This is a photo I took from the desert behind house early in the morning of the moon slowly dropping below the cloud covered summits of El Paso’s Franklin Mountains.
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Now the climate fraud that was first uncovered with the ClimateGate scandal has now spread to the US with both NOAA and NASA being caught manipulating temperature data as well:
Smith has done much of the heavy lifting involved in analyzing the NOAA/GISS data and software, and he chronicles his often frustrating experiences at his fascinating website. There, detail-seekers will find plenty to satisfy, divided into easily-navigated sections — some designed specifically for us “geeks,” but most readily approachable to readers of all technical strata.
Perhaps the key point discovered by Smith was that by 1990, NOAA had deleted from its datasets all but 1,500 of the 6,000 thermometers in service around the globe.
Now, 75% represents quite a drop in sampling population, particularly considering that these stations provide the readings used to compile both the Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN) and United States Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) datasets. These are the same datasets, incidentally, which serve as primary sources of temperature data not only for climate researchers and universities worldwide, but also for the many international agencies using the data to create analytical temperature anomaly maps and charts.Yet as disturbing as the number of dropped stations was, it is the nature of NOAA’s “selection bias” that Smith found infinitely more troubling.
It seems that stations placed in historically cooler, rural areas of higher latitude and elevation were scrapped from the data series in favor of more urban locales at lower latitudes and elevations. Consequently, post-1990 readings have been biased to the warm side not only by selective geographic location, but also by the anthropogenic heating influence of a phenomenon known as the Urban Heat Island Effect (UHI).
For example, Canada’s reporting stations dropped from 496 in 1989 to 44 in 1991, with the percentage of stations at lower elevations tripling while the numbers of those at higher elevations dropped to one. That’s right: As Smith wrote in his blog, they left “one thermometer for everything north of LAT 65.” And that one resides in a place called Eureka, which has been described as “The Garden Spot of the Arctic” due to its unusually moderate summers. [Watts Up With That]
Read the rest, but since ClimateGate temperature data sets around the world are being audited and found to be manipulated.
I posed the question before if it is possible for a stripper to rape someone and now we know at least in this case, it is not:
A FEMALE stripper charged with rape over an incident with a sex toy at a bucks party has been found not guilty.
Linda Maree Naggs, 40, wept after the verdict was handed down in the County Court this afternoon, the Herald Sun reports.
The jury took approximately 90 minutes to reach a verdict.
Ms Naggs was accused of raping the best man at a 2007 buck’s party with a sex toy.
During the trial, the alleged victim told the County Court he urged Ms Naggs not to put the sex toy into his anus and was shocked when she did.
“I was pretty upset at that stage,” he said.
“I could feel something was there.”
The best man told the court he scuffled with Ms Naggs and told her to leave after the incident. [Herald-Sun]
You know what I am wondering? What did the bride think of all of this?
Make of this what you will but I have a hard time believing this:
AUSTRALIAN men make the worst husbands in the world because they loathe helping out with the housework, a British study claims.
An economist from Oxford University found that women wanting to settle down were better off finding a bloke from Scandinavia, the US or Britain than Australia.
Study author Dr Almudena Sevilla-Sanz said that based on her study of 12 developed countries, men and women were both more likely to cohabit or marry if they believed their partner would help out with the household chores and childcare.
But it appears that when it comes to finding a husband willing to help out, Australian women have a tough time.
Dr Sevilla-Sanz’s study ranked Australia as the least egalitarian society, making its men unattractive marriage partners because they were more unlikely to do household chores.
Norway, Sweden, Great Britain, the US and Northern Ireland were judged to be the most egalitarian countries, making their men the most attractive marriage partners. [AAP]
How can you call Australian men the world’s worst husbands when only 12 nations were surveyed? These survey results actually even made the news here in the US and of course nothing was said about only 12 countries being surveyed.
Are you tired with messing with credit cards and are looking for an easier way to shop without worrying about making interest payments? Well NetSpend may just be what you are looking for with its Prepaid Visa program. With NetSpend you just deposit money into your account and your card issued from NetSpend can be used just like any other credit card where ever Visa or Mastercard is accepted. With NetSpend you don’t need a bank account and don’t have to worry about any checks of your credit history. You just charge the card and go shopping. Its too easy to do and a great option for those interested in an alternative to going through the traditional big banks.
That is what some employees with British Airways is asking themselves:
British Airways is asking thousands of its staff to work for free for up to four weeks, spokeswoman Kirsten Millard said Tuesday.
In an e-mail to all its staff, the airline offered workers between one and four weeks of unpaid leave — but with the option to work during this period. British Airways employs just more than 40,000 people in the United Kingdom. Last month, the company posted a record annual loss of £400 million ($656 million).
Its chief executive declared at the time there were “absolutely no signs of recovery” in the industry.
“I’m 30 years in this business and I’ve never seen anything like this. This is by far the biggest crisis the industry has ever faced,” said Willie Walsh, British Airways’ chief executive.
A spokesman for one of Britain’s biggest unions said its workers could not afford to work for free for a month.
“It’s all well and good for Willie Walsh to say he’s prepared to work for free when he earns four times in a month what they do in a year,” said Ciaran Naidoo, a spokesman for Unite.
He pointed out that the airline was not ordering staff to work without pay. [CNN]
Australia’s most respected bush outfitter is now expanding into the food industry:
THE famous RM Williams name will be linked to
a range of premium beef, lamb, chicken and grain products — as well as
carbon reduction and biofuel schemes — under a major new alliance
unveiled by the bush outfitter.Ken Cowley,
whose family owns RM Williams, yesterday announced the creation of RM
Williams Agricultural Holdings — a joint venture with rural investment
company Primary Holdings International.Primary brings several properties to the new venture, which will
develop a diversified portfolio of properties and companies to supply
“a full range of premium-branded organic and protein-based commodities,
for both local and international markets”.Mr Cowley, who bought out his partners in RW Williams in 2003 to
take the company private, will be chairman of RMWAH. He is a former
chairman and chief executive of News Limited (owner of The Australian).
RMWAH executive director Hamish Turner, the chief executive of RM
Williams, said the new company was the culmination of “a number of
years of work from both Primary Holdings and from RM Williams”, which
owns 40 stores in Australia and sells its boots and clothing in at
least 15 countries. [The Australian]
So the next time I buy a pair of boots from a R.M. Williams store instead of a free hat maybe they will give me a free steak instead?
This is such a Northern Territory story:
A MAN was caught having sex while driving because he and his girlfriend
could not wait until they reached their destination, a court has heard.Bradley Dean Milne, 33, was charged with not wearing his
seatbelt, driving without due care and drink-driving when a witness
called police after seeing his car swerving all over the road, The Northern Territory News reports.Darwin Magistrates Court heard that the couple were planning to drive to East Arm Wharf in the Mazda ute to have sex.
Police prosecutor Leigh Cahill said Milne “became aroused” and the woman gave him oral sex while he was driving.
Milne was swerving from one side of the road to the other until the car stopped at traffic lights.
When
they turned right onto Berrimah Rd, the woman straddled Milne while he
kept driving, swerving into the kerbside and back into the middle lane.When police stopped the car and Milne was asked why he had been
drinking – with a blood alcohol concentration of .097 per cent – he
said: “Come on, mate. What would you do? We were going to the wharf but
we didn’t quite get there.”Milne’s lawyer Ian Rowbottam said last night that Milne was too embarrassed to speak about the incident again.
Milne was fined $1400 and disqualified him from driving for six months. [Northern Territory News]
Here is the best thing I have heard all week:
ALMOST 25 years after Tina Turner ran Mel Gibson out of Bartertown, George Miller is gearing up to shoot another Mad Max film in Sydney.
According to industry sources, the fourth film in the groundbreaking
Australian franchise, which many people thought would never get off the
ground, might well go into production as early as the later part of
this year.Scouting for locations is already happening and specialised technicians have been approached.
It’s extremely unlikely, however, that Gibson will be asked to take
his leathers out of mothballs to reprise the role that made him an
international star.Two years ago, Miller said he considered the Hollywood heavyweight too old to play the avenging road warrior.
“It won’t be Mel. He was 21 when he made the first one, now he’s a
lot older and his passion is for filmmaking and directing,” Miller said
soon after winning an Oscar for Happy Feet. [The Daily Telegraph]
It should be a great movie even if there is no Mel Gibson.
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