tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5402325523200741182024-03-05T04:26:46.715+00:00My DoubtsI fear a man who has no doubtsDoubting Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16507892426345836143noreply@blogger.comBlogger204125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540232552320074118.post-65516927746910337832012-09-11T05:00:00.001+01:002012-09-11T05:00:00.105+01:00That Day They Wounded New York<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGZr-cw6Xic"><img title="New York 216" style="border-right: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; background-image: none; border-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; border-bottom: 0px" alt="New York 216" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-MF6x2IOQSfo/TtKVsGAFj2I/AAAAAAAAAVQ/RCeIqTWwZic/New%252520York%252520216%25255B5%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" height="361" width="527" border="0" /></a></p> <p>As always, click for the music</p>Doubting Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16507892426345836143noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540232552320074118.post-39127343282203371302011-11-30T19:02:00.002+00:002012-03-03T20:15:43.345+00:00Auditing Climate “Science”<p align="justify">It is a long story why, but I was recently appointed to manage all the quality auditing within the company I work for, and of our suppliers. This is considered a vital role, for which I require training, and although I have been auditing for a while after an introductory course this week I am on a full Quality Manager’s course.</p> <p align="justify">Learning to audit is eye-opening stuff, and very interesting that auditing is a general skill, not specific to the activity of the company; in fact the practice audit we completed was of the only part of our type of operation about which I know little, and it was no more difficult for me than it was for the guy who works in that area.</p> <p align="justify">Also surprising is how vital auditing is to all activity if it is to be done well, how easily any organisation, even with the most competent and professional staff slips in quality. Any company of any size really should have a quality department, and typically companies involved in safety-related work are required to do so, either by a regulating authority or by their insurers (for the record, I believe insurance companies make the best regulators; that is the free-market libertarian in me).</p> <p align="justify">The final surprise was that a good external audit will find about what is going wrong even the best-run organisation. The hosts for our audit were great, a very good company with an excellent auditing system of their own and frequent outside audits. Yet I still made findings.</p> <p align="justify">So what does that have to do with climate research?</p> <p align="justify">Publically-funded science is way behind commercial enterprise and even many government organisations in quality auditing. There is very little and what exists is done badly. Very badly. As in almost always breaking fundamental principles of auditing. Some of the requirements are listed here.</p> <ol> <li> <div align="justify">Auditing should be to objective questions which query whether stated, objective aims are being achieved.</div> </li> <li> <div align="justify">Auditing should be carried out by independent people with training in quality auditing.</div> </li> <li> <div align="justify">The auditor should be able to present objective evidence of compliance or non-compliance for which:</div> </li> <ul> <li> <div align="justify">the auditor should be able to state that any processes are suitable and are followed;</div> </li> <li> <div align="justify">the auditor must have access to samples of all information used or produced, selected by the auditor.</div> </li> </ul> </ol> <p align="justify">The only external auditing carried out in government-funded science, certainly in British universities, is in the peer review of the resulting papers and the post-publication study by interested parties. This is an audit because it is an examination and verification of the paper, and the science behind the paper.</p> <p align="justify">So I will consider that in respect to climate “science”.</p> <ol> <li> <div align="justify">I am suspicious about the actual aims of climate science; I think they aim to prove that human activity causes climate change. A few of them start talking about “post-normal science”, which is by definition subjective. For those who still recognise science, an objective aim can be assumed, however if they are not honest about that aim, then they should fail every audit.</div> </li> <li> <div align="justify">The “scientists” <a href="http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/27/the-tribalistic-corruption-of-peer-review-the-chris-de-freitas-incident/">complain vociferously</a> when independent scientists are used for peer review. After publication their papers are studied by independent minds, although they have not been conspicuously grateful when gaping flaws are found.</div> </li> <li> <div align="justify">Objective evidence is where peer review falls down as an audit process within climate “science”:</div> </li> <ul> <li> <div align="justify">the processes are not available in full to the reviewer. The authors of the papers refuse to allow their computer code to be provided to reviewers, let alone to interested readers post-publication;</div> </li> <li> <div align="justify">the climate scientists conspire to break the UK Freedom of Information Act and Environmental Information Regulations in order to keep the data they use secret.</div> </li> </ul> </ol> <p align="justify">So peer-review and study of papers post-publication is not sound auditing.</p> <p align="justify">Without auditing no-one (not even the researchers themselves, I must stress) knows whether the results have any merit whatever.</p> <p align="justify">It is certain that they don’t know if the data sources are reliable. They don’t know if the initial data are sound. They don’t know if the processes are correct. They don’t know if the processes have been followed. They don’t know if the published results bear any relation to the output of the process.</p> <p align="justify">I will go out on a limb here, from my experience with being audited and with auditing. For every paper written by climate “scientists” some, and often all, of those aspects behind a new paper will be flawed. Some of those flaws will be serious.</p> <p align="justify">So what is the quality of those papers?</p>Doubting Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16507892426345836143noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540232552320074118.post-48183255176446962112011-11-27T00:09:00.001+00:002011-11-27T00:10:01.113+00:00Context<p align="justify">If any warmist ever mentions that “emails have been taken out of context” you might do worse than point them to <a href="http://climateaudit.org/2011/11/25/a-somewhat-late-response-to-schneider/">Ross McKitrick at Climate Audit</a>.</p> Doubting Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16507892426345836143noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540232552320074118.post-78217012474615324442011-11-26T02:46:00.002+00:002011-11-27T20:01:46.472+00:00Escalation of Climategate<p align="justify">Something has struck me about he new “Climategate” emails, as they are gradually being mined for interesting and relevant comments.</p> <p align="justify">These are worse, these are more damning even than the 2009 release.</p> <p align="justify">Yes 2009 had the data, with the harry_readme.txt file which cast suspicion on the data. It had “hide the decline”, which despite all excuses was a terrible indictment of the whole process, if interpreted correctly and as broadly as I viewed it. But that is the point. It was up for interpretation; the excuses were sort of believable; you could accept that each one piece of evidence was only relevant to the sender, or occasionally the sender and recipient.</p> <p align="justify">This new lot is dynamite. It is unequivocal. The web of deceit is much clearer.</p> <p align="justify">I cannot possibly do it justice, I simple don’t have the time, so I am grateful to those that do. If you read <a href="http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/22/climategate-2-0/">Watts Up With That</a>, <a href="http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2011/11/23/more-climategate-2.html">Bishop</a> <a href="http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2011/11/22/climate-cuttings-59.html">Hill</a> <a href="http://bishophill.squarespace.com/">blog</a>, <a href="https://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2011/11/25/an-e-mail-communication-between-phil-jones-and-ben-santer-indicating-inappropriate-behavior-by-the-us-national-research-council/">Roger Pielke Snr</a>, <a href="http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2011/11/ignorance-is-bliss.html">Roger Pielke Jnr</a> and <a href="http://junkscience.com/2011/11/22/climategate-2-0-is-here/">Junk Science</a> then you can get a fair impression, although there are many other sources out there.</p> <p align="justify">So we have a puzzle. This has been mentioned by others. What is the leaker’s motive? What is his aim? Considering these two questions, what is his intention?</p> <p align="justify">There is another huge file there. It is encrypted. The leaker has released some embarrassing emails and data that the climate-change alarmists could, and did, cope with. Phil Jones was side-lined a little. No-one else really suffered more than a red face. Two years later (this man is more patient than my wife is, I’ll tell you that) more emails are leaked. The surprise is less, but the emails are more damning. A different league. If any real notice is paid to them there is no way that all the people involved are going to get away with this.</p> <p align="justify">So why? With what aim? Considering perhaps close to 250,000 emails not yet released, with what intention?</p>Doubting Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16507892426345836143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540232552320074118.post-73994981649334084252011-11-26T02:12:00.002+00:002011-11-26T02:23:53.797+00:00My cutest picture post yet …<p><a href="http://www.break.com/usercontent/2007/8/3/ravens-punk-rock-song-about-cats-343355"><img title="IMG_7942" style="border-right: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; background-image: none; border-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; border-bottom: 0px" alt="IMG_7942" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7d8Gm53uDbHtVOiE-wLS5HoAhZfoDI8feKrvDd9J1tWJaKgOb3HXVwBhArZVI1zfCg1-mCpL21rV6JeXHD_IQyxLVT20aify9no4-U0lj6NDjZypmj1jBX8izUKVSaAnFlMjnpwLKcS0/?imgmax=800" border="0" height="365" width="532" /></a></p> <p align="justify">A beautiful kitten, an Istanbul stray. I love the song at the link; there are not many songs about cats that are not sickly, but the “cute punk” style makes up for the slightly unformed lyrics.</p>Doubting Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16507892426345836143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540232552320074118.post-90504914729532070862011-11-25T19:09:00.001+00:002011-11-27T00:24:19.737+00:00Climate change conspiracy went further<p align="justify">Someone just replied to <a href="http://richardwilsonauthor.wordpress.com/2009/06/21/spiked-online-the-rohypnol-of-online-news-and-comment/#comment-5444">a comment I made</a> on another blog over two years ago. That generated an email to inform me of the reply, so I went and looked. The blog author had expressed scepticism of the idea that there was a conspiracy at the heart of the global-climate-change industry.</p> <p align="justify"><a href="http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/2011/11/phil-jones-on-not-responding-to-foi.html">I am</a> <a href="http://junkscience.com/2011/11/25/climategate-2-0-wigley-for-secret-science/#more-6492">quite pleased</a> <a href="http://junkscience.com/2011/11/22/climategate-2-0-jones-advises-e-mail-deletion-to-avoid-foia/">with my judgement</a>. This was before even the original “Climategate” release.</p> <blockquote> <p align="justify"><font color="#ffffff">But there is a conspiracy in Global Warming (sorry, it’s called climate change isn’t it, now the globe has stopped warming?). Those in the conspiracy have all but admitted that there is a conspiracy to keep the data on which the scare is based away from researchers who might challenge their interpretation of it.</font></p> <p align="justify"><font color="#ffffff">…</font></p> <p align="justify"><font color="#ffffff">As for undisclosed affiliation, what about the people who favour climate change panic? Well the scientists need to ensure their funding. There is far more money, by orders of magnitude, in claiming AGW than in refuting it.</font></p> </blockquote> <p align="justify">So with the 2009 release of emails and data, and the 2011 release of emails from the CRU, further evidence of these conspiracies emerged, exactly along the lines I had stated, but also far further. What I commented on was only one of a web of conspiracies.</p> <p align="justify">Did I underestimate the scope of conspiracy, or was I just commenting on those parts for which there was, at the time, evidence? I think a little of both. I certainly would not have guessed that the <a href="http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/24/world-bank-global-warming-journals-and-cru/">World Bank</a> would be at the centre of things, but the involvement of a <a href="http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/24/bbcs-kirby-admission-to-phil-jones-on-impartiality/">BBC reporter</a> and at least some <a href="http://junkscience.com/2011/11/23/climategate-2-0-jones-says-media-especially-bbc-has-alarmist-bias/">BBC</a> <a href="http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2011/11/24/the-blessed-plot.html">management</a> is not quite so unexpected.</p> <p><font color="#80ffff">[Update: edited to add extra hyperlinks]</font></p> Doubting Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16507892426345836143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540232552320074118.post-77158370597042355482011-11-22T17:36:00.005+00:002011-11-23T22:07:58.522+00:00Classic error in science – Climategate 2.0 (the revenge)<p>A quote from Phil Jones in the recently-released emails:</p> <blockquote> <p><span style="color:#ffffff;">I too don’t see why the schemes should be symmetrical. The temperature ones<br />certainly will not as we’re choosing the periods to show warming.</span></p></blockquote> <p align="justify">You can say what you like about context, but my doubts are very slight that Mr Mann is making that classic scientific error, in cherry-picking data. Many erroneous scientific conclusions have been drawn in the past from scientist who found an excuse to disregard data that did not fit. Many theories have only stood after they should have been disproved as scientists ignored results showing they were wrong. Theories stood until some brave soul comes along willing to dispute the consensus. </p><p align="justify">Only it is not an error in this case, is it? This looks very much like blatant dishonesty. I look forward with great interest to the excuses Mr Mann and any recipient of this email can make. </p><p align="justify">To whom does “we” refer?</p><p align="justify"><br /></p><p align="justify">[Edited to correctly attribute the email]<br /></p>Doubting Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16507892426345836143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540232552320074118.post-19133548599018446612011-11-22T00:23:00.006+00:002012-03-12T01:29:18.815+00:00The BBC lies – whichever side you take<p align="justify">The anonymous BBC “reporter” who wrote an article “<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15820162">No let up in greenhouse gas rise</a>” either does not understand the subject or is dishonest.</p> <p align="justify">The article claims that carbon dioxide is “the major contributor to climate change”. It is a lie not claimed by any scientist, but of course most people think this.</p> <p align="justify">That is because they have been told that human generation of CO<span style="font-size:78%;">2</span> is causing a catastrophic rise in temperatures. What they have not been told is that this claim is based on an assumption of positive feedback, not only that but feedback that must have greater influence than the CO<span style="font-size:78%;">2</span><span style="font-size:85%;">. <span style="font-size:100%;">Heat trapping by</span> CO<span style="font-size:78%;">2</span> <span style="font-size:100%;">just isn’t enough to support the claims of the warmists, and they randomly add large positive feedback to models. So even according to climate hysterics the carbon dioxide itself is not the major contributor, the putative feedback mechanism is.</span></span></p> <p align="justify">This is not a trivial falsehood. How many times have we read that this is “basic physics”, and that “carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas” so must be causing the rise in average temperatures? How rarely do the people who tell us this admit that without positive feedback CO<span style="font-size:78%;">2</span> cannot explain most of the warming since the 1970s? How many state that all the nightmare scenarios claimed in the press require a lot of feedback?</p> <p align="justify">Feedback is very important to a lot of what I have studied and taught. It comes into a lot of physics, into geology and in aviation theory in the principles of flight (stability of an aircraft is determined entirely by feedback). What I can say is that positive feedback is that it is rare in natural systems and essentially unheard of in a stable system <span style="color: rgb(102, 255, 255);">[correction: essentially unheard of in a non-linear system which shows long-term stability]</span>. Positive feedback is the cause of instability.</p> <p align="justify">Which thought brings us to an interesting place. Either the temperature has positive feedback, and is <span style="color: rgb(102, 255, 255);">likely to be</span> unstable, or else temperature is stable and shows little or negative feedback. The whole climate panic is based on the assumption that the temperature is stable (and so the recent fluctuations are unusual) but that temperature response to carbon dioxide shows positive feedback …</p><p align="justify"><span style="color: rgb(102, 255, 255);">Update:</span> thanks to an anonymous commenter for a useful correction. The comments now contain a brief discussion on stability.<br /></p>Doubting Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16507892426345836143noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540232552320074118.post-91277787794996360872011-11-21T09:01:00.003+00:002011-11-22T00:24:39.668+00:00Faster Than Light<p align="justify">I no longer read the New Scientist regularly. How can anyone trust a magazine that promotes “consensus” yet claims to be about science?</p> <p align="justify">However if a particle <a href="http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21188-more-data-shows-neutrinos-still-faster-than-light.html">can travel faster than the speed of light</a>, or even if scientists can contemplate the idea that this is possible, then the bizarre notion of science by consensus disappears rather rapidly.</p> <p align="justify">Where are the articles demanding silence from the dissenters? Where are the scientists condemning this research, claiming it must be funded by some random special-interest group (which is, conversely, actually funding consensus research)? Where are the politicians, the socialist journalists, the polemicists condemning the very suggestion that neutrinos might travel at more than <a href="http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/559095/speed-of-light">c</a>?</p>Doubting Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16507892426345836143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540232552320074118.post-83893775167089915562011-11-12T23:47:00.012+00:002011-11-26T12:54:58.609+00:00Carl Sagan Part II : Climate “Science”<p align="justify">Well Carl Sagan’s comments on pseudo-science <a href="http://my-own-doubts.blogspot.com/2011/11/carl-sagan-part-i-climate-pseudo.html">fit remarkable well with the methods and attitudes of the climate scientists</a>. So what about the claims of the CAGW researchers that what they are doing is science? What does Sagan’s book say about science, and how does that fit with CAGW claims?</p> <blockquote> <p align="justify"><span style="color:#ffffff;">Every time a scientific paper presents a bit of data, it's accompanied by an error bar - a quiet but insistent reminder that no knowledge is complete or perfect. It's a calibration of how much we trust what we think we know.</span></p> <p align="justify"><span style="color:#ffffff;">…</span></p> <p align="justify"><span style="color:#ffffff;">We will always be mired in error. The most each generation can hope for is to reduce the error bars a little, and to add to the body of data to which error bars apply. The error bar is a pervasive, visible self-assessment of the reliability of our knowledge.</span></p> </blockquote> <p align="justify"><span style="color:#cccccc;">This is exactly what the climate guys don’t want us to know. They have so often ignored error bars, or been accused by reputable statisticians of poor error handling that I think they have forgotten that their data are not perfect. Considering some of the problems found in their original data … that is not promising.</span></p> <p align="justify">I keep talking about the “idea” of catastrophic climate change being caused by human activity. That is because I have never seen it categorised, except in the vernacular as a theory.</p> <blockquote> <p align="justify"><span style="color:#ffffff;">… scientists are usually careful to characterize the veridical status of their attempts to understand the world - ranging from conjectures and hypotheses, which are highly tentative, all the way up to laws of Nature which are repeatedly and systematically confirmed through many interrogations of how the world works. But even laws of Nature are not absolutely certain. There may be new circumstances never before examined … where even our vaunted laws of Nature break down …</span></p> </blockquote> <p align="justify">So in the scientific sense is CAGW a theory? An hypothesis? What? I would call it conjecture, but it is certainly not a law. Yet as Sagan says here even a law is not known to be immutable. How can anyone say the debate is over?</p> <p align="justify">But our climate scientists are the great experts, are they not? Surely we should uncritically accept what they say, regardless of the complete lack of evidence.</p> <blockquote> <p align="justify"><span style="color:#ffffff;">One of the great commandments of science is, 'Mistrust arguments from authority'. (Scientists, being primates, and thus given to dominance hierarchies, of course do not always follow this commandment.) Too many such arguments have proved too painfully wrong. Authorities must prove their contentions like everybody else.</span></p> </blockquote> <p align="justify"><span style="color:#cccccc;">Ah. So Carl Sagan says specifically that we should mistrust anything we have ever read in the mainstream press or heard on television about human activity, and CO<sub>2</sub> in particular, being an overwhelming factor in global climate. Every one of those pieces is an argument from authority. Not a single one is a presentation of evidence, because there is no evidence.</span></p> <p align="justify"><span style="color:#cccccc;">That I am asserting from authority, my authority as a graduate in Earth Sciences who has been following the media avidly for over two years on the issue. You should therefore distrust my assertion, and look for yourselves. Seek an article that discusses empirical evidence (not models, certainly not discredited models; not data twisted to show human influence as a statistical artefact) that humans cause significant climate change. If you find a single one, please post here. Free gig tickets, concert of your choice to the first to link such an article in the comments (my dear wife is in the music business, so I can usually acquire VIP or even AAA passes).</span></p> <p align="justify">So what about the response in climate “science” to sceptics? Is calling the man who disagrees with your conclusion a “denier”, to link him with neo-Nazis and to avoid having to answer his substantive points good science?</p> <blockquote> <p align="justify"><span style="color:#ffffff;">Every scientist feels a proprietary affection for his or her ideas and findings. Even so, you don't reply to critics, wait a minute; this is a really good idea; I'm very fond of it; it's done you no harm; please leave it alone. Instead, the hard but just rule is that if the ideas don't work, you must throw them away. Don't waste neurons on what doesn't work. Devote those neurons to new ideas that better explain the data. The British physicist Michael Faraday warned of the powerful temptation </span><span style="color:#ffffff;">to seek for such evidence and appearances as are in the favour of our desires, and to disregard those which oppose them . . . We receive as friendly that which agrees with [us], we resist with dislike that which opposes us; whereas the very reverse is required by every dictate of common sense.</span></p> </blockquote> <p><span style="color:#cccccc;">So that’ll be a</span><span style="color:#cccccc;"> no then.</span></p> <blockquote> <p align="justify"><span style="color:#ffffff;">… I maintain that science is part and parcel humility. Scientists do not seek to impose their needs and wants on Nature, but instead humbly interrogate Nature and take seriously what they find. We are aware that revered scientists have been wrong.</span></p> </blockquote> <p align="justify"><span style="color:#cccccc;">Oh. Surely that can’t be right. The revered climate “scientists” have never been wrong, have they? Surely climate “scientists” need not be humble?</span></p> <p align="justify"><span style="color:#cccccc;">Of course not! Sagan is, of course, talking about real scientists, not climate “scientists”. Sagan did not know about post-normal science.</span></p> <blockquote> <p align="justify"><span style="color:#ffffff;">We are constantly prodding, challenging, seeking contradictions or small, persistent residual errors, proposing alternative explanations, encouraging heresy. We give our highest rewards to those who convincingly disprove established beliefs.</span></p> </blockquote> <p align="justify">Again, I think the problem is that Sagan died too early to hear about post-normal science. I am sure he would have sought fewer alternative explanations if he was alive today.</p> <p>However Sagan did have some distinctly odd ideas.</p> <blockquote> <p align="justify"><span style="color:#ffffff;">In diverse ways, many other physicists are testing General Relativity, for example by attempting directly to detect the elusive gravitational waves. They hope to strain the theory to the breaking point and discover whether a regime of Nature exists in which Einstein's great advance in understanding in turn begins to fray.</span></p> <p align="justify"><span style="color:#ffffff;">These efforts will continue as long as there are scientists. General Relativity is certainly an inadequate description of Nature at the quantum level, but even if that were not the case, even if General Relativity were everywhere and forever valid, what better way of convincing ourselves of its validity than a concerted effort to discover its failings and limitations?</span></p> <p align="justify"><span style="color:#ffffff;">This is one of the reasons that the organized religions do not inspire me with confidence. Which leaders of the major faiths acknowledge that their beliefs might be incomplete or erroneous and establish institutes to uncover possible doctrinal deficiencies? Beyond the test of everyday living, who is systematically testing the circumstances in which traditional religious teachings may no longer apply? … What sermons even-handedly examine the God hypothesis?</span></p> </blockquote> <p align="justify">Is Carl Sagan, the quintessential scientist, saying that climate “science” has a lot in common with religion? Surely he would never have written this if he knew that a new science would rise, one whose leaders do not “…acknowledge that their beliefs might be incomplete or erroneous and establish institutes to uncover possible doctrinal deficiencies”. A science that refuses to “systematically [test] the circumstances in which [its] teachings may no longer apply”. A science that refuses to “<a href="http://my-own-doubts.blogspot.com/2009/06/of-polar-bears-and-partiality.html">even-handedly</a> examine the [CAGW] hypothesis”, or even acknowledge that such even-handed treatment could have any validity.</p> <p align="justify">A science, no less, that is closer to a god, that we can worship, with sins, penance and the sale of indulgences, taxing people, paying the high priests to live in luxury while they interpret the world by declamation.</p> <p align="justify">So we come to the bible, the great revelations of science. For centuries Christianity hid the “revelations of God” in the bible from common folk, by insisting it could only be published in Latin (and of course murdering the first man to publish it in a language commoners understood). Only a priest could interpret the word of God, and to ensure this remained so the common people would not be permitted to even read it or have it read to them by a literate friend.</p> <p align="justify">Climate “scientists” also seem rather <a href="http://my-own-doubts.blogspot.com/2009/08/conspiracy-exception-proves-rule.html">reluctant</a> to <a href="http://my-own-doubts.blogspot.com/2009/09/more-climate-politics.html">part with</a> the information they interpret. They hide their data, in the case of UEA breaking two completely separate laws to avoid disclosure. They openly declaim that this is so others cannot challenge their conclusions. Surely this is a normal part of science?</p> <blockquote> <p align="justify"><span style="color:#ffffff;">Science thrives on, indeed requires, the free exchange of ideas; its values are antithetical to secrecy. Science holds to no special vantage points or privileged positions. </span></p> </blockquote> <p align="justify">That’ll be another no then. Not sure, but I think I’ll just have to put this one down to post-normal science too.</p> <p align="justify">So I have in two posts shown some of Carl Sagan’s opinions on pseudo-science and then on science. I am convinced by these sections that Sagan would have seen today’s climate “science” as more akin to pseudo-science that to science.</p> <p align="justify">I have provided no citations or page reference simply because this is an essay not a research paper. As such I want it to flow, and stimulate further reading rather than prove the case beyond reasonable doubt. I know that I have seen all the poor science and pseudo-science I claim in print from climate “scientists”. If you feel differently, look for evidence. If you can find any to the contrary, or cannot find the types of errors and claims I assert then post a comment, I will give more detail as to what I mean. If you want to know more about Carl Sagan’s views on science, read the book. It’s very good.</p><p align="justify"><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 255);"><span style="color: rgb(153, 255, 153);">[Update from Climategate II]</span> </span>It's funny how the climate hysterics are bent on proving everything said against them. Remember what I said about error bars?</p><p align="justify"></p><blockquote><span style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">...any method that incorporates all forms of uncertainty and error will undoubtedly result in reconstructions with wider error bars than we currently have. These many be more honest, but may not be too helpful for model</span><strong style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> comparison attribution studies.</strong><span style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> We need to be careful with the wording I think. (Wilson)</span><br /></blockquote><blockquote></blockquote><p></p>Doubting Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16507892426345836143noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540232552320074118.post-7315940800424466692011-11-12T21:36:00.004+00:002011-11-22T23:19:31.605+00:00Carl Sagan, Part I: Climate Pseudo-Science<p align="justify">Climate “scientists” are not involved in science. They are peddling pseudo-science, and allowing others to use it to grind the rest of us into the dust. Incidentally that means they get their next grant approved, and have articles published not in journals but in well-known newspapers, as they get paid large sums for speaking engagements.</p> <p align="justify">For several years I have believed that the idea of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (CAGW) is unscientific. I have described the Royal Society as anti-scientific for its official stance. However I am one person, a graduate in Earth Sciences and so more qualified to comment than most but with no reputation.</p> <p align="justify"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGBO7uGxAgjMqBmU60gcHftdQnyJo_hHsGUnqrQDRs9zznI2wj6kyWHY6pf98oFEwyAdRjKD66S0tdGVD2m7oL5DIDGEYeMCt7kr0xweQc5dpzL7fy8v0Uo3GjCZHfZzdgEBK6xTZ41Og/s1600-h/image%25255B3%25255D.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="image" alt="image" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-04mgZ75MNZ0/Tr7mw0NR5VI/AAAAAAAAAVA/72lD_uZ_65c/image_thumb%25255B1%25255D.png?imgmax=800" height="392" width="510" border="0" /></a></p> <p align="justify">Carl Sagan, on the hand, was a revered and internationally-renowned astrophysicist and science communicator. Unfortunately he died before CAGW became such a huge issue, in fact around the time it should have died, when it was proved there was no warming in the upper troposphere at low latitudes. Let’s see what he has to say about pseudo-science in his book <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Demon-Haunted_World:_Science_as_a_Candle_in_the_Dark">The Demon</a>-<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Demon-haunted-World-Carl-Sagan/dp/0747251568">Haunted World</a>.</p> <blockquote> <p align="justify"><span style="color:#ffffff;">Pseudoscience differs from erroneous science. Science thrives on errors, cutting them away one by one. False conclusions are drawn all the time, but they are drawn tentatively. Hypotheses are framed so they are capable of being disproved. A succession of alternative hypotheses is confronted by experiment and observation. Science gropes and staggers toward improved understanding. Proprietary feelings are of course offended when a scientific hypothesis is disproved, but such disproofs are recognized as central to the scientific enterprise.</span></p> </blockquote> <p align="justify"><span style="color:#cccccc;">Well we could say that climate “scientists” thrive on errors; the problem is that they don’t recognise that they are capable of making errors. They think that admitting errors is a sign of weakness. Science’s great strength, as Sagan implies, is to admit to making errors – this means errors can be corrected.</span></p> <p align="justify">Climate “scientists” don’t make tentative conclusions. They declaim, they make wild assertions. And they never cut away their errors. They hide them in the dark, they refuse to let anyone find those errors by conspiring to keep information secret, like a cabal.</p> <blockquote> <p align="justify"><span style="color:#ffffff;">Pseudoscience is just the opposite. Hypotheses are often framed precisely so they are invulnerable to any experiment that offers a prospect of disproof, so even in principle they cannot be invalidated. Practitioners are defensive and wary. Sceptical scrutiny is opposed.</span></p> </blockquote> <p align="justify">Does this remind you of anything?</p> <p align="justify">Sagan carries on:</p> <blockquote> <p align="justify"><span style="color:#ffffff;">When the pseudoscientific hypothesis fails to catch fire with scientists, conspiracies to suppress it are deduced.</span></p> </blockquote> <p align="justify"><span style="color:#cccccc;">Even though so many scientists (possibly even a majority) accept the idea of CAGW the proponents still whine about conspiracies for which they have no evidence, while completely ignoring and even denying the conspiracies to push poor science which have sound, even irrefutable, evidence. You know, emails between conspirators discussing details of a conspiracy, which they admit are genuine.</span></p> <p align="justify">Finally on pseudo-science, Sagan says</p> <blockquote> <p><span style="color:#ffffff;">Perhaps the sharpest distinction between science and pseudo-science is that science has a far keener appreciation of human imperfections and fallibility than does pseudoscience … If we resolutely refuse to acknowledge where we are liable to fall into error, then we can confidently expect that error - even serious error, profound mistakes - will be our companion </span><span style="color:#ffffff;">forever.</span></p> </blockquote> <p><span style="color:#cccccc;">Indeed.</span></p>Doubting Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16507892426345836143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540232552320074118.post-39539020297246387052011-08-21T20:16:00.001+01:002011-08-23T14:57:34.956+01:00Human Rights We Should Recognise<p align="justify">The recent riots have brought up a lot of commentary about the Human Rights Act, and Call Me Dave’s attack on the Act as contributing to the unrest. All this commentary seems to be from the point of view of the rioters, and the rights given under the act encouraging criminality and violence.</p> <p align="justify">I want to look at the other side, my big gripe with European human-rights legislation. What I object to is not just the rights given that should not be rights, but also the fundamental rights that are not given; these also affected the course of the riots. Of course once the Human Rights Act was made law, it is often assumed that anything not included is not a human right.</p> <p align="justify">The example here is the right to self-defence, including the right to keep and bear arms for this purpose.</p> <p align="justify">For years the right of an Englishman to defend himself, his family and his property have been eroded. The change in this is discussed in <a href="http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/08/malcolms-moment.php">an article on Powerline</a>. The claimed reason, that we should rely on the police to protect us, has never been very sound. The police could never claim to be available at every time a man might need to defend himself, so the idea of abdicating this responsibility to the sanctioned authority was always ridiculous. The allegation that police are being told in cases of violent disorder to avoid arresting people and simply try to contain the situation makes it farcical.</p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-LkNNxbTrhVk/TlFb10pKy1I/AAAAAAAAAUw/bjwIYocz3uo/s1600-h/image%25255B1%25255D.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="image" border="0" alt="image" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-NTZEzi9nqcA/TlFZb3GfXAI/AAAAAAAAAU0/XCDGpLkjg-g/image_thumb.png?imgmax=800" width="517" height="357" /></a></p> <p align="justify">Like any well-read lad I enjoyed reading Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as a boy; most people have seen Sherlock Holmes on film and television. Does it not strike people that Watson frequently carried a revolver, as occasionally did Holmes? It was clearly unremarkable to Conan Doyle, and of course it was an assumption at that time that a man might carry a weapon, and defend himself with it. Crime was a lot lower then, around a tenth for more than half the population, for a crime rate of around 1/6 to 1/7 today’s.</p> <p align="justify">In 1964 advice to police was that self defence was not a reason to allow a fire-arms certificate to hold a handgun. Between 1997 and 1998 handguns were banned altogether (high-calibre in 1997, .22 in 1998). Now we are not allowed to carry any weapon at all for self defence. There is no requirement for the police to even suggest that the person was a threat to anyone else. If a person carries a weapon, or anything that can be used as a weapon, without a good excuse he or she can be prosecuted.</p> <p align="justify">Since then there have been increasing cases of police persecuting and prosecuting people who defend themselves. There are cases that should never have come to court, there are cases of arrests that never resulted in charges but still cause distress to people who have already suffered the trauma of attacks on themselves or their homes and businesses.</p> <p align="justify">So where is the human-rights legislation to protect rights of crime victims from the Police, when the criminals receive so much protection?</p> <p align="justify">Of course there are many other rights that are being stripped by the government and the EU, or rights one of us might argue for, but because they are not coded into the European Convention on Human Rights there is almost no chance that they will be recognised as human rights.</p> <p align="justify">Recently there was a television programme about fake Euro notes. It is a strict-liability offense in the Euro-zone to even own fake Euro notes, and also to try to spend them. Yet there are millions of fake notes in circulation. Many people might have them completely innocently. At least one British person, unfamiliar in any case with Euros, tried to spend a single fake note in a large bundle he had directly from a travel agent, yet had he been charged his lawyers had said he was best to plead guilty, as he had no defence. That the Austrian police did not charge him was good sense from them, to his fortune. Not everyone has been so lucky, and a law that relies on luck and the good sense of officers is a poor law.</p> <p align="justify">Where is the protection of our human rights to carry currency without worrying that we might inadvertently commit a serious criminal offence?</p> <p align="justify">What about the one right on which all others, and our freedom and political rights depend, the the protection of our right to free speech? It is protected under article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, with a few exceptions. One of which is protection of morals, another is maintaining the authority of the judiciary. Both of these exceptions are incompatible with what I would see as the human right to free expression.</p> <p align="justify">Of course the UK libel laws are not compatible with natural rights to free speech, nor are the reporting restrictions on family courts, for example. So even our most fundamental right is not protected.</p> <p align="justify">I could go on. Rights to privacy that Americans recognise in the fourth amendment to their constitution, right to free assembly, right to silence under police questioning (broken in the UK; if you disagree with my objection to the current British police caution of rights, I recommend <a href="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4097602514885833865">this video "Don't talk to the police"</a>, advice from an American lawyer), rights to due process of law and against <a href="http://my-own-doubts.blogspot.com/2009/06/terrible-price-of-eu.html">double jeopardy</a>, rights to speedy trial.</p> <p align="justify">All of these are rights recognised in the constitution of the USA, you will notice; the USA so criticised by sophisticated Europeans as the barbaric outpost of rednecks.</p> <p align="justify">I would argue for other rights: the right to self determination, taken as far as euthanasia, the right to a proportional tax rebate if you choose supply from a third party of services currently offered by government, the right to freedom of choice to the degree that government cannot place extra taxes on products politicians feel we should use less (petrol, home energy and alcohol affect me, but tobacco is unfairly taxed too), and a few more radical libertarian positions. I am even willing to give credence to arguments in favour of right to use certain drugs that are currently illicit, although I am not a libertine and feel that more information is needed to decide on some of those issues.</p> <p align="justify">There is even one right of criminals, to blind justice without considerations of motive (such as “hate crime”) or the victim’s wishes in sentencing. Both of these allow or encourage revenge, not justice.</p> <p align="justify">So, not only does human rights legislation allow rights that are not natural human rights, especially to criminals and those who are not legally resident in this country, but by not mentioning certain rights, or by curtailing them in exceptions, it restricts the rights of the majority. This happens because when the British common law assumption that we have all rights that are not removed whether by historical precedent or by legislation has been supplanted by the European Convention on Human Rights.</p> <p align="justify">Finally I believe that supplanting is unconstitutional. It is entirely at odds with British legal tradition, and if there is any one thing at the heart of the British constitution, tying together the various threads of our written constitution, it is legal tradition.</p> Doubting Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16507892426345836143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540232552320074118.post-11041461023509973912011-08-07T18:29:00.001+01:002011-08-07T18:29:36.534+01:00Les Misérables<p align="justify">[WARNING: minor spoilers; go to the last line if you want to see the musical fresh]</p> <p align="justify"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKUHIPgLAGE&feature=related"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="Cosette" border="0" alt="Cosette" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-ddCzgwFHiUU/Tj7Lf9QKzHI/AAAAAAAAAUc/kDUvDHoo1qA/Cosette%25255B8%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="507" height="341" /></a>Sometimes we get so used to circumstances that it takes a sudden insight from the distant past to remind us what we enjoy or what we suffer daily.</p> <p align="justify">The state of the entertainment industry, in Britain and America is such a case. The system is so shot through with politics that certain very normal, realistic events and characters are simply unthinkable.</p> <p align="justify">I went with my wife to see Les Misérables recently, and some of the value of the play is the almost unthinkable behaviour of the characters.</p> <p align="justify">When the main character, Jean Valjean, steals from the Catholic Priest and is caught, we assume that a Priest is going to be a terrible man who wants him hanged. Instead the priest claims to have given Jean the things he stole, even claiming he left more silverware behind and giving him the candlesticks. He had seen Jean as a desperate man who needed help and compassion, even if he did not deserve either.</p> <p align="justify">When Valjean becomes a wealthy, powerful man, he is an important local employer. Much to our surprise he is shown as caring about his workers, but also satisfied that his enterprise is employing others; when he fears he will be returned to prison for breaking parole, one of his main concerns is for the people who would then lose their livelihoods.</p> <p align="justify">Both of these characters are so surprising to us, not because they are abnormal. Many Catholic Priests are very generous, patient, kind and understanding. Many wealthy employers take great satisfaction in employing people and making a close community. What surprises us is that such characters are portrayed on stage. We are used to evil, small-minded or bigoted Priests and grasping, self-serving employers.</p> <p align="justify">The musical is of course based on a book written long before such portrayals became ubiquitous. It is not politically biased, but does also touch other ideas that seem odd to the modern filmgoer or television viewer. The anti-royalist student radicals are naïve, well-meaning and courageous, but also their leader is shown to be uncaring of an individual, interested in the people but seemingly only as an ideal. That seems a very perceptively-written character. There are themes throughout of personal responsibility and the evils of an uncaring, impersonal government in the person of the police officer Javert, who is not a bad man but is the antagonist of the piece through just following his perceived duty as an officer of the law.</p> <p align="justify">Oh, it’s a great musical by the way, I thoroughly recommend it. Matt Lucas (of Little  Britain fame) made a fantastic innkeeper.</p> Doubting Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16507892426345836143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540232552320074118.post-5747041017270450482011-07-04T20:30:00.001+01:002011-12-23T01:19:26.187+00:00Napoleon and the French Revolution<p align="justify">A bit of an odd monologue today, but it has a point.</p> <p align="justify">I heard some time ago of the <a href="http://www.khanacademy.org/" target="_blank">Khan Academy</a>, a great resource for autodidacts. At the time the only history available there was the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars, so I watched the whole lot; what a horrifying series that was. What a barbaric forerunner of the 20th-century communist revolutions, what terrible conflicts for the grandiose ambitions of one man.</p> <p align="justify"></p> <p align="justify">What is more worrying, and certainly more current, is the French attitude to both the Revolution and Napoleon Bonaparte. They are both openly revered. The French motto is the motto of the Revolution; the French National Anthem is the Anthem of the Revolution, schools are named after its violent leaders (I went on exchange to <em>École Robbespierre</em>). Although the French are a little more ambivalent towards him, Napoleon Bonaparte is still widely considered a French hero, or else considered to have helped France or Europe in some ways; Metro stops are still named for his generals. The pupil I exchanged with at <em>École Robbespierre </em>was utterly adamant that Napoleon had ended his wars victorious; he would not believe otherwise.</p> <p align="justify"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvnI1BptWYmXag2U6B5Qun8dJf2ykReb_-e0yHSbE0Pnk3qGeNOV6Mt-Ua9bh_DBxNFzkCrD66temdtlaVEiFQsv51c0vHXrhxkf8eO2N3YvxXah0gJqKEgBoFvWIqHUU2umTN-i98pNg/s1600-h/image%25255B3%25255D.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="image" alt="image" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMUUxTK1XsBbClAnmPK7FNBOJf2wTY-YBJ8FcjR407k_N1vHoJ20l6nCFJeFibECDe7kTh6BYkEQfd7bisiIqGrQaHyJdJrQOuvIr78ptfF54O0YcOGOeorL95HEEZrLE0B-mX5MpLa9k/?imgmax=800" border="0" height="324" width="513" /></a></p> <p align="justify"><span style="color:#ffffff;">Violence of the French Revolution: this time, ironically, the execution of Robbespierre</span></p> <h3 align="justify"><span style="font-size:85%;">Why do I consider these things today, and why are they important?</span></h3> <p align="justify">Here I have a confession: I was reading the Daily Mail. I usually refuse, for personal reasons, but I was in a coffee shop awaiting my wife, and that was all that was available. In it A.N. Wilson has <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2010960/Why-ashamed-celebrate-Waterloo-Government-refuses-mark-brutal-battle-allowed-build-worlds-greatest-empire.html" target="_blank">an article on the bicentenary of the battle of Waterloo</a> (for those educated in Britain, that will be in 2015) and the lack of official plans for celebrations.</p> <p align="justify">Yet this was a victory every bit as important for modern Europe as the victory over Nazism and Fascism and the victory over Communism. We celebrate these victories in some official way. We honour the great figures in these victories, with a statue to Ronald Reagan having been unveiled today, Independence Day.</p> <p align="justify">The Communist Parties and Nazi Parties are widely reviled today, most importantly in their own countries (with the possible exception of Russia). People recognise that these were evil regimes. People would not wish to be associated with the political ideals of these regimes (even when their views happen to coincide).</p> <p align="justify">Yet in France it is not so, and it is just accepted that victory over Napoleon and post-Revolutionary France are something to keep quiet about, not to be triumphalist, as if the violent, repressive, French dominance of Europe was something that could have been allowed to remain, the victory in these terrible wars something to be ashamed of as we are now allied to France.</p> <p align="justify">Napoleon Bonaparte was an egotistical bastard. He set a continent ablaze, killed on a scale never seen before, not to be seen again for a century. He did so for his own personal satisfaction.</p> <p align="justify">A.N. Wilson puts it well, in comparing the two opposing commanders that day.</p> <blockquote> <p align="justify"><span style="color:#ffffff;">When told he risked his life by riding to and fro on his horse, [Wellington]replied: 'The battle's won. My life's of no consequence now.'</span></p> <p align="justify"><span style="color:#ffffff;">Napoleon would never have said that. To such a megalomaniac, his own life was all-important; those of the people he killed and enslaved were of no consequence whatever.</span></p> </blockquote> <p align="justify"><span style="color:#cccccc;">It is about time France recognised the horrors of the Revolution and the subsequent wars, as the Germans did with the Nazi regime, and that French honour for the Revolution and Bonaparte is challenged. This attitude is at the core of an unhealthy French nationalism, that leads directly to some of the most damaging aspects of the EU and of French dealings with the world.</span></p> <p align="justify"><span style="color:#cccccc;">On a final note – what do the three evil regimes compared here have in common? The French Revolutionaries, the Communists and the Nazis all started out as socialists.</span></p><p align="justify"><span style="color:#cccccc;"><span style="color: rgb(153, 255, 255);">Edit: just to add a comment to any that seriously doubt that the French revere the monstrous post-revolutionary regime. 25 years ago I was on a school exchange in southern France, to a modern secondary school. It's name? Ecole Robespierre.. Named after <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximilien_Robespierre">Maximilien Robbespierre</a>. I doubt the name has been changed.</span><br /></span></p>Doubting Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16507892426345836143noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540232552320074118.post-40072206775042702702011-07-04T20:23:00.003+01:002011-11-26T13:16:59.480+00:00Happy Independence Day<p>With all that an independent USA has done for the world, we should celebrate this one. Yes, I know that the words are anti-British, but they had a point. May today’s Tea Party lead to as much freedom as did the original!</p><p>As usual, click the pic for music.<br /></p> <p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1NR2K-gazo"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="New York 154" alt="New York 154" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-lSkb6sMkgbM/ThIWHu60eDI/AAAAAAAAAUY/BLB4L_yE8uM/New%252520York%252520154%25255B5%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" height="350" width="511" border="0" /></a></p>Doubting Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16507892426345836143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540232552320074118.post-83972658100630415942011-06-19T18:54:00.004+01:002011-11-26T13:14:47.042+00:00Hollywood Was Not Always Socialist<p align="justify">That Hollywood is, despite itself consisting of businesses that aim to make a profit, a part of the socialist anti-business movement is beyond reasonable argument. Pointing to the numerous films where absurd plots make businesses and their senior executives the antagonist is a fairly weak argument, albeit true, but there is now a book detailing evidence, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Primetime-Propaganda-True-Hollywood-Story/dp/0061934771/?tag=wwwbreitbartc-20" target="_blank">Primetime Propaganda</a> and of course a whole website of news about <a href="http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/" target="_blank">Big Hollywood</a> from right-wing commentators which documents left-wing foolishness.</p> <p align="justify">I am a great fan of Audrey Hepburn, so am watching Sabrina, where Hepburn plays the eponymous heroine, and her (eventual) love interest, played by Humphrey Bogart is a senior executive of a large, family-run conglomerate. At one point his wastrel, playboy brother he asks what his “urge to go into plastics” will prove. His answer is something a socialist could never write</p> <blockquote style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> <p align="justify">“Prove? Nothing much.</p> <p align="justify">A new product has been found, something of use to the world, so a new industry moves into an undeveloped area. Factories go up, machines are brought in, a harbor is dug and you're in business.</p> <p align="justify">It’s purely coincidental of course that people who never saw a dime before suddenly have a dollar, and bare-footed kids wear shoes and have their teeth fixed and their faces washed.</p> <p align="justify">What’s wrong with the kind of an urge that gives people libraries, hospitals, baseball diamonds and uh, movies on a Saturday night?”</p> </blockquote> <p align="justify">This is one of the best rebuttals I have ever heard of socialism, a succinct explanation of why business should be encouraged, and not opposed.</p>Doubting Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16507892426345836143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540232552320074118.post-58936677507742411872011-06-19T18:52:00.003+01:002011-11-26T13:13:43.324+00:00That was a Long Interruption<p align="justify">Two years ago I was unemployed. Long and unpleasant story that cannot be told truthfully without risk of a case for libel. Hence I had plenty of time to pontificate and pronounce on matters political.</p> <p align="justify">I stopped blogging when I suddenly got work, and had little time for it. Since then I have married and become involved in my wife’s business, which has been hard work at times but interesting.</p> <p align="justify">Now my life is now less insane, and the world more so. We have a Conservative-lead coalition sacrificing our economy to appease radical environmentalists (for no conceivable environmental benefit); the EU snatching ever more power and money, in denial about the imminent collapse of its currency and the damage done by the bailouts in the interim; Barack Obama worse than even his critics anticipated, "Hope" now being a hope that he is no worse than Jimmy Carter; the BBC, our state broadcaster, supporting everything that is wrong.</p> <p align="justify">Thus I find myself wanting some outlet for a frustrated cry at the stupidity of the world, and the lack of voice for us, who are called libertarian, who just want to be able to live our lives without anyone else screwing it up claiming to help.</p> <p align="justify">I might not blog frequently, but I hope to do so several times each week.</p>Doubting Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16507892426345836143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540232552320074118.post-90278511740747261252009-10-21T23:23:00.001+01:002009-10-21T23:23:46.153+01:00ACORN – The Final Nail<p align="justify">When the <a href="http://my-own-doubts.blogspot.com/search/label/ACORN" target="_blank">ACORN scandal</a> hit the ‘community organisation’ had one excuse. They claimed that the undercover couple had visited many offices and been turned away, and only in a handful were they offered advice on how to cheat the taxes on money they earned from underage sex slaves.</p> <p align="justify">In particular ACORN claimed Giles and O’Keefe were turned away from New York and San Diego offices (video evidence has already been shown that they were actually helped there). Most importantly they were not only refused advice in Philadelphia, but were told to leave the office and the police were called.</p> <p align="justify">Errrrrrmmmmm, <a href="http://biggovernment.com/2009/10/21/acorn-video-prostitution-scandal-in-philadelphia-pa-part-i/" target="_blank">or not,</a> as the case might be.</p> <p align="justify">Incidentally the ACORN employee’s voice is muted, for legal reasons.</p> <div class="wlWriterEditableSmartContent" id="scid:5737277B-5D6D-4f48-ABFC-DD9C333F4C5D:2d05e9e9-e00e-4c0f-9ff0-7e1039305ae7" style="padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; float: none; padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-top: 0px"><div id="aeda9f19-552a-4d96-a97f-002d9f8ede83" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline;"><div><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=af9DDayHwbg" target="_new"><img src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_dJ0iRqy4jOE/St-J8dJJbhI/AAAAAAAAATk/rpYlUEjx31Q/video387a1cd0911c%5B4%5D.jpg?imgmax=800" style="border-style: none" galleryimg="no" onload="var downlevelDiv = document.getElementById('aeda9f19-552a-4d96-a97f-002d9f8ede83'); downlevelDiv.innerHTML = "<div><object width=\"520\" height=\"434\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http://www.youtube.com/v/af9DDayHwbg&hl=en\"><\/param><embed src=\"http://www.youtube.com/v/af9DDayHwbg&hl=en\" type=\"application/x-shockwave-flash\" width=\"520\" height=\"434\"><\/embed><\/object><\/div>";" alt=""></a></div></div></div> <p align="justify">How can anyone who knows about this now fail to utterly condemn ACORN? How can ACORN continue to function, when they don’t know what else Andrew Breitbart has to release? How can they have any credibility when everything they have said has turned out to be a lie, because Breitbart really, really knows his business, knew exactly how ACORN would react and had the evidence to respond to everything, so ACORN’s defence only made things worse at every stage?</p> Doubting Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16507892426345836143noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540232552320074118.post-59335594593916402202009-10-16T20:19:00.002+01:002009-10-17T02:26:46.639+01:00Arrogance of Authority<p align="justify">A great case of someone who let his own arrogance overcome any doubts he might have had. A Justice of the Peace in Louisiana has decided <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jy_z-Zo4fvJEf2TK1LCiiPIe9NDwD9BBNUJ80" target="_blank">not to sign a marriage license</a> <em>because the couple are of mixed race</em>.</p> <p align="justify">Now I happen to accept his claim that he is not racist, and that he simply believes the marriage is less likely to last. This does not necessarily show racism. What it does show is that he thinks his views are more important than this couple’s decision about their own life, and that he thinks that statistical norms should determine an individual case.</p> <p align="justify">Another time where someone should have more doubts.</p> <p align="justify">Hat tip <a href="http://www.pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/" target="_blank">Instapundit</a>.</p>Doubting Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16507892426345836143noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540232552320074118.post-2526273777240521122009-10-15T21:11:00.001+01:002009-10-16T16:40:59.628+01:00Why Are You So Greedy?<p align="justify">The most stupid question I have ever heard on national television. It simply indicates that the BBC have no idea of the concept of the market, and of choice and freedom.</p> <p align="justify">Anne Robinson was talking to the Marketing Director of Centre Parks holiday park company on Watchdog, the consumer-affairs programme on BBC1. She was trying to claim that it was some sort of dreadful offence that Centre Parks charge people far more in the school holidays than outside. She was livid, and went through a whole host of random complaints. She showed no hint of understanding when the Marketing Director pointed out that they were full at that time, so people must feel that it is value for money, and she went on at him about the additional charges they make for their activities.</p> <p align="justify">The funniest part was failing to see the irony when people started saying that they had gone or would go elsewhere due to the price at Centre Parks. That is their choice – they are not forced to go to Centre Parks, or to indulge in extra activities when they are there. It is their choice to pay what Centre Parks’s choose to charge.</p> <p align="justify">This shows the core problem with the BBC. They are an insular organisation, where charges and pay are not related to choice or to freedom but to some arbitrary concept of “fairness”. Oh, and that they think that paying Jonathan Woss £6 million a year has any relation to fairness.</p> <p>Update: this self-righteous piece of ignorance <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/watchdog/2009/10/half_term_holiday_hikes.html" target="_blank">is online now</a>.</p> Doubting Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16507892426345836143noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540232552320074118.post-27708604436573387762009-10-15T19:03:00.001+01:002009-10-15T19:03:08.807+01:00Bercow Not Such a Berk<p align="justify">Although I stand by <a href="http://my-own-doubts.blogspot.com/2009/09/im-calling-buckingham-for-ukip.html" target="_blank">previous comments about Bercow</a> and his pompous decision to appoint himself a special advisor. However I was always willing to give him a shot at the job before condemning him as speaker. I hoped he would do well by the House, even as I feared he would not, but it seems he <a href="http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/5443068/speaker-bercow-asserts-himself.thtml" target="_blank">might be making a decent fist of it</a>. At the least he is far better than Michael Martin, perhaps with time he can come up to Betty Boothroyd and Sir Bernhard Wetherill’s standard. We can only hope this continues.</p> Doubting Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16507892426345836143noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540232552320074118.post-44921149389175059672009-10-15T15:27:00.002+01:002009-10-15T22:00:31.679+01:00The ‘Far-Right’ and the Left<p align="justify">The media always term the BNP and other neo-Nazi or neo-fascist organisations ‘far-right’. This is despite the fact that they are always socialist, of course the term Nazi explicitly includes socialism. Despite the fact that they appeal to disaffected Labour voters in the UK, hence the BNP success in areas where Labour once held sway.</p> <p align="justify">So I am far less surprised than <a href="http://www.hurryupharry.org/" target="_blank">Lucy Lips at Harry's Place</a> that left-wing Labour MP Clare Short and Liberal Democrat peer Jenny Tonge <a href="http://www.paltelegraph.com/palestine/palestinian-refugees/2622-international-conference-to-discuss-future-of-palestinian-refugees" target="_blank">shared an anti-Israeli platform</a> with neo-fascist MEP Kristina Morvai of the Hungarian nationalist party Jobbik, as well as the usual supporters of terrorist Hamas.</p> <p align="justify">So where are the cries of horror in the news? where are the commentators decrying a sitting British MP making common cause with Jobbik, a Hungarian Party that discussed alliance with the BNP?</p> <p align="justify">Although I have some doubt that Jobbik are as extremist as Harry’s Place make out – the evidence that they are anti-Semitic (apart from the anti-Israeli stance common to many left-wing British organisations, placing the only Jewish state as a unique villain for no apparent reason) is very weak. They do however seem to be anti-Roma to rather a strong degree, as well as nationalist. Most telling their MEPs discussed making common cause with the BNP and the French Front National in the European Parliament (they did not join Euronat, the party the BNP and FN MEPs belong to) and Nick Griffin, the BNP MEP spoke at a Jobbik rally.</p> <p align="justify">So Jobbik is not a respectable party. It is far less respectable than the parties in Latvia and Poland that our esteemed Foreign Secretary managed to offend when criticising Conservative alliance with them in the European Parliament. Yet a Labour MP, former cabinet member can openly associate with one of their MEPs, and make common cause without any comment being made.</p>Doubting Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16507892426345836143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540232552320074118.post-13089767677193038872009-10-15T00:13:00.001+01:002009-10-15T00:13:39.761+01:00More on Global Cooling<p align="justify">This could be an important time, leading to great relief and perhaps great fear. It appears that the <a href="http://www.climatedepot.com/a/3310/Losing-Their-Religion-2009-officially-declared-year-the-media-lost-their-faith-in-manmade-global-warming-fears" target="_blank">media are finally seeing the cracks</a> in global warming. Much as I hate to link the Daily Mail, as I have <a href="http://my-own-doubts.blogspot.com/2009/06/i-hesitate-to-hat-tip-site-which-goes.html" target="_blank">said before</a> sources that go off the deep end sometimes will also <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1220052/Austria-sees-earliest-snow-history-America-sees-lowest-temperatures-50-years-So-did-global-warming-go.html?ITO=1490#" target="_blank">are sometimes go the whole way,</a> where few others dare go so far.</p> <p align="justify">So temperature records are falling in falling temperatures. Austria’s earliest recorded snows, an American town breaking record low by <em>seven degrees</em>.</p> <p align="justify">Even the alarmists are admitting that temperatures might fall for two decades, although they insist that the rising trend will overcome that. </p> <p align="justify">It is easy to see the fatal flaw in their argument, it is mentioned in the Daily Mail article, “…the global cooling from 1945 to 1977…”. So the globe was cooling until 1977, and the warmest year since 1934 was 1998, and the world has been at an even temperature then cooling since, and now might cool for two decades.</p> <p align="justify">So let me see if I have the sequence right, starting in 1947. The world cooled for three decades, then warmed for two decades and then is about to cool for another two decades before returning to a warming trend. Ooooookaaaaaay. Errrrrrrmmmmmm, I am not sure if you’re getting this, but I don’t see any consistent trend at all here. I see a pattern of rising and falling temperatures, probably therefore dominated by a factor that itself rises and falls.</p> <p align="justify">Since the alarmists have been going on at us for 15 years now about the fact that CO<font size="1">2</font> levels have been rising exponentially, I am getting the idea that they don’t fit the pattern. I am not sure what physics these guys have, but mine is a little rusty; I did leave university 14 years ago. Can an exponential rise in CO<font size="1">2</font> really trigger oscillations in temperature? I reckon  it’s possible, but I also am damned sure that is not what those little models predicted.</p> <p align="justify">With the hockey-stick curve having <a href="http://my-own-doubts.blogspot.com/2009/09/global-cooling.html" target="_blank">fallen for a second time</a>, and no sign of sea-level rises the evidence for anthropogenic global warming is looking remarkably thin.</p> Doubting Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16507892426345836143noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540232552320074118.post-41076565420014432802009-10-14T01:30:00.001+01:002009-10-14T01:30:40.633+01:00Nobel Prize Explained<p align="justify">So it appears it was not just <a href="http://my-own-doubts.blogspot.com/2009/10/debasing-prize.html" target="_blank">the politics of the left</a> but the venality and vanity of the left. It seems that Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize <a href="http://reason.com/archives/2009/10/13/the-truth-about-obamas-nobel-p/" target="_blank">to allow Thorbjørn Jagland to meet the world press</a>. Jagland (who I must admit has a great name – sounds like the bastard child of a Norse god and a member of Abba) is the chairman of the committee, and a left-wing politician. He is also general secretary of the Council of Europe.</p> <p align="justify">His own words seem to indicate that he chose Obama for publicity, in order that he would gain reflected glory. Read <a href="http://reason.com/archives/2009/10/13/the-truth-about-obamas-nobel-p/2" target="_blank">the final page</a> of the article if nothing else. However the whole thing is worth reading for the political context, and commentary on Jagland’s use of the Prize for his own gain and for politics, but also a sense of his cluelessness that he might have done anything wrong.</p> <p align="justify">Oh, and a great new example of the <a href="http://my-own-doubts.blogspot.com/2009/08/racist-left.html" target="_blank">racism in left-wing politics</a>. “Bongo from Kongo”?</p> Doubting Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16507892426345836143noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540232552320074118.post-81279301375629567692009-10-13T11:21:00.000+01:002009-10-13T11:21:00.475+01:00So How Are Those IPCC Predictions Working Out?<p align="justify">The IPCC did a lot of detailed work, in fact a surprising amount considering the lack of contributors who had actually published anything in peer-review literature before. A lot of this was to support the central ideas required to convince people of climate change. Since Carbon dioxide does not actually absorb much energy that has previously escaped absorption by water or existing carbon dioxide levels, it was important to deal with other greenhouse gases.</p> <p align="justify">One of the powerful greenhouse gases associated with human activity is methane, biogenic methane being produced by farming among other sources. Of course anyone modelling future climate would need to estimate the levels of methane, so how were the predictions now we can predict them against actual changes seen in the atmosphere?</p> <p align="justify"><a href="http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2009/10/08/the-ups-and-downs-of-methane/"><img title="image" style="border: 0px none ; display: inline;" alt="image" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz9WWXG7PtmllSvaQjv5jtEv58c5toMiRXzwNnZ54oCZiQww1dB52tpSKG3q8r0nzP0EV9qHrBFoDIYX8L1Cx0opcnmOaAwf7ODJi_fdARJBlYu7of-emFtDxEs8VaIbfYFa0hVnurwNI/?imgmax=800" border="0" height="290" width="514" /></a>Well I’m convinced that the IPCC could avoid arse/elbow confusion, although <a href="http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2009/10/08/the-ups-and-downs-of-methane/">some are not</a>.</p> <p>Thanks again to those <a href="http://smalldeadanimals.com/">Small, Dead Animals</a>.</p>Doubting Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16507892426345836143noreply@blogger.com0