Random Ruminations Repository

A diary of random thoughts on topical issues

Archive 2009

Note: the links on this page may be short-lived. I apologize for any broken links.

01-23-2010

Another glimpse at the scientific precision with which the IPCC works. In its 2007 report, the IPCC claimed that the Himalayan glaciers are very likely to nearly disappear by the year 2035. IPCC leader Rajendra Pachauri apparently resented the doubts cast by India's environment minister that indeed global warming was causing rapid glacier melting. However, according to a article in the Wall Street Journal,

it turns out that this widely publicized prediction was taken from a 2005 report from the World Wildlife Fund, which based it on a comment by Indian glacier expert Syed Hasnain from 1999. Mr. Hasnian now says he was "misquoted." Even more interesting is that the IPCC was warned in 2006 by leading glaciologist Georg Kaser that the 2035 forecast was baseless. "This number is not just a little bit wrong, but far out of any order of magnitude," Mr. Kaser told the Agence France-Presse. "It is so wrong that it is not even worth discussing."

A detailed analysis of how a prediction that is estimated to be wrong by a factor of 25 - predicting glacier melting within 20 instead of 1000 years - is provided by the Global Warming Policy Foundation (local copy. Apparently, a report by the World Wildlife Fund, which served as the (non-peer-reviewed) source, had to be amended with two corrections in 2010. The IPCC clearly violated scientific principles.

Well, can't Mr. Pachauri just fudge some more data?

01-19-2010

For a good laugh, check out this article:
"Hope - The Obama Musical Story", premiere on Sunday, 01-17-10 in Frankfurt, Germany. The ongoing adulation of the Obamessiah has apparently reached a new low. Writes Mr. Schwammenthal in this article:

The musical's American composer and lyricist, Randall Hutchins, who lives in Germany, says his show is not "political." Right, but only in the sense that Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will" was just a documentary. The audience's standing ovation at the end was probably as ideologically overdetermined as my trashing of this hagiography. I confess, I did come to bury "Hope", not to praise it. Personality cult is an irredeemable flaw in both the arts and journalism.

And in politics, too, by the way.

01-01-2010

Happy new year! Haven't you been annoyed, too, by the large number of persistent Obama '08 bumper stickers still out there? Proudly displayed by smug elitists, by ladies who consider themselves un-political, or by almost-kiddies with a soft heart and little understanding of the real world?

Here is the ultimate bumper sticker for 2010 through 2012. Click on the image to obtain the full-sized version (1/2 MB download). No copyright - please distribute freely.