Weekend Unthreaded…

Want to discuss elections that are coming?

5.9 out of 10 based on 21 ratings

110 comments to Weekend Unthreaded…

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    Andrew McRae

    Elections? Which ones? The ones that will affect us the most or did you mean the ones we can vote in?

    šŸ™

    Obamney will win. Two sides of the same coin.

    We’re still a fair way out from the Aus fed elections next year. What other elections are happening?

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    • #
      wes george

      My money is on Romney!

      Because I think the global media have underestimated American outrage at Obama’s un-American agenda.

      http://washingtonexaminer.com/barone-going-out-on-a-limb-romney-wins-handily/article/2512470#.UJUNnMXA_Lt

      I thought Obama would win too up until the debates. Now the electoral tides have turned, largely because Obama is almost as incompetent as Julia Gillard.

      The tea party organisation and the Republicans are on fire. Millions of Americans would “crawl over broken glass” to vote against Obama, while Obama’s loyalists are pretty disenchanted with “the empty chair” the real Barry has proven to be. In the US no one has to vote. You have to be motivated to vote. Obama loyalists are so low spirited this election, Obama told them to vote for “revenge.” Romney answered by calling for Americans to vote for “love of country.”

      US elections are all about the electoral vote. This gives Obama the edge, because the big urban states of California, New York and Illinois, New Jersey are solid for Obama. They dominate their regions, influencing Ohio, Penn, Maine, Washington, Oregon, etc.

      But all those states have been ruled by liberals for generations and they are in steep decline, close to bankruptcy, infrastructure decaying, corruption rampant, unions out-of-control, pensions in ruins… whole cities, such as Detroit and Pittsburgh, little safer than Baghdad. On the other hand the solid “red” states led by Texas are growing economies with healthy, family friendly cultures. (In fact, Texas’ economy is larger than Australia’s.)

      http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2012/11/03/the-state-of-the-race-delphic-with-a-lean-to-obama/

      The reason why we haven’t heard that Romney is likely to win is because a huge section of our media is state-owned, the ABC or blinded by pro-statist bias, Fairfax.

      The ABC is in denial. Just like in France…

      http://pjmedia.com/blog/first-amendment-french-style/

      To paraphrase Michael Barone… People always say this or that election is the most important election of our lifetime. This time they just might be right.

      Constitutional democracy works. We’re going to get an illustration of it in action in a few days.

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      • #
        Mark D.

        If I live that long (one never knows) I’ll be casting my vote for Romney.

        I am not at all confident he’ll win though. We in the US might endure another 4 years of Obama except for one very important matter that hasn’t been brought up much by the media or either candidate. That is our next president will likely appoint 3 Supreme Court justices. If Obama and a Democrat lead senate are in power we’ll see a significant power swing to the Left that will last for a very long time. Our Constitution will be shaken to the foundation.

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      • #
        Gee Aye

        Wes did you misread the title? It does not say “Unhinged”

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        • #
          Andrew McRae

          Aww come on, Gee Aye, just once a week you could try to live on the edge.

          Unhinged is the best kind of hinged!

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      • #
        ExWarmist

        Hi Wes,

        Whichever candidate wins the election – they will continue the current processes of…

        [1] The destruction of the US Constitution.

        [2] The destruction of the Rule of Law.

        [3] The maintenance of the US dollar world reserve currency/Federal Debt Ponzi/US trade deficit – until it breaks.

        Neither candidate or party has any recent track record of genuine support for the US Constitution, the Rule of Law or support for sound monetary and financial systems.

        The US looks like a company that is being stripe mined of it’s value by the current management while the board looks the other way and the shareholders remain mostly oblivious.

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      • #
        Juliar

        I personally think that Obama will win. Romney doesn’t have the votes where he needs them, even if he has a strong popular vote.

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  • #
    cohenite

    Obamney will win. Two sides of the same coin.

    No they’re not; the difference between Obama and Romney is stark.

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      • #
        cohenite

        Tony?

        ? Who you talking to?

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        • #
          Andrew Mcrae

          Whooosh

          That’s The sound of Iron Man going over your head.

          Though if I took otter’s comment seriously, Romney seems to be the more “keeping our industrial-military complex strong” candidate. (just as Isenhower warned us about). I think Tony Stark would sponsor Romney. On the other hand, Obama favours Iron-man style extra-judicial paramilitary interventionism, so Stark would sponsor Obama too.

          Again I struggle to see the difference between these two candidates.

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          • #
            cohenite

            And I like Iron-man too.

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          • #
            ExWarmist

            The political Left/Right Distinction is a popular fallacy.

            There is no “popular” issue of the left/right conversation that actually impinges on the acquisition, maintenance & execution of coercive power.

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          • #
            Rereke Whakaaro

            Apparently, the left/right distinction came from the Spanish Civil War. For some reason that nobody knows, the Fascists irregulars wore an armband on their upper right arm, and the Communists irregulars wore their armbands on the upper left arm. Right and Left. Hitler chose to move the Nazi armband onto the left arm to disassociate his new political movement from the old Spanish Fascists.

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            ExWarmist

            RW…

            That is possibly one of the more obscure ideas I have ever come across. What’s your source for this point?

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    Gnome

    ABC 24 watchers- how many times over the weekend have you fumed at the girl in the US saying “join Scott Bevan and I for…”?

    Last week it was Ben Knight saying “his mother drove he and his wife…”

    ABC “journalists” are getting as bad as football commentators with their mixed up pronouns. Can nothing be done? It wouldn’t be so bad if they didn’t keep repeating the wrong statements over and over!

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  • #
    Gnome

    US elections- the right wing websites are awarding it to Romney and the ABC and SBS to Obama. Wishful thinking all round- who to believe? Does it matter?

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    • #
      cohenite

      Does it matter?

      FFS read my links! On the one hand you have Obama who fervently believes in AGW and has a misanthropic Malthusian as his scientific advisor in John Holdren.

      On the other hand Romney does not believe in it.

      In addition the Benghazi incident should be Obama’s Slater and Gordon incident; he sold out US citizens and they died as a result.

      What skeleton has Romney got; a dog on his car roof.

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      • #
        Gnome

        I was hoping Ron Paul would be preselected but it was too much to hope for. He was the only candidate who realised the whole global warming thing was crap.

        Romney was a believer and you never know what he will do if elected.

        Anyway, remember 2000- Gore v Bush- remind me- which one was the antichrist then? The rest of the world should be able to sue the US for negligence, imposing people like that on us in positions of power.

        Apparently Ron Paul has a son with presidential ambitions- we can only hope he is a chip off the old bloke!

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        • #
          Roy Hogue

          The rest of the world should be able to sue the US for negligence, imposing people like that on us in positions of power.

          I’ll assume you’re an Aussie and say, you aren’t doing any better. It’s just that your global influence isn’t what ours is. So perhaps you should remember how we got to be number 1. Perhaps you should remember the good that we have done as number 1. Perhaps you should remember who put thousands of lives on the line to stop the Japanese advance down the South Pacific toward an Australia that could not have withstood that advance.

          Or perhaps we should stop this nonsense and start acting like we have a common legal and political heritage, a common language and a long standing friendship. Maybe we should start acting like we have a common foe in this world. Maybe we should concentrate on the things that unite us and not the things that separate us.

          I would very much like these things:

          1. Stop telling us who to vote for

          2. Tend diligently to your own affairs just as we try to tend to ours

          3. Give us the benefit of the doubt, just as we give it to you

          4. Stop treating us like enemies ā€” we are not your enemy

          That’s what I expect from friends.

          That’s how I treat friends.

          And I’ll echo Mark D. who once said in effect that we’re tired of being number 1 and would gladly let someone else take that load for a while. But who is there to take it? No one!

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            Gnome

            That’s my thumbs up for your response.

            I particularly congratulate you for the US Ambassador to Australia- Geoffrey (not sure of his spelling) Bleich- a very impressive man.

            We had to wait a while for the appointment to be made, but the wait was definitely worthwhile. As long as you send us representatives of his quality we can be satisfied that we are being taken seriously.

            I wonder if he has presidential ambitions? Probably too sensible!

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          • #
            FijiDave

            Roy

            Very well put. However,

            thousands of lives on the line to stop the Japanese advance down the South Pacific toward an Australia that could not have withstood that advance.

            Actually, General MacArthur did it all on his own.

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          • #
            Roy Hogue

            Gnome,

            Thank you.

            I know little of who is ambassador to Australia but it’s good to hear that ours is respected.

            Fiji Dave,

            We were glad to do it and it was in our interest as well as yours. I may be wrong and you right; McArthur did take back the Philippines. But I don’t recall him being involved in any of the naval battles.

            In any case, it’s history and I only mentioned it to make a contrast with what I really wanted to say.

            Roy

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          • #
            FijiDave

            I can recommend some good books on the subject of the war in the Pacific for those who have an interest.

            War Without Mercy: John Dower
            All Hell Let Loose: Max Hastings

            The best book I’ve read on the subject by an American, With the Old Breed: Eugene Sledge,

            and;

            Pacific Fury by Peter Thompson. A terrific narrative of the Pacific war from the Australian perspective.

            Quote, “Unaware that the Japanese were retreating, MacArthur launched into a tirade against the Australian soldiers, claiming they ‘were not good in the field, they were not good in the jungle, and they came from the slums of the cities of Australia and they had no fighting spirit’ Unquote. (Page 356)

            I think the Aussies were threatening to pinch some of the limelight by actually being the antithesis of what he was complaining about.

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          • #
            janama

            with respect Roy there is another side to your story.

            The Japanese were forced into war because the US cut off all it’s oil supplies. They weren’t tracking south to invade Australia, they were after East Timor oil! They did attack Darwin Harbour to destroy the ships that could hinder their access to Timor oil. In fact the attack was more destructive than Pearl Harbour in lives lost and ships sunk.

            Yes the US became No 1 but only because the rest of us had exhausted ourselves fighting the Germans in the middle east.

            The US lost 418,500 lives in WWII whereas the Brits lost 450,000, France 567,000, Germany 6 – 8 million, Poland 5 – 6 million, Russia 23 million, China 10 million, Yugoslavia 1 million etc etc.

            Remember, it was the Russians that liberated Berlin.

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          • #
            Roy Hogue

            janama,

            Yes the US became No 1 but only because the rest of us had exhausted ourselves fighting the Germans in the middle east.

            I say this weith equal respect, friend to friend:

            We fought Germany, Japan and Italy to the bitter end and did not exhaust ourselves. I’m not belittling Australian or Russian contributions or anyone else. But we came out on top. Why? Why not Russia?

            And then we went on into the Berlin airlift and became the backbone and sole useful financial support of NATO. Why could we do that? Then a few years later we saved South Korea’s bacon from the fire.

            I think but for us and billions of dollars a year (and in spite of bad mistakes) Pakistan and its nuclear missiles would now be in the hands of terrorists.

            We aren’t perfect but who will you have instead? Who will you have or maybe what will you have if we collapse and disengage from the world?

            I’d like off this merry-go-round. But if I get off I want a world left that we can all live in. We don’t have that now. It behooves us to pay attention to today’s problems, not rehash the past. That was my entire point.

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            janama

            forgive me for expanding this Roy as I don’t wish to offend, but I have observed a denial of the sequencing of WWII by Americans in general.

            Germany invaded Poland in September 1939 followed closely by invasions of France, Holland, Belgium and Italy. this was followed by the middle east campaigns in The Balkans, Palestine, Egypt, Tunisia, Iraq and Iran.

            Pearl Harbour occurred in December 1941 and all US troops were sent to the Pacific.
            We aussies had to quickly return our troops from the middle east to fight the Japanese in the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea.

            The first U.S. troops arrived in the British Isles in January 1942, The allied invasion of Italy was in September 1943, 4 years after the war had started.

            It’s the crucial 4 years that determined who came out on top in the end. Everyone else was broke by then, except the US.

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            Gnome

            Janama- the US didn’t want to enter WWII because of their experience of WWI, in which they thought they were fighting on the side of freedom and found the British Empire expanded by 30% after the war. Not much of a result for freedom after the loss of about a million US lives.

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          • #
            Roy Hogue

            janama,

            I’m not offended but I think you misunderstand my point. We started the war broke and in a depression that was far from over. We put in a good four year all out effort and on three fronts, not just one. We took a bad economic pounding for doing it and were heavily in debt before it was over. What enabled us to come out of all that and not be exhausted was not four extra years that no one else had but the strong economic engine we built after getting into the war. That was our ace in the hole. And it was all done after Pearl Harbor. No one else could do that for various reasons, so yes, we were in a unique position but not because we didn’t get into the war four years sooner.

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            janama

            Fair enough Roy – I just believe had the US entered the war 4 years earlier it would have been considerably shorter and the Pacific war wouldn’t have occurred.

            Gnome – the US lost 111,465 in WW1. France – 1,697,800, United Kingdom – 995,939.

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          • #
            Roy Hogue

            janama,

            You may very well be right.

            One of the bad or at least very frustrating properties life has, is the inability to go back and try it some other way to see what would happen. Once I realized that, I try not to second guess the past. And the more so if I wasn’t there in the first place (I was just 2 years old in 1941).

            On the other hand, I think we all should learn from the past just as much as possible.

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          • #
            wes george

            The Japanese were forced into war because the US cut off all itā€™s oil supplies. They werenā€™t tracking south to invade Australia, they were after East Timor oil!

            Janama,

            You’ve put forward this invidious historical re-write before (at Jennifer Marohasy’s blog, circa 2009, I think) and we had to set you straight back then, but apparently you didn’t get the memo.

            The Japanese were long at war before the embargo of US oil-fuel sales to Japan.

            Japan had invaded the northern half of China where they were massacring millions.

            Japanese documents and testimony after the war revealed that the militaristic Japanese regime had long planned a totalitarian Japanese “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere” ie, Japanese Empire, extending from Indonesia to India through China.

            While it is true that Japanese expansionist ambitions grew from merely enslaving northern China to conquering everyone between Japan and India… and it is true that Japan didn’t get around to creating a full blown invasion plan for Australia. They did plan to starve Australia out by cutting us off from the entire world.

            If Japan had won the war, there is little doubt that Australia would have become a slave state of their co-prosperity sphere to supply Japan with coal and iron ore.

            Given the feisty Aussie spirit, should Japan have succeeded in surrounding Australia we most certainly would not have made peace with this situation, but would have resisted, thus –by your logic — “forcing” the nice Japanese to invade.

            The truly invidious part of your historical fabulation is the idea that the Japanese regime was forced by the Yanks into becoming warmongering fascists by US foreign policy.

            Nothing could be further from the truth. Besides being factually incorrect, it is moral incoherent, because it lays the blame for Japanese aggression at the feet of their innocent victims.

            Of course, it is now a standard trope of anti-Americanism to hold the Yanks responsible for the creation of every miscreant on the world stage. Following this logic, in the confrontation with Iran, the nice mullahs were forced into building nuclear weapons by American aggression.

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          • #

            janama, the Russians did WHAT to Berlin?

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      • #
        memoryvault

        .
        It’s okay Cohenite.

        We can all see that the world will be a much better place if the US President is Romney, the sock-puppet of Rockefeller / JP Morgan US financial interests, rather than Obama, the sock-puppet of Rothschild / Goldman-Sachs European financial interests.

        Different as chalk and cheese, really.

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    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      It probably comes down to who services the voting machines …

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      • #
        Catamon

        It probably comes down to who services the voting machines ā€¦

        Be assured, the Collective has that well in hand. šŸ™‚

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      • #

        If they’re lucky, šŸ™‚ there won’t be electricity to run the voting machines.

        They’ve known for decades how to make the machines reliable and fully auditable by those who cast votes and those who count votes. But it’s not done. Not even the recommended audit trails are available and verifiable.

        One only has to keep in mind that the purpose of the voting machine is to provide an initial count of votes.

        What follows is not comprehensive. It serves (hopefully) to illustrate how multiple audit trails can be implemented to provide reasonablke assurance of correctly counting voters’ intentions.

        To that end, the voting machine can print a “ballot” in human readable form to allow confirmation of the voter’s choices. The voter confirms their choice by letting the machine scan the unique, random barcode on that ballot. The machine then tallies against candidates and records the ballot’s ID and a timestamp. The voter places their printed and confirmation-scanned ballot paper in a ballot box for manual counting and audit purposes. The machine only records the ballot-ID and when that ballot was confirmed or cancelled. The voting details may only be held between the time that the ballot paper is printed and then confirmed (or cancelled). Recording voting details of individual ballots could technically aid breaching the secrecy of the vote.

        If the voter doesn’t like what’s been printed, they can cancel (“spoil”) their ballot by making an on-screen selection to cancel the voting process. After taking their spoilt ballot to a polling booth official, the official places it in a “spoils” booth which scans the ballots code and places into a sealed “spoilt ballot box”. The original voting booth is then “released” to allow another vote to be cast and the ballot-ID to be flagged as having been spoilt.

        At the end of voting, the (sealed part of) voting machines and ballot boxes are collected and taken to a secure location under which their “seals” are broken. Tallies are extracted from the machines and audit trails of the ballot paper ID’s transferred for audit and initial count checks. The non-volatile memory from the machines which records the machine’s operational configuration, ballot-IDs and the date-time at which the votes were cast, must then be removed for secure, “permanent” storage as they provide an audit trail of ballots. Ballot boxes are opened and papers scanned to cross-check their ID’s against those recorded in the machines providing an initial integrity check.

        “Spoilt” ballots and their collecting machines are dealt with in a separate place, to prevent cross-contamination. The spoilt ballot IDs should match those “spoilt” as confirmed by the voting machines.

        The system doesn’t preclude secret, manual voting. The polling place only has to stock sufficient ballot papers and initial them when the voter gets their name checked; as it does now (in Australia).

        In the event of disputes; or at leisure, the printed voting ballots can again be tallied by hand and/or scanned by machinery which recognizes the human-readable text on the ballot paper.

        In designing any system that needs to be trusted, one must be very imaginative in how one could possibly pervert the system. Such is not very different to what any scientist should do with their theories and publications. A peer-review is simply an extension of that by letting others, with a different point of view, try to work out what could be wrong.

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      • #
        Juliar

        With the new laws and the recent Supreme Court ruling in the US, I think that is a possibility although even then, I still think it is unlikely.

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  • #
    Joe's World(progressive evolution)

    Jo,

    I have been going over “what is wrong with our science”.
    We have been programed to have an idea, create the product and observe the out come EXCLUSIVELY to the product and records it’s workings.
    It does not matter how it actually works or what outside contributers are in play.
    ‘Observed science’ and the ‘scientific method’ are strictly for what is being observed to the neglect of EVERYTHING else.

    And our scientific “LAWS” were generated around this premise.

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  • #
    Dave

    .
    Is this correct?

    NZ$2.70 per tonne of CO2 is current trade price?

    See Carbon Match NZ.

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  • #
    Roy Hogue

    After all the talk, the best judgment has Romney probably the real winner, but…

    There will be voter fraud; the vote will be close in numerous places; squads of lawyers will descend on every close vote tally; some judges, possibly just the one on the Supreme Court who casts the tie breaking vote, will decide who is inaugurated on January 20th. The voters mean nothing to the evil that grips our president and his supporters. Nothing at all!

    We have sunk so low that Obama stands up publically and calls his rival a, “…bullshitter,” (direct quote of the current President of The United States of America). He is now asking his supporters to vote for, “revenge” (another direct quote). He utterly lacks a conscience and a moral compass. He’s a bluff from his first breath to this moment. But his one skill is to manipulate the gullible. And he has a very destructive personal agenda that he doesn’t dare speak out loud — the last anti-colonialist.

    I don’t need to give you a link to any of this because I’ve seen and heard it coming right out of my own TV set, years worth of it.

    So Jo, you got me started and here’s my bottom line. I think there could be violence in the streets if Romney wins through. I hope not. But I remember the likes of those “occupy” fools and worse ā€” the Watts Riots among others. They want what they want. Obama is their messiah, their savior, a gift from god. He can’t lose!

    My country is in a shambles and we’re at the fork in the road. Tuesday’s choice will determine the future for a long time. That it affects the rest of you makes the wrong outcome an even greater tragedy.

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      OldColdMan

      My country is in a shambles and weā€™re at the fork in the road. Tuesdayā€™s choice will determine the future for a long time. That it affects the rest of you makes the wrong outcome an even greater tragedy.

      We’re in the same boat in the UK. I hope for a Romney victory and a rolling back of the state in the US. If Romney/Ryan can get even a part of their plan in gear it will act as a beacon of hope for us in 2015.

      Better still, it might just be that a more reasoned debate on the CO2 nonsense will also follow. With a more right-wing emphasis in the US Government, sceptical scientists won’t feel the same pressure to toe the ‘party’ line and we might hope to see the ‘consensus’ fall apart.

      Good luck, I’ll be rooting for Mitt and Paul.

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      • #
        Roy Hogue

        OldColdMan,

        Thank you. And I’ve not missed the mess that the UK is in.

        I have no real idea how Romney will govern. But I’m sure of one thing; he will not hate success as Obama does. And that’s a clue that some things will change drastically. But much depends on getting a veto proof hold on the senate and keeping control of the house.

        Not long to wait now…

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      Rereke Whakaaro

      Well Roy,

      It’s always good to remember that an election year is the time politicians want to help us out of all the troubles they got us into in the first place.

      I don’t know who’s quote that is (George Carlin, perhaps), but it certainly sums up all the election hype.

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        Roy Hogue

        Rereke,

        I appreciate the humor. But when faced with two undesirables I’ll always go for the least undesirable. You have my permission to quote me if the occasion arises. šŸ™‚

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          Rereke Whakaaro

          Roy,

          I absolutely agree – the trouble is, that they are all undesirable, in one way or another.

          How do you carve a statue of an elephant? Well, you get a very large block of stone, and you chisel away all the bits that don’t look like an elephant.

          How do you select a the best presidential candidate … ?

          šŸ˜‰

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            Roy Hogue

            …the trouble is, that they are all undesirable, in one way or another.

            I hear ya. I wish I had an answer. My life has mostly been a process of managing problems rather than being able to solve them. Maybe it’s best that way. Maybe it would be too boring without trouble.

            I’d sure like a better choice about a lot of things. But at least the choice between Obama and Romney, since I must make it, is an easy one.

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            Roy Hogue

            How do you select a the best presidential candidate ā€¦ ?

            According to the talking heads this time around, it’s the one who looks most presidential ā€” Romney now must make himself appear “presidential”. I kept asking but to no avail, what does “presidential” look like? I could make a dozen (or a hundred) references but you get the idea.

            No one suggested picking the guy best able to do the job.

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        Gnome

        Someone once told me, about an election campaign- for the next three weeks they will kiss your arse, and for the three years after that you can kiss theirs.

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      wes george

      Constitutional democracy is about evolution, not revolution. The inefficient separation of power built into constitutional governance is about limiting the power any single section of society can achieve.

      It is a feature of democratic elections that all electable politicians represent compromises between conflicting ideals and practical solutions. Radicals can not win majority, at least not by honestly presenting their true agenda to the public.

      It is a feature of constitutional governance that it is slow and inefficient.

      The framers of the US constitution understood that a powerful central government with fews limits, checks or balances, able to act decisively and rapidly was a synonym for authoritarianism. That’s why the Left are for Big Government. Ultimately, whether the Left understand it or not, they support statist authoritarianism, be it for our own good.

      Those frustrated on the left or right who denigrate our constitutional, freely elected government process as simply a choice between Tweedledee and Dum have a point… Evolution is always a choice better the lesser of two evils. But those frustrated with the constitutional process have nothing to offer in its place other than revolution.

      Revolution, on the other hand is no choice at all… Let’s hope we never have an election were the choice is between Hitler and Mao. Because it will be the LAST election…Talk about the ultimate Tweedledum and Tweedledee, choice.

      In the anglo tradition of leadership, both in the Westminster and US Congressional system we should not expect “The Great Leader” to lead us to utopia, a la the Soviet or even the French model, (think of De Gaulle worship.) The best we can hope for is heroic, but flaw democrats (little d) like Churchill or Kennedy or Reagan, or even someone less heroic, but sustaining. Some one who can lead the country competently from point A to point B. Menzies, Keating, Howard, or even a Bill Clinton.

      America now needs another Reagan. But it doesn’t need a revolution or millenarian fantasies. It needs a steady, strong hand on the rudder to turn the course away from shallow reef ahead.

      Romney isn’t perfect. He isn’t the great ideologue with the perfect free market solution that Ron Paul might be. But that’s not what America or the world needs. Obama was an ideologue too. Ideologue usually are unable to impose their visions upon their age… What America needs is a practical business manager who can turn the company around. Maybe, Romney can do that, maybe he can’t.

      But we sure as hell know that four more years of Obama would not only ruin America, but also end 70 years of Pax Americana and the results would be disastrous for Australia and those who aspire to be free around the world.

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        memoryvault

        .
        Wes, could you please refrain from mixing terms like “democracy” and “democratic” in a post about the American presidential elections. There is nothing “democratic” about the American presidential elections.

        The next President of the United States of America is decided by the vote of 538 APPOINTED (not elected) College Electorate Voters (CEVs). They have already voted. The outcome is already decided. We just don’t know the results yet. How a couple of hundred million Americans vote on Tuesday (their time) is immaterial. The College has already voted.

        I have no idea how many people constituted the Politburo of the USSR, but I strongly suspect it was a lot more than 538. The Central Planning Committee of China numbers in excess of 5,000 or ten times the American College or an order of magnitude greater than the number of people who have now decided who will be the next President of the USA.

        Nobody in their right mind thinks of the USSR or China as “democracies”: why on earth think of the USA as one?

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          Mark D.

          MV: The next President of the United States of America is decided by the vote of 538 APPOINTED (not elected) College Electorate Voters (CEVs). They have already voted. The outcome is already decided. We just donā€™t know the results yet. How a couple of hundred million Americans vote on Tuesday (their time) is immaterial. The College has already voted.

          MV, This is wrong. The Electors meet December 17, 2012. They have not “already voted”.

          The Electoral College is a process that is hard enough to understand clearly without adding confusion. The electors are bound by State Laws and not all States have the same laws. Read here for more information.

          Electoral College Instructions

          1. Appoint Electors
          The United States Constitution and Federal law do not prescribe the method of appointment other than requiring that electors must be appointed on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November (November 6, 2012). In most States, the political parties nominate slates of electors at State conventions or central committee meetings. Then the citizens of each State appoint the electors by popular vote in the state-wide general election. However, State laws on the appointment of electors may vary.

          Under the Constitution, State legislatures have broad powers to direct the process for selecting electors, with one exception regarding the qualifications of electors. Article II, section 1, clause 2 provides that ā€œno Senator, Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United Statesā€ may be appointed as an elector. It is not settled as to whether this restriction extends to all Federal officials regardless of their level of authority or the capacity in which they serve, but we advise the States that the restriction could disqualify any person who holds a Federal government job from serving as an elector.

          2. Prepare the Certificate of Ascertainment
          After the general election, the Governor of each State prepares seven original Certificates of Ascertainment listing the persons appointed as Electors. Federal law does not govern the general appearance of the Certificate of Ascertainment. The format conforms to the law or custom of the submitting State. Federal law requires that the Certificates of Ascertainment be prepared and authenticated in the following manner:

          Each Certificate must list the names of the electors chosen by the voters and the number of votes received.
          Each Certificate must list the names of all other candidates for elector and the number of votes received.
          Each Certificate must be signed by the Governor and carry the seal of the State.

          3. Distribute the Certificate of Ascertainment
          One of the seven original Certificates of Ascertainment, along with two certified copies (or two additional originals) must be sent by registered mail to:

          David S. Ferriero
          Archivist of the United States
          National Archives and Records Administration
          c/o Office of the Federal Register (F)
          8601 Adelphi Road
          College Park, MD 20740-6001

          The original Certificate and two certified copies (or duplicate originals) should be sent to the Archivist as soon as possible after the November 6 election results are finalized. At the very latest, they must be received by the Electors on the statutory deadline of December 17, 2012 and submitted to the Archivist no later than December 26, 2012.

          The Legal Staff of the Office of the Federal Register will examine the Certificates for legal sufficiency and send the certified copies or duplicate originals to the U.S. House and Senate. The other six originals must be retained by the State for the meeting of the Stateā€™s Electors on December 17, 2012. Those six originals will be attached to the Certificates of Vote executed at the Electoral College meeting.

          4. Hold the Meeting of Electors
          On the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December (December 17, 2012), the electors meet in their respective States. Federal law does not permit the States to choose an alternate date for the meeting of Electorsā€”it must be held on December 17, 2012. The State legislature may designate where in the State the meeting will take place, usually in the State capital. At this meeting, the Electors cast their votes for President and Vice President.

          If any Electors are unable to carry out their duties on the day of the Electoral College meeting, the laws of each State would govern the method for filling vacancies. Any controversy or contest concerning the appointment of Electors must be decided under State law at least six days prior to the meeting of the electors.

          See Title 3, Section 6 of the U.S. Code

          There is no Constitutional provision or Federal law requiring Electors to vote in accordance with the popular vote in their States. Some States have such requirements.

          5. Prepare the Certificate of Vote
          Federal law does not govern the general appearance of the Certificate of Vote. The format is determined under the law or custom of the submitting State. The Electors must execute six Certificates of Vote. Federal law requires that the Certificates be prepared and authenticated in the following manner:

          The Certificates of Vote must contain two distinct lists, one for President and one for Vice President.
          The Certificates must list all persons who received electoral votes for President and the number of electors who voted for each person.
          The Certificates must list all persons who received votes for Vice President and the number of electors who voted for each person.
          The Certificates do not contain the names of persons who did not receive electoral votes.
          Each of the six Certificates of Vote must be signed by all of the electors.
          One of the six Certificates of Ascertainment provided to the electors by the Governor must be attached to each of the six Certificates of Vote.
          Finally, each of the six pairs of Certificates must be sealed and certified by the electors as containing the list of electoral votes of that State for President and Vice President.

          6. Distribute the Paired Certificates of Vote and Certificates of Ascertainment
          The six pairs of Certificates must be sent to the designated Federal and State officials as follows:

          One is sent by registered mail to:

          The Honorable Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
          President of the United States Senate
          The Capitol
          Washington, DC 20510

          Two are sent by registered mail to:

          David S. Ferriero
          Archivist of the United States
          National Archives and Records Administration
          c/o Office of the Federal Register (NF)
          8601 Adelphi Road
          College Park, MD 20740-6001

          Two are sent to:
          The Secretary of State of each State.
          One of these is held subject to the order of the President of the United States Senate or the Archivist of the United States in case the electoral votes fail to reach the Senate or the Archivist.
          The other one is to be preserved by the Secretary of State for public inspection for one year.

          One is sent to:
          The Chief Judge of the Federal District Court located where the electors meet.
          It is held subject to the order of the President of the United States Senate or the Archivist of the United States in case the electoral votes fail to reach the Senate or the Archivist.

          The statutory deadline for the designated Federal and State officials to receive the electoral votes is December 26, 2012. Because of the very short time between the meetings of the Electors in the States on December 17 and the December 26 statutory deadline, followed closely by the counting of electoral votes in Congress on January 6, 2013, it is imperative that the Certificates be mailed as soon as possible.

          We strongly recommend that the sealed pairs of Certificates be taken to the Post Office on December 17, or no later than the morning of December 18, to minimize delays that could occur during the holiday mail season. Some States may find it useful to alert their local Postmaster to the extraordinarily important nature of the mailing. When the paired Certificates of Vote and Certificates of Ascertainment have been delivered to the designated Federal and State officials, the Statesā€™ Electoral College duties are complete.

          Prior to the election this year, the Legal Staff of the Office of the Federal Register will telephone Secretaries of State and other election officials to establish contact with the States and assure the smooth operation of the Electoral College process.

          This system was devised by our Founding Fathers and has arguable points both for and against. Wiki does a pretty good job of explaining the process and arguments between proponents and opponents.

          This may not suit your ideal of what makes a Democracy. I haven’t seen a better one yet.

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          wes george

          Wes, could you please refrain from mixing terms like ā€œdemocracyā€ and ā€œdemocraticā€ in a post about the American presidential elections. There is nothing ā€œdemocraticā€ about the American presidential elections.

          Phillip Adams would be proud of you, MV.

          My vote for the most extreme left comment of the thread.

          And, yes, I know, MV actually represents the extreme right.

          But the political spectrum isn’t linear from left to right, it is really a circle. The further right you go, eventually you come out on the far left.

          This is what MemoryVault has done. He’s gone so far right that his politics have far more in common with anti-American leftists, like Phillip Adams, than with common sense.

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          Roy Hogue

          MV,

          Were you actually right, which you are not, there would be no squads of lawyers all geared up to challenge every close vote tally. Believe me, they are there and their existence shows very clearly that what happens at the polls across this country today, really does count.

          The tragedy of our current situation is not that the electors have already decided the outcome. In fact it’s not yet decided who the electors will be. The tragedy is that some damned judge(s) may likely decide who some of the electors are, thus the outcome is decided, not by the constitutionally prescribed method but by the courts. If it’s close (and it will be) the actual vote of the people will not count for a tinker’s damn. Remember, this could happen to you.

          I’ll say one other thing. You’re quite welcome to not like our Republican system of government as apparently is the case. So you’re equally welcome to stay in Australia and enjoy real democracy at work. What bothers me is that what you have doesn’t seem to be working very well either yet you can complain about our system.

          Let’s stop trying to poke a finger in each other’s eyes and start remembering that we have much more that unites us than we have that divides us.

          10

          • #
            Roy Hogue

            MV,

            I didn’t immediately spot the opportunity right away to point out…

            Nobody in their right mind thinks of the USSR or China as ā€œdemocraciesā€: why on earth think of the USA as one?

            …that you’re absolutely right. We aren’t a democracy. We’re a Federation of 50 Sovereign Republics, each with more autonomy under our Federal Constitution than most people imagine. And personally, I like it that way. Democracy makes changes too fast ā€” much too fast.

            The idea that we are a democracy is a complete perversion of the truth. The idea that we should be a democracy is ridiculous.

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            Rereke Whakaaro

            When I worked in Washington DC, I had three neighbors with offices across the hall. One (who I knew was ex-Navy) was from California, and he had a sign on his door under his name that read, “Protect your right to arm Bears”.

            The other two guys, who never mentioned which service they were in, had signs saying “Republican Guard of the United States”.

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            Roy Hogue

            It just goes to show you why DC is not a state.

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    Sceptical Sam

    One for Australian elections in 2013?

    Windfarms in the UK are on the nose. Ear, ear.

    Effects of industrial wind turbine noise on sleep and health
    Michael A. Nissenbaum, Jeffery J. Aramini, Christopher D. Hanning

    http://www.scribd.com/doc/111492526/Effects-of-Industiral-Wind-Turbine-Noise-on-Sleep-and-Health-Nissenbaum-Aramini-Hanning

    Findings

    ā€œParticipants living within 1.4 km of an IWThad worse sleep, were sleepier during the day, and had worse SF36 Mental Component Scores compared to those living
    further than 1.4 km away. Signiī€€cant dose-response relationships between PSQI, ESS, SF36 Mental Component Score, andlog-distance to the nearest IWT were identiī€€ed after controlling for gender, age, and household clustering. The adverse event
    reports of sleep disturbance and ill health by those living close to IWTs are supported.ā€

    And Gilligan gets it rolling at:

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/windpower/9653429/Wind-farm-noise-does-harm-sleep-and-health-say-scientists.html

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    shirl

    If those 2 are the best they can come up with, GOD help them, on the other hand look at the choice we have,a habitual liar and a victim.Republicans take note,name one republic that is better than Aus that you would immigrate to and live in.

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    There is an interesting quote from Kevin Trenberth at SciGuy on Hurricane Sandy

    It is true that hurricanes normally recurve and head east, especially at this time of year. So we do have a negative NAO and some blocking anticyclone in place, but the null hypothesis has to be that this is just ā€œweatherā€ and natural variability.

    (emphasis mine)

    Now would this be the same Kevin Trenberth who just 12 months ago was advocating that we reverse the null hypothesis?

    ā€œHumans are changing our climate. There is no doubt whatsoever,ā€ said Trenberth. ā€œQuestions remain as to the extent of our collective contribution, but it is clear that the effects are not small and have emerged from the noise of natural variability. So why does the science community continue to do attribution studies and assume that humans have no influence as a null hypothesis?ā€

    Has Trenberth now reversed his position on reversing the null hypthosis?

    (I linked to SciGuy from Wattsupwiththat)

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    Snafu

    Was doing a bit of ‘surfing’ last night and came across this article from Real Climate:

    Climate Deniers Heavily Financed By Evil Corporations

    Global warming skepticism is still alive and well, thanks to an effective campaign of public disinformation ā€” one heavily financed by oil, gas, electric utility and coal interests, and employing tactics pioneered by the tobacco industry.

    Sites such as JoNova, WUWT, Climate Audit, Real Climate etc would jump up and down for such ‘finance’ from the above…..when I came across this:

    This list is not fully exhaustive, but we would like to acknowledge the support of the following funders (in alphabetical order):

    British Council, British Petroleum, Broom’s Barn Sugar Beet Research Centre, Central Electricity Generating Board, Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS), Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN), Commercial Union, Commission of European Communities (CEC, often referred to now as EU), Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils (CCLRC), Department of Energy, Department of the Environment (DoE, 1970-1997), Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR, 1997-2001), Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA, 2001-present), Department of Energy and Climatic Change (DECC), Department of Health, Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), Earth and Life Sciences Alliance, Eastern Electricity, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), Environment Agency, Forestry Commission, Greater London Authority, Greenpeace International, International Institute of Environmental Development (IIED), Irish Electricity Supply Board, KFA Germany, Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), Leverhulme Trust, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF), National Assembly for Wales, National Power, National Rivers Authority, Natural Environmental Research Council (NERC), Norwich Union, Nuclear Installations Inspectorate, Overseas Development Administration (ODA), Reinsurance Underwriters and Syndicates, Royal Society, Scientific Consultants, Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC), Scottish and Northern Ireland Forum for Environmental Research, Shell, SQW Consulting, Stockholm Environment Agency, Sultanate of Oman, Tate and Lyle, Tyndall Centre, UK Met. Office, UK Nirex Ltd., UK Water Industry Research (UKWIR), United Nations Environment Plan (UNEP), United States Department of Energy, United States Environmental Protection Agency, Wolfson Foundation and the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF).

    Included in this list of ‘funders’ are:

    BP
    Shell
    Central Electricity Generating Board
    Department of Energy
    Eastern Electricity
    Irish Electricity Supply Board
    National Power
    Nuclear Installations Inspectorate
    United States Department of Energy

    Greenpeace International

    and

    World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF)

    Who is the beneficiary of the above funding? JoNova? WUWT? Climate Audit? Real Science? Insert your list of ‘Climate Deniers’ web blogs here………….?

    Or none of the above?

    This list of ‘funders’ belongs to………….

    …the University of East Anglia (UEA) – Climatic Research Unit (CRU)

    History of the Climatic Research Unit – OFFICIAL CRU WEB PAGE

    http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/about-cru/history

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    • #
      Snafu

      Research on a couple of the other ‘funders’ reveals:

      Sultanate of Oman:

      The Sultanate of Oman is a country in Southwest Asia, on the southeast coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It borders the United Arab Emirates in the northwest, Saudi Arabia in the west, and Yemen in the southwest. The coast is formed by the Arabian Sea in the south and east, and the Gulf of Oman in the northeast. The country also contains Madha, an enclave enclosed by the United Arab Emirates, and Musandam, an exclave also separated by Emirati territory.

      Its main source of economy; oil fuels the economy and revenues from petroleum products have enabled Oman’s dramatic development over the past 30 years. By mid-2000, production had climbed to more than 900,000 b/d where they remain. Oman is not a member of OPEC.

      In recent years, it has found more oil than it has produced, and total proven reserves rose to more than 5 billion barrels (0.8 kmĀ³) by the mid-1990s.

      Electricity – production: 14.33 billion kWh (2004)

      Electricity – production by source:
      fossil fuel: 100%
      hydro: 0%
      nuclear: 0%
      other: 0% (1998)

      Oman Sultanate Economy

      http://www.omansultanate.com/economy.htm

      UK Nirex Ltd:

      Source; Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirex

      Nirex was a United Kingdom body set up in 1982 by the UK nuclear industry to examine safe, environmental and economic aspects of deep geological disposal of intermediate-level and low-level radioactive waste.

      Originally known as the Nuclear Industry Radioactive Waste Executive, it became the limited company United Kingdom Nirex Limited in 1985. The ownership of Nirex was transferred from the nuclear industry to the UK Government departments DEFRA and DTI in April 2005, and then to the UK’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) in November 2006. Nirex’s staff and functions were integrated into the NDA in April 2007, at which point Nirex ceased trading as a separate entity. Nirex’s role continues through the activities of the Radioactive Waste Management Directorate of the NDA.

      You can’t make this stuff up!

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    • #

      Don’t you mean Steven Goddard’s “Real Science” site, and not the “Real Climate” site founded by the Hockey Stick team, and run by Gaven Schimdt in his lunch hours whilst working for NASA GISS?
      http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2012/11/04/climate-deniers-heavily-financed-by-evil-corporations/

      20

  • #
    Neville

    This is the conclusion of a new study on paleo climate, see WUWT.

    Conclusions

    The available instrumental data of the last 160 years allow us to see that there occurred climatic fluctuations with a prevailing warming trend in the most recent past. However, when this period is examined in the light of the evidence provided by palaeoclimate reconstructions, it appears to be a part of more systematic fluctuations; specifically, it is a warming period after the 200-year ā€˜Little Ice Ageā€™ cold period, during a 12,000-year interglacial, which is located in the third major icehouse period of the Phanerozoic Eon. The variability implied by these multi-scale fluctuations, typical for Earthā€™s climate, can be investigated by combining the empirical climacograms of different palaeoclimatic recon- structions of temperature. By superimposing the different climacograms, we obtain an impressive overview of the variability for time scales spanning almost nine orders of magnitudeā€”from 1 month to 50 million years.

    Two prominent features of this overview are (a) an overall climacogram slope of -0.08, supporting the presence of HK dynamics with Hurst coefficient of at least 0.92 and (b) strong evidence of the presence of orbital forcing (Milankovitch cycles) at time scales between 10 and 100 thousand years. While orbital forcing favours predictability at the scales it acts, the overview of climate variability at all scales clearly suggests a big picture of enhanced change and enhanced unpredictability of Earthā€™s climate, which could be also the cause of our diffi- culties to formulate a purely deterministic, solid orbital theory (either obliquity or precession dominated). Endeavours to describe the climatic variability in deterministic terms are equally misleading as those to describe it using classical statistics. Connecting deterministic controls, such as the Milankovitch cycles, with the Hurstā€“Kolmogorov stochastic dynamics seems to provide a promising path for understanding and modelling climate.

    The end of the LIA in 1850 is one of the obvious NATURAL reasons the planet has warm slightly over the last 160 years. DUH. See WUWT for the paper.

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    • #
      KinkyKeith

      This is a highly important area of analysis that must be continued.

      It is ridiculous to exclude orbital mechanics from use in putting together a picture of Earth’s future climate.

      KK šŸ™‚

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  • #
    Anton

    Here in England we’ve had snow overnight in early November in the southern counties. I don’t remember that for decades, and we have been warned to expect the coldest Guy Fawkes night (November 5th) for 15 years. No doubt we shall shortly be told by the BBC and others that it’s all due to global warming.

    50

  • #

    In the US Elections itt was interesting that both the candidates were quiet on the global warming issue. Mayor (and billionaire) Bloomberg seems to have brought the issue to the fore. Roger Pielke Jnr writes

    Mayor Bloomberg said in his endorsement of President Obama:
    Our climate is changing. And while the increase in extreme weather we have experienced in New York City and around the world may or may not be the result of it, the risk that it may be ā€” given the devastation it is wreaking ā€” should be enough to compel all elected leaders to take immediate action.

    Deft politics. Note how responsibility for Sandy is subtlety shifted away.

    Yet, Mayor Bloomberg is also an elected leader. What is he going to do about the fact that his city was less prepared than it should have been for a disaster that was expected and one of a sort will certainly recur, climate change or not?

    Pielke’s article also shows that this storm was predicted by a 2009 report “New York City Natural Hazard Mitigation Plan“. He notes:-

    According to the report, a Category 3 strength storm could bring 25 feet or more to NYC — Sandy plus 10 ft. — and according to the report such a storm has 3.3% chance of striking over 50 years.

    What Pielke is implying is that Mayor Bloomberg is endorsing President Obama as a way of shifting blame for a storm that was entirely predictable, as he had not made sufficient contingency as Mayor.

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  • #
    RoHa

    “Want to discuss elections that are coming?”

    No. It is too depressing. There is no-one I want to vote for. The big parties are completely repellant, and the small ones are useless.

    And any discussion of them will just lead to a pile of toxic rants from everyone but me.

    (I, of course, would simply make a few well-considered, moderate, comments.)

    00

  • #
    handjive

    E.M. Smith, at his excellent blog, “Musings from the Cheifio”, has a timely summary on the end of the Kyoto protocol, and why it is the end of any more agreements:

    The Kyoto protocol is slowly limping to an end.


    The ā€œpartiesā€ agreed to agree on a future agreement to be negotiated to extend the agreed agreement to some unknown future date to be agreed on laterā€¦ that hasnā€™t been deliveredā€¦

    30

  • #
    ExWarmist

    An interesting PDF from the Zerohedge site on Central Banking vs private, decentralised currencies is here

    10

  • #
    jaymam

    At last Mann’s bio page at Real Climate has been updated to say that he didn’t share a Nobel.
    Blink comparison here:
    http://i49.tinypic.com/vza73m.gif

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  • #
    pat

    absolutely mind-boggling. THIS IS THE ENTIRE ARTICLE ON SKY NEWS WHICH WAS POSTED MINUTES AGO:

    5 Nov: Sky News: Abbott tones down carbon attack
    Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has toned down his attack on Labor’s carbon tax, as another poll shows the government has made gains among voters four months since the impost began.
    Before July 1, Mr Abbott said the carbon tax would have an ‘unimaginable’ impact on prices, destroy businesses and wreck the economy…
    Since then, he’s pursued the government over power price rises and blamed the tax for hurting households by causing significant jumps in utility bills.
    Visiting a motorbike shop in Canberra today, Mr Abbott said its power bill had risen by 50 per cent but he allowed that not all of the increase was due to the carbon tax.
    http://www.skynews.com.au/national/article.aspx?id=813110

    00

    • #
      RoHa

      Mind boggling? Did you really expect that the Libs would dump an established tax that would enable them to reduce the income taxes on the rich?

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  • #
    handjive

    In the Australian, 5 November 2012, there is an oped by Andrew Leigh, the Gillard/GreenLabor federal member for Fraser. (www.andrewleigh.com.) titled:

    ‘Truth proofing’ the tax, with the opening paragraph:

    ONE of the myths in the carbon pricing debate has been the claim that “Australia has the world’s only economy-wide carbon price” (“carbon” being shorthand for four greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and perfluorocarbons from aluminium smelting).

    Now, this claim that ‘carbon’ is now ‘shorthand’ for four green house gasses is unsubstantiated every time it is uttered.

    So, where is the ‘science’, the ‘table’ that ‘defines’ the word ‘carbon’ as being ‘shorthand’ for other ‘known’ properties in ‘science’?

    ~ Here is the periodic table.

    No where does it define carbon(c) as shorthand. For anything.

    Everything listed is defined precisely, with different symbols, categories, sub-catagories, columns, so there is no confusion.

    Precision is needed in such endeavours.

    ?

    So, where is the evidence that ‘science’ accepts this ‘shorthand’ ambiguity that ‘climate science’ claims as a fact?

    When did this ‘shorthand’ become the language of chemistry, or alchemy, or science?

    ?

    A google of the phrase used in Leigh’s claim (“carbon” being shorthand for four greenhouse gases) results in many pages to peruse.

    One link (space & time is at a premium) yields this from the NZ press council:

    Case Number: 2108 ROBIN GRIEVE AGAINST NEW ZEALAND HERALD

    Council Meeting MARCH 2010

    Mr Grieve objected to the ā€œshorthandā€ claim, citing the context of its usage in the Herald feature.

    ā€œOfficial documents do not contain such usage, research material and information does not either and I think it has been put forward to excuse a lowering of standards to allow misrepresentation, either intentional or unintentional.

    ā€œReaders are entitled to truthful, accurate information from their newspapers, they should not have to be wary that what is said in the newspaper could actually mean something else altogether.ā€

    To then go on and say ā€œworse still these gases ā€¦ are far more detrimental than carbon dioxideā€, while true in itself, again does not indicate that in the figure given in this article this additional impact has already been factored in.

    This is misleading.

    Maybe some one here can cite & link the evidence that this ‘shorthand’ is now official in all science?

    Or, the Honourable Andrew Leigh, LaboUr federal member for Fraser, is misleading, deliberately or otherwise, readers of the Australian, and by implication, the Gillard GreenLaboUr Government is misleading all Australians with it’s carbon (sic) tax.

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  • #

    Hmm!

    This is a worry.

    Post U.S. election the (U.S.) EPA has plans to introduce regulations that will stop dead any new coal fired power plants. The linked article says in part the following:

    More than 50 EPA staff are now crashing to finish greenhouse gas emission standards that would essentially ban all construction of new coal-fired power plants. Never before have so many EPA resources been devoted to a single regulation. The independent and non-partisan Manhattan Institute estimates that the EPAā€™s greenhouse gas coal regulation will cost the U.S. economy $700 billion. The rush is a major sign of panic by environmentalists inside the Obama administration.

    No mention of this in the latter stages of the campaign.

    If I might inject a note of humour, when President Obama was pressed for a comment, his reply was …… we have Bruce Springsteen at tonight’s concert.

    Four years ago, President Obama took office with a promise to finish off coal fired power. When he took office there were 126 coal fired power plants sized from 1000MW to 2000+MW.

    How many of those large scale coal fired plants have closed during his four year tenure?

    NOT ONE.

    Those 126 plants are still doing what they always have done, only now they have to work harder, because smaller plants have closed, (mainly in the 10 to 50MW size) not because of any CO2 emissions, but only because they have reached their use by dates, virtually every one of them 50 years old, or older.

    This is the link to that article:

    November surprise: EPA planning major post-election anti-coal regulation (dated Nov 4th)

    Tony.

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  • #
    pat

    Christopher Booker: Europe and wind: at last, the consensus is cracking
    On two of the most important issues of our time, a stifling consensus is
    beginning to break up
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/9652761/Europe-and-wind-at-last-the-consensus-is-cracking.html

    James Delingpole: The BBC and Jimmy Savile: peas in a pod
    http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100187595/the-bbc-and-jimmy-savile-peas-in-a-pod/

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    pat

    btw why i posted the entire sky thing on abbott was because the article’s headline was totally misleading. i kept refreshing the page to look for the toning down it of which it spoke.

    the MSM is truly insane.

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    pat

    no matter how often the MSM is mocked for illustrating CAGW articles with steam-emitting chimneys, they keep right on doing the same thing, including in this one:

    5 Nov: International Business Times: Esther Tanquintic-Misa: Global Carbon Emissions Breach Threshold ā€“ PwC
    In its latest annual Low Carbon Economy Index report, which analyses the developed and emerging economiesā€™ progress in lessening their respective carbon intensity, or emissions per unit of gross domestic product (GDP), Price Waterhouse Coopers found that these global carbon emitters were only able to reduce emissions to a combined 0.7 per cent only in 2011, ā€œa fraction what is required against the international commitment to limit global warming to 2Ā°C.ā€
    To achieve the 2Ā°C limit, the world would need to reduce global carbon intensity by an average of 5.1 per cent a year ā€“ a barometer the PwC said was never achieved since 1950 when the records first began.
    ā€œBecause of this slow start, global carbon intensity now needs to be cut by an average of 5.1 percent a year from now to 2050. This rate of reduction has not been achieved in any of the past 50 years,ā€ the Low Carbon Economy Index report saidā€¦
    ā€œThe risk to business is that it faces more unpredictable and extreme weather, and disruptions to market and supply chains. Resilience will become a watch word in the boardroom ā€“ to policy responses as well as to the climate,ā€ Jonathan Grant, director, sustainability and climate change, PwC said.
    ā€œThe new reality is a much more challenging future in terms of planning, financing and predictability. Even doubling our current annual rates of decarbonisation globally every year to 2050, would still lead to 6Ā°C, making governmentsā€™ ambitions to limit warming to 2Ā°C appear highly unrealistic.ā€
    ā€œThis isnā€™t about shock tactics. It is simple math,ā€ the report saidā€¦
    Chinaā€™s and Indiaā€™s decarbonisation, meanwhile, seems to have stalled in the last decadeā€¦
    http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/401372/20121105/pwc-carbon-emissions-britain-france-germany.htm

    apart from Indian Express, reuters point carbon is the only other MSM carrying this CATASTROPHIC news! however, these days u have to pay to read the rubbish they put out.

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    pat

    my contribution to the topic of elections.

    Why the MSM love elections by Pat:

    4 Nov: CBS: AP: 2012 ad blitz: big money, smaller audience
    One million ads. More than $1 billion. Ten battleground states.
    Those numbers tell the story of the 2012 presidential campaign TV ad blitz. Never before has so much money been spent on so many commercials aimed at so few voters…
    That’s almost 40 percent more TV ads than the number that ran in the same period four years ago when Obama defeated Republican John McCain.
    http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505245_162-57544820/2012-ad-blitz-big-money-smaller-audience/

    a couple of weeks ago i noted a comment on a Bolt thread regarding Campbell Newman. i didn’t vote for him, or anyone else, but i had been noticing the MSM in brisbane in particular, were framing every single thing he did in a negative light, yet they’d been fawning over him pre-election. the commenter on Bolt claimed Newman had cancelled most of the MSM advertising that political parties indulge in – at taxpayer expense – once in power, to keep them onside.

    that made sense, tho i have not bothered to do any searches to find out if it is true.

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    pat

    Financial Times Exclusive. so exclusive u have to pay to read it. however, this says it all:

    Offshore wind turbine orders grind to halt
    Orders for offshore wind turbines have come to an abrupt halt in the UK, in what some industry figures say is the first clear sign of a long-feared slowdown in renewable energy investment
    http://link.ft.com/r/FG6LAA/06GDH9/26WF0Y/2OR24C/A5X798/D5/h?a1=2012&a2=11&a3=5

    hallelujah.

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    pat

    the mexican stand-off continues:

    4 Nov: Tulsa World: AP: Mexico’s wind farms arouse ire of natives
    The country is posting one of the world’s highest growth rates in wind energy, and almost all of it is concentrated in the narrow waist of Mexico known as the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, where winds from the Pacific meet winds from the Gulf of Mexico, spawning places so wind-blown that one town’s formal name is simply “Windy.”
    The largely indigenous residents of the isthmus complain that the wind farms take control of their land, affect fish and livestock with their vibrations, chop up birds, and pit residents against one another for the damage or royalty payments. They also claim they see few of the profits from such projects…
    President Felipe Calderon has made the inauguration of wind parks one of the main focuses of his administration’s ambitious pledge to cut Mexico’s carbon emissions by 30 percent by 2020, and on Tuesday – as he has done before – he stopped by the state of Oaxaca to inaugurate a new clutch of wind turbines, praising the extra income they provide for some farmers…
    ***But as in the past, he did so under tight security, as local protesters threatened to mar the inauguration. The president’s office normally publishes a detailed schedule of his planned activities but didn’t do so with Tuesday’s inauguration, keeping it under wraps until the event took place.
    So far in 2012, Mexico has posted a startling 119 percent increase in installed wind-power capacity, more than doubling the 519 megawatts it had last year, the highest annual growth rate listed in the magazine Wind Power Monthly’s “Windicator” index. Mexico had only 6 megawatts when Calderon took office in 2006.
    Mexico, with a total of around 1.3 gigawatts of wind power, is still a tiny part of the world’s estimated 244 gigawatt capacity, but it offers insight into what happens when the industry focuses overwhelmingly on large farms dominated by large companies that are concentrated in a small, desirable area.
    It has been mainly Spanish firms like Iberdrola, Union Fenosa and Gamesa, and U.S. firms like Sempra Energy, that have built the huge wind towers that now crowd the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, leaving the local population feeling invaded. Only 4 of Mexico’s 17 wind farms are located outside the isthmus…
    http://www.tulsaworld.com/business/article.aspx?subjectid=49&articleid=20121104_49_E2_CUTLIN846552

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    pat

    do i detect a threat in here, if superfunds don’t stay playing along with the carbon cowboys?

    29 Oct: SMH: Peter Hannam: Companies cooling on global warming
    Munich Re, the world’s biggest re-insurer, told BusinessDay that Australia’s weather-related losses rose more than fourfold in the 1980-2011 period (in inflation-adjusted terms), a pace only exceeded among the continents by North America.
    Australia makes up less than 2 per cent of the global reinsurance market but over the past five years the country has accounted for more than 6 per cent of global losses, the risk report said…
    Port operators, though, are factoring in increases anyway. The proposal for a fourth coal terminal at the Port of Newcastle, for instance, assumes a rise of 90 centimetres…
    “Only 11 per cent of Australian superannuation (retirement funds) surveyed by AODP rated the likelihood of climate change as high,” the report said.
    No fund reported investments in assets to help manage climate risks – such as flood barriers – or were considering their portfolio-wide exposure…
    In its report, Superannuation Trustees and Climate Change, Baker & McKenzie and AODP found ”a general reluctance by asset managers and fund managers to disclose the climate-associated risks of their investment portfolios”…
    The report argued that super trustees could face future litigation if they fail to take appropriate steps to protect the values of their long-lived assets.
    ”Trustees have a clear duty to consider climate change risks and relevant laws and policies in making investment decisions where such matters prove to be material,” the report said. ”To fail to do so would be negligent and a breach of their duties.”
    AODP have been telling trustees of the risks for several years, said Julian Poulter, the project’s executive director…
    http://www.smh.com.au/business/carbon-economy/companies-cooling-on-global-warming-20121029-28dn0.html

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    Steve R W

    “Book yourself in for that heart operation. Please donā€™t bullshit me with the cost analysis.”

    MV, were you given a QALY score?

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    Mike S.

    Back to the upcoming election(s) – as a U.S. citizen, I’m simply looking forward to our long national nightmare being over. No, I’m not referring to the Obama administration (that’s a long national nightmare too, but I’m not certain how the vote will go tomorrow), but the 2012 presidential campaign, which, if you count the Republican primary campaign, has been going on since at least August 2011. I’d really like to get one election out of the way before having to attend to the next one.

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    msher

    What I posted on the (British) Delingpole blog:

    Don’t mean to melodramatic or anything, but all of our futures get decided tomorrow (although we may not know the outcome for days). If you like the direction Britain has been taken, are a climate alarmist, europhile who wants a nanny-welfate high tax big government state, with a weak military and subject to hostile supra or international governance and helping to Muslimizing the world and the West.

    Or whether you want a return to smaller state, pro business, lower tax, less regulation, more free enterprise, lower tax, more sovereignty and stronger military and realizing the growing threat of Islam.

    Whichever camp you are in, which future will be decided tomorrow. the tradtional America – my second description – and any chance Britain has of getting out of the stranglehold of the EU and the welfare state left depend on Romney getting elected. If Obama gets 4 more years, he will have the chance to put America past the tipping point. America, like Britain, will be lost.

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    DĀ J Cotton

    Ā 

    Some have said words to the effect that the atmosphere cannot ā€œretardā€ the emission from the surface because this emission is governed only by the Stefan-Boltzmann (S-B) Law.

    True. But the atmosphere (through radiation, and radiation alone) supplies energy to the surface which can only be used for part of its own S-B quota of radiation, as per its Planck curve. (The energy in backradiation from a cooler atmosphere cannot be converted to thermal energy in a warmer surface.) So the surface does not have to use its own thermal energy to create what is in fact the majority of the upwelling radiation.

    Of all the energy transferring from the surface to the atmosphere, less than 15% is doing so by way of radiation that is absorbed by the atmosphere. (These calculations appear in an earlier post of mine on several threads.)

    There is a detailed explanation regarding quantification of the one way heat transfer and related matters in my paper in Sections 1 to 5.
    Ā 

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    KeithH

    Been busy elsewhere for a while on other matters and have missed you all, but here’s some great food for thought!!

    For an excellent forensic analysis on what Gillard did wrong, as attested to by Ian Cambridge in his 19/11/96 affidavit, download the report by Michael Smith and John Lourens, then please spread it as widely as you can at every website you visit.

    Gillard’s days are numbered!

    http://pindanpost.com/2012/11/05/fraud-unions-politics-please-share-asks-smith/

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    DĀ J Cotton

    There is nothing surprising in Roy Spencer’s October figures, with or without that curve. You can still see evidence of the 60 year cycle in all data since records began. It caused alarm in the 30 years leading up to its maximum around 1998. Now it’s declining, but the long-term trend (about ~1,000 year periodicity) is still climbing but at a reduced rate. A century ago it was rising at about 0.06 C deg/decade, but now that rate is less, namely about 0.05 C deg/decade. You can see this in the yellow line in the plot at the foot of my Home page. The long term trend should reach a maximum in about 50 to 200 years from now, after which the world can expect about 500 years of long-term cooling, even though the superimposed 60 year cycle will of course continue to worry people each time it rises for 30 years.

    So, how does physics confirm why carbon dioxide is obviously having no effect? It is easy to understand intuitively that conduction processes always ensure that heat flow is from hot to cold. But it is not so obvious how and why this also happens for radiation. Those who are interested in learning about the recent breakthrough in physics which at last explains why may read my paper published back in March, together with the linked papers and other documentation.

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    DĀ J Cotton

    Are you watching Michael Mann in court?

    Don’t miss this PSI update!

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    DĀ J Cotton

    Ā 

    This is an exxcellent new paper that will blow your mind …

    http://www.actuaries.org/HongKong2012/Papers/WBR9_Walker.pdf

    Ā 

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      KinkyKeith

      Thanks for putting this up DJ

      Have only gone to page 6 so far but the overview looks very interesting and seems to be paper that might take our minds in new directions re Earths climatic perturbations.

      KK šŸ™‚

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    DĀ J Cotton

    The last 14 years of world climate records clearly indicate that there has been no net warming since this time in 1998. That is, there has been no net accumulation of energy in the Earth system – probably a slight loss in fact. So net radiative imbalance at TOA must also have been in accord with a cooling climate, not a warming one.

    But all those energy diagrams and models “predicted” carbon dioxide would cause extra warming. If this fails to happen in 14 years, it can also fail to happen in the next 600 years, by which time I predict the world will be back at a minimum similar to the Little Ice Age.

    The reason the energy diagrams are wrong is because they assume (and clearly indicate) dual heat flows between the surface and the atmosphere. They imply that radiation always transfers heat in the same direction. They assume that, if the net heat transfer is from hot to cold, then all is OK. But the two processes they assume happen are independent. A heat flow by radiation from the cooler atmosphere to the warmer surface does not force a greater flow of radiation out of the surface which is due to the surface being warmed more. Any such preliminary warming, no matter how infinitesimal, would be a violation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

    The only possible correct physical explanation is that which I have summarised starting on p.47 of Joseph Postma’s October 2012 paper. My reasons for such are also therein.

    Unless and until scientists understand when and by how much radiation transfers heat, they will continue to fumble with hypothetical, invalid concepts which mislead the world with their carbon dioxide hoax.

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    NaturalCyclist

    RichardSCourtney gives a detailed explanation in this post explaining how there may be slight net warming of oxygen and nitrogen molecules resulting from prior absorption of IR by carbon dioxide molecules. Clearly he agrees that the effect is only slight.

    But what then happens to the additional kinetic energy in the oxygen and nitrogen molecules? Well, firstly, assuming they are cooler than the surface below, the thermal energy cannot be transferred back to the surface by non-radiative processes. One way or another it must eventually escape to space.

    But why to space? Don’t the energy diagrams show (more than) half being returned to the warmer surface by radiation? This is where the biggest misunderstanding occurs. Radiation from a cooler source can do one and only one thing when it strikes a warmer surface. It slows the rate of that portion of surface cooling which is due to radiation. It does not do this by transferring heat to the surface. Because there is no heat transfer, there can be no slowing of non-radiative cooling processes. In fact, these processes can and do accelerate to compensate for the slower radiative cooling. What happens is that the energy in the radiation from the cooler atmosphere can only be used to supply equivalent energy to the surface which can only be used for the purpose of creating equivalent upwelling radiation with the same frequencies and intensities. This energy is thus used by the surface (instead of some of its own thermal energy) to meet some of its Planck “quota” of radiation. Its own Planck curve always fully contains the Planck curve of the radiation from the cooler atmosphere. But the radiation corresponding to the area above the cooler Planck curve, but under the warmer one will transfer heat. This is an empirically confirmed result, demonstrated over and over again. The area between the Planck curves represents the one-way heat transfer from the warmer body to the cooler one. There is no physical heat transfer the other way. The radiation from the cooler body is immediately re-radiated without any of its electro-magnetic energy ever being converted to thermal energy in the target.

    Hence most of the observed (or calculated) upwelling radiation from the surface is not actually transferring heat from the surface. Rather it is merely sending back the energy that was in the backradiation. The whole process is very-similar energy-wise to diffuse reflection.

    What then are the consequences of this discussion? Well, firstly the heat that is transferred from the surface to the atmosphere is mostly transferred by non-radiative physical processes such as molecular collisions which may be called conduction or diffusion. Using K-T energy diagrams, and remembering that that the amount of backradiation should be deducted from the upwelling radiation from the surface (because this amount is not transferring energy from the surface) then we can calculate that less than 15% of all energy transferring from the surface to the atmosphere does so by radiation.

    Now we start to see the role of carbon dioxide in perspective. For a start it probably has less than 1% the effect of all the water vapor which radiates with far more spectral lines and thus slows radiative cooling much more effectively. (Yes, low clouds do slow radiative cooling noticeably, but that doesn’t mean carbon dioxide’s effect will be noticeable.)

    But, more importantly, the non-radiative cooling processes significantly dominate the actual transfer of energy from the surface to the atmosphere. Any slowing of radiative cooling will leave a bigger temperature “step down” between the surface and the adjoining air. So non-radiative cooling processes will simply accelerate (as physics tells us) and have a compensating effect. So there will be absolutely no net overall effect on surface cooling. That is reality.

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    NaturalCyclist

    Maybe this analogy will help people to understand the stabilising effect of the huge amount of energy stored in the crust and all the matter right down to the core. There is a small net flow of energy out of this region, but in fact it is just that ā€“ a net flow. Much more energy flows in a small distance during sunlight hours, and back out at night in normal calm conditions.

    Think of a rock platform by the sea. At high tide, letā€™s say some sand washes up onto the rock, raising the top surface with a layer of sand. Let the height of the rock and sand represent temperature. As low tide approaches the sand washes and/or blows off the rock, so the level falls again to the ā€œbaseā€ level of the rock itself.

    So it is with the various cooling mechanisms which transfer energy from the surface to the atmosphere. At night the surface will usually cool back to the base ā€œsupportedā€ temperature. If the wind is radiative cooling, and the water non-radiative cooling, what doesnā€™t get washed away may well get blown away. The analogy is that, if the radiative surface cooling is slowed by radiation from low cloud, then the temperature will still drop (maybe a little later at night) with more non-radiative cooling.

    As explained above, radiation from the atmosphere can only slow the rate of radiative cooling of a warmer surface; it has no effect on the non-radiative cooling which dominates.

    I know this is oversimplified, but I suggest it is still a realistic analogy.

    Doug Cotton
    Sydney

    http://earth-climate.com
    http://climate-change-theory.com

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    NaturalCyclist

    Footnote:

    I offer the following empirical evidence that non-radiative cooling (notably evaporative cooling) accelerates to compensate for any slowing of radiative cooling caused by backradiation:

    http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2011/08/25/konrad-empirical-test-of-ocean-cooling-and-back-radiation-theory/

    QED

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    NaturalCyclist

    The linked experiment above is strong evidence against any GHE for those who understand the logical physics explained by myself and several others on the Principia Scientific International website – physics which is supported by empirical evidence.

    In contrast, there is absolutely no empirical evidence to support the GHE conjecture. It is all thought experiments, supposedly backed up by expensive computer models which are just based on the same thought experiments. Climate itself is not evidence, for it follows natural cycles probably controlled indirectly by the planets.

    Oxygen and nitrogen are the only “blankets” because they accumulate energy transferred by conduction (or diffusion) at the surface/atmosphere interface. Water vapor and radiating gases such as carbon dioxide are cooling the atmosphere by radiating away that energy trapped by oxygen and nitrogen, as well as some radiated energy they capture. They are the holes in the blanket. Even the backradiation which strikes the surface is merely “pseudo scattered” and eventually gets to space.

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    NaturalCyclist

    Click here to see a net energy budget diagram which is on page 2 of my first website. Note that conduction is shown as 7% of incoming solar radiation, latent heat as 23% and the total from the surface is 51%. So this diagram implies (7+23)/51 or about 59% of energy from the surface is by other than radiation. I say 60% to 70% in fact because I believe, from other reading, that the diagram understates conduction and evaporation.

    Either way, it is clear that a lot of energy is not radiated from the surface but, instead, finds its way into the atmosphere via oxygen, nitrogen and water vapor molecules, not by photon capture in carbon dioxide molecules.

    Non-radiating molecules, mostly oxygen and nitrogen, thus act like an insulating blanket. Carbon dioxide does the opposite..

    When CO2 molecules do capture, they are more likely to then radiate that energy away, or transfer it by diffusion to cooler oxygen or nitrogen molecules. It can then diffuse to water vapor and be radiated away. Without radiating molecules (the holes in the blanket) things would get very hot up there. I assure you.

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    NaturalCyclist

    In Maxwell’s Theory of Heat on pages 244 & 245 he describes how a gas only absorbs radiation when it is cooler than the emitter. This is what Prof Claes Johnson has established computationally. It is the reason why energy in backradiation from a cooler atmosphere is not converted to thermal energy in a warmer surface, so there is no heat transfer. You can read Maxwell with these links p.244 and p.245

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    NaturalCyclist

    Do you ever wonder why the first two metres of the atmosphere in which we stand and in which we measure climate is always just a little below the temperature of the surface? There is no way that radiation alone could keep it that warm. It is all to do with conduction of energy from the surface into the oxygen and nitrogen molecules which collide with the surface. Click here to see a net energy budget diagram which clearly shows “Conduction and rising air 7%” and “Radiation absorbed by atmosphere 15%” so conduction is far from being negligible. And latent heat (23%) outstrips radiation by more than 50%.

    Out of these, only conduction significantly affects those first 2 metres because the energy in the radiation and the latent heat is spread over most of the height of the troposphere, so only a very small portion is released in the first 2 metres.

    Climatologists love to use those S-B equations, but have no understanding as to why they are not applicable to the surface. The main reason is that it is not an isolated body insulated from all surrounds and only able to lose energy by radiation.

    Indeed the energy transferred by radiation may be determined after conduction and evaporation have played their part. The actual amount of radiation is in fact what we can all calculate using S-B. But by no means is all that radiation actually transferring thermal energy from the surface. More than 60% of such energy has already departed the surface by non-radiative processes. These processes, especially conduction, warm the nearby air, including some radiating molecules. The radiating molecules send backradiation to the surface which supplies EM energy and reduces the amount of thermal energy needed to be drawn from the surface. Hence the rate of cooling by radiation reduces so that the radiation only needs to transfer the remaining energy not already transferred by non-radiative processes.

    Because of the huge, unimaginable amount of energy stored in the whole Earth system, oceans, crust, mantle and core, there is a very strong stabilising effect which I explained in detail on this page written last year. At some point in the annual seasonal cycle in each location on Earth, the surface temperature cools down on a cold winter’s night to something close to a “base temperature” supported by all this sub-surface energy. It has nothing to do with the slow net terrestrial heat flow – rather it has to do with the temperature that has been established over billions of years. And it could take perhaps hundreds of thousands of years to make much of a change in that temperature. So this is why I keep saying, the non-radiative cooling processes compensate for any slowing of the radiative cooling processes, so there is no net overall effect.

    Only long-term changes in the mean Solar radiative flux reaching the surface can affect climate. These changes do happen naturally, and mankind has no control over such.

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