I really wish there was more scientifically credible people objecting to the global warming crowed and not clowns like Monckton. He does more harm then good with his antics.
One of the things that I like about Monckton is that he backs up his dribble with citations to published Papers — articles that have been subjected to the scrutiny of peer-review. He is more of a synthesist — someone who spends way too much time in the library (lucky bastard) and is able to see the “Big Picture” as it were…
It seems that other people are seeing the same Big Picture…
Comments on the recent statement by the Climate Committee of the Royal Society of New Zealand.
Dr Vincent Gray
INTRODUCTION
As an Expert Reviewer for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for eighteen years, that is to say, from the very beginning. I have submitted thousands of comments to all of the Reports. My comments on the Fourth IPCC Report, all 1,898 of them, are to be found at IPCC (2007) and my opinions of the IPCC are in Gray (2008b)
I am therefore very familiar with the arguments presented by the IPCC, many of which have now been copied by the Royal Society of New Zealand, and the responses to them.
I will first comment on the Introduction to make absolutely clear what the evidence is for climate change and anthropogenic (human-induced) causes.
The climate has always changed and always will. No evidence whatsoever for a human contribution to the climate is given in their following statement.
Their Summary is as follows:
The globe is warming.
This statement is a lie. The globe is currently cooling. According to the CSSP Report (Karl et al 2007), there are currently nine authorities currently involved in providing a dataset of monthly global temperature anomalies. They are:
- NOAA’s National Climate Data Center (NCDC, GHCN-COADS)
- NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS)
- Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia (HadCRUT2v)
- NOAA radiosonde network, (RATPAC)
- Hadley Centre Radiosonde Network (HadAT2)
- University of Alabama Lower Troposphere TLT MSU (UAH)
- Remote Sensing Systems Lower Troposphere TLT MSU (RSS)
- National Center for Environmental Protection Reanalysis (NCEP50)
- European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts Reanalysis (ERA40)
Eight of these authorities agree that the globe is currently cooling. Only GISS disagrees.
Hat tip to A Western Heart for the link to this post at the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition.
See also this editorial at The Australian:
No smoking hot spot
I devoted six years to carbon accounting, building models for the Australian Greenhouse Office. I am the rocket scientist who wrote the carbon accounting model (FullCAM) that measures Australia's compliance with the Kyoto Protocol, in the land use change and forestry sector.
FullCAM models carbon flows in plants, mulch, debris, soils and agricultural products, using inputs such as climate data, plant physiology and satellite data. I've been following the global warming debate closely for years.
When I started that job in 1999 the evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming seemed pretty good: CO2 is a greenhouse gas, the old ice core data, no other suspects.
The evidence was not conclusive, but why wait until we were certain when it appeared we needed to act quickly? Soon government and the scientific community were working together and lots of science research jobs were created. We scientists had political support, the ear of government, big budgets, and we felt fairly important and useful (well, I did anyway). It was great. We were working to save the planet.
But since 1999 new evidence has seriously weakened the case that carbon emissions are the main cause of global warming, and by 2007 the evidence was pretty conclusive that carbon played only a minor role and was not the main cause of the recent global warming. As Lord Keynes famously said, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”
What follows is a wonderful read and Dr. Evans closes with this trenchant comment:
The world has spent $50 billion on global warming since 1990, and we have not found any actual evidence that carbon emissions cause global warming. Evidence consists of observations made by someone at some time that supports the idea that carbon emissions cause global warming. Computer models and theoretical calculations are not evidence, they are just theory.
What is going to happen over the next decade as global temperatures continue not to rise? The Labor Government is about to deliberately wreck the economy in order to reduce carbon emissions. If the reasons later turn out to be bogus, the electorate is not going to re-elect a Labor government for a long time. When it comes to light that the carbon scare was known to be bogus in 2008, the ALP is going to be regarded as criminally negligent or ideologically stupid for not having seen through it. And if the Liberals support the general thrust of their actions, they will be seen likewise.
The onus should be on those who want to change things to provide evidence for why the changes are necessary. The Australian public is eventually going to have to be told the evidence anyway, so it might as well be told before wrecking the economy.
Exactly. So — Devices — if you are still with us and have not stomped off to your enviro support group for a nice re-assuring hug, why don't you step up to the plate and offer some scientific facts that differ with what is being said…
July 17, 2008
What the %@^!
It seems that using characters like %@^! to represent swearwords has a formal name.
This: %@^! is a grawlix.
From Hoefler and Frere-Jones writing at Typography.com:
A Word For That
Is that the sound of a designer waiting for Adobe Updater to complete? No, just a brief response to a question on Docs Populi, via Coudal Partners:“What does one call the use of random non-alphabet characters to indicate cursing? It’s a universally understood device, and is applied in both graphic and textual settings. It is such a commonly accepted staple that I assumed it must already be defined and described — but apparently it’s not.”
But it is! The term is grawlix, and it looks to have been coined by Beetle Bailey cartoonist Mort Walker around 1964. Though it’s yet to gain admission to the Oxford English Dictionary, OED Editor-at-Large Jesse Sheidlower describes it as “undeniably useful, certainly a word, and one that I’d love to see used more.” As the author of the grawlixy compendium The F-Word, Sheidlower’s perspective is unique — and unassailable, if you’re wise, since he and his cronies have the power to immortalize naysayers as expletives themselves. (Don’t laugh: such was the fate of philistine Thomas Bowdler, miser Charles Boycott, and jingoist Nicolas Chauvin, to say nothing of famous typeface designer James W. Scumbag.)
Heh… A big hat-tip to the excellent John Nack on Adobe
July 16, 2008
Self Reliance - Walton Feed
Back in the run-up to the Y2K scare, a lot of people were into buying several years of food and gasoline. One of the places that got a lot of good reviews was Walton Feed in South-East (Montpelier) Idaho.
Turns out they are still very much around. Check out their Self Reliance page.
A lot of their off-site links (in the Links to other sites: section) have rotted away — the Internet Way-back Machine may be of help there.
The articles that they have at their own website are still excellent.
Their shopping cart is a bit old-skool — it's an HTML form that you fill out and they then get back to you with the final price for shipping, etc. Their prices are reasonable and they have a lot of great stuff.
A good resource to have for now or to bookmark for later…
Another wonderful smackdown by Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
You can always count on Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley for a good intelligent rant on any given subject. I don't know what the guy's IQ is but Monckton is one of the more intelligent people out there.
His latest is this letter (ie: not peer reviewed; more an informal communication) to the Journal of the American Physical Society:
Climate Sensitivity Reconsidered
By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
Abstract
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007) concluded that anthropogenic CO2 emissions probably caused more than half of the “global warming” of the past 50 years and would cause further rapid warming. However, global mean surface temperature has not risen since 1998 and may have fallen since late 2001. The present analysis suggests that the failure of the IPCC’s models to predict this and many other climatic phenomena arises from defects in its evaluation of the three factors whose product is climate sensitivity:
- Radiative forcing ΔF;
- The no-feedbacks climate sensitivity parameter κ; and
- The feedback multiplier ƒ.
Some reasons why the IPCC’s estimates may be excessive and unsafe are explained. More importantly, the conclusion is that, perhaps, there is no “climate crisis”, and that currently-fashionable efforts by governments to reduce anthropogenic CO2 emissions are pointless, may be ill-conceived, and could even be harmful.
What follows is a point by point examination of the predictions of the IPCC and the reality as observed through various methods for the last twenty (or so) years. There are about forty citations so you are more then welcome to check the numbers for yourself.
And James Hansen gets a new one reamed out at no charge…
Happy Birthday - The Atomic Age
From Physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer:
If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the mighty one. Now I am become Death, destroyer of worlds.
From Trinity site director Dr. Kenneth Bainbridge:
Now we are all sons-of-bitches.
Sixty Three years ago today, the first atomic bomb was exploded at the Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range in New Mexico.
What a long strange trip it's been…
July 15, 2008
Sporting my new Tee Shirt
My Heller Kitty tee shirts arrived yesterday and I wore one today to the store.
A couple people got it, more people got it when I explained about the District of Columbia v. Heller Supreme Court ruling.
That Second Amendment is such a pesky thing — let's just get rid of it.
After all, the Constitution is a “living document” and we can change it whenever it doesn't suit our immediate agendas — right?
Photos in a day or two — the camera is at the store for a few days.
Coming home to roost - bank bubbles
The problems with the banking system are manifesting in a lot of different places these days. I am not an economist (nor do I play one on TV) but the signs are strong that we are in for a bumpy ride.
The news about IndyMac (and FannieMae and FreddieMac) is widely circulated but other establishments are in trouble as well including common “big” banks.
My Dad has a lot of his money at Washington Mutual and after hearing that they were in a spot of trouble with some bad loans, I checked their stock prices and was surprised at what I saw. Here is the five year chart:
(ed. note: I a shrinking the charts to cut filesize. Full charts and additional data can be found at BigCharts WM is the stock code for Washington Mutual and BAC is the code for Bank of America)
Moribund performance until a sharp downward plunge.
Here is the six months ago to present version:
Note that in the last 2 1/2 months, the stock price lost 300% from $12 to under $4.
Jen and I bank at Bank of America and we were thinking that since WaMu did a lot of home and construction loans, they were especially vulnerable and that our bank, big old BofA would not be in such bad shape. Hooo Boy!
BofA five year:
BofA didn't do as badly as WaMu in the earliest years — they showed a nice deliberate rise from $40 in 2004 to $55 in 2007 but they started declining then and the pitch towards the bottom happened right at the beginning of 2008 with the same shaped curve as WaMu — a nice spike in the first few weeks and then down, down, down…
The six-month chart is almost as bad with a 200% loss for the last 2 1/2 months:
And of course, everyone was so pleased to get the risky loans but now they want the Federal government to bail them out…
Like I said, we are going to be in for an interesting ride. Stock up on non-perishable foods, close out any high-yield investments as these have the highest risks involved and prepare for an interesting ride.
Global Warming causes...
A list of the current hyperbolic scary stories about what Global Warming will do if we don't do something RIGHT NOW…
From Luboš Motl's The Reference Frame:
Today, global warming causes…
Global warming hasn't been seen for ten years but despite the absence, it causes a lot of things. According to the mainstream media, during the last day, global warming caused:
- … 1.6 million kidney stones (“the most compelling science to date”!)
- … malaria increase
- … helicobacter pylori in the stomach
- … obesity of Filipinos
- … Russians, including a dog, to abandon ice
- … threats to water supplies in D.C.
And this is a bit less than half of his list.
And the Sun has not had a sunspot for over a month now — very quiet and cool.
Earthworms and Compost
An excellent essay on true sustainable farming as it was done back in the mid-1800's:
My Grandfather's Earthworm Farm
by George Sheffield Oliver
When, as a small boy, I went to live with my grandfather, George Sheffield, in northern Ohio, I found him living on a model farm of 160 acres, which he had farmed continuously for more than sixty years. He was a. man who loved the soil and took pride in every detail of his farm. I remember him as a tall, striking figure, of the type of Edwin Markham. In fact, in later years, when I came across a picture of the poet Markham, I was struck by the close resemblance of the two men — their features were almost identical and they could have easily been taken for twins.
Some of my pleasantest memories from the period of several years which I spent on this farm are the daily horseback rides I took with my grandfather. After all these years I can still see him, at the age of seventy-five, riding with the ease and grace of the practised horseman, swinging into the saddle with the facility of a man in his prime. At that age he still took delight in riding the young three-year-olds. He lived to the ripe old age of ninety-three.
Originally, this farm-holding had been 1,800 acres, but it had been sold off in forty-acre tracts to former tenants until there remained only the farmstead of 160 acres. It had been my grandfather's practice to select young single men as farm help. As these men reached maturity and married and wanted to establish homes of their own, my grandfather would set each of them up on a tract of forty acres or more, assist them in getting started, and accept a payment contract over a period of forty years. Thus, his close neighbours were men who, like himself, loved the soil and could co-operate in all community work. My grandfather often remarked that he was making more profit from his remaining 160 acres than he ever made on the original 1,800 acres, due to his lifetime experience, improved methods, and the intensive utilization of earthworms.
The homestead was located at the centre the farm. Four acres of orchard and garden furnished an abundance of fruits and vegetables the year round. Root cellars, vegetable banks, canned and dried fruits and vegetables provided for the winter months. The house and orchard were backed by forty acres of timbered land — maple, hickory, black walnut, burr oak, and many other trees native to Ohio. Incidentally, the farm was fenced with black walnut rails — beautiful timber which would be almost priceless at this time. My grandfather called this timbered tract his park. It was, indeed, a wonderful park, abounding in small game and bird life to delight the soul of a small boy with his first gun. The park was well watered with living springs and a quite generous-sized creek ran through it, large enough to furnish all the fish the family needed. I was designated as the official fish-catcher, a task which I dearly loved.
A wonderful story and an absolutely pitch-perfect operation for composting with the earthworms. The grandfather knew what he was doing more than most of the environmentalists today and the quality of his crops spoke volumes.
Hat tip to Maggie's Farm for the link.
Your daily dose of WTF??? for 07-15-2008
From Theo Spark comes this story:
Man found in WI basement covered in BBQ sauce
A couple in Wisconsin telephoned police in the middle of the night after finding a man in their basement covered head to toe in barbecue sauce.
“He told the officers that it was urban camouflage,” said the homeowner.
The homeowners say they woke up to whistling sounds. The husband grabbed his shotgun and headed toward the basement where he found the sauced-up intruder. He held him at gunpoint until police arrived.
The guy told officers he had covered himself in barbecue sauce because he wanted to hide from the government.
Well dang — barbecue sauce didn't work. I'll try Tabasco next…
July 14, 2008
The good side to high gas prices - fewer fatalities
Curious bit of statistical analysis here. From Yahoo/Associated Press:
Study: As gas prices go up, auto deaths drop
High gas prices could turn out to be a lifesaver for some drivers. The authors of a new study say gas prices are causing driving declines that could result in a third fewer auto deaths annually, with the most dramatic drop likely to be among teen drivers.
Professors Michael Morrisey of the University of Alabama at Birmingham and David Grabowski of Harvard Medical School said they found that for every 10 percent increase in gas prices there was a 2.3 percent decline in auto deaths. For drivers ages 15 to 17, the decline was 6 percent, and for ages 18 to 21, it was 3.2 percent.
Their study looked at fatalities from 1985 to 2006, when gas prices reached about $2.50 a gallon. With gas now averaging more than $4 a gallon, Morrisey said he expects to see much greater drop — about 1,000 deaths a month.
With annual auto deaths typically ranging from about 38,000 to 40,000 a year, a drop of 12,000 deaths would cut the total by nearly a third, Morrisey said in an interview with The Associated Press.
“I think there is some silver lining here in higher gas prices in that we will see a public health gain,” Grabowski said. But he cautioned that their estimate of a decline of 1,000 deaths a month could be offset somewhat by the shift under way to smaller, lighter, more fuel-efficient cars and the increase in motorcycle and scooter driving.
Not that I am asking for gas prices to continue rising — the US's energy policy is clearly flawed and needs a dramatic makeover. We need a minimum of 80% nuclear for baseload electrical generation, stop using coal for electrical generation — use natural gas instead, invest heavily in coal to oil conversion plants for vehicle fuel and use the surplus energy to bootstrap the development of real alternative fuels, not ethanol — ethanol is a horribly expensive joke, even worse in that the people who can least afford its costs are the ones that bear the burden through higher food costs…
It's just a cup of coffee people
Talk about needing to get a life…
From Jeff Simmermon writing at And I Am Not Lying comes this story of an iced espresso:
Murky Coffee, Arlington: Hold That Espresso Between Your Knees
Maybe condescending service from a patronizing millenial at a DC coffee shop isn’t news to anyone else. But the only way I’m ever coming back to Murky Coffee in Arlington is if I’m carrying matches and a can of kerosene.
I just ordered my usual summertime pick-me-up: a triple shot of espresso dumped over ice. And the guy at the counter looked me in the eye with a straight face and said “I’m sorry, we can’t serve iced espresso here. It’s against our policy.”
The whole world turned brown and chunky for a second. Flecks of corn floated past my pupils, and it took me a second to blink it all away.
“Okay,” I said, “I’ll have a triple espresso and a cup of ice, please.”
He rolled his eyes and rang it up, took my money, gave me change. I stood there and waited. Then the barista called me over to the bar. I reached for it, and he leaned over and locked his eyes with mine, saying “Hey man. What you’re about to do … that’s really, really Not Okay.”
I could hear the capital letters in his voice, could see the gravity of the situation in his eyes.
He continued: “This is our store policy, to preserve the integrity of the coffee. It’s about the quality of the drink, and diluting the espresso is really not cool with us. So I mean, you’re going to do what you’re going to do, and I can’t stop you, but”
I interrupted. “You’re goddamned right you can’t stop me,” I said. “I happen to have a personal policy that prohibits me from indulging stupid bullshit like this — and another personal policy of doing what I want with the products I pay for.” Then I looked him right in his big wide eyes and poured the espresso onto the ice.
The whole thing was so Jack Nicholson in Five Easy Pieces.
And of course, Jeff left a tip:
To their credit, murky coffee responded wonderfully and their Open Letter to Jeff Simmermon lists a few of their policies, gives props to the barista on duty and closes with these words:
To Mr. Simmermon, you overplayed your hand with your vulgar tip-schtick. While I certainly won't bemoan you your right to free-speech, I have to respond to you in your own dialect: Fuck you, Jeff Simmermon. Considering your public threat of arson, you'll understand when I say that if you ever show your face at my shop, I'll punch you in your dick.
Respectfully,
Nick
Owner, murky coffee
Right back at'cha…
Yikes - a rave gone wrong in Russia
Makes me cringe to think about it…
From Reuters/UK:
Ravers lose sight at Russian laser show
Dozens of partygoers at an outdoor rave near Moscow last week have lost partial vision after a laser light show burned their retinas, Russian health officials said on Monday.
Moscow city health department officials confirmed 12 cases of laser-blindness at the Central Ophthalmological Clinic, and daily newspaper Kommersant said another 17 were registered at City Hospital 32 in the centre of the capital.
Attendees at the July 5 Aquamarine Open Air Festival in Kirzhach, 80 km (50 miles) northeast of Moscow, began seeking medical help days after the show, complaining of eye and vision problems, health officials told Reuters.
“They all have retinal burns, scarring is visible on them. Loss of vision in individual cases is as high as 80 percent, and regaining it is already impossible,” Kommersant quoted a treating ophthalmologist as saying.
Attendees said heavy rains forced organisers to erect massive tents for the all-night dance party, and lasers that normally illuminate upwards into the sky were instead partially refracted into the ravers' eyes.
And the excuse:
The owner of a Moscow laser rental company told Reuters the accidental blindings were due to “illiteracy on the part of technicians”.
What idiots — the beam itself may only be 20 or 30 watts but focus that on a spot less than a millimeter in diameter and you are going to be doing some serious damage. I hope they have a deep insurance policy.