Antarctic Ice Shelf Vista (2009 Feb 15)

[BMAONE23]

I'll go for cleaning up industry, I'll go for many things. Human beings are generally not nice, especially politicians. But this self-loathing fingerpointing at Caucasians and equivilency between free-enterprisers- capitalists-corporate ceos and imperialists-conquistadors-communists is a little much. Its a matter of scale and context. Make corporations be clean but don't imply that they a craven murderers of millions because they aren't. In my experience all of humanity has been at each others throats since time immemorial, including aboriginees in the New World.

Please forgive me, I forgot to mention the murder of millions or tens of millions of Black Africans by starvation and disease enroute to the New World aboard Slave ships .. and the hundreds of thousands murdered here. I forgot to mention George Washington not celebrating Freedom with the Black Napoleon of Haiti who overthrew the tyrany of the French, and the subsequent U.S. destruction of that island nation which had followed in George Washington's footsteps marching for Freedom. How about the indigenous Revolution in the Philipines which cast off Spanish Tyranny, the Philipine Heroes of Freedom being cast into concentration camps when the U.S. armed forces sailed into those liberated islands. Being a Canadian, I found it hard to mention how one of our most lauded Prime Ministers united our vast nation by building a railroad, first having all the buffalo killed so as not to hinder the trains, the near extinction of the Buffalo leading to near extinction of several nations of peoples on the Prairies. Scale and context? Tell me, please, how our New World genocides and infantacides differ from from Old World mass murders .. how Babylon on this side of the Atlantic and Pacific differ from Babylon on the other side? I will tell you .. only in technology used. And we wonder why the earth will burn? No need to wonder at all.

I must agree with you on most of your points. But as for the slavery issue, Slavery dates back thousands of years. Rome inslaved millions for hundreds of years and put them into the games(white enslaving white/black/brown/yellow/etc.). Egypt enslaved millions for hundreds of years (black enslaving white) to build an empire. Africans enslave(d) other tribes and sold them to other countries. But it was only in america that we did enslave another race but also elected to free them. Slavery still exists in many parts of the world today, but not in America. We abolished it here. The same can't be said for SE Asia, Arab nations, and even in Africa today.

[StACase]

... Tell me, please, how our New World genocides and infantacides differ from from Old World mass murders ...

To murder as many people as you claim, we would have had to run death camps just like the Nazis did. We didn't, the numbers you claim aren't true. Where did you get those numbers from, Ward Churchill? Why should I believe anything you write?

[BMAONE23]

... Tell me, please, how our New World genocides and infantacides differ from from Old World mass murders ...

To murder as many people as you claim, we would have had to run death camps just like the Nazis did. We didn't, the numbers you claim aren't true. Where did you get those numbers from, Ward Churchill? Why should I believe anything you write?

America, in a sense, did just that with the American Indian Relocation act and the Indian Removal act. When Eurpoeans arrived, The American Indian population was over 2,000,000. By the early 1900's there was roughly 500,000 left. Although many died of diseases that the Europeans were immune to, more than should have been (should have been zero) were rounded up via the various relocation acts and or killed outright via the Indian Removal Acts.

[bhrobards]

Aristarchusinexile-How ironic, in your short history of human depradation you seem to have forgotten the most prolific murderers of all human history, the communists.

[StACase]

Aristarchusinexile-How ironic, in your short history of human depradation you seem to have forgotten the most prolific murderers of all human history, the communists.

110 MM Last century?
One person every 30 seconds?

[bhrobards]

Gents, I have learned something tonight that has the potential to solve many problems. Of course I thought of you first. If this pans out, and it does look promising, it will change the world. A Dr Randell Mills (Franklin and Marshal Chem Magna Cum Laude, Harvard Med, MIT EE) has rewritten the physics books with an energy production process that is clean and powerful. It violates Quantum Mechanics because Hydrogen is reacted to N=1/2, 1/3, and 1/4 obviously non-integers and below QMs accepted ground state for H of N=1. The power is produced from the heat of the reaction, UV photons are also produced. No nuclear process, no dreaded CO2, high energy density and not a single Saudi or Venezuelan dictator between you and the power. The oil companies might be a problem. But the implosion of the US might not be inevitable now, sorry Ari. I am no physics expert so I can't ultimately say its real or not but, Outside labs have come in and confirmed that output is way higher than can be accounted for with conventional chemistry. Don't believe me, check out Blacklight Power. If this is a fraud it is very well designed. Of course the standard model guys are going berserk. I love this, they don't want to argue the merits or try to duplicate the experiments, they just say 'its impossible' the data doesn't fit our theory. And this is no Fleischman and Pons thing where the excess energy of the suppossed reaction was so low nobody could tell if anything was happening, these reactions produce a clear signal, 150% of imput to output. If its phony we will soon know. I would follow this story closely, and if its good, buy in. I don't know if they are traded yet I'm calling investor relations tommorrow. I'll keep you posted.

[StACase]

Sounds like a scam to me, but then I'm skeptical of damn near everything the popular press tells me.

[bystander]

Supposedly, BlackLight Power, Inc. (BLPI) has two commercial contracts to produce 250 MW (per hour, per year, per century????) with two different rural power coops in NM. (wiki)

[BMAONE23]

Supposedly, BlackLight Power, Inc. (BLPI) has two commercial contracts to produce 250 MW (per hour, per year, per century????) with two different rural power coops in NM. (wiki)

HERE is another discussion forum concerning BlackLight Power from an Alternative Energy Website. Interesting that back in 1999 they were making the same claims but in 10 years little to no further progress.

[bystander]

HERE is another discussion forum concerning BlackLight Power from an Alternative Energy Website. Interesting that back in 1999 they were making the same claims but in 10 years little to no further progress.

Here's some critical blog entries from What's New by Bob Park, Physics, University of Maryland

Blacklight Power
Randell Mills
hydrino
hydrinos

[aristarchusinexile]

"... not a single Saudi or Venezuelan dictator between you and the power."

No, just the entire corporate weight of World Babylon Ltd.

the implosion of the US might not be inevitable now, sorry Ari.

Inevitable? You must not be reading the Headlines, B. .. It's already occured.

[aristarchusinexile]

I must agree with you on most of your points. But as for the slavery issue, Slavery dates back thousands of years. Rome inslaved millions for hundreds of years and put them into the games(white enslaving white/black/brown/yellow/etc.). Egypt enslaved millions for hundreds of years (black enslaving white) to build an empire. Africans enslave(d) other tribes and sold them to other countries. But it was only in america that we did enslave another race but also elected to free them. Slavery still exists in many parts of the world today, but not in America. We abolished it here. The same can't be said for SE Asia, Arab nations, and even in Africa today.

America did not elect to free them .. a Civil War 'freed' them, and allowed them to be taken from the clean air, moderate climate and abundance of food of southern agriculture to the cave in/gas deathtraps of northern coal mines and winter housing without heat and minimal nutrition in forced labour camps owned by Coal companies. I have read a bit of U.S. history. Slavery in Arab and African countries? How many tens of millions of Americans are forced to work for a subsistance minimum wage? Here in Canada we still have cities in which thousands of people live in 40 below F weather in housing which is not much more than tin shack. Here in capitalist Canada in the name of Arctic Sovereignty in the past two decades our governments have forcefully relocated aboriginals from ancestral homelands where they had plenty to eat and comfortable housing to barren Arctic island wastelands where they will starve to death and freeze to death if the planes stop bringing supplies. 'Freedom, equality, quality of a life' for the majority of working people is an ideal which capitalists simply cannot afford if they are to own villas around the world, million dollar summer homes on beaches in the Americas, winter homes in Bermuda and Hawaii, a sportscar or three at each home and villa, and of course minimum wage staff to clean and cook at each home. In the U.S. a man is judged guilty and executed simply because he is black, in Canada he or she is judged guilty and sentenced to life regardless of race but simply because they are poor and unable to afford good legal counsel. The honoured, North American Caucasian sport of hunting and killing defenceless natives http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishi ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beothukis alive and well , except the natives are now either black, native, arab, or simply cash and credit poor http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/10/ ... ml?ref=rss. Tell me about Freedom under capitalism one more time, please, BMA, I like the sound of the word in a world of prisoners. Our facade is badly flawed.

[BMAONE23]

Well by "Elect" I wasn't refering to "by Popular Vote" I was refering to Populace Pressure.

[aristarchusinexile]

Well by "Elect" I wasn't refering to "by Popular Vote" I was refering to Populace Pressure.

I've been adding to my post as you were writing, BMA.

British Empire slavery was abolished for one reason only, that was because the Plantation Slaveowners were becoming the super elite class, and the manufacturers knew if the millions of slaves were 'freed' and paid wages they would become consumers of consumer goods, and the manufacturers would gain on the Plantation owners. That realization dawned more slowly on U.S. northern manufacturers.

I hope you read the urls in my larger post .. you will gain a sense of why my views are what they are.
In one of the many Canadian Dr. Smith cases, a young woman did 14 years in prison, her two surviving children adopted to strangers. I have read that two Canadians die on the job every day, and that a Canadian woman is murdered almost every day. I cannot believe our 'affluent and just' Canadian-U.S. lifestyle is anything other than Hollywood image, regardless of outright miracles of mind and soul like The Association for the Defense of the Wrongfully Convicted, and the fact that the 'powers that be' in the U.S. saw the necessity of positioning an African-American as President as a last ditch hope for averting another civil war brought on by the present economic disaster.

By the way .. I hope to make this my last post on this out of topic topic .. and will say I have not yet met an American in person I didn't like.

[Redbone]

Re: Red Shift Alternative
by neufer on Sat Jan 17, 2009 3:45 pm

Speculation ≠ Science

<<For Feynman, a cargo-cult science is one that has all the trappings of
science-the illusion of objectivity, the appearance of careful study, and
the motions of an experiment-but lacks one important ingredient: skepticism,
or a leaning over backward to see if one might be mistaken. The essence
of science is to doubt your own interpretations and theories
so that you may improve upon them.>> -- Anthony R. Pratkanis
http://www.csicop.org/si/9204/sublimina ... asion.html
--------------------------------------------------------
_Cargo Cult Science_ by Richard Feynman
From a Caltech commencement address given in 1974

<<During the Middle Ages there were all kinds of crazy ideas, such as that
a piece of of rhinoceros horn would increase potency. Then a method
was discovered for separating the ideas--which was to try one to see
if it worked, and if it didn't work, to eliminate it. This method became
organized, of course, into science. And it developed very well, so that we
are now in the scientific age. It is such a scientific age, in fact, that we
have difficulty in understanding how witch doctors could ever have existed,
when nothing that they proposed ever really worked--or very little of it
did.

There are big schools of reading methods and mathematics methods,
and so forth, but if you notice, you'll see the reading scores keep going
down--or hardly going up--in spite of the fact that we continually use these
same people to improve the methods. There's a witch doctor remedy that
doesn't work. It ought to be looked into; how do they know that their method
should work? Another example is how to treat criminals. We obviously have
made no progress--lots of theory, but no progress--in decreasing
the amount of crime by the method that we use to handle criminals.

Yet these things are said to be scientific. We study them. And I think
ordinary people with commonsense ideas are intimidated by this
pseudoscience. A teacher who has some good idea of how to teach her children
to read is forced by the school system to do it some other way--or is even
fooled by the school system into thinking that her method is not necessarily
a good one. Or a parent of bad boys, after disciplining them in one way or
another, feels guilty for the rest of her life because she didn't do
"the right thing," according to the experts.

So we really ought to look into theories that don't work,
and science that isn't science.

I think the educational and psychological studies I mentioned are examples
of what I would like to call cargo cult science. In the South Seas there is
a cargo cult of people. During the war they saw airplanes with lots of good
materials, and they want the same thing to happen now. So they've arranged
to make things like runways, to put fires along the sides of the runways, to
make a wooden hut for a man to sit in, with two wooden pieces on his head
to headphones and bars of bamboo sticking out like antennas--he's the
controller--and they wait for the airplanes to land. They're doing
everything right. The form is perfect. It looks exactly the way it looked
before. But it doesn't work. No airplanes land. So I call these things cargo
cult science, because they follow all the apparent precepts and forms of
scientific investigation, but they're missing something essential,
because the planes don't land.

Now it behooves me, of course, to tell you what they're missing. But it
would be just about as difficult to explain to the South Sea islanders how
they have to arrange things so that they get some wealth in their system. It
is not something simple like telling them how to improve the shapes of the
earphones. But there is one feature I notice that is generally missing in
cargo cult science. That is the idea that we all hope you have learned in
studying science in school--we never say explicitly what this is, but just
hope that you catch on by all the examples of scientific investigation. It
is interesting, therefore, to bring it out now and speak of it explicitly.
It's a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that
corresponds to a kind of utter honesty--a kind of leaning over backwards.
For example, if you're doing an experiment, you should report everything
that you think might make it invalid--not only what you think is right about
it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you
thought of that you've eliminated by some other experiment, and how they
worked--to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated.

Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you
know them. You must do the best you can--if you know anything at all wrong,
or possibly wrong--to explain it. If you make a theory, for example, and
advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that
disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it. There is also a more
subtle problem. When you have put a lot of ideas together to make an
elaborate theory, you want to make sure, when explaining what it fits, that
those things it fits are not just the things that gave you the idea for the
theory; but that the finished theory makes something else come out right,
in addition.

In summary, the idea is to give all of the information to help others
to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information
that leads to judgement in one particular direction or another.

We've learned from experience that the truth will come out. Other
experimenters will repeat your experiment and find out whether you were
wrong or right. Nature's phenomena will agree or they'll disagree with your
theory. And, although you may gain some temporary fame and excitement,
you will not gain a good reputation as a scientist if you haven't tried to
be very careful in this kind of work. And it's this type of integrity, this
kind of care not to fool yourself, that is missing to a large extent
in much of the research in cargo cult science.

A great deal of their difficulty is, of course, the difficulty of the
subject and the inapplicability of the scientific method to the subject.
Nevertheless, it should be remarked that this is not the only difficulty.
That's why the planes don't land--but they don't land.

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself--and you are the
easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about that. After
you've not fooled yourself, it's easy not to fool other scientists. You just
have to be honest in a conventional way after that.

So I have just one wish for you--the good luck to be somewhere
where you are free to maintain the kind of integrity I have described,
and where you do not feel forced by a need to maintain your position
in the organization, or financial support, or so on, to lose your integrity.
May you have that freedom.>> -- Richard Feynman

[bhrobards]

About Blacklight Power- after reading as much as I could about the company their proposals and theory, I'm still fascinated, hopeful and unconvinced. I am unqualified to analyze anything beyond undergraduate basic physics and unfortunately can only spot disagreements with standard model and Mills theory. The thing that bothers me (admittedly not very objective) is that too many problems are solved. He seems to wrap up practically every mystery in science in three volumes. Further there is a "documentary" from Rowan University in which experiments are run in a calorimeter. The apparatus is a steel vessel with the reactants sealed inside. Very simple. Start the reaction, measure the output. Onthe other hand BLP has sign two commercial contracts (no details) to generate 250 MW of continuous thermal power. Where is the experimental continuous process intermediate apparatus? Either this man is a collossus of science or a fraud of incredible magnitude. The proof will be in these plants in New Mexico. Currently potential investors must be "accredited investors" eg net value of $ 1 million, there is no common stock.

[bystander]

Currently potential investors must be "accredited investors" eg net value of $ 1 million, there is no common stock.

Who's the investment firm, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Services?

[bhrobards]

I almost said a fraud of Maddof's proportions!

[bhrobards]

About Blacklight Power- I spoke with Rooseveldt County Electric Cooperative's General Manager today. He said:
1. They signed a licencing agreement with BLP.
2. They will not dicuss the terms of the contract or timelines, no big surprise.
3. They are waiting for BLP to finish development of the continuous process pilot plant.
No matter how skeptical you are I would keep this in the back of your mind.

[aristarchusinexile]

About Blacklight Power- I spoke with Rooseveldt County Electric Cooperative's General Manager today. He said:
1. They signed a licencing agreement with BLP.
2. They will not dicuss the terms of the contract or timelines, no big surprise.
3. They are waiting for BLP to finish development of the continuous process pilot plant.
No matter how skeptical you are I would keep this in the back of your mind.

Info from the web :

Roosevelt Map 121 North Main Street
PO Box 389
Portales, New Mexico 88130
http://www.rcec.coop

Main (575) 356-4491
Fax (575) 359-1651
Company Info

Roosevelt County Electric serves 2,426 consumers living in Chaves, Curry, DeBaca and Roosevelt counties.

The company owns 2,755 miles of distribution line. It has invested $41 million to serve its members

The board meets on the 4th Tuesday of each month; the annual meeting is held on April 19, 2004. The cooperative was incorporated on March 24, 1938 and began providing electric service in 1939.

That works out to over $16,000 per customer .. which sounds reasonable. But the coop website wouldn't operate.

Outstanding technological advances are not unknown. Am I correct in remembering that the U.S. was privy to Helium when Germany was using Hydrogen for derigibles? "I will answer that question," spoke up Aristarchus, "by Wiki. " Due to a US military embargo against Germany that restricted helium supplies, the Hindenburg was forced to use hydrogen as the lift gas.

[bhrobards]

From the Florida State University guest blog on the Climate Audit Website a graph showing than hurricanes and cyclones have not followed the predictions of the AGW folks over the last three years.



The article:

http://www.coaps.fsu.edu/~maue/tropical/

[Chris Peterson]

From the Florida State University guest blog on the Climate Audit Website a graph showing than hurricanes and cyclones have not followed the predictions of the AGW folks over the last three years...

Aside from the fact that three years of weather data is statistically insignificant in terms of understanding climate, the bigger issue here is that there is no hurricane prediction from your so-called "AGW folks". Again, I suggest you try reading some primary research material. Most climate scientists have little doubt that we are experiencing AGW, but there is no consensus at all on how hurricanes will be affected, either in terms of frequency or force. One scenario is that they will increase in force, another is that they will stay the same. These different possibilities depend on how sea surface temperatures in different places interact, and that is something not well understood. So you have papers arguing for each case, and lots of debate. Of course, that's how science works, and these papers help advance knowledge by directing new investigation.

You are simply taking one set of predictions (again, where there is no consensus) and trying to use that against AGW in general. What you're doing is unscientific and is intellectually dishonest.

[bhrobards]

From the Florida State University guest blog on the Climate Audit Website a graph showing than hurricanes and cyclones have not followed the predictions of the AGW folks over the last three years...

Aside from the fact that three years of weather data is statistically insignificant in terms of understanding climate, the bigger issue here is that there is no hurricane prediction from your so-called "AGW folks". Again, I suggest you try reading some primary research material. Most climate scientists have little doubt that we are experiencing AGW, but there is no consensus at all on how hurricanes will be affected, either in terms of frequency or force. One scenario is that they will increase in force, another is that they will stay the same. These different possibilities depend on how sea surface temperatures in different places interact, and that is something not well understood. So you have papers arguing for each case, and lots of debate. Of course, that's how science works, and these papers help advance knowledge by directing new investigation.

You are simply taking one set of predictions (again, where there is no consensus) and trying to use that against AGW in general. What you're doing is unscientific and is intellectually dishonest.

1. It is absurd that data that isn't in a specific format is invalid. That is one of the rhetorical devices that you constantly use. You are saying it has no status because it is not averaged into a decadal data point. This is ridiculous. The graph covers 30 years. The data is perfectly valid and very interesting. As I have said before I predict that we are witnessing a trend change, happens all the time in the natural world. By the way this article is an excellent example of one side of the argument.
2. Another innacurracy, by AGW folks I refer to not only AGW scientists but their political, media and civilian supporters. I have said all along that scientists are in disagreement. Its the AGW folks who say the science is settled. And they have made very public pronouncements that storms and natural disasters will increase (Al recently backed off the latter claim.) Of course this isn't scientific. Its political.
3. If you read my prior point three I realize I misinterpreted your statement. Yes I am taking one very public set of predictions and discrediting it, whats wrong with that? I can't use this argument to discredit all of AGW because the fact of human contribution to greenhouse gasses is a fact. The question is will that contribution effect our environment in ways that require political solutions. I would like to hear from all sides.
4. There is a huge amount of unscientific and intellectually dishonest argument around this issue, I really don't think that my post is such a terrible abuse. I showed you the graph, gave you the URL and made my statement. You are taking a very straightforward post a simple presentation of fact and saying I am dishonest and ignorant. Get off your high horse.

[Chris Peterson]

1. It is absurd that data that isn't in a specific format is invalid.

I didn't say that. I said that three years worth of weather data lacks statistical significance for evaluating any climatic model.

2. Another innacurracy, by AGW folks I refer to not only AGW scientists but their political, media and civilian supporters. I have said all along that scientists are in disagreement. Its the AGW folks who say the science is settled.

You're simply extracting a particular subset of people, labeling them "AGW folks", and essentially treating them as if they represented everyone. Those who talk about the science being settled (beyond the pretty obvious conclusion that AGW is occurring, of course) are a small minority.

3. Your statement "You are taking one set of predictions..." reminds me of the time you supported computer models saying words to the effect of "because the model conforms to the past it can be relied on to accurately predict far into the future."

I consider your interpretation of my comments to be mistaken. What I said wasn't to that effect at all. What I said was that if a model does a good job of reverse prediction into the distant past, that's a good reason to have confidence in its ability to predict the future. That's very different from being "relied on to accurately predict far into the future".

[bhrobards]

Chris-As to your first point you do seem to be saying the data presented is not worthy of consideration, I would point out that the trend for the last 16 years is down. Second, I am not saying AGW folks represent everyone else, just themselves, I recognize they are a subset of the whole population. Whats the problem, aren't there AGW proponents as I describe them? I retract my point 3 it was a misinterpretation of your intent, I edited my post to reflect that. You did say:

The current models do a pretty good job of describing the trend over the last couple hundred years, which is why there is confidence in their ability to predict the future.

To which I again say the models were derived from the data of course they describe it well, as to their predictive power I don't think they are doing that well.The fact of the matter is that nobody agrees but those who advocate political solutions to the AGW problem are predicting far into the future using this reasoning. They did not predict the current solar cycle's behavior, they (NASA consensus) predicted exactly the opposite for cycle 24. So before you trot out the decadal arguments why do we make any predictions at all? The irony is that only our short term predictions have any kind of record of accuracy, the long term predictions are unknowable. In regard to your quote above you are describing psychology not scientific fact.