35 Replies to “Reader Tips”

  1. The scurvy dogs who impede the revolution must be eliminated!

    The Green Party of England and Wales has called for a purge of government advisors and ministers who do not share its views on climate change.

    Any senior advisor refusing to accept “the scientific consensus on climate change” should be sacked, it said.

    Party leader Natalie Bennett said the rule must apply to all senior advisors, including those with no responsibility for environmental issues.

  2. From James Delingpole’s The martyrdom of Mark Steyn at The Spectator:

    But the hockey stick, on which Mann’s reputation largely rests, was and is a nonsense. It obliterates the medieval warm period; it is unduly reliant on proxy data — bristlecone pine samples — which are known to be unreliable; it is dependent on a flawed algorithm which, according to every statistical authority who has ever looked at the subject, creates the same hockey-stick data almost regardless of the information you feed into it.

    Surely if you’re going to sue someone for defamation, this must involve an examination of the reputation said to be worth defending. What would this say about Mann, onlie begetter of arguably the most comprehensively discredited artefact in recent climate science history?

    The whole thing here.

  3. Budget forces Canadian military to stow equipment shopping list until 2016-17
    By Murray Brewster, The Canadian Press | Tue, 11 Feb, 2014
    OTTAWA – The badly needed new equipment on the Canadian military’s shopping list may end up becoming a wish list over the next three years after Tuesday’s federal budget pushed $3.1 billion in planned capital spending into the future.
    …
    In practical terms, it’s a reflection of the government’s failure so far to deliver long-promised new ships, search planes, helicopters and trucks.
    That is simply ridiculous incompetence.
    The US has a whole fleet of new planes that could easily fill needed roles in Canada for patrol, search and rescue, and fire fighting. They are surplus to the US needs and are stored in the desert.
    [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alenia_C-27J_Spartan]
    [aero-news.net/index.cfm?do=main.textpost&id=e1aebd19-7147-4a0d-bac9-e4458f0f42da]
    C&P to make a URL
    If we had smart people in our government they would be going after those planes in exchange for Canadian oil.

  4. Just a bit of thinking today, which of is a dangerous activity at any time, considering the goings on of today’s era.
    There is an article in the Calgary Herald about “speed dating” http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/calgary/Women+rush+Valentine+speed+dating+event/9505980/story.html
    One would think that “speed dating” would lead to quickie and end of story.
    Just curious, is there, anywhere, where people go to get to know each other such as dancing.
    Now dancing may be today a term from another time and possibly incomprehensible to some.
    Dancing is, to make sure that the later generations understand, music and close contact of men and women moving to the sweet sound of music. It is a spiritual/physical, physical/spiritual exercise in very essential human communication. It is a play of senses.
    Used to be that there were many places to dance in the big city like Calgary. It seems not so much anymore.
    Used to be that at a dance, a guy had to get enough courage to get up and ask a woman for a dance.
    They may have discussed the events of the day while dancing, they may have discussed many subjects while dancing.
    They could discover in their conversation something about one and the other.
    If it did not seem right they would move on. If it did there would be a date.
    In today’s world of meeting someone, it seems that they do it through communication devices even if in close proximity, like standing one next to another.
    One curious thing comes to mind, how are they going to make babies through cell phone?

  12. That doesn’t change the fact that it would be a good aircraft for Canada, even more if the US comes to it’s senses and puts theirs to good use.

  15. Re Video–Jump in my Car.
    2.5 minutes to get a gal in your car may not be world record–but it is a good average! Thanxs!

  16. And having presented his view of Climate Science at the Spectator he says good-bye at the Telegraph in these terms —
    // And thank you most of all to those of you who have supported me through thick and thin. Thanks for your technical expertise and advice (it prevented anyone ever noticing that I’m an English graduate and know NOTHING about science apart from, maybe, how to grow copper sulphate crystals); //
    He’s wrong again — we had noticed.

  18. i AM Joe Molnar, Woodstock, Ontario and I have , through the Times newspaper in Osoyoos BritisH Columbia offered to Fundraise for aN MRI / Catscan and a WORLD CLASS and FOR Profit HIP &KNEE REPLACEMENT HOSPITAL ON CHIEF CLARENCE LOUIE’S FIRST NATIONS BAND IN OSOYOOS, IF HE AGREES TO PARTICIPATE.
    That Louie’s band should be the “role Model” for all First Nations Bands in Canda
    I AM waiting for his reply
    Jo
    Post Script:
    NDP LEADER Thomas Mulcair is COMMUNIST…………..!!

  20. You are confusing the purpose of the military budget. It is not to equip the armed forces, it is To shovel money out to favoured people for political purposes. Look at the F5 fighter project (built without any requirement from the air force, but kept Canadair in business), the Airbus project (bought second hand off Air Canada because Air Canada needed the money), the newest “Huey” project (see F5 project) The LSVW project (piece of junk truck built in the defence ministers riding), etc,etc,etc.
    I worked in military procurement on one project in Ottawa. We had an Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency agent in our DND office. His sole job was to ensure that project money was spent in Atlantic Canada.
    If DND ever gets what it wants/needs it’s purely accidental.

  21. “The Olympic whitewash of Soviet evil”
    “Now consider the stunted and ritualistic conversation (“controversy” is too vibrant a word for the mundane Internet chatter) about the Soviet Union sparked by the Winter Olympics. The humdrum shrugging at the overwhelming evil of Soviet Communism leaves me nostalgic for the Eichmann controversy. At least Arendt and her critics agreed that evil itself was in the dock; they merely haggled over the best words to put in the indictment.
    What to say of the gormless press-agent twaddle conjured up to describe the Soviet Union? In its opening video for the Olympic Games, NBC’s producers drained the thesaurus of flattering terms devoid of moral content: “The empire that ascended to affirm a colossal footprint; the revolution that birthed one of modern history’s pivotal experiments. But if politics has long shaped our sense of who they are, it’s passion that endures.”
    To parse this infomercial treacle is to miss the point, for the whole idea is to luge by the truth on the frictionless skids of euphemism.”
    http://nypost.com/2014/02/14/the-olympic-whitewash-of-soviet-evil/

  22. Ich Bin Ein VW Union: Das Nein.
    …-
    “VW workers in Tennessee vote against having union representation”
    “Ballot is a crushing blow to hopes of United Auto Workers to expand into the South and reverse years of falling membership”
    “In a stunning defeat that could accelerate the decades-long decline of the United Auto Workers, employees voted against union representation at Volkswagen’s plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, which had been regarded as organised labour’s best chance of expanding in the US south.”
    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/15/vw-workers-in-tennessee-vote-against-having-union-representation

  26. “Toronto child-porn investigation leads to major political scandal in Germany”
    “A child-pornography investigation that began in Toronto is behind a major political scandal in Germany, forcing the resignation of two prominent federal politicians, including a senior cabinet minister of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition government.”
    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/toronto-child-porn-investigation-leads-to-major-political-scandal-in-germany/article16914457/
    …-
    “Misopaedia and the Insolence of Gay Monarchy”
    “Today’s issue of depreciating childhood dovetails perfectly with my previous installment on infantilizing adults: both are reflecting a loss of the sense of maturity and responsibility in our Western culture. For instance, today every newborn is burdened with a four to six figure number of debt depending on his or her whereabouts ( cf. David Willets; “The Pinch – How the Baby Boomers took their Children’s Future-and why they should give it back”, Atlantic Books London: 2010, p.259, 269). Now the first dramatic example of instrumentalizing childhood was the Bohemian version of the Dreyfus affair.”
    http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/5086

  27. // Whereas you’re an expert in science, right? //
    +
    Compared with Michael Mann, no. Compared with James Delingpole or Mark Steyn, yes. Compared with you, it’s hard to tell. Shall we compare SDA posting history?

  28. Alberta, Saskatchewan, yes… and, BC, NWT, Yukon, Newfoundland, Ontario.
    Yup, all in Canada, last time I checked.

  30. POT Party Policy Report.
    1.Free Pot. 2.Free Pot. 3.Free Olympic POT size ice rinks.
    …-
    G-M:
    “Three things Justin Trudeau would do as prime minister”
    “Relaxed marijuana rules make Sochi Olympics faster, stronger and way, way higher”

  31. I’d be hard-pressed to think of a greater time-sink, dizzy, or a more pointless one, than comparing your “posts” to mine to determine which of us is more of an “expert” in science. A better way of determining this would be to compare our relative test scores and final grades in university chemistry and physics courses, for example, (assuming you’ve taken any), but I don’t see any practical way of doing that in this particular format, and it would be beside the point anyway.
    Look: You made the outright claim, on-the-record (1:43), that you are more of an expert at science than James Delingpole. The onus is therefore on you to demonstrate that you know more than James Delingpole about science and the scientific method.
    To say you haven’t come close to doing that at any point in your commenting history would be a gross understatement. Your tendency to cut and paste tracts from other sources in an odd, almost unintelligible format that, whether due to laziness or unfamiliarity with the protocols for citing sources, or never having learned the proper way to use quote marks or block-quotes, leaves one unable to tell which part of your comment is yours, and which part is from whatever source your are citing, suggests something other than scientific expertise.
    Delingpole, you’ll note, uses his own words the vast majority of the time, and on those occasions when he does (briefly) cite a sentence or a passage from another source it’s always very much on point and relevant to the context of a well-written and coherent argument/column.
    In stark comparison, there’s often very little “dizzy” in your comments on dedicated topical threads (as opposed to Reader Tips). Suffice to say that your evident belief that cut-and-paste, argumentum ab auctoritate “comments” are evidence of your scientific expertise, let alone a coup de grâce against those who hold the contrary position, is a privately held one.
    I could cite particular parts of Einstein’s theory of relativity, but that would hardly make me an “expert” on the subject, would it?

  32. AGW morphodites to “‘globally catastrophic anthropogenic’ climate change,”.
    GCACC replaces CAGW, AGW, CC, etc.
    It’s for the children.
    …-
    “Progressives protest Keystone Pipeline”
    ““I will not see the brunt of the damage in my lifetime but my niece is going to begin to see the impact of what I call ‘globally catastrophic anthropogenic’ climate change,” Presiado said. “It’s not just going to be my niece but there will be others who are going to be born a few years down the line and that is my stake in it, it is something called humanity which transcends time and present life.””
    http://www.trinitonian.com/2014/02/15/progressives-protest-keystone-pipeline/

  33. // A better way of determining this would be to compare our relative test scores and final grades in university chemistry and physics courses //
    No. A better way would be to see how one applies scientific concepts to particular issues. Your assumption is that education is equivalent to courses taken.
    As for Delingpole to make some claim of preference for “his own words” sounds OK in the abstract — right up until you read his words. It’s mostly gibberish & any factual claims are bare pronouncments without anything to back them up. Backing them up is why one includes references.
    // To say you haven’t come close to doing that at any point in your commenting history would be a gross understatement. //
    No It would be a claim without any evidence.
    // never having learned the proper way to use quote marks or block-quotes, leaves one unable to tell which part of your comment is yours, and which part is from whatever source your are citing //
    I’ve had complaints for using slash quotations before, but everyone who complained demonstrated by their complainst that they understood who said what. Do you have trouble understanding this? Only if you can’t recognize your own words.
    Your post is what is sometime called the shotgun approach. Here’s everything I can think of — will that shut you up? Bit of a time sink itself.

  34. I didn’t suggest that we compare our respective grades in university-level chemistry/physics courses, dizzy, I said it would be better way to determine which one of us is more of an “expert” in science (a silly concept that you introduced) than “(comparing) SDA posting history” would be.
    I’m pretty sure than neither one of us is an “expert” in science.
    Btw – just out of curiosity – why don’t you use quote marks when you’re quoting someone? That’s not a rhetorical question. When you’re quoting something I’ve just written it’s obviously not hard to figure out where your words stop and mine start, with or without the slash quotations, but in more than a few of your posts in the last couple of years it’s been hard to know whether certain sentences/passages are a quote, words of your own that you’re trying to emphasize, or just some sort of graphic affectation.
    Anyway, all the best, dizzy. Have a good weekend.

  35. >
    Really. Which of use first used the word — “Whereas you’re an expert in science, right?”
    +
    “I didn’t suggest that we compare [grades]” “I said it would be a better way to determine”
    And I didn’t suggest it either. I said “a better way” would be — pretty well what I had initially suggested.
    =
    As for my quotes, it’s partly because // is more blatantly visible than “. {For the same reason I usually use — instead of a :}
    The other reason is that the bits I quote often have their own quotes.
    I suppose I could have chosen the google way >.
    One further rhetorical reason, which I only realized after using them awhile. It gave people with nothing else something to criticize.
    But as I said, anyone that complained showed by complaining that it was clear that I meant quotes.
    +
    Thanks. Here in god’s country it’s a long weekend. [for most]

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