Unthreaded Weekend

I’m at the beach, it’s your turn to write 🙂

Jo

 

7.9 out of 10 based on 30 ratings

183 comments to Unthreaded Weekend

  • #
  • #
  • #
    memoryvault

    Professor Lindzen’s address at the House of Commons 22 February for those who haven’t perused it.

    http://www.bishop-hill.net/storage/RSL-HouseOfCommons-2012.pdf

    10

    • #

      Hi memoryvault. 1st, your link seems to be broken. Also, I made a comment today on wuwt that highlighted Lindzen:

      Lindzen, aside from saying AGW is “science in the service of politics,” and that “warming would reduce rather than increase tropical storms,” says: “Claims… that man’s activity have contributed to warming are trivially true but essentially meaningless.”
      Piers Corbyn, in a comment, takes it further: “Observational evidence gives the possibility that the net effect of CO2 increases on World temperatures may not be ‘only trivial’ but in fact miniscule, zero, or even negative due to errors in some of the science some claim or – I would suggest – hitherto not understood feed-back and competing processes…”
      I say that whatever the effect of CO2, it doesn’t amount to a hill of beans. Or, to put it another way, I have two main points: 1. there is nothing wrong with the climate (no h stick), and 2. CO2 has nothing, or effectively nothing, to do with it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WK_WyvfcJyg

      10

      • #
        memoryvault

        Hi Eric,

        The link seems to work okay for me – it just takes a while for anything to happen.

        To be honest, I don’t buy the “greenhouse theory” theory at all (where the atmosphere acts as a “blanket” to keep the earth warmer than it otherwise would be). Personally I have always believed it was self-evident that the atmosphere – as vehicle for evaporation from the oceans – acts as an evaporative air-conditioner and keeps the world cool. In this scenario the so-called “greenhouse gases” – like CO2 – actually enhance the cooling process. Here is a link:

        http://johnosullivan.livejournal.com/47113.html

        However, the “consensus” belief – even here – is the “greenhouse – warming blanket” one, of which Lindzen is the chief “skeptic” proponent (it’s not going to be the end of the world), so I thought regulars would like a summary of his views.

        00

      • #
        Lars P.

        The CO2 effect in terms of warming the planet or “climate changing” may be zero, but in terms of increasing the biosphere not. There is too little study and almost no echo in the MSM and the blogosphere in terms of the benefits from CO2 greening the planet (it seems good news do not sell well?). These come as “collateral news”:
        1) There were NASA satellite studies showing about +10% greening of the world in the last 3 decades (I remember something like +6, +5 -+1) but never saw a study directed to it and trying to filter the CO2 signal
        2) Carbon circulation increase about 50% after glaciation and another +50% after LIA
        http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/21/carbon-on-the-uptake/
        It is only at CO2 science that some are advertised:
        http://www.co2science.org/data/plant_growth/plantgrowth.php
        3) The ocean vents may contribute much more to CO2 cycle then we imagined before:
        http://www.heatflow.und.edu/marine.jpg
        http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12218
        4) The CO2 data from the ice core may be a constant record of the minimum within a certain period of the time of forming the ice. If the bubble forms only in about 80-100 years and there are regular variations in the atmosphere there is the possibility that we see only a smoothened history of the minimum. Keeping also in mind the high solubility of CO2 in cold water and the possibility to have water in ice up to -70°C we might be looking at a record that does not show the real concentration in the former atmosphere.
        In addition to this Antractica has always a little less CO2 then the rest of the world (10-15 ppm less is I correctly recall)

        00

        • #
          Robert

          (sigh)…
          Yes, it would appear to anyone who is really looking that the “Greens” really aren’t all that concerned about making things green, in general they really aren’t all that concerned about the planet, they are EXTREMELY concerned about making everyone else live in the manner they ordain.

          It’s all been said before, appearances seem to matter more to them than reality.

          As far as mammals go, we tend to do better when things are warm and green. Of course if one has some bizarre hatred of their own species then anything that would actually be beneficial to it would be decried as evil wouldn’t it?

          00

  • #

    So, let’s pretend that after Monday, things actually get back to normal.

    Yeah! Right!

    Let’s pretend that Australia stays on target to have 20% of its electrical power generated from renewable sources, Wind and Solar.

    This is something that actually can be worked out, and when you read this analysis, you’ll see that what we are being told is basically all just talk.

    It really can’t be achieved, no matter how much money they throw it, and you’ll soon see that the money is in fact the least of the problems in the equation.

    Renewable Power Australia – Can Wind Power Make 20% By 2020?

    Tony.

    00

    • #
      Neville

      Lomborg had a column recently in the Australian where he stated that Germany had spent $130 billion on renewables ( mostly solar) but now only produce 0.3% of their power from these sources.

      How stupid are we to think that OZ could borrow enough money to even try to get 20% from solar and wind? Of course China and the non OECD are now increasing an extra one billion tonnes of co2 emissions every twelve months.

      We would be wasting every billion$ spent straight down the plug hole for a zero return, thanks to our idiot govt.

      00

      • #
        Juliar

        If you could find that column it would be much appreciated.

        00

      • #

        Neville, you say here:

        Of course China and the non OECD are now increasing an extra one billion tonnes of co2 emissions every twelve months.

        That extra one Billion tonnes of CO2 emissions is almost the total ….. just from China alone.

        That’s EXTRA, not total overall emissions, just added extra.

        Tony.

        00

        • #
          Neville

          Tony I don’t understand your point? I agree it’s all about China and every year now China emits about one billion tonnes more co2 than the previous year.
          But increasing every year e.g. in five years that 1 bn tonnes per year may have increased to 1.5bn tonnes who knows, until a recession perhaps slows things for a while.

          I agree the rest of the non OECD doesn’t matter much ( now anyway) and the OECD will likely just about flatline for decades to come.

          It’s the greatest fraud and deceptive CON in the last 100 years and yet nobody says boo about it much in the MSM. Even Bolt etc seem to step carefully probably because billions of tonnes is confusing I suppose.

          00

          • #

            Neville,

            oddly, there is a point here, and while people look upon that point as possibly ‘China bashing’, it’s not that at all.

            Australia has a population of 22 Million.

            China has a population of 1.35 Billion people.

            In Australia, the whole of the population has access to a constant and reliable supply of electrical power, and of all power being generated, 38% of that goes to the residential sector.

            In China however, only 10% of all power being generated goes to that residential sector. In effect, there are probably close to a billion of those Chinese who do not have the same access to electrical power that we take for granted here in Australia, and in all probability no access to electrical power at all.

            While China increasingly industrialises, one advantage of that is that as more and more power plants (of all types) are being constructed, that percentage of power going to that residential sector will creep up. Most of that power is in fact going to the Industrial sector, while here in Oz, only 24% of power goes to the Industrial Sector.

            It will still take 10 years and probably more for that to actually happen, and that ten years is in fact a pretty sanguine outlook.

            If they are bringing on line one new large scale coal fired plant every seven days, then that will have to continue at that same rate for at least those ten years or so, and because of that those increases in CO2 emissions will in fact keep escalating. Even so, only 65% of China’s power comes from coal fired means, while here in Australia, that percentage is 85% from coal fired sources.

            Even so, China is not only constructing just coal fired plants on that scale. They are constructing plants of all type across the board.

            They particularly are ramping up hydro power, in fact at a huge rate, and admitted, they have a better and larger profile for that hydro power. Here in Oz Hydro accounts for barely 6% while in China, it is currently 23%.

            So, while China increases its CO2 emissions almost exponentially, it is not to thumb its nose at environmentalism. It’s so they bring to their people something that we do take for granted here, that constant access to reliable electrical power.

            That’s where the greens fall down when they point at China, and use those emissions as a big stick to figuratively beat them with. If we go along with what they demand, then we deny all those Chinese people, (and by extrapolation, all those people in India and the rest of the developing World, where it is even worse than in China now) what we have now, and then, that being the case, they want us to go back and join them.

            Ross mentioned in his ‘lizard brain’ comment that we on our side look at things in just black and white. His ‘lizard brain’ outlook that he so despairs of in us, is in fact his very own hypocritical view in his call for us to reduce those CO2 emissions.

            Also, as I have said all along, what makes all of this so difficult to actually believe is that it involves absolutely astronomical numbers and the minute you mention any of them, people just do not understand, and it gets discounted because it just sounds so unbelievable.

            Tony.

            00

          • #
            Neville

            Tony thanks for that but I think we’re talking about different things.

            I’m not rebuking China or India at all, good luck to them for trying to give their people a better and modern lifestyle.

            They can use all the coal they can afford as far as I’m concerned. But why shouldn’t we as well?

            If we could easily use more hydro power then by all means we should. But the greens hate dams and they have a lot of influence at the moment.

            Here’s my main point, the sums just don’t add up and our govt seem more than happy to export more tonnes of coal every year to produce more jobs and industries overseas.

            We know there is zero we can do about AGW by using more useless, unreliable and expensive solar and wind.
            We won’t change the temp or climate by a jot but will lose jobs and industry overseas at an ongoing waste of billions of $ every year for decades to come.
            It shows a bi-polar dysfunction by our govt when our increasing exports are good but our much smaller use of coal in OZ is so bad.

            00

          • #

            Neville,

            I agree completely. Nearly all the coal fired power plants in Australia are around the 35 year + age now, and replacing them with new technology coal fired plants would in fact result in lower emissions, and they burn less coal for more power output, so it’s not a matter of needing more coal for them. While in fact China is constructing those new coal fired plants at that exponential rate, there will always be that dead set certain market for our coal, and in fact it looks hypocritical for Labor to be ‘spruiking’ this lowering of emissions while selling ever increasing amounts of coal to China.

            Funny you should mention Hydro power.

            The Snowy Scheme finished in the 80’s, but most of that generator technology is indeed from the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s.

            We could in fact instigate a whole New Snowy Scheme, not by making new dams etc, but just updating that old technology to newer hydro technology.

            New Francis Turbines, and new generators.

            There is every possibility that we could in fact double the power output from the existing Scheme.

            That of itself would increase the, er Renewable total, now that Hydro has conveniently been added to the list of Renewables.

            If all that money the Government is sending to renewables in the form of almost half the cost for the plants, and then further subsidising the sale of electricity produced, was directed to upgrading what we already have, it would in effect secure power for Australia, something that is in fact going in the opposite direction.

            What people fail to actually realise is that you cannot just close down those existing coal fired plants. They have cast iron contracts to supply power, most of them well into the 2020’s and 30’s. The compensation would be horrendous, and there is nothing to replace that power.

            Tony.

            00

        • #
          John from France

          One thing I find hard to take on board is that one minute we are talking about a CO2 concentration of 392 parts per million and in the next breath it’s billions of tons. How do they reach those figures?

          00

          • #

            It’s Monday 1PM now and after the vote in Canberra and Joanne’s triumph at the Weblog Awards where sites speaking against the Climate Change/Global Warming meme went four for four, so, that means not many people will come back here and read this, but that doesn’t mean it’s not deserving of an answer.

            Here, John From France nails it in one.

            Notice how the talk of CO2 concentration is in a minute amount, expressed in PPM, and it’s only 392 Parts in one million parts overall.

            At the same time, we are speaking in CO2 emissions amounting in the BILLIONS of tons.

            See how the numbers are almost incomprehensible to the average punter.

            Let’s talk CO2 emissions just from the generation of electrical power alone.

            China and the U.S. currently produce approximately the same amount of electrical power, and here I’m not talking of Nameplate Capacity, but actual demand.

            62% of China’s Power comes from coal fired sources.

            45% of U.S. power comes from coal fired sources.

            China has a lot less power from Natural Gas sources than the U.S. level of around 22%. On a watt for watt basis, NG emits around a third of the CO2 of coal fired sources, so while the U.S. has larger percentage of NG Plants, China would be emitting more CO2 from electrical power generation than the U.S.

            Early in 2011 China overtook the U.S. as the largest power generator on Earth.

            The U.S. currently emits 3.2 Billion tons of CO2 from electrical power, and in China, that figure would be close to 3.6 Billion tons, but it is increasing almost exponentially there, while in the U.S. it is static or decreasing by the tiniest fraction, and keep in mind here we are talking Billions of tons, so a tiny figure is still millions of tons.

            These two make up just under half the total Worldwide CO2 emissions from electrical power generation alone, which comes in at around 14 BILLION tons, and that is just from the generation of electrical power on a Worldwide basis.

            Electrical power generation makes up around 40% of all (Man made) emissions and that total comes in at around 35 BILLION tons of CO2.

            In the same breath we talk of total CO2 content at 392 PPM.

            See how the actual numbers are so huge AND so minute at the same time.

            As to Australia’s total emissions, (just from electrical power generation) well that comes in at around 260 Million tons, or roughly 1.86%.

            Any changes we make here in Australia will be positively minute, and in fact negated by China in a matter of weeks.

            No CO2 tax will change those levels of emissions from that electrical power sector at all. The only thing that tax will do is make Australians poorer and the Government coffers fill.

            Tony.

            00

      • #
        theRealUniverse

        Miniscule tones compared with natural level of CO2. The rub is it doesnt matter one iota..just feeds the plants!!!

        00

    • #
      Ian Hill

      Thanks for that article Tony. The difference in electricity demand over winter and summer for a 24 hour period is interesting. I guess you have also looked at working day vs weekend demand.

      As I often drive to the south east of SA I watched those Lake Bonney wind farms near Tantanoola spring up over the past decade and when I visited Cape Bridgewater near Portland at the end of 2010 I was dismayed at how the beautiful scenery there had been spoilt. One thing that struck me was that there were a few turbines not even turning when others were. It must cost a lot just in maintenance.

      You have highlighted the absolute insanity of these things and of throwing good money after bad on an unimaginable scale.

      00

    • #
      Kevin Moore

      A bit nitpicky maybe,but are the wind and sun renewable?

      00

      • #
        theRealUniverse

        The best real renewable and cheap to run, 24/7 base power load sources if of course Hydro (which places like NZ run on ..sorry aussie!) But the Greenies hate those too..dams are nasty, they make lakes and lakes damage land ..oh dammit!

        00

  • #

    I found a good blog. Here’s an excerpt from Cult of the Warm:

    The Warmists have pushed their agenda through with alarmist claims and hysteria… They have smeared and intimidated anyone who stood up to them.
    If you believe that freedom is at the core of what it means to be human, then the Warmists and what they stand for are instinctively repulsive to you. On the other hand if you believe that human society must be organized into a moral collective for the betterment of all, then the Warmist idea provides a wake up call compelling us to form into ranks and goosestep in recycled rubber boots into the Green future.
    …No matter what research emerges, the edifice of the lie cannot be allowed to come down…If the Cult of Warm were to come tumbling down, then the first victim of it would be the technocratic society built on an unreasonable confidence in experts and Harvard men who always know what they’re doing and know how to do it better than we do.
    Global Warming is not just a failure of a sizable chunk of the scientific establishment to put theory before ideology…It is a demonstration of how a handful of people in prominent positions can push through otherwise unacceptable measures by manufacturing a crisis and pipelining it through business and government. It’s a hack of our entire system of government…

    00

  • #
    Rick Bradford

    Great link, Eric.

    I have always believed that this is about personality types, rather than the science itself, and that is also the reason that the debate has become so vitriolic and abusive.

    Two entirely different views about how society should be run are at war with one another, largely through the proxy battle of AGW and related environmental issues.

    00

  • #
    Jaymez

    I know this article isn’t new, but the subject of wind power keeps coming up. The Greens think all we need to do is build a huge network of wind farms and we can ditch the fossil fuel powered generators – heaven forbid we’d have any nuclear power!

    The problem of course is that wind is so skittish it can’t be relied upon. It’s all very well to come up with average percentages of time the wind blows at the right speed at a certain place, but we need to have back ups for when it doesn’t. This article explains in an easy to follow way, why wind power wont work!

    http://alleghenytreasures.com/stop-ill-wind-jon-boone/why-wind-wont-work/

    Forget building the wind farms, just build the back up we’ll need in place anyway!

    00

  • #
    theRealUniverse

    Interview with Dr Michael Coffman, by Infowars.com’s Paul Joseph Watson, ecologist and scientist on the evil Agenda 21 which started at the Rio earth summit and is an evil plan for so called sustainable development and the reason for the AGW scam deliberately introduced to starve the world of cheap energy and replace it with (un) sustainable idiotic solar and useless wind energy. Also he discusses the elitist plan for eliminating the world population with eugenic practices already being tried in third world countries. Final plan..Only the elite will own land us minions will be the new ‘surfs’.
    http://www.infowars.com/the-birth-of-world-government-with-dr-michael-coffman/
    also his site http://www.globalwarmingclassroom.info/

    00

  • #
    Kevin Moore

    Poor America – Panorama [BBC] – Broadcast Date: 13th February 2012

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suJCvkazrTc

    Schools closing – prisons built. 1.5 million American children homeless and hungry.

    00

    • #
      memoryvault

      It’s called karma.

      00

      • #
        Markus Fitzhenry

        MV. Karma is a personal law, borne of intellect, not a societal one.
        The homeless, hungry and poor didn’t deserve such Karma.

        Do you remember the Karma Cafe in Kings-X. Look up the owner and put it in your vault.

        00

        • #
          memoryvault

          The concept of karma as a purely personal outcome, is one school of thought.
          There is another school of thought that karma can be also be collective.

          As a Taoist I am open to all schools of thought.
          In this case (as in all others) I go with the Taoist principle of accepting what I observe.

          In the case of America I observe a collective karma at work.

          00

          • #
            Andrew McRae

            MV I am curious. Did you inherit your Taoism or did you go shopping around for a philosophy of life?

            Would you recommend Taoism over Bhuddism? What’s the appeal of Taoism?

            00

          • #
            memoryvault

            MV I am curious. Did you inherit your Taoism or did you go shopping around for a philosophy of life?

            Hi Andrew,

            The answer to your question lies within your question. In its purest, original form, Taoism is a “philosophy of life”, and has nothing whatsoever to do with religion. Unlike the religions, there are no “gods” or god-like entities in the original philosophical writings of Taoism.

            In Taoism, there is just the “unknowable”. The “unknowable” is just that. Not only is the unknowable unknowable, even if someday a person did come to understand it, he could not explain it as we don’t have words or thought concepts to do so.

            Enfolded in the Tao acceptance of the unknowable, is the concept of “The Way”. For each of us, in everything, there is The Way – a path or direction. If we follow it, things work out, if we don’t, things go wrong. Stated in its simplest form, if you forever find yourself banging your head into brick walls, you are probably trying to go in the wrong direction – the wrong “way”.

            Unlike “the narrow path of righteousness” encapsulated in so many religions, “The Way” is a personal path. My “Way” may be very different from yours, in fact, it almost certainly is. If one is following their particular “way”, then things just have a habit of working out the way they are supposed to (which is not necessarily the way one wants them to at the time).

            The only point where the concept of “morality” comes into Taoism is in the acceptance that, the way things are organised within the unknowable, no person’s personal “way” conflicts with any other person’s “way”. In other words, if everybody was progressing in their own personal “way” there would be no conflict, no aggression, no wars, and so forth.

            I didn’t “discover” Taoism, or “go shopping for it”. I stumbled on “The Way” in my own life, and much later found that there was a whole philosophy based on the concept. I then realised I had been a Taoist for a number of years.

            Unfortunately it seems most Men cannot live without their gods to “explain” the “unknowable” (which by its nature is unexplainable). Because the original philosophy of Taoism was a stress free and simple life, the early Taoist philosophers developed a reputation for longevity. They also had inquisitive minds and so they travelled to learn – which in those days meant walking.

            That, in turn, usually meant (from the point of view of the “locals”) a one-way journey. The Taoist philosophers would come, dwell a while, teach, learn, and then move on, usually never to be seen again. This eventually gave rise to the concept that they were immortal. Eventually these mythical “immortals” were elevated to Buddha- like veneration.

            The truth is, red-robed monks sitting around in temples, turning prayer-wheels and ringing gongs while they meditate on the value of “nothingness” (all borrowed from Buddhism), is about as far removed from the original philosophy of Taoism as one can get.

            Please understand, the above explanation is very simplified, personal one, which would probably have most of the purists howling in un-Taoist rage.

            Nonetheless, it is a reasonably accurate, if simplified explanation of my “Way”.

            If you have any interest in the subject, I would recommend “The Tao of Pooh” by Benjamin Hoff as as good a place as any to start.

            00

        • #
          cameronH

          While the American people keep voting in more and more socialists in the hope that the government will steal more and more money from their better off neighbours and the “evil greedy rich” to pass it over to them then it really is Karma and they deserve everything they get. The same applies here in Australia.

          00

          • #
            Robert

            Nah, not karma, stupidity, irresponsibility, laziness, I can come up with a lot of words to describe it but not karma. I live there and see it daily, to call it karma is to elevate it to something more than what it is.

            00

      • #
        Len

        In Western culture it is “Sowing and Reaping”.

        00

    • #
      Mark D.

      Las Vegas “the capitalist capital”??????

      Las vegas has one of the highest unemployment rates as anywhere. The reason is that gambling which underpins the city financially, is one of the first things people stop doing when money is tight (see recession). A double whammy is that Las Vegas was also way overbuilt in the housing bubble.

      I like that BBC was picking on Obama but this piece is complete propaganda. The USA is not “filled with tent cities”.

      The meme “wealth gap” is going to be a campaign issue with the Left trying to convince people that it is the Right that causes it. The reality is that Capitalism created the wealth the Right supports capitalism. The Left spends all its time trying to redistribute that wealth using government.

      00

      • #
        BobC

        Mark D.
        February 26, 2012 at 1:45 am ¡ Reply
        Las Vegas “the capitalist capital”??????

        Agreed — gambling is not capitalism, but the Left is incapable of seeing the difference.

        I like that BBC was picking on Obama but this piece is complete propaganda. The USA is not “filled with tent cities”.

        Well, except for the many “Occupy Whatever” protests. I noticed, however, that most of the tents were of the $300+ variety that you get at upscale outlets like Recreational Equipment Inc. There were a number of reports in the papers that Occupy protesters were getting their $800 Macbooks stolen if they left them unguarded in the tents. It would be funny (but not unbelievable) if the BBC mistook these priviliged children of the relatively wealthy for homeless indigents.

        00

        • #
          Eddy Aruda

          Bob,

          I went to the “occupy Santa Rosa” site in Sonoma County, California. I hopped out of my truck with an armful of pens and job applications and asked if anyone was looking for a job and said that I was hiring. What happened next looked like the lights coming on at a waterfront dive bar; the cockroaches scattered in all directions. Nobody waned an application. I should do it again and film it!

          The occupy crowd was divided in two: hard core elitists socialists and the poor. It was segregation at its worst. I am surprised their wasn’t a Perrier filled water cooler that said, “Elitists limousine liberals only!”.

          I am hoping that my fellow Americans will wake up to what is really going on. Alas, I fear that the “dumbing down” of America has reached a point of no return. For the sake of the planet I hope that I am wrong!

          I am, as usual, enlightened when I read your comments.

          00

          • #
            Roy Hogue

            I didn’t notice your comment earlier. But I really like the idea. Do you suppose we could convince, say, MSNBC to go to an occupy site with job applications and offer jobs, of course, filming the result for later broadcast in prime time? Wouldn’t that be an eye-opener?

            No you say? How about ABC, CBS or NBC? What? Not them either? How disappointing! I thought the media was so honest and unbiased.

            I hope you go do it again and film it. YouTube would be a good place for it if no one else will bother.

            The occupy crowd is characterized by one outstanding thing. They don’t even know how to spell self-respect; much less do they have any.

            I won’t ask why anyone fawns all over such people.

            00

        • #
          Mark D.

          Somehow I missed this post.

          Yes we had some well-enough-off occupiers here too. Nice tents, food brought to them and the mayor (a leftie) had portapotties brought in (paid for by us taxpayers) and then had the police chief ignore city ordinances for loitering, camping, littering, and a host of others. Most of the “occupiers” were students, probably picking up extra credit in Poli-Sci or Advanced Socialist Studies.

          I did a drive by and yelled out the window “GET A JOB”. You should have heard the foul-mouthed replies! It was fun though, if it weren’t for being late for a dinner meeting I’d have gone around the block and done it again.

          00

      • #
        Roy Hogue

        Mark,

        Did you watch the whole thing? The BBC clearly states that they think Obama has the best chance of solving the problems. They aren’t piking on him.

        Get the BBC out of our lives. They have more than enough material at home to investigate.

        00

        • #
          Mark D.

          No Roy, I couldn’t stomach getting to the end. In the beginning it appeared they were asking the tough questions: Why after 3 years are things worse? Obama isn’t going to fix the problem the problem will get him votes. It’s all about spin.

          00

          • #
            Roy Hogue

            It’s all about spin.

            Truely! But Obama’s spin will only take him so far. People are noticing that he hasn’t delivered.

            We shall see.

            00

      • #
        Bulldust

        Not sure what the reference to “wealth gap” is about, but I shall assume it is to do with income distribution. If that is the case then Gini coefficients are useful:

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gini_Coefficient_World_CIA_Report_2009.png

        Explanation and data: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality

        According to the statistics wealth is less evenly distributed across the US population than in earlier decades – that is to say the rich are richer, and the poor not so much. This is hardly surprising given the tax legislation passed by Reagan and Dubya in particular.

        One can raise rhetoric for either major party, but the statistics are surely more important in a reasoned discussion. I merely point out the data. Whether one system is “better” or not depends on one’s philosophy regards society and distribution of resources therein.

        00

    • #
      Roy Hogue

      It is, of course, very easy for the rest of the world to point a blaming finger at America and feel very superior. It is quite another thing to know how to fix the damn problem.

      Lest any one believe the BBC BS about Obama having the best chance to solve the problems, remember that he’s had more than three years in which to start fixing things. But the problems grow worse, not better, while Obama spends $trillions greasing the way for his favored union friends and supporters and advancing an agenda that will certainly guarantee that things get even worse.

      I don’t need a BBC documentary to show me homeless, suffering people. I have them on local street corners. I live in a very affluent community but the local emergency room is always full of sick people none of whom need an emergency room, just a good doctor. But if you have no insurance and are marginal where do you go? You see, we’re so awful that we don’t turn anyone away from an emergency room without treating them — free if necessary.

      Yes, there are lots of problems.

      I don’t give a damn about karma. Actual solutions are welcome. Anything else is just part of the problem.

      PS:

      I seem to remember that the Brits have their own financial mess to deal with before it’s too late.

      So if you have a solution let’s hear it. Otherwise stay silent because I’ll go off on you like this every time.

      We do not deserve your criticism or, as I’ve seen even on this blog sometimes, your contempt.

      00

      • #
        Bulldust

        This is a sobering article – see the fourth graph for a comparison of where the Brits are at relative to the US (i.e they are in worse shape):

        http://www.investorsinsight.com/blogs/john_mauldins_outside_the_box/archive/2012/02/13/face-the-music.aspx

        At least the US economy has started the painful process of deleveraging (the household sector, government not so much). The USA has a couple more years of deleveraging pain to come.

        00

      • #
        memoryvault

        Otherwise stay silent because I’ll go off on you like this every time.

        And there in a nutshell Roy, is the reason for much of the criticism, and often even the contempt you complain of.

        I’ve worked on many projects with Americans over the past twenty years, and to be honest, towards the end I went out of my way to avoid it, even to the extent of turning down lucrative contracts.

        By and large my experience has been that Americans reserve as their “God-given right” to dump on anybody and anything not “made in the USA”. Regrettably this overwhelming arrogance often seems to come served with equal parts ignorance.

        Conversely, any criticism, no matter how mild or even in jest, is met with the very bare-teethed howling aggressiveness so poignantly displayed in your post.

        I have even encountered this attitude carried to almost lunatic proportions. I once worked with an American who so detested America that as soon as he had completed his PhD, he had left – twenty five years ago.

        He would happily bad-mouth America and anything American at every opportunity. To simply agree with him however was to – as he himself put it – “invite a knuckle sandwich”.

        00

        • #
          Mark D.

          So stay away. Thank you.

          PS. I’ve sat mostly silent here on many threads listening to plenty of crap dished out about Americans. IF you spent any time in USA you’d have known that the BBC piece is crap. Instead it’s Karma. Brilliant.

          Stay away, it will be fine with me if those “lucrative contracts” should go to our own worthy contractors.

          00

          • #
            memoryvault

            Thanks Mark, for yet another shining example of exactly the attitude I was talking about.

            Those “lucrative contracts” I wrote about were all here in OZ, or PNG. Sadly some Americans don’t limit practicing their arrogance to America. Some take it with them wherever they go, it seems.

            .
            I have never been to the USA, nor am I likely to. As the original author of the Larry King “White House Pedophile Ring” story, complete with details of what was being done to Alisha Owen in prison to silence her, published in December 1991 to coincide with George H Bush’s visit here, I doubt very much that I would be welcome. (A copy of the December 1991 edition of the “Inside News” can be obtained from the National Library, Canberra.)

            In fact I suspect that any attempt by me to visit the “good ol’ USA” would end up a one-way trip to Gitmo or somewhere similar. Leastways, that’s the impression I got from the three overly-large Americans in dark suits and Ray Bans who visited me a couple of days later.

            I do know an attempt was made soon after to “plant” a kilo of heroin in the boot of my car (complete with my fingerprints) to fit me up as a major drug dealer here in OZ, but I couldn’t say for certain if the two incidents were connected.

            According to my informant they were; but he got gunned down in Sydney on his way into the studios of 2GB to do a live-to-air program about it with Brian Wilshire, so I guess we’ll never know.

            That’s right about when I retired as an investigative journalist.

            .
            PS – I wasn’t commenting on the BBC program. I would never watch a BBC program on principle, unless it was to severely critique it. I was merely commenting on the line that, while schools are being closed, prisons are being built, and children are going homeless and hungry.

            And that, sadly, is the truth, and no amount of angry arrogant posturing changes it.

            00

          • #
            Mark D.

            lets see: post 9 includes a link to a video by BBC. Post 9.1 (YOU) isn’t about that link?

            Sorry, I thought you were smarter.

            BTW, this isn’t angry. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.

            Truth is I’m not angry, I’m horribly disappointed. You might not believe it (or care) but I generally like your posts. I’ll get over it. Maybe I have a bitter taste of Kevin Moore and Crakar24 in my mouth.

            00

          • #
            Markus Fitzhenry

            ‘You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.’

            I’m happy to give angry a go any day.

            00

          • #
            memoryvault

            MarkD

            I am sorry if I have disappointed you, and I hope at some point in the future you will go back to enjoying my posts. And no, I’m probably not nearly as smart as you might have given me credit for.

            And yes, I can understand why you and Roy might get a bit miffed at some people’s constant sniping about things like the USA’s involvement in “other people’s wars”, particularly in light of the fact that, up until Vietnam** at least, Australian’s had fought in more “other people’s wars” than America, in fact more than any other non-European western country, despite the fact that you Yanks had a half-century head start on us.

            We’ve always been a belligerent mob when it comes to “other people’s wars”. I put it down to the fact that we never got around to having our own revolution (Eureka doesn’t count). So, in a way, I think we’ve been compensating ever since.

            Nonetheless, there is no doubting “bad things” are happening at the moment throughout the western world, including both the USA and Australia. Now, Aussies seem to be able to discuss this with Yanks, Poms, Kiwis and just about anybody else. And just about everybody seems to be able to do the same thing with anybody else.

            As long as no non-American mentions the USA in anything but glowing terms. At that point my experience is the average Yank will start to roll up his sleeves and go looking for some heads to bust. And the simple truth is, the rest of us simply don’t understand it.

            ** I stopped counting after Vietnam.

            00

          • #
            Roy Hogue

            Memory vault,

            As long as no non-American mentions the USA in anything but glowing terms. At that point my experience is the average Yank will start to roll up his sleeves and go looking for some heads to bust. And the simple truth is, the rest of us simply don’t understand it.

            Regrettably that is the attitude of many (far too many). When I was a newly minted US Army PFC stationed In Saigon I found it only too easy to look down on the Vietnamese people. But I grew up!

            What bothers me now is when people with such serious problems of their own that they face national bankruptcy point their self-righteous finger at our problems. Top that off with saying they think the man who has done more to make the problem worse than any other president in history is the right guy to fix it all and you’ve stepped over the line.

            The comments that followed were treating peoples lives like trivial pursuit to be discussed over morning coffee. Karma indeed.

            MV, I live this stuff every day. It affects me and people I know. I don’t comment about troubles in Australia or anywhere else. I don’t have that right. And I think reciprocity is a good principle to apply here. We’re all in this together. I may lampoon Al Gore or tell Ross James he wouldn’t know science even if it walked up and kissed him. But I don’t trivialize people’s lives. I don’t pretend to know something I don’t know — as in, how to solve the crisis in America or anywhere else.

            Perhaps you should visit us. You’d find that like anywhere else, some of us are absolute jackasses and some of us have our heads together facing straight forward as they’re supposed to.

            We open our arms to visitors. Come say hello in person.

            00

          • #
            Mark D.

            MV, please don’t get me wrong, there is plenty I could find wrong in good ole USA. I’d be happy to agree with you on those items sitting side by side without coming to fisticuffs. Many of those “wrong things” are shared across oceans. If it is your impression that all US people will start a fight just by hearing “non-glowing” terms about the US I’m sorry that you’ve had experiences that lead you to that conclusion.

            I posted my comments about that ABC “news story” shortly after having a “discussion” with a Canadian bloke about “our horrible medical system” (another untruth). My blood pressure may have still been higher than normal. Your comment that it is karma appeared as a glib acceptance of what the video portrayed.

            You should watch the link provided by Kevin Moore and then tell me what you think. The BBC did a good job of having every viewer believe that millions of US workers are now living in sewers. Then they go to Detroit and walk through several empty buildings (that clearly have been empty for a long time not just a few years). The BBC carelessly (or craftily) have the world viewer thinking all of USA is in shambles like the images of Detroit.

            It is BS, Leftist propaganda it is wrong and I don’t like it. World wide, there must be a market for dragging down USA.

            00

          • #
            Andrew McRae

            MV the first round of hints you gave out a week ago were enough for MargaretO but not enough for me. I hypothesised you were an early member of the Australian Privacy Foundation, but none of them matched your profile and all I had was a list of eliminated suspects. There can’t be many investigative reporters who are also engineers, but even so it is like finding a needle in a haystack.
            But above you have basically dropped a giant flashing beacon, and not much more needs to be said.

            All I can say there is… thank Darwin that the things you predicted in 1988 have not happened. Well, not all of them, and probably slower than you scheduled. I bet you never anticipated that total surveillance would advance furthest by programming the new generation to make the videos themselves and voluntarily upload them for analysis!

            And the Black Revolution, now really?? That was a bit far fetched.

            00

          • #
            memoryvault

            Hi Andrew,

            Not sure why it would take you so long – I’ve never made any secret of who I am, and I’ve mentioned my third book – “The Green Hoax Effect” – many times.

            It is true that I got some things wrong, but not many of the important ones. Interest rates went up to record levels and some 30% of Australians lost everything they had. The “big four” banks went into it with market capitalisation of around $30 billion, and came out of it five years later with a combined worth of $270 billion, making it, on a per capita basis, possibly the biggest outright theft by fraud in the entire history of human endeavour, even if I was eighteen months out on the timing.

            The Deakin Centre has now been acknowledged as the place where Australian government departments cross-match all our records (It is no longer called the “Deakin Telephone Exchange”, it is now the “National Computer Centre”). That the Deakin Centre’s “non-existent” basement is the expanded HQ of the CIA in Australia was eventually a feature article in the Canberra Times. The existence of “Project Echelon” is now household knowledge. The major centre for it in Australia continues to operate in Melbourne.

            The National Safety Council of Victoria turned out to be a CIA-run private navy and air-force, funded through unbacked loans from the State Bank of Victoria, which subsequently went bankrupt after my revelations. John Freidrichs made his escape to the West via the Gunbarrel Highway, and almost certainly left Australia from Meekatharra airport. The man picked up in Kalbarri who subsequently “committed suicide” by shooting himself in the back of the head a few times was not Freidrichs – just ask his wife.

            That there was a plan to stage a coup on Australia Day starting with the assassination of then PM Bob Hawke was admitted to about a year later on talk-back radio by none other Keith Wright, speaking in his capacity as Chairman of the Parliamentary Oversight Committee for ASIO. Mr Wright – who once described me in Parliament as “the most sinister, insidious extremist threat to the delicate thread of democracy this country has ever seen” – grudgingly admitted that the country owed me a debt of gratitude for creating the publicity that derailed the attempt.

            And Larry King and White House Pedophile Ring story just doesn’t seem to want to die – despite the fact that just about everybody else apart from me associated with the original release, has.

            But no, I probably seriously overestimated the threat from Indonesia at the time, and got other things wrong.

            But I’m prepared to give myself a five out of ten.

            00

            • #
              Andrew McRae

              > But I’m prepared to give myself a five out of ten.

              Whoah. I didn’t know about most of these things.
              On balance that list seems to be more prescient than most people have managed. I think Alex Jones would struggle to get that many runs on the board.

              It’s hard to pick which event is the most amazing. The CIA op is something we are almost conditioned to expect, being a de facto client state of their empire. Even the Washington pedo racket doesn’t seem entirely out of place when seen in the same light as the Bohemian Grove video and the witness accounts of male prostitutes at the 2011 Bilderberg meeting. As jaded as I am, for me the one that takes the cake is that anybody thought Hawkey was dangerous enough to want to assassinate him. But the only MSM account I can find of this is about the PFLP in 1975 before he was PM and AAP wrote it was all a Mossad deception. Did his pro-Israel sympathies get someone’s turban in a knot in some other later year?

              If there’s any truth to the Monarch and MK-Ultra projects then that puts the movie Manchurian Candidate into a whole different light. Sometimes these odd stories are just the start of a very long thread.

              00

          • #
            memoryvault

            Hi Andrew,

            The funny thing about politicians is that they actually come to believe they are somehow important, in an individual sense. The truth is, to the people who actually call the the shots in this world, individual politicians are as disposable as toilet paper, and as highly regarded.

            The intent to assassinate Bob Hawke had nothing whatsoever to do with Bob Hawke as an individual. He just happened to be the highest profile target available (PM). The object of the exercise was to create the impression that there had been a general armed uprising in the indigenous population (there wasn’t), and start a race riot blood-bath of trigger-happy redneck white gun owners exacting “vengeance” – or “justice” depending on what side of the fence you sat on at the time.

            The ensuing violence was meant to create the “need” for “temporary” marshal law to be declared, which probably would have still been in place in some form today, if it had been pulled off. It failed, which may or may not have had something to do with me, and so the people that run things went off and organised the Port Arthur Massacre instead, with much the same effect – general disarmament of the population.

            If the idea of a race-related manipulated blood-bath seems a little implausible today, keep in mind this was at the height of the Aboriginal Land Rights protests, the Aboriginal “Deaths in Custody” hearings, and the “Stolen Generation” publicity, something one can accept as “mere coincidence” if they so wish. Suffice to say feelings were running a little high on both sides at the time.

            00

          • #
            Sinimian

            memoryvault –

            Are these writings of yours available on the Internet?

            Also, regarding your negative experience with Americans, I can say that in my times and travels in the USA I’ve found them generally to be polite, welcoming, decent people. Much like Australians, there’s the good, bad and the ugly, but on the whole a decent bunch of people. The major problem they have though is that they drive on the wrong side of the road.

            00

          • #
            Mark D.

            Sinimian, thanks for the kind words about Americans.

            The major problem they have though is that they drive on the wrong side of the road.

            I think I can say with certainty; We drive on the right side of the road.

            🙂

            00

        • #
          Eddy Aruda

          Hey guys, lets keep things in perspective.

          Many of the visitors to this site are from the USA. I rarely, if ever, see my fellow Americans commenting here on Australian Politics. I do not as it is none of my business. That being said, America has a profound impact on every country in the world. I also believe in the right to freedom of speech for everyone on the planet so I have no problem with people from other countries commenting on America, its policies, politics, foreign policy, etc.

          Taking this all into consideration, if I came on this site and made disparaging comments about Australia I am willing to bet that the response from the Aussies would be immediate, visceral and defensive of their wonderful country. We Americans are no different.

          We are just as human as the people in Australia or any other country. We have an old saying in Texas, you mess with the bull and you get the horn. We would rather die on or feet than live on our knees. Yes, we will go down someday but I guarantee this: we will go down swinging!

          00

    • #
      • #
      • #
        Mark D.

        Kevin Moore
        February 26, 2012 at 8:04 am ¡ Reply ¡ Edit

        One out of every hundred American adults is in prison.

        I sorry, that should be “one hundred out of one hundred” American adult CRIMINALS are in prison.

        00

        • #
          Kevin Moore

          I thought you would like it.

          00

        • #
          Truthseeker

          Mark, you really have no idea how to construct an argument, do you? The link you gave does not support your assertion in 9.4.1.1 and your comment in 9.4.2 is not anything like what the New York Times article is saying. In fact, if you read the NYT article, all the way to the end, you will see that it ends up favourably comparing the US prison policy and the effect on crime to the European one (specifically England).

          00

          • #
            Mark D.

            What?????

            you think that the link to “Pakalertpress” takes you to high quality journalism?

            and that what ever the story about US prisons (no I didn’t read it because KM posted it) do you argue that less than 100 out of 100 adult prisoners are CRIMINALS?

            Yikes there must be something in your water

            00

          • #
            Truthseeker

            Mark, it must be something in your water because logic seems invisible to you.

            Let me try to do this with small words so that you can understand.

            Kevin links an article on the “Pakalertpress” website and you try to refute this as poor journalism by linking to … wait for it … the Pakalertpress website. Never mind dealing with the content of the article. No, that would take actual intelligent debating skills. What you do is go straight to an ad-homien attack by linking to the same source. Even as a ad-homien attack this is rather pointless.

            As for “100 out of 100 adult prisoners are CRIMINALS”, this is a classic straw-man argument that you have created all on your very own. Firstly if you believe that the US criminal justice system is so infallible that there are NO innocent people in jail at the moment (which is what “100 out of 100” means) then enjoy your fantasy world, because I prefer the real one.

            However, the article which you did not read (“no I didn’t read it”) cites publicly available statistics that do show that 1 out of 100 US adults are in prison. It was YOU who decided to refute that by changing the words Kevin had used as a headline to the article link. This is not refuting the assertion made by Kevin via the linked article.

            On second thoughts, it is not something in your water that is the problem. It is the sand at your feet, because you seem to have your head firmly planted in it.

            00

          • #
            Mark D.

            Nothing else for you to do but make a dumb argument?

            Are you saying that 100 out of 100 did not go through the legal system? That some number out of 100 did not have their day in court? You talk like an idiot. If they were tried and if they are imprisoned they are by definition criminals! YES EVERY SINGLE ONE there is LOGIC for you.

            I may have my head in the sand but your head seems to be full of sand.

            KM has been a serial poster of web links to wacky sites. If you haven’t noticed that perhaps you need to pay more attention. Yes I linked to A DIFFERENT PAGE of the same web site not an Ad-Hom IT IS AN EXAMPLE! (did you look at the titles)?

            DUH DUH DUH

            00

          • #
          • #
            Markus Fitzhenry

            Mark D, says;

            If they were tried and if they are imprisoned they are by definition criminals! YES EVERY SINGLE ONE there is LOGIC for you.
            I may have my head in the sand but your head seems to be full of sand””

            You don’t mind being known as Angry Sandy then.

            http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/acquitted-woods-first-taste-of-freedom-20120224-1ttro.html

            00

          • #
            Eddy Aruda

            Here a re a few facts.
            http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=2237

            December 15, 2011    NCJ 236319

            Presents statistics on the number of offenders under the supervision of adult correctional authorities in the United States at yearend 2010. Persons supervised by adult correctional authorities include those in the community under the authority of probation or parole agencies that supervise adults and those incarcerated in state or federal prisons or local jails. The report provides the change in the total correctional population, by correctional status, during 2010. It also examines the impact of the changes in the community supervision and incarcerated populations during the year on the change observed in the total correctional population.

            Highlights include the following:

            During 2010, the number of persons under supervision of adult correctional authorities declined by 1.3% (91,700 offenders), reaching 7.1 million at yearend.
            About 7 in 10 persons under the supervision of adult correctional systems were supervised in the community (4,887,900) on probation or parole at yearend 2010, while about 3 in 10 were incarcerated (2,266,800) in local jails or in the custody of state or federal prisons.
            About three-quarters of the decline in the total correctional population (down 91,700) during 2010 was attributed to the decline in the number of probationers (down 69,500) during the year.

            00

          • #
            Truthseeker

            Mark,

            “Are you saying that 100 out of 100 did not go through the legal system?”

            Continuation of the straw-man argument – fail.

            “KM has been a serial poster of web links to wacky sites”

            Repeat of the ad-homien attack – fail.

            “DUH DUH DUH”

            That about sums up the level of argument you can make.

            00

          • #
            Mark D.

            Lie seeker, what the f$#k is your problem?

            First it is Mark D. I’m sure that “Mark” doesn’t want to be caught up in your stupid.

            Now for your first mistake, I was not and still am not refuting the story that Kevin [snip] Moore posted. You are such a dumbass you can’t see that I was making a JOKE at his expense. That regardless of what his link said that I neither agree with or disagree with (remember I didn’t read it). SO IT CAN’T BE A STRAW MAN I WASN”T FRIKING ARGUING WITH HIM.

            I simply ADDED the comment about 100 out of 100 inmates ARE CRIMINALS. A point that you refuse to admit HAS TO BE TRUE.

            Then you come along and want to pick an argument so you jump in make your own straw man by suggesting that the system is imperfect and some unknown number are innocent.

            Now come to the issue of KM linking to wacky sites YES THAT IS AN AD-HOM, It’s also an insult BUT MOST OF ALL IT IS CORRECT. You have offered nothing as a refutation to my Ad-hom insult to prove it wrong.

            SO you have found out that in the world of rhetoric, Your buddy Kevin is still a serial poster of wacky links, and prisons still house 100% criminals.

            But I’m sure you feel somehow superior.

            Why don’t you seek some truth? Like the probable truth that KM was trying his best to impugn the USA because we incarcerate so many? Why don’t you ask him? Maybe you are up to the same thing?

            Go ahead and reply any way you like. My opinion of you is so low that it won’t matter what oozes out of your sand filled mind. I’m done responding to your [snip]. Go ahead and support KM in his endeavor to ruin the quality of this blog. Get him going ask him about the 911 CONSPIRACY. Join him in finding the “truth”.

            [tone it down] ED

            00

          • #
            Truthseeker

            Mark D,

            Please continue. The more you rant, the more you prove my point.

            At no time did I attack the USA. All I did was point out the flaws in your attempted arguments.

            You have just proven me right.

            Thanks.

            00

          • #
            KinkyKeith

            Hi Mark D

            I have to agree that “KM has been a serial poster of web links to wacky sites”.

            It was noted.

            00

      • #
        Roy Hogue

        Kevin Moore says at 9.4 as if to complain:

        One out of every hundred American adults is in prison.

        Yet from the very article he links to we find this rather unambiguous statement (not the only one like it either).

        Other commentators were more definitive. “The simple truth is that imprisonment works,” wrote Kent Scheidegger and Michael Rushford of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation in The Stanford Law and Policy Review. “Locking up criminals for longer periods reduces the level of crime. The benefits of doing so far offset the costs.”

        One might ask what the objective here really is. If it’s to lower crime rates then I guess we win on that one.

        00

      • #
        Eddy Aruda

        One out of one hundred Americans in prison? Not true. Some are in county jails and some are on parole or probation. We do indeed have a high incarceration rate.

        There is always hope. After all, Australia started as a penal colony and now it is one of the jewels of the developed world. In fact, Australia is on the leading edge of penology and prison reform. If I were to live in another country my first choice would be the land down under.

        00

        • #
          KinkyKeith

          Hi Eddy

          Your comment that “Australia started as a penal colony and now it is one of the jewels of the developed world” itself needs a little bit of comment.

          True, Australia WAS one of the jewels but just in one area alone, public safety and security, we have lost a lot of ground over the last 40 years.

          It is not always safe on the streets and there is a feeling that Governments have lost control of law and order and don’t really care as long as the cash from alcohol sales keeps rolling in.

          They don’t care because politicians can isolate themselves from normal community problems via special access to public services like policing.

          My wife and I spent 9 days in the centre of New York back in 2009.

          It was amazing, safe secure and polite people.

          It was like going back to the 50s and 60s in Australia but we were aware that this “good feel” was to some extent a result of the Twin Towers tragedy.

          Vietnam is a very safe tourist destination but Barcelona is a real bad scene.

          The point is that Governments determine the level of public safety by discouraging crime. Vietnam and New York discourage crime. Australia and Barcelona don’t bother.

          We need jails, unfortunately.

          🙂

          00

          • #
            Eddy Aruda

            I am sorry to learn that New York is safer than Austraia. Does that include the” high rent district”?

            00

          • #
            KinkyKeith

            Hi Eddy,

            Generally the poor fare worst when law and order fails and that applies here.

            The ” high rent districts”? here are probably the North Shore and Eastern Suburbs of Sydney but they also suffer.

            Two years ago we had a mighty riot involving out of control school students from these areas celebrating the end of their schooling; they tore the place apart.

            Alcohol sales rule in Oz and so there is political tolerance for drunken behavior which just spirals out of control.

            Youth suicide in Australia is also far too high and is probably a reflection of the failure of society to impose boundaries in our behavior.

            No doubt there are parts of NY that I would be wise to keep away from.

            Looking for answers.

            00

    • #
      Roy Hogue

      So many words…so many damned words — and still we have the problem. There has been analysis, debate and finger pointing with other people’s lives like they were mere objects for the personal pleasure of poking a finger at the other guy. It’s gone on for 30 years.

      The closest we ever get to solving this mess is a demand by one party/person/group that the other party/person/group fix it. And 30 years worth of that crap won’t be the end either.

      Memory vault vents his displeasure at Americans and there are smartass remarks. Kevin Moore posts more to fuel the fire and here we are with the mess we started with.

      Now who knows how to go about fixing this? Anyone? Does anyone even know how it started or what feeds it? If you’re here, speak up!

      Otherwise wisdom lies in silence.

      00

    • #
      Roy Hogue

      MarkD.,

      If it’s worth anything to you — I agree with you all the way down the line here.

      00

      • #
        Mark D.

        Thanks Roy, it is amazing to me how sometimes these unthreaded posts descend. I seem to recall some old war movie where the US Marines find their way to a pub. Within minutes a brawl starts between the US men and (were they Australian?) Who were otherwise allies and should have been cheering each other.

        Can’t remember the movie.

        PS I do have to remember my own advice and IGNORE anything Keven Moore posts……..

        00

  • #
    Joe's World

    Jo,

    Is science measuring atmospheric pressure correctly?
    Here is why I have my doubts and suspicions:

    Your ears give away that their is pressure differences by having to “pop” to compensate and adjust to pressure. Underwater it is only a few feet and yet scientists has classed that as a different atmospheric weight. When traveling, we get this sensation going up or down hills and yet the atmospheric pressure is the same for the whole area.
    The density at the equator of atmosphere is far thicker than the rest of our planet but also too we have a greater velocity and a counteracting centrifugal force.

    So far in my research, the planet and atmosphere have very different parameters to energy due to their density differences. The planets centrifugal force strength changes at the 48 degree latitude(where water changes directions) and is different for the atmosphere as it has less density.
    Volcanic activity is from energy exerting on our crust. This stored energy is by way of compression of gases that cannot expand towards the core so MUST come through the weakest point, the crust. This is a centrifugal force event when at creation, our heated gases compressed to amazing energy exertions. As the planet slows, this energy is released. This can be recreated mechanically.

    00

    • #
      Mark D.

      Dude, this would be really easy to test; stick a thermometer in a boiling pan at the equator then move to any latitude you want to worry about. If the atmosphere is really “thicker” at the equator then you should have to get water boiling at higher temps.

      00

  • #
    Lars P.

    Jo, enjoy your free day and the beach!

    00

  • #
    David

    Enjoy the beach – how about some piccies..??

    00

  • #
    KeithH

    P.Gosselin (No Tricks Zone) is always well worth a visit and particularly so at present for updates on how the Vahrenholt/Luning book is selling and also other AGW issues in Germany following the harsh winter weather. These have relevance all over the world.

    An interesting quote from the January 2012 report on Renewables there by Dr.Guenter Keil was: “So far, after tens of billions of euros spent on renewable energy systems and higher prices for consumers, not a single coal or gas-fired power plant has been taken offline. To the contrary, old inefficient German plants have been brought back into service in an effort to stabilize the grid.” You won’t hear that from Gillard/Brown/Milne or Combet!

    Google No Tricks Zone. Sorry, too old and tired to give an actual link (3-15am in Tassie)!

    00

  • #
  • #
    Rereke Whakaaro

    Breaking News:

    Knowing that some folks tend to focus on the current thread, I have cross-posted the following comment from the previous Fakegate thread here, because it might be important (and the teacher is out of the room).

    It seems that the big guns have been brought into play to protect the meme.

    Over at The Air Vent, is news that Edward J. Markey, the ranking member of the House Committee on Natural Resources, has written to Joe Bast of the Heartland Institute, demanding the release, to his committee, of the documents previously stolen by Peter Gleick.

    He is doing this on the grounds that, “These documents appear to indicate that The Heartland Institute is receiving large donations from corporations for the direct purpose of discrediting the mainstream science of climate change …”

    Whatever happened to freedom in, “the land of the free”?

    00

    • #
      KinkyKeith

      That , Rereke, is a really big one.

      They obviously have so much money tied up in this scam that they intend walking right to the

      end of the plank if necessary.

      They will eventually come a cropper on this form of brinkmanship.

      🙂

      00

      • #
        Rereke Whakaaro

        They … have so much money tied up in this scam

        And that is really what all of this is about. An international economy has developed around this hot air (or lack of it), that is worth literally billions of dollars (if not trillions).
        And the frightening thing is that it is all riding on a single lie, and a deception pulled by Hansen, way back, just to get a little funding.

        Most people in power know that it is built on a lie – I have spoken with a few – but nobody can see a way out of this mess without further serious damage being caused to the worlds economic framework.

        It has become too big to be allowed to die, in the minds of many politicians.

        In the meantime, in Australia, the politicians seem to be singing along with the rhyme, “Better grab what you can, before it all hits the fan”.

        00

    • #
      BobC

      Rereke;

      Over at The Air Vent, is news that Edward J. Markey, the ranking member of the House Committee on Natural Resources, has written to Joe Bast of the Heartland Institute, demanding the release, to his committee, of the documents previously stolen by Peter Gleick.

      He is doing this on the grounds that, “These documents appear to indicate that The Heartland Institute is receiving large donations from corporations for the direct purpose of discrediting the mainstream science of climate change …”

      Whatever happened to freedom in, “the land of the free”?

      This stuff is decided in the courts — it won’t be the first time the courts have slapped down CongressCritters who overreached. The Heartland Institute should respond by insisting that the courts make a determination on the science — skeptics have to be allowed to testify (and the HI won’t have any lack of volunteers). I think that most climate scientists would have the vapors if they actually realized what subjecting themselves to cross examination under oath would be like.

      And, of course, the Heartland Institute would have subpoena power to force testimony from anyone they choose. I would expect a massive exodus of climate scientists from the US taking “sabbaticals” in places as far from the US as possible.

      00

      • #
        KinkyKeith

        You have described all of our Christmases coming at once.

        What’s the chance though?

        00

      • #
        Rereke Whakaaro

        Bob,

        … a massive exodus of climate scientists from the US taking “sabbaticals” in places as far from the US as possible.

        I do hope not. They may all end up in New Zealand.

        It would take us months to fumigate the place once they had gone.

        00

        • #
          Mark D.

          Are you saying everyone from the US “needs fumigating”? Here we go again! You must have watched that dam ABC piece on US workers living in sewers……………

          00

    • #
      Robert

      I saw that over on WUWT last night.

      Markus commented thus:

      Considering the matter has been referred to the FBI, Edward J Markey is on tender ground regarding the perversion of justice.

      Even if there are no charges yet laid there is a criminal investigation under way. Edward J Markey should be very wary of the separation of Judiciary and State. He will be criticized for this involvement.

      I would recommend the repose by Heartland be couched in terms of a cease & desist threat wrapped up with a accusation his involvement can be seen as an attempt to pervert justice.

      In the world of Justice, AGW will receive blows it will not recover from.

      Which pretty well sums it up. Markey is grandstanding, and just like Gleick got into this mess because he basically threw a temper tantrum over being trounced by James Taylor on Forbes, Markey is throwing his own tantrum because we effectively told him the Waxman-Markey cap and trade bill blew and it didn’t go anywhere.

      There is even speculation that Al Gore’s motivation in all of this has been a tantrum directed at the American people because he didn’t get to be president.

      The more this goes on the more it exposes these people for what they are, petty self-centered narcissists who throw tantrums like a child when they don’t get their way.

      00

    • #
      Eddy Aruda

      Markey is a left wing stooge that enters the oval office putting on his chap stick and knee pads. He is grandstanding and as desperate as his political masters to stop the people from learning the truth. The left has pushed hard to erode our liberties and take us all into their socialist fantasy land/utopia.

      It will not happen.

      People are starting to realize that the big green dream is only a nightmare from which they must awaken. The problem I see, is a far right backlash. Every republic has eventually fallen only to be replaced by an empire or to be conquered by a foreign power. Will there eventually be a coup in the USA? I hope not.

      As long as the House of Representatives is not controlled by the Democrats they will almost certainly be unable to fund their campaign as all money bills must originate in the House.

      00

  • #
  • #
    JK

    KinkyKeith and Rereke Whakaaro #15

    You are absolutely right about the money.
    The europeans (well, the bureaucrats, not the common citizens) are playing like mad with the taxpayers money.
    See http://www.europeanenergyreview.eu/site/pagina.php?id=3548

    Where we like to believe that the wheels of the global warming’s religion are coming off, they still keep on extracting vast sums of money from a political system that can’t even get any budget right anymore, even if it would be willing to try.
    How many wheels does this gravy train actually have before it finally will be brought to a stop?

    00

  • #

    At the beach? Good onya Jo. Don’t forget to “slip slop slap” now…

    00

    • #
      Truthseeker

      I bags the “slap” part!

      00

      • #
        Rereke Whakaaro

        Tut tut …

        00

        • #
          Mark D.

          Apparently more AU slang I don’t understand……

          00

          • #
            Byron

            Mark D.
            It`s from a 1980`s sun safety add Slip,Slop,Slap

            00

          • #
            Rereke Whakaaro

            The other interpretation is “Slap and Tickle” – which is probably more English that Australian.

            It sort of goes along with, “Nudge, Nudge, Wink, Wink, say no more”, of Monty Python fame.

            00

          • #
            Speedy

            Mark D.

            Pardon the Aussie jargon. It’s from a health promotion trying to cut down the risk of skin cancer. The “Slip, slop slap” refers to slipping under the shade in the hours around midday, slopping on sunscreen and slapping on a hat. Unfortunately, this great sunburnt country is also prone to having sunburnt people!

            If Jo is at the beach, she will no doubt be doing this; if the beach is merely figurative then I hope she’s parked up under a tree somewhere with some good company and a long cold drink.

            Cheers,

            Speedy

            00

          • #
            Mark D.

            Thanks for the quick explanation. One doesn’t want to let these things wander loosely in ones mind!

            00

  • #

    And those who support Climate Change/Global Warming are worried about piddling little payments some organisations are giving out.

    Analysis of the Obama Budget shows ‘green stimulus’ that extends way further than just the Department of Energy.

    A total of $13.255 Billion has been allocated for all things green.

    While other Countries are removing huge allocations and subsidies, and while Green Companies are going bust in the U.S. already having accepted huge amounts of Government money and then, er, losing it, it seems the President is just turning on the tap even harder.

    That’s $13.255 BILLION.

    A New, Green Stimulus Throughout the President’s Budget

    Tony.

    00

  • #
    warcroft

    Just a thought. . .
    Last year people were saying “There has actually been cooling for the past ten years.”
    This year people are saying “There has been cooling for the past 15 years.”
    When did this change? Because when I look at something like this its only about ten years.
    http://www.australianclimatemadness.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/wsj_response.jpg

    00

    • #
      Bruce of Newcastle

      Graph from 1997.5 to today and you’ll get a flat line, maybe slight rise or fall depending on the dataset.

      So, 4 more months and it is the full 15 years.

      00

  • #
    Don Wilkie

    I have been trying, so far without success, to get some basic figures on our CO2 tax. Such as how much do they hope to raise from the “big polluters”; how much they plan to spend on admin costs; how much they have promised to pay to the UN to help third world countries. Has anyone in the DOCC ever admitted that the unfortunate consumer will one way or another foot the bill for the whole mess? Can anyone point me in the direction of a credible analysis?

    00

  • #

    The flooding in the Brisbane area may have been exacerbated by a change in use of the Wivenhoe Dam. It was built as a flood containment area. Following a prolonged drought and a report of climate change causing reduced rainfall, were the dam operators over-reacting when they allowed the dam to be at or near capacity? It is worth considering if an objective risk assessment was undertaken, or if SEQwater over-reacted to the CAGW hype. I give consideration to this here.

    (Your second link is broken.It is a NO FOLLOW) CTS

    00

    • #
      Andrew McRae

      I remember browsing the SEQ Water web site’s dam level readings soon after the Brisbane floods. The spooky fact was that they had Saturday and Sunday morning dam level readings in their database for years right up until 17 May 2009, then… no more weekend data after that! I still have their data that I downloaded on 18 Feb 2011 so I can prove it.

      I can think of no good reason why they would decide to stop logging readings on weekends. If they had been logging Saturdays and the sensor failed, they would have noticed and fixed it. So I interpreted this as a conspiratorial government coverup of the Saturday 15 Jan morning measurement which would have shown they should have pulled the plug. They probably scrubbed (or withheld from public view) the previous year and half of weekends so people would not notice anything unusual about that one weekend being missing.
      To speculate even further… That may mean that an automated alert could have been sent out from the level monitoring equipment and that the same person who should have responded to the alert also had enough access to the data to remove the evidence that they had been warned. That’s total speculation, though it also fits the few facts we have to work with.

      SEQ Water went home for the weekend and nobody thought the torrential downpour might require some valve tweaking?? Poor form.

      It’s total incompetence that has been covered up. We knew that in the first week. It doesn’t take a half-baked government inquiry to figure that out. But of course nobody will be punished, I’m sure. You can’t punish people for a natural disaster, but you can punish people for not using the billion dollar flood prevention device that they were given for exactly that purpose.

      00

    • #

      The link for more details is at my blog here

      00

  • #
    Catamon

    For those proud of their Irish heritage.

    00

    • #
      Robert

      After listening to him they won’t be.

      00

    • #
      Mark D.

      I don’t know if I’m proud of it but I’m pretty sure my Viking forbears made some trips to Ireland. Might have brought back some “booty” that got mixed in.

      I’m really certain that I have no genetic connection to this bastard. What a piece of catshit catch some toxo from him for sure.

      00

      • #
        Mark D.

        PS listening to an Irishman get down on “warmongering” takes the f’n cake. Let me re-play the news reels from the Irish wars…….Dumbass.

        00

    • #
      Eddy Aruda

      And what are you proud of? What, besides being a mediocre troll is your claim to fame? Once a loser always a loser!

      By the way, Ireland’s economy is not doing so well. More failed green BS. I know, lets make energy really expensive and unreliable! We should all follow the Greece/Spain?Italy model, right? That way we can all go bankrupt and start from scratch!

      Sarcasm off!!!

      I am surprised, considering the ass whipping the catastrophists have taken with the Gleick scandal, that you would have the gall to comment on this site. Usually, trolls wait for the heat to blow over and then show up as if nothing happened. Then again, some trolls are really, really stupid!

      00

  • #
    Kevin Moore

    How do they get away with this?

    http://tonyfuckingabbott.com/

    00

  • #

    Before we consider what “backradiation” contributes, let’s say that at 11am on the Equator on one side of the Earth the Sun is shining and delivering 900 W/m^2 to the surface, of which 300W/m^2 is leaking out again into the atmosphere, let’s say 120W/m^2 by evaporation and diffusion followed by convection, and the remaining 180W/m^2 of it by radiation. So we have a net overall inward flux of 900 – 300 = 600W/m^2, this being 900 – 180 = 720W/m^2 net radiation inwards less 120W/m^2 outwards by other processes, ie 720 – 120 = 600W/m^2.

    Let us suppose this overall net 600W/m^2 has warmed the surface by 6 deg.C since dawn.

    Now the models make out that, let’s say an extra 150 W/m^2 of backradiation from the cooler atmosphere also does some extra warming. So perhaps the increase in temperature has been an extra 1.5 deg.C making a total of 7.5 deg.C since dawn. After all, there is certainly net radiation into the surface.

    Does anyone really believe this extra 1.5 deg.C of warming from the cold atmosphere would not have been in violation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics?

    This surely must be the weakest argument and the most blatant travesty of physics in the whole (radiative) greenhouse conjecture..

    See the ‘Radiation’ page on my site http://climate-change-theory.com for more explanation of how and why the absorptivity goes to zero when the temperature of the source gets down to that of the target.

    00

  • #
    tckev

    A note of curiosity-
    Using NOAA CO2 data from 1960 and the UN Population data from 1960 till now, I notice that the CO2 rise is in lock step with the population growth. In fact I could reasonably say that each time CO2 inceases by 20 ppm the population has increase by about 1 billion in the same time period.
    Considering that the vast majority of the increase in population happens in the less developed nations of the world what is going on?
    Now if CO2 were to be scientifically proved to be detrimental to the human condition then what would be done?
    Thankfully CO2 is not detrimental to humans but it appears some in positions of power do not agree.

    00

    • #
      KinkyKeith

      Hi “I notice that the CO2 rise is in lock step with the population growth.”

      That’s exactly what we should expect.

      If population growth stopped I would expect that in three years max we would see CO2

      increases stop completely apart from natural fluctuations which are large and unpredictable.

      There is a scientific reason for this.

      00

  • #

    Manicbeancounter – the last URL you gave does not work.

    00

  • #
    brennan

    Recent events have once again brought to light, a little known instrument called the Gleickenspeil. Loud and abrasive sounding and typically in the atonal key of High Dudgeon, it has in this last week been shown to be able to play itself.

    In celebration of this event, the Climate Team have announced they will be using it to record and re-release a new version of their signature tune, “Shaddap You Face”.

    00

  • #
    • #
      pattoh

      I have been wondering if this gem would make it to this unthreaded post.
      I heard reference to this a couple of times last week & the immediate “dumb jaffa” thought was that if the TSI has gone down as we move into the current cycle & the “mean global temperature” has been steady or coming off, it stands to reason that the net thermal energy contained in the atmosphere is coming off. By default the quantity of molecules liquid phase side( & solid) of the D. equilibrium will increase & the total gaseous volume of the “gravity balloon” will decrease. Therefore all heights of all atmospheric levels will decrease ( BLOW UP A BALOON & STICK IT IN THE REFRIGERATOR)
      I know this is intuition on top of early secondary school science, but to me it appears as yet another case where a newly measured physical feature is portrayed as some herald of a disaster.(i.e. NO REFERENCE FRAME)
      I sincerely hope David Archibald &/or others have some thoughts on this before it is added to the “Inconvenient Truths” being taught in the current education system.

      00

  • #
    jollygreenwatchman

    “In Taoism, there is just the “unknowable”. The “unknowable” is just that. Not only is the unknowable unknowable, even if someday a person did come to understand it, he could not explain it as we don’t have words or thought concepts to do so”

    Oh, so it is just another religion build upon a arbitary if not false premise. In this case, the premise being “unknowable.

    00

    • #
      memoryvault

      We’re born, we eat, we s[snip], we procreate, we die.
      A lot of people – including you, it would seem – accept that that is the beginning and end of it.
      They call themselves atheists.

      Some other people see unexplained things all around them, and must invent some manner of “all powerful being” or “force” to make sense of it all. Out of fear or awe, these beings must be worshiped and venerated.
      They call themselves “believers”.

      Some of us accept that there an awful lot of things for which we have no answers, and possibly never will have answers for, and we’re comfortable with that. We need no gods to “explain” it. It just “is”.

      Some of us call ourselves “taoists”.

      00

      • #
        Gee Aye

        The annoying thing about “atheism” as a term is that it is relative to something else. The word only exists because people who believe in a god needed a label for those that didn’t. By that simple definition you are also an atheist as are a great many people with views of the world, the universe and anything that could not be more different from each other. Yet all labelled atheist.

        I’m an atheist by this definition but hate the label, it just inhibits discussion. If I was a taoist I’d reject the atheist label.

        00

      • #
        Curt

        Calling yourself a Taoist doesn’t mean you are one. Wayne Dyer made the same mistake.

        Taoism absolutely teaches the existence of not merely a god, but a multiplicity of gods (especially an inconceivable Mother Goddess from whom everything derives), as well as the concepts of reincarnation and Fate.

        Westerners pretending to be converts to Taoism or Buddhism, or Bon, etc. are usually just ridiculous. None of these religions makes any sense to someone not raised in them and pre-conditioned to accept them; nobody stumbling upon them would think, “This is reasonable; I think I’ll believe it.” While their meditation systems and ethics may be attractive, their logic, mythology, and attempts at scientific explanations are no better than those of the most fundamentalist of Christian sects. The Dalai Lama is a sweet guy and very entertaining, but his books read like the babblings of a superstitious primitive. He denies the existence of “God,” yet spends endless time praying to his Mother Goddess and a host of other lesser deities, many of whom Buddhists believe are thought-forms or possibly self-conscious entities brought into existence by humans believing in them. He claims that bad people come back as animals or insects, which I think denigrates animals and insects. He offers no proof of any of this, but accepts it on faith because he was taught that it was true, and, in turn, teaches it as truth.

        When Westerners jump on such religions, it’s almost always to be different and to appear avant-garde. But, mostly they just look like fools seeking attention, which is what most of them are.

        00

        • #
          Gee Aye

          hmm strong words

          00

          • #
            memoryvault

            .
            Yes, especially from someone who obviously never read my original post on the subject.

            I agree entirely with your take on the word “atheist”, by the way.
            But then, as a taoist I don’t really care – it’s just a word, which people will interpret whichever way suits them.

            00

        • #
          KinkyKeith

          Hey Curt

          Buddhism has many aspects but I wouldn’t get too caught up in the little fairies that

          the Dalai Llama talks about.

          You might be amazed at the work done by the Dalai Llama in trying to integrate Buddhist

          thought with the best of modern psychology; there is no impenetrable mumbo jumbo just

          plain common sense.

          And if you get it right you can live in the middle ground that is somewhere between

          “attachment” and “aversion”.

          True, as you imply, there are many who think all you need to do is buy a saffron robe and put your hands together, but its a bit more work than that.

          🙂

          00

          • #
            memoryvault

            I’m still confused about how my post about the Chinese philosophy of taoism morphed into Curt’s rant about the failings of a Tibetan branch of the religion of Buddhism.

            00

          • #
            KinkyKeith

            MV

            I think he sees both as having asian origins.

            00

          • #
            Curt

            You can’t integrate Buddhist thought with the best of modern psychology, though both are scientifically dubious.

            There is nothing logical or reasonable about spending a lifetime trying to get off the wheel of rebirth without knowing whether it even exists. Non-attachment is often a euphemism for self-absorption, and the middle ground between attachment and aversion is indifference or unawareness. Devoting years to meditation and self-disciplines in an effort to clear ones Karma is the most selfish attachment imaginable.

            I seriously doubt a formal religion and endless rituals are the way to get free of….formal religions and endless rituals. Nor do I think scaring people with threats of reincarnation as insects advances either the teller or the hearer. If we can create “gods” by believing in them, as Buddhism teaches, can’t we also create “Karma” and “wheels of rebirth” by believing in them? And wouldn’t the way out of all of this be to stop believing in them?

            I have no answers, but comfort myself with the knowledge than almost nobody else seems to, either. When it comes to the supernatural, even an alleged lama must accept the bulk on faith.
            —————
            And no, Keith, I don’t confuse Buddhism and Taoism because they’re both Asian. And memoryvault, my rant, as you call it, is in response to your misleading self-identification as a Taoist.

            Incidentally, Buddhist apologists also pretend that Buddhism is just a philosophy. But, Buddhism is a religion. Taoism is a religion.

            00

          • #
            memoryvault

            Curt, the philosophy of taoism predates general, widespread acceptance of the religion of Taoism, by about 1500 years. You seem to want to conflate the two into the same thing.

            Besides, even if they were one and the same thing one can accept as worthwhile the basic philosophy of a religion, without buying into the dogma.

            The principle tenet of Christianity can be summed as “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”.

            One does not have to become a bible-bashing born-again fundamentalist or a mass-attending, confession-making catholic to appreciate the wisdom and worth of that philosophy.

            00

          • #
            Curt

            You can’t sum up Christianity in one interpolated line attributed to Jesus. Anyone familiar with the history of early Christianity knows that what could or could not be defined as Christianity obsessed the early fathers, who killed each other and their followers by the thousands for not getting the “correct” answer. Had you told any one of them that, “Your religion can be summed up in this statement: ‘Do unto others as, blah, blah,'” you would have had your throat slit and your head bashed in.

            The supposed history of Taoism is as fraudulent as the gospel histories of Jesus, the scriptural histories of the Buddha, and the Old Testament history of Moses. Modern Christians have no more relation to ancient Christianity than Western Taoists have to ancient Taoism. We are living in a world of fantasy and illusion, and the fantasies and illusions are, unfortunately, winning.

            00

          • #
            KinkyKeith

            Hi Curt

            Once again you appear to be taking the most extreme aspects of various religions and using those for judgement.

            I agree that the originators of most religions would not recognise them as they are now with the confusion of purpose, fundraising, dogma and idols to contend with.

            The core aspect of Buddhism is that it is a PRACTICE involving just one person, yourself.

            I do not ascribe to the idea of “reincarnation” and just keep my mouth closed when the topic comes up.

            I am hopeful that the BEST aspects of all religions will someday lead us to making a better world – maybe not in my lifetime.

            🙂

            00

          • #
            Curt

            Hi Keith,

            You’re more optimistic than I.

            I think all religions are stupid; I also think that all anti-religions are stupid. Everything I know or believe I know about the non-physical worlds has come through my own experiences. I have no reason to trust the claims of others, and much reason to doubt them.

            I grew up in a word of metaphysics, occultism, paganism, and the paranormal, and I am not impressed with the teachers or the students in general. Not one of the alleged adepts I’ve encountered has proved to be smarter, kinder, wiser, or more enlightened than the average person on the street. My cats are more evolved than any human Buddhist, Christian, or What-Have-You I’ve ever met, and they don’t ask for money or seek social acclaim.

            I’ve spent a lifetime studying comparative religion, and can honestly say that I think it has been an absolute waste of time. My values are exactly the same today as they were when I was 19 years old. My core beliefs haven’t change an iota. I DO believe in reincarnation. I AM pro-life with regard to ALL sentient beings. And I couldn’t care less about fame or wealth. As for the rest, just fill in the blanks. I have no idea.

            00

          • #
            KinkyKeith

            Hi Curt

            “I’ve spent a lifetime studying comparative religion”

            Have you tried looking for the truth of religious practice – it doesn’t involve any

            of those other people and organisations you are criticizing – it just involves you.

            And you believe in Reincarnation.

            I’m a scientist and I have to confess that I doubt very much that I will be

            re-appearing again after I die.

            “You’re more optimistic than I.” If you don’t have hope what is there?

            🙂

            00

          • #
            Curt

            Hi Keith,

            I’ve always followed my own spiritual inclinations. I’m not a joiner.

            00

          • #
            Sinimian

            KinkyKeith,

            Strange as it may seem, Buddhism may have Hebrew rather than Asian origins.

            See: http://britam.org/buddha.html

            As was Zarathustra, see: http://britam.org/zarathustra.html

            00

  • #
    Afizzyfist

    A look at AMSU satellite data is now showing a highly significant drop in mean global anomaly *roughly would calculate February to come out -0.3C *now looks at -1C!

    00

  • #

    OPEN LETTER

    Dear Dr. David Evans,

    I read with interest your excellent article “The Skeptic’s Case” published at the Mises Institute website here and at ICECAP, February 24 here.

    In Figure 2 here, you give the Skeptic’s case where the direct effect of each doubling of the CO2 level is +1.1 C, which is the same as the climate model case given in Figure 1.

    It would be helpful to point out that the direct effect assumes that the +1.1 C warming does not cause any increase in evaporation and precipitation, which is physically impossible. The Feedbacks box in Figure 1 states “More evaporation leads to more water vapour, which traps more heat, etc.” Most people think the water vapour feedback is just from the radiative greenhouse effect of water vapour. They forget that the total water vapour feedback includes the increase in evaporation and precipitation, which is a strong negative feedback.

    The +1.1 C is based on the ratio of two factors.

    The first factor is the CO2 forcing parameter, usually given as 5.35 ln (C/C0) from Myrhe (1998). At CO2 doubling, this becomes 5.35 ln(2) = 3.708 W/m2.

    The second factor is Planck cooling response to a uniform temperature increase. The IPCC uses the value from Bony et al (2006), Appendix A, of 3.2 W/m2/C. This means that a uniform one degree Celsius increase in temperature would increase the out-going longwave radiation by 3.2 W/m2, and conversely, an increased forcing of one W/m2 would increase the average temperature by 0.31 C.

    The no-feedback case assumes a uniform temperature increase, that is, no change in lapse rate, as a lapse rate change is explicitly given by the IPCC as a feedback.

    The climate model case direct warming is therefore 3.7 W/m2 / (3.2 W/m2/C) = 1.147 C, rounds down to +1.1 C. This reproduces your climate model direct effect of CO2 value of +1.1 C for CO2 doubling.

    The Planck cooling response of 3.2 W/m2/C is determined by climate models. But the skeptic’s case should use the direct calculation of this parameter. Bony et al (2006), Appendix A, here states of the Planck cooling response “a value of -3.8 W/m2/K is obtained by defining Xp simply as -4sigmaT^3, by equating the global mean OLR to sigmaT^4 and by assuming an emission temperature of 255 K.”

    The average global incoming and outgoing radiation according to Trenberth et al (2009) is 239 W/m2 as shown here. The effective emission temperature using the Stefan-Boltzmann law is T = (239 W/m2 / 5.67 E-8 W/m2/K4)^0.25 = 255 K, confirming the average emission temperature. So the Planck cooling response is 4 x 5.67 E-8 W/m2/K4 x (255 K)^3 = 3.76 W/m2/K. This confirms Bony et al’s direct calculation of the Planck cooling response. If the emission temperature varies by latitude, the Planck cooling response would be greater than 3.76 W/m2/K, not less. (If the emission temperature varied +/- 30 C in 10 C bands around 255 K, the Planck cooling response would by 3.83 W/m2/K)

    Can you please explain why the climate model value of the Planck cooling response of 3.2 W/m2/K is much less than the direct calculation of 3.76 W/m2/K?

    We used a line-by-line computer program HARTCODE to calculate the direct CO2 forcing parameter. It calculates the longwave absorption and radiation fluxes across the longwave spectrum utilizing 3490 spectral intervals, 150 atmosphere layers, 9 directional streams and 11 greenhouse gases. It is critical that the program includes the correct water vapour distribution, which was derived from radiosonde measurements. HARTCODE calculations show that doubling CO2 decreases clear-sky outgoing longwave radiation by 2.51 W/m2, while keeping temperature constant. See row 41 and 51 of the Excel file rr_s.xlsx here.

    The skeptic’s case CO2 forcing parameter should be 2.51 W/m2, rather than 3.71 W/m2.

    Note that this file also shows that the Planck cooling response is 3.79 W/m2, see row 15 and 46, in close agreement with the direct calculation of 3.76 W/m2.

    The Skeptic’s case direct warming for CO2 doubling is therefore 2.51 W/m2 / (3.76 W/m2/C) = 0.67 C. This is only 61% of the climate model case of 1.1 C.

    You write “The direct effect of CO2 is well-established physics, based on laboratory results, and known for over a century.”
    Unless you can provide reasons why this skeptic’s case is invalid, it may be time to update the direct CO2 effect from 1.1 C to 0.67 C.

    Best Regards,

    Ken Gregory
    Friends of Science

    00

  • #
    jollygreenwatchman

    @ Memoryvault, and apologies this is not appearing in some sort of “reply” sequence but the option doesn’t appear to be available to me.

    My view on your “taoism” is that it appears to you have arbitarily decided that basically the meaning of life, the universe, and everything, is essentially (if not conveniently) “unknowable”.

    I disagree and suspect that many of the things you might consider to be or have decided to be (and no doubt subjectively so) “unknowable” are more than adequately known / understood / not in the slightest mysterious to others.

    When push comes to shove I also suspect that many of the things you have decided to be “unknowable” have only be catagorised by you as such because the alternative is unpalatable to you.

    In short, you would rather not know, especially if the truth of it would require something of you that you would rather not give.

    Or as a bloke called John put it long ago, “This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.”

    Anyhoo, this obviously is a topic that can hardly be dealt with to any great depth here and we’re hardly going to make converts of each other anyway, especially considering that I’m of the view that if one person can argue you in to something then another can argue you out of it and in to something else.

    With that in mind, I’ll let my “Knowable” and your currently “Unknowable” do the necessary as is best deemed fit. 😉 🙂

    00

    • #
      memoryvault

      Hi Jolly,

      I think questions like,

      “is there some plan to the universe”, “is the universe infinite, and if not, what’s outside of it”, “is there life after death”, “what is ‘luck'”, and even “is there a god of some description”,

      are going to remain “unknowable” for some time to come (outside of religious “faith”, which is ‘believing’ not ‘knowing’).

      As for the “meaning of life, the universe and everything”, perhaps the very purpose of life is to work that out.

      Assuming it isn’t 42 after all.

      00

  • #

    The IPCC models make use of absorptivity measurements for the Earth’s surface which were measured using visible light. But they apply them to far-IR radiation from the atmosphere, even though it is well known that absorptivity reduces very significantly for much lower temperature radiation. This is obviously important when determining the assumed warming effect of radiation from the atmosphere – which, by the way, is assumed to help the Sun with its warming every sunny morning – all quite against the Second Law of Thermodynamics which they think it isn’t because somewhere on the other side of the Earth at night some radiation is turning it all into totally unphysical “net” radiation which cannot be a physical entity. But, never mind, I diverge.

    The question is Can someone link me to any empirical measurement of absorptivity by the surface of radiation in the IR bands emitted by the atmosphere?

    You’d kinda think the IPCC would have got this part sorted out before spending all that money on the models. So show me where they did – anybody!

    00