Oh so timely!

ROTFLOL!! After all that global warming stuff that I just put together in the last post (while waiting for my %$&^*%#@! VM to copy over - still waiting!) I read this:

New Australian continent wide low temperature record set for April

Want a map of where that record low just happened to take place?



Does that look like a familiar area? Maybe like around those record lows mherrera reported?



Scientifically it means just about diddly-squat, but the coincidence is awesome!

A comment! A comment! I got a comment!

Yeah, that's a rare event here. It was a good one, and I thought I would shamelessly use it to generate another post. It was made on my previous rant post about global warming - Global Warming Rant.

Here's the comment:

This is actually a good analysis, however you only looked at one city on each continent. Why not look at ALL of the record highs and lows for ALL the cities?

I found this site: http://www.mherrera.org/records.htm
and if you look a the data (only goes back to 2002) you find:

2002 Record Highs: 21, Lows 7
2003 Record Highs: 54, Lows 3
2004 Record Highs: 20, Lows 1
2005 Record Highs: 39, Lows 25
2006 Record Highs: 33, Lows 13
2007 Record Highs: 106, Lows 8
2008 Record Highs: 28, Lows 13

Now, as you pointed out, a normal variation would be random so there should be just as many highs as lows. But obviously for the last 6 years there have been more highs than lows, this would indicate that since we started maintaining temperature records it is warming.

It's a nice comment, but far more interesting is the source for his figures. Let's say the source is "Hmmm, interesting," as my son would say.

First, I didn't look at just one city from each continent - these were the records gathered from all the measurements on a continent.

I chose the source as something that would hopefully avoid any bias I might introduce by picking specific sources or cities - I only grabbed the continent-wide records and didn't try to pick out individual cities to report.

I did that to avoid something which the comment's source, mherrera.com, very clearly demonstrates.

How/Why are particular cities selected?

For instance, go to www.mherrera.org/temp.htm and look at the records they list for 2009. There are a couple of minimums from around the world, and then a TON of maximums all recorded from Australia. If you just count those up (like what was done by the commenter), it would look like the world was in a huge heating trend, but that's not the case - Australia had a particularly hot year IN THE SOUTHEASTERN side.

Here's a map of where all those cities are located:


As you can see, whoever puts together that list of record temperatures is very selective in where he picks his data - 28 locations all in one area of Australia, and only 8 records from the rest of the world - 6 of which are record minimums. With a blatant bias, mherrera picked out locations that fit his view and ignored the rest. Once the bias is seen, it is obvious that even just using his data selections there were widespread record minimums and only a couple locations around the world that had record maximums.

Let's look further at his data.

Look at www.mherrera.org/records.htm for 2008. There are 6 Max records from tiny Iceland and 2 from the US, both from California from locations VERY near each other. This is similar to what mherrera did with Australia - listed multiple locations in areas that had record high temperatures, even if those areas are right next to each other, but didn't select locations that had record low temperatures.

I'm not sure who compiled those lists, but they are EXTREMELY selective, to the point of being fraudulent, in which cities they included. As I looked through the lists, I could see dozens of other instances just like what I've mentioned above. He not only over-represented record highs by listing lots of recordings all from the same area, he specifically did not list many record low temperatures that occurred around the world.

That's why I went with the continent-wide records, and didn't just pick individual cities. If I pick individual cities, I could introduce a bias into the results just like the mherrera site does. I would be picking and choosing which cities to include, and might do something like mherrera and include dozens of cities from Australia, and only a couple from the rest of the world.

That's why I specifically stated that the example of the continents is not a scientifically rigorous one, though it's not fraudulent like mherrera's cherry-picking of temperatures. The continental records don't have a bias, but neither are they solid proof - they are merely an example of what a far more complete investigation of global temperatures shows: Earth's temperatures are most definitely NOT increasing.

For a quick look at more concrete data, we can look at the UAH and RSS satellite measurement data. Right now, temperature-wise, we're in the same range as the 1980s (the measurements started in 1979) and we seem to be in a downward trend, both over the last decade, and a much faster downward trend in the last two or three years.

That's why people shouldn't go around trusting everything on the Internet. Even my stuff. If you have questions or doubts about the veracity of what I've written, go look it up - the raw UAH and RSS data is available straight from the satellites here and here.

Global Warming Rant

Let's start today's bit of ranting off with some nice easy stuff - Global Warming/Cooling.

Here's a great article talking about temperature records and what they do and don't mean for global warming: Are Record Temperatures Abnormal?

If you have a perfectly "normal" climate (a maintained average with variations happening "randomly" around the average) and you're measuring it each day, there is a regular chance that a particular day will be a record-breaking high or low due to perfectly normal weather variations. Even after 100 years of daily records, there is still an almost guaranteed chance that on any given day there are record highs and record lows being set somewhere in the world. Record highs and lows are perfectly normal occurrences!

Obviously this is completely lost or ignored by reporters, and it seems that any particular record high is mentioned as a result of global warming. There are thousands of cities across just the US, and on any given day it is very likely that some of those cities are having a record high or low. Of course, if the city happens to have some reporters paying attention, everyone is treated to reports of how San Diego/DC/Chicago/New York/Austin/Phoenix/Miami/etc is having a record high that day and how that's evidence of global warming caused by humans.

Aaaaahhhhhh!!!

A slightly better thing to look at is the number of record highs compared to the number of record lows. If global warming is taking place, one should see fewer record lows and more record highs. Is this happening?

In a word - no. In fact, it's a resounding no! The following holds true even if you start looking at a finer detail than continent-wide.

Dates of record highs for different continents:

Continent	Rec. High Year	Rec. Low Year
Africa	1922	1935
Antarctica	1974	1983
Asia	1942	1933
Australia	1889	1994
Europe	1881
North America	1913	1954
South America	1905	1907
Oceania	1912	1979

Sources: Highs - Infoplease and Lows - Infoplease
Almost all those record highs were made long before proponents claim global warming started. All except Asia has had a record cold instance more recently than a record warm instance.

I realize this is a very narrow sort of thing to look at when trying to determine the global trend in temperatures, but it is another item in a very LARGE set of data that points toward global cooling, and most certainly not man-caused global warming.

Yardsaling, Yardsailing, Yardsale-ing

Anyone have any good ideas on "gerunding" that term?

Anyway - Saturday morning was spent at yard sales while C went to work teaching her class for Nyack College.

I made a list of yard sales listed in the local paper, and trimmed it down to four that sounded like they would be fairly large. All in all it went quite well - 2.5 hours all together, 4 yard sales, and a bunch of clothes for J, a nice dresser, and a surprise for J too.

After that it was off to clogging, home to get C, back for more clogging, and finally home around 10:00.

A lo-o-o-ong day, especially since it had been prefaced by a Friday night game of Necromunda with Bro that lasted until 1:30 or 2:00 in the morning and had me working out the results of the game until 3:00 AM.

I crashed Saturday night as soon as I got out of the shower. Then Sunday morning was an early one for me since I hauled the equipment trailer for church setup.

I love the sunshine!

Last weekend was a nice and sunny one, for the most part (late Sunday got all cloudy and stuff) and I was able to enjoy it with lots of time with J, time playing with a log splitter, and a great clogging performance.

J got a couple cool face paintings at the festival and made out like a bandit at all the booths that were handing out free stuff. He especially seemed to raid the police booth! His bags of stuff were impressive! Pens, crayons, pads of paper, coloring books, flyers, etc. He was in heaven!

As we were walking along them, he made a point of stopping at each booth and thanking them for all the stuff they gave him. Right down the row, at each booth "Thank you for all your stuff you gave me!"

:-)

The best part was Friday night. When I got home with J, we grilled some steaks, C made some potatoes and lemonade, and we had a great dinner. Then, since the weather was still mild, we walked over to an ice cream shop and got some ice cream. A nice walk in the evening with THREE people I love was absolutely wonderful!

Since then, Bro and I played Necromunda and I managed to obtain a victory, but he benefited greatly through his loss. So much so that if he has many more "losses" like that, he'll be sitting very pretty! We used a different scenario than normal, and it was primarily because of the random effects of the scenario that I managed the win. Having one of my heavy machine guns come in right behind two of his guys that were about to wipe out several of my guys did good things for me.

However, to even out my win, I rolled up the worst possible scenario that I must fight next. Basically I hope to survive long enough to be able to flee without having my entire gang slaughtered. Theoretically if I were to win I would be sitting REALLY pretty from here on out, but the likelihood of that happening is 1 in a million. I do have plans though. I think I can pull out a winning loss if I'm moderately lucky.

On to my little soapbox - global warming! Or the lack thereof.

Arctic ice is back up to the normal range, even using the very biased standard of "normal" used by most pro-AGW arguments. That's just Arctic ice, too. Worldwide ice levels have been above average for years.

Frankly, I am all in favor of a warmer globe since I think it would be much more beneficial than a cooler one. However, "environmentalists" (I put that in quotes because they really aren't - they just use the term) are using the scare of global warming to institute nasty, useless, and sometimes counterproductive limitations on things that will cause a great deal of suffering the world-over.

So, for that reason, I am quite in favor of all the signs which point toward the boneheaded wrongness of the AGW claims.

Anyway, a prime claim of the AGW computer models was that global ice would be melting off. Then as the Antarctic ice grew faster than the Arctic ice shrank for a while, the story was changed so that it was only expected that Arctic ice would be melting. Then, when the Arctic ice started growing again, it was claimed that it wouldn't last because it was all "first year ice" and the Arctic ice would melt off faster than ever before, maybe even being "ice free" last summer. Now the Arctic ice levels are back up to "normal" (a standard deviation from a narrowly selected "average"), the claims are that it is only one to two-year-old ice that doesn't really count.

Global warming is supposed to cause worse-than-ever storms, except that the storms haven't been worse than ever. It's supposed to cause massive droughts, but it hasn't, in fact the world is greener than before. It's supposed to melt the ice and flood the world's oceans, except that the ice caps are growing and the oceans are pretty much steady (insignificant rising even if it keeps up for another century).

Ok, I'll be quite now, but sheesh! It's one of those things where it seems the world is actively conspiring against AGW scientists. Statistically they should have been right about something! Stopped clock and all that!

A bit of humor?

I've read a couple interviews with some preachers who fall in the "Prosperity Preachers" camp, and in alignment with their stereotypes, they really do say over and over that God is going to bless his followers with cars, money, houses, health, happy family, etc.

In response:


Tell that to Peter, James, Paul, etc.
thanks to TCC

He has risen! He has risen indeed!

I'm not a person who is personally moved by traditions or the "cloud of witnesses" who are part of the Christian fellowship. So, I thoroughly enjoyed the Easter service which did not try to create the semblance of those things for a special service. Perhaps in a church which regularly used the Church traditions (and so wasn't suddenly discovering and implementing ancient traditions) I might not have quite such a discordant reaction. But, regardless, that wasn't an issue.

Instead it was an excellent time of breakfast and fellowship with my friends and family at church. Sermon was on how Jesus revealed himself after His resurrection, specifically to the two men on the road to Emmaus. Reveals Himself through all of Scripture, through teaching, through direct fellowship, and through the Holy Spirit. Basic stuff, but Pastor Ray does a phenomenal work of bringing basic stuff to a point of relevance and impact, and then encouraging to a living-out of those things. (ex. How does Jesus reach others through fellowship today? Through me and you.)

AP, CH and I did some very un-church-like stuff after church - practicing a variety of Parkour techniques. Then I discovered that I had put my jacket on top of C's car which she had quite sensibly put in her car when she left for the G's house for Easter lunch/dinner. The jacket had my cell phone, my car's keys, and the keys for the truck I was driving to drop off the church's equipment trailer. Oops!

Thankfully DB had a spare set for the truck and I was able to return the trailer, and when I got back to DB's house I was able to call the G's house to have C deliver my car keys to me.

I got a late start on the lunch and dinner, but managed to make up for lost time. By the time we finally finished talking and eating, it was 10:30 PM - a great time!

And just for a bit of random whateverness:

Random quote I ran across on an Easter blog topic.

It is a possibility that near perfect, smart humans (pre-flood) were smart enough to splice DNA with lizard and other animals to make some Dinosaurs. I know that seems odd and crazy to some or most of you but its a thought that's out there and didn't come from me.

Of course the guy also went on to claim that human tracks and dinosaur tracks were found together (the Paluxy tracks - a fraud), so he's not exactly a reputable Creationist. It was still a serious "cringe" moment, though.

However, there are people living lives and sharing Christ with others so that even those who have hated and rejected Christ are drawn back to Him.

A great quote from the article:

But there is more to it than that. My belief has come about in large measure because of the lives and examples of people I have known - not the famous, not saints, but friends and relations who have lived, and faced death, in the light of the Resurrection story, or in the quiet acceptance that they have a future after they die.

Spring "Break"?

Maybe for the kids! For me it was more hectic than normal since we had a Users Conference/Training for our project. I had to go in on Tuesday all day and sit through a lot of mostly boring, non-technical talks.

All in all it went well for the project. For me it meant I was missing a day with J since this was his spring break time and he was with me this weekend as well as Monday through Wednesday. Monday had a meeting that I couldn't miss, though thankfully it was in the morning (an hour earlier than I thought it was) and I got to work a couple hours early and left by 11:00. And I had to be at the conference on Tuesday. Bleh. There went two and a half days.

On the positive side though, what did we do?

• Taking J to Home Depot to pick out paint for his room


• Sword fighting with the paint stirrers at Home Depot!


• Sanding and washing his walls.


• Flying kites!


• Hauling the trailer for church


• Lunch with the B family -


• AWANA for J while I hit the Sunday night Bible study


• Painting J's room a nice "army color" of green.


• Pizza with J and I think 6 "Police Mouse" stories all together


• Runescape and Total Annihilation computer games with J
• 
  
• Making a blanket-tent on the sofa for J to sleep in away from paint fumes


• Having my mom down here


• Clogging at the Cherry Blossom Festival!


• Seder meal for Bible study on Wednesday

And to wrap things up, how about a couple of outside posts from a couple blogs I like:

The Gentlemen's Standard - .. But Who Watches the Gentlemen ...
This is a combo of a few things, my favorite was the embarrassing things kids say.

So You Want My Job - Private Investigator | Art of Manliness
I'd swear I've seen this guy before! Some fun info on being a Private Eye.

It costs HOW MUCH?!?!

Article from Bloomberg:
Financial Rescue Nears GDP as Pledges Top $12.8 Trillion

Might I suggest this is a prime example of the wastefulness and fundamental inefficiency of government action in markets? Pledges, loans, and direct spending by the government to "fix" the recession are now more than our entire country's production in 2008!!

Now, our country's economy is on pace to shrink somewhere between 2-6% this year, according to various expert guesses. The government is spending between 50 and 15 times the size of the shrinkage!

Sure, maybe they've stopped something worse from happening. Maybe they've avoided a 15% shrink, so they would have spent $12.8 Trillion to avoid a $1.2 Trillion drop. So, at best estimation, they're only spending 10 times more than the problem.

Can you imagine what would happen to the world's economy if all that money was actual value?!?! It would have skyrocketed! In reality it would be a bubble because value can't be generated out of thin air in that manner, but what if somehow the value actually was created validly - skyrocketing jobs and wealth throughout the world!

But no - the government creates massive debt and a very real risk of backlashing, unintended consequences for what? A very small comparative effect.

And the government that works at only 10% efficiency (at best) wants to start mandating the behavior of public companies which generally need to operate with a profit?!?!

Sigh.

It's a really good thing that I don't (or at least I try to not) rely on the economy for my security. Even with a baby on the way, probably going down to one income, having a mortgage, and an uncertain economy - I really do trust with calmness that Christ is all I truly need and that should all else be taken away, still I will say, "glory, thanks and honor to Him."