The Democrats' "Lost Cause" myth

We live immersed in a world of lies.  I've posted about how history as taught today about the Civil War* is retarded.  Nowhere is this on better display than the Wikipedia page about the "Lost Cause Mythos":

The Lost Cause of the Confederacy, or simply the Lost Cause, is an American pseudo-historical, negationist ideology that holds that the cause of the  Confederacy during the American Civil War was a just and heroic one. The ideology endorses the supposed virtues of the antebellum South, viewing the war as a struggle primarily to save what they view as the beneficent and ethical Southern way of life,^[1] or "states' rights" in the face of overwhelming "Northern aggression." At the same time, the Lost Cause minimizes or denies outright the central role of slavery in the buildup to and outbreak of the war. [my emphasis on this last sentence - Borepatch]

This is retarded.  A simple scanning of the dates of secession confirms this:

South Carolina: December 20, 1860

Mississippi: January 9, 1861

Florida: January 10, 1861

Alabama: January 11, 1861

Georgia: January 19, 1861

Louisiana: January 26, 1861

Texas: February 1, 1861

Missing from this list is the Virginia Secession Convention which voted to remain in the Union on 6 December 1861.  Also missing is Lincoln's attempt to break the blockade of Ft. Sumpter at the beginning of April 1861.  Up until this point, secession had been limited to the deep south; after what was seen as an act of war by the Federal government against a state, four other southern states seceded.

Virginia: April 17, 1861

Arkansas: May 6, 1861

North Carolina: May 20, 1861

Tennessee: June 8, 1861

Kentucky: Ordinance passed by people in 1861

Missouri: Ordinance passed, but not presented to people

But this isn't the limit of the Wikipedia article's retardedness.  Look at that last sentence, and ponder that the following slave states never seceded: Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky (mostly because of force of Northern arms) and Missouri (ditto).  So the best you can say is that 7 slave states seceded over slavery, 4 more seceded over Federal aggression (but not over slavery), two more never seceded at all, and two were occupied by the Federal army and so the issue became moot.

In a world where we're continually informed by our betters that we're not well educated enough to correctly interpret all the nuance of the world, it sure would be nice to get a little nuance from historians.  But they have their red, white, and blue cardboard history cutout and so we once again find ourselves swimming in an ocean of lies.**

Democrats don't seem to like nuance, no matter what platitudes they mouth.  It's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to abortion or the Ivy League or antipathy to people who live in Fly Over Country or anti-American sentiment or pro-impeachment sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.***

The impeachment circus will circle back to bite them.  The word that nobody in the press is saying today is "Nineteen" - that's how many House seats Republicans have to pick up to win back the majority.  There are 29 Democrats holding seats in House districts won by Donald Trump in 2016.  It looks grim for the Democrats.

Nancy Pelosi started rolling out a Lost Cause mythos for the Democrats yesterday, with the "solemn" vote on a bag of nothing.  It will come to nothing, but the victory laps being taken by the Democrats show that politics is now a game of humiliating your enemies.  Unfortunately, people have noticed and the American electorate is pretty unhappy with the whole Democratic charade.  We shall see how many more than nineteen districts flip next year.

The Democrats will need their Lost Cause mythos.  Unlike the Civil War* one, this one will not be based on a noble cause like Virginia choosing to resist Federal aggression.  Rather, it will be based on a small and mean desire to humiliate an opponent.  Worse, it targeted an opponent who punches back.

* It wasn't a Civil War at all: the Southern states weren't trying to take over and dominate the northern ones.  They wanted independence.  My preferred name for that conflict is the American War of Southern Independence.

** Note that I say this even though I'm not southern.  I'm from firmly midwest yankee stock and grew up in Maine.  As I like to joke, where we were Boston was in the south and New York was in the deep south.

*** Yes, this was modeled on another famous quote.

Alison Krauss, Yo Yo Ma, Natalie MacMaster, Shane Shanahan & Cristiana Pato - Wexford Carol

The end of the American Republic

The most worthless of mankind are not afraid to condemn in others the same disorders which they allow in themselves; and can readily discover some nice difference in age, character, or station, to justify the partial distinction.

- Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Future historians will mark this date as the day that the American Republic began its inexorable slide into Civil War and secession.  While this process has been under way for quite some time, this is a tidy date so loved by lazy historians.  Before this, the Republic; after this, whatever comes next.

This impeachment is so nakedly partisan and so devoid of anything but the lust for power that nobody can pretend that the Old Ways of Decorum can still be in effect.  In essence, Nancy Pelosi has done what they accuse Trump of doing: upending the traditions of democracy.  What's most striking about this is that they've done it all for nothing.

The Democrats don't look happy at all.  Indeed, many of them dressed in black for the occasion.  The spin was that they're somber for this solemn occasion, but you know that many have looked at the polls and heard from furious constituents and think that they're guests at their own political funerals.  It all looks like a huge miscalculation - rather than the impeachment process driving Trump's poll numbers down it's done the reverse.  Voters everywhere are annoyed at the whole charade and Trump's supporters are infuriated.  The Democrats didn't see that coming at all, because a biased media makes them stupid.

It's a bit like the run up to the First World War.  Nobody really wanted that Armageddon, but once the wheels were turning that way it was impossible for anyone to back out.  That's Nancy Pelosi's problem - her cunning plan was going to put the hammer to Donald Trump, but when she realized that it was probably going to cost her the House majority (and thus her Speakership) it was too late to put the brakes on things.  It would destroy her reputation and infuriate the Democratic base just as the primaries came around to vote on.

And so it will end not with a bang but with a whimper.  This will demoralize the Democratic base, but Donald Trump's base will still be infuriated.  They will want payback.  Not revenge, but a reckoning:



The Democrats have been shameless in their use of raw political power.  Well, two can play that game, and Republicans are finding that they don't have to curl up into the fetal position when talking to the media - indeed, you can gain voters by sneering at the clearly biased media.  The appetite for raw power grows with the tasting, and while this has pretty much been a Democrat game for a while there's no reason to think that both parties can't wet their beaks from that pond.

Power corrupts.  Absolute power corrupts absolutely.  Almost all great men have been bad men.

- Lord Acton

And so the bonds that once knit this Republic will likely get unraveled a bit further, as the reckoning happens.  This will infuriate the Democratic base for the next election, and they will demand tit for tat.  And so on, and so on.  Each iteration will further whittle away at the sense of what is unthinkable in American politics.  Fast forward ten years and we're in uncharted territory.  It won't be the American Republic by then.  Or more specifically, it will be a new American Republic - number five by my count.

But as the bonds stretch and snap, people will rationally question whether the whole can be saved (it can't).  18 December 2019 will go down as the beginning of the end of the American Republic.  Sic transit Gloria Mundi.

Revenge is profitable, gratitude is expensive. 

- Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

The highest paid athlete of all time

As a change of pace from Climate Change and the impending Electric Boogaloo in Virginia, here's some interesting trivia.  The highest paid athlete of all time lived in the Roman Empire:

Gaius Appuleius Diocles (104 – after 146 AD) was a Roman charioteer who became one of the most celebrated athletes in ancient history. He is often cited as the highest-paid athlete of all-time.^[1][2]

Now it's notoriously difficult to compare prices in societies two thousand years apart, but Diocles seems legit:

His winnings reportedly totaled 35,863,120 sesterces, equivalent to 358,631.20 gold aureus or 26,000 kg of gold. As one modius (6.67 kg) of wheat in 79 AD Pompeii cost seven sestertii, Gaius Appuleius could have acquired 34.172 metric tons of wheat, equivalent to US$6.49 million in 2019. His earnings could provide a year’s supply of grain to the entire city of Rome, or pay the Roman army at its height for a fifth of a year. Classics professor Peter Struck describes him as "the best paid athlete of all time".^[1]

Wheat is a lousy measure for comparison, because modern agricultural productivity is so far beyond what the Romans had that wheat is essentially free.  A better comparison is that whole "pay the Roman army at its height for a fifth of a year".  Taking the US DoD budget as around $800B, this gives us a modern equivalent wealth of around $160B - around 100 times what Michael Jordan made (the top modern athlete in terms of earnings).

And a note about the 35M sesterces - you needed to be worth 1M to qualify for Senatorial rank, so Diocles would have been in like flint.  However, the social status of gladiators and charioteers (no matter how popular) was very low, in fact just one minor step up from the status of slaves.  So there's no way that the Romans would have considered him for the Senate.  Probably just as well since it was a stuffy body full of hot air and nonsense by this time.  While it's not true that the Emperor Caligula appointed his horse to that body, he should have.

Just how much does the government spend on climate research?

tl;dr: A lot.

The longer answer is one I posted ten years ago.  The numbers are higher now, certainly over $100B.  To the Fed.Gov this must look like money well spent, using it as an excuse to carbon taxes and the like.

Originally posted 17 December 2009.

Make Big Money, doing Climate Research from home!

Well, I don't know about the "work from home" part, and whether you need to stuff envelopes, but the money's sweet: $79B since 1989, just from the US Fed.Gov. Add in the fellow traveler Euro.Govs and you've maybe doubled that.

Note that's "B" as in "Billion". Skim a lot off the top for Department of Energy and other bureaucrats, and there's plenty of cold hard cash, as long as you toe the line:

• The US government has provided over $79 billion since 1989 on policies related to climate change, including science and technology research, foreign aid, and tax breaks.
• Despite the billions: “audits” of the science are left to unpaid volunteers. A dedicated but largely uncoordinated grassroots movement of scientists has sprung up around the globe to test the integrity of the theory and compete with a well funded highly organized climate monopoly. They have exposed major errors.
• Carbon trading worldwide reached $126 billion in 2008. Banks are calling for more carbon-trading. And experts are predicting the carbon market will reach $2 – $10 trillion making carbon the largest single commodity traded.
• Meanwhile in a distracting sideshow, Exxon-Mobil Corp is repeatedly attacked for paying a grand total of $23 million to skeptics—less than a thousandth of what the US government has put in, and less than one five-thousandth of the value of carbon trading in just the single year of 2008.
• The large expenditure in search of a connection between carbon and climate creates enormous momentum and a powerful set of vested interests. By pouring so much money into one theory, have we inadvertently created a self-fulfilling prophesy instead of an unbiased investigation?

Silly me, thinking that the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy was going to send me bushel baskets of unmarked bills for all my Denier ravings. The Big Money's all on the other side.

And yes, I know that this was posted months ago.  I'm a little slow sometimes.

Canadian Government deletes 100 years of climate data

Well, well, well:

Canadians already suspicious of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s carbon tax are likely be even more suspicious given a report by Ottawa-based Blacklock’s Reporter that Environment Canada omitted a century’s worth of observed weather data in developing its computer models on the impacts of climate change.

The scrapping of all observed weather data from 1850 to 1949 was necessary, a spokesman for Environment Canada told Blacklock’s Reporter, after researchers concluded that historically, there weren’t enough weather stations to create a reliable data set for that 100-year period.

“The historical data is not observed historical data,” the spokesman said. “It is modelled historical data … 24 models from historical simulations spanning 1950 to 2005 were used.”

So the data weren't up to Environment Canada's no doubt high standards and they replaced it with model data?

[blink] [blink] [blink]

At this point, everyone who ever said the words Republican War on Science unironically can just sit down in the back of the room.  Grownups are talking.

While this certainly might make the politics of a carbon tax a little easier, it means that the science is done.  It's not science.  You don't just delete 100 years of recorded data because you don't like it.  A cynic might wonder if the data were airbrushed from history because the data are so not convenient:

Blacklock’s Reporter, which describes itself as “the only reporter-owned and operated newsroom in Ottawa” focusing on intensive reporting of government documents, notes that in many cases the observed temperatures scrapped by Environment Canada in creating its computer models, were higher in the past than today.

For example, Vancouver had a higher record temperature in 1910 (30.6C) than in 2017 (29.5C).

Toronto had a warmer summer in 1852 (32.2C) than in 2017 (31.7C).

...

Brandon, Man., had 49 days where the average daily temperature was above 20C in 1936, compared to only 16 in 2017, with a high temperature of 43.3C that year compared to 34.3C in 2017.

Sharp-eyed readers will recognize 1936 as the year that 14 of the 50 US States (well, 48 back then) set all time high temperature records.  But Manitoba's temperature records have been removed and replaced with new data generated by computer models.  Now two plus two equals five.

Eisenhower's farewell address is famous for its warning against the power - and danger - of a military-industrial complex.  Certainly the history of the last 60 years bears this out.  But even more prophetic were his remarks immediately following this:

Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.

The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded. Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientifictechnological elite.

The climate science industry has certainly provided a comfortable living for the climate scientists.  They get tenure, nice salaries, and junkets to expensive and exotic locations - all they have to do is make sure that their scientific results support the "right" political conclusions.  FYI, the "right" political conclusions include $300B/year to the UN.  Really.  Paid by you and me.

I have complained for a long, long time about the terrible quality of the temperature databases, but this is the most fraudulent abuse of science that I've ever seen.  This post is tagged Climate Bullshit because, well, you know.

It seems that Eric Holder is back in the news

He put himself in the limelight with a bold assertion:

Eric Holder, the former attorney general of the United States, former political hack for boss man Barack Obama, penned a scathing piece in The Washington Post against today Attorney General William Barr, calling him, get this, hold the phone, grab a seat and take a breath — “nakedly partisan.”

Well allrightee, then.

The linked article does a great job skewering Holder's nonsense, but only briefly mentions what got Holder held in Contempt (the first Cabinet Secretary in the Republic's history to be so held) - the "Fast and Furious" gun running operation that got Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry shot.

Well, not everyone has forgotten Fast And Furious.  Ammo.com has a great overview of that whole fiasco that is worth a read.

Me, I think that this is a sign that the investigation is showing signs of closing in on Obama himself.  The noise that you hear is the Palace Guard is closing ranks to protect The One.  It's the kicked dog that yelps.

Sic Semper Tyrannis

The only thing that would make this better was if Northam were in blackface ...

Quote of the day on this matter goes to Aesop, with advise to the Virginia National Guard:

Incoming fire always has the right of way.

It will be interesting to see how next year's elections end up.  The Democrats haven't let the mask slip, they've pulled the damn thing off, shredded it, and are daring everyone to say anything about it.  The 2020 elections are a fork in the road: one way leads to saner heads prevailing in a much-reduced Democratic Party humbled by a Boris Johnson style landslide by a Donald Trump with long, long coat tails.  The other branch leads to Sarajevo.  I guess we'll see.

UPDATE 16 December 2019 11:34: Endorsed:

pic.twitter.com/LvUUBDCEsm

— Sal the Agorist (@SallyMayweather) December 14, 2019

Randy Travis - Old Time Christmas

Christmas is about tradition.  While there are a lot of new songs for the season (including one improbably labeled "country"), nothing does traditional like Old School country music.  And nobody does Old School country music like Randy Travis.



Old Time Christmas (Songwriter: Stewart Harris)

The ol log is burnin'
Yellow and red
Small eyes are fightin'
That ol' sleepy head
Stockin's are filled
While stories of goodwill are told
At the edge of the bed.
It's an old time Christmas
Family and friends 'round the tree
It's an old time Christmas
Like the ones in my memory.
Now the gifts are all open
The kids in the yard
Granddad nods off in a chair
And the smells from the kitchen
Are to fine to mention
And there's peace
On Earth everywhere.
It's an old time Christmas
Family and friends 'round the tree
It's an old time Christmas
Like the ones in my memory.
Church bells ringin'
Choirs singin' everywhere
There's love in the air
It's an old time cristmas
Family and friends 'roubd the tree
It's an old time christmas
Like the ones in my memory.
It's an old time Christmas
Like the ones in my memory...

Pentatonix - That’s Christmas To Me

Looking at these guys part of me wonders what the heck's wrong with the young generation.  But they sing well, if a bit poppy for my tastes.  But the video (with its old home video from Christmases past) is very well done, and I do love me an a capella Christmas song.



So the kids are all right, I guess.

Seasons (voicemail) Greetings

From "Dirty Jobs" host Mike Rowe - who is also an opera singer.



Hat tip: Bob, in a comment to a post last Christmas season.  Man, I sure miss his blogging.  But I love comments pointing me to cool stuff.

Is this a Global Crisis?

Then maybe we should consult with a child activist on what to do.

Or maybe not ...

There's no substitute for legitimacy

Against legitimacy is arrayed usurpation; against modest, single-minded, righteous, and brave resistance to encroachment is arrayed boastful, double-tongued, selfish, and treacherous ambition to possess. God defend the right!

― Charlotte Brontë

The global elites have been searching for an alternative to representative democracy as a source of legitimacy for two decades.  They haven't come up with a viable alternative.  Sure, the EU was successful in their keep voting on EU referendums until you vote the right way but that was only on the continent, and while it gave the EU political power it didn't give it political legitimacy.  Not legitimacy in the sense that we've come to think of it over the course of the 19th and 20th Centuries.

While the elites have generally been able to tamp down the opposition, the lid is starting to come off all over the world.

The voters in the UK expressed their frustrations at how their clearly stated (and voted on) preference for BREXIT has been thwarted by three years of increasingly desperate backroom deals, shady political tricks, and double dealing.  As far as the EU is concerned, yesterday's vote was a resounding "No means NO" to the elites.  A large number of MPs who had said that they would support BREXIT but who then changed their minds - in the voters eyes broke promise and stabbed the electorate in the back - were turned out of office.  The Tories won their biggest victory since Margaret Thatcher, almost 40 years ago.

There really isn't any substitute to legitimacy via representative democracy.  At least, nobody's been able to come up with one.  Lord knows they've tried.

The problem for the Elite Technocratic worldview is generational:

• The first generation knows the system thoroughly, because they built it.  This was the Greatest Generation who beat the Nazi and Japanese Supermen, landed a man on the moon, stared down the Soviet Bear, and brought unprecedented prosperity to the peoples of the West. 
• The second generation understood how the system works because they saw it being built by the first generation.  This was the generation who built the original  Internet.  But the financial benefits of the system were not as evenly distributed as before, with the emergence of "Rust Belts" as a result of government industrial policy.  Hey, learn to code, amirite?
• The third generation inherited a system whose functioning is a mystery to them.  Increasing resistance to their rule is met by censorship ("Hate crime" laws) and blackballing (elimination of all conservative voices from the faculty lounge).  Status hierarchy is no longer based on accomplishment as in the first generation, but via credential - especially Ivy League diploma.

The peoples of the West were right to vote for the first generation.  That support began to decay in the second generation but old habits (reinforced by propaganda) die hard.  By the third generation you see what had once been unthinkable - Appalachia voting solidly Republican and long time Labor districts voting Tory.  The world is turned upside down.

But legitimacy is earned, and the peoples of the West are quite right to vote against this third generation.  That generation lives in a bubble divorced from the reality facing much of the peoples of the West.  Until there's a replacement for legitimacy via representative democracy, it's buh bye Third Generation.

And quite frankly, good riddance.  They are self-important, self-indulgent dullards and fools.  They're Smart Dumbasses.  Many still don't know why they've lost, years after the fact.  It would take a heart of stone not to laugh at their confusion and hopelessness -I mean, didn't their Harvard professors tell them that they were all Philosopher Kings?

Snerk.  They are "adequately predictable".*  That none of them will have read this book - written by one of the towering intellects of the left - tells you all you need to know about them.  Now comes the American election of next year, following hard on what looks to be a spectacular flameout of a Deep-State/Democrat coup.  This will be above all a legitimacy election.  The American people will ponder the years of increasingly desperate backroom deals, shady political tricks, and double dealing and will vote accordingly.  May we see a similar result to Britain's, to warn the elite not to try that again.

To put on the garment of legitimacy is the first aim of every coup.

- Barbara Tuchman

* John Kenneth Galbraith is one of the poster children for the First Generation.  He has been followed by the likes of Thomas Friedman.  Sic transit gloria mundi.

Dean Martin - Silver Bells

Love me some Deano.  IMHO he had the best voice of the Rat Pack crowd.

Wolfgang endorses this

Shamelessly stolen from Gorges.  His one about Snippi Longstockings in 2065 is pretty funny, too.

It takes someone really smart to screw up that phrase

But Gun Controllers are up to the challenge.

Of course, it may just be that nobody is as blind as the man who refuses to see ...

Consumer Electronics and Security for the holidays

People are buying presents for the holidays and so here is a smorgasbord of security news that can help you pick more secure electronics.

Some important bad news: Ring video device in 8 year old girl's bedroom remotely hacked:

Any smart device is also a gateway to everything in your home connected to the Internet.  A "smart speaker" is no exception - and many of them contain video now, not just audio.  Just yesterday, it was reported that a hacker had accessed a Ring video camera and speaker in a little girl's bedroom.  Go read that report - it's spine-chilling.  What if that were your daughter?  Would you want nude images of your 8-year-old, undressing for bed or getting dressed in the morning, spread all over child pornography or pedophilia Web sites?

This is no joke.  I would not allow ANY video or audio devices in a child's bedroom because of the long history of lousy security in these devices.  This means webcams of all sorts (including Ring), Amazon Echo/Alexa, Google Home, Apple Homepod, or Facebook's new Portal device - which has pretty compelling TV commercials (but it's from Facebook who doesn't give two hoots about your - or your kid's - privacy).

The same thing goes for "Smart" TVs which increasingly have both cameras and microphones, and which have a terrible record for both security (easy to hack) and privacy (they upload basically everything about you to the 'Net).

I would go farther and say that none of these should be in your house, period but for the love of everything that's holy especially not in your children's rooms.

Some good news: Toy manufacturers are getting generally better about security:

Back in 2017, the consumer group found toys with security problems relating to network connections, apps or other interactive features. The results of its latest round of testing show manufacturers are struggling to improve standards.
Working with security researchers NCC Group, Which? found a karaoke machine that could transmit audio from anyone passing within Bluetooth range because of its unsecured connection. It found walkie-talkies from VTech which anyone with their own set of similar equipment could connect to over a 200-metre range. It also found a Mattel-backed games portal which appeared to be unmoderated, allowing users to upload their own games with content inappropriate for children.

Now this sounds bad, but the good in the bad is that most of the problems require close physical proximity to compromise - generally its done via Bluetooth which while it has a nominal range of 30 feet in practice is maybe half of that.  I've worked professionally with NCC Group in the past (I hired them to do a security test) and they know their stuff.  The fact that they only found these problems is very reassuring.  I wouldn't think twice about giving one of these toys to my grandkids, although I'd want them supervised when they download content.

More Bad News: KeyMe "Smart" lock can be trivially bypassed and there's no fix coming:

File this one under "not everything needs a computer in it". Finnish security house F-Secure today revealed a vulnerability in the KeyWe Smart Lock that could let a sticky-fingered miscreant easily bypass it. 

To add insult to injury, the device's firmware cannot be upgraded either locally or remotely. This means the only way to conclusively remediate this problem is to rip the damned things from your door and replace them with a bog-standard lock. 

The KeyWe Smart Lock is primarily used in private dwellings, and retails for circa $155 on Amazon. It allows users to unlock their doors through a traditional metal key, via a mobile app, or with Amazon Alexa.

The communication protocols really didn't think much about security - yes, there is encryption but it seems like it was broken from the very beginning.  A Bad Guy can remotely (say, from across the street) extract the encryption key and use that to open the lock any time he wants.

Even worse, there is no way to update the firmware so people who bought this have basically blown $155 on a lock that won't stay locked.  If you have one of these turkeys, get on down to Home Depot and buy a new dumb (key) lock, tout suite.  Like it said, not everything needs a computer.

Bad news for health nuts: Antitrust review of Google Fitbit acquisition:

The FTC is keen to have a piece of Google, in part because it has just set up a new technology task force specifically to monitor tech giants for anti-competitive behavior. But the agency also wants to rebuild its reputation following an embarrassing climbdown in 2012, when its staff found that Google was rigging the search market, but the agency’s commissioners cut a deal and tried to hide the staff report (it is still hiding part of it.) 

But the DoJ reportedly called dibs on Fitbit because it has an ongoing investigation into Google.

There's a huge amount of Orange Man Bad in the linked article but it's good to see the Fed.Gov getting serious about the single greatest privacy violating company on the planet today.  Remember, if you give a fitbit to someone for a holiday present, you're giving Google their private health data as another holiday present.

Thoughts about the Impeachment articles

Hat tip: Chris Lynch.

Drat

The Queen Of The World won't let me do this at Castle Borepatch.

Ah well, perhaps it's for the best.

While I was gone

I've been re-posting stuff from ten years ago.  Usually it's serious stuff (heavy on the Global Warming, thankee very much).  But this one just made me laugh.

Originally posted 6 December 2009.

Cookie Monster is gonna rock your world

With a little help from his friends, Rammstein.



More Rammstein here.

Miami-Dade police body armor

There's a new design being issued, it seems.

pic.twitter.com/mguvDh70lZ

— Sal the Agorist (@SallyMayweather) December 9, 2019

Michael Buble and Thalia - Feliz Navidad

I've been gone, but now I'm back and it's the Christmas season.  Let's get into the spirit with one of my favorite renditions of one of my favorite Christmas songs.

The hits keep coming

The Beetles: During the week of 4 April 1964, we held twelve positions on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, including the top five.

Bill and Hillary: Those are rookie numbers.

Cities cause Global Warming

I have for years been posting on the dreadful state of the climate databases, and the unnatural acts performed upon the poor data by "adjustments" made by computers.  I have also posted often about the problem of the "Urban Heat Island" (UHI) effect, where a weather station in what was once a grassy field becomes surrounded by a growing city and finds itself in the middle of a parking lot.  Or worse - most airfields in the 1930s had grass runways, and that's where a large number of weather stations reside.  How those stations are not in the middle of a field but rather surrounded by tarmac and washed by jet blast.  Sure, they read hotter temperatures than in the 1930s, but this sure isn't a climate change.

Interestingly, the IPCC says that UHI is negligible, amounting to only 0.05°C warming over the 20th Century.  This seems absurdly small.  Ten years ago I posted about an excellent science experiment where a 6th grader (!) and his Dad analyzed dozens of urban weather stations and compared their reported warming against matched nearby rural weather stations.  The result is inescapable that the IPCC way underestimates the UHI effect.

Originally posted 10 December 2009.

So who peer-reviews a sixth grader?

I don't know, but this kid (and his dad) do a simply outstanding job of analyzing the GISS temperature data to see if there is an "Urban Heat Island" (UHI) effect - basically, are cities hotter than the surrounding countryside:



Here's why this is excellent work:

1. The analysis is controlled for time period: all stations were active from 1900 through 2006.

2. The analysis was controlled for population: only cities of 150,000 or more were used.

3. The hypothesis - that urban areas are warmer than nearby rural areas - was controlled by matching the cities with corresponding rural stations within 30 and 100 miles. This is far enough away to not be effected by any UHI from the city, but close enough to be in the same climatic region.

4. The methodology is described clearly and the data is available to anyone. Go ahead - try this at home!

In other words, good science from a sixth grader. So how does this compare to Peer-Reviewed articles on the same topic? It kicks their butt:

The newest entry in the theological literature is Parker (2004, 2006), who, once again, does not show the absence of an urban heat island by direct measurements, but purports to show the absence of an effect on large-scale averages by showing that the temperature trends on calm days is comparable to that on windy days. My first reaction to this, and I’m sure that others had the same reaction was: well, so what? Why would anyone interpret that as evidence one way or the other on UHI?

That's some mighty impressive peer-review, right there. Let me translate Dr. Parker's wicked-scientific article into the vernacular:So what can we say about Dr. Parker? Is he smarter than a fifth grader? Well, we don't know, but the smart money is not backing him against this sixth grader.

And well done to young Padawan Peter for showing how Science is really done.

UPDATE 10 December 2009 14:53: From Rick in an email:

Come on. There is no question that they are all smarter than the sixth grader. After all, he couldn't fudge the data and they could.

I don't care who you are, that's funny right there.

Disband the FBI

The FBI Inspector General's report is out, and while it is being portrayed by the media as "exonerating" the Agency, it lays out in explicit detail things like the 17 errors and omissions in the FISA warrant application used to spy on the Trump 2016 campaign.  Remember: the FBI lied on the FISA application used to spy on you and that's no crime; but it is a crime for you to lie to the FBI about the spying they did on you based on the FISA warrant they lied to get.

And so the question is: what to do about the FBI (please, no peaking at the post title).  Don Surbur lays out the cold hard truth of the situation:

The perps of this crime do not have to explain a thing. They are retired and can flip Congress the bird. Their pensions are safe and a few of them have book deals, a reward for keeping their mouths shut about Obama's corruption.

I have told readers for months, no excitement without an indictment. Without prosecution, no one is held accountable, and it will happen again because no penalty is attached to abuse of office.

And this will trickle down the FBI. It rolls downhill in government. The top men in the FBI lied to a judge to get the warrants to spy on a future president. They will go unpunished. The message is clear to the FBI: Lie. Fib. Do whatever it takes get a warrant or a conviction. The inspector general has your back.

Does anyone really expect indictments?  Heck, General Clapper perjured himself before Congress and was not indicted.  The FBI perps here didn't (quite) rise to that level.  And so, the question remains: what to do with the FBI?

The Organs Of The State do not self-correct.

The Agency needs to be shut down.  There is no possibility of reform, not when its leadership is staffed with Obama/Democrat partisans.  They don't want to reform, and even if the people named in the IG report do end up serving hard time, the remaining FBI leadership still won't want to reform.  Donald Trump will someday no longer be President, and someday a Democrat will put his loafers on the Resolute Desk.  The Agency has to go, QED.

Quite frankly, this can be useful for Donald Trump.  The messaging is "the Deep State is corrupt and politicized and not reformable, and the Republic is better off with no Agency than a corrupt one".  The story is so big that the media will amplify his message despite themselves, and despite their desperate attempts to spin it.  After all, who wants a corrupted national police force?  And it will have much more impact at other Agencies (hello, IRS) where the leadership might just think that they're next in Trump's cross hairs.  Maybe they won't want to reform either, but maybe they might.  After all, the Democratic Party is better off if they're left with an Agency that is reduced in power, rather than with no Agency at all.

One thing that Donald Trump is good at is (politically) slitting someone's throat and watching them twitch.  Sadly, this needs to happen now at the FBI, on a much larger scale than anyone is talking about.

What a depressing place that our Republic has ended up.

UPDATE 12/10/19 12:12: "They don't want to reform" - man, that came quickly:

I don’t know what report current Director of the FBI Christopher Wray was reading, but it sure wasn’t the one given to me. With that kind of attitude, he will never be able to fix the FBI, which is badly broken despite having some of the greatest men & women working there!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 10, 2019

FBI Director Wray should be invited to spend more time with his family in this Holiday Season ...

How the Climate Science sausage is made

Ten years ago I laid this out.  This is where the action is when it comes to actual climate science.

Originally posted 9 December 2009.

How to create a Scientific Consensus on Global Warming

We keep hearing people tell us that there is a "consensus" that the planet is warming, because the "science is settled". Longtime readers know my feelings on the latter, so there's no need to rehash old arguments. Instead, I'd like to look at how one might go about manufacturing a consensus. It's actually not hard.

Step 1: Change the data

There are a very small number of data sets on global temperatures, and these are used by essentially all Climatologists worldwide. One (CRUt) is from the Climate Research Unit in the UK, the second (GHCN)is the US Historical Climate Network, and the third is GISS (from NASA's Goddard Institute).

However, not all data sets are created equal: GISS and CRU get almost all of their raw data from GHCN, so that's the one that counts. Meaning, that's the one we'll look at today.

There are two parts to the GHCN data: the raw temperature readings, and adjustments to the readings. The raw numbers are easy - they're just the instrument reported temperature for the weather station. Look outside your house at your thermometer - that's the raw data. Here Chez Borepatch, my thermometer says that it's 39°.

Adjustments are modifications to the readings, to "remove inhomogeneities" in the raw data. You (like me) may look at that and say Whiskey Tango Foxtrot are inhomogeneities? CRU helpfully provides an answer:

Most long-term climate stations have undergone changes that make a time series of their observations inhomogeneous. There are many causes for the discontinuities, including changes in instruments, shelters, the environment around the shelter, the location of the station, the time of observation, and the method used to calculate mean temperature. Often several of these occur at the same time, as is often the case with the introduction of automatic weather stations that is occurring in many parts of the world. Before one can reliably use such climate data for analysis of longterm climate change, adjustments are needed to compensate for the nonclimatic discontinuities.

OK, we don't want a jump in the historical record if you move a station or replace a thermometer with a better one.

But. All the Climatologists in the world will look at this data. How much do the adjustments change the results?

We don't know, but people are starting to look. They're starting to find that adjustments change the data a lot. They change the data so much that they show that the earth is warming when the raw data may show that it's cooling.

Let me say that again: Thermometers may be showing that the Earth is cooling, but adjustments to this data show a rapid temperature rise.

Let me give three examples.

Darwin, Australia:The blue line is the raw data from the five weather stations in Darwin. It shows a 0.7°C cooling over the 20th Century. The Black lines are the adjustments to this data, showing a big jump in 1940 and a substantial increase since then. They turn the raw data decline into a 1.2°C increase over the course of the 20th Century.

Woah. So what's with the adjustments? Fortunately, there is an explanation:

They pick five neighboring stations, and average them. Then they compare the average to the station in question. If it looks wonky compared to the average of the reference five, they check any historical records for changes, and if necessary, they homogenize the poor data mercilessly. I have some problems with what they do to homogenize it, but that’s how they identify the inhomogeneous stations. OK … but given the scarcity of stations in Australia, I wondered how they would find five “neighboring stations” in 1941 …
So I looked it up. The nearest station that covers the year 1941 is 500 km away from Darwin. Not only is it 500 km away, it is the only station within 750 km of Darwin that covers the 1941 time period. (It’s also a pub, Daly Waters Pub to be exact, but hey, it’s Australia, good on ya.) So there simply aren’t five stations to make a “reference series” out of to check the 1936-1941 drop at Darwin.
...
Yikes again, double yikes! What on earth justifies that adjustment? How can they do that? We have five different records covering Darwin from 1941 on. They all agree almost exactly. Why adjust them at all? They’ve just added a huge artificial totally imaginary trend to the last half of the raw data! ...
Those, dear friends, are the clumsy fingerprints of someone messing with the data Egyptian style … they are indisputable evidence that the “homogenized” data has been changed to fit someone’s preconceptions about whether the earth is warming.

You might think that this sort of "adjustment" process is incompetent. You might also think that this process is convenient (but only if you are as nasty and suspicious as I). There is much, much more, and it's much, much worse.

It's not just Darwin, either. Brisbane sees exactly the same thing:

Just out of interest I decided to plot the raw temperature data for my home city of Brisbane, Australia from the GISS (ie the raw GHCN data) against the homogenized or adjusted GISS GHCN data. The temperature sensor is located at the Brisbane Eagle Farm Airport which is now our busy main international airport. The data used is the series available from 1950 to 2008. I have aniumated the result to highlight the difference.

As you can see the raw data shows a downward trend of about -0.6 C per century. The unadjusted data however shows an opposite trend of +0.6 C per century. Intuitively as the airport grew from a quiet strip to a busy international jet airport one would think the more recent data would be adjusted downwards for the heat island effect. Instead we see that the data prior to 1978 is adjusted down and the data in recent times was adjusted up.

He helpfully plots the raw data overlayed with the adjusted data.Don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

And remember, we already know what the adjustments to the lower 48 states look like:New Zealand, too:Take away the adjustments, and all the warming from 1850 disappears. Change the data, and all the Climatologists will discover that the Earth is "warming". [intentional use of scare quotes]

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 [now 80 - Borepatch] years, maybe longer.

Step 2. Fund only scientific research that confirms warming.

We've seen for some time anecdotal evidence suggesting that researchers are afraid to come out publicly against the "consensus" view:

You can almost smell the fear - the article discusses a series of climate changes over the centuries (not a surprise to either of my regular readers), strongly correlated with changes in Solar activity. But the author feels the need to add a non sequitur about Carbon Dioxide. E pur si muove, indeed.

Well, we now are starting to see explicit charges of warming bias in the research grant application process:

Personal anecdote:
Last spring when I was shopping around for a new source of funding, after having my funding slashed to zero 15 days after going public with a finding about natural climate variations, I kept running into funding application instructions of the following variety:
Successful candidates will:
1) Demonstrate AGW.
2) Demonstrate the catastrophic consequences of AGW.
3) Explore policy implications stemming from 1 & 2.
Follow the money — perhaps a conspiracy is unnecessary where a carrot will suffice.

On a personal note, one of the traits that I find the most charmingly naive among the more shrill of the warming alarmists is their claim that the skeptics are funded by the Oil companies. As if "their side" couldn't possibly have an interest in the outcome.

When you consider that the CRU had received at least £14M and was looking at another £75M more, that's real money.

Opportunity and motive. Does this mean there was a conspiracy? Of course not. It does mean that they data is not to be trusted, that we simply don't know whether the planet is warming or not, and that there is a plausible explanation for why someone would want to manufacture a phony consensus.

The science is settled? Don't make me laugh.

UPDATE 9 December 2009 17:37: Looks like West Point, NY is only warming due to adjustments. Here is the raw data:The Machiavellian explains what's happening:

So, after the raw data is run through the homogenization process, in other words, statistical manipulation, temperatures from 1900 through 1980 are depressed at West Point and temperatures thereafter look as if they are increasing in comparison to the average temperatures based on the raw data.

No warming at all in 100 years in the raw data; a degree warming after adjustments.

UPDATE 9 December 2009 17:47: It looks like the CRU emails include this from Prof. Wibjorn Karlen, who was trying unsuccessfully to reproduce the temperatures shown by the IPCC AR4 report for Scandinavia.

In attempts to reconstruct the temperature I find an increase from the early 1900s to ca 1935, a trend down until the mid 1970s and so another increase to about the same temperature level as in the late 1930s.

A distinct warming to a temperature about 0.5 deg C above the level 1940 is reported in the IPCC diagrams. I have been searching for this recent increase, which is very important for the discussion about a possible human influence on climate, but I have basically failed to find an increase above the late 1930s

This is email 1221683947, to Dr. Jones of the CRU. Jones was particularly unhelpful - essentially blowing Karlen off. So add Scandinavia to the list of places where adjustments look particularly dodgy.

UPDATE 9 December 2009 17:56: Wow, Detroit, too:

Once again, the raw, monthly average temperature for the Detroit area, over the last 111 years shows an amazingly constant climate. It seems that only when the data is run through and adjusted by the proponents of global warming do we get an upward tick in temperatures.

The Machiavellian has more: California, Southwest Ohio.  Click through and scroll.

Here is the $64 Trillion Question: Are there any locations where adjustments are net negative over 100 years? Any at all? I'm willing to listen to justifications why all adjustments are long term net positive, but it will have to be good. There are very well known and documentedissues that cause thermometers to run hot; adjustments for this should cause raw temperatures to decrease, not increase.

UPDATE 9 December 2009 22:24: Joanne Nova has an information-rich post that dissects the adjustments. If the adjustments come mainly from nearby weather stations, what if none of them show warming, either? Someone at GISS or CRU or HCN have some 'splaining to do.

Back now

The Queen Of The World and I are back from a week's cruise, celebrating our anniversary.  Some friends on the ship fixed up our cabin:

The cruise was the High Seas Rally - the entire ship was chartered for a motorcycle rally.  It was a blast - formal evening dinner meant wear your leathers.  I'll put up some more pix later, but apologies to all for the light posting (I scheduled some posts but it wasn't as many as usual) and the complete failure to reply to your comments.  We didn't get the phone/Internet plan and so were entirely off-grid for the week.  It was awesome.

The Sunshine Skyway bridge, St. Petersburg FL

Dang, that Climate Change!

Sneaky little bugger, isn't he?

Yes, this is what Dads do

That's a good Dad, right there.

Ah, holiday parties

Nerd memes

This cracks me up, since it's Meme to the power of Nerd squared.

It reminds me of the difference between the temperature scales (Fahrenheit, Celsius, and Kelvin), explained from a practical perspective:

Fahrenheit:

0° - You're cold.
100° - You're hot.

Celsius:

0° - You're cold.
100° - You're dead.

Kelvin:

0° - You're dead.
100° - You're dead.

Yeah, I'm a nerd

Let me translate that for you, Scooter

Politics sucks

Charles-Valentin Alkan - La chanson de la folle au bord de la mer

Charles-Valentin Alkan was a highly sensitive man, which led him both to friendships with the greatest composers of his day and a series of disappointments that led him to withdraw from society for years.  He seems to have been quite an unhappy man, although his talent caused him to be recognized as one of the greatest performers and composers of his day.

His ability on the piano was precocious, and he entered the Paris Conservatory at the age of 5.  His transcription of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony for two pianos and eight hands was famous in its day but has sadly been lost.  He was close friends with Frederic Chopin - Chopin on his deathbed asked Alkan to finish one of his piano compositions - but Chopin's death hit him hard and he retired from performing for almost 25 years.

He composed this piece just as he was about to enter his reclusive phase.  It is perhaps a farewell to Chopin.