text:
Richard Tol has a very nice summary of the 97% consensus f@#$ published by Cook. It is worth your time.
97%…87%…57%…27%….. aw who knows.
Posted by Jeff Id on March 29, 2015
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
An Entrepreneur's Experience
Posted by Jeff Id on March 27, 2015
So I was invited to talk to a bunch of college students about my experiences in being an entrepreneur. I've not really worked for anyone for almost a couple of decades although I did accept a VP position as a shareholder once for a few years. I'm quite lucky to hang around with a bunch of smart people, kind of like this blog, functional minds tend to gather I think. Five separate times in two different companies and in very different situations, our group has been recognized as the top growing private companies in the US, so we must be doing something right. We have been around the block as they say, plenty of mistakes, plenty of good advice and plenty of wins. We make the single most efficient LED lighting products in the world in several categories — have for years. How cool is that! Climate skeptics all too. We've saved more energy than the RC geniuses ever will, but we do it for cost rather than lies about saving the planet.
I had fun talking to the students about our experiences. Some questions were interesting although others, not so much. You would have been proud of me for not venting too strongly, although I did happen to say -we're probably the brownest green company on the planet! That didn't go over terribly well in a left-wing university, but you have to have a little fun. I believe the kids need to understand that business is about money, nothing else, and the reason we are 'green' is to save our customers money. You save fuel, you save money and there is nothing whatsoever wrong with that.
There were four presenters in the panel, one group of them had just stared a small business 4 months ago and consisted of exactly two employees. The guys were well spoken and seemed to have all of the answers. Someone asked the question of how to motivate employees and they answered for quite a long time quoting things about the 8 ways to motivate and such. I found it interesting and informative because despite having not read the same book, the answers were not far off from my own and unlike them, we actually have employees. I wonder if I should have gone to school for management, then I remember that I went to school to design planes, not lights.
I am doomed to learn everything the hard way I think.
One of my favorites on the panel was a lady who started her own bakery business in her basement. From Ireland, she trained with top notch people from around the world. She had no money and no bank to loan her money, so she put a used oven downstairs (which her husband installed) and started cooking. Awesome I say! Tough, hard work and no nonsense results. She delivered product and avoided taking on big debts. She felt overwhelmed by the other stories around her but she shouldn't have. Smart business decisions and no nonsense action.
One of my favorite sayings came from a business partner, "A bank is someone who will loan you an umbrella as long as it is not raining." He follows it up with, "And they will want it back if it starts raining."
So when people asked about why we moved to Michigan, the others gave a bunch of fluffy happy answers about the quality of people and businesses and such. As by far the largest company represented on the panel, I answered — taxes. Illinois extremist left-wing governor increased their taxes by 60% in a single year, although I left the adjectives to myself. Of course the large companies in Chicago protested and made public proclamations of leaving the state. This led to a series of negotiations, likely political contributions, and the decision by the governor to give those particular companies a pass on the tax hike. Of course we were a little company with only 24 people back then so nobody cared about us. Michigan's conservative governor simultaneously lowered the Michigan rates and cleaned up the code so we took our business there. Illinois had no care or idea we did it but the state numbers showed that we were not alone.
What I didn't get into was taxes, and it is probably better that way because those kids don't want to know what it really means to own a successful business.
Nobody really understands tax law and that is the way the government wants it. Obama campaigned on raising taxes on the wealthy, voters accepted him and the hike finally became reality this year. A five percent increase on the top earners. What people don't know is that the majority of the top earners are businesses. S type corporations in the US report their percentage of the company income on their personal returns. The company does NOT pay income taxes. So this increase was primarily an increase in business tax
The other thing Americans don't know is that in manufacturing in particular, when you become moderately successful, nothing is a (non-taxable) expense. I mean nothing significant can be expensed even though you are writing checks for it. Taxation hits so much harder in growing manufacturing companies than service type companies, the difference is truly shocking. When a manufacturing company grows, inventory increases, tooling increases, equipment increases, accounts receivable increases, and payroll increases. When a service company grows, you have payroll, accounts receivable and minor equipment costs. In a growing service company, payroll is a non tax expense, however equipment and AR are not an expense.
The result of these pressures is that the US is full of marketing, banking and software 'service' firms, yet produces less and less product every year.
The net result of the US taxation system on a company like ours is a taxation rate in the 80% range in comparison to the cash which hits our pockets – because our company is growing and EVERYTHING is NOT an expense. By everything, I mean even state taxes paid are still considered federally taxable income. Home interest, child care, tooling and equipment costs need to be depreciated over years, inventory increases, accounts receivable -all taxable. Every dollar we spend requires us to pay the federal and state governments nearly 45% tax for the privilege. AND I'm just talking about INCOME tax. Not import tax, VAT tax, fuel tax, export tax, real estate property tax, sales tax, personal property tax …..on and on and on.
People don't know jack about taxes in this country. They think they are paying, but in reality, the companies are paying huge portions of the taxes and their own incomes suffer for it. They simply don't see what is going on on their own checks. How would anyone expect people to know that corporations are paying the majority of income taxes when articles continually come out explaining that individuals are actually the ones paying the most?
Tax law is more convoluted than that, and those who hate capitalism are motivated deniers of that simple fact. There is a reason for the complexity of US tax law.
So while I am curious what your thoughts are on taxes, kids and entrepreneurship, please don't assume that we don't know what we are doing. You don't build a successful company multiple times on accident. People often assume there is some trick which is going to save you from taxation, or it is all about loopholes. Here's news folks — real loopholes do NOT exist, although some leftist communists call certain minimally tax limiting rules loopholes. If you still think we don't know taxes, please tell us which of our four accountants, CFO or business tax lawyer we should replace and I will personally send you 50% of the savings.
Why the vent — because it is needed. We compete with foreign companies which have far less difficulty complying with their own communist governments. Hanging a lead weight around our neck is an apt description of government help.
So at the end of the meeting, the professor, who did a truly excellent job, mentioned that kids these days aren't jumping in to their own businesses at the rate they used to. I went away with a good feeling about how smart they were, and a bad feeling that they were probably smarter than me.
Posted in Uncategorized | 18 Comments »
Posted by Jeff Id on March 13, 2015
There is a certain psychological aspect to blogging which I find interesting. It would be quite easy to write in a reporter style or as an unengaged author. A take it or leave it approach. A blogger loses credibility when engaging people like Cotton, Tamino or other trolls. It is a no win situation for them. Even when the blogger is right, all it does is drag down the anonymity of the personality. I never cared either way — still don't.
Imagine though what sort of internet personality you could build, if you had the intent. What if you were trying to build a bigger than real life personality on line and your own opinions were subservient to that goal. It has an appeal from a narcissistic aspect, and it really could do a lot of good for your 'cause'. Done right, a large slice of the population would buy in.
A balance of push and pull with a definite edge toward anarchy. Credibility maintained through lack of engagement and a bit of scorn. How easy would it be? I fully believe I could make it work —— were I of the mind to. Easy as pie.
What if you were paid to do it? Would you? Would anyone? What if the income were six figures?
Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments »
Something New Under the Sun
Posted by Jeff Id on March 9, 2015
Michael Mann and Jeff Id agree on something. No really, we do. I'm rather surprised as you can imagine. I haven't changed a bit but methinks Micheal Mann is a budding skeptic. here.
Our conclusion that natural cooling in the Pacific is a principal contributor to the recent slowdown in large-scale warming is consistent with some other recent studies, including a study I commented on previously showing that stronger-than-normal winds in the tropical Pacific during the past decade have lead to increased upwelling of cold deep water in the eastern equatorial Pacific. -- Real Climate
Two hundred fifty trillion is 2.5 x10^14 J/second. If we have a heat capacity of 5.6×10^24 J/K we get 2.24×10^
1110 seconds until the ocean were warmed one degree. That corresponds to 710 years of heating to increase the ocean volumetric temperature by one degree which is still somewhere around zero C average temperature. In other words, climate progresses unrealistic worst possible case doom scenario's are not sufficient to significantly affect oceanic heat content. — Jeff Id
Oddly enough, in recognizing the mixing of oceans, Real Climate may have just acknowledged that we can actually stuff 100% of global warming energy into the ocean for a millennia with literally zero consequence. Of course the same peak-oil folks can't imagine how we would have carbon for even another 200 years but that is another story. By the second law of thermodynamics, when the heat is mixed into a 2C-ish body of water, it cannot be released in a manner which warms the greater temperature atmosphere of the Earth. The heat is functionally lost in terms of global warming. It literally cannot come back in droves or we need to rewrite physics.
Summary for reporters, all of physics — big redo.
In the linked Air Vent post, the main point is below (my bold for emphasis):
The sensitivity atmospheric temperature to CO2 from measured data, is therefore much lower than was predicted and that includes the argo data. Alternatively rather than a CO2 sensitivity misjudgement, all that heat that Dr. Trenberth is famously looking for, very well could be sitting in the deep ocean making too little impact over 100 years to actually measure and all it would take is a tiny bit more (or less) oceanic intermixing than models predict for that huge heatsink to be the true source of measured climate change. It could potentially have overwhelmed the CO2 effect without our knowing.
In their new paper, Mann claims that the globally powerful IPCC climate model trends were inverted from a tiny change in wind mixing in the pacific. Sounds like a pretty good copy of me!
Now make no mistake, this is heat mixed into the much colder ocean water AGAINST climate model prediction. Shockingly, even after this situation, Real Climate STILL doesn't feel any pressure from simple things like the "laws of physics" or "Basic Thermodynamics". With the quote below as the final straw, I have no idea how a scientist would wish to be associated with the Real Climate site. Anyway, the last word should go to them and speaks for itself I think.
Given the pattern of past historical variation, this trend will likely reverse with internal variability, instead adding to anthropogenic warming in the coming decades.
Posted in Uncategorized | 34 Comments »
Free Think
Posted by Jeff Id on February 26, 2015
is accused of failing to disclose funding from corporations in his research. We don't seem to know if the funding was for any of the research but to the left-wing climate radicals, that doesn't really matter.
This isn't about climate folks. This never was. It is about politics and enacting a totalitarian style socialist government with the same faux democracy you see in China and North Korea. It is an openly visible government plot to gain ever more power. Driven by bureaucrats personally incentivized by the massive money and power government offers. It IS LED by liberal "progressive" Democrats and it is leading to a very bad place. Unfortunately, no political party is immune from power and the two primary parties we get to pick from are just different rates of change in the same very bad direction. Don't believe me, then you need to learn your history better. You have been duped.
We are losing our freedoms in America at a massive rate, the internet just took a huge and completely unnecessary blow today. The unelected portion of the government gave itself the power to tax, regulate, limit and redistribute internet access. How long until we find preferred content getting favorable treatment. No Jeff, that would be illegal! If you think like that, you are again wrong… ever hear of the IRS. Are you really naive enough to believe that tax laws aren't used as a political weapon? —I doubt it. Americans have no clue how much of their own medical freedoms they have just lost either, and it will be decades before they really figure it out. The massive tax increases which were finally enacted last year are already having a huge impact on businesses and employment. I have personal experience with that particular impact. Not that people care about business when the government adjusts the government employment performance numbers to hide their failure.
So illegal aliens being converted to automatic citizens while leaving the border open. Does anyone really believe that is for anything except automatic votes? Free social security, medicaid and health care for them. How about the new push to have 16 and 17 year olds vote? That shouldn't tweak the numbers in the liberals favor should it? It is about power and votes and guaranteed continuation of both…. nothing else. Hmmm.. I recall hearing about that same sort of voting system in some other country?..
I've been personally attacked in two left-wing psychology papers in journals because liberals don't like that I speak out against the lies of climate science, and they obviously fear me (and you). There is no other reason to call out my name and imply some sort of delusional personality disorder to me. It is these same selfish, self-serving progressives who are doing it for the money. NO business organization would pay multiple millions of dollars for poor class of work created by Michael Mann or Lewandowsky. In the GOVERNMENT funded world, their mathmagical masturbation can be held up as the best in class, published in the compliant left-wing media and distributed as fact to increase law and regulations by government organizations. To government employees, that sort of nonsense actually has a real value!
Literally hundreds of billions of dollars in government money is funneled to left-wing extremists posing as scientists. The money doesn't change their minds, the "scientists" were already that biased, many were already willing to lie or exaggerate for the "cause". These are the people who get preferentially paid over their now nearly extinct colleagues who won't repeat the complete bovine scatology that climate models are somehow working. Or somehow models haven't badly overstated the climate sensitivity to CO2 (as several fake papers have tried to claim), or the ridiculous claims of more extreme weather which has been recorded EXACTLY NOWHERE ON THE PLANET.
Theses are false unscientific lies published in droves by the IPCC, the EPA, the LIBERAL PROGRESSIVE DEMOCRAT PARTY etc….. The liberals are the ones saddling us with these massive losses of freedom across the board. They are the ones twisting every law for purposes of guaranteed election wins. They are the ones attempting to prevent funding of any group which doesn't promote increased government control of every aspect of our lives. They are the ones poisoning our population with unhireable moronic dependents who drop out of highschool and will never do anything except collect government checks and stay home — until its time to vote democratic. Seriously, have you ever hired an employee that can't read? I've tried. He made it a few weeks too.
EPA,FCC,IRS,ATF,IPCC,WHO,etc… on and on and on.. Hundreds of billions of tax dollars, stolen from industry and handed over to corrupt liberals. That is who is doing this, and NO that doesn't make the conservatives clean, but it does make them better than the other guy.
How may of those corrupt, fraudulent, left-wing extremist scientists disclosed their obvious conflicts of interest in receiving government money when publishing their fake work? How many disclosed their side business money, because it seems pretty clear from basic research that near half receive side money for speaking on climate, conferences, personal green business ventures, etc… Not nearly as many as should disclose, that's for sure.
The government money is creating and empowering the fraud — INTENTIONALLY! This is not an accident. The purpose of the climate science exaggerations from the government perspective, is reduced freedom and increased government power. That is the value of the exaggerations on climate, and that is what we are being taxed for. There is nothing else in climate science that you really need to know.
So YES I'm pissed off about the Soon thing or investigations of Pielke, Spencer or Curry. It is a blatant left-wing political attempt to prevent them from receiving any funding at all by marginalizing companies who would contribute. To put fear in the hearts of their employers and chill any dissent to their pro-regulation plans. And in the case of Peilke Sr., stunts like this have worked and he is not publishing anything in climate anymore.
We are in big, big trouble as a country, as the damage the progressive liberals are doing in centralizing all control is nearly irreversible barring a major civil war. I fear for our children and grandchildren. My international readers shouldn't take it as some kind of American hubris when I point out that the loss of American freedom is a very bad thing for the rest of the world.
It is an ugly place when universally left-wing government officials with no personal skin in the game make decisions about every aspect of our lives. We will see soon enough and hopefully we will still be smart enough to figure out what happened. I would write that if you are voting for these people it's time to wake up but really it is already way too late for that. We are already on that rollercoaster and the car has left the gate.
Posted in Uncategorized | 27 Comments »
Paul Matthews — A Journal Publication on the Air Vent Reader Background Thread
Posted by Jeff Id on February 11, 2015
How can you start an anonymous blog, writing on a topic of science, with near zero advertising and expect to have any readers. Seriously, the first article I wrote here had like 9 views in 24 hours! The unlikely visitors were probably looking for furnace vents or something. It hardly justified the time put into writing but everyone has an opinion so better out than in right…. Well this is a lot of years later and after some time this blog was blessed with a lot of readers. As Paul Matthews paper demonstrates, the readership here was far from an average slice of the population. The comment level was so high on this (and other skeptic blogs), that I started a reader background thread to capture the social profile of what is happening. It quickly became one of my favorite threads here and I put a permanent link to it at the top of the page. Reader Paul Matthews found the thread interesting enough that he has written — and published — a journal article describing distribution of the skeptical blog community and unsurprisingly to those who have traversed these pages, it is comprised of a group of highly educated and extremely scientific individuals.
A link to Paul Matthews announcement of publication is here . A preprint version of the article is online here:
At his blog, Paul writes:
A little over a year ago I noticed a call from the journal Environmental Communication for a special issue of articles on "Climate change communication and the internet". For some time I had been thinking vaguely about writing something about the interesting Reader Background thread at Jeff Condon's Air Vent blog, so I wrote a paper on this and sent it to the journal.
Some interesting quotes:
A particularly striking aspect of the comments on the Reader Background thread isthe high level of educational background. Forty of the 154 sceptics state that they havea PhD degree. Of these, 12 are in chemistry, 8 in some form of engineering, 8 in physics,4 in mathematics, 3 in biological sciences, and the remaining 5 in arts subjects, computerscience, economics or unspecified. A further 11 contributors cite an MSc degree as theirhighest educational level, while three have an MBA. Of the remainder, 46 have a BSc and14 a BA degree.
This relatively high proportion of contributors who changed their opinion substan-tially on the issue of climate change does not provide support for the hypothesis thatthe views of individuals are largely determined by their worldview or cultural background(Kahan et al., 2012; Poortinga et al., 2011), and fits better with the view of Smith andLeiserowitz (2012) that worldview and political ideology are minor factors.
This emphasis on scientific details is to be expected given the scientific focus of thisparticular blog and the high level of scientific and technical background of the commenters,noted in the previous section. In this regard, the blog is typical: a survey of climate scepticblogs found that the most prominent of these generally tend to concentrate on scientificaspects of the climate debate (Sharman, 2013)
Posted in Uncategorized | 27 Comments »
Freshwater Oceans at Work
Posted by Jeff Id on January 8, 2015
My wife found this really cool MODIS picture of the great lakes dumping mounds of global warming in our back yard.
Posted in Uncategorized | 21 Comments »
Money-green Anthropogenisis in the Union of Concerned Scientists
Posted by Jeff Id on January 3, 2015
The "Union of Concerned Scientists" posts this message on its front page…….
Global warming is already having significant and harmful effects on our communities, our health, and our climate. Sea level rise is accelerating. The number of large wildfires is growing. Dangerous heat waves are becoming more common. Extreme storm events are increasing in many areas. More severe droughts are occurring in others.
We must take immediate action to address global warming or these consequences will continue to intensify, grow ever more costly, and increasingly affect the entire planet—including you, your community, and your family.
The good news is that we have the practical solutions at hand to dramatically reduce our carbon emissions, slow the pace of global warming, and pass on a healthier, safer world to future generations.
With your help, we can accomplish it.
Together, we can tackle global warming.
Now I am getting old… well is 45 old yet? …. maybe not but anyway it is older than I was yesterday and I can recall a time when I really believed that nobody and by 'nobody' I mean nobody in their right mind, would fall for the insane claims made by global warming "science". They are really extreme claims. Well the were extreme claims until we had our heads saturated with propaganda from a 100 billion dollar industry. Now they are commonplace. Seriously folks, space science is expensive. Nasa is huge still, the US air force space program is huge, but we spend multiples of that space funding on global warming….. The money is hidden in so many corners that every time I've gotten started evaluating funding, I cannot begin to track it. The money supporting global warming alarmism is so massive, and so prevalent, that it would take millions of dollars simply to document it.
And every single penny is being spent for left-wing political causes.
You can't count it. It is too big. You can't even imagine all of it, because it doesn't stop.
It is spent in droves on fake and fraudulent scientific study. It is spent on activism, meetings, travel, hotels, fake energy generation, advertising, vehicles, scientific conferences, equipment, computer centers, political campaigns and every conceivable method of self promotion imagined by anyone who ever considered the subject. The money is endless, as it is government money.
So then we have a group of alleged scientists. A union say, of concerned ones, who believe in an enlightened future for humanity. A future with no CO2 emission, a high fruit and vegetable diet, limited or no nuclear power generation, and fake energy solutions such as biofuel and wind for our future power needs. All based on unscientific reactionism and good feelings. Science does not support much of their conclusion, yet they are a union of concerned scientists and they are happy to conclude for us BUT the conclusions don't match observation……..
That leaves me concerned.
How is it that so many scientists can gather together and sign their names to unscientific beliefs. The problem is so bad that you can find more scientific fact in a Mosque than you can in the opening quote above.
In fact, this world is so perverted that the Catholic religion is more grounded in science than the Union of Concerned Scientists……..and the Union of Concerned Scientists has greater faith. Shocking..no? Why can I claim their faith is greater than the Catholic religion? Because unlike religion, their claims are demonstrably false. Not moderately tweaked, or potentially subject to interpretation, demonstrably false!
Talk about an inverted perverted, yes is no, right is wrong world………. yet it is our world. You can dissemble every page of the UCS website and will find little beyond political conclusion, but this is ostensibly a climate blog so let's just look at the climate change claims on the front page of UCS to examine the claims above.
Global warming is already having significant and harmful effects on our communities, our health, and our climate.
FACT: Main stream science holds that current global warming is minimal and difficult to measure by ground stations or even with modern satellite equipment. No attributable trends of any sort on communities, health, and extreme climate events have been positively attributed to temperature change.
Sea level rise is accelerating.
FACT: Sea level rise has been going on for centuries. It has not measurably accelerated, and increases in sea level may have recently reduced. The rate of change in sea level rise has not been successfully correlated to the very mild warming that thousands of land temperature stations have measured. Don't believe it, check this wikipedia link.
The number of large wildfires is growing.
Now why this particular bit of nonsense would be attached to "climate change" is beyond reasonable, yet it is the third sentence in a 27 million dollar company's global warming website. Shouldn't we consider forest management as a primary driver before 0.8 degrees of warming? Shouldn't we also consider the increased amount of forest we currently have, the lack of allowing smaller fires to occur, or what about the simple fact that 80 years ago we let forests burn without significant documentation. What does that do to the data. Well….. then there is the data.
A simple study found by a google search: http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2013/sierra-forest-fire-severity-10-01-2013.html
It found no trend of increasing fire severity in the Sierra Nevada management region in California over the past three decades. In fact, the study found that between 1984 and 2010, the amount of high-severity fire in the Sierra was lower than its natural level, before modern fire suppression.
An unscientific conclusion from the Union of Concerned Scientists? There are plenty of other papers which support this individual conclusion. We shouldn't be surprised either as the concept that 0.8C would measurably increase "fires" is ludicrous on the face of it.
Dangerous heat waves are becoming more common.
Now you would think that someone like myself who believes in the warming effect of CO2, that I might be inclined to agree with this one. But heat waves are extreme weather events, not long term offsets from the mean temperature, and this claim is as bogus as the others. From the scientifically outrageous left-wing United States EPA —- heat waves.
Heat waves occurred with high frequency in the 1930s, and these remain the most severe heat waves in the U.S. historical record(see Figure 1). Many years of intense drought (the "Dust Bowl") contributed to these heat waves by depleting soil moisture and reducing the moderating effects of evaporation.
Extreme storm events are increasing in many areas. More severe droughts are occurring in others.
More realistic calculations, based on the underlying physical principles8 that take into account changes in available energy, humidity and wind speed, suggest that there has been little change in drought over the past 60 years.
Tropical cyclone accumulated cyclone energy (ACE) has exhibited strikingly large global interannual variability during the past 40‐years. In the pentad since 2006, Northern Hemisphere and global tropical cyclone ACE has decreased dramatically to the lowest levels since the late 1970s. Additionally, the global frequency of tropical cyclones has reached a historical low. Here evidence is presented demonstrating that considerable variability in tropical cyclone ACE is associated with the evolution of the character of observed large‐scale climate mechanisms including the El Niño Southern Oscillation and Pacific Decadal Oscillation. In contrast to record quiet North Pacific tropical cyclone activity in 2010, the North Atlantic basin remained very active by contributing almost one‐third of the overall calendar year global ACE.
So that is just the first paragraph. Not the whole thing but every sentence in the first paragraph on climate change from the union of concerned scientists is false information. My conclusion, and probably yours…… THESE ARE NOT SCIENTISTS.
I can continue with the rest of the next statements, but I don't have enough time to contradict every paid moron on the planet. These people have a 27 plus million dollar annual budget, and unlike a simple business owner like myself, they have near zero cost for that budget. No real overhead and over 90% profit at zero tax. Their resources are equivalent to a functional and profitable 300 million dollar company (my estimate). Their product is climate alarmism. Yet they claim to be simple scientists who work the table as a side job. Make no mistake by their claims of unbiased scientific understanding, these people are most certainly swayed by the cash.
Now there are still plenty of left-leaning readers still who harbor all kinds of screwed up anti-common sense beliefs about society, taxes and fairness. I ask the following question: If the director of UCS woke up tomorrow and realized, as we all should, that the climate change branch of their organization was bunk, does anyone imagine that she would recommend any change in their public position?
If I woke up tomorrow and observations contradicted my conclusions, I absolutely would change my opinion. Unfortunately, or fortunately for most of us here, our opinions are based on science rather than the money colored faith of the "greens" and our beliefs are influenced by observation. With organizations like this, sweeping things like Climategate under the rug is a priority, sweeping failed climate models under the rug is an emergency.
Watch for it, today climate models are the next climate gate. They have to go as badly as the hockey stick.
The director of the Union for Concerned Scientists is waking up to the exact nightmare scenario that their company cannot absorb… Climate models have failed.
'Twill be interesting over the next few years to see the response. Don't get too excited though, killing a company that large isn't something which can happen overnight and the UCS is a teenie-tiny branch of the whole Medusa. My certainty on this aspect is so great that I don't believe the global warming industry would be killed by a full-fledged ice age. It would morph, but the seven headed beast would live on.
Posted in Uncategorized | 47 Comments »
Merry Christmas
Posted by Jeff Id on December 24, 2014
I just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. From a climate perspective, the year couldn't have been more uneventful. Nothing new from the advocates, nothing new from Gaia's actual climate, no new admissions from climate modelers…
All I want for Christmas is a reasonable climate model..
A reasonable climate model
A reasonable climate model
All I want for Christmas is….
Anyway, I'm having a wonderful time with the boys. We chucked a ball up and down the stairs for an hour and played with an old slot car set I had for another hour. Looking forward to tomorrow.
Merry Christmas all.
Posted in Uncategorized | 14 Comments »
Scientific Warming
Posted by Jeff Id on November 19, 2014
Gallopingcamel left this on a previous thread:
Another true scientist wishing that AGW weren't a religion.
In addition to the obvious and massive benefits that increased CO2 brings to chlorophyll based life on this planet, I actually am beginning to wish CO2 warming was a stronger effect. It would likely be better for us in the long run if it were.
Posted in Uncategorized | 57 Comments »
The birthday of Climategate
Posted by Jeff Id on November 10, 2014
So it is that season again folks, Deer Season, aka Climategate Season. A skeptics Christmas where happy things happen to freedom loving people of the world.
Remember this:
Climategate 1.0
and this:
Climategate 2.0
And less exciting for you, but good fun for me:
Needless to say, I won't be around to release moderated comments for Doug's thread after tomorrow. Who knows what will happen this year! Either way, I'm gone to the northwoods Wednesday to have a much needed rest.
I do miss serious blogging, and have been working on some neat technical stuff in the background but it isn't ready yet.
Posted in Uncategorized | 20 Comments »
A good discussion
Posted by Jeff Id on November 7, 2014
I probably will always enjoy the back-and-forth considered blog posts. Nobody ever wins, but they are diverting. This is from a previous thread.
Glenn Tamblyin wrote:
"Glenn, the IPCC is hardly an unbiased reporting agency. Certainly we can all agree on that!"
Depends what you mean by biased Jeff.
Is there a bis towards downplaying some aspects of the risks of AGW. Yes. That is clearly evident when one sees the process by which the full report produced by the scientists is then 'negotiated over' by the national representatives to produce the final SPM. Case in point with AR5 was the removal of some key references to a maximum Carbon Budget to remain below 2 Deg C of warming. Some governments at least want to downplay AGW because it is something they don't want to have to deal with politically or economically.
Is there natural human bias? Of course there is. Every individual is subject to that. But individuals biases tend to cancel out when large numbers of people from diverse backgrounds, nationalities, cultures, demographic all look at the same question.And scietists are the most skeptical people in the world. It's not like herding cats. More like herding alley-cats. When large numbers of scientists agree on something, having thrown every dart they can at it to try and burst the balloon, then the world really should sit up and take notice. What is the point of having experts if we won't listen to them?
Some folks, perhaps including you, seem to think there is some sort of an agenda. That scientists are dancing to someone elses tune. Actually it is the opposite. Scientists have been slowly getting louder and louder in their warnings to government about the risks they see. Next year is the 50'th anniversary of the first, then low key, official warning from the scientists about the risk increased CO2 might pose. They have spent that half century, through 2-3 generations of scientists, trying to alert the world to the problem. Getting slowly and steadily louder as the world hasn't listened. 'houston, we might have a problem'…'houston, we really think there might be a problem'…'Houston, we really really think you need to look into this'… 'Houston. Are You There?'…'HOUSTON WAKE UP'
And slowly, screaming and kicking, most governments have been dragged to a reluctant acceptance of this.
Consider something Jeff. Governments come and go. Left-Right-Left-Right…. Different countries. But there is not one National Academy of Science anywhere in the world with a position against it. Not one peak professional body against it. Not one Defense Force – the ultimate in hard-nosed thinkers. The Pentagon accepts it – hardly surprising since they were behind much of the research in the 50's & 60's that laid the foundations for understanding it.
Yet the message from the scientists hasn't changed for decades. If there is an 'agenda' from government for example that is driving this then wouldn't the message from the scientists blow with the wind -at least the winds of the electoral cycle – and supposedly what is coming from their 'paymasters'.
Could the scientists have an agenda? Of course they do. The TRUTH – there, some words in nice big capital letters. What do I mean by that? Scientists are motivated by a deep desire to be right. To discover something and get it right. No matter how diligent a scientist's career was, if they routinely backed incorrect ideas they don't get the status, kudos, the simple ego-trip. Science doesn't pay that well as a career for the amount of work you have to put in but there is the potential real pay-off. 'I'm the guy who discovered X'. That s their motive, their agenda. Nothing noble about it, pure self-interest like the rest of us. They do science because they like love finding out stuff – and getting credit for that. If they wanted serious money they certainly wouldn't pick science. Nor if they wanted fame among the general public they wouldn't pick a field that most people don't understand, value or are interested in.
So why wouldn't they just try to convince people they did discover something, even if it isn't true? History is full of the victor's version of events, not truth. Why wouldn't the scientists take the same tack? Because in science history isn't written by people; its written by the Laws of Physics. You might convince a trillion people you are right but the Laws of Physics have right-of-veto; they determine history and a scientist's reputation, not people. Convince people of something that isn't true and your fame will be short lived and hollow – Physics will out. And all your fellow scientists will be champing at the bit to prove you wrong if they can.
Apart from a few wishful thinkers, scientists know that just convincing people doesn't count for much. Being right is what counts. So ideas of vast conspiracies, group-think etc just don't wash. Only an idiot would think you can con the Laws of Physics and get away with it. And scientists aren't idiots.
And who are the people for whom acceptance is hardest, who are most reluctant to accept the evidence, in and out of government? Those for whom the consequences of AGW and the sorts of actions needed to address it are hardest to swallow. Just ask yourself how many of these items tick boxes for you Jeff? How many of these things resonate with you as negatives?
– Action to tackle this requires coordinated global action. It requires cooperation between nations with the strong helping the weak.
– It requires regulation of a whole range of activities in life.
– It requires that within our societies we act cooperatively, working together.
– It requires that we have sufficient trust in our fellow humans, in government, scientists etc to accept that most of them are acting decently enough most of the time.
– It requires changes that may require economic costs
– It means that the way we live our lives has had negative impacts. That we can't have a completely positive, 'we are the greatest' view of what we have done.
– It requires that we accept that a sense of boundlessness that has been a central part of our cultures, particularly in the 'frontier nations' such as the USA or Australia is ending – from here on in human society has to have values centered on limitations and boundedness.
– That as individuals we may need to curtail some of the exercise of our freedoms for the common good.
– That our sense of man's dominion over the earth (perhaps coming from a religious origin) is misplaced; we are simply one part of that earth and we prosper best when we work with the limits of our role rather than against it.
– That we may have spent our entire working lives contributing to building a society and an economy that turns out to have some significant flaws and is in need of at least some degree of redesign because currently it is dysfunctional; our prosperity has been obtained through a flawed system and we need to accept that, unwittingly, not all our actions have been good.
– That our view that we are so insignificant a force on the earth that what we do doesn't matter is now wrong; the growth in our numbers and technologies means we have the power to cause vast changes on the earth and we have done – some of them negative ones. Humanity is now a geological force and we must act with extreme care now or we can cause great harm, to ourselves particularly.
– That any God we may believe in (if you happen to be religious) will not intervene; that we are capable and allowed to wreak damage upon ourselves and said God won't lift a finger.
– That our ideas about how to build prosperity and well being, whether for ourselves or our communities, may have been flawed. That we might have to admit we, unwittingly, have made mistakes.
For me Jeff, none of these points (and one can imagine more than this) are difficult or problematic to accept. None of those statements say anything terrible, disturbing or deeply offensive about us; admitting we might have made mistakes or made bad judgements isn't problematic, That's just us being human. If we need to live life with a pollyanna, 'we are so good' view of ourselves then that is just a character flaw we have. In reality each of us is a mixture of strengths and weaknesses. And accepting that is perfectly alright. Quite simply, we are human. We fuck up sometimes. And not being able to admit we have fucked up is also fucking up.
I don't necessarily think the changes and insights needed will be achievable, but there is nothing I find problematic in principle with any of them Nothing in that lists is something I feel any compulsion to reject..
So what about yourself Jeff? How many of those points get your hackles up?
Here is the point. The Laws of Physics don't care what our feelings about this are, yours or mine. The Laws of Physics are life-and-death. All our values etc are just our incidental ruminations. If our deepest values, desires and beliefs are out of sync with the Laws of Physics, then the Laws of Physics will stomp on our most treasured ideas with utter disdain.
So who is more likely to be biased Jeff. Someone who is able to accept the implications of what AGW means, as highlighted in my list? Or someone who finds it deeply disturbing to accept that list?
Because all those points, and probably others have absolutely ZERO relevance. The science is what it is, and our values etc don't count for a tinker's damn in comparison.
No doubt you will want to disagree with what I have said. Just consider what your disagreement is in the light of how I have framed my comment.
Jeff Id
Thanks for the reply. Things like this make blogging fun.
Of course I have many problems with what you have written but your argument is reasonably well considered although it contains a significant bit of ideological 'belief' in your list of points. One thing we do agree on 100% is that the science is the science and this is the world that god (or chance) has given us and nobody is going to come from the sky to tweak it back into shape if we screw it up. I also agree that humans have the power to make change to the world, no big denial surprise there.
Where your scientific argument fails however is in step 1. Climate models have failed….. Completely 100% failed by basic statistical testing. No scientist can rationally state that they have passed even a 30 year test. Yet they just did in a global worldwide report. So we know from that simple validity check, that the IPCC is a biased source of climate information – in the alarmist direction — despite your implications that disagreement with some of the most extreme IPCC conclusions represent the actual bias against science.
It is reasonable to state that the problem with the models is worse than simply exaggerating the warming trend by 2-3 times, they are not explanatory of the difference, so mathematically and scientifically they have little to no predictive scientific value. We don't have a prediction that we can rely on. Scientifically, we cannot use the models to predict either when or even IF we will see significant warming. Therefore no action is required, necessary, or far more importantly, —- in our best interest.
In addition, we don't have any evidence that actually warming the planet would present any significant problem either. Hurricanes, droughts, rainfall, etc… none of the alleged dangers have actually been observed. Really that is all that should be required for our scientific discussion. We should all agree that while CO2 does add heat to the system, we don't know what future temperatures will do, and we can't observe any significant problems from the bit of warming we have experienced. End of story.
However, that is not what the IPCC is promoting.
IF we still irrationally assume that CO2 IS going to cause significant warming right now, and it IS irrational to assume such as we have no evidence for it, the way to combat CO2 warming is something that is far grayer an area than you have portrayed above. I would make the point that minimal global coordination is necessary and that we have only one technologically functional solution to generate such large quantities of energy. Minimal economic support is required, it may be a net economic gain, and very little regulation or change in lifestyle is needed. We simply agree to switch all new power plant construction to nuclear power and let the old plants run to their natural life cycle. New nuclear plants are safer, cleaner and more effective than the old technology and they continue to improve. We only need to do it in advanced countries that already have nuclear capability as the rest of the world doesn't emit much in comparison. I will even predict that economically this WILL be the future of humanity whether the government intervenes or not. There are plenty of economic and physics based reasons that this will happen.
So there is your perfect green solution!! Are you on board? I am guessing you are one of the all of the above guys who thinks that 20 bad solutions will add up to one good one. You may also be an extremist and believe that all nuclear power is bad. I don't mean to be disparaging but a mix of these positions seems to be the all-too-common pseudo-intellectual "compromise" position these days.
So from your unscientific observation that CO2 warming is going to be dangerous, you make several points on your list which are based on ideology. I find most of them wholly objectionable and very poorly considered. They are heavily socialist in their form and I believe that were we silly enough to adopt the plan as laid out by you, it would lead to global strife the likes of which we have not seen in human history. Of course, socialists in general don't recognize the need to incentivize individual economic gain as a requirement for human prosperity. They believe simple wealth redistribution solves the problem, and they universally underestimate the harm to industry. It seems that you suffer from this affliction but I don't know your whole story. What doesn't make sense, is "Wealthy" functional capitalist governments supplying funds to maintain non-functioning socialist dictatorships. The result of redistribution, whether by country or individual is the same — rich productive people giving money to non-productive ones to "help" them stay with the status quo.
I have always found the argument interesting that we simultaneously say that we must globally help the weak with climate action. Since weak nations with non-functioning socialist/dictatorship style governments produce little of anything, it seems quite a leap to say that we need to do anything for them. They certainly aren't any geological Greenhouse gas belching force right? Shouldn't our limited resources be used to tackle producing energy that doesn't emit CO2. Far more importantly, do we really want to enable those sick non-functional governments to continue creating human misery? With no visible mitigation required as no scientifically observable damage has happened, what would those countries exactly do with the money?
"It requires that we accept that a sense of boundlessness that has been a central part of our cultures, particularly in the 'frontier nations' such as the USA or Australia is ending – from here on in human society has to have values centered on limitations and boundedness."
Glenn, this one is the worst point of all. Your assumption is that our natural existence won't curtail our behavior sufficiently. You believe that capitalist free society cannot provide, again like global warming, against all observation to the contrary, and you are ready to stop it now rather than allow it to continue to succeed as it has and should. You have made a great leap of faith here toward a form of central government controlled existence which has already produced more than enough observational evidence of its non-functionality. You are wrong about this and it is the foundation of most of your conclusions. I am thoroughly frightened of this thought process, as it is so prevalent in society, and so observationally wrong, and it leads to such bad places.
As I have never convinced anyone who strongly believes that capitalism and freedom don't functionally govern of anything to the contrary, I don't expect you will agree with what I am writing. However, I will agree with you that it isn't perfect, but it isn't designed to be. What the system represents mathematically, is economic evolution. By allowing the strong to survive and the weak to fail, the human condition averages to a much higher level of functionality. When we don't allow the weak to fail, out of compassion and fairness or whatever, we doom both they and humanity to a lower average level of function. Unfortunately, economic output is a much more sensitive system than the ocean moderated climate, and small changes in "fairness" result in large changes in average economic function. Now of course there is a balance, and I'm not saying there shouldn't be safety nets for the truly helpless but that is something very different than sending money to non-productive dysfunctional societies, and people, to help with some unmeasurable aspect of global warming.
It is an oxymoron to believe in evolution, yet not understand free markets.
So no, I don't suffer from the delusion that we don't make mistakes. I do suffer from the belief that we need to be forced to reach higher through the danger of poverty such that we continue to try and then make even more mistakes. We need a world which allows us to continue to grow economically, producing even more goods and services at an ever more effective rate. We most certainly do not need a world of limited economy and heavy central control of our behavior. Remember, it was free people with minimal regulation who produced the cleanest economies on earth with the greatest wealth for even our failing poor. While these are political views, I hold them as observationally sound.
So moving on, reclassifying CO2 as a significant pollutant is unscientific at this point but if we assume that is the case, it is an entirely separate issue from whether we need massive regulation and limitation of our behavior as the "solution". I can imagine many "solutions" which don't fit your preferred and highly political list.
You made an interesting point that deserves a slightly different viewpoint and will segue into the now long-awaited conclusion.
"But there is not one National Academy of Science anywhere in the world with a position against it. "
You interpret this correlation as though it were evidence of scientific accuracy, yet again, observational evidence contradicts this position. There are almost zero people on these science foundations who can be described as capitalist, pro-growth, limited government or free-market supporters. It is rather apparent that these groups are self-sorting to a high degree by selection and support of like-minded people. This is no big conspiracy, just a generally greater reward for like minded conclusions. Again, I find that pro-government thinkers fail to grasp or perhaps to openly state them, the powerful effect of group incentivization. e.g. Jones invites Mann to speak instead of Spencer.
Your evidence of accuracy, is very obviously — the opposite. Hell, you and I would probably have disagreements about the color of the sky, yet somehow these people across the globe all are in agreement about a science where the scientifically predictive climate models HAVE STATISTICALLY FAILED??!! Future climate isn't settled knowledge. Your position that the correlation of message appears to represent scientific accuracy, simply doesn't make rational sense.
So I would suggest that my argument on AGW is scientific, and is superior in accuracy to your own argument as presented here. My position on AGW is different than the politically motivated, generally exaggerated, and now unscientific global warming story given by National Science academies around the world. Those scientific arguments I make are separate from solutions to energy production, on which my opinions are also scientifically based and all of that is separate from my political views, which I hold as unscientific observationally based opinion.
So you asked:
"So who is more likely to be biased Jeff. Someone who is able to accept the implications of what AGW means, as highlighted in my list? Or someone who finds it deeply disturbing to accept that list?"
I must answer that since the list you present is highly political, a person who represents it as "requirement" for a solution to the general human condition, while failing to recognize obvious alternative paths, is far more likely to be biased than someone who disagrees with the proposed political solution but represents the disagreement as politics.
Add in the fact that the alleged "problem" has not been observed and well.. you get the point.[some editing for clarity of my comment was done – Jeff]
Posted in Uncategorized | 55 Comments »
On The Take. An Impromptu Psychological Study of Government Science
Posted by Jeff Id on November 2, 2014
The IPCC released their "synthesis report" today. The long awaited conclusion to their massive multi-hundred billion dollar industry's belief that they need to keep getting paid. I have listed the authors from the front page. Take a few minutes and look up some of the names on this list, copy their resume's into the comments below. Anecdotes are appreciated. My contention is that AGW is an industry, alarm is their product, their personal pay depends on more study and extreme conclusions. Without yet checking, I believe that nobody on this list is conservative or moderate politically and the message is uniformly more government, more tax and more study. If you find anyone moderate in the list, please add it to the comments.
Core Writing Team members
X- Myles R. Allen (United Kingdom),
X-Vicente Ricardo Barros (Argentina),
X-John Broome (United Kingdom),
X-Wolfgang Cramer (Germany/France),
X-Renate Christ (Austria/WMO),
John A.Church (Australia),
X-Leon Clarke (USA),
Qin Dahe (China),
Purnamita Dasgupta (India),
Navroz K. Dubash (India),
Ottmar Edenhofer (Germany),
Ismail Elgizouli (Sudan),
Christopher B. Field (USA),
X-Piers Forster (United Kingdom),
X-Pierre Friedlingstein (United Kingdom),
Jan Fuglestvedt (Norway),
Luis Gomez -Echeverri (Colombia),
Stephane Hallegatte (France/World Bank),
Gabriele Hegerl (United Kingdom),
Mark Howden (Australia),
Kejun Jiang (China),
Blanca Jimenez Cisneros (Mexico/UNESCO),
Vladimir Kattsov (Russian Federation),
Hoesung Lee(Republic ofKorea),
Katharine J. Mach (USA),
Jochem Marotzke (Germany),
Michael D. Mastrandrea (USA),
Leo Meyer (The Netherlands),
Jan Minx (Germany),
Yacob Mulugetta (Ethiopia),
Karen O'Brien (Norway),
X-Michael Oppenheimer (USA),
R.K. Pachauri (India),
Joy J. Pereira (Malaysia),
Ramón Pichs-Madruga (Cuba),
Gian-Kasper Plattner (Switzerland),
Hans-Otto Pörtner (Germany),
Scott B.Power(Australia),
X-Benjamin Preston (USA),
N.H. Ravindranath (India),
X-Andy Reisinger (New Zealand),
Keywan Riahi (Austria),
Matilde Rusticucci (Argentina),
Robert Scholes (South Africa),
Kristin Seyboth (USA),
X-Youba Sokona (Mali),
Robert Stavins (USA),
X-Thomas F. Stocker (Switzerland),
Petra Tschakert (USA),
Detlef van Vuuren (The Netherlands),
Jean-Pascal van Ypersele (Belgium)
Extended Core Writing Team members
Gabriel Blanco (Argentina),
Michael Eby (Canada),
Jae Edmonds (USA),
Marc Fleurbaey (France),
Reyer Gerlagh (The Netherlands),
X- Sivan Kartha (USA),
X-Howard Kunreuther (USA),
Joeri Rogelj (Belgium),
Michiel Schaeffer (The Netherlands),
Jan Sedláček(Switzerland),
Ralph Sims (New Zealand),
Diana Ürge-Vorsatz (Hungary),
David Victor(USA),
Gary Yohe (USA)
Review Editors
Paulina Aldunce (Chile),
X-Thomas Downing (United Kingdom),
Sylvie Joussaume (France),
Zbigniew Kundzewicz (Poland),
Jean Palutikof (Australia),
Jim Skea (United Kingdom),
Kanako Tanaka (Japan),
Fredolin Tangang (Malaysia),
Chen Wenying (China),
Zhang Xiao-Ye (China)
Posted in Uncategorized | 63 Comments »
Posted by Jeff Id on November 2, 2014
SpaceX is an amazing story. We are witnessing space history being made in front of our eyes. No less important than Columbus style ocean crossings, I do wonder if the public is even aware of it. I am an aeronautical engineer and an entrepreneur myself, I see these things going on and am fascinated by the common sense approach SpaceX has taken. I wrote after their first successful flight that SpaceX won't lose another craft, I don't expect any near-future rocket failures even though they expect them. Someday it will happen, but my guess is that it will be the safest and more importantly lowest cost rocket system for the foreseeable future.
Recently they have completed two successful soft landings on the ocean surface. The press has responded by mis-reporting the event as though these were failures with comments about the rocket "tipping over" and breaking up. The reports miss the rather obvious point that the rocket is standing on liquid at that point and has few options other than "tipping over". They also miss the point that when a 14 story building tips over, it tends to rather dramatically "Break up". It leaves one wondering just what these reporters imagine might happen had the launch gone perfectly.???
Perhaps in reporter land, a fleet of rubber ducks would extend from the bottom and carry the booster to some white-sand beach and deliver it salt water free to its heavenly creator with none of the evil hydrocarbon fuel dripping into the water…. Is Musk the heavenly creator they imagine, hell no, but is he getting it done, hell yes.
Politicians have resisted the organization for political reasons, bloated government contracts have been awarded to their competitors, yet they continue to penetrate the industry at a rapid pace. They are completely unstoppable, largely due to the capitalist idea of making money, and the entrepreneurial concept of simplicity. If they go public I'm throwing a pile their way simply because it is the future we are looking at. The actual future of humanity.
Standing a pencil end up is hard on your fingertip, yet that is what they are doing in a vertical rocket landing. They have already repeatedly demonstrated rather difficult resupply and return of materials from the ISS — for a fractional cost of the space shuttle. The big space companies are just beginning to react, but they are nothing more than government bloated organizations with public owners. They have no realistic hope of changing sufficiently to compete in any substantial manner. Full of frustrated engineers who know it can be done better and managers who's vision is trumped by massive process, these competitors are doomed to lose badly before a big corporate reset happens.
I just want to say thanks to Mr. Musk for the fireworks show we get to watch for the second half of my life. It should be great!
Posted in Uncategorized | 8 Comments »
What is
Posted by Jeff Id on October 31, 2014
Reasoned dissent is the theme here
In the face of consensus, atrophy and fear
Reasoned implication, reasoned deconstruction
Common sense, nothing more
nothing less.
Posted in Uncategorized | 22 Comments »


text:
Posts tagged Thaicom
KCTV launches HD satellite broadcasts
Jan 19th
Posted by Martyn Williams in Media
Korean Central Television (조선중앙방송), North Korea's main national television station, has begun high-definition broadcasting.
The TV station has been available in standard definition via the Thaicom satellite for more than 15 years, and earlier in January a second high-definition feed of the TV station appeared.
The technical parameters of the new broadcast are as follows: 3696MHz, horizontally polarized, 4167 symbol rate, DVB-S2 format.
The new feed began by carrying KCTV's regular standard definition broadcasts in a letterboxed format, so while the broadcast is technically in a high-definition format, the content isn't … yet.
Recent coverage of major national events has been produced in widescreen format, which probably means it's being filming More >
High-quality recordings of DPRK radio
Dec 14th
Posted by Martyn Williams in Media
Mark Fahey in Australia wrote to let me know about a project he's working on that involves the capture of hours of North Korean radio via satellite. The broadcasts of the Korean Central Broadcasting Station domestic service via Thaicom are much higher quality than anything that's generally available online, including my recordings from shortwave. Here's what he says:
I am currently capturing hundreds of hours of TV & radio programming from North Korea as part of an academic project I am involved in. Yesterday I spent time digitally capturing the central domestic radio service as broadcast on 819kHz in Pyongyang. I thought More >
Korean Central Broadcasting Station
Nov 3rd
Posted by Martyn Williams in Radio
The Korean Central Broadcasting Station (KCBS) (Korean: 조선중앙방송, Chinese: 朝鲜中央放送, Japanese: 朝鮮中央放送) is the main domestic radio network in the DPRK. It sits under the Central Broadcasting Committee of the DPRK (called the Radio and Television Committee of the DPRK until 2009).
KCBS broadcasts from 5am to 3am local time via a network of mediumwave and shortwave transmitters that cover the nation. The powerful transmissions can easily be heard in neighboring countries, including South Korea where some of its frequencies are jammed.
It is also relayed at certain times via the Voice of Korea, the DPRK's international shortwave service.
A central program is More >
KCTV moving on Thaicom-5
Oct 19th
Posted by Martyn Williams in Media
Korean Central Television (KCTV) is moving transponders on the Thaicom-5 satellite at the end of this month.
Anyone receiving the channel via satellite will have to retune to continue watching. It's moving from the current transponder 3G at 3504MHz H to transponder 7G at 3695MHz H.
KCTV has been on its current transponder since at least 2007, which is shortly after Thaicom-5 was launched. The new transponder has a similar footprint to the old one, so the reception area and equipment needed shouldn't change.
The station has been broadcasting on the new channel since July 1 and will end transmission on the old More >

subset: commoncrawl


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Nintendo's 3DS system continues to depend on some tried-and-true franchise titles for its best offerings. Here's a look at the top games for the holidays.Comments
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) Dobie Gray, who hit the top of the music charts in 1973 with "Drift Away," has died in Nashville. He was 69.Comments
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Harry Morgan never planned to be an actor, yet he spent 10 years on one of the top TV series of all time, made 50 films and appeared on Broadway. He became one of the best-known character actors in Hollywood.Comments
Ah, those jing-jing-jingling bells, those chestnuts roasting by the fire, that rockin' around the Christmas tree all evoked by another set of chestnuts: holiday tunes, pop-music gold since the days of the hand-cranked Victrola.Comments


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Champion Duraseal Swinging Prairie Dog Reactive Target 7" Ballistic Polymer Orange
Product #: 632567 Champion #: 40954 UPC #: 076683409546
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The Champion DuraSeal Reactive Target is a self resetting target provides hours of realistic shooting fun. Made of Duraseal ballistic polymer, a non-metal, self sealing material that lets bullets pass through with minimal damage. Rugged metal legs firmly hold this target in almost every terrain. This target spins on impact to show hits. Made in the USA.
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- DuraSeal self-sealing material for the ultimate in target longevity
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Butte County Fairgrounds
Gridley, California
Phone: (530) 846-3626
Visit Campground Website
Sites: 39
Recent Rate: $25 5/2013
Latitude: 39.3659443
Longitude: -121.68415218623
These reviews are the opinion of an RVParkReviews' member and not the views of RVParkReviews.com
Date of Stay: May, 2013 - $25.00
Lots of shade under the mature trees here tucked in the back of the fairgrounds. Being a fairgrounds and not an RV resort there are no 'facilities' (showers/restrooms/laundry) as part of the RV area, and the long-term residents seemed to not pick up after their dogs but rather just let them run loose in the adjacent ball field. But otherwise clean, & nice and quiet. We camped at Butte County Fairgrounds in a Motorhome.Undo
Date of Stay: February, 2013 - $25.00
This is not a destination park, but it works quite well for a short stay in the area. As noted, it is a fairground, so it will not be available all of the time for folks passing through, so it is best to call. You check in at the fairground office across from the pool. I put that the campground has 39 sites, but their numbering system indicates there may be more that I am not counting. When we stayed there were only about 10 other campers, so there was lots of space. When it is almost empty like this, you can make some sites into pull-through sites. Also when occupied like this, there is lots of space. If the campground were full, it would be very crowded with close spaces. It is in a very quiet area and felt very secure. There are some big lights around, but they did not come on, so it was nice a dark at night, which we like. It is very convenient to shopping, such as there is in Gridley. It is also very convenient to the Gray Lodge Wildlife area, which is the reason we visited the area. Our Verizon cell phone and data worked well. If visiting the area, we would certainly stay here again. For the price it cannot be beat. We camped at Butte County Fairgrounds in a Motorhome.Undo
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I agree Nofool, same trades. If somebody could explain why some of their trades have been completed in the public market and others privately.
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Short term double room with ensuite to rent in student house
Double room in student house to rent, from 1st April 2015. The property is situated within walking distance of Cardiff University campus and students union. Close to local shops, super markets, post offices, pubs and restaurants. A mere walk to C
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Looks like the residential conversion for 51 Jay Street, the old Jay Street Arts Building, is moving forward. Yesterday the Landmarks Preservation Commission approved exterior changes after the LPC denied plans for a two-story addition in March. This time the architects came in with a proposal for a one-story addition as well as altering the masonry openings, replacing the windows, installing a storefront infill and a canopy. We're curious about the plans for that rooftop addition considering that LPC struck down the first proposal in the interest of preserving the historic skylights. The DOB disapproved the application to convert this building to residential use in the fall and the owners have not reapplied since. Those plans said this would be a 126-unit build. Also on the LPC docket yesterday, the proposed townhouses for Pearl Street. We heard the commissioners had some very good things to say but also requested many changes. So expect that proposal to return to the LPC in a matter of time.
Update: According to someone involved with the project, "The revised approval removes the skylights and reinstalls them on top of a one-story addition below. The apartments at the top floor will duplex into the skylights. So it went from a two-story to a one-and-a-half-story enlargement. The windows on the upper floors will be replaced to match the existing historic windows, and the ground floor openings will retain more glass block and more of the historic loading dock/loading bay feel." Also, the DOB application that was disapproved was related to the LPC application, so you can expect the DOB application to move forward quickly.
The Jay Street Arts Building Is Going Residential [Brownstoner]
New Townhouses Proposed for Pearl Street [Brownstoner]
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I thought they were trying to preserve the historical skylights? LOL
Someone got greased.
This building has potential to be such a gorgeous conversion. I want that penthouse
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Another in a series of crucial changes authorized by the Dodd-Frank Act became effective July 21, 2011, this one requiring financial services organizations (FSOs) to begin making $200 available for withdrawal on the business day following the banking day of deposit.
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What variety is this Dracaena Massangeana?
Today I saw a Dracaena Massangeana in a home improvement store that sold at 37.99â¬. Very high price! But the plant looked quite different than normal Dracaena Massangeana. It had much longer leaves. I wonder it's a new variety. I hope someone could ID it for me. Thanks!
That is pricey for such a cheap plant. Alomst a rippoff. Yet it is so healthy. It is the same variety. but the proper name is Dracaena fragrans 'Massangeana'. The species is fragrans and the variety is massangeana. fragrans is plain green in the wild.
TG, you are familiar with all species of Dracaena and their cultivars and hybrids, and their behavior in a pot vs. in the wild? As you should be learning in school, when quoting info, you should include the source. Spell check is your friend.
"such a cheap plant"...?!!
Supply meets demand. Anyone in the trade knows what a customer is willing to pay and sets the price accordingly.
If I was to call something in your collection "cheap",..something tells me you would be insulted by that.
....Just saying.
Because of the price I thought the plant was a new cultivar that they imported from USA. Normally the prices of plants in Germany are much more higher than in US, as here is cold and dark most of the time. The nurseries need to heat their greenhouses and provide extra artificial light for their plants 7 months of the year.
However, I have the Dracaena fragrans 'Massangeana' with short and hanging down leaves at home. The plant in the photo does look different with its long and pointing up leaves. It looks very elegant like a Cordyline with Dracaena fragrans 'Massangeana' leaves. That's why it's so confusing.
I'm sorry, TG. Was just pretty sure you haven't been "in the wild" with Dracs. Of course your gramma is/was(?) a brilliant plant-o-phile, I forgot about her.
If this is a "corn plant" it's not like any I've seen before. I couldn't find a pic of any with such long, upright leaves. Maybe it is one but it's a GIANT cutting from a huge tree in the wild? (Oh brother, in the wild again?!) Did you take any other pics, Hank?
Wouldn't 38 Euros be around $60? That seems a likely price for a plant this size. Corn plant is very common, but one that big wouldn't be inexpensive.
The last time I saw a Drac I didn't recognize it ended up being a type I'd never heard of before. Maybe FW will know what this one is too.
Hey, yea, corn plants are our friends.
I agree Purple, this looks like a cutting, tho probably not from the wild, but from a nice big healthy plant growing in lots of light, hence the wide upright leaves and vivid yellow striping in the middle.
Fragrans tend to lose their yellow coloration if they remain in lower (typical indoor) light for very long.
Of course, there might also be new cultivars floating around out there. I'm going to have to visit some of my professional friends to get some catalogues - I knew I should have gone to TPIE this year.
BTW, Hank, do you know if there are growers in the southern climes who supply these plants? Italy, Israel, Turkey, wherever? Can you ask the store where their suppliers are located? I'd be interested to know.
Thanks everyone for the contributions.
@purpleinopp: I don't have other photo. I will take another one, when I am there next time. Normally taking photo of a product in a store is prohibited here. However, I will take it secretly. :)
@theficuswrangler: Sorry, I don't know any growers in southern Europe. I will ask the store about their suppliers, when I visit it.
By the way I have been asking few bloggers the ID of this plants and googling it too. I found a website that describe Dracaena fragrans "Chinto" (should be "Cintho") and I believe this is the plant in my photo! But the plant in my photo is more vigorous. I am waiting for the answers from two bloggers to double confirm, as it's very difficult to identify plants, when we don't see it personally.
Here is a link that might be useful: Dracaena fragrans âChintoâ
I followed the link on Hank's reply, and here's what I think. The pic of the "chinco" variety looked just like a regular fragrans chronically underwatered. In other words, a fragrans that never gets enough water will develop leaves that curl under along the length of the leaf, which will produce leaves that appear narrow, with extremely narrowed lower part where they emerge from the stem. Now, there may well be a cultivar named chinco, or whatever, and it may indeed have more narrow leaves than normal, but until I actually see specifics from the actual grower, I remain unconvinced.
Yesterday I went to another home improvement store where I saw Dracaena fragrans âÂÂCinthoâ and Dracaena fragrans "Massangeana" at the same spot. I compared both of them. Their differences are:
1. The growth form of D. "Cintho" is like D. "Gold Coast" and D. "Yellow Coast."
2. The feature of D. "Cintho" leaves. They look like having petioles.
3. D. "Cintho" leaves are somewhat shorter, narrower, more delicate and have slightly wavy edge like D. "Gold Coast" and D. "Yellow Coast."
However I have just proved that the plant in my photo isn't D. "Cintho". Probably tomorrow I will visit the home improvement store where I took my photo for further examination.
If D. "Cintho" leaves look like they have petioles then mine isn't the same. It's always difficult with varieties. Any differences are usually jumped on and cloned so nurseries can sell something no one else has. I checked all of mine and have 2 types. The tallest is 4 to 5 metres with a number of trunks/stems. The others are from cuttings someone gave me a year or so ago, so much smaller. I like the look of all of them, regardless of what their names might be. One of my other species of Dracaena is flowering now, the fragrance is really great. Other species are budding up, so it'll be their turn soon.
Today I went to the store again and the Dracaena is gone. What a relief! As I saved 37,99â¬, but I saw a big variegated Dracaena that sold at 144,99â¬. Below is its photo. However I received a reply from my plant expert "pen-pal" who lives in the Netherlands. This is what he said:
'Massangeana' is a rather amorphous cultivar -nowadays we mean broad-leafed with a white stripe in the middle, but originally D. massangeana was described as a species from the Belgian Congo. I assume it was originally not variegated but this trait later became associated with the name. Unfortunately the original Belgian publication is rather obscure, I can't find a copy, but I assume it was distinguished from normal fragrans due to it's wider leaves and thicker stems.
The plant at the home improvement store looks like regular old Massangeana. The price is high for Dutch standards.
As far as I can tell, 'Cintho' is a new cultivar (or just a trademark?) exclusively marketed in Europe by Ammerlaan of the Netherlands. The trunks are grown in Costa Rica for 2-10 years then exported bare, the trunks are resprouted over here. It is not available in the USA. All places selling this plant in Europe and Russia buy it from Ammerlaan at the Dutch auction houses, or have it remarketed to them from the same source. I suspect it may be the medioaureovariegated form of one of the East African 'steudneri' forms of D. fragrans (and not a real steudneri), but it may just be a mutant (more petiolate and with clearer/more stable mid-stripe) sport of 'Massangeana'.
The leaf aspect is not a good characteristic - the difference in droopiness in your plant is likely environmental.


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Lawton Group Reviews
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Employee ReviewsSort: Popular Rating Date
"Better pay for clerical positions "
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I worked at Lawton Group as a contractor (less than a year)Pros
Pay for clerical positions is close to $17 an hour. There is a variety of work in different industries. There is a discount health/dental/vision plan that starts not long after you begin your assignment. The owner of the company is a woman. I like the owner's partnership with the local workforce project and the local community job center. The quality of the other temps I have met seems pretty high.Cons
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Make sure the recruiters return calls and emails within 24 hours. Consider reviewing the rates you are charging companies if your candidates are never being reviewed by certain companies.RecommendsPositive Outlook


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Wolfhound Century
Peter Higgins
303 pages
published in 2013
Despite buying more books than's probably good for me, I still keep a library membership and thanks to that I still end up finding science fiction or fantasy writers and books I wouldn't encounter otherwise. Case in point: Peter Higgins Wolfhound Century, which I saw lying on the pile of new fiction books near the entrance and whose cover drew my attention. Reading the back cover blurb and the first few pages was enough to take a punt on it. They confirmed what the cover artwork seemed to suggest, that this was a fantasy novel inspired by Soviet Russia, not a setting you see much in fantasy.
The protagonist, investigator Vissation Lom, is the classic honest cop in a totalitarian system and his honesty has of course made him enemies. Nevertheless he's one of the best investigators in Vlast, which is why he has been summoned to the capital Mirgorod by the head of the secret police. He is to stop and catch Josef Kantor, a terrorist protected by powerful forces from within the Vlast security apparatus itself. Without ties to any of the political factions in the capital or the security services, Lom is hoped to have a better chance at getting Kantor.