It’s Monday again, and time for the Monday Message Board. Post your comments on any topic (civilised discussion and no coarse language, please). Any reactions to the latest Children Overboard news?
39 thoughts on “Monday Message Board”
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John Quiggin 
If it sticks it’ll be bad.
Currently Howard is “rejecting” the reports. If it isn’t true, he should be able to do better than that.
I reckon we’ll see an attack on the guy launched by a minor liberal sometime in the next day or so.. possible featuring alliteration..
Yes, they are all coming out of the woodwork. It seems that there are a lot of disgruntled Liberal Party people out there.All that is needed now is for them to change their voting pattern.
Its old news – everyone but the most partisan knows he lied through his teeth. Australians have, unfortunately, long forgiven him.
I don’t count myself to be a political expert. But does anyone thinks that Glenn Milne is right when he states that any delay by the USA to place the FTA into place because of the ALP amendments, would hurt Labor electorally?
Milne bases this on his assessment that this would place doubts about Latham’s anti-americanism in voter’s mind.
I thought that any delay, or doubts the Americans have on the amendments could be exploited by Labor. Why would the US and the Howard government object to an amendment that is meant to protect our PBS?
I sometime think that some members of the press gallery should go out more often.
Who really cares? This seems like a last minute attempt by the labour party to promote a “Johnny is heartless” mentality among voters.
A trend? …. Think back to last week and how unmentionable it would have been to call an election during the olympics.
However, I will give credit where it is due. If Latham can make it work for him, congratulations. The scary thing is that if you ask the average person on the street what the overboard crisis was all about you will not get the answer you expect.
If anything, bringing this up now to the uninformed voter will more than likely promote distaste for the Labour government not the other way around.
Let us (as Mark Latham promotes so profoundly) look to the future and not the past. Labour had their chance with this issue the first time around and they blew it! Bringing it up a second time may do more harm than good.
Well, the big news around the water cooler today is a combination of Thorpe/Thomas/”That cyclist chick”. I also note on local commercial radio news the Oz’s letter is rating 4th (after 5 minutes of olympics updates). Questioning on the implications and whether Howard misled Australia raises and enthusiastic “duh?”.
In an election that may be won in a handfull of votes in a handfull of seats, there’s been quite a few revelations that might loose the Govt a handfull of votes.
Like Cameron’s bizarre admission in a seriously marginal seat.
It seems to me that many commentators play down the seriousness of the children overboard saga (beyond the government’s credibility). Howard and Reith both clearly knew that the Government line was a lie and were consequently both prepared to lie to the Australian public and parliament – and, in the process, defame desperate people who, at least, deserved our sympathy if not permanent residence status.
I think this is a lot more serious than the usual political fib (e.g. vote for us and taxes will decrease and services increase) and, in some ways, is similar to another scandal of recent years – that of John Laws and Alan Jones accepting money to change their views of issues on radio. Both sets of actions essentially function to undermine the roots of democracy (which are not necessary as solid as many appear to assume). Given that, at least some kind of illusion of a free media is necessary for a democracy to function, I personally things Jones and Laws should have been jailed for several years for their actions. After all, people did fight and die in wars for our freedom. I also think both Howard and Reith and anyone else involved in the children overboard lies should also go to jail. Defaming desparate people is about as low as it gets.
Good points, Michael. It was a sorrowful stage in our history. How much the public cares about these matters is the question.
There may be a trickle-down effect on government credibility, which was pretty shaky to begin with.
So much so, that I’m a little surprised that a government spokesperson didn’t respond with,
“So what! This is all old news anyway.”
Perhaps those with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight in these matters would like to comment on what Mr Scrafton actually has to say now, particularly his last comment:-
“The conversations took place immediately after Mr Scrafton had been asked to view a videotape from HMAS Adelaide at the defence force’s maritime headquarters in Sydney.
“During the last conversation, the Prime Minister asked me how it was that he had a report from the Office of National Assessments (ONA) confirming the children overboard incident.
“I replied that I had gained the impression that the report had as its source the public statements of the Minister for Immigration.
“When queried by him as to how this could be, I suggested that question was best directed to Kim Jones, then the director-general ONA.
“I understood it was a very complex issue for the Prime Minister.””
Observa, the Oz news report is unclear on this, but if you read the letter, you’ll see that it ends with the sentence
When queried by him as to how this could be, I suggested that question was best directed to Kim Jones, then the director-general ONA
The next two paras refer to Scranton’s comments to an Oz reporter
I understood it was a very complex issue for the Prime Minister.
“I was surprised, however, at the unqualified use of advice that he had received some weeks before,” Mr Scrafton told The Australian yesterday.
So your quote has (understandably in view of the Oz sloppiness) run together two unconnected statements, and omitted the end of the second one.
That Howard deliberately misleads Australians is a serious matter. Being generous of spirit I’ve given Howard the benefit of the doubt. But I’m faced again with only two conclusions.
1. Howard is a liar who deliberately keeps Australians in the dark about the true facts.
2. Howard is senile and incompetent who has no idea what is going on around him.
I’ve watched Howard feed our inherent bigotry and take advantage of our ignorance. But
I doubt he’ll get back in. Howard’s out of ideas and puff. And one of the great things about Australians is that they don’t let political parties get too comfortable in Canberra.
That Howard deliberately misleads Australians is a serious matter. Being generous of spirit I’ve given Howard the benefit of the doubt. But I’m faced again with only two conclusions.
1. Howard is a liar who deliberately keeps Australians in the dark about the true facts.
2. Howard is senile and incompetent and has no idea what is going on around him.
I’ve watched Howard feed our inherent bigotry and take advantage of our ignorance. But I doubt he’ll get back in.
Howard’s out of ideas and puff. And one of the great things about Australians is that they don’t let political parties get too comfortable in Canberra.
michael, that was very good indeed so good any further comment is made redundant.
Guido , you are on the money. If the Yanks bring on a blue in an election campaign Iron Mark can go on and on about he was right and how only he stands up for Australia whilst howard stands up for the Yanks.
Peer reviewed articles pointing out defects in climate change models are discussed at this TCS link.
Any response from Prof Q?
http://www.techcentralstation.com/081204D.html
Try this
Among other things, the McKitrick-Michaels paper cited here is (in)famous as the source of the assertion, popular among scientifically illiterate climate sceptics that “the concept of an average global temperature has no physical meaning”. Even my high school physics is enough to tell me this is nonsense. If you check Tim Lambert’s site on the blogroll, you’ll see a more comprehensive demolition.
Both McKitrick and Michaels practise the worst sort of ideologically (or, in Michaels’ case, financially) driven, politically correct science – easily as bad as, say, David Suzuki. Unless you’ve replicated their work personally, and checked alternative specifications, I would put zero weight on anything they say.
Guido, I think Milne has been reading too many books on applied game theory. His logic is fascinating, but his conclusion unfortunately rests on the false assumption that most voters desperately want the FTA.
Thanks for the tip d! I’ll have a post on the TCS article this evening.
I’m hoping for an analysis of the papers cited by TCS (ie their data and argument), not the chracter of the authors, as these papers are claimed to be peer reviewed papers. They seem to indicate that 2 meter hight wind balloon data agree with satellite data, inthat both saying trends to warming over time are minimal, and sometimes show cooling. Also that the atmophere height profiles of temperature actually observed contradict predictions of warming models. I’d be interested in any flaws in their key arguments. I personally have an open mind on these areas.
D, I’ve already referred to the content of the MM paper, and no doubt Tim Lambert will have more.
But if you’re assessing an article which purports to evaluate conflicting data, the character of the author(s) is significant. What would you say if I quoted David Suzuki along the lines “I’ve read a lot of studies, and, after discarding the ones I think are wrong, the conclusion is that we are going to hell in a handbasket”?
John, did you see the hyperlink that spontaneously appeared into my previous comment? Has that happened before? Yet another spam device to reckon with, I guess. You may need to issue a list of proscribed words.
James, I can’t see a hyperlink. If there is one, it’s really scary To change a posted comment, someone would need to be able to hack into my MT setup.
Q Re your Suzuki quote “hypothetical”
My response is to ask Prof Q or Susuki to stop throwing in the red herrings about whos a bad boy and stop gratuitous remarks about anything other than the science in question and tell me which observations you’re talking about and what are the arguments that address the key scientific issues.
(But I’d think to myself but not say it, that Q’s pretty bright and he’d understand the science, why does he avoid discussing they; surely he does’nt think I’d be taken in by that kind of nonsense.)
But then I’d keep on plugging away at raising the scientific issues so if Q carries on like that he’d soon realise he’s only destroying his own hard earned credibility by ducking the issue.
d, let’s start with the claim “the notion of a global mean temperature has no physical meaning”. Do you agree that this is nonsense?
Anyone got any idea if Howard will wait until after October for the election? CW seemed to be mid/late Oct, but lately I’m hearing of later dates. That would put it after the US Pres elections and I’m thinking that’s something Howard wouldn’t want because if Bush loses Howard’s claim on the US alliance would be taken from under him.
http://www.greeningearthsociety.org/wca/2004/wca_21b.html
The above link contains a discussion of the papers by one of the authors. I’ve yet to see that the question you (q) shot back at me is relevant to these particular papers. It certainly isnt an answer to the issues I raised. But the issues I asked you about are very well discussed in the link just above
so it can be done.
On the point I raised, go to Tim Lambert’s site and work backwards. I really do want to hear what you have to say about this>
As regards other claims made in the TCS article, the first obvious falsehood is at para 5, where the authors say
In fact, there are several competing analyses of the satellite data, all showing an upward trend. Again, a useful place to get the facts is Tim Lambert’s blog. Read this post, then check the comment by Scott Church, which has extensive references.
If after reading the references, you think a claim that “the satellite data shows no significant trend” is an accurate summary of the literature, I’ll be happy to debate this claim with you.
There an old saw about always answering a question with a question, and I know now what it means: I asked a question and you (Q) decline to answer it.
This lack of answering my question doesnt stop you then firing back several questions which you expect me to address (which I will briefly), but I want to point out you (Q)still hav’nt addressed the questions I put to you.
quick answers by me
First, I have read before, indeed on this blog some while back if I recall correctly, the somewhat dopey statement about temperature being a meaningless concept or whatever, and I agree that it wasnt very clever. This dopeyness is not my problem. I dont need to defend every dopey comment thats floating around the web. However, you (Q) still havnt shown how this dopey comment is relevant to the Douglass July 6th papers.
Second, I dont have a strong point to make about the absolute the trend in satellite temperature data. – I certainly will read the refertencees you posted to Lambert.But I expect a response to my qyuestions before I comment on them.
The pointthat Douglass 6th July adressess is about the descrepancies between surface and satellite data which are regarded as pretty solid as they the basis of a recent somewhat controvesial Nature journal paper which purports to resolve them. Douglas et als 6th July paper has some pretty relevant remaks to make about this descrepancy,
As I said before I dont have strong opinions about these subjects but critical comment on the Douglass papers which are peer reviewed is important. Basically they say certain aspect of climate models dont fit with observational data. the data are spelt out at the URL I posted and Q hasnt got anything to say about that . Am I to assume by Qs silence that their point is accepted, and major climate models are flawed in their predictions?
Q
I checked Lambert’s blog and it covers papers that I’ve already read. Fu et al turns out to be the Nature paper that I mentioned in a previous posting.
Are you going to answere my questions now.
d
JOHN HOWARD LIES.
I can’t believe it,this guy scrapton is obviously some sort of labor party stooge.
You say that he has the mobile phone records of the calls-I can’t believe it.
You mean that maybe those devious,queue jumping,child throwing,economic reffos from sadaam’s regime and the taliban’s regime may have been painted in the wrong light…..
Surely not,from the leader of the land of the fair go.
John Howard is obviously quite concerned that his role on the world stage might be shortened by the public deciding he has to go. How could he cement his historical claim to be the second longest serving Australian PM if he is rolled in October?
My prediction is that he will wait and hope that something turns up like a re-elected Bush and leave us waiting for the election. At that point the leader who says that we have to have set terms for parliament will be on a winner.
Things aren’t looking too good though when the discontented and knowledgeable keep coming out of the woodwork so he might have to wait until they stop. Any bets?
Today’s Morgan Poll shows a sharp drop in public confidence in Howard,and a majority now think they were mislead in the matter of WMD’s. The poll shows a sharp drop in Howard’s support in a matter of few weeks,and a rise in Latham’s favour Morgan now gives Labor 53.5% ,party pref…while Fairfax pols say 53%…expect The Oz,and the Murdoch press to produce a poll much better for Labor than their 50% as in their last poll, in their next effort. These polls will be bad for government morale,and will push Howard towards a later election date …although The US election in November boxes him in…other he would wait till Christmas Eve is needed !!.
My comments on the TCS article.
d, your post said “Peer reviewed articles pointing out defects in climate change models are discussed at this TCS link.
Any response from Prof Q?”
I responded on the MM article, of which I am aware, pointing out that it was a load of rubbish – you apparently agree.
I responded on the summary of the literature in the TCS article, pointing out that it was totally dishonest – I think you’ve conceded this also.
If you state a specific question regarding the Douglass-Michaels paper, and it’s within my competence, I’ll try to answer it.
Sorry for the false alarm, John. My own PC is generating that hyperlink. In fact it’s turning every instance of ‘book’ in html into a link. Some piece of spyware has evidently concluded I’m a bookish type.
There is a very close fit between satellite and balloon measurements of upper atmosphere temperatures since 1979. If we accept the accuracy of the satellite measurements, then prima facie we should also accept the accuracy of balloon measurements which have been taken since the late 1950s, and which show a strong warming trend over the period in which they have been taken.
According to the IPCC, “Since the late 1950s (the period of adequate observations from weather balloons), the overall global temperature increases in the lowest 8 kilometres of the atmosphere and in surface temperature have been similar at 0.1°C per decade.” (www.ipcc.ch/pub/spm22-01.pdf)
Q
First I agree that the TCS article is full of overblown rhetoric – but I dont see that as the key issue: what is key key is their peer reviewed paper(s) which makes more modest claims.
The non-TCS website I cited previously (quoted below) is also careful in its language than TCS.
Responding to your remarks Q:
The main point of Douglass 2004 (distinct from MMM which you bucket) is:
“Every climate model that is run with increasing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases produces some degree of warming at earth’s surface and even greater warming above the surface, especially in the atmospheric layer between 5,000 to 30,000 feet in altitude (the troposphere). Models calculate this warming to be especially strong in the tropical half of the planet and weaker in a very small region around both poles. Observations of real world temperature trends in the lower atmosphere don’t confirm these model results and instead show that, generally, warming trends decline with altitude.”
This is a paraphrase of the claim about the temerature data in Douglass et al 2004.
The Data on which this paraphrase is based are in figure 1 of Douglass et al July 6 2004. GPL. available on line.
They consist of distinct differences between temperature trends (refer to fig 1) shown by solid lines and blue square (observations) and dotted lines (model predictions) and red circle (surface data) for temperature trends.
My questions Q are:
(i) what are the weaknessness ,if any, in these arguments and conclusions, and
(ii) Is it true that Douglass et al 2004 show that climate models to not match atmospheric temperature gradients well and therefore may well be poor indicators of future temperature trends?
D, Tim Lambert, linked above reports that the authors cut off the data set at 1996, without explanation. My quick reading supports this. This is enough reason for me to disregard the paper.
Thanks.
Tim’s Comments are the kind of dissection I was looking for,
and I found them while you were writing your last post
Thanks Tim too