Chill!

the mad cyclist · Post by **the mad cyclist** » 06 Dec 2010, 10:20

nexus wrote:well 'ard them northerners

When yer to break ice in outside zhazi before you can go, it makes you hard.
Mind, with flat cap on ed and whippet on lap, it could be worse.

JohnB · Post by **JohnB** » 06 Dec 2010, 10:32

the mad cyclist wrote:When yer to break ice in outside zhazi before you can go, it makes you hard.
Mind, with flat cap on ed and whippet on lap, it could be worse.

Well, if you have to go all the way to China you'd have to be pretty hard. Has your whippet got a pet passport?

the mad cyclist · Post by **the mad cyclist** » 06 Dec 2010, 11:09

JohnB wrote:
the mad cyclist wrote:When yer to break ice in outside zhazi before you can go, it makes you hard.
Mind, with flat cap on ed and whippet on lap, it could be worse.
Well, if you have to go all the way to China you'd have to be pretty hard. Has your whippet got a pet passport?

Are you people from Wales, so sophisticated, that you don’t even know what an outside khazi is?

the mad cyclist · Post by **the mad cyclist** » 06 Dec 2010, 11:24

Yes John, sorry John I’ve just seen my mistake.

RenewableCandy · Post by **RenewableCandy** » 06 Dec 2010, 11:25

the mad cyclist wrote:
JohnB wrote:
the mad cyclist wrote:When yer to break ice in outside zhazi before you can go, it makes you hard.
Mind, with flat cap on ed and whippet on lap, it could be worse.
Well, if you have to go all the way to China you'd have to be pretty hard. Has your whippet got a pet passport?
Are you people from Wales, so sophisticated, that you don’t even know what an outside khazi is?

How is the President of Afghanistan getting on, anyway

?

JohnB · Post by **JohnB** » 06 Dec 2010, 11:26

the mad cyclist wrote:Are you people from Wales, so sophisticated, that you don’t even know what an outside khazi is?

I know what the khazi is. He's an Afghan leader. Is that sophisticated enough for you?

UndercoverElephant · Post by **UndercoverElephant** » 06 Dec 2010, 19:59

This is an article from April

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... winds.html

The prediction of a return to an annual deep freeze follows research linking solar flares and other activity on the surface of the Sun with the weather across northern Europe.

Scientists found that when the Sun is relatively calm, winters are harsh.

The Sun passes through high and low phases of activity during an 11-year cycle, which affects how much radiation and particles stream towards Earth.

Visible evidence of this cycle is provided by the dark sun spots on the Sun's surface.

If there are a large number of these spots, the Sun is experiencing a particularly high level of magnetic activity and therefore radiates very brightly. Which leads to warmer winters but now the opposite is true.

The cold winters are brought by the the freezing winds coming to northern and central Europe from Siberia.

These winds are normally stopped by the jet stream but scientists have found that this bends at times of low solar activity allowing the cold air through. The connection between the jet stream bending and solar activity is not fully understood.

This is precisely what has happened again in the last few weeks. It has nothing to do with global warming, but some unknown connection between reduced sunspot activity and the path of the jetstream over Western europe.

Long term weather forecasters are currently predicting this cold weather will last well into next year.

Post by **kenneal - lagger** » 07 Dec 2010, 14:23

UndercoverElephant wrote:It has nothing to do with global warming, but some unknown connection between reduced sunspot activity and the path of the jetstream over Western europe.

It's not unknown, see figure 11 here http://bourabai.narod.ru/landscheidt/new-e.htm

And it's due to last for about 30 years. Whether it's a full Maunder Minimum event or not will depend on how much credence there is in Global Warming. If we have .6 deg warming due to the increased CO2 content of the atmosphere the 1deg drop in temperatures of the Maunder minimum will be only a .4 deg drop below previous, So, although the weather will be much colder than we have been used to, we might not be able to hold Ice Fairs on the Thames.

We'll just have to wait and see, but I've bought the snow chains already.

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 07 Dec 2010, 15:38

Hudson Bay is still ice free. That's not supposed to happen in December.

emordnilap · Post by **emordnilap** » 14 Dec 2010, 09:55

biffvernon wrote:I'm more interested in discussing just why people think the way they do and the denier/right wing thing is intriguing.

You're not the only one.

http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2010/12 ... r-commons/

Articles about the environment are hit harder by such tactics than any others. I love debate, and I often wade into the threads beneath my columns. But it’s a depressing experience, as instead of contesting the issues I raise, many of those who disagree bombard me with infantile abuse, or just keep repeating a fiction, however often you discredit it. This ensures that an intelligent discussion is almost impossible - which appears to be the point

The trainer, Austin James, was instructing Tea Party members on how to “manipulate the medium”(11). This is what he told them:

“Here’s what I do. I get on DODGY TAX AVOIDERS; I type in “Liberal Books”. I go through and I say “one star, one star, one star”. The flipside is you go to a conservative/ libertarian whatever, go to their products and give them five stars. … This is where your kids get information: Rotten Tomatoes, Flixster. These are places where you can rate movies. So when you type in “Movies on Healthcare”, I don’t want Michael Moore’s to come up, so I always give it bad ratings. I spend about 30 minutes a day, just click, click, click, click. … If there’s a place to comment, a place to rate, a place to share information, you have to do it. That’s how you control the online dialogue and give our ideas a fighting chance.”

The DODGY TAX AVOIDERS trick, I just tried it - it's quite long-winded. Do people actually do this? They have so much time on their hands? You have to enter a title and some kind of review - even then, I think it's moderated somehow.

The Rotten Tomatoes one, presumably you have to be some kind of member to do the same thing. I couldn't be bothered. Maybe I should be. Life's extremely short.

In some of the newspapers' comments sections, you can simply click a 'like' or 'dislike' icon without doing anything else. There again, who reads all the trash that gets posted there? Anyone? As Monbiot points out, where money is not involved, those comments are often the comments worth perusing; it's true.

UndercoverElephant · Post by **UndercoverElephant** » 14 Dec 2010, 12:24

emordnilap wrote:
The DODGY TAX AVOIDERS trick, I just tried it - it's quite long-winded. Do people actually do this?

Yes, it's all true. I spent about a year working for a company (Brandwatch) which sells a product for automatically trawling bulletin boards and other online media for references to products, politicians, hot topics, etc... It was my job to teach the AI how to recognise and rank these mentions (is it positive? is it negative? is it actually the brand name and not just the same word being used in another context?) Astroturfing is of great interest to Brandwatch, because quite a few its customers were actually using Brandwatch to determine how successful their own astroturfing campaigns were going. The practice is widespread, insipid and very hard to do anything to stop. We just have to make sure that when people like RGR turn up (an astroturfer if ever there was one) they are given no quarter.

DominicJ · Post by **DominicJ** » 14 Dec 2010, 12:53

biffvernon wrote:
I'm more interested in discussing just why people think the way they do and the denier/right wing thing is intriguing.
You're not the only one.

You could of course ask us?
Of course, when we come up with a rational reason, you can then default to reasoning we're obviously mentaly deficiant.

I make no secret of the fact that I dont believe human carbon emissions are changing the environment, and its simply because I've seen no evidence to that end.
I've seen plenty of press releases predicting immediate armagedon, but nothing predicted has either been specific, or occured.
For example, NASA predicted in 2001 that within 5 years, Russias northern coast line would be open to shipping for two months or the year, and within 10 years, Canadas Northern Coastline would be open to Commerical Shipping.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsro ... p?id=22250
Has that happened? No, it has not.
A few vessels have made the trip, but thats nothing unusual.

When you actualy get access to some real science, its invariably rotten.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/08/t ... rwin-zero/
Now, it could of course be that there is a perfectly reasonable reason why these adjustments were made.
I'd be quite interested if anyone can explain them, I've not see any, and whenever I ask, The Moonbatians act like I've just questioned the word of god.
Which I suppose to them, I have.

emordnilap · Post by **emordnilap** » 14 Dec 2010, 13:15

UndercoverElephant wrote:
emordnilap wrote:
The DODGY TAX AVOIDERS trick, I just tried it - it's quite long-winded. Do people actually do this?
Yes, it's all true. I spent about a year working for a company (Brandwatch) which sells a product for automatically trawling bulletin boards and other online media for references to products, politicians, hot topics, etc... It was my job to teach the AI how to recognise and rank these mentions (is it positive? is it negative? is it actually the brand name and not just the same word being used in another context?) Astroturfing is of great interest to Brandwatch, because quite a few its customers were actually using Brandwatch to determine how successful their own astroturfing campaigns were going. The practice is widespread, insipid and very hard to do anything to stop. We just have to make sure that when people like RGR turn up (an astroturfer if ever there was one) they are given no quarter.

Wow. As I said, it's not that simple to do and actually immensely tedious (well I think so). And ironically it seems to be being done by the very people who would push for, ermm, greater control of the internet. What's the answer?

UndercoverElephant · Post by **UndercoverElephant** » 14 Dec 2010, 13:15

DominicJ wrote:
biffvernon wrote:
I'm more interested in discussing just why people think the way they do and the denier/right wing thing is intriguing.
You're not the only one.
You could of course ask us?
Of course, when we come up with a rational reason, you can then default to reasoning we're obviously mentaly deficiant.

I make no secret of the fact that I dont believe human carbon emissions are changing the environment, and its simply because I've seen no evidence to that end.

Then you must have had your head buried in sand for the last ten years.

When you actualy get access to some real science, its invariably rotten.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/08/t ... rwin-zero/
Now, it could of course be that there is a perfectly reasonable reason why these adjustments were made.
I'd be quite interested if anyone can explain them, I've not see any, and whenever I ask, The Moonbatians act like I've just questioned the word of god.
Which I suppose to them, I have.

Mmmmm. Propaganda Pie!!! Tastes good, yah?

Biff is correct. You are a classic example of a climate change denialist.

UndercoverElephant · Post by **UndercoverElephant** » 14 Dec 2010, 13:18

emordnilap wrote:
UndercoverElephant wrote:
emordnilap wrote:
The DODGY TAX AVOIDERS trick, I just tried it - it's quite long-winded. Do people actually do this?
Yes, it's all true. I spent about a year working for a company (Brandwatch) which sells a product for automatically trawling bulletin boards and other online media for references to products, politicians, hot topics, etc... It was my job to teach the AI how to recognise and rank these mentions (is it positive? is it negative? is it actually the brand name and not just the same word being used in another context?) Astroturfing is of great interest to Brandwatch, because quite a few its customers were actually using Brandwatch to determine how successful their own astroturfing campaigns were going. The practice is widespread, insipid and very hard to do anything to stop. We just have to make sure that when people like RGR turn up (an astroturfer if ever there was one) they are given no quarter.
Wow. As I said, it's not that simple to do and actually immensely tedious (well I think so). And ironically it seems to be being done by the very people who would push for, ermm, greater control of the internet. What's the answer?

I wish I knew.

Yes, astroturfing is tedious. So was teaching the Brandwatch AI how to recognise it, and I wasn't being paid as much as the astroturfers.