Category Archives: Things to Consider

Torturing the Satellite Temperature Data

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Posted by JJ on February 9, 2010 – 10:27 pm
Filed under Global Warming, Things to Consider
Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

The satellite temperature record shows that January 2010 was the warmest January since satellite temperature measurements began in 1979.

Yep. The data don’t lie.

They didn’t lie about the cooling from 1998 to last year, when the published global temperatures by the AGW lobby said the earth was still warming.

And they didn’t lie about the extra warm January in 2007.  And they don’t lie about January 2010.  It’s warm – very warm.

The Grumpy Old Man is in the mood for sooth-saying.

First prediction:  Many of the AGW lobby will now temporarily forget their distrust of satellite-measured temperatures and insist that this result supports their belief that the earth is warming as a result of man-made CO2.  They will forget that distrust, that is, until the satellite-measured temperatures fall, just as they did from 1998 to last year.  If the data don’t support their beliefs, then the data will be obviously wrong, and will be supplanted by carefully homogenised temperatures from an AGW-friendly source.

Second prediction:  Some of the responses to the Accuweather Global Warming blog post that reported the January record temperature will provide supporting evidence of the truth of the first prediction.

First Speculation:  The warmer Arctic temperatures caused by the negative Arctic Oscillation will result in thinner than usual sea-ice.  Spring and Summer will therefore bring a collapse of Arctic sea-ice, similar to the one that occurred in 2007.  Which will be cited as further evidence of AGW.

Second Speculation:  Global temperatures will drop dramatically in 2010, just as they did in 2007 after the record January temperatures of that year.  And the AGW lobby will suddenly mistrust the satellite record once more.  NASA will publish their own terrestrial records, homogenised and averaged beyond all recognition, which will diametrically contradict the satellite record.

We’ll be able to assess the two predictions after reading all the responses to the Accuweather post.  The speculations will take the rest of 2010 to assess.

Political Correctness in Sodding Sudbury Bingo

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Posted by JJ on December 31, 2009 – 6:19 pm
Filed under Random Grumps & Raves, The Demise of Democracy and Freedom, Things to Consider
Tagged as ,

The cancer of Political Correctness is now affecting the popular English game of Bingo – believe it or not!  In the town of Suffolk town of Sudbury, England, the local officials have banned bingo-callers from using the traditional number identifiers “Legs Eleven” (for the number eleven) and “Two fat Ladies” (for the number eighty-eight), on the grounds that they are politically incorrect and may spark lawsuits against the council from outraged portly persons, or from women who might deem them sexist!

Oh, good grumping grief!  Are the Poms going mad?  Bingo calling is one of the most enjoyable aspects of the game for the players – the rhythm, pitch and cadence of the caller’s voice, the traditional embellishments that globally identify the numbers.  These are as old as the game itself, as instantly recognisable as a market fishmonger’s patter, square-dance calls or a running joke in a sitcom.

The bingo call “Two fat Ladies” is so much a part of the English bingo tradition that it was adopted by two gifted female chefs as the very name of their highly successful television cooking show.  Get this – the two lady chefs were indeed fat, cheerful, entertaining and talented.  And obviously unabashed by being two fat ladies and happy to adopt the term as their own.

If a caller used the platform of the bingo hall to make gratuitous racist or derogatory jokes, then I would expect lawsuits to be a likely consequence.  Not to mention a black eye.  But bingo calls are not gratuitous insults like racist jokes.  They are the traditional fabric of bingo, part of it’s colour and ambiance, giving pleasure to the players.  What court of law would uphold such a lawsuit?  Or are English jurists as bonkers as some English local officials?

P.S. Bingo is a Pommie tradition that has even found its way to some of England’s former colonies.  The harmless group gambling game attracts faithful followers, who revel in the company, the cheerfulness, the excitement, the chance to make some extra cash for the price of an outlay so small that it has no more significance than the cost of a movie ticket.  And given the low quality of the average cinematic pot-boiler, bingo can be more entertaining.

Players each draw bingo cards, that have rows of numbers.  No two are alike.  The players pay a small fee for each game.  The pot of their fees is the jackpot for the game, and the winner takes all.

The game is led by the bingo caller, who has a sheet for each game, for which he calls the numbers in turn.  Players mark off each called number on their own card (if it is on the card).  The first player to have marked off all the numbers calls out “Bingo!” and subject to a quick check by the caller, the game is won.

P.P.S. “Pom” is an antipodean colloquialism for an Englishman.  When used without any other qualifier, it is a fond term, not a derogatory one.

The Trouble with Free Speech

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Posted by JJ on December 3, 2009 – 2:24 pm
Filed under Random Grumps & Raves, Rights and Responsibility, Things to Consider
Tagged as , , ,

I love free speech.  I am very happy that I live in a society that allows all to hold and communicate their opinions.  For me, free speech is a cornerstone of democracy and vital to its survival.  It is also vital to the growth of human knowledge – remember the difficulties that confronted Galileo?  Censorship, thought control and political correctness are the tools of the forces of darkness.

The world-wide-web with its email facilities, blogs and social-networking systems provides a platform for the whole world to communicate.  So I should rejoice, right?  Well, not entirely, mate!  A platform for learning and enlightenment is also a platform for banality.  A medium for information can also be used for misinformation.  A forum for understanding is also an opportunity to promote bigotry and hatred.  On the Internet, geniuses and halfwits, poets and proselytisers, statesmen and racists, thinkers and wanna-be celebrities, scientists and chicken-lickens, writers and chain-letter zombies, all have the same right to disseminate and promote their views and themselves.  And so, they twitter away.

Blogging provides a wealth of information, entertainment and amusement.  From travel anecdotes to family records to seriously well-informed scientific discussions – whatever, it’s all there.  Some of the forums raise very intriguing questions, inviting replies from interested readers.  The self-promoters butt in in the forum response sections, with mindless gushes like “I just wanted to say Hi”, or “Amazing – keep up the good work”.  Good grief – all to see their “contribution” in a public forum.  It’s a waste of space and time, and the noise makes it more difficult to find the answers from the real contributors to the forums.

You know the chain-email types.  Pass this on to at least 20 people and spread warm fuzzies, raising the total happiness in the world.  Or save a starving child/dolphin/nuclear family/world peace/the Earth.  Break the chain and they are doomed and you will suffer bad karma and die alone.  If you really believe this stuff, don’t saddle me with it.  Keep your fantasies to yourself.

And then there are endless emailed jokes.  It seems that nearly everybody forwards every goddamn joke and cutesy URL link they ever receive, to everybody else.  Is there anything to be said in their defence?  Well, maybe – some are actually funny.  About one in a hundred, that is.  And of the one percent that are funny, one in ten is funny enough to forward on.

That leaves ninety-nine percent that are not funny and a waste of storage space, bandwidth and my time.  That would be bad enough to deserve a good old-fashioned grump, but it’s not the worst of it.  No, the worst of it is that a disturbing percentage are created to promote the bigoted stereotypes of the writers and senders.  Their intention is to promote and maintain hatred or derision of whatever group or groups the writers themselves may despise.  That could be Muslims, Jews, Blacks, Asians, Whiteys, Catholics, Capitalists, Communists, Republicans, Democrats, whomever is blamed by the writer for the ills of the world.

Here are three examples of Internet “jokes”.  I wonder if they will make you laugh:

Scientists are trying to combat crime by combining the DNA of a Maori and a Samoan. The are hoping to come up with a blackie that is too lazy to steal.

The presidential inauguration compared to  Hurricane Katrina:  “How can 2,000,000 blacks get into Washington, D.C., in one day in subzero temps when 200,000 couldn’t get out of New Orleans in 85 degree temps with four days notice?”

“Breaking News!  Playboy just offered Sarah Palin $1 million to pose nude in the January issue.   Michelle Obama got the same offer from National Geographic.”

These examples are not funny, and I am very grumpy about them.  If you are in the habit of passing on stuff like them, please stop it.  There’s enough misery in the world.

P.S.   If you get a one-in-a-hundred joke email that is really funny enough to pass on, send it.  Even grumpy old men need a good laugh.