Takeaways Friday night ?

...this blog is not in any way supported by Big Business, Big Oil, or even (sob) Big Burgers, but if you are driving past free-thinking BK tonight consider stopping in... and make mine a Whopper...

...and for an amusing diversion...foul and profane comments as they appear, realtime, on Twitter...here at Cursebird.com...

...and quote for the day...the distance between a welfare state and totalitarianism is a matter of
time...courtesy of Old Holborn...and...

WARNING
If you receive an email telling you that you can catch swine flu from tinned pork - delete it - it's only spam.

H/T N.C-B.

Quote for the day...

...from a debate between Roger Pielke snr, and Mike Smith, CEO of WeatherData Services, Inc., an AccuWeather Company. Smith is a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society and a Certified Consulting Meteorologist. He is a recipient of the American Meteorological Society’s Award for Outstanding Contributions to Applied Meteorology and WeatherData has received the Society’s Award for Outstanding Services to Meteorology by a Corporation...the debate's conclusion ?

...we seem to be in the early stages of testing the ‘natural variations’ hypothesis. I am referring to the ‘blank sun.’ The very low levels of sunspot activity the last two years — which seems to be continuing — and which I would call a “natural” variation, may give us a chance to sort out natural from manmade forcings. The IPCC has...rejected the hypothesis that variations in the sun’s output have a significant effect on earth’s climate.The falling temperature trend since 1998... will give us a chance to test several of these hypotheses, especially in view of the record (for modern times) levels of CO2 concentration. We seem to be getting close to the point where the IPPC’s hypothesis (CO2 is the dominant forcing) is rejected if temperatures and ocean heat content continue to fall while CO2 levels continue to rise...

...the great global warming rort is coming to an end...

...read the full debate here...

Now here's an idea whose time has come...and one whose time has long gone...

...this could be a hikoi of hope in your main street ... or across the harbour bridge perhaps. A counter protest at a greenhoax rally or a diversion from the next PETA stunt...An arrest or two maybe ...but the face of popular protest is not this...

...but this...racism in action...Some Maori simply don't get it. Pride cannot be handed to them on a platter, or allocated in a quota - it has to be earned. They want their place on the council by right of birth - irrespective of their ability to serve the citizens of Auckland - of every ethnicity.
Bullshit wrapped in indignation...more here...
...and from the UK, a comment on social stagnation...A curious thing about the Labour people who rise from humble beginnings to places of authority where they could if they applied themselves properly change the lives of the many, is that this seldom happens. If you examine the deprived areas of the North of England, Wales and Scotland you will note that these areas have been at the bottom of the social opportunity ladder for generations. This despite the fact that with every election that comes they always elect the latest Champion of the little people resplendent in their Labour rosette.The reason for this is they either get a representative who has worked their way up through the Union ranks who has spent all their life opposing change and almost always proves to be out of their depth when it comes to decision making or, they get a wet eared smoothie straight from Uni who have never worked a day in their life and gathered all their experience at the Union debating society or a Yates's wine bar.Whichever it is they almost all pursue self first soon ensconced in their big house in the smartest part of town with a single minded determination to control peoples' lives not to improve them, for without the underclass they would have no future and in the end thats all they really care about... ...comment from Flemingcrag on Wrinkled Weasel...

PETA stunts and little piggies...

...are very much in the news at the moment. Little UK MP piggies have been gorging themselves, and have been betrayed and shamed by their gluttony, and closer to home, one-time comedian Mike King has confessed to deep shame , and renounced his contract with the Pork Marketing Board because of PETA's insistence that modern pork farming techniques are sadistic cruelty. Well, talking about sadistic cruelty, Mike King may not have read about the sadistic cruelty of our child torturers, so he may not be in a position to use his well known face to denounce such depraved criminals...but surely the time is well overdue for Maori NZ'ers to publicly declare their abhorrence of their bro's shameful record of child abuse. However, as is their wont, the bro's are staunch, and child protection agencies announce that child torture is a community problem. In other words, it's everybody's fault...so really, it's nobodies f***ing fault at all. Meanwhile we brace ourselves for the next horror story...

Another dissenting IPPC signatory speaks out...

...Dr Willem de Lange is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences at the University of Waikato, specialising in coastal oceanography. Dr de lange has been listed by the IPPC as a supporter of the theory of AGW. But in fact he thinks climate change is mostly natural...

...In 1996 the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Second Assessment Report was released, and I was listed as one of approximately 3000 “scientists” who agreed that there was a discernable human influence on climate...however...

...the observed climate change is consistent with variations in albedo and associated ocean warming and cooling, suggesting that it is just a natural cycle. This pattern of behaviour is evident in palaeoclimate data for most of the last 10,000 years. None of this is simulated in climate models. Instead they (the IPPC) focus on the 20th Century increase in CO2, CH4 and a few other greenhouse gases. The increasing concentrations correlate well with global temperature. This is taken as proof that the greenhouse effect is driving temperature.
However, it is also correct that changing ocean temperatures affect the concentration of these gases in the atmosphere. At annual and 2-7 year time scales it is clear that the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is strongly driven by the ocean. At longer time scales it is also clear that the concentration of greenhouse gases lags behind, and therefore is driven by, temperature. Once again the oceans are the likely control on atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations...more here...

...As the wheels fall off the IPPC construct of runaway global warming more and more scientists will join the tens of thousands of their peers in condemning social engineering as a pretext for saving the planet. Watch this space...

How did I miss this ?

...In the south of France, there is a large international fusion effort underway named ITER (Latin for “the way.”) The project was originally agreed to by Francois Mitterrand, Mikhail Gorbachev, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher in 1985, and was officially launched in October 2007...as part of an international collaboration between France, the US, Russia, the UK, the EU, India, China, Korea and Japan. In 2010, the first concrete will be poured.The deuterium will be heated to 150 million degrees centigrade, forming plasma (decomposed hydrogen atoms) which will be contained by electrical and magnetic fields inside the Tokomak pictured left. (Note the size on the person at the bottom right in the picture above.) The plasma particles combine in a fusion reaction to form helium, and release vast amounts of energy in the process – which is captured as heat and used to generate electricity...and the future ?
...The construction work on ITER is expected to come to an end in 2017. A commissioning phase will follow that will ensure all systems operate together and prepare the machine for the achievement of the first plasma. ITER's operational phase is expected to last for 20 years. First a several-year "shakedown" period of operation in pure Hydrogen will be run during which the machine will remain accessible for repairs, in order to test the most promising physics regimes. This will be followed by operation in Deuterium with a small amount of Tritium to test sheilding provisions. Finally, scientists will launch a third phase with increasingly frequent full operation with an equal mixture of Deuterium and Tritium, at full fusion power...more here...

...The legacy of Reagan and Thatcher lives on. If ITER is a success, then it will effectively move humanities energy generation into overdrive, and the promise of abundant energy "too cheap to meter" will come very much closer... More from WuWT here...

The bloodless British Revolution...

...is in full swing, as details of theft and fraud by British MP's come to light. The disgust that U.K. voters feel for their M.P.'s is profound. Visit OlD Holborn (seen right, placing gunpowder around the Houses of Parliament,) or Cranmer, to gauge its depth. Speculation about an imminent general election has surfaced , but is now less audible. A consequence of the unprecedented unpopularity of Labour in the U.K. though could be a humiliating 3rd, or even 4th place in a general election, and a rejuvenated nationalism, with multi-culturalism and perhaps even global warming alarmism toppled from their sacrosanct positions...and talking about sacrosanct, the poets of WW1 would I hope forgive this British blogger for his eulogy...

...Anthem For Doomed M.P.s (With apologies to Wilfred Owen)...from NightJack...

Why passing-bells? They treated us like cattle,

Only the monstous adding of the sums.

Only the calculators' rapid rattle

Resounded at their houses in the sun.

Full mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells,

Nor any voice of comfort save the choirs,--

The shrill, demented choirs damning to hell;

And Holborn calling for piano wires.

What pensions may be grasped to ease the fall?

What glimmer still of greed shines in their eyes?

The time is come for them to make good-byes.

The hatred of each voter is their pall;

Their monthly cheque is indexed, they dont mind,

And still each month they ask and we must find...

The number one, non fiction best seller in NZ...

...this week and last week is "Air Con" by Ian Wishart (Howling at the Moon Publishing Ltd.) Subtitled, "The Seriously Inconvenient Truth about Global Warming", its prominent placement 2 weeks in a row in the best seller lists neatly deflates the green bubble heading the front page of the Sunday paper. (Although memo to author, when printing the second edition, consider printing the subtitle in a contrasting easily read colour. )

Air Con subjects the science behind global warming/climate change to scrutiny, and examines the individuals and institutions behind climate alarmism. In the process Air Con skewers the fright merchants with an up to date summary of the scientific facts (data analysis closed only last month), including the latest data from the ARGO experiment revealing no warming of the planet's oceans since data collection began in 2003...It is evident that the AGW hypothesis, as it now stands, is either false or fundamentally inadequate. One may argue that projections for global warming are measured in decades rather than months or years, so not enough time has elapsed to falsify this hypothesis. This would be true if it were not for the enormous deficit of heat we have observed. In other words, no matter how much time has elapsed, if a projection misses its target by such a large magnitude (6x to 8x), we can safely assume that it is either false or seriously flawed...Anthony Watts WuWT...
In addition to a thorough debunking of the IPPC version of the science behind climate change, and the fear tactics of the green/left, Air Con takes us on a tour of the one world agenda of the individuals who finance green pressure groups. Prominent among them is George Soros, whose background and public record make interesting reading...explains the author...an expose of George Soros is not the aim of this book, but what I've tried to do is illustrate that behind all the scare stories...lies a left wing billionaire with an agenda and the means to pull it off...That's what this is all about.

Maybe so. And perhaps this comment, including a quote from Maurice Strong, founder of the UN Environment programme (also quoted in the masthead above) makes the analysis even clearer...
... In 1991, Strong wrote the introduction to a book published by the Trilateral Commission, called Beyond Interdependence: The Meshing of the World’s Economy and the Earth’s Ecology, by Jim MacNeil. (David Rockefeller wrote the foreword). Strong said this: “This interlocking…is the new reality of the century, with profound implications for the shape of our institutions of governance, national and international. By the year 2012, these changes must be fully integrated into our economic and political life.”

Air Con is a book the green/left climatastrophists could do without. It comes at a time when governments are struggling to re-balance their teetering economies, and marks the start of a desperate campaign by the left to frighten politicians and the general public into futile and totalitarian, socially destructive measures. This struggle, and the response of governments, could be the Waterloo for dark forces bent on shaping the world and us to their will. Air Con is one man's attempt to defeat those forces, and here in New Zealand at least, Air Con is proving to be a hit with a major weapon.

Quote for the weekend...

...As Americans love Coca-Cola and Islamists love death, so I love baiting greens and liberals and most especially liberal greens. But I don’t do it just for fun, you know. In fact I don’t even do it mainly for fun. The reason I rail so often against so many tenets of the green faith — from biofuels to carbon trading to the ludicrous attempts to get polar bears designated as an endangered species — is because I sincerely believe they are among the greatest current threats to the advancement of humankind. Yes, that’s right: greens aren’t the solution. They’re public enemy number one. (James Delingpole, Spectator)

Well...you would wouldn't you, I do...

...a confession. A major proportion of my income, all my professional life, has come from fellow taxpayers. I chose a profession that has been the recipient of NZ's ACC (Accident Compensation Corporation) funding. Periodically, when the government of the day tightens its purse-strings, the media publish details of "unsustainable" funding, and we revert to part charging our patients. With publicity, come accusations that we as a profession are "ripping the system off." To those taunts, I have always replied that we are simply responding to the market; no rip off, just true market forces at work. Which reminds me...my favourite P.J. O'Rourke quote: "If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free."
The bete noire of the green/left, Bjorn Lomborg, makes a similar observation with regard to a forthcoming conference entitled World Business Summit on Climate Change. Lomborg observes companies and individuals attending are responding to the global warming hysteria and amplifying the hysteria to increase their own profits. Market forces at work here too...but with a not so subtle difference, in this case the market is a bubble, created by pretence and enriching the pretenders...
...The opening keynote address is to be delivered by Al Gore, who actually represents all three groups: He is a politician, a campaigner and the chair of a green private-equity firm invested in products that a climate-scared world would buy.
Naturally, many CEOs are genuinely concerned about global warming. But many of the most vocal stand to profit from carbon regulations. The term used by economists for their behavior is "rent-seeking."
The world's largest wind-turbine manufacturer, Copenhagen Climate Council member Vestas, urges governments to invest heavily in the wind market. It sponsors CNN's "Climate in Peril" segment, increasing support for policies that would increase Vestas's earnings. A fellow council member, Mr. Gore's green investment firm Generation Investment Management, warns of a significant risk to the U.S. economy unless a price is quickly placed on carbon...
Lawyers, always quick to spot fellow travellers, might quite rightly describe this collusion as a "rort." Interested observers like myself are more likely to use the F word...more from Bjorn Lomborg in The Wall Street Journal here...
Footnote (excuse the pun)...I happen to know the planet is cooling. Last night I awoke to find 2 feet of ice in my bed. Both of them belonged to my wife...

The dead hand of socialism...

...is reaching into the pockets of the American public. Iowahawk is on to it, and addresses his ultimatum/response to Newsweek (and to the magazine industry in general) ...

...Iowahawk Special Guest Opinion by the three-week old Newsweek magazine...Hello again!
I see the dentist is running late with his 9:30 emergency crown replacement, and you've decided to browse me until the receptionist calls your name. And why not? Your choice of a waiting room magazine says a lot about you, and selecting Newsweek lets the other patients know that you're the kind of person who likes to stay up on all the latest early April current affairs, and my handy up-and-down color coded conventional wisdom arrows. Plus all the surprising new medical research studies that show women and men are different. For example, if you're a man you likely picked me for my gravitas, and because that pimply teenager over there waiting to get his braces adjusted already snagged the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. I mean, come on, like you were actually thinking about reading that copy of People instead?
Yes, I have always been there for you, a prestigious middlebrow time-filler helping you keep your mind off that upcoming root canal, ingrown toenail, or expensive brake job. And please, don't think my advertising department and I haven't appreciated the attention. But there comes a time for a magazine and its browser to sit down, reassess their whole relationship, and to evaluate where this thing is going...more here...

Is a free country possible under Labour ?

...a legacy of left wing government is increased bureaucracy and decreased freedom. As Ronald Reagan said "Man is not free unless government is limited." The nadir of NZ's last Labour government and probably the turning point for many voters, was the so-called anti-smacking bill, where parents faced arrest for smacking their children. In NZ, the institution we tend to bow to under Labour is the UN, in the UK, the voters are increasingly ruled by Europe, and according to Melanie Philips, corruption is the inevitable outcome...

...For more than three decades, Parliament has become increasingly powerless. In recent years, this was the result of the Labour Government deliberately outsourcing its powers — to the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembliy; to quangos, management consultancies or unelected advisers; or to the courts through human rights law.
But above all, the British Parliament has progressively surrendered its powers of national self-government to Europe, which has reduced the cradle of democracy to the status of little more than Westminster Regional Council.
This whole process was summed up in 1998 by Peter Mandelson, who observed with menacing perspicacity that ‘the era of pure representative government is coming slowly to an end’.

...Paradoxically, the diminution of Britain’s place in the world has gone hand in hand with an increase in the power of the State over its own citizens. Determined to ram through its agenda for a new world order of which the EU is an important part, the Labour Government increasingly concentrated power in itself while it steadily took it away from Parliament...more here...

Bad data leads to bad science...

...or as the IT people say "garbage in, garbage out". Another coup from Anthony Watts (WuWT), points out that historical temperature records across the USA may be a clear case of "garbage in"...more from the project website here...

...Billions of dollars are being spent on "fixing" the climate issue, but how much is invested in data collected to identify the problem? There has clearly been a warming trend over the last century, but by how many degrees? A new report published by meteorologist Anthony Watts draws into question the reliability of temperature data collected at over 1,200 sites across the country. These sites represent the U.S. Historical Climate Network (USHCN). Some of the surface stations have been collecting temperature data for over 100 years. Working with hundreds of volunteers, Watts has thoroughly documented the environment surrounding some 80 percent of surface stations from coast to coast, an effort never done before...

...According to the U.S. government, a surface station must be at least 100 feet away from a heat source/sink to be considered reliable. Using the goverment's own standards for properly locating temperature sensors, Watts graded each site on a scale from 1 to 5. A grade of 1 or 2 indicates reliable placement. A grade of 3 to 5 can result in temperature errors of several degrees, according to the governments own studies...more here...

...and from Jennifer Marohasy...ask a forest worker from Tasmania, a commercial fisherman from South Australia, a sugarcane grower from Queensland or a cattle producer from New South Wales what they think of Greens and a common complaint will be that “Greens tell lies”.
Each of these groups have been the target of clever campaigns by Green groups including The Wilderness Society and WWF Australia.
Tasmanian forest workers have put up committed and organised resistance and many of their truck and utilities sport bumper stickers with the comment “Greens tell lies”. ...more here...

Constitutional crisis in the UK. Will HRH step in ?

...I doubt it. Her Majesty met the Chairman of the UK Labour Party, Tarquin Biscuit-Barell (left) at a function to greet the newly appointed US Ambassador. Mr Biscuit-Barell, a confidante, close friend and old school chum of Prince Charles, and patron of the Tourettes Society, has assured Her Majesty that his party was committed to completion of the Blair 3rd way project, once the 1st and 2nd ways were complete. HM's response was thought to be, "Air hair lair, what a nice hice."

When I were your age lad...

...a glimpse o'stockin were somethin shockin...now alas, we know all we need to know. But still, retro sex has the ability to shock...OT but fun...

...Human sexual behaviour had been studied, since the late 1940s, by Alfred Kinsey, another American researcher. But Kinsey’s work was sociological, not medical. He reported what people said they did to themselves and to each other. He did not investigate how any of it actually worked. The goings-on in the Masters and Johnson laboratory, by contrast, were audacious, rigorous and weird. Female volunteers masturbated with “Ulysses”, a Plexiglass motorised dildo containing a camera, while wearing paper bags over their heads to preserve modesty. Hundreds of wired-up couples copulated under conditions of intense scrutiny. Over 12,000 orgasms were logged in the research for Masters and Johnson’s first book, “Human Sexual Response”, which was published in 1966. “Why”, asked a laudatory editorial in the Journal of the American Medical Association, without a trace of irony, “was this study so long in coming?” ...more, here...

Is the Monarchy relevant to us, or simply useless ?

...does Her Majesty actually defend the faith, as she is sworn to, or pay a whit to any of the noxious Bills she must approve into law, or is she and the institution of the Monarchy simply an historical curiosity and a tourist attraction, doomed by the nutty antics of Prince Charles to ridicule and scorn...from Cranmer...Her Majesty must dissolve Parliament: it is her moral duty. The Prime Minister must call an immediate General Election: it is a political imperative. The Houses of Parliament belong to the people: the House of Commons is our chamber. The constitutional checks and balances developed over the centuries need to have their powers restored. The House of Commons must be free to debate and make its own laws, for it is their privilege, irrespective of EU suppression; ministers must be accountable to Parliament, irrespective of the myriad of bureaucratic quangos which have usurped that responsibility; the House of Lords must be reformed, for it is has become a chimera of confusion; the Monarch must have her kingdom returned to her, for she is the Head of State; and the people must have their sovereignty restored, for democracy depends upon it.Your Majesty, please dissolve this decomposing parliament for the stench of decay reaches right to the nostrils of God...more here...

Shame, shame, shame....

...all our concerns about politics and political corruption and politicians' lies, pale into insignificance when we read, yet again, and again, and again of children being brutally tortured to death.
It happens in this country with regularity. It is reported with graphic detail. It reduces readers, MP's, police and ambulance personnel to angry tears. This sadistic violence is largely perpetrated by Maori men on Maori children. Maori have a melodious word in their language for love. It is aroha...yet the all pervasive culture of violence in Maori society shows no aroha, and the statistics of Maori violence show a sickness that shames and condemns their race...read this if you dare...

The tide is turning...

...the following speech by Keith O. Rattie, Chairman, President and CEO of Questar Corporation was delivered on April 2, 2009 at the 22nd Annual UVU Symposium on Environmental Ethics, held April 1st and 2nd at Utah Valley University. It is titled "Energy Myths and Realities" and strikes at the heart of the hypocritical pretense of politicians masquerading as environmentalists. Audience feedback isn't yet available, but presumably green scare merchants were in the audience. Interestingly, AGW believers are absent from the comments section after this post...
...Today, you students are being told that before you reach my age America and the world must stop using fossil fuels. I'm going to try to do something that seems impossible these days – and that's have an honest conversation about energy policy, global warming and what proposed cap and trade regulation means for you, the generation that will have to live with the consequences of the policy choices we make. My goal is to inform you with easily verifiable facts – not hype and propaganda – and to appeal to your common sense...more, here...

Nuclear Reactor realities...

...From 1968 to 1973, I was an engineering officer aboard U. S. nuclear submarines. The chief engineer would routinely sneak back into the engineering spaces and trip some piece of equipment off the line. These were not computer simulations. The equipment really would be in an emergency condition. We would be sitting in the reactor control room, and suddenly alarms would go off. We would have to figure out what had happened, and recover from it. The equipment is designed to survive such accidents. After many decades of operation under those conditions, the Navy has had zero deaths from nuclear power. You are more likely to drown in your bathtub than to die from operating a nuclear reactor.
A coal-fired electric power generating plant uses 120 railroad cars full of coal every day. A nuclear plant uses one semi truckload of nuclear fuel rods every few years. All the spent fuel from every nuclear reactor in the United States could be stored on one football field, a pile nine feet tall. Recycle it as the French do, and the pile shrinks to three inches. In 500 years it will be less toxic than coal ash...more here...
...While here in "Nuclear Free New Zealand" we remain an international laughing stock, courtesy of the green/left scare machine...

All is not well in CO2 regulation land...

...manipulating and distorting scientific findings to suit the political agenda is one thing. Wrecking the economies of the developed world on the basis of CO2 as a poison is another. American voters are becoming aware that the rush to increase their taxes behind a smokescreen of climate emergency is a charade...From WattsupWithThat...

...a leaked memo from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) questions the EPA findings on CO2 being a “threat to human health”...The leaked internal memo, was marked “Attorney Client Privilege”.It has some strong language about the negative impact EPA regulation of CO2 would have on the U.S. economy.
“Making the decision to regulate CO2…is likely to have serious economic consequences for regulated entities throughout the U.S. economy, including small businesses and small communities...” A spokesman for OMB said...the brief is a “conglomeration of counsel we’ve received from various agencies” about the EPA finding, the conclusions of which would trigger regulation of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act...
“In the absence of a strong statement of the standards being applied in this decision, there is concern that EPA is making a finding based on…’harm’ from substances that have no demonstrated direct health effects,” the memo says, adding that the “scientific data that purports to conclusively establish” that link was from outside EPA.
But here is the real kicker. There’s language in the memo that says there may be beneficial effects to increased CO2 rather than negative effects, and that man, as always, can quickly adapt:
“To the extent that climate change alters our environment, it will create incentives for innovation and adaption that mitigate the damages,” the memo reads. “The [EPA finding] should note this possibility[.] … It might be reasonable to conclude that Alaska will benefit from warmer winters for both health and economic reasons,” the authors note...

From the comments...Obama is intent upon getting at least the start of a regulatory structure in place, over as many aspects of our economic lives as possible...(the) agenda is all about control, seized urgently. Obama knows he has a limited window during which his “shock and awe” campaign is most likely to succeed. He will use that window, facts, science and law be damned......more here...

...and Quote for the day...‘90% of the last million years, the normal state of the Earth’s climate has been an ice age’...more from Geologist Dr David Deming, here...

STOP PRESS ! Sad sad, news...

...Swine Flu claims its first celebrity victim...

...and WE ALL KNOW who's responsible...
H/T the compassionate and sensitive N.C-B.

Quote of the day...

...from the laudable Cranmer on the corruption crisis rocking the UK, in particular regarding the Speaker of The House of Commons...Michael "I didn’t come into politics not to take what’s owed to me"Martin, a.k.a. Gorbals Mick...

...the sheer self-righteous arrogance of ‘what’s owed’ to him when he earns a quite remarkable £141,866 per annum reduces Michael Martin to a level of existence somewhere between the swine flu virus and faecal bacteria... As Michael Martin sullies his great Office of State, he brings the whole House into disrepute. He is nothing but a shop steward, completely out of his depth and quite without honour. Speaker Martin will go down in history as possibly the most contemptible speaker ever, having betrayed Parliament, abused trust, and presided over the most corrupt, self-serving and partisan episode in the history of the office ... more from the enraged Cranmer here...

PR BS, how the spin doctors plan to re-brand Global Warming/Climate Change...

...when reporter John M. Broder wrote “Seeking to Save the Planet, With a Thesaurus.” ...he put in the first sentence, “The problem with global warming, some environmentalists believe, is ‘global warming.’” This is a very real problem, especially when the word is getting out that the planet has been cooling for a decade.The problem worsens for them as word leaks that the ice at the North Pole is a lot thicker than earlier suspected—something that does not happen if it’s supposed to be melting. And the same holds for the South Pole whose ice is growing, along with many of the world’s glaciers.Having spent the past twenty years or so blaming “global warming” for everything happening on Earth, the public has grown tired of the endless blather about it. Since it has provided much of the funding that Green organizations have pulled in from the gullible, not to mention from millions in government grants to study something that is not happening, the time has come to “re-brand” global warming into something that will still generate the money these charlatans depend upon...more from Alan Caruba, "Warning Signs" here...

Turning green with embarassment....Arctic activists to be rescued...

...THEY went to the Arctic lamenting global warming, but ever since they got there they have been wishing for warmer weather. That was how I started a post earlier this year, about three Brits who set off for the North Pole in February hoping to draw attention to the issue of global warming and take a few measurements of ice thinning along the way.
Still 500 kilometres from the North Pole the team now plan to be “lifted off the ice” by the end of this week because it’s just too cold – too cold to keep going and too cold to get the measurements they intended.
According to Steven Goddard blogging at WUWT, “I believe that they have done a fantastic job educating the public about the Arctic. Their mission has been followed breathlessly by BBC and Guardian reporters, who previously believed that the Arctic had melted and become a place for sunbathing.
“Following the daily reports of ice, cold, frostbite, hypothermia, pain and general misery being endured by the team – even the most daft newspaper reporter must be aware now that the Arctic is a very cold and icy place.” ...more from Jennifer Marohasy here...

Multi-cultural Europe today...

...is a chaotic cauldron, simmering with resentment and anger. Europe appears to labour under an inheritance of pseudo-guilt; guilt at being in the forefront of Western values and Western civilisation. According to this article, Europe today inhabits a despondent vacuum, a trough of cultural cringing inspired and instilled in Europeans by an arrogant liberal left mindset. Future generations may come to see the elitist left as flawed multi-cultural idealists; an aberrant clique devoted to instilling self hatred, in the guise of tolerance, who despise their own society and exist as nihilistic traitors to their own heritage... Fear masquerading as tolerance...

...The European obsession with third world ‘‘causes’’ was a function of Europe’s new, guilt-based moral order. Immigrants and their children were at liberty to express politically their wishes as a people in a way that European natives were not. Grim-faced censure was always at the ready for Europeans who indulged in the merest nostalgic buffoonery, like that of the UK Independence party, which favoured nothing more radical than pulling Britain out of the EU. The only national claims that could be made without provoking accusations of nationalism, racism, or xenophobia were those of foreigners. Where it interacted with immigration, there was an illogic at the heart of diversity. If diversity ‘‘enriched’’ and ‘‘strengthened’’ nations as much as everyone claimed, why would any nation ever want its immigrants to integrate into the broader society? That would be drawing down the nation’s valuable fund of diversity. In this regard Ethiopians are for serving Ethiopian food, and helping substantiate the boasts of suburban school administrators that ‘‘our students speak 170 languages in the home’’—not for taking jobs as marketing managers and dental hygienists. Or was the supply of diversity meant to remain—via immigration—permanently on tap? No European public wanted that. So European leaders defended mass immigration in one breath by saying it would make their countries different (through diversity), and in the next by saying it would leave them the same (through integration...
...Gordon Brown has suggested that his countrymen be more explicit about the values and customs that everyone in society ought to respect, no matter what their background. But it is late in the day to make such a suggestion. The old religion-based cultures of Europe performed just the function Brown describes until challenged in the 1960s and 1970s, in the name of personal liberation and autonomy, and then repudiated in the 1980s and 1990s, in the name of making Europe more friendly to minorities. How can Brown now expect immigrants and their children to help revive a culture that natives and their children have done little but snicker at? ) ...more from Prospect online, here...

Global warming hits my home town...

...balmy Mt Maunganui, known for its surf beach and sunshine, rarely experiences a decent frost. Yesterday however, the situation changed and the dawning of a new ice age seemed evident. A freak hailstorm hit the Mount causing a total white-out. A local supermarket roof partially caved in, 3 cows were killed (either by lightning or hail) and surfers swapped their surfboards for snowboards...

Global warming is still the popular public catch phrase, even though the green left have tried to redefine their climatastrophe scenario as "climate change". This unprecedented weather bomb will make global warming a very hard sell indeed in this area...more from the NZ Herald here...

...and from Jennifer Marohasy, confirmation that the arch priest of voodo science, NASA's James Hansen, has got it all wrong with his theory about oceanic warming...ACCORDING to the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) hypothesis while surface temperatures may vary from year to year, as long as we spew out carbon dioxide there will be a gradual accumulation of heat in the climate system eventually resulting in a climate crisis.
In 2005, NASA boss James Hansen stated in an article in the journal ‘Science’ that confirmation of the planetary energy imbalance can be obtained by measuring the heat content of the oceans which are the principal reservoir for excess energy.
A problem for the AGW hypothesis now, is that the oceans have been cooling. Indeed there is no known mechanism to account for what some describe as vast amounts of missing heat, suggesting that contrary to the AGW hypothesis, heat is not accumulating in the climate system and there is no longer any radiative imbalance from all the carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases... According to William DiPuccio, in a guest post at the blog ‘Climate Science’, this not only demonstrates that the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change models are failing to accurately predict global warming, but also presents a serious challenge to the integrity of the AGW hypothesis.
Mr DiPuccio concludes “When all is said and done, if the climate system is not accumulating heat, the hypothesis is invalid.” ...more here...

Oh Yes, thanks to G&S and to EvanMJones...

It is the very model of a modern Maunder minimum

(I wanted to be plainer but I couldn’t find a synonym)

And thanks to modern media it’s not believed by anyone

The sun has done a bunk and we will freeze for a millennium

And so I’ll see you later; I am off for the equator

For is the very model of a modern Major-minimum...

Who said/wrote this ?

"[It] (capitalism) has accomplished wonders, far surpassing Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts, and Gothic cathedrals; it has conducted expeditions that put in the shade all former Exoduses of nations and crusades.”

Clue; it was not Al Gore or Helen Clark...Have a go, enduring fame and distinction will be yours...

PS. Temperature update: The latest global temperature data from the satellites still shows no significant warming since 1978; when the satellites were first launched...more from Jennifer Marohasy here...

An Aussie author responds to his critics...

...IN Heaven and Earth - Global Warming: The Missing Science, I predicted that the critics would play the man and not discuss the science. Initial criticism appeared before the book was released three weeks ago.Well-known climatastrophists criticised the book before they actually received a review copy. Critics, who have everything to gain by frightening us witless with politicised science, have now shown their true colours. No critic has argued science with me. I have just enjoyed a fortnight of being thrashed with a feather...Robert Manne (The Weekend Australian, Inquirer, April 25-26) claims to be a great democrat yet demonises dissent on a matter of science. He is not a scientist. The gains made in the Enlightenment, the scientific method, history and integrated interdisciplinary science are all ignored in an ideological push to remodel the economy...The huge number of recent letters tell me that there are winds of change. The average punter has been told for more than two decades that we are all going to fry. He is not stupid and is blessed with a rare commodity missing in many academic circles: common sense... My correspondents feel helpless and disenfranchised with the unending negative moralistic cacophony about climate change. They know it smells but they cannot find where the smell comes from.The reason why the book has been a publishing sensation is because the average person knows that they are being conned and finally they have a source reference...The hypothesis tested in my book was that increased atmospheric CO2 creates global warming. This was shown to be invalid on all time scales and by a diversity of methods.In the past, climate change has never been driven by CO2. Why should it be now driven by CO2 when the atmospheric CO2 content is low? ...read the full riposte from Ian Plimer in the Australian, here...Ian Plimer, a professor at the University of Adelaide, is author of Heaven and Earth - Global Warming: The Missing Science (Connor Court)...
...consider the case of Professor Ian Plimer and the book he couldn't sell.
Well, couldn't sell until now, because Plimer's Heaven and Earth, debunking the great global warming scare, has become an instant best-seller. It today gets its fourth reprint in little over a fortnight, bringing to 25,000 the number of copies now sold or ordered.
This, in a country where a best-seller is reckoned at some 8000 copies, so we're talking about a publishing hit...more here...

...and here in NZ, Ian Wishart's "Air Con" has shot to the top of non-fiction book sales. There is obviously a hunger to know where the stench of BS comes from...

Threats from within...

...Prescient words of wisdom from the late President Dwight D. Eisenhower's farewell address in February 1961...
...Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present -- and is gravely to be regarded.... in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite...the full address here...
H/T to commenter and blogger P202...

2009 ?... No, it's still 1984...

...and George Orwell's newspeak is popular among the green/left... although today of course, it's IPPC UN Internationalism which demands unquestioning obedience. When Maurice Strong, the founder of the UN Environment Programme said "Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? " he created today's 1984 style Ministry of Truth. True to the Ministry's message, socialists around the world have embraced Maurice Strong's dictum, and with the help of a compliant news media, have branded climate change sceptics as deniers, who wish to condemn future generations to a polluted, unlivable planet.

Cometh the hour, cometh the technology...The failure of the main media to live up to their investigative past leaves the field open to independent bloggers to disseminate the sceptical message. Opinion polling shows that the sceptics (assisted by an uncooperative cooling planet) are winning the day. When the accolades are distributed, taking the gold medal will be Anthony Watts, who continues to rage, rage against the dying of the light...

Why we fight...

From Anthony Watts ...Albert Einstein once said, “No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.” Einstein’s words express a foundation principle of science intoned by the logician, Karl Popper: Falsifiability. In order to verify a hypothesis there must be a test by which it can be proved false. A thousand observations may appear to verify a hypothesis, but one critical failure could result in its demise. The history of science is littered with such examples.
A hypothesis that cannot be falsified by empirical observations, is not science. The current hypothesis on anthropogenic global warming (AGW), presented by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), is no exception to this principle...Despite expectations of warming, temperature measurements of the upper 700m of the ocean from the ARGO array show no increase from 2003 through 2008... It is evident that the AGW hypothesis, as it now stands, is either false or fundamentally inadequate. One may argue that projections for global warming are measured in decades rather than months or years, so not enough time has elapsed to falsify this hypothesis. This would be true if it were not for the enormous deficit of heat we have observed. In other words, no matter how much time has elapsed, if a projection misses its target by such a large magnitude (6x to 8x), we can safely assume that it is either false or seriously flawed...

...more from WuWT here...

The "single experiment" that proves Al Gore and the IPPC wrong is likely to be the smoking gun of ongoing monitoring of planetary heat and sea temperature by the ARGO project. It is no small wonder that politicians such as Australia's Kevin Rudd, and Democrats in the USA, are stalling climate change measures and making contingency plans for delaying the implemenation of radical IPCC measures.

If Einstein and Karl Popper were alive today, they would demand that their scientific voices be heard. They would also be aghast that science is being subverted by politicians, compliant bureaucrats and self-interested members of the scientific community...

Quote of the day...

...Vested interests now dominate climate science. Whether climatologists, their employers and other people believe the government-approved line has become irrelevant, because they all wish to retain an income stream and whatever reputations they've established. These people advise governments, which subsequently set policy and research funding regardless of any contradiction with observational data.
Climate science is no longer an impartial truth but a slave to the yoke of politics and opportunism. If this continues, society will be the inevitable loser...more from The Australian here...

...and so ultimately will the international left. The green movement will have to rebrand after AGW becomes evermore politically unpalatable... No politician will escape the wrath of ordinary people who will have to endure higher taxes, unemployment and poverty just to appease environmentalists. It is little wonder that people like Hansen and Lovelock are now growing ever more concerned about Cap&Trade, their green revolution is being directly threatened by a deeply flawed policy (Malcolm, posting on WuWT) ...It is difficult to see how the green/left can morph into anything other than the so-called peace movement of the 70's after the scam of AGW is finally clear to the electorate .(And the great god of opinion polling is making his feelings known day by day. Here...and here...) By resurrecting the peace movement the left will of course have to snuggle up to the enemies of peace; militant/repressive Islam...

AND STOP PRESS...Fifty-nine additional scientists from around the world have been added to the U.S. Senate Minority Report of dissenting scientists, pushing the total to over 700 skeptical international scientists – a dramatic increase from the original 650 scientists featured in the initial December 11, 2008 release. The 59 additional scientists added to the 255-page Senate Minority report since the initial release 13 ½ weeks ago represents an average of over four skeptical scientists a week. This updated report – which includes yet another former UN IPCC scientist – represents an additional 300 (and growing) scientists and climate researchers since the initial report’s release in December 2007...more here...

How long before the peasants revolt ?

...CO2 emissions from the U.S. in the year 2050 are proposed to be 83% less than they were in 2005. In 2005, U.S. emissions were about 6,000 mmt, so 83% below that would be 1,020mmt or a reduction of 4,980mmtCO2. 4,980 divided by 1,767,250 = 0.0028ºC per year. In other words, even if the entire United States reduced its carbon dioxide emissions by 83% below current levels, it would only amount to a reduction of global warming of less than three-thousandths of a ºC per year. A number that is scientifically meaningless.This is the type of information that we should be provide with. And, as we have seen here, it is not that difficult to come by.
The fact that we aren’t routinely presented with this data, leads to the inescapable conclusion that it is purposefully being withheld. None of the climate do-gooders want to you know that what they are suggesting/demanding will do no good at all (at least as far as global warming is concerned).
So, if you really want to, dust off your bicycle, change out an incandescent bulb with a compact fluorescent, or support legislation that will raise your energy bill. Just realize that you will be doing so for reasons other than saving the planet. It is a shame that you have to hear that from us, rather than directly from the folks urging you on (under false pretenses)...more from WorldClimateReport here...

The myth of rising sea levels...

...explained by journalist, conservationist, and blogger-on-the-spot Achintyarup Ray...

...Let us save the islands of the world heritage zone of the Sunderbans. Let us try to find out the real reasons why some of the islands of this archipelago are eroding away. According to official records, there are 102 islands in the Indian Sunderbans. But of them, at least two have already disappeared (one is rising from the waters again, though) and a dozen-odd are likely to vanish in the next two to three decades if no action is taken immediately. The Sunderbans houses the world's largest mangrove forests which are a natural habitat of Bengal tiger and many other wildlife unique to this area. This region may fall prey to the climate change, but the islands which have vanished are not really global warming victims, say scientists and engineers WHO HAVE WORKED IN THE REGION for years. There has been very little study on the effect of global warming on the Sunderbans...more here...

It was 30 years ago today...

...that Margaret Thatcher was elected to power. (Click to enlarge image.) For the left wing and the marxists within the unions, a disaster. For those in Britain who were happy with Britain in decline, a wake up call, and for those who looked for a clear and unambiguous anti-communist voice at the height of the cold war, a beacon of hope...and for those who feared and hated her, attempted assassination...

...Margaret Thatcher did not only leave her stamp on her own party: she also transformed the Opposition, for many of her reforms were retained by Tony Blair’s New Labour with his ‘Third Way’ fusion of mutual exclusives. The tragedy is that Labour has now reverted to type: with its instinct for centralisation and bureaucratic control; its financial incontinence; its loathing of liberty and personal responsibility; its envy of the rich and successful who once again face punitive levels of taxation. Once again, Labour has brought the nation to the edge of bankruptcy. The life blood of British identity has again been poured out as a sacrifice to a utopian Socialism which stifles, strangles, oppresses and deceives. On this 30th anniversary of her coming to power, it is worth remembering Margaret Thatcher's remarkable political achievements which eclipse her personal failings like a thousands suns. If ever another Margaret Thatcher were needed, it is now.

More from the incomparable Cranmer here...

Take the global warming test if you dare...

...Andrew Bolt challenges AGW enthusiasts...IT'S snowing in April. Ice is spreading in Antarctica. The Great Barrier Reef is as healthy as ever. And that's just the news of the past week. Truly, it never rains but it pours - and all over our global warming alarmists.
Time's up for this absurd scaremongering. The fears are being contradicted by the facts, and more so by the week. Doubt it? Then here's a test...

Name just three clear signs the planet is warming as the alarmists claim it should. Just three. Chances are your "proofs" are in fact on my list of 10 Top Myths about global warming. And if your "proofs" indeed turn out to be false, don't get angry with me. Just ask yourself: Why do you still believe that man is heating the planet to hell? What evidence do you have?
So let's see if facts matter more to you than faith, and observations more than predictions...more from Andrew Bolt here...

British, you know...

Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun

The Japanese don’t care to, the Chinese wouldn’t dare to

Hindus and Argentines sleep firmly from twelve till one

But mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun...

Noel Coward, 1931

...Persistence is the British trait which kept the Shackleton crew alive and helped England withstand the Nazi’s throughout World War II. Persistence (and lunacy) inspired the late Sir Arthur Strebe-Greebling to spend 30 years attempting to teach ravens to fly underwater. Persistence keeps the Catlin Crew going and kept Lewis Pugh relentlessly paddling his kayak over Arctic Ice towards the pole. And it is the same trait which keeps the UK Met Office forecasting warm summers year after year. The Met Office forecast 2007 to be the warmest year ever globally, and a hot summer in the UK. Instead it turned out to be a cool summer and the rainiest on record in England. Similar story for summer 2008 and winter 2008-2009 . Yet in fine British tradition the Met Office remains undaunted ...more from WuWT here...