Dr John – Soothsayer Extraordinaire

When Dr John Reid held high office, he implemented some major ventures.

On 10 May 2007, when John Reid was Home Secretary, he wrote: “Out of 27 EU member states 24 already have identity cards. If we do not take this step we risk exploitation, fraud and terrorism. As home secretary (sic) it is my duty to protect the public and secure our future.

A large part of this responsibility depends on an effective scheme to safeguard identities. Only the state can provide such a universal system, define the standards and be accountable for it.

There will be people who say we shouldn't do it. But I believe the benefits are indisputable”.

As Defence Secretary, John Reid ordered British troops into Helmand in 2006. He said: "We are in the south to help and protect the Afghan people construct their own democracy. We would be perfectly happy to leave in three years and without firing one shot because our job is to protect the reconstruction".

Quite a track record.

Prescience? Foresight? Eligibility for High Office? I think not.

So, on behalf of all those serving in our Armed Forces, here’s a number* for you, Dr John.



* After the death of Steve Marriott, the lead singer of Humble Pie, the band asked Peter Frampton (who had been in the band in its early days) to rejoin for a memorial concert. This is the 2nd part of this stonking track - if you like it, the first part is on You Tube, but sadly cannot be embedded in the blog.

In Memoriam

When you go home,
Remember us, and say,
For your tomorrow,
We gave our yesterday.

For the 360 who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan

An Honourable Man

Peter Hitchens may not be everyone’s cup of tea.

He tends to generate strong feelings among those who read or hear him. He is either loathed or loved.

I do not loathe him.

While I may not agree with every one of his views, I admire him for the consistency and courage with which he expresses them, because they are based on a personal philosophy that is tested by experience and thoroughly thought through.

A socialist in his youth, he has, over his years, applied a considerable intellect to the worth of his values and tempered them on the fire of life and experience. He has settled on traditional, conservative and Christian principles, with which I broadly agree.

He is an honourable man.

He is also a most courteous man. In his blog he takes time to respond to his correspondents politely and in detail, correcting inaccuracies and restating his point when it has been missed.

He has a gift for dry, witty demolition of cant. In his post today, he conducts a delightfully forensic demolition of one of his opponents’ arguments, which I reproduce for the enjoyment of those who have not seen it:

‘Dave’ disagrees with me that the word 'homophobia' is a propaganda invention. Well, it would be interesting to trace its history and usage. It isn't in my beat-up and disintegrating Shorter Oxford Dictionary at all, but since that's half a century old, I'm not especially surprised. I'd guess it first found its way into dictionaries in the last five to ten years, and that it owes its origin to an American college campus, perhaps the University of Madison in Wisconsin, which I think is the birthplace of PC speech codes.

This weblog's full-time etymologist, Wilfrid, summoned complaining from his dusty, cobwebbed cubicle, writes: ’As a word “homophobia” is a triple nonsense, and the compilers of the Oxford Dictionary wouldn't have given it house room in the days when they stood up for serious knowledge. Those who use it almost invariably give away their ignorance as soon as they pronounce it, with the first syllable rhyming with "dome". In fact the first syllable of the word “homosexual” ought to rhyme with “Somme”. Why?

Because the “homo” concerned is a Greek word, meaning “the same” as in “homogeneous” or “homogenized” or “homophone”. And that is how it is pronounced. First syllable rhyming with “Somme” or “Bomb”. This helps to distinguish it from the Latin word “homo”, which means “man”. Ill-informed people have long thought that the word “homosexual” meant “person attracted sexually to men”, which is why you get the ridiculous coupling of “homosexual and Lesbian”. Lesbians are homosexuals. But they're female homosexuals.

‘Then there's “phobia”. This is also from a Greek root, meaning fear or dislike of. So, the two Greek words put together would mean “fear of the same”, which is meaningless drivel. Whereas if it's a hybrid, pseudo-classical word (like “Television”) it would mean 'fear of man', which it plainly doesn't. The only way in which “homophobia” makes sense at all is if it's a semi-literate coupling of a Greek word with an old English abusive slang word for a homosexual, not in use now and not heard in use by me these 40 years, ie “homo” (pronounced to rhyme with “Omo”, a washing powder popular in the 1960s).’

Wilfrid's a bit pompous for modern tastes - but he knows his stuff. He adds, perhaps more in hope than in certainty: ‘The compilers of the Oxford dictionary seem to have had a bit of a dispute about this, because there are two completely separate entries for “homophobia”. The first (described as “rare” which is a bit of an understatement) is "Fear or hatred of the male sex or humankind". The second gives "fear or hatred of homosexuals and homosexuality". Then we get "homophobe- a person who is afraid of or hostile to homosexuals and homosexuality”.

Thank you, Wilfrid.

Delicious.

Scientific Objectivity

In a recent article in the Daily Telegraph, Christopher Booker reported that:

Over the coming days a curiously revealing event will be taking place in Copenhagen. Top of the agenda at a meeting of the Polar Bear Specialist Group, set up under the International Union for the Conservation of Nature/Species Survival Commission, will be the need to produce a suitably scary report on how polar bears are being threatened with extinction by man-made global warming.

This is one of a steady drizzle of events planned to stoke up alarm in the run-up to the UN’s major conference on climate change in Copenhagen next December. But one of the world’s leading experts on polar bears has been told to stay away from this week’s meeting, specifically because his views on global warming do not accord with the views of the rest of the group.

Dr Mitchell Taylor has been researching into the status and management of polar bears in Canada and around the Arctic Circle for 30 years, as both an academic and a government employee. More than once since 2006 he has made headlines by insisting that polar bear numbers, far from decreasing, are much higher than they were 30 years ago. Of the 19 different bear populations, almost all are increasing or at optimum levels, only two have for local reasons modestly declined.

Dr Taylor had obtained funding to attend the week’s meeting of the PBSG, but his presence was voted down by its members because of his views on global warming.

The chairman, Dr Andy Derocher, a former university pupil of Dr Taylor’s, frankly explained in an email (which I was not sent by Dr Taylor) that his rejection had nothing to do with his undoubted expertise on polar bears: ‘it was the position you’ve taken on global warming that brought opposition’. Dr Taylor was told that his views running ‘counter to human-induced climate change are extremely unhelpful’.

So much or the objectivity of “consensus” AGW scientists. You would have thought that they would welcome news that the cuddly white killer teddies are not all heading for oblivion.

But no; it appears that they relish the prospect of the bears’ extinction since it is a means to their end of perpetuating the gospel of disaster. More and more, they dismiss and ignore any evidence contrary to their theories of devastation through man-made CO2. And the constituency of contrary evidence is vast, growing and increasingly from natural phenomena rather than human opinion.

By way of one small example, just today, (8 July) CBC reported that:

Temperatures dropped to a record low in Prince Edward Island (Canada) overnight Tuesday, with reports of frost throughout the province. An official record low of 3.8 C was set early Wednesday morning at Charlottetown airport. The previous record for that date was 5.1 C, set in 2005.

Bob Robichaud, a meteorologist with Environment Canada, said that to his knowledge, frost has never been reported before in July in P.E.I. "That 3.8 we got last night kind of sticks out as being lower than some of the other records for anytime in early July," Robichaud told CBC News on Wednesday. "So we're looking at a significant event," he said.

Environment Canada has issued a frost risk warning in low-lying areas of the province for Wednesday night. The temperature is expected to dip to 4 C.

But even "significant" events such as these will be ignored by Pro-AGW theorists, who are dangerous in the myopic narrow-mindedness of their "consensus". However, such a shared vision is an illusion held in common that works only for those willing to be directed (or deceived) by it.

Any reputable scientist would seek to test a theory objectively, but these people do not brook any counter-argument. Their peer reviews are invariably conducted by those who share both their views and the financial incentives to “prove” man-made, CO2-based global warming.

Dr Taylor and thousands like him are being sidelined and stifled by one of the biggest and most dangerous collective grand narratives since communism. And, as under communism, the time is near when objectors will not be allowed to have their say.

AGW proponents are evangelical in their zeal for their “new religion” to manipulate political direction. Throughout history, until recent decades, the mechanism that allowed religion to maintained social control and the dominance of its collective grand narrative was the restriction of information.

The same thing is happening now.

Gandhi once said: "A lie does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become a lie because nobody sees it."

We need an open, objective debate before the costs of following AGW’s prophets drive prosperous, free societies into a new Dark Age.

Remembrance

Following recommendations from the Armed Forces Chiefs of Staff, The Queen has agreed that an award will be made to the next of kin of servicemen and women who have been killed while serving their country in conflicts since 1948.

The award will be called the Elizabeth Cross.

In a broadcast to Her Armed Forces today, Her Majesty said:

“In these present times, no less than in previous years, the men and women of our Armed Forces undertake their duties in the knowledge that danger often lies ahead. They know that many have died in the service of our country and that difficulties are ever present.

With this in mind, the Armed Forces have recommended that for those servicemen and women who have given their lives during operations, a special emblem and scroll will be granted to their next of kin. I am pleased to be associated with such an initiative, which is in keeping with a tradition established during the First World War. And so I have asked that this emblem should be known as the Elizabeth Cross.

This seems to me a right and proper way of showing our enduring debt to those who are killed while actively protecting what is most dear to us all. The solemn dignity which we attach to the names of those who have fallen is deeply engrained in our national character. As a people, we accord this ultimate sacrifice the highest honour and respect.

I greatly hope that the Elizabeth Cross will give further meaning to the nation's debt of gratitude to the families and loved ones of those who have died in the service of our country. We will remember them all."

The Elizabeth Cross takes the form of a badge, or brooch, which next of kin may wear if they choose. Some may do so with pride and others may choose not to. Whatever choice they make should be respected.

But they will all take something from knowing that the Sovereign and the nation have marked their loss and sacrifice in a formal and public manner.

But I wonder how many days will pass before some multiculturalist, equalities-obsessed knuckle-dragger will object that the award takes the form of a Christian symbol, since some of those who have died were of other faiths. This issue has already been raised regarding British Honours and Awards.

But in this case, they would be wrong.

Because, on enlistment, every serviceman or woman takes a solemn oath of allegiance to the Sovereign, who is Defender of the Faith. Her Majesty has granted her own name, uniquely, to this mark of recognition to the fallen, and no serviceman or woman, dead, living, or soon to die, would be any doubt of Her sincerity, of would quibble over its form.

It is the views of serving personnel that count in this case, not those of people who criticize our Armed Forces and its traditions, or those who would never consider placing themselves in harm’s way on behalf of our Nation.

This is a good thing that has been done and I pray that very few Elizabeth Crosses need to be awarded in the future.

But until the Armed Forces are properly resourced, I fear they will.

MOD Torpedoes Climate Research

Nature News reports that the MOD has pulled funding of £4.3 million from the Met Office’s Hadley Centre for Climate Change, amounting to 25% of its budget.

The news came as a bit of a surprise, not that it upsets me.

Far from it.

But it made me wonder why the MOD was supporting the organisation in the first place. I know that the MOD funds much of the Met Office. After all, it was part of the MOD until fairly recently for the very sound reason that weather forecasting is important for military operations. Like D-Day.

But Climate Change research?

(As an aside, let’s get one thing clear. I believe in maintaining the earth’s environmental balance, particularly its rainforests. I believe in climate change. Its been happening for tens of thousands of years without any help from humans. I also believe that the jury is far from decided on man-made climate change or the alleged catastrophic effects of man-made CO2.

But I believe that the hysteria gripping society is based on a hugely subjective viewpoint propounded by a relatively small band of arrogant, dogmatic zealots who are so obsessed by their own opinions they refuse to countenance any other and have closed their minds to debate.

And there are many thousands of eminent scientists who take a contrary view to the “consensus” and whose opinions are ignored by the climate change elite and the media. Until their views are allowed to be aired openly, the climate change issue will be dominated by a narrow-minded cabal who appear afraid to have their theories exposed to objective test, as any honest scientist should.

Unlike the credulous politicians, media, and folk in the street who have naively accepted the doctrine of disaster, I have spent many hours looking at both sides of the argument. Unlike the apostles of apocalypse, I believe the debate is far from over. Why is for another post

But I am in no doubt that until an open debate is forthcoming and some balance established, the West will be drawn into levels of climate spending, for which the need is speculative, that will reduce it to an uncompetitive industrial and economic backwater).

But back to the Hadley Centre’s funding. Reaction from the prophets of doom was predictable.

A climate science professor called Martin Parry, formerly of the Met Office, now at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London said:

"This news comes as a shock”.

I’ll bet it bloody well does, sunshine. Welcome to the reality of recession. The UK economy has just experienced its biggest quarterly decline in 51 years and you are surprised when some money dries up.

Get a life.

“ The UK's core modelling work on climate change has been funded from this source, up to now."

And you were quite happy to take it for your intellectually onanistic, close-minded, quasi-religion at the expense of soldiers on operations. Your use of the word “modelling” gives you away. Scientific modelling is a process for creating abstract models, which, in turn, are conceptual objects used in the creation of predictive formulae. All of which are hypothetical and none of which are facts.

So MOD money was being spent on generating hypotheses, which are then hyped to the public as facts. (The Hadley Centre is good at this*).

Funding guesswork or equipping soldiers properly? Tricky one.

Parry added:

“Global and regional security will be threatened by climate change, and the MoD is hopelessly wrong to think it is outside its responsibility".

No it won’t, you odious immoral man. You can’t say “will” unless you deal in fact, and you don’t; you hypothesise. So why not say “there is a possiblity that global and regional security………….”? Because you are a zealot, with no more moral authority or grounding than a Jesuit during the Inquisition.

In a statement, an MoD spokesperson said that the cuts, which will come into effect immediately, were made with a view to "prioritizing success in current operations, such as Afghanistan".

And about time. But why hasn’t “prioritizing success” been on the agenda before now? No doubt many families of soldiers who have died through lack of resources will be saying: “Well that’s fine; it doesn’t matter that Johnny didn’t come back as long as Climate Science is funded”.

The Met Office is now in negotiations with DEFRA, DECC and DfID to try to recoup some of the lost funding.

But a reasonable, sane citizen might wonder why DECC (Dept of Energy and Climate Change) hasn’t been underwriting the Hadley Centre for Climate Change completely. There’s a bit of a clue in their titles, after all.

Gavin Schmidt, another climate “modeller” at NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies in New York said:

" If they don't recoup it, they are going to be in serious trouble. Losing 25% of your funding is a huge deal. Five percent is generally containable, but 25% is not an amount you can hope to absorb easily."

No Shit. Make efficiencies. The unemployed are having to and so will government, whatever Brownies the Great Leader and his acolytes spout.

These whinging puveyors of the Apocalytic Doom Theory should be invited to don a flak jacket and spend a few months on some climate research in Helmand Province. They deserve to experience the personal climate effects of the MOD’s core activity since they have been using its money so freely.

Naturally, George Monbiot, the Archdeacon of Apocolypse had to have his say and appears to contradict Professor Parry.

"Our wars make us less safe. We would be better protected from terrorism and global instability if the UK’s armed forces stopped going abroad to make trouble.

Now the rational, least painful solution is to stop building tanks, and use the money to address a real threat”.

Have a lie down, George. You’ll get better soon. Or perhaps not.

* The Hadley Centre was behind the scare story last week that Barnsley would soon be as hot as Buenos Aires. But how far should they be trusted?

Hadley are not just presenting a general impression of what might happen globally during this century, or even how climate change could affect the UK as a whole. They are claiming that they can predict what will happen in individual regions of the country - down to a 25km square.

Thanks to The Register for this:

All this is rather unexpected. In May last year, a world summit of climate modellers took place at Reading University. On the agenda was one very important problem for them; even the most powerful super-computers that have been developed so far are not capable of running the kind of high resolution models that they claim would allow them to reduce the degree of uncertainty in their predictions, and also make detailed regional predictions that policy makers would like to have so that they can build climate change into infrastructure planning.

Here are excerpts from the conference website:

The climate modelling community is therefore faced with a major new challenge: Is the current generation of climate models adequate to provide societies with accurate and reliable predictions of regional climate change? A major conclusion of the group was that regional projections from the current generation of climate models were sufficiently uncertain to compromise this goal of providing society with reliable predictions of regional climate change.

This was summed up by Julia Slingo (at that time Professor of Meteorology at Reading University, who also chaired part of the conference) in a report by Roger Harrabin on the BBC News website:

Julia Slingo from Reading University admitted it would not get much better until they had supercomputers 1,000 times more powerful than at present.

“We’ve reached the end of the road of being able to improve models significantly so we can provide the sort of information that policymakers and business require,” she told BBC News. “In terms of computing power, it’s proving totally inadequate. With climate models we know how to make them much better to provide much more information at the local level… we know how to do that, but we don’t have the computing power to deliver it.”

Slingo said several hundred million pounds of investment were needed.

If, since the conference, several hundred million pounds had been invested in producing a new generation of supercomputers, a thousand times more powerful than the present generation, and the Met Office had already developed and run the kind of high resolution models which were so far beyond the scientist’s grasp just a year ago, then I suspect that this might have seeped into the media and we would have head about it. So far as I am aware, the fastest supercomputers are still a thousand times slower than the modellers consider necessary for credible regional scale modelling of the climate.

So I wondered whether Professor Slingo had anything to say about the Met Office’s new report.

You bet she did.

“Through UK Climate Predictions 2009 the Met Office has provided the world’s most comprehensive regional climate projections with a unique assessment of the possible changes to our climate through the rest of this century. For the first time businesses and other organisations have the tools to help them make risk-based decisions to adapt to the challenges of our changing climate.”

Slingo confidently explained the 'breakthrough' to Bloomberg. “We can attach levels of certainty,” she said.

So what’s changed since last year? Well one thing is that Julia Slingo has a new job. She has been appointed as Chief Scientist at the Met Office. So far as I know, the limitations that lack of computing power place on the accuracy and resolution of models are just the same.

And the Met Office owns Hadley. So a quick flit into a £80K plus job and Julia appears to have flipped her opinion in just 12 months and Hadley’s “inability to predict” has become a “certainty”.

Wonder why.

It makes you wonder about the integrity of climate science.

One for the Weekend

Having watched highlights of the master poet's recent concert at O2 on BBC iPlayer, I just can't get this song out of my head. His use of language and his enduring ability to deliver emotion on stage really get under my skin.



But having read this from the Washington Post, picked up from The Devil's Kitchen, I wonder if Leonard is still living in hope.