Blinded Me With "Science"

                What other “scientific method” (theory) is allowed the leeway that’s granted to “Climate Change?” From junior high school one’s taught that you come up with a hypothesis, test it, and go where the facts/results take you. Period. That is called “the Scientific Method.” What other scientific area allows observable data to be chronicled, touted and then changed in midstream when results don’t buttress the theory?

                Take the infamous hockey stick graph…please. That “old trope” is now in the process of being proven wrong. Temperatures aren’t continually rising. And the rate of increase of the rate of increase in the global temperature is certainly not increasing, either. But those who originated that graph and its predictions can’t be wrong. Therefore global warming certainty becomes…climate change certainty. Viola’! Yet, instead of being chastised, questioned, tossed-out or re-evaluated, these folks and their theories just get an absolute free pass. Remarkable.

                Let’s posit a theory here by way of example, using a hockey stick, in fact. All hockey sticks used to have straight, flat, blades. Let’s say we were proposing the curved blade. Radically different! We hypothesize that the curved blade will increase goal-scoring as it will lead to faster shots and more movement of the puck after the shot is released. We are surprised and chagrined to find that scoring didn’t go up, and in fact may have decreased a bit, because it is more difficult to corral and control the puck with a curved blade. Well, we don’t want to look like fools, so…we either find the exact time range where the results did look like they conformed to our hypothesis (“look at this 10-game stretch or these 3 teams only”, etc.). Or…

                We just claim that we didn’t mean that scoring would go up per se’, we just meant that the curved sticks would change scoring  or…something!  It could’ve been the reverse. It doesn’t matter, if the facts don’t matter. Say our theory was scoring would go down, but it actually stayed the same or went up. If our theory doesn’t fit the observable facts, we just claim we knew something(s) would change and that the altered stick blades were responsible for this/these change(s).

                 Yes, since everything had forever stayed the same before we trotted out our precious theory!

ISIS...is?

                The United States is unique among nations in that it isn’t  nationality, race or even place that defines its people, it is a set of ideas. Natural Law and limited government of, by, and for the people preeminent among them. Freedom and free markets, republicanism and the rule of law. It doesn’t matter what your race, color, creed or sex is per se’. To be an American you need to believe in these American ideas and ideals. E Plurubus Unum.

                It is hard for us as an open, tolerant society to understand the nature of evil. We either don’t see it or immediately go to our default setting and ask ourselves if it might be our fault, if perhaps we caused it. These are noble, mature  impulses but they aren’t enough. We don’t like to see very bad things or, especially, people because it is hard to judge “lest ye be judged”. Like an alcoholic, if we refuse to see a problem, then we don’t have to deal with that problem. It’s easier that way. Maybe there isn’t really a problem at all!

                Unfortunately, we are facing two existential threats at this time. So is the rest of the free world for that matter. Yet, in essence we’re all still “partying like its 1999” to quote an old Prince songs lyrics. Many, if not most of us, refuse to see the true nature of either of these threats.

                There exists throughout the world, another ideology, one not based on freedom. Indeed it is utterly incompatible with it. Detests it and destroys it whenever and wherever it can. And it matters to those who hold this ideology what your sex and creed is. Does it matter. In fact, they “must” convert, kill or enslave anyone who doesn’t share their radical religious views. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is just one of many  offshoots of Islamic extremism.

                Sure we “recognize” their existence, but we don’t really understand what it means. And we certainly aren’t taking action to deal with them as the existential threat that they are. Our president apparently believes that the Islamic State (the first IS in ISIS) is neither Islamic nor a state. Pythonesque.

                Moreover, those in our government can’t decide from one statement or day to the next whether we are- or should be- at war with this non-Islamic, non-state (NINSIS?).

                The other threat is climate change. You read that correctly. The threat isn’t from climate change itself,  as in differing weather patterns, however. The threat is that the constant policing of  political- correctness is beginning to turn ugly, as most evidenced by the climate change “debate”. Don’t believe in climate change? You are a “denier”. There have now been actual lawsuits filed and injunctions granted against those “deniers”. A columnist for a major magazine- and the magazine itself- were recently sued for an article the columnist wrote attempting to refute a professor’s work touting climate change. He hasn’t written for that magazine since. Freedom of speech itself is under assault. At least the kind that dissents from the politically-correct klan members views, those powerful elites that think they are the majority, but in reality are only attempting to dictate to the majority.

                We must understand, both of these threats share the suppression of free and independent thought and inquiry!! And that, in large part, is why they are truly existential threats to mankind, and certainly to the United States.

                And now this. The Huffington Post published a piece by  professor  Charles B. Strozier and his co-author Kelly B. Berkell (neither of whom are scientists or climatologists) stating that they believe climate change is, in large part, responsible for the formation and rapid growth of ISIS! Drought conditions, you see. Hard to know whether to laugh or cry.  Hillary Clinton has also stated that climate change is a bigger threat to us than ISIS is.

                It is getting scary. In their absolute, rigid insistence that we all believe in- and act on- their climate change theories, some of these folks actually share more traits with tyrannical ideologies of the past then they would ever admit.

                 Today, ISIS is expanding so fast, there are some saying that they want to be known as simply the Islamic State now, or IS. Some at the top of the U.S. government don’t know what to call them. “Impertinent Savages”? “Imperial Sexists”? “Insane Scalpers”? “Irrigation Seekers”?  Perhaps “Immoderate Scamps”?

                To paraphrase a former president, does anything  really  depend on what our  definition of ISIS…is?

                No. What matters is  our ability to see and define evil, and act accordingly. This is a struggle between those who cherish freedom and life and those who worship intolerance and death. We may not want a war with "them". But they think a war with us is a "holy" neccessity. We can stick our heads in the sand, but they will find us. And they will cut those heads off. They have already, unbidden, "found" us repeatedly in recent years. In New York and Washington on 9/11. In our embassies around the world. On the USS Cole. In England and Spain, etc., etc., etc. This is a fight that's been ongoing for many centuries. They will never quit trying to kill "infidels". Ever. At least not until we prove to them that we, ourselves, cannot- will not- be defeated. Ever. No matter how long it takes. No matter what it takes.

                The suppression of Islamic extremism is no vice.

                The suppression of free speech…is.

               

              

Climate Controlled

               “Climate change” has to be the lamest term/concept ever. Are they really going to get away with this? When/why were the words drought, flood, hot, cold, etc. coined in various languages over eons? (Another natural system would be the human body. Why are we different at 25 years old then we were at 5 years old? Or at 85 years old as from 25? Ever been hot? Cold?).

                Weather changes?! Incredible. Short term or long term? Ice age or tropical? The 'average temperature' for most locales is made up of extremes and isn't the 'most common' temperature for that day.  I've noticed it typically gets cooler and darker at night, yet seems to get warmer and lighter during the day. Winter cooler, summer warmer. Weird, but significant!

           Climate change? Really? Should there be a large thermostat somewhere that allows us- man- to select the perfect politically-correct temperature for every place on Earth over time?  What do ‘they’ want...climate control? Oh, yeah, like control of everything else.

 Both  ‘global warming’ and ‘climate change’ alarmists predict ever increasing frequency and intensity of hurricanes and tropical storms among other volatility. Yet the last 3 to 4 years have been one of the calmest periods in history in this regard.

        There is more, not less, Antarctic ice than there was a year ago. Last winter- in the United States at least- was brutally, historically cold. Many are predicting the same or worse for us this coming winter. “Refridgernation” as the Farmer’s Almanac called us.

        Where’s that damn “El Nino” effect when you really need it?

Dinosaur Brains

                  It was the biggest predator ever to trod the Earth, with a ‘crocodile’ snout six feet long, full of large teeth. And it had webbed feet, like a giant duck.

                ‘It’ is Spinosaurus, the only known dinosaur to, apparently, live much of its life in the water. A fifty foot long predator that looks like it was put together by committee. It was unveiled by scientists this past  Thursday in Washington, D.C. (This actually reminds me of a classic ‘Monty Python’ sketch in which the archeologists were putting the final touches on an upright dinosaur skeleton in a museum. The announcer intones “scientists now know the animal looked very much like this!” as they placed a large human thumb on its ‘face’ to complete the skeleton). Scientists say the beast was known to them before, but that the bones from a long-ago fossil discovery were destroyed in Germany during World War II.

                They say the new skeleton found in Morocco reveals the beast was far more aquatic than originally thought. Spinosaurus had a long neck, strong clawed forearms, powerful jaws and the dense bones of…a penguin, according to a new study released by the journal Science. It sported a 7 foot tall spiny ‘sail’ on its back and lived 95 million years ago. It propelled itself through the water with flat feet that were probably webbed according to the study. Study lead author Nizar Ibrahim said “it’s like working on an extraterrestrial or an alien. It’s so different than anything else around.” He was standing in front of a room-sized reconstruction of the skeleton at the National Geographic Society, which partially funded the research. ( I have been assured there were no human thumbs anywhere in sight).

                Ibrahim went on to say that the creature was “so bizarre it’s going to force dinosaur experts to rethink many things they thought they knew about dinosaurs.” Until now, scientists had thought that all dinosaurs stuck to the land with only the occasional, brief trip to water. But the new skeleton exhibits clear evidence of aquatic living, including nostrils positioned high on the skull, allowing the beast to be mostly submerged for extended periods of time. Study co-author Paul Sereno called it “an evolutionary experiment going into the water.”Spinosaurus grew 9 feet longer than Tyrannosaurus Rex and feasted on aquatic creatures the size of cars in an area that was history’s “most dangerous place” Ibrahim said.  Three giant predators roamed the land, and 25-foot long sharks, giant sawfish and various types of ‘nasty’ crocodiles lurked in the water. Even the sky had giant predators.

                And I had thought history’s most dangerous place was  any particular golf course on which  Gerald Ford was playing. And we are currently being told- and told, and told, and told- that all of planet Earth is now history’s most dangerous place due to global cooling, warming climate change.

                An article by Seth Borenstein in the Associated Press (Friday, September 12) quoted University of Maryland dinosaur expert Thomas Holtz, Jr. as stating “The new find is amazing and convincing, showing how wrong scientists have been about this dinosaur and about how diverse dinosaurs can be.”

                In other words we may have gotten most everything wrong in the past, been deluded for decades, but we’re certain that now all our beliefs and assumptions are unquestionably spot-on!

                Truth be told, I respect that these scientists are apparently  open-minded and willing to change their established beliefs  and  to question the conventional wisdom whenever new evidence comes to light.

                Most climate change scientists? Not so much.

                Who are the real dinosaur brains?

 

(All emphases/italics mine)

Climate Change and Global Lying

                A recent article (by a New York Times reporter)  published in a local paper cited a new U.N. report claiming that “the world may already be nearing a temperature at which the loss of the vast ice sheet covering Greenland would become inevitable. The actual melting would then take centuries, but it would be unstoppable and could result in a sea level rise of 23 feet (I would’ve guessed 22’, 11” but I’m not a scientist), with additional increases from other sources like melting  Antarctic ice, potentially flooding the world’s major cities.”

                Antarctic ice is currently expanding (and rather dramatically so, at that), not contracting. Chicago, Paris, London, Berlin, Moscow, New Delhi, Mexico City, Montreal, Madrid, Warsaw… all at risk?

                The report, almost comical in its lack of logic and considered rationale, goes on to state “the risk of abrupt and irreversible change increases as the magnitude of the warming increases.” If a change is ‘irreversible’ it, by definition, precludes any future change, abrupt or not. A self-defeating argument. Hypocrisy is a strong suit of leftist dogma, logic is not.

                This new report was more aggressive in its ‘findings’ than any of the reports that underpin it. Odd.  According to the article, it highlights the urgency of the risks likely to be intensified by continued emissions of heat-trapping gases, primarily carbon dioxide released by the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas. The report went on to state that companies and governments had identified reserves of these fuels at least four times larger than could safely be burned “if global warming is to be kept to a tolerable level.

              “ That means if society wants to limit the risks to future generations, it must find the discipline to leave the vast majority of these valuable fuels in the ground” the report states.

                That’s funny, as experts back in the 1970’s and 1980’s were warning that we were running out of oil. And every other energy source. Had to conserve every ounce we could. Drive 55. Look at alternative energy sources. We’re still looking at- and subsidizing- alternative energy sources. Guess we now know the real reason why. We have too damn much energy. But, it’s of the carbon-based variety, so we can’t use it or the entire  Earth becomes a swamp. (I thought higher temperatures led to more evaporation).

                Where is the study chronicling the affects of not using all this abundant energy?! The needless (at least relative) impoverishment and degradation of virtually all peoples of the Earth. F.A. Hayek said “our hopes of avoiding the fate which threatens must indeed to a large extent rest on the prospect that we can resume rapid economic progress which…will continue to carry us upward.” He continued, “and the main condition for such progress… is that we learn once more to turn all our resources to wherever they contribute most to make us all richer.”

                Those resources would be oil, natural gas and coal. And they could potentially make us all much better off, indeed. See, for example, North Dakota.

                Interestingly, the report states that the effort to counter climate change is gathering force at the regional and local level in many countries, particularly the United States, with states like California, New York and Massachusetts taking the lead. Yes, those three bastions of staggering economic growth, with their booming state economies are bravely showing us the way forward!

                Yet, in reality, President Obama is seeking- somewhat openly- to impose national limits on emissions of green-house gases, circumventing the United States Congress and the Constitution to cut a deal with the U.N. before leaving office in early 2017.

                Seems ‘political climate-change’ will destroy us, even as ‘global-warming’ would not.