He Needed Killin'

Well. It's to be announced that Osama bin laden has been killed. As often, the words of Billy Bob Thornton are apropos.."He needed killin'."

Even better, it was no bloodless Predator strike but a ground action. That means someobody, some individual soldier, looked that worthless coward in face and then sent him straight to Hell.

May he be buried in an unmarked grave in some industrial brown site. May he lie there to rot, forgotten, and may he have died with shit in his pants, running for his life, his last thoughts of his own utter insignificance and the utter futility of his cause.

Freedom of "The Press"

After Israeli marines enforced the blockade against Gaza, I wasn't surprised to be awakened from my reverie by the sound of left knees jerking in newsrooms all over New Zealand. The Press however was particularly egregious and unprofessional in its coverage of the event. Have a look at today's coverage for the latest example. Quoting professional useful idiot (more on him later, I don't use that term lightly) Mike Treen, Christchurch's paper of record informs us that:

"One commentator said that [on Monday] Israel successfully turned its war against Palestine into a war against the world in targeting a flotilla of people who were clearly peaceful and which contained hundreds of people from different countries," Treen said.

"It just brought home to people in a way they didn't understand before that the occupation turns the Palestinian people, and Gaza in particular, into an open prison which they control."

Got that? "One commentator said..." Is it usual journalistic practice to use a third hand unattributed quote? Sounds more like sloppy, lazy, anything as long as it fits the anti-Israel narrative, reflexively left wing scribbling.

And Mike Treen? This is the man who supported the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, so I think we can see where he's coming from.

Harry Reid

Now that Joe Biden has gone on to bigger things, Harry Reid may be the stupidest man in the Senate. Now I don't really care what he says about anything, I think his comment speaks on its own of the cult of political correctness.

Harry Reid's "Negro" comment has exposed the President, the Congressional Black Caucus and the race hucksters as fools and hypocrites, just as Bill Clinton's philandering and sexual addiction did to feminists. No one has taken them seriously since.

The Predictable Lame Reaction

As Mark Steyn relates in this post to The Corner on NRO, the authorities are reacting in the predictable manner to the Detroit Weenie Bomber...by imposing more restrictions on everybody else. To Steyn's words, I would add only that these measures are aimed not only at increasing the perception of security at the expense of the reality, but at doing so in an exquisitely politically correct manner. What needs to happen here, at least until Zoroastrians and Anabaptists get into the suicide bombing business, is--let's all say it together now--PROFILING. Young Muslim men don't get to fly without a very extensive questioning and search...period. Inconvenient for the very silent majority of believers? Yep.\

Then clean your own house.

If Kevin Rudd jumped off a bridge, would you jump, too?

Didn't young Johnny Key ever hear that from his mum? I guess not. And I guess party affiliation is no guarantee of immunity against getting lost in the deep weeds of warmenism. John Key will go to Copenhagen for the Climatefest because, well, because "Awww Mum, everyone else is going."

Name and Shame: Hyperwealthy Blowhard Watch

Almost nothing triggers my gag reflex like some hypocrite with a bloated bank account telling the rest of us how to live green while they suck up as much carbon and flatulate as much as they please. Tiny little beer can cars and poisonous flickering lightbulbs, holidays in the back garden and freezing houses for the rest of us. But for the Green Priesthood, it's private jets, 24 hour blazing incandescence, Humvees, and big stonking fireplaces. These people need to be exposed for the liars and hypocrites they are. They need to be singled out and ridiculed for their pathetic excuses and their preening arrogance. And so, presenting the Hyperwealthy Blowhard of the Day, the man NRO called the Green Governator, His Bloated Terminatorship, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Arnold want's the rest of us to walk, bike, or take public transport (Right, Arnie, in LA.), while he drives one of these AND one of these, and he used to drive one of these. Now it's Governor Busybody's money and and he can spend it anyway he wants....but get off my ass, Arnie about how I spend my mine.

Meanwhile in New Zealand.

Niwa principal climate scientist James Renwick told the New Zealand Herald that:

"There is no cover-up going on.
"When you've got 100MB worth of emails from somebody's personal files, no doubt you can find sentences that taken purely out of context can sound really bad,"

Well OK. Here's an e-mail from Phil Jones to Kevin Treberth on which Renwick was copied. This is the whole thing so nothing was taken out of context, and it sures looks like the climate change cabal is trying to cover up the sloppiness and inexactitude of their underlying data.

Kevin,
I will be around tomorrow (so Dec 21) until Dec 23 inclusive. Then again from Jan 3.
I will be checking email during the break from Dec 28 onwards. Are you in control of the glossary additions and modifications?As to change of base period - this seems like a decision for the whole of WGI. To redo the global temperature average, I can just move the series up/down, but this isn't the correct way to do it. I should talk out a new base period from all the individual stations and recalculate anomalies for the oceans. For the oceans this isn't a problem, but the land it is a serious problem. Many stations have good (i.e. near complete base periods for 1961-90) but I'll lose hundreds, maybe over a thousand, stations if I went to 1981-2000.
For both surface temperature and precipitation we don't have spatially complete datasets(like models) so it will be quite difficult. For the circulation indices(like SOI and NAO) based on station pairs there is a variance term(SD).Some of the character of the series will change. We could easily adjust all these series by simple offsetting but it isn't doing it properly. I'm in the throws of a project with the HC checking all the 61-90 normals we have for series that are incomplete, to ensure we don't have any biases. This has taken quite a time and I don't want to waste the effort.
The arguments of Albert and Dave make a lot of sense-continuity with the TAR etc.These sort of things can be explained,but then the FOD will not be compatible with all the papers we are referring to. This will lead to lots of confusion. I would like to stick with 1961-90.I don't want to change this until 1981-2010 is complete, for 3 reasons : 1) We need 30 years and 81-10 will get all the MSU in nicely, and 2) I will be near retirement! 3)is one of perception.As climatologists we are often changing base periods and have done for years.I remember getting a number of comments when I changed from 1951-80 to 1961-90. If we go to a more recent one the anomalies will seem less warm-I know this makes no sense scientifically, but it gives the skeptics something to go on about!If we do the simple way, they will say we aren't doing it properly. Best idea might be to show some maps of 1981-2000 minus 1961-90 to show spatially where it makes a difference for temp and precip. Showing it is quite small and likely within the intermodel differences for years which are only nominally 1981-2000. This might keep both sides happy.
We also probably need to consider WGII.Also the paleo chapter will find 1981-2000 impossible.1961-90 is difficult for them but not insurmountable.
Cheers
Phil