Today's (Most Excellent) Watermelon Update

clipped from www.pjtv.com THE CLIMATE CULT: Bruce Bawer's Exclusive Report from "Hopenhagen"|5min

Go Bruce!

A New Kind Of "Democracy"

clipped from www.powerlineblog.com Many years ago, I learned that under the American model of governance, Congress (the representative of the people) enacted legislation; the executive branch implemented the legislation; and the Supreme Court became involved, in rare instances, at the back end of the process. Yesterday, the bureaucrats at the EPA announced that carbon dioxide and several other gases pose a danger to the environment and the health of Americans and that, accordingly, EPA would begin writing regulations to reduce emissions. EPA's administrator added, however, that she would prefer that Congress pass legislation to accomplish the same task. Thus, the executive branch, in response to a directive from judges, is now attempting to pressure Congress into taking action that, from all appearances, Congress does not want to take. If this is democracy, it seems like a new kind of democracy.

Loons Are As Loons Do

clipped from www.guardian.co.uk The UN Copenhagen climate talks are in disarray today after developing countries reacted furiously to leaked documents that show world leaders will next week be asked to sign an agreement that hands more power to rich countries and sidelines the UN's role in all future climate change negotiations. Developing countries that have seen the text are understood to be furious that it is being promoted by rich countries without their knowledge and without discussion in the negotiations. "It is being done in secret. Clearly the intention is to get [Barack] Obama and the leaders of other rich countries to muscle it through when they arrive next week. It effectively is the end of the UN process," said one diplomat, who asked to remain nameless. It is particularly inflammatory because it sidelines the UN negotiating process and suggests that rich countries are desperate for world leaders to have a text to work from when they arrive next week.

Tax Cuts For The Rich?

clipped from blog.american.com The Tax Foundation reported last week that more than 143 million individual income tax returns were filed in 2007, and 46.6 million of those returns had a zero or negative tax liability, setting a new record for the number of “non-payers.” There were an additional 15 million people in 2007 who did not earn enough income to file a tax return, bringing the total number of Americans who paid no federal income taxes to more than 61 million, or 39 percent of the tax-eligible population (158 million including filers plus non-filers). What are the implications of a rising number and percentage of “non-payers”? 1. American Enterprise Institute economist Alan Viard commented on Fox News that “there’s concern that when you have so many people not paying the most visible tax—the individual income tax—you might lose a certain check that otherwise would be in place on government spending.” 2. It also means that the burden of income taxes is falling on a shrinking percentage of income tax filers

2255

clipped from brneurosci.org Another issue that people are confused about is the rate of increase of carbon dioxide. Some people think that CO2 is rising dramatically. This is probably because of graphs like the one below. However, in hard science journals, the graph above would be considered dishonest, because the y-axis starts at 290 instead of zero. This misleads the reader into thinking that CO2 levels have undergone a huge increase when in fact, CO2 levels have only increased by 23.7% since 1900. According to the US Department of Energy, only about 14.8% of this increase, or 11.88 ppm, is man-made. The remaining 68.5 ppm is caused by natural forces, such as volcanoes and forest fires [26]. From this, researchers have estimated that, when water vapor is taken into account, anthropogenic CO2 contributions cause about 0.117% of the Earth's total greenhouse effect [25]. At the current rate of increase, CO2 will not double its current level until 2255.

outsOurced

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Sooner rather than later please.

(The specific link doesn't seem to be working right now [FIXED: It's here.]. Just scroll down, it's worth actually reading.)

Tora! Tora! Tora!

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You Have Only Heard The Words

clipped from planet-iran.com Ladies and gentlemen, Hi, My name is Bahareh Hedayat, from “Daftar Tahkim Vahdad” in Iran. I so much wanted to be here with you but in a country where communication with “the foreigners” or even sending an email to them may have grave consequences, my leaving Iran at this time could have been interpreted as spying or such similar things. My dear friends – friends who live in free countries! You are hearing my voice from Iran – a country where its president cannot stop lying when he’s being interviewed by the press. He is even brazen enough to call Iran “the freest country in the world”. He claims to be a “global manager”; in spite of the political despotism and economic meltdown we’re witnessing in the country. My dear European student friends, especially those coming from western European countries! You have only heard the words dictatorship, despotism or suppression. But we in Iran feel it with our body and soul every day.

RTWT.

Revolution Against The O

clipped from planet-iran.com 3:20 p.m. >> On Sommayeh Avenue the number of people vs. the Basiji militia and special forces was so great that the Basiji and special forces left their cars and fled! *  * Throughout the day, there has been no sign of Mousavi, Khatami or Karubi. Rafsanjani was reported stating: “If people do not want us, we must go.” *  * * Plans are under way for people to block all the road leading to all the universities and create the ‘green traffic jam’ so that the regime cannot get in or out of the above mentioned university areas. *  * * * Widespread arrests begin. *  * * * * Anger toward Obama continues; disbelief and apprehension at the U.S. administration for dialogue with the regime.

But you'd never know it from the lamestream media.

Death to the Taliban, from Kabul to Tehran

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The Urban Heat Effect

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Stop Breathing

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The Easy Path

clipped from esr.ibiblio.org I blame the decay of the high schools – our brightest students (mal)educated (i.e. not sorted nor challenged to the degree even the most able discover their limits) in public schools need a year’s remediation in math and science to catch up with (just) the average international student at our universities. Rather than pay for non-credit catch-up courses and lose a year so they can compete in science and engineering, too many of these students take the easy path into the legal profession which also rewards the brightest.. but at a high cost, given we don’t set quotas on their employment – perhaps we need a fixed limit on the “below the line” social costs we’re willing able to bear for folks who help us argue…. (compare the number of lawyers in the U.S. and Japan, per capita, per business, per $ of GDP…).

Climate Of Fear

clipped from bishophill.squarespace.com I've had some correspondence over the last few days with a well-known writer. We've been discussing people who might want to review my book, but it has not been an easy task. In other words, like you, I know lots of people who are on side privately but daren't say so publicly. The other day I bumped into ************** at an event and said something about his global warming views (sceptical) and he froze and said `I don't do that stuff now - people would not touch me if I did'. What can one say to that? I now live in a country where people are afraid to state their opinions on a scientific question. They will have their livelihoods taken away from them if they do. I sometimes have to pinch myself to ensure that this really is happening and I'm not just living in a bad dream.

Thievery: Shadow Party Edition

clipped from www.powerlineblog.com The Washington Post reports: Everything about the shipyard here is colossal -- the 4,000-man workforce, the billions sunk into it in capital costs, the half-finished 10-story-high production platforms. But then, so is the challenge facing Brazil's state-controlled energy company, Petrobras: developing a group of newly discovered deep-sea oil fields Among investors bullish on Petrobras is George Soros, who last year made the oil company the largest single holding in his investment fund, according to Bloomberg. That's right: the Godfather of the Democratic Party, who exerts his enormous political influence to prevent American oil companies from developing our own petroleum resources in the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere If Exxon Mobil can't compete in the Caribbean with Petrobras, the value of Soros's Petrobras investment will skyrocket. That's the sort of thievery that lies behind the Democratic Party's deliberate hobbling of the American economy.

Opportunity

clipped from pajamasmedia.com JERRY POURNELLE PROPOSES a “JFK Stimulus.” “In other words, as much as possible, get out of the way, and let the engines of capital development work.” Problem is, that approach offers little in the way of opportunity for graft.

"Independence"

clipped from online.wsj.com Blogging scientists have been busy reviewing the 15,000 lines of code by programmers that were included in the "Documents" folder of the leaked materials. The latest twist is hidden notations in the data from programmers that indicate where they had manipulated results. The programmers expressed frustration when the numbers didn't fit the case for global warming. Comments in the code include "These will be artificially adjusted to look closer to the real temperatures," referring to an effort to suppress data showing that the Middle Ages were warmer than today. There are three other data sets on historic temperatures, but blogging scientists have pointed out that they aren't completely independent of the now-dubious East Anglia assertions. Atmospheric data from satellites, for example, rely on the East Anglia surface data to calibrate their measurements.

Not so much.

Eradication

clipped from news.bbc.co.uk North Korea introduced limited market reforms in 2002 that allowed people to buy and sell goods at free markets. These markets have become increasingly important to ordinary North Koreans, with a wide range of goods on offer. State-run shops sell fewer and fewer items, but at free markets North Koreans can buy imported fruit, clothes and electronics, according to someone who recently visited a major market in Pyongyang. The authorities have recently tried to restrict what goes on at these markets. North Korean expert Rudiger Frank said the currency reform was a political move as much as an economic one. He said officials want to destroy the newly-emerging middle class, many of whom have made money trading in the free markets. "The currency reforms are part of [a] campaign to return to the North Korean version of orthodox socialism," wrote Mr Frank, who is based in Vienna. "[The aim is] to eradicate the dangerous effects of the few years of reform."

Speaking of the North Korean hellhole. Funny that, they just declared capitalism a failure too. Again.

The Faithful II: North Korea At Night

clipped from pajamasmedia.com All over town, the message being trumpeted is the same one reiterated in Sunday’s Times: that the science of this stuff is all settled, period, and that all that remains is to act. Indeed it’s being trumpeted so loudly and ubiquitously that Copenhagen, on second thought, doesn’t feel so much like the Vatican as it does, say, Havana or Pyongyang. Stroll around awhile and you’ll keep encountering giant banners or posters or displays designed to ensure that the great unwashed don’t lose sight of the orthodoxy to which they’re expected to pay mindless obeisance. On the side of one church, for example, a banner three stories high proclaims that it’s “TIME FOR CLIMATE JUSTICE.” Is it a stretch, by the way, to drag Pyongyang into this? I don’t think so. You know that famous picture of Earth at night, which shows the civilized countries ablaze with light while North Korea is pitch dark? That darkness, after all, is what these characters are proposing for all of us, and for our posterity

The Faithful

clipped from pajamasmedia.com Well, here I am at the Vatican in Rome, where thousands of pilgrims from every corner of the earth crowd St. Peter’s Square, their eyes trained on the glorious basilica within which the College of Cardinals is gathering in secret conclave to settle the all-important question: Who will stand in the shoes of the fisherman? Oops, sorry, I got a little confused there for a second. In fact I’ve just arrived in Copenhagen. But you’ll have to excuse my mistake, because it’s already clear that being here during the next few days is going to be very much like attending some kind of massive religious gathering. The faithful — over 16,000 strong — are here, of course, for the 15th United Nations Climate Change Conference, a.k.a. COP15 (“COP” as in Conference of the Parties), at which they supposedly hope to achieve a provisional international agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and thus rescue our beloved blue planet from the fate envisioned in any number of bad Roland Emmerich movies.

Ironies Of History II: Remember Pearl Harbor

clipped from pajamasmedia.com OK! You did all this, then why isn’t the story over? Student movements are signs of realities greater than themselves. And that is indeed the point.  The regime is facing an enormous mass movement, not just a handful of intellectual kids.  The “enemies” of which the supreme leader speaks are all around him, and his closest allies are now making deals with the regime’s gravediggers, taking out insurance against the day when the Islamic Republic finally falls.  Khamenei hears their voices every night, calling from the rooftops. “Canons, guns, Basiji, prison, torture or execution; has no effect on us anymore.” Remember Pearl Harbor.

Ironies Of History

clipped from pajamasmedia.com The Iranian people are preparing for the next big challenge to the dying regime:  tomorrow, 7 December.  Pearl Harbor Day.  And the regime is lashing out in all directions: arresting dissidents (including even the “mourning mothers” of the victims of regime savagery); shutting down the  social networks (as of late Saturday, internet access was very slow in Iran, and sms, twitter and facebook were being blocked); accusing the West of the ultimate evil:  “President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced today that he has concrete evidence that the US was trying to prevent the Hidden Imam from descending on earth. (The Hidden Imam is the 12th and final Imam of Shi’ites who is said to return to earth during the final days and usher in the apocalypse).” Trying to stop the world outside (and Iranians inside) from seeing what is really going on;  foreign correspondents have had their licenses suspended for 72 hours, (courtesy of the Orwellian Culture Ministry).

The Real Couple That Crashed The Dinner

Statistics Are Not Even Kept

clipped from news.bbc.co.uk Switzerland has long maintained its armed neutrality Guns are deeply rooted within Swiss culture - but the gun crime rate is so low that statistics are not even kept. The country has a population of six million, but there are estimated to be at least two million publicly-owned firearms, including about 600,000 automatic rifles and 500,000 pistols. This is in a very large part due to Switzerland's unique system of national defence, developed over the centuries. In addition to the government-provided arms, there are few restrictions on buying weapons. The government even sells off surplus weaponry to the general public when new equipment is introduced. Guns and shooting are popular national pastimes. More than 200,000 Swiss attend national annual marksmanship competitions. But despite the wide ownership and availability of guns, violent crime is extremely rare. There are only minimal controls at public buildings and politicians rarely have police protection.

You Must Eat Watermelon

clipped from althouse.blogspot.com [S]urveys show that very few people are willing to make significant voluntary changes, and those of us who do create the false impression of mass progress as the media hypes our actions. Instead, most people want carbon reductions to be mandated by laws that will allow us to share both the responsibilities and the benefits of change. Ours is a nation of laws; if we want to alter our practices in a deep and lasting way, this is where we must start. After years of delay and denial and green half-measures, we must legislate a stop to the burning of coal, oil and natural gas. Of course, all this will require congressional action.... We're a nation of laws, and, in Tidwell's mind, that means not that we are free but that we need law telling us every last thing we ought to do:  Individual voluntary action is a big distraction from what we really need — compulsion.

Green on the outside, red on the inside.

Servants

clipped from pajamasmedia.com HEH: “Taking a private jet to a conference on stopping global warming is a bit like traveling in a sedan chair carried by indentured servants to a summit on stopping human trafficking.” Plus, “It’s too cold to walk from the hotel to the convention on global warming. Let’s take a limo!”

The Tools For That Are Guns

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Why the Fort Hood terrorist massacre couldn't have happened in Switzerland. Not only aren't military bases "gun free zones" but the entire country isn't one.

Power Line: Dilbert On Global Warming

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The Big Cutoff

clipped from camirror.wordpress.com Michael Schlesinger, apparently oblivious to the adverse public reaction to behavior of CRU scientists, threatened Andy Revkin of the New York Times with the “Big Cutoff”. Schlesinger’s email expressed particular annoyance that this was the second time in a week that he had had to give directions to Revkin, an earlier email having instructed Revkin not to give space in his blog to the Pielkes. . Andy: Copenhagen prostitutes? Climate prostitutes? Shame on you for this gutter reportage. This is the second time this week I have written you thereon, the first about giving space in your blog to the Pielkes. The vibe that I am getting from here, there and everywhere is that your reportage is very worrisome to most climate scientists. Of course, your blog is your blog. But, I sense that you are about to experience the ‘Big Cutoff’ from those of us who believe we can no longer trust you, me included.

And this comment is priceless:

Don Wagner permalink

‘nice column you got there Andy……be a shame if it caught fire or sumpthin…………..

The climate scientific method at work

Shot While Attempting To Escape

clipped from esr.ibiblio.org For the “low comedy” part, return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear when Time Magazine was predicting catastrophic global cooling. And Newsweek, too. It’s hilarious how easy it is to substitute “warning” for “cooling” and have an article that could have been written last week. For more low comedy, at least one news story alleges that the IPCC intends to investigate the allegations of CRU misconduct. Yup, I’m sure; the kleptocrats in our permanent political class don’t like it when their plans for a power grab go awry, and the U.N.’s contingent doubtless wants to know who’s to blame for this debacle. For some reason, the phrase “the prisoner was shot while attempting to escape” keeps running through my head.

Tied Up And Gagged

clipped from www.quadrant.org.au The scientists have been tied up and gagged in the back room. I hate that. We were there screaming our lungs out all along. Some important research fields have been “orchestrated” out of existence. Even before Climategate, I have been saying that we have set ourselves back a generation by taking the money from governments with so many strings attached. Governments leaders wanted something where they could absolve themselves of the responsibility for making informed decisions. They would have to read science stuff otherwise. They ordered up a kind of unnatural scientist that would tell them precisely what they wanted to hear. But they gave the puppeteers clubs to deal with those of us who remained true. And the perps of Climategate are what they got. All of my colleagues have had to endure these bullies and criminals for a very long time. You should understand that (real) scientists have had to pay the heaviest price for the creation of these monsters for decades.

Stopped Clock Watch -- Climaquiddick Edition

clipped from jammiewearingfool.blogspot.com Emails that rocked climate change campaign leaked from Siberian 'closed city' university built by KGB Suspicions were growing last night that Russian security services were behind the leaking of the notorious British ‘Climategate’ emails which threaten to undermine tomorrow’s Copenhagen global warming summit. An investigation by The Mail on Sunday has discovered that the explosive hacked emails from the University of East Anglia were leaked via a small web server in the formerly closed city of Tomsk in Siberia. The CRU is internationally recognised as one of the most important sources of information on the rise in global temperatures. Its data is relied on by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the UN body which co-ordinates the world response to climate change. But now the CRU’s findings are under suspicion. Russia – one of the world’s largest producers and users of oil and gas – has a vested interest in opposing sweeping new agreements to cut emissions

Hot Air

clipped from pajamasmedia.com HOT AIR AND CARBON: Copenhagen climate summit: 1,200 limos, 140 private planes and caviar wedges. I’ll believe it’s a crisis when the people who tell me it’s a crisis start acting like it’s a crisis.

It's Got To Come From Somewhere

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In other words, from you.

As Of This Morning, Make That C4GW (Coloradoans For Global Warming)

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Brrrrrrr.

Nonsense

clipped from www.qando.net In a staggering blow to the credibility of the CRU at the University of East Anglia, the UK’s Met Office will re-examine 160 years worth of climate data in light of the scandal there. The new analysis of the data will take three years, meaning that the Met Office will not be able to state with absolute confidence the extent of the warming trend until the end of 2012. Why is this important? The Met Office database is one of three main sources of temperature data analysis on which the UN’s main climate change science body relies for its assessment that global warming is a serious danger to the world. This assessment is the basis for next week’s climate change talks in Copenhagen aimed at cutting CO2 emissions. Said another way, those in Copenhagen next week, will be making policy based on an assessment in which one of the providers of the data has no confidence. Make sense?

Hijacked

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Or jack*assed if you prefer.

700 Years

clipped from www.examiner.com Thermal reactors use expensive fuel like uranium -- often mined at great cost from unstable countries which puts us in a similar bind as foreign oil -- and produce nuclear waste which remains dangerous for thousands of years. Storage of that waste is either expensive, temporary, or haphazard depending on the nation in question. Fast reactors could power this country for decades using that same waste as fuel. Fast reactors also happen to be about 100 times more efficient in converting that radioactive mass into electrical energy than thermal reactors, meaning they use relatively less fuel over time. Moreover, the waste from some types of fast reactors decays safely away in a matter of decades, making storage a far less worrisome and way less expensive proposition. And if we include the depleted uranium (DU) left over from the enrichment process, it would be something like 700 years before any more mining would be needed, once the current “thermal” types of reactors have been phased out.

The Smoking Code -- Period

clipped from wattsupwiththat.com Interpolation is a normal part of dealing with large data sets, this is no different. This is partially true, the issue doesn’t lie in the fact that the CRU researchers used interpolation. The issue is the weight of the valadj array with respect to the raw data. valadj simply introduces too large of an influence to the original data to do anything productive with it. Here is the graph I plotted of the valadj array. When we’re talking about trying to interpret temperature data that grows on the scale of one-tenths of a degree over a period of time, “fudging” a value by 2.5 is going to have a significant impact on the data set. No proof exists that shows this code was used in publishing results. Correct! That’s why I am (and always have) taken the following stand: Enough proof exists that the CRU had both the means and intent to intentionally falsify data. This means that all of their research results cannot be trusted until they are verified. Period.