I wanted to get a fix on these numbers.
P.S. And Anon, the truth is that the wealthy in America pay a staggering amount of tax, far more than their fair share. In the US, the top 7 percent of those filing returns pay 51 percent of total income taxes—over half. The top 3 percent of filers pay 40 percent of the taxes; the top four-fifths of 1 percent pay 26 percent; the top one-twentieth of 1 percent paid 10 percent of the taxes. Since many of the wealthier Americans also own interests in companies, they pay corporate tax on top of that.
So I’m afraid the socialist fable of the downtrodden proletariat paying for the lifestyles of the rich and famous is just that—a fable. The truth is that it is overwhelmingly the rich who pay for social services used overwhelmingly by the non-rich. And what do they get in return? Hissing, spitting, unfounded accusations, and a thousand flavours of nastiness and ingratitude. Oh yes, the politics of envy is the beating heart of contemporary liberal philosophy.
Monday, August 1, 2011
Friday, July 29, 2011
An inuit elder gives prospective to AGW and its impact on polar bears.
Sarah Nangmalik
To Roland Doucet...I read your email up further about the CBC report of a polar bear that swam for 9 days and you also attached a website to it. Let me tell you from an Inuit point of knowledge here. I was born in a snow house on the land w...here polar bears roam in great population...To make it short I would like to tell you that there are two types of polar bears in the arctic. As you said earlier a polar bear swam for 9 days out in the ocean. These type of polar bears are called "Tulaajuittut" by Inuit. "Tulaajuittut" means polar bears that never ever set foot on land and has lived out in the sea all their lives and they are much larger than those polar bears that go on land. Tulaajuittut are born on sea ice and live all their lives in places called "ikiq" or "ikirasak" which means open sea water beween the sounds especially in the high arctic, to give you a better view of a map of an "ikiq - ikirasak" you would normally see on map is "Aqqusiriaq" Lancaster Sound, Davis Straight, Baffin Bay and all the large bodies of sea water in the north have "Tulaajuittut" polar bears. In the summer they will swim for many days out in the open sea and same for the polar bears that go on land as well. In Nunavut and Nunavik today, people are constantly in fear of polar bears that regularly arrive into the communities and into the camping grounds daily. I do believe our Inuit elders speaking one after the other throughout Nunavut and Nunavik on CBC North radio why polar bears are coming into towns is because the southern scientists with lack of knowledge of the land and animals in the north are harrassing them by helicopters, injecting them to put them to sleep to take samples and many times their needles will break and leave them in the polar bear because they think nobody sees them BUT when they roam into communities sometimes they have to be shot to protect the people and you know what? so many times we see and hear on the radio that the polar bear was infected with an injection broken needle in their legs or some areas in their body. When we have southern scientists that come up north for very short periods of time usually only during warm spring and summer months just to write a scientific article that is often not true or correct observation and often they do not consult with local elders and hunters but they sure move the people around the world as if they are the only ones with all the knowledge. We've been taught by our parents and elders all our lives how to observe polar bears as each and every one of them have their own personality and when we have southern scientists that come up to take pictures they have absolutely NO CLUE how to observe and respect animals of the arctic especially polar bears and because they label and express themselves with great southern knowledge they often leave without learning anything at all from the local people which is sad when they could have at least learn something that they never learned from Universities down south.
Monday, July 25, 2011
News Gathering techniques get tweeked.
I understand there will be opportunists who will use this to their advantage. The elephant in the room in my opinion, is how widely spread this practice might be among all the media. I think about wiki-leaks, it pried confidential information, both public and private and disseminated it to the world. Many point out that was a positive expression of the free press. So this news paper pried confidential information as well, but in fact the only way it differs form Wikileaks is in its scope. You think the people compromised, whose very lives were so imperiled don't feel as violated as a cell-phone user in England? This doesn't make either right. It makes both scenarios wrong. However, since when has the media been as white as the driven snow in how it extracts confidential information to publish as it sees fit?
The Hound of Heaven
THE HOUND OF HEAVEN
Francis Thompson
I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the midst of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter.
Up vistaed hopes I sped;
And shot, precipitated,
Adown Titanic glooms of chasmed fears,
From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.
But with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbèd pace...
Francis Thompson
I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the midst of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter.
Up vistaed hopes I sped;
And shot, precipitated,
Adown Titanic glooms of chasmed fears,
From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.
But with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbèd pace...
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Me First
Owen Abrey: Canada first? I live with a disability. I am very thankful for Canada's help getting my family through this. Sure I have raised the family (4 kids) on wages/income below the poverty line. I have raised my kids to put a bit of water in the stew, if a stranger was hungry. They are all grown up, 2 in college, 2 fully employed, enjoying Canada's life and freedom. But it is not merely poverty we are thinking about here--it is starvation. Very very few Canadians--if any, are suffering starvation. So again, we who have so much just don't know what is really going on in the world. There are ways to change it. Go there; educate yourself; look out for the poor you speak of that live here in Canada. The resolution of the matter, for many posting, I really hope you find good jobs; but if you can't give out of your poverty you will not out of your wealth either. It has been brutal the last few years, but it is starting to get better. I know it sure feels good to have a job so that instead of complaining , we can do something about it. **Or am I being too idealistic?**
http://www.facebook.com/#!/pmharper
http://www.facebook.com/#!/pmharper
Friday, July 22, 2011
No more Bank Hikes!
Raising rates is bad for Canada. Inflation has been as tepid as the recovery. If it weren't for Canadian commodities, the big banks would have a big hole in their bottom line. Lets face it, they are doing well stroking the stock market for each other, not lending, or paying much interest... unless they lend to their credit card companies and get to make unprecedented spreads: 18% spread? If there would have been a whiff of this 30 years ago when credit cards were allowed to enter the market, there would be no way politicians or banks could get away with it.
The BOC rate is eclipsed by these real drags on the economy. But increasing them makes everything worse, higher mortgage rates, notice how long they have been higher in anticipation of the next rate height? Ridiculous. I was ranting when the rates went to 1%, it was proved to be hard on the economy then, and future rates will be hard later. The dollar is high enough thank you.
The BOC rate is eclipsed by these real drags on the economy. But increasing them makes everything worse, higher mortgage rates, notice how long they have been higher in anticipation of the next rate height? Ridiculous. I was ranting when the rates went to 1%, it was proved to be hard on the economy then, and future rates will be hard later. The dollar is high enough thank you.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Actually, a lot of "church types" will have no hang up at all. A lot of church types accepts the Earth may be 4 billion years old or so. And are cool with understandings of genetic drift.
There is this enigmatic passage, where by the "sons of God" took wives from the daughters of men. One long standing theory has been perhaps the "sons of Adam" took wives from the daughters of pre-anthropomorphic forms, like the Neanderthals.
A famous Christian apologist once said a miracle doesn't take from the natural world, or the natural order of things, but rather adds something to it, rather like the theory of "punctuated equilibrium".
There is this enigmatic passage, where by the "sons of God" took wives from the daughters of men. One long standing theory has been perhaps the "sons of Adam" took wives from the daughters of pre-anthropomorphic forms, like the Neanderthals.
A famous Christian apologist once said a miracle doesn't take from the natural world, or the natural order of things, but rather adds something to it, rather like the theory of "punctuated equilibrium".
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Low Energy Nuclear Reactions: 2.5 Million Watt-hours from a Nickel? | tblakeslee
Low Energy Nuclear Reactions: 2.5 Million Watt-hours from a Nickel? | tblakeslee
Cambridge Posts:
http://sms.cam.ac.uk/media/1150242
Cambridge Posts:
http://sms.cam.ac.uk/media/1150242
Cold Fusion: LENR references I posted on a Face Book discussion...
Owen Abrey Yes, I will post some 2011 stuff. An Italian, Rossi has found an LENR technique that apparently works with Nickle and Hydrogen... He has indicated a commercial release in October/November 2011. Will link some current stuff.
9 hours ago ·
Owen Abrey **http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9E3IFudAPAc&feature=related**
9 hours ago ·
Owen AbreyAll of this becomes true or untrue in November. The SPAWR stuff is very serious, and has more than 20 papers published in peer reviewed lit. Rossi, I have to doff my hat to him, has basically said to the scientific world which has been so... intransigent and unwilling to be even handed in its approach to this... Here is a 60 minutes piece that got my attention on this several years ago... **http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4955212n**See More
9 hours ago ·
Owen Abrey Here is info that includes recorded recommendations and opinion of the Swedish Skeptics society. **http://pesn.com/2011/04/07/9501805_Rossi_Cold_Fusion_Validated_by_Swedish_Skeptics_Society/**
Monday, July 11, 2011
- In a way John, I am arguing in favor of your original concept of home grown, in that when you grow something yourself, you know what inputs you have put into the product. However, you don't know the chemical state of the soil in most insta...nces. This becomes problematic for example in Trail, famous for its high lead levels in the soil. I am not sure home grown is a good concept there, nor for example whether the debateable toxicity of various pesticides would even be on par with the devastating toxicity of lead. If your soil is native, and you understand the history of the property to know no one dumped PCBs there in the 1960s, then the "home grown" is obviously preferable. The word organic does not actually have anything to do with toxicity. The word has been borrowed and made to mean something different. It has been redefined to mean that no synthetic chemicals have been added. However, there could be dung with chemicals in it. Since that is considered a "natural" fertilizer, usually no one bothers to see if the cow had deposited prions due to its having "mad cow disease" (that is an extreme example) or a toxic form of e-coli contamination. In the previous 2 examples, you have organic toxicity from pretty much accepted organics of microbial form. Forgive me if I sound somewhat argumentative, but I have some big peeves against what is purported to be "environmental science" these days.See More
23 minutes ago ·
Owen Abrey 2 years ago, on a mineral claim, we had several hundred soil samples taken. Picture a nice old growth forest with trees girthing 6-7 feet in diameter. Vegitation is lush. To the point of being very hard to get through with only a machete in hand. Where we began sampling, everything was in nominal range. However, perhaps 200 metres from that spot, the lead and arsinic values were screaming. I can't help but think, what if this was in someone's back yard. They might have grown a garden here and never known the difference. They may die 20 years before they were supposed to, but no one would likely know it was the garden that killed them.
8 minutes ago ·
Owen Abrey In the mountains of BC, we have thousands and maybe millions of faults beneath the soil. Faults can give rise to exhalatives....that bring poisons to the surface. Arsenic is particularly mobile. But so is Uranium dioxide. It dissolves in water, can come down a mountain stream and deposit itself in soils in the river bank. Uranium dioxide is actually not considered poisonous. The form of radiation is a beta particle I think... however, it has a half-life that causes the original uranium to turn into radon gas... that is very toxic.
4 minutes ago ·
Owen Abrey Or thorium, also toxic. So, if you really want to be certain, a home-grower should do some basic soil samples, send them away and get a laboratory guaranteeing the soils constituence. An organic farmer should do the same, on his soils and on his inputs, and on his product if he wants to certify the safety of the food he is selling you. I don't know if any actually do that.
a few seconds ago ·
- Owen Abrey The killer in most science experiments is that you need to know your base-lines. So likewise, if you are going for extremely high quality foods that you grow yourself, you need to start with a soil test. Its about 20.00 a sample at ACME labs in Kamloops. For Eco nuts, who rave about organics like an ostrich with their head in the sand, who boast amazing knowlege of carcinogens, or pesticides or herbicides and call for all the highest standards of science, to rave on this and neglect to start with a soil sample they are crazy3 minutes ago ·
- Owen Abrey I am frustrated to assert our science, and especially that we teach our kids, is so flacid and lacking rigor, Louise Pasteur must be rolling over in his grave.2 minutes ago ·
Saturday, July 9, 2011
More rants over Afghanistan
Some things you know you know, like war is hell and people die. Some things you know you don't know, like who's gonna die, where the bombs are going to blow up. Then theret are the things you know that you don't know: Like whether this is going to make this world a better or worse place. But its the things you don't know you don't know that spell out ignorance. DiManno at least has been there. Admitting there are things you don't know is the opportunity for enlightenment. We brought a million men home from WWII, lost more men in an hour than we did in 10 years in Afghanistan. I think history is going to judge us for our pathetic support in stupidly not providing adequate numbers and equipment. Its like Nato is trying to do the least that it can thinking they can get away with while hiding the truth of it. Canada's forces have done so much with so little. Its a huge credit to their spirit. How huge? Well that is what we don't know we don't know, it seems... Thanks Ms DiManno
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/1022315--dimanno-little-reason-to-ask-if-afghan-mission-is-worth-it#comments
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/1022315--dimanno-little-reason-to-ask-if-afghan-mission-is-worth-it#comments
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Inerrency and authority discussions.
Rev. 22:18-19 DOES NOT refer to books of the bible apart from the book of Revelations. To suggest it does, does violence to the principles of hermeneutics that we use to interpret the rest of the entire scripture. However, that said, the... word of God (all scripture) is no less THE inspired word of God, it is simply wrong to make those verses say anything beyond the book as John originally wrote the Book of R. This is crucial, because if the fact the NT was written in Koine greek, was written that way so EVERYONE could understand it. I am reminded of a translator's challenge translating into a Peruvian dialect. There was no word for paper or book in the entire language. The natives however, when the minister opened the bible and disclosed God to them, called the book: the skin of God. So the term "skin of God" is still used to this day to translate book or page. This is the dilemma of the translator, and I would not be quick to pick up stones on this one.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Terrorism by the Numbers.
Because I have been accused of preaching hatred with sloppy statistics, here are statistics directly from Chicago University. There may be a more accurate source in the world but I don't know it.
http://cpost.uchicago.edu/
Some people have had trouble with the direct link.
Choose Suicide Attack Data Base.
Some people have had trouble with the direct link.
Choose Suicide Attack Data Base.
I used these data base filters.
Data base filters: 2008,9; all weapon types except airline bombings, all locations, no filter on group name.
I think the rationale for these choices is rather obvious .
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
A Vital CO2 Discussion on Facebook:
Chilian Volcano Has Belched more Carbon Dioxide Than all Humans Have in Last two Decades. | Hypocris
hypocrisy.comThere ought to be a law against volcanic pollution. Did this frighteningly political documentary mention volcanoes? A volcano in southern Chili is
Dustin LacosseInconvenient perhaps, truth however? The comments on that post are ridiculous. This Richard bloke comes off as a complete fool that can't cite any references other than a documentary (Seriously, he just says, "Google it"... my god), then go...es on to simply quote his detractors asking for honest citation of his sources a stupid Confucius quote (Basically calling them fools), and he doesn't even take the time to exert proper spelling and grammar in his responses. To a scientific crowd that's quite the smack in the face.
I really, really, dislike that post. Regardless of my beliefs, I cannot take a guy who answers his comments like that seriously. No respect.
gbeauregard, on the other hand, gets a +1.See More
about an hour ago ·
Owen AbreyDustin, I don't know the volume of C02 that volcano has spewed. I certainly have no way of proving the veracity of the statement, most of the people who could don't want to. Here is a letter from an old friend of mine from Hi-school. He ...has a grad degree in Meteorology. He works for Environment Canada. I know him personally. I have to leave his name confidential because this is so politicized there could well be witch-hunts: http://paradoxicalx3.blogspot.com/2011/06/grad-scientist-speaks.html And here is Rex Murphy's recent article:See More
about an hour ago ·
Owen Abrey **http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/Inviting+into+henhouse/4968242/story.html**
about an hour ago ·
Owen Abrey The column of ash is 18 cubic miles in volume or 40.96 cu kilometres. This translates into 22,960,000 cubic metres of CO2 in suspension in the column at any one time. I am not certain of the velocity of the ejectile so I can't calculate rate at this time. **http://paradoxicalx3.blogspot.com/** has the basic calculation according to current scientific measurment of the gasses.
15 minutes ago ·
O.j. AbreyI dislike seeing people using anti-AGW arguments as justification to continue environmentally unsafe practices such as offshore drilling. Really reflects badly on scientific arguments that should be given more credibility. Sounds to me like... "HAH! CO2 emissions don't matter, so we can pollute as much as we want!" Commentators like that are one of the reasons, when you mention you're not entirely convinced about the validity of anthropogenic global warming, most people accuse you of being in the pockets of the oil companies.
CO2 emissions aside, we've seen multiple occasions where oil drilling has had severe environmental effects. And regardless of whether or not we're causing global warming via carbon emissions, I believe we should be focusing more on developing cleaner, more sustainable energy sources; in that, I agree with the AGW crowd.See More
9 minutes ago ·
Owen Abrey It is a profound error to mix up the topic of a debate. This debate was not about off-shore drilling. It was about the comparable contribution of CO2 to the atmosphere. The moment you go there, you have ducked the question and conceded defeat. There is no shame in being wrong...
4 minutes ago ·
Owen Abrey Oj, the issue regarding CO2, is its relative significance. We have been fed alarm bells and called upon to pay hundreds of billions of dollars based on a false and corrupt stream of dogma. Read my recent articles in my blog for detail.
about a minute ago ·
Owen Abrey Now, if we were to have a different debate, there is a vast common ground between me and environmentalists when it comes to global pollution. It is far more dire than CO2 production.
Chilean Gas Volumes
The volcanic cloud volume is 1.6 km x 3.14926 x 16 km =
Volume x 5.6% CO2**= 2.296 cubic kilometres of CO2
converted into cubic metres = 22,960,000 The volume of CO2 suspended in the column at any one time.
**As per:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=10&ved=0CFcQFjAJ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.researchpublications.qmul.ac.uk%2Fpublications%2Fstaff%2F25573.html&rct=j&q=Chilean%20Volcano%20gas%20volume&ei=FAcBTo3mFMzSiAK6o_WnCA&usg=AFQjCNGPzfSZ7VeAvYl2AxgM1gaFe0nn7A&cad=rja
Volume x 5.6% CO2**= 2.296 cubic kilometres of CO2
converted into cubic metres = 22,960,000 The volume of CO2 suspended in the column at any one time.
**As per:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=10&ved=0CFcQFjAJ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.researchpublications.qmul.ac.uk%2Fpublications%2Fstaff%2F25573.html&rct=j&q=Chilean%20Volcano%20gas%20volume&ei=FAcBTo3mFMzSiAK6o_WnCA&usg=AFQjCNGPzfSZ7VeAvYl2AxgM1gaFe0nn7A&cad=rja
ON Book Burnings
Book burning is an attempt as squashing a competing ideology you cannot refute.
That said, how many copies of Saloman Rushdie's "Satanc Verses" can you find? What happened to them? Quietly disposed of in a politically correct way. Silent shipments to incinerators from the warehouses of book companies... Much more out of sight and there for certainly out of mind...
That said, how many copies of Saloman Rushdie's "Satanc Verses" can you find? What happened to them? Quietly disposed of in a politically correct way. Silent shipments to incinerators from the warehouses of book companies... Much more out of sight and there for certainly out of mind...
A New RCMP Commissioner?
We need a new Sam Steele: Who was never appropriately recognized for the profound legacy he invested in Canada. Respected by 1st Nations people, concerned for justice and fairness, there raises the question whether we would have the RCMP today with out him.
Please find us one of those!
Please find us one of those!
Rex Murphy on Climate Change:
Inviting the fox into the henhouse
Rex Murphy, National Post · Jun. 18, 2011 | Last Updated: Jun. 18, 2011 4:07 AM ETOne of the disturbing practices revealed by the great cache of emails out of the University of East Anglia -the so-called Climategate emails -was the attempted shortcutting or corruption of the oh-so precious peer-review process. The emails contained clear declarations of how the grand viziers of climate science would lean on journals and reporters to make sure certain critics did not get the validation, the laying on of peer-reviewed hands, so critical to full participation in the great climate debate. This was most succinctly expressed by the beautiful quote from Dr. Phil Jones of East Anglia that, "We will keep them out somehow -even if we have to redefine what peer-review literature is."
Much of what the world bizarrely allows to be called climate "science" is a closetgame, an in-group referring to and reinforcing its own members. The insiders keep out those seen as interlopers and critics, vilify dissenters and labour to maintain a proprietary hold on the entire vast subject. It has been described very precisely as a "climate-assessment oligarchy." Less examined, or certainly less known to the general public, is how this in-group loops around itself. How the outside advocates buttress the inside scientists, and even -this is particularly noxious -how the outside advocates, the non-scientists, themselves become inside authorities.
It's the perfect propaganda circle. Advocates find themselves in government offices, or on panels appointed by politicians disposed towards the hyper-alarmism of global warming. On the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) boards and panels, like seeks out like. And when the IPCC issues one of its state-of-the-global-warming-world reports, legions of environmentalists, and their maddeningly sympathetic and uninquisitive friends in most of the press, shout out the latest dire warnings as if they were coming from the very mouth of Disinterested Science itself.
An early and particularly graphic illustration of this vicious circle came when the IPCC 2007 report warned that most the great Himalayan glaciers would melt by the year 2035. Not only was the claim of a massive melt the very height of ignorant nonsense -the sun would have to drop on the Earth to provoke a melt of this proportion -it was also plucked from a seven-year-old publication of the ever busy World Wildlife Federation (WWF). As the Times of London put it, the claim itself was "inherently ludicrous" culled from a "campaigning report" rather than "an academic paper," was not "subject of any scientific review" and despite all these shortcomings became "a key source for the IPCC ... [for] the section on the Himalayas."
A scare report, seven years old, from the an environmental advocacy group, became the key document for a major report released under the authority of the IPCC, the world's best and brightest global warming minds. Sir Isaac Newton would be so proud.
Now we have an even more telling illustration of this same sad, vicious circle. It was first reported on by Steven McIntyre on his blog, Climate Audit (and was run on the FP Comment page of Friday's National Post). McIntyre revealed that the IPCC used a Greenpeace campaigner to write a key part of its report on renewable energy and to make the astonishing claim that "close to 80% of the world's energy supply could be met by renewables by mid-century if backed by the right enabling public policies." He further revealed that the claim arose from a "joint publication of Greenpeace and the European Renewable Energy Council (EREC)." And it turns out that while working for the IPCC, the Greenpeace campaigner approvingly cited a Greenpeace report that he himself was the lead author of. He peer-reviewed himself.
A report on renewables, by the Renewable Energy Council of Europe, and Greenpeace, peer-reviewd by the man who wrote it. All they need add is a citation from the Suzuki Foundation and an endorsement from Elizabeth May and "the science will be settled" forever.
This is not just letting the fox into the hen house. This is giving him the keys, passing him the barbeque sauce and pointing his way to the broiler. Or, as McIntyre put it in plainer terms: "A lead author of the IPCC report, and of the hyped 80% scenario, is Sven Teske of Greenpeace International, whose official contribution is essentially based on a Greenpeace report cooked up with Europe's renewable energy industry."
Kind people may put this down to pure sloppiness on the part of the IPCC. Coming after its disastrous handling of the Himalayan glacier melt, however, it looks to me more like deliberate mischief. The IPCC cannot be that stupid by chance. Why these stories, and others of comparable magnitude, have not worked their way into the consciousness of the world's politicians despite such clear demonstrations of the IPCC's ramshackle processes is a mystery. But thanks to Steve McIntyre and others of nearequal courage, standing firm against the rage and mockery of the alarmist warming establishment, at least some of the IPCC's dubious and chillingly erroneous practices are revealed.
- Rex Murphy offers commentary weekly on CBC TV's The National, and is host of CBC Radio's Cross Country Checkup.
Much of what the world bizarrely allows to be called climate "science" is a closetgame, an in-group referring to and reinforcing its own members. The insiders keep out those seen as interlopers and critics, vilify dissenters and labour to maintain a proprietary hold on the entire vast subject. It has been described very precisely as a "climate-assessment oligarchy." Less examined, or certainly less known to the general public, is how this in-group loops around itself. How the outside advocates buttress the inside scientists, and even -this is particularly noxious -how the outside advocates, the non-scientists, themselves become inside authorities.
It's the perfect propaganda circle. Advocates find themselves in government offices, or on panels appointed by politicians disposed towards the hyper-alarmism of global warming. On the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) boards and panels, like seeks out like. And when the IPCC issues one of its state-of-the-global-warming-world reports, legions of environmentalists, and their maddeningly sympathetic and uninquisitive friends in most of the press, shout out the latest dire warnings as if they were coming from the very mouth of Disinterested Science itself.
An early and particularly graphic illustration of this vicious circle came when the IPCC 2007 report warned that most the great Himalayan glaciers would melt by the year 2035. Not only was the claim of a massive melt the very height of ignorant nonsense -the sun would have to drop on the Earth to provoke a melt of this proportion -it was also plucked from a seven-year-old publication of the ever busy World Wildlife Federation (WWF). As the Times of London put it, the claim itself was "inherently ludicrous" culled from a "campaigning report" rather than "an academic paper," was not "subject of any scientific review" and despite all these shortcomings became "a key source for the IPCC ... [for] the section on the Himalayas."
A scare report, seven years old, from the an environmental advocacy group, became the key document for a major report released under the authority of the IPCC, the world's best and brightest global warming minds. Sir Isaac Newton would be so proud.
Now we have an even more telling illustration of this same sad, vicious circle. It was first reported on by Steven McIntyre on his blog, Climate Audit (and was run on the FP Comment page of Friday's National Post). McIntyre revealed that the IPCC used a Greenpeace campaigner to write a key part of its report on renewable energy and to make the astonishing claim that "close to 80% of the world's energy supply could be met by renewables by mid-century if backed by the right enabling public policies." He further revealed that the claim arose from a "joint publication of Greenpeace and the European Renewable Energy Council (EREC)." And it turns out that while working for the IPCC, the Greenpeace campaigner approvingly cited a Greenpeace report that he himself was the lead author of. He peer-reviewed himself.
A report on renewables, by the Renewable Energy Council of Europe, and Greenpeace, peer-reviewd by the man who wrote it. All they need add is a citation from the Suzuki Foundation and an endorsement from Elizabeth May and "the science will be settled" forever.
This is not just letting the fox into the hen house. This is giving him the keys, passing him the barbeque sauce and pointing his way to the broiler. Or, as McIntyre put it in plainer terms: "A lead author of the IPCC report, and of the hyped 80% scenario, is Sven Teske of Greenpeace International, whose official contribution is essentially based on a Greenpeace report cooked up with Europe's renewable energy industry."
Kind people may put this down to pure sloppiness on the part of the IPCC. Coming after its disastrous handling of the Himalayan glacier melt, however, it looks to me more like deliberate mischief. The IPCC cannot be that stupid by chance. Why these stories, and others of comparable magnitude, have not worked their way into the consciousness of the world's politicians despite such clear demonstrations of the IPCC's ramshackle processes is a mystery. But thanks to Steve McIntyre and others of nearequal courage, standing firm against the rage and mockery of the alarmist warming establishment, at least some of the IPCC's dubious and chillingly erroneous practices are revealed.
- Rex Murphy offers commentary weekly on CBC TV's The National, and is host of CBC Radio's Cross Country Checkup.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Fascits comebacks
Oh Puuleese! Not the Fascist label again. That has to be the attribution of last resort to the loser of any debate--underscoring the profound his ignorance.
The mechanics of the Senate
Anyone who thinks of the Senate as a non-partisan place has been sleeping at the switch or knows nothing of Canadian history. From a pragmatic point of view the senate has existed to restrain the next political parties agenda. So if you can create a majority for your party, and lose the next election, true power is held off until the next election, which you better win, or the same will happen to you.
This is exactly what happened over the course of the last 8 years. Even thought the Conservatives were in the government and had the power to appoint, it took them until this spring to capture the majority in the senate.
All senates are partisan. Look any where it the world and you will see that it is true. Our senate could be bi-partisan, or even multi-partisan, if there was any good will at all built up. But there wasn't. For 6 years bills could be passed in the house but stalled by the Liberals in the Senate. And it was. What ever senate reform might look like, we probably won't really see it for another 3 years--after a significant amount of conservative law/bills are passed. If Harper is given a 2nd majority mandate, and he was still appointing senators, he might install an NDP person like Jack Layton for a Liberal seat vacated.
This is exactly what happened over the course of the last 8 years. Even thought the Conservatives were in the government and had the power to appoint, it took them until this spring to capture the majority in the senate.
All senates are partisan. Look any where it the world and you will see that it is true. Our senate could be bi-partisan, or even multi-partisan, if there was any good will at all built up. But there wasn't. For 6 years bills could be passed in the house but stalled by the Liberals in the Senate. And it was. What ever senate reform might look like, we probably won't really see it for another 3 years--after a significant amount of conservative law/bills are passed. If Harper is given a 2nd majority mandate, and he was still appointing senators, he might install an NDP person like Jack Layton for a Liberal seat vacated.
Friday, June 17, 2011
Creationism that fits.
- Well, for 25 years I have been considering the idea I first read by Charles Hummel who wrote "The Galileo Connection". I think it plausible because it fits both scientific and biblical world views. It begins by posing a question, what if the creation of man as we know him, in the image of God, was indeed the pinnacle of creation that also included pre-anthropomorphic forms. Maybe 10,000 years ago. It is interesting that I have read something by anthropologist who say something significant happened to the Human brain 7-10,000 years ago.
- 38 minutes agoOwen Abrey
- Such newly created creatures, humans as we know them, were different from any other pre-anthro forms especially because they were spiritual beings in the flesh. Could such people be called the "son's of God" for this reason? I have done intense work in the Hebrew, and studied the archaeological perspectives of ancient near-eastern texts. The term "sons of God" was employed by Chaldean and Babylonian 1 texts. We can tell that often a king may be called the "son of god".
- 30 minutes agoOwen Abrey
- The Genesis 1 passage of the days of creation, from a hermeneutical perspective is Hebrew Poetry. There is no doubt. Other cultures refer to a creation similar, but also using days as a structure for the poetic forms. Days, 1+4, 2+5, 3+6 are obvious parallelisms. I am convinced by what we learned in hermeneutics together, Christians have misread the text because if failed to recognize the genre in which it was written. If you will recall, it was genre that gave Stronstad his perspective on Acts. Narrative. If you don't get that, you see know problem keeping Acts as a history instead of Luke II.
- 7 day creationists misread Gen 1. In a way they conveniently forget that Genesis was always a collection of texts. It is the fact that Genesis was compiled this way that makes interpreting it so difficult.
- 21 minutes agoOwen Abrey
- If you recall, we learned in hermeneutics is to interpret the text literally when it was meant to be taken literally; and interpret it figuratively when it was meant to be taken figuratively. In 1987, I took an archaeology course from Regent--especially because it was a lecture series given by DJ Wiseman. Who was the general editor for that 3 volume set The Encyclopedia of Biblical Archaeology. We also studied him in Hermeneutics and Stronstad's Arch course--if you took it in.
- 13 minutes agoOwen Abrey
- I say all this because it was Wiseman's lectures that detailed among other things, the Genealogies of the OT. There was only a passing reference that the Sons of God could refer to people of OT faith. There is a later passage that said to whom the word of God comes, they are the sons of God. He used that as an OT example of employing the term. It has some interesting implications on many passages where the term is employed.
- You see why I avoided replying? Any shorter a position would be too easy to dismiss without a 2nd thought.
- So what does that do? It makes a huge reconciliation with science. It untangles the text from the modernist approach that treats it not as was meant to be understood, but tries a form of revisionism that rewrites it as some sort of scientific work.
- Therefore, it fits for me to accept old earth creationism as a theory where theology and science *might* over lap without each trying to become an authority in the other's domain. Science stays talking about science--but backs off trying be some sort of theological interpreter.
- And visa versa.
- 3 minutes agoOwen Abrey
- Adam and Eve were created among other forms--say even Neanderthals, their sons married them, the forms changed over time to be anthropic as we know ourselves to be today. They were called the "sons of God". They would be brilliant with 140 plus IQs amidst a population of "men" who's iq's were closer to 50 or 60. They would easily be seen as giants, men of renown who built cities... easily be devolved into polytheistic deities. These, people the off-spring of Adam would carry a lineage now dilute, but was exceptional in their day.
- a few seconds agoOwen Abrey
- OT genealogies have been accepted by serious OT theologians to possibly refer to dynasties. If you had an hour or two I could relay that line of thinking... but I have typed enough. I refuse to go along with theological constructs that break all the rules of hermeneutics thinking themselves to be justified in doing so. Remember Dr. Lim's discussion of Isogesis vs Exegesis?
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There for Hamas is in a defacto state of war with a cease fire putting battle off to some inevitable point in the future. There isn't a nation in the world who would not use a blockade in the same circumstances. It is one of the few bloodless tactics of war.