Weekend Unthreaded

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279 comments to Weekend Unthreaded

  • #
    Rereke Whakaaro

    An Australian website caught my eye: “How Many Solar Panels Do You Need To Charge An Electric Car?”

    It seems that 2kW per vehicle is minimum. Now this is Australia, where the sun always shines, so that is the good news. The bad news is that a large number of Australian homes have more than one car. Given that eight to twelve square metres of active panels are required to produce 2kW, and given the the size of the average Australian family, where every teenager needs their own transport, then we appear to have an interesting dynamic.

    Nothing is ever as simple as it seems.

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    • #
      Graeme No.3

      Congratulations Rereke, you may have solved many Australian parents from their dilemma “How do we persuade the grown-up kids to leave home?”
      Previous ideas have suggested moving to a smaller house, charging rent, changing the locks, acquiring a savage dog while the loved ones are on holidays etc. All involving some expense.
      Telling them they have to leave home because they have exceeded to Solar PV limit and if they don’t go then their (electric) car won’t run nor will they be able to recharge their mobile phones should do the trick.

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      • #
        sophocles

        Graeme No 3, it’s really obvious you have no daughters.
        And Rereke is a well-established curmudgeon. 🙂

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        • #

          And Rereke is a well-established curmudgeon. 🙂

          He is but a piker! I remain CURMUDGEON with with mammoth Cudgel! “You kids get offen my lawn! No longer acceptable to use words harm, chase, or k*ll! Best to only use the innocuous ‘dispatch’; however that need be quickly done! 🙂

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        • #
          Graeme No.3

          sophocles:
          Correct I have no daughters.
          Regarding Rereke I was under the impression that he was a New Zealander. Also I have been unable to find the country CURMUDGE on Google Earth or in an Atlas.

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    • #
      John F. Hultquist

      The writer of that car charging article glosses over a lot of issues while mentioning many. It is interesting.

      One thing is that many people do not own a house on their own land.
      It is likely that many of the buyers of EVs will be city apartment dwellers. Common or assigned parking spaces with chargers would be needed and the software to keep track of who is charging what and when. Complexity and cost increase with each new wrinkle.

      For apartment folks, solar cells in the paint on the car or wings that unfold while parked might be needed.
      LINK

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      • #
        Rereke Whakaaro

        🙂

        Perhaps you can maintain the charge in the batteries by just drifting wherever the wind takes you.

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      • #

        Good points. If you live in the bush you know the limitations of EVs straight away. A highway rep or deliverer would also see the limitations pretty smartly. But it’s assumed people in the city can easily find a recharge point at home – so why would they say no to EVs? In fact, most homeowners/landlords/residents would have to spend some money and many would have to spend a lot. In many cases the retrofitting, metering and maintenance would be a nightmare. And all this is just at the residential end. Think NBN.

        Common sense suggests we should encourage different ways of running vehicles because it always pays to have a few alternatives and even a few ratbags. LPG tech might be improved, cities could make concessions for EV installations, and so on. Fair enough. I might like an LPG car if I was happier with the tanks and pumping. I might. I might even like one of those BMW electrics because very light and responsive cars can be fun in the city. (Ah, the Renault 10 of my youth!) Maybe.

        LPG and electric cars are not new and dazzling ideas. EVs are particularly ancient and limited. Of course, the master plan is to ditch ownership, driver control and parking needs, which is why the EV revolution is being pushed with seemingly irrational haste and determination. EVs make sense if the only car-related thing you own or control is a phone app.

        But how well can we trust master plans and Great Leaps Forward? Let the thousand Teslas blossom? From Stalin’s first Five Year Plan in 1928 to Labor’s laptops in every classroom…the great collective undertaking always sounds good at the start. If only life could be one long announcement day.

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          Bodge it an scarpa

          You can forget about improvements in LPG tech. And also forget about availability of automotive LPG post 2020. I was fuelling up my dual fuel 4wd the other day at a Supagas depot, and upon enquiring was informed that many service stations are already removing their LPG bowsers, and even gas specialist companies such as Supagas will only maintain supply while their bowser remain in a state of economical repair.
          Reason, modern petrol cars are now very fuel efficient, taxi fleets converting to hybrids, and older less fuel efficient LPG powered vehicles reaching the end of their lives.

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        • #
          Hanrahan

          I have no data but logic tells me that the average age of housing in Oz is >30 years.

          Anyone living in an old home and contemplating buying a larger EV and charging it at home would be well advised to replace old fashioned wire fuses with modern ELB breakers. Warning: This is not as simple as it sounds.

          While it is naughty, you can overload a circuit briefly and most likely get away with it. I have run a 130A welder out of a 10A GPO but being a beginner the duty cycle of that welder meant I never overheated any wiring. Setting up a GPO and it’s wiring to run at rated max all night while the house is sleeping is only OK if the wiring is in good working order.

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      • #
        Another Ian

        John

        An additional point raised earlier and maybe elsewhere is that once you do the wiring it isn’t portable if you want to move house.

        So you either stay, hope it is a feature or restrict your move to places that are wired for ev

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        • #

          Yep, there’s another good point. Seems like a slight problem…till millions of people in a highly mobile society have to confront it.

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        • #
          yarpos

          The rainbows and unicorns brigade will say it adds value to the house.

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        • #
          James Murphy

          I could look it up, but why not ask knowledgable people here!?

          Do all EVs share a standardised fitting when it comes to charging, or is it brand, or even model-dependent?
          If there is no standard, will it go the same way as mobile phones – people need a charger, but no one has the right connector…?

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          • #
            yarpos

            Last time I looked manufacturers other than Tesla had got behind one standard. Tesla has gone proprietary, I guess in defence of the supercharger network. Usually that just puts you out on a limb eventually but that was before the brilliance of Elon. We shall see.

            I thought most mobile phones outside the Applsphere used one version of USB or another, but then I havent bought a new one for a while now.

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          • #
            Graeme#4

            I think there are at least two other competing standards than Tesla – a European one and an Asian one.

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            • #
              Graeme#4

              Turns out there are 4 at the moment:
              North American Yazaki (Type1)
              European Mennekes (Type 2)
              Italian/French proposal Scame (Type 3)
              Japanese CHAdeMO (Type 4)

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      • #
        sophocles

        Hacking EV security systems will become a great game for fun and profit.

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      • #
        Wayne Job

        Most people use their cars for work and charging will be mostly at night, solar especially in the winter is almost useless most days in the south and at night totally useless.
        For these wonderful greenie people i think a family pedal generator would be the go.

        10

    • #
      yarpos

      2kW doesnt really seem enough, but i guess it depends where you are and what size EV. 2kW at the general VIC latitude might give you 12-15kWh on a good day, and one or two on a bad day, without conversion losses.

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      • #
        Hanrahan

        When discussing how to charge an EV greens use a Nissan Leaf as the yardstick. When they talk about range and pleasure of driving, the Tesla S is the yardstick.

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    • #
      Griffo

      “2KW per vehicle is a minimum”,this the amount of power used by a small vacuum cleaner,I think I would want a bit more grunt in my billy cart.

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      Graeme#4

      Unless I missed it, the article’s calculations don’t seem to allow for days when there is little or no sun. Surely you would need more solar panels, plus battery backup, if you plan on recharging every day.

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      • #

        Sometimes it rains or is cloudy for weeks. Often these are averaged caclulations that don’t work for winter either.

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        • #
          Hanrahan

          these abnormally long periods of a particular weather pattern are not really abnormal. System engineers must design for them AND the truly abnormal.

          A bridge designer cannot plead that his bridge would not have failed if all parameters would have been within his perception of load.

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    • #
      Crakar24

      We should be talking about current draw not power

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      • #
        Hanrahan

        There is a new metric, “miles/hour charging” we must all become familiar with.

        It is the distance the EV will travel on 2.4 KW/H [gross], which is the power available from a 10A GPO in Australia or a 20 A one in the US. This amount of power will get you 3 -4 miles in a Tesla S. So in NQ you could drive your Tesla 20 miles at night, after a bright, sunny day. During the day you still drive your Corolla.

        In the unlikely event that I owned an EV I would have a dedicated 15A GPO and would forget that I have cells on the roof when doing cost/benefit analysis. I already use most of the power from my rooftop solar anyway.

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        • #
          OriginalSteve

          I wonder if internal combustion engined cars will be demonized like firearms currently are in Australia…

          ” Sorry son, that thing is very dangerous. It needs some one walking in front of it with a red flag, and you need to get a permit to protect the ozone layer, and you need to keep the keys locked up in a separate cabinet away from the garage and attend a planet killing driving course 4 times a year…”

          For crying out loud….

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      • #
        Hanrahan

        If you know Ohm’s law than you can do the math and work out current provided you know the voltage.

        As the voltage varies widely around the grid, power [ I X E ] is the most useful unit.

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        • #
          crakar24

          Thats my point H, to simply say you need X number of KWH suggest the author of that web site knows not of what he speaks. Its typical mumbo jumbo rubbish from a believer in a dying religion

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        • #
          toorightmate

          Ohm’s Law is not recognised in South Australia.
          Very soon, Newton’s Laws will also NOT be recognised in SA.

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      • #
        yarpos

        Why? it would just cut the people who need to understand out of the loop. Its one thing to be technically precise, its another to communicate good enough estimates to non technical people.

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    • #
      Hanrahan

      Another issue is that most folks who own their own roof to put the cells on live in the burbs and use the car to commute, so it isn’t in the garage when the sun is shining. It also means that you are using your own generated power and not getting 44c FIT which means it is an expensive charge. Even if your FIT is only 10c like mine, it still isn’t “free”, you forego that rebate.

      You can only use your watts once, if you charge your EV with them you must power your house at retail price from your distributor. Something about cake springs to mind.

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      • #
        yarpos

        They arent worried about that, they are just trying to show that you can have electric vehicles today and not impact base load, no matter how convoluted, impractical for broad deployment or unaffordable the proposal really is.

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        • #
          OriginalSteve

          Yup….and lots of fairy dust to go with the weeties packet-sourced engineering degrees that allowed this foolishness to get this far….

          Has anyone from the Australian Institute of Engineers weighed into this debate at all?

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      • #
        RobK

        You might not get your feed-in-tariff but you do circumvent the 38c fuel excise.

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    • #
      Roy Hogue

      How Many Solar Panels Do You Need To Charge An Electric Car?

      Never mind the number of solar panels or the number of kW. Ask how long it will take to charge the thing so it’s ready for the next outing to buy beer, groceries, get to a doctor’s office or the thousands of other purposes to which the average human being in western society is very used to putting his automobile without warning and without delay?

      I think the corner gas station is the better deal. No matter how dry the tank you need maybe 5 minutes to refill it. But suppose it’s 10 minutes. How does that compare with the hours it will take to refill that empty tank in your EV?

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    • #

      How Many Solar Panels Do You Need To Charge An Electric Car?

      I take it these are special night time solar panels so that you can drive it again the next day. Unless the plan is to work at night and stay home in the day to charge the car.

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      • #
        Rob Leviston

        It looks like they forgot a very important piece of infrastructure! Now, that would be the battery, to er, charge the battery!
        Makes sense, doncha know!

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      • #
        Roy Hogue

        I take it these are special night time solar panels so that you can drive it again the next day. Unless the plan is to work at night and stay home in the day to charge the car.

        I did work nights for a long time so that plan would have worked for me provided solar panels will do the job when it’s overcast, raining and very dark even at noon.

        But I thought the real plan was to plug bright lights into your wall socket and aim them at the solar panels to keep them working at night. That theory would probably be believable to a good many people who, for one reason or another, think solar panels will power the world.

        But I’ve never gotten up the nerve to ask a solar salesman the question to find out what he thinks.

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    • #
      bobl

      Another total fantasy.

      A Tesla EV with 85kWh battery takes roughly 10 days to charge on a 2Kw array. Even if there was Sun 24 hours a day you would only ever get a maximum of 48KWh from a 2kW array per day.

      Here is the calc, taking into account inversion losses, charging loss, storage losses you need to expend about 100Kwh to charge an 85kWh EV, at best your 2kW system generates 10kWh over a day. So 100kWh/10kWh/day = 10 days in Summer. In winter you can expect it to take 12 days when its sunny and Never when its not. Put another way if your model S EV has a range of say 250km on 85kWh. Your 2Kw solar system gives you just 25 km in summer and 21 km in winter so make sure you don’t live any further than 10km away from work(and move 2km closer by year 10 to account for panel efficiency degradation).

      Indeed perhaps on this basis to account for cloudy days and panel efficiency loss,

      It’s probably not wise to live more than walking distance from work.

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    • #
      Timo Soren

      Seems to me the dilema is really:If they drive it to school they have not charging station. So mom and dad drive them. and they leave their vehicles at home (after dropping them off at school) Since mom and dad need to get to work they walk. When they get home, they run and get the kids with the charged cars, and then the kids take off, as kids do for 7 hours. and Come home wiht a dead car. So the next day it is the spare car that rotates in. If the parents want not to walk to work, another spare car.

      So four cars home at a time, one cycle with mom and dads worker car. And one cycles with the kids. So we all need twice the number of cars normally neccssary to work this EV life.

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  • #
    Another Ian

    “Remember when the islands of Tuvalu were going to be inundated by sea level rise? Never mind…”

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/02/09/remember-when-the-island-of-tuvalu-was-going-to-be-inundated-by-sea-level-rise-never-mind/

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    • #
      John of Cloverdale WA

      Don’t let facts get in the way when there is money to be had.

      Joining the Pacific leaders expressing concern over the threat posed by climate change, Enele Sosene Sopoaga, the Prime Minister of Tuvalu, also underscored the importance of the Paris Agreement, especially for the tens of millions living in low-lying islands and coastal areas around the world.

      “Its (climate change) dire consequences are real including [for] those who remain in denial,” he underscored, urging global leaders to collectively prioritize the implementation of the Paris Agreement on climate change.”

      “We are but on one canoe for humanity, no one country must jump ship! We either must paddle together to keep us afloat and safe. Or allow the canoe to sink, and we all drown. It is our hope, that with this ‘Global Pact’ and the Paris Agreement, the canoe, we can save Tuvalu, and if we can save Tuvalu we can save the world.”

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  • #
    Another Ian

    Trump “feeding the chooks”

    Link at

    http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2018/02/whap-1.html

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  • #
    Another Ian

    Descriptive phraseology


    TheTooner replied to comment from Ken Deplorable (Kulak) | February 8, 2018 2:17 PM | Reply

    Lysenkoism seemed useful to Stalin but it was many orders of magnitude more useful to Lysenko and it survives because it is similarly useful to any scientist who understands how to use it.”

    From SDA

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    • #

      Corruption of science is now pervasive everywhere. Used to watch avidly shows and read books about universe and latest development about the universe. Now when I hear about Venus vs Earth scenarios I switch off. Not ones I hear about the simple 101 physics observation: the higher the pressure the higher the temperature. Obviously they never studied refrigeration.

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      • #
        Another Ian

        Or that variation from Flanders and Swan

        “The greater the external pressure the greater the volume of hot air”

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  • #
    Another Ian

    “Green heads will explode: White House seeks 72 percent cut to clean energy research”

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/02/10/green-heads-will-explode-white-house-seeks-72-percent-cut-to-clean-energy-research/

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    • #
      PeterS

      It’s about time the tables were turned – although not anywhere near far enough yet. The lefties used to show ads on TV depicting the heads of skeptics exploding for not accepting the man-made catastrophic global warming hoax. I’m still waiting for Australians to wake up and reject both major parties at the next election. Let’s see if they are awake by then. Probably not.

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      • #
        Serp

        Quite a conundrum posed yet again by PeterS.

        How does one lodge a valid vote which is unambiguously advocating for a point of view which is represented by no party?

        If there was a party then its policy item #1 would be to annul the RET. What a slimy thin end of the wedge the Howard government bequeathed us, two percent indeed.

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        • #
          PeterS

          Simple. Vote for an alternative party that rejects the man-made global catastrophic global warming myth, such as the CP. If enough do then the two major parties will have to come to the table, listen and bargain to end up with one of them forming government. That’s how our weakened form of democracy works. You have a batter idea?

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    • #
      robert rosicka

      Oh this is comedy gold , it’s tail was wagging so it was obviously friendly and then it just bit me !
      Shame it wasn’t a Darwin Award .

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    • #
      manalive

      Too good to be true.

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    • #
      PeterS

      How come he went to all the trouble going into the sea when he could have just hugged a cobra on land?

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    • #
      Graeme#4

      WA is now losing almost a person a year with shark attacks. There ihas not been a significant increase in the number of folks swimming in the ocean. Have noticed that at one Perth beach, you now don’t seem to see swimmers out further in the ocean.

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      • #
        yarpos

        well , not for very long

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        • #
          Extreme Hiatus

          This is beyond ironic. Greenpeace is part of the same gang that is so eager to shut off public lands or parks lest we disturb the wildlife yet here they are disturbing these sharks. Can you imagine being one of these hugged sharks? #MeToo.

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          • #
            yarpos

            Looks like a National Enquirer/Onion satirical style news source (you know just one peg above WaPo/NYT etc) so I wouldnt get too excited.

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    • #
      sophocles

      Along with four other members of the organization, Mr. Waterford decided to dive with some great white sharks in order to improve the marine predator’s public image and raise awareness about shark hunting.

      The shark had a successful hunt.

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      • #
        Ghibli

        Some of the other articles on the WorldNews site may have given you a hint but if you managed to scroll down to the bottom of the page you would have found a disclaimer stating the website is satirical and the story is fake.

        For the record, the man pictured is Kaleb Langdale : he lost his arm after being attacked by an alligator in September 2012 in Florida.

        Don’t worrry though, you weren’t the only one taken in.

        It’s just sad you all thought it funny, but in the end the jokes on you and Robert, Peter, Graeme’s 3 & 4 etc. Now that is funny.

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  • #
    Another Ian

    Some weekend reading here

    “How to turn around a failing economy.”

    https://thepointman.wordpress.com/2018/02/09/how-to-turn-around-a-failing-economy/

    Probably lost on Canberra

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    • #
      Graeme No.3

      Another Ian:

      Mention of Pointman brings to mind his Annual (climate) Prat of the Year. Already strong support for a local boy must be rising.
      I refer to Tom Koutsantonis, S.A. Minister for Electricity and State Treasurer.
      He keeps saying that more renewables will lower the electricity bills in South Australia, which would have some appeal to the gullible with the election coming and a lot of people noticing that SA has the highest rates in the World.
      While the average wholesale price may well fall back to $100 per MWh once the summer peak demand is over, readers no doubt will know that on top of this renewables (esp. wind turbines) are given a Large scale Generation Certificate which Retailers are compelled to buy and lump that amount onto the consumers’ bills, so the net cost of renewbles is $185 not $100.
      So what Koutsantonis is saying is that if you take out something costing $100 and replace it with a renewable costing $180 then you will pay less??????
      A State Treasurer who cannot do simple arithmetic? Other States don’t copy….just send more GST.

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  • #
    el gordo

    Javier and Leif go head to head, popcorn recommended.

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/02/09/forecast-for-solar-cycle-25/

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  • #
    el gordo

    A recent paper by local lad Phil Watson reviewed over at Judith Curry, the dates are significant.

    ‘Consideration of the entire European tide guage dataset with records at least 80 years long (83 total stations) shows a broad pattern of acceleration centered in bands around 1880 to 1910, 1940, and 1976 and a strong spatially coherent signal between 1994 and 2000.

    ‘Watson concluded that at the 95% confidence level, that there is no consistent or compelling evidence (yet) that recent rates of rise are higher or abnormal in the context of the historical records available across Europe. Watson states that it is likely a further 20 years of data will distinguish whether recent increases are evidence of the onset of climate change–induced acceleration.’

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  • #
    Ruairi

    A wall or road can have a heat effect,
    On stations, which the B.O.M. should not neglect.

    Can patients in a hospital stay placid,
    When all around them drips sulphuric acid?

    It’s tax incentives that make E.V.s sell,
    For when they weren’t there, the car sales fell.

    The weirdest gas on Earth is CO2,
    To make Tuvalu small and bigger too.

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      Annie

      That second couplet had me really laughing Ruairi!

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      • #
        Phantor 48

        That second couplet had me really laughing Ruairi!

        That couplet reminded me of Ogden Nash’s poem “The Ant”:

        The ant has made himself illustrious
        Through constant industry industrious.
        So what?
        Would you be calm and placid
        If you were full of formic acid?

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  • #

    FOOD FOR THOUGHT , what is your opinion ? . Is there really such a thing as ‘ Conspiracy theory ‘ in science you have to form a idea , a thought , a hypothesis ,then take evidence from real world Observation to support your idea or hypothesis , so shouldn’t you call it a conspiracy until you find evidence to support it from real world Observation and then when you find it, it is no longer a conspiracy , it is a theory , would it not be better to refer to conspiracy hypothesis ? Which better sums up the global warming meme and in the early days of sceptical blogs like this , help us understand why they asked us to stick to the science for fear of being seen as CONSPIRACY THEORISTS

    [Conspiracy theories are generally verboten subject matter. Given that this is the weekend thread where anything goes for subject matter I’m going to approve this. Don’t take this as license to post your favorite conspiracy theory. Do everyone a favor and stick to the question Doubtingave asked.] AZ

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      Extreme Hiatus

      My theory is that really, really long sentences are evidence of a conspiracy. Commas cannot be trusted.

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      sophocles

      There is not a conspiracy.

      conspiracy [L conspiratio] The act of conspiring; (Law) a secret agreement or combination between two or more persons to commit an unlawful act that may prejudice a any third person.

      (see definition of conspire)

      The United Nations has not engaged in secret agreements or discussions, it’s all been wide open, in plain sight, written down and widely published. The announced conclusions and intents are not unlawful, nor kept hidden from public purview. The verbal and printed attacks made on individuals who have openly disagreed with the UN’s announced concepts and conclusions are dastardly, probably improper and unwarranted, but the spokespeople have not behaved illegally.

      That the Anthropogenic Global Warming and Climate Change issues have all the appeal and flavour of propaganda, pure propaganda and nothing but propaganda does not make them conspiracies. They have been so open and widely promulgated, that they do not meet the several and specific definitions of a conspiracy and are therefore not conspiracies.

      Scams they may be but that is up to you to determine.

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        Reality Observer

        Mrrph. Not so. You are thinking of a criminal conspiracy. There is also civil conspiracy to commit a tort – which can be litigated under civil law as part of the suit for remedy of the tortious act. (At least in the US, probably everywhere English Common Law has penetrated. I believe it is that old, but it is rather late to go digging through Blackstone tonight.)

        No, there is no worldwide common civil conspiracy of AGW agitators. There have been several instances, however, of small groups conspiring together to prevent publication of skeptical papers (thus harming the employment prospects of the author(s)), to commit libel and slander against their opponents, etc.

        Another quibble – an agreement does not have to be an actual secret for a conspiracy to exist; it only has to considered secret by the conspirators. It may not be secret at all (or for long) – you could be wire tapped, hacked, exposed by an internal whistle blower, etc. from day one.

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      el gordo

      It has never been an organised conspiracy, AGW grew organically with media, science and politics, forming a lose consortium based on the ‘precautionary principle’.

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        Dave in the States

        It’s common for skeptics to be labelled as a conspiracy theorist by CAGW proponents.

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        sophocles

        But it still is not a conspiracy.
        It doesn’t have to be organised or disorganised.

        By definition, a conspiracy requires at least one secret agreement to commit one or more unlawful act(s),

        In CAGW and CC, both of those facets of a conspiracy are missing.

        Even the printing and publishing of only one side, the warming activist point of view, and not the sceptical point of view, is not a conspiracy. It may be a tacit agreement, but because there is nothing unlawful about it, it’s not a conspiracy.

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  • #

    I’m sorry to give you all a headache, I hope it makes some mind of sense

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    Don B

    “Here are seven American politicians and institutions who have or are at least suspected of colluding with the Russians as a means to destroy President Trump.”

    http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/02/10/7-anti-trump-politicians-institutions-actually-guilty-colluding-russians/

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    David Maddison

    Regarding Ted O’Brien’s comment on the previous thread about the Ft Denison tide gauge being “cleaned and recalibrated monthly” and the concern that the “recalibration” was to get the desired result, here is the now inactive link to the original comment in the Port Authority of NSW newsletter:

    https://www.portauthoritynsw.com.au/corporation/news/myPorts_newsletter/myports_november_2015/fort_denison_tide_gauge_cleaned_and_calibrated

    You might be able to find a copy of that somewhere. You could even call them and ask them to send you a copy of the November 2015 newsletter.

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    pat

    BBC could do with some “global warming”:

    10 Feb: Daily Mail: Tariq Tahir: Help, our make-up is FROZEN! BBC Winter Olympics presenters are struggling to talk because their cosmetics are freezing solid in Korea’s bitter -23C chill
    Amy Williams send out a plea for oil based cosmetics after make-up froze
    Temperatures in Pyeongchang dropping to -23C as presenters teeth chatter
    Eilidh Barbour asked whether it would be ‘too cold even for a Winter Olympics’
    As the mercury dipped down to -23C in South Korea the broadcaster’s electronic equipment has also been packing in.
    The freezing conditions prompted BBC presenter Amy Williams, the former skeleton racer and Olympic gold medallist, to tweet: ‘So anyone know of good make up that is oil based?…

    (BBC’s Eilidh) Barbour too complained about the conditions, tweeting: ‘Will PyeongChang be too cold even for a Winter Olympics? It’s not just me looking for the blankets.
    ‘Even the skis are struggling to cope. My Samsung dies too. And my wireless headphones. It’s a clear indication we should be inside rather than outside.’
    A production source told The Sun: ‘A lot of the staff haven’t had to work in such harsh conditions before…
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5375429/Olympics-presenters-make-freezes-struggling-talk.html

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    davet916

    Does anybody know what’s going on with Tom Harley at Pindan Post? He hasn’t posted anything since October, which is unusual for him. I have to have my Broome update you know.

    Davet

    40

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    Graeme#4

    Can anybody explain why Perth is enjoying its second year of cooler and more humid summers while the eastern part of Australia seems to be experiencing hotter summers?

    40

    • #
      el gordo

      The weakening of the subtropical ridge is a hemispheric cooling signal and this is more noticeable in south east Australia.

      The blocking highs bring heatwaves for a few days, then a cool air outbreak which hangs around until another heatwave.

      Perth’s cool humid summer is coming from the Southern Ocean under a blocking high.

      BoM is not talking about this anomaly, perhaps they are busy making adjustments to fit the meme.

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      • #
        Graeme#4

        Thanks EG. The humidity has increased, so much so that my “swamp cooler”, which normally works well in Perth’s dry heat, hasn’t had a lot of run time, and I’ve had to invest in another reverse-cycle room aircon.

        30

    • #
      farmerbraun

      Whatever it is , it is fairly certain to change, sometime. I’d put it down to the weather.

      80

      • #
        Kinky Keith

        Most definitely, I’d even give that 97% certainty.

        40

      • #
        Kinky Keith

        Most definitely, I’d even give that 97% certainty.

        20

      • #
        el gordo

        ‘Whatever it is ….’

        Its climate change writ large, natural variability rules.

        The Klimatariat at BoM have been pushing the yarn that the intensified STR would become a permanent fixture under AGW.

        Now that the high pressure belt has weakened I’m calling it a hemispheric cooling signal, a Gleissberg cometh.

        10

      • #
        Graeme#4

        Actually as mentioned above, this is the second year in a row. The change has been quite noticeable, and even the BOM recently commented that it’s been the coolest summer since 1995, back to “when records first started”. Most noticeable is the morning breezes coming from the cooler south, whereas in past summers the morning breezes have always come from the east, from the hot interior. So the mornings have been a lot cooler.

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    • #
      Annie

      It’s not been so very hot here as compared with four years ago and before that but it is a lot more humid and that makes it more unpleasant….we are in North Central Vic.

      40

      • #
        toorightmate

        You must have done something very bad to have been sent to Central Victoria.

        40

        • #
          yarpos

          weird comment, whats that about?

          10

          • #
            Annie

            Just a joke I guess? Although if in Victoria one is subject to the little green whims of Dopey Dan and Little Lil and their major wastage of OPM.

            30

        • #
          John F. Hultquist

          I have very little knowledge of “North Central Vic” but thought this was the best rejoinder I have seen this week.
          As a Sunday task, I will spend a bit of time learning of the place that deserves this statement.

          20

      • #
        Annie

        I’d better go and stand in the corner! I accidently gave myself a green thumb when I meant to give it to toorightmate. Perhaps trm is right…smack on the wrist Annie 🙁

        10

    • #
      yarpos

      The right hand coast has sunk under the weight of wind turbine foundations, causing slight sea level rise. Meanwhile of course the left hand coast must lift up (obvious when you think about it) therefore you are at a higher altitude and enjoying cooler weather. I think I might start writing alarmist papers, I clearly have the skills.

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        Graeme#4

        First you need to apply for a govt grant, and to do that you will have to couch your hypothesis in more abstract meaningless terms.

        30

    • #
      me@home

      Not sure about the rest but Melbourne has had one hot day so far this summer.

      50

  • #
    pat

    EMERGENCY! no MSM coverage whatsoever:

    24 Jan: Relief Web: Morocco/Mena zone: Cold Wave Emergency Plan of Action
    At the start of 2018, temperatures are below seasonal norms in various parts of the world. In Morocco, starting from 5 January, temperatures are generally below normal. Heavy snowfall has affected the High Atlas and the Middle Atlas, from 900 meters above sea level, with temperatures as low as minus 5 °C, where the average temperatures in January (the coldest of the 3 winter months) hovers around 18 degrees Celsius. This average includes a low of 7 degrees and a high of 23 degrees…

    In the interior of the country, several roads have been cut due to snow, according to the Ministry of Transport…
    This wave of freezing has caused economic losses and disrupted livelihoods. Following snowfall, several areas, known to be of the poorest areas of Morocco, remained isolated. In addition, traffic was paralyzed and roads were cut for several days, reducing the scope of supply in some remote communities…

    Since the start of the meteorological alert, the MRCS has actively placed its volunteers on high alert through its regional and local branches, for an anticipated effective response in the affected regions and communities…
    In several regions, local NGOs have begun to collect clothing for distribution in these remote areas.
    https://reliefweb.int/report/morocco/moroccomena-zone-cold-wave-emergency-plan-action-epoa-dref-operation-n-mdrma009

    10 Feb: Morocco World: Icy Cold Weather Persists in Morocco
    Rabat – Cold weather will persist across the country on Saturday, the National Weather Service said. A freezing weather is expected to hit the reliefs, highlands and Morocco’s east and southeast…
    Temperatures ranging from -04 °C to 01 °C on the reliefs, while temperatures between 00 °C to 05 °C are expected to hit the east, the south-east slopes and the plateaus of phosphates and Oulmes.
    Temperatures of 04 °C at 08 °C are expected on the northern and central interior plains, Saiss, Souss and northeastern provinces of the south.
    Temperatures of 02 °C to 07 °C are forecast on the reliefs and the Eastern Highlands, while temperatures of 07 °C to 12 °C are expected in the Saiss, the Rif, the plateaux of Phosphates and Oulmes and the North…

    Morocco has faced recently moderate rains and snowstorms across the country. The freezing snowstorms have closed several roads, making travel impossible in several mountainous areas.
    Recently, King Mohammed VI has instructed the government to launch an exceptional mobilization to respond to the effects of the severe cold wave.
    https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2018/02/240373/icy-cold-weather-snow-morocco-rainfall/

    10 Feb: Morocco World: Morocco Government Mobilizes to Provide Aid to People Affected by Cold Wave
    Rabat – As the freezing weather continues to cause discomfort and mass suffering in mountainous regions across Morocco, aid also continues to pour in. On Thursday and Friday, some 1,100 families in douars in Ifrane Province have benefited from food aid and blanket distributions to cope with the effects of the cold snap.
    About 50 families in the commune of Tazguit, 70 families from the Habri zone in the commune of Ben Smim, and another 972 families of Bakrit and Tasmakt Tifwatine, in the commune of Sidi Lmakhfi, received relief supplies to lessen the life-threatening effects of the prolonged cold snap…
    “This operation followed Mohammed VI’s instructions given to the government departments to continue the mobilization and deploy more efforts to mitigate the negative effects caused by snowfall and heavy rains, as well as the sharp drop in temperatures in some prefectures and provinces of the Kingdom,” said head of the watch committee, Salah Mikou…

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    pat

    9 Feb: Breitbart: Farage: Money Soros Gave to Anti-Brexit Campaign Is ‘The Tip of the Iceberg’
    by Jack Montgomery
    Brexit campaign leader Nigel Farage has welcomed mainstream exposure of the ‘Soros Web’ after a plot by the billionaire globalist to thwart Brexit was revealed by The Telegraph newspaper.
    “Since those twin shocks of Brexit and Trump back in 2016, one of the main narratives from the establishment has been, ‘These things happened because of outside interference’,” he told listeners to his regular LBC show.
    “Yes, we’re back to our old friends, ‘The Russians!’ We’ve had Ben Bradshaw, Labour MP, standing up in the House of Commons, and saying that Russian money was put into the Brexit campaign.
    “In America, we’ve reached levels of total hysteria — so much so that, apparently, I was acting as a Russian agent,” he laughed…

    “But I have felt for some time — in fact, I’ve felt for the last six, seven years — that there was one major global influence… I’m talking about one massive attempt by a very rich man to change the politics across the whole of the West of the world, and I spoke about this (LINK) in the European Parliament as recently as last November.” (VIDEO)…

    “I’ll make you one promise: this £400,000 that’s been given to Gina Miller’s campaign to keep us in the European Union, you will know in a few days, is literally the tip of the iceberg.
    “Many other organisations will appear in the next few days; you’ll even find out about former prime ministers who have very close relationships with a man whose organisation boasts 42 meetings with the European Commission [in 2016],” he predicted…
    http://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/02/09/farage-money-soros-anti-brexit-campaign-tip-iceberg/

    9 Feb: GuidoFawkes: At least 6 Leave donors received identical death threats this week
    At least six prominent donors to the Leave campaign have received identical death threats in the past week as part of a concerted campaign of intimidation from a group calling itself “The Real 48 Per Cent”, Guido can reveal. The chilling letters, which were typed but sent in handwritten envelopes, told the recipients: “You have stoked the fires of Brexit and led us to this moment. You can no longer be tolerated. We are coming for you. We are going to kill you”. Guido is aware of six Leave donors who have received the same letter. At least three have complained to the police.

    It is suspected that the sender of the letters identified the donors using this article (LINK) listing the names of those who gave money to the Leave campaign. It is likely more letters were sent to other donors. The sender identified themselves as an opponent of Brexit, writing: “We were born in Britain. We live in the UK. We are European”. If you are a Leave donor who also received the letter and haven’t spoken to Guido yet, get in touch. The police would also like to hear from you…
    https://order-order.com/2018/02/09/least-6-leave-donors-received-identical-death-threats-week/

    As Britain Stumbles Over ‘Brexit,’ Support Grows for 2nd Vote
    In Depth· New York Times· 15h ago

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    pat

    George cares about the next generations:

    10 Feb: Daily Mail: Simon Walters: George Soros hits back over ‘toxic’ attacks on his pledge to stop Brexit saying his passion for Britain came from fleeing to the country after growing up under Nazi rule
    Billionaire financier George Soros last night denounced ‘toxic’ attacks on him after he gave £400,000 to a new anti-Brexit campaign…
    Writing in today’s Mail on Sunday he:
    Argues Brexit has already seen other EU economies ‘powering ahead while Britain lags behind’ – and it would soon get ‘more painful’…

    His response was his first public comment since it emerged last week that he is funding ‘Best for Britain’ which wants to reverse the referendum result. Pro-Brexit critics said the 87-year-old, who made £1 billion when the UK crashed out of Europe’s ERM in 1992, has no right to meddle.
    But he says he has no intention of cancelling his donation, and insists he has never made a secret of his anti-Brexit views…

    And he claims Brexit has turned young against old. ‘Young people under 35 voted overwhelmingly to Remain and it was only over 55 that a majority supported Brexit. Old voters have overruled young voters who will have to live with the consequence of Brexit for decades ahead.’
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5376631/George-Soros-denounces-attacks-Brexit-intervention.html

    how it unfolded in the MSM. initially, the most anti-Brexit/CAGW infested seemed unfazed:

    8 Feb: BBC: Pro-EU campaign secures £400000 from George Soros

    8 Feb: Financial Times: George Soros donates £400000 to anti-Brexit campaign

    8 Feb: Guardian: George Soros’s foundation backs campaign to reverse Brexit

    then it got messy:

    8 Feb: UK Sun: George Soros pumps cash into campaign aimed at MPs who can force vote to reverse Brexit

    9 Feb: Telegraph: George Soros is a champion of democracy, but on Brexit he is backing the wrong side

    9 Feb: HuffPo: George Soros’s Open Society Foundations Responds To Telegraph Furore With Dire Brexit Warning

    10 Feb: Daily Mail: George Soros is acting against the ‘spirit of the law’ with his plans to sabotage Brexit, says former chancellor Lord Lamont

    10 Feb: Guardian: Brexiters now march with the toxic conspiracies of Orbán’s Hungary

    8 Feb: Independent: The George Soros controversy shows what Brexiteers have become: irredeemable conspiracy theorists

    9 Feb: New Statesman: The Telegraph’s George Soros story follows in the footsteps of the alt right

    8 Feb: UK Times: Brexiteers and alt-right unite against ‘globalist’ billionaire George Soros

    9 Feb: Financial Times: Don’t blame George Soros for the UK’s second thoughts on Brexit

    9 Feb: Vanity Fair: Globalist George Soros Is Trying to Save the UK from Itself

    9 Feb: UK Times: Anti-Brexit campaign backed by George Soros has right to exist, says May, but we will leave EU

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    • #
      Extreme Hiatus

      Oh. I see. He’s doing it for the children.

      20

    • #
      OriginalSteve

      “Young people under 35 voted overwhelmingly to Remain and it was only over 55 that a majority supported Brexit. Old voters have overruled young voters who will have to live with the consequence of Brexit for decades ahead.”

      Nope….its just that older voters have seen more of life and realize the EU is just Communism in a different wrapper, and made the right descision……and Soros should mind his own damn business!!!!

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  • #

    You’ll hear loud and long in the media when a (supposedly unreliable) coal fired plant Unit fails, and how they can’t be trusted any more.

    However, do you ever hear just how d@mned good they really are?

    There are 16 coal fired power plants in Australia, and that totals out at 48 Units. (I originally counted 49 but Callide A – 30MW is no more)

    For most of this last week, (Monday through Saturday now) all but one of those Units has been on line and delivering power. One Unit at Gladstone (280MW) was down earlier, and then one Unit at Bayswater (660MW) went down late Thursday, and not long after that, the Unit at Gladstone came back up on line.

    For all of those days, the power delivered from those Units on line during the Peak Power times (around 2PM to 9PM) averaged between 19500MW and 21000MW. (and that of itself, just from coal fired power, was around 75% of the total power required in the AEMO coverage area)

    For the whole seven days, the average power delivered from coal fired power at those Peak times was 19843MW.

    The average Capacity Factor for those Units on line, all of them, was between 88 and 93% during that Peal Power time, and that’s astonishing really.

    Okay then, consider this.

    There are 16 coal fired plants, and the AVERAGE age of all of them is 29.7 years. Take out the four SuperCritical plants in Queensland, the most recently opened of all of them, and the average age of the remaining plants is now 34.7 years. Twelve of those Plants have now been superseded by two generations of technology

    So here we have technology from the 1970s and 1980s still working at 90% of capacity, averaging five to ten years longer than the best case hoped for life expectancy of any wind or solar plant, and delivering its power at three times the Capacity Factor of them, but overall, delivering TWENTY times the total power of all of those renewables added together.

    You won’t hear any of that.

    When REAL electrical power is required, it only comes from ONE source here in Australia.

    Tony.

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    • #
      Kinky Keith

      That’s a good expose’ Tony,

      Another way of looking at it is to say that politicians have not done their basic job and supervised a regular program of updates and replacements as common sense engineering requires.

      No dams either. We really do need to make them ACCOUNTABLE.

      Where is our missing infrastructure. Where did all the money put aside for those projects go?

      KK

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      • #
        Hanrahan

        Where is our missing infrastructure. Where did all the money put aside for those projects go?

        Money for infrastructure? Surely you jest. Any politician can do the sums on how many nurses and teachers could be employed with those millions.

        60

        • #
          Kinky Keith

          You’re looking too closely at the obvious.
          Those are a constant.

          Think more local like the Bondi pool and associated complex: a nice little gift to the electorate from a grateful polly.

          KK

          20

      • #
        PeterS

        Which is why it’s now up to the people to send the right message and refuse to vote for either major party. That’s the only democratic power we have left – at the ballot box. The rest of the time it’s a form of totalitarianism through bi-partisan. Either Australians wake up and act accordingly at election time or else do what they usually do and stay asleep and let this once great nation get worse and worse until it eventually false into the abyss and loses all of what’s left of democracy.

        70

        • #
          Dennis

          A young man had a dream, he explained to others, that one day he would merge the two major parties and get rid of the National Party.

          The same young man is a republican and a crony capitalist and friend to all climate change political agenda.

          That man is closing in on his goal.

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          • #
            Dennis

            In recent days the beholding executives of the coalition senior partner headquarters managed to overturn a motion easily passed late in 2017 that party branches return to the traditional method of preselection of candidates to stand for election in each electorate. That was candidates addressing a meeting of electorate branch members and them holding a secret ballot to select their preferred candidate.

            With some concessions the headquarters appointment of candidates will apparently continue.

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          • #
            PeterS

            Actually there were two young men. First there was Rudd but he failed so the other one stepped in to take over the same game plan. So far it has been working very well for him and his globalist mates. Unfortunately, it won’t end well for the rest of us.

            20

      • #
        Another Ian

        “Why Infrastructure is Really “Crumbling” — It’s Unauthorized Borrowing by Government Agencies Against Public Infrastructure”

        http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2018/02/why-infrastructure-is-really-crumbling-its-unauthorized-borrowing-by-government-agencies-against-public-infrastructure.html

        “To the extent highways are underfunded, in my mind it is because gasoline taxes paid by drivers and meant for highway repair and construction have been shifted to grand projects like light rail that get politicians excited but carry at least an order of magnitude fewer passengers per dollar spent than do highways.”

        Seems to me that this argument can be extended to electricity too

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    • #

      Thanks Tony, another item for the “NeedtoCarry” directory on my phone.

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    • #
      David Maddison

      Given that the coal fleet is so old, it poses a real concern about replacing them if we ever get a sane government. The lead time to build new coal (or even nuclear) plant will be too long and Australia will have to continue to endure expensive and unreliable electricity until they are built.

      An option might be to declare a national emergency and import all Chinese crews to work 24/7 to build new coal plants in about a year, much faster and cheaper than CFMEU union thugs could do it.

      100

      • #
        Kinky Keith

        Brilliant..

        Don’t discount what you said as alarmism.

        We are in for big trouble.

        70

        • #
          PeterS

          Unfortunately most Australians are asleep. China might sort of save the day for us but that will only happen if they take over – which is a distinct possibility once our economy collapses along with the rest of the West – including the US despite the success so far by Trump who is only just one man battling so many fronts at the moment. I can see if things get too hot even for him he will just give up, move on and let the US collapse into the abyss once his enemies take over.

          30

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  • #
    pat

    10 Feb: The Hill: Timothy Cama: EPA chief’s questions about climate science draw new scrutiny
    Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) head Scott Pruitt is getting bolder in questioning climate change…
    “Is it an existential threat? Is it something that is unsustainable? Or what kind of effect or harm is this going to have,” Pruitt said in an interview with Las Vegas television station KSNV.
    “We know that humans have most flourished during times of, what? Warming trends. So I think there’s assumptions made that because the climate is warming, that that necessarily is a bad thing.”…
    Pruitt in recent months has frequently questioned if scientists know the ideal surface temperature of the earth…

    Pruitt’s statements have alarmed many in the scientific community, who see a thinly-disguised denial of the science behind climate change.
    “This is a standard trope of climate change denialism and it is ill-premised,” said Michael Mann, a Penn State University atmospheric science professor.
    ***“The ideal temperature for us is of course the temperature that our entire civilization and infrastructure was built around and tailored to — i.e. the temperature range that prevailed since the dawn of civilization until we began burning fossil fuels and warming the planet at an unprecedented rate,” added Mann who is known for taking on climate skeptics…

    “We’ve seen a shift in what Administrator Pruitt is focusing on. At the beginning of his tenure, the focus was a bit more on ‘can we precisely measure the impact of humans on climate change?’” said Rachel Licker, senior climate scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, a group that has opposed many of Pruitt’s policies.
    “There’s been a bit of shift now into a space of whether or not climate change will harm humans and what is the ideal temperature that we should be striving for by the end of the century and even suggesting that climate change could be beneficial.”…

    “This administration is doing its best to sow doubt where there is no doubt, and also to sow doubt where there isn’t a lot of understanding in the scientific community, but sow doubt in a way that encourages inaction when the opposite should be true,” said Alan Barreca, a professor at the University of California Los Angeles.
    Barreca said some areas of the world will undoubtedly benefit from climate change, at least in certain respects…
    Areas near the poles are likely to have longer growing seasons, and deaths from extreme cold would nearly certain drop in those places.
    But on balance worldwide, warming is a net negative, says Barreca, whose studies focus on the health risks of a changing climate.
    “There is no doubt that extremely hot weather kills people. There’s no doubt that extremely hot weather is bad for agriculture,” Barreca said. “There are ways that we can adapt, but those things cost a lot.”…

    “I think Administrator Pruitt’s comments show that he is getting up to speed on climate science,” said Myron Ebell, director of the energy and environment center at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
    “The evidence so far is that humankind is on the whole better off with the slightly warmer temperatures compared to the widespread crop failures and big storms that were prevalent during the Little Ice Age from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries,” he said. “Thus I think Administrator Pruitt is right to say that some more warming may be good.”

    Marc Morano, head of the climate skeptic blog Climate Depot, was similarly pleased to hear Pruitt’s new lines of talking and is hopeful that the EPA head can go farther.
    “It is refreshing to have an EPA chief who embraces science and does not parrot the United Nations’s climate claims uncritically,” he said. “Pruitt was quite measured in his remarks on climate change and he actually could have gone much further in promoting his points.”…

    “If he can succeed in finding some sort of fundamental error in the science of climate change — which we know he’s not going to find — his motivation may very well be to open the door to take down the endangerment finding,” Licker said…
    Ebell is also hopeful, though his focus is more on Pruitt’s longstanding promise to set up a “red team/blue team” debate process to formally challenge climate science.
    “It seems to me that Administrator Pruitt’s support for a red and blue team analysis of climate science indicates that he is open to being convinced one way or the other on the endangerment finding,” Ebell said.
    (2,845 COMMENTS)
    http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/373169-epa-chiefs-questions-about-climate-science-draw-new-scrutiny

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    Hanrahan

    Scott Adams has the first page of the redacted democrat memo:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irGuXmnj4Tw

    20

    • #
      Peter C

      I think it is a Spoof by Scott Adams. Quite funny though.

      Trump has a nice way out of this. Delay the release top let the Democrats build up a head of righteous indignation steam. Then give way and publish the whole thing. Any unfortunate damage from the release would be the Democrats fault.

      00

  • #
    kevin george

    In a previous thread there was a bit of discussion on light rail.

    Warren Meyer, Phoenix AZ.

    Archive for the ‘Rail and Mass Transit’

    10

  • #
    pat

    5 Feb: Daily Wire: SQUARE ONE: Man In Clinton Foundation Scandal Led FBI To Open Investigation Into Trump Campaign
    Trouble Down Under…
    By Ryan Saavedra
    The FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into Trump campaign advisor George Papadopoulos began after Australia’s top diplomat in Britain, Alexander Downer, had drinks with Papadopoulos “at an upscale London bar in May 2016.” The New York Times reports…

    Michael Smith, an investigative journalist in Australia, claims that Downer is caught up in a major scandal involving the Clinton Foundation that involves allegations of “mishandling millions of dollars contributed to the Clinton Foundation by the Aussie government.” LifeZette reports…

    A third complaint concerns what Smith describes as “the $10 million financial advantage dishonestly obtained by deception between April 1, 2008, and Sept. 25, 2008, at Washington, D.C., New York, New York, and Canberra Australia involving an MOU between the Australian government, the “Clinton Climate Initiative,” and the purported ***“Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute Inc.”…
    https://www.dailywire.com/news/26738/square-one-man-clinton-foundation-scandal-led-fbi-ryan-saavedra

    Oct 2016: MichaelSmithNews: Julie Bishop’s latest deal with the Clinton/Giustra dodgy brothers
    http://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2016/10/julie-bishops-latest-deal-with-the-clintongiustra-dodgy-brothers.html

    10 Feb: Lifezette: Clinton Will Be Tied to All FBI Sources in Trump Probe, Solomon Says
    Investigation into alleged collusion between 2016 GOP presidential nominee and Russia is fatally flawed, ‘The Ingraham Angle’ is told
    by Jim Stinson
    Cody Shearer and Sidney Blumenthal, both longtime political hit men for the couple, are tied to a “pipeline of Clinton-related information” that led into the Department of State, forming a second “dossier” of dirt on that was used to get spy warrants.
    Another source of information to the FBI was Fusion GPS, which was being paid by a prominent Washington, D.C., law firm, using funds from Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
    “When that is all put together … four out of four things the FBI used to start listening in on the Trump campaign comes back to the Clinton family,” said John Solomon, an award-winning investigative journalist and executive vice president of The Hill…

    ***Chaffetz asked Solomon where the latest intrigue in the Trump-Russia investigation will go. Solomon said the very first report on so-called collusion, by an Australian ambassador in mid-2016, could show he had loyalties to the Clintons…

    Solomon said another thing to watch for is the forthcoming report on the issue from the DOJ inspector general (IG)…
    “It will be one of the most seminal moments in this whole thing,” said Solomon. “It will help to resolve how much politics was involved, and how much legitimate law enforcement [was involved]. When we see the full breadth of what the independent IG does, I think we’re going to see a more complete picture, and this debate may take an entirely different tack. It will.”
    https://www.lifezette.com/polizette/clinton-will-be-tied-to-all-fbi-sources-in-trump-probe-solomon-says/

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    pat

    9 Feb: Breitbart: Former State Dept. Official: I Fed Oppo Research from Sidney Blumenthal to Christopher Steele
    by Kristina Wong
    Former Obama State Department official Jonathan Winer, in an attempt to come clean and shape the narrative before being exposed, confirmed that he passed on a dossier from Clinton operatives to the author of the infamous Trump dossier.
    In an op-ed in the Washington Post on Thursday titled “Devin Nunes is investigating me. Here’s the truth,” Winer publicly confirmed reports that he had passed on a report he received from Clinton operatives to dossier author Christopher Steele in the fall of 2016, right before the election.

    He also confirmed that those Clinton operatives were aware of the dossier effort — making Hillary Clinton’s denials of knowing about the dossier even less credible than they were already…

    Winer’s confession comes after Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) published a memo earlier this week recommending a criminal referral for Steele…
    http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/02/09/former-state-dept-official-i-fed-oppo-research-from-sidney-blumenthal-to-christopher-steele/

    10 Feb: NationalReview: Grassley-Graham Memo Affirms Nunes Memo — Media Yawns
    by Andrew C. McCarthy
    In a word, the Grassley-Graham memo is shocking. Yet, the press barely notices.
    http://www.nationalreview.com/article/456287/grassley-graham-memo-affirms-nunes-memo-fisa-steele-dossier

    9 Feb: Judicial Watch: Weekly Update: FBI Cover-Up?
    https://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/weekly-updates/weekly-update-fbi-cover-up/

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    kevin george

    Grrr…

    yooz kommentz is in monderation.

    10

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    TdeF

    Hybrid cars are a great idea. I fail to see the attraction of a fully electric car which can leave you stranded for half a day.
    Virtue signalling for the unthinking.

    What possesses people to buy a car which needs 20 minutes at the fastest and rarest outlet and 9 hours at a normal plug?

    Hybrid cars charge themselves. That should be the end of it.

    Sure, electric motors use half the energy of a traditional car but a hybrid has all that. Braking puts energy back. Going downhill puts energy back. Efficiency in cities with stop/start driving approaches the open country. As in the Tesla S, going fully battery with 7,000 phone batteries is nuts.

    In a hybrid, the batteries weigh half as much, so that’s half as much wasted energy. Lighter engines and lighter batteries. Hybrid technology makes wonderful sense. At $30,000 in Australia, the hybrid Camry is 1/4 the price of the Tesla S.

    Then load on the grid must be awful and a huge cost for the rest of the community. Doesn’t anyone see something silly about storing solar in batteries so you can charge batteries at night?

    As for being stuck on the highway or in traffic with no power, is there any simple way to get started without the world’s longest power cord?

    Consider the Tesla’s 540kg battery, a constant useless weight the 60kg/litres of petrol which would average to 30kg.
    Even the petrol engine might weigh around 150kg but you are 300kg better off.

    No, while people might love the idea of an electric car, you must think they have not through it through. As far as the environment, they produce more CO2 than a normal petrol car and in Australia cost about $10,000 more to run in a year than a petrol car, but it is all about appearing to care. Look at me. I care. They should carry a Buyer Warning sticker. *powered by coal*

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      TdeF

      Half the energy – I mean lugging around an extra 300kg of batteries (500kg-32kg-150kg)over the hybrid plus petrol engine) is a waste of energy, unless regeneration is perfect.

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      farmerbraun

      You have it right. We have had three Honda hybrids , and now a plug-in Mitsubishi hybrid. The mitsi almost never uses any petrol because I’m a farmer and can plug in anywhere around the farm , as well as in the garage at night. The mitsi is very light , and nimble; I haven’t got stuck once, even though it wasn’t designed for off-road, and I’m using street tyres.

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        Chad

        Yes PHEV seems to be about the optimum choice for Australia just now.
        And the Mitsi Outlander is certainly one of the better options both for the country and the city where most folks could run on battery only.
        I just do not understand why we do not have more PHEV chouces here, as most manufacturers have one or two in their line up.

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        Peter C

        Good work FB,

        Hybrids could overturn the system without ruining their owners. Lets say they can be charged at home from a 10A plug giving say 30km range.

        That would be enough for an average city commute. But lots of petrol saved and even more important NO Petrol Tax. That should be enough to upset the revenue equation, which would lead to a government backlash.

        So Go Hybrids (for those brave souls who want to lead the pack)

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      yarpos

      But buying a Tesla S makes you a member of a special club , a futurist who “gets it” as do all the disciples of Elon. Then there are the wealth signalling and virtue signalling components, which mean there is no limit to how good you can feel about yourself as you glide past the masses. If you my a Camry, well you know, you’ve got a Toyota.

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        Hanrahan

        If Musk achieves his goal of having Teslas ubiquitous then he has destroyed his market, buyers would no longer be joining a club worth the membership price. They will go back to the cheap and cheerful Corolla stuff the environment.

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      toorightmate

      TdeF,
      Everyone in Australia would be driving a hybrid by 2017.
      Kevin Rudd told us this.

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        Hanrahan

        Far more should be than do now. I’ve looked through the service book on mine and there are no major services needed.

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        yarpos

        Didnt someone say here a few days ago, something along the lines of climate related predictions come in two types, those that failed to materialise and those that are yet to fail to materialise

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        Environment Skeptic

        If the military use of rare earth magnets could be dismantled over time, there would be more than enough rare earth magnets for Kevin Rudds dream of hybrid cars to go around.

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      Environment Skeptic

      “In a hybrid, the batteries weigh half as much”

      Purchased a second hand 2nd generation Prius that achieve a longevity of 999,000 Kilometers according to many i have seen advertised as X taxi’s second hand and so on. Love it and cheap to buy second hand. Around 6K dollars in my case. Have had it for around 5 months. Love it.

      The batteries are the size of about three shoe boxes under the back seat and a small 12 volt battery in the rear to run the usual twelve volt assignments like 12 volt lights and so on. So the weight of the batteries is vastly less than a fully electric car. Not just half weight i would say.

      Personally would never buy a new one as i would feel too much remorse that i am causing more rare earth elements to be mined out of the ground which is an extremely toxic process. And the pollution the batteries cause and so on. In my mind, they are probably the second worse car for the environment due to the toxic processes involved in obtaining the said rare earth elements. Other than that, they are brilliant for all the reasons mentioned by TdeF and agree.

      Other reasons they are good is….

      : The brake pads only need changing every 150,000 Kilometers because they do very little work when regenerative breaking is doing most of the stopping.
      :There is no clutch to change ever and the gearing is minimal.
      :The air conditioner is not belt driven and is a hermetic pump that is driven off the the 200 volt battery under the back seat. That makes falling asleep in the car if one needs to sleep a joy as the engine does not need to keep running. One can pull over and and the engine will only come on from time to time to charge the main battery.
      :No conventional starter motor to start the engine. The generator that charges the battery also functions as a motor to either drive the wheels or start the engine.
      :Very quiet
      :25 Kilometers to the litre.

      My faith with respect to environmentally friendly batteries is in what Robert Murray Smith is doing with batteries, particularly his carbon battery. All kinds including his own battery that is in the process of commercialization.
      Brilliant !!
      How To Make A Battery From A Carrot
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeqdwPmWeDA

      Where We Are – An Update
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fCm2EEfcPQ

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        yarpos

        The bloke that owned the LPG conversion and maintenance business I use recently sold up. He moved down the road and is focussing on Hybrids, he reckons once the dust settles they will dominate, and he has put his $ were his mouth is.

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        Peter C

        Nice One ES,

        How many km’s had you hybrid car done when you bought it? How long do you expect to own it?

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    pat

    since the FISA-gate scandal broke big, I am getting “security alerts” on certain websites that cover it, including Washington Free Beacon.

    as this is such an important article, once more exposing the absolute corruption of the MSM – and CAGW-infested Oxford Uni – am posting all, in case you have to spend as much time as I did in trying to capture the text:

    9 Feb: Washington Free Beacon: The Oxford study saying Trump supporters share more fake news is fake news
    And taxpayers paid for it
    by Elizabeth Harrington
    Researchers at the Computational Propaganda Project, who are the recipients of over $200,000 in taxpayer funding, spent “several years” developing its “junk news” list, which is actually full of the most popular conservative websites on the internet.

    Websites on the researchers’ “watch list” of propaganda news outlets include the Washington Free Beacon, the Daily Caller, National Review, and the Drudge Report, which is the seventh most highly visited media publication in the United States.

    Contrary to the claim that conservatives are sharing the most fake news, the study proves nothing other than finding conservatives tend to share conservative media online.

    Philip N. Howard, Vidya Narayanan, Bence Kollanyi, and Lisa-Maria Neudert of Oxford University wrote the six-page study, along with Vlad Barash and John Kelly who work for Graphika, a social media startup that “provides the context needed to make strategic business decisions.”

    Oxford publicized its results Tuesday with a provocative press release that declared, “Trump supporters and extreme right ‘share widest range of junk news.'”

    The purpose of Oxford’s Computational Propaganda Project is to analyze how social media can be used to “manipulate public opinion.”

    Media outlets seized on the study. The Huffington Post reported, “Trump supporters consume and share the most fake news.” “Fake news sharing in US is a rightwing thing, says study,” said the Guardian. “Trump supporters share the most ‘junk’ news, conspiracy theories: study,” wrote Salon. “Trump supporters spread the majority of phony news on social media,” according to Mother Jones. The Financial Times: “Hard right dominates use of fake US news, Oxford study finds.”
    Newsweek, the Week, and the Independent covered the study in the same way.

    None of the news articles explain how the researchers defined “junk news,” including a Washington Post analysis that used the study to argue there is a “Trumpian threat to democracy.” Post analyses are intended to be “interpretation of the news based on evidence, including data.”

    The analysis does not include any reference to what websites are actually on the “junk news” list, but spreads the same deceptive claim that “Trump supporters shared the widest range of junk news.” (Separately, the Post did publish an opinion piece by Erik Wemple that was skeptical of the study, and pushed back against Howard on branding certain conservative outlets junk news.)

    The Post wrote that the study was based on “91 sources of propaganda” from “across the political spectrum” that are “deliberately misleading or masquerading as authentic reporting.”
    The Post stated that the study “restores a bit of clarity to what ‘fake news’ actually represents.”

    In fact, an analysis of the “junk news” list reveals numerous flaws. The list was not derived from “across the political spectrum,” but full of mainstream conservative news and commentary sites, with no mainstream sites from the left.

    Fake Methodology
    Just 6 out of 91 sources of the “junk news” list are left-wing websites, and none are easily recognizable.

    The six left-wing websites include: BipartisanReport.com, CrooksAndLiars.com, DeepStateNation.com, OccupyDemocrats.com, ShareBlue.com, and DailyNewsBin.com, which no longer exists. The site became the Palmer Report, a liberal blog.

    There are 70 right-wing websites, with varying degrees of views on the spectrum. Many are marginal, and some publish unverified stories, such as PuppetStringNews.com. Numerous sites on the “junk news” list are, however, mainstream conservative outlets that are widely read and shared.

    The Free Beacon appears on the list, and the example link of “fake news” is a write-up of comments Sen. Claire McCaskill (D., Mo.) made on MSNBC about the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email server.
    The Drudge Report — a news site that receives more than 2 million unique visitors daily — is “junk news,” according to Oxford. So are Breitbart and the Daily Caller, which are also among the top 100 visited media publications.
    Also listed as “junk news” are popular conservative outlets Campus Reform, CNSNews.com, Fox News personality Sean Hannity’s official website, Hot Air, NewsBusters, Red State, and the Federalist, which features mostly commentary.
    The website of National Review, which was founded by William F. Buckley Jr., the intellectual force behind the modern conservatism movement, is also “junk news.”

    Aside from conservative commentary and opinion, the “junk news” list also features other right-leaning sites that are not news outlets, including ***Rasmussen Reports, which was among the more accurate polls during the 2016 election. The example link that Oxford uses is a Rasmussen poll that showed Trump and Clinton within the margin of error the day before the election.

    Judicial Watch appears as well, though it is not a news site but rather a legal watchdog group that engages in Freedom of Information Act lawsuits.

    There are no comparable left-leaning outlets, such as Mother Jones, Think Progress, Salon, or liberal magazines, like the New Republic or the Nation, on the list.

    The remaining sources are either fringe websites like YourNewsWire.com, have no discernible political bias, or appear to have ended up on the list inadvertently.

    For instance, “Hot Page News,” a site that simply aggregates links from other news websites, appears on the list. However, the example link for the website redirects to a New York Post article about Trump calling the widow of an NYPD cop who was killed in the line of duty.

    Also considered “junk news” are Mediate, a nonideological outlet that covers the media, and the New York Daily News.

    Phillip Howard, a lead researcher on the study, is guilty of sharing “junk news,” by the study’s own standards. He shared a New York Daily News article about Trump and GOP donor Robert Mercer on Twitter.

    The study claims that its “junk news” list was based on a “grounded typology” developed by a “team of 12 trained coders,” who claim to be “familiar with the US political and media landscape.”

    The researchers claim outlets that were labeled “junk news” had to meet three of five categories. The criteria included: “professionalism,” “style,” “credibility,” “bias,” and “counterfeit.”

    The coders came up with the “junk news” list over a period of “several years.” They concluded that all 91 sources “produce content that includes various forms of propaganda and ideologically extreme, hyper-partisan, and conspiratorial political information.”

    The researchers also claim the sources of “junk news” were “evaluated and re-evaluated in a rigorously iterative coding process.”

    Multiple requests for comment sent to the researchers were not returned on how prominent conservative websites ended up on the list, but left-leaning websites did not.

    Nevertheless, the researchers used their list as an authoritative category of “propaganda” and concluded that Trump supporters and conservatives shared “propaganda” the most.

    “A high value for coverage shows that the group is sharing a wide range of propaganda,” the study said. “Coverage” is the percentage of links posted that belonged to the “junk news” list.

    Conservative Media had a coverage of 95, while Trump Support had a coverage of 96, showing they shared the outlets on the “junk news” list the most.

    In other words, 95 percent of conservative media and Trump supporters shared conservative media sources like the Drudge Report, Free Beacon, and National Review.

    Unsurprisingly, only 11 percent of links posted by the study’s Democratic Party sample came from these right-leaning sources.

    However, the study did find a “deep connection” between the Democrat group and the mainstream media.

    Taxpayer Funded
    The Computational Propaganda Research Project, the Oxford institute behind the study that tainted numerous mainstream conservative outlets as “propaganda,” is taxpayer funded.
    The project’s mission is to analyze how social media bots are used to “manipulate public opinion by amplifying or repressing political content, disinformation, hate speech, and junk news.”

    ***Sources of its funding appear on its website, with the National Science Foundation listed right above Open Society Foundations, which is funded by liberal billionaire George Soros.

    The study stated the authors “gratefully acknowledge the support of the National Science Foundation,” disclosing a grant on “Computational Propaganda and the Production/Detection of Bots.”

    The award named Philip Howard as the principal investigator and was given during the Obama administration. The project received $218,825 in taxpayer funding beginning in August 2014.

    The National Science Foundation grant warned that political bots are “manipulating public opinion.”

    “This project enables a new team of social and information scientists to investigate the impact of automated scripts, commonly called bots, on social media,” the grant stated.

    The institute aimed to be the solution to misinformation online.

    “By developing a network of experts in political bot detection and an original data set, the researchers will not only have a better understanding of how bots are manipulating social networks but also advance the conversation in the social sciences, computer sciences, and industry about the size of the problem and the possible solutions,” the grant stated.

    ***Update Feb. 10, 2017, 12:04 p.m.: Following publication, Howard told the Free Beacon that his researchers are classifying outlets as “junk news” even though it is “impossible to evaluate the fact checking procedure of a particular organization or a particular piece of political news.”
    “The list of sources doesn’t include all the possible sources, just the ones shared around a particular set of hashtags over a three month period,” he said.

    ***Howard said the researchers “weren’t selecting on the basis of ideology” for the “junk news” list, though did not explain why so few liberal mainstream outlets ended up on it.

    Howard also said the researchers did not “really test for how many people believe this stuff [junk news],” which would be columns and articles in the pages of the Free Beacon and National Review.

    Howard did address why the Drudge Report was on the “junk news” list, and said the website that broke the Monica Lewinsky scandal should not be considered in the “main professional news category.”

    “Drudge is also good question and this is on the list of things we reconsidering as we get ready for academic publication,” he said. “It was probably coded that way because on the days it was examined it was providing a lot of headline links to other sites that would fit the criteria. We could create another category of ‘aggregator’ but the way drudge is used on social media is often along the lines of ‘Drudge reports that…'”

    “The site is often referred to as a source for breaking conspiracy news,” he said. “I don’t believe it should be put into the main professional news category or the other categories of political news and information. Open to advice on this one.”

    Howard also disputed that taxpayer funding went to the study, though the paper identifies the grant as supporting the research.

    “The grant you identify wound up several years ago and didn’t fund this particular research,” he said. “But yes I do think US taxpayers should pay for research that is critical of the media and demonstrates ways to improve public life.

    “It is great if individual readers and other journalists can think critically about how the news media is doing,” he added. “But you want to be systematic in identifying big picture problems and solutions.”
    http://freebeacon.com/issues/the-oxford-study-saying-trump-supporters-share-more-fake-news-is-fake-news/

    ***no surprise Rasmussen is on their list, as they have Trump’s approval rating at 49%, 4 points above Obama’s at the same time in his presidency.

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    el gordo

    ‘Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, has suggested that global warming may be beneficial to humans, in his latest departure from mainstream climate science.

    ‘Pruitt, who has previously erred by denying that carbon dioxide is a key driver of climate change, has again caused consternation among scientists by suggesting that warming temperatures could benefit civilization.’

    Guardian

    ——–

    There is a rumour that Pruitt is organising a red and blue team in 2018, possibly a televised debate of some sort.

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    yarpos

    The Bathurst 12 Hour endurance race for GT and production cars was recently run and won. I havent followed up class results beyond the headlines. Does anyone know who won the EV class? oh wait ….

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    pat

    discosure: Judge Jeanine has been a friend of Donald Trump’s for 25 years:

    10 Feb: ConservativeTreehouse: sundance: Game Over – Judge Jeanine Interview With HPSCI Rep. Chris Stewart…
    House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence member Chris Stewart appeared on Fox News with Judge Jeanine Pirro, and didn’t want to “make news” or spill the beans, but the unstated, between-the-lines, discussion was a subtle as a brick through a window. Judge Jeannie has been on the cusp of this for a few weeks.

    Listen carefully around 2:30, Judge Jeanine hits the bulls-eye; and listen to how Chris Stewart talks about not wanting to make news and is unsure what he can say on this… VIDEO

    Bill Priestap is cooperating.

    When you understand how central E.W. “Bill” Priestap was to the entire 2016/2017 ‘Russian Conspiracy Operation‘, the absence of his name, amid all others, created a curiosity. I wrote a twitter thread about him last year and wrote about him extensively, because it seemed unfathomable his name was not been a part of any of the recent story-lines.

    E.W. “Bill” Priestap is the head of the FBI Counterintelligence operation. He was FBI Agent Peter Strozk’s direct boss. If anyone in congress really wanted to know if the FBI paid for the Christopher Steele Dossier, Bill Priestap is the guy who would know everything about everything…READ ALL
    https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/02/10/game-over-judge-jeanine-interview-with-hpsci-rep-chris-stewart/

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    el gordo

    ‘Affordable electric vehicles that can drive up to 600 kilometres on a single charge will help bring a motoring revolution to Australia, predicts Chief Scientist Alan Finkel, in an intervention that defies naysayers of the technology. In an interview with Fairfax Media, Dr Finkel said the onus was on the federal … ‘

    SMH

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      David Maddison

      Since SA is using fossil fuel anyway to make up for useless wind why don’t they just build a proper large power station that burns coal which is about 40 times cheaper than diesel per unit of energy? 😮

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        AndyG55

        Where is the diesel fuel coming from ? 😉

        Where would the coal come from.?

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          Graeme No.3

          Andy:

          SA has plenty of coal, at least a billion tons near Roxby Downs, another source of energy. Sub bitumous black and high in minerals and possibly best if gasified in situ. Maybe a source where frakking could be useful?
          Then there is lots of brown coal in the SE of the State but the Liberals have pledged not to mine it.

          http://minerals.statedevelopment.sa.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/268498/203858-049.pdf

          http://www.minerals.org.au/resources/coal/coal_mines_by_state may be of more general interest.

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            Chad

            SAs Arckaringa Basin has over 10 bn tonnes of known coal reserves, with likely much more yet to be identified.
            It has ot been exploited because there were other sources closer to Port Agusta. ( Leigh Creek)
            But a new power station could be located near to these coal reserves.

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            AndyG55

            Yep, I was totally aware that SA gas large amounts of Coal and Gas.

            Not sure they have a lot of diesel for running their generators, though. 😉

            Pretty sure SA doesn’t have an oil refinery. 🙂

            So the question remains.

            Where will the diesel fuel come from?

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              Chad

              They wont need much Deisel, ….its mainly gas…

              r…….. The new plant, to be known as the Barker Inlet Power Station, will be located on Torrens Island, near Adelaide in South Australia. The Wärtsilä engines will run primarily on natural gas, but can be switched to liquid fuel if necessary…….

              They could probably syphon enough from Jay’s lawnmower if necessary !
              …..but have they got enough Gas supply also ??

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    Rolling Reserve, (Spinning Reserve) is probably an outdated concept, according to some people. The ability for old coal fired power plants to remain in place for when there are times of large power consumption, or when Units at other coal fired plants go down for maintenance. Coal fired power was so cheap, that they could keep these old plants ‘burning and turning’ for times when they were needed, and the swap over as one of the Units at the Majors went down, and the rolling reserve came on line was seamless, and because coal fired power was so cheap, it was barely even noticed.

    Enter this CO2 scare campaign, and then the Carbon (Dioxide) Tax, and to keep those rolling reserve plants in place was uneconomically viable, with rising costs from that CO2 Tax, and no income other than the small periods when they were required, they all closed down.

    Now we have no backup for times like that, and when one of those big Units does go down, the power system goes into pretty severe stress.

    For a more in depth explanation, I have that at this week’s Post in my Base Load Series.

    One Unit at the Bayswater plant went down, and the effects were felt across three States.

    Australian Base Load Electrical Power – Week Ending 10th February 2018

    Tony.

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      Hanrahan

      Unused hydro capacity was also considered spinning reserve. One may be in water conservation mode but that is forgotten if extra generation is needed, short-term until coal-fired plant gets a head of steam. {I love hydro. :)]

      In the days of the Northern Electric Authority the Bowen Basin drag lines [big users, sent the freq. chart crazy] would be the first taken off-line, part of a negotiated contract.

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      Ian1946

      Tony,

      The renew economy website tells me it was the big battery the saved the day.

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        Hanrahan

        If it were sitting there, charged but not contributing, it could reasonably be considered spinning reserve. The idea is OK, just not cost effective.

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          Chad

          Well the BIG Battery supporters have subtly shifted their spin from how much power the battery was going to “time shift” from surplus wind power into a peak demand period…..to how much FCAS work and essential grid support it is providing.
          The new NEM “Widget” on the RE site clearly shows the battery contribution to demand as “zero” despite it being in almost continuous use …charging and discharging…so ot must be useful for something !
          Or,…is it just programmed to follow the price fluctuations and play the power money market ..!!

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      Hanrahan

      Tony, I have often wondered how long, in seconds, a large grid has to replace lost power from a tripped gen. set.

      There is obviously stored inertial energy in every turbine, regardless of power source but is there any reactive “inertia” stored in long power lines? There cannot be any in solar cells and their inverters. What I’m asking is how long do system operators have to “catch the ball” before load shedding occurs? Even an open cycle gas turbine takes a minute or so to spool up surely?

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        “but is there any reactive “inertia” stored in long power lines?”
        More like time a delay because the travel speed is a bit less than the speed of light and only for a very short time like a few milliseconds. From then on any storage as opposed to this delay is most likely to produce useless DC. If by chances it rings in a decaying oscillation as it dies the chances of that being at 50Hz and in phase are just about zilch. So any storage in lines apart from a few milliseconds is most likely to be counter productive.
        “There cannot be any in solar cells and their inverters” There will be a little bit from the capacitors in the inverters but it would not last very long either.
        “There is obviously stored inertial energy in every turbine” That is if they are spinning. They have a trade off between spare inertia and output$$. So it would die away quickly.

        There may be some useful inertia from spinning loads. Some motors like induction motors will return power in a sort of natural regenerative braking as they slow down within their “slip speed” but this will be at a lower Voltage and quickly lose frequency.

        The best generators for stability during such a problem in my opinion would be hydro because not a lot will slow down a great long pipe full of moving water momentum.

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    pat

    media collusion, for those who are not familiar with JournoList:

    Wikipedia: JournoList
    JournoList (sometimes referred to as the J-List) was a private Google Groups forum for discussing politics and the news media with 400 “left-leaning” journalists, academics and others. Ezra Klein (now Vox, formerly WaPo) created the online forum in February 2007 while blogging at The American Prospect and shut it down on June 25, 2010 amid wider public exposure. Journalists later pointed out various off-color statements made by members of the list denigrating conservatives, as well as a seeming conspiracy to prop up then Presidential candidate Barack Obama…

    Cabalist spin-off
    After Klein shut down JournoList, a new group, calling itself “Cabalist” was started by Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic, Michelle Goldberg and Steven Teles, a professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University. The group, which had 173 members by late July, was made up mostly of former JournoList members. Its existence managed to stay secret for several weeks, until The Atlantic magazine correspondent Jeffrey Goldberg revealed its existence in a blog post…
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JournoList

    JournoList and Cabalist were both shut down only when their existence became public. until now, no definitive list of all members has been published.

    David Corn (with The Nation at the time of JournoList) is now with Mother Jones, and one of the players in the FISA-gate/Fusion GPS/Christopher Steele Dossier scandal. he likes to play down his involvement in JournoList, but The Nation was well-involved.

    others are still working in the anti-Trump FakeNewsMSM, and there are new-comers, many of whom share the same mentality. members from Harvard, Columbia, Princeton, Berkeley, Yale also included:

    keywiki: JournoList
    SCROLL DOWN FOR LISTS OF MEMBERS/ORGS
    http://keywiki.org/JournoList

    after Cabalist shut down, most of this mob moved to Twitter, which they considered their domain, until Donald Trump became President of the US and King of Twitter!

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      Peter C

      Never Heard of Journolist, but I am not surprised that it did exist. Of course they avoid scrutiny and pop up elsewhere.

      These guys are ideologues and relentless. It will take a lot of work to defeat them. Ultimately they are all fluff but the expose take work, unfortunately/

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    pat

    I haven’t watched either episode, & consider the entire premise of the programs ridiculous, given ALL social media were overtly WITH Clinton.

    Pt 2 just aired on Aljazeera (which ABC/SBS often use as a source). also, according to SBS: they are “the only national free­ to­ air network to broadcast Al Jazeera English news in Australia.”:

    1 Feb: Aljazeera: Disinformation and Democracy
    A two-part investigation into the threats to democracy posed by fake news and propaganda on social media.
    For democracies to flourish and succeed, voters need accurate information on which to base their decisions…
    But recent elections, most notably that of Donald Trump as US President, have highlighted the dangers to this process posed by those using social media and the internet to spread malevolent propaganda and fake news…

    So how and why have we arrived at this point? How is it that platforms such as Facebook, Google and Twitter have become, at the same time, so powerful and yet so apparently wide open to abuse and manipulation?
    How, in other words, is social media being used to undermine the core principles of representative governance? In a two-part People & Power special report, Bob Abeshouse investigates…

    VIDEO: Pt 1: Screen: protesters, placard: “Trump is the Hoax, Climate Change is a Fact”
    http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/peopleandpower/2018/02/disinformation-democracy-180201060250730.html

    Pt 2 is on youtube, for anyone interested.

    another example of Abehouse’s “work”, which also isn’t worth watching:

    2012: Aljazeera: Bob Abeshouse: People & Power: The Koch Brothers
    People & Power asks why the billionaire siblings are spending a fortune in support of a conservative political agenda.
    The Kochs have also poured millions into think tanks and academia to influence the battle over ideas. According to Kert Davies, the director of research for Greenpeace in the US, the Kochs have spent more than $50m since 1998 on “various front groups and think tanks who … oppose the consensus view that climate change is real, urgent and we have to do something about it”. As operators of oil pipelines and refineries, the Kochs have opposed all efforts to encourage alternative sources of energy by imposing a tax on fossil fuels.

    Patrick Michaels, a senior fellow at the CATO Institute, often appears in the media to contest global warming science. CATO was founded by Charles Koch, and the Kochs and their foundations have contributed about $14m to CATO. Since 2009 (CLIMATEGATE?), there has been a sharp drop in the percentage of Americans who see global warming as a serious threat according to Gallup polls. Davies argues that the change can be attributed in large measure to the efforts of scientists like Michaels and others who are funded by the fossil fuel industry…

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    pat

    11 Feb: ABC: Queensland heatwave: People and pets try to keep their cool
    By Nick Wiggins and Melanie Vujkovic
    Updated about an hour ago
    Why did the dog walk into the bar?
    Because Queensland’s experiencing a heatwave and there’s no let-up in sight…

    In parts of the Darling Downs, Granite Belt and Lockyer Valley temperatures were set to hit 10 degrees above average on Sunday.
    Forecaster Michelle Berry said this week’s heatwave is unusual for how widespread and long-lasting it is…
    “It’s likely western Queensland in particular will see temperatures getting towards the mid-40s,” Ms Berry said.
    “Even areas like Roma, Charleville, Emerald we’re looking like those areas in the mid to low 40s also.
    “This is a very extensive event … that’s what really sets this apart from others, its the extent and duration.”

    Ms Berry said a cool change is not expected anytime soon.
    “In the south-east at least up to and including Thursday we’ll see temperatures well and truly above average,” she said.
    Maximum temperatures will still remain above average into next weekend.
    The bureau said only twice before has the statewide average maximum temperature in February exceeded 40 degrees.
    “This week we’ll probably see that at least twice,” Ms Berry said.
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-11/queensland-heatwave-hits-as-people-try-to-keep-their-cool/9420416

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    Another Ian

    As illustrated here

    https://realclimatescience.com/2018/02/understanding-the-difference-between-climate-and-weather-3/

    Its cold so its only weather – don’t panic

    “Snowy Beach Getaway In Spain”

    “Gee, want a nice Mediterranean beach getaway in Spain? Pack your snow gear…”

    https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2018/02/10/snowy-beach-getaway-in-spain/

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    Mark M

    Wait. What?

    > Coal mines making your normally verdant parts drier?

    “Mr Armstrong, a real estate agent who regularly visits the area, says locals have begun to worry that coal mines may be making dry conditions worse.

    https://amp.smh.com.au/environment/weather/horrendous-hot-spell-is-turning-a-normally-verdant-part-of-nsw-dry-20180207-p4yzny.html?__twitter_impression=true

    > You need more coal mines …

    Coal miners to blame for Queensland floods, says Australian Greens leader Bob Brown.

    http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/coal-miners-to-blame-for-queensland-floods-says-australian-greens-leader-bob-brown/news-story/cbfe12042fa9c4149ea3c10524f57344

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    “The ACT is predicted to become warmer and drier in future years, with more frequent extreme weather events such as heatwaves, storms, drought and bushfires.

    To help understand how well ACT residents currently cope with weather extremes at home and in their workplace an ACT Government-funded survey is being conducted by the University of Canberra.

    The survey will be used to identify how to best improve our ability to cope with the expected effects of climate change.

    People who participate before midnight 9 March 2018 go into the draw to win one of seven gift cards worth a total of $2,000.” https://www.environment.act.gov.au/home/latest_news/complete-the-climate-survey

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    Hanrahan

    Ever searched on Saudi drifting?

    By Ismaeel Naar Al Arabiya EnglishWednesday,
    10 August 2016

    According to Saudi traffic authorities, at least one driver gets into an accident in the kingdom every second, while at least 20 people – mostly young Saudi men – die per day to speeding, drifting or reckless driving.

    The subculture of joyriding has become such a phenomenon in Saudi Arabia that it has its own label: “tafheet,” or drifting. It is the act of tyre-burning performed by cars before a flash mob of youthful admirers.

    The kingdom has just announced a significant increase in penalties, such as traffic fines and stricter legislation, in the hope that it will curb the phenomenon.

    Now I’m no expert on drifting but the pros have power to burn so stunts can be done at relatively low speed. A modern sedan fitted with good tyres is designed NOT to break traction so the Arabs need much higher speeds. The result is deadly.

    If in the mood search on “road skating”. 🙂

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      sophocles

      If you check, you will find that “drifting” is a legitimate and respecticable motor sport in Aus. It is in NZ, but not on a public road—the NZ Police get rather excited when that occurs and cars are confiscated, while drivers end up a lot poorer and having to walk everywhere for at least six months … or longer if it’s not a first offence.

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      • #
        OriginalSteve

        Im sorry, i cant take drifting seriously…but i find 20/20 cricket particularly low brow and targetted at people with attention spans of gnats, so….

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    • #
      OriginalSteve

      A friend worked in Saudi, one day he was cruising down a publuc road at 150 and a proper F1 car overtook him like he was standing still. F1 cars dont last long, sand destroys engines…

      Its not unusual to find abandoned Mercs, left where they were when the petrol ran out….

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      crakar24

      The only rule in Saudi that is enforced is you dont run red lights, if you do you get an Uzi pressed against your head so i suggest you dont do it.

      Everyday you drive to work you see accidents because:

      1, 6 cars abreast can fit in a 3 lane road
      2, It is optional to turn left from the left lane
      3, Speed limit? whats that
      4, you can see in the dark so you dont need lights
      5, You too can read the Koran whilst driving at 180Kph
      6, They are fatalist, if they die its Gods will

      and the list goes on……

      I am suprised i am still alive to write this comment

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  • #
    RAH

    Global warming is so bad in S. Africa that a Black Mamba felt the need to go to the beach for relief.
    https://www.sapeople.com/2018/02/10/watch-rare-capture-black-mamba-scottburgh-beach-south-africa/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SAPeopleNews+%28SAPeople+-+Connecting+and+Celebrating+South+Africans%29

    On the more serious side. I am just finishing Chapter 1 of Joe Bastardi’s latest book. https://www.amazon.com/Climate-Chronicles-Inconvenient-Revelations-Gore/dp/1983509388/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1518369344&sr=1-1&keywords=Joe+Bastardi

    For those not familiar with Joe, he is fantastic meteorologist. He is a key member of the Weatherbell Analytics team https://www.weatherbell.com/ where is “Chief Forecaster”.
    Weatherbell is a private weather forecasting firm. They make their money providing short, medium, and long range forecasts for all kinds of different companies in a variety of different fields who’s operations are effected by weather. Joe is as honest and competent as they come and is a “denier”. He knows his weather history inside and out and uses that knowledge to select analogs from past weather patterns to forecast the weather that is coming. And when it comes to tropical storm forecasting and explaining how he arrives at his forecasts there is none better. When the “ambulance chasers” like Michael Mann start popping off about how this or that extreme weather event is a symptom of “climate change” though they have no expertise in meteorology Joe takes them to task because he has almost always forecast the event and shows how he did it and how it was not connected to climate change.

    At the website above Joe puts out a free video five days a week titled the “Daily Update” and on the weekend one longer free video titled the “Saturday Summary”. Though these free videos concentrate more on US weather he does often get into weather in other places.

    Joe posts pretty frequently at ‘The Patriot Post” blog and here is a link to the page listing his posts: https://patriotpost.us/search?comment=&q=Joe+Bastardi

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    Another Ian

    “The same media that worries Trump’s military parade is too much like a North Korean dictator’s propaganda theater, are literally celebrating a North Korean dictator’s propaganda theater.”

    Links at

    http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2018/02/your-moral-and-489.html

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    toorightmate

    If Oxfam are going to lose funding because of what they did in Haiti in 2010, what about the bloody Clintons?
    What the Clintons did NOT do with donated funds was worse than a few Oxfam directors playing hanky panky with ladies of the night – young and old.

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    crakar24

    You will be sleeping with the fishes if you keep that talk up and anyone else who mentions it, hope this clears everything up for yo mate.

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  • #
    pat

    power back on this morning following the fabulous and wild electric storm last night. what a show of lightning it was.

    a friend saw the Aljazeera doco I posted yesterday and asked why does Aljazeera go along with the CAGW scam. I sent them the following, as one of the main planks of CAGW was/is to demonise coal and replace it with gas:

    24 Jan: Gulf Times: Oil majors line up for new Qatari gas projects
    Reuters/Davos: US and European oil majors are piling in with offers to help Qatar develop new gas projects, the country’s energy minister said, despite a protracted crisis in the Gulf region and pressure on firms to choose between Qatar and its neighbours.
    HE Dr Mohamed bin Saleh al-Sada told Reuters Doha had seen unprecedented interest from majors as Qatar seeks to expand its gas capacity to 100mn tonnes a year from the current 77mn to cement its position as the world’s largest exporter.
    “Both US and EU majors have shown great interest. We did expect this, but they surprised us on the upside by the degree of keenness,” said al-Sada, when asked whether firms had expressed concerns about potential pressure from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) not to cooperate with Qatar…

    Reuters reported last year that Qatar’s traditional partners ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch/Shell and Total , which helped turn the country into a gas superpower, had all shown interest in new projects. The companies are also heavily present in the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
    “We have newcomers too,” said al-Sada…
    “LNG is not a regional commodity. We can reach all corners in the world unlike via pipelines which are restricted from point A to B and are crossing geopolitically challenging areas,” said al-Sada…

    Externally, Qatar is diversifying investments which range from stakes in companies such as Volkswagen and Glencore to ownership of luxury hotels and UK shops.
    “The diversification of the portfolio will continue. We are open minded about investing in tight or shale oil … US offers very good opportunities and we studied a number of those projects,” he said.
    He added Qatar was expanding investment into LNG exports out of the United States where the country has a venture with Exxon for the Sabine Pass terminal, which was initially designed to import gas into the United States but is now being converted into an export terminal as US gas output soars…

    Despite rising exports from Qatar and rival producers such as the United States and Russia, a major global gas glut was unlikely to arise as demand for gas is growing faster than for any other forms of energy, al-Sada said.
    “Maybe for the next 4-5 years we may have a surplus, but it will be less than previously perceived. But beyond 2024-2025 the market will be tight again. That is why Qatar chose to start expanding now.”
    http://www.gulf-times.com/story/579354/Oil-majors-line-up-for-new-Qatari-gas-projects

    Wikipedia: Natural gas in Qatar
    The natural gas in Qatar covers a large portion of the world supply of natural gas. According to Oil & Gas Journal, as of January 1, 2011, reserves of natural gas in Qatar were measured at approximately 896 trillion cubic feet (25.4 trillion cubic metres); this measurement means that the state contains 14% of all known natural-gas reserves, as the world’s third-largest reserves, behind Russia and Iran…
    The majority of Qatar’s natural gas is located in the massive offshore North Field, which spans an area roughly equivalent to Qatar itself…

    Wikipedia: Qatargas
    Qatargas is the world’s largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) company. It annually produces and supplies the globe with 42 million metric tons of LNG from across its four ventures (Qatargas 1, Qatargas 2, Qatargas 3, and Qatargas 4)…
    The shareholders of the Qatargas 1 are Qatar Petroleum, ExxonMobil, Total, Mitsui and Marubeni…
    Qatargas II, a joint venture of Qatar Petroleum and ExxonMobil, owns LNG trains 4 and 5 with a capacity of 7.8 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) each. It is supplying LNG for the South Hook LNG terminal at Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire, Wales, from where gas is fed to the South Wales Gas Pipeline. This covers 20% of the United Kingdom’s needs of LNG…
    Qatargas III is a joint venture between Qatar Petroleum, ConocoPhillips and Mitsui. Qatargas IV is a joint venture between Qatar Petroleum and Royal Dutch Shell…

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    pat

    11 Feb: Breitbart: Arnold Schwarzenegger: EPA’s Scott Pruitt Must Be Terminated
    by Joel B. Pollak
    Former Cailfornia governor Arnold Schwarzenegger made a rare return to Sacramento last Thursday and declared that Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt needed to be fired. The Los Angeles Times reported that it was Schwarzenegger’s second dig at Pruitt in less than a week (original links):
    “He is without any doubt the wrong person at that place,” former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said. “He does not represent the people. He only represents the special interests. He should be removed immediately.” …
    http://www.breitbart.com/california/2018/02/11/arnold-scwarzenegger-demands-epas-scott-pruitt-must-fired/

    strictly for the laughs:

    LPG Gas Blog: Eric Hahn: Arnold Schwarzenegger & LPG Have 8 Things in Common
    In what may come as a great surprise, Arnold Schwarzenegger has a lot in common with LPG:

    Both are Versatile
    Both are Weightlifters
    Both Run Restaurants
    Both are Action Heroes
    Both are Concerned with the Environment
    Both are Reliable
    Both Have High Energy
    Both are Known for Supporting Social Causes

    The LPG industry, in cooperation with The Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, supports the worldwide effort to bring clean air cooking to third world peoples through its Cooking For Life initiative.
    Their objective is to convert one billion people from using biomass and other traditional fuels to LPG by 2030…
    http://www.elgas.com.au/blog/1059-arnold-schwarzenegger-lpg-have-8-things-in-common

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    Hanrahan

    Qld. coal royalties:

    NewMatilda scoffs at the piddlin amount of coal royalties in Qld.

    While the Queensland Premier thinks coal is the “backbone” of the state’s economy, every year coal battles with motor vehicle registration to be the Queensland government’s seventh biggest source of revenue. Each provides a thumping 3 per cent of the money that pays for hospitals, schools and services in the state.

    The real money comes from the Commonwealth, taxes and sale of goods and services.

    As I wrote last year, coal royalties were slim favourites to win this year, with Treasury expecting them to bring in $1.684 billion to $1.654 billion.

    Excitement reached fever pitch on Queensland budget day this week. And the winner was….

    Car rego by $1.632 billion to 1.594 billion! Well done, drivers. Better luck next year, miners. And bad luck, Queensland Treasury, who picked it wrong. Again.

    It seems hat the author is advocating closing down coal mines and doubling our rego fees in spite of the fact that Qld seems to be permanently exporting >500 MW to the mendicant southern states who can’t meet their responsibilities. But [There is always a BUT] according to Fin Review:

    A surge in coal royalties is expected to boost Queensland’s predicted surplus for the 2017 financial year to $2 billion, the state’s mid-year update will reveal on Tuesday.

    As revealed by The Australian Financial Review in October, the state’s budget bottom line will receive a significant boost from the tripling of coal prices over the past few months, with the net operating balance for this financial year expected to more than double from $867 million to $2 billion.

    The windfall has allowed the Palaszczuk government to cut its fiscal deficit in half from $2.006 billion to $1.015 billion, but there is growing pressure on Mr Pitt and Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk to use some of the proceeds to spend money on infrastructure to kick-start the lacklustre economy.

    Note the difference between the $1.5 bill quoted by Matilda and the $2 bill quoted by AFR. Who scoffs at a $2 bill windfall and the good jobs that go with the coal and electricity industries?

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    • #
      Hanrahan

      Note: Nowhere in the quoted article is the actual royalties received given. I jumped to a conclusion, sorry, but my guesstimate must be ballpark.

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    yarpos

    Just found this at The Age, mind boggling. Worth the short read to the end to realise what a fantasy world this guy lives (turning away from coal will lower prices, he has special forces people mapping power lines out of helicopters at night)

    https://www.theage.com.au/business/the-economy/australian-power-prices-worse-than-banana-republics-20180206-p4yziu.html

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      David Maddison

      The only true statement in that story is that Australian electricity prices are worse than banana republics. The rest of it displays are complete disconnect from reality and how the electricity grid works and its economics.

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    pat

    this is all over the FakeNewsMSM:

    12 Feb: Yahoo: AP: Robert De Niro takes aim at Trump’s climate change policy
    PHOTO GALLERY 1/5: American actor Robert De Niro, speaks during the World Government Summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Sunday, Feb. 11, 2018. De Niro took aim at the Trump administration’s stance on climate change, telling a packed audience that he was visiting from a “backward” country suffering from “temporary insanity.”…
    (EACH OF THE FIVE PHOTOS HAS A VARIATION ON THIS, BUT ALL INCLUDE THE BACKWARD/INSANIITY STUFF)

    He said that in the country he’s describing, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency suggested last week that global warming may be a good thing for humanity…

    De Niro received applause and laughs when he said the U.S. “will eventually cure itself by voting our dangerous leader” out of office. He spoke Sunday at Dubai’s World Government Summit.
    https://www.yahoo.com/news/robert-niro-takes-aim-trumps-climate-change-policy-145915458.html

    the real reason DeNiro is at the World Govt Summit:

    11 Feb: CaribbeanRadio: Robert De Niro talks Antigua-Barbuda investments in Dubai
    While actor Robert De Niro’s rant on Donald Trump was making media waves around the globe, he was part of a delegation that included the prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, Gaston Browne, on a mission to promote investments in the picturesque twin-islands of Antigua and Barbuda.
    De Niro, a special envoy of Antigua and Barbuda, is an investor himself, together with Australian billionaire James Packer, in a real estate project in Barbuda. Packer has already invested in the actor’s Nobu restaurants…

    It’s a beautiful place, that’s why I’m involved in this project,” De Niro shared during a conference in Dubai, sponsored by Arton Capital, a global citizenship advisory firm. Speaking alongside Browne, the actor was keen to reassure Middle East investors that this is a sound economic proposition.
    UAE has a number of prominent investors in the island. One such investor is the developer of the Callaloo Cay project, an exclusive US$150 million resort. Proactive in its bid to attract UAE investment, Antigua and Barbuda is opening an embassy and a trade and economic centre in Abu Dhabi, the first Caribbean Community (CARICOM) country to do so.

    In addition to the long list of concessions for foreign investors, such as a 25-year tax exemption, another significant benefit is Antigua’s citizenship by investment program (CIP), which fuels local economic growth. Of all the countries with an active CIP, Antigua and Barbuda’s passport has been ranked as the most powerful in the Caribbean and the fourth best in the world by Arton’s Passport Index, a global ranking of the world’s passports. Citizens can travel visa-free to more than 124 countries including Canada, Europe’s Schengen zone, UK, Singapore and Hong Kong, among others…

    On the subject of global citizenship, “We can have our differences, but as the world gets smaller and people become more dependent on each other, we have no choice but to be concerned about our own self perseverance,” shared De Niro…

    While the government of Antigua and Barbuda has solidified relations with the United Arab Emirates it is also forging closer ties with Qatar…
    https://www.thecaribbeanradio.com/robert-de-niro-talks-antigua-barbuda-investments-in-dubai/

    more to come.

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      Kinky Keith

      Quite a few years ago I used the phrase “The Emperor’s New Clothes” to describe the global climate CO2 warming scam.

      That poor Robert DeNiro can’t see that he is re-living the Emperor’s story is truly sad.

      Hans died in 1875. His writing shows that he understood, at least, one aspect of human nature.

      When will Robert achieve the understanding of his situation that finally sets him free.

      KK

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  • #
    toorightmate

    If women don’t fool around, but men do fool around, then who are the men fooling around with?

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    pat

    can’t find video of De Niro making the backward/insanity remarks. AP’s video, which Daily Mail has uploaded to YouTube, has subtitles only. however –

    wobbly video/wobbly De Niro etc at Press Conference. media laugh when he says they can fix the problem in the US (Trump Admin). this is mostly about his property interests in Barbuda. panel being questioned includes the prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, Gaston Browne:

    Youtube: 3min20secs: Robert De Niro on Climate Change @WorldGovSummit, 2018, Dubai
    Two comments:
    1. Someone needs a teleprompter.
    2. Ha Ha What a Joke
    I am sure De Niro got a big paycheck for some prop lady next to him telling him what to say.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wHJkFnSOYg

    lol.

    23 Jan: The Intercept: Robert De Niro Accused of Exploiting Hurricane Irma to Build Resort in Barbuda
    by Naomi Klein & Alleen Brown
    A chorus of voices from the Caribbean island of Barbuda is accusing Robert De Niro of being part of a backroom effort to exploit a devastating hurricane to fundamentally change the island’s communal land ownership law in the interest of developers — changes opposed by many Barbudans, but which could aid the actor’s controversial plans to build a large luxury resort called Paradise Found Nobu.

    Earlier this month, ***with almost no international news coverage and with the majority of Barbudans still displaced from the storm, an amendment to the law in question was quietly pushed through the Senate of Antigua and Barbuda — a body dominated by politicians from the wealthier and more populous island of Antigua. If the amendment stands, a tradition of communal land rights that dates back to the abolition of slavery in 1834 — and which has protected Barbuda as a rare beacon of sustainable development in the Caribbean — will be extinguished…

    “It’s just a scam to take away the land from the Barbudans so they can give it to people like Robert de Niro,” said Mackenzie Frank, a former senator from the island. “Anyone who has beach land is laughing all the way to the bank.”…

    To many outsiders, the role De Niro played in this period seemed benign, if not downright heroic. In the weeks after Irma hit, he appeared at the United Nations and on cable news, pledging to personally help with Barbuda’s reconstruction and urging governments and international agencies to pony up aid and stand with the “vulnerable.” In interviews, De Niro did mention that he had a hotel project in development on the island, but only to explain his particular compassion for the people there.

    The facts paint a more complex picture. Though best known for acting and producing (as well as founding the Tribeca Film Festival), De Niro has also emerged as a highly successful real estate mogul, accumulating a rapidly expanding empire of elite properties. As co-owner of Nobu Hospitality, De Niro helped turn a celebrated Japanese eatery in Beverly Hills into a chain of dozens of restaurants around the world, as well as a growing roster of luxury condos and hotels…

    In 2014, the actor partnered with the Australian billionaire bad boy James Packer (best known for his messy break-up with singer Mariah Carey) to develop an exclusive hotel there…
    https://theintercept.com/2018/01/23/robert-de-niro-barbuda-hotel-hurricane-irma/

    btw there are a number of youtubes titled: “Robert De Niro’s Most Beautiful Home in Dubai” online. this is #3:

    Youtube: 1 min: Robert De Niro’s Most Beautiful Home in Dubai 3
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cE2N4JWpx9s

    nice carbon footprint you have, Robert De Hypocrite.

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    Dennis

    Check: Keshik Capital Pte, Singapore shareholders, then share price movements Infigen Wind Resources, Australia before and after the 2016 carbon tax by stealth levied against coal fired power stations and the electricity supply pricing system.

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    pat

    11 Feb: Gulf News: Robert DeNiro on Trump and Climate Change
    Hollywood veteran DeNiro took aim at US President Donald J. Trump for an unenthusiastic approach to climate change
    “My country will eventually cure itself by voting our dangerous leader and the knighted ministers out of office. Then we can listen,” DeNiro said…
    “I’m not here to talk about America’s politics but America’s policies have an effect on the crisis we’re here to engage. Under Trump’s direction, America’s arrogance is doing lasting damage to our planet and we are all paying the consequences. This is not the will of the American people,” DeNiro said…

    “The initiative by the United Arab Emirates to help fund sustainable energy and protect resources is a model of humanitarian response and a template to what a responsible future should look like,”DeNiro said.
    DeNiro lauded Dr Thani Al Zeyoudi, Minister of Climate Change and Environment for the UAE, who hosted Sunday’s Climate Change Forum at the government summit.
    http://gulfnews.com/news/uae/government/robert-deniro-on-trump-and-climate-change-1.2171748

    ***not the first time De Niro has attacked Trump in Dubai:

    7 Feb: The National UAE: Robert De Niro to attend World Government Summit in Dubai
    The actor will take part in discussions about the effects of climate change on human prosperity
    On Tuesday, Dr Thani Al Zeyoudi, Minister of Climate Change and Environment, announced he was glad to be welcoming his friend to the emirate.
    The actor is expected to take part in discussions about the effects of climate change on human prosperity…

    In a video shared by the minister, De Niro delivered a message between scenes from natural disasters. “From floods, to droughts, to hurricanes, complete disasters, the time is now to stand together to help those who need it most,” he said.

    The summit will be held between February 11 and 13 and is expected to draw leaders of more than two dozen countries. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will give the keynote speech…

    The trip will not be De Niro’s first to Dubai. In October 2016, he spoke at the Palazzo Versace Hotel as part of a delegation at an invitation-only event designed to boost tourism in Antigua and Barbuda.

    ***There he also gave his opinion about about then Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump claiming he would love to “punch him in the face”…
    https://www.thenational.ae/uae/government/robert-de-niro-to-attend-world-government-summit-in-dubai-1.702379

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    pat

    11 Feb: GulfNews: As it happened: World Government Summit 2018 in Dubai
    The sixth edition of annual global gathering in Dubai with 4,000 delegates and 130 speakers
    LIVE STREAMING: 10HRS+ SHOWING AT PRESENT

    Global Inspiration Platform: ‘Zayed the Inspirer’ launched
    Lt-Gen Shaikh Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, UAE Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, has launched “Zayed the Inspirer”, a global platform of inspiration…

    Countries should not focus on the recent market slump but on the imperative of change going forward and the need to “fix the roof”, said Christine Lagarde, managing director International Monetary Fund during the sixth World Government Summit (WGS)…
    LINK: Read more of Lagarde’s speech during the session titled “Using the Global Recovery to Create a Fairer World” here.
    http://gulfnews.com/news/uae/government/as-it-happened-world-government-summit-2018-in-dubai-1.2171527

    how exciting? not at all? Obama still the biggest “celebrity” in these people’s minds:

    WhatsOnDubai: All the celebrities in Dubai for the World Government Summit
    Every year the summit attracts big names, such as former US president Barack Obama, former United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-moon, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, and of course, HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, vice president of the UAE and ruler of Dubai…

    Hollywood legend Robert De Niro will take part in a Climate Change Forum…Last year, De Niro slammed US President Donald Trump, saying the US had lost its position as a global ambassador in the fight against global warming because “we have a leader who’s not leading, that doesn’t know what he’s doing.”…

    American actress Goldie Hawn (who is also actress Kate Hudson’s mum) is the name behind the Hawn Foundation, which is dedicated to helping children reach their highest potential…

    Oscar-winning actor and humanitarian activist Forest Whitaker will be discussing the theme of “Women and Youth: The Catalyst to Solve Global Challenges”…

    Grammy-winning artist Will.i.am might be best known for The Black Eyed Peas, but he’s also a tech entrepreneur and creative innovator…

    Malcolm Gladwell is a world-renowned author, having penned five New York Times bestsellers. He’s been named one of the 100 most influential people by TIME magazine, and one of Foreign Policy’s top global thinkers. He’ll be talking about the future of humanity, and the government’s role in shaping prosperous societies…

    Arianna Huffington is an author, entrepreneur, and the founder of The Huffington Post. She has featured on TIME’s list of the world’s 100 most influential people, as well as the Forbes Most Powerful Women List. Huffington will be giving a talk on the “3rd Women’s Revolution”…

    Deepak Chopra is the best-selling author of more than 85 books translated into over 43 languages. He’s been described by TIME as “one of the top 100 heroes and icons of the century”. He will be talking at a session called “Hope in Times of Uncertainty”…

    Renowned astrophysicist Dr Neil Degrasse Tyson is a gifted science communicator, with almost 12 million followers on Twitter. He’ll be discussing the future of space settlement, and and how settling on other planets will impact life, and governments, on Earth.
    http://whatson.ae/dubai/2018/02/world-government-summit-dubai-2018/

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    pat

    a narrative too difficult for the ABC to understand or report?

    10 Feb: New York Post: Michael Goodwin: Peeling back the layers of Hillary Clinton’s deceit
    There are many more layers of the onion to peel, but here’s where we are now: It increasingly appears that the Clinton machine was the secret, original source of virtually all the allegations about Trump and Russia that led to the FBI investigation.

    In addition, the campaign and its associates, including Steele, were behind the explosion of anonymously sourced media reports during the fall of 2016 about that investigation.

    Thus, the Democratic nominee paid for and created allegations against her Republican opponent, gave them to law enforcement, then tipped friendly media to the investigation. And it is almost certain FBI agents supporting Clinton were among the anonymous sources.

    In fact, the Clinton connections are so fundamental that there probably would not have been an FBI investigation without her involvement.

    That makes hers a brazen work of political genius — and perhaps the dirtiest dirty trick ever played in presidential history. Following her manipulation of the party operation to thwart Bernie Sanders in the primary, Clinton is revealed as relentlessly ruthless in her quest to be president.

    The only thing that went wrong is that she lost the election…

    Of the charges against four men brought by special counsel Robert Mueller, none involves helping Russia interfere with the election.

    And neither the FBI nor Mueller has vouched for the truthfulness of the Blumenthal and Shearer claims or the Steele dossier. ­Instead, the dossier faces defamation lawsuits in the US and England from several people named in it…

    For Clinton, creating a cloud over Trump’s presidency and helping to put the nation through continuing turmoil is a victory of sorts. America is fortunate it’s her only victory.
    https://nypost.com/2018/02/10/peeling-back-the-layers-of-hillary-clintons-deceit/

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    robert rosicka

    Not sure how many seen this “report” but it would seem that a few hot days now are called “natural disasters ” and as such cause more deaths than any other natural disaster .
    If they want to spin this I suggest like all other natural disasters the government should shell out money to all those affected .
    If I didn’t know any better I’d swear they were trying to present this as you would to children .

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-12/heatwaves-occur-regularly-but-where-do-they-come-from/9416800

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      Peter C

      What’s next?
      There is evidence that heatwaves are becoming more common in the changing climate. Heatwaves have long been a part of Australian life and they will continue to be for the foreseeable future.

      Evidence for the more common bit? None that I know of.

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    Bob Peel

    She’s going down – “Man the Pumps and Launch the Lifeboats”, sorry, I meant to say “People the Pumps”.
    Your ABC an hour ago – because Tuvalu; confirming the broadcaster as opinion-shaper.

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2018-02-13/25-years-of-satellite-data-confirms-global-sea-level-rise-rate/9416570

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