"In a democracy (‘rule by mob’), those who refuse to learn from history will be the majority and will dictate that everyone else suffer for their ignorance."
. . . there was a prescription for dealing with false prophets. Nowadays? Notsomuch.
18 spectacularly wrong predictions made around the time of the first Earth Day in 1970
*sigh*
Earth Day: the Cult of Anthropogenic Climate Alarmism’s pagan holiday. I expected lots of CACA and it was delivered.
Let’s take just a couple of small problems with the cult’s doctrines, mmmK?
Global temperature measures. How are the NOAA, et al, figures arrived at? From weather stations situated however one of the cultists feels best, apparently. Web search it (not Google, please) to see the ways cultists situate weather stations in heat oases. Truth. Why, I could do the same kind of thing here in America’s Third World County™! For example, both the digital and good ol’ analog thermometers on my front porch regularly yield temps between four and FIFTEEN degrees higher than the local electric company’s weather station a mile away in the bottoms, and on days like today (overcast, moist air, wet ground from recent rains) the windy area at the top of the hill just a quarter of a mile away from the bottoms is even cooler.
Guess where an Anthropogenic Climate Warmening cultist would put a weather station. Good guess.
Then there are the well-documented cases of cultists (falsely claiming all sorts of “scientific” reasons) having falsified data to render decades of lower temps (the data for the early part of the 20th Century for darned near ALL of South America has been corrupted by Anthropogenic Climate Warmening cultists. And they proudly proclaim they’ve done so, giving bullshit reasons–of course).
And, of course, Climategate. Oh, sure, Anthropogenic Climate Warmening cultists have made all kinds of excuses for the truth that Anthropogenic Climate Warmening cultists ADMITTED FALSIFYING DATA to fit their models, but no one with more active brain cells than a dead poodle believes their lies, even those who say they do.
If the Warmenists would just stop lying, I’d start paying more attention to them, but they can’t, because to do so would be to deny their dogmatic assertions of faith in bullshit.
[By “Leftists” I mean, of course, the full spectrum of Dhimmicraps–and their Bureaucrappic minions–and all others to the left of “mainstream” Dhimmicrappic thought, Academia Nut Fruitcakes–almost all of them in the “humanities”–and at least 99.99% of the Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind.]
In every aspect of leftist propaganda–from hardcore Marxist theory to anthropogenic climate scare-ism to social “welfare” policies–leftist theories have been tested in the real world and found to be fatally flawed. Whenever I view the real world wreckage of leftist cant, I’m reminded of a Robert Heinlein comment:
“One can judge from experiment, or one can blindly accept authority. To the scientific mind, experimental proof is all important and theory is merely a convenience in description, to be junked when it no longer fits. . . “
By any honest assessment, whether one were to use Heinlein’s metric for science or Popper’s or any other honest scientist, leftist thought is anti-science.
“Anti-pipeline protesters gather in Calgary to decry climate change”
“Protestors in Calgary said the Harper government is refusing to take meaningful action when it comes to climate change. Originally about 300 people were slated to participate in the Calgary protest, but due to a snow storm only about 50 showed up.”
@#$% you global warming!
*heh*
Semi-random wanderings/wonderings about this Spring of ours.
Northern Hemisphere, Vernal Equinox: astronomers say it’s Spring since yesterday. What do astronomers know? (How we can let astronomers and accountants–quarterly reports, etc.–run our lives, I dunno. Probably an artifact of public schools.) The daffodils* have called it Spring for nearly a month and a half here in America’s Third World County. The ugly, wild purple clover has agreed for easily as long. So far, robins have not cast their vote, but many plants are budding and (apparently) hardier birds than robins have been making their presence known.
So now, snow. Go figure. Of course, at the rate it’s coming down now, we can expect to have around 2 or 3 hundredths of an inch accumulation. *meh* Not enough to sneeze at. We need more slow-melt moisture right now–or at least I would prefer more.
My gardens already planted won’t mind a few days of cold, since they still have a couple of weeks left before I’d expect any sign of growth anyway. A blanket of snow would be just the trick to hold in what warmth the ground has and then provide some slow watering. One can but hope the rate of snowfall picks up a bit.
Well, it is time for Spring cleanup outside and in. A nice cold day like today encourages the “in” part.
Snow and freezing rain, with a low just reaching freezing temps is forecast for tonight. Folks are talking about this being atypical for Spring weather, but folks have poor memories. Just since we’ve lived in America’s Third World County–a wee tad shy of 20 years–I can recall March weather that was similar.
Maybe I’ll hit the outside long enough to at least mulch the two wee garden areas I’ve planted. Yeh, they’re already covered with garden cloth (with cutouts where I’ve planted seed), but mulching on top of that might be a Good Thing, anyway. We’ll see how it goes. Should have light enough later this afternoon, still.
I wonder if Spring’s pretty much the same as always in West Texas. . .
West Texas Spring–Boing!
*Oh, the asterisk on “daffodils”? When I was growing up, I called them “jonquils” because everyone I knew called ’em that. Regionalism, I guess. Or not. Maybe just a variant name like Narcissus–pretty much the same plant/flower. Orson Scott Card has a gentle not-quite-a-rant on Spring where his take (mentioning jonquils instead of daffodils) is similar to mine.
[Don’tcha just love loooooong blogpost titles? YW. :-)]
We’ve already seen how The Zero and his minions like to hand-wave and point at shiny objects to distract the stupid from his record and even from his contemporary acts. And we’ve already seen how well that works out for him with the non-terminally stupid among the electorate in his ever sinking poll numbers.
So, of course, that’s why at some point he and his minions will try to pointy at something they’ve been polishing up to “prove” that The Romney Android 2.X is hell-bent on murdering Gaia. After all, in a recent online (unscientific, but indicative and in general agreement with more serious) poll The Toronto Sun, a paper in a very libtardic-dominated area, offered an interesting take:
Given that
“The Romney Android 2.X wants to murder Gaia!” is a sure winner with the Loony Left Moonbat Moron Brigade and
A sure *yawn* or even *giggle* with anyone who has more active brain cells than a cracked crock of kimchi and thus a guaranteed LOSER tactic,
It’s almost a certainty that we’ll see this bright shiny object (of worship by members of the Cult of Anthropogenic Global Climate Scatre-ism and of derision by anyone else) waved at some point.
Don’t get cocky folks, but do enjoy the farce.
BTW, folks, here’s one of the things The Zero and his minions (which pretty much includes MSNBC, et al) will be waving shiny objects to distract morons’ attention from:
And what I knew was… wrong. For values of “wrong” that include the outdated. You see, when I was in grade school, I really, really did not pay attention most of the time. First grade taught me that school was a bit stupid. “Who are Dick and Jane that I should care one whit about their inane activities?” was the basic reaction my six-year-old mind had to the silly idea that I should be taught to read, for example. I was a naturally ego-centric six-year-old, and so I really could not understand why people were trying to “teach” (for values of “teaching” that included crippling my reading with “look-say” crap) me how to do something I already did, less well. That tended to color my response to school right off the bat.
But there were subjects that caught my young mind, even though the methods of presentation were boring or off-putting. Geography is one example. Maps had fascinated me from my earliest recollections of them. Boundaries, places, geographical features: all gripped my imagination. So, when in third grade the subject of the countries of the Americas–North and South–and the States of the Union were presented in class, I ate that stuff up with a spoon.
But I never noticed until just recently that in 1960 Brazil had changed its capital. That’s 52 years of “seeing” (in my mind’s eye) the capital of Brazil as being in the wrong place, with the wrong name.
But that’s OK. I don’t plan on traveling there anyway. *heh* That’s kind of how I view African nations anymore, too. I DGARA anymore what someone’s calling some crappy lil third world country this week or what the latest warlord has declared to be the capital.
Oh, wait:back on topic? OK. The map is not the territory, even with the best maps colored by the most fecund imaginations. And the best maps are incomplete, outdated. Even the county assessor’s aerial survey map of my own house is inaccurate and outdated (two slightly different things: the property line is an approximation and there’ve been notable changes in exterior structure, etc. since the photos were taken).
All models of reality are just that: models, approximations based on a data set which is necessarily less than the reality they represent. What we know from models is even less than the models themselves, because the models are always based on more information than they represent and our grasp of even the models themselves may well be incomplete as well. And reality is a moving target while models, or maps, of reality are at best snapshots.
And that’s part of the problem–not all by any means, but part–with the Cult of Anthropogenic Climate Scare-ism models and true believers’ dogmatic acceptance of the Cult of Anthropogenic Climate Scare-ism’s high priests’ pronouncements from those models. All the models the cult bases its beliefs on are extremely simplistic representations of a few climate factors from a huge, highly complex system, so the models themselves, as has been demonstrated over and over again, are deeply flawed (none of the Cult of Anthropogenic Climate Scare-ism’s models predicting doom and gloom have yet been able to “post-dict” previous era’s climate, for example. If they cannot “post-dict” what temperatures, for example, were in 1900, then they’re essentially useless in predicting future temps).
Just remember whenever someone says “the science is settled” in any area–not just the area claimed by the Cult of Anthropogenic Climate Scare-ism–maps change, and maps are far less complex and open to change than our understanding of the simplest things in scientific endeavors. Read Aristotle. Genius. Wrong. Read Newton. Genius. Wrong. Read Galileo. Genius. Wrong.
Read Cult of Anthropogenic Climate Scare-ism’s high priests. Dumb. And Dumber. And “wronger” than any of the geniuses who preceded them and whose graves they piss upon with their insistence that their poor models–rain-faded sidewalk chalk sketches of a child’s crayon drawing of a painting of a photo of a shadow of a statue of a man would be a more accurate representation of a man than Warmistas’ models are of climate change–have “settled” the science.
Remember: just because the capital of Brazil was Rio de Janeiro (under two different names) for about 400 years doesn’t mean it still is.
Lunch time. Hey, here’s an idea, kiddies! While munchy-lunchy and all that jazz, let’s check the weather!
Well, all right! Te temp seems reasonable, doesn’t it boys n girls? But… what’s that with that “Hi: 70 °F” thingy there in the upper right-hand corner? Hmmm, seems a bit anomalous, eh?
Let’s look at the forecast, mmm-K?
*huh* Seems the forecasters are having a tiff. Must be some Anthropogenic Global Warmistas projecting fantasy or something, eh? On the “current conditions page” temps at noon-thirty-ish are ~78% of the projected high for the day, as noted on this page (current temps as reported at the local high school weather station, on a hill 1/4 mile away from another weather station–local electric utility company–which always, consistently, regularly reports temps 2-3 degrees cooler). Well, maybe things’ll warm up 15-16 degrees by day’s end.
…Or maybe not, as, according to the same weather site’s 7-day forecast page for this locale, the forecast high for today is… 48 °F.
*huh?!?*
Yep, one page says 70 °F and another–same site and supposedly same forecasters using same data–says 48 °F high… just 68% of the other forecast number from the same people and 12% less than the actual, current reported temp.
Once again, if meteorologists who rely on massive data sets, compared to the time frame, etc., from the best available sources can’t even agree with themselves on a forecast one day in advance, or get within 10% of the actual temp with even one of two forecast temps, how is it that the Cult of Anthropogenic Global Warmistas can confidently predict temperatures to tenths of a degree 5 or ten years down the pike, especially when they have such a minuscule data set compared to the problem they’ve set themselves?
Well, they can’t, especially when they deliberately, obdurately, stupidly ignore, lie about and discard data they find inconvenient to their fantastical claims.
And “scientists” think they can predict the climate…
OK, you may have to CLICK the link, since the video may not play in some browsers using the embded code provided, and I have other things to do rather than tinker with it.