Al Gore

My aunt was a huge fan of Al Gore.    She spoke of him to me before he became vice-president, talking up his education, noting that he took a university class on any subject laid before him.  I remember her in the living room of her not-quite-Tennessee home speaking of him in glowing tones.

Shame about that.  What a lying frakbag he turned out to be.

Just sayin'  . . .

LGF Missives From the Deep

I'd mentioned LGF a few times of late, but I'll be damned if I didn't just go there and discover that he's dismissing ClimateGate as a non-issue. 

What happened to that guy?   Brain damage, maybe?   Fat paycheck from somewhere?  Simply getting annoyed with Beck and ending up considering him his "Other", so that all the sudden conservatism just couldn't be right on any topic?    Personal guilt over some unethical behavior producing self-destructive thoughts?

How does a seeming conservative seemingly lose his mind?    Where did Johnson go wrong?   It's so weird to consider LGF a liberal blog . . . but there it is.

Update:  Like many, I'm thinking Johnson was a "post-9/11 temporary conservative", but simply one with more staying power than other post 9/11 temporary conservatives.   It's noted on Wikipedia that he considered himself center-left before 9/11, and to the left he is finally returning.  

ClimateGate and What Science Is Not

"ClimateGate" refers to the hacking of the Climate Research Unit in the UK, a primary center espousing man-made global warming claims, producing e-mails and documents from scientists showing several alarming things:

1.  Their climate models are based on profoundly sloppy and undocumented computer code, poorly-kept guesswork-analyzed datasets, and only a rudimentary understanding of the chemistry and general workings of the Earth, the variability of the sun, and so on.  For example, those dealing with the models often have no idea what assorted rows of numbers mean for historical data, and their globe modeling is exceedingly primitive and flawed on its best day.  (Hurricane-oriented weather modeling is decades beyond their global warming climatology models, and yet even the newest hurricane models can have errors of hundreds of miles even over a timespan of days.)  Worse, much of the data used as input is synthesized unnecessarily from other input data (e.g. not using real weather info from the 20th Century but only predicted weather for that time period based on prior years), and model output usually features enormous variances compared to the claimed tenth-of-a-degree accuracy of their predictions.  Almost pure guesswork is used when pondering effect and concentration of pollutants and particulates, often oversimplifying or ignoring the matter (as had already been noted elsewhere, such as recently in the journal Science).  And, of course, the sun is usually discounted, despite its known cycles and their effects (see "Maunder Minimum", "Little Ice Age") and its current variance (see "Modern Maximum").
2.  The scientific method is based on the idea that you develop a hypothesis and test it.   The results of the test are supposed to be reproducible by other scientists.  In the case of models, reality is the test.  Man-made global warming predictions have almost invariably failed both in the short term and over the decades since the beginning of the claims (once they got past the global cooling claims of the 70s).  Nevertheless, one way to at least allow other scientists -- including those skeptical of your claims -- to understand the claims would be to share the details of how you arrived at your conclusions.  
Man-made global warming proponents, however, jealously guard their raw data, their model code (see #1), and their
methods (see #3), so as to avoid critique by those skeptical of their view (see #4).   Even when the government-funded data is requested via Freedom of Information Act requests (the UK has one as well), information was removed from the data to render it unusable and an unabashed conspiracy to delete correspondence about the research was engaged in. 
3.  When the model outputs do not correspond to preconceptions, the models are run again and tweaked by applying specialized numerical transformations or simply factoring in previously-unfactored bits of other datasets (see #1).  The methodology is quite ad hoc.   "Trick"s are used to "hide the decline" where needed, and evidence-based events like the Medieval Warm Period for which man-made global warming folks have no man-based explanation are intentionally "contain"ed . . . minimized in their models.  This is done in the hopes their existence and claims regarding it by skeptics (who correctly note the lack of SUVs and coal power plants in Medieval times) can be thwarted early by making it seem small compared to what is claimed for the 20th Century.
4.  A concerted effort is in play by prominent global warming scientists to keep skeptical scientists out of the peer-reviewed literature.  This effort involves attempts at character assassination of opponents, campaigns for the firing of research journal editors who are 'soft' on skeptics, and other forms of pressure.   The absence of significant skeptic presence in peer-reviewed literature is then used as 'proof' that skeptics are dealing in poor science.
5.  Global warming scientists have good relations with members of the press.

None of the above is meant to suggest that global warming is an evil conspiracy.  It is, however, proof that there are a bunch of like-minded idiots (plus a few plain old badguys) pushing the claims.   That the claims could be politicized so long ago by the likes of new carbon-credit billionaire Al Gore ("the science is settled; the debate is over") and made to play into international anti-capitalist agendas and mixed with the modern secular religion of ignorant environmentalism is just proof of the capacity for self-deception of a gaggle of like-minded idiots operating en masse.

Nevertheless, Al Gore will continue to sleep at night in sweatshop-created, inefficiently-shipped pajamas in his extreme-carbon-footprint mansion.  Global Warming alarmists will try to pretend that, yes, the sky is still falling, so we still have to sign treaties that condemn the economy of the United States and EU and require taxation to give to developing countries, because somehow that will correct the environmental injustice of our pollution (though China doesn't have to, because . . . er . . . well, because).

The fact is, humans can have an impact on the environment.  But all the energy of man pales in comparison to the energy of the Earth, and all the industrial smokestacks, cattle farts, and SUV tailpipes in the world can't hope to compete with the incredible balance of this massively huge volume of atmosphere across the planet.  LED lightbulbs and hydrogen cars and nuclear fusion and nanomaterials are worthwhile goals for a lot of reasons . . . there is no need to make false and bogus claims of imminent fiery death (or ocean-level-rise drowning) in order to get them.

******************************

So how best for science to respond?   Well, first, get the bums out, and then have everything these lying dirtbags have touched redone to confirm or deny their claims.

What global warming people shouldn't do is try to ignore or get even more arrogant over the matter.

Note these comments from a claimed scientist in response to the controversy for an example of the worst possible response:

"Science is not a democratic process. Nor is it something akin to the
french revolution. What exactly are you going to do with that data?
Nothing but hurl criticism based on ignorance. Having to defend
ourselves from that shit increases our already monumental stress
levels.

You lack the training or intellectual capacity to see
anything but a string of numbers you cannot understand and your eyes
glaze over. {...} We do what we do because we are (for the most part) one of the few
groups of people on this planet which has the ability and willingness
to{.}"

"Scientists do not serve you directly, and the data we obtain is beyond your capacity to analyze."

The point that science is not a democratic process is actually quite true, and ironic from this person given that he's supporting the same folks who claim a consensus of scientists dictates reality.  It does not.  Reality exists, and would do so even if all the people of Earth failed to recognize it and instead believed the contrary.

But beyond that, all we have is elitism and undeserved arrogance.  

The global warming guys were liars and scoundrels perpetrating a falsehood upon the whole world, and they suffered from the same sort of undeserved arrogance.  So afraid were they to be criticized, they finally got to the point . . . no doubt bit by bit . . . where they would cross almost any line.  They weren't breaking kneecaps yet, but given that one of these wannabe scientists claimed he was going to be very tempted to punch a particular opponent when next they met, it seems it was only a matter of time.

In politics, science, and so much more, we must always be diligent against those who would unleash the worst traits of humanity.

Software Reviews

A.  Handbrake is a highly-recommended DVD ripping tool that does not work at all.  Originally made for Macs, it evidently needs to stay with them and not pretend to be Windows-compatible.

1.  It's default is to save to the desktop.  However, even if you tell it to save to the desktop, it simply goes through the motions without creating an output file.   The third time I tried, it actually did finally create an output file . . . in its own folder in Program Files.  The hell?

2.  The file wouldn't even play.   All I wanted was an .avi with Xvid encoding and it can't even get that right.

Handbrake thus officially sucks.

B.  All Text/Hex Editors suck, because they cannot handle significant but very simple search strings.   In my
case, this simply means that I was trying to divine a way to
search-and-replace section numbers out of a large number of text files.

So, let's say this was a fragment of my text:

text text text text

23

text text text text

24

text text text text

All I wanted to do was to remove the 23, 24, et cetera so it looked like this:

text text text text
text text text text
text text text text

However, remarkably, this is apparently something that the world's programmers have never considered.  Oh, I can remove the digits in one maneuver and then remove the spaces in another, but only at the risk of removing other useful digits in the text (e.g. a line starting with "56 times" or something might have the "56" deleted). 

You would think that there would be a simple way to tell a program to find "linebreak-linebreak-digit-digit-linebreak-linebreak" and remove it, but amazingly there is no such thing.   Oh, there's an "extended" expression type that makes finding linebreaks a little easier, but you can't find numbers at the same time.   The regular expression type won't let you find linebreaks worth a damn.

C.  RegexMagic is supposed to help with regular expressions . . . you're supposed to be able to input a bit of text and tell it how you want it parsed, and then it will come back with the regular expression coding for you.   I figured it might help me find a way to bypass the absurdity mentioned in B. 

However, it did not do crap.   I'm a pretty smart guy, usually able to operate even less-than-intuitive software with relative ease, but this was ridiculous.  So I spent an hour going over all of the instructions carefully, marking my text precisely, and yet all I found was that the software continued to fail to do anything of value.   Its big idea of the sort of regular expression I needed to use was to delete all of the text in the file.  Seriously!

Don't waste your money.   I'm glad I just used the trial version.

Leftist Trash vs. Glenn Beck

Sick and evil people are trying to start a rumor/whisper campaign on the internet against Glenn Beck.  Originating from a comedy routine of associating someone with insinuations, the original perpetrator and those who are spreading it are trying to hurt Beck by insinuating a violent crime in his past, though they are relatively careful about not actually making the claim.  However, by trying to spread the idea and thus bring it to the forefront of Google and the like, they are creating a myth which, if it took root, would be virtually impossible to dispel.

Leftists will think this a stroke of brilliance without ever pondering what it means or what it would be like to be the target of such a thing. 

Worse is their attempt to justify it, claiming that it was meant to flip the Obama birth certificate / citizenship questions back on the right wing, "using Beck's tactics against him".   Bull!

First, I don't even think Beck questions Obama's citizenship, but even if he did, what the hell is the similarity between the "where's the beef?" citizenship people (who have yet to be given the beef) and this insidious rumor campaign?   Proof positive is what the so-called Birthers are asking for, and the lack of it from Obama and Hawaii is the wind in their sails.  Obama has a very simple solution . . . have the damn birth certificate shown so these people will shut up.

However, in the case of this evil maneuvering against Beck, there is no solution, because the wicked rumor-mongerers demand that a negative be proven.  It's fallaciousness is similar, emotionally speaking, to the question-begging of "so when did you finally stop beating your wife", which presumes that you did.  You are thus in the position of having to disprove the claim buried in the question.

But how do you prove a negative?   Oh, sure, he could show he was somewhere else, or otherwise prove that every single bit of their claim was wrong.  But that's not the same, and is wrong for Beck to have to do that besides.  (e.g. Where was I in 1990?  Up yours!  I am a free man and owe you no
answer.  If you require one then "I was banging your mom" is your
answer, you trash.)

All that Beck's point-by-point response would do is to disprove the claims of the rumor-mongerers, who aren't even really trying to prove their claims as factually-based anyway.  And by even responding, Beck would be giving fuel to their fire.  And even if he was somehow able to do the impossible and prove this negative (that he did not commit the crime they claim), there is nothing to stop them from doing it all over again with another crime the next day.

It's just more sick behavior from leftist trash, and it's enough to make one wish for the existence of Hell just so there's a proper place for such animals.

Another LGF Classic Moment

Obama as Witch Doctor re: ObamaCare (e.g. making fun of his health care)

LGF calls this disgusting, racist, the creator a creep, and uses it to attack the Tea Party movement.

Now let's flash backward a bit . . .

Bush as Witch Doctor for no apparent reason

What's the difference?  Just because Obama is of African descent doesn't make topical fun-poking about his health care ideas racist, you twits, any more than poking fun of Bush as a European king-figure (from the same site as the Bush witch doctor pic) is racist.

So, LGF is getting to the point where they are cordially invited to eat me.   Too bad they won't allow new commenters as they continue to drive off the deep end.  Echo chamber, anyone?

MicroProse, MegaTestes

From the Wikipedia article on MicroProse, known for games such as "Gunship" and "Civilization", here's something that made me laugh for the brazen nature of it.

First, a little backstory, again just from Wikipedia. First was a board game called Civilization, made by the Hartland Trefoil company. Another company, Avalon Hill, got a license to sell the game in the US. These events were both circa 1980.

Fast forward to 1991, when a PC game called Civilization comes out. Made by Microprose, which went so far as to license the title from Avalon Hill despite the different media, the game was a smashing success.

But Avalon Hill developed its own designs on the PC market, and circa 1997 wanted to make a PC version of its Civilization game (which by this point was called "Advanced Civilization"). So it was that in 1997 Avalon Hill rescinded the MicroProse name license, handed that over to computer game maker Activision, and together with Activision sued MicroProse.

(Now, this to my mind is the problem with licensing anyway. If it is rescinded for any reason or no reason at all, you are screwed.)

Now obviously, the Avalon Hill folks . . . had they not been bastards . . . would have noted that they had already licensed the name, so they could've released their game by another name. However, they wanted to capitalize on the work MicroProse had done to make the name a legend in the PC world, and of course Activision wanted the same thing. So they wanted to call their game the same name in the hopes that people would buy it not realizing it was some board-game-on-the-PC crap.

This is why the law sucks sometimes . . . but then it does give us entertaining stories like this:

In November 1997 MicroProse was sued by both Avalon Hill (who had the US publishing rights to the name Civilization) and Activision for copyright infringement. MicroProse responded by buying Hartland Trefoil, which had used the Civilization name in early game products and then sued Avalon Hill and Activision for trademark infringement and unfair business practices as a result of Activision's decision to develop and publish Civilization computer games. [...] Under the terms of the settlement MicroProse became the sole owner of the rights of the name Civilization [...]

In other words, Avalon Hill acted like they owned the name in the PC world, so MicroProse responded by buying the real originator in Avalon's board game world, and then sued Avalon and Activision.

It is the legal version of "bring it on, mofo!" I love it. MicroProse completely made Avalon Hill and Activision their prison bitch, and rightly so.

Little Green Footballs Deflating

Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs gained notoriety during the so-called "Rathergate" fiasco, when Dan Rather and CBS ran with false documents impugning Bush the Younger's Guard service. I've visited the site sporadically since then and found it generally interesting, if for no other reason than the fact that it was both conservative and very anti-creationism.

But save for lip service to conservative values, Charles Johnson and LGF are no longer worth paying attention to.

1. Regarding the never-ever-seen Hawaii birth certificate of Barack Obama, Johnson declares those who would like to see it retarded "nirth certifikit" idiots, known as "nirthers".

It is never a great idea to skip to the childish and obnoxious name-calling behavior when the precise item that people wish to see remains unseen. Folks wanted to see Obama's birth certificate to confirm his American citizenship, yet it was sealed and everyone is content to leave it so. Sure, there are announcements in the paper from the right time, and a "certificate of live birth" (which has little to no legal standing given that those can be issued even for the birth of non-citizens), but that isn't the birth certificate.

America's a show-me kinda place . . . Missouri even took that jab and made it a motto. So to start name-calling on that basis is the epitome of absurdity.

And as long as we've brought up the topic of the certificate of live birth, LGF showed an original one from 1962 the other day:



Here's Obama's, which they showed after claiming it is equally valid and that all counter-claims are "debunked":







Now obviously, these two look nothing alike, which leads me to the following irony bomb:

RatherGate was based on a document forged to look like it had come from a typewriter but which instead came from Microsoft Word.

Now the same guy who gained notoriety for debunking RatherGate claims that a Microsoft Word Certification of Live Birth is equal in all ways to either a 1962 typewritten Certificate of Live Birth or even a real Birth Certificate.

Funny, that.

2. Johnson has been going after Glenn Beck in all sorts of absurd ways, usually if not exclusively featuring ridiculous straw men.

I am unsure what it is about Glenn Beck that Johnson finds so repugnant. Beck is a Mormon and does discuss his belief in God and his (unfortunate) belief that the rights of America's people are God-given rather than claimed by the blood and sweat of American patriots, but I can listen to Beck and just sort of edit the God stuff out and he still has everything else right. Thus, I find Johnson's hatred quite confusing.

The latest absurdity is here.

Glenn Beck . . . and this happens even in the posted video . . . clearly states that car dealers involved in the Cash for Clunkers program who use a government website for processing are at risk because the site's terms of service clearly state that their computer and all its contents, upon logging in to the website and using the services thereon, become the property of the Federal government, to be used or disposed of as they see fit.

You don't find that a little freaky for the government to stick in a long legalese terms-of-service thing? I sure do. So does Beck.

Yet Johnson goes apeshit and declares Beck "a raving freakazoid nut sandwich". He also claims you can't reach that page from Cars.gov, which is also silly ... apparently Johnson's never been to a site where the login happens on a different server than the default site's standard URL.

I don't know for sure, 'cause I'm not going to the site to research it on this computer. I guess that makes me a freakazoid nut sandwich, but if so then I am in august company.

What a Ho

Be glad you didn't get caught, boy . . . now run far away, 'cause her kind is no good.

JournoList

Seems the liberal media does indeed have its own little support group and information hub where they can get their stories straight. It's called the JournoList . . . and it's not the first such meetingplace for lefties to get their spin aligned, but it is the current one.

(The rest of the time they seem to just quote Democrat talking points memos.)

“There is nothing comparable on the right. E-mail conversations among bloggers, journalists and experts on our side tend to be ad hoc,” Goldfarb said. “The JournoList thing always struck me as a little creepy.”

Kaus, too, has seemed put off by the whole idea, once talking on BloggingHeads about how the list “seems contrary to the spirit of the Web.”

“You don’t want to create a whole separate, like, private blog that only the elite bloggers can go into, and then what you present to the public is sort of the propaganda you’ve decided to go public with,” Kaus argued.