Down - now out: teary watermelon Rudd will not be missed. Now PISS OFF!
Kevin Rudd has just this minute been rolled, unopposed as Australia’s Prime Minister. Former Socialist Forum Secretary Julia Gillard has been installed as Australia’s 27th PM.
Rudd’s personal popularity has plummeted since his back-flip on the Emissions Trading Scheme earlier this year. Rudd, watching public belief in AGW steadily dropping in the lead-up to Copenhagen and in free-fall since, could not bring himself to bow to the will of the people and relinquish the religion he so fervently embraced. Instead, like a good little Fabian he… delayed. He announced that any further re-introduction of ETS legislation would not occur until 2013, well after the next election and—in all probability—the one after that.
Then there was the disaster of the Home Insulation Scheme. For those of you not aware, Rudd announced last year a harebrained scheme to spend AU$2 billion subsidising the installation of roofing insulation in over a million Aussie homes. To use less electricity and save the planet, you understand. To oversee this massive undertaking, he appointed the “minister”, former rock star frontman , nuclear disarmament and green campaigner, a nitwit with zero managerial experience Peter Garrett. The results were predictable. Tendering for installation work became a free-for-all, with every shonky back-yard operator in the country with little or no certification to conduct such work getting into the swim. Over one hundred house fires, four deaths and a damning official report later, the scheme was dumped, with an estimated bill for remedial work perhaps double the original cost of the scheme.
The new Mining Tax impost was the last straw. Faced with the massive blowout of their 2008-9 “stimulus package”, they resolved to fleece the one remaining industry Labor saw as a cash cow, with a new 40% “super tax”. Rudd, told by the mining industry that he faced an immediate offshore flight of capital, responded by spending $40 million of taxpayers’ money on a propaganda blitz in the MSM, selling a nakedly party line to a public whose credulity was already seriously weakened.
Gillard’s ascension probably signals little. My country has a (fairly shameful) history of throwing untenable political top jobs to women. Joan Kirner in Victoria, Carmen Lawrence in Western Australia and Kristina Keneally in New South Wales are three recent state premiers thrown into the job mid-term in a government on its way out. And now it has done it federally.
This time next year, it’ll all be forgotten.
Be Responsible - Be Free! 
G’day Oz,
I’m listening to Sydney Talkback Radio on the Web and it’s a laugh a minute.
“Rats and sinking ships”, “re-arranging deck-chairs on the Titanic”, all getting a go.
What a poisoned chalice for Julia, that rabid Fabian/Socialist.
Tipping Sept/Oct for an election to capitalise on the “honeymoon period”.
Haha – just heard, “She’ll be as useful as an ashtray on a motorbike”.
We do indeed live in interesting times.
Oz,
Another thought………
Julia Gillard migrated here with her family as a four year child from Wales. Don’t know if there is an earlier/other foreign-born PM, not to mention the first woman.
Heard last night Rudd was the shortest-term PM in over 40 years. If Gizzard calls an early election and gets rolled, SHE’ll be the shortest serving.
Hearing that Rudd, rather than “fronting-up” and facing the music, chose a back-entrance to return to his office.
Measure of the man eh?
Oz,
Rudd is now 6 years younger than PM Whitlam was in 1975 when he was sacked by the Governor General (for the info of our northern friends), who, after a mere 3 years in power, has been a bloated parasitic guzzler on the taxpayer teat for 35 years!
Will Rudd’s “entitlements” include considerations of his period in office, or just that of your average back-bencher?
Ruddy hell.
Can’t you persuade Rudd to go for a swim?
blackswan you can get ashtrays for motorbikes what will they think of next.
Crown,
My Dad’s old “Indian” or “Norton” didn’t have ashtrays, what next…..?
During Rudd’s excruciating “farewell” speech, he intoned monotonously (between loooong pauses and sniffles) about the many reforms of which he is most proud, claiming all as his own. Didn’t seem to occur to him that they, and his micro-management of them, were the very reason he got dumped.
Julia Gillard (or Gizzard or Lizard, another of the Reptile Rudd’s species) could have joined Mensa at birth.
We have a whole new ball-game in town.
One thing Rudd said, “Something which you don’t know, I/we have established the Organ Transplant AUTHORITY.” WHAT????????
They were kite-flying about this a few months ago.
At present we have an opt-in system with next-of-kin having the final say. They were floating the idea of legislation to create an opt-out law. In other words, the STATE will own you, body & soul, from the cradle to the grave. The onus would be on the corpse to opt-out, and if it was one of those things on your to-do list when you shuffled off your mortal coil, so sad – too bad, your loved ones have no say and get to have a funeral for the left-overs.
Is this what the unknown Organ Transplant Authority is all about?
Tony Abbott (Opposition Leader) is giving a reply speech in which he just said “No Prime Minister should be treated like that, especially the NSW Labor Mafia Party”, the faction whose machinations dumped Rudd.
He’s gone on to describe it as “The Ugly Assassination of Kevin Rudd”.
He knows he’s in for a fight. Abbott recently declared that he accepts and believes in AGW, just not Labor’s ETS. He has different plans. What are they?
No Idea. (Sorry mate, your handle just fitted) LOL……
Julia Gillard (Gizzard, Lizard) is an industrial relations lawyer, never married, never had children, and lives in a long-term (de facto) relationship with a one-time hairdresser.
Can anyone think of another Head of Government anywhere in the world where such a domestic profile would be considered as other than an electoral liability?
Apparently there is a small plane flying in never-ending circles in Canberra towing a banner that reads “Julia, aim higher on Climate Change”.
Every OB telly interview has an audio background of the droning plane.
Now who would pay for that? Greanpeace, WWF?
And as Rudd only folded a couple of hours ago, Banner manufacturers must be pretty speedy in the National Capital.
blackswan can we say she’s a follower of the the poetess Sapho? It’s funny what was probably a working mans party has been taken over pseudo intellectuals with some bloomin strange ideas about what constitutes family and relationships. The same bunch own the Dems here and Labour in the UK they are all rotten to the core morally and ethically.
I’m surprised a lot of your comedians have not been censored as they have the same non PC sense of humour our bunch in the Northern UK has. As the late great Bernard Manning said I’m not a racist I’m an equal opportunity offender.
blackswan it could be terrorists you need to send your airforce to shoot it down.
blackswan as for y organs I’m trying my best to make them unusable.
Hi Oz,
Really love the picture.
I’m wondering what’s next?
Failed minor diplomat,
Failed chief of staff,
Now failed PM.
Wonder if there will now be further investigation, if not prosecution, of Rudd’s complicity as State Premier’s Chief of Staff, orchestrating the shredding of documentary evidence in the rape of a 14 year old in State Care?
Julia’s in Question Time 2 hours after being sworn in. Smooth…………..
To his credit, Rudd is sitting on the back benches, looking somewhat like a chastened schoolboy sitting outside the Headmaster’s Office.
Hi Crown,
Some great ideas, at least I know my lungs will stay my own LOL
Ozboy blackswan will getting rid of these people stop the republican movement your way I’m not sure on your own views on the subject as I’m not sure you prefer a distant monarchy and a Governor General acting as a defacto head of state. I’m sure it will be a big issue when the Queen finally passes on but given her mothers pickled longevity it could be another 20 years. However that is a matter for yourselves not me, personally it’s cheaper and the real power is wielded by the PM.
Crown – as far as the Australian Republic is concerned, it’s on the back burner at the moment. I’ve never known any head of state other than Elizabeth, and yes most people here are now thinking, wait till her reign ends. I personally believe we should become a republic, but for all practical purposes we are already one today—more so than the UK is, for sure.
The other thing—and it’s something not many people are aware of—is that in order for us to become a republic, the British 1931 Statute of Westminster will need to be repealed. Under it, the UK cannot alter the line of succession to the throne without the unanimous consent of the parliaments of Australia, New Zealand and Canada (and formerly, South Africa and the Irish Republic). Getting this through may prove more difficult than gaining an electoral mandate for constitutional reform in Australia alone. More on this in a thread I’m sketching out at the moment – Oz
ozboy funny you should mention the Irish republic technically they are not a Republic because they failed to pass the needed legislation recognizing the abdication of the current queens uncle. So through some weird legal stuff I have utterly failed to grasp the Queen Elizabeth II is technically still head of state. Well enough of this subject for now. Looks like your coup was planned for a long time, reminds me of the toppling of Maggie Thatcher who was seen as a liability at that time.
It’s no coincidence that three nights ago, ABC TV ran a fawning bio on Gillard, bordering on hagiography. Not only was it planned for a long time, but their comrades in the government media were in on it – Oz
Hi Crown,
Interesting question. Personally speaking, I’d hate to offend any of our British friends who are loyal subjects and believe in the Royal Institution, but……….
I loathe tokenism and despise hypocrisy.
Malcolm Turnbull, recently ousted Opposition Leader and poised for a comeback (devotee of Carbon Tax and one-time MD of Oz Goldman Sachs), is also Leader of the Oz Republican Movement, so I doubt a change of Govt will reduce the impetus for a Republic.
A few years ago, a coven of the pillars of our community were right-royally paid to put their heads together and come up with options for establishing said republic.
A referendum was held but none of the options included an elected head of state. As we need a majority vote in a majority of states, it failed. Aussies are very wary (and weary) of cronyism, nepotism, and all the quid pro quo isms that would be inevitable with a political appointment.
We have had some very admirable Governors General, but not all. For instance, our current GG, the first woman so appointed, just happened to be State Governor in Queensland when Rudd was Premier’s Chief of Staff involved in the unprecedented shredding of evidence in a criminal trial. Incensed members of the Parliament appealed to the governor for a royal commission to bring ALL the wrongdoers to justice. This was denied.
When Rudd became PM, one of his first actions was to appoint his old “mate” as GG.
She has been going on long and expensive trips to Africa and beyond at Rudd’s behest (he was desperate for a seat on the UN Security Council) to raise his UN profile.
What’s the bet he turns up there before too long? Diplomacy, his forte.
If we ever get a range of referendum options that give us a true choice and better reflects our range of opinion (not the skewed few that predicated a political result), it could well succeed.
blackswan no offense taken that is a matter for you guys, it does not stop countries from having close ties.
Anyhow this was an interesting article from WUWT msher will like I’m sure as it addresses the legal and practical aspects of a green economy.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/23/paul-driessen-asks-some-inconvenient-questions/#more-20953
Afternoon Aussies et al,
Glizard eh?
Hear she’s making noises on the mining tax, what is going on in Aus?
I asked on other blog about Abbot, ……-Turnbull?
There is a reformation of the ETS scheme in the offing, Obama is still pushing ahead with Cap and Trade, in the EU big noises about the ‘way forward’ and uniting the G20 in order to combat CC, it’s a fu***ng world wide coup by laughing boy elites in order to railroad their legislation through the relevant parliaments/legislatures to gain more power or am I being paranoid?
– But they must think the time to strike is now, we will have another cold winter this year, in Europe ( emissions trading, AGW support will fall again) therefore with G20 coming up big noises are being made and Obarmy must get his Chicago Carbon Trading bourse/exchange up and running, don’t want to let those nice boys in Goldman Sachs down does he?
It is happening all over, the blacklist, more scare stories, “the hottest year since time began!!!” in the MSM, it is a putsch and it is a blatant grab for the high ground which to a certain extent had been lost since Dopenhagen………..to my mind.
I think the thinking in Europe is now or never for some sort of major CAGW coup, Australia is a key player, as the USA and Europe look for ‘moral’ support from fellow libtard wan***s.
I still want to know why Abbot has ‘caved in’ is there anybody in Australia who is anti AGW legislation now…..Glizard is hovering and maybe Abbot will capitulate??
Musings aloud.
Ed.
Blimey, Watts that? it’s Anthony up in Tassie!
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/23/more-weather-boms-in-oz/
Ed.
Edward you are not being paranoid this is a last gasp of the elite to get what remains of our money. However they are relying on computer systems to keep it rolling and unfortunately such systems are always a few steps behind the hackers. So if anyone wanted to bugger them up big time they could hack those systems and destroy the inherent wealth, not that I condone such behaviour as it is illegal.
Good day to you crownarmourer,
Indeed crown!
But what if you could get away Scot free with such an action……?
Would you then condone, even sanction such a thing?
Hypothetically speaking of course!
Away in my reverie once more.
Regards, Ed.
Across the world it appears the ‘left’ is starting to dissapear…….Obama next time round.
Trouble is, where’s the right?
With the election of a Lizard as PM it is obvious that we Herptiles will soon inherit the earth !
It was inevitible I suppose. Veniality will out in the end. Al Gore, the sexscandal …
http://www.rightpundits.com/?p=6469
Pointman
Edward. says:
June 24, 2010 at 4:36 pm
G’d Evening Ed,
Interesting link to Tassie’s weather station. Always wondered where it is.
Turns out I know the place well (the Cygnet just rented a house a street or two away).
What the chap didn’t mention while lamenting the proximity of A/C units and the road, were the woeful Katabatic winds that roll down from the 1270 metre Mount Wellington (Capetown’s Table Mountain is only 900 metres). If the bloke had turned around and pointed his camera to the west, he’d have been looking UP at the mountain, often snow-capped and always cold up there.
A bit like the cold air tumbles down to cool bare feet when you open the fridge door on a hot day, Mt Wellington has a huge effect on the small city’s weather. Not so where I live on the eastern shore of the river, “always an overcoat warmer” as the locals say.
Bloody weather stations, who ARE the numpties that install them?
Old Toad says:
June 24, 2010 at 5:53 pm
Hi Toad,
Trouble with this group of reptiles is, they’re a bunch of big saltwater crocodiles and they’ll take your leg off without blinking (and come back later to snack on the left-overs). NEVER smile at a crocodile.
Gizzard is currently doing an interview on commercial TV.
“Did the Australian people feel let-down by not going ahead with the ETS?”
Julia – “We didn’t have a Community Concensus. We’ll work to achieve that by showing how Carbon Tax will benefit the community with wind and solar power” (or words to that effect).
Yair, right.
Orkneylad asks;
“Trouble is, where’s the right?”
Kicking back on his Texas Ranch LOL.
Pointman says:
June 24, 2010 at 6:10 pm
Gore sex scandal eh? Not only does he force his warped view of science on the world, now he’s forcing his warped personage on unsuspecting young women.
Monica Lewinski certainly showed girls how to deal with lecherous buffoons – Gore’s victim saved the evidence but the police put a lid on the incident.
How do they get away with this stuff? Onya Tipper.
Pointman – Nice to see Gore’s anus horribilis continuing full-pace…….I wonder who’s conducting the orchestra….
Best,
OL
Blackswan,
“who ARE the numpties that install them?”
Who indeed, this is not an isolated case as we well know Blackswan, it almost seems they (the men/women who installed the station) wanted to purposefully distort the T record…..ooops there goes my paranoia kicking in again!
Ed.
Blackswan Tasmania says:
June 24, 2010 at 7:31 pm
Orkneylad asks;
“Trouble is, where’s the right?”
Kicking back on his Texas Ranch LOL.
Good one, Blackswan. May I add that he is also building his Presidential Center, which will be a think tank making useful policy recommendations and not just the usual library and memoriam. I made a donation: it’s a good cause.
Crown: re your comment on the previous thread about the night shift: another casualty of the new DT format.
I’ve been like Aurelian: barely posting, barely lurking. Plus I’ve got nothing to say (unusual for me). Not on the bloggers’ chosen topics, anyhow.
I like this site, though, and our genial host :^)
HIya all!
Finally wrestled the stove into submission! Had to carry out minor surgery with a dremel and mini cutting discs, to give the stainless steel flue liner a circumcision, then everything finally went together spot on.
Running the thing in now with the windows open to get rid of the cast iron running in stink.
I’m cream crackered, and going for a lie down.
@Amanda, June 25, 2010 at 12:03 am
“I’ve been like Aurelian …”
But considerably more glamourous, I suspect. 🙂
aurelian 24JUN10@1636BST
@ Edward. says:
June 24, 2010 at 8:22 pm
“Who indeed, this is not an isolated case as we well know Blackswan, it almost seems they (the men/women who installed the station) wanted to purposefully distort the T record…..ooops there goes my paranoia kicking in again!”
Yep, its paranoia.
The site of weather stations is most often a historical accident. They were sited to be easily acssesable by the official person/institution that had the responsability of taking daily temperatures, and often with the secondary requirement of being close to a means of communicating that data to a central collector. Usually this would be some sort of government body.
Until very recently they were NOT sited, or operated, in a manner that would enable a good reliable long-term trend to be detected. It was never part of the original purpose of a weather station. More often it was sited in/near a population cener because what was wanted was a record of the local weather and its variability. Not a measure of the climate.
This is why Watt’s long-running weather station analysis is a bit of a red herring. Of course the historical weather station sites and operations are not optimal for detecting climate change because of compounding factors. That was never the original, historical, intention behind the siting, operation and data collection.
It has been a matter of some ingenuity to derive a global climate trend from the less than optimal source of the historical weather station network. It is only the fact that there are methods of eliminating confounding factors like a comparison of rural with urban stations to detect the UHI effect and several independent methods of corroberating the trend derived from the HWSN that enables us to have any confidence in the results.
Those independent methods can have problems of their own, but the collation of many different methods has enabled the mutal improvement in accuracy of all the records.
As a result the UAH satellite record of warming land and sea confirms the land station record and is in turn validated by specific rural land stations designed to provide a relatively undistorted datat trend and similar attempts at sea surface measurement from automatic buoy systems.
By all means doubt a measurement system because it has faults you can identify, but it is foolish to doubt it because it gives results you dislike.
Hi Aurelian.
What’s your idea of glamour, then? I bet someone out there looks quite dashing in his wing chair, dressed in pyjamas with pips and a pipe. Sheepskin slippers and socks that read hot to trot. What could be more exciting? :^)
izen says:
June 25, 2010 at 2:48 am
It is not a question of dislike for the stations themselves it is a dislike of the distortion of the records that they have produced and the creative statistical legerdemain of dubious data sets.
These fixed statistics, which purport to show ‘runaway global warming’, have been one arm of a whole AGW industry which are based upon two main facets;
1. Dodgy data sets, with consequent computer manipulation of the T record which are just plain wrong, also human manipulation ie, the removal of hundreds of stations in cooler more northerly environments – (see North America and Siberia).
2. Computer models drawn and programmed with this doubtful information which are then used to depict an increase of 2 degree C by 2050 and 3/5/7 (whatever think of a number) degree increase by the third millennium, this is a scandalous over exaggeration by statisticians (like Connolley) who know fuck all about climatology, atmospheric physics and the thermo-dynamics thereof.
That is my problem with temperature data from weather stations.
The problem is one which has a tenable solution, if it is to be believed…… and credible by all interested parties.
What is needed, is a random (as far as possible) spatial distribution of stations away from centres of population, at many different latitudes, altitudes and longitudes and a uniform system of measurement and no (unless universally agreed) statistical interference from fuck-witted statisticians, leave it to scientists who are not affiliated to GISS/HadCruT but are from objective and from non governmental agencies.
The T records should be monitored by independent University departments of pure sciences faculties, not climatology faculties because they are stained with the tainted stigma of CAGW scam studies.
Also it should be remembered, climatology departments are hotbeds of post normal science.
Additonally, these same climatology departments were born of humanities faculties – which throughout the late sixties and seventies were debased by socialist dogmatism, student agitators and quasi scientific methods, pure science has never existed in these faculties.
Politics should be kept out of the science laboratory.
Ed.
@Amanda June25, 2010 at 5:21 am
Uncanny; but you left out the mug of cocoa and the cotton nightcap with the bobble on the end.
aurelian 24JUN10@2143BST
@Edward June 25, 2010 at 6:33 am
The three thermometers in my house still have not enabled me to compute the temperature of the EU East Midlands Region, although I think I am beginning to see my way to announcing the temperature of Antarctica.
Now if I can just come up with the right algorithm …
aurelian 24JUN10@2151BST
@Amanda June25, 2010 at 5:21 am
Oops. I see I didn’t answer your question.
What’s your idea of glamour, then?
You are, Amanda.
aurelian 24JUN10@2200BST
Oz, Blackswan.
Our good old, non partisan BBC seemed to me to be at least reluctant in reporting KRs demise. It was relegated to the back end of our news and not dwelled upon for more than the bare minimum even though this is major bloody news for all ‘Western’ civilisations.
The beebs reckoning is that it was wholly down to Rudd losing confidence with the electorate because he mothballed the ETS plan…Yeah, that’s right. We hate you Kev’ ’cause yer not going to make everything more expensive with the proceeds siphoned off to criminals…It’s just the insults!!!
Ed. Umm. 2 – 0!
@ – Edward. says:
June 25, 2010 at 6:33 am
“1. Dodgy data sets, with consequent computer manipulation of the T record which are just plain wrong, also human manipulation ie, the removal of hundreds of stations in cooler more northerly environments – (see North America and Siberia).”
Bit of a red herring. The loss of many N hemisphere stations in the 1980s was down to the collapse of the USSR and the institutional systems and funding to collect the data, and the realisation by the US (and others) that the close correlation in the many stations that were geographically close made the inclusion of all redundant.
The temperature data you get with or without the inclusion of all those extra stations is near identical.
quote-“The problem is one which has a tenable solution, if it is to be believed…… and credible by all interested parties.
What is needed, is a random (as far as possible) spatial distribution of stations away from centres of population, at many different latitudes, altitudes and longitudes and a uniform system of measurement …
Yes of course.
And the US established such a system a few years ago – from 2001 they have been establishing the US climate reference network. –
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/crn/
There is credible analysis that indicates that the global temperature could be determined with around 60 good sites in each hemisphere.
The problem of course is that they would give no help in determining what has happened to global temperatures in the past because they didn’t exist then. All we have to go on is the past instrumental record that was NOT optimised for detecting long term trends.
To a large extent the motivation for a comprehensive global network has receded as its become obvious that satellite records can provide adequate global data with the advantage that they provide sea surface temperatures as well, the more significant metric, and completely unbiased by urban heat island effects…
Quote-“Politics should be kept out of the science laboratory.”
Might be helpful to exclude those with a strong corporate financial motive to ‘adjust’ the outcomes too. Thats certainly the increasing perception in another field of scientific research – medicine – where the skewing of reports has been detected.
Izen old son.
Sorry I didn’t get back earlier, but then I knew you’d not come back to me with the required ‘A’ or ‘B’ answer and that it’d have to be some sort of convoluted bollocks of an explanation…which doesn’t explain anything.
aurelian says:
June 25, 2010 at 6:51 am
You must then publish your data and analysis in Nature or the Tatler, which ever suits.
Ed.
Scud1,
Um, er gulp, yes….sh!
Ed.
Ed…shsssssh.
Night all.
scud1 says:
June 25, 2010 at 8:31 am
“Rudd losing confidence with the electorate because he mothballed the ETS plan”
G’day scud,
That is EXACTLY how it’s been sold down here EVERYWHERE.
“Another Rudd broken promise” blah, blah, blah…..
I’ve just responded to Ed on the previous thread about this issue and Abbott.
The Beeb would have just picked up a media release from here. There is NOTHING on TV here, ABC or commercial, that refutes AGW.
Even the few journos or broadcasters (except Bolt I think) who are sceptics, have bundled the ETS into all the other Labor broken promises and incompetence.
If you thought Abbott’s actions and Rudd deferring the ETS were a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel, sorry Scud, it’s a bloody great locomotive on its inexorable way.
izen says:
June 25, 2010 at 2:48 am
“The site of weather stations is most often a historical accident”.
You’re right Izen.
At the time the Anglesea Barracks was established (site of the weather station in question), the troopers stationed there were slapping leg-irons around the ankles of convicts and slowing the buggers down with a bloody great iron ball attached!
Now in the 21st century we expect “scientists” to be a little more circumspect about where they site these stations, otherwise we’d still be putting prisoners in irons instead of giving them TVs and gym equipment. We’ve moved on have we not?
Tasmania, with its mountainous terrain and high plateaux, warm Pacific currents flowing down the east coast and exposure to the Great Southern Ocean to the west and south, and a miriad micro-climates in between, would present a great challenge in determining a mean temperature. But then I’m not a scientist.
If commonsense factored in this at all, you wouldn’t leave an historic weather station at a place like Anglesea Barracks.
Izen,
Funny how so many stations were retained in the Southern areas of the North American continent.
Each geographical area of wherever one is in the world has it’s own micro climate and a set of peculiarities which is unique, homogenizing of data sets is gives erroneous and misleading readings over wide areas. The ironing out of anomalies by statistical analysis is inaccurate science, surely a better system of real measurements provides more reliable data over say the Siberian plateau.
The temperature isotherms can be more accurately drawn and data more better understood but it isn’t about accurate measurement is it?
No it’s about the homogenization of data and the less stations there are the more generalisations can be drawn. The depiction of T anomaly mapping is far more accurately drawn and therefore better inferences of trends can be calculated and appreciated.
If one goes on to the GISS site, there one can put up a T anomaly map yet it is only really guess work in the interior of Siberia because of the paucity of weather stations, it is farcical to project figures over a vast area if one only has measurements from 1 station but these maps are used by the Royal Society and the London Natural Science Museum to portray ludicrously wayout statistical projections of a world which seems to be warming in a terrible incline and which actually, is doing nothing of the sort.
Satellite mapping is inaccurate, it is also a projection, the satellite only makes a pass dependent on orbit, speed and height over a certain area, geo-stationary satellite imagery is more instrumentally applicable, orbits decline, function declines and accuracy is lost. Nevertheless, it needs to be used in conjunction with other measuring methods, if only to test each type of T assessment.
At the end of the day the T record is unreliable and any inferences thus extrapolated are consequently of little use.
It wouldn’t be so bad if this was all academic argument, the problem comes when whack job scientists make dizzying predictions of world cataclysm on the strength of dubious figures and the clarion cries of these whack job scientists are then picked up by whack job failed attorneys who then became politicians and make lunatic doom mongering, crystal ball gazing films about so called AGW, which are absolute crap.
Worse politicians then decide that they and only they, can save mankind by inaugurating mind numbing and utterly facile remedies in green technology for a threat which doesn’t exist, that is where the problem lies in the final analysis.
Ed.
Aurelian:
What a lovely thing to say. As my grandma says when we praise her cooking: ‘You can come again’.
Amanda at 7:14 p.m. somewhere-in-the-Smokies Time
Oops. 8:14. My laptop’s still on Houston time.
Greetings, all. I have been somewhat slightly occupied with a variety of fires to put out, not least of which that finest compliment any green group can pay a person, i.e., getting one’s site hacked to bits LOL!
What a lovely picture, Ozboy. One communist PM down, one communist POTUS to go! I don’t think Little Miss Four-Way Sunshine following on to Rude is going to do anything but up the odds of a landslide conservative Oz victory come election time. She is to Rudd as Brown was to Blair, methink
I have been doing the rounds to evaluate the effectiveness of my one-person campaign covering my respective area of responsibility and competence, and have come up with very good results, especially in the area of coal/biomass multifueling for existing coal plants and for helping the marketing (basically for no pay, but WTF) of Marsulex, UOP and Stamicarbon processes for making scads of the ready for existing coal plants from co-production. Looks like everything is on track, and I have received a couple of kudos from the type folks one doesn’t meet everyday in the form of a thumbs-up or three.
The only thing which stinks so far is that I have not heard back in full from Justice Department on the anti-trust complaint I filed. If they are doing their job well, it could take up to three years.
Here is a useful site, too, if you are paranoid about your Net connection. This ramps up that paranoia about 10 million times. Please see http://www.nucleustechnologies.com. This Uttar Pradesh Indian firm is responsible for providing and monitoring employee computer usage on a real time basis for the US Air Force, the US Army, Ford Motor Company, and dozens of other critical US concerns. Who is watching them, please? Why not subcontract employee honesty monitoring to the Communist Chinese, while we are at it, or (why mess around??) Iran?
Useful stuff: if you go to http://www.digi.com and have a look at their Wi-Fi 3G tool under “applications” at the rocket range, if you need a new business and have only a thousand bucks to start with, one of their 500 buck wonders makes you an instant 3G wireless system owner with 50 customers just about overnight, if you’ve but one cell phone connection accessible to you. If you are WAY out there with no wireless 3G services, this is the way to go, as these little guys reach out up to 40 miles as a repeater while allowing for 50 wireless customers per unit (or more; it’s just everyone else slows down as you load up the 3G repeater LOL!). DON’T wait for Cameron to cover remote 3G broadband requirements for the English countryside. Do it yourself and own a nice little earner while only charging your customers 5 or 10 pounds a month for high-speed wireless access. If you look there is a British sales outlet for these little goodies, which sit on a tabletop and are the size of a coffeetable book. They will fit in a backpack and are fieldmobile, BTW.
If I could, could I ask a favour of you folks, please? Could you take a look at http://www.transactionsmagazine.com and see if everything is okay? My site had actually had a URL extension added which excluded me from the search engines and from being picked up even with a direct link, somehow. It’s been one of those weeks.
Just drop me a line here, or at w_james_obrien@myway.com , my hacker-proof temporary expendable e-mail address.
Many thanks! And MOTM, thanks again very, very much!!! What an epic effort on your part.
Here’s a direct link for the mini-Wi Fi home business 500-bucks-and-go setup.
http://www.digi.com/learningcenter/stories/rocket-scientists-access-internet-from-the-middle-of-nowhere
Seeing as everyone is going to have to work until age 93 before being able to qualify for a pension, one may as well help one’s friends get that ante together on a senior-friendly basis. I personally would like to go into business as a neighborhood ISP/Wi Fi provider and get paid monthly in foodies, clothes, tools, CD’s, DVD’s, books, etc., etc. or sports tickets.
G’Day all. I’ve been entertaining an old friend and the craic’s been high but I see youse guy’s been having some craic of your own. Hiya Walt, can I help?
Pointman
Good idea Walt then you can secretly log what sites they access and blackmail them.
Walt I can get to your site fine and outsourcing your security if your a military is a really really really stupid idea you can bet the Indian government now knows everything it can.
The Israeli’s already will as will the Chinese. You can buy somebody from India all it takes is 20,000 dollars and they will give you what you need to know. It happened to a famous financial institution that outsourced it’s computer operations big name as well.
Hi Everyone,
Can I beg your indulgence by posting here a copy of my “stuff” from JD’s blog as it will probably disappear……………
Extricate
Today 10:38 AM
Sorry if this has been done, but I’ve just found a recent article by Pachauri on the BBC. The man is a lunatic and liar!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8740049.stm
…………………………………………………..
Black Swan
Thanks for the link Extricate, most enlightening…….
Pachauri says… citing the UN’s original commission in establishing the IPCC –
“provide internationally co-ordinated scientific assessments of the magnitude, timing and potential environmental and socio-economic impact of climate change and realistic response strategies”
Swan says…. I see nothing there that provides for “CAUSE” of climate change. Assessment,Impact & Response do NOT include inventing or attributing any Cause and creating the Man Made Myth.
Pachauri says… “Notwithstanding my observation that the IPCC has always been charged with delivering more than climate science expertise alone,
The wording of this resolution is important”.
Swan says….”Wording” is indeed important! Your “observations” are the opinions of a voluntary (as you anxiously reassure us) economist/railroad engineer NOT within the purview of the UN commission you quote above.
Pachauri says…. “The IPCC and the scientific community at large should welcome the development of a vigorous debate on the science of climate change (so long as the level of that debate does not descend to personal abuse, as it has done at times)”.
Swan says…”Vigorous debate” means including the work of very eminent Scientists who cite the Sun and the Oceans as drivers of Climate Change, NOT denigrating them as “in the pay of Big Oil” or “Flat-earthers” who practice “VooDoo Science”.
Condemned from your own mouth as a Liar & Hypocrite.
Footnote: Have you readily disclosed your own vested interests in Oil, Carbon Trading and Asset-stripping of your Companies’ acquisitions to relocate them in India?
………………………………………………….
So there you go folks, wonder how long it’ll last on the DT.
Pointman says:
June 25, 2010 at 10:58 am
Hello, Pointman. I touched base with my ISP’s CEO and chief bottlewasher (he and is wife used to run the best Oldtown Montreal blues bar on the waterfront, too) and he asked me if I ever considered engaging the site and registration lockup/lockout software I was paying for along with the bandwidth :>p
Ever’thang’s cool now, dude. That not so classical gas “performance” was, I take it, not so cool, or otherwise the poster would have enabled it to be embedded LOL!
Err, what’s craic?
Walt a craic is what shows exposed above a workers jeans and underwear. We use the word crack as in having a good crack with someone or joking around good time.
Walt….. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craic
http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Global_warming
This explains everything.
Uncyclopedia! The source for everything I ever needed to know about everything. Er, I think…..
I downloaded the log tarball for my website to sort out who went into the thing, and how they got my password(s). Grrrrrr.
Thanks for the explanation for the term craic. Thought it was another acronym LOL!
The ONLY film about the Viet Nam war which ought to be allowed to be viewed again, ever, is bloody awful (literally) “Tropic Thunder.” Just saw that this week. Only someone who served then could appreciate how thoroughly whoever wrote the script was completely fed up with popular misconceptions, cliches, and just the attitude of those who made LOTS OF MONEY off other people’s misery making stoopid movies and lying books about that conflict. Even the tiny bits in the background directly addressed what a worthless pile of garbage has been written to warp public perceptions to hide the guilty. Nick Nolte completely destroyed both BS machine Tim O’Brien (NFR–no effing relation) and Dame Olive Stoner, OBS.
The only real (and deliberately mean, a la Roman Polanski’s nose knife in “Chinatown”) part of “Tropic Thunder” which I really, really liked was the cinema verite-obsessed director stepping on the land mine with a “pop” and soccerball globs of body parts raining in a flower-shaped geometric arc away from the near smokeless explosion, then the silence afterwards. I was the only one in the room who laughed. Whoever did the film was a stickler for details both real and satirically perfectly wrong. That scene had the same impact as someone dropping dead at a Xmas panto, which was the idea, a kind of “How do you like it?” moment.
Les Grossman is my candidate for the Republican Presidential race in 2012. That’s leadership in action! (Les is about half the onsite contract bosses I have had in the past until I went to work freelance instead of being pimped out through agencies). I don’t care if Tom Cruise believes in flying saucers. I know people who are crazy enough to believe in democracy. Tom should have stuck with stoopid films. Same with John Travolta. Stoopid they can do perfectly. They’ve had lots of practice, and stoopid fills a real human need.
REALLY way off topic, I’ve sorted out two things: why Kablama hates England but takes it out on BP, and why older men attract younger women. King Ka-Moron the Last is paying down the debts or at least making a start towards doing so, which is so typically English (copping that Trench Poet WW I officer attitude like it was heroic to honour one’s debts or something after 30 years of the governmental equivalent of skipdebt repo man dodging) while the thought of a balanced US budget this century is as possible as Yetis in Central Park, and younger women like older guys because as your face wrinkles with age your head more and more resembles a scrotum with eyes.
Walt fortunately for me I’m blessed with genes that makes me look ten years younger but oddly enough Grey hair early try starting to go Grey at 16, so no younger women for me until I’m 90.
Portrayal of wars in movies by the USA galls me, Saving Ryans privates was bad because it made no mention of Canadien and British forces, Braveheart was so inaccurate it made me hate William Wallace whom until that time I had respected as a great commander of men.
However I hate any war movie made by British directors after 1968 they always make us look like the bad guy and are way too depressing as they always focus on the bad and never the good.
One good war movie was Gallipoli but it again it made it a pure Anzac affair they fought hard and had bad leadership but they were not the only ones there my aunts father in law fought there as part of the British contingent and he got left behind with a buddy and he had to walk home God only knows how they managed that one in a war zone he didn’t talk much about it.
I suppose you should never glorify war in any movie as it never shows the real carnage and the horrible impact it has on civilians. My own wife as you know saw things at a very young age no child should witness.
Oddly enough wars can do strange things like show you the enemy is just like you in so many ways, my dad used to trade with the German POW’s in the local camp, they would trade anything for extra luxuries like cigarettes he even got himself a nice SS dagger and helmet which my granddad threw away as he would allow that nazi rubbish in the house. A bad move those things are worth a fortune today for war buffs. My dad said the older guys were ok and nice people for the most part but he said the Hitler Jungen were evil bastards. The old guys would work on farms under guard some even stayed after the war as they liked the people and countryside.
I suppose it means that most people do not really want to fight wars and want a peaceful life but if you have evil leaders leading you very bad things happened. A lot of ardent Nazi’s and death camp guards never faced the noose. At least Churchill dealt
with some of them he had teams trawl the POW camps in Europe and when they tracked one of them down they were taken away and shot for war crimes executioner style as he knew they would walk otherwise.
Anyhow I was being depressing above so some more humour for Old Toad…
http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Waterloo
I simply cannot believe a yank with mick blood had to ask what the Craic was….from a limey with mick blood.
Mornin’ Walt!
Not everybody hates the west in Iran, us Brits/Americans should be more aware of the threat from Paki/Indian ‘back to the dark ages’ regressionists.
Obarmy is anti Brit in a visceral way and it goes back to his roots, the Kikuyu rising was a very dirty little war and some Kenyans still loathe the Colonials in a way like the Republican Irish hated the Black and Tans and Stormont government, it won’t go away, he was properly coached and his thin veneer of ‘civilisation’ does not extend to mitigation of his deep hatred of his ancestral oppressors, his ‘limbic’ side like in us all cannot be denied, he fucking hates us.
@Blackswan,
Brilliant stuff Swanny, it needs to be said Pachauri is as bent as a ellipse and he knows that we know, arguing with such a snake is ultimately a futile exercise, he is a consummate liar (aren’t they all?) and a player, all the world is his oyster, when Bush installed him, bet he couldn’t believe his fucking luck, what is needed, is the whole sorry mess of the mendacious, devious bunch of lying snake oil salesmen some have named the UN IPCC panel needs total disbandment or shooting, preferably the latter.
Ed.
Crownarmourer:
“Good idea Walt then you can secretly log what sites they access and blackmail them.”
Great idea. Only thing is, people are proud of their little vagaries. If you tried to blackmail someone today who you had caught and taken pictures of them in Rudd positions with various assorted barnyard animals, he or she would order up prints for hanging over the living room sofa.
While I am not noted for being especially sympathetic with repentant loan liars and mournful caught-out credit kiters, it is very brave of Cameron and of Germany to take a pro-savings and bill-paying stance in the middle of a massive depression which would be worse than the last one but for government-supported EZ credit for all. Hope Cameron shakes up the get-together in Toronto the Good, which normally is a nice place to visit this time of year, and now downtown’s in a police-induced state of terror.
Thank goodness for computer-generated theoretical actuarial and probabilistic tables that make derivatives trading and credit default swaps work, too. It would have been the Great March of 1926 all over again 3 years ago but for those dodgy dice-tosses backed by the insurance companies’ margin coverage.
I think the state of the USA economy is a bit overstated from a disaster standpoint, too. Our percentage of GDP of debt exposure is much less than anyone thought it would be, the Feds are making serious money on the bailout loans, and incoming still matches outgoing as well as it ever did. It’s that a generation is retiring so they are closing or selling off their enterprises, and add to that a lot of young people made stupid choices from a career training standpoint. We’ve a shortage of manufacturing and energy engineers now LOL! I’m serious. Everyone was pitching computers left and right for decades and now that’s a pink cloud in the sky. There aren’t half the needs for IT people as there is for technicians and dogsbodies in the entertainment media.
We went through something similar in the early 1980’s, and no one took into account the retirement aspect then, either. It definitely is not as bad as it was in the Carter nor early Reagan years, though. Obama is really going to get bit on the arse by the natives who will be really restless when they get the bill for both the carbon related plant modifications and payouts to the Fed’s as reflected in their utility bills then plus the bill for the medical programme.
Edward craic comes the English crack as in having a good crack, it is a northern English term, it was was adopted by the Irish in the last 60 years.
Edward. says:
June 25, 2010 at 4:58 pm
Mornin’, Ed. I never thought of myself as especially Irish at all until I was around 12 or 13 or so, and had it pounded into me by the other kids. I’m a bit of a mutant mick, Anglican one side, Jewish the other. You don’t wanna know LOL! Quadruples the level of ethnic strife in my life. There should be a country called Ethniclashistan where I can vent. Either that or there should be a Global Ethnic Hatred Festival on the order of Glastonbury on a BYOB (bring your own bombs) basis. The upside is when Purim and St. Patrick’s Day fall on the same day, NYC is a great place to be.
The only way out of the maze is through particularizing one’s enmities. When one does, they disappear. All one has to do is ask, “Well, who specifically is oppressing me?” Nine times out of ten it’s one’s own delusions of persecutions, so it’s the idiot in the mirror holding one back. I don’t doubt that is Kablamma’s major issue. It never crosses a successful kind-of-an-African-but-not-quite’s mind to ask themselves who created the context for that success, either. The other bit is when you have one foot on either side of a border, the tendency is for others with the gumption to sort out what’s what to build the fence right through your midsection.
I think Obama hates himself more than anyone else, all the time. That hatred is his set of spiked spurs digging into the horses he rides to achievement. It is not hard for enlightened self-criticism to morph into childhood’s headbanging of others to preserve one’s own turf dominance LOL! English are a cheap shot for all immigrants as they usually do not fight back instantly with fully inappropriate but necessary maximum force as do other ethnic groups which shall forever go unnamed; they ought to, but they tend to be too nice about things until they get out of hand irreversibly, then it is a long day to set things right again.
If I ever get my hands on whoever dreamed up “courageous restraint,” he had better have one in his holster and one in his hand, fully loaded. What an idiotic concept. Sort of like “hearts and minds.” Gen. McChrystal was right, but he should have known better than to say it. Now he’ll see the changes he wanted executed by another man and get no credit for it.
Walt, I think we must be related. Begorrah, Oy Vey! Oz
crownarmourer says:
June 25, 2010 at 5:13 pm
My Irish cousins wouldn’t ‘have’ that crown, some say it is a scottish word brought into Ireland too, albeit a little earlier.
Ed.
Thanks Walt,
Not much I could add to that, your have an admirable and peculiar acuity, childhood experience has sometimes a profound effect, you either fight back figuratively and physically or it leaves a mark and guides/haunts you in later life.
One thing I do know, is you leave me standing.
regards, Ed.
Walt the problem is our glorious leaders looking to make a dime, in IT they have flooded the field with cheap labour from India to keep costs down. We are in the middle of a nasty recession and lots of local talent can not find jobs because of this. The result nobody is studying IT as it no longer pays. Long term result the USA becomes owned by India. Same goes for engineering etc because some greedy CEO does not give a damn about the long term consequences as long as it make him richer in the short term.
I’m not against immigrants from India but when it is on the scale of 119,000 per month it’s social engineering.
This needs to stop and you can blame Bush and Clinton for this.
As for the 1980’s I remember it well a brutal time for jobs thanks to the Unions and greedy guys at the top.
crownarmourer says:
June 25, 2010 at 5:30 pm
Didn’t know the influx was that big in USA, IT is always worth studying it is a fast moving innovatory subject, nothing stands still, anybody can invent a new app/software/5th/6th generation, it is always worth studying.
Worrisome indeed!
Thanks crown, Ed.
Tranaction Mag’ seems to be working OK, all links are OK.
Ed.
Crown armourer (4.17) I’ll make sure ‘Brown Bess’ sees this. Very,very funny !
OT, do you have Brown Bess’s contact details? If so, tell her a very warm welcome awaits her down here – Oz
Another JD/DT post I’ve brought to Oz’s “Safe-House”.
“Hi Mack,
You ask “Are there enough genuine scientists left in the system to sort out the mess?”
Yes and NO.
Yes……there ARE more than enough scientists to sort out the mess.
No……they aren’t “in the system”.
The Man Made Global Warming gravy train has been shunted on-track for decades. None of this happened recently. It’s been in-the-making for as long as it has taken to put key players in place in all the “top jobs”, who are the recipients of MILLIONS in taxpayer grants alone, and who have delivered “the goods” as required.
From the top jobs, dissenting scientific opinion has been sidelined, denied review, denied publishing. Many have outright lost their jobs for being too outspoken.
Hundreds, if not thousands of scientists of integrity can certainly expose the Co2 Myth AND its political impetus, but nobody would pay them/fund grants or award them the top jobs they so richly deserve.
At the end of the day, while these men and women have invested many years in achieving their degrees and expertise, they have families to care for and mortgages to pay.
It’s up to “we the people”, you know Mack, we riff-raff who vote and pay taxes who will have to stand on our hind legs and refuse to be led by the nose into the biggest Fraud in history by a cabal of Hucksters with no Moral Compass whatsoever.
Ozboy, according to Chambers -“brown Bess, the old British flintlock musket – from the brown walnut stock”. I expect he’ll get here eventually but he’s worried about losing his avatar, over on JD’s blog, which has now moved on to some active ‘Moonbat baiting’. Some serious animosity there, particularly since GM said that debating with JD was like ‘shooting rats in a bucket’!
Apologies, in advance, to Old Toad.
I have no wish to disrespect your feelings, but being a forthright sort of swan, I must speak my mind.
I’ve been lurking about from time to time on JD’s blog and only comment when I have something to say. His last piece about the CRU Whitewash and Lord Persil had some great posts and links to which I responded.
However……………..
He has just posted a new blog about….who else?…..Moonbat…..again!
This incessant puerile crap is just too ridiculous, especially since the issue at hand is the Sunday Times retraction on Amazongate……..again.
James’ disgusting immature and juvenile means of expressing himself, does him no credit at all. His crass and banal attempts at his concept of humour, diminish him as a journalist and insult my intelligence as a reader.
I’m very disappointed as I actually thought he’s been making an effort lately to “lift his game” a little, and am happy to give credit where it’s due.
However………if I ever post on that blog again it will be because he has written something that is worth a nano-second of my time, and the exposure the DT blogosphere offers for relevant comment on AGW, as I did today.
Had my son (er, cygnet) ever spoken around me in those terms, I’d have kicked his arse round his neck for a collar (figuratively of course). Why would I not object when being addressed in those terms by an immature, arrogant prat when I have done him the courtesy of reading what he has to say?
Sorry Toad, but that’s what I think.
@Edward June 25, 2010 at 9:00 am
“You must then publish your data and analysis …”
I have 25 or so seconds invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it? 🙂
aurelian 25JUN10@1300BST
OT but a world cup summary…… the French surrendered, the Americans arrived late and the English are left to fight the Germans………………….. sound familiar? and as usual the Italians jogged on
Blackswan …. the way i see it is he was good but has ended up being a parody of a spoilt public school prick no better (or worse) than Monbiot imo these guys have never lived in the real world and are to a large degree whats gone wrong with the world i.e. theorists run everything not practical people, there are people on this blog who have actually worked for a living and know stuff Crown, Walt, Noidea, Oz, RR, Orkney etc and probably even Izal (orwhatever) they actually come up with solutions and rationale not petty point scoring. Personally as far as i can see that guy left his loyal supporters out to dry but what do you expect? Remember this is the guy who despite everything they stand for encouraged his “supporters to vote Tory and for call me dave. I challenged him on this at the time and was put down as a “troll” two peas from a pod dellingpole & Monbiot!~
Blackswan – I agree wholeheartedly…….it’s depressing to see JD resorting to this infantile approach when there are so many other good stories coming out of the woodwork daily………the Spanish Bomb story springs to mind:
Green Energy Company Threatens Economics Professor … with Package of Dismantled Bomb Parts
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/24/green-energy-company-threatens-economics-professor-%E2%80%A6-with-package-of-dismantled-bomb-parts/
Depressed,
OL
OL don’t be depressed fellah you live in one of the most beautiful parts of the world! This strange old world which i find brilliant but am forever being told is going to end blah blah blah…. you have the truth and right on your side and will prevail these alarmists are but ships that pass in the night the truth will out
Blackswan Tasmania June 25, 2010 at 10:00 pm
Hi Swanny.
Yes I agree.
JD obviously couldn’t resist as he’d added a footnote to his previous blog telling everyone that something was up with Monbiot but blew it by saying that he had much more important and pressing issues to attend to than engage in handbags at dawn…then the very next day we have this!
Still, I kind of sympathize. I can just picture him pacing up and down last night, gnashing his teeth with hatred, intermittently bashing keys over a couple of glasses of the old vino…a reaction that Monbiot (in part at least) was no doubt attempting to instil and boy did he get it!
Interesting though; Monbiot’s articles seem ever more focused on pathetically weak ‘debunking debunks’ and personal attacks. I can’t remember when he last published something to do with what they once termed ‘the science’.
It really does seem that there is absolutely nothing left for them. Every angle of this muck cart has been roundly blown out the water, they know it and are just ever more desperate, shrill and ridiculous in their laughable attempts to fix the unfixable.
Reckon JD should have been content with this.
Have a splendid weekend fella.
Scud
Swan,Endis,Orkney – Have you ever been in a live debate with Monbiot ? James has tried to take him seriously in the past and regretted it. Moonbat is a very nasty piece of work. A marine biologist who now only does ‘ad homs’, he calls out his army of catamites to echo whatever he enunciates on ‘cif’. Monbiot takes himself very seriously and that is his biggest weakness.
On DT blogs, those posted by JD get 10 times the response of any other blogger, such that some of the others like Tom Chivers & Will Heaven have tried to ‘piggyback’ him.
His style has changed little over time, but it was obvious that those who still support him expected a robust response to Monbiot’s triumphalism. He has responded in the way he does best, Richard North at ‘EUreferendum’ has replied in an equally robust manner.
Can I remind you once again that over there is the ‘front line’ and that common enemy is the Big-oil fed ‘Warmist’ camp.
Politically he is in total sympathy with the aims of UKIP, suggests we vote Tory to get rid of Brown and then votes for Kate Hoey, one of the very few Labour MP’s with a mind of her own. This may sound inconsistent but when you consider what we’ve ended up with, a government that NOBODY voted for, you begin to wonder.
@Walt – Jesus, I just love your ‘Ethniclashistan’. A new word is born!
Pointman
aurelian says:
June 25, 2010 at 10:00 pm
If you don’t subject your work to peer review, then you are just like the rest of them!
Sigh……:>)))))))))))))))
@theendisnighnot says:
June 25, 2010 at 10:03 pm
Like that! Yes sir, art of football reflecting history………or not, still it’s a different slant……………….. it is now time to vanquish and inter, bitter memories of 70, 90, 96 and defeat the Hun…………………….. I shall have to remain incommunicado (could be a two way thing) with some rather nice and loyal German friends for a while (sheepish grin).
Ed.
orkneylad 10.42pm
I am really only depressed by adverse happenings involving those I respect, love and care about.
When those for whom I have NO respect behave badly, it simply puts my blood pressure and pissed-off-metre somewhere on the Richter Scale. There’s nothing like a good old shot of adrenalin from a hissy-fit to chase away the blues.
I read Crown’s pointer to that bomb story with interest. Why isn’t that a major story around the world, in six-inch banner headlines? As far as I’m concerned, anyone who denigrates truth-seeking “sceptics” as tin hat conspiracy looneys, is PART of this AGW cover-up and conspiracy to rob us blind.
And especially to be so dismissive of bombs in Spain of all places. It’s a wonder their railways aren’t blown up on a regular basis with that level of response.
Orkneylad, can I offer you this? While it’s confronting when people you believe in let you down, the ONLY thing you can ever control, in any situation, is how YOU react to it. I reckon this whole AGW scam is so far out of control, so entrenched, has become such an intrinsic part of every govt’s budgetary policy, that whether or not they believe the “science”, is immaterial. It just “is”. It’s been engineered that way.
That doesn’t mean I’ll acquiesce without giving “them” a run for their money, but I’ll be buggered if I let these cringing sons of bitches affect who I am.
Chin up orkney, we’re all in this fight together.
Scud 1. I read your post after I’d typed mine. I think you’ve read the situation perfectly. People forget that it is not so long ago that every Moonbat utterance was taken as gospel, so it is no wonder that all those who crawl out from under stones to question him are subject to such vilification. Having been compared to ‘rat in a bucket’ JD should be excused for going over the top, occasionally.
Edward. says:
June 25, 2010 at 5:48 pm
Thanks, Edward.
People have such short memories of historical reality. Back in the 1930’s and 1940’s, Irish, Italians and “Israelites” as they were politely called then, were lumped together as one ethnic group in the eyes of the media and the popular culture of the day as “colourful ethnics,” i.e., useful sources of cheap labour you didn’t let out of your site if you knew what was good for you, to use the syntax of the day. Blacks and immigrants don’t “own” racism, they weren’t even on the map in the 1940’s in the States, as it was more likely for a black teenager to have a job than a white one owing to the mutual support and insularity of the Southern black community of that era which the “civil rights movement” that the Feds enforced entirely destroyed. The first labour union in the USA to achieve legal recognition was the Negro Railway Porters’ Union in 1934 or so, immediately after the passage of the National Labour Relations Act.
The media have no conception of the extent to which a perfectly functional culture was thrown away and systematically dismantled, often by physical force, by the Federal government, in the destruction of urban black communities in the years from 1965 through 1985 or so. The paradigm they present of those days in official histories is completely false. Syracuse had two economically self-sufficient communities of blacks, even to the extent of having their own factories, machine shops, garment districts and entertainment districts, which cross-fertilised cultural and business life here up until the tail end of the Reagan years.
Crownarmourer, the entire point of the undermining of the IT industry by introduction of foreign labour was to kick the rates down for skilled help. It was the brutality of the tossing away of the commitment to community and our nation as a nation as our first loyalty by our own aristocracy in favour of foreign interlopers who bribed their way and dope-dealt their way into the American and British economies that I found so revolting, and still do. India is through where most of the heroin of Afghanistan is making it into the West, in small packages mailed from there to here.
If there are ever treason trials here it will be a banner year for the rope manufacturing industry. The only thing which saves the West is we make money faster than the crooked cultures offshore can steal it. The second thing which saves us is that India and China business activities and genuine (non-subsidised) growth, if they are not destroyed by their own shakedown artists in their governments, are undermined by the genuine deep-seated laziness of their respective cultures. If this seems a head-scratcher to you, wait a generation or two and watch how their kids transform as did our generations. The Bureau of Labour Statistics’ foreign competition worker productivity indeces section tells it all, but you can see it in action in the quality of the merchandise built. QC/QA failure in production standards enforcement is entirely but one measure of exactly how worthless and morally bankrupt a civilization is.
Makes you wonder to what extent the derivatives related aspects of the economic turndown can be traced to Indian IT “expertise.” You have to wonder why high-tech responsibilities are being delegated to people who don’t “get” sewage and water treatment when we “evil” Westerners fought our own National Guard to get legislation passed to make legal the floating of municipal bonds to pay for construction of clean water and sewage systems installation for our urban areas as far back as the 1840’s (as in Charles Dickens’ day). Parnelli Nelson my biz mentor took a look at investing in one of these India-based IT slave galleys and his research into that national industry’s productivity was a source of great levity to our circle for quite some time.
All totalitarian civilizations are the same: whoever has to work for a living loses, whereas democracies it is leadership by example which sets the tone for the conduct of social interaction. They repeat the word “om” to cover the sound of their snoring LOL!
I’ve just bopped over to read the latest DT blog and I have to agree, it’s juvenile. All a bit disappointing but oh well …
Pointman
Blackswan – Yes I’m leting it affect me a bit too much today……time to wak away, head down to the gym & beat the punchbag for a bit instead.
best,
OL
Walt at 11.57pm.
Walt you are so right on all points.
Oh yeah BTW, Gen. McChrystal is Army and not a diplomat but he was right.
I second pointy on Ethniclashistan, was going to say so before, great new word!
Ed.
Old Toad & Scud,
No sir, I’ve never been in a debate with Monbiot.
But I’ve been dealing with Monbiots in my corner of the world for a very long time.
I’ve had many varied means of earning a living over the years and the standards of professionalism I set for myself and my work ethic ensured that I maintained my integrity and self respect. And I have never needed “a few glasses of vino” to do my job.
I didn’t suggest Monbiot shouldn’t be challenged or refuted. It is the TERMS in which it is done continually that I find objectionable and puerile. I’m sure James’ education is such that he has a broad vocabulary with which to express himself.
James claims Monbiot “dedicates an entire column of a newspaper to accusing you of being wrong”. In a lengthy piece, Monbiot mentions James ONCE, reserving the rest of his comment for Booker and North and the newspaper in question. I saw no reference to “rats in buckets”. The subject was about who said what to whom about the Amazon. The ISSUE to be argued is that Monbiot’s subject is irrelevant, the ISSUE to be argued is that Co2 is NOT a pollutant causing Climate Change. Perhaps James could be persuaded to put his ego in his back pocket.
I am no apologist for the likes of Monbiot, nor am I willing to support someone whose behaviour has done him little credit.
orkneylad 12.55am
Way to go OL. ;>)
Adrenalin and endorphins – it’s all good.
Orkney, just to give you some motivation with the punchbag, the last time Germany failed to reach the last eight was in 1938. Bastards.
Pointman
Pointman, Orkney,Swan et al, I was going to suggest you have a glance at the Josh cartoon on Bishop Hill’s Blog, but as it’s now found its way on to JD’s blog you need look no further. Suffice it to say that not everyone finds James’s ‘sense of humour’ inappropriate , puerile possibly, but not necessarily inappropriate. This is after all a blog, not a pompous leader article like that by Geoffrey Lean, in to-day’s DT. It’s a very successful blog, largely because it’s often irreverent and funny, so lighten up a little !
The ‘rats’ bit refers to a ‘head to head’ they had in London, a gentlemanly debate with no obvious winner, but which GM later described as being as easy as ‘shooting rats in a bucket’.George would hate have having to mention such a puny adversary at all, and if he mentioned him once it would be through gritted teeth .
“I’ll be buggered if I let these cringing sons of bitches affect who I am.”
Me three, and four, and five. If I want my behaviour modified in a manner which is not in my best interests, I will go to my relatives for the job to be done up right. They are the past masters of the fine art of effing Walt up. How about yours? That’s what they’re for LOL!
Though I have to admit to having given as good as I got, it’s always been a case of tiny events like “There’s a little spot on your shirt” escalating into a three-day riot requiring the intercession of the armed forces, which is where this idiotic war over how the air behaves is going to lead and which is why this pointless inevitability is so maddening. It’s all happening out of boredom. Really, you can blame the forthcoming war on the failure of the quality of the entertainment business’s current products more so than on anything to do with economics. Boredom is the cause of this war.
Speaking of which, James May did come out today with a very good explanation as to why I haven’t had a TV since 1986, which is probably the main reason I am not married too (I don’t handle being blindsided on a stealth basis and my desires baldly manipulated for fun and gain as a matter of daily routine very well). He called the television “the haunted fish tank.” At the end of the DVD for “The Meaning of Life” by Jean-Luc Godard there is a 15-minute fixed camera footage bit of a fish tank with extempore dialogue overlaid by Eric Idle, and I actually sat through it and thought, “This is TV.”
Fireplaces served the same function as fishbowls before TV. It is no longer pleasant for me to experience mysterious unknown events unfolding before my eyes with no input required from me whatsoever except to osmose what is presented as if it were a ministration from Above by Tom Cruise’s aliens or some such bumpf.
That is what is so nauseating about the Delirium Tremens now. It wishes to preserve its top-down stance with no corresponding genuine authority or quality of output to earn that status. You ought to take a look at the new format for the Times of London, which has reverted to a proper online newspaper format with zero typo’s, award-winning layouts, the entire red carpet one used to get from the qualities. Appears to be a pay-into venue, which is fine, I think, if you are getting a fair bang for the pound.
Blackswan, Pointy and Ed: thanks. The word “Ethniclashistan” I robbed from http://www.theonion.com of 1998, a Madison, Wisconsin, university newspaper which went Hollywood as did the National Lampoon, which was at one time the Harvard Lampoon, the latter of which was really funny and fresh too at one time, not just another tool for selling deodorants and Jeeps and tampons and alcopop and lime-flavoured beer to minors aching to become adults.
@Walt. A good friend of mine, who shares my love of sitting outside watching a bonfire, once referred to them as ‘wilderness TV’.
Pointman
Old Toad
I wouldn’t say that James’ current article on Monbiot shows either James or skeptics to his/our best advantage. It also doesn’t necessarily come across as humor, especially to those who haven’t followed the James-Monbiot feud blow by blow. I don’t know that all the readers particularly care about that feud.
I haven’t always understood James’ take on tone. He has accomplished something both for himself and skeptics. I think he should both be proud of that and guard it very carefully. A little bit of low tone humor/acrimony is effective. I don’t think that a whole article of it is. To many, it is just off-putting.
msher well as people have pointed out he has ignored some bigger stories such as the Spanish bomb threat from a windfarm energy company to an economics professor.
However JD and Moonbat are on a personal vendetta and it has gone beyond AGW it has gotten personal, this is an easy trap to fall into and it is a trap.
Ah. Here you all are. I’ve just remembered my logon. It was brownbess without a gap. Doh! So you’re all laying into James. You’re probably all getting him wrong. His journalism has always been personal and honest and if he’s pissed off he shows it in his writing. It’s one of the reasons his blogs are so popular – he’s very un-journalisty.
Now I’m biassed, but I like it. Also remember he’s urged by many to fight back when Moonbat has a go, so he’s damned if he don’t and damned if he do. Anyway… it’s Friday evening and I’m going for a pint of Ale at the Alma. Pip pip.
I have a deep loathing for Moonbat, it is his know it all pomposity</i. and his idea that, he should be obeyed, a sense of entitlement I suppose, he should fuck off back to frog land from whence his sad arsed kin came, vive la Republic! – he is of French Aristocratic stock, he more should have a care about antithetical viewpoints of view but hey…………. once a Aristo’ always one EH??
But Delingpole should be careful, did Swanny previously aver, “two peas in a pod”?
Ed.
Arggghh!
Html is not correct sos OZ!!!!
Msher, Crown et al. Suddenly you don’t like the combative tone, should be more dignified etc. OK he’s like a well trained terrier (or Great Dane -if you prefer Msher)who suddenly sees a rat, slips his lead and is away. He comes back with it between his teeth and you all say “bad dog”. I would say “he needs the exercise”.
OK so no post yet on the ‘bomb in the post thing’ . I think I’ve said that any journalist needs to check any story from every angle, and then cross-check it again. If one piece of the jig-saw doesn’t quite fit (and you even smell a rat) it sometimes pays to let someone else in the MSM go first.
I’m only guessing, he may be on to it now.
brownbess
“So you’re all laying into James. “
To the extent disapproval is being expressed, remember that it is being expressed by people who want James to succeed, not people who hope for him to crash and burn. One of the prices of success in being a spokesperson for a position is that….you become a spokesperson for the position.
orkneylad: June 25, 2010 at 10:42 pm
Don’t get depressed.
The story looks highly dubious.
The “Spanish media” link at pajamasmedia was only to a magazine that Calzada has written for. Many of the commentators there doubted there was any truth in it.
Companies sending disassembled bombs to their detractors would certainly be headline news in Spain – there are no MSM links I can find.
However, according to this, Thermotechnic proprietor, Pedro Gil denies any link to the “package”:
http://www.meneame.net/story/propietario-thermo…
A false flag op. by a disgruntled Thermotechnic customer or rival, perhaps….
brownbess and old toad he is of course entitled to say what he will on his own blog as a blog is not making page one of the DT and rarely the comments section so yes more latitude can be given as to what you say, however it is still a trap to get into a name calling exercise as the libtards will use it to say you are childish and therefore everything you say is wrong, it is besides the point they started it as to them it is responsible mature commentary never infantile in their minds.
They are hypocrites to a person but they are evil weasels who dislike discussion or rational argument and love to use special techniques so any discussion gets closed down quickly. Seen it in action personally and all you want to do is smack em one between the eyes.
Old Toad
” Suddenly you don’t like the combative tone”
On behalf of Great Danes: Grrr, grrr. (I think that is dog-ese.)
I don’t think anyone has ever understood my repeated criticism of tone over the last few months. I have nothing at all against combat – it’s just that when it’s on a standard-bearer blog I want it to be on substance, to make our side of the combat look smart and informed. My objections are when it’s unrelated to substance, when it becomes about (assumed) personal attributes – then it is uninformative and doesn’t show off the combatant as knowledgeable and capable of delivering knock-outs on the substance. I am sure that is is possible to rake Monbiot over the coals on idiocies in the substance of what he says.
To repeat what I said in my last post, I am someone who wants James to continue to succeed, not someone who wishes him to crash and burn.
I post stuff on JDs site but it ain’t the same.
I spend time at the Bish’s site, Mr North’s site, Anthony’s site and Jeff id’s site, and more than a few others, I also like it here.
Oz is polite, a good host and I still have a conversation which is enervating, Msher avers the big site is important and she is right, there is still a taste in the mouth tho’.
I still mean to visit rastech but haven’t got there yet.
Ed.
crownarmourer says:
June 26, 2010 at 3:16 am
Good stuff crown.
Ed.
brownbess and old toad the reason we are expressing our thoughts here and not on the DT blog is that it would not be correct for us to do so there. We do not wish to criticize JD directly and make it look as if we agree with moonbat. Actually I’m not criticizing it just an observation to do with what he will by taking it on board or saying phooey pish and tosh load of old cobblers.
At the moment I can not add anything constructive to the DT blog by JD so I’m lurking.
Then again it’s never stopped me before.
scousebilly:
Some interesting responses at PJM:
——————-
Ed Darrell
Somebody’s passing a hoax. Here’s the part of the story from Expansion not printed here, translated using Google’s translator:
[quote]Digital Freedom has been able to talk to Pedro Gil, president of Termotechnic, who has denied any connection with the shipment received by Gabriel Calzada, President of the Instituto Juan de Mariana. In his own words, “this has to be a mistake.”
The employer Navarre has ensured that the only thing that had been sent to Calzada was a report on renewable energy. The problem is that what was the writer received from Liberty Digital was a package of spare parts without any explanatory note. When she called the company and asked what had happened, he replied that it was “a response to its report on renewables.”
At that time, Calzada played the event as a threat, something that Gil disputes. Thus, there are two versions for what happened: either there was a simple mistake by the courier company or a change made by someone who wanted to play a dirty trick on Calzada at the expense of this company.
In this sense, the president of the Instituto Juan de Mariana has confirmed he has spoken to Pedro Gil and it has given his word that there is no liability on the part of the company. Gil Calzada has been forwarded to concerned about the inconvenience we may have caused, since he understands the uncertainty that the receiver of the shipment when he saw what was its content.
Gil has repeatedly told ABC News he is “a businessman honored for 59 years” and would never do something like that. Gil has also asked to make clear that there is no relation between what Calzada received what he wanted to send.[/quote]
——————-
MarkTheGreat
1) The guilty party almost always declares their innocence. Such statements alone mean nothing.
2) While it is unlikely that a company would be stupid enough to send such a package under their own label, environmentalists in general aren’t the smartest tools in the shed.
3) It almost certainly was an environmentalist who sent the package, that person was probably associated with the company, since he had access to the package before it was sealed.
4) Lefties, especially those of the environmental persuasion have a long history of attacking those who disagree with them.
5) The other things done to Mr. Calzada are equally dispicable, and none of them are being contested.
—————–
Robert
Send it back, assembled
—————–
Whatever the truth, this is serious shit…….either thermotech are complicit, an employee is, or other activists are in the mix………the story should be a goldmine but no-one’s picking it up and running with it……
move along….nothing to see here…..
James is making a tactical error with the first part of his blog on Monbiot. But I don’t think he was thinking about ‘tactics’ when he wrote it.
I imagine it is difficult not to react.
he likes to entertain
Josh’s cartoon, illustrates well, how it should be done.
There are some pretty hot headed types in the community where THermotechnic is based. I used to live there. This is still ETA country even though Herri Batasuna the political wing) is now officially banned.
You never know it could be some loon with access to the factory in Navarra but I dopn’t think for a moment that it would be boardroom policy.
My concern is that it’s a set-up to give the sceptic media a bad name.
@msher June 26, 2010 at 3:03 am
“… it is being expressed by people who want James to succeed … “
Among whom I count myself.
aurelian 25JUN10@1917BST
crownarmourer, orkneylad
My take on the bomb story – I agree with scousebilly.
It seems unlikely to me that a company actually in business would mail under its own name threats to a critic. I don’t say they wouldn’t make threats, but I think it unlikely they would threaten violence or that they would do so in a way traceable to them. From what was in the story, it seems almost more likely that the accuser rigged the package to get publicity for his plight. (I hate to say that about an effective skeptic.) On the other hand, the accuser is a reputable person and Chris Horner, who wrote the article, is a respected person, with a reputation of his own to protect, so he presumably did some checking. If the accuser is credible that leaves the possibilities that an unauthorized employee of the solar company or someone in the delivery company switched the contents.
————————
aurelian
Last weekend I watched the 2010 Metropolitan Opera video of Simon Boccanegra. It was the first time I have heard the whole opera. I loved it. I think it deserves much more prominence in the opera repertoire. What was really interesting is that Placido Domingo sang the title role – a baritone role. (He sang the tenor role in the opera sometime in the ’90’s.) I had always known he trained as a baritone, but I had never heard him sing as one. I like him better as a baritone. In fact, I loved it, which was a surprise because I don’t love him as a tenor.
CA – From what was in the story, it seems almost more likely that the accuser rigged the package to get publicity for his plight.
If that’s the case, the Professor has destroyed himself…….is that really plausible?
As I understand it, he’s been getting a lot of serious flak since he published the report…..with Spain’s renewables market in total meltdown it wouldn’t surprise me if a disgruntled employee did the dirty, but either way this is a GREAT story……straight down the IngSoc memoryhole it goes in any case….
Best,
OL
[p.s. the heavy bag helped btw]
@msher June 26, 2010 at 4:46 pm
Your mention of Domingo sent me off on a wild hunt through Gramophone magazine, because I was sure I had seen a big feature on him recently. Alas, I seem to have been mistaken. I have been subscribing to this magazine since May 1973, and it almost fills a twelve-foot run of shelving, so I’m not going risk a sprain by researching too far back.
“Simon Boccanegra” is yet another opera I don’t know, but I shall be interested to hear your take on its libretto. Operas we have previously discussed seem to have amusingly prosaic lyrics, and I am already wondering if this one is the exception that proves the rule.
In a doubtless futile attempt to claw back some cultural credibility, might I express a fondness for doomy Scandinavian songs performed by Anne-Sophie von Otter and Bengt Forsberg? Their “Wings in the Night” CD remains an all-time favourite of mine.
aurelian 25JUN10@2018BST
@ Edward. says:
June 25, 2010 at 9:49 am
“At the end of the day the T record is unreliable and any inferences thus extrapolated are consequently of little use….
Worse politicians then decide that they and only they, can save mankind by inaugurating mind numbing and utterly facile remedies in green technology for a threat which doesn’t exist, that is where the problem lies in the final analysis.”
If it were true that the instrumental T record is unreliable in such a way that any inferences are of little use, then it would logicaly follow that it would be of little use in justifying any claim that AGW is a ‘threat which doesn’t exist’.
Perhaps you have other, more reliable, evidence in mind when you claim AGW is nonexistant.
But I dissagree with your primary assertion, that unreliable evidence makes ANY inference derived from it of little use.
Out in messy reality the data we have is frequently unreliable. The ‘trick’ is to find clearly defined limits of doubt and uncertainty…
-grin-
Unless you are working under tightly controled laboratory conditions, or working with the highly simplified systems of engineering technology it is inevitable that the data you can collect will have many causes of unreliability. The way this is dealt with involves a number of stratergies.
One is to look at as many independent methods of measurering the desired metric as possible. It may be possible to measure a consequence of a process more easily and with greater accuracy than it is to measure the change directly.
An example would be that it is easier to measure the expansion of the whole ocean as a result of it absorbing extra energy than it is to measure the temperature of the whole ocean with enough spatial resolution to measure that energy change.
But even if there is only one ‘unreliable’ set of data, we have powerful mathematical tools ( a lot more that just stats) to detect how random and what patterns may lie within the data. Such techniques are weel developed with the translation of unknown languages and cryptography. These enable the degree of internal correlation and varience exist within any set of data, and that does give limits to the uncertaibty of the data, and consequently any inferences drawn from it.
Back on the specifics of the land temperature record, if you view the instrumental record for global temperatures as unreliable, then the proxy reconstructions that indicate there was a Little Ice Age and a MWP are even less reliable…
You can look at records that are unequivical, but local. Agricultural growing seasons, frost-free days and ice-free northern ports provide a long record of clear, unequivical, data on temperature related phenomina. It may be impossible to derive a specific measure in degrees from the number of days a Scandinavian port has been ice-free in the arctic summer, but any trend in conditions can be clearly derived.
Similarly other natural events leave geological evidence, the position of moraines around glaciers records their past positions, and theres can be carbon dated from any organic material in the sediments.
These all provide evidence that either reduces the doubt about the T record, or illuminates where it is unreliable.
There really is too much evidence that for about a century each decade has been warmer than the preceding decade. AGW theory provides a physical process (energy absorption by rising CO2) for a strong expectation this will continue for another century. It may get as warm globaly as it was in the N hemisphere around 8000 years ago. Certainly warmer than it was a thousand years ago.
At longer timecscales, 10,000yrs plus, it is most likely to get colder as it was ~10,000 years ago.
There are a number of reasons why the political response is to the shorter timescale than the longer.
Its rather like the ten year old child that ignores the problem of what he might be eating when he is twenty when faced with malnutrition before he is twelve…
Msher at 3:19:
Ever rational and reasonable and therefore a true friend and indispensable advocate.
Aurelian, likewise.
@Amanda June 26, 2010 at 5:33 am
Steady on, Amanda. I nearly spilt my mug of cocoa. 🙂
aurelian 25JUN10@2044BST
Did we establish that Old Toad is James Delingpole’s dad? It seems that way. One can but guess. I seem to recall James saying once that there are ‘only ten of us’, meaning Delingpoles, left. Well we know it’s not his two children, so now we’re down to eight. And it’s not Brownbess so now we’re down to one of seven.
As for BrownBess (James’s brother) saying that James is always ‘personal and honest’: yes, I believe that’s how friends (and devoted family) would see it. Critics or the non-devoted might substitute at times ‘self-indulgent and lacking in restraint/discretion/probity’. I don’t think, however, that my fellow commenters here are interested in critiquing James’s character as such, rather they are asking whether he is willing and able to calculate his own self-interest accurately. Old Toad and Brownbess seem to think that hitting back when one is insulted or maligned is a fair response based on self-interest, but that may be self-interest narrowly understood; while Msher is always pointing to a self-interest that is beyond selfishness, that is allied to the ultimate goal or cause which is what keeps Msher and the gang so ‘loyal’ in the first place. In other words, it won’t do to say that James is popular and being shoot-from-the-lip is part of it and therefore he should always feel free to shoot his lips, since that is what the ‘fans’ are partially denying. They’re saying: no, we don’t want to watch James doing a Nigel Molesworth impression; we want to see him stand up for the truth of his cause, even if it means putting the cause before his own indignation. In fact, one or two people are suggesting that doing just that — being high-minded for the truth — would be a better salve to his dignity than getting scrappy, stroppy, and bolshie. I myself express no opinion.
msher the article I read was on WUWT so I naturally made and assumption that it came from a valid source, the professor has no motive to lie and he is already under attack via other means according to the article they are trying to take his job away from him.
Who knows the truth yet?
Crownarmourer at 3:16:
Pithy and poetic, and utterly inimitable. (Note that your ID was never hijacked.)
Aurelian at 5:33:
And we wouldn’t want cocoa all over your Hush Puppies, would we? :^)
amanda JD has not got a dad he was created in super secret government research facility which explains his amazing superhuman strength and an IQ of over 400.
How irrelevant is this storm over ‘Amazongate’? Let me count the ways…
First, the response of the rain forest to changing climate has absolutely NOTHING to do with the existence, cause or attribution of any warming.
Second, the response of the rain forest to climate change is of interest irrespective of the cause of that change. It would be just as important to know what might happen it it were a changing solar output that was causing it.
Third, the issue was raised solely as a ‘stick’ to beat the IPCC with, Richard North accused the IPCC of falsely claiming without any scientific justification that drought would adversely affect the rainforest. He first specified that the 40% figure quoted was unsupported by any science.
Fourth, When it was pointed out that there WAS a scientific paper, in Nature, that contained that figure in connection with the fragility of the rain forest he backtracked to an accusation that the IPCC was at fault for wrongly citing the reference rather than making claims based on non-existent science.
Fifth, the ST did not contest the complaint because it was caught bang to rights (guv!) it had been told that the science was there, that at most the IPCC could be accused of shoddy footnote references, but STILL went ahead with an article that strongly implied the IPCC report was scientifically illegitimate.
Sixth….sigh…
THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH AGW SCIENCE.
Finding errors like this in the IPCC report which are unconnected with the existence of warming, the cause of warming or the possible responses to warming is a classic case of framing the issue as a house of cards. The scientific papers of which the IPCC is just a convenient summary form the pieces of a jigsaw. The whole picture does not collapse when one piece is corrected, the total combination of all the data provides the strength of the argument and it is not much affected by journalists finding the occasional error.
Personally I like my eggs fried, so which end to open a boiled egg is an uncountable irrelevance.
( with acknowledgment to EBB and JS)
amanda no one hijacked my id because I’m way too boring unfortunately and no one writes like wut I duz. It’s hard to misplace commas and apostrophes and get your punctuation wrong all the time and improbably long sentences no one else could pull that off for long.
Izen you can fry boiled eggs. A bit tricky but it can be done but you need fresh eggs.
Personally, I like poached. Well I like ’em all ways, actually.
Crown at 6:06: Yep, and there ya go again!
Which begs the questions can you deep fry an egg in its shell.
The internet is a hall of mirrors, and identities are moot. What is said stands or falls on its merits.
A keen eye for specious argument is necessary, and one can only express gratitude for all the training that one talented obfuscator has been giving us here lately. “By their fruits ye shall know them.”
I take JD to be a humourous and sparky columnist. To be outraged by the brazen corruption which now infests public life worldwide is to be connected to a heady fount of inspiration. Better the occasional excess than a daily dullness.
aurelian 25JUN10@2119BST
speaking of eggs the best way to scramble them is with a little milk, salt, pepper and freshly chopped cilantro and a little garlic salt, all cooked in butter served with toasted English Muffins or them all you can eat Bagels. Of course you would need a side order of Bacon because everything goes with bacon.
@crownarmourer June 26, 2010 at 6:06 am
I can’t let such self-deprecation go unchallenged.
You are one of the handful of posters whose remarks I read with pleasure and, incidentally, your blue monster avatar at the Telegraph is an absolute knockout.
And now, once I’ve wiped the cocoa off my Hush Puppies, I intend to retire for the night, to be tortured by thoughts of the bacon mentioned in your latest posting.
aurelian 25JUN10@2134BST
aurelian I enjoy reading your posts as well, heck I enjoy reading everyone whose here posts as well. We all contribute in our different ways and styles. But why are you wearing breaded deepfried cornflour balls on your feet?
aurelian in case your wondering….
http://www.ask.com/bar?q=Show+Recipe+corn+Hush+Puppies&page=1&qsrc=2106&dm=all&ab=2&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.astray.com%2Frecipes%2F%3Fshow%3DHush%2520puppies%2520with%2520corn&sg=cJiLZTuGNS9RlXAoFcaxZeDeLNS5rQF7zJn1lhazKp4%3D&tsp=1277498533645
@crownarmourer June 26, 2010 at 6:38 am
It’s a faith thing. We have to do it every Tuesday.
aurelian on 25JUN10@2145BST
aurelian rofl.
@crownarmourer
Darn it, I had a gag all lined up but you were too smart for me.
(It’s Friday? I feel such a fool.)
And now, goodnight all.
aurelian on 25JUN10@2153BST
izen
You really want to stand up for the IPCC?
” The whole picture does not collapse when one piece is corrected, the total combination of all the data provides the strength of the argument”
Let’s look at more of the total. Below is a quote from Pachauri in an article Black Swan linked to above.
“The last year has been a momentous one indeed for the IPCC and climate science, and not always for the most welcome of reasons. The discovery of a mistake in our AR4 report – even as we prepared to start work on AR5 – led to considerable controversy.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8740049.stm
A mistake? Really?
Pachauri also said: It is also worth noting that most of the IPCC’s more public figures – myself included – are not paid for our work.”
Perhaps technically true, but exactly what is TERI paid, and exactly what does TERI pay him and which of his expenses (like home or mortgage and car and driver, etc.) does it pick up?
Here’s more of Pachauri in the linked article.
“This requires the Panel to ensure a high level of transparency and objectivity in all that it does….
the IPCC bases its work on the most recent relevant sources of literature available worldwide and undertakes a two-stage review process – first by external experts, and then by governments and experts simultaneously. The results of these processes are then made available to anyone who wants to see them.”
Of course when lead authors object to how their work is being used, that doesn’t stop the IPCC from holding press conferences to announce non-existent links between hurricanes/cyclones and global warming. See open letter of Dr. Chris Landsea. http://www.climatechangefacts.info/ClimateChangeDocuments/LandseaResignationLetterFromIPCC.htm
However, never fear, the IPCC is going to bring another august body.
“The AR5 will, therefore, not only build on the remarkable record of the IPCC in the 22 years of its existence but also benefit from the views of the most dominant scientific body in the world, the InterAcademy Council, which can only add further authority to the output of the Panel.”
Here is the InterAcademy Council.
http://www.interacademycouncil.net/
I don’t have time right now to check it out, but I think we can anticipate all of the usual suspects are involved.
I’ll take my eggs as Eggs Florentine or Eggs Benedict, hold the hollandaise. Then we get into the profound philosophical question: Without the hollandaise, is it still Eggs Benedict and Eggs Florentine? Translate that question to: if we take away the multiple IPCC errors, plus the questionable proxy data, plus the hidden decline, plus the questionable temperature measurement stations, do we still have AGW?
Amanda, Msher & co (not to mention ‘Al’-of ‘et al’). ‘Self-indulgent and lacking in restraint/discretion/probity’ , sounds a fair description of Russell Brand who also makes a living out of ruffling feathers. It is these attributes, coupled with James’s innate honesty, that have propelled his blog to the point where he probably gets more replies than all the other DT blogs put together. His intolerance towards his friends (not to mention his enemies) is part of his make-up. He would probably be part of the present cabinet if he wasn’t made that way.
If this particular blog was OTT then Josh’s delicious cartoon made it all worthwhile. Doubtless Richard North & Bishop Hill would concur, surely, as Richard says, the prospect of Monbiot ‘dancing around like Muffin the Mule on angel dust’ deserves a LOL !
He could easily have chucked it in, under the constraints of the new format, but like it or not he’s still there, and getting the responses.
Old Toad the Muffin the Mule joke was very good, however there are many youngsters out there who don’t know who Muffin the Mule was or whether it was some type of sexual offense.
Old Toad:
But you’re just restating what my earlier post calls into question.
James is a swell bloke, don’t get me wrong. But if it’s all about James and his swell personality, not to mention his like-it-or-lump-it attitude, how come so many of us ‘regulars’ are turning into ‘formers’ and hanging out on this and other blogs?
In case you wondered….. http://www.ask.com/bar?q=muffin+the+mule&page=1&qsrc=121&dm=all&ab=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DspQY2FbCUtM&sg=cc18G3oTF8HYKgMRWziUj%2BiqKBsipTbRLBi%2F5ASu3mw%3D&tsp=1277502933259
Also it is a sexual offense as well we live and learn.
Amanda I assume you are referring to the new format putting people off rather than his blogs, I know he has no time to get around to getting on and replying at the moment because of “technical” problems and actually being busy. When he does it would be nice or would be if his comment stayed at the top.
Aurelian sez: Better the occasional excess than a daily dullness.
I like that, I really do.
And anyway, I don’t think James D’s latest thread is anything egregious. I’m sure he’s given more offence with what can only be described as loucheness in the past. But let’s face it, Jim Morrison was not exactly all gentleness and urbanity, and he got to be a rock star, a category that I gather Delingpole admires.
I had it wrong about James as the Elvis of the blogs. He’s the Morrison or the Jagger, rather. At least Jagger is still breathing. But he could be Jagger or Engelbert Humperdinck, I’m right off the blogs with this new format.
Crownarmourer, I hear what you say, but I can assure you that I for one am not waiting around breathlessly for the self-styled God Emperor to give us a wink beneath his Crown of Crapulence. I’m having too much fun over here!
He would probably be part of the present cabinet if he wasn’t made that way.
Keep blowing that horn, Old Toad, there’s a good daddy (or fill-in-the-blank, but my money’s on daddy).
Crown:
Aurelian can’t let your self-depreciation go unchallenged; *I* can’t let your scrambled-egg recipe go unchallenged. I would lose the garlic salt and the cilantro (though I enjoy both in other contexts) and definitely I leave out the milk. Good heavens. That’s a ghastly French idea. Did your ancestors bring it over?
Oh, and one final thought, since this blog has apparently just been me for the past several minutes — and not to go after Gold Toad too much, who is after all just working hard to get his share of roast and apple pie or whatever it is the Delingpoles eat at Christmas — but may I just remind everybody that ‘innate honesty’ is not some precious rare quality that James has an unusual supply of, before which we should all bow down. I’m pretty damn honest myself (as you may have noticed). In fact, raise your hands all you posters who really are shifty and disingenuous on a frequent basis. Right, I thought not.
I believe, what’s more, that honesty and graciousness can go together, and usually should, if one can manage it. Especially in a public context.
Aurelian said,
“your blue monster avatar at the Telegraph is an absolute knockout.”
I concur absolutely, it is a suitable image, your marvellous irreverence is a tonic crown! Please do make lots and lots of remarks, they “make my day” as Clint would say.
Ed.
amanda not just you I have been reading your postings, but alas some of us get the chance to go home now and be back in a few hours.
Ed and Aurelian, I’ll see you and raise you. The blue monster — officially known as the Cookie Monster, note well — is not only perfect for Crown, who is a life-lover if ever there was one, but is also charmingly unpretentious and funny.
By the way, Crown, if you actually do like cookies, and you or your wife like to bake (or even if you don’t like to bake — it’s dead easy), I have a fantastic poppy-seed shortbreadlike jam cookie recipe that you really ought to try. They’re addicting — just one will never do — and they freeze really well for up to three months. What more can you want?
That’s good, Crown. I’ll just keep sitting here on my balcony looking at them-thar hills. And now that I’ve finished my G&T, I think I’ll finish hubby’s beer for him, as well. LOL.
@Amanda – It’s the “shifty and disingenuous” types who make life interesting. A definition of Hell would be to be knee deep in nicey nice people with nary an awkward bugger to keep an eye on.
Pointman
ps I think it’s his Dad too.
Evening Amanda,
“I’m right off the blogs with this new format.”
Couldn’t agree more, the simplest format is the most effective, it works on Cif and it used to work efficaciously on the DT, we all know about the problems but they took a sledge hammer to crack a nut imo.
Meanwhile in Australia, where we happy band of brothers (and sisters are) Another conference!!!
Shock horror again:
“A dire warning will be delivered to Australia when almost 1000 delegates from around the world arrive on the Gold Coast next week for the country’s first international conference on the science of climate change, and how to adapt to it.”
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/dire-climate-change-warning-to-australia-20100625-z911.html
Dear me, first? …….what a load of b……… and all those thousands of air miles to criticise us proles flying too much…these gits have no sense of irony (or no…. sense, propriety, modesty) – have they?
Ed.
Pointman: what’s wrong with ‘cheeky and imaginative’? I’d rather that than shifty.
Cheers, me.
Oh mighty one Oz,
Don’t know if I’m overstepping the mark here (Oz) but I will just have to recommend Joe Bastardi’s blog, it has a devastating critique of the DT and NASA concerning Sun spot activity and Solar flares etc.
He is a top Meteorologist and his forecasts are really worth reading (far better than the Met office UK), he is very conscious of people plagiarising his work so I have to be careful.
His site is here:
http://www.accuweather.com/ukie/bastardi-europe-blog.asp
Hope you don’t mind either Joe (nervous grin).
No worries mate. Rastech and amerloque advertise their blogs here (and rastech plugs mine over there too). I’ve seen Bastardi’s blog and there’s always great stuff there (pity about the name though).
There’s room enough in the blogosphere for all the good guys – Oz
Ed.
A not quite so typical day in the life of the of the Grantham institute’s BOB WARD! (He’s a shouty, faux communist eco-mentalist.)
It’s five ‘o’ clock in the morning, North London, 20th of November 2010 and its bleedin’ cold. Bob Ward and his timid, tiny wife Esther are fast asleep.
‘Snore, snore….snore. ZZZzz.’
Suddenly the alarm goes off…Ding ding ding ding ding dinger dinger ding…
‘FUCK! Fuckin’ ‘ell. Wos that?’
Bob sits bolt upright and slaps his bald head as if swatting a swarm of wasps. ‘ARRGH…FUCK!’
‘Wh…what’s the matter Bob?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Oh Bob…what time is it?’
Bob switches on the compact fluorescent bedside light and folds his arms tight against his bare chest and looks down at his slumbering wife with purse lipped contempt.
‘Time you got out of BLOODY bed, that’s what time it is.’
Bob whips back the bed linen exposing pyjamed Esther to the near freezing room temperature. Instinctively she contracts into a ball which further exposes Esther’s smuggled hot water bottle.
‘Well well well. And just WHAT do we have here then?’
Bob leans forward and takes the offending article by its edge and glares at it.
‘Esther. Darling.’
‘Yes Bob.’
Bob sloshes the blue rubber bottle about Esther’s left ear.
‘Tell me how you heated this up.’
‘Err…from the kettle Bob.’
‘From the kettle.’
‘Err…yes Bob.’
‘And pray tell me darling where you think the ENERGY came from to heat the water in said kettle?’
Esther turns and fumbles back for the blankets and groans.
‘Umm…’
‘Come on come on…out with it.’
‘About 35% coal, 45% gas, 15% nuclear and errm…’
‘Come on. Pumped storage? French interconnect?’
‘Err…’
‘Well lets just try and make this simple shall we.’
Bob rotates the hot water bottle left and right as if he were driving a car.
‘How much was renewable?’
Finally, Esther sits up and draws her knees in close with her arms.
‘Err…Not much?’
‘Not much eh?’
Bob unscrews the cap and begins to gulp down the now freezing contents. Esther slowly turns her head and looks on. Her eyes widen as her right hand slowly rises and covers her mouth.
‘Ahhh!…Waste not want not. Right, well I’ll tell you how much was renewable. 0.1% Esther, 0. BLOODY 1%!’ I know because I checked the neta website before I came to bed.’
Bob inverts the unholy object and lets the remainder dribble out onto the blanket.
‘Oh Bob you really shouldn’t have done that.’
‘Done what?’
‘Drink it.’
‘Yeah…well, now you come to mention it. It does taste a bit funny.’
Bob grimaces and smacks his mean lips.
‘Yes I expect it would. Don’t you remember?’
‘Remember what?’
‘That you said that if I ever needed it in case of emergency to use whatever I had in my bladder to top it up, otherwise that’d just be wasted heat.’
‘ARRRGH FUCK…FUCK’IN ‘ELL.’
Bob hurls the empty hot water bottle across the room and leaps out of bed. Coughing and hacking he stumbles about in his white, baggy M&S ‘Y’ fronts.
‘ARRGH, GUUUR…urgh.’
Bob grabs the door handle and rushes to the bathroom, gagging and clutching at his throat.
An hour later at the Ward’s tightly proportioned breakfast bar, Bob is pawing over yesterday’s article in ‘The Guardian’ by George Monbiot muttering to himself and shaking his head from side to side as Esther stands on tip toe, peering into a wall hung cabinet.
‘Listen to this Esther.
George says…George says that if the government doesn’t stop WANKERS from driving 4 by 4s the Maldive islands will be gone by the end of the year.’
‘Ohh, I’d love to go there.’
Esther replies absentmindedly into the cupboard.
Bob claps the pages of the paper together and scowls at his wife’s back.
‘WHAT?’
‘Oh…err, nothing dear. What would you like for breakfast?
Fuelled up on porridge oats and a glass of untainted water Bob adjusts his helmet and agitatedly manoeuvres his racing bicycle through the narrow corridor and out through the front door.
He stops and turns around as Esther shuffles meekly behind in her pink fluffy slippers and matching dressing gown.
‘SHIT!’
‘What have you forgotten darling…I’ll find it.’
‘Jesus. I haven’t ‘forgotten’ anything. I just need the loo that’s all.’
Bob looks down with an air of dejection at his one piece lycra racing suit then rolls his eyes skywards.
Half an hour later Bob is back out, pedalling furiously towards the North circular road.
‘FFer FFFUCKIN’ CAAAAAARS!’
Fifteen bonnet slapping, vulgarity laced incidents later Bob arrives at the entrance to the London school of Eco-fascists Grantham Institute. His pulse is racing and the straps of his back pack dig uncomfortably at his shoulders…as always he’s in a thoroughly intolerant mood and he’s late for the first of the day’s meetings.
Infuriatingly, both shower facilities are occupied.
Bob jiggles up and down with impatience, his black cycle suit rendering him akin to a giant tadpole with a determined expression.
‘Come ON. I’m late for a meeting.’
‘Oh ‘ello. Is that you Bob?’
One of the gushing water supplies abruptly stops and Professor Mick Warren…chief scientific officer of the Grantham and known for his overly generous penis size strides out of his shower cubicle.
‘BLOODY ‘ELL!’
‘What’s the matter Bob?’
‘Err…nothing.’
Bob’s shiny head snaps back from its slightly cocked position.
‘Err…sorry professor. Slightly stressed that’s all.’
‘Ha haar. Aren’t you always Bob, aren’t you always…that’s why we need you as chief communications officer. Now look, forget about that meeting of yours this morning, I’ve got some rather exciting news for you.’
‘Really professor? What’s that?’
The amiable but authoritative professor wraps a towel around his waist.
‘Television Bob…television.’
‘I don’t have one professor.’
Prof’ Mick Warren turns and gently pats Bob’s bald pate.
‘And if you did you’d not leave it on standby would you Bob.’
‘No…absolutely not professor…no.’
‘There’s a good chap. No Bob, it’s not a question of owning a television but more of a matter of being on the television.’
‘On the television professor?’
‘On the television Bob.’
‘Err.’
‘Yes. We were contacted by sky yesterday afternoon about those cursed emails from the CRU and they asked if we’d like to put forward a defence against Fraser Nelson.’
‘Nelson?’
‘Yes. You know. That dim witted, righty journo who writes for the Spectator and News of the World…You look startled Bob.’
‘Err…’
‘Yes…well, it’s all there on your desk Bob. You’re on air 5 ‘o’ clock this afternoon. Now, a quick word of advice. Don’t swear and just this once take a bloody cab. I don’t want to see you defending the realm looking like you just wriggled out of the end of my cock.’
Bob showers as the news begins to sink in. ‘FUCK YEAH…FUCKIN’ FUCKIN’ YEAH!
Finishing, Bob takes a towel and vigorously rubs himself down. Dropping the towel he begins to shimmy around the changing room, weaving and jabbing.
‘Come on then NELSON…Who are yer who are yer?’
‘Ooo…oo…Humph…Hooo…Haaar.’
Eventually; Bob is cheaply suited and booted and at his desk studying the information he’s been supplied as to his adversary and suggestions as to how to respond to potentially difficult questions.
‘Oh bollocks to this.’ He thinks. ‘I’ll do it my way…after all I’AM director of communications.’
‘Esther?’
‘Oh hello darling…you don’t normally call me from work. Are you okay?’
‘I’m better than okay…guess what?’
‘You’ve been promoted?’
‘Don’t be daft…this is a sodding commune, you know that. No, I’m going to be on the bloody telly!’
‘Ooh…Bob!’
‘Yeah. I’ll be knocking seven bells out o Nelson five ‘o’ clock this afternoon on sky news. Phone Jeremy for me would you…see if he’ll record it.’
‘Of course Bob…how exciting, you’ll be famous!’
‘Yeah…alright Esther. Hey, have you checked my lottery numbers yet?’
‘Err…no. Sorry Bob, not yet.’
Eight hours later and Sky’s broadcasting equipment is ready to go live.
Bob is sitting tight lipped against a backdrop practicing his bald head shake.
‘3…2…1…and…’
‘Bob, you were fantastic. It’s so obvious the world is in peril and you put that horrible uncaring man right in his place.’
‘Thanks love…yeah, I thought I was pretty good. What about my lottery numbers?’
‘Well you’re never going to believe this.’
‘What.’
‘They came in darling…they came in!
‘Fuck off.’
‘No really.’
‘Fuck off.’
‘No look Bob, look. £3,456.645 and twenty pee! Eeeeeeeeee!’
‘YES!… O HOLY LORD ABOVE THANK YOU!’
‘Porsche or Ferrari Esther?’
‘Porsche…Porcshe!’
‘Bugger it, let’s have both. What about holidays?’
‘The Maldives the Maldives.’
‘Done…First class tomorrow.’
Some of its true, most of it isn’t (just in case Bob Ward wants to file for libel against Scud.)
Have a great weekend everyone…C’mon England! (yer useless bunch of overpaid, over coiffed spasmos…err, except David James the goalie whom I think is quite funny plus he’s actually got a brain on ‘im.)
Scud1,
LOL, yer daft as a brush, a wicked lad, one who’s heart is just where it should be truly, a great lad.
Great stuff Scud1, and come on England!! – over paid pussies they may be but they might just be on the verge of something, if we beat our German cousins, I don’t care about the rest of the world cup! ……………………or maybe not and there is always the cricket.
Ed.
Amanda yes it’s the cookie monster and yes me luv cookeees nom nom nom.
We make our own peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies yum, although we don’t have the kitchen space at the moment to bake 9 million cookies.
test
test1
Well brugger gravatar did not like my new picture.
Ok got the silly thing to work a picture of the beany baby.
Just what I have been looking for: a link between climate change and cricket!
And as far as I’m concerned, the news is all good 😉
Lads, lasses:
Subject is that incredible band, Barmy Obarma and The Hopey-Changes.
I saw today in the small town of Murphy, North Carolina, in the heart of the Smoky Mountains (would I say ‘the liver’?) the following bumper sticker:
I’ll keep my guns, freedom, and money —
You can keep ”the change”
The Bible Belt has spoken. Gotta love it.
crownarmourer says:
June 26, 2010 at 10:18 am
Great pic there, Crownarmourer! That’s the REAL cookie monster, all right. At 16, that’ll be the Dad’s car keys monster LOL!
Old Toad
Here is the standard I measure by: Is this article informative enough and interestingly enough written so I want to show it to friends and acquaintances who might have views on AGW, but are not hard core and might be open to changing their minds. Most of the blogs starting with Climategate, certainly. A few, no, I probably wouldn’t show them to anyone. This last one, no, I definitely wouldn’t show it to anyone. That’s what I meant by having the spokesperson mantle thrust upon you; you are expected to be the standard bearer, and your personal piques are expected to be aired elsewhere. Robert Gibbs, White House Press Secretary, for example, isn’t expected to get into settling scores, no matter how righteoulsy aggrieved he is, during an on-camera press briefing.
But bottom line, it always comes down to this: it’s James’ blog, it’s up to him how much he accepts that mantle, and he has to do what he has to do.
———————-
amanda
I’ve seen the same bumper sticker in California (not usually thought of as “gun” or “Bible”country). It looks a little out of place here.
Walt being a granddad has it’s pluses you can encourage him to bug his dad about the car keys when he is old enough, also while they are younger you give caffeine and cookies just before you send them home.
Afternoon all,
A clear champagne day in Tassie.
Hi Walt,
Loved your references to Fireplaces and Aquariums. They don’t call TVs “Idiot Boxes” for nothing, even if it’s a flat 6′ wide LCD.
I’m fortunate to have both a fish pond and a wood-fire, but I reckon my computer screen is the best “aquarium” I’ve seen. It’s a window into a world with the most amazing variety of creatures of all sizes shapes and colours. There are…………….
Piranha that would eat you alive
Barracuda with razor-sharp teeth
Puffer fish, self-inflated & pretending to be of more significance than they are
Sharks for whom everything else is just lunch
Moray Eels that hide under rocks but with dangerous teeth for the unwary
Weird slimy parrot fish (locally known as “slippery dicks”)
Octopus, that amazing creature which changes colour according to its environment, pretending to be something else and if it loses a tentacle, will simply grow it back!
Squid that douse any threat in clouds of black ink
Remora, a parasitic lot that hitches a free ride on someone else’s journey expending little effort themselves.
But hey! It’s not all mean and nasty…….
We have Clown fish, those cheery little chaps can brighten any gloomy day
Gorgeous Angel Fish, a sight to behold
and Oysters and clams whose succulence belies their rough appearance. They produce pearls. A bit like kids actually, a real irritant at times but protect them long enough, adding layers of growth, and you have a pearl of peerless lustre.
Now any old Marine Biologist, knowing these creatures well, knows just what lure to use, which hook will trap the unwary and which bait will prove irresistible to his quarry. Then he sits down to lunch on his catch.
As for me? I’m just an old bird who sticks out a very long neck to peck at river-weed.
Blackswan since I read to much Viz comic back home….Weird slimy parrot fish (locally known as “slippery dicks”) fnar fnar, a comic for adults who never grew up too quickly very North East English humour very low brow but satirical.
Er don’t visit the web site you will be offended, it’s gotten more low brow these days.
Blackswan here is what the internet was created for and it wasn’t email …
Any of you who are puritanical do not visit the rest of you it’s funny.
The beer song since it’s the weekend…
Hey Crown,
Guess what? When I was going through my Mum’s papers a few years ago, I discovered that her Grandfather had been a Confederate Soldier and the paperwork entitled him to some kind of military pension. He had hightailed it to Fiji and ended up in the sugar plantation business there so I don’t think he ever collected it.
Maybe I have a genetic predisposition to objecting to Govts telling me what to do.
Anyways….tell me No and I’m just as likely to…
On the Viz site there was a link to Profanisaurus and the names Keating and Fraser turned up, both one-time Oz Prime Ministers. One of them, a Labor apparatchik who never had a proper job after leaving school at 15, worked his way through the system to the top job, leaving office a multi-millionaire with a fine collection of antique French clocks.
The other, from the Liberal landed gentry “old school tie” brigade, is now a bleeding-heart Socialist, an apologist for Robert Mugabe, and lost his trousers in a seedy downtown Memphis hotel. Apparently he had to seek help from the front-desk clutching a newspaper to his nether-regions. Must have been flash digs – not even a phone in his room LOL.
BTW – If I go to a low-brow offensive crass site, I can hardly be offended when it’s crass :>0
Thanks Crown. Cheers.
G’day swanny, crown et al
Sleep deprivation has left me awake in the wee hours, so I felt in the mood to make a little mischief 😈
new thread here… this one’s gotten a bit long anyway
Blackswan Tasmania says:
June 26, 2010 at 5:03 pm
You should follow up on that. You just might own half the state of Virginia lawfully.
…and owe back property taxes for that period in time, too LOL!
Viz has been one of my favourite visiting places on the Net for aeons. You should also try on http://www.maakies.com and http://www.kazunderworld.com The latter is old-school Polish Jewish immigrant folktale oriented, very Bruno Schulz-like in orientation. Go into Kaz’s archive flash animations. Good stuff.
Figured out what the little weird stuff that shows up in my site’s code is: it’s to forward my site away from countries on the blockout list. My MICROSOFT SOFTWARE which made the website is generating a .jpg/.html extension automatically, which creates a little “doorlock” so if my site comes up in Latvia, Lichtenstein, Peru, and a bunch of other countries not exactly on everyone’s radar screen, they get a 404 error. ?????
Those fragments are a scoff59.html and a scoff59.jpg code fragment and an efface28.html fragment. I also have a baron65.html fragment. In front of all these fragments is http://www.transactionsmagazine.com/~turbine/ zipper-zapper. WTF?
ozboy…Well watching riverworld on netflix on this technical thingamajiggy so posting light for the next few hours, ozboy I remember the old fatherhood days many moons ago hard work but ultimately rewarding wait till they are teenagers. Had the granddchild over cute little bugger except when he cries but that is what granny is for and nappy changing.
Blackswan glad you liked the Viz stuff but it is really bad Northern Humour used to be smarter still crude but smarter stereotypes galore. The Profanisaurus is excellent useful to use agains’t the DT censors they wont know them all.
They had one character based on a well known local newscaster that butter would not melt in his mouth on screen but apparently was foul tongued off screen the writers of the comic had met him Roger Melly the man on the Telly he was called in the comics.
You definitely had interesting ancestors always nice to have the kind that say bollocks to our overlords.
Billy The Fish, Fat Slags and Finbar Saunders (and his double entendres) were always my favourites – Oz
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