I posted a link to this article over the weekend, but it’s so good I asked to have it here as a guest post. Robert Tracinski’s piece is much more than just a fisking. It's the most revealing thing about the global warming scam, and its strongest adversaries, as you're going to read this week.
Maybe this year—and the next.
* * * * *
Capping Our Carbon and Crushing Our Spirits
by Robert Tracinski.
British global warming activist George Monbiot last week wrote probably the single most important column on the issue of global warming. He goes straight to the heart of the matter and makes clear that the deeper controversy underlying the fight over global warming has little to do with science and everything to do with one's view of human nature and man's place in the universe.
What was really going on at Copenhagen, he tells us, was "a battle to redefine humanity." If this makes you cringe--if you think the 20th century saw quite enough blood-soaked attempts to "redefine humanity" to fit some scheme dreamed up by Platonic intellectuals--than you have an inkling of what comes next.
This is the moment at which we turn and face ourselves. Here…humankind decides what it is and what it will become….
"The meeting at Copenhagen confronts us with our primal tragedy. We are the universal ape, equipped with the ingenuity and aggression to bring down prey much larger than itself, break into new lands, roar its defiance of natural constraints. Now we find ourselves hedged in by the consequences of our nature, living meekly on this crowded planet for fear of provoking or damaging others. We have the hearts of lions and live the lives of clerks.
"The summit's premise is that the age of heroism is over. We have entered the age of accommodation. No longer may we live without restraint….
"This is a meeting about chemicals: the greenhouse gases insulating the atmosphere. But it is also a battle between two world views. The angry men who seek to derail this agreement, and all such limits on their self-fulfillment, have understood this better than we have….
"There is no space for heroism here; all passion and power breaks against the needs of others. This is how it should be, though every neuron revolts against it.
Monbiot is right about the big question, even if he's on the wrong side of it. The goal of the environmentalist movement is not anything so trivial as capping our carbon. It's about crushing our spirits. It's about breaking the ambition of man the achiever-the explorer, the adventurer, the discoverer, the builder-and replacing him with man the meek, a modest little paper-shuffler constrained to live a small, inoffensive existence.
I am clutching my copy of Atlas Shrugged, because it has never seemed more relevant than it is now. But in reading Monbiot's column, another Ayn Rand novel comes to mind: The Fountainhead, Rand's classic portrayal of the struggle of the independent creator against the grey conformity of collectivism. With a few updates in his ideology-environmentalism in place of socialism-Monbiot gives us a creditable audition for the role of Ellsworth Toohey, the manipulative intellectual who seeks to crush the human spirit in order to make men submit to his influence and control.
Late in the novel, Toohey gives a private confession to one of his victims in which he names his methods and his real goal. Some of it should sound familiar.
“Let all sacrifice and none profit. Let all suffer and none enjoy. Let progress stop. Let all stagnate. There's equality in stagnation.”
People say Ayn Rand's novels are unrealistic, so why does real life seem so compelled to imitate them? Monbiot even has the kind of last name Ayn Rand would have given one of her villains. Ellsworth Toohey, Wesley Mouch, Claude Slagenhop, George Monbiot. It just fits in.
Monbiot's message is the same as Toohey's. He describes his opponents as "angry," but his whole column seethes with resentment at the independent man who defies social conformity-who the hell does he think he is? To dress up this ugly motive, Monbiot keeps saying that we need to be "restrained" in order to keep us from "trampling on the lives of others." But isn't trampling on our lives exactly what he advocates? He offers a scheme for universal control, not just of the economy, but of the human spirit itself. Behind everything he says is the motive Toohey confesses as the goal of his crusade against the independent man:
This attitude is not new, even if it is cloaked in a new ideology and given a new pseudo-scientific rationalization. This is the big story of the last millennium: man's heroic rise from the poverty, dirt, ignorance, and oppression of the Middle Ages to the point where we have discovered, at last, the full extent of our potential for achievement-only to face resentment from those who want to throw us back into the Medieval mire.
You can see this from the beginning of the Renaissance itself. There is no more potent expression (or product) of an un-restrained view of human potential than Michelangelo's David, an image of man as a giant who can achieve the seemingly impossible. But even then there were men who didn't like it. At the height of Florence's golden age, the ascetic monk Savonarola led a reactionary movement that briefly took over the city, smashing its magnificent sculptures and heaping priceless paintings onto the "bonfire of the vanities." Back then, it was God who was supposed to be offended by man's limitless ambition for worldly achievement. Now it's the planet.
In this same dawn of human potential, Galileo started modern science on its quest to unlock the secrets of the universe-only to be struck down by those who demanded human submission. Galileo's inquisitor, Cardinal Bellarmine, is supposed to have inscribed on his tomb the epitaph: "With force I have subdued the brains of the proud." Perhaps Monbiot could suggest this as the official slogan for the Copenhagen conference.
But the achievements of the Michelangelos and the Galileos and their successors eventually broke the power of the Medieval church. The Enlightenment brought us a Scientific Revolution and an Industrial Revolution that made good on the promise of the Renaissance. Monbiot describes the achiever as a Neanderthal brute, a clever and aggressive ape. But in actual history, the cantankerous individuals who have moved humanity forward have been its thinkers, artists, scientists-and industrialists. As Ayn Rand put it in her notebooks for The Fountainhead, "it is not the big capitalists and their money that Toohey opposes…. He says that he is fighting Rockefeller and Morgan; he is fighting Beethoven and Shakespeare." In actual history, the men Monbiot opposes are the ones who created new art, ideas, and industries out of nothing. The achievements of these unrestrained men led us to a world in which ignorance has been driven out by knowledge, universal poverty is being replaced by universal prosperity, and unlimited opportunity is becoming the normal condition of human life.
A few intellectuals, particularly Ayn Rand, have grasped what this implies about man's potential for unlimited achievement. But the Savonarolas and the Bellarmines are still around; they've just become secularized. In the past century, they were the collectivist intellectuals on which Ellsworth Toohey was based, who argued that the extraordinary individual was a dangerous illusion and that the ideal is to meld into the anonymity of the crowd. Since the fall of Berlin Wall, these reds have reconstituted themselves as greens, but their hostility to individual achievement has not abated. Just as the reds concocted a pseudo-economics to justify their attack on economic production, the greens have concocted a pseudo-scientific rationalization to justify their attack on modern industry and technology.
And what do they offer us as an alternative? According to Monbiot: "All those of us whose blood still races are forced to sublimate, to fantasize. In daydreams and video games we find the lives that ecological limits and other people's interests forbid us to live." Can't you just visualize George slouching on his couch watching 300 and dreaming about what it would be like to have sculpted abs and to roar his defiance against tyranny--and then meekly taking his empty cup of non-fat soy chai latte to the recycling bin, because he might have to pay a fine if he doesn't sort his trash. There you have the environmentalists' ideal man: Walter Mitty. Talk about making man feel small.
Monbiot's column is environmentalism's real-life equivalent of Toohey's confession, and it indicates that what is at stake in the fight over global warming is much more than economics. Today's "progressives" have become the supreme reactionaries. They stand athwart history--the history of man's ascent from the cave to the stars--yelling "stop!" What is at stake is the survival of the human aspiration to achieve--and that is what we have to save from the environmentalists.
* * * * *
Robert Tracinski writes daily commentary at TIADaily.com. He is the editor of The Intellectual Activist and TIADaily.com. His article appears here by permission.
The Fountainhead
by Ayn Rand
Read more about this book...
124 comments:
Quote: "Monbiot is right about the big question, even if he's on the wrong side of it. The goal of the environmentalist movement is not anything so trivial as capping our carbon. It's about crushing our spirits. It's about breaking the ambition of man the achiever-the explorer, the adventurer, the discoverer, the builder-and replacing him with man the meek, a modest little paper-shuffler constrained to live a small, inoffensive existence. "
"Crushing our spirits" - They can only crush our spirits if we allow them.
NZ Libertarians could have made a difference to our nation's plight if they had not insisted on being "intellectual".
American Democrats are a bunch of intellectuals. Or are they calling themselves Liberals these days? Or Progressives? Or Progressive Liberals?
Libs and Progs get agitated with the notion or idea or thought that there could be some-thing or some-one bigger or greater than themselves.
And because they think they are god-like, one bunch say they must save the planet while another bunch says they are too good for other bunches.
And so one bunch compromise with bribes while the other says there can be no compromise.
So what, eh? "Easy come, easy go" to quote James Lewis in American Thinker.
Shari, check your facts before making dumb comments.
"Libs and Progs get agitated with the notion or idea or thought that there could be some-thing or some-one bigger or greater than themselves.
And because they think they are god-like, one bunch say they must save the planet while another bunch says they are too good for other bunches."
Where do you get this from?
"the other says there can be no compromise."
No, not ideologically. But there is a difference between compromising on principles, and compromising in order to achieve a political end.
Perhaps you should learn the difference, Shari?
Hello Callum,
I get the impression about Libs and Progs from reading, and observing. Agitation is good. Example, your use of the word 'dumb' tells me you be-came agitated upon reading my comments.
Are you suggesting NZ Libertarians are willing to compromise their principles for their political ends?
If so, what are their principles, and what are their political ends? Which principles are they willing to compromise upon? Are they a political force to be reckoned with? Did Libertarians protest the removal of the partial defence of provocation?
I have learned that some NZ Libertarians resort to name calling when they become agitated.
Carry on, Callum. You're doing just fine.
I read The Fountain head in college on the recommendation of my father.
I thought it was an excellent book. Different. Well written. She is a great author.
It was a story. A fiction. The scenarios and principles were powerful and can inform real life to a great extent.
But it is still a book. And it's fictional situations, characters and principles cannot and have not been translated into real life.
I think everyone should read The Fountainhead. But that doesn't mean I think everyone should be like Howard Roark.
Getting rich and poor countries to agree on anything has always been difficult. The COP15 talks were a success merely because they happened. It showed a desire of countries to work together. The details of how to restrict the earth's temperature will be done more informally as the larger countries share information and strategies over the coming years.
The idea that Copenhagen is about social control is very far fetched. The basic fact is that living standards will be affected in only minor ways in order to achieve targets. A shift towards more evironmentally-sustainable methods of production and energy use are what will happen if carbon is taxed.
Until the skeptics can conclusively disprove global warming instead of just weakening arguments for it, there is still a plausible basisx for governments to act to contain the AGW threat. So in this context the assertion that social control is the reason for Copenhagen is flimsy at best.
"Are you suggesting NZ Libertarians are willing to compromise their principles for their political ends?"
No. What I am saying is that there is a difference between compromise on principle to attain political power, and having to compromise with other parties for practical purposes in order to obtain libertarian ends.
No one will be able to achieve libertarianism in one fellow swoop, for example - there would be too many obstacles. But what matters, fundamentally, is the direction, not the pace, of politics. Libertarians would have to compromise on practical grounds with other parties in order to work toward a libertarian society (aka, reducing taxes by 10% rather than reducing them to 0% immediately). But the fact that we keep working towards a libertarian society is what matters, and as long as we keep working toward it, there has been no compromise on principle.
(It should be noted that this applies to all political parties, not just libertarian ones.)
"I have learned that some NZ Libertarians resort to name calling when they become agitated."
Yes - fair when you make a generalization about thousands of people around the world, without providing any evidence for it.
Even now I'm still amazed by the ludicrous comments that people make in defence of their global warming obsession. This one has simply descended into lying however.
"The basic fact is that living standards will be affected in only minor ways in order to achieve targets"
In order to achieve what the nutcases want us to, everyone will have to drop carbon emissions to at least 60% below 1990 levels, so maybe 80-90% below current levels.
So, there's goodbye to the $100k I spent on my car. Haven't got any money left to spend on another cos everything has just quadrupled in price because there is no transport to get goods to consumers. And no more electricity either - there's no way that wind power and the hot air coming from ignorant morons could provide anywhere near enough power. Goodbye to eating meat too - cutting production by 80% would put it out of most people's reach. No more TV or computers cos there's no power, so no internet. No newspapers cos you have to cut down trees to make them.
Pretty much time to start digging yourself a cave.
How about an agreement to cut government size & spending by 60%?
...No more TV or computers cos there's no power, so no internet. No newspapers cos you have to cut down trees to make them.
The anti-AGW crew are just as much "We're all gonna die!" as the catastrophic global warming lot.
Both camps live in a state of perpetual, hyperbolic paranoia.
Barry sounds quite reasonable by comparison.
Barry you said that ,
Until the skeptics can conclusively disprove global warming instead.
How many times that you've been told by LGM that the onus is on the one who makes the assertion/claim that AGW exists and not the opponents of AGW that have to do the proving? That has been always been the case of how science is supposed to work?
Are you daft or are you simply suffering from amnesia that you can't remember those posts from LGM?
Now, lets ask some questions from AGW worshiper such as yourself.
Show us the scientific publications that stated clearly and proven definitively that AGW is real. I am not talking about the rising average global temperature. I am talking about the cause/culprit of global warming, which you warmists say that it is man's activities?
Barry's lying Ruth, so it's pretty easy for him to say anything he likes.
If you can work out how the power is going to flow when the wind isn't blowing, then you'll be a rich woman Ruth.
Unfortunately ACT youth...
No one ever has nor ever will produce conclusive proof about what will happen in the future.
Not even einstein. Nor any scientist that has ever lived.
People must make actions everyday based on uncertainties and possibilities.
Climate change is one of those. It will never probably be conclusively proven either way.
But conclusive proof is not required for action. Enough proof is.
Enough proof has been given.
Enough counter-proof has not yet been given by skeptics.
Therefore governments efforts against climate change can well be regarded as reasonable.
Please answer me how one could proove 100% that another person or country was about to injure them and therefore legitimaise self defensive actions?
It is impossible. Proof is imperfect and goes on a balance of probabilities approach even in a court room.
So I guess TWR missed the fact that more than 60% of NZ electricity is already Hydro.
I wonder if TWR actually believes anything coming out of their mouth.
Barry, you stated that, people must make actions everyday based on uncertainties and possibilities.
Ok, stop weaseling and evading. Show us the scientific publications which described those uncertainties and possibilities? I noted that warmists like you, do try and adopt the methods used by psychics, which are vagueness and generalization. A psychic may give some hints about a missing person by saying, that the body is somewhere associated with water. If the dead body is recovered from an area where there is a lake/river/ocean is nearby, then the psychic is right on the dot.
Now, show us those uncertainties and possibilities in published scientific papers.
Ruth
Barry is one of the feeble minded, a moron of sub-normal intelligence. Such idiots do not reason well, if at all. Thus, it is inaccurate for you to consider that unreasoning oaf "reasonable."
LGM
ACT Youth
Barry can't answer your questions. He'll evade, dredge up red herrings, attempt to substitute one concept for another (for example, he attempts to substitute degrees of certainty for proof even though they are different concepts), change topics, repeat baseless assertions over and over again, ignore any of the flaws in his position even when they are specifically drawn to his attention, make up excuses, tell lies and, in general, behave as the feeble minded moron that he actually is. The guy is intellectually degenerate.
Now since I've made an assertion (Barry is intellectually degenerate), I need to provide you with proof. I offer, for your evaluation and judgement, Barry's previous posts.
The guy just keeps positing the same sort of crap over and over again. Each time the flaws in his position are pointed out to him and it is made clear that his position is untenable. Then he turns up on the next thread and repeats his worthless, mindless nonsense. Amnesia, perhaps. Intellectual degeneracy, certainly.
LGM
"So I guess TWR missed the fact that more than 60% of NZ electricity is already Hydro."
But new hydro isn't allowed either, because it'll release all that carbon stored in those plants that it drowns, and there will be catastrophe, and the sky will fall. Have you noticed that they aren't building new hydro schemes in NZ either? Nope, you have to be made to feel guilty for having a better life than cavemen, so a secure consequence-free source of power isn't desirable. Same reason they vilify nuclear.
Hello Callum,
You have said: "No one will be able to achieve libertarianism in one fellow swoop, for example - there would be too many obstacles. But what matters, fundamentally, is the direction, not the pace, of politics."
I like that. "... the direction, not the pace."
Excellent stuff! Good luck to NZ Libertarians. May you be a political voice to be reckoned with.
Hello Barry,
Have a listen, please, of the following. It would be great if you could provide a counter argument to Lord Monckton in full flight. And do try to keep up dear.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puG4XHuG7Fg
Shari, Barry won't be able to come up with any counter-arguments since he is one of those battle droids or super-battle droids from Star Wars movie, that only hear/follow what commands they've given, with no understanding of what the commands will lead to. That's why he is using obfuscating language and generalization because he doesn't know/understand what is it that he is arguing for except that some (majority) scientists stated with high confidence that concept A or B is definitely happening.
Do not brand him so, ACT Youth. For what is Knowledge? And what is Evidence?
Certainly, Knowledge has many branches, as does Evidence.
What stands in between Knowledge and Evidence?
Could it be the knowing subject?
Does Knowledge build on Evidence and vice versa?
Who is the knowing subject?
Thanks to Robert Tracinski for this guest post. It (along with Mombiot's column) shows the true nature of the battle underway - and today the frontline of this battle is the global warming "debate".
It is not an option to be agnostic in this "debate", or to say that the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle. For this is a battle of science (and the scientific method) versus the environmentalists who reject it, a battle for freedom against those who wish to take away our freedoms, and the battle for enlightenment values against those who wish to return mankind to the dark ages.
There is no middle ground.
Julian
"Excellent stuff! Good luck to NZ Libertarians. May you be a political voice to be reckoned with."
Well, you obviously take us seriously enough to bother coming to this blog, and make dumb statements about libertarians with no evidence to back them up.
Tells us something about you, dare I say.
first time in a while that i stopped in pc...nice to see you still have gentleman like callum exerting there egos in here with personal hackdowns.
(thgh sadly it doesnt look like hes alone) nice one bruv fantastic blog.
thgh does amaze me the amount of energy wasted on this ridiculous crap still. the earth warms up and cools down over huge periods of time always. its natural get over it. always has been always will be. i dont want to give the thieving scum in power anymore of my money...please dont encourage them anymore people.finito
".nice to see you still have gentleman like callum exerting there egos in here with personal hackdowns."
Can you please show me where I exerted my ego in here with a personal 'hackdown'?
Especially in light of shari's original comments?
Anyway, I'm done here. There's no point replying if you know you can't have a rational debate.
Callum,
Drunkasaskunk is typical of a lot of people who frequent these blogs - angry as hell and derisive of anyone who purports to present an argument based on a philosophical viewpoint, ie libertarian.
Yet they have little idea of what they do stand for and why.
Twr,
I think you'll find that once the technology for carbon capture on coal power stations is commercialised, and given the new wind and ocean wave power stations PLUS National has not ruled out buildign new hydro - or making existing Hydro more efficient
...then you gotta add energy conservation technologies which will go full steam ahead...
You really are ignoring these things..
It is possible to provide power to the people without drastically altering living standards. Most of the technology is already there.
LGM - resorting to name calling again. Well it's good to hear they are teaching you something in primary school. Did you get all those words right on your spelling test last week? How are your school holidays going? One day you will learn how to play the ball and not the man. One day.
Shari and ACT Youth seem to misunderstand that 100% proof of anything is not required for action. They live in a world where they feel everyong must provide scientific evidence for why having a shower will make them clean before they take one.
Unfortunately for them, in the real world perfect information is not available. There has been plenty of evidence presented to support AGW as a theory or else what were the skeptics critiquing for the last 10 years? Themselves. Look at any major skeptic article and they will refer to AGW proponents and their research.
Or I direct you to the IPCC's report on Climate Change. Read it all and knock yourself out. There are plenty of scientific journal articles referred to in there.
No-one has ever said that the evidence is 100% concrete. Only that it could be so catastrophic and the probability of it happening is still significantly higher than zero.
Skeptic articles have been read by all head scientists in major countries ay Copenhagen and NONE (that means not one) has said that the skeptics provided conclusive proof there is no threat.
If the world waits for conclusive proof it may be too late.
Do you think the USA should have waited for conclusive proof it was in danger in 1941? should they have waited until their country was completely overrun before agreeing that there was a danger?
Preventative actions must be taken before there is conclusive proof.
That is what you don't understand.
There is just so much money involved Barry - that is the thing. Everyone is talking their book.
Remember Bird Flu - a huge boost for big-pharma. When Dick Cheney sold his shares the threat suddenly abated.
The science aside, carbon trading is going to make a few people very rich at the expense of the poor and people like you and me. It is fuelling corruption.
It will never get to the point where we have no electricity and no newspapers. When a few key people have exited their positions the threat will abate - just you wait and see.
Unfortunately, everyone is being asked to cut carbon emissions now, not in a couple of decades time when carbon sequestration technology might possibly have been commercialised and retrofitted to all the coal burning power stations.
You simply cannot make all sorts of wild claims about armageddon, then say "but don't worry, because technology will save us - all we have to do is sit back and wait".
The only currently feasible way of providing satisfactory amounts of carbon-free power to the entire world is via nuclear, but this is considered more of a bogey man than global warming, mainly because the greenies are too thick to distinguish between bombs and power stations.
And don't forget, in order to progress, and for the third world to develop, they are going to need to use much *more* power than can be offset with "conservation" measures such as energy efficient light bulbs and turning off your tv at the wall.
If the technology was available to solve all these issues, you can guarantee those big nasty corporations would be selling it and, *gasp*, making a profit. Then the greenies would have to find something else to rail against.
Ruth just because people make money out of something doesn't make it wrong. I thought that was what the Christmas Consumerism post was about? It is merely your suspician...far from a proven one.
Twr you have not even watched any of the news at all have you? Tell me a country in the world where people are feeling the pinch from carbon restrictions? You can't. They aren't in place yet. Not properly. You can't keep making up these fantasies about massive upheaval. I isn't happening nor will it.
All governments are going to gradually phase in carbon pricing and it will initially be at very low levels anyway. NZ agriculture will not enter the scheme for many years yet and even when it does that carbon price will not force many out of business at all.
You are fogetting about the massive increase in forest planting that will come from carbon credits.
The carbon capture plants that might be online in 10-20 years will be in good time.
Nuclear might well become a more popular option for many countries.
Tidal, solar, wind will also play their part.
An amount of carbon will still be able to be released but it will be done in a controlled fashion to avoid a global environmental catastrophy which you keep ignoring.
Barry quoted that, Shari and ACT Youth seem to misunderstand that 100% proof of anything is not required for action.
I understand that Barry and so as every toilet cleaners around the country. That's exactly what I asked you to show me. Don't throw me into some IPCC report which I have to dig through. You have to point that out to me, otherwise you're hiding behind generalization & vagueness.
You're still weaseling and evading. Typical warmists, when confronted to show some scientific publications, they then point out to the IPCC whole report. Be specific Barry, point out to which chapter, what paragraph, what sentence that stated clearly about the uncertainties and possibilities regarding AGW. I have to dig for it myself, you have to point me out to it since it is/was you who made the claim. The onus is on you. Do you know that IPCC is not scientific publications but opinions. Do you know the difference?
The IPCC report has a reference list which refers to dozens if not hundreds of scientific papers.
You obviously have not read it.
I have.
Read it please. And save us all your hot air.
jourg, you said you read the scientific summaries and not the scientific papers, did you? Scientific papers are different from scientific opinions. I published papers in computational mathematics and if someone summarized my work, then it is completely different to my original publication. They are not the same.
I have read some of the reports and I know the statistics they used in their inferences and as someone who is doing a postdoc in computational mathematics, I know the various methods covered. Did you understand the methods jourg and barry or you just regurgitated the hot air & high school methods covered in the report?
I asked Barry to cite the uncertainties and possibilities regarding AGW and he failed. It is obvious that he knows nothing at all of what he is talking about and this applies to you jourg (or monsieur). What methods did the IPCC report use? C'mon start telling the truth and stop fucking generalizing.
If you have read it, then say where was it stated in the report about the uncertainties and possibilities, otherwise it seems that you couldn't remember what you read?
Hello Barry,
All persons, I think, hold certain levels of intelligence or common sense or street smarts. Some through experience, some are gifted. At all levels of communication, one is expected to be polite, considerate, and respectful.
You, as many others, present Global Warming to be Truth, backed by scientific evidence based on models and figures.
So I ask myself, I do, what's your payoff? Power? Money? Politics?
Who's your leader Barry? Gore? Well, he's roped in Key, so you're just another foot soldier. Or are you seeking a promotion, dear? Speaking of promotions, guess who was at Selwyn Village yesterday? Helen Clark! She looks well. Must be a swinging party over at the UN.
Anyway, where was I? Oh yes. Global Warming. Tell you what. How about I carry on stacking my wood pile? You know, just in case it gets colder. Dem bones, Barry, ain't as young as it used to be.
So, just in case the windmills don't turn, or like maybe you know, Iran does something to create a situation, or maybe Israel, you know, might like keep insisting they have a right to exist, or like maybe Russia's snigger towards POTUS turns into a snarl, me, I'm gonna keep stacking me wood, I am.
And I'm gonna light a fire with my wood that I chopped from my trees.
And if any global warmist turns up at my doorstep in whatever guise, I'll shoot the bastard.
Unfortunately Shari and Act Youth you misunderstand science completely.
Which is unfortunate.
AGW has never been conclusively proven. Research has been conducted. That research has degrees of confidence inherent in the research. The research is collated in the IPCC report along with skeptic arguments.
The outcome was that despite the skeptic research, there is evidence (with confidence levels attached) that points to global warming.
If you guys cannot understand how scientific research is conducted or written up you should stop asking to see it.
But if you wanna read some go the the IPCC report and follow the reference lists of articles.
Have fun!
Can't resist having some fun at the resident idiot's expense.
Barry writes:- "No one ever has nor ever will produce conclusive proof about what will happen in the future."
Really?
In one hour I'll walk out to the car, unlock it, put the key in the ignition switch and turn it. That will result in the starter relay operating which will cause the starter motor to turn. The starter will engage the flywheel to turn the engine. Meanwhile, the glow plugs will be energised to incandescence. The fuel injectors will receive hydrocarbon fuel at high pressure which they will inject into pre-chambers within the cylinder head. Combustion will be initiated and the force of expanding hot gasses will do work on the pistons. This will result in the crankshaft rotating. The engine will run. Next I'll select first gear, release the handbrake, dump the clutch and drive the car to my destination. Functions of the vehicle will operate as intended by the manufacturer and by me. Law of Identity applies. The car is what it is.
It is possible to predict with certainty particular aspects of the future. Another example, I know that today the number of turns of the steering lock-to-lock is 1.3. I know with certainty that tommorrow (the future) it will be 1.3 turns lock-to-lock. One can do this sort of thing by employing knowledge of reality. In this case I know about the car, its mechanical and electrical attributes and I possess experience of how it operates and what it was designed to do. I have proof, with evidence of reality, and I can operate the car to check (tell you what, I'll measure the number of turns lock-to-lock tomorrow and post the result- I'm predicting that it will not have altered from the value 1.3).
Moving on. Were I to assert that my car runs on ammonia instead of hydrocarbon fuel, then, when challenged, I would need to prove that assertion. I'd have to show the grounds upon which my assertions were based, describe the modifications I'd made to the car to run ammonia fuel and ultimately, having explained my ideas/theories, I'd need to demonstrate their validity. It is likely that I'd need to demonstrate the car operating on ammonia fuel and disclose the means I'd employed to allow it to so do.
Notice that Barry tried to substitute "prediction of the future" for "proof of an assertion." His substitution is a banal ruse. It is dishonest. It is easily spotted.
...>
>...
Now, Barry's AGW theory remains an assertion. The AGW business relies on a claim that Man's industrial activites are the cause of disasterous changes in the planetary climate. The lie continues that Man's industrial activities must, therefore, be restricted. This is to be accomplished by collectivist means, by coercive compulsory inititions of force, especially against those who disagree regardless of their values, property or freedom. That is the proper role of government according to Barry.
For Barry's position to hold he must firstly prove the AGW theory is correct. That requires him to demonstrate that he understands the climate. He must show that he knows how it operates, what its components are, which entities have what effect upon it, what the significance of each and every actor in and upon the climate actually is. Then he must prove, with evidence of reality, that his assertion corresponds to reality.
Notice that he is not being asked to make certain prediction of the far future (nor, even, of the immediate future). That is not the major challenge that faces him when he is asked for proof. What he is being required to do is demonstrate that his AGW idea does not conflict with reality. When he is asked for proof, he must provide the truth- not rhetorical devices such as substitution of one concept for another. Nor can he rely on an evasion (such as attempting to switch the burden of proof). Nor can he rely on argument by repetition, argument by insistence, appeals to authorities or arguments to social metaphysics. He has to rely on evidence of reality to validate and prove his assertions.
It can be stated with certainty that Barry has not met that challenge.
Another point. For Barry's position to hold he has as a FIRST step to prove AGW theory. There remains a great deal more after that he'd need to achieve in order for his position (a political position) to prove out. For example, he'd need to prove his politics are valid. That would be a far greater difficulty for him than merely proving AGW theory. It would be akin to proving Communism is a good, moral and proper political system for Man.
...>
...>
Still, let's pause here and consider Barry's mode of argument.
Let's recast Barry in slightly different scenario and enjoy the same line of argument that he so thoughtlessly employs. This is a bit naughty, but it will illustrate the matter rather clearly.
Barry is potentially a child molester. Several people who regularly read this blog may agree and have the same suspicion. If so, feel free to express your concerns. As it happens, the suspicion is a lot more than a suspicion, it's an assertion- a claim of fact. They are saying that Barry IS a molester of children. What a monster. Some of the people around here are openly discussing the assertion. They reckon he really is bad news. They are most concerned.
Now they are saying it is imperitive to capture Barry and lock him up immediately. He must be chemically sterilised and remanded to a cell. The government should do this right away, as there are now some eight people who are repeating assertions and suspicions about Barry. One of those people is on the phone right now, discussing the situation regarding Barry. Soon there will be more people worried. Concern is growing and more people are coming up with stories and allegations. The BPM theory is gaining a following. The word is out and the fix is in. Something must be done. In order to avoid the potential situation where a child is injured in the future by the activities of Barry, it is imperitive the government act. Children must be protected from him and he must be protected from himself.
As it happens, there are skeptics. Some of those think that allegations and assertions such as the BPM theory require proof. They demand evidence of reality. They say that it is not the government's role to lock up anyone on the basis of an arbitrary assertion. They demand to see proof of the alleged crimes of Barry. They say that the burden of proof falls on he who asserts the positive. In other words, Barry's accusers must bear the burden of supplying proof.
...>
..>
However the growing voices in favour of BPM theory argue thusly:
No-one has ever said that the evidence is 100% concrete. Only that it could be so catastrophic and the probability of it happening is still significantly higher than zero.
Skeptic arguments have been heard by all authorities and NONE (that means not one) has said that the skeptics provided conclusive proof there is no threat.
If the world waits for conclusive proof it may be too late.
Do you think the USA should have waited for conclusive proof it was in danger in 1941? should they have waited until their country was completely overrun before agreeing that there was a danger?
Preventative actions must be taken before there is conclusive proof.
That is what you don't understand.
They continue:
No one ever has nor ever will produce conclusive proof about what will happen in the future.
Not even einstein. Nor any scientist that has ever lived.
People must make actions everyday based on uncertainties and possibilities.
BPM is one of those. It will never probably be conclusively proven either way.
But conclusive proof is not required for action. Enough proof is.
Enough proof has been given.
Enough counter-proof has not yet been given by skeptics.
Therefore government efforts against Barry can well be regarded as reasonable.
Please answer me how one could proove 100% that another person or country was about to injure them and therefore legitimaise self defensive actions?
It is impossible. Proof is imperfect and goes on a balance of probabilities approach even in a court room.
And so Barry is hoist- convicted. They demand Barry provide proof that he is not a child molester, never has been and never will be. In other words they demand Barry provide proof of a negative. They demand Barry disprove the serious assertion against him. Of course, it is impossible for him to do that. He'd need to account for every single moment of his existence right from the instant he was physically capable of injuring a child up until the present moment. Then he'd need to prove that he wouldn't ever molest a child for the remainder of his life. Consider the magnitude of that task.
Notice that the standard to which the accusers hold Barry (in order to demonstrate his innocence) is far higher than the standard they apply to themselves. They say that their theory probably won't be conclusively proven either way, but, according to them, conclusive proof is not reqired for action. In other words the assertion is sufficient. It is "enough proof." Of course, it isn't a proof at all. Still, the existence of the assertion is, according to the accusers, sufficient cause for action. In this case that action is going to mean that Barry is hounded by the epithet "child molester" until either, someone does something bad to him, or he is locked up, excluded from society by the authorities. It's not an ideal outcome for Barry perhaps but on the "balance of probabilities approach" (!) it is enough.
And so, despite the efforts of the skeptics, Barry is in some trouble. For, to be intellectually consistent, he needs to plead guilty...
LGM
Barry you said that I and Shari misunderstand science completely.
I understand the science completely. It is people with a handicapped brain such as you that don't understand.
You also said that AGW has never been conclusively proven.
You're fucking daft moron. So, as the existence of black-holes and many other physical objects and phenomena that we believe they exist, but not 100% sure. What's the difference here? Prediction of Black-holes arose from a mathematically consistent theory.
Do you know what does that mean? It means that when a mathematical formulated theory is tested and showed no self-contradiction when subjected to step by step proof by induction, then it is consistent. Do you remember proof by induction at your 7th form maths? Yep, it is the same thing but it is much more complex in higher level mathematics and physics. AFAIK, I am not aware of a single climate model that has been thoroughly tested for mathematical consistency, none at all.
Barry, here are some elementary mathematical proof by induction examples for you to take a look at. Some of the examples are from your typical 7th form mathematics.
High level mathematics uses this sort of proof all the times when a new theorem is proposed and as a result of proof of consistency, corollaries do follow from the theorem itself.
Physicists have adopted the same rigorous methods to prove if their theorems (without any experimental observations at all being made) are consistent or not. If there are inconsistencies found (even a single one), then the theory is thrown out or being modified at that very stage.
This is always the first step or the gateway to get through before a theory is to be accepted as valid (and this is irrelevant if it has made any correct prediction at all or not). It should be no surprise to you that modern theories in physics can predict the existence of certain physical phenomena way in advance (even decades), even before they’re being observed/verified. WHY? Because those theories are being tested rigorously to see if they’re self-consistent before they’re being used? Climate porn researchers don’t do this sort of rigorous testing/proofing at all and no wonder that their theories are everywhere (ie, too many).
You stated as if you know by saying that there is evidence (with confidence levels attached) that points to global warming in which I asked you to show that evidence, and you’ve so far evaded and weaseled, so it is fucktard like you that should avoid trying to debate the AGW subject, because you have no clue.
Barry if you still insist that we skeptics cannot understand how scientific research is conducted, then I suggest that you should enrol at your local school's evening classes for adults aimed at those who dropped out from school and start learning about science.
I am a post doc researcher in computational mathematics and I know what scientific research is all about. What's your area of expertise again? A rubbish collector perhaps? Why don’t you just stick to being a rubbish collector, since that's what you're good at.
Unfortunately LGM you obviously haven't progressed your education beyond high school.
Anyone with a decent bachelors degree knows that anything is only known with degree's of certainty. Of course there are many things that we can have hight confidence but we can never be 100% certain of something that will occur in the future.
Nor can we be 100% certain of the results of research. The methodology, use of proxies and human error all contribute to us never knowing for certain that results are correct.
We can only know something with a level of certainty.
For Act Youth - have you read all the papers referenced in the IPCC report yet? Get back to me when you have ok?
Every piece of research has a confidence level inherent in the results whether this is unstated or not. If a proxy is used to measure something we can never be certain the proxy is a perfect measurement for the actual item being predicted or measured.
Did you guys even pass high school?
Would you like a chemistry set for Xmas?
Mathematics is great for pure physics. It falls a little short when dealing with real world complex eco-systems.
I guess that is why they call them climate scientists and not mathematicians. Because they know what they are researching and you don't.
Barry, it has pointed out here and everywhere on the net that Gavin Schmidt (a lead IPCC advocate is a mathematician and not a climate scientist), so your point is irrelevant.
And here is a description in the IPCC report about the use of Monte Carlo in its evaluation:
Uncertainties in Evaluating Coupled Model
What do you think about the use of Monte Carlo, huh? Oh, wait. Do you actually know how Monte Carlo works? Or perhaps do you understand when is it valid to apply to a certain problem and when not to? It is a topic for the educated only (myself) and not for rubbish collectors such as yourself. Now, take a good look at the use of Monte Carlo by finance rating agencies, which contributed to the credit meltdown of the last 2 years or so.
In Focus - Slate financing - Storm Warning
Wow, Monte Carlo is so amazing huh? The idiots at the IPCC (including school dropout such as you) should now learnt that Monte Carlo is a statistical method and not a physics model, and that's why it contributed to the credit meltdown of the past few years because its predictive capability was found to be all hogwash.
Barry, that's the reason I asked you to show me proof, because I know what I am talking about. You failed to do that.
Act Youth you seem to be talking about statistical models used for forecasting?
Correlations are much simpler.
Measuring past temperatures (while having a higher level of uncertainty) rely more on physical sciences.
I know you like diggin away at your little hole...but you fail to see the bigger picture.
Your maths doesn't disprove every single piece of climate evidence. Only calls into question a few predictive models.
AGW is based on a simple correlation between CO2 and temperature.
LMAO~!
LGM doesn't know the difference between a simple assertion and one which is based on research and evidence with confidence intervals attached.
AGW decisions are being made based on the latter but LGM continues to assume it is the former!
What an idiot!
I wonder if he has learn't to tie his shoe laces yet!
Barry, it is funny how rubbish collectors like yourself say that
your maths doesn't disprove every single piece of climate evidence, but actually which math is mine? Did you mean Monte Carlo? Uh, that was invented by physicists who worked on the Manhattan Project and it was not mine.
Do you think that AGW is based on a simple correlation between CO2 and temperature despite spending billions of R&D dollars into finding the cause/s? Why use complex monte-carlo method altogether instead of just a simple linear plot to establish correlation?
Have you considered a career change as a standup comedian? Something different from being a council rubbish collector?
Point of order: Rubbish collectors provide a useful service for a living. If you want to insult him, call him a policy analyst at the Ministry of womens' affairs.
If you think climate change is not about the relationship between temperature and CO2 then what is it about?
You are living in some fantasy world of noughts and zeros.
In the real world carbon trading, carbon limits, IPCC reports and everyone else except you...
knows that climate change is all about the correlation between CO2 and average temperatures.
I think I have been talking to a complete moron!
TWR...sad. You are just sad. You have nothing intelligent to add. Just pitiful. Is someone else typing for ya.
Barry, if you think that climate change is all about the correlation between CO2 and average temperatures, then you're completely mistaken. Correlation is a linear relationship between 2 variables that are supposed to have gaussian (normal) distribution. Climate system is non-linear which means that an increase by an arbitrary amount in the independent variable 'X', doesn't equate to a linear proportional increase in variable 'Y' (dependent variable).
In non-linear relationship, you can increase 'X' by an arbitrary amount an you observed no increase at all in 'Y'. The observation and measurement of physical observables are very deceptive and this is why you need a proper theory to describe/model reality. Correlation, isn't enough and that's fact.
Barry, you're accusing Twr for adding nothing of intelligent to the debate, but you should look in the mirror first.
unfortunately for you Mr Fisi...
The dictionary definition of correlation disagrees with you.
CORRELATION: the state or relation of being correlated; specifically : a relation existing between phenomena or things or between mathematical or statistical variables which tend to vary, be associated, or occur together in a way not expected on the basis of chance alone.
I think you made up what you said.
I see you have given up too Act Youth.
Seems the topic of climate change is well beyond you.
Come back when you have read some more, then you too could lend something intelligent to this debate.
Barry, stop using the dictionary because it doesn't give the formal definition of what it is. How about you try this definition of correlation with a bit of more depth.
Barry is a pervert.
Everybody knows.
Sorry Mr Fisi but I used the word correlation first and I used the dictionary definition. So I was 100% right in usage.
You didn't understand the general meaning of correlation that is used in normal conversation and it is fine. We all make mistakes. You will improve.
LGM learnt a new word. It is cute. Maybe someone has been abusing him/her.
Barry, correlation is quoted in a single number (constant), not a function. A constant number (correlation coefficient) represents linear relationship.
For instance:
Y = a*X + b --> Eqn 1
The constant number 'a' is the correlation coefficient (which is constant number), ie, the definition that you understand and the one used in the IPCC report, ie, linear and not non-linear. And 'b' is a constant too, from linear graph. Now, can you grasp that fact?
You don't see correlation quoted as a function, such as the following:
a(X) = A*X^3 + B*X^2 + C*X + D --> Eqn 2
where 'A', 'B', 'C' and 'D' are themselves constants.
Now the correlation is now dependent on the independent variable itself , ie, 'X'. So, the full relation is something of the following:
Y = (A*X^3 + B*X^2 + C*X + D)*X + b --> Eqn 3
So, which correlation that you are familiar with (including the one used in the IPCC report)? The constant 'a' in Eqn 1 (linear one) or the the one in Eqn 2 (non-linear) ?
Of course it is Eqn 1, isn't it? Now, with constants 'A', 'B', 'C' and 'D', there are certain values of them (they are real numbers - negative or positive) that will make Eqn 3, completely insensitive to change in 'X'.
A correlation with a single number, means linear relationship or otherwise, you see correlation being quoted in the form of Eqn 2 (ie, a function), which is not what you see (everyday experience) or in the IPCC report. These non-linear correlation relationships are covered in a special topic called non-linear dimensional reduction. But these aren't the techniques used in the IPCC report or the ones that are familiar to you (and everyone else).
Sorry Fisi.
That is not what the Merriam Webster dictionary says.
As a rule you are a bit of an idiot if you call someone who uses an official dictionary meaning of a word wrong.
Barry please clarify. You said:
"If you think climate change is not about the relationship between temperature and CO2 then what is it about?"
So are you seriously suggesting that there are no other factors that impact on the earth's ecosystems, the global climate and climate change?
If not, then you have a non-linear relationship. Which is what Falafulu Fisi is trying to tell you.
Shouldn't any self respecting scientific body attempt to focus on all inputs into the eco-system to gain understanding?
If you do believe this, then you may be in a minority, even among believers of AGW.
Barry, it just gets tedious after a while attempting to conduct a rational argument with an ignorant windbag who just resorts to making stuff up when he's proved wrong, so I did decide to give up and simply have a little fun. Sorry, I forgot you lot hate it when other people are seen to enjoy themselves. I'll desist immediately. Merry Christmas.
Guys, don't bother wasting your efforts in trying to argue with Barry, because you have presented him with intellectual arguments here, but he hasn't shown an understanding of the subject topic is about.
Has Barry shown any scientific arguments here? None at all. Just piss taking.
Just look at his comments all through out this whole thread and see if there is something scientific there? You find none. Nothing. All he presented here is vagueness, generalization, but not specific, which implies that he has no idea at all. This shows, what his brain is like, ie, no neuron activities at all.
Euan,
No. The Copenhagen conference was what people are all moaning about. Including you.
The copenhagen conference rests on the association between Greenhouse gas levels and average temperatures.
I was referring to the climate change debate.
Warmist and Deniers all know that there are many factors which contribute to climate change.
Just that Warmists like TWR and Act Youth deny that C02 has any effect on climate.
So the climate change DEBATE is about C02. Understand?
And we have Act Youth and TWR giving up because no-one is falling for their weak arguments. I know it might have worked in their AGW denier focus groups and infront of their mirrors but in the real world it seems they are all just hot air.
BTW (copying and pasting mathematical formulae which is irrelevant to the main argument shows a small brain if nothing else). That includes both Mr Fisi and Act Youth.
Knowing what science to use and when shows much more intelligence.
Climate Change science is a physical science and you two have absolutely no idea about it.
Hello all,
"So on December 23, with Christmas only two days away, speaking to all of America in a nationwide address, Ronald Reagan connected the spirit of the season with events in Poland: "For a thousand years," he told his fellow Americans, "Christmas has been celebrated in Poland, a land of deep religious faith, but this Christmas brings little joy to the courageous Polish people. They have been betrayed by their own government." The president then took a remarkable liberty: He asked Americans that Christmas season to light a candle in support of freedom in Poland."
Heads up from Paul Kengor in American Thinker.
And so, let us light candles for the courageous Iranian people. Freedom fighters, all.
Barry, you're really good in evading aren't you? It puts all your comments/posts as troll, because you're not really addressing what's been put forward in front of you.
Barry said...
BTW (copying and pasting mathematical formulae which is irrelevant to the main argument shows a small brain if nothing else). That includes both Mr Fisi and Act Youth.
Which ones that I have copied & pasted? I have put to you links, not copied nor pasted. I have also put to you equations (out of my head but not from internet links) and still you haven't addressed your own arguments.
You described correlation, but unless one describes it with a number (eg, say 92% correlation between age and drink-driving), then it is meaningless.
You go on about correlation, but then I exposed your shallowness of the subject, then you came back not to defend yourself, but more obfuscation.
Let me ask you once and for all. How do you describe quantitatively between CO2 and average temperatures, irrelevant whether it is human made or not. The question is a mathematical one (not even linguistic or English language) and not descriptive.
If you can answer the question, then I am willing to help you, ie, explain what I have already done above, but simplify it for you, because perhaps you didn't grasp what I had already simplified above. I'll go even more simpler so you can get it.
So, how do you describe correlation?
Fisi accurately describing the correlation is the job of scientists.
Correlation means a relationship where a change in one variable co-incides with a change in another.
I think you have gone down too far you own dead end.
You also fail to grasp climate change issues Fisi.
I didn't use your definition of correlation so I have no need of it.
Scientists are studying the correlation.
Barry said...
Correlation means a relationship where a change in one variable co-incides with a change in another.
Aha! That's exactly what I said to you above. So, I will simplify it for you. Linear correlation is what you've just stated above. Now, you don't need a PhD to understand what you've just stated, right?
Ok, let's push on. I said above in my previous messages that using correlation is simply not reliable or at best inapplicable in describing adaptive complex system (ie, climate, financial markets, cell biology, etc,...), because those systems are non-linear.
Let me give you a bit of education here. Non-linear correlation is not the same thing as what you've just stated above, which is what climate system is. Let's say that there are 2 variables where one is interested to find out if they're correlated, say variables 'X' and 'Y'.
Linear correlation of 'X' and 'Y' will be something like that when an observation of a change in 'X' is established, then a change in 'Y' is also observed. This is linear, as your per definition above, which is exactly what I have been saying all along on this discussion, but because your understanding is not deep enough so you haven't grasp that yet, and here I am repeating the same thing for you.
Let's push on and talk about non-linear correlation. I won't bother with equations this time, because it is obvious to me that you didn't understand a thing at all about my derivation I have shown you above about non-linear stuff. But here it is. In non-linear system, the definition that you just stated above fails completely. You can change 'X', but noted that there is no change in 'Y' at all. Do you get that? I hope you do.
Now, because I have been genuine here in educating you, I will leave you with a non-linear example from solid-state physics so you can have a look at and think, um!! is that what Falafulu is talking about. And as stated above already, that observations are very deceptive and that is why you need a proper physics model of reality, because if you rely on correlation (as your definition above), then you would be dumbfounded when you encounter some physical observations that go against your commonsense.
See the 4 graphs of a plot of the "current-vs-voltage" relationship on the following page about photo-electric cell.
You can see that when you increase the "voltage" by some arbitrary amount (x-axis), there is no change in the "current" (y-axis) at all being observed. WHY? Because there is a non-linear relationship between the current 'I' and the voltage 'V', where your definition above fails completely. See, I told you, that physical observations are quite deceptive.
Physicists were baffled about the non-linear relationship above which went against Kirchhoff’s circuitry law (voltage-vs-current linear relationship), but quantum mechanics came along and explained why the relationship is non-linear.
Phew! I've given you a free physics lessons here Barry, the same as I have given David S on a different thread in the last few weeks.
[... Continue On ...]
Can you see how weak your argument is? Don't try and trivialize it and say that all we need is a simple correlation of CO2 and global average temperature. Climate is non-linear and it is complex and using simplicity as you seem to believe that's all you need, is at best naive.
Now, do you understand what I have said above? I don't want to waste my time explaining the same thing over and over.
Barry said...
You also fail to grasp climate change issues Fisi.
No, Barry I have read more scientific peer review papers in climatology than you have. So, I understand the issues at a deeper level. If you want to know what have I read, then I am happy to quote you those papers and see if you can understand them.
Barry, so far, you have come back with obfuscating & simplistic reply that didn't address anything. I asked you if your understanding of correlation is a (single) number, but you didn't answer that. It wasn't a quantum mechanics question that I asked, but a very simple one. Is correlation a (single) number? You didn't want to answer because you know that I already grab your balls.
Is correlation a single number Barry?
If you keep evading then you're obviously a troll here. All your posts here on this thread, there is none whatsoever that is scientific. You cling to the notion of correlation, but when I showed you that there is something called non-linear (which I don't think you have a clue about), then you evaded by just saying that correlation means a relationship where a change in one variable co-incides with a change in another, which is what I already stated above in my first comment on this thread, ie, linear relationship. Don't you understand what linear means?
What you need to do Mr Fisi is just relax and read an English dictionary.
It clearly states that correlation can be used as a general word to describe a relationship between the variation in two variables.
Climate change is very complicated and the relationship it has to c02 is unlikely to be linear.
That is what climate science is all about. The scientists in ALL major countries have found enough evidence to assert that C02 is effecting temperature.
Skeptics have tried valiantly. Indeed. But as yet they have not PROVEN that C02 is not correlated to temperature rises in some way.
Until they do, erring on the side of caution is what governments are doing.
You want them to be reckless. When peoples lives are involved I am happy with caution.
You have no interest in the consequences climate change will have on some peoples in the world.
People with a heart do. You are obviously selfish. You care nothing for other people. Only yourself and protecting your unlimited ability to consume.
I can't wait for the day someone threatens your life and I want you to prepare solid proof that is 100% irrefutable on paper before taking any defensive action.
It is impossible. You cannot prove the future with 100% certainty.
But you still cannot grasp that simple concept. Despite how many scientific papers you have read.
It is sad. That you read so much but yet you still cannot understand.
Barry said...
What you need to do Mr Fisi is just relax and read an English dictionary.
Read an English dictionary to tell me about correlation concept which is a statistical/mathematical term? You won't get it in a dictionary. The place that you look at are obviously statistics/mathematics, which I have done that homework for you, but you chose not to understand the link that pasted above. Did you read it? I think not.
Barry said...
It clearly states that correlation can be used as a general word to describe a relationship between the variation in two variables.
Aha! Now, you admit the possibility of a non-linear relationship huh? Are you related to John (flip-flopping) Key?
Barry said...
Skeptics have tried valiantly.
Wrong! Have you read Prof. Lindzen's papers? So, you need to read, man and then you can decide for yourself. Even if you don't understand them (complex formulas), just ask for help (I can give you a hand on those) and you will get it. You can't evaluate reality only by listening to positivists as you do. Read both sides and then decide. As a trained physicist myself, I can see both sides and obviously I am on the skeptics side.
Barry said...
When peoples lives are involved I am happy with caution.
...
You are obviously selfish. You care nothing for other people. Only yourself and protecting your unlimited ability to consume.
I come from the Pacific Islands where the IPCC said that we're the most at risk countries to the potential disaster from climate change and here you are saying that I don't care? I care about reality and truth and not politics.
Barry said...
That is what climate science is all about.
Oh, climate science is not a fundamental science, but a derivative science. BTW, I know fundamental physics, so anything that is derived from fundamental, is no problem for me to understand. But that can't be applied the other way, I mean, Jim Salinger wouldn't have a clue at all about stuff that is taught in statistical mechanics or say, photonics. Too hard for them (mathematically & theoretically), and that's a fact.
Barry said...
You cannot prove the future with 100% certainty.
Redundant/irrelevant argument. ACT Youth addressed to you above and you never answered that.
Barry said...
But you still cannot grasp that simple concept. Despite how many scientific papers you have read.
No, it's you that didn't grasp the simple concept. I've gone to great length to write a series of essays for you here to read and understand. I wouldn't have done that if I knew that you would have understood simple concepts , but obviously not. You should thank me for enlightening you with knowledge that obviously you lack, rather than you keep posting for the sake of replying but not addressing anything.
Mr Fisi,
I never used your concept of correlation. I used the one from the dictionary. Which is a valid use of the word. Your bleating cannot change that.
The fact that you cannot 100% prove the future IS relevant because until you can 100% prove that Climate is not affected by C)2 then there is a risk.
As long as that risk exists millions of people are in danger.
You are heartless because you ignore the danger to others.
You are more concerned with your irrelevant formulas than reality.
You still have no idea what climate science is all about.
Barry said...
I never used your concept of correlation. I used the one from the dictionary. Which is a valid use of the word.
Not my concept Barry. It is the mathematician's concept. It amazes me of how good you are in wordsmithing.
Barry said...
The fact that you cannot 100% prove the future IS relevant because until you can 100% prove that Climate is not affected by C)2 then there is a risk.
Redundant argument, every dog, cockroack, cat, etc, know that, you just repeated that over and over again in order to obfuscate. You have been asked to show those uncertainties and possibilities and you failed. ACT Youth, then did the homework for you when she showed you the monte-carlo link from the IPCC above, which is a topic that you seemed to have no knowledge about.
Barry said...
As long as that risk exists millions of people are in danger.
Irrelevant and pointless argument. There is risk everywhere in life.
Barry said...
You are heartless because you ignore the danger to others.
Irrelevant and troll. That's not a scientific argument, is it? Actually, if one reads the whole thread here, he/she would come to realize that you're actually trolling and not arguing anything relevant at all from a scientific point.
Barry said...
You are more concerned with your irrelevant formulas than reality.
No, wrong Barry. The IPCC report which is your bible are full of formulas. Yep, complex formulas that you don't even have a clue about and if you think that formulas that I have been educating with are irrelevant, then so as your IPCC report? You're self-contradicting aren't you?
Barry said...
You still have no idea what climate science is all about.
That implies that you know? What the fuck you know Barry? I have been educating you with scientific concepts on this thread and all your understanding of climate science boils down to correlation. Yep, one can see that your arguments here are nothing but correlation, possibilities, uncertainties, while I have brought up concepts of system non-linearities (oops, do you understand what that scientific term is - heavily applied in climate science) and many others.
Do you have a clue of what you 've just asked above? I think not. Barry, when you have scientific concepts relating to AGW to discuss (apart from correlation the only concept you know), then do so here, otherwise you're trolling and a waste of time replying to.
It's as if you need things dumbed down for your Mr Fisi.
Your concept of correlation refers to the concept that YOU introduced into the conversation. I never thought you were intelligent enough to make a concept anyway. Don't flatter yourself.
The concept of correlation I used is valid. It comes from the dictionary.
But you still cannot understand that. Do you commonly reject the dictionary definitions of words? How can people speak to you? Morse code?
The inability to predict the future IS relevant and is the reason that people are in copenhagen. Humankinds actions are POTENTIALLY threatening our survival.
But you choose to ignore that and say that life is risky. Well some risks are unavoidable but some are. Some are caused by our actions some are random.
You still have no understanding of those concepts. Until you do your maths is useless.
You are heartless because you defend your concept and theories over peoples lives. And you purport to support your people. You do the opposite.
Sorry but the formulas that you attack from the IPCC report are not ALL of the formulae in there. In addition they are not (as I said) the fundamental basis of climate change science.
The basis is the correlation between CO2 levels and average climate. This is not a complex formula. It is presented in dozens of researched evidence in the IPCC report. If you wanna know more about them...read them.
The monte carlo simulations of future climate do not have high levels of certainty attached to them. Climate scientists know that. You are arguing against no-one. That is why you are stupid.
The real argument is only about C)2's effect on climate and you cannot PROVE that it has no effect.
Since you cannot prove there is no effect then there could be a danger.
Since there could be a danger governments are acting to save peoples lives.
But you would rather they died.
Just so you are right.
Sad. You are so sad.
What you are asking for are exact numbers or figures right? GO TO THE IPCC REPORT. that is where they all are.
But you would rather not. You would rather continue bleating about inconsequential things.
And you wonder whyno-one listens to you?
It is because what you say doesn't matter.
The real issues are being dealt with by those who have brains.
Here are some papers on using correlation , a favorite simplistic concept that Barry clings tightly to like its a word of God, where they (authors) showed that it is cosmic rays after all that causes global warming rather than CO2.
#1) Cosmo-climatology: a new theory emerges
#2) Correlation between Cosmic Rays and Ozone Depletion
Now, I am a bit skeptical myself about the claims of those authors above and no doubt all warmists are too (or they're being dismissive about them completely), but that's no problem there, since it only showed that the science is not settled yet.
Which correlations that you believe in Barry? The correlation CO2 claim of the warmists or the correlation claim of cosmic-rays by skeptics? Mind you that the correlation from both warmists & skeptics are not 100% proof, which every dog, cat, cockroach, fish on the planet know, which is your ONLY single point of argument here (nothing else)?
Shall we just flip a coin to see which correlation that we should go with?
Well, this is the main reason that I have argued about over-reliance on statistics, since statistical analysis, you can pretty much (force)fit a model to the data via back-testing (ie, model testing using existing data).
If we have to use Barry's simple correlation (as he has been staunchly defending here) to decide what causes global warming, then we shouldn't use science and physics. All we need is to flip a coin and decide if it is CO2 or Cosmic-rays that is the main culprit of global warming.
But I know Barry will simply start changing the debate from correlation to something else.
Sorry Mr Fisi,
You are on the wrong track.
You are trying to asert doubt about the correlation between CO2 and temperature.
Guess what? There is doubt. Climate scientists know that.
Politicians know that.
There is nothing wrong with their science.
They didn't and cannot prove a relationship because of the proxies, time and vaiables involved.
It is skeptics like you who assert to know more than you do.
Climate scientists have shown there is a POTENTIAL link and if true we can do something about it.
You still prefer the reckless approach. Which is why your kind are neither in governments (anywhere) nor even represented in them.
In order to take actions nobody needs 100% proof. Just enough to be concerned.
Until you take away the concern people will still want to tax carbon.
Your arguments are like a little child because you completely miss the point of why Copenhagen even happened.
Go back to your basement.
Barry, you haven't answered of why one correlation (CO2) is favoured over the other correlation (Cosmic-rays).
You go on about correlation, then when I asked you to choose, then you resort to your favorite tactic which is being evasive.
You argued that correlation is all you need. Now I have raised here the point that there are 2 opposing correlations, ie, pro-AGW and anti-AGW. Do you see how stupid it is to rely on correlation (which is my argument here)?
Which is correlation is correct (CO2 and Cosmic-rays) and why? I know you're gonna keep evading.
Until it can be proven that cosmic rays are the ONLY reason for temperature fluctuations and that CO2 has 100% certainty of not having any influence.
The smart people will still plan to reduce carbon emissions.
You are looking for an answer when there isn't one Fisi.
If there was an answer then there would be no discussion.
You are evading that issue. It is you who is evading.
You cannot admit that you have wasted your time and that you completely misunderstand how decisions must be made in the real world.
You are obviously someone who has spent all their time working on theories and experiments in labs.
Step outside get some fresh air. We don't need 100% proof to take action. We need just enough to make us worried about something.
There is enough to be worried about CO2 already.
You just cannot admit it.
There are plenty of questions about all sorts of things in climate science because it is an inexact science.
But you don't even belong in the discussion because you approach the issue without any appreciation for the real world.
Go back to the matrix. Where you can prove your certainties.
The rest of us will live in the uncertain world with imperfect solutions.
Barry said...
Until it can be proven that cosmic rays are the ONLY reason for temperature fluctuations and that CO2 has 100% certainty of not having any influence.
Now, after being pointed out to you that there is nothing 100% proof in science, you then now turn around and being evasive and obfuscating by saying that CO2 has 100% certainty of not having any influence. Go back up and read previous comments. Geez, you seem to be all over the place Barry because of your inconsistencies.
Barry said...
The smart people will still plan to reduce carbon emissions.
Irrelevant and idiotic. Not an argument at all.
Barry said...
You are looking for an answer when there isn't one Fisi.
No, physical reality is supposed to be objective and there lies the question, because since reality exists, there must always be an answer, whether we find it today, tomorrow, next year, the year 2500 or whenever, but it must exist.
Barry said...
If there was an answer then there would be no discussion.
The reason that there is a discussion is because we don't know. If we knew everything about physical reality then there won't be any discussion. This is the heart of the matter and disputes here, when we leapt from don't know into we're very confident that we know (using statistics). This is what's questionable.
Here is an aside. Current standard model (SM) in particle physics predicted that there is some yet to be seen particle called graviton (carrier of gravitational force), but technology is gearing up to find this particle (very difficult though). Climate models’ prediction is no equivalent to SM, since SM theorem itself is self-consistent. The point is, self-consistent theories have always been proven correct in the age of modern physics, while others including climate science don't. Saying blindly that there is some unseen particle called graviton is not to be equated to prediction made by climate models, since they're not the same thing as my explanation above. So, we are so certain that the SM predicted does correspond to physical reality but only with the advancement of technology we will try and detect these elusive particles.
Barry said...
You are evading that issue. It is you who is evading.
Look at who's evading? You have shifted your position from linear correlation to now accepting the possibility of non-linear correlation only when I pointed out to you that your Webster dictionary is too simplistic in its explanation. I then pointed you out to a Wikipedia link on correlation, which you refused to read or perhaps tried to read but couldn't understood it.
Barry said...
You cannot admit that you have wasted your time and that you completely misunderstand how decisions must be made in the real world.
Yes, Barry, I have wasted my time trying to educate scientific illiterate people like you. I have given you scientific knowledge for free here.
Barry said...
You are obviously someone who has spent all their time working on theories and experiments in labs.
Ground-breaking theories in physics were invented on a sheet of paper (equations), then confirmed in the lab, examples were theorists as Einstein, Dirac, Feynman, Schrodinger, Heisenberg, and others. Einstein theorised the existence of laser in 1916 and in the mid 1950s Charles Townes developed the first maser/laser which lead him to a Nobel Prize. Dirac theorized the existence of anti-matter in the 1920s until it was discovered in the early 1930s of the positron particle (the anti-particle of electron), which we enjoy today in medical technology with PET (positron emission tomography) scanner.
Barry said...
Step outside get some fresh air. We don't need 100% proof to take action. We need just enough to make us worried about something.
You're contradicting yourself again. So, we don't need 100% proof, but you demand that CO2 must be disproved 100% that it has nothing to do with the warming if the cosmic-rays connection is to be accepted as the likely cause. Do you see your own stupidity here Barry?
Barry said...
There is enough to be worried about CO2 already.
You just cannot admit it.
Why don't we just worry about cosmic-rays as well?
Barry said...
There are plenty of questions about all sorts of things in climate science because it is an inexact science.
Redundant argument. We already know that.
Barry said...
But you don't even belong in the discussion because you approach the issue without any appreciation for the real world.
The real world is made up of atoms which comply with the laws of physics, which I have studied physics and I understand those laws. It follows that I know the real world, since the real world is physics.
Barry said...
Go back to the matrix. Where you can prove your certainties.
The rest of us will live in the uncertain world with imperfect solutions.
Whos US? This is irrelevant, simply not an argument.
You treat climate science like physics and that is your problem Fisi.
It is not physics. It is too inexact. And you cannot handle the uncertainty of that.
But that is real life.
Whether other factors are correlated with CO2 is interesting but since we cannot control them it is not the point. You are aware there are many factors involved? Congratulations everyone knew that. That doesnt PROVE CO2 isnt correlated. Until you can prove it people with brains will consider excessive CO2 as a potential risk to the human species.
If CO2 is correlated in some way and we can control it then prudent people do something to prevent tragic consequences.
You wanna let them die.
That is the difference between you and people with brains.
You have also gone back to confusing my definition of correlation with yours. Correlation in the dictionsary simply means a relationship between the movement in two variables.
You are out of your depth Fisi.
Crikey! Spend a few days on holiday and the degenerate gets loose!
Firstly, Barry, don't be caught using my tagline. As degenerate as you are, that really is descending to a new low.
Next, as predicted with certainty, the car started and operated. It did so 100% as predicted. Life is often like that thicko. Oh yes, while I remember, the number of steering turns lock-to-lock remained 1.3. I was certain that this would be the case and am certain that 1.3 will be the value on Monday.
Note: it is possible to be certain about particular aspects of reality.
Barry, whether you call an assertion a "simple assertion" or an assertion "based on research and evidence with confidence intervals attached", it remains an assertion. It matters not how confident you think you are. The questions you must submit to are, "Is this true?", and, "Does this correspond with reality?" The burden of proof can't be avoided on the basis of some arbitrary classification you dreamed up after a couple of hours mental abuse. The burden remains ALWAYS upon he who claims the positive. In this case, that is YOU. Wriggle all you like, you are stuck!
Meanwhile, the AGW non-believers need do nothing other than demand your proof. If you can't provide it, then your ideas can be immediately dismissed without further consideration. They are in the category of fairy tales- just not as entertaining.
For your position, that's bad enough, but in this instance things get worse for you. Much worse.
There is a substantial body of evidence of reality which directly contradicts AGW theory. One little example; CO2 levels increase AFTER the mean temperature rises. Check it out little man. AGW theory therefore puts the cart before the horse.
If you think on this a moment you should be able to understand that it destroys AGW theory at the outset. AGW is void from inception.
So much for your vaunted "correlation".
Oh dear.
Perhaps you should rewrite your theory thus:
The temperature of the climate increases. That causes Man to ramp up generation of electricity and burn more fossil fuels to so do. Thus the amount of CO2 increases. The governments need to shorten the day from 24 to 20 hours so that the Sun doesn't have as much time to heat things up each day. That way Man wouldn't generate as much electricty since he'd have less time to do it. then there would be less CO2 around.
Well, at least that story gets the temperature increase and the CO2 rise the right way around.
Moving on. I've had the occasion to meet Dr. Fisi. You should treat him with a lot more respect. He is far better qualified than you are ever likely to be. I doubt that you've even had half the education or intelligence he commands. He is well experienced in academia and in private ventures. You could learn a lot from him. You sure owe him an apology.
LGM
LGM,
You really should get some more time off.
Suggesting that we can be 100% sure about climate science is absurd. It shows you are missing some vital parts of your brain.
It is similar to Fisi thinking that Climate Science can be compared to theoretical Physics.
Laughable. Libertarians and most skeptics also disagree with you so you are completely on your own. NO skeptics have offered 100% proof there is no link between CO2 and temperatures. They have simply offered more doubt on AGW models and research.
There has always been doubt and always will.
It is sad to think that grown adults think that on an online blog they can rewrite the fundamental features of scientific disciplines.
Have you guys ever been out of your basements? Ha ha I doubt it.
Observations of past events cannot ever (according to logic) conclusively prove the event in question will recur. It merely gives a probability weighting.
But that is taught in high school and since you are both still in primary school you have a while yet before you need to confront aspects of the real world. Ha ha
Ha ha Einstein, ALL libtertarians, EVERYONE at the MISES INSTITUTE and EVERY MAJOR scientist in history agrees that it is impossible to predict the future with 100% certainty...yet you continue to embarrass yourself with idiotic statements that you are the only person who can predict the future.
It is telling that one doesn't need to hear much else of what either of you have to say since you can be so far wrong on basic matters of scientific principles that are common amongst ALL branches of science.
And you like to follow with your quotes of skeptic studies which assert other fectors that influence temperature.
You are an idiot because not me nor any climate scientist has disputed these studies because we all know that there are many influences on climate.
But until you can 100% disprove any link between CO2 and temperature, prudent governments will act to prevent a potential calamity. You have not proven it will not occur. It is within the world's power to prevent it so preventative action is rational.
Preventative action is only irrational if AGW is 100% disproven.
But that hasn't been done and is unlikely to be done soon because of the difficulty of proving anything in climate science where there are so many variables.
Unfortunately for LGM and Fisi the real world doesn't work like the models on your computer. You really should try and get out of your basements. Sad. Really sad.
With regard to Mr Fisi's qualifications they are obviously immense in PHYSICS. But not in the subject he is trying in vain to argue. He should remember the proverb "To the man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail".
Barry said...
It is similar to Fisi thinking that Climate Science can be compared to theoretical Physics.
Define the differences between theoretical physics and climate science? I know that you're going to evade, since climate science is a sub-domain of theoretical physics. Go on Barry, give us the definitions of those?
Barry said...
They have simply offered more doubt on AGW models and research.
AGW models of what? Are they children's plastic toy models? Oh, wait; it must be theoretical physics models such as fluid dynamics (check out IPCC AR4). Barry, do you know how stupid your comment is? No surprise there since you're an illiterate dumbfuck.
Barry said...
It is sad to think that grown adults think that on an online blog they can rewrite the fundamental features of scientific disciplines.
Blog is a good place to educate the illiterates such as you (by guys like me and others), because you can't understand the IPCC report itself, nor you read any scientific peer review papers on the subject. You said you have read the IPCC, but then you made contradicting statements, saying that climate science is not about statistics and physics, which I exposed you there, when I stated that the IPCC is statistics & physics from page 1 to the end. Had you read the report, you would have understood that and obviously you didn't, but you claimed you have. Children can spot your lying here easily.
Barry said...
Have you guys ever been out of your basements? Ha ha I doubt it.
You should ask that to climate modellers who had contributed to the IPCC report. But what's your point here again?
Barry said...
Observations of past events cannot ever (according to logic) conclusively prove the event in question will recur. It merely gives a probability weighting.
Tell us the titles of those scientific publications where that probability weighting is covered as being requested by ACT Youth above. You said you have read the IPCC.
Barry said...
But that is taught in high school and since you are both still in primary school you have a while yet before you need to confront aspects of the real world.
Non-linear correlation is not taught in high school, however linear correlation is described linguistically in your Webster dictionary (but not mathematically), which is solely aimed at idiots like you and high school students.
Barry said...
...predict the future with 100% certainty...yet you continue to embarrass yourself with idiotic statements that you are the only person who can predict the future.
It was finding about the cause of the warming idiot? What is the cause? CO2 or Cosmic-rays and that's the question.
Barry said...
It is telling that one doesn't need to hear much else of what either of you have to say since you can be so far wrong on basic matters of scientific principles that are common amongst ALL branches of science.
And what scientific principles have you mentioned so far on this thread? None.
Barry said...
You are an idiot because not me nor any climate scientist has disputed these studies because we all know that there are many influences on climate.
Which disputes? Show us and stop generalizing as to avoid your lack of knowledge. Did you mean that one correlation study disputed another correlation study? Haven't I said before that correlation is unreliable? Did you read what I wrote for you? Obviously not.
Barry said...
But until you can 100% disprove any link between CO2 and temperature, prudent governments will act to prevent a potential calamity.
Again, you keep repeating self-contradicting points here.
Barry said...
Unfortunately for LGM and Fisi the real world doesn't work like the models on your computer. You really should try and get out of your basements.
NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) write models where climate scientists can test on data’s they collected. But without those theoretical physics modellers at GFDL and similar research centre, then the IPCC report would look like kindergarten story books.
Barry said...
With regard to Mr Fisi's qualifications they are obviously immense in PHYSICS. But not in the subject he is trying in vain to argue.
What is climate science again?
Mr Fisi,
Still trying to convince the world that theoretical physics = climate science. What a pity... If you only understood 5th form science.
and...Suggesting that we can be 100% sure about climate science is absurd. It shows you are missing some vital parts of your brain.
They were just saying on the news how they don't yet know how much antarctic ice there is or what is heppening to it exactly.
Your theoretical models cannot possibly be accurate without the input data that DOESN'T EXIST YET.
It is sad to think that a grown adult thinks he can on an online blog rewrite the fundamental features of scientific disciplines.
Have you guys ever been out of your basement?
Observations of past events cannot ever (according to logic) conclusively prove the event in question will recur. It merely gives a probability weighting based on past experience. Einstein, ALL libtertarians, EVERYONE at the MISES INSTITUTE and EVERY MAJOR scientist in history agrees that it is impossible to predict the future with 100% certainty...yet you continue to embarrass yourself with idiotic statements that you are the only person who can predict the future.
Until you can 100% disprove any link between CO2 and temperature, prudent governments will act to prevent a potential calamity. You have not proven it will not occur. It is within the world's power to prevent it so preventative action is rational.
Preventative action is only irrational if AGW is 100% disproven.
But that hasn't been done and is unlikely to be done soon because of the difficulty of proving anything in climate science where there are so many variables.
All climate models use input from the natural world which is INHERENTLY imperfect.
You are an idiot if you cannot appreciate the effect this has on the confidence levels of any output predictions or findings. You are so sad. Very sad. ha ha
"To the man with a physics hammer, everything looks like a physics nail". Ha ha!
It is even more basic fundamental principles which are taught in highschool that you didn't learn such as using the correct tool for the job and being aware of the predictive power of experiments.
You still hang onto your 100% dream even when every scientist in the world disagrees with you!
And you still don't know how certainty levels of results are expressed in research findings! Idiot!! I don't believe you are a scientist!!!! What a loser if you cannot even find the confidence level expressed in the results by the researchers!!! Idiot
Barry said...
Still trying to convince the world that theoretical physics = climate science. What a pity... If you only understood 5th form science.
You're evading aren't you? What's the difference between climate science and theoretical physics?
Prove they are the same. You are the first one who asserted that Theoretical Physics can 100% solve climate Science problems. Since you introduced that first it is you who must PROVE it. Wasn't that the line of logic that LGM and TWR had? I'm sure you agree that if you introduce something you have to prove it. So prove it.
And I notice you have also evaded my other questions yet again.
Are you a baby?
Barry said...
Prove they are the same. You are the first one who asserted that Theoretical Physics can 100% solve climate Science problems.
Show me which post of mine which I said that.
Are you going to answer the question of the difference between climate science and theoretical physics or not? Tell us, what is not theoretical in climate science. Is fluid dynamics (covered in the IPCC) theoretical or not?
Waiting for an answer.
According to the IPCC:
"..As a result of the cumulative nature of science, climate science today is an interdisciplinary synthesis of countless tested and proven physical processes and principles painstakingly compiled and verified over several centuries of detailed laboratory measurements, observational experiments and theoretical analyses; and is now far more wide-ranging and physically comprehensive than was the case only a few decades ago."
So you are wrong. It is interdisciplinary. Climate science insludes physics but is not entirely physics. You are wrong. So wrong. It is funny.
Ha ha Fisi. You said this:
"The real world is made up of atoms which comply with the laws of physics, which I have studied physics and I understand those laws. It follows that I know the real world, since the real world is physics."
You are basically saying that because you studied physics you can definately do climate science. Implying that they are the same. Because if you are saying they are not the same then your statement doesn't make sense. Other areas of science are far too complex (chemistry, meteorology, ocean science, geology... need I go on)
But you say that simply because you have studied physics you are automatically able to speak on these topics well.
That is why you are a welterweight:
1 - You forget what you say (are you 100 years old?)
2- You think you know everything about other branches of science which you clearly don't.
3 - You cannot find the confidence levels of a piece of research findings just by reading the paper (like I can)
4 - You cannot answer any of my questions (because you would have to admit your failings)
Ha ha seems you have wasted your life! Man I am giving you a beeating here! It is fun!
Barry, didn't you read my comment above where I stated that theoretical physics is a sub-domain? Do you have a short memory, don't you. Without theoretical physics, then there is no climate science. Climate science would be equivalent to climate prediction that Ken Ring is doing, observations only but no models. After you stated above that they're not the same, now you say that theoretical physics is part of climate science. You are contradicting again.
Barry said...
Prove they are the same. You are the first one who asserted that Theoretical Physics can 100% solve climate Science problems.
Show me which post of mine which I said that.
Visited 3 old soldiers the other day. Family was gonna stop by and take Charles up North. Looks like Tony will be spending lots of time in the library. And Gordon carries on in his own world, cutting and pasting.
Speaking of which, candles lit for soldiers whose lives were cut short before their feet touched the ground, and for soldiers who carry on with courage. Their hearts are of the matter.
There are different types of freedom fighters. All kinds of camps.
Many are psychologically and spiritually challenging.
The word 'freedom' means different things to different people.
I am but a lesser soldier. All I see are 2 signs.
One says "Beware the man who speaks of evil."
Another says "Beware the man who speaks of good."
"Green Stalinism is what we are seeing today, but the color is purely decorative.
It has nothing to do with real environmentalism; after all, eco-icon Rachel Carson got DDT outlawed on totally phony evidence, thereby saving hundreds of millions of tsetse flies in Africa at the cost of millions of African children.
How is that for really evil racism? How many deadly flies would you trade for the life of a child?
Maybe that's what environmentalism really comes down to, but in that case, how do you tell eco-freaks from Stalinists or Hitlerites?
You shall know them by their deeds, and their deeds show no difference.
The whole intention behind Fraudenhagen was to impoverish the West and to hold back the developing world from creating prosperity for its people.
Even Stalin destroyed Soviet agriculture only inadvertently. These folks WANT to do it."
Heads up from James Lewis in American Thinker.
December 27, 2009
Engineers, Scientific and Social
By Jim Gammon & Admiral Ben Moreell
On January 14, 1953, the chairman of Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp. spoke at the annual meeting of the Society of Automotive Engineers in Detroit.
He was Admiral Ben Moreell, and in 1953, most people in the audience would have known him as a founder and leader of the Seabees -- the U.S. Navy component that built the docks, the airports, and just about everything else our military forces needed to fight and win World War II, often working under fire.
The speech Moreell gave that day is quite simply stunning.
It is among the most remarkable talks about human nature, and the nature of government, ever delivered by anyone, anywhere.
It rises above politics, as all serious discussions on human life ought to (but lately do not).
Although written more than fifty years ago, it is relevant today -- maybe even more so.
You be the judge.
While he never mentions politics, this is a must-read for every Conservative and a challenge to the foundations of every Liberal.
I came across the speech while rummaging through some of my father's old boxes.
My dad is 87 now, and he was in that audience when Admiral Moreell spoke.
He was so impressed that he contacted the Admiral afterward and asked for a copy of the text, which is what I found.
Please read the speech and pass it along as widely as you can.
-Jim Gammon
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/12/engineers_scientific_and_socia.html
December 27, 2009
Obama's Lost Face
By J.R. Dunn
Why did Chinese premier Wen Jiabao choose to publicly humiliate Barack Obama at Copenhagen?
In their eyes, and in those of much of the world, he has lost face, and with it, power and influence.
While getting widespread play overseas, this story has been kept very quiet by our disinterested, nonpartisan media (I haven't seen it mentioned in any major U.S. outlet).
After promising to meet the Messiah at 7:00 p.m., Premier Wen stood him up in favor of a meeting with the leaders of India, South Africa, and Brazil.
Rather than wait, a no-doubt infuriated Obama stalked into the room in question and demanded, "Are you ready to see me, Premier Wen?"
No word on Wen's reaction, though he did submit to a discussion on the spot that evidently sealed the release of the immortal and glorious Copenhagen Quasi-Agreement on Climate Change.
So with Barack Obama, we've reached the point where the leader of record of the most powerful state in history has become a man you can casually stand up.
But the question remains: Why?
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/12/obamas_lost_face.html
Shari
I read the links you provided- interesting, worth the time to read and consider. Thanks for those.
Recently I was introduced to the work of some historians. The topic was the causes of war. A series of questions were asked including:
What if government leaders deliberately started every war fought in recorded history for purely cynical self-serving motives designed to enhance their own political fortunes?
What if these same government leaders disseminated for public consumption bogus “reasons” for their wars, all the while admitting in private their real self-serving motives?
What if all of the alleged “reasons” routinely furnished by the experts as the root “cause” of war– the supposed desire for oil, gold, land, or some other scarce resources, money, geopolitical maneuvering, Darwinian “will to power,” furtherance of the national interest, arms races, subliminal aggression, deeply-rooted primate behavior, population pressures, sexual frustration, gender domination, religion, ideology, or whatnot–were simply wrong?
The work has started. Thus far the results of the research work indicate nothing but bad news for proponents of government. There is more scholarship and research to continue but what is known so far is that government leaders did deliberately start every war thus far analysed for purely cynical self-serving motives. It has been demonstrated that on each occasion government leaders disseminated for public consumption bogus “reasons” for their wars, all the while admitting in private their real self-serving motives.
Take a look at the World Wide War Project on http://www.worldwidewarproject.org/about.html
Cheers
LGM
Hello LGM,
A valuable source, thank you. To have them all named and categorized in one place is even better. I anticipate spending many hours there.
There are, I think, 2 types of war. Violent and non-violent.
We will be fighting racist policies for a long time. Took Malaysia 30 years to start easing on her Bumiputra (Maori in this part of the world) policies.
The WWW project states: "The citizen who cavalierly marches off to war -- seduced no doubt by bogus "patriotic" appeals eventually to die for absolutely nothing -- must learn to protect himself from the criminal schemes hatched by his own unscrupulous leaders. Therefore, only a fool ever defends his country; a wise man always defends himself."
Ouch man. That hurt. Is the good doctor against soldiering?
How was the act of soldiering borne?
When one man had to defend family and property. Or when one village had to defend its entirety from another village.
Did the act of soldiering evolve? Yes, into armies. Why did this evolution be-come? Because the instinct of man is self-preservation. Protection is a branch. As it is with beast.
We allow men in power to get away greed and lies because we are a non-violent breed.
We have family in armies who chose their profession. They are in the business of protection.
Will my army protect me from my government?
A Fijian may say yes. What will a Kiwi say?
An Iranian?
What if 30,000 American soldiers say they do not want to spend time on foreign land?
What if British soldiers had refused to assist the Malaysian soldiers against Japanese soldiers?
I remain thankful there will always remain men, and through necessity, women, who chose soldiering as a profession. This includes police officers.
I am weak. I cannot defend my freedom on my own. Wisdom will not help me when an armed Mullah appears on my doorstep.
I think the following may be a good balance to the WWW project.
http://storytelling.concordia.ca/oralhistory/index.html
It's to do with recording oral history through the www.
December 29, 2009
Dooming Europe
By Pamela Geller
"The Europe as you know it from visiting, from your parents, or friends is on the verge of collapsing."
Geert Wilders said this in a speech he made in the U.S. last year.
He went on: "We are now witnessing profound changes that will forever alter Europe's destiny and might send the continent in what Ronald Reagan called 'a thousand years of darkness.'"
This applies not just to Europe, but to America as well.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/12/dooming_europe.html
December 29, 2009
Obama's Second Major Terror Failure in Two Months
By James Lewis
Luck was with us on Northwest flight 253. Dumb luck.
This terror attack could easily have been averted but for the Aloha, baby! attitude of the Obumblers regarding domestic terrorism.
At Fort Hood last month, a couple of cops finally brought down an Islamofascist killer after he murdered twelve soldiers and left thirty wounded on the tarmac.
On Flight 253 to Detroit it happened to be an alert Dutch filmmaker who jumped the would-be bomber when his pants started to burn.
But the bomb was an ingredient of Semtex, and he was trying to inject a liquid detonator that could have blown up the Airbus A 330 with 278 people on board.
After a known Islamic radical psychiatrist shot more than forty unarmed American military personnel at Forth Hood last month, this is the second easily preventable failure of the Obama administration to protect the country against domestic terrorism.
Obama has let down our guard, and al-Qaida's got his number.
Under the reign of political correctness, anti-terror policy comes down to this: You can't profile terrorists -- certainly not by their African origins, by their known history of Islamist radicalism, or by their Muslim names.
So you have to have "everybody's a suspect" rules, in which midwestern grandmas are treated the same as Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, who just barely failed to bring down Northwest 253.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/12/obamas_second_major_terror_fai.html
Shari
The concerning thing about the War Project are the implications.
If government leaders deliberately started every war fought in recorded history for purely cynical self-serving motives designed to enhance their own political fortunes and these same government leaders disseminated for public consumption bogus “reasons” for their wars, all the while admitting in private their real self-serving motives,
THEN
what else might they be prepared to do to satisfy their motives.....? What else might they do in less stressful circumstances?
When one considers the nature of domestic politics and the types of regulation, legislation and policy generated and enforced there is cause for concern. A lot of it takes the appearance of warfare- internal wars against the citizens. Indeed there is the descriptive term "welfare-warfare state"...
LGM
Shari
Yup, Europe is degenerating. It is a great tragedy, but when you consider that the only thing keeping those guys from warfare these last 50 years has been a US military presence, then it is no surprise that they are adopting yet more silliness. The transformation of Europe into a state of barbarity is an on-going process. Will anyone learn from it?
Thanks for the new links. I noticed that the last one is broken. I'll try it again.
LGM
A Soldier's Declaration
From Siegfried L. Sassoon, July 1917
I am making this statement as an act of willful defiance of military authority, because I believe that the war is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it.
I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers.
I believe that this war, upon which I entered as a war of defense and liberation, has now become a war of aggression and conquest.
I believe that the purposes for which I and my fellow-soldiers entered upon this war should have been so clearly stated as to have made it impossible to change them, and that, had this been done, the objects which actuated us would now be attainable by negotiation.
I have seen and endured the sufferings of the troops, and I can no longer be a party to prolong these sufferings for ends which I believe to be evil and unjust.
I am not protesting against the conduct of the war, but against the political errors and insincerities for which the fighting men are being sacrificed.
On behalf of those who are suffering now I make this protest against the deception which is being practiced on them; also I believe that I may help to destroy the callous complacence with which the majority of those at home regard the continuance of agonies which they do not share, and which they have not sufficient imagination to realize.
And from Thomas Sowell in 'Unhealthy Arrogance":
...
"In a sense, this administration is only the end result of a long social process that includes raising successive generations with dumbed-down education in schools and colleges that have become indoctrination centers for the visions of the left.
Our education system has turned out many people who have never heard any other vision and who can only learn what is wrong with the prevailing vision from bitter experience.
That bitter experience now awaits them, at home and abroad."
Thoughts from Robin, psychotherapist and a recovering liberal in Berkeley.
"It was a stirring night for this wandering Jew who has traveled from east to west, from Left to Right.
As the Sufi poet Hafiz wrote, "This moment in time God has carved a place for you," and sitting in the sanctuary, I felt that place.
Even though I didn't know the right words, or the hymns, or how to pray, it didn't matter.
All the differences among people -- race, class, politics, even religion -- vanished.
Faith, I realized, is the ultimate uniter.
And in a heartbeat, I understood why leaders from Marx to Mao try to keep people away from God, and why they will always fail.
I flashed to an image of those mothers who somehow find the superhuman strength to lift up a car and free their children.
On Christmas Eve, I learned that this same unstoppable power exists inside all of us, especially when we stand together.
As Jesus himself taught, faith the size of a mustard seed can move a mountain."
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/12/power_to_the_conservative_peop.html
Thought from an Iranian mother:
"I have a son in the Army. Will he shoot me?"
An American mother's new dawn message to her son: "Stay Strong."
Remember that talking is one of the fine arts, the noblest, the most important, and the most difficult, and that its fluent harmonies may be spoiled by the intrusion of a single harsh note.
Therefore conversation which is suggestive rather than argumentative, which lets out the most of each talker's results of thought, is commonly the pleasantest and the most profitable.
It is not easy, at the best, for two persons talking together to make the most of each other's thoughts; there are so many of them.
When John and Thomas, for instance, are talking together, it is natural enough that among the six there should be more or less confusion and misapprehension.
Our landlady turned pale; no doubt she thought there was a screw loose in my intellects, and that involved the probable loss of a boarder.
A severe-looking person, who wears a Spanish cloak and a sad cheek, fluted by the passions of the melodrama, whom I understand to be the professional ruffian of the neighboring theatre, alluded, with a certain lifting of the brow, to Falstaff's nine men in buckram.
Everybody looked up.
I believe the old gentleman opposite was afraid I should seize the carving knife; at any rate, he slid it to one side, as it were carelessly.
I think, I said, I can make it plain to Benjamin Franklin here that there are at least six personalities distinctly to be recognised as taking part in that dialogue between John and Thomas.
Three Johns
The real John; known only to his Maker.
John's ideal John; never the real one, and often very unlike him.
Thomas's ideal John; never the real John, nor John's John, but often very unlike either.
Three Thomases
The real Thomas.
Thomas's ideal Thomas.
John's ideal Thomas.
Only one of the three Johns is taxed; only one can be weighed on a platform-balance; but the other two are just as important in the conversation.
Let us suppose the real John to be old, dull, and ill-looking.
But, as the Higher Powers have not conferred on men the gift of seeing themselves in the true light, John very possibly conceives himself to be youthful, witty, and fascinating, and talks from the point of view of this ideal.
Thomas, again, believes him to be an artful rogue, we will say; therefore he is, so far as Thomas's attitude in the conversation is concerned, an artful rogue, though really simple and stupid.
The same conditions apply to the three Thomases.
It follows that, until a man can be found who knows himself as his Maker knows him, or who sees himself as others see him, there must be at least six persons engaged in every dialogue between two.
Of these, the least important, philosophically speaking, is the one that we have called the real person. No wonder two disputants often get angry, when there are six of them talking and listening all at the same time.
A very unphilosophical application of the above remarks was made by a young fellow, answering to the name of John, who sits near me at table.
A certain basket of peaches, a rare vegetable, little known to boarding houses, was on its way to me via this un-lettered Johannes.
He appropriated the three that remained in the basket, remarking that there was just one apiece for him.
I convinced him that his practical inference was hasty and illogical, but in the meantime he had eaten the peaches.
From Oliver Wendell Holmes, in The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table.
In Arthur Mee's 'One Thousand Beautiful Things'. (p. 132).
"A new Reagan revolution is brewing.
It is a revolution within the ranks of the GOP, as the movement sweeps in to take control of the Republican Party.
The days of the top-down old guard are over.
This is a bottom-up movement of the grassroots, or what Congressman Gary Ackerman (D-NY) prefers to call the angry mobs "who commandeer the town-hall meetings."
It is no longer acceptable for New York GOP bosses to reject principled Conservative Doug Hoffman and instead select a tax-and-spend Republican like Dede Scozzafava for NY's 23rd Congressional District special election.
Neither is it allowable for the National Republican Senatorial Committee to dismiss Marco Rubio, the new Republican star running to take back our country in favor of Obama sycophant Governor Charlie Crist for the Florida Senate race.
The new Republican rising stars will win.
Borrowing the words of Thomas Paine for advice to the GOP: "Lead, follow, or get out of the way." "
From Phil Orenstein:
"Mr. Smith, You're Needed in Washington" in American Thinker.com
Barry describing himself on a message that he posted in this RealClimate thread :
Barry said:
Gavin : The confusion in the denialosphere is based on a misunderstanding between ‘airborne fraction of CO2 emissions’ (not changing very much) and ‘CO2 fraction in the air’
I got up to grade ten science and ditched it for arts, but even a rube like me understood the misconception just from reading the paper – no googling for blog help – when a (cough) skeptic posted that canard at a forum I frequent.
Sorting that out wasn’t rocket surgery, I suppose. But reading climate-sci blogs like this has helped me be slightly less rub-ish. Thanks, Gavin (et al).
The full version of the Knorr paper is online.
Now, I knew that Barry is an artist/rube (ie, someone with a non-scientific background) because of the style of his argument here but his self-admission at RealClimate confirmed exactly that.
FF, see the other thread where I have stated to Barry clearly many times that he never argued/defended scientifically his position as a warmist, instead he bombarded the related threads on AGW with a denial of service attack type (DOSA) with useless & irrelevant messages to wear down his opponents. That's his tactic.
I can see from his self-admission at RealClimate that he is a rube, and it made me realized why he debated in a DOSA fashion. It is simply that he is clueless to the subject/topic that he is trying to defend. Don't waste your time in debating with him, because no matter how clear your explanation to him, a rube like him wouldn't understand it or simply refuse to understand your point since his position on global warming is already made up.
I am not a scientist myself and I wouldn't want to debate the AGW science with anyone since I am an artist like Barry (I have an MA in psychology), but I can understand some bits & pieces that have been discussed here on Not PC. All I asked Barry to start debating the science, such as you and others have shown here on this very thread including other related threads, but he keeps posting useless & irrelevant DOSA type messages.
Ha ha Kurt. If you wanna see my reasons for being an AGW supporter then go the the IPC report and read one of the referenced pieces of research that support AGW.
It is the sheer number of those combined with the lack of credible skeptic articles that sway my position.
Plus the fact that until skeptics can 100% disprove AGW it will remain a threat to be responded to by governments.
Any government that failed to acknowledge a threat which has literally hundreds of pieces of scientific research backing it up would be negligent. Which is why you are chatting online and Obama is in the White House - he has brains and you do not.
Barry, stop claiming to have read the IPCC report, because it is obvious from messages posted above by FF, ACT Youth and others, that you have a huge huge hole in your knowledge of mathematical language. AFAIK, the IPCC is full of mathematics and physics, in which rube like you (and me) would have no clue at all to those.
And you said, that which is why you are chatting online and Obama is in the White House - he has brains and you do not.
This is not a scientific argument, but trolling, is it? And here you are chatting online too, which according to you, we don't have brains. You're correct there, that I and you don't have a brain to understanding scientific concepts as global warming or otherwise, you and me could be in the whitehouse instead of Obama.
Again, you won't stop DOSAring, will you. I am not here to argue about the science of AGW. I simply made an observation that you've never defended your warmist position scientifically except DOSAring this blog with useless and irrelevant messages. Your scientific debate is with LGM, FF , ACT Youth and others, but not with me. I am just stating an observation (factual) of what I have read thru this thread and similar ones here at Not PC. You made comments like a headless chicken, ie, everywhere with no aim or no definitive answer but vague to the questions being put forward to you. Your way of answering is simply DOSAring.
Oh Kurt. You are getting predictable. You have nothing to add to the thread so you like to comment on other posters.
It would be amusing if it weren't so sad.
Ha ha yes you are right there is a hell of a lot of Physics and maths in the IPCC report. But you haven't read it eh? Well, I have. And there is also alot of natural sciences in there based on observations and measurements.
It is great reading and not too hard if you have a reasonable education. You do not need a PhD to read it though.
All the defense I need of the Warmist position is in the IPCC report. It is public knowledge - it is your job to read it. Do you still get someone to change your nappies?
http://playingforchange.com/
From the award-winning documentary, “Playing For Change: Peace Through Music”, comes an incredible rendition of the legendary Bob Marley song “One Love” with Keb’ Mo’ and Manu Chao.
This is the third video from the documentary and a follow up to the classic “Stand By Me” and the incredible “Don’t Worry.”
Released in celebration of Bob Marley’s birthday on February 6th, this tribute to the legend is performed by musicians around the world adding their part to the song as it traveled the globe.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xjPODksI08
From independent.co.uk
Michel de Montaigne - Go with the flow
Friday, 1 January 2010
It's 2010: the years have moved on by one notch.
At the same time, the calendar circles back to 1 January, giving us the illusion that we can start everything afresh.
Some of us think of this as just another day, perhaps an uneventful and hungover one.
For others, it means something more vigorous: making resolutions, wiping clean the slate, rejecting old inadequacies and trying to do the right thing, starting now.
...
I don't want to feel like a failure in 2010.
I am making no resolutions and will be looking for wisdom from a different source: a man who knew a lot about living and had no patience for wiped slates or clean breaks.
He was Michel Eyquem de Montaigne, the author of a book named simply Essays, a word he coined to mean "tries".
A wine-growing nobleman and Bordeaux government official of the late 16th century, he slipped away from his work and home responsibilities as often as he could to attend to his real labour of love: writing digressive, entertaining, freewheeling thoughts about all that he had read, done or seen.
...
You were not supposed to publish books about yourself, unless it was to record great deeds for the benefit of posterity, or a spiritual quest like that of St Augustine.
But Montaigne wrote about eating, scratching his ears, having sex, reading books, talking to neighbours, catching himself being absent-minded or vain or impulsive, sleeping, falling off his horse, playing word games with his wife and daughter, and watching his cat hunting birds.
...
As with all of us, some of the things Montaigne did were flawed, and he makes no attempt to conceal this.
He lets us see him being petty, lazy or ignorant, or doing things that no longer make sense to him.
Yet it is all part of himself, and he accepts it all. "I rarely repent", he says - a strange admission for a good Catholic.
He writes, with great cheer, "If I had to live over again, I would live as I have lived."
It is enough just to be the way he is.
...
Montaigne could have made New Year's resolutions: they were well established in his day.
The Romans had looked back over their past actions at the end of each year so as to plan for the year ahead.
When Julius Caesar re-organised the calendar in 46 BC, he set the year to start on 1 January - a month named for Janus, two-faced god of portals and gates.
...
Sarah Bakewell's 'How to Live: A life of Montaigne in one question and twenty attempts at an answer' is published this month by Chatto & Windus. Montaigne's 'Essays' are published by Penguin Classics
Once upon a time, or rather at the birth of Time, when the gods were so new that they had no names, and Man was still damp from the clay of the pit whence he had been digged, Man claimed that he, too, was in some sort a god.
The gods weighed his evidence, and decided that Man's claim was good.
Having conceded Man's claim, the legend goes that they came by stealth and stole away this godhead, with intent to hide it where Man should never find it again.
But this was not so easy.
If they hid it anywhere on Earth the gods foresaw that Man would leave no stone unturned till he had recovered it.
If they concealed it among themselves they feared Man might batter his way up even to the skies.
And while they were all thus at a stand, the wisest of the gods said, "I know. Give it to me!"
He closed his hand upon the tiny, unstable light of Man's stolen godhead, and when that great hand opened again the light was gone.
"All is well," said Brahm. "I have hidden it where Man will never dream of looking for it.
I have hidden it inside Man himself."
Rudyard Kipling.
From Arthur Mee's 'One Thousand Beautiful Things' (page 5).
January 03, 2010
The Jihad Decade Cometh
By Pamela Geller
...
Islam's fatwa on the West during the Clinton administration came home to New York and Washington on September 11th.
...
Removing Saddam Hussein was good. There is no way around that powerful truth. But why stop there?
Removing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as well would have been even better. But Bush lost his mojo in 2006.
The relentless pounding by the Left, Israel's halfhearted performance in the war with Hezb'allah in the summer of 2006, and the loss of the House and the Senate in November 2006 all contributed to the rout.
But what really led to the downfall of Bush's leadership was the falsity of his premise.
He wanted to believe, like Condi and Powell and the soft diplomacy crowd, that Islam would negotiate with the West.
Islam cannot negotiate.
Yet still the West continues its pursuit of the impossible, despite great risk. This is a function of the Western mind.
These people think it inconceivable that talk can't solve anything and everything, that war is an indelible part of the human condition.
But it is.
War is as much in the makeup of man as sex, food, art, love, all of it.
And wars must be fought. They will not disappear, but we will.
Of course, we know this. But the Left, our in-house enemy, demonizes any war that America chooses to fight.
The egregious, horrible crimes of Mao, Stalin, bin Laden, Che, Lenin, Pol Pot, Ahmadinejad, et al, which are so heinous and so enormous, are in their terrible minds a historical footnote.
They become cultural icons for the "radical chic." Cold-blooded monsters have co-opted our country.
And so successful was the Left at infiltrating our government, schools, and institutions that eight years after the most heinous attack on American soil, we elected an icon of our mortal enemy.
A Kenyan, Indonesian, third-worldish boulevardier with as much understanding of the American experience as any foreign national.
Don't call me a racist for calling him what he is -- I am not interested in the color of his skin, but in the content of his character.
His lack of experience in all relevant areas to the office of the president is breathtaking.
And his bowing to Islam and our enemies worldwide is disastrous.
Bush's premise was false, but Bush was a patriot. Bush loved America, and he protected America, even if he refused to see the enemy for who and what it was.
It was no accident that America was safe for eight years post-9/11.
Eight years of safety is cracking apart now under a weak and pro-Islamic president.
The jihadi attacks on America in 2009 were staggering. And it has only just begun.
Dismantling the Bush protections against jihad and launching attacks on Americans, bloggers, tea partiers, town hallers, patriots, and vets is incomprehensible -- and if I hadn't lived through it, I wouldn't believe it possible.
I pray that America examines the Left decade and takes stock. It was the appeasement of the Left that destroyed the foundations of this country. We must rebuild them.
The advancement of Islam would never have been possible -- could never have happened -- without our surrender to the Left. The real war is against the Leftist/Islamic alliance.
This is a fighting year.
Pamela Geller is the editor and publisher of the Atlas Shrugs website and is former associate publisher of the New York Observer. She is the author (with Robert Spencer) of the forthcoming book The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War on America (Simon and Schuster).
January 04, 2010
Iran refuses to accept Kerry's surrender
Rick Moran at American Thinker
John Kerry's plan to go to Iran and do God knows what has been derailed by the Iranian leadership.
Evidently, they wish to receive our surrender from Obama rather than Kerry.
Bridget Johnson of The Hill writes:
Iranian legislators on Sunday decided to not allow a visit from Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.), according to Iranian media.
"Members of the Iranian parliament's Foreign Relations Committee (a subcommittee of the parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission) voiced opposition to the request after studying the issue," Hassan Ebrahimi, head of the committee, told the semi-official Fars News Agency.
Several Iranian news outlets reported last week that Kerry had submitted an official request to visit Tehran in an emissary role.
Kerry spokesman Frederick Jones told the Wall Street Journal before Christmas, though, that no trip had been scheduled.
"Is he planning now on going to Iran? The answer is no," said Jones.
When asked Sunday if Kerry had filed a travel request as claimed or if Iran had taken pre-emptive action against talk of a visit, Jones told The Hill, "John Kerry has no plans to travel to Iran."
Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehman-Parast said last week that "legislative officials are studying the case and they are in charge for providing a response."
On Saturday, Iranian legislators stepped up the rhetoric against the news that Kerry was considering traveling to Tehran with the blessing of the White House.
"The Islamic Republic of Iran has no plans to negotiate with any American official, unless the country (the U.S.) changes its policies," member of the parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Zohreh Elahian said, according to Fars News Agency.
So Kerry says through a spokesman that he has no plans to go to Iran while the Iranian government studies the question of whether he should come?
Someone is lying and since the Iranians have no reason to fib, it appears that Kerry is lying about his plans.
Kerry also made a visit to Nicaragua back in the mid 1980's to bolster the communist government of Daniel Ortega while we were supplying aid to the contras to overthrow the Sandanista thugs.
Unfortunately for him, he will apparently not get his photo-op with Ahmadinejad trashing his own country.
They are waiting for Obama to give in so they can accept his apology in person.
January 04, 2010
Now stim bill money being sent to fake zip codes
Rick Moran
Jim Scarantino of New Mexico Watchdog was the first to uncover the fact that stim bill money was being listed as spent in non-existent congressional districts.
Now he's uncovered another tasty tidbit; the money is going to fake zip codes:
The agency charged with tracking the stimulus funds, the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, attempted to eliminate this embarrassment by lumping all the billions reported going to nonexistent Congressional districts into a new category called the "unassigned" Congressional district.
Closer examination of the latest recovery.gov report for New Mexico shows hundreds of thousands of dollars sent to and credited with creating jobs in zip codes that do not exist in New Mexico or anywhere else.
Moreover, funds reported as being spent in New Mexico were given zip codes corresponding to areas in Washington and Oregon.
The recovery.gov site reports that $373,874 was spent in zip code 97052.
Unfortunately, this expenditure created zip jobs.
But $36,218 was credited with creating 5 jobs in zip code 87258.
A cool hundred grand went into zip code 86705, but didn't result in even one person finding work.
None of these zip codes exist in New Mexico, or anywhere else, for that matter.
The recovery.gov report also credits New Mexico with $131,139, though the zip codes receiving these funds (but creating no jobs) are in fact located in DuPont, Washington, Richland, Washington, and Gales Creek, Oregon.
These errors were found by checking the zip codes reported at recovery.gov against the United States Postal Service's on-line zip code locator.
Coming on top of our discovery of millions of dollars reportedly going to ten phantom New Mexico Congressional Districts, this latest discovery confirms that the data released by the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, at least for New Mexico, contains serious errors.
All told, we have found over $27 million dollars that has been reported as going to either nonexistent Congressional districts or nonexistent zip codes.
I suppose the White House will lump these expenditures under some bureaucratic rubric like "unassigned state."
Next up: stim money listed as being spent on Mars, Venus, and Jupiter's moon Io as well as other "unassigned planets."
January 04, 2010
Predictable response from Iran to Obama's hedging of New Year's deadline
Rick Moran
Well, I guess we shouldn't be surprised by this. Michael Theodoulou writing in The National:
Iran claimed yesterday that the West had given it another month to accept a United Nations-brokered nuclear deal - as Tehran defiantly set its own end-of-January deadline for world powers to agree to its already rejected counter proposals.
Trumpeting Iran's hardened stance with confidence, Manouchehr Mottaki, the foreign minister, warned that the Islamic republic would otherwise start producing more highly enriched uranium to fuel a Tehran medical research reactor.
"This is an ultimatum," he proclaimed.
In Obama's fantasyland, this is a sign of progress.
As long as Iran leaves the door open a crack, the administration sees that as a chance to get concessions from Iran.
Perhaps someone might want to list all the concessions Iran has made since this "engagement" started.
You may have some trouble doing so because all we've gotten from the mullahs have been the back of their hand.
They have ridiculed, spat upon, and summarily rejected every single overture made by Obama, the UN, and our allies.
But knowing their adversary, the Iranians always leave a sliver of hope in their rejections.
And like a drowning man reaching for a life preserver, Obama grasps the mirage believing he is not being taken for a ride by Tehran.
A Low and Dishonest Decade
Caroline Glick in Townhall.com
Monday, January 04, 2010
Upon returning from Cairo on Tuesday, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu proclaimed, "It's time to move the peace process forward."
The most sympathetic interpretation of Netanyahu's proclamation is that he was engaging in political theater.
It was a low and dishonest statement uttered at the end of what has been, in the immortal words of W.H. Auden, "a low and dishonest decade."
...
No less than what it tells us about Netanyahu, his statement is notable for what it tells us about Israel.
Our continued willingness to ensnare ourselves in the rhetoric of peace processes demonstrates how little we have progressed in the past decade.
...
The past decade's major policies: the withdrawal from Gaza, the construction of the security fence, the acceptance of the road map peace plan, the Annapolis Conference, Operation Defensive Shield, the Second Lebanon War and Operation Cast Lead all shared one central feature.
They were all predicated on ignoring the lessons of the failure of appeasement in 2000.
...
As we move into the second decade of this century, we need to understand how the last decade was so squandered.
How is it possible that in 2010 Israel continues to embrace policies that have failed it - violently and continuously for so many years?
Why, in 2010 are we still ignoring the lessons of 2000 and all that we have learned since then?
...
Auden's "low and dishonest decade" was the 1930s.
It was the West's obsession then with appeasement that set the world on course for the cataclysm of World War II.
As Israel enters the new decade, we must redouble our efforts to forestall a repeat of the cataclysm of the 1940s.
Disturbingly, Netanyahu's call for a fraudulent peace process shows that we are off to an ignoble, untruthful start.
Shari, while your recent posts here are certainly interesting, they bear no relation at all to the topic of the thread, and they appear to violate the copyright of the publishers.
If you wish to post pieces like this, then please make them on-topic, and simply post a short summary and an URL. And please learn to use quotation marks to distinguish your writing from someone else's.
No worries, PC. I have been talking to myself. You are right of course. Global warming ain't about religion or politics or war.
And yes, I have been sloppy in adhering to copyright issues. Dot coms regardless.
I bid you farewell and good cheer.
Post a Comment