Posts Made By: K. Michael Malolepszy

That Obama & Holder quote, I mean - I cannot find it using google web or new searches on those phrases. David, where did you find it?

KMM

david elosser said:

Californians are so upset over Arizona's tough new discriminatory and racist immigration laws, they want to make it easier for illegals to gain access into California, especially the Los Angeles area. They have allowed the government of Mexico to open its first office dedicated to printing and providing documents for illegal Mexicans (whose only desire, of course, is simply to live the better life here in the US.)

"This is a huge step in the right direction," President Obama told LA-Times reporters. US Attorney General Eric Holder was also pleased: "I have looked into this and, although I havn't read the lease agreements, the new Mexican office is perfectly legal." he told CNN World News Tonight. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano said she is not worried about any possibility of terrorists gaining easier access into the US: "This is simply overblown," she said, "categorizing these people as terrorists is simply racist, and I won't tolerate it."

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Mexico-opens-California-office-to-provide-ID-for-illegals-95434969.html

David E

I think the relevant passages in the paper (pg. 10-11) that columnist Lawrence Solomon says is evidence are:

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Consensus and Uncertainty

Since its origins, the IPCC has been open and explicit about seeking to generate a ‘scientific consensus’ around climate change and especially about the role of humans in climate change. Yet this has been a source of both strength and vulnerability for the IPCC. Understanding consensus as a process of ‘truth creation’ (or the more nuanced ‘knowledge production’) which marginalises dissenting voices – as has frequently been portrayed by some of the IPCC’s critics (see Edwards & Schneider, 2001; Petersen, 2010) – does not do justice to the process.

Consensus-building in fact serves several different goals. As Horst and Irwin (2010) have explained, seeking consensus can be as much about building a community identity – what Haas (1992) refers to as an epistemic community – as it is about seeking the ‘truth’. Equally, as Yearley (2009) explains, IPCC consensus-making is an exercise in collective judgement about subjective (or Bayesian) likelihoods in areas of uncertain knowledge. Consensus-making in the IPCC has been largely driven by the desire to communicate climate science coherently to a wide spectrum of policy users – ‘to construct knowledge’ (Weingart, 1999) - but in so doing communicating uncertainties have been down-played (van der Sluijs, 1998). As Oppenheimer et al. (2007: 1506) remark: “The establishment of consensus by the IPCC is no longer as critical to governments as [is] a full exploration of uncertainty.”

Without a careful explanation about what it means, this drive for consensus can leave the IPCC vulnerable to outside criticism. Claims such as ‘2,500 of the world’s leading scientists have reached a consensus that human activities are having a significant influence on the climate’ are disingenuous. That particular consensus judgement, as are many others in the IPCC reports, is reached by only a few dozen experts in the specific field of detection and attribution studies; other IPCC authors are experts in other fields. But consensus-making can also lead to criticism for being too conservative, as Hansen (2007) has most visibly argued. Was the IPCC AR4 too conservative in reaching its consensus about future sea-level rise? Many glaciologists and oceanographers think they were (Kerr, 2007; Rahmstorf, 2010), leading to what Hansen attacks as ‘scientific reticence’. Solomon et al. (2008) offer a robust defence, stating that far from reaching a premature consensus, the AR4 report stated that in fact no consensus could be reached on the magnitude of the possible fast ice-sheet melt processes that some fear could lead to 1 or 2 metres of sea-level rise this century. Hence these processes were not included in the quantitative estimates.

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I leave it to the reader to decide how much that supports Solomon's opinion.

Dave Snope said:

The fact that only a handful of scientists at the IPCC has been called a consensus is nothing new, if you've been paying attention over the last decade. Many of the 2500 have disagreed with the IPCC reports, others have asked to have their names removed from the reports ... but to the IPCC this is a consensus.

The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change misled the press and public into believing that thousands of scientists backed its claims on manmade global warming, according to Mike Hulme, a prominent climate scientist and IPCC insider. The actual number of scientists who backed that claim was "only a few dozen experts," he states in a paper for Progress in Physical Geography, co-authored with student Martin Mahony.

"Claims such as '2,500 of the world's leading scientists have reached a consensus that human activities are having a significant influence on the climate' are disingenuous," the paper states unambiguously, adding that they rendered "the IPCC vulnerable to outside criticism."

Hulme, Professor of Climate Change in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia – the university of Climategate fame — is the founding Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and one of the UK's most prominent climate scientists. Among his many roles in the climate change establishment, Hulme was the IPCC's co-ordinating Lead Author for its chapter on 'Climate scenario development' for its Third Assessment Report and a contributing author of several other chapters.

Hulme's depiction of IPCC's exaggeration of the number of scientists who backed its claim about man-made climate change can be found on pages 10 and 11 of his paper, found here.

Read more: http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2010/06/13/the-ipcc-consensus-on-climate-change-was-phoney-says-ipcc-insider/#ixzz0qsSslPYe

Thanksm Adreas! Definitely worth reading... KMM

Andreas Saldivar said:

This is worth a read.

http://www.marssociety.org/portal/a-trajectory-to-nowhere-by-scott-doc-horowitz

Andeas

'Climategate' report: the main points

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/07/climategate-scientists-main-points/print

From manipulating data to censoring articles, 150-page report clears scientists of main allegations against them

Was it the greatest scandal in modern science or a storm in a teacup whipped up by climate sceptics and an uncritical media? The report from a panel of experts led by Sir Muir Russell into the "climategate" affair that saw thousands of personal emails from global warming scientists released on to the internet was eagerly awaited by all sides.

The report, which effectively cleared the scientists of the most serious charges – including deliberately fudging climate change results, is unlikely to be the final word on the matter, as the University of East Anglia and the beleaguered director of its Climatic Research Unit, Phil Jones, would have hoped.

As the panel noted: "Emails are rarely definitive evidence of what actually occurred." Those who argue that climate change is a conspiracy of crooked scientists will find little problem in labelling the latest vindication a whitewash. But the panel's report, which runs to some 150 pages, covers in detail the main allegations made against the scientists.

Temperature data

One of the most common allegations made against the CRU scientists was that they blocked access to raw data, drawn from weather stations around the world, and adjusted that data to falsely show a pattern of global warming. There were also complaints that they failed to release on demand the computer code they wrote to analyse the data. Without such information, how could sceptics check the CRU's calculations?

The panel showed that it was relatively straightforward to reproduce the CRU analysis without needing to ask Jones and his colleagues for anything.

They used data from public databanks and wrote their own computer code, which they say could be repeated by any "competent researcher". The results were similar to those of the CRU.

Their conclusion: "A researcher can evidently produce a study which would test the CRU analysis quite precisely, without requiring any information from CRU to do so."

To repeat, rather than reproduce, the CRU findings would require the CRU code and the list of weather stations it used to source the raw data. Such requests were made under freedom of information laws. The panel criticised the CRU response as "unhelpful and defensive".

On specific allegations of malpractice by Jones in the handling of weather station data from China, the panel did not comment directly, but concluded more generally: "Crucially, we find nothing in the behaviour on the part of CRU scientists that is the subject of allegations ... to undermine the validity of their work."

Peer review and IPCC

The CRU scientists were accused of abusing their positions to unfairly and improperly skew the process of scientific publication, to censor articles that criticised their own work or questioned their view of climate change. The panel analysed three cases in detail; it could not find enough evidence to judge a fourth.

In the three cases examined, the panel said that none "represents subversion of the peer review process nor unreasonable attempts to influence the editorial policy of journals". Comments that critics may view as "partial and aggressive" were more likely to represent "the rough and tumble of interaction in an area of science that has become heavily contested and where strongly opposed and aggressively expressed positions have been taken up on both sides".

Climate science is not unusual in this regard, it said, and areas such as medicine see similar strongly worded disputes.

Because the CRU scientists were heavily involved in the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), that climate body's reports also came under fire. Again, the criticism was that CRU scientists had squashed dissent. Again, the panel dismissed the allegations. The IPCC text was a team responsibility, it said, and there was no improper exclusion of material.

Proxy reconstructions

The CRU scientists were world leaders in a branch of science that uses tree rings and other evidence from the natural world to reconstruct temperatures in the distant past, before records were kept or instruments such as thermometers were available.

This led to a barrage of allegations, from suppression of data to questionable selection of data points. The panel effectively cleared the CRU scientists, with qualifications. Data on which CRU work depended should have been better archived, it said. But the panel found no evidence of exclusion of rival temperature series that would have shown a different result.

The CRU scientists were, however, criticised for producing a "misleading" figure for the front cover of a 1999 report from the World Meteorological Organisation. The figure, discussed in a much quoted email from Jones in which he used a "trick" to "hide the decline", spliced together proxy temperature data and instrument data. This was a valid technique but should have been better labelled, the panel said. It accepted there was no deliberate intent to mislead, as the full explanation was included in the report text.

Transparency

The email saga is popularly thought to have begun as a reaction to the CRU's apparent unwillingness to release data and codes requested by a range of people under freedom of information laws. Jones and his colleagues may now regret that attitude.

The panel strongly criticised the actions of the CRU scientists towards such requests, and the broader university administration. There was a "lack of engagement" and "confusion" over how to handle such requests. Scientists and senior university officials failed to recognise that early disclosure of the requested information could have minimised the problems. Many of the responses that were made were unhelpful, or incomplete.

Some emails were deleted to avoid future release, though the panel pointed out this was allowed under FOI rules. Deleting information specifically requested is not allowed, but there was no evidence the CRU did this. "We recognise that there was deep suspicion within CRU as to the motives of those making detailed requests," the panel said. "Nonetheless, the requirements of the legislation for release of information are clear and early action would likely have prevented much subsequent grief."

On a wider point, it noted there was an ongoing "transformation in the need for openness in the culture of publicly funded science", driven partly by changes in the law and the rise of internet bloggers.

Without such openness, the panel warned, "the credibility of their work will suffer because it will always be at risk of allegations and hence malpractice".

It added: "We note that much of the challenge to CRU's work has not always followed the conventional scientific method of checking and seeking to falsify conclusions or offering alternative hypotheses for peer review and publication. We believe this is necessary if science is to move on, and we hope that all those involved in all sides of the climate science debate will adopt this approach."

Is sea ice extent as important as sea ice thickness and the total volume?

Has Arctic sea ice returned to normal?

http://www.skepticalscience.com/Has-Arctic-sea-ice-recovered.htm

KMM

Dave Snope said:

Cause for celebration at both poles. This reminds me of the day I paddled up to a glacier and got a chunk of that beautiful blue ice for cocktails to toast a friend's engagement. You have to toast to this if you like big ice caps.

Both arctic and antarctic ice caps are celebrating records this month:

Antarctic sea ice is at a record high for the month of July.


And up north, we have the slowest July (1-17) Arctic melt in the eight year JAXA record.

Original Op-ed at

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/opinion/01stockman.html

KMM

K. Michael Malolepszy said:

Aug. 10, 2010, 12:45 a.m. EDT
Reagan insider: 'GOP destroyed U.S. economy'

Commentary: How: Gold. Tax cuts. Debts. Wars. Fat Cats. Class gap. No fiscal discipline

By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch

ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- "How my G.O.P. destroyed the U.S. economy." Yes, that is exactly what David Stockman, President Ronald Reagan's director of the Office of Management and Budget, wrote in a recent New York Times op-ed piece, "Four Deformations of the Apocalypse."

Get it? Not "destroying." The GOP has already "destroyed" the U.S. economy, setting up an "American Apocalypse."

Jobs recovery could take years

In the wake of Friday's disappointing jobs report, Neal Lipschutz and Phil Izzo discuss new predictions that it could be many years before the nation's unemployment rate reaches pre-recession levels.

Yes, Stockman is equally damning of the Democrats' Keynesian policies. But what this indictment by a party insider -- someone so close to the development of the Reaganomics ideology -- says about America, helps all of us better understand how America's toxic partisan-politics "holy war" is destroying not just the economy and capitalism, but the America dream. And unless this war stops soon, both parties will succeed in their collective death wish.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/reagan-insider-gop-destroyed-us-economy-2010-08-10

The other side of this argument:

APS Comments on Harold Lewis’ Resignation of his Society Membership

http://www.aps.org/about/pressreleases/haroldlewis.cfm

" Hal Lewis resigns from The American Physical Society

A physicist named Hal Lewis who doesn’t know the first thing about climate science has resigned from the American Physical Society because he doesn’t know the first thing about climate science."

http://tinyurl.com/22qsp2k

KMM

Dave Snope said:

How different it is now. The giants no longer walk the earth, and the money flood has become the raison d'être of much physics research, the vital sustenance of much more, and it provides the support for untold numbers of professional jobs. For reasons that will soon become clear my former pride at being an APS Fellow all these years has been turned into shame, and I am forced, with no pleasure at all, to offer you my resignation from the Society.

It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare. (Montford's book organizes the facts very well.) I don't believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion. I would almost make that revulsion a definition of the word scientist.

So what has the APS, as an organization, done in the face of this challenge? It has accepted the corruption as the norm, and gone along with it. For example:

http://thegwpf.org/ipcc-news/1670-hal-lewis-my-resignation-from-the-american-physical-society.html

It's still amazing how few scientists take a public stand against the AGW scams. When it happens, it's usually retired or retiring profs who have nothing to lose in their career, no fears for loss of the grant money that sustains them and their staff. Hal is one of the 31,000 American scientists that signed the Global Warming Petition Project stating that there is no basis for the claim that man's release of gasses will cause catastrophic heating of the climate. Yet he is one of very few to take further public action.

http://www.petitionproject.org/signers_by_last_name.php?run=L

Hugh,

What is "Scientific Research Publishing" (SRP: http://www.scirp.org)? Is it a legit peer-reviewed publisher or not? I dunno, but it at first glance it looks fishy to me... see discussions about this publisher at

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=156293

and this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_Research_Publishing

" .... The company created a controversy when it was found that its journals duplicated papers which had already been published elsewhere, without notification of or permission from the original author. In addition, some of these journals had listed academics on their editorial boards without their permission or even knowledge, sometimes in fields very different from their own. A spokesperson for the company commented that these issues had been "information-technology mistakes", which would be corrected.."

And this might be of interest regarding this "publisher" from "Strange academic journals: Scam?" at

http://improbable.com/2009/12/22/strangest-academic-journals/ :

(a Yale University chemist), "... received an unsolicited email invitation to join the apparently-nonexistent editorial board. Trying and failing to find basic info about the journal, this chemist became intrigued — especially because he recognized that one of the reprinted articles, Dunning and Kruger‘s “Unskilled and Unaware…”, was honored with an Ig Nobel Prize, way back in the year 2000.

The publisher, Scientific Research Publishing, has other journals, as well. Some of them (Applied Mathematics, Journal of Modern Physics, Biosciences*, Journal of Cancer Therapy**, etc.) also appear to follow the “publish things that were already published, but don’t mention that” principle.

On the organization’s web site, we found barely any identifying or location information. The contact page says “Name: Scientific Research Publishing, Inc. USA” and lists an email address — but we have not found any such corporation in the USA, and email sent to that address has produced no reply. The web site is registered to an organization in Wuhan, China.

Scientific Research Publishing, also known as scirp.org, also organizes conferences. Discussions in the blogosphere [see this one, for example and for pointers to others], for whatever those are worth, suggest that some of those conferences, too, are full of mystery."

So, at this point you can call me "skeptical" about this particular paper's claims.

KMM

Hugh Bartlett said:


"The anthropogenic wasting of fossil fuel CO2 to the atmosphere shows no relation with the temperature changes even in an annual basis."

http://www.scirp.org/Journal/PaperInformation.aspx?paperID=3447&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=ijg13&utm_campaign=01

"It’s a time for us to state with a unified passion that we won’t accept anyone who threatens or actually carries out violence."

I can certainly agree with that!

KMM

Jeffrey Counsil said:

Read it for yourself, then the next from Stu...

http://www.glennbeck.com/2011/01/10/glenns-letter-to-the-american-people-politicians-and-media/

http://www.glennbeck.com/content/blog/stu/the-one-thing-the-media-can't-stand-to-tell-you-about-gabrielle-giffords/

Another interesting article on this:

Climate change
A record-making effort
Mar 31st 2011, 23:20 by O.M

' .... Overall, the takeaway from Dr Muller’s presentation of his team’s data is that, in the words of one climate scientist, a “Koch-brothers-funded study confirms the previous temperature reconstructions.” '

http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2011/03/climate_change