Posts by James Bremner
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ChrisW, oh please. All the quotes are just reasonable comments taken out of context? Sure. However you slice it, there are some complete nutters on the AGW bandwagon and this does AGW a lot of harm.
Rich, I didn't get grumpy anywhere in my posts above. Not sure where you see that I did.
Extraordinary conclusions require extraordinary proof, whether you are Mother Teresa or not. And extraordinary proof includes amongst other things complying with laws regarding FOI requests and not attempting to corrupt the peer review process to exclude dissenting opinion, as the EA CRU e-mails so clearly illustrated.
I suspect the following clips from the now famous coder Harry provides ample evidence for why the CRU didn't want to comply with the FOI law.
“Oh yeah - there is no 'supposed', I can make it up. So I have :-)”
“Specify period over which to compute the regressions (stop in 1960 to avoid the decline”
“Of course, it's too late for me to fix it too”
And Harry’s classic piece de resistance:
"OH FUCK THIS. It's Sunday evening, I've worked all weekend, and just when I thought it was done I'm hitting yet another problem that's based on the hopeless state of our databases. There is no uniform data integrity; it's just a catalogue of issues that continues to grow as they're found."
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/25/climategate-hide-the-decline-codified/
Can anyone say with a straight face that the databases and Harry’s work and comments shouldn’t be examined with considerable rigor? As far as I am aware, none of the four enquiries into “Climategate” paid any attention to Harry Read Me.txt. Why not? A comment such as “..hopeless state of our databases” from the person who is one of the most familiar with those databases is a pretty serious matter. I don’t understand how otherwise serious and intelligent people can dismiss such questions as a recitation of “talking points”. How can you claim a scientific conclusion based upon data that is crap?
Maybe there are perfectly reasonable and justifiable explanations for Harry’s problems, but I have not seen it or heard of them, and the CRU data set is one of the key datasets upon which the whole AGW edifice has been built. The CRU output is apparently similar to the output of the other datasets, so are they all similarly screwed up? And we should just hurry along, as there is nothing to see here? The AGWers want to make massive and incredibly costly changes to the world’s economy based on this apparent shit? And the skeptics are the ones who are crazy? I think not.
The only way forward is to institute complete openess and transparancy of all data and information to any person and organization that wants to look at any AGW paper or organization. This will take years, but it is the only way for the AGW theory to recover the credibility it will require to get through the political process.
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HORansome wrote
Yes, James, it would be terrible to damage our economy [1] just to save future generations from environmental catastrophe.1. Except, of course, we don't have to damage the economy to do that. We just have to hit those efficiencies we were told the market would provide us with anyway.
Yes, that's right, environmental catastrophe is certain isn't it? Its peer reviewed, it must be so!! Bollocks..
There are so many reasons to be skeptical about AGW, apart from the corruption of the peer review process, refusing to comply with FOI requests, and the delightful candor of the Harryreadme.txt file we all found out about from the e-mails leaked from the East Anglia CRU. Some of these reasons include the quotes at the link below from a variety of climate change blowhards. While I don't necessarily agree with the introduction, and I have read many of these quotes before, seeing them all in one place at one time is quite disturbing. More than enough justification for maintaining a very healthy skepticism toward AGW and anyone or any organization that promotes it as anything other than an uncertain theory.
So many good quotes, hard to pick the best ones, here is just one of many:
Quote by Richard Benedik, former U.S./UN bureaucrat: “A global climate treaty must be implemented even if there is no scientific evidence to back the greenhouse effect.” Oh great, yes, we must act now!!
http://davegj13.wordpress.com/2009/10/14/the-climate-change-scam-quotes-from-the-idiot-left/
But the point of my original post was regardless of ones’ position on AGW, any kind of significant action, let alone a full blown cap and tax regime is rapidly approaching zero, like the price trend at the CCX:
http://www.chicagoclimatex.com/
And of course it is all the market’s fault!! Not sure how you get there, Horansome. Yes, all the problems of the world can be blamed on those damned free markets can’t they?
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Late to the party, but never mind.
It will be interesting to see how this case turns out, but it is getting to the point of being an academic exercise only at this point.
I am sure people in NZ have caught up with the fact that Harry Reid dropped Cap and Tax legislation off the Senate's agenda for the rest of the year, which means that the US will not have any kind of climate change legislation for the foreseeable future. The Dems will lose at least 4 or 5 seats in the Senate, maybe a few more, which with a sizable block of Dems from coal states (either coal mining states such as WV or with predominantly coal fired power stations, like Wisconsin) means that there won’t be anywhere near the required 60 votes for cloture in the Senate, so no climate bill. With no climate bill in the US, why would any other countries immolate their economies?
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20100804/OPINION/100809892?p=1&tc=pg
Two takes from either side of the argument on the significantly reduced emphasis that AGW got at the recent G20.
http://opinion.financialpost.com/2010/07/02/lawrence-solomon-catastrophism-collapses/
The tide has turned on AGW. The public around the world buy it less and less, and politicians are catching up with that.
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DPF on KB has just posted a list of 35 countries including France, Germany, Spain and Sweden that have some form of trial period employment laws.
Assuming DPF is correct, it is a bit hard to describe NZ's new law as extreme isn't it?
Over the years I have had several conversations with friends and relatives in management positions in NZ who have told me that as it is difficult and expensive to dismiss a worker, they are told to do what they can to avoid employing additional workers, to contract out work or to be very careful and take no chances if they do hire workers.As I understand it the stated reason for the new law is to allow employers to take a chance on employee that has some concerns in their employment history (i.e. prior convictions, just out of jail etc.) in order to improve the employment chances of such people. Just the kind of people who will really benefit from employment.
Does the PAS community accept that trying strike a balance between an employer taking a risk and an employee with some red flags is an issue of concern in NZ or is the justification outlined above false and an excuse for more malignant intentions? Neither Russell's post or any of the previous comments seem to address this issue (while many were long on malignant intentions).
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By being skeptical about routine portents of doom, we can stay focused on the real threats that face our planet, and on the reasonable and achievable actions we as a society can take to meet them.
Amen to that. Anyone wondering why people are skeptical about AGW need read no further then the quick complication of eco doom forecasts that never came to be.
__• “...civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind,” biologist George Wald, Harvard University, April 19, 1970.
By 1995, “...somewhere between 75 and 85 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct.” Sen. Gaylord Nelson, quoting Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, Look magazine, April 1970.
• Because of increased dust, cloud cover and water vapor “...the planet will cool, the water vapor will fall and freeze, and a new Ice Age will be born,” Newsweek magazine, January 26, 1970.
• The world will be “...eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age,” Kenneth Watt, speaking at Swarthmore University, April 19, 1970.
• “We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation,” biologist Barry Commoner, University of Washington, writing in the journal Environment, April 1970.
• “Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from the intolerable deteriorations and possible extinction,” The New York Times editorial, April 20, 1970.
• “By 1985, air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half...” Life magazine, January 1970.
• “Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make,” Paul Ehrlich, interview in Mademoiselle magazine, April 1970.
• “...air pollution...is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone,” Paul Ehrlich, interview in Mademoiselle magazine, April 1970.
• Ehrlich also predicted that in 1973, 200,000 Americans would die from air pollution, and that by 1980 the life expectancy of Americans would be 42 years.
• “It is already too late to avoid mass starvation,” Earth Day organizer Denis Hayes, The Living Wilderness, Spring 1970.
• “By the year 2000...the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America and Australia, will be in famine,” Peter Gunter, North Texas State University, The Living Wilderness, Spring 1970.
Here is the link to the article list.
http://www.washingtonpolicy.org/pressroom/pressreleases/4_22_2008.html
Skepticism is the only rational approach to forecasts of eco-doom. When would I begin to take AGW seriously? When someone has a model that has a track record of accuracy. Are there any global climate models from before 1995 that predicted no warming from 1995 to 2010? None of which I am aware.
And as we know from Bjorn Lomberg, many environemntal indicators are improving, not spinning out of control.
In spite of this it looks like the Senate is shaping up to try to solve a problem that has not been proven to exist and introduce some kind of cap and trade bill. Nuts.
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How can you have confidence in a scientist's predictions after he has admitted throwing away his raw data? Is this kind of behaviour be acceptable in any field or profession? None that I have been involved in. As this is a foundational dataset for the AGW theory, its "dissappearance" ought to stop the AGW train in its tracks (but it wont).
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6936328.ece
It is long past due for the world of AGW to be forced open. For a start a lot of the AGW research is being undertaken on the taxpayers nickel, so it ought to be available for review.
One small victory on that front. Be interesting to see where it leads.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/apr/20/climate-sceptic-wins-data-victory
Why be skeptical? Because of all the hysterical predicitions that haven't come to pass. Because scientists have made mistakes before and will again in the future. Scientists are only human, they are subject to vainty and corruption like anyone else, and there is more money on the AGW gravy train for scientists, politicians and business people than any gravy train around.
But most of all, skepticism is necessary because the consequences of the proposed solutions to the theorised agw problem are so dramatic both in cost and impact, that we should be sure before we move down that path. AGW has to prove its case comprehensively and completely, it is not upto skeptics to prove the agw crowd is wrong. The dog ate my data doesn't cut it.
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This article seems to answer the "who's paying for the redshirts" question.
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/firsthand-account-of-thai-red-shirt-violence-yes-msm-got-it-wrong/
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But in the end, it is incomprehensibly stupid to be unmarked, carrying a large camera and tripod around with armed individuals, when Apache copters are overhead and are near an area where a gunfight had occurred
My opinion, but not my words. Those words were written by Firedoglake, a progressive blogger, so I think it is fair to say my view is hardly extreme. Check out the whole post here:
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/39215
Congratulations to Keith on an even handed post of a difficult topic and good follow up (Don't know that I did you any favors with a comment like that from me on this blog!!)
As far as whether or not they had enough justification to engage, having AK 47s is more than enough justification. Firedoglake again:
Regardless, no one is allowed to be armed except for Iraqi police and Coalition forces. There is no such thing as an armed Iraqi escort for journalists. My only guess is he underestimated how quickly and deadly the situation can become if he were to hang around with armed insurgents
Simon, there may well have been hundreds of suspect incidents, where the US military's ROE were either bent or broken and deaths resulted, but that is out of how many missions? Probably an average of hundreds of missions per day over 7 years and longer in Afghanistan, a hell of a lot of missions. Several hundred suspect incidents is a bloody small % and proof that the US military as a whole has been very disciplined in the sandbox, as much as that might be difficult for far too many to accept.
War is horrible, no doubt about it, but Iraqi's has a shot at a future now. It didn't when Hussein was there. How many people would Hussein's regime have killed since 2003 if he was still in power? If he continued his average, probably tens of thousands at least as well as continuing to brutalize the entire population. And we would have Iran and Iraq both with nutcases in charge both racing to go nuclear. Nice. Leaving Hussein in place had a lot of drawbacks that never seem to get considered in discussions like these. It was hardly a picture perfect situation that 'ole Dubyah went over and stuffed up. It was already a mess.
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The occasional ex pat poster from NOLA would like to make a comment or two. Firstly, what a chilling video. I have seen quite a few of these “gun sight“ videos out of Iraq and Afghanistan, but this one is worse because you know there are apparently some non-combatants involved, with the other videos it was very clear that it was insurgents on the receiving end. With the other videos, the steps that had to be taken prior to firing were quite extensive.
I read today that the 17 min video was taken from a 38 min video that made it clearer that the action in question was taken amid clashes in the neighborhood; it wasn’t just Bobby and Billy in a chopper wasting some people. Also the longer version made it clearer that one of the people was carrying RPG. An RPG is a sure sign someone is upto no good.
The video was shot on July 12, 2007, over Eastern Baghdad, a war zone, in the middle of the surge. If you are going to walk around in a war zone, during a much publicized “surge”, in a neighborhood during on going clashes, carrying an AK 47 and an RPG when the US is well known to be extensively using drones and attack helicopters, I am sorry, it probably isn’t going to end well very well for you. Ditto for walking close to someone with an AK47 or an RPG in that situation. The key bit is “with an AK 47 and an RPG during on going clashes”.
After 7 years in Iraq and longer in Afghanistan, there must have been hundreds of thousands of individual combat actions on the ground and in the air. The number of incidents where soldiers or airmen have screwed up have been few in proportion. In order to show any kind of pattern of behavior or systemic issues in the US military, there would need to be thousands of such incidents and nothing like that has come out and that number of incidents could never, ever be kept under wraps. The US military and Govt. can’t keep secrets of any kind, especially not this kind of information in the resent political/media environment, so if wrongful identifications and shootings etc. were happening in significant numbers, we would know about it for sure.
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I saw Invictus last weekend. Liked it a lot. Morgan Freeman does very well as Mandela.
Don't know when it hits NZ, but it is well worth a few hours and a few bucks.
Won't hurt NZ's reputation to have its team cast as the unbeatable giant in the final.
Still hurts to remember the actual game though.