Thank you for all your excellent comments!

January 20, 2010 — xanthippa

First, I would like to thank all of you who come here, read and comment.

Some of the comment-threads that develop are very interesting and I usually not just enjoy them, but I also learn from them.  A lot.  Thank you.

The comments on my recent post ‘Are Canadian cops following illegal orders?’ are a good example of the comments I mean.  CodeSlinger even went out and researched the laws, and, using specific references answered that in one of the instances I raised, the cops were indeed upholding the laws, and acting correctly.

Then, Lieutenant Calculus and CodeSlinger got into an excellent discussion on the nature and origin of human rights.  Now, I know I have posted this video before, but, I think it is relevant to this thread and I like it, and this is an excellent excuse to re-post it.

From STOPandLOOK,  here is ‘The Nature and Origin of Human Rights’:

(The video is part 1 of a series.  Here are part 2 – ‘Group Supremacy‘, part 3 – ‘Coercion vs Freedom’, part 4 – Equality and Inequality under law and part 5 – ‘Proper Role of Government’ …  That last part is having trouble with the audio, therefore I recommend two longer videos which contain all that ‘part 5’ does, but in greater detail: ‘The Truth About Big Government part 1’ and ‘The Truth About Big Government part 2’. )

While I have mentioned only CodeSlinger and Lieutenant Calculus by name here – and I do thank them for their comments, this is because I was responding to their specific comment thread and it does not mean I do not appreciate all the other most excellent comments from each and every one of you.  I do!  And, I thank you all!

Posted in debate, freedoms, society. Tags: , , . 1 Comment »

What an interesting post by Dr. Roger Pielke Jr.!

January 20, 2010 — xanthippa

There is very little my commentary could add to this most interesting post!

Systematic Misrepresentation of the Science of Disasters and Climate Change

It was written in June 2009 – long before the infamous CRU emails were published by a whistle-blower. The tone, the exact wording, the  systematic presentation of evidence of the flaws in the IPCC review process and why it is broken.

I had come across it while following a link from his current post about the IPCC knowingly misrepresenting the whole Himalayan glacier melting…

He describes a pattern that is more disturbing than many observers realize:  instead of re-butting, debunking or answering much of the most serious, scientifically supported criticisms directed at the IPCC reports (all of them), the IPCC simply ignores them. Refuses to acknowledge that the criticism was even made….and, since there is no ‘noise’, nobody reports on it….and nobody ever learns of the criticism.  That’s what we get for drawing our journalists from the among ‘social sciences’ majors!

But, back to the Himalayan glacier story: the IPCC’s ‘consensus of the world’s scientists’ that the ‘Himalayan glaciers would melt by the year 2035’ – and which was blindly accepted and repeated by the media – was based on a journalist’s mis-quotation of a scientist, published in a news paper…not a study, not a scientific paper, not peer-reviewed, not published in a scientific journal….  Just a single mis-quotation of a single scientist, by a single reporter, in a non-scientific publication….

What is worse, Dr. Pielke Jr. points out, the error was reported within the frame of the IPCC review, prior to publication, by scientists who were IPCC reviewers,  but it was not corrected.  It was just ignored.  And, despite this, the IPCC’s lead scientist, Dr. Ragendra Pachauri (reportedly soon to beat out Al Gore to become the world’s first ‘carbon-cap-trading billionaire’), vigorously defended the ‘Himalayan glacier melt’ claim as ‘scientific consensus’ even recently….

Dr. Pielke Jr. correctly points out:  either Dr. Pachauri knew about this mistake, or he did not.  Given the evidence Dr. Pirlke Jr. presents, it is hard to say which is worse…

Update:  fixed a broken link – thanks.

UPDATE:  MORE ON THIS FROM ‘THE REFERENCE FRAME’, AND DR. ROGER PIELKE JR.’S BLOG HERE, HERE… the IPCC statement….and from Watts Up With That.…the skeptical blogosphere is abuzz…

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