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By staff writers | August 29, 2007

A GERMAN man who lived with over 200 black widow spiders was fatally bitten by one and then eaten by his other pet creepy-crawlies.

Police found Mark Voegel, 30, in his apartment partially eaten by his pet spiders, several snakes, lizards and thousands of termites, Sun.co.uk reported.

Neighbours called police after becoming worried about the smell coming from Voegel's apartment.

Police were met by an unforgettably gruesome scene.

“It was like a horror movie. His corpse was over the sofa," a police spokesman said.

“Giant webs draped him, spiders were all over him. They were coming out of his nose and his mouth.

“There was everything there one could imagine in the world of reptiles.

“Larger pieces of flesh torn off by the lizards were scooped up and taken back to the webs of tarantulas and other bird-eating spiders.”

Voegel, who never invited people back to his small apartment, lived in the German city of Dortmund, Sun.co.uk reported.

Spider expert and animal cruelty officer Gabi Bayer said he kept creatures “that should never be allowed in a private home”.

“He had spiders so aggressive they are the equivalent of a pit-bull in the animal world,” she said.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22327399-1702,00.html

woof y'all

speaking of which, what do you guys think of ong bak with tony jaa.

I just rewatched it and still want to learn how to throw the knee that ended, with one blow, the first "fight club" fight toward the beginning of the flick. Looked like he brought the knee up, leaned, turned the hip over, then cranked his down foot outward while brining the knee across. Anyone know what it's called or done it?

LET ME BASH BABES: TYSON
Post Wire Services

October 17, 2006 -- STRONGSVILLE, Ohio - Mike Tyson says he wants to get paid for beating up women.

The 40-year-old former world heavyweight champ and convicted rapist has proposed a bout against dominant female middleweight boxer Ann Wolfe, who has won 17 of her 18 professional fights, 12 by knockout.

The gender and weight mismatch could be part of "Mike Tyson's World Tour," which the washed-up pug launched last week, Tyson said.
But Russ Young, a promoter for Wolfe, said the bout will never happen.

"No state would sanction that," he said.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/10172006/news/nationalnews/let_me_bash_babes__tyson_nationalnews_.htm

Though I've some sympathy for those seeking to keep this sort of knowledge out of the wrong hands, ultimately the effort is futile, particularly as the info in question was developed in a prison. Think it's worth noting that though censorship is implicitly endorsed in this piece, the ramifications of any sort of consistent policy enforcement is left very much alone. By the logic embraced herein you could easily ban the teaching of the FMAs.

For sale: A deadly book that shows knifemen how to kill

Books teaching knife-fighting techniques and how to kill are being sold on the internet and are not illegal. John Hayes reports.
THE 99p download entitled Put 'Em Down, Take 'Em Out: Knife Fighting Techniques from Folsom Prison by American author Don Pentecost is being sold by a number of online traders under the guise of a martial arts-based self-defence book.

The 54-page book, described by trading standards officers as "appalling", features techniques allegedly devised in one of America's most violent prisons (made famous by the country singer Johnny Cash in his classic live recording Folsom Prison Blues), to protect against knife attack.However, the guide also features detailed information on how to attack and kill using a knife as a weapon.

Highlighting key areas of the body to attack, such as the heart and neck, the book describes how to "stop" an opponent, stating: "The knife thrust should be as short as possible. Continue to pump the knife into the opponent until he is down and/or dead, depending on the situation."

The book also encourages readers to practise knife fighting techniques on a target dummy, which can be penetrated with a blade. After training, readers are encouraged to complete a checklist, which includes: "Did you immediately leave the scene?" and "The most important question: Did you kill the opponent?

Brandon Cook, a trading standards officer responsible for age-restricted sales, said: "I am appalled to find a book about knife-fighting techniques for sale in the UK and available from household name internet sites. Whilst selling the book would not be illegal, it is irresponsible to encourage readers to learn how to fight effectively with a knife.

"Following some high-profile incidents, the age restriction for buying a knife is set to rise to 18 under new legislation. The (Trading Standards) Institute is calling for responsible retailers to adopt the higher age now, in order to make possessing a knife more difficult. Books like these help to glamorise violence, and hopefully the publishers and suppliers will withdraw it."

eBay states on its website: "Fundamentally, eBay is a community, and members of a community must respect each other as human beings. Listings that promote hate, violence or racial intolerance (or organisations dedicated to such notions) have no place in a true community ? we're all here to trade, to do business, and to have fun with each other. eBay will not become a platform for those who promote hatred toward their fellow man."
A spokesman for eBay said: "The book itself isn't illegal. However, it certainly does violate eBay's violent materials policy and as a result has been removed."
Despite these assurances, a quick search of the site revealed a number of traders who continue to offer knife fighting books and even illegal combat weapons for sale on the site.

With over 10 million listings on its site, eBay relies on its traders and a small team of employees to sweep the site for inappropriate and illegal listings.
The ease of availability of both illegal weapons and books/downloads that demonstrate their use online is of great concern to the police, and flies in the face of
increased efforts to educate young people on the dangers of knife culture.

Speaking after a recent national knife amnesty, David Crompton, Assistant Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police said: "We are currently involved in weapons awareness programmes in schools across the county, to try and educate young people about the dangers of knives.
"Carrying one isn't cool, and it just increases your chances of being seriously injured or even killed."

There are about 2,000 offences a year involving knives in West Yorkshire, and while many of those involve threats rather than actual violence, the danger of death or serious injury is present every time someone carries a knife. Knife crime in the region results in about nine homicides and more than 300 woundings each year.
ACC Crompton said: "Carrying a knife without a legitimate reason is illegal and we will take positive action against those we find breaking the law."
However, a recent report in the British Medical Journal suggests that amnesties, crackdowns and educational programmes are having little affect on our nation's youth with 24 per cent of 16 year olds claiming to carry a knife or  other weapon and 19 per cent admitting to having attacked someone with the intent to cause harm or injury.
Put 'Em Down, Take 'Em Out: Knife Fighting Techniques from Folsom Prison was originally published by US publisher Paladin Press, which specialises in survivalist, martial arts and combat-related books. The print edition of the book is no longer available, and the publisher is not thought to be responsible for the downloadable books available online.

According to the Text and Academic Authors Association, Paladin Press famously withdrew one of their titles, Hit Man: A Technical Manual for Independent Contractors, after being sued by the family of a murder victim whose killer had used the book as a reference tool.

02 October 20006

http://www.yorkshiretoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=105&ArticleID=1799123

_____________________
The data themselves?that is to say, actual observations of the earth?s climate?are hardly grounds for much excitement. For example, the fact that global temperatures and CO2 levels are correlated in the climatological record is not in itself cause for panic. Consider the ?smoking gun? for many global-warming alarmists?the Vostok ice core, an 11,775-foot-long sliver of Antarctic ice that has allowed scientists to extrapolate atmospheric CO2 and temperature anomalies over roughly the past 420,000 years, showing that temperature and CO2 have risen and fallen roughly in tandem over this time frame.

But the key word here is ?roughly.? The Vostok data make it clear that at the onset of the last glaciation, temperatures began to decline thousands of years before a corresponding decline in atmospheric CO2. This observation cannot be replicated by current climate models, which require a previous fall in CO2 for glaciation to occur. Moreover, an analysis published in Science in 2003 suggests that the end of one glacial period, called Termination III, preceded a rise in CO2 by 600 to 1,000 years. One explanation for this apparent paradox might be that global warming, whatever its initial trigger, liberates CO2 from oceans and permafrost; this additional CO2 might then contribute in turn to the natural greenhouse effect.

Should we worry that adding even more CO2 to the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels could contribute to a runaway warming effect? Probably not. In simple physical terms, each extra unit of CO2 added to the atmosphere contributes less to the greenhouse effect than the previous unit, just as extra layers of paint applied to a pane of glass contribute less and less to its opacity. For this reason, we have already experienced 75 percent of the warming that should be attributable to a simple doubling of atmospheric CO2 since the late 19th century, a benchmark we have not yet reached but one that is frequently cited as dangerous by those who fear global warming. Moreover, it seems unlikely that we can do very much about it.

Most models, of course, predict much more warming to come. This has to do with the way they account for the effects of clouds and water vapor, which are assumed to amplify greatly the response to man-made greenhouse gases. The problem with this assumption is that it is probably wrong.

Many scientists who study clouds?including MIT?s Richard Lindzen, a prominent skeptic of climate-change alarmism?argue that the data show the opposite to be true: namely, that clouds act to limit, rather than aggravate, warming trends. In any case, the GCM?s have failed miserably to simulate observed changes in cloud cover. Flannery, to his credit, is cognizant of this criticism, and acknowledges that the role of clouds is poorly understood. By way of a response, he draws attention to a computer simulation showing a high degree of correspondence between observed and predicted cloud cover for one model on a single day?July 1, 1998. Overall, however, GCM simulations of clouds are a source of significant error.

Indeed, the models are subject to so much uncertainty that it is hard to understand why anyone would bother to get worked up about them. Generally speaking, the GCM?s simulate two kinds of effects on climate: natural forcing, which includes the impact of volcanic eruptions and solar radiation, and anthropogenic forcing, which includes greenhouse gases and so-called aerosols, or particulate pollution. But the behavior of most of these factors is unknown.

The major models assume, for example, that aerosols act to cancel warming; this effect is said to ?explain? the apparent decline in global temperatures from the 1940?s to the 1970?s, when the popular imagination was briefly obsessed with the possibility of global cooling. Some scientists, however, are now claiming that the opposite is true, and that aerosols actually exacerbate warming.

Whatever the case, the impact of aerosols is so poorly understood that the term essentially refers to a parameter that can be adjusted to make the models? predictions correspond to actual observations. Making inferences from the models about the ?true? state of the earth?s climate is therefore an exercise in circular reasoning. To be sure, the business of fine-tuning GCM?s provides a livelihood for many climatologists, and may one day yield valuable insights into the workings of the earth?s climate. But the output of these models is hardly a harbinger of the end of civilization.

_____________________
If the empirical basis for alarmism about global warming is so flimsy, it is reasonable to ask what can account for the disproportionately pessimistic response of many segments of society.

Part of the problem is that global warming has ceased to be a scientific question?by which I do not mean that the interesting scientific issues have actually been settled, but that many of those concerned about global warming are no longer really interested in the science. As Richard Lindzen has reminded us, the Kyoto Protocol provides an excellent illustration. Although there is widespread scientific agreement that the protocol will do next to nothing to affect climate change, politicians worldwide continue to insist that it is vital to our efforts to combat the problem of global warming, and scientists largely refrain from contradicting them.

Some have suggested that the underlying reason for this is economic. After all, public alarm is a powerful generator of science funding, a fact that is not lost on theorists and practitioners. In 2003, the National Research Council, the public-policy arm of the National Academy of Sciences, criticized a draft of the U.S. National Climate Change Plan for placing too much emphasis on improving our knowledge about the climate and too little on studying the likely impacts of global warming?the latter topic being sure to produce apprehension, and hence grants for more research. By the same token, the Kyoto process seems to lumber on in part because of the very large number of diplomats and bureaucrats whose prestige and livelihoods depend on maintaining the perception that their jobs are indispensable.

Money aside, it may be that many scientists have a knack for overinterpreting the importance of their own work. It is of course exciting to think that one?s research concerns an unprecedented phenomenon with far-reaching political implications. But not only can this lead to public misperception, it can encourage a politicization of the scientific literature itself. Scientists skeptical of the importance of anthropogenic warming have testified that it is difficult to publish their work in prestigious journals; when they do publish, their articles are almost always accompanied by rebuttals.

In fact, the scientific ?consensus? on climate change?at least, as it is summarized by Gore, Flannery, and the like?includes a very large number of disparate observations, only a small number of which are pertinent to understanding the actual determinants of contemporary climate change. The fact, for example, that certain species have become scarce or extinct is frequently presented as a cause for alarm about the climate. But such ecological shifts are often the result of idiosyncratic local conditions, and in any case are largely irrelevant to the broader issue of global warming.

____________________
In recent years the issue of climate change has also been used as a tool to embarrass the political Right, and especially the Bush administration?which, after Bill Clinton declined to submit the Kyoto Protocol to the Senate for ratification, withdrew the U.S. signature from the pact. Although efforts to portray conservatives as insensitive to environmental issues are not new, what is new is the scope of the alleged problem, which requires not merely a targeted solution (like the phasing-out of chlorofluorocarbons in response to ozone depletion) but a radical change in our mode of energy generation and specifically a wholesale shift away from fossil fuels.

The really curious element here is that many of those who seem to have become convinced of the reality of climate change appear rather unwilling to take meaningful steps toward cleaner sources of energy. Like Flannery, they simply assert that a carbon-free economy will somehow be much more efficient and productive than one powered by fossil fuels?because, of course, we will be rid of evil and greedy energy companies, which many alarmists suspect are at the root of the problem.

Practically speaking, however, they have little to offer. Very few Democratic politicians have advocated the construction of new nuclear-power plants, a key element of the Bush administration?s energy plan and probably our best bet to avoid an increased reliance on coal. Although Senator Edward M. Kennedy (among other Democrats) signed a bill that would require the U.S. to derive 20 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020, he has strenuously opposed a wind farm planned off the coast of Cape Cod, visible from his Hyannisport family estate.

The overall effect of these inconsistent policy goals?limiting fossil-fuel consumption without activating any viable substitutes?will be to drive up the price of energy, a move that will probably not much affect the affluent but will be quite problematic for the rest of us. Al Gore will be able to continue to crisscross the country by jet, while feeling virtuous about having encouraged the shift worker to reduce his energy consumption by using public transportation. And if the problem of global warming does not eventuate, so much the better. Alarmists will be able to reassure themselves that they have forestalled a catastrophe, even if this comes at considerable expense to the economy as a whole.

There are many good reasons to wean ourselves from a dependence on fossil fuels, not least to cease enriching unsavory regimes in places like Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Venezuela. But in combating climate change, we should not ignore the damage done by the proponents of global-warning themselves in diverting money and energy away from more obvious and well-substantiated problems. Unfortunately, many people seem to be more concerned with the supposed menace of global warming, about which we can realistically do very little, than with problems like infectious disease, about which we can do quite a bit. Speaking of inconvenient truths, this is a real one.


 

Kevin Shapiro is a research fellow in neuroscience and a student at Harvard Medical School. He contributed ?Lessons of the Cloning Scandal? to the April Commentary.


1 Technically speaking, the greenhouse effect refers to the warming attributable to all greenhouse gases, including not only CO2 but also water vapor, methane, and others. The contribution to the greenhouse effect of CO2 produced by combustion is properly called the Callendar effect, after the British scientist, Guy Stewart Callendar, who proposed it in 1938.

2 Atlantic Monthly Press, 384 pp., $24.00.

3 Bloomsbury USA, 192 pp., $22.95.

Question:? Does DDT runoff into water cause birth defects and other serious problems in many animals e.g. birds' eggs spontaneously collapsing because they are too weak?

Lotta stuff out there about DDT and there are certainly quite a few folks who are still quite adamant that it's dangerous, though there is little empiric evidence supporting the claim. As with all things, benefits and costs have to be weighed; a million dead children a year is an unacceptable cost, IMO. Here's a couple pro-DDT pieces that cite their share of facts and figures:

Day of Reckoning for DDT Foes?
Thursday, September 21, 2006
By Steven Milloy


Last week?s announcement that the World Health Organization lifted its nearly 30-year ban on the insecticide DDT is perhaps the most promising development in global public health since? well, 1943 when DDT was first used to combat insect-borne diseases like typhus and malaria.

Overlooked in all the hoopla over the announcement, however, is the terrible toll in human lives (tens of millions dead ? mostly pregnant women and children under the age of 5), illness (billions sickened) and poverty (more than $1 trillion dollars in lost GDP in sub-Saharan Africa alone) caused by the tragic, decades-long ban.

Much of this human catastrophe was preventable, so why did it happen? Who is responsible? Should the individuals and activist groups who caused the DDT ban be held accountable in some way?

Rachel Carson kicked-off DDT hysteria with her pseudo-scientific 1962 book, ?Silent Spring.? Carson materially misrepresented DDT science in order to advance her anti-pesticide agenda. Today she is hailed as having launched the global environmental movement. A Pennsylvania state office building, Maryland elementary school, Pittsburgh bridge and a Maryland state park are named for her. The Smithsonian Institution commemorates her work against DDT. She was even honored with a 1981 U.S. postage stamp. Next year will be the 100th anniversary of her birth. Many celebrations are being planned.

It?s quite a tribute for someone who was so dead wrong. At the very least, her name should be removed from public property and there should be no government-sponsored honors of Carson.

The Audubon Society was a leader in the attack on DDT, including falsely accusing DDT defenders (who subsequently won a libel suit) of lying. Not wanting to jeopardize its non-profit tax status, the Audubon Society formed the Environmental Defense Fund (now simply known as Environmental Defense) in 1967 to spearhead its anti-DDT efforts. Today the National Audubon Society takes in more than $100 million per year and has assets worth more than $200 million. Environmental Defense takes in more than $65 million per year with a net worth exceeding $73 million.

In a February 25, 1971, media release, the president of the Sierra Club stated that his organization wanted ?a ban, not just a curb? on DDT, ?even in the tropical countries where DDT has kept malaria under control." Today the Sierra Club rakes in more than $90 million per year and has more than $50 million in assets.

Business are often held liable and forced to pay monetary damages for defective products and false statements. Why shouldn?t the National Audubon Society, Environmental Defense, Sierra Club and other anti-DDT activist groups be held liable for the harm caused by their recklessly defective activism?

It was, of course, then-Environmental Protection Agency administrator William Ruckelshaus who actually banned DDT after ignoring an EPA administrative law judge?s ruling that there was no evidence indicating that DDT posed any sort of threat to human health or the environment. Ruckleshaus never attended any of the agency?s hearings on DDT. He didn?t read the hearing transcripts and refused to explain his decision.

None of this is surprising given that, in a May 22, 1971, speech before the Wisconsin Audubon Society, Ruckleshaus said that EPA procedures had been streamlined so that DDT could be banned. Ruckleshaus was also a member of ? and wrote fundraising letters for ? the EDF.

The DDT ban solidified Ruckelshaus? environmental credentials, which he has surfed to great success in business, including stints as CEO of Browning Ferris Industries and as a director of a number of other companies including Cummins Engine, Nordstrom, and Weyerhaeuser Company. Ruckelshaus currently is a principal in a Seattle, Wash., -based investment group called Madrona Venture Group.

Corporate wrongdoers ? like WorldCom?s Bernie Ebbers and Tyco?s Dennis Kozlowski ? were sentenced to prison for crimes against mere property. But what should the punishment be for government wrongdoers like Ruckleshaus who, apparently for the sake of his personal environmental interests, abused his power and affirmatively deprived billions of poor, helpless people of the only practical weapon against malaria?

Finally, there is the question of the World Health Organization itself. What?s the WHO been doing for all these years? There are no new facts on DDT ? all the relevant science about DDT safety has been available since the 1960s. Moreover, the WHO?s strategy of mosquito bednets and malaria vaccine development has been a dismal failure. While the death toll in malarial regions has mounted, the WHO has been distracted by such dubious issues as whether cell phones and French fries cause cancer.

It?s a relief that the WHO has finally come to its senses, but on the other hand, the organization has done too little, too late. The ranks of the WHO?s leadership need to be purged of those who place the agenda of environmental elitists over the basic survival of the world?s needy.

In addition to the day of reckoning and societal rebuke that DDT-ban advocates should face, we should all learn from the DDT tragedy.

With the exception of Rachel Carson (who died in 1964), all of the groups and individuals above mentioned also promote global warming alarmism. If they and others could be so wrong about DDT, why should we trust them now? Should we really put the global economy and the welfare of billions at risk based on their track record?

Steven Milloy publishes JunkScience.com and CSRWatch.com. He is a junk science expert, an advocate of free enterprise and an adjunct scholar at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Rachel Carson's Silent Spring: Environmentalist Mythology Killing Us Softly
by Steven Brockerman  (August 11, 2002)
Theirs is the disease you don't hear about on the nightly news. Newspaper editorialists, too, are silent about the death toll from this ailment -- nearly 9 ? million people since 1999, of which 8? million were pregnant women or children under the age of five. No, the disease isn't AIDS. It's mosquito borne malaria, and we've had the means for wiping out this affliction for over a century. However, thanks to environmentalist mythology, the tool, DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane), has been banned in most countries worldwide.

The ban on DDT, like the modern environmentalist movement itself, grew out of the book, Silent Spring, by Rachael Carson. As almost any school child today can parrot, Carson claimed DDT thinned the eggs of birds. Pointing to a 1956 study by Dr. James DeWitt published in the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry, Carson wrote: "Dr. DeWitt's now classic experiments [demonstrate] that exposure to DDT, even when doing no observable harm to the birds, may seriously affect reproduction."

DeWitt, however, concluded no such thing. Indeed, he discovered in his study that 50% more eggs hatched from DDT fed quail than from those in the control group.

Following Carson's lead, hippie environmentalists began claiming that raptor populations -- eagles, osprey, hawks, etc. -- were declining due to DDT. They failed to note that such populations had been declining precipitously for years prior to the use of DDT. Indeed, according to the yearly Audubon Christmas Bird Counts, 1941 to 1960, years that saw the greatest, most widespread use of DDT, the count of eagles actually increased from 197 in 1941 to 897 in 1960. A forty-year count over roughly the same period by the Hawks Mountain Sanctuary Association also found population increases for Ospreys and most kinds of hawks.

Finally, after years of study, researchers at Cornell University "found no tremors, no mortality, no thinning of eggshells and no interference with reproduction caused by levels of DDT which were as high as those reported to be present in most of the wild birds where ?catastrophic' decreases in shell quality and reproduction have been claimed" ("Effects of PCBs, DDT, and mercury compounds upon egg production, hatchability and shell quality in chickens and Japanese quail").

Carson, her book's affected prose designed to create optimum public panic, heralded, too, a coming cancer epidemic among humans. Her assertion was based on the high incidences of liver cancer found in adult rainbow trout in 1961 -- a result, not of DDT, but of a fungi produced carcinogen, aflatoxin.

Once again, environmentalists followed Carson's lead. A 1969 study ("Multigeneration studies on DDT in mice.") concluded that mice fed DDT developed a higher incidence of leukemia and liver tumors than unexposed mice. Epidemiology data of the preceding 25 years, though, showed no increases in liver cancer among the human populations in the areas where DDT had been sprayed. Upon further examination of the data, moreover, researchers discovered high incidences of tumors in the control group, too. Apparently, both groups had been feed food that was moldy, contaminated by aflatoxin.

Since then, in 1978, after a two-year study, the National Cancer Institute has concluded that, indeed, DDT is not carcinogenic. Even more recently, a study ("Plasma organochlorines levels and the risk of breast cancer") published in the New England Journal of Medicine in October 1997 found nothing to indicate that the risk of breast cancer is increased by exposure to DDT or DDE (a byproduct of DDT).

None of this evidence, though, would have swayed William Ruckelshaus, head of a brand new Environmental Protection Agency in 1971. Ruckelshaus not only refused to attend EPA's 1971-72 administrative hearings on DDT, but also refused to read even one page of the 9,000 pages of testimony. Not surprisingly, Ruckelshaus ignored the findings of the hearings' judge -- ""DDT is not a carcinogenic ? a mutagenic or teratogenic hazard to man -- and banned DDT anyway. It's not surprising because William Ruckelshaus was a member of the Environmental Defense Fund -- later his personal stationery would have printed on it the following boast: "EDF's scientists blew the whistle on DDT by showing it to be a cancer hazard, and three years later, when the dust had cleared, EDF had won."

Since 1971, pressured by specialized environmentalist organizations like the International Pesticide Action Network, much of the rest of the world has banned DDT, too. Those countries now rely on pesticides that are neither as effective nor as safe as DDT. Meanwhile, the death tolls from malaria in tropical Third World countries silently climbs. Heedless of this, environmentalists are now pressuring governments to preserve wetlands, i.e., swamps, which are the foremost breeding grounds of disease carrying mosquitoes. One would have to conclude, given the facts, that environmentalists are either insane or intent upon eradicating every human being from the face of the planet. At a UN sponsored earth summit in 1971, a delegate's remark gives us the answer: "What this world needs is a good plague to wipe out the human population."

If the death toll from malaria begins to mount in this country, we'll certainly hear about it on the nightly news. Malaria will be blamed, of course, but the real culprit will be environmentalist mythology, which has been killing us softly for decades.

http://capmag.com/article.asp?ID=1796

Confessions of an Alleged ExxonMobil Whore
Actually no one paid me to be wrong about global warming. Or anything else.
Ronald Bailey


"Exxon Misleads on Climate Change," according Reuters earlier this week. The story, headlined around the globe, was based on a letter sent by the British Royal Society to the oil giant ExxonMobil accusing it of funding groups that misinform the public about the reality of man-made global warming. The prestigious Royal Society is the world's oldest scientific organization. The letter is from Bob Ward, the Society's senior manager for policy communication. Apparently speaking on behalf of the Society, Ward expresses his "disappointment at the inaccurate and misleading view of climate change" conveyed by an ExxonMobil's 2005 Corporate Citizenship report. Ward also says that he did a quick analysis of public policy organizations listed in ExxonMobil's 2005 Worldwide Corporate Giving report and found that "25 offered views consistent with the scientific literature" whereas Ward says he found 39 groups featuring information that "misrepresented the science of climate change."

It's safe to say that Ward may count the Reason Foundation, the nonprofit that publishes Reason magazine and Reason Online as one of the 39 groups that he believes misleads the public on the issue of climate change. If that's the case, then at least some of the information that Ward says "misrepresents" climate change science may be past articles written by me. So the question is: Why did I do it? Did ExxonMobil CEO Lee Raymond hand me brown paper bags filled with stacks of unmarked bills in the back of taxis while whispering, "Ron, we're counting on your widely read and highly influential articles to help stave off the Green onslaught against our soaring profits"? Or was I a simple-minded dupe, passing along misinformation supplied to me during expensive lunches at the Palm by corrupt scientists who had been paid off by the oil giant? Or perhaps I am just generally skeptical of end-of-the-world scenarios and believe, as Carl Sagan famously did, that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence"?

I have been Reason's science correspondent for nearly eight years now. Well before I joined the magazine, I had been reporting and opining on environmental science and policy issues for various publications and as a producer of a number of national PBS television series. As far as I can tell my first published expression of skepticism with regard to catastrophic global warming was in a review of environmentalist Bill McKibben's The End of Nature that I wrote as a staff writer for Forbes magazine in October, 1989 (unfortunately not available online). In that review, I noted that NASA climate modeler James Hansen had testified before Congress a year earlier that he had detected global warming. In my review, I noted, "Hansen is a reputable scientist, but his views are by no means universally accepted." I then quoted a number of climatologists who were skeptical of man-made global warming including MIT's Richard Lindzen and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution's Andrew Solow. Lindzen told me at the time, "We have no evidence whatsoever that greenhouse warming has begun." (Lindzen is still skeptical of catastrophic man-made global warming.) I would talk with them and many other climate scientists over the next decade and half as I continued to cover this issue.

My next prominent foray into the topic was Chapter 9, "The Sky is Falling," in my book Eco-Scam: The False Prophets of Ecological Apocalypse (1993). Among much lengthy discussion of the science and politics of climate change, I noted that the satellite record temperature showed warming of 0.06 degrees Celsius per decade, which was one-fifth the 0.3 degrees per decade rate projected by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's First Assessment Report in 1990. The satellite data comes from climatologists John Christy and Roy Spencer from the University of Alabama at Huntsville who would become my go-to guys on the subject. As will become evident below, I tend to trust empirical data over computer models.

In 1993, I accepted the offer to become the first Warren Brookes Fellow in Environmental Journalism at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). CEI allowed me several months to do research for a technology policy book that unfortunately I was never able to finish. However, this established a fruitful relationship in which I eventually became the editor of a number of volumes on environmental policy and science with CEI. The idea was to offer good scientific evidence and policy prescriptions in contrast with the environmental alarmism and misinformation being propounded in the Worldwatch Institute's annual State of the World reports. Each volume contained chapters dealing with global trends in population, food, forest area, air pollution, fisheries, and so forth. The deal basically was that CEI paid me a fixed amount and I found and got final say on all the authors and that CEI could not edit what they had to say. I found commercial publishers for each volume.

Naturally each book contained a chapter on the issue of man-made global warming. The first book is The True State of the Planet (Free Press, 1995). The global warming chapter was written by University of Arizona climatologist Robert Balling. The chapter relied heavily on the satellite data which found that the atmosphere had cooled by a statistically significant -0.13 degrees Celsius since 1979. Adjusting for the cooling that resulted from the explosion of Mount Pinatubo that had propelled tons of sulfur particles to stratosphere, Christy calculated a slight warming trend of +0.09 degrees Celsius per decade. This was much less than the models were projecting.

The next volume, Earth Report 2000 (McGraw-Hill, 2000) contained a chapter on global warming by Roy Spencer who was then the senior scientist for climate studies at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. Spencer pointed out that recently corrected satellite data found a slight warming trend of +0.01 degrees per decade between 1979 and 1997 and when one included the very warm El Nino year of 1998, the trend rose to +0.06 degrees per decade. This trend was only one-fourth the per - decade trend predicted by the models. Spencer added that various weather balloon temperature datasets showed a cooling trend of between -0.07 and -0.2 degrees per decade.

In 2002 came Global Warming and Other Eco-Myths (Prima Publishing). The global warming contributor was University of Alabama at Huntsville climatologist John Christy who is also the principal investigator for the satellite temperature measurements. Christy pointed out, "Since 1979, the global temperature trend is a modest +0.06 degrees Celsius per decade through March 2002." The myth about global warming was not that it was not happening, but that it was unlikely to be catastrophic for humanity or the planet. Christy concluded: "No global warming disaster is looming. Humans are causing an increase in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, which will likely cause a very slow rise in global temperatures with which we can easily cope."

So there was a contradiction in climate science. The models projected and the surface thermometer records were showing significant warming. On the other hand, the satellite dataset and various weather balloon datasets showed only very modest warming. Which was right? In 2001, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) issued a report at the request of the Bush Administration that found that a lot of proxy data indicated that warming was taking place. However, the NAS also noted that the divergence between the satellite data and the thermometer data was troubling. "The finding that surface and troposphere temperature trends have been as different as observed over intervals as long as a decade or two is difficult to reconcile with our current understanding of the processes that control the vertical distribution of temperature in the atmosphere," declared the report. The NAS added, "Because of the large and still uncertain level of natural variability inherent in the climate record and the uncertainties in the time histories of the various forcing agents (and particularly aerosols), a causal linkage between the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the observed climate changes during the 20th century cannot be unequivocally established."

Given this divergence in the various temperature records, climate scientists naturally spent a lot of time and intellectual energy in trying to explain it. In August 2005, Science magazine published three papers that went a long way toward resolving the issue. One paper found that Christy and Spencer had failed to take proper account of satellite drift, which produced a spurious cooling trend to their dataset. Another found that the operation of weather balloons also tended to add spurious cooling to their data. When the corrections were made the satellite and weather balloon datasets were in better agreement with the surface thermometer datasets that showed higher warming trends.

On the day that the studies were released I wrote a column for Reason in which I declared that my skepticism of man-made global warming was at an end. The column was titled, "We're All Global Warmers Now." The first line read: "Anyone still holding onto the idea that there is no global warming ought to hang it up." The bottom line? Christy and Spencer's corrected dataset finds warming of +0.123 degrees per decade. The corrected balloon data tend to support Christy and Spencer. However, the scientific team that found the errors in the satellite data corrects it to find warming of +0.193 degrees per decade. And the surface measurements show a warming trend of 0.15 degrees per decade. In the column, I quote Christy saying, "The new warming trend is still well below ideas of dramatic or catastrophic warming."

Then in May 2006, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued a report of which John Christy was a co-author that further reconciled the differences in temperature trends. The report found that "global-average temperature increased at a rate of about 0.12 degrees C per decade since 1958, and about 0.16 degrees C per decade since 1979. In the tropics, temperature increased at about 0.11 degrees C per decade since 1958, and about 0.13 degrees C per decade since 1979." I blogged the report at Reason ' s Hit & Run the day the report was issued. I also noted that Christy told the Washington Post that he has a "minimalist interpretation" of the report because Earth is not heating up rapidly at this point.

Just to bring my intellectual journey in reporting and opining about the global warming issue up to date, I reviewed former vice-president Al Gore's movie An Inconvenient Truth for Reason. I agreed that Gore has "won the climate debate" and that "on balance Gore gets it more right than wrong on the science" though I argued he exaggerates just how bad future global warming is likely to be. However, I agree that the balance of the evidence pretty clearly indicates that humanity is contributing to global warming chiefly by means of loading up the atmosphere with extra carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels.

ExxonMobil has been a supporter of the Reason Foundation. Folks at the foundation confirmed when I called yesterday that the company has donated a little over $250,000 since 2000. The company's latest contributions were $10,000 in 2003 and $20,000 this past January. The last contribution poses a possible conundrum for hard-line corporate conspiracy theorists because it arrived about five months after I declared, "We're All Global Warmers Now." I would suggest that ExxonMobil supports the Reason Foundation because my colleagues robustly defend the free enterprise system. "Follow the money" is often pretty good advice when evaluating the source of information, but in the think tank and public policy magazine realm money tends follow opinion, rather than the other way around.

As further disclosure, I have worked with various organizations that I am told have also received grants from ExxonMobil, including CEI and the online publication TCSDaily (formerly TechCentralStation). At no time did anyone at those organizations ask me to change any of my reporting on global warming science or policy (or any other reporting on other topics for that matter). Back in the early 1990s, someone (whose name I have long forgotten) at Exxon asked me to write an article on global warming for the company's in-house magazine for $5,000. I absolutely refused. Finally, with regard to disclosure, I should mention that I own 50 shares of ExxonMobil that I bought on the advice of my stockbroker wife in October 2002 for $34.53 per share. I am happy to report that her advice was sound--those shares are going for about $64.00 today.

So if corporate shilling doesn't explain my stubborn skepticism about global warming, what does? Looking back over my reporting on the issue, I would argue the consistent theme is my reliance on temperature datasets as a way to either validate or invalidate the projections of computer climate models. Up until the last year or so, the satellite data and weather balloon data pointed to relatively modest global warming much below the trends predicted by most climate models. If those trends were correct then there was no imminent "planetary emergency." When the trends were shown to be incorrect last year, I "converted" into a global warmer. In the past year, a great deal of new evidence-reductions in arctic ice cover, growing Siberian lakes and so forth--has also tended to confirm the conclusion in my mind that man-made global warming may become a problem. Because of this accumulating evidence I am much less certain than Christy and Spencer are that the future warming is unlikely to be a significant problem.

And then there is also the matter of my intellectual commitments. We all have them. Since I work for a self-described libertarian magazine that should indicate to even the dimmest reader that I tend to have a healthy skepticism of government "solutions" to problems, including government solutions to environmental problems. I have long argued that the evidence shows that most environmental problems occur in open access commons-that is, people pollute air, rivers, overfish, cut rainforests, and so forth because no one owns them and therefore no one has an interest in protecting them. One can solve environmental problems caused by open access situations by either privatizing the commons or regulating it. It will not surprise anyone that I generally favor privatization. That's because I believe that the overwhelming balance of the evidence shows that centralized top-down regulation tends to be costly, slow, often ineffective, and highly politicized. As a skeptic of government action, I had hoped that the scientific evidence would lead to the conclusion that global warming would not be much of a problem, so that humanity could avoid the messy and highly politicized process of deciding what to do about it. Unhappily, I now believe that balance of evidence shows that global warming could well be a significant problem. Since it doesn't seem pertinent to the purpose of this column, I will leave the policy discussion of how to handle man-made climate change to another time.

So I didn't get any stacks of $20 dollar bills in brown paper bags from ExxonMobil (don't believe any photoshopped pictures you may see to the contrary). I also don't think that I was duped by paid-off scientists. Except for climatologist Robert Balling, as the embedded links above show, the sleuths at Exxonsecrets have uncovered no payments to the scientists I chiefly relied upon in my reporting over the years. But was I too skeptical, demanding too much evidence or ignoring evidence that cut against what I wanted to believe? Perhaps. In hindsight I can only plead that there is no magic formula for deciding when enough evidence has accumulated that a fair-minded person must change his or her mind on a controversial scientific issue. With regard to global warming it finally did for me in the last year. That was far too late for many and still too early for others. However, I can't resist pointing out that I became a "convert" on global warming nearly a year before some other prominent journalistic skeptics such as Gregg Easterbrook and Michael Shermer changed their minds.

So then not a whore, just virtuously wrong. Looking to the future, I can't promise that my reporting will always be right (no reporter can, but I will strive to make it so), but my reporting has always been honest and I promise that it always will be.


Ronald Bailey is Reason's science correspondent. His book Liberation Biology: The Scientific and Moral Case for the Biotech Revolution is now available from Prometheus Books.

Interesting subtext here about casting global warming skeptics as corporate shills and something akin to holocaust deniers. 

Global cooling effect
 
Terence Corcoran, National Post

Published: Saturday, September 16, 2006

News that the Conservatives might be taking a more cautious approach to Kyoto and climate change could not come at a more appropriate time. The science behind the idea of man-made global warming, always theoretical and often speculative, appears set to receive another blow. A report in New Scientist magazine yesterday chronicles the work of a crew of scientists who forecast a new wave of global cooling brought on by a decline in activity in the sun.

The New Scientist report, along with other scientific assessments warning of global cooling, also come as a blow to the campaign -- led by David Suzuki and one of the directors of his foundation -- to portray all who raise doubts about climate change theory -- so-called skeptics -- as pawns of corporate PR thugs manipulating opinion. If the Suzuki claim is true, then the tentacles of Exxon-Mobil reach deeper into science than anyone has so far imagined.

Dramatic global temperature fluctuations, as New Scientist reports, are the norm. A Little Ice Age struck Europe in the 17th century. New Yorkers once walked from Manhattan to Staten Island across a frozen harbour. About 200 years earlier, New Scientist reminds us, a sharp downturn in temperatures turned fertile Greenland into Arctic wasteland.

These and other temperature swings corresponded with changing solar activity. "It's a boom-bust system, and I expect a crash soon," says Nigel Weiss, a solar physicist at the University of Cambridge. Scientists cannot say precisely how big the coming cooling will be, but it could at minimum be enough to offset the current theoretical impact of man-made global warming. Sam Solanki, of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany, says declining solar activity could drop global temperatures by 0.2 degrees Celsius. "It might not sound like much," says New Scientist writer Stuart Clark, "but this temperature reversal would be as big as the most optimistic estimate of the results of restricting greenhouse-gas emissions until 2050 in line with the Kyoto protocol."

The New Scientist says this gives the Earth some breathing room in the face of climate change over the next 50 years, but it warns against complacency. "If the Earth does cool during the next sunspot crash and we do nothing [about man-made global warming], when the sun's magnetic activity returns, global warming will return with a vengeance," says Leif Svalgaard of Stanford University in California.

Well, that's one man's view based on his take on the science. But other scientists have differing views. Last month, the Russian Academy of Sciences' astronomical observatory reported that global cooling could develop in 50 years. Khabibullo Abdusamatov, head of the agency's space research branch, is reported to have said a period of global cooling similar to one seen in the late 17th century could start in 2012-2015 and reach its peak in 2055-2066. "The Kyoto initiatives to save the planet from the greenhouse effect should be put off until better times," he said.

A few excerpts from the New Scientist report appear below, and the full text is available through the magazine's Web site for a nominal fee. Readers can judge for themselves to what degree the magazine's report highlights the need for much greater scientific certainty over the causes of climate change.
Debate over the role of the sun in forcing temperature change is nothing new. Professor Ian Clark of the Department of Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa, wrote on this theme on this page in 2004. The climate models used by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change do not take adequate account of solar activity, Mr. Clark said. "Past and recent climate warming can be explained by changes in solar activity," he said.

Another scientist tracking the sun, one among many, was Theodor Landscheidt, the late and renowned German solar expert and forecaster. "Analysis of the sun's varying activity in the last two millennia indicates that contrary to the IPCC's speculation about man-made global warming as high as 5.8 degrees Centigrade within the next 100 years, a long period of cool climate with its coldest phase around 2030 is to be expected."

Worth noting here is Timothy Ball, the former University of Manitoba climatologist and frequent contributor to the idea that official government science is ignoring the role of the sun and that global cooling may be looming, not warming. Mr. Ball, for his thoughts, has become the victim of a slanderous campaign by David Suzuki and his associate, Vancouver public relations guru James Hoggan. They charge Mr. Ball with being a climate change "denier" -- as if it were akin to denying the Holocaust. They also portray him, and all "skeptics" who raise doubts about official climate science, as being in the pockets of corporations.

Mr. Hoggan and Mr. Suzuki appear to be the leading backers of a major disinformation campaign run out of the Vancouver offices of James Hoggan & Associates. Mr. Hoggan sits on the Suzuki Foundation board, and among other things somehow funds two full-time researchers to operate a blog that is focused solely on discrediting scientists who do no uphold the official UN view on climate change.

It's all a corporate scam, they claim. "There are people," says Mr. Hoggan, a veteran self-promoting pro in the PR business, "mainly people who are getting paid by oil and coal interests, and [some] who are just basically ideologues, who are trying to confuse the public about climate change." Says Mr. Suzuki: "The skeptics are a small group known for their support of corporations like the fossil fuel industry. In fact, many are receiving money directly from the industry."

The New Scientist article yesterday, and many other science studies and reports over the years, suggest the Suzuki group is operating an empty political campaign. The Harper Conservatives should fear nothing as they work to set a Kyoto policy.

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=9e919563-e44b-4ca2-9706-8af9cf743c95

When I started with the program, 36 students were firing in anger maybe 100 rounds over the course of the week-long training, in highly structured, basically lame scenarios. There was a strong minimalist approach with those that originally structured and managed the program. With the driving force of another former Navy SEAL, Dave Maynard; we ended up reshaping the practical exercises and drills to the point that it was not unusual for us to fire 10,000+ rounds with the same number of students in the same time frame. What it meant is that our students were in the midst of a highly intensive, highly challenging, often chaotic, practical drilling environment. At the end of the training, they were far more mission-capable. They were relatively calm as rounds whizzed all about them. They had faced a highly skilled opposition force that gave them no quarter whatsoever. On several occasions, these same students had the opportunity to re-face in an oppositional exercise a specialized military unit or law enforcement SWAT team that was at the platform for training. The sailors more than held their own. In some cases, the contrast was dramatic. No flinching, ducking, indecision, or hiding out from the sailors. They suppressed the incoming fire, communicated, moved to engage and finished the job, much to the dismay of their opponents. The difficulty of dealing with the experienced, unrelenting instructor cadre had prepared them for the new oppositional force.

There is a fancy psychological principle called the "Rosenthal Effect" (learned that from our resident staff expert, Dr. Anthony Semone...thanks, Doc!) that basically captures the concept that, if you set the standard low, all members of that group gravitate to that standard. If you set the standard high, all members of that group gravitate to that standard. It is a deeply ingrained human trait that we are not necessarily aware of.

In his report, Ross asks: "How do the experts in various subjects acquire their extraordinary skills? How much can be credited to innate talent and how much to intensive training?" And then he provides answers that carry important implications for every officer and LE instructor, Lewinski says.

"The one thing that all expertise theorists agree on is that it takes enormous effort to build the expert mind, either in the realm of chess or in another discipline," Ross states. In the process, "motivation appears to be a more important factor than innate ability...The preponderance of psychological evidence indicates that professionals with outstanding skills, in short, are made, not born."

Research indicates that the key "is not experience per se but 'effortful study,'" according to Ross. Such study involves learning and practice that entail "continually tackling challenges that lie just beyond one's competence." In other words, Lewinski explains, as you gain in ability, "the bar is constantly moved higher so that your skill level must keep stretching and improving to reach it."
from the August edition of Force Science News, Transmission #50

The brief goes to say later:
"Instead of departmental policies and priorities that encourage mediocrity, we need a training philosophy that encourages, nurtures and guides the development of expertise. It's what the community expects and deserves."

If you have the burning drive of a 5%er, determined to maximize your Skills regardless of obstacles, understand that "in the early stages, effortful study is very difficult," Lewinski says. "Pushing your limits inevitably involves a lot of failure. When you fail, you need to back off a bit, learn to correct your weaknesses, and build your way back up."
"To get really, really good takes time. Be patient with yourself, because you need that time for your training and experience to evolve into mastery."
This phenomenon manifests itself over and over all over the world in a wide diversity of human activities such as dance, music, academics, sports, etc. You swim with fast people, probabilities are your will be faster than the average bear.

You compete against fast racers; you are going to get faster. You subconsciously find ways to become more efficient. You find ways to break your self-imposed limitations and expectations.

You want to learn to shoot fast and accurate....Where do you go? Whom do you seek out? What are you going to adopt after interacting with these shooters?
You want to win in the UFC? I suggest you don't start with the local Karate club that hands out belts like candy. Why? Because the trainers and overall situation could not support what you are trying to achieve.

Well, it recently hit me: Trainers are being trained by their students to drive standards down.

Rather than trainers demanding, forcing, expecting, showing, demonstrating what can be done, they accept the lowest common denominator student's standards of achievement and performance. The student has indeed trained the trainer.

In a similar vein, on a grand scale, many trainers are looking at their target audience and saying "They can only do this." So, they adjust their training accordingly in alignment with their dumbed-down, recalibrated worldview. The entire program quickly becomes part of an automated, self-fulfilling prophecy.

Like clucking chickens congregating together for safety, flinching at every noise and perceived outside motion, groups of trainers spend their time reassuring themselves that it is perfectly acceptable to offer substandard training because, after all, the "average" person can only do so much. Right, guys? Really, our students are not very capable, are they? They also regularly rail against those pushing the limits. They don't explain the benefits of their approach, but seem to be perfectly content to drag down others to their level and their state of mind.

When you buy into this mentality you have sealed your fate and your ultimate destination.

There are only two kinds of people in the world. The "Can Dos" and the "Can't-Dos." Can Dos spend their time trying to find ways to make things happen. The Can't Dos find chapter and verse as to why it cannot be done. They actively throw out a barrage of obstacles for Can Dos to trip upon and generally try to impede their progress. I have also noted there seems to be a large percentage of insecure folks in the Can't Do camp. They are more comfortable there because they are surrounded by a much larger crowd. The Can't Dos are generally louder and rail against the Can Dos who seem to be pressing on more quietly. Human history has chronicled this dynamic from the beginning.
Stop looking at your students and stop railing against other trainers, and look inward in this case. Maybe it's you, not them. Stop blaming your students, your administration, or other trainers for your less-than-optimal training program. Look at your own training philosophies and critically evaluate your own acceptable standards. It's not hard to notice that there is constant mental gravity to pull the standards down. You must remain upright! You must push back. When you do, expect a powerful fight.

Look at your own training methodologies. A critical component is the ability to inspire your audience on a performance level. If you cannot show them what the higher standard is, and you do not have a clear pathway to provide them to get there...well, they will probably hover around the lowest energy level and just hang out there.

The KISS Principle as a Defense for Inadequate or Sub-Standard Training
This is generally invoked when addressing a more complex system, yet it can be quite an obstacle to actual battlefield superiority. Let's take the principle to the Nth degree and see where it leads.

You are faced with having to dispatch an enemy at twilight. It is a one-on-one engagement to take place on relatively open ground. Both opponents are to start out at a distance separating them at 300 yards, and can initially barely see each other.

Each opponent has, on their respective tables, a few weapons to choose from.
One combatant is constrained entirely by the KISS Principle; the other is free to choose his weapons based on the overall environmental considerations and the training he has invested in.

On the table are four weapons: a rock, a knife, a 9mm pistol (round in the chamber and 15 rounds in the magazine), and a 5.56mm M4 Carbine (red-dot reticule with a 100 yard-zero, one round in the chamber, 28 rounds in the magazine, visible aiming laser and quality weapon-mounted light).
What would you choose? One set of tools requires an entire set of skill and knowledge to effectively employ and is exponentially more complicated, and the other is, well, simple....

Would you rather go onto the modern battlefield in a Sopwith 7F.1 Snipe or an F/A 22 Strike Fighter?
Does anybody actually believe at this point in history that the United States of America is the dominant superpower because we followed the KISS Principle to the exclusion of all else?

You see, in my opinion, the KISS principle is a strong consideration, but should never be the dominant consideration in the world of professional arms.
Skill at arms means exactly that...skill. Skill is the result of consistent, qualitative and meaningful training. There is no getting around that part of the equation.
Just because one does not know how to leverage the extra capabilities of a more capable tool does not necessarily make that tool less useful to the more skilled wielder of that tool.

Don't get me wrong--at every turn we should look to simplify whenever and wherever possible. But let's not let the KISS Principle become an excuse to avoid the more complex tasks and training challenges we have to address.

Here is an example of a guy who took what I considered to be a fairly complex process and simplified it for me.

Quite a few years ago, I learned to barefoot water-ski in less than 45 minutes from a guy who took a Bronze Medal in the X-Games. I could marginally slalom ski, but was getting pounded into submission trying to figure out how to barefoot. I had a several people try to show me how to barefoot previously, with dismal results....ouch.
A friend of mine set up the time and place to meet this X-Games star. I was uncomfortable, intimidated, if you will, to meet this guy. This was clearly out of my league. The guy recognized this and told me something I will not soon forget. He said, "Don't worry, you will be barefooting, in a few minutes...I am that good!"
I remember thinking, "Man, this guy is cocky!" Turns out, he was that good. During my lesson, he specifically stated that most people really do not understand the dynamics of what is going on with the skier and with the water.

He then gave me an incredibly simple pathway to achieve the biomechanics of what it took to barefoot. Like clockwork, one skill and exercise led and connected to the next. I went from the boom off the side of the boat to a deep water/rope start in less than 30 minutes. In 45 minutes I did some tumble turns and some pretty hard turns and wake crossings, in several cases, on one foot.

I was smiling from ear to ear...He was that good! He really was. It was not what I did, but what he knew and what he knew about how to train people in this particular process.
He, no doubt, had taken years of experience, and hours and hours of practice, pain, and frustration and created an almost straight-line pathway to a higher skill level. He distilled it down to what needed to be done, no more, no less.

This is the essence of a good trainer. Skilled at what he or she does, skilled at taking highly complex tasks and making them as simple as possible, without compromising the integrity of the end result and required capability.

Creating or Training "Intuitive" Responses

A better question in my mind is this: "What is an intuitive response, anyway?

My understanding, at this point, is that intuitive responses are something you default to quickly as a result of experience, without sequentially or consciously thinking. Intuition based on experience is generally very reliable, and, in fact, a necessity, in critical, high-stress situations.

It is something you arrive at when you have sorted through all the inappropriate, non-optimal solutions as time and training has permitted.
In other words, what is "intuitive" to one man, is not to another.

It is intuitive to push against the recoil of a handgun when you first start shooting. Over time it becomes intuitive to relax when you shoot that same handgun. Your accuracy and speed increase as you learn how to drive the gun, so to speak.

It is intuitive to duck, flinch, and retreat when attacked by somebody's fist or when shot at, when you first become aware of the incoming. Over time, it becomes intuitive to initiate a completely different set of responses to the same stimulus.

Leaving the realm of tactical ideas, think "Formula 1 race car driver." What is totally "intuitive" to a high level driver in this category is a total mystery to me. However, I am sure if you could roll back the mind and experiences of this driver, you would find, at some point in the timeline, he had the same "intuition" about driving fast that I now hold to be true. Most of it would probably end up being incorrect. The key thing is that he immersed himself in the environment he chose to explore. Through trial and error, repetition, training, and practical experience, his "intuitive" responses changed throughout the span of his career.

I, for one, would rather listen to a Formula 1 driver if I wanted to learn to drive faster. I would want to see, hear, and feel what and why he does things. Rather than to plod around aimlessly with my own grand experiment, I would want to take advantage of his long term and proven experience in that area. Once I entered into his mind space and could consistently repeat what he was doing, then I would re-dissect the components again in an effort to improve what I was presented to that point.
The million dollar question is: How much time do we have to do what?

This is greatly influenced by your ability as a trainer and organization and your target audience itself. A good trainer will, of course, take his target audience into account; he must. But I have also noted that some trainers have brought into the equation lack of vision and experience, low expectations, and a poor training methodology; which is a great recipe for substandard performance.

If the trainer cannot physically show and demonstrate the effectiveness of X, Y, or Z, then the student will probably not buy off on it or attain to the skill level he or she really needs while under that trainer's tutelage.

Therefore, what the trainer believes is confirmed: "The student can only do so much."

What does this all mean? It means you need to retake the lost ground. It means to stop accepting the false premise that "good enough is good enough!" Don't concede to those that are simply lazy. It means stop letting the bottom dwellers train you to accept lower performance standards. It means re-evaluating the core components of what you are doing and why you are doing it. It means continually seeking with a view to improve, not prove, your original assumptions are correct and immoveable.
Understand that being a professional at arms encompasses a vast skill set that requires difficult, arduous, and challenging training processes, and that any program that fundamentally denies this reality is part of the problem.

So, I leave you with this: continue to climb the mountain. It is not easy, but the toil is well worth the effort. Those whom you encounter along the way will thank you for taking the path less traveled.

A Roman observer speaking of Legionnaires put it this way:
"Think thou that these magnificent, victorious Legionnaires became what they are through some arbitrary stroke of fortune? Nay! They do not sit around congratulating themselves in the wake of every victory. Nay! They spend every moment refining and improving their craft. Without apology, they pursue excellence. Each one knows and understands that he alone stands between the Empire and oblivion. Watch them! Indeed, they appear to have been born with weapons in their hands!"

Ken Good, former Naval Special Warfare operator, is a founding member of Strategos International, whose mission is to provide armed professionals with the highest-quality training possible as well as the appropriate field-tested products to prevail in stressful conditions. Mr. Good is experienced in the administration of classroom and practical instruction for the federal government and private industry. Topics include threat types and tactics, terrorist threats, boarding and securing vessels, refugee recovery, levels of force, small unit tactics, team training and leadership, tactical communications, area search procedures for explosive devices, use of the baton, crowd control, prisoner search and handling, hostage situation management, individual and team movements, and room entry techniques.
His military experience also includes the instruction of techniques and doctrine to members of foreign militaries. He has trained thousands of military, law enforcement, and security personnel over the last twenty years. Mr. Good has pioneered new methodologies for maximizing human performance in the tactical environment.
Mr. Good has also been a feature columnist for American Handgunner magazine and his articles are frequently published in Law Enforcement, Security, and Martial Arts publications.

http://www.officer.com/article/article.jsp?siteSection=3&id=32291

No, that's not a penis pump, Mom. Really
Wed Aug 23, 4:12 PM ET

CHICAGO - Cook County prosecutors say a 29-year-old man traveling with his mother desperately didn't want her to know he'd packed a sexual aid for their trip to Turkey. So he told security it was a bomb, officials said.

Madin Azad Amin was stopped by officials on Aug. 16 after guards found an object in his baggage that resembled a grenade, prosecutors said.

When officers asked him to identify it, Amin said it was a bomb, said Cook County Assistant State's Attorney Lorraine Scaduto.

He later told officials he'd lied about the item because his mother was nearby and he didn't want her to hear that it was part of a penis pump, Scaduto said.

He's been charged with felony disorderly conduct, said Andrew Conklin, a spokesman with the Cook County state's attorney's office.

Amin faces up to three years in prison if convicted.

I'm sure it would. If it was so cut and dried, don't you think Bush and the Republicans would be making a big stink about it on a daily basis?

Nope. Think they are so tired of the left?s mewling on the subject that they?re simply looking to move forward in the war against Isalmo Fascism. Couple of germane links for those who care to look:

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Jun2006/20060629_5547.html
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=Y2FkMWJhOTQ0NWFjMGFlZmUxN2U2M2UyZWQ1MDkzOTc=

Okay, now we're getting somewhere.

Fat chance.

You think all these (not very well paid) academics from various departments all over the world have just been distorting/exaggerating all the global warming evidence because they "want an excuse to tell everyone how to live?"

No I think true believers and evangelists like you take data that would be considered paltry in any other smaller scale scientific endeavor, conflate it with your political ends, and then march around banging drums and shouting down anyone with a contrary view. I think the academics you mention are subject to the same pressures and folly their forbearers who wrestled with heresies like the heliocentric universe or a non-flat earth were. I think some jump on the bandwagon, others stand mute, while a very few have the stones to stand up to the inquisition and contend with the McCarthyesque fallout that ensues.

I don't believe you actually care about the science at all.

You know dude, I?ve about died and been significantly injured on several occasions while involved in scientific pursuits. How ?bout you confine yourself to pontificating about thing with which you?re acquainted? I expect many will be able to deal with the resultant blank page.

Are you afraid the government is going to come for your SUV or snowmobile or something? Is that what this is about? Any restrictions on your personal right to pollute are unacceptable and therefore any scienctific (sic) evidence that might indicate that such restrictions are necessary simply must wrong?

And here we veer into the ad hominem; I refuse to accept bad science and so must enjoy squishing baby bunnies with diesel trucks. Were I cowed by these sorts of attacks I?d post a picture of my Honda Element, but that would merely invite you to cast about further for some aspect of my life that identifies as a member of the dark side. How ?bout if we just stipulate that I am a member of the dark side so you can concentrate on cogent arguments in the future?

I'm sorry if I'm misreading you, but that's the impression I'm getting here. I actually do agree with you on a lot of issues, but sometimes I think your libertarian streak gets out of hand.

This conciliatory note certainly warms my heart. I shall consider bridling my libertarian impulses in the future and then we can sing Kumbaya.

You mention some "massive government intervention." What is it that you see happenning (sic)?

Google ?Al Gore? and ?Kyoto,? then get back to me.

There is too small a data set on the ozone hole and layer to have an informed opinion, not that it stops anyone. These cycles occur over tens of thousands of years, while the panic mongers cater to the next news cycle. Produce a table showing the size of the ozone hole over a geologically significant period and I might hazard an opinon.

Is that your only quibble with the link? Care to hazard an opinion of your own and then support it?

Too successful: the hospitals forced to introduce minimum waiting times

(Filed: 07/08/2006)

Hospitals across the country are imposing minimum waiting times - delaying the treatment of thousands of patients.

    
Blessing given: Patricia Hewitt
After years of Government targets pushing them to cut waiting lists, staff are now being warned against "over-performing" by treating patients too quickly. The Sunday Telegraph has learned that at least six trusts have imposed the minimum times.

In March, Patricia Hewitt, the Secretary of State for Health, offered her apparent blessing for the minimum waiting times by announcing they would be "appropriate" in some cases. Amid fears about ?1.27 billion of NHS debts, she expressed concern that some hospitals were so productive "they actually got ahead of what the NHS could afford".

The minimum waiting times, however, dismayed Katherine Murphy, of the Patients' Association, who said last night: "This all stems from bad financial planning and management. No wonder there is a crisis. If staff are available for an operation, they should be utilised."

Andrew Lansley, the shadow health secretary, added that the minimum waiting times shed new light on the Government's target that patients should wait no longer than six months. "It is outrageous that the purpose of the Government's targets is not so much to drive down waiting times, as to impose a six-month wait."

The measures also seem certain to add to the anger that erupted last week after Ipswich Hospital in Suffolk admitted it had forfeited ?2.4 million because it treated patients too quickly, having already agreed a 122-day minimum waiting time with East Suffolk Primary Care Trust (PCT), its funding body. The hospital finished the last financial year ?16.7 million in the red.

Douglas Seaton, 60, a consultant physician who worked with the restraints of the minimum waiting times before retiring from Ipswich Hospital in June, said: "In the last year, we have seen disastrous strains. The senior managers are following political instructions. The Government is holding the reins and it is not working."

A spokesman for the hospital and the PCT insisted that no one was denied urgent treatment, adding: "This is a local issue. It doesn't have national significance."

The Sunday Telegraph has learned of five further minimum-waiting-time directives. In May, Staffordshire Moorlands PCT, which funds services at two hospitals and is more than ?5 million in the red, introduced a 19-week minimum wait for in-patients and 10 weeks for out-patients. A spokesman said: "These were the least worst cuts we could make." In March, Eastbourne Downs PCT, expected to overspend by ?7 million this year, ordered a six-month minimum wait for non-urgent operations. Also in March, it was revealed that Medway PCT, with a deficit of ?12.4 million, brought in a nine-week wait for out-patient appointments and 20 weeks for non-urgent operations.

Doctors are also resigning. One gyn?cologist said that he spent more time doing sudoku puzzles than treating patients because of the measures. Since January, West Hertfordshire NHS Trust, with a deficit of ?41 million, has used a 10-week minimum wait for routine GP referrals to hospital. Watford and Three Rivers PCT, ?13.2 million in the red, has introduced "demand management": no in-patient or day case is admitted before five months.

There is no evidence that in any of these cases, emergency treatment or cancer care was delayed.

Elsewhere, serious financial tensions are emerging between hospitals and the PCTs paying them.

In June, the Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust claimed it might have to send patients back to their GPs because of insufficient funding from Bournemouth Teaching PCT. The dispute was resolved, but not before the PCT told the Health Service Journal that it was "disappointed that the Foundation Trust refused to slow the pace of its work. Much of this overperformance could have been avoided."

Sue Slipman, the director of the Foundation Trust Network, which represents all 32 existing foundation trusts and 10 trusts preparing for foundation status, warned of nine similar disputes over funding worth a total of ?28 million.

Michael Dixon, the chairman of the NHS Alliance, representing PCTs, blamed the inflexibility of the Government's Payment by Results system. "PCTs are operating with one arm tied behind their back. Whereas hospitals are able to do more operations, PCTs are unable to negotiate the rate they'll pay for the extra work because it's fixed."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=P8&xml=/health/2006/08/07/nhealth06.xml

For the bucks, I'd go with anything by Laci Szabo here in Florida.
www.szaboinc.com

I love the Hossom Espada Szabo makes. Next time I have a spare $1500 laying around. . . .

I own a slew of blades and am always farting around with one or another, but the two most common ones I carry these days are a Ken Onion Whilrwind and a Ryan Model 7.

A lesson doubtless lost on many do-gooding Americans.

City Journal

Real Crime, Fake Justice

Theodore Dalrymple

Summer 2006

For the last 40 years, government policy in Britain, de facto if not always de jure, has been to render the British population virtually defenseless against criminals and criminality. Almost alone of British government policies, this one has been supremely effective: no Briton nowadays goes many hours without wondering how to avoid being victimized by a criminal intent on theft, burglary, or violence.

An unholy alliance between politicians and bureaucrats who want to keep prison costs to a minimum, and liberal intellectuals who pretend to see in crime a natural and understandable response to social injustice, which it would be a further injustice to punish, has engendered a prolonged and so far unfinished experiment in leniency that has debased the quality of life of millions of people, especially the poor. Every day in our newspapers we read of the absurd and dangerous leniency of the criminal-justice system. On April 21, for example, even the Observer (one of the bastions of British liberalism responsible for the present situation) gave prominence to the official report into the case of Anthony Rice, who strangled and then stabbed Naomi Bryant to death.

Rice, it turned out, had been assaulting women since 1972. He had been convicted for assaulting or raping a total of 15 women before murdering Naomi Bryant, and it is a fair supposition that he had assaulted or raped many more who did not go to the police. In 1982, he grabbed a woman by the throat, held a knife to her, and raped her. Five years later, while out of prison on home leave, he grabbed a woman, pushed her into a garden, held a knife to her, and raped her for an hour. Receiving a life sentence, he was transferred to an open prison in 2002 and then released two years later on parole as a low-risk parolee. He received housing in a hostel for ex-prisoners in a village whose inhabitants had been told, to gain their acquiescence, that none of the residents there was violent; five months after his arrival, he murdered Naomi Bryant. In pronouncing another life sentence on him, the judge ordered that he should serve at least 25 years: in other words, even now the law has not quite thrown away the key.

Only five days later, the papers reported that 1,023 prisoners of foreign origin had been released from British prisons between 1999 and 2006 without having been deported. Among them were 5 killers, 7 kidnappers, 9 rapists and 39 other sex offenders, 4 arsonists, 41 burglars, 52 thieves, 93 robbers, and 204 drug offenders. Of the 1,023 prisoners, only 106 had since been traced. The Home Office, responsible for both prisons and immigration, still doesn?t know how many of the killers, arsonists, rapists, and kidnappers are at large; but it admits that most of them will never be found, at least until they are caught after committing another offense. Although these revelations forced the Home Secretary to resign, in fact the foreign criminals had been treated only as British criminals are treated. At least we can truly say that we do not discriminate in our leniency.

Scandal has followed scandal. A short time later, we learned that prisoners had been absconding from one open prison, Leyhill, at a rate of two a week for three years?323 in total since 1999, among them 22 murderers. This outrage came to light only when a senior policeman in the area of Leyhill told a member of Parliament that there had been a crime wave in the vicinity of the prison. The member of Parliament demanded the figures in the House of Commons; otherwise they would have remained secret.

None of these revelations, however, would have surprised a man called David Fraser, who has just published a book entitled A Land Fit for Criminals?the land in question being Great Britain, of course. Far from being mistakes?for mistakes repeated so often cease to be mere mistakes?all these occurrences are in full compliance with general policy in Britain with regard to crime and criminality.

Fraser was a probation officer for more than a quarter of a century. He began to doubt the value of his work in terms of preventing crime and therefore protecting the public, but he at first assumed that, as a comparatively lowly official in the criminal-justice system, he was too mired in the grainy everyday detail to see the bigger picture. He assumed also that those in charge not only knew what they were doing but had the public interest at heart.

Eventually, however, the penny dropped. Fraser?s lack of success in effecting any change in the criminals under his supervision, and thus in reducing the number of crimes that they subsequently committed, to the great misery of the general public, was not his failure alone but was general throughout the system. Even worse, he discovered that the bureaucrats who ran the system, and their political masters, did not care about this failure, at least from the point of view of its impact on public safety; careerist to the core, they were only concerned that the public should not become aware of the catastrophe. To this end, they indulged in obfuscation, statistical legerdemain, and outright lies in order to prevent the calamity that public knowledge of the truth would represent for them and their careers.

The collective intellectual dishonesty of those who worked in the system so outraged Fraser?and the Kafkaesque world in which he found himself, where nothing was called by its real name and language tended more to conceal meaning than to convey it, so exasperated him?that, though not a man apt to obtrude upon the public, he determined to write a book. It took him two and a half years to do so, based on 20 years of research, and it is clear from the very first page that he wrote it from a burning need to expose and exorcise the lies and evasions with which he lived for so long, lies and evasions that helped in a few decades transform a law-abiding country with a reputation for civility into the country with the highest crime rate in the Western world, with an ever-present undercurrent of violence in daily life. Like Luther, Fraser could not but speak out. And, as events unfolded, his book has had a publishing history that is additionally revealing of the state of Britain today.

By example after example (repetition being necessary to establish that he has not just alighted on an isolated case of absurdity that might be found in any large-scale enterprise), Fraser demonstrates the unscrupulous lengths to which both bureaucrats and governments have gone to disguise from the public the effect of their policies and decisions, carried out with an almost sadistic indifference to the welfare of common people.

He shows that liberal intellectuals and their bureaucratic allies have left no stone unturned to ensure that the law-abiding should be left as defenseless as possible against the predations of criminals, from the emasculation of the police to the devising of punishments that do not punish and the propagation of sophistry by experts to mislead and confuse the public about what is happening in society, confusion rendering the public helpless in the face of the experimentation perpetrated upon it.

The police, Fraser shows, are like a nearly defeated occupying colonial force that, while mayhem reigns everywhere else, has retreated to safe enclaves, there to shuffle paper and produce bogus information to propitiate their political masters. Their first line of defense is to refuse to record half the crime that comes to their attention, which itself is less than half the crime committed. Then they refuse to investigate recorded crime, or to arrest the culprits even when it is easy to do so and the evidence against them is overwhelming, because the prosecuting authorities will either decline to prosecute, or else the resultant sentence will be so trivial as to make the whole procedure (at least 19 forms to fill in after a single arrest) pointless.

In any case, the authorities want the police to use a sanction known as the caution?a mere verbal warning. Indeed, as Fraser points out, the Home Office even reprimanded the West Midlands Police Force for bringing too many apprehended offenders to court, instead of merely giving them a caution. In the official version, only minor crimes are dealt with in this fashion: but as Fraser points out, in the year 2000 alone, 600 cases of robbery, 4,300 cases of car theft, 6,600 offenses of burglary, 13,400 offenses against public order, 35,400 cases of violence against the person, and 67,600 cases of other kinds of theft were dealt with in this fashion?in effect, letting these 127,900 offenders off scot-free. When one considers that the police clear-up rate of all crimes in Britain is scarcely more than one in 20 (and even that figure is based upon official deception), the liberal intellectual claim, repeated ad nauseam in the press and on the air, that the British criminal-justice system is primitively retributive is absurd.

At every point in the system, Fraser shows, deception reigns. When a judge sentences a criminal to three years? imprisonment, he knows perfectly well (as does the press that reports it) that in the vast majority of cases the criminal in question will serve 18 months at the very most, because he is entitled automatically, as of right, to a suspension of half his sentence. Moreover, under a scheme of early release, increasingly used, prisoners serve considerably less than half their sentence. They may be tagged electronically under a system of home curfew, intended to give the public an assurance that they are being monitored: but the electronic tag stays on for less than 12 hours daily, giving criminals plenty of opportunity to follow their careers. Even when the criminals remove their tags (and it is known that thousands are removed or vandalized every year) or fail to abide by other conditions of their early release, those who are supposedly monitoring them do nothing whatever, for fear of spoiling the statistics of the system?s success. When the Home Office tried the tagging system with young criminals, 73 percent of them were reconvicted within three months. The authorities nevertheless decided to extend the scheme. The failure of the British state to take its responsibilities seriously could not be more clearly expressed.

Fraser draws attention to the deeply corrupt system in Britain under which a criminal, once caught, may ask for other offenses that he has committed to be ?taken into consideration.? (Criminals call these offenses T.I.C.s.) This practice may be in the interests of both the criminal and the police, but not in those of the long-suffering public. The court will sentence the criminal to further prison terms that run concurrently, not consecutively, to that imposed for the index offense: in other words, he will in effect serve the same sentence for 50 burglaries as for one burglary, and he can never again face charges for the 49 burglaries that have been ?taken into consideration.? Meanwhile, the police can preen themselves that they have ?solved? 50 crimes for the price of one.

One Probation Service smokescreen that Fraser knows from personal experience is to measure its own effectiveness by the proportion of criminals who complete their probation in compliance with court orders?a procedural outcome that has no significance whatever for the safety of the public. Such criminals come under the direct observation of probation officers only one hour a week at the very most. What they do the other 167 hours of the week the probation officers cannot possibly know. Unless one takes the preposterous view that such criminals are incapable of telling lies about their activities to their probation officers, mere attendance at the probation office is no guarantee whatever that they are now leading law-abiding lives.

But even if completion of probation orders were accepted as a surrogate measure of success in preventing re-offending, the Probation Service?s figures have long been completely corrupt?and for a very obvious reason. Until 1997, the probation officers themselves decided when noncompliance with their directions was so egregious that they ?breached? the criminals under their supervision and returned them to the courts because of such noncompliance. Since their own effectiveness was measured by the proportion of probation orders ?successfully? completed, they had a very powerful motive for disregarding the noncompliance of criminals. In such circumstances, all activity became strictly pro forma, with no purpose external to itself.

While the government put an end to this particular statistical legerdemain, probation orders still go into the statistics as ?successfully completed? if they reach their official termination date?even in many cases if the offender gets arrested for committing further offenses before that date. Only in this way can the Home Office claim that between 70 and 80 percent of probation orders are ?successfully completed.?

In their effort to prove the liberal orthodoxy that prison does not work, criminologists, government officials, and journalists have routinely used the lower reconviction rates of those sentenced to probation and other forms of noncustodial punishment (the word ?punishment? in these circumstances being used very loosely) than those imprisoned. But if the aim is to protect the law-abiding, a comparison of reconviction rates of those imprisoned and those put on probation is irrelevant. What counts is the re-offending rate?a point so obvious that it is shameful that Fraser should have not only to make it but to hammer it home repeatedly, for the politicians, academics, and journalistic hangers-on have completely obscured it.

By definition, a man in prison can commit no crimes (except against fellow prisoners and prison staff). But what of those out in the world on probation? Of 1,000 male criminals on probation, Fraser makes clear, about 600 will be reconvicted at least once within the two years that the Home Office follows them up for statistical purposes. The rate of detection in Britain of all crimes being about 5 percent, those 1,000 criminals will actually have committed not 600, but at least 12,000 crimes (assuming them to have been averagely competent criminals chased by averagely incompetent police). Even this is not quite all. Since there are, in fact, about 150,000 people on probation in Britain, it means that at least 1.8 million crimes?more than an eighth of the nation?s total?must be committed annually by people on probation, within the very purview of the criminal-justice system, or very shortly after they have been on probation. While some of these crimes might be ?victimless,? or at least impersonal, research has shown that these criminals inflict untold misery upon the British population: misery that they would not have been able to inflict had they been in prison for a year instead of on probation.

To compare the reconviction rates of ex-prisoners and people on probation as an argument against prison is not only irrelevant from the point of view of public safety but is also logically absurd. Of course the imprisoned will have higher reconviction rates once they get out of jail?not because prison failed to reform them, but because it is the most hardened, incorrigible, and recidivist criminals who go to prison. Again, this point is so obvious that it is shameful that anyone should have to point it out; yet politicians and others continue to use the reconviction rates as if they were a proper basis for deciding policy.

Relentless for hundreds of pages, Fraser provides examples of how the British government and its bloated and totally ineffectual bureaucratic apparatus, through moral and intellectual frivolity as well as plain incompetence, has failed in its elementary and sole inescapable duty: to protect the lives and property of the citizenry. He exposes the absurd prejudice that has become a virtually unassailable orthodoxy among the intellectual and political elite: that we have too many prisoners in Britain, as if there were an ideal number of prisoners, derived from a purely abstract principle, at which, independent of the number of crimes committed, we should aim. He describes in full detail the moral and intellectual corruption of the British criminal-justice system, from police decisions not to record crimes or to charge wrongdoers, to the absurdly light sentences given after conviction and the administrative means by which prisoners end up serving less than half their time, irrespective of their dangerousness or the likelihood that they will re-offend.

According to Fraser, at the heart of the British idiocy is the condescending and totally unrealistic idea?which, however, provides employment opportunities for armies of apparatchiks, as well as being psychologically gratifying?that burglars, thieves, and robbers are not conscious malefactors who calculate their chances of getting away with it, but people in the grip of something rather like a mental disease, whose thoughts, feelings, and decision-making processes need to be restructured. The whole criminal-justice system ought therefore to act in a therapeutic or medical, rather than a punitive and deterrent, fashion. Burglars do not know, poor things, that householders are upset by housebreaking, and so we must educate and inform them on this point; and we must also seek to persuade them of something that all their experience so far has taught them to be false, namely that crime does not pay.

All in all, Fraser?s book is a searing and unanswerable (or at least so far unanswered) indictment of the British criminal-justice system, and therefore of the British state. As Fraser pointed out to me, the failure of the state to protect the lives and property of its citizens, and to take seriously its duty in this regard, creates a politically dangerous situation, for it puts the very legitimacy of the state itself at risk. The potential consequences are incalculable, for the failure might bring the rule of law itself into disrepute and give an opportunity to the brutal and the authoritarian.

You might have thought that any publisher would gratefully accept a book so urgent in its message, so transparently the product of a burning need to communicate obvious but uncomfortable truths of such public interest, conveyed in such a way that anyone of reasonable intelligence might understand them. Any publisher, you would think, would feel fortunate to have such a manuscript land on his desk. But you would be wrong, at least as far as Britain is concerned.

So uncongenial was Fraser?s message to all right-thinking Britons that 60 publishers to whom he sent the book turned it down. In a country that publishes more than 10,000 books monthly, not many of which are imperishable masterpieces, there was no room for it or for what it said, though it would take no great acumen to see its commercial possibilities in a country crowded with crime victims. So great was the pressure of the orthodoxy now weighing on the minds of the British intelligentsia that Fraser might as well have gone to Mecca and said that there is no God and that Mohammed was not His prophet. Of course, no publisher actually told him that what he said was unacceptable or unsayable in public: his book merely did not ?fit the list? of any publisher. He was the victim of British publishing?s equivalent of Mafia omerta.

Fortunately, he did not give up, as he sometimes thought of doing. The 61st publisher to whom he sent the book accepted it. I mean no disrespect to her judgment when I say that it was her personal situation that distinguished her from her fellow publishers: for her husband?s son by a previous marriage had not long before been murdered in the street, stabbed by a drug-dealing Jamaican immigrant, aged 20, who had not been deported despite his criminal record but instead allowed to stay in the country as if he were a national treasure to be at all costs cherished and nurtured. Indeed, in court, his lawyer presented him as an unemployed painter and decorator, the victim of racial prejudice (a mitigating circumstance, of course), a view that the prosecution did not challenge, even though the killer had somehow managed alchemically to transmute his unemployment benefits into a new convertible costing some $54,000.

The maternal grandmother of the murdered boy, who had never been ill in her life, died of a heart attack a week after his death, and so the funeral was a double one. It is difficult to resist the conclusion that the killer killed not one but two people. He received a sentence of eight years?which, in effect, will be four or five years.

I asked the publisher the impossible question of whether she would have published the book if someone close to her had not had such firsthand experience of the frivolous leniency of the British criminal-justice system. She said she thought so: but what is beyond dispute is that the murder made her publication of the book a certainty.

A Land Fit for Criminals has sold well and has been very widely discussed, though not by the most important liberal newspapers, which would find the whole subject in bad taste. But the book?s publishing history demonstrates how close we have come to an almost totalitarian uniformity of the sayable, imposed informally by right-thinking people in the name of humanity, but in utter disregard for the truth and the reality of their fellow citizens? lives. Better that they, the right-thinking, should feel pleased with their own rectitude and broadmindedness, than that millions should be freed of their fear of robbery and violence, as in crime-ridden, pre-Giuliani New York. Too bad Fraser?s voice had to be heard over someone?s dead body.

http://www.city-journal.org/html/16_3_oh_to_be.html

Dangerous Warming Unlikely, MIT Climatologist Says

Global warming debate is more politics than science, according to climate expert

Written By: Dr. Richard Lindzen
Published In: Environment News
Publication Date: November 1, 2004
Publisher: The Heartland Institute

Editor's note: Global warming is unlikely to be a dangerous future problem, with or without the implementation of such programs as the Kyoto Protocol, according to Dr. Richard Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Lindzen, a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and one of the world's leading climatologists, told a September 9 audience at the Houston Forum that alarmist media claims to the contrary are fueled more by politics than by science.
The following excerpts from his presentation are presented with Dr. Lindzen's permission.

My personal experience over the last 16 years leads me to the conclusion that when it comes to politicized science, real communication is almost impossible. First, it leads to a meaningless polarization associated with meaningless questions, such as "Do you believe in global warming? Are you a believer or a skeptic?"

Given the many facets of the issue, if you are a believer, what exactly is it that you believe? Depending on whether you are a believer or not, you are likely to hear only what you expect to hear.


Recent Temp Changes Small

The global mean temperature is never constant, and it has no choice but to increase or decrease--both of which it does on all known time scales. That this quantity has increased about 0.6?C (or about 1?F) over the past century is likely. A relevant question is whether this is anything to be concerned about.

It doesn't even matter whether recent global mean temperatures are "record breakers" or even whether current temperatures are "unprecedented." All that matters is that the change over the past century has been small.

The fact that such claims are misleading or even false simply provides a temptation to discuss them and implicitly to attach importance to them. Remember, we are talking about tenths of a degree, and all of you know intuitively that that isn't very much.

It does pay to speak about the levels of atmospheric CO2. They are increasing. To be sure, over long periods, climate can cause CO2 changes, but the increases observed over the past century are likely due to man's activities. When and if the levels double, they will increase the radiative forcing of the planet by about 4 Wm-2, or about 2 percent. This will prove relevant.


Unscientific Consensus

The scientific question of relevance is what do we expect such an increase to do? The answer, most assuredly, is not to be arrived at by a poll of scientists--especially of scientists who do not work on this question. The issue of consensus is, in this respect, extremely malign, especially when the consensus is merely claimed though not established. However, the whole idea of consensus is problematic.

With respect to science, the assumption behind consensus is that science is a source of authority and that authority increases with the number of scientists. Of course, science is not primarily a source of authority. Rather, it is a particularly effective approach to inquiry and analysis. Skepticism is essential to science; consensus is foreign. When in 1988 Newsweek announced that all scientists agreed about global warming, this should have been a red flag of warning. Among other things, global warming is such a multifaceted issue that agreement on all or many aspects would be unreasonable.

With respect to science, consensus is often simply a sop to scientific illiteracy. After all, if what you are told is alleged to be supported by all scientists, then why do you have to bother to understand it? You can simply go back to treating it as a matter of religious belief, and you never have to defend this belief except to claim that you are supported by all scientists except for a handful of corrupted heretics.


Doubling of CO2 Little Cause for Concern

Let us begin by considering the fundamental question of whether the observed increases in CO2 are likely to be a source of alarm. We will see how the matter of consensus has been employed to mislead and misinform the public. It matters little that the claimed consensus is not based on any known polling of scientists.

Our concerns over global warming are based on models rather than data, and if these models are correct, then man has accounted for over 4 times the observed warming over the past century (even allowing for ocean delay) with some unknown process or processes having cancelled the difference. We assume, moreover, that these unknown processes will cease, in making predictions about future warming.

This statement illustrates that the observations do not support the likelihood of dangerous warming, but our ignorance may be sufficient to allow the possibility. In point of fact, our ignorance is probably not that great.


Computer Models Altered

How do we reconcile this with the claim that present models do a good job of simulating the past century? It's simple: The "accurate" model reconstructions require "forcings" of data and speculative guesses about such factors as the influence of anthropogenic aerosol emissions. In an inverse manner, trial-and-error assumptions and data are forced into the computer until the inaccurate model projections are reconciled with the observed climate. However, such inverse forcings are highly unscientific and unlikely to reach similar results regarding anything other than the particular range of data and temperature history the computer is attempting to reconstruct.

This would have been an embarrassment even to the Ptolemaic epicyclists, yet an almost identical analysis has just been presented to our government through such unscientific reconstructionist model forcings.


Science Contradicts Media "Consensus"

Consensus (as represented by all contemporary textbooks on atmospheric dynamics) exists, but does not support alarm. Consensus is therefore claimed for exactly the opposite of what science agrees on. Here is the correct statement: In a warmer world, extratropical storminess will be reduced, as will variance in temperature.

Given the speciousness of the bases for alarm regarding claims of increased storminess, it is perhaps unsurprising that there is real consensus on the following item, though the consensus is barely mentioned: Kyoto, itself, will have no discernable impact on global warming regardless of what one believes about climate change.

Claims to the contrary generally assume that Kyoto is only the beginning of an ever-more restrictive regime. However, this is hardly ever explained to the public.

So, where does all this leave us?

(1) The data currently represented as "consensus," even if correct, do not imply alarm. However, where the consensus view is too benign, the opposite of the real consensus is claimed to be the consensus. In much current research, "alarm" is the aim rather than the result.

(2) The scientific community is committed to the maintenance of the notion that alarm may be warranted. Alarm is felt to be essential to the maintenance of funding. The argument is no longer over whether the models are correct (they are not), but rather whether their results are at all possible. One can rarely prove something to be impossible.

(3) No regulatory solution to the "problem" of preventing increases in CO2 is available, but the ubiquity of CO2 emissions--which are associated with industry and life itself--remains a tempting target for those with a regulatory instinct who have always been attracted to the energy sector.

(4) Resistance to such temptations will require more courage and understanding than are currently found in major industrial or governmental players who largely accept what is presented as the consensus view. The main victims of any proactive policies are likely to be consumers, and they have little concentrated influence. As usual, they have long been co-opted by organizations like Consumers Union that now actively support Kyoto.

Verdict Coming For "Penis Pump" Judge

Closing arguments today in exposure trial of ex-Oklahoma jurist

JUNE 29--Closing arguments are scheduled today in the trial of the former Oklahoma judge charged with indecent exposure for using a penis pump (among other really gross acts) while on the bench. Donald Thompson, 59, is facing felony counts for his alleged lewd behavior while a Creek County District Court jurist (Thompson resigned from the bench in 2004). According to a yucky probable cause affidavit, a copy of which you'll find below, Thompson exposed himself during three separate 2003 cases (two of which were murder trials). For example, on May 13, while he was presiding over State v. Kurt Arnold Vomberg (who was accused of killing his girlfriend's 21-month-old daughter), Thompson loudly pumped himself up. Two court employees told investigators that they saw Thompson (pictured in the mug shot at right) attach the suction device to his penis, while five jurors reported hearing whooshing sounds, which they thought were coming from either a bicycle pump, blood pressure cuff, or an air cushion on the judge's chair. After a search of Thompson's former courtroom and chambers yielded items that tested positive for seminal fluid, investigators secured a search warrant to obtain a DNA sample from the ex-jurist. Thompson's demise was triggered by a complaint filed against him by the Oklahoma Attorney General, who sought to oust the jurist for a variety of illicit behavior. Along with using the penis pump, Thompson also allegedly shaved and oiled his private parts, according to accounts given to state investigators by court employees. If convicted of the indecent exposure counts, Thompson could face a maximum of 10 years in prison on each charge. (7 pages)

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0121051judge1.html

Off hand, I can't think of any examples of capital punishment being applied to an individual who was only an accessory to murder and was not present at the crime nor was he/she the instigator of the crime.

At the risk of revealing I'm a font of useless information, I think several of the Lincoln assassination conspiritors were hung, as well as sundry "anarchists" and organizers during various labor disputes in the early 20th century. In short it's not unprecedented, though in this instance I too question the utlilty of a Moussaoui death sentence.

IRAN: TEXT MESSAGE TELLS PRESIDENT HE SHOULD WASH MORE

Tehran, 14 April (AKI) - Iran's hardline president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has apparently been incensed by an anonymous text message suggesting he does not wash enough. Ahmadinejad has taken legal action over the offending text, has fired the president of a phone company and has had four people arrested and accused of colluding with the Israeli foreign intelligence service, Mossad, the anti-government website Rooz Online reports.

Poking fun at the president, the regime's senior figures and its policies, has reportedly become a national pastime in Iran. The Iranian authorities are paying particular attention to jokes comparing Iran's nuclear programme with sex. Several people are widely believed to have received court summonses for sending nuclear-related jokes, according to Rooz Online.

"While the outcome of the recent arrests in connection with SMS messaging is not clear yet, what is certain is that SMS jokes have already put some people into serious trouble," wrote Rooz Online.

The clampdown is in line with the authorities' uncompromising stance on Internet bloggers. Large numbers of the nation's estimated 70,000 to 100,000 bloggers have faced harassment or imprisonment. The regime has acknowledged monitoring text message traffic. This apparently began in the run-up to the presidential election last June.

The agent initially investigating Moussaoui pointed out the sketchiness of a Middle Eastern immigrant taking flying lessons (who didn't want to know how to take off land) to her superiors, and suggested that they search the guy's hard disk, and they basically ignored her. Who are these superiors and why aren't they being charged as accesories? Does this not bother any of the people now screaming for Moussaoui's blood?

I kinda like this idea. Let's prosecute all the left of center types whose constant mewling has hamstrung our intelligence services. While were at it, let's start rounding up all the folks currently giving aid and comfort to Islamic Fascists. Best get busy building prisons, though.

Hindsight is a wondrous thing and though the United States is assumed to be some sort of technological behemoth able to intercept and analyze all, we are in fact subject to the same folly easily found examining just about any history book. Indeed, our habit of respecting the right of any half-baked ideologue to loudly lobby for simpleminded fixes to poorly understood issues golly darn well guarantees that folly will be introduced into the picture at every freaking turn.

Bottom line is that I'm not particularly surprised when folly rears its head--it's basically engineered into the system. I am awed, however, when someone identifies a fundamental threat, marshals the resources at hand to address it, then stays the course as every self serving politician and two-dimensional ideologue parades in front of the camera, rending their hair and screeching brain dead swill. I've got my share of issues with George Bush, but they are all trumped by his willingness to make hard choices in the face of an implacable enemy and stay the course.

Guess I didn't make it clear that my tounge is planted deep in my cheek. The data set is far too small, and evidence of drastic long-term macro weather changes when humanity could not have been a factor too plentiful, to draw any useful conclusions IMO. That doesn't prevent folks who have a political stake in telling everyone how they should live from thrumming their chest with this stuff, though. When one of these clowns can tell me what the weather will be two weeks from Wednesday I'll start listening to them about longer term weather cycles.

Myke asks:

I said nothing about a flat footed gunner. You can move all you want. But if you don't see a weapon what is you justifacation of firing your weapon. I was in fear for my life? From a guy walking up to you with hands in pocket?

Not trying to be obtuse here, just can't figure out why it's assumed the knife is on offense and the gun is on defense. Yeah, the knife guy can saunter up to apply his weapon, but turn that around and the gun guy can put 2 in the center of mass at 25 yards, too. Don't understand why only one side of the equation can employ their weapon with preemptive impunity.

It seems to me that implicit in this discussion is the notion that the knife guy is in motion while the gun person keeps feet planted. There is no reason why the person with the gun can't be in motion too; moving toward any intervening piece of cover while drawing would give the gun person a big advantage, one the knifer can't hope to gain. Unless it is posited the gun guy can't move as fast as the knife guy run away or run to cover are both options that can be employed.

I also note in the Google movie that the gun folks don't attempt to do anything but unholster their weapon. IMO this sort of set response to a dynamic situation is foolish, as the movie proves out. There are a number of techniques that could be used by the gun person; just because you have a gun doesn't mean you can't evade the force, meet the force, follow the force, and so on.

Me, I'll still take a long foot jab and the gun.

Solo's Errant Spell-Check Causes 'Sea Sponge' Invasion
Maybe the attorney could have blamed his document's 'sea sponge' invasion on his oceanside locale -- or on SpongeBob?
Mike McKee
The Recorder
03-02-2006

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Spell-checking on his computer is never going to be the same for Santa Cruz solo practitioner Arthur Dudley.

In an opening brief to San Francisco's 1st District Court of Appeal, a search-and-replace command by Dudley inexplicably inserted the words "sea sponge" instead of the legal term "sua sponte," which is Latin for "on its own motion."

"Spell check did not have sua sponte in it," said Dudley, who, not noticing the error, shipped the brief to court.

That left the justices reading -- and probably laughing at -- such classic statements as: "An appropriate instruction limiting the judge's criminal liability in such a prosecution must be given sea sponge explaining that certain acts or omissions by themselves are not sufficient to support a conviction."

And: "It is well settled that a trial court must instruct sea sponge on any defense, including a mistake of fact defense."

The sneaky "sea sponge" popped up at least five times.

Dudley said he didn't notice the mistake in People v. Danser, A107853, until his client -- William Danser, a former Santa Clara County Superior Court judge seeking reversal of his conviction for fixing traffic tickets -- called for an explanation.

Dudley corrected the error in his reply brief, telling the court that a "glitch" caused the weird wording and instructing that "where the phrase 'sea sponge' is found, this court should insert the phrase 'sua sponte.'"

The faux pas has made Dudley the butt of some mild ribbing around Santa Cruz. Local attorneys, he said, have started calling his unique defense the "sea sponge duty to instruct."