... not as we are, but as we would like to be. Wolfgang is most noticeable by his absence - no greeting at the door when I come home, no canine friend sleeping in his usual spot, no morning greeting when I wake up, no goodnight dog biscuits.
What's worst of all is in the mirror, all I see is me as I am. It sure was better with him.
If Ike wants a friend in Washington, he should get a dog.- Harry Truman, on Eisenhauer's 1953 Inauguration
It was 2012. I was done with the Atlanta-Austin shuttle. What I found was that my family liked me being away from home all the time, as long as the paycheck cleared. My soon-to-be-ex was increasingly angry and dismissive; my two surly teenage sons were, well, increasingly surly.
And so I channeled my inner Ike and got a dog. I wanted something that I knew would love me, without asking for anything in return (except for love and kindness, that is). This was Wolfgang's introduction to this blog.
Unlike Jack, he also loved being around other dogs. He would play at the dog park, and was always good about sharing his Frisbee. I've never seen a dog get along with other dogs as well as he did.
The Queen got him a raincoat, because I would take him out, rain or shine. She called him the "Morton Salt dog".
Near this spot rests one who had
Beauty without Vanity;
Strength without Insolence:
Courage without Ferocity;
and all Man's Virtues with none of his vices.
This has been a long post, but it's his due. I sure would rather not have the occasion to write it. The Queen and I will never see his like again.
If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went.- Will Rogers
Glen Filthie asked for an update on Wolfgang, and so here we go. His back legs have been getting increasingly tangled up. Yesterday he fell twice as I was taking him out when he woke up. You can tell that it frustrates him, but increasingly he wakes up hurting at night (we hear him panting) and every now and then he whimpers. It's intermittent, but increasing.
He's still alert, although he's sleeping more. The Queen Of The World says it's because that's the time he doesn't hurt. I think she's ready to let him go. I'm not, but as I see him in pain more often, I'm getting closer.
TQOTW's daughter said recently that when it's time, he'll let us know. I expect that's right. For now, he hasn't let me know.
But he can't run with the dogs at the dog park, which frustrates him. He's a very social dog, one who likes and gets along with almost all dogs and people. I have to say that I did a much better job socializing him than my old shepherd, Jack.
And so we're planning a doggie party, with his neighborhood dog friends coming over to lay out with him on the grass. He loved to do that back at Camp Borepatch in Georgia, and he still likes to do this today. It's not a "time to say goodbye to Wolfgang" party, but I don't know how he will be in 2 weeks at the rate he's going. So we're having the party this weekend.
In a way, it looks kind of like when Dad was in hospice. You know the trajectory, but not the timetable. Every day is a gift. Turn up the music, and dance with your wife.
"If you think this is the time, I'll support that decision."
His vet said that today. Crap.
I took this picture seven years ago today, when we got three feet of snow in Maryland. He made a trail through the snow for The Queen Of The World, and loved every minute.
Today when the vet said those words, TQOTW cried. She's not ready for this. I'm not ready for this. How could you be?
Wolfgang's back legs get tangled up when he walks. Sometimes he falls. It's hard for him to stand up a lot of the time. But his mind is clear, and he wants to play with his doggie friends. The other day at the local dog park when one of his friends was chasing a ball, I didn't let him play chase. He has always loved that. But I knew it would make him hurt for days. So I held his collar and didn't let him run.
He cried. That about killed me.
Today at the vet I realized that it's not that we won't have him for years (heck, y'all might not have me for that). But we might not have him for months, or maybe weeks.
I'm not ready for this. I know what's coming, and what's approaching. We won't let him suffer. But this is too soon, too soon, too damn soon.
"If you think this is the time, I'll support that decision."
One thing that I have not been able to figure out is who would benefit from the US sending 8,500 (or 50,000 - the number keeps changing) US troops to Stalingrad in winter. We've seen this movie before and we all know how it comes out. There are pretty much no good arguments to do this - nothing but huffing and puffing about "deterring aggression" and "stopping Putin's land grab" and "country borders are sacred". Let's quickly dispense with these arguments and move on to who really wins.
Deterring Aggression. It's not 1939, and the US Establishment isn't Neville Chamberland. A quick review of the first two decades of this century will establish the wars we've fought: Afghanistan (2001-2021), Iraq (2003 - present), Libya (2011), Syria (2013). The problem isn't an American meekness; on the contrary. Vladimir Putin knows this, and doesn't have to read between the lines to understand what NATO expansion plans for Ukraine would mean to a Russia that shares a border with it.
Putin's "Land Grab". So Russia has demanded guarantees from NATO that (a) Ukraine will not be admitted to the coalition (as this would compel NATO to defend Ukraine in the future, by treaty), and also guarantees that NATO offensive weapons will not be stationed in Ukraine. The NATO General Secretary has explicitly rejected both demands, as has the US State Department (at least according to the Russian foreign ministry; while this is not proof, it does concur with the NATO General Secretary's public statements from two days ago). So what options does Putin have? More importantly, what options are we giving him?
"National Borders are sacrosanct". Well, except for the US-Mexico border, I guess. This doesn't pass the "red face" test - the fact that people can say this without shame only shows that our elites are, well, shameless.
So who wins in this showdown? We know who is facing the risks - you know, that whole Stalingrad in winter thing, but Russia is facing substantial risks as well from sanctions, a military with some good units but many not so good ones, potential guerrilla war, etc. NATO appears to be splintering before our eyes as Germany, France, and others refuse to do any heavy lifting (Germany's offer a a few thousand mil surplus helmets to Ukraine speaks volumes on how tight this "alliance" is).
Oh yeah - Russia has a bunch of nuclear missiles aimed at us. That would never go sideways, right? So there are lots of potential losers here.
Who wins?
China. This is long, but clearly and plainly laid out. I highly recommend you spend the time to watch it:
Other winners: The Military Industrial Complex (Defense suppliers and retired 4 stars who get cushy and well paid gigs on their boards of directors). The Biden Administration which gets to keep the Hunter Biden Ukrainian payoffs swept under the carpet. The Democratic Party which is desperately looking for something - anything - to change the electorate's focus from the disastrous Afghanistan bug out, or inflation, or the increasingly unpopular Covid lockdowns, or the Teacher's Unions destroying public education, or the weakening economy.
I guess that the Democrats aren't smart enough to figure out what adding that whole "Stalingrad in winter" thing to that list will do in the run up to the elections.
Tucker Carlson quite rightly asks: how does any of this make America stronger? Clearly it doesn't - to the contrary. But if you don't pound the jingoistic War Drum with the idiots in the media you're Putin's Stooge or Neville Chamberlin or unpatriotic. Or something.
I'm so old that I remember Democrats shouting that they were tired of their patriotism being questioned. Times sure have changed.
But remember: these people are all so much smarter (and nicer!) than you are. You stooge, you.
UPDATE 27 January 2022 17:46: Divemedic has a detailed post about another downside - our diminished military capability and top-heavy brass. You should read the whole thing but this is the summation:
The US has cut its ability to project power so severely, that it can no longer afford to be, nor can it be, the world’s policeman.
Russia and China know that.
But hey - on to Stalingrad!
UPDATE 27 January 2022 18:40: LOL:
The other things the BBC were moaning about were the winter famine wiping out the children of the Taliban and the poor pitiful Ukrainians who are ill-equipped to fight the Red Army. I see a confluence of benefits here. The Taliban have $89 billion dollars in high tech weaponry they manifestly don't need and the Ukraine produces most of Europes wheat. They could trade weaponry to the breadbasket of Europe for food. Win win!
Helpful. That's me.
Maybe $89 B of food would give them enough weapons to get to Stalingrad, amirite? Who says that Atomic War can't be hilarious?
UPDATE 27 January 2022 19:01: Yeah, yeah, I can stop anytime. Kurt Schlicter (LTC USA, Ret) has an informative post about the difference between the Cold War NATO of his service days and today's NATO. He echos and amplifies what Divemedic highlights, from an Army (vs. a Navy) perspective. He is even more pessimistic (and sarcastically so) than Divemedic is. But he gets deadly serious in his key point:
It seems like we might have trouble achieving our objectives. And one of the biggest reasons is that it’s not clear what our objectives would even be. Since none of the usual hawks can be bothered to articulate a vital American interest involved in defending Ukraine’s borders, that makes it hard to come up with objectives for the military. “Stop Putin” is not really a military objective; it’s sort of an amorphous goal.
So what does victory look like? Putin held off to the outskirts of Kiev? Putin tossed back over the Belarus and Russian borders? What’s our desired end state? Or are we not going to articulate that either? Maybe we can just sort of exist in a tense status quo over some sort of demilitarized zone for seven decades or so. Gee, sound familiar?
Now all these questions deserve answers, but don’t look for any since none of the answers are good. And bad answers would slow the rush to war, so we can’t have them come out. Instead, the establishment is going back to the classics. If you ask what America’s vital interest is, you love Putin. If you ask what our military objectives would be, much less how we can rev up the combat power way over there to attain them, you love Putin. Yeah, it’s always a delight to be a vet of the Cold War being who is told he digs the Russians by a bunch of DC saps whose experience with the Bear is trying a Moscow Mule once, deciding it was icky, and asking for a white wine spritzer instead.
The Ukrainians are getting a raw deal, and I hope they drown their invaders in a river of blood. But it’s not our fight. And, if we did fight, there’s a significant chance we would lose. Then every two-bit tyrant on Earth will be coming for a piece of the helpless giant. We’re weak right now, folks, and the worst thing we can do is get up in front of everyone and prove it.
This. This exactly. The Administration looks like it is trying to draw into an inside straight. With the potential death, destruction, and risk to America's international position, I'd sure like answers - any answers - to the question what do we get out of any of this?
When people are taken out of their depth they lose their heads, no matter how charming a bluff they put up.
- F. Scott Fitzgerald
Holy crap! This is breaking news from Donald Trump:
For years, the same feeling has swept you along, oppressed you, shamed you: a strange and penetrating feeling of dispossession. You walk down the streets in your towns, and you don’t recognize them. You look at your computer screens and they speak to you in a language that is strange, and in the end foreign. You turn your eyes and ears to advertisements, TV series, football games, films, live performances, songs, and the schoolbooks of your children.
You take the subways and trains. You go to train stations and airports. You wait for your sons and your daughters outside their school. You take your mother to the emergency room. You stand in line at the post office or the employment agency. You wait at a police station or a courthouse.
And you have the impression that you are no longer in a country that you know. You remember the country of your childhood. You remember the country that your parents told you about. You remember the country found in films and books.
This country— at the same time light-hearted and industrious. This country— at the same time literary and scientific. This country— intelligent and one-of-a-kind. The country of the moon landing and nuclear power. The country that created cinema and the automobile.This country— that you search for everywhere with dismay. No, your children are homesick, without even having known this country that you cherish. It is disappearing.
You haven’t left, and yet you have the feeling of no longer being at home. You have not left your country. Your country left you.
You feel like foreigners in your own country. You are internal exiles. For a long time, you believed you were the only one to see, to hear, to think, to doubt. You were afraid to say it. You were ashamed of your feelings. For a long time, you dared not say what you are seeing, and above all you dared not see what you were seeing.
And then you said it to your wife. To your husband. To your children. To your father. To your mother. To your friends. To your coworkers. To your neighbors. And then to strangers. And you understood that your feeling of dispossession was shared by everyone.
France is no longer France, and everyone sees it.
OK, I admit it - this wasn't Donald Trump. This is a speech by Eric Zemmour who is running for President in France. I took out a couple lines and changed a couple more to hide the fact that M. Zemmour is speaking not in french, and not to the French, but to all of us. Here's the rest of his outstanding speech, unedited and in full:
Of course, they despised you: the powerful, the élites, the conformists, the journalists, the politicians, the professors, the sociologists, the union bosses, the religious authorities.They told you it’s all a ploy, it’s all fake, it’s all wrong. But you understood in time that it was them who were a ploy, them who had it all wrong, them who did you wrong.
The disappearance of our civilization is not the only question that harasses us, although it towers over everything. Immigration is not the cause of all our problems, although it aggravates everything. The third-worlding of our country and our people impoverishes as much as it disintegrates, ruins as much as it torments.
It’s why you often have a hard time making ends meet. It’s why we must re-industrialize France. It’s why we must equalize the balance of trade. It’s why we must reduce our growing debt, bring back to France our companies that left, give jobs to our unemployed.
It’s why we must protect our technological marvels and stop selling them to foreigners. It’s why we must allow our small businesses to live, and to grow, and to pass from generation to generation.It’s why we must preserve our architectural, cultural, and natural heritage. It’s why we must restore our republican education, its excellence and its belief in merit, and stop surrendering our children to the experiments of egalitarians and pedagogists and the Doctor Strangeloves of gender theory and Islamo-leftism.
It’s why we must take back our sovereignty, abandoned to European technocrats and judges, who rob the French people of the ability to control their destiny in the name of a fantasy – a Europe that will never be a nation. Yes, we must give power to the people, take it back from the minority that unceasingly tyrannizes the majority and from judges who substitute their judicial rulings for government of the people, for the people, by the people.
For decades, our elected officials of the right and the left have led us down this dire path of decline and decadence. Right and left have lied and concealed the gravity of our diminishment. They have hidden from you the reality of our replacement.
You have known me for many years. You know what I say, what I diagnose, what I proclaim. I have long been content with the role of journalist, writer, Cassandra, whistleblower. Back then, I believed that a politician would take up the flame that I had lit. I said to myself, to each his own job, to each his own role, to each his own fight.
I have lost this illusion. Like you, I have lost confidence. Like you, I have decided to take our destiny in hand.
I saw that no politician had the courage to save our country from the tragic fate that awaits it. I saw that all these supposed professionals were, above all, impotent.That President Macron, who had presented himself as an outsider, was in fact the synthesis of his two predecessors, or worse. That all the parties were contenting themselves with reforms, while time passes them by.
There is no more time to reform France – but there is time to save her. That is why I have decided to run for President.
I have decided to ask your votes to become your President of the Republic, so that our children and grandchildren do not know barbarism. So that our daughters are not veiled and our sons are not forced to submit. So that we can bequeath to them the France we have known and that we received from our ancestors. So that we can still preserve our way of life, our traditions, our language, our conversations, our debates about history and fashion, our taste for literature and food.
So that the French remain French, proud of their past and confident in their future. So that the French once again feel at home. So that the newest arrivals assimilate their culture, adapt their history, and are remade as French in France – not foreigners in an unknown land.
We, the French, are a great nation. A great people. Our glorious past pleads for our future. Our soldiers have conquered Europe and the world. Our writers and artists have aroused universal admiration. Our scientific discoveries and industrial production have stamped their epochs. The charm of our art de vivre excites longing and joy in all who taste it.
We have known great victories, and we have overcome cruel defeats. For a thousand years, we have been one of the powers who have written the history of the world. We are worthy of our ancestors. We will not allow ourselves to be mastered, vassalized, conquered, colonized. We will not allow ourselves to be replaced.
In front of us, a cold and determined monster rises up, who seeks to dishonor us. They will say that you are racist. They will say that you are motivated by contemptible passions, when in fact it is the most lovely passion that animates you – passion for France.
They will say the worst about me. But I will keep going amidst the jeers, and I don’t care if they spit on me. I will never bend the head. For we have a mission to accomplish.
The French people have been intimidated, crippled, indoctrinated, blamed— but they lift up their heads, they drop the masks, they clear the air of lies, they hunt down these evil perjuries.
We are going to carry France on. We are going to pursue the beautiful and noble French adventure. We are going to pass the flame to the coming generations. Join with me. Rise up. We, the French, have always triumphed over all.
Long live the Republic, and above all, long live France!
Vive la République, vive la France, et vive le (futur) Président Zemmour. If the (US) Republican Party - the Stupid Party - and Donald Trump are paying attention, he's someone in Europe - in France for crying out loud - who's singing from the same hymnal.
Wow.
But yannow, La Belle France has come back from worse (as have we). I have proof (with apologies to a Frau Merkel that thought she had ultimately won World War II, and who are no doubt shocked - shocked - to find that they are perhaps being closed down for gambling after they thought they had won it all ...):
Eighty years later, art still has its say. And just to show that the Cool Kids didn't all live in the 1940s, here's another that says the same thing:
Yeah, yeah, I know - don't play in the street. But know that you are not alone.
There are a ton of people moving here to Florida, and a lot of them are from New York. Blogger Don Surber has a comment that I need to reproduce here to inform New Yorkers of the peril they face moving here:
A reader named Bill wrote, "You left a lot out of your column regarding Florida being the future. I’ve been in Florida my entire life and you should know the truth. More importantly, you should let your readers know that:
- Florida gets a major hurricane twice a month
- Alligators are the size of tractor trailers and they eat New Yorkers
- The state sales tax is 58%
- It takes 45 minutes to drive 2 miles to work
- Mosquitoes kill 30,000 people each year (mostly New Yorkers, weird)
- 1 in 4 Florida residents will be the victim of a violent crime…….tomorrow
- Sharks troll the coastline looking for New Yorkers
"Please warn your readers!"
Actually, it's worse than that. Yes, it's 80° here right now, but this is Castle Perilous.
So I'm back from my trip to silicon valley. I've been working remotely for a number of years, and while there's a very Jetsons-living-in-the-future vibe to video conferencing I have to say that it was nice to meet my colleagues (most for the first time in real life). It was a whirlwind trip and I'm pretty wiped out (I'm not 30 any more, or even 40), but there were some interesting impressions from being in California. I present them here in no particular order.
My rent a car was an electric hybrid. I'd never driven one before and I have to say that if you're in an urban environment like the Bay Area, this might be a good commuter choice. It used battery power a lot, and it was disconcerting when the engine started up solely to charge the car. It's not cool like the Jeep is - no lift kit, super swamper tires, winch on the bumper, etc - but it sure got good gas mileage. Which leads me to the next impression of California.
Holy cow, is gas expensive. I paid $4.79/gal to fill up the the rental car. Hokey smokes. That's what I pay in Florida - if you add 50% to the price! The good thing was that in a 4 day trip I used less than 2 gallons (!) in the rental car. Still not as fun as the Jeep, though.
There was a lot of interest in my group about all things Florida. While they all thought that the weather in California was "what everyone wanted", more than one showed a little bit of envy when I looked up the weather back home and said "Sunny and 79°" when it was 59 and foggy in California. Glad the meeting was in December, not July ...
Lord, the traffic. I complain about Florida drivers, but holy cow. I had more than one conversation with folks out there about motorcycles. The consensus is that riding over the hills to Hall Moon Bay - good; riding anywhere on route 101 - express lane to the Emergency Room (or the morgue).
Once you get off route 101, it's a pretty area. Crazy expensive to live there, but pretty.
All in all, my impression of life there was that California is living the life of an aging Diva, getting dinners and compliments of a renowned past but still with a hint of her former beauty and much of her former wit. It wasn't a bad trip (other than four 12 hour days) but you can tell it's not 1965 any more. Or even 1995. But while the greatness that was California is gone, it's still perceptible that the greatness was in its day very great indeed.
There's a new Medieval Faire in Myakka City, which The Queen Of The World and I will probably go check out. If you want Medieval - really Medieval - then this song is the ticket.
The roots of Western Civilization go deep. Only a little over 100 years since the last Viking conquest attempt of the British Isles, and only 150 years since Cnut sent the Anglo-Saxon King Ethelred the Unready fleeing to France, a battle took place in Christian Iceland. Bishop Guðmundur was trying to consolidate temporal power against the ancient Viking (now Christian) chiefs. Kolbeinn Tumason met him on the field of battle, and was mortally wounded.
But much had changed in Viking lands in the last two centuries, as Christianity had merged with (not replaced) the old Nordic mythos. Tumason wrote an epic poem on his deathbed, one mingling the Old with the New faiths. It's been preserved through the ages, put to music by the modern Icelandic composer Þorkell Sigurbjörnsson.
Astonishingly for a modern composer, the music to turn this Epic into a hymn turns out to be something that might have been recognized at Kolbeinn Tumason's death bed. This is a fabulous performance, in a German Train Station.
It's half Christian and half Viking, just like the epic poem. The bass (not baritone) line adds a we're not in Kansas anymore, Toto feeling to this that underlines just how shallow the Christian overlay was in the Scandinavian lands. It was the frontier, and Americans feel in their bones what that means for orthodoxy.
But this is very, very old poetry. The music is new, but feels equally old. It's a virtuoso performance of a simply outstanding cultural salute.
The epic is pretty interesting, and preserves the hopes and dreams of 800 years ago on the European frontier, as if in amber:
I originally posted this eight years ago, but it bears repeating again.
It's the soldier, not the reporter who has given us
Freedom of the Press.
It's the soldier, not the poet, who has given us
Freedom of Speech.
It's the soldier, not the campus organizer, who has given us the
Freedom to Demonstrate.
It's the soldier, not the lawyer, who has given us the
Right to a Fair Trial.
It's the soldier who salutes the flag, serves under the flag and
whose coffin is draped by the flag,
Who gives the protestor the right to burn the flag.- Father Dennis O'Brien, USMC
And so in the United States, today is the celebration of Veteran's Day. The rest of the Anglosphere (and other places) hold today as Remembrance Day or Armistice Day, recalling the Millions slaughtered in the Great War which ended 95 years ago today. America does not need a Remembrance Day, as we have our own Memorial Day holiday (an outgrowth of the American War of Southern Independence a half century earlier than the War To End All Wars).
As a result, there's less sadness here. On these shores, today is a day for the living, not for the dead. We see signs at small restaurants saying "Veterans Eat Free", which would be difficult for those asleep in Flanders' Fields.
But even here it's worth a moment's reflection on the War where Europe committed suicide, when a whole generation was butchered and damned. And how they nearly took us with her, then and 20 years later. It's rarely the politicians who caused the problem who bleed.
Thanks to all who served, including Grandpa, Dad, Uncle Dick, nephew Daniel, The Queen Of The World's son, our Son-In-Law (now back from deployment), and last but by no means least our very own ASM826. The citizens - of whom you were once part and to which you returned - are grateful indeed that this nation does not fear its own Armed Forces.
There's building stockpiles of food and supplies to get you through bad times, and then there's building a collection of technologies and machines that can help you keep civilization going if things really get bad. The Global Village Construction Set is a set of open source designs for the 50 machines most critical to keeping civilization functional. Some of these are things that I quite frankly would not have thought about - like the compressed earth brick press which costs $4000 for the materials and which can make 6 blocks per minute.
They have designs for a tractor, a 3D printer, a backhoe, a rototiller, and many others. Essentially, this is a set of plans for low cost machines you can use to reboot civilization. Impressive.
One thing that the Monks would often do, especially on more complex books on theology or philosophy was to add short notes in the margins explaining the more impenetrable passages. These little blurbs were called "glosses" and were essentially a reader's helper. If you didn't have a teacher - if all you had was the book - then the gloss would provide a welcome overview to guide the reader to the point of the original book.
Reader Lou emailed:
Hi Borepatch,
I am a longtime reader, this is my first reach out.Great blog, I learn a lot and it is on my daily read list.Regarding AGW, I am a definite skeptic. Though only semi-literate on the subject matter. I try to apply my generic engineer-trained, data-driven analytical approach to issues.I have read your posts on it (especially the ones from 2010 and 2017) and appreciate you taking these folks on.I recently came across this article:My lack of command of the subject leaves me ill-equipped to critique or rebut. Would you be willing to look at it and unpack/rebut from your perspective? I know you have already covered the fundamentals, it’s just these people never quit. And they misuse data to deceive folks.Either way, thank you for all you are doing, please keep it up you have more positive impact than you may realize!
Thanks for the kind words, Lou. I haven't posted on Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) in quite some time because I think I've written everything I have to say on it. And so while I won't do a line-by-line fisking of Dr. Weatherhead's article, I will gloss some of my older posts as to how they relate to her article.
We should start with the post that has a permanent sidebar in the upper right hand side of this blog: A Layman's Guide to the Science of Global Warming. The discussion that is most pertinent to Dr. Weatherman's article is the bit on Carbon Dioxide and how weak a greenhouse gas it is. Dr. Weatherman repeatedly refers to increasing carbon dioxide but completely skates by the fact that CO2 is saturated in Earth's atmosphere, at least as far as its heat capturing capacity. The key passage from my old post is this:
The scientific consensus is that doubling the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere results in warming of around 1°C. We've gone from around 280 parts per million (ppm) atmospheric CO2 to around 400 ppm an increase of about 50% over the last 100 years or so, so there should have been an increase of around half a degree. So why do we hear all of this about how we are destroying the planet? I mean, half a degree doesn't sound like much.
The next post of mine that is pertinent to Dr. Weatherman's article is How to create a consensus on Global Warming. She points out in her article that climate data show that all continents are warming. However, she does not address the very serious problems with adjustments to the data that inject a warming signal where none exists. This is quite frankly the key problem in climate science: the raw temperature data (temperature readings as originally collected by the scientist many years ago) do not show warming, but the adjusted data (what is reported by scientists like Dr. Weatherman) shows considerable warming. My post is very difficult to gloss because the information is so, well, shocking but this is the summary:
Let me say this explicitly: I used to believe that the planet was warming, and that this was likely due to natural (as opposed to man made) causes. Now I'm not sure that the planet is warming. The data do not show warming over the last 70 years, maybe longer.
If you only read one of my posts on global warming, this is the one. It is information-dense and has a bunch of links to scientists who dissent from Dr. Weatherman's "consensus science" view.
A related post about non-adjusted temperature data is relevant. Understanding Climate Data Made Easy discusses how record temperatures (you can't adjust them, amirite?) do not jive at all with the every-year-is-hotter message from Dr. Weatherman. Here are the key bits:
So we see [only] 9 states (18% of the total) setting high records in the last 50 years. 41 states (82% of the total) haven't seen record high temperatures in the period we've been told is an accelerating and hotter climate. You would expect to see a lot more states - another 15 or so setting recent high temperature records. Weird, huh? It's almost like if you remove the adjustments to the temperature data, you don't see accelerating warming.
In fact, we may be seeing the opposite. If you look at record low temperatures you see a lot going on in the most recent years. 15 states have set record low temperatures in the last 50 years (once again ignoring dates listed with an asterisk which tells us the year that the previous low record was tied). This is only 30% of the total, but that's basically twice as many as set record high temperatures.
July and August 1936 saw 14 States set record high temperatures that have not been surpassed in the subsequent 85 years. This despite the repeated statements that last year was the hottest ever. This post suggests a fundamental breakdown in the "Carbon Dioxide is killing us" throry:
Now the establishment science story is that average TMin has been increasing over time, while average TMax has not been increasing much (looking at adjusted data). Left unexplained is how increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases average low temperatures while not increasing average high temperatures. Also left unexplained is how increasing average low temperatures (without increasing average high temperatures) will lead to ecological disaster. Maybe it could, but it's not at all obvious how this would happen.
It's also not explained why Urban Heat Island (UHI) doesn't explain the higher average low temperatures (TMin). UHI is where a weather station that used to be in a nice grassy field is now in the middle of an airport, surrounded by tarmac and blasted with jetwash. It's surprising just how many weather stations are not sited to accurate data collection norms - only 8% of GCHN stations are accurate withing 1°C.
The data are a mess - you might even say they are a hot mess.
And now we come to the most pointed argument against Dr. Weatherman's article - Science As Practiced Today Is Very Sick. The scientists themselves have repeatedly shown themselves to be less than trustworthy. Dr. Weatherman really needs to deal with the Climategate scandal but is unlikely to touch the subject. The Layman's Guide post above gives an overview of the scandal:
In November 2009, someone posted 61 MB of emails, computer program code, and climate data from Hadley servers to an FTP server on the Internet. One of the most notorious of the emails in this release was from Dr. Jones, and contained the following:
I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps
to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd [sic] from
1961 for Keith's to hide the decline.Let's unpack this so you understand each piece. "Mike" refers to Dr. Michael Mann (of the Hockey Stick graph fame). "Nature" refers to Nature Magazine, one of (perhaps the) most prestigious scientific journals. More specifically, it refers to an article that they published, written by Dr. Mann in which he had a temperature reconstruction. There is a huge amount of dispute over what "trick" means - skeptics allege sleight of hand while Mann said it just referred to a mathematical technique. So what was the trick?
Dr. Mann's data sets contained many different proxy series. This is actually a good thing, because you want confirmation of results from different places and types of proxies (say, including ice cores, tree rings, and corals will probably be more reliable than just using tree rings). Mann's "trick" (call it a mathematical technique if you want) was to remove all proxy data later than 1960 and replace it with measured temperature data. The result was a hockey stick shaped temperature graph. This is what Dr. Jones did in the paper referred to in his email.
The $100,000 question is: why go to the trouble to do this if you have proxy data from 1960 up to the present? Why replace 50 years of perfectly good data?
Hide the decline.
There is an youtube lecture where Dr. Richard Mueller from Berkeley covers what Jones did and why Mueller won't read any more of Jones' scientific papers. Dr. Weatherman contributes to the IPCC Assessment Reports so she almost certainly knows Jones personally. She will know Mueller at least by reputation. But she is a beneficiary of Government funding, running a department at the University of Colorado. Which leads us directly to the next - and last - post of mine to gloss: "It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist."
Perhaps the single dumbest argument presented in support of Global Warming is that "the scientific consensus is that it's true". Translation: all the cool kids do it. Translation [2]: my scientist is red hot; your scientist ain't doodly-squat. Oooooh kaaaay.
Of course it's as untrue as it is stupid. And so we get the "you're not qualified"/"we only look at peer-reviewed scientists" expulsion of the Heretics, as the Establishment desperately tries to keep control of the debate.
That's breaking down. Hal Lewis is one of the Senior Statesmen of American Physics. He's been a member of the American Physical Society for 67 years (!)....
Hal Lewis thinks that Global Warming is an anti-scientific, money-grabbing scam by scientists, and says so in a brutal resignation letter sent to the president of the APS:
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.
Lewis' letter is utterly damning, and cannot be dismissed as coming from a crank, or an amateur. And in it he directly addresses the then President of the APS in a passage that must fit Dr. Weatherman's department like a glove:
I do feel the need to add one note, and this is conjecture, since it is always risky to discuss other people’s motives. This scheming at APS HQ is so bizarre that there cannot be a simple explanation for it. Some have held that the physicists of today are not as smart as they used to be, but I don’t think that is an issue. I think it is the money, exactly what Eisenhower warned about a half-century ago. There are indeed trillions of dollars involved, to say nothing of the fame and glory (and frequent trips to exotic islands) that go with being a member of the club. Your own Physics Department (of which you are chairman) would lose millions a year if the global warming bubble burst. When Penn State absolved Mike Mann of wrongdoing, and the University of East Anglia did the same for Phil Jones, they cannot have been unaware of the financial penalty for doing otherwise. As the old saying goes, you don’t have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing. Since I am no philosopher, I’m not going to explore at just which point enlightened self-interest crosses the line into corruption, but a careful reading of the ClimateGate releases makes it clear that this is not an academic question.
I would be much more impressed with climate scientists like Dr. Weatherman if they would address the (it must be said) stink of corruption at the heart of their field. Or clean up their data. Of course, as Lewis pointed out there are millions of dollars at stake.
So there you have it, Lou. There's a lot of reading, but unlike Dr. Weatherman I show my work. And unlike Dr. Weatherman, I don't say "trust me, I'm a scientist" when so many of her colleagues so clearly are not trustworthy.
Reader C.H. sent the following which made my day. I'm posting it with his kind permission:
I am writing as I believe some acknowledgement is in order.Some years ago you authored a blog post advertising network security as a career path for those new to the job market. At this time I was committed to another profession but I found your arguments to be compelling.
I would later remember this when I grew frustrated with the bureaucracy undermining my work in the role I had and elected to make a change.I am now roughly a year into a desirable SOC position in which I am respected for delivering for my team and lucrative career advancement is assured. This is of course a very enviable circumstance in our crumbling society, and I thought it fitting to acknowledge your direct hand in guiding me there in the hope you may derive some satisfaction from your good works.
Thank you dearly,
---
C.H.
The post he is referring to is one of the ones here. I am really happy that this worked out for you, C.H. If anyone finds themself in a similar situation - or if they know of someone in that situation - you might want to take a look at those posts.
Man, I love this version of Hank, Sr.'s classic. You might say that it's not country, but did I mention the bit about Hank, Sr.? And the country comes out, even with Vicentico's latin accompaniment. It's still country in a different language, and you can sing along in whichever language you like. This wasa huge hit for Bennett in 1951, and helped launch his career. You can see why.
Normally I have the songwriter and lyrics here but c'mon - it's Hank, Sr. and you know the words anyway.
I sure do love this version.
Politeness is a sign of dignity, not of subservience.
- Theodore Roosevelt
Divemedic posted his stance on the vaccine: get it if you think it's right for you, don't get it if you don't think it's right for you. A more sensible position is hard to imagine.
And then The Internet appeared in his comments section, with SumD00d telling him he was wrong (well, I think that's what he said because the comment was fairly incomprehensible; hey, it's The Internet, amirite?).
And while the comment was moderately incoherent, the attitude of the commenter was anything but. Commenter "Hedge" is an asshole. He may (or may not) be a dog with a keyboard but he is unmistakably an asshole with one.
Sigh.
I am very grateful indeed that the commenters here are almost always respectful and intelligent - and the commenters on the Dad Jokes are funny as hell. I almost never need to step in to tell folks to settle down and mind their manners - maybe only 2 or 3 times in the 13 years I've been here.
People think wrong when they think that the Internet gives them anonymity. It doesn't. It gives pseudonymity, which is not at all the same thing. If you post under a pseudonym (like Hedge and I both do), you still develop a reputation. Quite frankly, you can't comment anonymously here, so anything you say in the comments here will add to (or in rare cases detract from) your reputation.
Divemedic certainly doesn't need me to fight his fights, that's not the point of this post. I love comments and the two way (or multiple way) discussions we have here. But I'm not going to tolerate Internet Assholes like Hedge here. Cathedra mea, regula meae - my place, my rules.. If you don't like it, don't stop by. This really isn't very hard.
It is a wise thing to be polite; consequently, it is a stupid thing to be rude. To make enemies by unnecessary and willful incivility, is just as insane a proceeding as to set your house on fire. For politeness is like a counter--an avowedly false coin, with which it is foolish to be stingy.
- Arthur Schopenhauer, The Wisdom Of Life
