November 2009 – Page 2 – The Unwanted Blog

The mainstream media is studiously avoiding this topic. But the scientists aren’t.

Why I think that Michael Mann, Phil Jones and Stefan Rahmstorf should be barred from the IPCC process

I belong to the climate-research infantry, publishing a few papers per year, reviewing a few manuscript per year and participating in a few research projects. I do not form part of important committees, nor I pursue a public awareness of my activities. My very minor task in the public arena was to participate as a contributing author in the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC.
…
I may confirm what has been written in other places: research in some areas of climate science has been and is full of machination, conspiracies, and collusion, as any reader can interpret from the CRU-files. They depict a realistic, I would say even harmless, picture of what the real research in the area of the climate of the past millennium has been in the last years. The scientific debate has been in many instances hijacked to advance other agendas.

These words do not mean that I think anthropogenic climate change is a hoax. On the contrary, it is a question which we have to be very well aware of. But I am also aware that in this thick atmosphere -and I am not speaking of greenhouse gases now- editors, reviewers and authors of alternative studies, analysis, interpretations,even based on the same data we have at our disposal, have been bullied and subtly blackmailed. In this atmosphere, Ph D students are often tempted to tweak their data so as to fit the ‘politically correct picture’. Some, or many issues, about climate change are still not well known. Policy makers should be aware of the attempts to hide these uncertainties under a unified picture. I had the ‘pleasure’ to experience all this in my area of research.

That some climatologists fudged the numbers does not invalidate the science of climatology, or science in general… just as the Piltdown Man hoax did not – despite the most fervent hopes of the worst of the creationists – invalidate the science of evolution. But both incidents made their fields look bad. And while Piltdown was a hoax by a very small number of people, and had little to no political policy implications, the CRU incident has *extreme* policy implications. Trillions of dollars and literally millions of lives are at stake… if Obama signs away what little remains of the American economy based on science that has been as fraudulently – or, charitably, as incompetantly – mangled as the science of anthropogenic global warming seems to be, it will be one of the darkest days in American history.

It wasn’t that long ago that I posted this, but what the hell, here it is again (this time with pictures):

The Plymouth colony was originally set up to be a Christian commune. As governor Bradford related in “Of Plimoth
Plantation:”

1. The adventurers & planters doe agree, that every person
that goeth being aged 16. years & upward, be rated at 10li.,
and ten pounds to be accounted a single share.
2. That he that goeth in person, and furnisheth him selfe
out with 10li. either in money or other provissions, be accounted
as haveing 20li. in stock, and in ye devission shall receive a
double share.
3. The persons transported & ye adventurers shall continue
their joynt stock & partnership togeather, ye space of 7. years,
(excepte some unexpected impedimente doe cause ye whole
company to agree otherwise,) during which time, all profits &
benifits that are gott by trade, traffick, trucking, working, fish-
ing, or any other means of any person or persons, remaine still
in ye comone stock untill ye division.
4. That at their coming ther, they chose out such a number
of fitt persons, as may furnish their ships and boats for fishing
upon ye sea; imploying the rest in their severall faculties upon
ye land; as building houses, tilling, and planting ye ground,
& makeing shuch comodities as shall be most use full for ye
collonie.

5. That at ye end of ye 7. years, ye capitall & profits, viz.
the houses, lands, goods and chatles, be equally devided be-
twixte ye adventurers, and planters; wch done, every man
shall be free from other of them of any debt or detrimente
concerning this adventure.
[29] 6. Whosoever cometh to ye colonie herafter, or putteth
any into ye stock, shall at the ende of ye 7. years be alowed
proportionably to ye time of his so doing.
7. He that shall carie his wife & children, or servants, shall
be alowed for everie person now aged 16. years & upward, a
single share in ye devision, or if he provid them necessaries,
a duble share, or if they be between 10. year old and 16., then
2. of them to be reconed for a person, both in trasportation
and devision.

8. That such children as now goe, & are under ye age of
ten years, have noe other shar in ye devi~ion, but 50. acers of
unmanured land.
9. That such persons as die before ye 7. years be expired,
their executors to have their parte or shaff at ye devision, pro-
portionably to ye time of their life in ye collonie.
10. That all such persons as are of this collonie, are to have
their meate, drink, apparell, and all provissions out of ye comon
stock & goods of ye said collonie.

In short, the land was to be worked communally, and the produce distributed equally. Two centuries before Marx, this was nevertheless a perfectly valid description of “communism.”

How’d it turn out? Well… in 1623, Bradford wrote this:

The experience that was had in this comone course
and condition, tried sundrie years, and that amongst
godly and sober men, may well evince the vanitie of
that conceite of Platos & other ancients, applauded
by some of later times; that ye taking away of
propertie, and bringing in comunitie into a comone
wealth, would make them happy and florishing; as if
they were wiser then God. For this comunitie (so
farr as it was) was found to breed much confusion &
discontent, and retard much imploymet that would
have been to their beneflte and comforte. For ye
yong-men that were most able and fitte for labour &
service did repine that they should spend their time
& streingth to worke for other mens wives and chil-
dren, with out any recompence. The strong, or man
of parts, had no more in devission of victails & cloaths,
then he that was weake and not able to doe a quarter
ye other could; this was thought injuestice. The aged
and graver men to be ranked and [97] equalised in
labours, and victails, cloaths, &c., with ye meaner &
yonger sorte, thought it some indignite & disrespect
unto them. And for mens wives to be commanded to
doe servise for other men, as dresing their meate, wash-
ing their cloaths, &c., they deemd it a kind of slaverie,
neither could many husbands well brooke it. Upon ye
poynte all being to have alike, and all to doe alike,
they thought them selves in ye like condition, and one
as good as another; and so, if it did not cut of those
relations that God hath set amongest men, yet it did
at least much diminish and take of ye mutuall respects
that should be preserved amongst them. And would
have bene worse if they had been men of another
condition. Let none objecte this is men’s corruption,
and nothing to ye course it selfe. I answer, seeing all
men have this corruption in them, God in his wis-
dome saw another course fiter for them.

In the end, it was found that communism bred not plenty, but famine. If you get your share whether you bust your ass in the fields, or just laze about all day, pretty soon people are going to realize that they are being played for chumps if they actually go and bust their asses in the fields all day. And the result of that will be a massive drop in productivity; and in a razors-edge colony on the far end of the map, this is a recipe for disaster.

As a result, the colony rethought its communist ideology:

All this whille no supply was heard of, neither knew
they when they might expecte any. So they begane
to thinke how they might raise as much corne as they
could, and obtaine a beter crope then they had done,
that they might not still thus languish in miserie. At
length, after much debate of things, the Govr (with
ye advise of ye cheefest amongest them) gave way that
they should set corne every man for his owne per-
ticuler, and in that regard trust to them selves; in all
other things to goe on in ye generall way as before.
And so assigned to every family a parcell of land,
according to the proportion of their number for that
end, only for present use (but made no devission for
inheritance), and ranged all boys & youth under some
familie. This had very good success; for it made all
hands very industrious, so as much more corne was
planted then other waise would have bene by any
means ye Govr or any other could use, and saved him
a great deall of trouble, and gave farr better contente.
The women now wente willingly into ye feild, and
tooke their litle-ons with them to set corne, which
before would aledg weaknes, and inabilitie; whom to
have compelled would have bene thought great tiranie
and oppression.

The result here was that going from collectivism to private ownership resulted in a massive increase in productivity, and the end of the famine. With the assitance of the Indians in matters agricultural, the coloney went froma dying group of starving commies, to a prosperous group of feasting private property owners. If you’re of a mind to believe in God, then the deliverance from Communism is certainly something to be thankful for. The Pilgrims lucked out… a more typical story would have the totalitarian government maintaining the communist ideology until complete disaster struck. But the colony was too thinly populated for a Pilgrim-KGB to maintain order through force.

Now THIS YouTube video was definitely worth the watch.

Something like this m ight be worth doing some day… truck a worthless rock into Earth orbit, grind it into a vast number of smaller rocks, then start seeding throughout the intended lanes of the ring system. Sure, it wouldn’t last long, geologically speaking…the perturbations from the Moon would quickly cause it to rain down out of the sky. Might only last a few hundred thousand years. But that’s long enough to take a few snapshots.

Wikipedia lists a few suggested Roche limits for Earth… for an “average comet” it’s between 17,880 and 34,390 km.

Two photos of the model on display at the NASM Udvar-Hazy center.

Looks like a pretty neato design, doesn’t it. So neat that you’d love to see more. Hell, you’d be willing to pay to see more. Well, today’s your lucky day! A whole mess of diagrams of this beautiful beastie are available HERE and HERE. Get ’em both at once HERE.

Another photo from the Jay Miller collection. Here’s the raw scan (a bit smallerized, of course):

At this time, it looks like the inboard engine on the starboard wing may have had some trouble… the prop is stopped and appears feathered.

And here’s a modified version of the photo, just to show what a little bit of “fade correction” can do:

This time in New Zealand.

In New Zealand’s case, the figures published on NIWA’s [the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric research] website suggest a strong warming trend in New Zealand over the past century:

But analysis of the raw climate data from the same temperature stations has just turned up a very different result:

In this case, there *may* be a good explanation for this:

NIWA’s analysis of measured temperatures uses internationally accepted techniques, including making adjustments for changes such as movement of measurement sites. For example, in Wellington, early temperature measurements were made near sea level, but in 1928 the measurement site was moved from Thorndon (3 metres above sea level) to Kelburn (125 m above sea level). The Kelburn site is on average 0.8°C cooler than Thorndon, because of the extra height above sea level.

However, once again the raw data is not being made available, nor are the codes used to analyse the data. Now, if this was being done by a private organization on their own dime, then they can do with the data whatever they like, including hiding it from the public. If this was being doen by the government, but the results were for some military program that requires secrecy, then again keeping it from the public would make sense. but this is being done using taxpayer funding, for a reason that is far from secret. There is no good reason to not release the raw data.

When my house is dark except for one light in the living room, and the curtains are open on a window above my kitchen sink, and that one light (an adjustable overhead lamp) is positioned *just* right, a fish appears on my wall:

This is no miracle. It’s simple optics… the kitchen window is bowed outwards, leaving a concave reflective surface, which turns the point-source light from the lamp into a series of arcs. Easy enough to figure out. Still, I can’t help notice the similarity to a certain religious symbol. And religious symbols appearing unbidden from apparently random sources is the sort of thing that makes you think.

Now, here’s what I think. I’ve seen grilled cheese sammiches with the vague likeness of someone or other sell for big money on online auctions. Clearly though, I can’t really sell a reflection at an auction. And I don’t want a bunch of strangers tramping through my place scaring my cats. So how do I get some money out of this apparition? After all, that seems to be what such apparitions are for.

<>This is why the future belongs to China. From Weird Asian News:

The bra’s magic lies in its patented “God’s Hand” technology. Simply press the button, and the hidden, hand-shaped panels expand, lifting your breasts to provide cleavage like you’ve never had before. And the longer you press, the bigger they get!

There’s a YouTube video of a 4-minute commercial for this miracle of moden Chinese science. It is, of course, in Chinese, so I can’t understand a word of it. But damned if it isn’t funny to watch… and remains just as funny if you listen to it *without* watching it. The annoucer sounds like he’s about to explode with delight.