Message de Pat Condell

A message for America

Pat Condell has a message to America.

Transcript of Pat Condell’s Video:

"Wake up, America (hat tip KGS)You remember the cartel of Islamic dictatorships that hijacked the United Nations Human Rights Council don’t you? And then promptly passed a resolution banning the criticism of religion? Yes of course you do!

Well, apparently they’ve decided now that the Universal Declaration of Human rights gives people just a bit too much freedom and dignity for their liking. And so they’ve devised their own Islamic human rights charter which is a bit like Satan getting his own set of pearly gates and about as convincing. Unfortunately the Islamic charter is based on Sharia which is, of course, invalid because it’s God’s law and God doesn’t exist; to claim that he does is extremely offensive to those of us who passionately believe otherwise. It’s a grave insult to our most deeply cherished beliefs , an assault on the very core of our being, no less, and a violation, therefore, of our human rights – isn’t it?. Well, isn’t it?
Now all this would be something of a tiresome joke if not for the fact that this nonsense is beginning to have a real effect on our basic freedoms, certainly here in Europe, and Americans would do well to wake up and pay attention to what’s going on. Ever since the Islamic countries demanded that Western governments make it a crime to criticise Islam, all over Europe blasphemy laws and religious insult laws are being use to criminalise freedom of speech. The latest is Ireland, a country that has being literally raped by religion yet has passed a law protecting it from criticism. Talk about Stockholm Syndrome!

Free speech, they tell us, carries certain responsibilities; well too true, it does, the most primary one being that what you say should be the truth. And the truth should never be embarrassing and it should never be illegal, and any government that’s so embarrassed by the truth that it makes it illegal is governing under false pretences. The Dutch Government for example which is in the process of embarrassing itself by prosecuting the leader of one of the country’s largest political parties for the ‘crime’ of telling the truth. You see, these days in Europe we have become so used to weasel words and double standards that the truth has become distinctly unfashionable. Speaking your mind is now seen as virtually anti social because some opportunistic cry-baby is sure to take offense and throw a tantrum, and that might threaten community cohesion.

Now what has all this got to do with America? Well, President Obama is very keen on showing respect to the Muslim world and nobody can fault him on his record so far, bowing as he did to the King of Saudi Arabia like some kind of vassal, and then making a rather flattering and, some might even say, dishonest speech in Cairo, although to be fair to him he did stop short of prostrating himself towards Mecca... at least for the time being! But because he wants to play ball with Islam, especially now that they have given him a peace prize through their shills in the Norwegian establishment, that he’s going to have to justify for the next three years. The Iranians must be rubbing their hands with glee at that one.

The American Government has now done something that if they did it in their own country it would violate the Constitution. They have co-sponsored a UN resolution that puts a limit on freedom of speech because the Islamic countries don’t like free speech, they don’t like free anything, except free foreign aid - obviously they can’t get enough of that!

Even the Saudis want aid now, have you heard their latest? I could hardly believe it! The Saudis have said that when the world starts using less oil they expect to be compensated for loss of income! You really couldn’t make it up could you?
Now the problem with the new touchy-feely American administration is not that they want to be friendly and respectful towards everyone; that’s very laudable. It’s just that when you have a moral agenda like that it can be tempting to cut corners, especially when it comes to inconvenient things like... Constitutional amendments. And if they are doing this now outside the United States, where they can get away with it, it’s only a matter of time before this is allowed to become international law, and then you know they’re going to start trying to do it inside the United States as well; in the name of ‘community cohesion’- get used to that phrase America, it’s coming you way! And this matters, it matters a lot, not only to Americans but to all of us who see the American Constitution as the anchor for Western Civilisation, which is what it is! We know that no matter how spineless our politicians are here in Europe and elsewhere , and here in Europe. They barely got a vertebrae between them. between them. As long as America’s First Amendment remains inviolate there will always be an oasis of freedom on this planet that Islam cannot touch. But as soon as anyone is allowed to interfere with it, to water it down, to reinterpret, to chip and chisel away at the First Amendment for reasons of religious or cultural sensitivity then we wave our civilisation goodbye.

Americans voted for change at the last election, they didn’t vote for surrender. Watch what’s happening in Europe America, cherish that Constitution and don’t let Islam anywhere near it for all our sakes. Remember the words of Mr Omar Ahmad, co-founder of the Council on American Islamic Relations, who said that Islam is not in America to be equal to other faiths but to become dominant and that the Koran should be the highest authority in America. That would be higher than the Constitution then by my reckoning.You know, if President Obama is serious about showing respect to the Muslim world, then he should pay them the compliment of telling them the truth – that their religion is entitled to as much respect as it gives – zero! And that with their record no Islamic country has any business even holding an opinion on human rights, let alone serving on a legislative body. Then asking the people of the free world to compromise their fundamental values is far, far more insulting than any set of cartoons or any book could ever be. And that if the Islamic countries had an ounce of genuine honour between them, they would issue a full and unconditional apology. That’s what he should say, because that’s the truth. Everyone in the free world knows it’s the truth. So let’s hope the truth becomes fashionable again... before too long.
Peace – oh yes."

Citation de David Horowitz

"My correspondent’s second question was an unexpected one, more perplexing than the first: “Do you ever feel that you are wasting your breath? Do you think that truth will ever matter? No matter what you prove or disprove, in the end the truth will remain in the shadows of what people want to hear and want to believe.”

I agree more than I care to with this thought. It is the human wish to be told lies that keeps us where we are. A stoic realism lies at the heart of the conservative viewpoint. It is about accepting limits that are absolute, which the human condition places on human hope.One could define the left as just the opposite: the inability to come to terms with who we are; the obstinate, compulsive, destructive belief in the fantasy of transformation, in the desperate hope of an earthly redemption.

I have watched my friends whose ideas created an empire of inhumanity survive the catastrophe of their schemes and go on to unexpected triumph in the ashes of their defeat. Forced to witness the collapse of everything they once had dreamed and worked to achieve, they have emerged unchastened by their illusions to renew their destructive utopian crusades. The society they declared war on has even rewarded them for their misdeeds. Today they are cultural navigators in the nation most responsible for their worldwide defeat. I cannot explain this dystopian paradox other than to agree that politics is indeed irrational and socialism a wish as deep as any religious faith. I do not know that the truth must necessarily remain in the shadows. But I am persuaded that a lie grounded in human desire is too powerful for reason to kill." David Horowitz, Frontpagemag, 24 oct. 2009

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"Critical theory” – the coy self-description of the ideological Left – self-consciously describes itself by the totality of its rejection of the existing social order, in identical fashion to old-style Marxists (Marx himself was a “critical theorist”). The explicit agenda of critical theory is to undermine the credibility and authority of the status quo in order to prepare its annihilation. The task of undermining communal assumptions and stabilizing faiths is not incidental to the radical critique, but is its corrosive essence. It is what the theory intends. Yet, like the Marxist-Leninists of the past, critical theorists never confront the moral issue posed by their destructive agendas: What can be the rationale for weakening and ultimately destroying a system as liberal as the existing one, if no better has been devised?

Without its adherents noticing, the theoretical argument of the Left has been emptied of content by the failures of socialism. For what is the practical meaning of a socialist critique in the absence of a workable socialist model? In fact, there is none. By adopting an impossible standard, it is easy to find fault with any institution or social system under scrutiny. The ideal of socialist equality, for example, may or may not be admirable. But if social equality cannot be realized in practice, or if the attempt to realize it necessarily creates a totalitarian state, then the idea of such equality can have no significance except as an incitement to destructive agendas.

To raise the socialist ideal to a critical standard imposes a burden of responsibility on its advocates that critical theorists refuse to shoulder. If one sets out to destroy a lifeboat because it fails to meet the standards of a luxury yacht, the act of criticism may be perfectly “just,” but the passengers will drown all the same. Similarly, if socialist principles can only be realized in a socialist gulag, even the presumed inequalities of the capitalist market are worth the price. If socialist poverty and socialist police states are the practical alternative to capitalist inequality, what justice can there be in destroying capitalist freedoms and the benefits thy provide? Without a practical alternative to offer, radical idealism is radical nihilism – a war of destruction with no objective other than war. "

– The Politics of Bad Faith: The Radical Assault on America’s Future

Climate Modeling Nonsense

Oct 19, 2009
Climate Modelling Nonsense
By John Reid, physicist

SOURCE : http://icecap.us/index.php

The less a thing is known, the more fervently it is believed. - Montaigne
In effect a new religion has grown out of secular humanism. Global warming is the central tenet of this new belief system in much the same way that the Resurrection is the central tenet of Christianity. Al Gore has taken a role corresponding to that of St Paul in proselytising the new faith.
There are major differences, however. Whereas it is not possible to call oneself a Christian without entertaining the central belief in the Resurrection, it is certainly possible to be deeply concerned with the order and condition of humanity and so call oneself a humanist without entertaining a corresponding belief in anthropogenic global warming (AGW). Belief in a Resurrection which supposedly occurred some 2000 years ago is a matter of personal faith, whereas AGW is a scientific hypothesis which can and should be tested by observation. Imagine the consequences both to science and to secular humanism should this hypothesis turn out to be untrue and the dire predictions of the climate models fail to materialise.
The quasi-religious nature of AGW is evidenced by the rancour which is generated when people like me express scepticism about the theory. Scepticism is an essential part of science which has, until recently, been a “small-l liberal” pursuit in which the opinions of doubters were respected. Now we sceptics are called “deniers” and, by implication, lumped in with neo-Nazis who question the Holocaust. The accusation that we are somehow in the sway of the oil companies and similar big business interests is commonplace and indeed is the chief argument of non-scientist supporters of the AGW theory. This echoes the “work of the Devil” argument of fundamentalist Christians; it is a mental trick by which the faithful avoid facing the real issues.
Why then do a majority of scientists support the theory? I believe it is largely a matter of loyalty. Very few of us physicists know enough genetics to justify our belief in Darwin�s theory of evolution by natural selection but most of us support it because we believe it to be the outcome of rigorous scientific processes similar to those carried out in our own discipline. Most scientists would support the AGW theory for much the same reason.
By accident of history I find myself in the opposing camp. I was trained as a physicist and was granted a PhD for my postgraduate work in upper atmosphere physics. In the early 1980s I joined the CSIRO’s Division of Oceanography and worked in surface gravity waves (ocean waves) for a time. Much of the theoretical side of oceanography entails fluid dynamics which, because of its heavy mathematical load, is regarded as a sub-discipline of applied mathematics rather than of physics. Because of this, in my view, many practitioners of oceanography and climatology have a cavalier disregard for experimental testing and an unjustified faith in the validity of large-scale computer models.
Later in my career I was involved in running and refining numerical fluid dynamical models, so I gained some insight into how this modelling is done and how rigorously such models need to be tested. Naval architects and aerodynamical engineers do such testing in wave tanks and wind tunnels.
Meteorologists regularly test model “skill”. Climatologists don’t seem to have a concept of testing, and prefer to use the term “verification” instead - that is, they do not seek to invalidate their models; they only seek supporting evidence. My scepticism about AGW arises from the fact that as a physicist who has worked in closely related areas, I know how poor the underlying science is. In effect the scientific method has been abandoned in this field.
Back in the early 1990s when I was still working for the CSIRO and the early versions of the AGW theory started to gain currency, I was rather bemused by the passions which were aroused in my colleagues and the gullibility with which predictions of future climate disaster were accepted. Surely the jury is still out, I thought. I remained agnostic about the theory. More recently, after reading the literature and looking in detail at the output of one well-known climate model (HadCM3) I have changed my stand. I now believe it is nonsense for the following reasons.
First there is the argument, commonly used by Al Gore and others, that carbon dioxide forms a layer like a blanket or greenhouse window pane high in the atmosphere which traps long-wave infra-red radiation, thus making the surface of the earth warmer. This is misleading. Certainly carbon dioxide is an infra-red absorber but, like most infra-red absorbing gases, its absorption rate depends on concentration and pressure and is at a maximum at the ground. The atmosphere is a gas, not a solid, and bits of it move up and down, carrying heat as they move. As a meteorological balloon climbs higher in the atmosphere, the measured temperature falls off with increasing height. This phenomenon, referred to as the lapse rate, has been known and described for more than a century. The lapse rate is determined by the thermodynamic properties of the gases that make up the atmosphere and has little to do with radiation. The convection term completely dominates the radiation term in the relevant equation.
Second there are the climate models themselves. In discussions with colleagues, arguments always seem to come down to “But the models show...” Those who use this argument seldom have modelling experience themselves and share the lay public�s naive faith in the value of large computer models.
I have been a fluid dynamical modeller and I know how flaky numerical models can be for even a relatively small chunk of fluid like the Derwent Estuary. The models are highly unstable and need to be carefully cosseted in order to perform at all realistically. One reason for their inherent instability is that the mesh size of the model grid (typically hundreds of metres to hundreds of kilometres) is always much larger than the scale at which friction and molecular diffusion operate (millimetres or less). These are the forces which act to damp down oscillations by converting free energy to heat. In order to get around this difficulty, in order to keep a model stable, it is common practice to set certain parameters such as eddy viscosity unrealistically high to compensate for the absence of molecular friction. This is reasonable if we are using the model to gain insight into underlying processes, but it means that fluid dynamic models are not much good at predicting the future. There is no exact correspondence between model and reality, and the two soon part company. Fluid mechanics and celestial mechanics are very different disciplines.
This country and the world at large have many real political, demographic and environmental issues to contend with. We do not need to create problems where none exist. The present hysteria diverts money and attention away from problems which do need to be solved. In my view, terrorism, the proliferation of nuclear weapons and pandemic disease are far bigger threats to my family�s comfort and security than are global warming and putative “tipping points”.
There is a danger that conservation failures will be blamed on “climate change”. This happened recently when the removal of feral cats caused a rabbit population explosion on Macquarie Island. Incompetent environmental management resulted in such massive erosion problems that eleven species of birds are now threatened. Climate change has provided a convenient alternative view of the cause of this disaster. Likewise the flooding of oceanic islands by “rising sea levels” has more to do with the removal of coral reefs for construction projects than with global warming.
Over the last few years, with remarkable rapidity, AGW theory has gone from a scientific curiosity to a politically-correct catechism. Nowadays it is not merely politically correct, it is politically essential. Somehow this nineteenth-century oddity has outlasted Das Kapital to become the banner of millions of environmentally concerned Westerners. It seems to fulfil a human need for sacrifice, a need to “put something back”. It is the ancient myth about guilt and sin and redemption in a new guise.
People are entitled to entertain whatever apocalyptic view of the future they choose, but such ideas have nothing to do with science. Climate prediction is not science, it is pseudo-science, and sooner or later more real scientists are going to wake up to this fact.
In the conduct of human affairs it is surely preferable that we base our actions on reason and evidence rather than on piety and myth. Read full essay here.



“Warmists scream “weather is not climate!”. We need to shout back “Venus is not Earth!” since the Venusian atmosphere is entirely different in compositions and forcings, and we understand it far less than Earth’s. Icecap note: as commenters said also 26 million miles closer to the sun and days 150 of our days long and has an atmosphere that is denser and deeper with surface pressures 90 times earth producing compressional warming. In the Venusian atmosphere at the same pressure as earth’s, temperatures are comprable to earth. Of course Nye did not mention Mars, where even though its atmosphere is mainly C02, the air is colder because the atmosphere is thin and pressures lower and of course Mars is farther away. See comments for much more." Anthony Watts, Watts up With That

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