Open Thread Weekend

Cynical Scientists says…
“Actually I’m a climate sceptic. I also tend to be quite sceptical about other things. Occupational hazard. Salby’s story never sounded right to me from the start. I know how universities work.”
Dear C.S.
You know how universities work right?
In this case it would appear that MU in Australia employed and, according to their own Vice Chancellor, supported Murray Salby to the tune of several hundred thousand dollars and were prepared to match project funding to the tune of a million or more dollars?
OK, so what you’re saying…because you know how universities work, is that MU took Salby on without references (which would have declared that he was under investigation) or even an informal phone call to Boulder Colorado where word of Salby’s travails would have been common knowledge?
You see maybe I don’t know as much about how universities work as you do but I can tell you this for certain sure…if you poke deep enough into anyone’s business you will eventually find something to discredit them.
I also recognise the kind of comprehensive, officially resourced and well co-ordinated program of character assassination desmog blog is now engaging in, is only reserved for those who prove to be a major threat to the establishment.
“Mike’s Nature trick”, Phil Jones’ and Kevin Trenberth’s “lack of warming” and a whole confectioners shop worth of ‘climate fudge’ isn’t enough to get anyone a smack on the wrist these days…Academic fraud and deception on a grand scale is acceptable but deception over ‘expenses’ well wow!
Murray Salby must be hung drawn and quartered.

With regard to Murry Salby, you have to ask yourself why McQ U would employ him without considering why he left his post in the US. One must assume that the claims made against him leading to his dismissal were public knowledge. If this is the case I am surprised that McQ U would be so keen to offer him substantial funds unless he had convinced them that the charges against him were unfounded.
Does it really come down to how fastidious Salby was in filling in his time sheets? I suspect that many people in similar circumstances fill in time sheets sometime later than when they did the work (having worked in a time sheet environment in the defence industry I know mine only approximated to the facts as there was always management pressure to book time to clients rather than some internal cost centre).
We all got by because everyone knew how to play the game and nobody wanted to question it.
But imagine if you wanted to blacken someone’s name – investigate their time sheets. It doesn’t matter if everyone else is also “playing the game” since they are not the subject of the investigation
I apologise to all those people who are scrupulously accurate in recording their times, but my experience showed that nearly everybody was more interested in doing the actual work rather than accounting for their time down to the nearest 15 mins. Who enjoys form filling? And from what I read on this blog I suspect that academe is no more altruistic than the commercial world.

http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
For nearly a week of the current heatwave in the UK wind has contributed nearly zero energy. pleas see above link

Chad Wozniak says:
July 12, 2013 at 9:32 pm
@Gail Combs –
Where can I sign the petition to bring Himmler – uh, Holder – to justice?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Search engines are your friend.

Cynical Scientists says…
“Actually I’m a climate sceptic. I also tend to be quite sceptical about other things. Occupational hazard. Salby’s story never sounded right to me from the start. I know how universities work.”
Dear C.S.
You know how universities work right?
In this case it would appear that MU in Australia employed and, according to their own Vice Chancellor, supported Murray Salby to the tune of several hundred thousand dollars and were prepared to match project funding to the tune of a million or more dollars?
OK, so what you’re saying…because you know how universities work, is that MU took Salby on without references (which would have declared that he was under investigation) or even an informal phone call to Boulder Colorado where word of Salby’s travails would have been common knowledge?
You see maybe I don’t know as much about how universities work as you do but I can tell you this for certain sure…if you poke deep enough into anyone’s business you will eventually find something to discredit them.
I also recognise the kind of comprehensive, officially resourced and well co-ordinated program of character assassination desmog blog is now engaging in, is only reserved for those who prove to be a major threat to the establishment.
“Mike’s Nature trick”, Phil Jones’ and Kevin Trenberth’s “lack of warming” and a whole confectioners shop worth of ‘climate fudge’ isn’t enough to get anyone a smack on the wrist these days…Academic dodgyness and deception on a grand scale is acceptable but deception over ‘expenses’ well wow!
Murray Salby must be hung drawn and quartered.

philincalifornia says:
July 12, 2013 at 10:41 pm
Cow’s milk …. they almost made it to the end, but then just couldn’t stop themselves …..
http://www.dailyfinance.com/2013/07/12/hot-cows-higher-milk-prices-global-warming/
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

….With temperatures in the Midwest expected to remain in the 80s and 90s through the next couple of weeks, we could be looking at a lot of cows who are too hot to produce as much milk as usual.

Oh for pity’s sake, they are really stretch on this one.
North Carolina had a lot of dairy operations (until the USDA shut them down) and our summer temperatures are in the 80’s to over 100F. For example:
May 2004 (17 days >90F)
6 days – 91F
6 days – 93F
2 days – 95F
1 days – 96F
2 days – 98F
So far this year we have had 2 days at 90F and one at 95F (compared to 36>90f for May, June, & July 2004)
My Northern bred horses don’t break a sweat until the temperature is ~100F and that is only the heavily muscled drafts. Compared to beef cattle, dairy cows are lightly muscled and Texas is famous for its beef cattle herds that are often Cow/Calf operations. You don’t here of the calves starving because of Mama’s milk drying up now do you?
However we now have the Food Safety Modernization Act reams of red tape and Animal ID hitting farmers so those WILL cause prices to go up. Sure sounds like a cover-up for government costs. It reminds me of the Groniad claiming it was ‘Global Warming’ causing India’s farmer suicide when it was the WTO and GMO seed (cost of seed + herbicide + fertilizer and not getting promised harvest)

India Revokes Monsanto’s GMO Cotton Seed License
“We welcome the decision,” said Kishore Tiwari, who heads the farmers’ advocacy group Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti.
“We demand all other 28 companies sub-licensed by MMB should be banned and replaced by traditional Indian cotton seed, as the cost of seeds of straight varieties is much lower than Bt varieties”, Tiwari said.
“Bt cotton seed has played a key role in the Vidarbha farm suicide saga since June 2005,” he said.
The drought-prone Vidarbha region of Maharashtra state has recorded more than 8,200 farmers’ suicides in the past decade, 209 in 2001 alone.
Trapped in a spiral of rising costs and in debt for costly genetically modified seeds that are supposed to repel cotton pests, as well as the pesticides they must buy when pests take over anyway, many farmers kill themselves by drinking pesticide or hanging themselves from trees….

charles nelson says:…..
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Yes you are so correct. There is not an adult in the USA who has not broken some law and therefore is vulnerable if the government decides to go after them. (Think IRS targeting)
The prosecuting attorney holds the power of who gets let off the hook (Peter Gleick) or who gets nailed (Murry Salby) I found that out the hard way when I tried to get the local DA to prosecute three thefts (three different thieves) where the thief was caught red handed with the goods. It never went anywhere because the thieves were ‘Well Connected’ to the local political party and I was a newcomer.
Angelo M. Codevilla nailed it.

….if you are not among the favored guests at the table where officials make detailed lists of who is to receive what at whose expense, you are on the menu. Eventually, pretending forcibly that valueless things have value dilutes the currency’s value for all.
Laws and regulations nowadays are longer than ever because length is needed to specify how people will be treated unequally…..
By making economic rules dependent on discretion, our bipartisan ruling class teaches that prosperity is to be bought with the coin of political support….
The prospect of legislation that would put a price on carbon emissions and allot certain amounts to certain companies set off a feeding frenzy among large companies to show support for a “green agenda,” because such allotments would be worth tens of billions of dollars. That is why companies hired some 2,500 lobbyists in 2009 to deepen their involvement in “climate change.” At the very least, such involvement profits them by making them into privileged collectors of carbon taxes. Any “green jobs” thus created are by definition creatures of subsidies — that is, of privilege. What effect creating such privileges may have on “global warming” is debatable. But it surely increases the number of people dependent on the ruling class, and teaches Americans that satisfying that class is a surer way of making a living than producing goods and services that people want to buy…..

Thanks, Mark Hladik. I like your Mount Erebus Hypothesis.

Gail Combs says:
July 13, 2013 at 2:38 am
Seems the Boston Globe is for sale and no one is really interested in buying.
========================
As they are all “Bowtied” bumkissers and throne sniffers, it will be no great loss. I just wonder when those arrogant A-holes over on Morrissey Blvd lose their jobs, do they become part of the great unwashed masses that they have been telling how to live and what to think for the last 40 yrs?
Can’t happen soon enough in my mind.
Lifelong Massachusetts resident.

The problem with E-cat is that the copper produced in the nickel-hydrogen reaction happens to have the same isotopic abundance as naturally occurring copper. This would be impossible to reproduce using some kind of fusion reaction with naturally ocurring nickel.
here is what a guy from brookhaven had to say about that:
http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2011/12/05/the-nuclear-physics-of-why-we/