Ouch DuJour

This time it’s on me.

There have been some trolls coming around here all of a sudden insulting my writing based on some typos they’ve found (and some admittedly sloppy writing here and there). Thanks to a reader I came across this post from a German based blog named “Sadly, No”, which claims to be humorous. But it spends a lot of time demeaning conservatives because of their views. Such as mocking the fact that Charles Krauthammer is in a wheel chair, as if that’s a reflection of the value of his politics. Ooh, cripple humor!

They went to town on me. And they found some good ammo. I have been sloppy lately. I should do a better job of proofing my site, but I am so busy sometimes I often post things without rereading them. Obviously, that’s a mistake.  And I should never do that.

So, even though that site was very insulting and sent a bunch of trolls my way (what does that say about their audience?), I’m glad they showed me the error of my ways.

Which brings me to a point I’ve been wanting to make about lefties. They really have this fixation with demeaning people they disagree with to a ridiculous extent. They are especially fond of cherry picking pull quotes from speeches and holding them up as an example of how stupid so and so is.

In the 80s their targets were Ronald Reagan and Dan Quayle. And they’ve had a field day with Bush these days. But the fact is, when someone does a lot of public speaking, they make mistakes. Bill Clinton and Al Gore have made plenty of stupid quotes, also. It’s only human to trip on your words every once and awhile.  But somehow, the lefties think this is proof that the conservatives are stupider than they are. Or, at least, they want to believe it.

Hence, this is what this attack was really about. They start off by comparing me to a pile of dirt and go from there. It’s all about demeaning my views, by mocking my mistakes. They found some good examples of bad writing on my blog. I can’t deny it. But, in a typical lefty fashion, they don’t argue with the logic. They just have to hold it in contempt because that’s all they’re good for. High handedness and conceit. 

No wonder they keep losing elections.

Gosh, what a surprise.

Posted by  on  11/11  at  10:00 PM

James,

The Earth’s climate is changing, and we’re causing it. There are those who say they’ve debunked it, but when you do a close comparison with what they say, and what the evidence says, the debunking comes off much the worst for the contest.

Human activity has been adding green house gases for millennia now. Along with such as particulate with block sunlight from getting in and so confuses the issue. We’re not the sole agents of change in this matter, but neither are we without influence.

Science is not about knowing, science is about learning. Science is a way of exploring our universe in its varied aspect, and discovering how it works. Some times how it works can be fairly simple, how the Lesser Force keeps the atomic nucleus together for example. Sometimes how it works can be complicated, such as how all the elements in the atmosphere interact to produce current climatic conditions.

The problem here is not the science, the problem is how certain parties are handling the implications. These parties are acting as scolds, insisting that we must do something, when there is really nothing to be done. Not because we don’t have the technology, but because we’re not have the resources necessary.

We don’t have the infrastructure or the organization we need to carry it off. And in the long run, even if we did reduce CO2 and other emissions we would still have increasing emissions as developing nations expand their industrial capability. Becoming more efficient in how we use energy is a good thing, but it’s not going to have the impact we think it does.

The environment is getting warmer, what we need to do is learn how to adapt to the new conditions. Adapt our architecture, construction, dress, diet, and so on and so forth to the coming changes. Because not doing so will produce very bad results.

It is not a matter of good or evil, it merely is. This situation arose because of what we are. We are what we are because of our origins, to ignore that fact is to doom any attempt at making conditions better for our descendents. As many an engineer has learned, you work with what you have and not with what you wish you had.

Change is coming. Saying it isn’t doesn’t work. Saying we must do this or that doesn’t work. What will work is acknowledging that change is coming, and taking steps to ready ourselves for that change.

One more thing. An appeal to authority is only wrong when the authority is wrong. And by the way, are you agreeing with certain parties because they’re right, or because you find what they say agreeable?

Posted by Alan Kellogg  on  11/11  at  10:45 PM

Alan, see the above link.

I’m afraid I have looked at the same evidence and come away with the opposite view. There is plenty of evidence that climate change is (surprise!) a natural occurrence. There is nothing we can do about it.

I have a big issue with the scolds and those who want to take advantage of the situation to get more power and wealth. They are frauds and they are hyping hysteria.

Considering that so many of the pillars of the IPCC report have been knocked down, I fail to see how your authorities are right. There has been an awfully lot of lies and deceit in the AGW side of the fence.

When I cite someone backing up my position, it’s merely to point out that the skeptics side has its ammo, too. The way the AGW people act when confronted with dissenting opinion is even more of a turn off. They refuse to even listen. Or they throw out some magic phrase that’s supposed to end the argument (Oil companies!). Some of the commenters this weekend were perfect examples of this.

I also think the evidence that CO2 is causing GW is debatable and lacks definitive evidence. There is evidence on both sides supporting different conclusions. So changing our society in some radical way to stop CO2, when it may be entirely unnecessary, is potentially harmful to the economy and people’s livelihoods.

I’m not for a return to caves because some technology haters (who claim to love science. Ha!) want us to.

Posted by  on  11/11  at  11:08 PM

“Wading through the comments on your site was like being a black man at a KKK picnic”

Something I’m sure you have experienced many times.

Good grief, Hudster - when you find that you’re in a hole, stop digging.

Posted by  on  11/12  at  02:32 AM

hello, another friendly SN troll here! I’m a bit confused as to what that link is supposed to show? It links to an article about an ex-skier using her position as Chancellor of a University to talk nonsense about a subject she knows nothing about. Being a chancellor is a purely honorary position but it does lend your statements a certain gravitas. I can see how it would be very embarrassing for a professor of an institution if the head of that institution gave ill-thought out quotes on any academic subject they had no background in.
Her quote? It was “We don’t know what next week’s weather going to be. To say in 50 or 100 years, the temperature is going to do this, is a bit of a stretch for me.”
Anyone who is confusing weather forecasting and climate studies clearly knows not even the bare minimum on the subject!

Posted by  on  11/12  at  02:54 AM

James, way to hit back. The GW true believers show their true colors as they don’t have good rebuttals to the arguments made, they just have their supposed scientific “consensus” to prop up their views. So instead they take the easy road, the path of personal attack. Bear with them, it’s all they CAN do.

Posted by  on  11/12  at  05:24 AM

Wow. Talk about “Mr. Pot, meet Mr. Kettle!”

Just a quick perusal of Cliff’s little elitist diatribe in comment #3 reveals that he should pay closer attention to his own literary deities and absorb some of their grammar and punctuation.

Oh Dear God James,

I was teasing you in my comment #3 on the hollywierd post.  I AM one of those trolls.
Did you not notice the horrific writing in my comment?

You should know that “Sadly No” does not mention typos, but rather details your fundamentally deficient sentence construction.

“...when it’s a natural process of nature” is not a typo, its [sic] poor writing.

I’ve read enough of your stuff today to conclude that “Word Warrior” refers more to what you do TO the words, not what you do WITH the words.

Let me be clear, [sic] the combination of your horrific writing and your propensity to repeat the broad, fallacious, clubby and clumsy characterizations of anything liberal, and the absence of substantive criticism of the same, really just begs for condemnation.
That doesn’t make you a bad person, but it does say something about the lowered literary standards in the Pajamas media and on this blog.

You may call me an elitist, but at some level [sic] you must admit, good writing is a good thing and bad writing is just that.

So [sic] James, I admire your earnest desire to publish [sic] but I must admonish you to seek some professional feedback and coaching.  While it is not easy to become a good writer so late in life and without a solid foundation (which you clearly lack), it is not impossible.
I also suggest reading some Henry James, Charles Dickens and some [needlessly repetitive] modern writers like Tom Wolfe and Norman Mailer.  This will help you learn to respect good writing and [sic] hopefully [sic] help you understand that [sic] in the realm of the written word, the quality of the message is as much a function of it’s [sic] execution/expression as it’s [sic] substance.

I probably won’t be back. [sic] But [sic] if you do decide to make an attempt to improve your writing, I would be pleased to see your progress.  Just drop a notice in a comment at OneUtah.org.

PS: Do you really believe what you are suggesting by “No wonder they keep losing elections?”. [sic]

There’s a perfect example of the very behavior you ascribe to “lefties.”

No one criticized you personally, just your writing.  Can you see the diff? [“diff”?] Gos [sic] forbid [sic omitted “that”] you should go through life thinking [sic omitted “that”] you are a good writer.

Glass houses, Cliff. Glass houses.

As an addendum, would any of you Acolytes of the Great Gorebecile™ care to explain, precisely and without equivocation, what mechanism caused that 1.5-mile thick sheet of ice to recede from the Manhattan skyline in the mere blink of a geological eye?

Also, would any of you care to enlighten us as to what the ”ideal” ambient temperature of this ball of dirt should be? (Have any of you tried growing a crop under a layer of snow & ice?) Has there ever been an ”ideal” ambient temperature and when was it? If there was an ”ideal” ambient temperature, what mechanism caused said ”ideal” ambient temperature to change in one direction or another?

Inquiring minds want to know…

Posted by B.C.  on  11/12  at  07:10 AM

Paulo, scroll down and there’s plenty on IPCC faking evidence and other damning stuff. But then, if you really bothered, you’d know that.

Posted by  on  11/12  at  07:26 AM

erm, you linked to a specific blog post. It’s a bit different to point and the entire blog and say “yeah, go away and read everything this guy has ever written, my point is proven in there somewhere…”
I have better things to do than doing your own research for you. I read the post you linked to and pointed out it was irrelevant. Link to something useful next time.
Anyway, you should be careful who you reference, Pielke’s view is that:
“The IPCC has concluded that greenhouse gas emissions resulting from human activity are an important driver of changes in climate. And on this basis alone I am personally convinced that it makes sense to take action to limit greenhouse gas emissions.”

B.C - just my thoughts on an ‘ideal temperature’: It’s probably one which won’t cause the ice sheets to melt, rising the sea levels above most of the densely populated areas of the world. But that’s just my opinion…

Posted by  on  11/12  at  08:00 AM

Paulo,

You only see what you want to see.  But if you believe the IPCC, then you would know that the worst projection they have for sea level rise is 16 inches in 50 years. That’s inches, not feet. I seriously doubt New York will be submerged.

Also, Antarctica, which is where most of the world’s ice is, isn’t melting at all. It’s stable except for one tip which is warmer.

Posted by  on  11/12  at  08:10 AM

okay, so I was just being snarky to B.C’s comment ‘would any of you care to enlighten us as to what the ”ideal” ambient temperature of this ball of dirt should be?’
Having said that, the idea that a 17inch sea level rise would have no effect is laughable. Where i sit now (well, not in this 3rd floor office but the city that’s downstairs) is on average 1m above sea level and a 17inch rise would be devastating.

Posted by  on  11/12  at  08:26 AM

...It’s probably one which won’t cause the ice sheets to melt,...

The Antarctic ice sheets are actually growing, as are some of the ones in Greenland. (BTW, there’s a reason for that particular place being having that particular name.  It was named by the Vikings because, when they first arrived, they found it quite agreeable to growing crops and raising their livestock. And that was before all of those Eeeevil SUV’s o’ Doom™ started their assault on Mother Gaia™.) 

Paulo, you DO realize that current sea levels are well below where they’ve been in the past (many times), don’t you?  These past sea levels were brought about, quite handily, without any assistance from humans.  There’s a reason there are areas, such as the Lake Wales Ridge (LWR) running down the center of Florida, that have marine fossils and geologic features. (FYI, the LWR is the remains of ancient islands and beaches from when the vast majority of Florida was underwater.) 

Humans (and all other current species) have adapted to natural climate change over the millenia and will continue to do so.

Modern human civilization would never have been able to arise without “global warming”.  It wasn’t until the ice sheets melted (with the resultant accompanying sea level rise) that agrarian communities were able to begin forming, laying down the foundations of society, as we know it.  Before then, temperatures (cold ones) prevented the wide-scale planting of crops and kept families (tribes) in a perpetual, nomadic existence in their quest to follow the game animals that they hunted for their food.  This nomadic existence prevented long-term communal bonds (and their resultant benefits) from forming. Constantly being on the move, in a search for basic sustenance, prevented such things as written language, mathematics, metallurgy and other scientific schools of thought from arising.

So, to make a long story short, some of us don’t see “global warming” as so much of A Bad Thing™.

Posted by B.C.  on  11/12  at  08:38 AM

I’d love to see a cite on the ice sheet growing, because a quick google (click my name for the link) search shows many studies talking about the shrinking ice sheet. 

IIRC, the sea level increase in inches does not take into account the melting of the ice sheets, so we may really be talking about increases in feet, not inches.

Posted by verplanck colvin  on  11/12  at  08:59 AM

Apparently someone’s GoogleFoo™ needs a little work.

That took all of 0.16 seconds. (And that’s just one study, among many, to be found on the subject.)

Quoth’d the good verplanck:

IIRC,...

You don’t…

... the sea level increase in inches <u>does not take into account the melting of the ice sheets,</u> so we may really be talking about increases in feet, not inches.

Where, pray tell, would all of this extra water be coming from, if not the ice sheets?

Posted by B.C.  on  11/12  at  09:36 AM

Paulo,

Ice Sheet Stable

16 inches is 40.6 cm. One meter is 100 cm. Tell me, how is that devastating?

And we’re talking 50 years from now, when you’ll probably be dead.

Posted by  on  11/12  at  09:54 AM

My solution to fight Global Warning is very simple and makes as much sense as those who twist facts and blatherskite this natural trend.

Throw Al Gore in an active volcano or launch him into the sun.

Problem solved.
Best Regards,
jn

Posted by  on  11/12  at  10:41 AM

ok, lets deal with the least idiotic stuff first.
James: sorry, I didn’t bother converting but I knew it was roughly half. I’ll repeat, Portsmouth UK (feel free to look it up) where I am now has an AVERAGE height of 1m. Now, average means that some of that land will be below 1m. Add in tidal swellings (like the big one the north sea had last week causing the government to get in a flap and close the Thames barrier) and seasonal variation and a 40cm rise is suddenly looking very serious.
As for the ‘it doesn’t matter as we’ll all be dead in 50 years’ is one of the oddest responses to climate change I have ever heard.
Which brings me rather neatly onto B.C.‘s comment.
One of the funny things about the people who deny climate change is that they never quite seem sure what their argument is.
Is it:
a) the temperature isn’t rising.
b) the temperature is rising but it’s nothing to do with us.
c) screw it, we’ll be dead in 50 years. (ok, this is the first time I’ve ever heard that one)
B.C. please decide whether you are going to go for option a or b. It’s very difficult to argue with someone who can’t decide what they think and the two options are pretty mutually exclusive.
Ok, so your above comment seems to be (mostly) saying climate change is happening but it doesn’t matter.
Hmm.. so “we’ll adopt to climate change” will we then? Yes, as a species I’m sure we will but the massive socio-economic problems involved in turning 3 billion people back into “nomads” sure isn’t going to be pretty. And I don’t think there’ll be 3 billion of us left at the end.
What you miss is that the whole reason for concern is the extremely rapid rate of temperature increase over the last 100 years which can hardly be compared to the gradual cycles the earth goes through.

Posted by  on  11/12  at  10:49 AM

James, you have been well and truly pwned. But smile - it was by Sadly, No!, the winner of this year’s Weblog Award for “Funniest Blog.” So for a brief time, your corpus will be perused by about 100 times your average readership.

Your work was held up to ridicule because it is emblematic of the repository of hackery called “Pajamas Media.” There was no “cherry picking” of your writing, per se, because you are not a writer. Writing things like, “when it’s a natural process of nature . . .” utterly disqualifies you from the profession.

Thanks to wingnut welfare, the deep pockets at PJ Media may continue to find you to be a useful idiot, but don’t ever make the mistake of thinking that to be some sort of imprimatur of excellence.

It ain’t.

Posted by  on  11/12  at  10:50 AM

oops, forgot to mention that paper you cited James. erm, did you notice it was from 1998 or did you just put up the first google result that you agreed with. Amusingly, at the bottom of that paper they mention that there were big problems with the methodology they used and that another survey was planned for 2001 using a more accurate method. Care to read the results of that study? it came out a bit differently
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/311/5768/1754
(apologies for the lack of tags)
you really should read the stuff you post. And if the ice sheets really aren’t melting, how come the north-east passage is navigable for the first time in recorded history?

Posted by  on  11/12  at  10:59 AM

Sayeth Paulo:
ok, lets deal with the least idiotic stuff first.

...

One of the funny things about the people who deny climate change is that they never quite seem sure what their argument is.

...

B.C. please decide whether you are going to go for option a or b. It’s very difficult to argue with someone who can’t decide what they think and the two options are pretty mutually exclusive.

Aaah, the elitist, brown shirt-referencing snobbery finally comes out…  Getting one’s knickers in a bind, are we?  What part of “As an addendum, would any of you Acolytes of the Great Gorebecile™ care to explain, precisely and without equivocation, what mechanism caused that 1.5-mile thick sheet of ice to recede from the Manhattan skyline in the mere blink of a geological eye?” didn’t you understand? 

How can “unprecedented global warming” be occurring (Less then 1°F over an entire century, if you believe the non-standardized, non-uniform and spotty temperature records from around the world.), when geologic records clearly show that the Earth has undergone, quite naturally, much more rapid temperature rises in the not-too-distant past?

The reason you find it “very difficult to argue with someone” isn’t because they can’t decide what they think and the two options are pretty mutually exclusive.” It’s because you can’t come up with a valid argument to show that humans are, somehow, having substantiated, much less substantial, impact on a hugely dynamic system that was doing quite nicely at heating and cooling itself, long before humans appeared.

Quit moving those goalposts.  We’ll just keep scoring and you’ll just get tired and, quite possibly, hurt your back in the process.



Posted by B.C.  on  11/12  at  11:42 AM

If it gets hot:
Throw Al Gore into a volcano.
If it gets cold:
Throw Al Gore into a volcano.

Why is it getting hotter on Mars?
No answer natural cycle deniers?
Let’s still cast Al Gore into a volcano.

Warmest Regards,
jn

Posted by  on  11/12  at  11:43 AM

It’s hilarious how lefties are so threatened by Pajamas Media.

Anonymous trolls are a staple of left cowardice.

Posted by  on  11/12  at  11:47 AM

And threatened by the truth, James.
The girls just can’t handle the truth.
They don’t want to even consider the truth, that natural cyles of the sun could effect and affect temperature changes.

Appease the GLOW-BALL GAWDS!
Cast Al Gore into the volcano!
jn

Posted by  on  11/12  at  11:55 AM

Paulo,

I was talking about the South Pole where most if the world’s ice is. I can link to other articles. But this isn’t a serious discussion. You aren’t really interested in anything I say other than to disagree with me.

But for the record, I believe in climate change because the climate changes. I am a skeptic of AGW. 

And there are a lot of places below sea level. New Orleans, the Netherlands, etc. They build retaining walls to deal with it.

Posted by  on  11/12  at  12:08 PM

Is there a scientist anywhere on this planet who believes he knows with any certainty how the earth works? 

We have not identified all the species on this planet.  We don’t even know what percentage we know about.

We don’t know that we have identified all the elements present on this planet.

Imagine the planet is like an auto.  We have identified that it is auto.  We have identified some of the exterior but we don’t know exactly how much.  We have identified some of the interior but we don’t know exactly how much.  We have identified the mechanical parts in view, but don’t know how many more parts thier are let alone what funtion they serve.

Yet there are those who claim they know how to drive it and fix it when it breaks down.

This is pure nonsense and one needs no type of science degree to see that anyone who makes such claims are charlatons.

The sad fact is that we don’t know how the world works, let alone how to control it to the degree being claimed.

We have some theories and that’s all.  Any truly honest scientist should be willing to admit that when it comes to KNOWING how to manage the world we are woefully ignorant.

Civil discourse about these subjects is a well and good idea.  But wanting to dig in my wallet with such paltry knowledge is thievery at best.  The big problem with those of you who want to run others lives is you won’t allow the same done to you.

Meditate on this.

Posted by  on  11/12  at  12:09 PM
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