The end of Global Warming?

Lubos Motl reports:

The Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) is a temperature pattern in the Pacific Ocean that spends roughly 20-30 years in the cool phase or the warm phase.

In 1905, PDO switched to a warm phase.
In 1946, PDO switched to a cool phase.
In 1977, PDO switched to a warm phase.
In 1998, PDO showed a few cool years.

In 2008, PDO seems to be switching to a cool phase. (NASA).

Note that the cool phases seem to coincide with the periods of cooling (1946-1977) and the warm phases seem to coincide with periods of warming (1905-1946, 1977-1998). It’s probably no coincidence. Warm (cool) PDO regimes tend to encourage El Ninos (La Ninas) that help to warm up (cool down) the Earth, respectively.

The Chinese proverb says: “may you live in interesting times”. Indeed, we are living in interesting times. Solar activity is reportedly in decline and the PDO could be shifting into cool phase. The theory of Global Warming is about to be tested by the authority even higher (can that be possible!?) than the UN IPCC – the planet Earth herself.

I can predict without any computer models that politically motivated Global Warming science may become extinct long before polar bears. Indeed the consensus may be settled very soon…

More from Anthony Watts.

Children that don’t exist

Attorney-General Robert McClelland was on ABC Radio this morning plugging the upcoming Labor’s legislation to remove same-sex discrimination from a wide range of federal laws. Amongst many things McClelland mentioned that “children of gay couples” will no longer be discriminated.

Robert clearly doesn’t understand biology. Children of gay couples don’t exist. It is biologically impossible.

Obviously, we understand what McClelland meant, but he could’ve worded it differently. Even in the 21st century politically correct latte-sipping world, it still takes a male and a female to have a child. As Margaret Thatcher once said, “the facts of life are conservative”.

Four Corners. Tell ‘em they are dreaming…

I watched the ABC’s Four Corners – America Dreaming last night. Here is the show’s synopsis as per ABC website:

Can Barack Obama unite America – and deliver on Martin Luther King’s dream? Chris Masters reports.

My personal highlights were:

Black resident of Harlem housing prospects saying that people never talk about racism because racism is in their hearts. A minute before that she was saying that while Obama is seen by many as “not black enough”, he was black enough for her. Later in the show she complained about gentrification of Harlem as a white conspiracy to drive blacks out “like cattle”. Obviously white folks paying black folks loads of money for their houses is racist. Certainly seems like racism is in some people’s hearts…

Black female complaining that racism is still alive and well, minutes before she was awarded at the “Black Achievers Awards”. The irony of the situation was evidently not understood.

Black Harvard academic dismissing Jeremiah Wright’s rants as the sort of silly over the top black rhetoric that is absolutely harmless. It doesn’t take a Harvard Phd to figure, that if any white was to apply Wright’s “harmless rhetoric” to blacks they would be shouted down as racist if not jailed. The above academic also calmed that Obama’s 20 years association with Wright is irrelevant. Would it be irrelevant to him if say McCain had a 20 years association with a KKK member?

Young black girl told about her Southern friend that had a wallet with Confederation flag on it. Even though the person only had the wallet as a fashion item, she was dismayed and implied he approved or pro-slavery South by caring it. By the same token, when Obama’s aide hangs Che Guevara poster on public display in her office, does it imply that his staff support summary executions?

The whole show left me dismayed and angry. It made it quite clear that right now American race problems are not as much the fault of the “racist” whites but the black identity industry that continues to nurture and perpetrate the black victimhood it relies upon for its own survival.

I was also angry at the attitudes of white liberals who in order to redeem their white guilt patronise and segregate blacks with their “special” pity programs. I mentioned the “Black Achievers Award” before. It was given out by the white man. He looked like he was the only white man in there. I understand that being nice to blacks may make people feel god, but if you give out a special award only for blacks you are treating them as inherently different, special maybe, but different. This what racism is about – treating people different because of their race. Don’t you get it? And why don’t blacks object to such openly condescending treatment? Why do they accept the white man’s “special” award for blacks only? For all the talk of black pride, don’t they understand that accepting such “special” awards is an admission that they are not good enough to get awards open to non-blacks?

The only sane voice on the show belonged to the conservative African-American scholar Shelby Steele (strangely no other punter on the show was labelled as a liberal or left-wing scholar), who dared to criticise Obama’s lack of substance, called Jeremiah Wright’s bigotry for what it was, and mentioned that if Obama was to lose the elections it would not be because he is black, but because of his numerous failings. Steele also believes that America is long ready for a black president and Powell would’ve beaten the weak Bill Clinton if he decided to run.

Independently hypocritical

Mark Steyn points out the ultimate hypocrisy of the British leftist tabloid Independent:

On April 15, the Independent, the impeccably progressive British newspaper, editorialized: “The production of biofuel is devastating huge swathes of the world’s environment. So why on earth is the Government forcing us to use more of it?”

You want the short answer? Because the government made the mistake of listening to fellows like you. Here’s the self-same Independent in November 2005:

At last, some refreshing signs of intelligent thinking on climate change are coming out of Whitehall. The Environment minister, Elliot Morley, reveals today in an interview with this newspaper that the Government is drawing up plans to impose a ‘biofuel obligation’ on oil companies… This has the potential to be the biggest green innovation in the British petrol market since the introduction of unleaded petrol…

To quote one of Catherine Tate’s characters: what a fucking liberty!!! How typical of the unelected newspaper scribes with inflated sense of self-worth, to admonish elected politicians for following the ignorant and ill-conceived advice their own newspapers advocated only a couple of years ago.

This is a lesson to all the democratically-elected politicians out there. Harebrained schemes de jour advocated by the latte set often go spectacularly wrong. When they do, there will be a lot of heat and you may even loose your job, because you are accountable to the people. Even worse, the same latte-sipping journalists and activists that convinced you that their harebrained scheme was a no-brainer will turn on you. And to top it off, none of them will lose their jobs because they are not accountable to the people, you are. In fact, that’s why they roll out their pie in the sky schemes with such ease. They have nothing to lose. But you do. Think about it…

Catch 22

Brilliant David Thompson reports this perfect summation of Latte-left’s Middle Easters politics from one disgruntled Guardian reader:

To recap: if we leave dictators in place in a Muslim country and do business with them, we are responsible for repression in those countries and this will encourage terrorism. If we do remove them forcefully, which means war, we are responsible for the subsequent sectarian carnage in the country and this will encourage terrorism. The only other solution is a system of sanctions as with between-wars Iraq, which I don’t remember Milne as being a particular supporter of. In summary, whatever happens we’ll get bombed and it’ll serve us right.

Pirate rights

Yet another stupidity from Britain:

The Royal Navy, once the scourge of brigands on the high seas, has been told by the Foreign Office not to detain pirates because doing so may breach their human rights. Warships patrolling pirate-infested waters, such as those off Somalia, have been warned that there is also a risk that captured pirates could claim asylum in Britain. The Foreign Office has advised that pirates sent back to Somalia could have their human rights breached because, under Islamic law, they face beheading for murder or having a hand chopped off for theft.

Basically the human rights of pirates trump the human rights of their victims not to be robbed and murdered. This is nothing less than cowardly surrender of human rights and morality – the ultimate triumph of criminal’s rights over victim’s rights aided and abetted by the state without a moral compass. The state so far down the road of absurdity of “human rightism” it no longer knows the right from wrong.

Melanie Philips comments:

The country which was once a by-word for policing the world is now surely the weakest link in the defence of freedom. This is where a liberal society disappears up its own backside. Britain was the cradle of Enlightenment reason — but Londonistan is where the age of reason is now in full retreat.

Big government

I was pondering the 2020 summit and the following observation hit me. From meeting many ordinary Australians over the years, I came to believe that most hold very low opinion of their politicians. They don’t really trust the polies and often describe them as the “useless pack of bastards” and such.

Yet at the same time many Australians naturally gravitate towards big government solutions. Middle-class welfare, large government spending, enterprise bargaining agreements and government subsidies to prop up inefficient private enterprises with taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars are all part and parcel of Australian political narrative.

There seems to be a genuine disconnect between people’s belief that on one hand they are governed by untrustworthy bastards, while on the other hand surrendering more and more control and influence over their everyday lives to the very bastards they loathe.

The 2020 summit was especially stark as the orgy of big government solutions in which the government was omnipresent and individuals non-existent. It presented an unflattering portrait of Australian urban elites as a special class of people with big government prescriptions for the great unwashed, a sweet vision of the corporatist nanny state.

I think the time has come for the red-bloodied Aussies to reassert self-reliant spirit of the frontier and wake up to the fact that governments cannot solve all our problems. Why do we think we can outsource control of our lives to the “pack of bastards” we don’t actually trust and expect something good to happen in return?

BBC study reveals fear of ethnic violence

In Britain multiculturalism is working an absolute treat as reported by the BBC:

Almost two-thirds of people in Britain fear race relations are so poor tensions are likely to spill over into violence, a BBC poll has suggested.

Of the 1,000 people asked, 60% said the UK had too many immigrants and half wanted foreigners encouraged to leave.

But the proportion of people describing themselves as “racially prejudiced” was down to 20%, compared with 24% in 2005.

Curiously the BBC study was commissioned to mark the 40th anniversary of Enoch Powell’s “rivers of blood” speech. While Powell’s speech was denounced by most mainstream politicians at the time and since, the survey clearly shows that many, if not majority of people share his views on immigration.

2020 reflections

Tried to watch a bit of the 2020 summit this weekend but gave up pretty early.

I couldn’t get past the meaningless speeches full of motherhood statements. All the carp-talk of taking the nation forward, increasing productivity, improving conditions, boosting whatever… Who on Earth is against any of this? Why do we need to bring together so many “best and brightest” to restate these sort of banalities?

…..

The forum was hopelessly stacked to present the last century wishlist of Labor-left ideas as the fresh ideas for the 21st century. This was evident in the republican vote that was passed by a 100% vote with one abstention. This is clearly not reflective of community views.

…..

I was shocked by the sheer greed of our artist whose central argument boiled down to the demand that government should pay the artists regardless of whether what they produce is any good or has the audience in the community. They really think that the government owes them a carefree living while the the taxpayers (talent-less nobodies that pay their wages) have to do something productive. Parasitic is the word that springs to mind…

…..

Didn’t catch any big ideas that I didn’t hear before. I guess that’s what happens when you bring together the people most of whom have already had numerous opportunities to put their ideas forward to the public.

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Rudd’s hanging with celebrities and hip sitting on the floor antics are again borrowed from Tony Blair’s “Cool Brittania”. Anyone wants to puke?

Brendan Nelson is a fool for turning up to this sham. He should’ve stated a simple case against going. We already have a system called democracy where people elect their representatives. If they have a good idea, they can take it to their local MP. Furthermore all ideas, good or bad, need to be scrutinised in vigorous debate, not agreed upon by the like-minded committee. Parliament is a much better place for this than a stacked talk-fest.

…..

2020 summit presents some dangers and opportunities.

Danger: 2020 has potential to stifle the national debate and cement one set of ideas as legitimate expression of what all Australians want. Rudd was already spruking about groundswell of support for republic. What else was he expecting when he stacked the panel with republicans? (By the way I am in favour of the republic. I just have a soft spot for democratic process and don’t claim to know better than the great unwashed).

Opportunity: Rudd is playing a dangerous game. To stay in government Labor needs to be popular with the grass root voters. Not the urban elites, not the 1000 “best and brightest” and not the adoring media.

Rudd’s summit was clearly designed to give him the answers he wants to hear. This is not the same as what the voters want to hear. Great opening for the Liberals to take advantage of, while Rudd is greasing the 2020 rope to hang himself. The more Rudd is convinced that his elite vision represents the consensus of what all Australians want, the sooner he will be out the Lodge.

Drinking games Russian-style

This is what Russian men get up to at work:

A drunk Russian man rode home on a bus, slept like a log and ate breakfast before his wife alerted him to a 15cm knife in his back.

Yury Lyalin, 53, had been drinking the night before the grisly discovery, when his colleague — who had also been drinking — stabbed him during an argument at work.

…

In a further bizarre element of the event, Mr Lyalin said he felt no resentment towards his knife-wielding colleague.

“We were drinking and what doesn’t happen when you’re drunk?” he said.