Climate Craziness of the week – Claim: nuclear tests stopped global warming in the mid 20th century

@Mike Bromley:
Please, sir, do not slander Druids so! Druids were well known for their keen understanding of nature and fidelity to the data and known mechanism of how things worked. They were also known for running some of the best schools in astronomy and navigation of the era. Even the Romans sent folks there to study…
No proper Druid would ever do what those “other folks” have done… ALL work was to be memorized and error was not tolerated. You either knew everything exactly and correctly and could recite perfectly, or you went back to study more. NEVER was the past “re-written” and you were not allowed to just make things up because of peer pressure. No, you watched the stars and nature and learned from them how things worked. Science at it’s best.
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2011/02/02/marden-henge-and-durrington-walls-henge/

There is a very interesting passage on that Durrington Walls link above. I’ll quote it here, but it’s probably better read in the context of the original article:

They were built as the primary fulcrum structures within sprawling “open air universities”. At these ancient schools the “brightest and the best” of gifted children were taught the astronomical and navigational arts. The concept of a horizontal-top henge wall was for creating an artificial horizon, similar to what one would see from a ship on the vast featureless oceans. Students situated within the henge, primarily at its centre, could become very familiar with the star, planet, sun and moon rise and set positions or cycles, by using the top of the henge embankments as the target region for 360-degree observation onto the ever moving and changing stellar display. This is consistent with what Julius Caesar said concerning the great schools of Britain run by the Druids of his time.

‘They do not think it proper to commit these utterances to writing, although in all other matters and in their public and private accounts they make use of Greek characters. I believe that they have adopted the practice for two reasons- that they do not wish the rule to become common property, nor those who learn the rule to rely on writing and so neglect the cultivation of memory; and, in fact, it does usually happen that the assistance of writing tends to relax the diligence of the student and the action of memory…They also lecture on the stars in their motion, the magnitude of the Earth and its divisions, on natural history, on the power and government of God; and instruct the youth in these subjects’ (see De Ballo Gallico, VII, 15, 16.).

The late era Druidic schools that Julius Caesar commented about, undoubtedly, had a pedigree back to similar schools maintained during the Neolithic and Bronze Ages*. British historian, Isabel Hill Elder, commenting on the Druidic schools, writes:

‘The students at these colleges numbered at times sixty thousand of the youth and young nobility of Britain and Gaul. Caesar comments on the fact that the Gauls sent their youth to Britain to be educated…It required twenty years to master the complete circle of Druidic knowledge. Natural philosophy, astronomy, mathematics, geometry, medicine, jurisprudence, poetry and oratory were all proposed and taught-natural philosophy and astronomy with severe exactitude’ (Elder refers to Strabo I IV, page 197. Caesars Comm. Lib V. Sueotonius, V Calegula. E. Campion, Accounts of Ireland, pg. 18.).

So when we have a written account from someone as notable as Julius Ceasar, I just don’t see the need to go making up a bunch of stuff about religious rites and crossing sacred rivers into the afterlife and other clap trap.
We have a written record of what they were for. Why so many folks feel compelled to make up so much stuff is beyond me…

Don’t make me get out my eye of newt… 😉