Do you remember the "97% consensus", which even Obama tweeted?

Do you remember the "97% consensus", which even Obama tweeted?

Turns out the authors don't want to reveal their data...

It has always been a dodgy paper (http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024/article). Virtually everyone I know in the debate would automatically be included in the 97% (including me, but also many, much more skeptical).

The paper looks at 12,000 papers written in the last 25 years (see here, the paper doesn't actually specify the numbers, http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2013/07/12/watch-the-pea/). It ditches about 8,000 papers because they don't take a position.

They put people who agree into three different bins -- 1.6% that explicitly endorse global warming with numbers, 23% that explicitly endorse global warming without numbers and then 74% that "implicitly endorse" because they're looking at other issues with global warming that must mean they agree with human-caused global warming.

Voila, you got about 97% (actually here 98%, but because the authors haven't released the numbers themselves, we have to rely on other quantative assessments).

Notice, that *nobody* said anything about *dangerous* global warming; this meme simply got attached afterwards (by Obama and many others).

Now, Richard Tol has tried to replicate their study and it turns out they have done pretty much everything wrong. And they don't want to release the data so anyone else can check it. Outrageous.

Read Tol's letter to the Peter Høj, University of Queensland: "the main finding of the paper is incorrect, invalid and unrepresentative." (http://www.uq.edu.au/about/vice-chancellor)

It would be hilarious if it wasn't so sad.

http://richardtol.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/open-letter-to-vice-chancellor-of.html

Crossing the 49th.

We crossed into Canada.  I had a detailed list of goods, that impressed the boarder staff.  We did not have to unpack anything, that was great!

According to the boarder guard my kids and wife are returning Canadians.  I now have a six month visa, which means I am a visitor and will have to leave in February.  I also, had to get travelers insurance for medical emergency.

My wife applied for her Social Insurance Number (SIN), this is like the USA's Social Security Number (SSN).  Next with the SIN we could get a bank account.  The nice surprise was I was able to be added to the account, even with my status.

We had been in contact with the Secondary school for Connor.  We arranged to meet with his teacher.  The school was very nice and the staffing was amazingly different.  The support for Connor appears to be much more then we could have hoped for.

The drivers license here was, probably, the easiest transition.  The province contracts through The Insurance Corporation of British Columbia (aka: ICBC).  It was a simple matter to register as they recognize a US license is recognized as a form of ID and equal to a Canadian insofar as ability to drive.  So she turned in her Oregon for BC.

We set up a five year lease agreement, which counts as residency proof.  Also, we ordered embossed ATM cards as another form of ID.

Next up was the BC cares card for healthcare.  The Canadian system has socialized medicine.  Each province handles their own populace.  Think of this as a state run system.  This got a bit tricky.  You can fill out the paperwork and send it in.  The insurance will not cover you for three months.  Even then you need to have your entire family  under the plan.  So my status as a visitor is problematic.  However, the school required proof we filled out and mailed the form.  So we did...

The school system is oriented towards the needs of the student with an emphasis on state and fed be dammed!  As long as we have everything for immigration and healthcare in process he can be enrolled.

With our lease agreement, Tina's SIN card, license, passport and proof of mailing for BC Cares, Connor is enrolled!

That was quite the hurdle!

Phone solicitation for Murder.

So I got a polling person call me up and ask me questions to make murder of babies palatable.  It was about a Federal Law protecting Abortion rights up to the fourth trimester.

The argument was being framed as men and the government are keeping women from reproductive based healthcare.  Further that this was going against constitutional protections.

I oppose abortions.  I do not believe they should be made illegal.  In my utopia abortion is a safe legal procedure which never is performed.  I oppose abortion because it murders an innocent life.  I also know if abortion was against the law it would open up a black market that would lead to horrors I can only begin to imagine.  The stories from the first half of last century was bad enough, with the desire of stem cells... well now I am making myself sick.

I also find it odd the Planned Parenthood (Murder Inc.), apparently targets African Americans who make up 12% of the population, but 35% of the abortions in America.  Isn't that genocide? or Eugenics?

Recently the Gosnell Case briefly shown a light on the horrors our society has created.  The media was not all that interested in following the case.  There are rumblings that Gosnell was far from an isolated case.  Let the horror show continue with our tax dollars...

Are we obsessed with sex?  Is the proliferation of birth-control and the hedonistic bombardment causing the decline of western civilization?

Why are the chaste ridiculed or singled out as freakish?  Way past time for this ethical pendulum to swing back to sane.