The elephant in the room consistently ignored by the Warministas

Breakthrough: American scientists have discovered a link between water vapour and the earth's temperature

Almost everything t that I have ever read about “climate change ” from those of the Warminista faith concentrate on Co2 and occasionally methane as the most important elements in our chaotic and multifaceted climate  when they go in to long diatribes about AGW (take a bow JM). But they are almost dismissive about the role of water vapour in the atmosphere. Yet the water vapours and the clouds they form are many times more important to keeping this planet habitable than the minuscule amounts (by proportion) of Co2 in our air. Which is why I found the report in the Daily Mail most interesting.

American researchers have discovered that the amount of water high in the atmosphere is far more influential on world temperatures than previously thought.

Although the findings do not challenge the theory of man-made global warming, they help explain why temperatures can rise and fall so dramatically from decade to decade.

The study, published in the journal Science, says a 10 per cent drop in humidity 10 miles above the Earth’s surface explains why global temperatures have been stable since the start of the century, despite the rise in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

And a rise in water vapour in the 1980s and 90s may also explain why temperatures shot up so quickly in the previous two decades, they say.

Water vapour has long been recognised as an important greenhouse gas. Like methane and carbon dioxide, it absorbs heat from the sun that would otherwise be reflected back into space, keeping the planet warm.

However, most computer models that predict climate concentrate on the levels of water lower down in the atmosphere.

Dr Susan Solomon, of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said: ‘Current climate models do a remarkable job on water vapour near the surface.

‘But this is different — it’s a thin wedge of the upper atmosphere that packs a wallop from one decade to the next in a way we didn’t expect.’

Observations from weather balloons and satellites show that ‘stratospheric water vapour’ increased in the 1980s and 1990s and dropped after 2000.

The changes took place in a narrow altitude region of the atmosphere where they would have the biggest impact on climate.

Can’t wait to hear JM or PKD explain this new study in the light of their insistence that the factor to worry about is Co2 because if this study is right it reduces the role of anthropogenic Carbon dioxide to that of a bit player, and one who has no significant dialogue…

Maybe they need a new script……

Cheers Comrades

The newest convert

Find below some suggestions on how to address “climate change” from the latest convert to the Warminista faith Now I’m not going name names but I bet there are many other latte sipping Warministas who think that this prescription for the problem has merit……….

This is a message to the whole world about those who are causing climate change, whether deliberately or not, and what we should do about that,’ he declared.

‘Talk about climate change is not an ideological luxury but a reality,’ he said in the tape released to the Al Jazeera television network, adding: ‘All of the industrialised countries, especially the big ones, bear responsibility.’

He called for a boycott of American products and the end of the U.S. dollar as a world currency.

‘We should stop dealings with the dollar and get rid of it as soon as possible,’ he said in the brief recording.

‘I know that this has great consequences and grave ramifications, but it is the only means to liberate humanity from slavery and dependence on America.

The “Environmentalist” even used a quotation from American liberal political activist Noam Chomsky to support his cause.

He said: ‘Noam Chomsky was correct when he compared the U.S. policies to those of the Mafia.

‘They are the true terrorists and therefore we should refrain from dealing in the U.S. dollar and should try to get rid of this currency as early as possible.’

Click on the the Daily Mail Icon above to find out just who it is who has suddenly Taken up the cause of those poor sad polar bears.

Is anyone really surprised?

Cheers Comrades

Green report card, back of an envelope style

Brother Number One is, like a lot of progressives, rather full of grand sounding ideas that always seem to fall into heap when the cold hard light of reason falls upon them.

Just six months after its launch, the $70 million Green Loans scheme to get Australians to install energy-efficient products will be lucky to survive past March without millions more in taxpayer funding.

Similarities are already being drawn between Green Loans and the Government’s bungled $3.2 billion home insulation subsidy scheme. A Senate inquiry into the insulation rebate scheme is probing accusations of malpractice, rorting and mismanagement.

The much-vaunted Green Loans program was supposed to run for three years but is being bled dry by a flurry of unregistered operators.

So far, there have been just 1000 subsidised loans approved for solar power and water-saving and energy-efficient products.

Now thousands of people who paid $3000 each to become Green Loans assessors will be thrown on the unemployment scrapheap if the scheme collapses.

Instead of using only registered training organisations, unregistered groups were allowed to conduct audit training courses, with one earning $300,000 in one weekend by packing 200 people in a class at $1500 a head.

So lets just do a quick back of an envelope acesment of Brother Number One’s attempts to change the nation for the betterment of its people shall we?

Relaxing the rules for illegal boat arrivals: hmm well Club Chrissie island is full to bursting  that must be a plus……….

“lap tops for every high school  student”:  Ahem No it seems that this was an aspiration and not a promise………

The  schools building program as part of the stimulus package : gee that one must be working when even schools that are being closed down can get a new Hall or library………….

The CPRS : sadly for Brother Number One and Penny W(r)ong those evil members of her majesties loyal opposition had the audacity to block that in the senate and boy are their spiv mates upset about it now.

Finally we have this revelation that the “green schemes ” have been scammed enmasse and have already exhausted their budget allocation : Yeah like who would have that that would happen?

Its not a good look for a government heading for election now is it?

Not surprised Comrades

8)

What you advertise may not be what you end up selling

It may disappoint some of my more conservative friends but I have never been a fan of governments privatising infrastructure assets, especially if those assets provide an income stream to treasury. It seems short sighted and stupid to me. So the efforts from Anna Bligh(t) to sell off key pieces of the Queensland family silver finds me actually siding with left wing unions on the issue.

I am a member the "No to the Privatisation of QLD Government Owned Corporations" group on Facebook

QUEENSLAND’S unions believe they are on the cusp of rolling the Bligh Government’s $15 billion privatisation program with a major escalation of their campaign and possible industrial action likely within weeks.

Union sources said a special conference to overturn the asset sell-off was now more than likely to occur within the next six months.

But Premier Anna Bligh thumbed her nose at the unions, saying she did not have to follow the outcome of a new vote.

“The Labor Party has the right to make whatever decision it wants to make but the Government makes decisions and implements them,” Ms Bligh said.

“Obviously I’d take into account the views of the party but I’m not bound by them.”

About 45 per cent of Labor-affiliated unions have so far backed a move for a new vote to overturn one taken at last year’s Labor conference that supported the newly-elected Bligh Government’s asset sell-off scheme.

I just don’t think that Queensland will be a better place if these key assets are sold and it looks to me that what our premier is actually selling is her own power base ….
Cheers Comrades

Teaching your children about when to “go to the next level”

Gustaf klimt "the Kiss"

I am like most fathers not at all keen upon the idea that any child would take up sex before he or she has formed and enduring pair bond with someone who will love and respect them . This is not because I see chastity as a commodity to be traded or sold it is because I believe that choosing your “significant other” is more than just surrendering to the whiles of lust.
I make jokes about “a very large shotgun” when the subject of my daughter and her (potential) future boyfriends comes up and until she reaches her majority I know that I have a responsibility to protect her and to try to give her the sort of direction that will allow her to be happy and fulfilled as a human being. However I am sadly bemused by the way that the Femnazi mindset , of the Julia Gillard flavour, thinks that such concerns and worries (from any father) is old fashioned.

Mr Abbott said in a magazine interview he believed virginity was a gift that should not be given away too lightly.

But Ms Gillard said his views were old-fashioned and would confirm the worst fears of Australian women.

Senator Brandis hit back yesterday, describing Ms Gillard as one-dimensional.

“I think Julia Gillard who . . . has chosen not to be a parent . . . shows that she just doesn’t understand the way parents think about their children when they reach a particular age,” Senator Brandis told the ABC in Brisbane.

There is nothing “old fashioned ” about wanting the best for your children or from wanting them to avoid the sort of foolishness and life mistakes that you yourself might have made. As a parent you are obliged  to mentor your children about sex and sexuality. I saw this very topic elucidated upon a rather nice DVD last night. A character called Josh (who was 15) was concerned that his girl friend wanted them to have sex and he was worried about taking their relationship “to the next level” his father explained that he would prefer that they did not have sex but gave him a condom as a contingency in the event that Josh and his paramour could not wait. That struck me as a most sensible approach to the matter. As a father all that you can do is to make the argument and then it is really up to your soon to be fully independent offspring to make their own decisions. What irks me about so called progressives like Gillard is that they think that a parent should not even make the argument, or try to persuade their children that having indiscriminate sex has significant downsides. Frankly George Brandis has more than just a grain of truth in his argument that as a woman who is childless by choice just can not understand the issue in any meaningful way.

Cheers Comrades

400,000 hits!

I have been writing this blog here at WordPress since 1-20-2007 and in that time I have added   2,125  Posts on  126  Categories,with  1,981 Tags  and received  22,861 comments . Now this blog is about to tick over the 400,000 mark .

I write this blog for my own amusement, it is a way for me to start my day and a way for me to order my thoughts , other people actually reading it is a bonus.

So I want to offer a hearty thank you to all of those people who take the time to read this page and especially all of those who post comments and contribute to the sometimes very lively debate in the comments threads.

Cheers Comrades

A face of evil or “sorry” is not enough

Those we appoint as judges have a duty to our society to make the sanctions that our laws require for criminal behaviour apt for the particular crimes that have been committed. I’m sorry but there is just no way that I can see a three year sentence of a brutal rape as being in any sense appropriate, even if the offender was only thirteen at the time of his offence. A woman has been beaten and violated by this scrote and the judge gives him a measly three years? There is a small comfort to be had from the fact that this scumbags’s face and name has been published But that won’t help his victim recover her confidence or her dignity.

Rapist: Balal Khan overpowered his victim before sexually assaulting her

Balal Khan – thought to be one of the youngest convicted rapists in Britain – targeted the 20-year-old as she walked home.

He subjected her to a severe beating then screamed at her ‘Do what I say or I’ll kill you’, before putting her through the ordeal of a terrifying sex attack.

Then he stole her bag and phone and even took a call from his victim’s boyfriend to whom he bragged about what he had done.

But after pleading guilty to charges of rape and robbery the teenager was sentenced to just three years because of his age – and because he said ‘sorry’.

A judge at Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court lifted a restriction preventing the publication of Khan’s identity after hearing details of the horrifying attack.

The judge heard how Khan ran up behind his victim and grabbed her around the neck as she walked through a secluded area near Cobridge, in Stoke-on-Trent one evening in September last year.

He punched and kicked her as she lay on the ground before raping her.

Robert Price, prosecuting, said: ‘She started screaming and attempted to get to her feet’

He then answered a call from the victim’s boyfriend. When asked why he had the phone, Khan bragged about what had taken place.

He later sold the phone and iPod, but not before making a call to his parents’ home. The mobile’s call records led police straight to Khan’s address.

In a police interview he told officers he had tripped the victim and stolen her bag.

The court heard scientists later found Khan’s DNA on swabs taken from the victim.

Naomi Perry, mitigating, said he had shown remorse for what he had done.

He apologised after finally admitting his offence to police and also when he entered his plea at court.

‘We are dealing with a very immature young man,’ Miss Perry said.

‘He has been having anger management classes and he feels these have helped him.’

Judge Paul Glenn told Khan, now aged 14, that his offences were ‘grave’ and that an adult convicted of the same crimes would have been jailed for eight or nine years.

You see I can’t help thinking that we may need to revisit the notion of just when we consider someone is still a child when it comes to their law breaking behaviour, the idea that someone is magically less culpable just because they are below some arbitrary age threshold has always struck me as a rather naive  cop out in law, especially when it comes to crimes like rape. If an offender is physically capable of commuting this crime  then as far as I’m concerned they should be punished just as severely as any other man committing a similar crime regardless of their age.

I wonder just  how Naomi Perry can sleep at night or ever feel clean again after her part in getting this rapist such a lenient sentence.

Not amused Comrades

8)

An alternative to hopeless public transport

While so many “progressives” repeatedly whine on about poor public transport or advocate taking up the Lycra perversion There is a way to achieve excellent fuel efficiency and personally autonomous transport and that is through the use of small motorcycles using this sort of design

Why?

As a designer and rider of faired recumbent bicycles, I have enjoyed the benefits of reduced air resistance.

It makes cycling more energy efficient and allows you to travel faster over greater distances.

A recumbent riding position is more comfortable, while adding a fairing can provide weather protection as well as speed.

If one can decrease aerodynamic drag and at the same time improve comfort and energy efficiency of a bicycle, imagine what might be possible with a faster vehicle.

If a vehicle is faster the aerodynamic drag becomes more important.

If you ride twice as fast rolling resistance becomes twice as big but the aerodynamic drag increases exponentially with velocity.

(Source)

Please read the source piece and consider the benefits of the design, great weather protection, energy efficiency, and much less road space required for that commute to work  or play and  less than 20% of the parking space needed for a car. I particularly like the way that all of the body slides forward to allow the rider to get in and out of the machine.

This is what you can come up with if you think outside the false dichotomy between public and personal transport.

Cheers Comrades

Australia Day 2010

My brother asked me yesterday about my thoughts on changing the flag, naturally I told him that I thought the current flag is fine, and I am proud to see it flying from the houses and cars of so many Aussies in the lead up to Australia day.

There are lots of self loathing progressives who think that changing the flag  should be a priority along with making this country a republic,  personally I  am of the ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it ” school of thought on both issues and I think that what is at the heart of our “Aussieness ” is more important than the symbol that we have in our flag or the title we give the entity that is Australia.

Its Australia Day, so lets all raise a beverage of our choice and give thanks for the privilege of being part of the best nation on the planet.

Cheers Comrades

Its all about activating the guilt chip in the heads of the latte sippers

The guilt chip is clearly evident in this Latte sippers brain. It is the one that you can see right at the front.

Warministas love to counter the citation of extreme winter conditions (as proof that the world is not warming) with the suggestion that it is only “weather” and that “weather is not Climate“. Personally i have always thought that such a distinction is rather spurious. Spurious in the same way that saying that the millimetre marks on a tape measure are not a measurement in the same way that the metre marks are. It is all a matter of scale. Despite the Warministas denouncing any citation of any weather event that contradicts their argument they are still rather fond of citing weather events that fit with their own prognostications

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change based the claims on an unpublished report that had not been subjected to routine scientific scrutiny – and ignored warnings from scientific advisers. The report’s author later withdrew the claim because the evidence was too weak.

The link was central to demands at last month’s Copenhagen climate summit by African nations for compensation of $US100 billion from the rich nations.

However, the IPCC knew in 2008 that the link could not be proved but did not alert world leaders, who have used weather extremes to bolster the case for action on climate change.

Kevin Rudd last November linked weather extremes to the debate over the government’s emissions trading scheme.

“We will feel the effects of climate change fastest and hardest, and therefore we must act this week, and the government will be doing everything possible to make sure that can occur,” the Prime Minister said at the time.

British Climate Change Minister Ed Miliband has suggested floods – such as those in Bangladesh in 2007 – could be linked to global warming.

US President Barack Obama said last year: “More powerful storms and floods threaten every continent.”

Last month British Prime Minister Gordon Brown told parliament that the financial agreement at Copenhagen “must address the great injustice that . . . those hit first and hardest by climate change are those that have done least harm”.

The IPCC has now been forced to reassess its report linking extreme weather to climate change.

There is a clear dissonance here between the “weather is not climate” mantra and the “weather events prove Global Warming is happening” rhetoric that we are getting from The likes Of Obama and Brother Number One and it is obvious to me that the rhetoric is intended to activate the guilt chips in the heads of the worlds progressives this enables the aforementioned leaders to bring about fundamental changes to our society by stealth. Changes to the energy economy and changes to the world’s political institutions. But then hasn’t that been the desire of religion since men began to draw pictures on the stone walls of their caves? Like the measuring tape I mentioned earlier it is all a matter of scale and finding the marks on the tape that fit the liturgy.
Oh yeah its also another reason to think that the UN in general and the IPCC in particular is as useless as titties on a bull.
Cheers Comrades

Cheap can sometimes be more expensive…… Doh!

Well My children are ready to return to school, books and all of the other tack has been purchased and despite there still being a few days of the holiday left it already feels (thankfully) over . Personally I now have a couple of deadlines to meet. Firstly the stairs that I have been making need to be finished and installed and secondly I need to finish fixing the Subaru that I have been working on. This later task has become way more urgent because the alternator in our ford has died (again) and frankly It is not worth spending more money on it . Not that the Subaru job has been without its own  little dramas because the cheap engine that I thought would be fine has turned out to be a dud, dropping a rod when I was just test running it at low speed. I was rather peeved I can tell you but the worst part was that I had to dismantle the engine just so that I could undo the four nuts on the drive plate as the broken connecting rod  prevented the crankshaft from turning more than 90 degrees.   Once I had the heads off it was obvious that one piston was not moving as I turned the crankshaft  with a spanner. A drill and a roofing screw were required to pull the dead piston  out of its bore to allow me to manipulate the broken con rod enough to undo those pesky drive plate bolts. That done the engine is now ready for removal.

Soon to be eviscerated

I have bought yet another car which has a rough shell but a very sound engine that starts on the first flick of the key, blows no smoke and sounds good.  This donor car even has electric windows, central locking and cruise control  all absent from the car that I am doing up. However I think that I will only be trying to fit the cruise control because the electric windows and central locking  are just an unnecessary complications. The upside to this  is that I now know more about Subaru engines than I expected to know at this stage of the game . Anyway I hope to sell of my surplus bits  on EBay to defray some of the cost of getting a good engine. Heck I may even be able to recover much of my three hundred bucks that I spent on (dud) engine number one.

That’s the plan anyway.

Cheers Comrades

Christopher Pyne grades Gillard’s “Education revolution” at D-minus

If you are the parent of a school age child you may appreciate the  interesting opinion piece in the Fairfax press this morning written By Christopher Pyne.  His piece makes a most valid point that just throwing money and grand promises at the education system is no guarantee that we will get a good outcome as a result.

Education Minister Julia Gillard’s delivery of the so-called “revolution” is bureaucratic, centralised, and scores, overall, a clear D-minus on her report card.

Let’s take the promised computers, for example. The original election promise was $1 billion to give a computer to every student but they “forgot” to include necessary related costs such as software, network support and staff training.

To appease the states, Julia Gillard had to put more money on the table to cover these costs and the program blew out to $2.2 billion.

So was this enough money to speed things along? Apparently not, because as of October we know that only 150,000 of the 1 million computers had actually landed on the desks at schools.

At this rate, it would take seven years to deliver on their promise – with the computers becoming obsolete as most need replacing every four years.

What’s worse is that parents are now being asked to pay for computers in some states to speed the process along. In some South Australian schools, parents are being asked to pay up to $1350 over four years to take the taxpayer-funded computers home.

Not exactly a great report card for big red now is it?

Like a lot of revolutions this one is a failure.

Hmm what do you expect though?

Cheers Comrades

8)

What would you do with these men PKD?

A year ago I wrote this post where I suggested that closing Club Gitmo would not be achieved in the time frame suggested by Barack Obama and now I have been vindicated as the deadline passes without any resolution to the disposition of this group of dangerous men.

The US has just missed a deadline to close the prison camp

Some 35 prisoners have been recommended for prosecution through trials or military commissions.

The news came as the deadline US President Barack Obama had set himself for closing the prison camp passed.

The task force, led by the US justice department, recommended that while 35 people could be prosecuted, 110 could be released either now or at a later date, unnamed officials said.

The other nearly 50 detainees are considered too dangerous to release, but cannot be tried because the evidence against them is too flimsy or was extracted from them by coercion, so would not hold up in court.

Cheers Comrades

Will Brother Number One take up the invitation to dance to the Green’s Tune?

It's astounding, time is fleeting Madness takes its toll. But listen closely, not for very much longer I've got to keep control I remember doing the TIme Warp Drinking those moments when The blackness would hit me and the void would be calling Let's do the time warp again... Let's do the time warp again!

Its been blindingly obvious to me that Brother Number One must be secretly relived that he has been stymied in his attempt to get his ETS scheme up through the parliament. He has been able to make a globally grand show of his climate piety without having to dirty his hands with its inevitable failure to deliver any actual change to the climate.Further he is able to say to his own support base some thing along the lines of “dearly beloved we your righteous government have sincerely done our best to lay the “global Warming beast” , but low the evil dissemblers of the coalition have prevented  us from delivering the solution” Had the Warministas in The coalition not been rumbled by the Abbott revolt Brother Number One would have been able to kneecap the opposition on the global warming issue at the next election because he could have legitimately argued that any failures or short comings of the scheme would be equally owned by both of the major parties who had voted for it. Further had he got it up  the grateful spivs who would have  profited from the scheme would have been good for a stream of Labor party donations  He must see that this is a win win  win situation

Into this scenario comes the offer from the ever more loony Greens, who unlike Brother Number One actually believe every word of the AGW liturgy:

Christine Milne is still playing with the faeries at the bottom of the garden

We Greens are now proposing that we adopt the Garnaut suggestion and get Australia moving with this interim carbon pricing scheme. We can then, over the coming two years, discuss the longer-term solutions Australia will need, secure in the knowledge that a carbon price is already in place, helping to unleash innovative and job-creating climate solutions.

This option has many benefits. Although there would be no trading in the interim period, the use of the CPRS reporting structures means that, should we reach agreement in the next two years on an effective emissions trading scheme, there would be a smooth transition into that environment for business.

The mostly uncontentious parts of the legislation would be passed, with the deeply problematic questions such as targets, international trading and permit allocation mechanisms set aside for further debate. Business would get certainty from the knowledge that, if no agreement is reached, the fixed price would continue and slowly rise over time.

Now I just can’t see any mileage in Brother Number One taking up this  poisened chalice from from the loony Greens. If he does then he cedes control of the issue and has to dance to the tune called By Brown and Milne which would hurt his support from the centre of the Australian electorate. This could be a political disaster fro a government that wants to sell its self as being inclusive and broadly based.
More importantly the inevitable price rises for goods and energy that would come from the ETS would have to be exclusively “owned ” by the Labor party and the Greens which would validate the “great big tax” line that the opposition is already getting traction on. So for my money I think that this offer from the Greens will not  see the presently dead CRPS revived. If there is one thing we can be sure of it is the fact that Brother Number One is a control freak and getting his CRPS up on these terms would mean losing control of it and he would hate that more than he hates the opposition rejecting the current bill.

Cheers Comrades

Stairs MK2

Stairs MK2 (click to enlarge)

The picture above is the latest thing that I have been working on and as this project nears completion I thought that I would share this picture with my readers. like the previous spiral staircase that I made this one is constructed of light weight steel RHS tube The whole structure here can easily be lifted by yours truly . The staircase actually has more steps than the last one for the same hight which means that It turns further and the hand rail is at a shallower angle. All that it needs for completion is the stair treads and a coat of paint ready to be installed next week. As my supply of cheap checker plate ally is no longer available this one will have 10 mm plywood for the treads.

Cheers Comrades