Now isn't he a handsome kitty?
Friday, March 21, 2008
That Dang Global Warming
This picture taken today is of our trampoline...it's gonna be a while - LOL
Monday, February 11, 2008
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Video: The Truth About Anti-Semitism
The truth about anti-semitism
Click the link above to view a gripping account of a
Click the link above to view a gripping account of a
New Video - "The Path To The Final Solution"
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Islamo-fascism and the Death of Feminism in America
I wrote this in early November. It was published in our local paper, but today I decided to post it here:
In my lifetime I have witnessed the bravery of countless women who have risen to the challenge of ending the oppression of women worldwide. It is puzzling to me why at this time in our history when women in this country in particular have made tremendous gains in their own status, they have willingly stalled their work toward freedom for certain women; especially the violent oppression of the Women in Islam. To be sure, the overwhelming majority of Muslims practice their faith while living in democracies, following man-made laws and treating everyone with the dignity and respect due any human being. There are however, those that do not. America
In my lifetime I have witnessed the bravery of countless women who have risen to the challenge of ending the oppression of women worldwide. It is puzzling to me why at this time in our history when women in this country in particular have made tremendous gains in their own status, they have willingly stalled their work toward freedom for certain women; especially the violent oppression of the Women in Islam. To be sure, the overwhelming majority of Muslims practice their faith while living in democracies, following man-made laws and treating everyone with the dignity and respect due any human being. There are however, those that do not.
Islamo-fascism, a term originally used by moderate Muslims both in
Islamo-fascists insist in a fundamental Islamic ideology where men and women are not equal; women are considered physically, emotionally, intellectually, spiritually and morally inferior to men. Public facilities therefore are separate (and often inferior) for women; a “gender apartheid” as many call it.
All democracies and laws of the land governing people are opposed by Islamo-facists because they are laws of man, not God. Islamo-fascists believe only God’s law (Sharia) is to be obeyed. They believe they are advancing women’s rights by “protecting” them from the kind of harassment and violence imposed by Americans and other western cultures.
Some
It is very easy to look at the plight of Muslim women world wide through our privileged eyes and not respond out of “sensitivity” to the Muslim culture. If we do not work to ensure the universal application of the UN Declaration of Human Rights, we become trapped by the concept that all cultures are equal and cannot be criticized. Who loses? Women first, then the rest of the civilized world.
It is not imperialistic or disrespectful to condemn the violent oppression of the women of Islam. It is a moral imperative…especially for anyone, feminists in particular who say they care about women.
I believe that if we work together, the words of Maryam Rajavi, an Iranian “freedom fighter” will come true:
“I do believe that a woman’s emancipation begins the moment she breaks this spell and believes that rebellion and resistance against tyranny are her inalienable rights. It is from this moment that no power in the world can prevent the liberation of a woman who has decided to be free. “
Monday, December 17, 2007
Excellent work by Spencer
Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch has assembled a five-part video series refuting the "Islam is Peace" ad campaign.
When you open the page, part V in the series is automatically there. In order to view the other videos (all about 3 minutes) I had to right-click on the roman numeral and open the link in a new page.
Videos
You will notice I have included one of Robert's books in my reading list to the right of the page. I haven't included them all because I haven't read them all...but one day will attain that goal.
I just ordered "The Truth about Muhammed"
When you open the page, part V in the series is automatically there. In order to view the other videos (all about 3 minutes) I had to right-click on the roman numeral and open the link in a new page.
Videos
You will notice I have included one of Robert's books in my reading list to the right of the page. I haven't included them all because I haven't read them all...but one day will attain that goal.
I just ordered "The Truth about Muhammed"
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Wafa Sultan at Restoration Weekend
Wafa Sultan at Restoration Weekend
I attended this event and spent some time with Wafa. This video is worth watching...if you can't link to it from the text above, search for the text on Google or Youtube.
I attended this event and spent some time with Wafa. This video is worth watching...if you can't link to it from the text above, search for the text on Google or Youtube.
Sliding anyone?
Sunday, Dec. 16 2007 - Note the blue slide is barely visible and the seat of the swing is well under the snow.
Where's the deck?
10:00 am Sunday Dec. 16, 2007...Snow is up to deck railing. Not visible is the snow 1/2 way up the first pane of the double hung window!.
Trampoline-time in Stowe, VT
10:00 am Sunday December 16, 2007 - Note, the platform of the trampoline is approximately 40 inches off the ground.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
I'm Back
After several weeks off, I've decided to get back into blogging. During the past few weeks I've been reading and discovering there are people out there who know a lot more about the topics of interest to me than I do. I will frequently be linking to them, rather than having yet another voice out there. Of course you will still get my conclusions and opinions.
Friday, May 4, 2007
A Message From Iraq
Click here to read the entire article from which the following excerpt is taken. It was in today's ediction of The Washington Post
It was written by Hoshy Zebari, foreign minister of Iraq.
DON'T ABANDON US
"Iraqis are standing up every day, and we persevere because there is no other option. We will not surrender our country to terrorists. They have failed to cripple the elected government, and they have failed to intimidate us into submission. Iraqis reject their vision of a future whose hallmarks are bloodshed and hatred.
Those calling for withdrawal may think it is the least painful option, but its benefits would be short-lived. The fate of the region and the world is linked with ours. Leaving a broken Iraq in the Middle East would offer international terrorism a haven and ensure a legacy of chaos for future generations. Furthermore, the sacrifices of all the young men and women who stood up here would have been in vain."
It was written by Hoshy Zebari, foreign minister of Iraq.
DON'T ABANDON US
"Iraqis are standing up every day, and we persevere because there is no other option. We will not surrender our country to terrorists. They have failed to cripple the elected government, and they have failed to intimidate us into submission. Iraqis reject their vision of a future whose hallmarks are bloodshed and hatred.
Those calling for withdrawal may think it is the least painful option, but its benefits would be short-lived. The fate of the region and the world is linked with ours. Leaving a broken Iraq in the Middle East would offer international terrorism a haven and ensure a legacy of chaos for future generations. Furthermore, the sacrifices of all the young men and women who stood up here would have been in vain."
Monday, April 30, 2007
Offsets = Indulgences
This image was borrowed from CCNet a great site set up by Benny Peiser (the scientist who debunked the "consensus theory" of human influence on global warming. An excerpt from the email I recieved today says it all..."The worst of the carbon-offset programs resemble the Catholic Church’s sale of indulgences back before the Reformation. Instead of reducing their carbon footprints, people take private jets and stretch limos, and then think they can buy an indulgence to forgive their sins. This whole game is badly in need of a modern Martin Luther."
Denis Hayes, Bullitt Foundation, The New York Times, 29 April 2007
Friday, April 13, 2007
That Dang Global Warming
This photo was taken at 8:30 this morning (EST) after we received yet another bunch of snow. I estimate we got 10-12 inches...ugh!
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
CONSENSUS THEORY DEBUNKED
Benny Peiser debunks Naomi Oreskes' claim of SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUS that humans are responsible for global warming. Any bold print is my addition.
Dr. Peiser's letter to the journal Science:
On December 3rd, only days before the start of the 10th Conference of Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP-10), Science Magazine published the results of a study by Naomi Oreskes (1): For the first time, empirical evidence was presented that appeared to show an unanimous, scientific consensus on the anthropogenic causes of recent global warming.
Oreskes claims to have analysed 928 abstracts she found listed on the ISI database using the keywords "climate change". However, a search on the ISI database using the keywords "climate change" for the years 1993 - 2003 reveals that almost 12,000 papers were published during the decade in question (2).
What happened to the countless research papers that show that global temperatures were similar or even higher during the Holocene Climate Optimum and the Medieval Warm Period when atmospheric CO2 levels were much lower than today; that solar variability is a key driver of recent climate change, and that climate modeling is highly uncertain?
These objections were put to Oreskes by science writer David Appell. On 15 December 2004,
she admitted that there was indeed a serious mistake in her Science essay. According to Oreskes, her study was not based on the keywords "climate change," but on "global climate
change" (3).
Her use of three keywords instead of two reduced the list of peer reviewed publications by
one order of magnitude (on the UK's ISI databank the keyword search "global climate
change" comes up with 1247 documents). Since the results looked questionable, I decided to
replicate the Oreskes study.
METHOD
I analysed all abstracts listed on the ISI databank for 1993 to 2003 using the same keywords ("global climate change") as the Oreskes study. Of the 1247 documents listed, only 1117 included abstracts (130 listed only titles, author(s)' details and keywords). The 1117 abstracts analysed were divided into the same six categories used by Oreskes (#1-6), plus two categories which I added (# 7, 8):
1. explicit endorsement of the consensus position
2. evaluation of impacts
3. mitigation proposals
4. methods
5. paleoclimate analysis
6. rejection of the consensus position.
7. natural factors of global climate change
8. unrelated to the question of recent global climate change
RESULTS
The results of my analysis contradict Oreskes' findings and essentially falsify her study:
Of all 1117 abstracts, only 13 (or 1%) explicitly endorse the 'consensus view'.
322 abstracts (or 29%) implicitly accept the 'consensus view' but mainly focus on impact
assessments of envisaged global climate change.
Less than 10% of the abstracts (89) focus on "mitigation".
67 abstracts mainly focus on methodological questions.
87 abstracts deal exclusively with paleo-climatological research unrelated to recent
climate change.
34 abstracts reject or doubt the view that human activities are the main drivers of the
"the observed warming over the last 50 years".
44 abstracts focus on natural factors of global climate change.
470 (or 42%) abstracts include the keywords "global climate change" but do not include any
direct or indirect link or reference to human activities, CO2 or greenhouse gas emissions,
let alone anthropogenic forcing of recent climate change.
DISCUSSION:
According to Oreskes, 75% of the 928 abstracts she analysed (i.e. 695) fell into these first three categories, "either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view". This claim is incorrect on two counts: My analysis shows that only 424 abstracts (or less than a third of the full data set) fall into these three categories.
It also shows that many abstracts on "evaluation of impact" and "mitigation" do not discuss which drivers are key to global climate change, instead often focusing exclusively on the possible effects of elevated CO2 levels on plant growth and vegetation.
Many do not include any implicit endorsement of the 'consensus view' but simply use certain assumptions as a basis for often hypothetical impact assessments or mitigation strategies. Quite a number of papers emphasise that natural factors play a major if not the key role in recent climate change (4). My analysis also shows that there are almost three times as many abstracts that are sceptical of the notion of anthropogenic climate change than those that explicitly endorse it (5, 6, 7). In fact, the explicit and implicit rejection of the 'consensus view' is not restricted to individual scientists. It also includes distinguished scientific organisations such as the American Association of Petroleum Geologists: "The earth's climate is constantly changing owing to natural variability in earth processes.
Natural climate variability over recent geological time is greater than reasonable estimates of potential human-induced greenhouse gas changes. Because no tool is available to test the supposition of human-induced climate change and the range of natural variability is so great, there is no discernible human influence on global climate at this time" (8)
This is not to deny that there is a majority of publications that, although they do not empirically test or confirm the view of anthropogenic climate change, go along with it by applying models based on its basic assumptions. Yet, it is beyond doubt that a sound and unbiased analysis of the full ISI databank will find hundreds of papers (many of which written by the world's leading experts in the field) that have raised serious reservations and outright rejection of the concept of a "scientific consensus on climate change". The truth is, that there is no such thing!
In light of the data presented above (evidence that can be easily verified), Science should withdraw Oresekes' study and its results in order to prevent any further damage to the integrity of science.
References
1. N. Oreskes (2004). The scientific consensus on climate change. Science, Vol 306, Issue
5702, 1686, 3 December 2004 (http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/con
2. ISI Web of Science (http://www.webofscience.com/)
3. http://davidappell.com/archives/00000497.htm
4.) C. M. Ammann et al., for instance, claim to have detected evidence for "close ties
between solar variations and surface climate", Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-
Terrestrial Physics 65:2 (2003): 191-201. While G.C. Reid stresses: "The importance of
solar variability as a factor in climate change over the last few decades may have been
underestimated in recent studies." Solar forcing of global climate change since the mid-
17th century. Climate Change. 37 (2): 391-405
5) H.R. Linden (1996) The evolution of an energy contrarian. Annual Review of Energy and
the Environment, 21:31-67.
6) Russian scientists K. Kondratyev and C Varotsos criticise "the undoubtfully
overemphasised contribution of the greenhouse effect to the global climate change". K.
Kondratyev and C Varotsos (1996). Annual Review of Energy and the Environment. 21: 31-67
7) M.E. Fernau, W.J. Makofske, D.W. South (1993) Review and Impacts of climate change
uncertainties. Futures 25 (8): 850-863.
8) L.C. Gerhard and B.M. Hanson (2000) AAPG Bulletin 84 (4): 466-471
From: science_editors@aaas.org [mailto:science_editors@aaas.org]
Sent: 04 January 2005 11:07
Dr. Peiser's letter to the journal Science:
On December 3rd, only days before the start of the 10th Conference of Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP-10), Science Magazine published the results of a study by Naomi Oreskes (1): For the first time, empirical evidence was presented that appeared to show an unanimous, scientific consensus on the anthropogenic causes of recent global warming.
Oreskes claims to have analysed 928 abstracts she found listed on the ISI database using the keywords "climate change". However, a search on the ISI database using the keywords "climate change" for the years 1993 - 2003 reveals that almost 12,000 papers were published during the decade in question (2).
What happened to the countless research papers that show that global temperatures were similar or even higher during the Holocene Climate Optimum and the Medieval Warm Period when atmospheric CO2 levels were much lower than today; that solar variability is a key driver of recent climate change, and that climate modeling is highly uncertain?
These objections were put to Oreskes by science writer David Appell. On 15 December 2004,
she admitted that there was indeed a serious mistake in her Science essay. According to Oreskes, her study was not based on the keywords "climate change," but on "global climate
change" (3).
Her use of three keywords instead of two reduced the list of peer reviewed publications by
one order of magnitude (on the UK's ISI databank the keyword search "global climate
change" comes up with 1247 documents). Since the results looked questionable, I decided to
replicate the Oreskes study.
METHOD
I analysed all abstracts listed on the ISI databank for 1993 to 2003 using the same keywords ("global climate change") as the Oreskes study. Of the 1247 documents listed, only 1117 included abstracts (130 listed only titles, author(s)' details and keywords). The 1117 abstracts analysed were divided into the same six categories used by Oreskes (#1-6), plus two categories which I added (# 7, 8):
1. explicit endorsement of the consensus position
2. evaluation of impacts
3. mitigation proposals
4. methods
5. paleoclimate analysis
6. rejection of the consensus position.
7. natural factors of global climate change
8. unrelated to the question of recent global climate change
RESULTS
The results of my analysis contradict Oreskes' findings and essentially falsify her study:
Of all 1117 abstracts, only 13 (or 1%) explicitly endorse the 'consensus view'.
322 abstracts (or 29%) implicitly accept the 'consensus view' but mainly focus on impact
assessments of envisaged global climate change.
Less than 10% of the abstracts (89) focus on "mitigation".
67 abstracts mainly focus on methodological questions.
87 abstracts deal exclusively with paleo-climatological research unrelated to recent
climate change.
34 abstracts reject or doubt the view that human activities are the main drivers of the
"the observed warming over the last 50 years".
44 abstracts focus on natural factors of global climate change.
470 (or 42%) abstracts include the keywords "global climate change" but do not include any
direct or indirect link or reference to human activities, CO2 or greenhouse gas emissions,
let alone anthropogenic forcing of recent climate change.
DISCUSSION:
According to Oreskes, 75% of the 928 abstracts she analysed (i.e. 695) fell into these first three categories, "either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view". This claim is incorrect on two counts: My analysis shows that only 424 abstracts (or less than a third of the full data set) fall into these three categories.
It also shows that many abstracts on "evaluation of impact" and "mitigation" do not discuss which drivers are key to global climate change, instead often focusing exclusively on the possible effects of elevated CO2 levels on plant growth and vegetation.
Many do not include any implicit endorsement of the 'consensus view' but simply use certain assumptions as a basis for often hypothetical impact assessments or mitigation strategies. Quite a number of papers emphasise that natural factors play a major if not the key role in recent climate change (4). My analysis also shows that there are almost three times as many abstracts that are sceptical of the notion of anthropogenic climate change than those that explicitly endorse it (5, 6, 7). In fact, the explicit and implicit rejection of the 'consensus view' is not restricted to individual scientists. It also includes distinguished scientific organisations such as the American Association of Petroleum Geologists: "The earth's climate is constantly changing owing to natural variability in earth processes.
Natural climate variability over recent geological time is greater than reasonable estimates of potential human-induced greenhouse gas changes. Because no tool is available to test the supposition of human-induced climate change and the range of natural variability is so great, there is no discernible human influence on global climate at this time" (8)
This is not to deny that there is a majority of publications that, although they do not empirically test or confirm the view of anthropogenic climate change, go along with it by applying models based on its basic assumptions. Yet, it is beyond doubt that a sound and unbiased analysis of the full ISI databank will find hundreds of papers (many of which written by the world's leading experts in the field) that have raised serious reservations and outright rejection of the concept of a "scientific consensus on climate change". The truth is, that there is no such thing!
In light of the data presented above (evidence that can be easily verified), Science should withdraw Oresekes' study and its results in order to prevent any further damage to the integrity of science.
References
1. N. Oreskes (2004). The scientific consensus on climate change. Science, Vol 306, Issue
5702, 1686, 3 December 2004 (http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/con
2. ISI Web of Science (http://www.webofscience.com/)
3. http://davidappell.com/archives/00000497.htm
4.) C. M. Ammann et al., for instance, claim to have detected evidence for "close ties
between solar variations and surface climate", Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-
Terrestrial Physics 65:2 (2003): 191-201. While G.C. Reid stresses: "The importance of
solar variability as a factor in climate change over the last few decades may have been
underestimated in recent studies." Solar forcing of global climate change since the mid-
17th century. Climate Change. 37 (2): 391-405
5) H.R. Linden (1996) The evolution of an energy contrarian. Annual Review of Energy and
the Environment, 21:31-67.
6) Russian scientists K. Kondratyev and C Varotsos criticise "the undoubtfully
overemphasised contribution of the greenhouse effect to the global climate change". K.
Kondratyev and C Varotsos (1996). Annual Review of Energy and the Environment. 21: 31-67
7) M.E. Fernau, W.J. Makofske, D.W. South (1993) Review and Impacts of climate change
uncertainties. Futures 25 (8): 850-863.
8) L.C. Gerhard and B.M. Hanson (2000) AAPG Bulletin 84 (4): 466-471
From: science_editors@aaas.org [mailto:science_editors@aaas.org]
Sent: 04 January 2005 11:07
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
What good is War?
I found this image on another great blogsite mobyrebuttal.blogspot.com It kinda says it all. If you have a minute go take a look at her site. She has a great picture as you scroll down of the Clintons at the podium with the Bushes in the background and has asked readers to "caption it". The responses (mine included) are great.
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