Weekend Unthreaded

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125 comments to Weekend Unthreaded

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    scaper...

    Spent the night at the Hilton in Brisbane. The scapers ball. Won an award for construction excellence.

    Haven’t slept and feeling chuffed. The stuff I build will endure for centuries.

    Long after the scam is dead.

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      el gordo

      Congrats!

      So you are an architect?

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      • #
        Yonniestone

        Or maybe involved in erection?

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        • #
          James Bradley

          Landscaper.

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        • #
          Yonniestone

          After posting a very quick comment above it seems a couple of closet frightbats have jumped to conclusions.

          Having spent most of my working life in construction the term ‘Erection’ is commonly used, you can also use, construction phase, standing up, or any building phase from footings to finish.

          Congratulations scaper and be proud of yourself for keeping an essential industry to Australia alive.

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            James Bradley

            And don.t forget, Yonnie, also congrats to journalist Tim Blair of the Daily Telegraph for his coining of the word ‘frightbat’ which has gained popular use very quickly.

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      • #
        toorightmate

        Scaper may be a civil engineer. They design targets.

        Mechanical engineers design weapons.

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        • #
          Mech Technologist

          But it takes a tech to make it actually work. The difference between an engineer and a tech: an engineer will give you the square root of a pickle jar, the tech can get the lid off.

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            Auverte

            Essential for the builder’s picnic .

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            • #
              RobertBobbert GDQ

              AUVERTE

              Who has the bestest picnics nowadays?

              Climate Scientist Alarmist Grant Picnics.

              Very Very Flash Outings. Nothing Spared or Denied except deniers of course.

              Any guesses who pays?

              A hint from Mech.
              ..It takes a techie to open the pickle jar… but it takes a Climate Scientist less time and effort to open The Vault to the Treasury Grant Bank!
              Regards.

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    • #
      Manfred

      Indeed, congratulations scaper…! Splendid and reassuring to observe rightfully placed pride in a lasting achievement amid the nihilistic fashions of the moment of the liberal progressive elite and academia, their obsession best exemplified by Bruchner’s thesis, ‘The Fanaticism of the Apocalypse: Save the Earth, Punish Human Beings‘.

      It seems to me that presently the MSM appear more fearful and melodramatic about the potential Rise of the Right and an end to progressive liberalism than they are of much else. See this article in The Telegraph

      Paris attacks put dagger through heart of liberal Europe. Attacks threaten viability of Schengen agreement and the vision of tolerant, multi-cultural society that is “essence” of Europe, analysts warn

      They betray themselves at every turn.

      Precisely what we need, a more realistic view of multiculturalism

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      • #
        PeterPetrum

        Spot on! After having spent some of the last couple of Australian winters in Europe I want France to be French and Italy to be Italian. This so called multiculturalism is an absolute dog. What on earth is wrong with ethnic diversity, it makes the world interesting and travel an exciting and enjoyable experience, why would you want to jump on a plane, spend 18 hours and thousands of dollars then get off and find that everybody looks and talks just like in the country you left – especially if they all wear beards and speak Arabic?

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  • #
    Roy Hogue

    After yesterday I’m surprised to find anyone commenting on this weekend thread.

    Nevertheless, I hope the future brings brighter and more welcome news. We could use it.

    Have a happy weekend one and all. 🙂

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      toorightmate

      Unfortunately, the French atrocities will change nothing.
      We have too many bleeding hearts, too many left wing legal eagles who will defend terrorists, too many left wingers in the judiciary who give budding terrorists a soft slap on the wrist for planning to kill and maim.

      What has changed since 9/11? Nothing other than a bad situation has become worse.

      Saturday night’s ABC 24 News was even lecturing us on NOT to associate the terrorist problems with [SNIP 18C — J]

      WE ARE THE PROBLEM.

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        Andrew McRae

        Yeah, I got 18C’d yesterday too. 🙁
        And I did so much research for my comment.
        Still, I am a tad wiser for it so the time wasn’t totally wasted.

        Let’s just say that Pew Research have a very interesting survey available…
        uggc://jjj.crjtybony.bet/2014/07/01/pbapreaf-nobhg-vfynzvp-rkgerzvfz-ba-gur-evfr-va-zvqqyr-rnfg/
        (To avoid moderation the link has been ROT13’d, just paste into here and decode.)

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          Roy Hogue

          I got it once too. It’s very sensitive apparently — and a real hindrance to those of us used to speaking our minds.

          I tried your dodge of the moderation filter and it goes nowhere for me. Did you test it? Or is there some secret that isn’t obvious?

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          • #
            Andrew McRae

            The word “here” was a link to a decoder but any ROT13 decoder will work.
            Perhaps my instructions were not clear .

            Copy the encoded version , paste into the input box of the decoder , press ROT13 to decode, copy decoded version and paste into browser address bar.

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  • #
    handjive

    Thanks to Jonova for providing the forum yesterday about Paris.

    Though not a ‘scientific’ post, on a smaller planet, it is all intertwined in ways we could never have imagined.
    . . .
    Incase anyone missed it, here is the BoM’s calendar with some great photos:

    Bureau of Meteorology Calendar Shows Australia’s Natural Beauty (via huffingtonpost)

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    • #
      Ross

      handjive

      My sister, who lives in Australia, sends me a copy of the BoM calendar each year. It is one thing they do extraordinarily well.

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    • #
      handjive

      And, this is why yesterday’s Jonova post was un-avoidable:

      > Could the attacks and COP21 possibly be related? (theecologist.org)

      Is it a coincidence that the terrorist outrage in Paris was committed weeks before COP21, the biggest climate conference since 2009? Perhaps, writes Oliver Tickell. But failure to reach a strong climate agreement now looks more probable. And that’s an outcome that would suit ISIS –

      And as for civil society …

      It’s estimated that ten thousand or more climate activists from around the world may be planning to stay in Paris for the duration of the conference, both to demand a strong and effective agreement, and to develop their own agenda, alliances and plans for climate action.

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      • #
        gnome

        If I was a terrorist I wouldn’t want to be in Paris in late November/early December either. Can you imagine how cold it’s going to be during the warmist gathering? Al gore has been building up layers of fat to keep himself from suffering too much because although he may not know much, he knows something.

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      • #
        Roy Hogue

        Could the attacks and COP21 possibly be related?

        I would think that if they were, the attacks would occur against the meetings where hundreds of the world’s leaders or their important proxies would be vulnerable.

        If the attacks had not happened I think security would not be so intense as it will be now and they could have done the world even worse harm than what they did (which is already more than harm enough). Remember how easily Monkton walked right into one of the meetings and generally caused a big to do before he was ushered out.

        On the other hand, I probably don’t think like someone bent on a massive shooting spree for the sake of terrorizing everyone.

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    • #
      AndyG55

      And guess what..

      Every one of those pictures is of Australia’s NATURAL beauty….

      and NATURAL weather.

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  • #
    el gordo

    ‘Kyoji Kimoto, a Japanese chemist, scientist, and fuel-cell computer modeler & inventor, (explains) why the basic anthropogenic global warming hypothesis is wrong and leads to highly exaggerated climate sensitivity to doubled CO2. Kimoto finds climate sensitivity of only 0.14C, a factor of 21 times smaller than the IPCC canonical climate sensitivity estimate of ~3C per doubled CO2.’

    The Hockey Schtick

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      Graeme No.3

      So, a 1.5% error in their ASSUMED lapse rate would be enough to wipe out any warming from a doubling of CO2.
      Now, would you believe the so called scientists could get anything measured that accurately?

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      • #
        Graeme No.3

        Except the amount of money they get.

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        AndyG55

        And as the lapse rate can vary from around 9.5C/km for very dry air, down to 5C/km for very wet air with an unknown and constantly changing value at any point on the Earths within that…

        … its obvious that the 6.5C/km value certainly has a much, much wider error margin than 1.5%.

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  • #
    TdeF

    Reducing windmills? Sorry. Amazing what will come from a little editing. Too many thoughts at once and the comment is in moderation anyway.

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    • #
      TdeF

      I have no problem with moderation. Mention of religion in the context of this excellent blog on the Global Warming scam would seem quite inappropriate.

      My observation is that only one religion is considered a problem by the moderating software. I also note that world leaders, Malcolm Turnbull, Barack Obama, our ABC/SBS perform the same voluntary censorship so it is a world phenomenon. Does it prevent anything or is it just cowardice? Is it out of respect or a fear generated by random acts of violence.

      So the millions of people who announced Je Suis Charlie lied. I believe that Tony Abbott is the only politician with the courage to get up in public and say it as it is, whether to call climate change crap or to call ISIS an I*lamic death cult. We need him back for both reasons. Hiding from the truth does not fix anything and actually encourages

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  • #
    TdeF

    Trying the first paragraph for moderation..

    I wonder what it will take for the Nationals to get sick of Malcolm Turnbull. As the bridesmaid in politics, they do not want a carbon tax, an open boat policy, denying Islamic terrorism, a politically outrageous ABC and BOM and CSIRO, more taxes and feeble foreign policy like Turnbull’s ‘whatever she says’ meeting with Merkel. On the meeting in Paris, call it off. Surely there are more important reasons for 100 heads of state to meet?

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  • #
    TdeF

    Ok, first paragraph did not pass. Perhaps the second two paragraphs?

    As for the 220,000 useless windmills, they do not reduce the baseload and so do nothing for CO2 reduction. Start moving them to desperately poor Africa, a huge continent with no power. A single windmill could provide refrigeration, essential for a bush hospital and light and power at night for a small town. These people have no power at all while the saving in CO2 in South Australia from their hundreds of windmills is exactly zero, as evidenced by the recent state wide five hour blackout because Victoria stopped supplying coal generated electricity and the windmills supplied nothing because they were off. While South Australia pretends to be wind driven, the reality is obvious.

    Lomborg was driven out of Australian universities because he said just this, that the world might be warming but there are far more important world problems. Cancel the useless Paris carbon conference. In the middle of a world war waged by Islamic extremists, the idea of world leaders meeting discuss what to do about nothing is offensive. Where is the UN in all this? Busy organizing Much Ado about Nothing.

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  • #
    Neville

    Andrew Bolt will interview Tony Abbott on the Bolt Report this morning on channel 10 about the Paris terrorist attacks. Needless to say Abbott was correct about the chaotic penetration of European borders and Turnbull was wrong.
    Will these idiots ever wake up?

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      Glen Michel

      …..and a rather boring and unproductive interview it was.Abbott bores the circumlocution out of me.It took Albrechtsen to get to the point.

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        Auverte

        Malcolm may look better in a red nose & pointy hat with pom-poms, but I’d prefer Tonys steady & considered approach for leading a country.

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  • #
    TdeF

    It is odd that the common or dictionary name for a religion I*s*l*a*m can get you into moderation. Good thing I did not write Christian or Buddhist or Quaker or Taoist or Sikh or even Seventh Day Adventist. This shows how scared we are of giving offence to a particular group. They who shall not be named.

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  • #
    Egor TheOne

    I see that ‘CON21’ will march on regardless of any heightened terrorist alert !

    Nothing can get in thy way of ‘saving the planet’ (stealing our money).

    Onward the ‘Unelected Nutters’ march towards a Totalitarian globe and grand economic cliff .

    Such devotion to duty with unrivaled martyrdom …….thoroughly sickening .

    “He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice.”

    Albert Einstein

    We are expected to cheer for the wasting of trillions to counter this >>> https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/clip_image002_thumb1.jpg?w=597&h=279

    But of course only the Terrorists are the ‘crazy medievalists’……!

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    • #
      PeterS

      So their priority is to “save the planet” from some hypothetical catastrophe some 100 years into the future instead of bashing their heads together to fight an evil that’s threatening the world today. Sometimes I wonder who is the greater source of the threat to our very existence.

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      • #

        What I simply don’t understand is the ostensibly suicidal attitude of so many on the Left when it comes to what drives this current terrorism. The Leftists hate Western culture to such an extent that they willingly support, defend and make excuses for this driver of terrorism, knowing full well that under the rules that drive that terrorism, they and all that they hold dear would likely be the first to perish.

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        • #
          PeterS

          So true – I stated exactly the same thing just a few days ago. These so called “social justice warriors” are actually as much an enemy to us as the terrorists themselves even though they use different means, yet too few see it that way.

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          • #
            Manfred

            These so called “social justice warriors” are actually as much an enemy to us as the terrorists themselves even though they use different means, yet too few see it that way…

            …which may be why the MSM and progressives struggle to veil their horror that the recent Parisian mayhem will promote a far greater mayhem in their view, the Rise of the Right, accompanied as it will be by the ascension of common sense and restoration of reasoned global priorities.

            Such reasoning (as distinct from eco-belief indistinguishable from frank insanity) may bring with it the containment of unfettered multiculturalism, the irretrievable stalling of the UN post-2015 Millennium Goals, a continued dwindling interest in unsustainable, expensive and modeled hysteria about the weather as the thinly veiled vehicle for totalitarian Green subjugation, and an assertion of Western values with a decisive willingness to defend them.

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            • #
              PeterS

              Reminds of the “Tomorrow belongs to me Cabaret”. I can see history repeating itself yet again. The current left-wing mania could easily be overturned (by good intentions or not) with another dangerous form of socialism; modern national socialism, ie neo-Nazism. Too bad the pendulum won’t stop swinging from one extreme to another and just settle down in the middle.

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          • #
            Retired now

            I think it was on this site that a book was recommended. SJWs Always Lie: Taking Down the Thought Police by Vox Day. I bought it for the Kindle yesterday and spent the afternoon reading it.

            I would heartily recommend it to everyone. I am not a leader to get things going and keeping the momentum up for change against the SJWs but I am more than happy enough to do my bit. One of the major insights is that ordinary people can work together to have an impact and to make actual change against the leftie tirade. These words sound lame and I’m not expressing myself the way I want to. I would like to sound stronger than that. It is a great book. Buy it. And then lets use some of the ideas to make change.

            There are two aspects that come to mind with this book. Firstly it gives to instances where the SJW memes were overcome by loosely associated people around the world. Those are wonderful models for us to consider. Secondly there is the personal aspect of how to manage if or when you get attacked personally and conservatives are much more likely to be attacked.

            Back more than a decade ago I was one of a number of women who didn’t fit a particular culture and was got rid of by exactly the techniques described in the book, minus the twitter and FB which weren’t around then. I sure could have done with the advice on how to handle it back then. I think anyone who works in an institution needs to have this book on hand to recognise the issues and put in a risk management plan for if/when it happens to them. We need to become anti fragile (in Taleb’s words – or resilient in my word), personally, financially and professionally.

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  • #
    pat

    handjive –

    you posted a link to the piece by Oliver Tickell, editor of “The Ecologist”.

    pure propaganda, with more to come no doubt, promoting the idea that the attacks in Paris should lead to a strong COP21 Treaty, as Tickell writes in his final para:

    “So as well as standing with France in at this time of horror, we must also take a poweful resolve – and communicate it it ceaselessly to our leaders – for a strong, effective climate agreement: the Paris Treaty”

    of course, Oliver is the son of Crispin, whose 1977 book Climatic Change and World Affairs argued that mandatory international pollution control would eventually be necessary:

    Wikipedia: Oliver Tickell is a British journalist, author and campaigner on health and environment issues, and author of the book Kyoto2 which sets out a blueprint for effective global climate governance…His articles have been published in all the broadsheet newspapers and numerous magazines including New Scientist, New Statesman and The Economist. He is an experienced broadcaster on the BBC home and world services including “Today”, “PM”, “Costing the Earth”, “Farming World” and “Farming Today”. He studied physics at Oxford University and is a founding fellow of the Green Economic Institute.
    He is the son of Sir Crispin Tickell, the environmentalist and former diplomat…
    In 2002, 2006 and 2010 Oliver Tickell was a candidate in elections for Oxford City Council, representing the Green Party, but was not elected…
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Tickell

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      Auverte

      Dou you mean He’s the son of Sir Crispin Tickel the Grandaddy of Global Warming, who saw it as just a useful vehicle to up Mrs Thatcher’s standing on the world stage, among all them scientifically illiterate world leaders. That Crispin Tickell ? … From this excellent History of global warming:-
      “Sir Crispin Tickell, UK Ambassador to the UN, suggested a solution to the problem. He pointed out that almost all international statesmen are scientifically illiterate, so a scientifically literate politician could win any summit debate on a matter which seemed to depend on scientific understandings. And Mrs Thatcher”>Sir Crispin Tickell, UK Ambassador to the UN, suggested a solution to the problem. He pointed out that almost all international statesmen are scientifically illiterate, so a scientifically literate politician could win any summit debate on a matter which seemed to depend on scientific understandings. And Mrs Thatcher had a BSc degree in chemistry. (This is probably the most important fact in the entire global warming issue; i.e. Mrs Thatcher had a BSc degree in chemistry). Sir Crispin pointed out that if a ‘scientific’ issue were to gain international significance, then the UK’s Prime Minister could easily take a prominent role, and this could provide credibility for her views on other world affairs. He suggested that Mrs Thatcher should campaign about global warming at each summit meeting. She did, and the tactic worked. Mrs Thatcher rapidly gained the desired international respect and the UK became the prime promoter of the global warming issue.”

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      • #
        Matty

        Perhaps he rather saw her as the vehicle, to advance his Green, bureaucratic, pop. control agenda . Here’s James Delingpole’s piece on Sir Crispin Tickel The man who ‘invented’ Global Warming

        ” Sir Crispin Tickell is one of the chief architects of Man Made Global Warming’s towering cathedral of half truths, exaggeration, hysteria and Neo-Malthusian lunacy. ”
        .

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        • #
          Auverte

          Fascinating.
          ” Like fellow neo-Malthusian Jonathon Porritt who believes that allowing poor nations to have an electricity grid would be “the end of the world,” Tickell believes that instead of allowing poor nations to industrialise, thus lowering their fertility rates as every developed nation has done, they must lower their populations without first industrialising . “

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        • #
          Matty

          Ooh. Touched a nerve there.

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        • #
          Peter C

          Thanks Matty,
          Another brilliant article by Delingpole, exposing a real and current danger in its true form to the world.

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  • #
    pat

    for the record:
    there has been much posting online of BBC’s incorrect date for the French imposing stricter border controls.
    this is what BBC wrote, tho it should have been obvious you wouldn’t begin the controls on the first day of COP21. they would have to begin earlier to have any meaning:

    6 Nov: BBC: UN climate conference: France to impose border controls
    France will impose border controls for one month from 30 November for the UN Conference on Climate Change in Paris.
    French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said it was a precaution “because of the terrorist threat or risk of public disorder”…

    two instances mentioning Nov 13 as the starting date, including RFI France’s spooky 13 Nov coverage of AFP report:

    13 Nov: RFI: France reintroduces border checks ahead of UN climate talks
    France has reintroduced border checks as part of its security-tightening measures ahead of UN climate talks. The Cop21 Paris climate conference opens on 30 November in the French capital…
    ***Authorities say they are putting controls in place at 285 road, rail, sea and air border points from now until December 13th. That’s two days after the conference closes.
    It is said 30,000 police will be involved in the operation…
    According to AFP, French security sources are paying particular attention to militant ecologist protesters, as well as certain extreme-left militant groups. At the same time, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve has said authorities are also preparing for the possibility of terrorist threats, though he hasn’t disclosed any specific information in this regard…
    http://www.english.rfi.fr/france/20151113-france-reintroduces-border-checks-ahead-un-climate-talks

    6 Nov: Associated Press: France to reinstate border controls for UN climate meeting
    Authorities are on alert for violent protesters as well as potential terror attacks.
    (Interior Minister) Bernard Cazeneuve said on BFM television Friday that the controls will be in place for a month as part of larger security measures around the Nov. 30-Dec. 11 conference. He did not elaborate on how tightly the borders would be controlled or how the border checks would be carried out…
    ***Activist groups say they were informed that the French controls would begin Nov. 13…
    A major protest march is planned through Paris Nov. 29, in addition to several other smaller-scale actions.
    France faces routine protests that are largely peaceful but sometimes degenerate into violence by an extremist fringe. The country saw particularly violent protests during a NATO summit in Strasbourg in 2009.
    http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2015-11-06-EU-France-Climate-Conference/id-f6867ba09b914bb680e8b6c9f5e3402d

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    • #
      Matty

      Like the name. plan Vigipirate. Aaaarrrh Jacques me ladd . Be on the lookout for them scurvy sea dogs.
      Who’ll be representing Syria at the Climate talks ? Old Basher himself ?

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  • #
    pat

    more confirmation of the 13 Nov starting date for stronger border control.

    google translation:

    14 Nov: French Tribune: with AFP: Attacks: COP 21 is maintained, Obama will attend
    Laurent Fabius confirmed on Saturday that the international climate conference will take place despite the terrorist attacks Friday in Paris . The US president will go there as planned…
    (final para) By Friday evening, after the attacks, all the police of Paris and the neighboring departments were mobilized in Paris, with the use of reinforcements from moving companies . ***Border control was restored a few hours before the attacks, with 30,000 police mobilized precisely to secure entry to the territory before the Paris conference on climate.
    http://www.latribune.fr/economie/international/attentats-la-cop-21-est-maintenue-obama-sera-present-522358.html

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    pat

    14 Nov: Politico: Sara Stefanini: Paris climate summit still on
    The COP21 gathering will happen, but with much tighter security
    “The feeling is we should go on with business as usual, because you can’t give in to these terrorists,” a European diplomat said Saturday, adding that his prime minister will attend. “My feeling is heads of state will still go, unless they absolutely cannot.”
    The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change expects the COP21 to draw some 10,000 government representatives to the Le Bourget conference center in a northeastern Parisian suburb, plus 7,000 observers per week and 3,000 journalists. Thousands more have already started descending on the French capital to campaign for climate action…
    Environmental groups also scrambled to assess their plans for rallies and marches tied to the summit. Friends of the Earth France, which is organizing peaceful “mass mobilizations” in the weekends before and after the COP21, called an extraordinary meeting Saturday.
    A number of NGO representatives said it was still too early to judge the effect of Friday’s attacks on campaigns and attendance at the COP21…
    “There might be certain people who, like with Charlie Hebdo, choose to come to make a statement on this,” said Wendel Trio, director of Climate Action Network (CAN) Europe, a coalition of advocacy groups… “There might be certain others who will be afraid that these marches would be a target, though I would doubt it because there’s not really a precedent.”
    CAN Europe isn’t organizing the marches, but has thousands of people from member groups preparing to go to Paris…
    ***France announced in October that it would reinstate border controls with Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Spain between November 13 and December 13, according to an internal note it sent to other EU countries…
    http://www.politico.eu/article/paris-terrorist-attacks-scramble-cop21-climate-summit-plans/

    14 Nov: ClimateChangeNews: Ed King: France promises ‘enhanced’ COP21 security after terror attacks
    UPDATED: Climate summit will go ahead but foreign minister Laurent Fabius indicates policing levels will be increased as a result of IS assault
    Asked if there was any danger the summit – where a UN deal to tackle global warming is expected to be signed – would be cancelled, Fabius replied “No, no, no, no, no, the COP21 [is] to be held.”
    “It will be held with enhanced security measures but it is absolutely essential action against climate change and of course it will be held,” he added.
    France’s chief climate diplomat Laurence Tubiana tweeted: [I] “hope spirit of cooperation and peace will be stronger than violence.”.
    Earlier on Saturday Pierre-Henri Guignard, general secretary of the 21st conference of the parties to the UN climate convention, told Le Monde officials planned to hold a “crisis meeting”…
    http://www.climatechangenews.com/2015/11/14/france-to-review-cop21-security-post-paris-terror-attacks/

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    el gordo

    ‘The positive Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) event persists. This event has been in place for over three months. International climate models expect the positive IOD to break down during November and early December. More broadly, Indian Ocean temperatures remain very warm: the October sea surface temperatures anomaly for the southern hemisphere Indian Ocean was the highest positive anomaly for any month on record.’

    BoM

    South East Oz has been getting good rains, which pours cold water on the idea that a positive IOD makes it drier.

    The anomaly needs watching, along with the warm blob in the north Pacific, they maybe precursors to cooling.

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      Dennis

      Lots of rain here on the NSW mid north coast.

      Please BoM climate change guys keep reporting that it will be dry.

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        Annie

        Lots of rain for many but not for us. We are in a currently dry pocket in North Central Victoria and have the frustration of watching storms going on all around us. Our main dam didn’t get filled this last winter/spring. Last year was a different story, we paddled in mud for weeks and weeks!

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          el gordo

          I’m on the Central Tablelands of NSW and we have had very useful rain, some wheat was downgraded because of torrential downpours.

          More rain is predicted in the short term and the approaching La Nina should fill all the dams and rivers in south east Australia.

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  • #
    Dennis

    I was reminded about what James Delingpole wrote about the excellent publication Twilight Of Abundance: Global warming?

    We wish! As Archibald persuasively argues; it’s global cooling which is – and always has been – the far greater threat. And now the worst is almost upon us; rising energy prices; food shortages; cooler summers; and harsher winters.

    Whatever do we do? Read this terrifying, fascinating, well-informed book, for a start, and act before it is too late.

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  • #

    I know that there are some of you who might like to look at data figures for electrical power in China, as what it does do is provide actual information to counter others who might be spreading ill informed comment about what China may or may not be doing, you know, cutting back on coal fired power, ramping up wind power etcetera etcetera. It’s so easy to spread that misinformation, because no one can reliably disprove it.

    However, after much searching, I have been able to find reliable information, so for those others of you who might like to have some real time information to counter the furphies, I have a really good site, the actual China Electricity Council for the data related to electrical power at the following link:

    China Electricity Council

    This shows the precis of what has happened during the previous Month. Note that the top line there is data for September, released on October 22.

    Now just click on that link in the top boxed area, and when the new page opens click on the top highlighted link, and the (translated) data will appear.

    You can work your own way through it at your leisure, and it will come easily enough.

    Note that this is a running total for each Month, so the overall totals are with respect to the end of the current Month, and are not the full year total, so for that yearly total just multiply and divide for the number of Months.

    One thing I might point out here is Line 6, Thermal Power. Now in China, 95% of Thermal Power is new technology USC (UltraSuperCritical) coal fired power, also now referred to as HELE. (High Efficiency Low Emissions)

    Note under that first column there for Line 6, that is for the delivered power added just this Month alone, and you can work the Maths out. That added power from new coal fired plants is 314.6TWH. That’s 1.6 times the total power generation for the WHOLE of Australia, from EVERY source ….. added just this Month from new coal fired power plants.

    The total new added power for China for just this ONE Month (Line 4) comes in at 454.8TWH, or 2.274 times ALL Australia.

    It’s a link some of you may want to save, and if you have any questions, just come back here and ask me.

    Oh, and using this data alone for this Month, let’s then look at Australia’s pledge to cut emissions by 26% by, umm, whenever. That works out to about an average of around 2% per year. So, whatever Australia cuts back in CO2 emissions each YEAR will be totally negated by China in, umm, just under 7 hours, and then again in the next 7 hours, and, umm, so on.

    Ah, it’s so nice to be seeming to pull our weight in the International community, eh!

    Tony.

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      pat

      Tony –

      this was a big spinner this week, which you may care to critique:

      11 Nov: NYT: Edward Wong: Glut of coal-fired plants casts doubts on China’s energy priorities
      Mia Li and Kiki Zhao contributed research.
      When finished, the plant, run by a company owned by the Beijing government, is expected to have a generating capacity of 700 megawatts of power, more than the total of similar plants in Ohio. But whether it will actually be used to its fullest is questionable, despite the investment of $580 million.
      That is because the plant is scheduled to come online in three years amid a glut of coal-fired power plants — an astounding 155 planned projects received a permit this year alone, with total capacity equal to nearly 40 percent of operational coal power plants in the United States.
      China’s economic slowdown and the government’s pledges to use more renewable and nuclear energy make some of the country’s existing plants and most or all of the 155 new ones unnecessary, according to interviews with officials and scholars, a review of public statistics and a report released Wednesday about the “coal power bubble” by Greenpeace East Asia. There are already too many plants, as shown by a steady decline in the plants’ average operating hours since 2013…
      “China already has more coal capacity than it will ever need,” Zhang Boting, vice chairman of the China Society for Hydropower Engineering, said in an interview. “A few years down the road, we’ll see what a waste the plants are. We have seen this happen to the steel and cement industries.”
      In the first nine months of this year, state-owned companies received preliminary or full approval to build the 155 coal power plants that have a total capacity of 123 gigawatts, the report said. That capacity is equal to 15 percent of China’s coal-fired power capacity at the end of 2014…
      Qin Haiyan, secretary general of the Chinese Wind Energy Association, told the China Electric Power News, an official industry newspaper, that if the country’s appetite for new coal plants was not curbed, “the conflict between coal and wind will become even more fierce in the next few years.”
      Mr. Zhang said the dominance of coal power had led to “a sharp decline in investments in renewable energy.”…
      “You’re wasting a massive amount of capital that could be spent on renewable energy to generate green power that is needed,” Mr. Myllyvirta said. “And there’s a longer-term question of whether you will keep investing in renewables when you have all these coal plants lying around.”
      Coal plants now operate well below full capacity, with the average number of operating hours on the decline, the Greenpeace report said. Last year, thermal power plants, mostly coal-fired, operated 4,706 hours on average, 314 hours less than in 2013, according to the National Energy Administration. “At any given moment, more than half of capacity is idle,” Mr. Myllyvirta said…
      By 2020, the central government aims to have coal-fired power generated mainly in western provinces and transmitted to the east via ultra-high-voltage lines. But Greenpeace researchers found that eastern provinces were still handing out large numbers of permits to build new coal plants…
      http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/12/world/asia/china-coal-power-energy-policy.html?_r=0

      my take on this was China is paying lip service to the CAGW renewables mantra, while going about business in the usual pragmatic Chinese fashion, which the headline suggests anyway.

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      • #

        pat, again this is literally misinformation, and the data bears this out.

        From that link I provided, showing the data for September, note at Line 4, the total NEW additions for electrical power just for that Month alone, 454.8TWH of actual generation, and the totals from each sector are at Lines 5, 6, 7, and 8.

        Now note the rise in actual power consumption shown at Line 9, an increase of 456.3TWH.

        EVERY new plant that comes on line in China is most definitely NOT sitting there unused.

        ALL of that NEW generated power is actually being consumed.

        And, as to China having over capacity, again that is misinformation also. In comparison to already Developed Countries, China is barely one third of the way towards electrical power consumption parity which we already have.

        Tony.

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  • #
    handjive

    Frost.

    ABC, November 6, 2015: “A heatwave in Adelaide last January, severe frosts in south-eastern Australia and a late-autumn heatwave across the country have all been attributed to human-induced [Global Warming].

    The findings are reported in the fourth issue of the American Meteorological Society’s report into extreme weather.”
    ~ ~ ~
    The UN-IPCC, as quoted by the Australian Govt.’s Orwellian named ‘[Global Warming] Authority‘ re; frost:

    > Figure 2.6: Global impacts projected to result from rising temperatures –

    “Floods, landslides, droughts and storm surges in Australia are very likely to become more frequent and intense, and there is high confidence that snow and frost will become less frequent (IPCC 2007b, TS p. 50).”
    ~ ~ ~
    Agronomy Australia 15 September 2015:

    In Australia, there has been an increased frequency of frost across much of the southern grain belt between 1960 and 2011, with the current trend of increased frost days in some regions expected to occur until the mid-2030’s.
    . . .
    I like that frosty August picture in the BoM calendar.

    70

    • #
      toorightmate

      Of course there will be more frosts with global warming.

      Are you daft to think otherwise?

      30

      • #
        gnome

        And the wailing and gnashing of teeth you are hearing just now from Southeastern NSW is those farmers who believed that the el nino induced drought this summer would make it a good time to cut some hay.

        Not only has the cut hay failed to dry, but the market won’t be there because of the good (?) rains in late spring.

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    pat

    14 Nov: The Hindu: Puja Mehra: G-20 summit: Modi to push for inclusive view on climate
    Prime Minister Narendra Modi…is scheduled to be the lead speaker at its inaugural session on Climate Change and Development.
    Speaking for developing countries, in his address to the G-20 Leaders…Mr. Modi will oppose the proposed move for eliminating fossil fuels subsidies…
    He will also voice strong objections to the environment and social safeguards standards being pushed by the World Bank and other multilateral agencies for project finance and loans. He will call for a balance at the Conference of Parties (COP) 21 December talks in Paris so that development is not compromised as a result of the focus on climate change.
    India’s stated position is that the emphasis should rather be on clean technology, Economic Affairs Secretary and head of India’s finance track delegation here at the G-20 Summit Shaktikanta Das told presspersons. “India calls for balance between focus on climate change and development needs.” The Prime Minister will invite all countries to join an international network on non-conventional energy, he said.
    Mr. Modi is also expected to emphasise that the commitment from the developed countries to make available from 2020 $100 billion of climate finance every year to developing countries has to be ensured and a road map for this should be laid down over the next five years…
    Ahead of the start of the summit, the Prime Minister will hold talks with the BRICS nations — Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa — leaders on Sunday morning…
    http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/g20-summit-modi-to-push-for-inclusive-view-on-climate/article7878990.ece

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  • #
    TdeF

    I wonder what it will take for the Nationals to get sick of Malcolm Turnbull. As the bridesmaid in politics, they do not want a carbon tax, an open boat policy, denying Christian terrorism, a politically outrageous ABC and BOM and CSIRO, more taxes and feeble foreign policy like Turnbull’s ‘whatever she says’ meeting with Merkel. On the meeting in Paris, call it off. Surely there are more important reasons for 100 heads of state to meet?

    As for the 220,000 useless windmills, they do not affect the baseload and so do nothing for CO2 reduction. Start moving them to desperately poor Africa, a huge continent with no power. A single windmill could provide refrigeration, essential for a bush hospital and light and power at night for a small town. These people have no power at all while the saving in CO2 in South Australia from their hundreds of windmills is exactly zero, as evidenced by the recent state wide five hour blackout because Victoria stopped supplying coal generated electricity and the windmills supplied nothing because they were off. While South Australia pretends to be wind driven, the reality is obvious.

    Lomborg was driven out of Australian universities because he said just this, that the world might be warming but there are far more important world problems. Cancel the useless Paris carbon conference. In the middle of a world war waged by Christian extremists, the idea of world leaders meeting discuss what to do about nothing is offensive. Where is the UN in all this? Busy organizing Much Ado about Nothing.

    Solved the problem. Spot the substitution.

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    • #
      Peter C

      As for the 220,000 useless windmills, they do not affect the baseload and so do nothing for CO2 reduction. Start moving them to desperately poor Africa, a huge continent with no power

      Lomborg, writing in the Australian, on Saturday demonstrated that direct investment in coal fired power stations in Africa would help a great many more people than spending the same sum on wind and solar generation. His view was that the moral thing to do would be to give them real power, not fake power.
      http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060026477

      Sadly the wind turbines have to stay where they are, a sad reminder of our own folly!

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    • #
      Sceptical Sam

      The National Party.

      Yep.

      It needs to stand up for all of Australia.

      They have my vote in the Senate and they’d have in in the Reps., too if they ran a candidate in Julie Bishop’s seat of Curtin. But they don’t. So I’ll vote for an independent. Anything but the untrustworthy Bishop back-stabber.

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    • #
      Annie

      Yes, very clever, imagine the fuss if you had used the other name; we Christians are always expected to soak up insults and intolerance.

      Not cycling around the Black Spur today TdeF? Lots of cyclists in the area today.

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  • #
    Peter Yates

    Here’s an interesting report by Dennis Trewin, Statistical Consultant (Australia).
    .. HOW RELIABLE ARE CLIMATE CHANGE PROJECTIONS – A STATISTICIAN’S PERSPECTIVE
    http://www.oecd.org/site/worldforum06/38790601.pdf

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    • #
      Sceptical Sam

      Interesting.

      It was written prior to AR5. Nobody listened.

      He couldn’t say it while he was a Commonwealth Public Servant.

      What’s the betting that he gave frank and fearless advice to the government of the day on this?

      What’s the chance they told him to pull his head in?

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    Peter C

    I am starting a short holiday in India,

    I can report that there is electrical power in Chennai (formerly Madras). However it went off for several hours during the night. In a few days I will be visiting a much smaller town, where the power situation may be much worse.

    I will take note and report back

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    • #

      Peter C,

      As you walk around, if you’re actually game enough to go outside the major precincts, look up at the overhead power lines. I have never seen such a disaster in all my life.

      Link to page of images

      Tony.

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      • #
        Yonniestone

        Holy crap!, if Worksafe saw people doing that here I think they’d just dribble and pass out from shock!

        30

      • #
        KinkyKeith

        Many parts of Saigon are still like that Tony.

        Amazing stuff.

        21

        • #
          TdeF

          Shanghai has improved out of sight. The top pictures were accurate in 1998. That is all gone now, along with the bicycles. Freeways are busy, trees are grown, old streets are pedestrian malls and the new underground is amazing. It is all a matter of time and the will of the people to improve. Some countries seem not to want to improve.

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      • #
        toorightmate

        Too many wires. Not enough poles.
        They need Julia.

        20

      • #
        Peter C

        Several images show men actually walking on the lines and holding on with their hands.

        Is it safe to assume that the power is turned off, or all the wires on the same phase?

        20

        • #
          TdeF

          I have a photo of a man laying cable stories up in Nanking Road, Shanghai. A veritable rats nest combined with a spider’s web. Nothing to hold him but his fingertips and toes and staying flat against the building. However he did tire and stop at the corner and sit backwards on a pile of live cables on top of a pole. All that is gone now in Shanghai, but you could not fault one man’s determination to get the work done at any cost. India however is still a disaster in Madras and Tamil Nadu. Their power is wind driven, which is why the power goes off and everyone stops work.

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        PeterPetrum

        My wife and I worked in India for many weeks over a period of three years, training quarantine fumigators and government officers to use methyl bromide to Australian standards. The electrical wiring systems in all the commercial premises in which we worked were a nightmare! I had taken my own electrical equipment with us, but in order to tap into the power supply our hosts had to remove the Aussie plugs and twist the wires into exposed wires on the “power board”, making sure, of course that they were nicely splayed to avoid shorting. And people were worried about the health effects of the fumigant!

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    handjive

    In 2013 we had the “Angry Summer.”

    In 2014 we had the Super El Niño. Which failed to materialise.

    In 2015 we had the ‘monster’ Godzilla El Niño. Which failed to materialise.

    I am proposing the name for the 2016 hottest year evah summer heat wave monster: The Decepticon Summer.

    After Godzilla, where can you go?

    It’s like “turning it up to eleven.

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    • #
      Glen Michel

      It’s rather sad that erstwhile reliable methods such as fowl entrails are no longer used in BoM medium term forecasting.

      20

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    Annie

    Oh dear, not coming where comments intended… my reply to TdeF in #22 was at #26…or are my eyes deceiving me?! 🙂

    10

  • #
    Dennis

    It’s still raining here NSW mid north coast, Tom Foolery.

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  • #
    Neville

    It’s interesting to have another look at the longest instrumental temp record from Greenland. There doesn’t seem to be much difference between the 1851 to 1860 decade and the last decade 1991 to 2000.
    And from 1800 to 2005 the warmest decades were the 1930s and 1940s, with 1941 being the warmest year. This study was assembled by Jones, Vinther etc and it’s strange that up to 2005 the warmest period was before 1950. Here is Pat Michaels summary of the study. His table 1 is the same as table 8 below.

    http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2006/11/17/cooling-the-debate-a-longer-record-of-greenland-air-temperature/
    Table 8. Decadal Merged Greenland Temperaturesa
    Decade Annual, °C DJF, °C MAM, °C JJA, °C SON, °C

    a

    Numbers in parenthesis are based on at least 8 or 9 years/seasons.

    1811–20 (−4.4) (−13.1) (−7.1) (4.6) 2.8
    1821–30 – – – – –
    1831–40 – −12.3 (−4.5) – –
    1841–50 −2.5 −10.1 −3.2 5.8 −1.6
    1851–60 (−2.1) −9.4 −3.7 (6.3) −1.3
    1861–70 −3.6 −11.8 −5.6 5.0 −1.9
    1871–80 −1.7 −9.1 −3.5 6.3 −0.4
    1881–90 −3.3 −11.7 −4.6 5.6 −2.0
    1891–1900 −2.9 −10.9 −4.6 6.4 −1.5
    1901–10 −2.6 −11.1 −4.4 6.4 −1.0
    1911–20 −2.4 −9.9 −4.0 6.1 −1.1
    1921–30 −1.1 −8.4 −2.1 6.9 −0.1
    1931–40 −0.8 −8.0 −2.1 7.3 −0.1
    1941–50 −0.8 −7.2 −2.8 7.4 −0.3
    1951–60 −1.1 −8.4 −2.5 7.0 0.1
    1961–70 −1.0 −6.9 −3.1 6.3 −0.4
    1971–80 −1.7 −8.6 −3.6 6.0 −0.6
    1981–90 −2.5 −10.1 −5.2 6.0 −0.9
    1991–2000 −2.1 −10.3 −4.6 6.3 −0.4

    10

  • #
    Neville

    Ken’s Kingdom has updated the pause using UAH V 6. Main change is in the NH, but north polar has seen the pause increase by one month.
    OZ shows the pause increasing during Oct and Oct was not the hottest month by a long shot.

    https://kenskingdom.wordpress.com/2015/11/11/the-pause-october-2015-update/#comment-14136

    10

  • #
    Peter C

    How much water can the atmosphere hold?

    My arrival in Chennai, India has corresponded with the onset of the North East Monsoon. The Monsoon is said to be heavier this year than usual, at least over the past several years.

    Having watched incessant rain, at times very heavy, go on for hour after hour after hour, it has made me wonder just how much water the atmosphere can hold. It does not seem reasonable that so much rain can come out of the sky for so long!

    30

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    crakar24

    In other news, Spanish court issues warrant against Israeli PM Netanyahu for crimes against humanity

    http://pgs.altervista.org/pg/index.php/khamakerpress/1736-spanish-court-issues-arrest-warrant-for-israeli-pm-netanyahu

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    doubting dave

    Sorry , that link goes to a comment rather than the article so please scroll to the article at the top of the page

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    pat

    ABC has a highly-politicised “Sunday Nights” religious program with John Cleary.

    this week’s big issue? about 48 mins worth?
    within minutes, u get tobacco, Trump, 97% consensus, & every other well-known CAGW meme. the interview with Manne & Freier begins about 5 minutes in:

    AUDIO: 15 Nov: ABC Sunday Night (religion) with John Cleary: The Issue: Can the planet be saved?
    Our guests for The Issue are Professor Robert Manne and Melbourne Anglican Archbishop Philip Freier, in a conversation hosted by John Cleary in Melbourne last week, in which they discussed the social and political obstacles to tackling climate change.
    According to Professor Manne, the fight against climate change will require a global effort greater than World War II, a task made more difficult by DENIAISTS in English-speaking countries. He said the recent encyclical on climate change by Pope Francis was the most important intervention since Al Gore, but much deeper….
    Dr Freier noted a curious paradox of the climate change debate: the more information people acquired, the more confirmed they became in their views. He argued that the short political cycle worked against an intelligent long-term approach. Meanwhile, he also said people were often not alert to the impact their decisions would have on the wider environment, and that the theological perspective, emphasising caring for the poor, should be emphasised.
    http://www.abc.net.au/sundaynights/stories/s4352387.htm

    horrendous program.

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      pat

      John Cleary’s guest, Robert Manne, proves he jumps on MSM misinterpretations of studies:

      16 minutes from the end of ABC John Cleary’s interview:

      Cleary: Bernie sanders blah blah.
      Robert Manne: …An astonishing fact recently, is that white American MALES are beginning to die earlier than they used to. it’s almost the only country amongst the developed world where that is happening, and people are beginning to compare it to the late period of the Soviet Union, where the mortality rate went lower…

      13 Nov: US News & World Report: Kimberly Leonard: What Reports About White People Dying Missed
      Why the rise of death rates among Caucasians is way more complex than the pundits would have you believe…
      ***Case and Deaton’s paper did not specify whether middle-aged white men or women were seeing increasing mortality rates. Still, several news outlets misreported that the trend was occurring among only men…
      In fact, women are arguably driving the trend. “I think by not looking separately at men and women that they missed an important story and piece of the puzzle,” says Laudy Aron, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute’s Center on Labor, Human Services and Population.
      Aron responded to the report in an analysis she co-authored with other fellows from the Urban Institute on the Health Affairs blog, in which they made the case that rising mortality is especially pronounced among middle-aged women, given other recent studies on the subject.
      The Urban Institute’s analysis of the same data showed that the average increase in age-specific mortality rates for whites ages 45 to 54 was more than three times higher for women than men. The mortality rate among women increased by 26.8 deaths per 100,000 people, while the rate for men increased by 7.7 deaths…
      http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/11/13/yes-death-rates-for-middle-aged-whites-are-rising-but-why

      PNAS: Rising morbidity and mortality in midlife among white non-Hispanic Americans in the 21st century
      http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/10/29/1518393112.full.pdf

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    pat

    holding the line:

    15 Nov: Puja Mehra: BRICS can give shape to G20: Modi
    Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Sunday that India looks forward to a concrete outcome in Paris within the framework of the UN Convention on Climate Change that should have an appropriate balance of collective action: equity and common but differentiated responsibility and respective capabilities.
    While India has “ambitious” plans for addressing the challenges of climate change, the country doesn’t see development and climate change as competing objectives, the Prime Minister said in the lead intervention at the G20 inaugural session at Antalya, Turkey. The ambitious plans, he said, include additional capacity of 175 GW of renewable energy by 2022 and cuts in subsidies on fossil fuel alongside a tax on coal…
    He also urged the leaders to ensure that the target of $100 billion climate finance per year by 2020 is met. “We should shift from carbon credit towards green credit”.
    The multilateral institutions’ imposition of difficult safeguards and conditions on climate finance loans could become barriers to development and undermine sustainable development, Mr. Modi cautioned.
    Mr. Modi called for the G20 to place priority on effective implementation of Sustainable Development Agenda 2030 and ensure adequate funding for it, which, he said, will stimulate faster, more broad-based economic growth…
    http://www.thehindu.com/news/narendra-modi-brics-can-give-shape-to-g20/article7880521.ece

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    pat

    16 Nov: BBC: Roger Harrabin: Society ‘set for climate change woe’
    Human societies will soon start to experience adverse effects from manmade climate change, a prominent economist has warned.
    Prof Richard Tol predicts the downsides of warming will outweigh the advantages with a global warming of 1.1C – which has nearly been reached already.
    ***Prof Tol is regarded by many campaigners as a climate “sceptic”…
    “Most people would argue that slight warming is probably beneficial for human welfare on net, if you measure it in dollars, but more pronounced warming is probably a net negative,” Prof Tol told the BBC Radio 4 series Changing Climate.
    Asked whether societies were at the point where the benefits start to be outweighed by consequences, he replied: “Yes. In academic circles, this is actually an uncontroversial finding.”
    But it is controversial for climate contrarians, who often cite Professor Tol’s work to suggest that we shouldn’t worry about warming…
    The best way of combating climate change, he told BBC News, was to maximise economic growth…
    (Changing Climate is broadcast on BBC Radio 4 at 20:00 on Monday, 16 November)
    http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-34800829

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    pat

    14 Nov: Irish Times: Sylvia Thompson: UN Climate Change Conference: ‘I will be embarrassed to be Irish in Paris’
    Trocaire, Oxfam Ireland and Friends of the Earth will be watching as world leaders meet for the Cop21 summit. They’re already disappointed by the Government’s ‘inaction’
    ***Prof John Sweeney, the Maynooth University climatologist, has provided Irish NGOs with a briefing document, Preparing the Road to Paris, in which he outlines the scientific, ethical and political background to the conference and explains key negotiating issues, such as whether countries will pledge money to the UN’s Green Climate Fund from their development budgets or from new funds, or whether emission-reduction agreements will be legally binding.
    Among other things, this technical knowledge will allow NGO protesters to tailor their banners to how negotiations go at the Paris conference…
    http://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/un-climate-change-conference-i-will-be-embarrassed-to-be-irish-in-paris-1.2427091

    Sweeney would be preparing the NGOs!

    April 2014: Village Magazine Ireland: John Gibbons interviews climate scientist, Michael Mann
    JG: Ireland doesn’t have the US-style ideological chasm, but instead we have a media that is tremendously uninterested and uninformed. Our leading climate scientist, Prof John Sweeney had to actually boycott a recent TV programme, on the grounds that this type of ‘debate’ (giving oxygen to known climate deniers) is feeding the problem – you’ve experienced this?
    MM: Sometimes, if you don’t participate, the fear is that people are only going to hear from the voices of disinformation but if we allow that sort of ‘false balance’ approach, it does a disservice to the public. If you as a scientist share the stage with an industry-funded denier, you are implicitly telling the audience that these are two equally credible voices – and they’re not. I’m sympathetic to the view that John Sweeney expressed about the fallacy of false balance. It’s like an astronomer getting into a debate with the president of the Flat Earth Society over the latest stellar observations…
    MM: There’s no pause in global warming…READ ON
    http://villagemagazine.ie/index.php/2014/04/5706/

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    pat

    more on Sweeney:

    2009: Irish Central: Nobel expert: Global warming causing Irish floods, climate change
    Ireland’s massive flooding has almost certainly been the result of climate change, says Nobel Prize-winner and Ireland’s leading climatologist, Prof. John Sweeney
    Sweeney, of Maynooth College, was one of the climatologists who formed part of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and won the Nobel Prize in partnership with Al Gore in 2007 because of their warnings about climate change…
    Sweeney was was also the main author of a report published by the Environmental Protection Agency about the effect on climate change in Ireland…
    http://www.irishcentral.com/news/nobel-expert-global-warming-causing-irish-floods-climate-change-76693582-237672411.html

    so many Reuters’ staff assigned to writing about the climate activists!

    15 Nov: Reuters: Bate Felix: Green groups re-think massive Paris climate march after attacks
    (With extra reporting By Nina Chestney in London and Alister Doyle in Oslo; writing by Alister Doyle; editing by Bruce Wallace and Digby Lidstone)
    A massive demonstration planned by environmental activists for the eve of this month’s U.N. climate summit in Paris is in doubt as organisers weigh the security risks – and the propriety – of gathering in huge numbers in a city where attacks killed 129 people.
    Environmental groups will meet on Monday to decide a course of action, with mainstream activists saying they will abide by any ban on public gatherings if the state of emergency decreed by French President Francois Hollande is still in place…
    The coalition organising the Global Climate March will meet on Monday at 1400 GMT to discuss how best to proceed. Among the risks is that security fears will keep the turnout – and the political impact – low.
    “It is for the French presidency to decide on the way forward, and we will make changes to our plans as appropriate,” said the aid charity Oxfam.
    Under French law, a state of emergency can last 12 days and Prime Minister Manuel Valls has said it may be extended if needed…
    If security and respect for the victims force cancellation of the Paris demonstration, one option is to boost other planned parallel demonstrations in cities such as Sydney, Tokyo, London or New Delhi on Nov. 29.
    Organisers said they also hope to find some way of combining tributes for the victims of the Paris violence with their appeals for action to protect people from the impacts of climate change, such as floods, droughts or rising sea levels.
    Activists could be encouraged to take to social media instead of to the streets…
    http://in.reuters.com/article/2015/11/15/france-shootings-climatechange-idINL8N13A0W620151115

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    pat

    12 Nov: AFR: Glenn McGrath bowls into carbon farming
    Former Australian cricketer Glenn McGrath has become a carbon farmer after securing a contract from the Clean Energy Regulator to be paid for growing trees on his sheep and cattle property in north-west NSW…
    …the cricketing legend said the contract would supplement income on his 32,400 hectare property, Wancobra,160 kilometres north-west of Bourke…
    “We are always looking for ways to get a different income stream into the property to make it a little more sustainable because it’s pretty tough at the moment. We’ve been in some pretty big droughts since we bought the property,” Mr McGrath said in an interview with The Australian Financial Review.
    Mr McGrath and his brother will put aside some of his property to allow mulga trees to regenerate…
    “I didn’t know about [carbon farming] until my brother called me about it. He’d heard from neighbours and friends”…
    http://www.afr.com/business/energy/glenn-mcgrath-bowls-into-carbon-farming-20151112-gkx6av

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    pat

    13 Nov: MorningBulletinRockhampton: Viv Forbes: READER’S VIEW: The war on carbon is weakening food chain
    NAPOLEON once said: “Only a foolish horse fights with his nose bag.”
    But today we have many foolish people fighting with their nose bag. They are weakening Earth’s food chain with a war on carbon.
    Carbon is the building block of life…READ ON
    http://www.themorningbulletin.com.au/news/readers-view-war-carbon-weakening-food-chain/2839966/

    good number of sceptics represented below:

    14 Nov: Florida Times-Union: Soundoff: Readers’take on climate change
    http://jacksonville.com/reason/sound/2015-11-14/story/sound-readers-take-climate-change

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    13 Nov: SMH: Clancy Yeates: Commonwealth Bank wants to boost green energy loans – and favours a carbon price
    The Commonwealth Bank wants to ramp up its lending to renewable energy businesses, and has signalled it believes Australia should ultimately re-intstate a carbon price.
    Group executive Kelly Bayer Rosmarin, who runs CBA’s institutional bank, on Friday said CBA had “unlimited” appetite for lending to renewable energy, though she also highlighted the challenges banks faced in financing the sector…
    As banks try to boost their green credentials, Ms Bayer Rosmarin also said CBA would support the introduction of a carbon emissions trading scheme in Australia in the “medium term,” though she also acknowledged the “political realities” in what has been a contentious policy area…
    “Our appetite for lending to the renewables sector is unlimited and we are actively seeking to grow our portfolio, as long as they are good, viable, commercially-backable projects, and they are bankable,” she said at a Trans-Tasman Business Circle lunch in Sydney.
    Ms Bayer Rosmarin also said the bank would hold a forum allowing people from the “cleantech” and “fintech” sectors to work together.
    CBA has $1.64 billion in business lending exposure to renewable sector, and it has financed 180 renewable projects, half of which are in Australia…
    Despite its intention to lend more to renewable energy projects, Ms Bayer Rosmarin highlighted several complexities banks faced in lending to these businesses, including uncertainty over the businesses’ future cash flows…
    http://www.smh.com.au/business/banking-and-finance/commonwealth-bank-wants-to-boost-green-energy-loans–and-favours-a-carbon-price-20151113-gkyekz.html

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    15 Nov: ClimateChangeNews: Ed King: France confirms UN climate summit will proceed, diplomats praise solidarity
    CRIB NOTES 15-19 NOVEMBER: COP21 to go ahead as planned, G20 leaders consider fossil fuel subsidy axe, UK plans energy reset
    “Profound emotion receiving so strong support to maintain #COP21. Humanity, courage, solidarity winning over fear and terror,” tweeted the country’s top climate diplomat Laurence Tubiana.
    “Of course #COP21 proceeds as planned. Even more so now. #COP21 = respecting our differences & same time acting together collaboratively,” said the UN’s top climate official Christiana Figueres.
    Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy was talked out of calling for the summit to be postponed, according to the AFP news agency, after a meeting with Francois Hollande.
    “He had questions about it on Saturday… he spoke about this with the president who gave him a full response. He will not ask for COP21 to be postponed,” a source told AFP…
    Leaders (at G20) are expected to discuss how they can meet longstanding pledges to slash subsidies for oil, gas and coal, which the IMF says amount to over $5 trillion a year…
    They will also consider a recommendation from the Financial Stability Board to set up a global climate risk task force to assess the potential losses investors could face if the world moves away from fossil fuels…
    Megan Darby has more background on what to expect here.
    Don’t forget to tune in…
    BBC environment analyst Roger Harrabin kicks off the first of a three-part series ahead of the UN climate summit on Monday at 2000GMT on Radio 4. You can listen online here…READ ON
    http://www.climatechangenews.com/2015/11/15/france-confirms-cop21-climate-summit-will-proceed-diplomats-praise-solidarity/

    do opinions of Reuters & “environmental campaigners” matter!

    16 Nov: ReutersCarbonPulse: Ontario mulls carbon tariffs, free allowance bonanza in draft emissions trading plan
    The Ontario government on Friday circulated to stakeholders a draft design plan for the Canadian province’s new carbon market, proposing to give regulated industries all of their allowances for free for the first four years while considering the introduction of carbon tariffs as extra protection.
    Ontario wants to launch its emissions trading scheme in Jan. 2017, with the first allowance auction to be held two months later, the 66-page report said…
    Ontario has also proposed connecting a year later to Quebec and California’s carbon markets, which are linked under the Western Climate Initiative (WCI).
    However, prior to green-lighting the link, Ontario’s future trading partners may request further discussions on key areas such as its generous allocation levels and its consideration of imposing border carbon adjustments on a number of its trade-exposed sectors.
    Environmental campaigners said the design plan “hits the mark” with the exception of the generous free allocations…
    Below are Carbon Pulse’s key takeaways from Ontario’s draft design proposal…READ ON
    http://carbon-pulse.com/ontario-mulls-carbon-tariffs-free-allowance-bonanza-in-draft-emissions-trading-plan/

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    13 Nov: Politico: Morning Energy
    (SCROLL DOWN) CLIMATE AGREEMENT’S TREATY STATUS HAS HEISENBERGIAN UNCERTAINTY: The State Department found itself having to clarify Secretary of State John Kerry’s comment to the Financial Times that the climate deal in Paris is “definitively not going to be a treaty,” after the remark ruffled feathers in Europe. State Department told ME that the United States is advocating for an agreement that has some binding and some non-binding elements. “The FT interview with Secretary Kerry may have been read to suggest that the U.S. supports a completely non-binding approach. That is not the case and that is not Secretary Kerry’s position. Our position has not changed: the U.S. is pressing for an agreement that contains provisions both legally binding and non-legally binding.”
    The European Union is pushing for an internationally binding agreement, a position officials there stressed in the aftermath of the Kerry interview. But some long-time observers believe the U.S. and the EU may not be as divided as it appears. “It’s a disagreement on terminology, not substance. Kerry was using domestic U.S. terminology, indicating that the agreement would not need to go to the Senate; while … EU diplomats were indicating that the treaty would be binding under international law. Those two ideas aren’t in conflict, but the two countries were talking past each other,” one advocate of securing a deal in Paris wrote in an email to reporters…
    http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning-energy/2015/11/morning-energy-wolff-211265

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    all over the MSM:

    16 Nov: SMH: Peter Hannam: Three-day heatwave forecast for eastern Australia
    “We’re seeing this warmth a bit earlier than usual,” Mr Meyers (Tristan Meyers, a meteorologist with Weatherzone) said…
    Bureau charts indicate the hottest period of the heatwave is still expected around 5pm, AEDT, on Thursday, when roughly half the country will be sizzling in 40 degrees or warmer conditions…
    While the El Nino event in the Pacific may be one factor behind the heat, early season warmth across north-western Australia is consistent with climate change, ***climatologists say…
    http://www.smh.com.au/environment/weather/scorching-temperatures-ahead-as-dome-of-heat-shifts-eastwards-20151116-gl05e9.html

    ***no climatologists quoted.

    16 Nov: The New Daily (with ABC): Heatwave to bring early summer across Australia
    Australia is set for a hot, hot start to summer with the Bureau of Meteorology forecasting extreme conditions across parts of the nation
    Watching the weather forecast on Monday night you could have been forgiven for thinking it was February. It’s still two weeks until the official start of summer but Mother Nature is keen to get on with it…

    a little satire:

    16 Nov: Pedestrian TV: Wendy Hoang: Evacuate The Country: 40C Heat Wave Imminent, Will Scorch All In Its Path
    https://www.pedestrian.tv/news/100dts/evacuate-the-country-40c-heat-wave-imminent-will-s/d7234870-1a8e-4e8c-aa02-d1ef2445d1a3.htm

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    16 Nov: ABC: AFP: Paris climate talks: France cancels side events as world leaders ‘vow to seek 2C degree climate deal’
    But he (French prime minister Manuel Valls) said the conference would “probably” be reduced to the official negotiation.
    “We are in the process of looking at that but everything which was outside of the COP (climate talks), a whole series of concerts, of rather festive events, will be without a doubt cancelled,” Mr Valls said…
    Leaders of the world’s top economies have vowed to seek a deal to stave off catastrophic global warming at the Paris conference, according to a draft statement drawn up on Monday.
    Negotiators at the Group of 20 summit haggled though the night on the text of the statement as Saudi Arabia and India initially refused to include specific climate goals like curbing global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius, sources said…
    France, with the backing of the European Union, has worked furiously to make the climate talks a success and Paris officials bristled at the reluctance by certain countries at the G20 to include its basic objectives in the statement.
    “At a certain point there was a feeling that we were not living on the same planet,” an exhausted European negotiator told reporters after more than 20 hours of talks with his G20 counterparts.
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-16/world-leaders-vow-to-seek-2c-degree-climate-deal-in-paris/6945848

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    still shilling for trillions:

    16 Nov: Bloomberg: Alex Morales: Climate Spending Surges 18% in Year Before Paris Deal Planned
    Total expenditure rose to $391 billion in 2014 from $331 billion a year earlier, with almost three quarters of the cash raised and spent in the same country, the CPI said Monday in a report. About $292 billion of the cash went on solar parks, wind farms and other renewable energy projects, whose falling costs mean “investments are achieving more impact than ever before,” the San Francisco-based analysis group said…
    The expenditure is still short of what the International Energy Agency says is needed for the world to restrict warming since pre-industrial times to the international target of 2 degrees Celsius…
    The IEA said last month that expenditure of $16.5 trillion from 2015 through 2030 would keep the planet on a path where the temperature goal can still be achieved. That works out to just over $1 trillion a year…
    “Overwhelmingly, it is national self-interest that is driving climate action,” Barbara Buchner, a director at the CPI and lead author of the study, said in a statement…
    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-16/climate-spending-surges-18-in-year-before-paris-deal-planned

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    16 Nov: Global News Canada: Paris climate conference not about emissions targets: Catherine McKenna
    The upcoming climate change conference in Paris may not result in legally-binding carbon emission reduction targets, said Canada’s new environment minister, but broadcasting their goals on the international stage should put pressure on individual countries to stick to the targets they set for themselves…
    For Canada, that will likely mean a commitment to meet — or do better than — the 30 per cent reduction of 2005 levels by 2030 set by the previous Conservative government. That target, however, may not be legally binding. McKenna, an international lawyer by trade, said “legally binding” can mean different things.
    “In the United States, if it’s a legally binding treaty, it has to go through Congress,” she said. “The last thing we want is to have it fail in Congress … the U.S. not be part of this treaty. I think what we need is a way forward. And so, even if it’s not legally binding in a very formal international law sense, the idea that you would have to report on your targets, you have to show progress, you would have to show where you’re at, those are all ways that you increase transparency and they increase pressure.”…
    http://globalnews.ca/news/2340222/paris-climate-conference-not-about-emissions-targets-catherine-mckenna/

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    16 Nov: Sputnik News: Paris Climate Change Pledge: “Beautiful, but Empty Words”
    Politicians are misleading the public with false expectations for the upcoming UN climate change summit, a prominent climate economist has told Sputnik. Professor Richard Tol at the University of Sussex, warns that the current draft pledge to curb global warming by about 2.7 degrees Celsius by 2100, is unrealistically low…
    “I don’t think anything will come out of the Paris talks apart from beautiful and empty words.”…
    Indeed, for the politicians as well as scientists, huge hurdles remain including the reluctance of the US, China and India, to legally commit to substantial emissions caps.
    Professor Tol said that that reluctance continues amongst much of the general public as well…
    “Social surveys show that whilst people accept the reality of climate change, it is not high on their list of priorities. The more informative question is — what are people willing to do? What increases are they willing to accept in terms of fuel costs in their home and for their car?”
    “The answer is a little bit, but not a lot. And that has been consistent for a long time in many places.”
    “The moral argument of responsibility won’t convince many people.”…
    The French Energy Minister Segolene Royale was quoted by French media as saying that the summit is more important now than ever:
    “If not, terrorism wins.”
    http://sputniknews.com/europe/20151116/1030185932/climate-change-paris-summit-false-expectations.html

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