^^ a quote by who? The assumption that everyone else other than the author can't apply logic, reason to weed through evidence to come to a reasonable conclusion is the height of arrogance.

Brent in Qld said..
^^ a quote by who? The assumption that everyone else other than the author can't apply logic, reason to weed through evidence to come to a reasonable conclusion is the height of arrogance.

George Orwell is the author, its just something to think about, something we could all apply to ourselves when we take a side, no need to get all offended.

Mr Milk said..

That's complete rubbish. The 2nd amendment, in1789, was adopted in the context of a frontier society, living in fear of attacks by native Americans and an attack from the British via the colonies in Canada that had not joined the revolution. That's why it says "a well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state" That implies a chain of command and authorisations for firearms owners. It does not say that any idiot should be free to shoot people in the street.

Really? Did you just write down your personal interpretation of the US constitution and present them as facts? The inability of people to even do a casual amount of research is astounding and why the world is such a mess right now. You could have spent 5 seconds confirming your view before you wrote this and saved us all some time.

A key aspect of the second amendment was that armed citizens were a deterent to a the Federal Government using force against its own citizens. If people don't trust thier government they take up arms. Less trust more arms. We have seen a massive uptake of guns in the US over the last few years. A hostile federal government and its institutions is why.


Straight from Wikipedia. The Second Amendment was based partially on the right to keep and bear arms in English common law and was influenced by the English Bill of Rights of 1689. Sir William Blackstone described this right as an auxiliary right, supporting the natural rights of self-defense and resistance to oppression, and the civic duty to act in concert in defense of the state.[12] While both James Monroe and John Adams supported the Constitution being ratified, its most influential framer was James Madison. In Federalist No. 46, Madison wrote how a federal army could be kept in check by the militia, "a standing army ... would be opposed [by] militia." He argued that State governments "would be able to repel the danger" of a federal army, "It may well be doubted, whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops." He contrasted the federal government of the United States to the European kingdoms, which he described as "afraid to trust the people with arms", and assured that "the existence of subordinate governments ... forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition".[13][14]

"Warren Burger... was a Republican who was appointed chief justice of the Supreme Court by President Richard Nixon in 1969 and served for 17 years until 1986. In retirement in 1991, Burger said that the Second Amendment "has been the subject of one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word fraud, on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime."

I estimate over a million Americans have died from firearms since Burger made that comment.

Mr Milk said..

"The security of a free state" not security against the state. It boiled down to "we need an army reserve, since we don't have a standing army.
Just by chance I've been reading a series of essays this week written by various Ivy League history professors about the founding myths of the USA. They make the point that Madison's contribution to the constitution was actually minimal, but was expanded in the imagination of politicians from the mid 1800s on.

It seems you have done a casual amount of research.

Really seems to be the Wild West over there. Shootouts over a home evasion or robbery at least make a little sense, but over an argument about where the bus stops? Insane! Seen similar things occur over disagreements about where someone places their rubbish bin.

abcnews.go.com/US/dramatic-footage-shows-shootout-bus-driver-passenger/story?id=99653654

As far as I am concerned they can keep their 2nd ammendment rights. Maybe it is an element in maintaining some sort of political stability for them? A question for historians. It doesn't come without drawbacks, however, and it's up to the citizens of the US to make a decision whether the costs outweigh the gains.

The fact is US culture is steeped in guns and violence, and steeped in the idea that the gun is a solution to many problems. Education standards are low, drug use is high, wealth is unevenly distributed and many, many people lack a strong moral and ethical compass and mature self-discipline. Result = thousands of dead people, thousand of dead kids.

Keep the 2nd ammendment Americans, but ensure your people are able to meet the challenges that gun ownership demands. Most do not and cannot. The 18th century mindset is not sufficient to manage 21st century weapons.

Ask yourself why the Uvalde police waited an hour before entering the school, all while children bled out and 21 people died. Were the cops afraid of the dysfunctional 18 year old who stuttered?

remery said..
Ask yourself why the Uvalde police waited an hour before entering the school, all while children bled out and 21 people died. Were the cops afraid of the dysfunctional 18 year old who stuttered?

They were sanitising their hands (true story)

safety first, follow the science

Paradox said..

remery said..
Once trusted faces on the news, meteorologists now brave threats, insults and slander online from conspiracy theorists and climate change deniers who accuse them of faking or even fixing the weather.

Key points:
Social media users claim weather bureaus around the world have been making up information
Australian's BoM has been falsely accused of doctoring temperature records
Globally there has been a rise in climate change denial - particularly among far-right supporters

amp.abc.net.au/article/102342754

Interesting comments. Key question is why do you believe the ABC article is accurate? Have you considered it may have been written in a biased manner? The article does not include comments from the scientists questioning the BoM methodologies, did you pick this up? If so how have you decided you are getting a balanced report on the issue?

I am familiar with many of the claims around the BoM's activities / methods being called into question and many of them have merit. None of them use the term "doctoring" as the article promotes, they question the methodologies used and the inherent errors and uncertainties they produce. For instance the BoM does not adhere to internationally accepted standards for temperature recording.

The ABC article references data obtained under the FOI act. It omits that it took 5 years and numerous court cases to force the BoM to release that data. And it has only released a small fraction. The data released does indicate some issues around warming bias in the transition from murcury to digital readings. But more importantly the resistance to make this information public is what drives the conspiracy theroists and the plainly one sided reports from a national broadcaster.

Exactly what is "climate change denial"? It is a very subjective term. Does it mean anyone who calls out potentially sub standard practices? Also what is "far right"? One could say that anything viewed from the far left is far right.....

This is a link to Morahassey's site that questions the BoM data. She is a qualified scientist and specialises in data analysis. You can make of it what you will, but many of the arguments she presents are compelling. I find her blog gets too emotional at times, but her analysis is often hard to refute. There are plenty of other experts who have called out the BoM and its practices or results. I guess to many they are simply far right science deniers. jennifermarohasy.com/2023/05/averaging-last-seconds-versus-bureau-peer-review/?fbclid=IwAR1uUrsi1zXWnS1_Pw9-advASTLIQR6h_5NcARyLli3vY2ucKr2-y4oNmaE

It's actually easy to refute much of her analysis. For example;

1- she says "the last editor who published me had his journal shutdown: GeoResJ was discontinued in 2018", implying that the reason that GeoResJ was shut down because it published Marahosy's paper. In fact, GeoResJ had a fairly low Impact Factor and a quick Google shows that it was allegedly not getting enough submissions - and that its own publisher found that the editor had acted unethically.

There is no evidence at all that I can find that the journal was shut down because it published papers against the consensus - it was shut down because of a bad editor and poor performance.

2- She also repeatedly claims that the BoM is trying to hide the fact that Australia's record temperature was allegedly hit in Bourke in 1909. However, it takes very little checking to see why there is a very good reason that the BoM has ignored that temperature. Put it this way, pubs are not the place to get scientific data!

Marohasy has made a huge deal out of the Bourke data, but she either ignored the local newspapers of the time or didn't bother to check them.

3- There seems to be a huge amount of cherry picking going on. For example, she works with Ken Stewart, not a scientist, who has done a paper looking at temperature data for 104 sites. However, he ignored the data for 19 of the sites, without giving any reason for it! Of course you can find trends if you just throw away 20% of the data!


Interestingly even Marohasy admits several times that the climate is warming.

Paradox said..

remery said..
Ask yourself why the Uvalde police waited an hour before entering the school, all while children bled out and 21 people died. Were the cops afraid of the dysfunctional 18 year old who stuttered?

I believe the investigation clearly identified a weak police chief who failed to adopt standard protocols.

The Nashville shooting was a bit different and the cops charged into that scene quickly and stopped the shooter.

You don't think the cops were afraid because the 18 year old had, the day after his 18th birthday, legally purchased a Smith & Wesson semi-automatic rifle from a local gun store then another rifle with a "hellfire" trigger increasing the possible rate of fire. Along with 1,657 rounds of ammunition?

remery said..

You don't think the cops were afraid because the 18 year old had, the day after his 18th birthday, legally purchased a Smith & Wesson semi-automatic rifle from a local gun store then another rifle with a "hellfire" trigger increasing the possible rate of fire. Along with 1,657 rounds of ammunition?

No more afraid than every day they pull over random cars with potentially a drug runner or similar inside with similar guns. Probably less as they at least knew what they were up against.

No different to the Sydney Lindt Cafe shooting. I don't think the cops were afraid, they just had poor decisions being made by thier leaders. He should have been taken out straight away.

Paradox said..

Chris 249 said..

It's actually easy to refute much of her analysis. For example;

1- she says "the last editor who published me had his journal shutdown: GeoResJ was discontinued in 2018", implying that the reason that GeoResJ was shut down because it published Marahosy's paper. In fact, GeoResJ had a fairly low Impact Factor and a quick Google shows that it was allegedly not getting enough submissions - and that its own publisher found that the editor had acted unethically.

There is no evidence at all that I can find that the journal was shut down because it published papers against the consensus - it was shut down because of a bad editor and poor performance.

2- She also repeatedly claims that the BoM is trying to hide the fact that Australia's record temperature was allegedly hit in Bourke in 1909. However, it takes very little checking to see why there is a very good reason that the BoM has ignored that temperature. Put it this way, pubs are not the place to get scientific data!

Marohasy has made a huge deal out of the Bourke data, but she either ignored the local newspapers of the time or didn't bother to check them.

3- There seems to be a huge amount of cherry picking going on. For example, she works with Ken Stewart, not a scientist, who has done a paper looking at temperature data for 104 sites. However, he ignored the data for 19 of the sites, without giving any reason for it! Of course you can find trends if you just throw away 20% of the data!


Interestingly even Marohasy admits several times that the climate is warming.

You seem to be critiquing some pretty banal aspects of the claim. Who cares why a journal shut down.....

Exactly what are you claiming regarding the Bourke temperature reading? If you think it was from a pub wall you are being misled. It was recorded at an official site, in an official Stevenson Screen and was entered into the sites official log where it remained for many years. Recently the BoM removed it from the record claiming no other sites around it had similar readings and so it must have been in error. Until someone looked in the archives and found the next nearest site had a reading almost as high....
You claim data has been ignored and suggest manipulation. There may be good reasons for why he did that. Maybe the data wasn't suitable for a host of reasons. Worth looking into but to properly rebut it you need to assess that data, why it was not used and see if it makes any difference to the outcome if it can be included. Blindly claiming cherry picking because of random reasons is not scientific or valid.

No one is disputing the surface temps have increased over the last 40 years. What is being debated is the extent of that warming and if it is any different to what has been seen in recent times. The Boms data shows significant departure from the satellite data. people are trying to work out why and Marahosy is focusing on the problems with temperature probes being calibrated properly with thermometers and as far as I can see, she has good points.

I will listen to any argument contradicting the conclusions they have come up with but yours are pretty weak bordering on rubbish.

You're not actually listening very hard, and your last line proves it.

1- Marahosy is the one who is making a deal about why the journal was shut down, not. The point you are ignoring is that she is drawing an implication that is utterly unjustified on the available data - in other words she's talking BS.


2- The point about the Bourke data is that Marahosy has made a big deal about it, without apparently even bothering to look at the contemporary newspaper for background. So did you. The underlying issue is that she has made a big issue without doing what could be called due diligence, aka proper investigation using easily obtained sources.

The funny thing is that Marahosy herself is a fan of using local papers as evidence of high temperatures - jennifermarohasy.com/2014/09/newspapers-as-the-guardians-of-hot-history/

I notice that you didn't use the clue I posted to do some research. That goes against the claim that many make, which is that those who believe in the consensus don't do their own research. In this case I did so some research, and it turns out that all the max. temps in Bourke at the time according to the daily reports in the local paper were from the "Federal refrigerator" - NOT from the post office's official thermometer, as you and Marahosy claim, but from a pub's fridge.

Marahosy can't write pieces saying how great local papers are as a source, and then ignore the fact that the local paper at the time and date she specifically makes a big fuss about specifically says that the relevant temps were taken from a fridge, NOT from the post office's thermometer with its Stephenson screen etc.

So Marahosy is relying not on a proper "official" source, but an outback pub's mechanisms - and then making a huge fuss about it. Having done some work in pubs in the outback, there's no way I'd trust all of their technology.

Oh, and notice that (a) there's incomplete records for the day in question and (b) it represents a deviation from normal statistical collection, both of which cast even more doubt on its quality and validity.


3- Sorry, but are you kidding about the fact that I'm "blindly claiming cherry picking" with reference to Stewart's paper? It's utterly unscientific (and not just that, but totally against logic in every area I'm aware of) to just ignore some data in the dataset that the author has selected, without giving damn good reasons in the study.

It's like rolling a six-sided dice 60 times, removing 20% of the results, and then saying that the fact that your results don't include any sixes is "proof" that the dice had no sixes.

No first-year student science student would remove 20% of the dataset they have selected from analysis without giving a reason and then expect to get a pass mark.

If the tax department or a kitesurfing contest scorer ignored 20% of your scores or tax records without giving any reason and then hit you with a bigger tax bill or a worse result based on their new calculations, would you just accept it? No reasonable person would, because no reasonable person accepts that a study can remove 20% of the relevant dataset without giving any reason for doing so, and then claim to come to any reasonable conclusion.

Paradox said..

No different to the Sydney Lindt Cafe shooting. I don't think the cops were afraid, they just had poor decisions being made by thier leaders. He should have been taken out straight away.

So you're an expert on police tactics as well as climate science?

So you reckon a motorcycle cop, armed with a pistol, should have somehow shot through a window and taken out a guy with a bomb vest, who claimed he was trying to stop other terrorists from blowing up other bombs around the city?

You know sooooooooooooooooooo much more about these incidents than the world's police forces and anti-terrorism guys that you know that their approach is wrong, and yours is right?

How many times have you analysed terrorist incidents? How many times have you worked out the proper procedure for sieges? Or do you just know this stuff better than the cops and terrorism experts because you know everything?

So you know more about climate science than the climate scientists, more about shooting suspects than the cops, and more about terrorism than those who work in the area? Wow...................

Rango said..

It seems the experts at the BOM are ditching their method of spot reading temperature and moving to the international standard of averaging from digital probes .

Marohasy and others have long been critical of the fact the BoM have not adhered to thier own standards let alone international practice in thier temperature probe readings. It is just one aspect that is problematic, but it is a start.

It is good to see the pressure is finally paying off.