64 Replies to “Reader Tips”

  3. Online poll BEGGING to go wrong
    “Do you believe we can stop global warming?”
    http://www.ctv.ca/canadaam/
    on the right side of the page down a bit. Don’t forget to leave your comments too, you may see them in the show tomorrow!

  4. Some of the best commentary on the realclimate.org website comes from computer programmers. Here is comment # 1034 on the thread concerning the emails:
    “The code that poor Harry was dealing with ….was used to maintain what is ostensibly one of the most important databases in the history of mankind. I find that troubling.
    As for [Gavin Schmidt’s] note that we’ve moved on to CruTS 3, that seems a little disingenuous seeing as that move was clearly the object of Harry’s work. He may well have salvaged whatever could be salvaged in that process but, as he notes at one point, “we’ll never know what we’ve lost”.
    There’s the rub. The “new reliable” data has been developed from data with unknown, and unknowable, corruption. It can’t therefore, be reliable.
    For anyone not into data management, consider a quick and dirty analogy which you can try at home. Take a high-resolution photo from your digital camera and use your favourite photo software to shrink it to, say, 200 x 300 pixels. Now save it and leave it kicking round your computer for a while (it’s only a simulation, so a few seconds should do it).
    Reload the photo and try to resize it back to full size. It will be almost unrecognisable because you’ve lost data in the process. Sure, you can use Photoshop to “improve” it but all the improvements are “best guesses” which can never actually recreated the original with any accuracy.
    With the photo example, the only way round [this problem] is to reload the original from your camera or, if you’ve already deleted that, to go back and take another photo.
    Perhaps that should be the next step if climate science is to remain credible – a massive effort to go back to the stations (who presumably retain records), get all the data again – in an agreed, open and consistent format, and rebuild the databases from scratch. Since the underlying data is the same, all databases worldwide could be verified by this process.”
    I’m surprised that Gavin Schmidt did not give this post a typically sneering or mocking reply. Maybe the effort of sorting through over a thousand comments, with close to half being of a critical nature, is sapping his will.
    I’ve never seen AGW advocates so darned defensive. It’s stunning.

  5. for all you fans of the american prison cystem (note the spelling):
    3w.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/03/30/090330fa_fact_gawande
    ‘leftist rag yada yada ya’ well find out the numbers for yourself then.

  6. “Enemy camp”? That was mind bloggling. Westpoint was George Washington’s headquarters, during the war of independence. Chris Matthews needs to retire, and move to France.

  7. From above:

    There’s the rub. The “new reliable” data has been developed from data with unknown, and unknowable, corruption. It can’t therefore, be reliable.

    Reminds me of known unknowns
    I always giggle when someone makes a statement such as – “we know that it is [hotter/more CO2 in the air] than ever for the last [1000/1 million] years” or some such.
    I suspect there is a whole lot more out there that we don’t know than what we do know with any certainty.

  8. “In fact, of course, conflict is the vital core of an open society; if you were going to express democracy in a musical score, your major theme would be the harmony of dissonance. All change means movement, movement means friction and friction means heat. You’ll find consensus only in a totalitarian state, Communist or fascist.” – Saul Alinsky

  10. I am guilty sometimes of thinking of scientific and mathematical types as being rather tone-deaf and soulless and bereft of a poetic instinct, but Vitruvius tends to shatter that perception, at least momentarily from time to time in his musical selections. We thank him for that ability. Perhaps there is more math and science to music than meets the eye (or the ear)?

  14. From the comments at the rated 2nd most popular article at the Copenhagen Conference website news section;
    Proposal to exclude Canada from the Commonwealth of 27 Nov:
    We are many that are wondering why the climate meeting in Copenhagen Denmark is still going to happen when the top scientists from the IPCC have been caught red handed manipulating scientific data and threatening other scientists that did not buy the official story about climate change.
    As a Dane, I remember we where taught in school that the Vikings went to Greenland and the reason why it is call GREENland is because at the time of the MWP the land was green and the vikings farmed wheat.
    I am not aware if there are farmers on Greenland at the moment farming wheat(danish irony)?
    […]
    I don’t know any Dane that haven’t heard the HC. Andersen story about the Naked Emperor. This is indeed what has happened right now with the Climate Gate.
    […]
    Full comments at: http://en.cop15.dk/news/view+news?newsid=2735

  17. Saskatchewan’s Brad Wall, having run up a billion dollar deficit, has also broken many promises:
    Children’s Hospital
    Municipal Funding
    Dollars for Education
    Tax Relief
    Full Rainy Day Fund
    He’s kept none of them.
    Where is the MSM?

  18. I think, Larben, that math and science and music are measures of different phenomena that I would be loath to conflate. Recall that I’m the one who has been trying to remind everyone that science is fundamentally an epistemological methodology. Music certainly isn’t: it’s axiological. And more importantly than that: please don’t judge math and science and music by me. I’m just Vitruvius; my genetico-experiential situation is as unique as each persons is, and is no basis for unstudied generalizations. That said, thank you for the appreciation.

    Now I have to castigate Cal2. Usual? How dare you, sir 😉
    If there’s one thing that SDA LNR isn’t: It isn’t Usual!

    Lastly: The Bear. Buddy, Listen. If you want people to take a look at the YouTube links you post, give them a reason to. Write a sentence or two describing the content and your conjecture as to its value. Saying “Here’s a YouTube video” followed by “http://www.youtube.com” is, um, what’s that word again, oh yeah: redundant. You may find this hard to believe, but most people don’t have the time to pick every link posted in blog comments, so normally they look for a reason to pick a link ~ that’s what you’re supposed to provide. It’s the unspoken deal, the assumed handshake. And now you know too.

  20. Larben and Vitruvius – reflecting back to the great Feynman, he had said that artist friends of his said that he was hindered in his appreciation of a flower by virtue of his scientific mind (always driven to analysis etc).
    Feynman retorted that he had an even greater appreciation – not only was there a strong aesthetic appreciation on his behalf, but the knowledge of the science and function behind a flower made his appreciation that much more keen.
    There are many in the sciences that try to be Renaissance men (and women) through reading about the arts and music.
    How many arts and music people do you know that pursue science reading in their spare time?

  21. One strange aspect of leftism is its misuse of the word “democracy”. Democracy refers to the election of a government by the people, and nothing more. An election may be held for a position at another institution or regarding some aspect of another activity, but there are many private matters for which “democracy” need not apply. We often hear, for example, that the Roman Catholic church is not a democracy, and it isn’t. There should not be democracy regarding the Canada Wheat Board, because the right of the individual farmer to decide how he wants to market his own grain should be respected instead of violated.
    Anyway, there was a letter in the Globe and Mail from Allan C. Hutchinson of Osgoode Hall law school last Thursday, referring to an article the previous day about giving shareholders more say in corporate decisions. “While this is said to be done in the name of democracy, it is really about private ownership rights”, he notes. And he’s right. But the funny thing is that the word “democracy” has been misused for so long that it’s no wonder a columnist or writer might misuse it in the corporate context as well. “If there was really any serious interest in introducing democracy to corporate governance, the interests of those affected by corporate decisions and power (i.e., employees, consumers, community, etc.) would be included along with shareholders”, Hutchinson writes. But this is not a place where democracy belongs. I should not have a vote on the activities of some corporation of which I know little or nothing — it’s enough that I can choose to purchase its product, or not. “Voting with one’s dollars” brings quick feedback on a company’s products, whereas a literal vote every four or five years, buried among thousands or millions of others, cannot. This is another practical reason to avoid socialism, as if we needed any more on top of the moral reasons.
    Tuesday’s Globe featured a column about some activists who want to hike taxes on billboards. Somebody named Devon Ostrom, described as the “voice of the movement”, says billboards are an undemocratic medium because they “don’t promote dialogue”, and if billboard companies claim to be good corporate citizens, they should be encouraging a “wider democratic conversation”. I’m wondering first of all how Allan Hutchinson would react to this. In any case, billboards have nothing to do with electing a government (except that they may be employed for a candidate during an actual election campaign) and they are not about “dialogue” either — their purpose is to communicate information and/or try to persuade you to buy something. If you don’t want to, you have the power and the right to refuse.
    The long-time Marxist expression “the personal is political” is meant to inflate the scope of politics and government, so that leftists when they get power will have plenty of ways to push people around (think of that clown the other week who suggested trying to make people feel guilty for eating meat). Similarly, the leftists’ inflation of the word “democracy” is designed only to expand the scope of government into mostly personal areas in which it does not belong.

  22. Can someone, perhaps a female SDA reader, inform me of what demographic Ms. Joy Behar appeals to?
    I really don’t understand why she’s on TV. Watch this.
    Remember that Behar is the one who has publicly said that Sarah Palin is:
    – Dumb
    – Mean
    – Shallow

  24. Luciano Pavarotti said, Erik, that “Learning music by reading about it is like making love by mail”. Reading is great as far as it goes, especially when reading writing, but writing is important too. So, I think, is playing music, or even just singing and whistling and humming music, not just listening to it. And so it is with science, reading is not sufficient: one must experiment with intent. It’s not difficult, we all did it in grade school, and then non-scientists stopped doing it, even as the scientists went on reading and writing and signing. There’s your problem right there. As to making love, I defer to Pavarotti 😉

  25. Vitrusius, sort of like Osler’s saying
    “He who studies medicine without books sails an uncharted sea, but he who studies medicine without patients does not go to sea at all.”

  27. nv53…
    What Mr. Hutchinson fails to remember or realize is that corporations are representative democracies – shareholders ELECT directors to act for them. As you said – true democracy hasn’t a place in a corporation.

  28. O’sun*: “weak, vacillates, does not keep his promises, spends too much time on other priorities than jobs and seems egotistical.”
    …-
    “SOLAR MINIMUM (Global Cooling Alert)
    The sun is in the pits of a very deep solar minimum. Many researchers thought the sunspot cycle had hit bottom in 2008 when the sun was blank 73% of the time. Not so. 2009 is on the verge of going even lower. So far this year, the sun has been blank 75% of the time, and only a serious outbreak of sunspots over the next few weeks will prevent 2009 from becoming the quietest year in a century.
    (Excerpt) Read more at spaceweather.com”
    http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2398303/posts
    …-
    “The Left Turns Off Obama
    While the smoke rises from the Capitol building where the health care debate proceeds, Obama is losing his political base on the left.
    His decision to send 34,000 more troops to Afghanistan, an odd move for a peace candidate, his failure to close Guantanamo, our continued military presence in Iraq, and his failure to act on liberal priorities like gays in the military and immigration reform are all sapping his support from those who voted for him.
    And, even in the health care debate, the under-30 voters are learning that they are targeted — just like the elderly — for special punishment in Obama’s health care bill. When they realize that they must spend $15,000 on average per family for health insurance or face a fine of 2.5 percent of their income or go to prison, the bill loses its appeal. And, when they find out how shallow the subsidies are (only after they spend 8 percent of their paychecks if their household income is $45,000 a year and 12 percent if it is $65,000), they begin to turn off both the bill and the president for whom they were once so enthusiastic.
    Then there is the loss of popularity that has nothing to do with ideology. It all begins with unemployment. While voters still believe by 50-42 (Rasmussen) that George W. Bush is more at fault than Obama for the economy, Bush is not on the ballot. The high jobless rate nurtures a belief that Obama doesn’t really know what he is doing. This discontent need not take the form of ideological opposition to the stimulus package or the deficit spending. It can merely be a sense that things aren’t going right.
    And then come the adjectives. Voters are increasingly complaining that Obama is weak, vacillates, does not keep his promises, spends too much time on other priorities than jobs and seems egotistical.”
    http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2398301/posts

  29. Reverse Racism and the Big Obama Con Job
    http://www.howestreet.com/articles/index.php?article_id=11710
    In any case, Goldman Sachs’ announcement was certainly less than honest in its wording. If you read the headline you’d think that Goldman is a hero to America’s small businesses. But the reality (beneath the headline) is that Goldman Sachs is only concerned with one tiny segment of small business — MINORITY-OWNED SMALL BUSINESSES. More specifically — minority businesses located in minority neighborhoods. Even more specifically, Goldman’s loans to minority businesses located in minority neighborhoods will only be disbursed through “community organizations.” Organizations that I’m willing to bet are run by contributors to Obama’s campaigns. Just a guess on my part. Anyone wanna bet?
    Interesting timing. Was Goldman forced to play the “race card” by Obama? Was Goldman intimidated by the threat of possible legal prosecution by the SEC or Obama’s Justice Department? Will a half billion dollar (legal) payoff to FOO (Friends of Obama) make the whole mess go away? Even better, will more government contracts, loans and stimulus now head Goldman’s way? Will a measly half billion-dollar loan now result in billions in government largess thrown towards Goldman Sachs? Is this how deals are cut in D.C?

  30. “When I used this method, it was against the occupation. I did not use it against a compatriot,” Zaidi complained. “I always knew the occupier and his lackeys would stop at nothing to get to me.”
    “Iraqi journalist turns tables on shoe thrower
    PARIS (AFP) – A protester who presented himself as an Iraqi journalist in exile hurled a shoe Tuesday at the colleague who one year ago found fame hurling his own footwear at then US president George W. Bush.
    Television reporter Muntazer al-Zaidi was in Paris to promote his campaign for the “victims of the US occupation in Iraq” when a fellow Iraqi critic turned the tables on him, shouting: “Here’s another shoe for you.”
    The thickset man with an Iraqi accent made a brief speech in Arabic during the question and answer session, defending US policy and accusing Zaidi of “working for dictatorship in Iraq,” before throwing his shoe.
    The missile was thrown hard at Zaidi’s head, but he managed to dodge it and it bounced harmlessly off a curtain erected behind the speakers by the event’s hosts, the Foreign Press Welcome Centre in Paris.
    Zaidi’s brother grappled with and slapped the man, whom witnesses later described as an asylum-seeker they know only as “Khayat”, before venue staff and bystanders separated them and the aggressor was hustled away.
    “When I used this method, it was against the occupation. I did not use it against a compatriot,” Zaidi complained. “I always knew the occupier and his lackeys would stop at nothing to get to me.””
    http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/091201/world/france_iraq_media_shoe
    …-
    /

  31. http://tinyurl.com/ygj7zuy
    Howard Dean declares capitalism and the constitutional republic dead – we are all “communitarians” now and Obama is our new JFK.
    No more election cycles, communitarians are on a “permanent” policy change campaign. Creepy old crack-head commie or just a bureaucratic class quack?

  32. http://tinyurl.com/ygj7zuy
    Howard Dean declares capitalism and the constitutional republic dead – we are all “communitarians” now and Obama is our new JFK.
    No more election cycles, communitarians are on a “permanent” policy change campaign. Creepy old crack-head commie or just a bureaucratic class quack?

  33. The search engines suggestions of google, etc., are back to being oblivious to the word Climategate.
    Really, “climate gaurd windows”, “climate guatamela”?
    With over 10,700,000 queries of Climategate, Google has decided once again that it doesn’t merit a suggestion. Can someone suggest a less political search engine?
    I tried several others that were equally as obtuse.

  34. “GOOGLEGATE!”
    Shamelessly stolen from the comments on this story:
    http://www.examiner.com/x-28973-Essex-County-Conservative-Examiner~y2009m11d29-Google-blocking-climategate-autosuggestion
    Another good one is “Algorethms”…
    As Kate had noted previously, suggestions for the search enging Google had gone from ignoring Climategate to suggesting it, but they are apparently back on “ignore.”
    Well, apparently Bill Gates has no problems with Climategate, since the new Bing search engine from Microsoft has picked it up. See ya, Google, you are off my preferred selection.

  35. Bing is busted too!
    (Very pretty pictures, though)
    WTH 2X hockey sticks is going on?
    Are some very important people throwing their weight around?

  36. nv53…your post made my morning. I imagine an activist dialogging with a billboard, preferably standing in -30C weather.

  37. Liberal Iffy’s IST.
    Iffy’s Sales Tax.
    Pundit says:
    “It was not the first time Mr. Ignatieff has shown bold leadership in the face of opposition from a large number of his MPs, but it was the first time he has shown bold leadership that was not, at the same time, suicidal.”
    Iffy’s hubris:
    “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
    Surely Iffy the intellectual/scholar knows the source of those words.
    …-
    “Ignatieff stares down his MPs
    Liberals will support HST”
    http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2292693

  39. Europe’s socialist racist state is cracking up.
    Blood is thicker than money.
    Commissar Citoyen Sarkozy: Vive la France.
    ““Do you know what it means for me to see for the first time in 50 years a French European commissioner in charge of the internal market, including financial services, including the City [of London]?” he said yesterday.”
    …-
    “We are in charge now, Sarkozy tells the City (London financial district)
    Alistair Darling has delivered a blunt warning to the EU’s new French finance chief against meddling with the City of London.
    As Nicolas Sarkozy gloated over impending curbs on the City, the Chancellor said that such moves would drive financial services out of Europe.
    The French President’s glee at the appointment of Michel Barnier as Commissioner for the Single Market took on an edge of menace yesterday when he said that unfettered City practices must end.
    “Do you know what it means for me to see for the first time in 50 years a French European commissioner in charge of the internal market, including financial services, including the City [of London]?” he said yesterday.
    Alistair Darling has delivered a blunt warning to the EU’s new French finance chief against meddling with the City of London.
    As Nicolas Sarkozy gloated over impending curbs on the City, the Chancellor said that such moves would drive financial services out of Europe.
    The French President’s glee at the appointment of Michel Barnier as Commissioner for the Single Market took on an edge of menace yesterday when he said that unfettered City practices must end.
    “Do you know what it means for me to see for the first time in 50 years a French European commissioner in charge of the internal market, including financial services, including the City [of London]?” he said yesterday.”
    http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2398450/posts

  41. On CPAC now (Tues, Dec 2nd morning)
    In committee:
    C-311 Climate Change Accountability Act… (The Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development)
    The current witnesses are industries of note.
    Note this is from yesterday, Dec 1st.
    The questions are proving interesting in light of the e-mails released on the climate scientists.

  42. Quote of the day : “Scientists baffled as golf machine proved to be human”.
    Sorry, couldn’t resist

  43. Lastly: The Bear. Buddy, Listen. If you want people to take a look at the YouTube links you post, give them a reason to. Write a sentence or two describing the content and your conjecture as to its value.
    – Vitruvius.
    LOL. A reader’s tip should be constructed as a mini-advertisement: A book jacket blurb. It should contain a teaser or two which will compel your tipee to take a peak.
    For example, just to say BUMMER! would not be at all compelling.
    Whereas: most people, male and female — the former out of shameless prurience, the latter out of that eternal quest for self-improvement — will find Ex-Miss Argentina dies after cosmetic surgery — on her … most compelling.

  45. Sent this feedback to Google via their link at the bottom of their search page:
    Your suggestions while typing in the word “climategate” are missing the most obvious result: The subject with well over 10 million hits.
    HINT: It isn’t climate guatemala.
    If I wanted Google to censor my LEGAL searches I would move to China.

  46. Gen. McChrystal Discusses Situation in Afghanistan – Part 1
    Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of the International Security Assistance Force, addresses members of his staff Wednesday, moments after President Barack Obama announced he would send 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan in order to help ISAF gain the initiative against violent extremists, deny them safe haven and enhance the coalition’s ability to train and mentor Afghan security forces.

  48. It’s embarrassing to be Canadian Now
    Heather Mallick Guardian UK
    via NNW
    *George Monbiot is right – Canada has become a corrupt Petro State most of us are ashamed of, But all is not lost.
    *IMO: Mallick will never be happy until PET is back in control, As for Monbiot Maybe he should look after his own backyard before chastising ours.

  49. Adler is tearing a strip off of that self-righteous hag, Mallick, as we speak! And I hope he sends a response to the Guardian as well.

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