Could moles really end up toppling Stonehenge? UN report warns furry creatures could destroy ancient site if the earth's temperature keeps rising

The nonsense just keeps coming.  Stonehenge has been through two periods hotter than now -- the Roman Warm Period and the Medieval Warm Period -- yet the stones are still there.  And if they do topple over, what's to stop pushing them up again?

Stonehenge could be toppled by moles if the earth’s temperature keeps rising, a United Nations report warned yesterday.

The world heritage site is one of many that will be threatened by climate change – with other famous sites under threat including the Statue of Liberty, Venice and the Galapagos Islands.

A report warns that moles, rabbits and badgers will flourish in warmer conditions – and they would be likely to undermine the prehistoric monuments of Stonehenge.

The report was produced by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), the UN Heritage body Unesco and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

It warns that in the UK, warmer winters are likely to boost populations of burrowing animals that could disturb archaeological deposits and destabilise stonework.

The report warns that the huge megaliths, some weighing more than 40 tonnes, are under threat.

It says ‘warmer winters are likely to bring higher populations of burrowing mammals including badgers, moles and rabbits, which may destabilise stonework and disturb buried archaeological deposits.’ Hotter, drier summers could also increase the number of visitors – currently running at around one million a year which would also disturb the site as could more intense rainfall and flash flooding.

Warmer, wetter conditions are ideal breeding conditions for earthworms, a major part of the mole’s diet, which leads to moles and other creatures that eat them, such as badgers, flourishing. Soft, wet soil is also easier to dig than hard, dry ground.

SOURCE

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).

NZ: Woman convicted of sex with boy named



A jury has found a 44-year-old woman guilty on four charges of having sex with a 14-year-old boy after a five-day trial in the Christchurch District Court.

Raelyn Jacquelyn Te Moni denied five charges of having sexual intercourse, and unlawful sexual connection with the boy, and one charge was dismissed during the trial, after he gave evidence.

The jury heard that Te Moni was a teacher aide who sometimes drove the boy to a group he was involved in, but at other times she took him to her home.

Judge Brian Callaghan granted Te Moni bail with a curfew until her sentencing on June 15, and asked for a pre-sentence report and a victim impact report to be prepared.

He read her the first of the three strike warnings for repeat offenders, and said she was to have no unsupervised contact with children while on bail.

He also ordered a report to assess Te Moni's suitability for a home detention sentence.

The woman had name suppression during the trial but the judge lifted it after her conviction.

SOURCE  

Russian family sit down to dinner with a 300lb BEAR at the table



"The idea of sitting down for dinner with a 300lb bear is enough to put most people off their food. But for one family from Russia this wild idea is actually a way of life that extends far beyond sharing the odd meal at the dinner table.

Standing at more than seven foot, the large mammal is so domesticated the family often sit down together in the evenings to watch television. Stepan gets through more than a bowl of porridge a day his favourite dish is a can of condensed milk thanks to a sweet tooth. He also stocks up on a hefty 25kg of fish, vegetables and eggs - meaning dinner time at the Panteleenko's is never a breeze.

Svetlana and Yuriy adopted Stepan when he was aged just three months. The couple say that because they have known the bear so long his temperament is extremely gentle and he can often be found cuddling up to them on the sofa"

Source

Is Trump just another Fascist?

I have commented on this accusation before but the article below originates from the NYT so I probably should offer a few more comments.

For a start, Trump is if anything philo-semitic rathrer than antisemitic.  That's not strictly relevant as Mussolini was not antisemitic either -- until Hitler pushed him into it.  But in the popular mind Fascism and antisemitism are strongly associated.  When Donald opened his club in Palm Beach called Mar-a-Lago, he insisted on accepting Jews and blacks even though other clubs in Palm Beach to this day discriminate against blacks and Jews.  And his recent speech at AIPAC was warmly pro-Israel.

But picking at little bits that Trump has said here and there miss the main game entirely.  Fascism was LEFTIST and Trump sure is not that.  There has NEVER been a Fascist type regime emanating from  conservatives.  Some past conservative regimes have in fact been remarkably libertarian -- the 19th century's Lord Salisbury, for instance

And the various Latin American dictators of C20 were Bolivarists, not conservatives. And Bolivar had little time for democracy.  The keenest modern-day Bolivarists rule Venezuela. Enough said about that, I think.

You would have to go back to Oliver Cromwell to find a dictator with any sort of conservative identity and Cromwell was not much of a dictator.  He was invited to his role by his fellow Puritan leaders, who saw the need for strong leadership in turbulent times. Cromwell was certainly hard on his Irish opponents but they largely brought that down on their own heads.  There was no Geneva convention at that time.

Leftists moan about Pinochet but he rose to power in response to a desperate plea from the Chilean parliament after a Marxist president had burnt the electoral rolls.  That Pinochet  subsequently used Leftist methods to round up Leftist opponents of his rule was simply a case of him giving the Left a long overdue taste of their own vicious medicine.  And Pinochet was not in fact conservative.  He was originally appointed to the army leadership precisely because he was seen as non-political.  He was just a General doing a job to which he had been invited.  And he retired from that job voluntarily.

Outside of Africa, ALL the vicious regimes of C20 were Leftist -- whether Communists or Fascists.  So the fact that  Trump is not a Leftist GUARANTEES that he is not a Fascist


Former governor William F. Weld of Massachusetts has equated Donald Trump’s immigration plan with Kristallnacht, the night of horror in 1938 when rampaging Nazis smashed Jewish homes and businesses in Germany and killed scores of Jews.

It was a provocative analogy, but it was not a lonely one.

Trump’s campaign has engendered impassioned debate about the nature of his appeal and warnings from critics on the left and the right about the potential rise of fascism in the United States. More strident opponents have likened Trump to Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.

To supporters, such comparisons are deeply unfair smear tactics used to tar conservatives and scare voters. For a bipartisan establishment whose foundation has been shaken by Trump’s ascendance, these backers say, it is easier to delegitimize his support than to acknowledge widespread popular anger at the failure of both parties to confront the nation’s challenges.

But the discussion comes as questions are surfacing around the globe about a revival of fascism, generally defined as a governmental system that asserts complete power and emphasizes aggressive nationalism and often racism.

In such places as Russia and Turkey, Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan employ strongman tactics. In Austria, a nationalist candidate came within three-tenths of a percentage point of becoming the first far-right head of state elected in Europe since World War II.

In Hungary, an authoritarian government has clamped down on the news media and erected razor wire fences to keep out migrants. There are worries that Poland could follow suit. Traditional parties in France, Germany, Greece, and elsewhere have been challenged by nationalist movements amid economic struggles and waves of migrants.

In Israel, fascism analogies by a former prime minister and a top general have again inflamed the long-running debate about the occupation of Palestinian territories.

“The crash of 2008 showed how globalization creates losers as well as winners,” said Mark Leonard, the director of the European Council on Foreign Relations. “In many countries, middle-class wages are stagnant and politics has become a battle over a shrinking pie. Populists have replaced contests between left and right with a struggle between cosmopolitan elites and angry nativists.”

That dislocation may not lead to a repeat of Europe in the 1930s, but it has fueled a debate about global political trends.

“On a world level, the situation that affects many countries is economic stagnation and the arrival of immigrants,” said Robert Paxton, a professor emeritus at Columbia University and one of the most prominent scholars of fascism. “That’s a one-two punch that democratic governments are having enormous trouble in meeting.”

Americans are used to the idea that other countries may be vulnerable to such movements, but while such figures as Father Charles Coughlin, the demagogic radio broadcaster, enjoyed wide followings in the 1930s, neither major party has ever nominated anyone quite like Trump.

“This could be one of those moments that’s quite dangerous, and we’ll look back and wonder why we treated it as ho-hum at a time when we could have stopped it,” said Robert Kagan, a scholar at the Brookings Institution known for hawkish internationalism.

Kagan sounded the alarm this month with a Washington Post op-ed article, “This Is How Fascism Comes to America,” that gained attention. “I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback from conservative Republicans,” he said. “There are a lot of people who agree with this.”

Trump has provided plenty of ammunition for critics. He was slow to denounce the white supremacist David Duke and talked approvingly of beating up protesters. He has praised Putin and promised to be friends.

He would not condemn supporters who launched anti-Semitic blasts at journalists. At one point, Trump retweeted a Mussolini quote: “It is better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep.”

Asked by Chuck Todd on the NBC program “Meet the Press” about the retweet, Trump brushed off the quote’s origin. “I know who said it,” he said. “But what difference does it make whether it’s Mussolini or somebody else?”

“Do you want to be associated with a fascist?” Todd asked.

“No,” Trump answered, “I want to be associated with interesting quotes.”

Trump’s allies dismiss the criticism as politically motivated and historically suspect. The former Republican House speaker Newt Gingrich, who has said he would consider being Trump’s running mate, said in an interview that he was “deeply offended” by what he called “utterly ignorant” comparisons.

“Trump does not have a political structure in the sense that the fascists did,” said Gingrich, a onetime college professor who earned his doctorate in modern European history. “He doesn’t have the sort of ideology that they did. He has nobody who resembles the brownshirts. This is all just garbage.”

SOURCE

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).  

Female computer science professor blasts the sexist geeks she says show 'staggering' bias against women

If there is prejudice against women in computing, it is really POSTjudice -- as women are rarely good at it and it shows.  I am myself a computer programmer -- as is  my son -- and I have taught it at university level. In my observation only the top 2% in IQ can do the harder types of programming.  I still use FORTRAN and my son uses C#.  Many people find such languages hard but for us they are a doddle. 

And because the IQ distribution among females is leptokurtic, there are many fewer women than men in that IQ range. I used to run Sydney MENSA for a number of years and it was notable how few female applicants passed the test.  I have met some very good female programmers.  It was a woman -- Gail Sonkkila -- who taught me FORTRAN.  But they are necessarily rare, given their IQ distribution

So Uschi below may be a good feminist but she is no social scientist


Sexist geeks who built a prototype of an 'enhanced human' which was entirely male have been lambasted by one of Britain's leading computer scientists.

Ursula Martin, a professor of computer science at Oxford University, said it was a symptom of the 'staggering sexism' in the industry.

She said there was still an anti-female bias and conjured up a picture of male academics like the characters of Sheldon Cooper and Rajesh Koothrappali in The Big Bang Theory, who struggled to engage with women or understand the female viewpoint.

The Times reported that Prof Martin told an audience at the Hay Festival she was shocked to discover some of the attitudes of male computer scientists when she visited the Microsoft research laboratory in Cambridge this week.

She said: 'I was absolutely staggered at the sexism on show.'

Prof Martin said there was a symposium on artificial intelligence and a presentation was given about the 'vision of what an enhanced human would be'.

Prof Martin pointed out the absence of female attributes in the new, advanced human to the person who made the presentation and he had simply responded: 'I suppose'.

A Microsoft spokesman told Mail Online: 'At the Artificial Intelligence Symposium held at Microsoft Research in Cambridge on May 26, there were many external speakers from across academia.

'Contrary to some media reports, the only Microsoft employees who presented at the symposium were women. 'Microsoft is committed through a range of programs such as Make What’s Next to increase the number of women in Computer Science.'

Prof Martin was at the Hay Festival to discuss the contribution to science of Ada Lovelace, a 19th century visionary who foresaw the existence of computers.

SOURCE

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).

The world's dumbest burglars?



"An entertaining video has captured what could be one of the most pathetic attempts at a break-in ever seen.  In the longer form of the video, uploaded on YouTube by Bexar County Sheriff’s Office, the young men are seen running around the outside of a house in San Antonio, Texas. One wears a white t-shirt and the other a blue and white top, and both struggle to find an easy access point.

Stuck for ideas, the man in the white shirt comes up with the ingenious notion of smashing a window with his uncovered bare elbow. He manages to break through, but in doing so comically cuts his arm on the glass. The men then stagger off, their pear-shaped plan a total shambles"

 Source

UK: Woman accused of sexual activity with boy, 14, to stand trial



A WOMAN accused of engaging in sexual activity with a 14-year-old boy has pleaded not guilty to the allegation.

Angela Gatt, 37, appeared at Carlisle Crown Court today (FRI).

She faces one charge of sexual activity with a child under the age of 16 in north Cumbria on 21st June last year.

During a 15-minute hearing before Judge Peter Hughes QC, Gatt spoke only to confirm her name and to deny the allegation.

She will now stand trial at the crown court. This is expected to start on 19th September, with a time estimate of four days.

Neither the 14-year-old alleged victim, nor the precise location of the alleged offence, can be identified for legal reasons.

Gatt, of Dalrymple, Ayr, was remanded on bail by Judge Hughes until her trial date.

SOURCE

Climate change could destroy Statue of Liberty, Venice and many other parts of the world's heritage, UN report warns

And pigs could fly. There is NO evidence for any of the prophecies below.  It is just speculation based on global warming theory -- a theory with so many holes in it, it might as well be a sieve.  

The present day events described are just cherry-picking.  One could easily pick other events leading to the opposite conclusion -- like the fact that the world's biggest body of glacial ice -- Antarctica --  is INCREASING in size, suggesting a future sea-level FALL.  Or how about Munshi's demonstration that the increasing CO2 levels in the atmosphere are NOT the result of burning coal and oil?

You cannot prove a generalization by picking a few bits of data here and there.  You need statistics that cover ALL events of the type discussed.  And sea level rise is not ordinarily detectable in most of the world


The Statue of Liberty and many of the world’s most important heritage sites could soon be destroyed by global warming, the UN has warned.

Historic sites including Orkney and the world’s most important coral reefs already feeling the effect of the increasing temperatures and climate disruption that is coming with global warming. But that same trend could completely destroy them and other parts of the world’s heritage, according to a new report.

The danger shows the “urgent and clear” need to address climbing temperatures to protect many parts of the world’s heritage, according to the report, which was compiled by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), UN heritage body Unesco and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

The study took in 31 natural and cultural World Heritage sites, spread across 29 countries. It looked at the ways that the effects of climate change – including intense weather and damage to animal’s habitats – would effect them in the future.

Climate change will - or is already - exacerbating problems faced by some of the world's most famous and popular heritage sites, such as the Galapagos Islands, which helped Charles Darwin form his theory of evolution, the study found.

Threats to the unique wildlife caused by 205,000 visitors a year, invasive species and illegal fishing are now being joined by rising seas, warming and more acidic oceans and extreme weather.

In the UK, at Stonehenge, warmer winters are likely to boost populations of burrowing animals that could disturb archaeological deposits and destabilise stonework.

Hotter drier summers could increase visitor numbers and change the plant species which stabilise the chalk downlands, causing more soil erosion, while Stonehenge, Avebury and Silbury Hill face increased rainfall and flash floods.

More severe problems threaten the Heart of Neolithic Orkney World Heritage site, where many archaeological sites are on the coast due to the importance of the sea in Stone Age life, and at least half are under threat from coastal erosion

Five-thousand-year-old Skara Brae, the best-preserved Stone Age dwelling complex in Western Europe with houses and stone furniture, is the most high profile site at risk of eventual loss of coastal erosion, the study said.

Lead author of the report and deputy director of the climate and energy programme at UCS, Adam Markham, said: "Orkney and the whole of Scotland is the poster child for eroding archaeology sites.

"There are thousands of them and many of them are being lost to coastal erosion and storms.

"If sea level rise and storms get worse because of global warming then we are going to be losing huge amounts of British heritage directly into the sea," he warned.

Other sites around the world that are at risk from coastal erosion include Easter Island, with its famous head statues, many of which are situated close to the sea, he said.

The Grand Canal in Venice by sunset. © Getty Images The Grand Canal in Venice by sunset. Elsewhere sites which bring in important tourism revenue could be particularly badly hit, such as Uganda's Bwindi Impenetrable National Park where rising temperatures could affect the habitat of endangered mountain gorillas.

Mr Markham said: "The report is representative of the kind of threats these iconic places are experiencing, some are in direct and immediate danger.

"At every one of these sites we can see the impacts of climate change already. Not in every place is it threatening it yet but it will threaten it in the future."

New York's Statue of Liberty was badly hit by Hurricane Sandy, with £68 million given for repairs and protection to the area, while more intense hurricanes are expected with climate change and sea level rises likely to cause more significant storm surges.

And Venice, with its extraordinary Byzantine, gothic, renaissance and baroque architecture, is under immediate threat from rising sea levels and work to protect it from flooding has cost £4 billion, the report said.

Mechtild Rossler, director of Unesco's World Heritage Centre, said: "Globally, we need to better understand, monitor and address climate change threats to World Heritage sites.

"As the report's findings underscore, achieving the Paris Agreement's goal of limiting global temperature rise to a level well below 2C is vitally important to protecting our world heritage for current and future generations."

SOURCE  

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).  

Hedges in British village are causing a stir after their recent trim



"A house in a rural village is causing a stir after its hedges were trimmed into phallic-like shapes. The large plants were grown and the shapes were created using topiary skills in Cross, near Axbridge in Somerset.

But grandfather-of-three Peter Knife, who owns the 400-year-old £450,000 property, said he has no idea how the hedges were shaped and has had no complaints. The 69-year-old said: 'I've lived at the house for 20 years with my wife and its always been known as the 'willy house' by children who go to a school nearby. 'I've also had people walk past my house and ask me how I keep my hedges so well-maintained. I wind them up and tell them I put Viagra in the roots.'

One neighbour, who asked not to be named, added: 'I pass by the topiary every day. 'I think they have always been like that and I don't think they can cut them down because it is part of the deeds to the house"

source

JUST A NOTE

I don't put up "naughty lady" posts every day because they don't happen every day

They happen surprisingly often, though

So I do put up a few bits that I see as amusing instead

JR

Pa.: Will a deal resolve charges that 25-year-old woman had sex with teen?

The case against a 25-year-old woman accused of having sex with a teenage boy and providing alcohol and prescription drugs to kids is headed to Cumberland County Court.

After a small group of teenage witnesses showed up at District Judge Paul Fegley's office Monday morning, Leah Freeland waived her preliminary hearing, sending the case forward on the path to trial.

The case might not end up in front of a jury, though, said her attorney, Deputy Public Defender John Shugars.

"We've had some preliminary discussions about resolving it prior to a trial," Shugars said. He stressed, however, that the case is in its early stages.

Freeland declined comment.

The Middlesex Township woman was arrested by local police last month on six counts of statutory sexual assault. Police said the investigation of Freeland began in February when ChildLine received a tip that Freehand was having sex with a 15-year-old boy and was giving him alcohol.

Woman charged with having sex with 15-year-old boy, giving teens alcohol and drugs

Woman charged with having sex with 15-year-old boy, giving teens alcohol and drugs

Police said the boy told them he and Freeland had sex five or six times at her home in Country Manor Mobile Home Park in February and March. They said the teen reported Freeland had given him alcohol, pills and gifts.

Five girls, ages 10 to 13, said they would hang out at Freeland's home and she would give them alcohol, police said. One girl said Freehand also gave her a blue pill, according to investigators.

Besides the statutory sexual assault counts, Freeland faces charges of corruption of minors and furnishing alcohol to minors. She remains free on unsecured bail.

SOURCE  

20th century global warming may have been due to decreasing aroma from trees


The finding below are particularly interesting in the aftermath of Munshi's demonstration that the buildup of CO2 in the atmosphere is NOT of anthropogenic origin. So therefore anthropogenic CO2 emissions CANNOT explain the slight degree of global warming seen in C20. So what does explain it? The best explanation so far is Svensmark's theory that variations cosmic rays reaching earth affect cloud formation and that earth was substantially shielded from such rays by enhanced solar activity in C20.

The finding below builds on that and looks at another factor that could affect cloud formation.  It finds that aromatic output from trees can encourage clouds.  So the extensive deforestation that occurred during C20 could have reduced clouds and caused some warming.  Now that deforestation has on a global scale run most of its course, therefore, we should have a C21 temperature stasis -- which is exactly what we do have.  We may have seen the complete end of a warming period

What I say above is just an attempt to put in layman's terms what Lubos Motl says below.  My apologies to Lubos if he thinks he had already done that


CLOUD, the experiment that measures the birth of clouds at CERN, has released new papers:

CLOUD has done lots of measurements of the processes that are needed to create clouds which, as many kids have noticed, usually cool down the weather.

The experiment has been taking place at CERN because the cosmic rays (emulated by the CERN's sources of beams) are important for the creation of the cloud (condensation) nuclei. Even in the new papers, cosmic rays are found to increase the nucleation rate by 1-2 orders of magnitude.

Recall that the Sun's activity may influence the cosmic ray flux, and therefore its variations may be responsible for "climate change". Svensmark's theory generally argues that a stronger solar activity means a more perfect shielding of the cosmic rays, therefore less cloudiness, and therefore warmer weather.

However, the focus of the new papers is on something else than the cosmic rays: the molecules that should be present for the cloud nuclei to emerge and surpass the critical mass.

It's been generally thought that the sulfuric acid was almost necessary. Chimneys (or volcano eruptions etc.) should increase cloudiness. However, there have been inconclusive hints in some papers that some organic molecules are enough. You may have worried: How could have the clouds existed in the past, before the chimneys were built?

Jasper Kirkby and collaborators have found out that the molecules known as "aroma of the trees" may indeed do the same job and that is decisive in the pristine environments without chimneys.

More precisely, the molecules that can do the job are the "highly oxygenated molecules" (HOMs) which are produced by ozonolysis of α-pinene. The lesson for "global warming" seems clear: deforestation may decrease the amount of aroma from the trees, and therefore the amount of clouds, and it may therefore lead to global warming.

This may be the explanation of the changes in the 20th century and because the deforestation is over, so may be "global warming".

SOURCE


Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).

Python sinks its fangs into man's penis as he sits on the toilet



"A man in Thailand suffered huge blood loss after a python sank its fangs into his penis while he was sitting on the toilet. Atthaporn Boonmakchuay tried desperately to break free after the huge snake attacked in the bathroom of his home in Chachoengsao, east of the capital Bangkok.

The 38-year-old reportedly reached down with his hand after feeling a sharp bite - only to discover the serpent's jaws clamped around the tip of his penis.  Atthaporn screamed out for his wife as he thrashed around trying to dislodge the 11ft python.  He was rushed to hospital after suffering horrific blood loss in the ordeal.

The 11ft python was found by emergency crews jammed up in the pipes leading to the victim's toilet. The reptile was then made safe and placed in a bag ahead of being released back in wild, according to Bangpakong News. According to the Mirror Atthaporn is in a stable condition in hospital."

Source

Ugly frog



"With its plumped up body and sullen face, you could be forgiven for thinking this Australian amphibian bears a striking resemblance to Jabba the Hutt. The frog, nicknamed 'The Boss' by its owners, has an uncanny similarity to the Star Wars' villain. Like the obese alien, the Australian waxy monkey tree frog has a grotesque triple chin and terrifying reptilian eyes.

Owner Keith Talbot, 47, snapped 'The Boss' at his home in Ashington, Northumberland while it was perched on a branch in a vivarium. He said: 'He was sunbathing when I took these photos, unlike other tree frogs they like basking.  'He ignored me when I took the photos, croaking and making chirping noises.'

He may be 'The Boss', but at only three inches tall, he is far smaller than the 'slimy worm-ridden piece of filth' - as Jabba is lovingly called by Han Solo"

Source

Trump executive proposes a wall to protect Irish golf resort from coastal erosion

This has got nothing to do with global warming.  Sea level rises in Ireland are in fact on the low side.  What IS true is that Western Ireland is exposed to the full force of big Atlantic storms -- and they do cause coastal erosion.  And it is common to put in place structures designed to halt such erosion.

To do so in politically correct Ireland does hoewever require a permit and that permit is required under legislation enacted out of global warming fears.  It is not Trump who fears the effects of global  warming in Western Ireland.  It is the Dáil Éireann (Irish Parliament)

That Trump seeks a permit to build a wall does not mean that he agrees with being required to seek such a permit


Donald Trump wants to build another huge wall, this time to keep out the rising seas threatening to swamp his luxury golf resort in Ireland.

The Republican presidential candidate has called climate change a "con job" and a "hoax." But in an application filed this month in County Clare, Ireland, the Trump International Golf Links and Hotel cites the threat of global warming in seeking a permit to build a nearly two-mile-long stone wall between it and the Atlantic Ocean. The beach in front of the 18th green is disappearing at a rate of about a yard each year.

Trump's application, first reported Monday by Politico, cites local regulations pertaining to "rising sea levels and increased storm frequency and wave energy associated with global warming." An attached environmental impact statement says that almost all the dunes in western Ireland are retreating "due to sea level rise and increased Atlantic storminess."

Trump campaign spokesman Alan Garten did not respond Monday to messages from The Associated Press seeking comment.

Trump, who has roiled the immigration debate by proposing to build a massive wall along the Mexican border, has repeatedly taken to Twitter to express skepticism that human activity is causing the world to warm, raising sea levels as the polar ice caps melt. He has also said he would seek to "renegotiate" the global accord to cut climate-warming carbon emissions agreed to by President Barack Obama in December.

"The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive," Trump tweeted in 2012.

"The entire country is FREEZING - we desperately need a heavy dose of global warming, and fast! Ice caps size reaches all time high," Trump tweeted in 2014.

Environmental groups pounced on the application as evidence of hypocrisy.

"Donald Trump clearly cares more about the fate of his golf courses than the health of the millions of families already affected by the climate crisis," said Adam Beitman, a spokesman for the Sierra Club.

SOURCE  

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).

Why WWI?

The bloodshed and folly of WWI is still horrifying to this day.  It seems that the world went mad at that time. And it happened amid the world's most civilized nations.  ISIS are amateurs compared to the combatants of WWI.

One can detail the processes that led up to it -- and I have done that -- but in retrospect the forces at work do seem insufficient by themselves to explain a vast horror. So the thoughts below by an historian are very relevant.  I will add some further comments at the foot of them:

Jay Murray Winter is the Charles J. Stille Professor of History at Yale University, where he focuses his research on World War I and its impact on the 20th century.

Reflecting on the causes of the First World War, Jay Winter concludes his six-part video series, The Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century (1996), as follows:

"The war solved no problems. Its effects, both immediate and indirect, were either negative or disastrous. Morally subversive, economically destructive, socially degrading, confused in its course, futile in its result, it is the outstanding example in European history of meaningless conflict"

Summing up his conclusions more recently, he states:

"1938 is a long way from now, but it’s still a puzzle. What was it for? Why? Why all this bloodshed? Why the carnage? Why the violence? Why the cruelty? I can’t pretend to have an answer, but I know it’s a question that we still have to resolve"

After 50 years of research and writing, this great historian cannot tell us why the First World War occurred.

Yet the reason for the war is staring us in the face. The bloodshed contained its own meaning. One does not have to look beyond what it was. Observing the daily carnage in France in 1916, P. H. Pearse—founder of the Irish revolutionary movement—told us everything we need to know (in Kamenka, 1976):

"The last sixteenth months have been the most glorious in the history of Europe. Heroism has come back to the earth. It is good for the world that such things should be done. The old heart of the earth needed to be warmed with the red wine of the battlefield. Such august homage was never before offered to God as this, the homage of millions of lives given gladly for love of country"

The First World War occurred so that the earth could be “warmed with the red wine of the battlefield”. It was a form of “august homage” —millions of lives given “for love of country”.

The First World War was a gigantic demonstration of devotion—abject submission— to the nation-state. Societies from throughout the world offered up their young men upon the sacrificial block. They fed the hungry, humungous god, the nation which, like the god of the Aztecs, comes into being —continues to exist— to the extent that it feeds on the body and blood of sacrificial victims.

SOURCE

The above article, apparently written by psychohistorian Richard Koenigsberg, does take us  back rather vividly to the times concerned and does provide a deeper level of explanation for the events concerned.  All explanations open up further questions, however, so we have to ask WHY the bloodlust of that time?  WHY did people see war and sacrifice as glorious?

The answer lies rather clearly in history -- in particular the history that Leftists want us to to forget or never to be told.    There have always been Leftists -- people who are angry at the society in which they live -- but their doctrines have changed greatly over time.  And it so happens that both world wars happened in the "progressive" era -- a time from the late 19th century to the end of WWII -- in which "progressive" thought swept all before it.  Progressivism was culturally dominant.  The dominant thinking of that quite long period was progressive.  It was only the election of Ike in 1953 to the Presidency that called a partial halt to that dominance.

So if we want to understand the strange thinking that Koenigsberg has detailed above, we have to look at the Progressives and what they believed.  They had the basic Leftist inclination to tear down the status quo and upset existing systems that one expects of them -- and there is of course nothing so upsetting to existing life as a war.  Additionally, a war can be used to justify big power grabs that would not be countenanced by the population during peacetime.  And in WWI President Wilson did exactly that sort of grab.

So it was to satiate their desire for destruction and change that the Progressive doctrine included the ghastly thinking that Koenigsberg details.  And there was no-one so representastive of that thinking than Teddy Roosevelt and his battleships.  He too thought war was glorious and a purification of the human spirit.  Hitler thought that too but Roosevelt much preceded him.  Hitler did, after all, grow up in the Progressive era and got most of his ideas from them: racism, eugenics and the virtue of war.

Leftists of today say roughly the opposite of all those things but that is just a matter of convenience.  After the defeat of Hitler, his doctrines fell into disrepute so Leftists turned on a dime and pretended that his doctrines had never been theirs.  But they were.  So it was the bloodlust that Leftists have always exhibited -- from the French Revolution on -- that underlay the terrible deeds of WWI -- JR

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).

Mick Jagger's ‘lover’ on trial for sex with boy 39yrs ago



ACCUSED: Beryl Yassin claims she slept with Mick Jagger and allegedly had sex with a boy of 15

Beryl Yassin, 72, worked in first class for British Airways in the 1970s. She is accused of enticing the boy, then a virgin, into bed 39 years ago.

The claims came in a police interview with her alleged victim in 2014.

HEARING: The trial is taking place in Oxford Crown Court
A jury was told that after the pair had sex in 1977, she asked the schoolboy: “Where did you learn to do that?”

Oxford Crown Court heard they slept together on other occasions, but she never spoke about their sexual relationship until decades later.

Many years later she was said to have asked the alleged victim, now aged in his 50s: “We had a thing, didn’t we”?

The complainant, who cannot be named, said Yassin had “a bloody cheek” to mention it.

Jurors were also told that Yassin, of Lewes, East Sussex, had twice been admitted to The Priory clinic to seek help for her alcohol problem.

Yassin denies indecent assault on a person under 15 and neglect of a child.

The trial continues.

SOURCE  

We’re losing our religion. And that’s not a bad thing (?)

Karen Brooks makes a quite stupid mistake below, all the more amazing because she is allegedly a psychoanalyst.  Her employment in a neo-Marxist outfit has clearly caused her politics to trump her science.



In her discussion of religion, she fails to take account of the fact that there are many influences on human behaviour, with religion being only one of them.  And NO religion has ever made any nation into a nation of peaceniks.  There could be no more peaceful religion than Buddhism but the Buddhist Japanese showed great savagery in WWII.  Nationalist ideas trumped Buddhist ideas.

The only reasonable way to compare religions, therefore, is to look at the religions themselves, not the deeds of groups who claim some attachment to the religions concerned.  And Muslims are in fact a good example of that.  Despite the constant calls in the Koran for attacks on unbelievers, 99% of Muslims in the  Western world are entirely peaceful in their deeds.  They are "bad" Muslims from a religious viewpoint.  Their religion has no major influence on that aspect of their behaviour.

So what we have to do is to look at influence at the margins.  We have to ask what is the effect of the religion when it does have influence?  So we see that for a very small number of true believing Muslims, the commands of the Koran to attack kuffars are acted on with terrorist deeds.  But what about equally devout Christians? Their scriptures include no such commands so there are no Christian suicide bombers, which is a very good thing, and much to be encouraged. Instead it has commands to "love thy neighbour", which result in some Christians  building  hospitals and  doing  all sorts of charitable works.

Religion DOES have an important influence but Karen is too dim to see it.  Her Leftist hate of a rival faith blinds her to reality.  To forestall stupid "ad hominem" attacks,  I am myself a complete  atheist.  I don't believe in Jesus Christ, Mohammed or Karl Marx.  I don't even believe in global warming


Last week, columnist Andrew Bolt declared there was a war on Christianity. Claiming that Christians are being “harassed out of public space”, he provided examples before descending into polarising rhetoric of Christianity is “good and Islam “bad” (that is, violent and intolerant).

Cherrypicking quotes from the Bible and Koran to defend his points, Bolt then stated only a Christian society is safe for nonbelievers: “Christianity, for instance, tells us to treat even strangers as we would our own kin and insists the life of even the most lowly is sacred.”

Tell that to Peter Dutton.

Historically, Christianity’s record of kindness to strangers, their intolerance towards the “lowly” and those with differing or no beliefs, like that of other major religions, is grossly blemished.

One has only to read about the Crusades, the Inquisition, the various zealous missionary work undertaken around the world, to understand the destructive impact of Christianity on people and cultures, never mind how the God of peace could also transform into one that justified its warriors killing, raping, maiming and plundering in His name.

While Catholicism was the dominant religion in the Western world for centuries, Martin Luther and the subsequent Reformation changed that.

In less than 50 years, England, for example, went from a Catholic nation (Henry VIII), to a Protestant one (Henry VIII and Edward VI), reverted back to Catholicism (Mary I) before settling (uncomfortably) with the Church of England (Elizabeth I).

The Interregnum under the Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell saw Puritanism take hold before the Restoration and Charles II, who reinstated the Church of England, but died a Catholic. Under all these monarchs, those of minority faith were persecuted, imprisoned, executed and/or deported.

Religious intolerance and the wars and bloodshed in God’s name, continued for centuries — and not just in England.

Christianity, like Judaism and Islam, has never been homogenous. Puritans, Anabaptists, Quakers, Muggletonians, Seekers, Ranters (to name a few) all splintered from it and fought to exist.

Jesus may have suggested, “turn the other cheek”, but the facts are Christianity, like other major faiths, has a long and tortured history that’s bellicose, hypocritical and more about the accumulation of wealth, lands, power and control of the ignorant, than bestowing blessings.

While Bolt’s correct in saying the Church is being increasingly disregarded, it’s a reflection of the times when, because people are better educated (and thus more likely to eschew religion), they’re able to critically reflect on what institutionalised religion offers.

With the shocking revelations of systematic abuse of children in the Catholic Church especially (but not exclusively) high on the public agenda, the indoctrination of would-be terrorists occurring in Mosques and cyberspace, let alone the murders being committed in Allah’s name, people’s tolerance, not so much for God, but for those who claim to be doing His work — whatever it may be — is rapidly diminishing.

Then there’s the bigotry and hatred expressed online and in other spaces by purported Christians towards homosexuality, abortion, refugees and on other human rights issues.

The fact churches don’t pay taxes simply adds insult to the increasing injuries.

Reflecting this, for the first time the 2016 August census will have the “no religion” option in the top spot. There’s a chance Christians collectively may lose their majority status in Australia as they did in New Zealand when a similar change occurred.

Is this such a bad thing?

The notion that a moral framework and ethics, living a “good” life, can only be learned through religion is a furphy.

While I might be damned for saying this, the safest society is a predominantly secular one, but of the kind sociologist, Jurgen Habermas, describes. This is one where religious and secular mentalities are open to a complementary learning process where shared citizenship and cultural difference is balanced.

This is sometimes described as a “soft-secularism”. It believes in the separation of church and state, but works in favour of believers and nonbelievers alike by practising tolerance in other spheres.

While we must steer away from religious extremism, we must also avoid an aggressive secularism that dismisses religious beliefs (but never excuses bigotry or hatred towards others). Likewise, we must not allow rhetoric, which, on the pretext of defending one faith, actually privileges it while apportioning blame and vilifying another, fuelling fear and hate and causing deeper divisions in the process.

In our increasingly disconnected world, I understand why some find the community and sharing, the sense of belonging some faiths offer, seductive. But isn’t it better to have faith in each other, practice goodness and compassion in the here and now, respect each other equally, with dignity, and leave an everlasting tangible legacy, than continuously defer to an invisible entity?

Secularism at its best is inclusive. I’m yet to be convinced about religion.

SOURCE

Antigo woman gets 6 years prison 2014 child sexual assault case

          

ANTIGO, Wis.  -- A 32-year-old Antigo woman convicted of having sex with boy under the age of 16 during an underage drinking party she hosted in December 2014 will spend six years in prison.

Carissa Drake was convicted of second degree sexual assault of a child and obstructing an officer at a trial in February.

According to court documents, a juvenile told investigators she had witnessed Drake sexually assault two juveniles, then ages 13 and 14, during a party in December 2014. According to criminal complaint Drake was cited in December after she reportedly hosted an underage drinking party.

Both victims were interviewed by police in March 2015. Both admitted there had been sexual contact. According to court documents, one said he was very uncomfortable with what happened. The other said Drake knew he was 13.

Drake will receive credit for 112 days already spent in custody. She'll spend six years on extended supervision upon her release.

SOURCE   

Warmists can be amusing: Lewandowski in particular

I have been  posting about the Green/Left 6 days a week for many years, so you would think I would be suffering from burnout by now.  But on the contrary, I often find the whole thing amusing.  The stuff that Warmists come out with in great seriousness is often so silly that one has to laugh.  And Stephan Lewandowski really is a lamebrain.


Here he is

He is a psychologist and has latched onto the old "ad hominem" Leftist idea that he can discredit conservative arguments by showing that conservatives are not right in the head.  Psychologists have been trying to do that at least since 1950 and they have come up with some lulus in the course of pursuing that goal.  The oddest one was their claim (p. 343) that Communist dictators such as Stalin, Khrushchev and Castro are conservative.  But if Communist leaders and ideologues  are conservatives, who is a Leftist?  More on that here and here.  And the "research" concerned has been much acclaimed!  It's pretty clear who the twisted minds actually are.  It is conservatives who are the normals.

One would feel sorry for Leftists if they were not so aggressive.  They are so desperate for self-validation that they will believe just about anything that tends to support their beliefs.

Lewandowski burst onto the Warmist scene with an alleged study of climate skeptics which did indeed do the job of finding them not right in the head.  The only problem was that there was absoutely no evidence that the people he "studied" were in fact a representative sample of climate skeptics.  There are in fact some grounds for concluding that many of those studied were in fact from the Green/Left.  Be that as it may, Lewandowski clearly has the typical psychologist's insouciance about sampling and thus conducted a study of no demonstrable generalizability.  He might as well have filled out all his questionaires by himself.

Lewandowski is such a nut that he even got himself disowned by the Warmist establishment.  All Warmists hate the "hiatus" in warming that has dominated this century and a couple of them  have tried various tricks to "abolish" it -- to show that there really has been no "hiatus".  And Lewandowski was one of those.  His work was so shoddy, however that in the Fyfe et al. paper the Warmist heavies disowned the claim and reaffirmed that there was a 21st century temperature slowdown, which they  explained as due to "special" factors. The joint authors of that paper were: John C. Fyfe, Gerald A. Meehl, Matthew H. England, Michael E. Mann, Benjamin D. Santer, Gregory M. Flato, Ed Hawkins, Nathan P. Gillett, Shang-Ping Xie, Yu Kosaka & Neil C. Swart.  Mann and Santer are particularly well-known Warmists.

Anyway, on to Lewandowski's latest brainwave  -- under the heading: "A blind expert test of contrarian claims about climate data".  I think I had better reproduce its abstract before I go any further:

"Although virtually all experts agree that CO2 emissions are causing anthropogenic global warming, public discourse is replete with contrarian claims that either deny that global warming is happening or dispute a human influence. Although the rejection of climate science is known to be driven by ideological, psychological, and political factors rather than scientific disagreement, contrarian views have considerable prominence in the media. A better understanding of contrarian discourse is therefore called for. We report a blind expert test of contrarian claims about climatological variables. Expert economists and statisticians were presented with representative contrarian statements (e.g., “Arctic ice is recovering”) translated into an economic or demographic context. In that blind test, contrarian claims were found to be misleading. By contrast, mainstream scientific interpretations of the data were judged to be accurate and policy relevant. The results imply that media inclusion of contrarian statements may increase bias rather than balance"

He starts out well  -- with a straw man argument.  He says that skeptics "either deny that global warming is happening or dispute a human influence".  There are some skeptics who hold those positions but by far the majority of skeptics concede the theory of some CO2-induced warming but just see no evidence or reasonable argument that it is anything but trivial in magnitude or urgent in any way.  In technical terms, they dispute the climate "sensitivity".

But you can accurately summarize what Lewandowski does above by saying that he examined skeptical arguments by not examining skeptical arguments. It is that bad.  Another lulu! Only a true believer would give it any credence.  I think anyone can see that the hole  in the bucket is the "translation" of skeptical arguments into some allegedly equivalent argument in another field.  I'm betting that my translations would have been very different.  And the selection of "experts" was probably another hole in the bucket.  Academe is heavily Leftist so getting sympathetic experts on board would have been a no-brainer.

Anyway, he provided me with the hour of entertainment that it took to write the above notes.

Come to the gym but leave your tits behind?



"A Canadian woman has sparked outrage after accusing a local gym of discriminating against her because of her chest size. Jenna Vecchio is a member of the Movati Athletic Club in Orleans, Ontario. In great shape, the young woman seems to hit the gym often — but may not go back to this one in the future after employees called her out on her attire.

So what was the 'offensive' outfit that she was told was off-limits? A black racerback tank top that she wore over full-length leggings, which was no different from the tank tops worn by several other women at the gym that day. Jenna, who goes by Rose Nickels on Facebook, insists that she was singled out because her breasts are large, and that supervisors at the gym even confirmed that was the case.

Source

Vegan sends the wrong message



"A woman who died of altitude sickness while climbing Mount Everest took on the challenge to prove that 'vegans can do anything'. Maria Strydom died on Saturday afternoon after having to turn back from the final leg of the expedition because she felt unwell. She returned to Camp 4, the last camp before the mountain's summit, on Friday where she spent the night but died from lack of oxygen the following day.

The 34-year-old South African national taught at Monash University in Melbourne and was an experienced climber. Her husband Robert Gropel is injured but, according to trip organisers, '100 per cent safe'. Weeks before her death Dr Strydom told how she and her husband wanted to dispel the belief that vegans were 'weak' or 'malnourished' by taking on the climb"

Source

Warming stops depression

Warmists are constantly making hokey claims about warming being bad for you.  So it should be of some interest to read below a proper academic study which shows that warmth can be beneficial.  It might in fact make us all more cheerful

Whole-Body Hyperthermia for the Treatment of Major Depressive Disorder: A Randomized Clinical Trial

By Janssen CW et al.

Abstract

IMPORTANCE: Limitations of current antidepressants highlight the need to identify novel treatments for major depressive disorder. A prior open trial found that a single session of whole-body hyperthermia (WBH) reduced depressive symptoms; however, the lack of a placebo control raises the possibility that the observed antidepressant effects resulted not from hyperthermia per se, but from nonspecific aspects of the intervention.

OBJECTIVE: To test whether WBH has specific antidepressant effects when compared with a sham condition and to evaluate the persistence of the antidepressant effects of a single treatment.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS:  A 6-week, randomized, double-blind study conducted between February 2013 and May 2015 at a university-based medical center comparing WBH with a sham condition. All research staff conducting screening and outcome procedures were blinded to randomization status. Of 338 individuals screened, 34 were randomized, 30 received a study intervention, and 29 provided at least 1 postintervention assessment and were included in a modified intent-to-treat efficacy analysis. Participants were medically healthy, aged 18 to 65 years, met criteria for major depressive disorder, were free of psychotropic medication use, and had a baseline 17-item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale score of 16 or greater.

INTERVENTIONS: A single session of active WBH vs a sham condition matched for length of WBH that mimicked all aspects of WBH except intense heat.

MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: Between-group differences in postintervention Hamilton Depression Rating Scale scores.

RESULTS: The mean (SD) age was 36.7 (15.2) years in the WBH group and 41.47 (12.54) years in the sham group. Immediately following the intervention, 10 participants (71.4%) randomized to sham treatment believed they had received WBH compared with 15 (93.8%) randomized to WBH. When compared with the sham group, the active WBH group showed significantly reduced Hamilton Depression Rating Scale scores across the 6-week postintervention study period (WBH vs sham; week 1: -6.53, 95% CI, -9.90 to -3.16, P < .001; week 2: -6.35, 95% CI, -9.95 to -2.74, P = .001; week 4: -4.50, 95% CI, -8.17 to -0.84, P = .02; and week 6: -4.27, 95% CI, -7.94 to -0.61, P = .02). These outcomes remained significant after evaluating potential moderating effects of between-group differences in baseline expectancy scores. Adverse events in both groups were generally mild.

CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: Whole-body hyperthermia holds promise as a safe, rapid-acting, antidepressant modality with a prolonged therapeutic benefit.

JAMA Psychiatry. 2016 May 12. doi: 10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2016.1031

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).

British Keystone cops blow up a harmless vehicle



"Police were called in to carry out two controlled explosions after a suspicious vehicle triggered a bomb scare at ITV studios.  The owner of the car, which was blown up, returned to his vehicle this afternoon and didn't look too happy as he inspected it by opening the bonnet.

All the buildings in the vicinity, including ITV's studios on South Bank, were evacuated and police cordoned off the area around the car. Detectives used a robot to carry out the controlled explosions and later determined the vehicle as 'not suspicious'.  Pictures showed the car's windows smashed up and what looked like petrol canisters inside the vehicle"

Source

Sex with schoolboys lands Tasmanian teacher Casey Lee Sullivan in jail



A HIGH school teacher who had sex with three of her students has been jailed for two years.

Casey Lee Sullivan, 33, appeared before Chief Justice Alan Blow in the Supreme Court in Hobart today after earlier pleading guilty to nine counts of having sexual intercourse with a young person under the age of 17 years between 2012 and 2015.

Chief Justice Blow said Sullivan had sex with a boy she met while still a student teacher in 2012 because he had paid her attention.

The following year, Sullivan sent flirtatious messages to a 15-year-old student via Facebook and later picked him up from his home and had sex with him in a car at a beach nearby.

In 2015 she contacted another student via social media and later took him into the school gym and had sex with him on the gym mats.

The teenage boy told his friends about the incident the next day and showed them a message from Sullivan to prove his claim.

He told a friend and a cousin about the incident, saying that another teacher had nearly walked in on them.

Sullivan had sex with the boy on further occasions in September and October and sent him sexually explicit text messages which included indecent images.

Chief Justice Blow said rumours of the encounter spread and police were called. Sullivan confessed to having had sex with all three boys.

He said the crimes had cost Sullivan her job and had exposed her and her family to abuse and ridicule.

But despite her regret for the offending, the judge said that jail was the only appropriate sentence in a case involving repeated sexual offending over a number of years.

He jailed Sullivan for two years, with eight months of the sentence suspended on the condition she not commit another offence for two years on her release.

Sullivan will be eligible for parole after eight months. Chief Justice Blow also placed her on the sex offenders register for seven years

SOURCE

GOOD NEWS

Mike Pechar is still in the land of the living but has lost sight in one eye.

He does expect to return to blogging in due course.

I will be glad to hand back to him the "naughty ladies" coverage

John Ray

Some pretty pictures of snow and ice that allegedly prove global warming

I am not going to reproduce any of the pictures as it is just typical Leftist cherry-picking.  You can pick pictures to show almost anything.  It is statistics you need if you are to generalize.  And, overall, polar ice has been INCREASING.

So how come all the pretty pictures?  Mainly because glaciers are always changing -- mostly in response to precipitation.  Glaciers that are getting more snowfall than usual will be advancing and glaciers getting less will be retreating.  And there are always glaciers doing both.  The Franz Josef glacier in New Zealand is a good example.  Up unti a few years ago was notable for its rapid advance.  Now it is retreating.

Kilimanjaro is another example.  Once it was almost bare of snow but it has since bounced back.  And it's only at the stage that suits their religion did the Warmists mention either of them

And their deception is not even clever.  For Kilimanjaro they show a comparison between 1993 and 2000.  But what about 2016?  For that see below:



More snow than ever. That shows you how they operate.  They are arrant crooks

And their logic is very strange. Their two pictures of flooding in Australia were taken only two months apart.  So does that prove global warming?  Did drastic warming happen over just two months?  Hardly.  All they show is that Australia's floods are short-lived, which all Australians know. Our chronic problem is drought

I guess I could go on to dismantle all their trickery but I am not going to give any more time to gross propaganda.  Just some of their text excerpted below.  Click SOURCE to see the pictures


They have been locked in ice for hundreds, if not thousands of years, but newly released images have revealed just how fast the landscapes of Antarctica and the Arctic have changed.

The incredible pictures, released by Nasa, show how melting, and flooding, have transformed iconic landscapes around the world.

While some of the images, taken years apart, reveal long-term impacts that have been attributed to climate change, others show changes on a shorter scale due to shifting seasons or storms.

The shocking image comparisons are perhaps at their most dramatic when picturing the glaciers in Alaska.

An image taken in the summer 1917 of the Pederson Glacier shows mountains of ice floating in water. Yet, a photograph taken in the same spot in 2005 shows green pastures and a sparse covering of snow and ice in the surrounding hills.

In another pair of images taken of Northwestern Glacier, in Alaska, almost all the ice can be seen to have melted within just 65 years. In the summer of 1940, the glacier glacier can be seen snaking down from the peaks into the water, where chunks of ice float.

By summer 2005, the picture is completely different. Where once there was white snow and ice, the dark grey and black of the rock, with the occasional hint of green vegetation, dominates while the water is completely clear. Just a few hints of snow remain hidden among the highest peaks in the distance.

The ice and snow on the top of Africa's tallest peak, Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, can be seen disappearing. On the left shows a thick cap of snow on February 17, 1993 and on the right it has reducted in February 21, 2000 Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa

Southern Australia, October 9, 2010Flooding in southern Australia December 12, 2010.  A series of thunderstorms led to flooding in southern Australia in 2010 affecting 200,000 people. The left image was taken on October 9, 2010 while the image on the right was taken December 12, 2010

Other images show dramatic changes caused by flooding and fire, urban development and deforestation.

SOURCE  

Good for you



A world health organisation (WHO based in Geneva, Switzerland) study shows that eating ham and salami while drinking at each meal a glass of good wine …reduces the risk of becoming an Islamic Terrorist by at least 100%

Wow!  Somebody who knows what he is talking about on coral bleaching

There is a long article on Watts that reviews the science of what is known of the coral reef life-cycle.  It has lots of surprises for people who have heard only the cries of disaster from Warmists.  The single fact that stood out to me was that coral bleaching is most often a response to COOLING, not warming.

The article gives particular attention to the utterances of Warmists like Hoagy and completely demolishes them.  It gives good grounds for regarding Hoagy as nothing but a fraud.

I have previously noted that coral bleaching is not coral death and that corals are very resilient to damage but this article gives chapter and verse of that.  Anyone interested in the health of coral reefs needs to read this article.  You will laugh at all future Warmist claims if you do.

Eighty children treated in hospital after outbreak of 'demonic possession' in Peruvian school



"Scores of children at a school in Peru have suffered seizures and described visions of a man in black trying to kill them in what locals say was a mass case of 'demonic possession'. Disturbing footage has emerged of up to 80 students convulsing, screaming and fainting at Elsa Perea Flores School in northern Peru's Tarapoto.

Experts are struggling to explain the hysteria that broke out at the school, which was reportedly built on a Mafia graveyard.

Dozens of youngsters have been experiencing the supposedly contagious 'condition' since it was first reported in April.  Children aged between 11 and 14 are reportedly fainting and having strong muscular convulsions. Shocking video shows pupils who are barely conscious, repeatedly screaming, and who appear to be delirious.

Doctor Antony Choy told national channel Panamericana TV: 'We don't understand how this has kept going on"

Source

British psychotherapist, 63, who told her clients to breastfeed from her and suckle 'mummy's milk' is jailed for series of bizarre sexual assaults on women



A Christian cult leader and psychotherapist who breastfed her clients by telling them to suckle 'mummy's milk' has been jailed for a series of bizarre sexual assaults on women.

Vanessa Clark, 63, manipulated her clients into paying thousands of pounds for 'skin to skin' contact - including breastfeeding - which she claimed had been approved by a priest to heal depression.

The court heard Clark massaged one victim until she became aroused before telling her this was her 'inner baby' coming out.

Another vulnerable client, who began shaking as she spoke about her childhood, was asked by Clark: 'Does baby want some milk?'

Clark has now been jailed for four years after 'wholly abusing' her position of trust as a psychotherapist.

The court heard how the former cult leader - who had been recommended to her victims by fellow Christians - admitted carrying out the abuse to feed her 'sadistic desires'.

In a confession letter written to her female partner, Clark said: 'I would breastfeed my clients and on one occasion took off my top and told her it was a special thing I would do only for her.

'It was entirely deceptive and manipulative. I subjected her to my sadistic desires.'

Prosecutor Henry James told Oxford Crown Court that the 'unusual and troubling' offences took place between 1996 and 2001 because Clark wanted to wield 'power' over her victims.

Clark had been recommended to her two victims by fellow Christians and invited them back to a flat in London to perform her 'therapy'.

One of the victims, who had been struggling to come to terms with abuse during her childhood, began having 'intense and personal sessions' with Clark, during which the abuse took place.

Mr James said: 'The victim was required to regress back to her childhood. Her hands and legs became fidgety and she was told that this was her body "trying to get mother to lactate".

'Ms Clarke then asked her client, 'does baby want some milk?' She then guided her victim towards her breasts who took them into her mouth.'

On another occasion, the same victim was encouraged to revert her mind back to this childhood state again. Clark then took off her top and said: 'Have some mummy milk.'

The court heard how the victim felt compelled to comply with the 'sadistic' demands.

A second victim, who came to Clark after suffering from depression, was encouraged to imagine Biblical imagery in the form of the story of Adam and Eve, the court was told.

Mr James said: 'The victim began to develop an intense relationship with the defendant during their once a week sessions, which she welcomed.

'The assaults began when Clark massaged the woman's back and over her bra, before she undid the bra.

'The woman became sexually aroused and Ms Clark reassured her this was her 'inner baby' coming out and "she needed this".

Clark's offending came to light when her partner contacted one of the victims. She said she had become frightened of Clark's conversational references to rape, murder and torture.

Clark then wrote a letter to her partner admitting the abuse which was read out in court.

The letter read: 'I was grooming them to get power over them. I set out to get under their skin so they would become fixated on me.

The court heard that Clark charged clients thousands of pounds over time to carry out the twisted 'skin to skin' methods which she claimed had been approved by a priest who had long since died.

Adrian Amer, defending, said that the defendant had recognised she had committed the offences, despite her being diagnosed with an incurable personality disorder.

Clark, of New Yatt, Oxforshire, admitted six counts of indecent assault on August 10 this year.

She sat silently shaking her head as the court heard of her unorthodox and sadistic methods.

Clark was jailed for four years and made subject to a Sexual Harm Prevention Order. She was also placed on the sex offenders' register for the rest of her life.

SOURCE  

They must have sold a lot of these keyboards, it is like every Warmist is using them!

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).  

Going to church could save your life: Women who worship once a week are '25 per cent less likely to die early'



"Going to church is not only good for the soul, it can also stop you dying young, a study claims. A weekly worship can slash your chances of dying early by a quarter if you are female. Attending just once a week was associated with a lower risk of death for women from all causes, cardiovascular disease and cancer, the study which spanned over 20 years found.

Researchers believe optimism and a sense of community can combat the effects of stress and depression, resulting in longer life.

  Dr Tyler VanderWeele, a professor of epidemiology of Harvard's school of public health, examined attendance at religious services and subsequent death in women. It was assessed using questionnaires from between 1992 and 2012. Researchers used data from the Nurses' Health Study in the analysis published in JAMA Internal Medicine."

Women who attended religious services more than once per week had a 33 per cent lower risk of death compared with women who never attended religious services"

Source

Australia: Mother of five caught having sex with 14-year-old boy

A Bendigo mother of five was having sex with a 14-year-old boy when his mate walked in on them, a court has heard.

The mother, who was 28 at the time, later told police the boy had been all over her "like a typical teenager".

The boy boasted to his mate how the sex with the woman had been "the best".

A Melbourne judge on Tuesday placed the woman, who gave birth to her sixth child last year, on a two-year community corrections order and ordered her to perform 200 hours of unpaid community work.

She had pleaded guilty to one count of sexual penetration of a child under 16 and was placed on the sex offenders' register for 15 years.

The judge, who cannot be named as it could identify the victim, said the boy had been under the care and supervision of the Department of Human Services since he was 12, and was living in residential accommodation in Bendigo.

The boy and his teenage friend, who had been going out with the woman's 12-year-old daughter, spent the night at the woman's home on September 16, 2013.

The boy later told police he had been drunk on the night and could not remember what had happened but that the sex had been consensual and he had no regrets.

The woman's daughter told police her mother had initially been reluctant to allow the boy to drink alcohol but eventually agreed and he was helping himself to alcohol in the fridge throughout the night.

As the boy became more intoxicated, he told the woman he wanted to date her and even marry her.

The woman's daughter pointed out to the boy the difference in their ages but he said he didn't care if he got into trouble.

He was later having sex with the woman when his friend, 16, walked in on them.

The woman denied knowing the boy was only 14, claiming she found out his age only after speaking to his mother, who had reported her son missing from his DHS accommodation.

She admitted making no real effort to find out how old the boy was and had given in to her desires to have sex with him.

The judge told the court the boy, now aged 17, had provided a victim impact statement which revealed he now realised the woman had taken advantage of him and the sex had not been a good or appropriate thing to do.

Detailing the woman's background, the judge said her mother had abandoned her when she was a baby and her adoptive father and brother had physically and sexually abused her.

The woman's first romantic relationship, when she was 14, was violent and she had given birth to her first child two years later.

She had had five children by 2008 and was suffering from drug and alcohol problems and mental health issues.

But the judge said the woman had since turned her life around, was in a positive relationship and had gone back to school to complete her Year 12 studies.

A psychological report revealed the woman, now aged 31, had no paedophilic tendencies and the chances of her re-offending were low.

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China and the East China Sea

There has been much heartburn lately over China's island building in the East China Sea.  Just about everyone disapproves.  I do not.  I realize that in saying so I am rather like the editor of the Skibbereen Eagle, when he warned the Tsar, but what I think will happen generally does happen so what I have to say on the matter may be a harbinger of things to come nonetheless.

For a start, I think island building is a good thing in general.  The climate of the area is a pleasant one and recovering land from the sea expands the human habitat.  The Dutch would of course agree with that, though Greenies would automatically talk of endangered marine creatures. And China has an enormous population so needs all the living space it can find.  So I hope that in due course there the facilities there will be greater  than the merely military.  Could there even be a tourist industry there one day?  Stranger things have happened

Living space is of course not the motive of the island building concerned.  The motive is a combination of military considerations and resource hunger.  China has a huge need for resources, energy sources in particular, so the prospect of oil reserves in the general area is hugely motivating. And it could  be argued that China deserves those resources in the light of its huge poplulation and that less populous nations have a lesser claim on them.  That is of course a socialist argument but China is officially a socialist country and we live in a socialist world.

And the military argument is orthodox. Many nations have sought and supported buffer states and the worldwide network of military bases maintained by the USA puts it in no position  to claim that China should not maintain bases at a distance from the homeland.

But in the end, the argument is over. China has clearly lost patience with the dithering and debate about ownership of the places concerned and has decided to settle the argument in its own favour in the traditional way, by conquest. And it has stated that it will defend its new bases so the message is basically "Up yours".  The world would do well to accept the new status quo.  It's not going to change. You don't argue with China

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).

Northern English woman, 58, denies 10 child sex offences against boy

A Sunderland woman has appeared in court charged with historical child sex offences against an underage boy. Carole Davis is accused of indecently assaulting a boy under the age of 16, 10 times over a four-year period.

The 58-year-old, of Greystoke Avenue, Tunstall, pleaded not guilty to all charges against her, when she appeared before a judge at Sunderland Magistrates’ Court.

District Judge Roger Elsey told her: “I am allocating this case to the crown court. “You must be at the crown court at Newcastle upon Tyne for a preliminary hearing, on June 7, at 10am.

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The Queen wins a shopping voucher



It's unlikely that she ever pops into the supermarket for a pint of milk, but the Queen might now be tempted after winning a rather un-royal prize. The monarch, 90, was presented with a Tesco voucher at the Royal Windsor Horse Show after her horse Barber Shop won the Tattersalls & RoR Thoroughbred Ridden Show.

Prizes for winners were a Kensington Ri-dry jacket and a £70 Tesco Voucher first to fourth places. She clearly saw the funny side as she was spotted laughing after tearing open a white envelope to reveal the enclosed voucher."

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Do Warmists actually think?

It sometimes seems not. This post is a reaction to the generally correct statement in the excerpt below to the effect that CO2 levels have been rising steadily for a long time now. The problem is the second statement: That increased CO2 levels cause warming. In combination, those two statements are inconsistent with the evidence. In particular, warming levels behave quite differently from CO2 levels. The two are simply not correlated. They don't covary. And without correlation there is no causation.

For instance, CO2 levels DID rise steadily in C21 but temperatures did not. It was only in 2015 under the influence of El Nino that temperatures rose. And as luck would have it, that was precisely the one year in which CO2 levels stagnated. 2015 CO2 levels at Mauna Loa just fluctuated up and down from month to month around the 400ppm mark.



The 4th column is the actual average CO2 level in ppm. So at no point in C21 did temperatures and CO2 levels rise at the same time. They were two independent phenomena.

The figures from Cape Grim showed more change but from August on the CO2 level was stuck on 398 ppm. And late 2015 was precisely the time when El Nino was most influential and the temperature rise was greatest. Putting it another way, any warming from August on (inclusive) was NOT an effect of a CO2 rise. That rather knocks out most of the warming as due to CO2. So again, temperature and CO2 did not mirror one another.



The Warmists below just don't see that a steady CO2 rise accompanied by no temperature rise is a problem.  They are robotic propagandists not scientists


Within the next couple of weeks, a remote part of north-western Tasmania is likely to grab headlines around the world as a major climate change marker is passed.

The aptly named Cape Grim monitoring site jointly run by CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology will witness the first baseline reading of 400 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, researchers predict.

"Once it's over [400 ppm], it won't go back," said Paul Fraser, dubbed by CSIRO as the Air Man of Cape Grim, and now a retired CSIRO fellow. "It could be within 10 days."

The most recent reading on May 6 was 399.9 ppm, according to readings compiled by the CSIRO team led by Paul Krummel that strip out influences from land, including cities such as Melbourne to the north

Mark Butler, Labor's shadow environment minister, said the Cape Grim landmark reading was "deeply concerning".  "While the Coalition fights about whether or not the science of climate change is real, pollution is rising. And it's rising on their watch," Mr Butler said.

Cape Grim's readings are significant because they capture the most accurate reading of the atmospheric conditions in the southern hemisphere and have records going back 40 years.
With less land in the south, there is also a much smaller fluctuation according to the seasonal cycle than in northern hemisphere sites. That's because the north has more trees and other vegetation, which take up carbon from the atmosphere in the spring and give it back in the autumn.

So while 400 ppm has been temporarily exceeded at the other two main global stations since 2013 - in Hawaii and Alaska - they have dropped back below that level once spring has arrived because of that greater seasonal variation.

David Etheridge, a CSIRO principal research scientist, said atmospheric CO2 levels had fluctuated around 280 ppm until humans' burning of fossil fuels and clearing of forests set in process rising levels of greenhouse gases almost without pause since about 1800.

"It's been upwards pretty much all of the time," Dr Etheridge told Fairfax Media. "This is a significant change, and it's the primary greenhouse gas which is leading to the warming of the atmosphere."

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Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).