Keyboard worrier

Thursday, March 12, 2015

Altering climate data

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Over the years there have been numerous technical disagreements between sceptics and the climate faithful. These disputes tend to obscure how close the two sides are scientifically and how far apart politically, but that’s another issue. One major dispute relates to surface temperature data and the way it is altered by official bodies. Adjusted is the official word so I'll stick with altered.

Firstly it is worth noting that raw temperature data is certainly altered. What the public sees is not temperature data, but numbers derived from temperatures and complex alteration protocols.

It is also worth pointing out that there is no such thing as global temperature. Even the mean of two temperatures is not a temperature but a statistic. William Briggs has a good post on what is or is not data. 

Secondly, the issue is exceedingly complex, involving vast amounts of data and numerous arguments as to whether or not the data should be altered to gloss over known issues such as TOB, station moves and UHI. There are many examples and the data altered can be a century old. It's a strange game this climate game.

Roy Spencer has a good example of old data being altered to show a warming trend where previously there was no trend. Jo Nova has another and Paul Homewood another.

There are always explanations, but to my mind altering data in this way adds to the uncertainties and clarifies nothing. We didn’t do it in my field. Imagine taking the temperature of a river then altering it to what you think it ought to be. Yet in all this tinkering with climate numbers I see a footling bureaucratic culture rather than nefarious intent.

To my mind, altering data in order to mislead people is not something even a climate scientist would do. That even is not sarcasm by the way – the political pressure must be intensely pervasive and that is something we should not forget. Footling but not corrupt is what it feels like to me. Maybe I'm naive.

Perhaps it won’t make too much difference in the long run, but when fractions of a degree are used to promote a powerful but ailing agenda...

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Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Smelling nice and living well

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So much vile wretchedness, hunger, and filth on one hand, and on the other such exquisite refinement, abundance and beautiful life. Was not this the answer to the question whether money is not education, health, and intelligence? Since the same human mire remains beneath, does not all civilisation reduce itself to the superiority of smelling nice and living well?
Émile Zola - L'Argent (1891)

So smelling nice and living well could be the bedrock of our civilisation. Yet by the time I’ve climbed to the top of Ecton Hill I’m not so sure I qualify on both counts.

Dave, Nick and Ed probably smell nice and live well, but do they represent what civilisation is all about? I think not. On the other hand Nigel Farage probably lives well but the beer and fags may let him down on the olfactory side of things. So not a particularly good guide. 

A few weeks ago while walking round an antiques centre I was suddenly enveloped by a cloud of weapons-grade perfume. The woman responsible must have been wearing about half a bottle. It's not nearly as common as it was though, the use of eye-watering quantities of perfume. A good thing too in my view. 

I wonder what the Queen smells like? She seems fairly civilised.

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Sunday, March 08, 2015

Those police raids

Exaro reports that addresses of the late Lord Brittan and a retired armed forces supremo have been raided as part of an ongoing widespread investigation into alleged child abuse.

How did this story come out - and why?

I cannot see how anyone could hope to find the slightest scrap of incriminating home-stored evidence, even had there been any before, after the years-long hoo-ha on this subject. Nobody but the deepest-dyed fool would leave tracks uncovered about such serious matters, having heard the hunters' trumpets from such a great distance. Think of the millions of deleted emails and the missing computers in the News Of The World phone-hacking imbroglio: even the innocent might wish to destroy relevant materials, merely to forestall the inconvenience of prolonged investigation and interrogation.

Unless there is something else - something very credible - to go on, these people, dead or retired, must be presumed entirely innocent and not arraigned in the loathsome "court of public opinion", much less the court of wild speculation. Otherwise, no-one is safe from false accusations prompted by malice or greed. Even in the case of Jimmy Savile, far more has been alleged than proved, and the public purse is being prepared for a massive gold rush.

And if, on the other hand, boots-in-the-drawing-room visits were to be conducted on serving politicians and other still-nationally-important people, I would assume that the motive would be either (a) punishment by embarrassment, because there would be nothing left to find, or (b) a highly risky form of show exoneration, with the potential for expensive and career-destroying blowback.

As it is, the present approach looks like a distraction exercise, the implications of which make the general stink fouler. Let there be a trawl through government archives - such as can be effected against Sir Humphreyite defences of " national security" etc - and statements and evidence gathered from alleged victims and witnesses. That's all we're going to have, and in many cases it won't be enough to come to court with. But these Witchfinder-General taran-tara rides through private property are worse than useless.


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Wednesday, March 04, 2015

The boys on Hassop Station



While walking Monsal Trail today we stopped off at Hassop Station which is now a cafe and bookshop. On the wall of the cafe is the above photograph showing soldiers leaving the station during the Great War.

Mine isn't a great photo but it would would have been necessary to stand on the table to take anything better. As I was wearing boots I decided against that. Even so, I think you may be able to see why I took it. The soldiers look so young - boys in uniform.

From Wikipedia

Hassop railway station was a station situated about two miles from the village of Hassop in the Peak District of Derbyshire. It was opened in 1862 by the Midland Railway on its extension of the Manchester, Buxton, Matlock and Midlands Junction Railway from Rowsley.

It was built for the benefit of the Duke of Devonshire of Chatsworth House who, having previously refused it to pass over the easier terrain of his lands, belatedly saw its possible benefit. Indeed, for a while it was renamed "Hassop for Chatsworth". However, in this sparsely populated area, it saw little use, and closed in 1942.


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Monday, March 02, 2015

There is no such thing as reason


Not an easy argument to make but I’m up for it. Clearly there is such a thing as reason, but how useful is it for changing another guy’s mind? Not at all useful seems to be a common experience so the version I’m concerned with is the useless one from Oxford dictionaries.

The power of the mind to think, understand, and form judgements logically:

Nope, reason is much more like a unicorn - easy to define but locating one in the wild is a tad difficult. As for forming judgements logically...

…the faculty of judgment is a special talent which cannot be taught, but must be practised. This is what constitutes our so-called mother-wit, the absence of which cannot be remedied by any schooling. For although the teacher may offer, and as it were graft into a narrow understanding, plenty of rules borrowed of others, the faculty of using them rightly must belong to the pupil himself, and without that talent no precept that may be given is safe from abuse.
Immanuel Kant - Critique of Pure Reason

Firstly the easy part – beliefs on which we base our reasoning. Beliefs are fixed for us by parents, family life, religion, nationality, culture, politics, education, friends, colleagues, career, authorities, advertising, propaganda, gossip, health, age and lifestyle with a long etcetera to follow.

We may rebel against our parent's beliefs, but only because we’ve found a better source. Young people are good at that but they usually grow out of it unless they opt for politics.

What we refer to as reason in is almost always the art of defending belief, general disposition or some less overt standpoint. Belief is vitally important to what we are or hope to become. Or perhaps I should say that it is vitally important to what we are required to be socially.

Well worth defending then.

The verbal dexterities we employ are often grossly over-dignified by calling them reasons rather than causes or excuses. A touch of spurious dignity hardly ever works anyway because the other chap always insists on looking at things irrationally.

And really - that can’t be right can it? The other chap can’t always be wrong. Not every single time surely?

Yet if I’d been a Guardian-reading member of the chattering classes I’d probably be a politically correct prig with a profound belief in sentimental drivel - social, political, economic, environmental. A scary thought but comforting too. We are what we are. Not out of choice but it’s curiously satisfying all the same and therein lies the problem. We are what we are – reason cannot change that.

Secondly the old part – philosophy.

Truth lives, for the most part on a credit system. Our thoughts and beliefs ‘pass’, so long as nothing challenges them, just as bank-notes pass so long as nobody refuses them.
William James – Pragmatism

Reasoning is a search for whatever idea leads to few surprises – James’ credit system. It’s why we have consensus, our collective way of keeping surprises to a minimum. Our thoughts and beliefs ‘pass’, so long as nothing challenges them. Reason is rarely the best way to see off those challenges though. That’s why it isn’t popular.

Alternatives to consensus are a neutral detachment, scepticism or flat disagreement. I’ll ignore disagreement because that is usually an alternative consensus. Detachment and scepticism are more interesting. For convenience I’ll bundle them together as scepticism. The subject to too vast for a single post so economies have to be made.

So thirdly we have scepticism which tends to yield fewer surprises than consensus, especially for complex issues such as societies, cultures, economics, politics, religion, the arts, the environment, history, human psychology, health, diet, sport and so on. Oh – and blogging. There are no golden rules though. As ever it is a matter of selecting the best option.

Selecting – that’s a better word than reason too. Scepticism is not so much a matter of reasoning as a veto on ideas which seem unlikely to yield fewer surprises than standing back until the fog clears – if it ever does.

It’s an animal faculty. Sniffing the winds of change, listening, weighing the risks, bringing experience to bear, allowing others to make the first step across the swamp or throw the first spear at the big hairy thing.

We have to use the word reason because it is so deeply embedded in our language, but it is not a great idea to be deceived by it. Sceptical detachment is a better guide. Even flippancy is often better, especially when it comes to making fun of ludicrously obvious narratives dreamed up by political airheads.

As an aside, there are loads of those around these days aren’t there – political airheads? At least that’s the detached view hem hem.

We don’t think, understand, and form judgements logically, we select. Or we stand back and watch. Perhaps reason is best viewed as a spectator sport.

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Sunday, March 01, 2015

False flags?

"False flags in Moscow?"

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Saturday, February 28, 2015

"Interesting. Gosh." Catherine Ashton and the alleged "false flag" attack on Ukraine.



I said something about this almost a year ago and - "gosh" - the video of the above telcon I embedded has has the associated Youtube account terminated - "interesting".

Well. the issue has come up again on Washington's blog - at the same time that a similar theory is circulating about this week's murder of Boris Nemtsov.

And who is this talking?

"If the United States has its way they’ll be having a war in Europe between the Europeans and the Russians... countries that are buying gold are preparing for war. That has always been one of the signs of coming war... I think that this preparation of buying gold indicates clearly that there is going to be a big disagreement, eventually, between the Russians and the Chinese, and that disagreement might signify a war. And nobody wants to have the enemy’s currency as your currency and your reserves when you’re in a war. You want something that is independent of your enemy, right? And that can only be gold. So this purchase of gold by Russia and China, and other countries, indicates that there is growing doubts about the universality of the dollar. And the universal appreciation of the dollar as currency is now in doubt. That’s why their countries are buying gold, because they see that the dollar is too unstable and it’s not a firm enough basis in case of a crisis. Their countries want to have something on which they can rely on their own resources and that means they must have their reserves of gold."

Why, it's billionaire Hugo Salinas Price.

"Byee!" Dontcha just love her? We're in safe hands, I'm sure.


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Peace, potatoes and cocoa

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This is another chapter from my aunt's memoirs where she describes how family and neighbours celebrated peace in the back streets of Derby in 1919 when she was eleven years old.

June 1919

Although hostilities ceased in November 1918, peace celebrations weren’t held until the following June.

Our street being a cul-de-sac, the family next door living in the very last house, we were able to build our bonfire actually on the road. The neighbours living opposite were all delighted and we rummaged around for anything burnable to help the conflagration. Everyone rallied round as they had done during the war. One old lady every time the maroon sounded, had run up and down the street knocking on every front door, calling through the black letter box,

‘Are you up? Isn’t it awful?’

With that kind of spirit we did pretty well and when the enormous bonfire had been built, children and adults sat and stood round until my dad put a match to one side and another fellow lit the other side. Soon there were Catherine wheels spinning on walls and rockets soaring into the air. The boys loved (and I hated) crackers and jumping jacks which darted and exploded.

On the other side of the big brick wall at the end of the street was the railway line. Now and again a train went chuffing by but we were so used to them we hardly noticed. I’ve wondered since if any passengers saw our bonfire, or at least the sparks flying into the air as the men pushed the glowing embers together.

When the bonfire sagged into a heap of red-hot ash, potatoes were dropped in and mothers went into their houses, reappearing with jugs of cocoa for their families. Jugs of beer had been fetched for the men from the outdoor beer licence.

There was much talk and merriment. My dad picked the cooked potatoes out of the embers with a pair of long fire tongs. No potato tastes as good as one roasted in a bonfire. We children were all dropping to sleep as the fire sank and were taken off to bed, leaving the men still talking.

What a night to remember. Little did we think that in twenty years time the peace we were celebrating would once more be shattered by the dogs of war. But that’s another story.

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Thursday, February 26, 2015

The War that Ended Peace

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I recently finished Margaret MacMillan's World War I history book The War that Ended Peace as recommended by David over at duffandnonsense. It covers the people and events leading up to the war rather than the war itself. 

I bought the Kindle version so the maps aren't as useful as they would be in a traditional book, but unless your geography is even worse than mine it should not cause too many problems.

I'm not a great history buff but the book is an excellent read. Very well written, it takes the reader through the myriad causes of the Great War. No doubt people from my generation all have some familiarity with the main events, but MacMillan's book brings them together in an extremely readable way.

I'll finish with this quote from the blurb which neatly sums it up, although if you read the book you may have some reservations about the word intelligent.

The story of how intelligent, well-meaning leaders guided their nations into catastrophe. Immersed in intrigue, enlivened by fascinating stories, and made compelling by the author's own insights, this is one of the finest books I have read on the causes of World War I (Madeleine Albright, former Secretary of State)

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Monday, February 23, 2015

A blogger protests against the world's corruption and injustice



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Sunday, February 22, 2015

Le Blob Vert

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I see Lord Prescott is off to the the Paris climate jolly in December. From the BBC we hear -

John Prescott is returning to front-line politics as an unpaid adviser to Ed Miliband with responsibility for climate change.

The former deputy PM will focus on trying to help a future Labour government seek agreement at climate change talks due to take place in Paris in December, Labour sources say.

Mr Miliband said in a tweet that Lord Prescott "knows how to knock heads together".


Surely an odd choice - sending a known buffoon on a mission to save the planet. Maybe he barged his way to the front of a long queue using his well-developed political elbows to snatch the plum before anyone else spotted it.

Or maybe not. 

Saturday, February 21, 2015

Did Viet Cong soldiers get PTSD?

It seems some did, but not so often as among American soldiers:


I had wondered whether the disparity might be down to differences in culture, but it seems it has more to do with factors affecting morale. The authors of this study contrast US servicemen's experience of war with that of the Vietnamese:

"The situation of the Vietnamese veterans was totally different. The Vietnamese had justified reasons for engagement in the war, could discern the adversary,were able to feel relatively safe, and had the strong support of their country, and the local population. The Vietnamese veterans fought for their lives, for their families, relatives and country. They were founders of the guerilla war therefore they knew actively what they were doing, how it should have been done, or where and when they did it. They knew who were their comrades or adversaries. They did not have the passive or uncertain feelings characteristic of many American soldiers. The hit-and-run tactics, the fluidity, and the mobility of the Vietnamese soldiers generally made the American soldiers confused in locating them, and this, in turn, helped them minimize their casualties. Additionally, the Vietnamese soldiers got strong support from the Vietnamese population. As a result, they had greater feelings of safety than did the American soldiers."

Another hypothesised factor was how American Vietnam vets were treated when they returned home:

"The lack of social support for American veterans probably contributed to the development of PTSD symptoms. The Vietnam-America war was a politically unpopular one, and many American veterans were ostracized on their return home. This was in contrast to the experiences of veterans coming home from previous wars such as World War II who were given a hero’s welcome. [...] Society had subjected American soldiers to catastrophic combat victimization, and, when they returned, society avoided the victims, then blamed them for what they had done in Vietnam."

More here:

http://www.ffrd.org/AO/CGFED/12PTSD.pdf


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Bethnal Green teen terror brides: Cameron acts

As usual, Mr Cameron has a two-pronged solution:

a) He has had an emotion at it ("deeply concerning").

b) It is everybody's responsibility to deal with it ("We all have a role to play in stopping people from having their minds poisoned by this appalling death cult").

Job done!




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Wednesday, February 18, 2015

David Malone, TTIP, TISA and Russian dolls



http://www.theguardian.com/membership/2015/feb/18/guardian-live-what-is-ttip-and-how-does-it-affect-us

Practical example: Raytheon.


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Why the TTIP will end the NHS...

... and much more, including democracy itself:






Q&A, including an idea how to handle the banks with a "depositors' union":




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The enigma of Pilsbury Castle

Illustration of Pilsbury Castle as it may have been.
Taken from the nearby signboard

We were out walking the hills above the Dove valley near Hartington yesterday. Pilsbury Castle lies in the valley, mid way between Hartington and the tiny village of Crowdecote

The castle is an odd place. Stuck in a remote spot at the bottom of the valley, nothing is left but the earthworks because it never had any stonework.

There are some obvious conjectures of course, but nobody seems to know for sure why the castle was built, why it was never rebuilt in stone or why it was built in such an out of the way place overlooked by hills. After all, it is in a valley and it doesn’t take a military genius to see the potential problems.

Wikipedia says:-

Pilsbury Castle occupied an area of high ground approximately 175 by 150 yards (160 by 137 m) overlooking the River Dove, near the village of Pilsbury.

It is high ground, but only relative to the valley floor, not the hills looming over it. See my photo below. The Dove is not navigable either and the valley floor tends to be boggy so how much traffic it controlled is unknown. Possibly none at all.

Pilsbury Castle
In the distance is the conical shape of Chrome Hill

Pilsbury Castle well illustrates how fragmented history can be, how easy it is to add supposition to known facts in pursuit of a coherent story. One might surmise that the Dove was navigable in those days. Or maybe the whole project was a mistake. In some respects it clearly was a mistake because it was never rebuilt in stone even though there was obviously plenty of limestone to hand.

Here’s what the signboard says. Oh by the way - the valley is a beautiful sight from nearby hills under a blue sky.

In front of you is the earthworks of Pilsbury Castle.

It is a motte and bailey castle and never had any stone buildings or walls. The motte or mound was the defensive core of the castle, probably with a wooden watch-tower on top. The two baileys or enclosures (see plan) contained timber buildings such as kitchens, stables, store-rooms and accommodation for the garrison. The baileys are protected by ditches and banks which would have had a wooden palisade on top of them.

There is evidence of a hollow-way (a sunken track) which would have been the access route from the south to an entrance in the southern bailey. Entry to the castle would have been across a bridge and through a gatehouse.

The castle was built partly on a reef limestone knoll which is incorporated into its defences and extends onto a shale promontory overlooking the River Dove. It also overlooks a long rectangular hollow on the low ground north of the castle. This was probably a fishpond for supplying occupants of the castle.

We do not know precisely when the castle was built. It was certainly built after the Norman Conquest of 1066 and may have been after the unsuccessful rebellion in the north against William the Conqueror in 1068-9 as a reminder of the power of the king. Certainly the castle would have controlled the Dove valley, the local population and all traffic along the valley route. The castle may only have continued in use for a few decades into the 12th century.

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Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Once a generation (revisited)

Updating last year's speculation:

1914
1939
1964-ish (young v. old)
1989 - the crumbling of communism
2014 - what James Kunstler describes as "apocalyptic Jihadism", notably ISIL

None of it is to do with reason, some of it is against a background of societal stress as described in Norman Cohn's "Pursuit of the Millennium"... but how much is down to gonads, and the time it take for a new generation who don't know how hot fire burns, to come to the fore?


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Sunday, February 15, 2015

Postdialectic socialism

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I was playing with the Postmodernism Generator earlier. These things have been around for a while, but if you haven't seen it before, it's much like Chomskybot, a nonsense generator which is amusingly close to genuine academic output. Here's an example.

Postdialectic socialism in the works of Tarantino

“Sexual identity is a legal fiction,” says Sontag. In a sense, Derrida uses the term ‘cultural narrative’ to denote the role of the artist as poet.


Baudrillard suggests the use of capitalism to challenge sexism. But the subject is contextualised into a subcapitalist feminism that includes truth as a reality.

Abian implies that we have to choose between capitalism and neoconceptualist libertarianism. Therefore, Sartre uses the term ‘capitalist theory’ to denote the genre, and subsequent paradigm, of precultural narrativity.


The message is obvious and quite unsettling. For example, if we build artificial intelligence which spouts such verbiage, then some poor souls will see it as proof of genuinely superior intelligence instead of a software goof.

Human language has the capacity to slide from common sense to abstruse argument to nonsense with not a single dividing line to tell us which is which. Many thrive on it.

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Saturday, February 14, 2015

Don't forget to vote on May 7th!




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Why I read the Daily Mail

WHY I READ THE DAILY MAIL

... or more precisely, why I don't read The Guardian:

"I have worked for publications owned by Conrad Black, the Guardian’s arch-Satan Rupert Murdoch, and the Barclay brothers. I have also worked for Polly’s pristine conduit — and I can tell you that when it comes to political interference in copy, the only place I’ve had even the remotest problem, in 15 years, was the Guardian. Not a huge problem, I admit — they stopped me using the word ‘monkey’ to describe someone who was behaving like a monkey, jabbering, being mischievous. They said it was racist. I said well, OK, but the man I’m talking about is white. They said yes, but people might think he’s black. The following week I described someone as being a wolv-erine — they cut that out too. They said a wolverine was a kind of ape and was therefore racist. I said no, a wolverine is a sort of large, ferocious weasel. And they said yes, but someone might think that it’s a kind of ape, and therefore racist."

See Rod Liddle's full piece in this week's Spectator here: 
http://www.spectator.co.uk/columnists/rod-liddle/9438392/the-delicious-cant-of-the-guardian-is-such-a-treat-on-a-saturday-morning/

... or more precisely, why I don't read The Guardian:

"I have worked for publications owned by Conrad Black, the Guardian’s arch-Satan Rupert Murdoch, and the Barclay brothers. I have also worked for Polly’s pristine conduit — and I can tell you that when it comes to political interference in copy, the only place I’ve had even the remotest problem, in 15 years, was the Guardian. Not a huge problem, I admit — they stopped me using the word ‘monkey’ to describe someone who was behaving like a monkey, jabbering, being mischievous. They said it was racist. I said well, OK, but the man I’m talking about is white. They said yes, but people might think he’s black. The following week I described someone as being a wolv-erine — they cut that out too. They said a wolverine was a kind of ape and was therefore racist. I said no, a wolverine is a sort of large, ferocious weasel. And they said yes, but someone might think that it’s a kind of ape, and therefore racist."

See Rod Liddle's full piece in this week's Spectator here.


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Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Climate change: the repentant skeptic

In 2011...



In 2012 and afterwards...


More at http://berkeleyearth.org/


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Monday, February 09, 2015

"Watts Up With That?": sniping the snipers...

"The world's most viewed site on global warming and climate change" claims NASA's climate data manipulation invalidates the global warming assertion; but perhaps "he who pays the piper calls the tune" on both sides.

I have submitted the following comment on their latest post - will they print it? If so, will they answer it? I've taken the precaution of PrintScreening the submission, in case a wormhole opens up under my query:



UPDATE:

I have had a reply, though not from the site as such, merely from one of its readers:

What “Institute”? Oh, the specific job Heartland paid Watts to prepare one report on the accuracy of the US thermometers?
 
Gee. Again the claim that Heartland “bought” skeptics. If $25,000.00 paid for a skeptics viewpoint – and it did not, that “story” you were fed from “a friend” is an exaggerated piece of propaganda now several years old! – let me ask you: “How many so-called “scientists” will 92 billion dollars buy?”
 
Big Government spent 92 billion dollars ( 3,680,000.00 to 1.00 budget ratio, since you apparently cannot multiply) buying the ideas and promotions and the research and the journals and the budgets and the computer programs and the staffs and even more for the universities and labs and bureaucrats needed by Big Science … just specifically FOR their Big Government “scientists” – who are not all biased, are they? – reach decision designed and intended to create carbon credits for Big Finance and Big Business and for 1,300,000,000,000.00 in new tax dollars each year.
 
How much Big Government can you buy for 1.3 trillion dollars and control of the world’s energy resources? How much are you paid by Big Government for your ideas and your time?
  • I am paid by neither side. And I can multiply – not that that remotely comes into it. Where on earth do you get your debating style from? The ad hominem approach may be effective for an orator, but it’s garbage as far as logical and factual debate is concerned.
     
  • The relevance of funding here – and it’s not just the $25k from the Koch brothers, who are a study in themselves one understands – is that you need to “come to the court with clean hands”. If, as the anti-AGW party claims, the science has been skewed by financial support tantamount to bribery, then the critics need to show that their own approach is untainted by such accusations.
  • Here on the Internet, it’s great that potentially we get to learn more about more things, but like cable TV we seem to be broken up into coteries of group-thinkers.
  • Any recommendations as to where to turn for an expert in this field who is genuinely independent?

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Saturday, February 07, 2015

Testing Artificial Teeth

Testing Artificial Teeth - William Heath Robinson
source

My wife and I visited Derby museum the other day. The Derby china collection was first on the list because we know one of the chaps who reclassified it last year. A fine collection but little in the way of interest somehow.

No great attempt has been made to fit the exhibits into a social and commercial setting, particularly with respect to the industrial revolution and the middle class passion for the status conferred by fine china.

The Derby china is very pretty, but I think the gilding is all superficial ; and the finer pieces are so dear, that perhaps silver vessels of the same capacity may be sometimes bought at the same price
Samuel Johnson - letter to Mrs Thrale 1777

After the china it was on to the Joseph Wright exhibition which L finds a little spooky, partly because of the size of the paintings - many are virtually life size. She says the effect is like being surrounded by long dead people from another and now somewhat mysterious age. After a while I begin to know what she means.

The Heath Robinson exhibition was entertaining though. A fine reminder of his delightfully inventive humour. Worth a visit if you are in the area. Another more sombre reminder lurks behind the exhibition though, because we’ll never see Heath-Robinson and his world again.

After Heath Robinson it was on to the ancient bits and pieces from Derby’s long history, from Roman and medieval pots to flint arrow heads. While browsing the exhibits we were both struck with the same idea: wouldn’t it have been wonderful to have made a career finding and studying these ancient relics? If only we’d followed another direction.

Or maybe not. As habitual cynics we know the grass among the artifacts may not be as green as it seems to the casual museum visitor. To pinch a phrase from Saki, we are too familiar with the long reach of elaborate futilities. Heath Robinson without the humour.

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Tuesday, February 03, 2015

Unemployed to sign on twice as often

Source


From the Independent

All unemployed people might have to “sign on” at the Jobcentre twice as often if they want to continue receiving benefits, under cost-cutting plans being considered by the Government.

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Sunday, February 01, 2015

Why Neanderthals Died Out

Why Neanderthals died out:

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Saturday, January 31, 2015

That forlorn orchestra


source

He belonged unmistakably to that forlorn orchestra to whose piping no one dances; he was one of the world’s lamenters who induce no responsive weeping.
H.H. Munro (Saki) - Dusk (1914)

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Monday, January 26, 2015

Two windmills



We were out walking through Carsington Pasture today. It’s a somewhat barren landscape above Carsington Water, pockmarked with old mines and spoil heaps and now home to four huge wind turbines which can be seen for miles. You may be able to judge their size from the trees and the ruined stone windmill in the foreground.

The sound made by these things has been the subject of much debate, but I’m not sure what all the fuss is about. In the stiff breeze we had today, they make a low thrumming noise rather similar to the sound and the rhythm of a dishwasher. I wouldn’t want to live nearer than a couple of miles though; the sound must carry at night.

Big wind turbines are an impressive sight, especially up close on a windy day. What strikes me is the power behind the technology, the power of greedy and ambitious men. Women too no doubt, but let us leave the main responsibility where it belongs.

One is left with an acute reminder of the formidable realities of power, the ability to manipulate and persuade, the power to promote unworthy causes and harness worthy people to them. Voting will never change that.

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Sunday, January 25, 2015

German Christmas Macaroni

(pic source)

When the snow falls wunderbar
And the children happy are,
When the Glatteis on the street
And we all a Glühwein need,
Then you know, es ist soweit:
She is here, the Weihnachtszeit.

Every Parkhaus is besetzt,
Weil die people fahren jetzt
All to Kaufhof, Mediamarkt,
Kriegen nearly Herzinfarkt.
Shopping hirnverbrannte things
And the Christmasglocke rings.

Merry Christmas, merry Christmas!
Hear the music, see the lights,
Frohe Weihnacht, Frohe Weihnacht!
Merry Christmas allerseits...

Mother in the kitchen bakes
Schoko-, Nuss- and Mandelkeks.
Daddy in the Nebenraum
Schmücks a Riesen-Weihnachtsbaum.
He is hanging auf the balls,
Then he from the Leiter falls...

Finally the Kinderlein
To the Zimmer kommen rein,
And es sings the family
Schauerlich: "Oh, Christmastree"
And the jeder in the house
Is packing die Geschenke aus.

Merry Christmas, merry Christmas!
Hear the music, see the lights,
Frohe Weihnacht, Frohe Weihnacht!
Merry Christmas allerseits...

Mama finds under the Tanne
Eine brandnew Teflon-Pfanne,
Papa gets a Schlips and Socken,
Everybody does frohlocken.
President speaks in TV,
All around is Harmonie.

Bis mother in the kitchen runs:
Im Ofen burns the Weihnachtsgans.

And so comes die Feuerwehr
With Tatü, tata daher,
And they bring a long, long Sclauch
And a long, long Leiter auch.
And they schrei - "Wasser marsch!"
Christmas is - now im - Arsch...

Merry Christmas, merry Christmas!
Hear the music, see the lights,
Frohe Weihnacht, Frohe Weihnacht!
Merry Christmas allerseits!

(Author unknown)


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Thursday, January 22, 2015

Chilcot to be published now



After much criticism of the earlier decision to delay publication until after the general election, David Cameron has announced that the Chilcot report is to be published immediately.

“This government has nothing to hide,” Mr Cameron said to assembled journalists, “we publish now.”

We understand that the report is to be published as a partwork consisting of sixty monthly issues. Specialist partwork publisher DeLaye has been engaged to deliver the project on time and within budget.

Each issue will cost £4.95 including postage and the first will include a free cutout model of a WMD - see illustration above. A range of tasteful binders will be available, one binder having space for twelve monthly issues. 

As a special incentive, the final summary and list of recommendations will be given away free to all subscribers at the end of their subscription period. Publicity, marketing and related Twitter feeds are being handled by upmarket consultants Obskuranti.

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Wednesday, January 21, 2015

White rhino

source

According to the BBC and David Shukman the northern white rhino is teetering on the brink of extinction. Although it doesn’t look white to me. More grey than white. Shukman seems concerned though. Even more worried than the rhino but that’s what he does – brow-furrowing concern.

In an age when mankind can send robots to look for life on Mars, why can't science stop so many forms of life from being wiped out here on Earth?

The question comes amid the loss of species on such a relentless scale that conservationists call it the Sixth Mass Extinction - the fifth being the asteroid that killed the large dinosaurs. This one is driven by human activity.


It seems to me that there is a scale of possible reactions to this story.

From: Arm-waving we-are-destroying-the-planet, something must be done, it’s all our fault or rather your fault for being a thoughtless consumer bastard.

To: Indifference.

I’m firmly in the indifference camp – I really don’t care if northern white rhinos become extinct. I’m happy enough for other folk to try saving them, happy enough for substantial sums of money to be spent in the attempt - Shukman's salary for example. So go for it David - save them. 

I’m not prepared to pretend it really matters to me in any meaningful sense though. That would be cant. Johnson was good at spotting cant, especially in Boswell.

You tell a man, ‘I am sorry you had such bad weather the last day of your journey, and were so much wet.’ You don't care sixpence whether he is wet or dry. You may talk in this manner; it is a mode of talking in Society: but don't think foolishly.”
James Boswell's  Life  of  Samuel  Johnson,  LL.D.

The BBC does cant rather well, it’s the fashion and has been forever, but Johnson’s advice was sound. It even applies to northern white rhinos which aren't actually white.

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Monday, January 19, 2015

Portsmouth Historic Dockyard

HMS Victory
Portsmouth dockyard is home to historic warships alongside museums showcasing naval history. The dockyard has many attractions so you need at least two days to get the best out of it. A good place to start is HMS Victory, Lord Nelson’s flagship and the world’s oldest commissioned warship. Victory is in dry dock so unable to sport full mast because the weight would cause her hull to bow. In 1805 she was Lord Nelson’s flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar, the battle in which Nelson died a hero’s death and which also marked the end of Napoleon’s attempt to invade Britain by the seas.
The inside of Victory gives an insight into what life would be like at sea. I found it a lot more compact inside than I imagined; even I had to duck my head at times. I found it strange to think that I was on the vessel where Nelson spent the last moments of his life.
The Mary Rose
In a dry dock behind HMS Victory is the new Mary Rose museum.  The building was purpose built to house the remains the flagship of King Henry VIII which capsized and sank in the Solent in 1545. The museum is very well done; the remains of the Mary Rose are on its starboard side and on the port side the artifacts that were found with the ship were displayed laid out as they would have been on the ship. The starboard side was preserved by silt whilst the port-side was exposed and so decayed and was lost. The Mary Rose is currently behind Perspex because she is being dried out as part of the final stages of the work undertaken to preserve her. It was good for me to have seen Victory first because the layout of the two ships is similar which allowed me to interpret clearly what I was seeing of the Mary Rose.
Another historic sailing ship housed at Portsmouth is HMS Warrior. Built in 1860 she was the first armour-plated iron-hulled warship, the most revolutionary warship built. She rendered every other battleship of the time obsolete. Warrior was propelled by steam power as well as being fully rigged for sail.
HMS Illustrious with HMS M.33 in the foreground
Historic dockyard No. 1 houses HMS M.33 a Coastal Bombardment vessel built in 1915. M.33 is one of only two British warships to survive from the First World War. The ship fought in the Gallipoli Campaign and went on to play a part in the Russian civil war. She is currently being renovated and it is planned that the work will be completed, allowing full public access, in time for the 100th anniversary of the Gallipoli Campaign later this year.
The dockyard is still a working naval dockyard and current ships of the Royal Navy can be seen in the harbour. They can also be viewed from Victory museum’s viewing platform. During my visit, one of the museum’s curators explained about the decommissioning of HMS Illustrious within Portsmouth Dockyard. She then produced a book on warships and showed some of the ships that were currently in dock. Another prominent ship in the docks at the time was HMS Dragon (Type 45 air defence destroyer) which was being refitted prior to her current deployment in the South Atlantic.
The curator next pointed out a Victorian structure that covered the place where Queen Victoria alighted her train before boarding a ship to Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. I was also pointed in the right direction to find W L Wyllie’s excellent Panorama of Trafalgar which I otherwise would have missed. The painting was displayed as a ’son et lumiere’ which was an excellent way of showing it off but it also meant I couldn’t linger to study it as long as I would have liked.
Ships in Port
The best way to see the ships that are docked in the port, along with other more permanent features is to take a boat trip around the harbour. The tour includes a commentary naming the ships in harbour on the day and pointing out other various features of interest.
It is also possible to take a free water bus to Gosport to see HMS Alliance at the Submarine Museum and the Museum of Naval Firepower which is situated nearby. I ran out of time so this is on my list for the next time I visit.
Royal Marines Museum
Another attraction included in the entrance ticket is the nearby Museum of the Royal Marines which is housed in the former Royal Marines Officers Mess at Eastney Barracks. The museum provides an in depth history of the Royal Marines and gives insight into what modern Royal Marines basic training involves and what it takes to be a Royal Marine. The videos of recruit’s stories as they undertook their basic training are quite touching and enlightening. I spent the whole morning there and I could have done with a little bit longer.
The dockyards are also home to the National Museum of the Royal Navy which is dedicated to past and present men and women of the Royal Navy. In addition to the fine ships and Naval history that can be seen at the dockyards there are many other historical landmarks that are worthy of notice.
I thoroughly recommend a visit to the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard and its associated attractions, not all of which I have mentioned.

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Sunday, January 18, 2015

Balls the prophet

The Mail says Ed Balls predicted the crash in 2007, which is why he urged Brown to hold a snap election.

Out of 20,000 professional economists, Oz econ academic Steve Keen reckons only some 20 saw it coming. EB has an econ-academic background; so has his brother Andrew, who joined bond investment giant Pimco in 2006. Did the latter have interesting conversations with the former in 2007?

Clearly we need Balls' insight - as long as his concern is not limited to party success. What is he predicting now, I wonder?


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