ADIOS

I am now totally out of touch with Mike Pechar, owner of this blog.  So I have no idea about when he might resume posting, if ever he does.  My best guess from what I know is that he has gone blind.

I have tried to keep the blog going for him but it has got too much for me.  I put up six blogs of my own six days a week so my energies are already pretty stretched.

My general interest blog is A Western Heart and I think a lot of readers here might find that something of an alternative to this blog

Best wishes to all the readers here

John Ray

An incorrect sailing ship?

The appearance of a Chilean naval vessel in Sydney Harbour, which had been used as a “torture chamber” by the Pinochet regime, has sparked protests from Chilean-Australians who say it should be removed from service.

The Esmeralda, a four-masted tall ship that is nearly 400ft long, is in Sydney as part of its 61st training cruise and has been docked at Garden Island since Thursday morning.

Considered a national symbol of Chile, it is used as a sail training vessel by the country’s navy and spends about half the year sailing around the world.

But its tours have sparked controversy after a series of human rights reports revealed that the ship was used to detain victims of the Augusto Pinochet’s regime in September 1973.

A 1986 US Senate report suggesting that as many as 112 people – including 40 women – were held on the ship, with rape, electric shocks, mock executions and beatings among the crimes reportedly carried out on board.

The Chile Solidarity Committee, a Sydney-based organisation of about 50 people, intends to protest against the vessel’s appearance on Saturday.

“Regardless of what the present purpose of the ship is, crimes were committed there,” he said. “People got killed there".

SOURCE

That Pinochet was just giving Communists some of their own back is not mentioned.   Pinochet deposed a law-defying Marxist President at the express and desperate invitation of the Chilean parliament. Allende had just burnt the electoral rolls so it wasn't hard to see what was coming. That he used far-Leftist methods to suppress far-Leftist violence is reasonable if not ideal. The Leftist view that they should have a monopoly of violence and that others should follow the law is a total absurdity which shows only that their hate overcomes their reason

Asylum chief is fired in Denmark after lurid details emerge of several female workers having sex with 'children' at migrant centres



An asylum chief has been fired after lurid details emerged of several female workers having sex with children at a refugee centre.

Sisi Eibye, head of the asylum programme at Langeland Municipality in Denmark, was shown the door yesterday after it was revealed at least three officials knew for months that one employee of the Børnecenter Tullebølle children's asylum centre had engaged in sex acts with underage residents.

The acts were photographed and videoed showing her having oral sex with at least one refugee and full intercourse with one of the boys at the centre in Tranekær.

Officials believe the woman had sexual relationships with at least three boys at the centre, while two other female workers are believed to have violated boys at the centre.

The two women were sacked and police are investigating while Funen Police said it was looking into the details of the first woman, The Local reports.

Although there has been some debate over the ages of many migrants from the Middle East travelling with no papers and no way to verify their dates of birth, the Danish Immigration Service (DIS) last week announced it would shut down the children's centre amid the claims.

The initial details were leaked to Radio 24syv and yesterday police said: 'It is clear that we are taking this case very seriously.

'When one's role is to protect vulnerable children, this is a very serious allegation,' spokesman Sten Skovgaard Larsen told Radio 24syv.

Ms Eibye was not one of the three women involved in the sex acts.

Documents obtained by the radio station showed the claims were first reported to the DIS last week, but that at least three top municipal employees knew about them as early as June 10.

The troubled centre houses around 40 boys, and residents sparked a mass brawl last month in which an employee was hit with a metal pipe by a 15-year-old brawl.

In the summer, five teenagers from the centre were charged with sexual assaults at the Langelandsfestival where they allegedly groped and raped a 16-year-old girl.

A month before in July, there was another huge fight, this time involving boys from the centre and more than 100 other asylum seekers during a football match against another centre.

SOURCE  

Married teaching assistant, 37, admits performing a string of sex acts on a boy, 15, during a four-day school trip  



A married teaching assistant and mother-of-two has been warned she faces jail after admitting performing a string of sex acts on a 15-year-old boy during a school trip.

Jill Meldrum-Jones, 37, wept in the dock today as she pleaded guilty to a string of sex offences involving the teenage pupil over a four-day period last summer.

The mother, who has two children aged 12 and seven, worked at the victim's secondary school in Warwickshire, which cannot be named for legal reasons.

Today, Meldrum-Jones, of Kineton, Warwickshire, admitted five charges of sexual activity with a child between July 11 and July 14 last year at Warwick Crown Court.

One of the charges relates to the teacher performing oral sex on the boy while the court heard another two relate to her masturbating him.

She also pleaded guilty to two charges of causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity on July 12 and July 13 last year. The court heard these charges involved her allowing the boy to perform sex acts on her.

Meldrum-Jones, who had dyed her blonde hair to brunette and wore a white blouse in the dock, was told she would be sentenced on November 28.

Adjourning the case for a pre-sentence report, Judge Sylvia de Bertodana warned her a jail term was 'likely'.

She added: 'You have pleaded guilty to the majority of these matters, you will have to be dealt with by way of sentence.

'Clearly there needs to be a pre-sentence report for your benefit. 'I'm going to make a condition of your bail that you co-operate with probation in the preparation of that report.

'You need to come back here for sentence on November 28. If you don't attend you are committing an offence.

'Please don't take any indication that it won't be a custodial sentence, I'm afraid that it is a likely outcome so prepare yourself for that. 'Before you go you're going to have to sign the sex offenders' register.'

Meldrum-Jones sobbed in the dock as her barrister told the court she was only allowed supervised contact with her own two children.

But Judge de Bertodano amended her bail conditions to allow her to see her children unsupervised. She added: 'It's hard to see she is any risk to her own children from what I have read about this case. 'I really can't see why she can't take her own children out for a walk on her own.'

The court heard Meldrum-Jones, who is believed to have been suspended from work earlier this year, still lived with her husband and two children. Asked by the judge if she was staying at the family home, Daniel Oscroft, defending, said: 'She is but the husband is always there.'

Meldrum-Jones also denied one charge of sexual assault against a different teenager, also aged 15, between February 1 and February 28 this year.

Prosecutor Stefan Kolodynski asked the court for two weeks to 'canvass the complainant's family' before deciding whether to ask for it to be left on file.

Meldrum-Jones was released on bail with a condition not to approach colleagues at the school or the teenage victim. She is also not allowed unsupervised access with children under the age of 16, except her own, unless approved by social workers.

The teaching assistant refused to comment as she left court and got into a waiting car outside the main entrance.

SOURCE

Irresponsible peddlers of a Green/Left scare story get their just desserts

Fronted by Maryanne Demasi, the Australian ABC "Catalyst" program aired  a scare story saying that mobile phones and Wi-Fi caused health impacts including brain tumours. That caused an immediate outcry from the scientific community who know the evidence on such a hoary old nonsense.

The Catalyst staff should have known better.  The effect of electromagnetic radiation on health has been a big boogeyman for many years but the contrary evidence is huge. Notably: From the early days of mobile phones until now there has been no upsurge in brain cancer.  Now that mobiles are very widely used, we should be swimming in brain cancer cases by now.  But we are not. High or low levels of mobile phone use and the resultant radiation makes no difference. It's all just attention-seekers big-noting themselves

Staff on the ABC’s Catalyst program staff have been told by the ABC’s director of television Richard Finlayson that they will all be made redundant.

In a meeting at Ultimo attended by TV management and human resources the presenters and producers were told the magazine style program was ending.

A last-minute bid by senior ABC staff on Wednesday to overturn the board’s decision to axe Catalyst failed, sources told Guardian Australia.

The board had been presented with reasons why the ABC should continue to cover science properly with an in-house science unit.

An internal review after Catalyst presenter Maryanne Demasi’s Wi-Fried? program was found to have breached the ABC’s impartiality guidelines recommended the program be axed and Demasi and all the other staff be made redundant.

Finlayson told staff that nine people will lose their jobs and that the changes to Catalyst were not driven by the Demasi incident alone.

“For 2017, Catalyst will move from the current half-hour, magazine-style program structure to a one-hour documentary format, focused on high-impact, single-issue programs or series,” he said.

“It will be presented by leading science experts, chosen for the various programs. This shift will align Catalyst with world’s best practice for science programming. An embedded digital capability will deliver short-form content around each program and throughout the year to increase the ABC’s digital science offering on ABC and third party social platforms.

“Finally, we must recognise that Catalyst and its team have served our audiences and the science community well for many years. However, we need to do what we believe is best for audiences, and that means adjusting our approach to best meet their needs and the realities of a changing market. We will work closely with those staff impacted by these changes to ensure they are treated respectfully throughout this transition.”

Under the baord’s plan the award-winning program will be replaced by 17 one-hour science specials, mainly from the independent production sector, commissioned by new staff the ABC is going to hire.

The ABC staff union, the Community and Public Sector Union, was holding meetings with management and staff on Thursday morning.

A letter from the ABC section secretary, Sinddy Ealy, to management fell on deaf ears.

“Catalyst fills a unique and important place in Australian science journalism and we share concerns that a longer-format replacement would mean important and exciting scientific work was ignored,” Ealy said.

“It would be a huge disservice to the Australian public if the ABC’s strategy is to intentionally dumb down specialist content in favour of ratings.

“The changing media landscape means the importance of ABC’s specialist content has never been greater. We recognise that ABC should review its programs regularly, but they also need to ensure that quality specialist content and the staff behind that content are retained.”

Senior ABC program makers warned that ditching the weekly half-hour program and disbanding the science unit would lead to a dumbing down of science programming and in effect kill off Australian science on television.

Demasi has been on leave since a review of her Wi-Fried? program – which linked Wi-Fi and mobile phones with health risks including brain cancer – was found to have breached the ABC’s impartiality guidelines.

The discredited program was the second Catalyst story by Demasi to be found in breach of the ABC’s editorial policies and to be removed from the website. In 2013 Demasi kept her job despite an editorial breach for a program about statins.

SOURCE

Substitute teacher, 28, at private prep school 'plied student, 16, with alcohol and had sex with him after exchanging lewd messages over Snapchat'



A substitute teacher and administrator at a private Florida school was arrested on Friday after her co-workers told authorities that she had sex with one of her students.

Alicia Bromfield has been charged with unlawful sex with a minor and contributing to the delinquency of a minor after an official at The Crenshaw School in Gotha notified welfare workers at the Department of Children and Families about the alleged relationship, who in turn contacted the Orlando police.

WFTV reports that the 28-year-old allegedly picked up the student, 16, from his home in Kissimmee and then drove him to her Orlando apartment where she drank vodka with him before the two had sex.

Prior to that Bromfield, who divorced her husband of just over two years in June, had allegedly exchanged lewd photos with the boy on Snapchat.

The incident between Bromfield and the student occurred last month, and soon after she told some of her fellow workers what happened between the two.

Those individuals then told the attorney for the school, who contact the DCF hotline.

'There was alcohol involved. She provided the alcohol, he consumed it. Both parties were probably under the influence,' said Orlando police Sergeant Tami Edwards.

Bromfield, who is related to the student account manager at The Crenshaw School, began working at the prep school in August.

She was a substitute teacher for a brief while, and twice had the young boy she is accused of sleeping with in her class.

Bromfield then moved into a more administrative role at the school and began working in the front office.

The school has yet to comment on Bromfield's arrest.

After her arrest on Friday, Bromfield was released from the Orange County Jail when she posted $5,100 bail.

SOURCE  

Mother, 59, paralysed by back pain is cured by 20mile hikes wearing just a swimsuit



A mother who was inspired by a near-death experience to get 'body confident' and go on 20-mile hikes in just a bikini and boots is facing a backlash from other women.

Ann Wheeler, from Clayton-le-Woods, Lancashire, suffers from Cauda Equina syndrome - a rare spinal condition that can cause paralysis. The 59-year-old claims that the post-op experience motivated her to take up walking and wild swimming as natural pain management as she believes it is as strong as traditional painkillers.

However, since taking up hiking, Ann has encountered criticism online with some wives ordering their husbands to steer clear of her. 'I took a week off work and was due to hike with some male walkers from Essex but they said they couldn't because their wives had got wind of it.

The exercise has also helped Ann lose weight and she has gone from a size 16 to a slinky size 12.

Source

Sir David Attenborough: ‘Shoot’ Donald Trump and Leave Politics to the Experts

Why not shoot David Attenborough?  If he thinks murder is an appropriate solution to political disagreements he should perhaps be careful that someone does not apply that principle to him.  Looking at his comments below, it's hard to decide whether Sir David is a Fascist or a Communist

Sir David Attenborough, the veteran broadcaster and climate change alarmist, has attacked the involvement of voters in politics beyond elections, suggesting the only way to stop Donald Trump is to “shoot him” and that complex political questions like Brexit should be blocked by “wiser” politicians.

Condemning Mr. Trump’s climate-scepticism, Sir David asked: “Do we [foreigners] have any control or influence over the American election? Of course we don’t. We could shoot him… it’s not a bad idea.”

Whilst the Radio Times journalist conducting the interview suggested it was a joke met with “giggles”, such violent rhetoric from this liberal establishment figure and cultural icon may bbe seen as hypocritical.

Furthermore, Sir David went on to explain that he was deadly serious about his desire to block popular, elected individuals and decisions via undemocratic means.

“There’s confusion, isn’t there, between populism and parliamentary democracy,” he told the Radio Times, one of Britain’s widest-read and oldest magazines. “I mean, that’s why we’re in the mess we are with Brexit, is it not?”

“Do we really want to live by this kind of referendum?” he asked of the European Union (EU) plebiscite.

“What we mean by parliamentary democracy is surely that we find someone we respect who we think is probably wiser than we are, who is prepared to take the responsibility of pondering difficult things and then trust him – or her – to vote on our behalf,” Sir David continued.

He said he was concerned by Michael Gove’s EU referendum claims that the British people have had enough of experts. “That’s why politicians getting up and saying, ‘We’ve had enough of experts’ is so catastrophic,” he added.

Donald Trump may not be the only person Sir David believes would be better off dead. As a patron of the Population Matters, the veteran climate change alarmist is a subscriber to an organisation which in 2011 stated their goal of reducing the global population to a “sustainable” 5.1 billion. The present population is presently an estimated 7.4 billion.

Speaking in support of the aims of the group in 2012, the television personality said: “I can’t think of a single problem that wouldn’t be easier to solve if there were less people”.

SOURCE

Feminist witches are casting hexes on Donald Trump



American witches have come a long way since Salem and the trials of 1692, when the accusation of witchcraft got a lady hanged. Today, witching is in and sorceresses in the US and beyond are practicing magical activism to thwart The Donald’s bid for presidency.

Vermont’s Feminists Against Trump, a group of college professors in the state, is holding a pre-Halloween “witch-in” today in Burlington. They have issued a call to all crones and their black pussycats to join in the mass hexing to “cast magical spells of love and feminism to destroy the Great Orange One and the racism, xenophobia and sexism he feeds on.”

Source

Global cooling coming

From his study of climate cycles, prominent Russian climatologist Habibullo Abdussamatov can see signs that we are already on a cooling trajectory.  His latest paper below

The New Little Ice Age Has Started

H.I. Abdussamatov

Abstract

Since 1990, the Sun has been in the declining phase of the quasi-bicentennial variation in total solar irradiance (TSI). The decrease in the portion of TSI absorbed by the Earth since 1990 has remained uncompensated by the Earth's long-wave radiation into space at the previous high level because of the thermal inertia of the world's oceans. As a result, the Earth has, and will continue to have, a negative average annual energy balance and a long-term adverse thermal condition. The quasi-centennial epoch of the new Little Ice Age has started at the end 2015 after the maximum phase of solar cycle 24. The start of a solar grand minimum is anticipated in solar cycle 27 ± 1 in 2043 ± 11 and the beginning of phase of deep cooling in the new Little Ice Age in 2060 ± 11. The gradual weakening of the Gulf Stream leads to stronger cooling in the zone of its action in western Europe and the eastern parts of the United States and Canada. Quasi-bicentennial cyclic variations of TSI together with successive very important influences of the causal feedback effects are the main fundamental causes of corresponding alternations in climate variation from warming to the Little Ice Age.

SOURCE

Leftist logic

Facts and reason are so regularly subversive to Green/Left  claims that it is always amusing to read the commentaries they put up.  How do they get around  the pesky facts? Mainly by telling just half the truth.  There is a good example below.  The article was headed: "A New American Low: One Rule For The Whites, Another For Its First Peoples".  It's a desperate attempt to connect two totally unconnected things.  The article below is from "New Matilda" but there have been similar articles in "The Guardian" and some other Leftist organs.

The first thing covered below is the dispersal of protesters occupying private land in order to block construction of the Dakota access pipeline.  The pipeline is an important piece of infrastructure that will enable domestically produced crude oil from North Dakota to reach major refining markets in a more direct, cost-effective, safer and environmentally responsible manner. The pipeline will also reduce the current use of rail and truck transportation.  There is of course no mention of the environmental and safety benefits of the pipeline below.

The key claim, however, is that the removal of the "Sioux" protesters shows bias against these wonderful native people who mainly live on the taxpayer these days.  Whites would have been treated better, is the claim.  Again something is not mentioned -- something that completely blows apart the accusation of bias:  Most of the protesters were white, not Sioux!  And exactly the same methods were used to disperse both groups.  Both Sioux and whites were treated equally!  What a laugh!  Leftists quite cheerfully lie in their teeth.

The second event covered below is the exoneration of the Bundy brothers.  Sit-ins and protests are fine if you are black, Leftist or some other favoured group but sit-ins and protests by white ranchers protesting government oppression get absolutely NO sympathy below.  That good ol' double standard again. Apparently, the wrongness of what the Bundys did arises solely from their whiteness!  Just the usual Leftist obsession with race


Forget the US presidential race. Over the weekend, two things happened in the USA that define the nation better than a sexual assaulting Republican candidate and a deeply corrupt Democrat ever could.

The story goes like this: Protestors from the Sioux Nation, along with a growing band of supporters, have been facing off with state police against the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline in Standing Rock, North Dakota.

The pipeline is to carry oil, and traditional owners say it threatens lives and livelihoods, because of its proximity to the Missouri River, the life blood of a huge section of north and central America and the major river system that feeds into the Mississippi.

Over the weekend, about 250 protestors were outnumbered by more than 300 police, armed to teeth and driving armoured cars, Humvees and helicopters.

The police moved in – dozens of protestors were arrested, and some of them shot with rubber bullets, including this guy, who copped one in the face.

The situation is so grave, that Amnesty International has committed to sending impartial observers.

At the same time, a Portland (Oregon) jury came in with a verdict on the armed occupation of the Malheur Wildlife Reserve, which took place in January this year.

On January 2, dozens of heavily armed (predominantly white) ‘ranchers’ overran the government compound, and seized it in a coup that eventually led to one man being shot by police, and dozens arrested.

On Friday, seven of the white nationalist extremists, led by Ammon and Ryan Bundy, were acquitted of all charges of impeding federal officers in their duties. The jury was all white.

This despite an armed stand-off that lasted weeks, and included a call out from the terrorists for people to send “snacks”.

It’s not clear what, if any, effect the two incidents will have on the US presidential election. But more than likely, it’ll be none. Business as usual.

SOURCE

Do cranberries prevent burny pees?

There has been popular support for cranberries helping with urinary tract infections for a very long time.  But the research findings have been uneven. There has therefore been a wish for studies which would settle the question for once and for all. The abstract of the latest study is below.

It is undoubtedly a well-conducted study and a contemporaneous review has used it as something of a final nail in the coffin of clinical use of cranberry juice.

I wish to prise that nail out of the coffin, in part because I have personally found cranberry juice to be very efficacious. It doesn't happen often but, if I get a twinge of UTI, I rapidly belt a couple of mouthfuls of supermarket cranberry juice into me and the problem disappears.

So why is my experience different from what we read in the report below?  Several reasons.  For a start, I am not a sick and elderly woman living in a Connecticut nursing home.  More importantly, however, I take the juice as a cure, not as a preventive.  Its effects could wear off if you take it all the time.  Cranberries may not be able to prevent UTI but they could cure it.

I am also concerned that most of the studies administer the stuff in capsule form rather than as a drink. As a much-published academic researcher myself, I know exactly why they do that.  It enables standardization and replicability.  But what if the scientific precautions damage the effect?  What if capsules are not a good way of delivering the power of the cranberry?  To put it in academic terms, what if the finding is an artifact of the experimental method? What if capsules have processed all the goodness out of the cranberries? Health researchers are loud and frequent in condemning processed food generally, so how come cranberry capsules get a pass?

So it is my conclusion that most of the studies, including the one below, have been incautious despite themselves and have not examined the question adequately.  Drink up your cranberry juice!


Effect of Cranberry Capsules on Bacteriuria Plus Pyuria Among Older Women in Nursing Homes: A Randomized Clinical Trial

Manisha Juthani-Mehta et al.

Abstract

Importance:  Bacteriuria plus pyuria is highly prevalent among older women living in nursing homes. Cranberry capsules are an understudied, nonantimicrobial prevention strategy used in this population.

Objective:  To test the effect of 2 oral cranberry capsules once a day on presence of bacteriuria plus pyuria among women residing in nursing homes.

Design, Setting, and Participants:  Double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled efficacy trial with stratification by nursing home and involving 185 English-speaking women aged 65 years or older, with or without bacteriuria plus pyuria at baseline, residing in 21 nursing homes located within 50 miles (80 km) of New Haven, Connecticut (August 24, 2012-October 26, 2015).

Interventions:  Two oral cranberry capsules, each capsule containing 36 mg of the active ingredient proanthocyanidin (ie, 72 mg total, equivalent to 20 ounces of cranberry juice) vs placebo administered once a day in 92 treatment and 93 control group participants.

Main Outcomes and Measures:  Presence of bacteriuria (ie, at least 105 colony-forming units [CFUs] per milliliter of 1 or 2 microorganisms in urine culture) plus pyuria (ie, any number of white blood cells on urinalysis) assessed every 2 months over the 1-year study surveillance; any positive finding was considered to meet the primary outcome. Secondary outcomes were symptomatic urinary tract infection (UTI), all-cause death, all-cause hospitalization, all multidrug antibiotic–resistant organisms, antibiotics administered for suspected UTI, and total antimicrobial administration.

Results  Of the 185 randomized study participants (mean age, 86.4 years [SD, 8.2], 90.3% white, 31.4% with bacteriuria plus pyuria at baseline), 147 completed the study. Overall adherence was 80.1%. Unadjusted results showed the presence of bacteriuria plus pyuria in 25.5% (95% CI, 18.6%-33.9%) of the treatment group and in 29.5% (95% CI, 22.2%-37.9%) of the control group. The adjusted generalized estimating equations model that accounted for missing data and covariates showed no significant difference in the presence of bacteriuria plus pyuria between the treatment group vs the control group (29.1% vs 29.0%; OR, 1.01; 95% CI, 0.61-1.66; P = .98). There were no significant differences in number of symptomatic UTIs (10 episodes in the treatment group vs 12 in the control group), rates of death (17 vs 16 deaths; 20.4 vs 19.1 deaths/100 person-years; rate ratio [RR], 1.07; 95% CI, 0.54-2.12), hospitalization (33 vs 50 admissions; 39.7 vs 59.6 hospitalizations/100 person-years; RR, 0.67; 95% CI, 0.32-1.40), bacteriuria associated with multidrug-resistant gram-negative bacilli (9 vs 24 episodes; 10.8 vs 28.6 episodes/100 person-years; RR, 0.38; 95% CI, 0.10-1.46), antibiotics administered for suspected UTIs (692 vs 909 antibiotic days; 8.3 vs 10.8 antibiotic days/person-year; RR, 0.77; 95% CI, 0.44-1.33), or total antimicrobial utilization (1415 vs 1883 antimicrobial days; 17.0 vs 22.4 antimicrobial days/person-year; RR, 0.76; 95% CI, 0.46-1.25).

Conclusions and Relevance:  Among older women residing in nursing homes, administration of cranberry capsules vs placebo resulted in no significant difference in presence of bacteriuria plus pyuria over 1 year.

JAMA. Published online October 27, 2016. doi:10.1001/jama.2016.16141

Why does our planet experience an ice age every 100,000 years?

More Warmist rubbish -- confusing cause and effect again. Of course there was more CO2 dissolved in the oceans during cooler periods.  That is what cooler water does.  It dissolves more CO2.  Your Coca Cola would not fizz otherwise. So they really have no causal explanation at all for the matter they discuss

I add the journal abstract following the popular summary below.  The opening comments of the abstract indicate that the period of cyclicity was cooler  as a whole.  I quote: "The ~100 k.y. cyclicity of the late Pleistocene ice ages started during the mid-Pleistocene transition (MPT), as ice sheets became larger and persisted for longer"

Only a carefully dated tabulation of temperature and CO2 levels showing which changes came first could establish the theory they offer. They offer nothing of that sort.  They report on CO2 proxies only


Experts from Cardiff University have offered up an explanation as to why our planet began to move in and out of ice ages every 100,000 years.

This mysterious phenomena, dubbed the ‘100,000 year problem’, has been occurring for the past million years or so and leads to vast ice sheets covering North America, Europe and Asia. Up until now, scientists have been unable to explain why this happens.

Our planet’s ice ages used to occur at intervals of every 40,000 years, which made sense to scientists as the Earth’s seasons vary in a predictable way, with colder summers occurring at these intervals.

However there was a point, about a million years ago, called the ‘Mid-Pleistocene Transition’, in which the ice age intervals changed from every 40,000 years to every 100,000 years.

New research published today in the journal Geology has suggested the oceans may be responsible for this change, specifically in the way that they suck carbon dioxide (CO2) out of the atmosphere.

By studying the chemical make-up of tiny fossils on the ocean floor, the team discovered that there was more CO2 stored in the deep ocean during the ice age periods at regular intervals every 100,000 years.

This suggests that extra carbon dioxide was being pulled from the atmosphere and into the oceans at this time, subsequently lowering the temperature on Earth and enabling vast ice sheets to engulf the Northern Hemisphere.

Lead author of the research Professor Carrie Lear, from the School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, said: “We can think of the oceans as inhaling and exhaling carbon dioxide, so when the ice sheets are larger, the oceans have inhaled carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, making the planet colder. When the ice sheets are small, the oceans have exhaled carbon dioxide, so there is more in the atmosphere which makes the planet warmer.

“By looking at the fossils of tiny creatures on the ocean floor, we showed that when ice sheets were advancing and retreating every 100,000 years the oceans were inhaling more carbon dioxide in the cold periods, suggesting that there was less left in the atmosphere.”

Marine algae play a key role in removing CO2 from the atmosphere as it is an essential ingredient of photosynthesis.

CO2 is put back into the atmosphere when deep ocean water rises to the surface through a process called upwelling, but when a vast amount of sea ice is present this prevents the CO2 from being exhaled, which could make the ice sheets bigger and prolong the ice age.

“If we think of the oceans inhaling and exhaling carbon dioxide, the presence of vast amounts of ice is like a giant gobstopper. It’s like a lid on the surface of the ocean,” Prof Lear continued.

The Earth’s climate is currently in a warm spell between glacial periods. The last ice age ended about 11,000 years ago. Since then, temperatures and sea levels have risen, and ice caps have retreated back to the poles. In addition to these natural cycles, manmade carbon emissions are also having an effect by warming the climate.

SOURCE

Breathing more deeply: Deep ocean carbon storage during the mid-Pleistocene climate transition

Lear, Caroline et al.

Abstract

The ~100 k.y. cyclicity of the late Pleistocene ice ages started during the mid-Pleistocene transition (MPT), as ice sheets became larger and persisted for longer. The climate system feedbacks responsible for introducing this nonlinear ice sheet response to orbital variations in insolation remain uncertain. Here we present benthic foraminiferal stable isotope (d18O, d13C) and trace metal records (Cd/Ca, B/Ca, U/Ca) from Deep Sea Drilling Project Site 607 in the North Atlantic. During the onset of the MPT, glacial-interglacial changes in d13C values are associated with changes in nutrient content and carbonate saturation state, consistent with a change in water mass at our site from a nutrient-poor northern source during inter- glacial intervals to a nutrient-rich, corrosive southern source during glacial intervals. The respired carbon content of glacial Atlantic deep water increased across the MPT. Increased dominance of corrosive bottom waters during glacial intervals would have raised mean ocean alkalinity and lowered atmospheric pCO2. The amplitude of glacial-interglacial changes in d13C increased across the MPT, but this was not mirrored by changes in nutrient content. We interpret this in terms of air-sea CO2 exchange effects, which changed the d13C signature of dissolved inorganic carbon in the deep water mass source regions. Increased sea ice cover or ocean strati cation during glacial times may have reduced CO2 outgassing in the Southern Ocean, providing an additional mechanism for reducing glacial atmospheric pCO2. Conversely, following the establishment of the ~100 k.y. glacial cycles, d13C of interglacial northern-sourced waters increased, perhaps re ecting reduced invasion of CO2 into the North Atlantic following the MPT.

SOURCE

Do religious people understand the world LESS? Study claims belief in God makes you struggle with reality

Annika M. Svedholm-Häkkinen is a prolific publisher on religious matters but this piece suggests to me that she knows very little of Christianity:  A rather large lacuna, one would think. Her findings below sound methodologically acceptable but her interpretation of them is naive.  

She falls victim to the logical fallacy that correlation is causation.  She thinks that the unscientific thinking of Christians lies behind their poor knowledge of science.  It probably does, but not in the way she thinks.  Her clear opinion is that her findings show Christians as a bit dumb and intellectually deficient -- with those limitations also explaining their religiousness.  So once again we have Leftist academics trying to show that religion is stupid (Islam excepted, of course).

But an equally possible interpretation of the findings is that faith leads to reduced interest in science. Annika M. Svedholm-Häkkinen is apparently unaware that Christ said, "My kingdom is not of this world" and that Christians follow on from that by slighting physical world matters in favour of an interest in what they see as metaphysical matters.

I am an extreme atheist.  I agree with Carnap that all metaphysical statements are meaningless.  But that is just my opinion. Most of the world does find some metaphysical statements persuasive.  So we will have situations where a Christian spends his time on his knees in prayer rather than hunched over a laboratory bench. The Bible will be of interest where a  Bunsen burner is not. And both will learn different things from those different experiences

So I would argue that the results tell us only that Christians and unbelievers have different interests.  They do not tell us anything about mental inadequacies in religious believers.

I am just speaking basic science is saying that we would need some sort of before and after experiment to isolate the causal direction. A survey cannot do that

I have added the journal abstract after the summary below


A new study has suggested that religious people are more likely to have a poor understanding of the world.

It claims that those with a belief in God are more likely to think that inanimate objects, such as metal and oil can think and feel.

Researchers say that the findings suggest people's lack of understanding about the physical world means they apply their own rules, 'resulting in belief in demons, gods, and other supernatural phenomena'.

The study comes from the University of Helsinki, where researchers went as far as comparing religious people with those with autism, after finding they struggle to understand the realities of the world.

People with strong religious beliefs tended to have a worse understanding of physical phenomenon, such as volcanoes and wind, and were more likely to believe that inanimate objects can think and feel.

For example, religious people tended to agree with statements such as 'stones sense the cold.'

Marjaana Lindeman and Annika Svedholm-Häkkinen, who led the study, told The Independent: 'The more the participants believed in religious or other paranormal phenomena, the lower their intuitive physics skills, mechanical and mental rotation abilities, school grades in mathematics and physics, and knowledge about physical and biological phenomena were.'

The study involved 258 Finnish participants, who were asked how much they agreed with the statement 'there exists an all-powerful, all-knowing, loving God' and if they believed in paranormal phenomena such as ghosts and psychic visions.

They were also tested on a range of other topics, including intuitive physics skills and understanding of basic biology.

The results showed that religious people tend to base their actions on instinct, rather than analytical thinking.

A study in 2013 by researchers at the University of Rochester suggested that religious people tend to have a lower IQ.

It suggested that those with high IQs had greater self-control and were able to do more for themselves - so did not need the benefits that religion provides.

But other studies have also found the religious people tend to be happier than those who do not believe in God.

SOURCE

Does Poor Understanding of Physical World Predict Religious and Paranormal Beliefs?

Marjaana Lindeman and Annika M. Svedholm-Häkkinen

Summary

Although supernatural beliefs often paint a peculiar picture about the physical world, the possibility that the beliefs might be based on inadequate understanding of the non-social world has not received research attention. In this study (N = 258), we therefore examined how physical-world skills and knowledge predict religious and paranormal beliefs. The results showed that supernatural beliefs correlated with all variables that were included, namely, with low systemizing, poor intuitive physics skills, poor mechanical ability, poor mental rotation, low school grades in mathematics and physics, poor common knowledge about physical and biological phenomena, intuitive and analytical thinking styles, and in particular, with assigning mentality to non-mental phenomena. Regression analyses indicated that the strongest predictors of the beliefs were overall physical capability (a factor representing most physical skills, interests, and knowledge) and intuitive thinking style.

issue TOC Volume 30, Issue 5, September/October 2016, Pages 736–742

A Perth chef has created a 28kg sculpture of an exotic dragon made entirely from margarine



Angela Stanfield, who works as an apprentice chef at Crown Perth, created the 28kg sculpture for an international culinary competition in Germany, reported WA Today. The sculpture is of a dragon with large feathery wings and a curled tail, crouching next to another sculpture of a gnarled tree with golden eggs sitting at its base.

The 20-year-old took part in the World IKA Culinary Olympics along with seven other chefs as part of the WA Youth Culinary team. Despite it being only her second attempt at the art of margarine sculpting, Ms Stanfield won a bronze medal for her creation.

Source

Drunk leftist launches peanut butter assault on what she thought was a Trump rally



Unfortunately for Wisconsin liberal Christina Ferguson, she was so drunk that what she attacked was actually a local environmentalist event. The hilariously inept episode of liberal rage started at 9:30 p.m., when Ferguson barged into a meeting of the Tomorrow River Conservation Club, a local environmentalist group.

Witness tell police Ferguson began screaming about how much she hated Donald Trump. According to the Portage County Sheriff Department’s report, she was holding a “family-size jar of low-sodium, creamy natural Jif.”

She was asked to leave the meeting, but attendees decided to check the parking lot to “make sure she wasn’t doing anything to their vehicles after leaving,” the Independent reports. They found Ferguson smearing peanut butter on cars, still convinced she was seeing Trump supporters.

Source

Married female teacher, 33, at elite Sydney Grammar 'had sex four times with 17-year-old male student at the school and twice at her home'

An elite private school female teacher, 33, allegedly had sex with a 17-year-old boy six times.

The pair allegedly had sex four times at the school, Sydney Grammar in Darlinghurst, and at her home twice during their relationship between January and March this year, The Daily Telegraph reported.

In September, the student revealed the relationship to a school counsellor.

A police source also said the teacher - who is pregnant - had sought medical care after the relationship, according to the Telegraph.

The original non-publication order protecting the school's identity was dropped on Tuesday, while one remains in place for the identity of the teacher and the student involved, the Downing Centre Local Court heard.

The court heard the pair sometimes were alone together when working on extracurricular activities.

Magistrate Jacqueline Milledge said publishing the name of the school was of interest to those attending the school and may encourage any other victims to come forward.

The teacher did not appear and did not enter a plea to the six counts of sexual intercourse with a person under care between 17 and 18 years, and one of indecent assault.

Sydney Grammar released a statement on Tuesday confirming New South Wales Police had charged a staff member 'with serious misconduct of a sexual nature'.

The teacher has been suspended and ordered to have no contact with students until the outcome of legal proceedings.

Last week she appeared in the Newtown Local Court - supported by her husband - and granted bail when her mother posted a $30,000 surety.

Sydney Grammar charges fees of $32,644 per year per student.

SOURCE

Black dancing talent on display



The burns were allegedly minor

British mother, 40, who sent explicit pictures and sexts to a boy, 15, and then dismissed it as 'banter' is jailed for two years  



A mother who exchanged explicit pictures with a 15-year-old boy because she was 'flattered' by the attention has been jailed for two years.

Claire Dinsdale, 40, from Willington, County Durham, sent 'sexually charged' messages to the teenager, which she dismissed as 'banter' when questioned by police.

Despite being handed a court order last year that prohibited her from contacting him, she continued to exchange messages with the boy until April this year.

Dinsdale pleaded guilty to charges of abducting a child, inciting a child to engage in sexual activity and making an indecent photograph of a child at Teesside Crown Court.

The prosecution said they were unable to prove any sexual activity took place between them, with the victim refusing to provide a statement.  

Dinsdale and the boy met a few years ago and began to keep in contact on Facebook.

After concern from the boy's father, Dinsdale was handed a 'harbouring notice' last year prohibiting her from contacting the boy. Despite this, the pair continued to exchange 'sexually charged' messages. The court heard they also exchanged explicit pictures.

Police also found the boy at her property on three occasions while trying to locate him.

The inappropriate relationship carried on until April this year when Dinsdale was remanded in custody for being in breach of her bail conditions, which stated she was to stay away from her victim.

Jo Kidd, prosecuting, said: 'The messages indicated [the boy] repeatedly asking for sexual activity. 'Her responses indicate that it would be the order of the day. He messaged her saying "I want a sh*g when I come round" to which she replied "yes". '

Judge Phillips remarked that there was 'no discouragement whatsoever' from the defendant.

In a victim impact statement from the boy's father, he said that he believes his son's behaviour has significantly deteriorated as a result of his contact with Dinsdale.

Dan Cordey, defending, told the court that after the breakdown of an eight year 'controlling and abusive' relationship, Dinsdale had found herself to have low self-esteem and no self confidence.

He said: 'I hope to point out that this is a naive woman who after a very difficult time in her life, was flattered by the attention of this young man.

'She fully recognises now that she should have not been flattered by that. She realises it was entirely inappropriate.'

He stressed that no sexual activity ever took place.

He also told the court that Dinsdale has found being remanded in custody for the last six months incredibly difficult as other inmates treat her 'like a sex offender' and want nothing to do with her.

He added: 'This was not a very young boy. He was relatively mature for his years. 'One just has to look at some of his language in the messages to get an indication of his level of maturity.'

Two charges of causing a child to watch a sexual act and meeting a child following sexual grooming were dropped by the prosecution.

Judge Phillips told Dinsdale: 'It is not realistic to say that sexual activity was not something you thought about.

'The most concerning feature of this case is the boy's age. You had more than two months of sexual communication despite knowing his age. 'You have taken advantage of his vulnerability and done so in a persistent manner.

'The totality of the affect is that it has had a very negative effect on him and his family.'

SOURCE  

Senior British policewoman 'had a drunken row with a colleague over whose breasts were most attractive'



Assistant Chief Constable Rebekah Sutcliffe, 47, faces claims that she exposed her bosom during a late-night row and could be sacked if found guilty of gross misconduct.

ACC Sutcliffe argued with her junior colleague Superintendent Sarah Jackson at the Hilton hotel bar. It is claimed ACC Sutcliffe told her colleague she was ‘pandering to men’ by having cosmetic surgery, and tried to prove her own breasts were better by exposing them.

They were reported to bosses by a witness, and initially both were told they faced investigation over alleged inappropriate behaviour.

Social media photos show ACC Sutcliffe ‘opened the gala event’ at one night of the conference, standing near Supt Jackson at a party where wine flowed freely.

Supt Jackson has been told she is in the clear. If the case against ACC Sutcliffe were proven, she would be hit with sanctions ranging from ‘management advice’ to dismissal.

Source

Memo to Florida Voters: Your AC Bill Just Went Up

I have just been talking to a refrigeration expert who for his own reasons supports the ban on HFCs as refrigerants.  I put it to him that all the possible replacement gases have problems with toxicity, flammability etc.  We agreed that flammability is going to be the most likely problem to arise but he said that the probability of the gases igniting is very low.  He made the point that we often do things that have a much higher likelihood of harming us  -- driving a car, for instance.

While that is an intelligible argument, it ignores the reality that what we are moving away from is a zero-risk situation.  Say that there will in future be only three occasions worldwide where an AC unit explodes and kills someone.  ALL THREE of those occasions were fully avoidable by retaining HFCs. We may ordinarily take risks but how often do we deliberately heighten our risks?  Sensation-seekers aside, I think we do not.  So the latest Greenie mandate will kill some people -- entirely as a result of that mandate


We’ve warned for some time that Big Government is coming for your air conditioner in the name of saving the planet. Well, on Saturday, nearly 200 countries, including China, agreed to take action in the next eight years on reducing the use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which are used in AC units and refrigerators. The legally binding deal was spearheaded by John Kerry, who thinks HFCs pose as great a threat to national security as jihadis do. But EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy was equally involved. “In a nutshell, these HFCs cool our homes and chill our food, but they are turning up the temperature of our planet,” lectured McCarthy. “World leaders took a giant leap forward by agreeing to a global phase-down of these harmful gases.”

What do we get in exchange for this regulatory bonanza? The Washington Examiner reports, “Secretary of State John Kerry said the deal … would put the planet on track to stop the Earth’s temperature from rising a half of a degree Celsius over the next two decades.” That goal is unprovable. No matter how much the temperature changes, these folks will say it would be half a degree Celsius worse had it not been for their intrepid work.

Furthermore, air conditioners were more efficient with the already-banned CFCs than they are with HFCs, and these regulations threaten to make that even worse. Stephen Yurek, the head of the Air-Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration Institute, says, “After two phases of research, the most promising alternatives are currently classified as mildly flammable or flammable.” That sounds fun. So when our AC doesn’t work as well without HFCs, we’ll all be hotter, which has the advantage of “proving” the alarmists right about global warming.

McCarthy also crowed, “While we have seen many significant successes under President Obama’s leadership in fighting climate change, this day will unquestionably be remembered as one of the most important in our effort to save the one planet we have.” And you can bet that “important effort” — just like every other Obama regulation to that end — is going to cost you dearly

SOURCE

Haglin update



AN AMERICAN teacher-turned-stripper claims she’s the real victim of an illicit tryst she had with a teen student because he “duped” her by using “elevated vocabulary”.

“Many people see him as the victim and me as the perpetrator,” disgraced educator Mary Beth Haglin told the Dr. Phil show earlier this week.

“From a psychological standpoint and from every other standpoint, I feel like I am the victim.”

Haglin, 24, who now works as a stripper named “Bambi”, said the 17-year-old boy wooed her with romantic notes and texts, making him irresistible.

“He did so with such intelligence and such an elevated vocabulary that I was completely duped by the whole facade,” claimed Haglin, who worked as a substitute teacher in the Cedar Rapids Community School District in 2015.

The former teacher said she initially spurned the boy, whose messages included texts such as, “Trust me, it’s not difficult to be a caring boyfriend. Especially to someone as magnificent as you,” according to the show.

But after a bad day with her then-squeeze, Haglin admitted, she gave in.

“One night after a particularly bad night with my boyfriend, we had gotten into a big fight, and the next day I looked at his message and thought, ‘I’m just going to respond’,” Haglin said.

She eventually started sending explicit pictures of herself to the boy, which led to a nine-month relationship.

Show host Phil McGraw wasn’t buying any of Haglin’s excuses. “You have got to be dumber than a box of rocks to share naked pictures with a 17-year-old boy,” he said.

Haglin was fired from her teaching post and now works as an exotic dancer, the Des Moines Register reported.

Haglin has pleaded not guilty to misdemeanour charges of sexual exploitation by a school employee. The trial is set to begin on November 14, but she’s asked for proceedings to be moved from Linn County, claiming publicity about the case prevents her from receiving a fair hearing.

SOURCE

Health update

It looks like I am recovering steadily with the use of clindamycin.  Some skin areas that were red have now faded to pale pink.   The main remaining problem is that I am still spending lots of time asleep.  I am guessing that my body makes me drowsy to help fight off any sepsis.  I have always had naps during daylight hours but my naps at the moment are up to four hours long. I can't do much blogging in such circumstances but you can't keep a good blogger down completely so I have just put up one thing new:  A recipe for an unusual salad!  See here

Hopefully I will have more to say tomorrow.

NOTE:  My normal posting time has come, only to find me  under the influence of both health and cable problems.  The cable problems seem by now to have been banished but too late for me to read much. There is a fair chance that I might be back in normal action by this time tomorrow.

My health problem is a post operative infection in the wound site -- most probably golden staph.  I am on 300 mg of clindamycin 6 hourly so that should help. I can control the pain with di-gesic pretty well but I have to be cautious about sepsis so my next recourse may have to be a vancomycin drip.

Either the infection or the remedies seem to be making me very drowsy so I sleep for long periods, which is probably a good thing on the whole.

Your monthly scare story below

As always, you have to look at what the Greenies and Leftists do NOT say. So here it comes. The news is that the global temperature for last month has just been promulgated by GISS.  So that has to be scary, right?  Problem: The temperature actually DECLINED last month.  September was COOLER than August.  The anomaly went down from .98 of a degree to .91 of a degree.  But nowhere below will you see any mention of that.  

No-one in his right mind would take any notice of  such tiny fluctuations but the Warmists do. Their whole story consists of taking hundredths of one degree seriously.  So all they tell us this time is that September 2015 was warmer than September 2016.  The anomaly was .81 last year.

Note that seasonal influences should normally cancel out in the global figures because while it is summer in the Northern hemisphere, it is winter in the Southern hemisphere.

So the real story this year is one of temperature stasis:  changes too small to mean anything. But if we wanted to play the Warmist game we could see a coming-down off an El Nino high. The anomalies from January to April were all a touch above one degree whereas the May to September anomalies were all below one degree.

So what to do with such frustrating figures?  You see the result below.  They have picked out all the weather events that suit them and presented them as if they proved something global.  As proof of the cherry-picking, note that no "coldest" events anywhere are mentioned.  They are such crooks!


As the Philippines braces for its second major typhoon in just five days, a Canadian glacier spawns a giant iceberg and eastern Australia mops up from a record wet spell, climate scientists can pick from a world of weird weather to highlight evidence of global warming under way.

Just days after nations agreed to curb production of greenhouse gases 10,000 times more potent than carbon dioxide and a fortnight before the Paris climate agreement comes into force on November 4, many regions are experiencing bizarre conditions.

September continued the run of exceptional global warmth, with last month narrowly edging last year as the hottest September on record, NASA, the US space agency, said overnight.

Typhoon Haima is expected to reach category 5 strength by Wednesday. After data adjustments, NASA said 11 of the past 12 months had set monthly high-temperature records. This year is on course to smash previous records for annual heat set in 2015 and in the year before that.

Climate scientists, such as NASA's Gavin Schmidt, emphasise that while individual weather events and even monthly rankings may be newsworthy, "they are not nearly as important as long-term trends".

Here, though, there are many worrying pointers.

The Philippines is facing the potential for a category 5-strength typhoon Haima just days after typhoon Sarika blew through, leaving a trial of death and destruction that has now extended to neighbours Vietnam and China.

Recent research indicates the western Pacific is experiencing stronger cyclones with the frequency increasing as much as four-fold.

In Canada, the Porcupine Glacier in British Columbia retreated more than two kilometres "in one leap", when a major iceberg broke off during the summer, The Globe and Mail reported recently.

Mauri Pelto, professor of environmental science at Nichols College in Massachusetts, said he couldn't identify a bigger iceberg carved from a Canadian glacier in a quarter century of work.

"It's just a highlight example of what's happening [from climate change]," Dr. Pelto was quoted as saying. "I have worked on over 200 glaciers just in that area, and all but one have been retreating."

The behaviour of ice of a different kind caught the attention of  Andy Pitman, director of the ARC Excellence for Climate System Science at the University of NSW.

After rivalling previously lows in 2007 and 2012, this year's recovery of Arctic sea ice as winter approaches has slowed sharply, placing it again at record low levels.

With less sea ice, more of the sun's energy is absorbed by the Arctic seas rather than reflected back to space, accelerating the pace of warming in an area that's warming faster than almost anywhere else.

"It's moving outside it's normal operating range," Professor Pitman said of the sea ice trend. "Climate extremes are emerging much faster than climate scientists thought."
Rain extremes

While major weather events can't all be attributed to climate change rather than natural variability, a warming world makes them more likely.

Scientists, for instance, estimate that the atmosphere can hold 7 per cent more moisture for each degree of warming - and we've had at least that since the Industrial Revolution triggered a rapid increase in greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels and land-clearing for agriculture.

Hurricane Matthew, which scraped along the east coast of the US earlier this month, is estimated to have dumped as much 52 trillion litres on the US, triggering widespread flooding, according to Ryan Maue, a US-based meteorologist.

Typhoon Sarika, which left at least 25 dead in the Philippines last week, is now expected to bring flooding rains to south-east China.

Behind Sarika, though, looms a more powerful storm, super typhoon Haima, which is likely to generate peak gusts of more than 300 km/h by Wednesday as it nears the northern Philippine island of Luzon.

"[A]long with the dangers of storm surge flooding and damaging winds, rainfall flooding and landslides would also be major threats in Luzon, given saturated ground from Sarika," the weather.com website said in a report. "More than a foot of rain could fall over northern portions of Luzon as Haima moves through."

Much of eastern Australia has copped its drenching in recent weeks, although the rains have fortunately been more spread out.

As the Bureau of Meteorology said in a special climate statement last week, the Murray Darling Basin had its wettest September on record, continuing a string of wet months.

"The May to September period was Australia's wettest on record, with each of the five individual months ranking in the 10 wettest in the last 117 years," the report said.
'Off the charts'

"You're seeing more extreme events and in most of the parts of climate that affect people," Professor Pitman said.

Heatwaves, for instance, that used to last typically three days, might be stretching in some places out to 10 days.

"It's like Usain Bolt doing a 4-second,100-metre run," he said. "It's completely off the charts."

Professor Pitman's centre will shift more of its focus to the study of climate extremes after securing funds from the Australian Research Council last month.

"There is some emerging evidence that the system is redefining itself," Professor Pitman said.

SOURCE

The arrogance of anger

The Left are chronically angry.  There is always something in the world that is not right and must be changed IMMEDIATELY if possible. Each Leftist probably has his own little wellspring of  anger and some may be dispositionally angry: Nothing may suit him.  He is in a permanent state of upset and disquiet.  The things that Leftists usually say they are angry about --  inequality, racism etc. -- are probably just convenient hooks to hang his expressions of anger on but there always seems to be some real, genuine anger motivating him. Often it is just that  he is not getting the recognition and praise that he thinks he deserves.

And that anger explains many things about the Leftist. It explains his impetuosity for starters. "Pass a law" is his recipe for fixing everything.  Finding the source of the problem he identifies and devising solutions that might work given time are alien ideas to him. The slow build that leads to permanent structures and systems is not for him.

The anger also explains the arrogance of Leftists and their pretence to elitism. Anger never considers that it might be in the wrong.  It always feels itself to be in the right.  It has no self-doubt. If Leftists really were an intellectual elite there might be some reason to regard them as wise governors but any ability they do have is nullified by their anger and urgency to change no matter what.  And that is why Leftist policies always have unfortunate side effects.  They may confer some benefit but also do a lot of harm.

The "Affordable Care Act" (Obamacare) is a classic example of that.  For the great majority of Americans it has made health insurance LESS affordable.  It was just not well thought out because it had to be enacted URGENTLY.

And for most Leftists, no parade of facts and logic will wean him off his poorly-considered beliefs.  The habitual anger of the Leftist is hard to give up, because wanting to feel/be right is part of human nature.  From the basic physical survival drive, through to intellectual and moral issues we like to be right.

That confidence in one's own rightness is however thoroughly deplorable in the Christian tradition.  As it says in  Luke 18:


"He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt:

“Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.

The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed[a] thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’

But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’

I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

I like that scripture and believe that it forms part of my personal values.  The Pharisees there are directly analogous to the modern-day Left, who think that they know it all and are confident in their own righteousness.  So it is no wonder that Leftists hate Christianity.  Christ condemned them.  Leftists much prefer the arrogant religion of Mohammed.

Married high school choir teacher, 25, is arrested 'for having sex with her 16-year-old male student'



A married 25-year-old high school teacher from Washington state has been arrested for allegedly having sex with a male student.

The Snohomish Country Sheriff’s Office said Olivia Sondheim was taken into custody last Wednesday after detectives served a search warrant at her Bothell residence.

Sondheim, who was in her second year teaching choir at Lynnwood High School, has been charged with first-degree sexual misconduct with a minor

Sondheim has been placed on administrative leave

According to officials, the victim in the case was 16 years old at the time of his alleged tryst with the teacher.

Sondheim was booked into the Snohomish County Jail after her arrest. She has been placed on leave at the high school pending the outcome of the investigation.

Administrators with the Edmonds School District first learned of the allegations against Sondheim last week and relayed the information to a school resource officer who, in turn, contacted the authorities, leading to the teacher’s arrest, reported the Seattle Times.

During the course of the investigation, detectives allegedly uncovered evidence that Sondheim and her male student developed a relationship which, over time, became sexual. The boy is now 17 years old.

School district spokeswoman Debbie Joyce told the station KGMI that Olivia Sondheim had passed background checks before she was hired to teach choir part time at Lynnwood High last year.

As of Monday afternoon, Sondheim's name still appeared on Lynnwood High School's website.

'I am excited to get to know each and every one of you,' the teacher wrote on a page dedicated to the school choir.

Sondheim revealed in a Facebook message posted on Washington State University’s page last year that she and her husband, Daniel Sondheim, met through their respective sorority and fraternity in 2012 and got married in May 2014 after a year-long engagement.

SOURCE  

Foolish Aboriginal model wants acceptance as a model only.  Is the Nordic ideal of beauty changeable?



She hasn't got a hope.  The worldwide standard of female beauty is Nordic -- narrow faces, fine features, white skin, blue eyes and blonde hair.  Even some Japanese ladies blond their hair.  To blacks, a white wife is a trophy.  The unfortunate Magnolia has no Nordic attributes at all.  If her skin were white she would be ugly.  She has received acceptance only because many people want to be kind to Aborigines.  She is an "affirmative action" model.

We may deplore the Nordic standard but saying that people should adopt other standards for females that they like to look at is pissing into the wind.  It won't happen.  It will have zero influence.  Brown hair can be accepted in lieu of blonde but that is the only variation to the top standard.  Mr Trump has plausibly claimed that he can have any sort of lady that he wants. He can have the top standard.  So see the picture of Melania below.  Compare and contrast.



I am sure I will be called a Nazi, a white supremacist and much else abusive for saying what I have just said but I am in fact simply pointing out the obvious.  The attractiveness of Ms Maymuru is very much of a piece with the Emperor's new clothes

So why am I pointing out such obvious truths?  It's because that is what I do.  I attack popular fairy stories.  I think truth serves us best.  A full and frank discussion of beauty standards might even help a black girl to be thankful for what she's got, rather than pining for the impossible.


It's been mere months since the Northern Territory model, Magnolia Maymuru, shot to fame after becoming the first Indigenous woman from a traditional community to become a finalist in Miss World.

But already, the 19-year-old has become something of a role model for countless women and girls around Australia.

Speaking to Sydney Morning Herald, Ms Maymuru said she wants to go above and beyond merely being seen as 'an Indigenous model'.

'I am about breaking down barriers and stereotypes,' she said.  'And I want to get to a place where I'm not described as an Indigenous model but simply as a model.'

So far, things are going pretty well for the girl who was discovered on a Darwin street in 2014 by her now manager, Mehali Tsangari.

At the time, Ms Maymuru was working as a sports and recreation officer, before she entered Miss World Australia and had the opportunity to represent the Northern Territory.

The 19-year-old has since landed her first major gig as the face of the Melbourne shopping centre, Chadstone. She has also recently been the ambassador for this year's Darwin Art Fair.

Magnolia Maymuru, whose real name is Maminydjama Maymuru, recently said that she never believed she would have a career in fashion. Describing herself as an outdoorsy sort of girl, who was into hunting and camping, she didn't have any experience within the fashion industry.

However, these days the model's glamorous Instagram account is testament to the fact that she is as at home on the catwalk as she is outside at home.

SOURCE

HFCs: Mistaking theory for achievement

CFCs and HFCs are the safest gases for use in refrigeration. But in accord with their unfailing agenda of destruction, Greenies have now got both banned.  So more dangerous gases will have to be used. Air conditioners that explode or burst into flames coming to a place near you shortly.

And for what? Because HFCs absorb some frequencies of electromagnetic radiation in the laboratory.  So the Greenies assume that HFCs warm the earth.  But HFCs break down rapidly once they get into the atmosphere so the amount resident at any one point in time is much lower than the amount released.  So the calculations of the effect of a ban on HFcs are undoubtedly well wide of the mark.

But the warmists are so caught up the ecstasy of banning something that they even talk of the recent agreement as already working:  "this is the largest temperature reduction ever achieved by a single agreement".  Whether it achieves ANY effect on temperature remains too be seen, if it can be seen.

The ban on CFCs was driven by similar theory.  Banning them was supposed to heal the hole in the ozone layer. It didn't.  The hole was bigger than ever late last year.  So much for theory.


Nearly 200 nations have reached a deal, announced Saturday morning after all-night negotiations, to limit the use of greenhouse gases far more powerful than carbon dioxide in a major effort to fight climate change.

The talks on hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, were called the first test of global will since the historic Paris Agreement to cut carbon emissions was reached last year. HFCs are described as the world's fastest-growing climate pollutant and are used in air conditioners and refrigerators. Experts say cutting them is the fastest way to reduce global warming.

President Barack Obama, in a statement Saturday, called the new deal "an ambitious and far-reaching solution to this looming crisis." The spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called it "critically important."

The agreement, unlike the broader Paris one, is legally binding. It caps and reduces the use of HFCs in a gradual process beginning by 2019 with action by developed countries including the United States, the world's second-worst polluter. More than 100 developing countries, including China, the world's top carbon emitter, will start taking action by 2024, when HFC consumption levels should peak.

A small group of countries including India, Pakistan and some Gulf states pushed for and secured a later start in 2028, saying their economies need more time to grow. That's three years earlier than India, the world's third-worst polluter, had first proposed.

"It's a very historic moment, and we are all very delighted that we have come to this point where we can reach a consensus and agree to most of the issues that were on the table," said India's chief delegate, Ajay Narayan Jha.

Environmental groups had hoped that the deal could reduce global warming by a half-degree Celsius by the end of this century. This agreement gets about 90 percent of the way there, said Durwood Zaelke, president of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development.

Zaelke's group said this is the "largest temperature reduction ever achieved by a single agreement."

The new agreement is "equal to stopping the entire world's fossil-fuel CO2 emissions for more than two years," David Doniger, climate and clean air program director with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement.

It is estimated that the agreement will cut the global levels of HFCs by 80 to 85 percent by 2047, the World Resources Institute said in a statement.

Experts said they hope that market forces will help speed up the limits agreed to in the deal.

HFCs were introduced in the 1980s as a substitute for ozone-depleting gases. But their danger has grown as air conditioner and refrigerator sales have soared in emerging economies like China and India. HFCs are also found in inhalers and insulating foams.

Major economies have debated how quickly to phase out HFCs. The United States, whose delegation was led by Secretary of State John Kerry, and Western countries want quick action. Nations such as India want to give their industries more time to adjust.

"Thank God we got to this agreement that is good for all nations, that takes into consideration all regional and national issues," said Taha Mohamed Zatari, the head of Saudi Arabia's negotiating team.

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British footballer Ched Evans cleared of rape charges, following retrial.  Feminists furious 

I thought from the beginning that the conviction was a monstrous injustice so I am pleased that justice has finally been done. It took a British court to convert consensual sex into rape. The Crown Prosecutors stretched the law in order to appease feminists with a high profile conviction. Feminists had been complaining that there were "not enough" rape convictions. Evans is the victim of feminist hate

The many who condemned and shunned Evans will have egg on their faces for a long time

According to the original prosecution, Yes means Yes and No means No -- except when you are Ched Evans

The woman concerned DID say Yes to him and made no complaint afterwards but a badly instructed British jury  in its stratospheric wisdom decided that Evans should have taken Yes to mean No. She was too drunk to give consent, apparently. Though how they know that and what is the relevant metric of drunkenness in those circumstances remains uncertain. How was Evans to know the woman was too drunk to give consent? There are no standards for how drunk a woman can be before being unable to consent.

So it is a relief that the British justice system has now got it right -- after Evans spent over two years in jail.  According to the original verdict, sex with women who drink must be harshly discouraged.  If that pompous dictum were taken seriously among the population at large, it would at least halve the British birthrate, I would think.  Alcohol and sex have a long history together, even among married people.

And the Yes means Yes mantra is a typically stupid feminist invention anyway.  There are many men who can attest that sometimes No means Yes.  I was always too impatient to play that game myself (apparently to some confusion) but it is a common one where the woman is embarrassed, shy etc.  Many women would think less of themselves if they said "Yes" straight away.  The woman  would think that she was appearing "too easy". So men do sometimes have to decide whether a No really means Yes and they can obviously make the occasional mistake there, particularly if they are not too bright.

So one can only hope that the feminist mantra, Yes means Yes, is vigorously preached to women too so that they will be less evasive and less confusing to men.  I am not holding my breath.

Some of the feminist comments below are very disturbuing.  Discovering the truth can be wrong:  Better for an innocent  man to remain wrongly convicted, apparently


International footballer Ched Evans has been found not guilty of the rape of a 19-year-old woman, but the decision to allow the jury to hear the sexual history of the complainant has sparked outrage from women’s support groups and campaigners.

As Evans was acquitted of rape at a retrial on Friday, five years after having sex with the woman in a hotel room, activists expressed the fear that an earlier appeal court ruling which allowed the complainant’s sexual behaviour to be taken into account by the jury would set a dangerous precedent, and could put off women from coming forward to report sexual offences.

The appeal court judgment – made before the retrial but which can only now be reported – allowed in new evidence from two witnesses who gave testimony about the complainant’s sexual preferences and the language she used during sex. It led to her being questioned in detail in open court about intimate details of her sex life.

Evans, who has played for Wales and Sheffield United and was a member of the Manchester City youth set-up, spent two-and-a-half years in prison after being convicted in 2012 of raping the young woman following a drunken night out in his home town of Rhyl, north Wales.

Following his conviction, a well-funded legal and PR campaign that included the offer of a £50,000 reward for information leading to his acquittal was launched by family and friends. The campaign eventually resulted in the case going to the court of appeal in London and his conviction was quashed.

After an eight-day trial, a jury at Cardiff crown court took two hours to acquit Evans. He kept his head down as the male foreman returned the unanimous verdict. Evans then rushed from the dock into the arms of his girlfriend, Natasha Massey. They held each other for a minute and sobbed on each other’s shoulders.

In a statement read outside the court by his solicitor, Shaun Draycott, Evans said he was “overwhelmed with relief”. He thanked his friends and family, “most notably my fiancee, Natasha, who chose, perhaps incredibly, to support me in my darkest hour”.

The statement concluded: “Whilst my innocence has now been established, I wish to make it clear that I wholeheartedly apologise to anyone who might have been affected by the events of the night in question.”

A spokesman for Evans said he would now return to football – though he is currently nursing an injury. He may be able to sue for lost earnings, which would total millions of pounds.

Chesterfield, his current club, welcomed the verdict. Chief executive Chris Turner said: “We can now all move forward and focus on football.”

It can now be revealed that:

    During the appeal case that led to the retrial, lawyers for the crown suggested the two new witnesses may have been “fed” information by those close to Evans. This claim was rejected by Evans’s side and by the appeal court.

    The appeal court judges expressed “a considerable degree of hesitation” before allowing in the new evidence of the former partners because it would result in the complainant’s sexual behaviour being subject to forensic scrutiny.

    Evans’ girlfriend, Massey, was accused in legal argument during the second trial of offering an “inducement” to a key witness. The prosecution said this had “the flavour of a bribe”. The trial judge disagreed.

The woman told the jury she woke up naked in a hotel room in Rhyl, north Wales, in May 2011 with no memory of what had happened but fearing her drinks were spiked.

Friends encouraged her to go to the police and officers found out that the room in which she woke up had been booked and paid for by Evans. He was questioned, and both he and his friend and fellow footballer Clayton McDonald said they had consensual sex with the woman.

The prosecution said she could not possibly have consented as she was too intoxicated. She has never alleged Evans or McDonald raped her.

In court, Evans admitted he lied to get the key for the hotel room and did not speak to the woman before, during or after sex. He left via a fire exit. It also emerged that Evans’ younger brother and another man were trying to film what was happening from outside the room.

Lisa Longstaff, of the group Women against Rape, said the case seemed a “throwback to another time”. Section 41 of the Youth and Criminal Evidence Act 1999 puts restrictions on what evidence can be put before a court by the defence about an alleged victim’s sexual behaviour and questioning of the complainant.

“But it has exceptions, and clever lawyers can get round it,” said Longstaff. “Here they’ve driven a coach and horses through the supposed protection.”

Vera Baird, the barrister, women’s rights campaigner and police and crime commissioner, said the appeal court decision would “go down as a precedent that will be used and abused”. She said the exception used by Evans’ team was originally specifically about instances of sexual activity that happened “at or about the same time”, such as during sex parties.

One of the new witnesses said he had sex with the complainant on the same bank holiday weekend as the hotel incident; the second said they had sex a fortnight later. A feminist activist who goes by the pseudonym Jean Hatchet and was behind petitions asking football clubs not to sign Evans following his jail term, told the Guardian it was “deeply worrying” that evidence about a victim’s sexual history had been permitted.

She said: “This will set a precedent in rape cases to follow where defence barristers will comb through an alleged victim’s sexual past and following the alleged assault at a time when they are suffering trauma.”

Rachel Krys, co-director of the End Violence Against Women Coalition, said: “We are very concerned at the precedent which might have been set.

“In addition to this there are reports that the defence offered a ‘bounty’ for such testimony. This is extremely worrying. We will review the case in full and may contact the Crown Prosecution Service and the government about aspects of this case which raise concern.”

Polly Neate, chief executive of Women’s Aid, said: “There is a big risk that this case overall has a negative impact on reporting. Only this week CPS figures revealed a quarter of women are not pursuing cases. If you look at the surrounding maelstrom about this case it’s easy to see why that is the case.

“A woman’s past sexual history bears no relevance on whether or not they have been a victim of rape. There is a need to challenge pervasive cultural assumptions that equate a woman’s former sexual history with her likelihood of being a victim of rape.”

Police reminded people that naming the complainant was a criminal offence. Supt Jo Williams, of north Wales police, said: “We are aware that once again the victim has been named on social media. An investigation is ongoing.

“People need to be aware that they could find themselves being arrested and prosecuted. This was done previously, people were prosecuted and heavily fined.”

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Old model does well



Unlike most models, who make their foray into fashion in their late teens, Nicky Griffin, 56, from Nottingham, only started modelling three years ago after being scouted in her local bank. The mother-of-two's twin daughters left home in the same week that she was scouted to lend her looks to the White Hot Hair company; a shampoo brand for grey and white hair.

Since then, she has landed some major modelling gigs including the latest Swimsexy campaign for swimsuitsforall, which was shot by Victoria's Secret snapper, Russell James.

The campaign also featured in this year’s Sports Illustrated, which made her the oldest model to ever appear in it. So what are the secrets behind her model good looks? 'Drinking water, clean living, and exercise,' she said."

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Australia: Female teacher, 33, charged over alleged sexual relationship with male student, 17

A TEACHER at an elite Sydney private school has been charged over an alleged sexual relationship with her 17-year-old male student.

The 33-year-old woman — who cannot be identified for legal reasons, was arrested today and appeared in court to face charges of indecent assault and six counts of sexual intercourse with a person under care between 17 and 18 years.

The identity of the school involved, which lists prime ministers among its alumni, cannot be revealed as it would identify the student.

The Daily Telegraph understands the teenage boy told a school counsellor about the relationship and the school alerted police.

The teacher, who is pregnant, was accompanied by her husband and mother to Newtown Local Court, where the prosecutor told the magistrate the accused “was in a position of power and she’s abused that power ... she has exercised a degree of influence over him”.

The woman’s mother subsequently posted a $30,000 cash surety, allowing the woman to be released on bail.

It is understood the teacher was suspended by the school last month and parents been informed about the police investigation and subsequent charges.

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