Brian Hoover's Blog

Nothing pisses me off more (well, ok, lots of things piss me off more… I’m easily pissed off. But for the sake of agument let’s go with this) than people who either seriously or jokingly say “So much for Global Warming, it’s so cold outside today!”

Listen up and I’ll explain:

Increases in the amount of greenhouse gases make the world warmer. They are called greenhouse gases because they trap heat, being transparent to sunlight coming into the atmosphere, and opaque to various wavelengths of infrared radiation emitted by matter warmed by the sunlight.

The atmosphere becomes more energetic, and thus more active. Heated objects expand, so does heated air and water and land.

Now, there is a temperature gradient from the equator to the poles because of the angle at which the sun’s rays strike the Earth.

The Southern hemisphere has more water and a continent at its pole. The Northern hemisphere has most of the world’s land, and a small ocean at its pole.

Thus the two hemispheres heat unevenly. The Northern hemisphere heats faster because it has more land and because that’s where most of the human-caused emissions occur–it’s like dumping feathers–they spread out eventually, carried by the wind or water, but first they pile up.

The continent of Antarctica is surrounded by a circular current of water and a circular current of air that helps to keep it cold, even as the southern hemisphere warms. It is also very high. It is the highest continent. Much of it is more than two or three miles high–because of all that ice.

Antarctica is a very conservative mass. Since it takes vastly more energy to melt ice than to warm air or water, it is taking a very long time to warm the high plateau of East Anarctica.

At the other pole, however, the ice is floating on water for the most part. Heat dumped down the temperature gradient is melting this ice. Thermal expansion and heat absorbed by open water is melting this ice from below.

This makes for a much more variable and turbulent system. The land in the Northern hemisphere is warming, while the sea warms more slowly. Except in the North. The land and the sea are both warming there because they are the bottom of the temperature hill.

Canada and Australia have warmed twice as fast as the world as a whole, for example, They are near the bottom of their respective temperature gradients. The West of the USA has warmed at close to the Canadian rate. It is cut off from the sea by the Rocky Mountains.

Now, when you pump more heat into an unstable system, like the Northern Hemisphere, it becomes more unstable.

Think of a lot of hot air–it flows upward and pole-wards. Cold air has to flow the other way to make room. Thus, the more you heat the tropics (and the land), the more hot humid air flows northward, and the more likely the cold air is to dip southward, especially in the American and Canadian West.

It normally does this. In a warming world, it can be counted on to do this more.

Thus, this year you have a jet stream which has dipped down as far as Florida and Arizona. There is a high pressure area over the North Atlantic which is helping to lock this dip into place. Europe is also cold because it has its own dip of the jet stream. Siberia is not that much colder than usual.

Last year was exceptionally warm. All years have been exceptionally warm for the last decade. But it has been exceptionally cold in North America. This is something that happens normally sometimes, but you can expect more of it while the world warms. The cold air and the hot air have to mix somewhere and somehow.

In other words, you can expect more blizzards in odd places and at odd times. Warm humid air is a good way of carrying heat and water. But eventually it has to dump its heat and its water. If the place is cold enough, whumpfff! you get a massive amount of snow, or hail, or rain.

While the global warming deniers have been clipping the charts to focus on the last ten years, claiming that it’s getting colder, and on the USA, where it IS colder than elsewhere, but not that much colder than winters were like when I was a kid, the world as a whole has continued to warm.

It’s a kind of tunnel vision, or horse-blinkers, that horses who don’t want to be distracted by where they are going put on, so they can pretend they’re not going any where.

Last year was one of the warmest on record globally. This year is likely to be another.

And take note: it doesn’t matter how much snow falls or ice forms in the winter if the summer melt is greater than can be replaced. You can have very cold winters or normal winters, but the ice gets thinner every year. The area may yo-yo almost up to “normal” for the last few thousand years, but it’s going, going, gone! –at least in the summer.

We don’t have to worry about Antarctica because the bulk of its ice is protected by the sea bed, which has a sort of bowl like “lip” that keeps water from flowing under the main bulk of East Antarctica ice.

Of course, when water warms enough to melt the ice back off of this lip, it will pour into the bowl and then the East Antartica ice sheet will be threatened with unbelievably rapid collapse (over centuries, all the same).

This is unlikely to happen in our lifetimes, but is one big wildcard hidden in the deck for our species as a whole.

In short, the human race is living in a fool’s paradise. The long-term effects of things we are arguing over now could really, really do a lot of damage 10,000 years from now, or for that matter in 500.

The precautionary principle says we should be careful, even about the unknown unknowns, let alone the known unknowns, the known knowns and those rara avis, the unknown knowns, the stuff we know is true but don’t know we know is true, such as the fact that global warming deniers are completely full of BS and a lot of them know it. How many BSers know they are BSing? We don’t know. A lot. I am assuming all the people with a vested interest know that they are pursuing their vested interests, not the truth. That would be anybody with a vested interest (or mental or emotional investment) in coal, oil, natural gas, the wrong sort of bio-fuels, planes, trains and automobiles, not to mention the consumption society and mass affluence Euro- or American-style.

Well, that would be nearly all of us living in Fools’ Paradise, wouldn’t it?

Now if this isn’t the creepiest, most blatantly Orwelian TV ad I have ever seen… A bunch of almost unblinking citizens telling us how to watch our neighbourhood and report suspicious behaviour or activity that relates to terrorism. It’s described as “neighbourhood watch for the city”.  If you see, hear or smell something suspicious, report it using the phone or a convenient web site.

“I watch my America”. We have our own version of this here in Australia but this one from the LAPD is just so blatantly creepy that it hurts. I say it is ungood, and might even go so far as to say double plus ungood.

A little something I ran across this morning:

This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the US Department of Energy. I then took a shower in the clean water provided by the municipal water utility. After that, I turned on the TV to one of the Federal Communications Commission regulated channels to see what the National Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be like using satellites designed, built, and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. I watched this while eating my breakfast of US Department of Agriculture inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the Food and Drug Administration. At the appropriate time as regulated by the US Congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the US Naval Observatory, I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration approved automobile and set out to work on the roads build by the local, state, and Federal Departments of Transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency, using legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve (*) bank. On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the US Postal Service and drop the kids off at the public school. After spending another day not being maimed or killed at work thanks to the workplace regulations imposed by the Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, enjoying another two meals which again do not kill me because of the USDA, I drive my NHTSA car back home on the DOT roads, to my house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and fire marshal’s inspection, and which has not been plundered of all its valuables thanks to the local police department. I then log on to the internet which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration and post on freerepublic.com and Fox News forums about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD because the government can’t do anything right.

(*) Whoever wrote this might not be aware that the Federal Reserve banking system isn’t really a government operation. It’s private.

Starship Troopers by Robert A Heinlein is my favourite all time novel. I bought my copy in high school probably because it had the word “Troopers” on the cover, so it had to be something like Star Wars Stormtroopers, right? Ahem. Anyhow, I’ve read it at least once a year since 1984 which makes it my most well-loved and most dog-eared novel on the shelf.

Starship Troopers isn’t an action story, though there’s plenty of technology and explosions. It isn’t the story of a great hero, though there are plenty of heroics. It isn’t a book about tedious daily routine of military life, but parts of it would make a great documentary.  It isn’t the inspiring story of someone who overcomes and achieves all, though the central character does have his share of failures, tragedies and achievements. It isn’t a book about the government, the military, or even being a soldier though the story uses these as a framework. It’s a book about civic virtue, and what it means to be a citizen. In the book, the rights of a full Citizen (to vote, and hold public office) must be earned through voluntary Federal service and are given only to these who are honourably discharged from Federal service. I’m not going to pigeon-hole myself or paint myself into a corner by saying that I fully agree with this philosophy, but I can’t say that it’s a bad idea. Those who are willing to put their society ahead of themselves, who are willing to risk their lives for their fellow citizens have proved themselves and should be rewarded ahead of those that are not willing.

The central character of the story isn’t a mighty hero. Juan Rico is just an ordinary guy who, almost on a whim, decides to enlist in the service right out of high school. His story is told mostly as a collection of flashbacks to different parts of his life including childhood, high school, basic training, and OCS school up to the point where he gets command of his own group of warriors.

The book suffers (rightly or wrongly) from allegations of militarism, racism, sexism and fascism but I think most if not all of these allegations can be refuted when you look at it in this context: it was written in the 60s when the United States military was largely conscript, when there were still white and coloured drinking fountains and when female cadets were not allowed at the service academies. Indeed, the lead character is Filipino, the Navy not only has female officers but is dominated by female officers, and the government is explicitly described as a representative democracy where the only difference between those with full citizenship and those without is the right to vote and hold public office.

I waited for the day this would be made into a movie. I always thought Brandon Lee would make a good Johnny Rico, but alas he died young. I always thought it’d make a fantastic movie if narrated in the first person and told from the single point of view in much the same way Full Metal Jacket was done, but with more voiceovers. I was so excited when I heard this movie was coming out in 1997 and I just hoped it would be done right.

Instead, we got an abortion of a movie which made little to no sense and wasn’t a shadow of the book. I can only live in hope that this crime against cinema will be corrected by having the movie redone at a later date, and that it will hold true to the themes and characters of the book. May God have mercy on Paul Verhoevens soul.

Could this have backfired any worse? One of the big reasons why the neocons wanted to go into Iraq was because it would have a domino effect where peace-loving democracy would spread throughout the Middle East. They said the moderates in Iran would overthrow the hard-line mullahs and the Israel-hating, terrorist elements would be droned out to non-existence in Palestine.

Nearly four years later, we now have a hard-liner elected president of Iran who is faithful to the mullahs and wants the destruction of Israel and America, and the nuclear weapons to do it. And we have Hamas now in full, elected control of Palestine.

Meanwhile, Iraq is still occupied by American and other forces with more than a trillion dollars spent and no end in sight.

The riots in Sydney on the weekend are the first manifestation of a disenchanted, disaffected, and dissatisfied people wanting to claim their culture back (whatever the Australian culture is). It’s small things that add up over time which have lead to this. For example, when we are told that we shouldnot celebrate Jesus Christ or Santa at Christmas because it might offend our non-Christian immigrants, people will feel animosity towards those people for having part of their culture taken from them. I think people are tired being told to accomodate and overcompensate for other cultures in the name of political correctness. People are tired of having things taken from them.

The riots started after Lebanese gang members assualted some surf life guards. Lebanese “rape gangs” have been operating for a while. These were racist crimes. They were hate crimes. The rapists chose their victims on the basis of race. You can expect this to happen for so long without the targetted people wanting vengence. This is why the riots started.

They continued the next day due to drunken hooligan idiots, but I beleive we’ll be seeing more riots in other cities soon.

Happy endings for druggie Michelle Leslie as she is released from jail after being convicted of drug offences in Bali.

Yes, you read that right. She was convicted and let go. Her lawyers agrued that she be classed as an adict which carries a lighter sentence, in this case 3 months. Since she has already served 3 months awaiting trial she was released very soon after sentencing.

During the trial she was also found to be in possession of large amounts of Islam, but I’ll bet as soon as she steps foot in Australia she will be free of that as well.

Happy endings, or only the beginning. News reports say she has already organised to be married to her millionaire boyfriend. The broadcast and print media exclusives promise to pay handsomely, as do the offers from the likes of Ralph and Playboy.

Good on ya, Michelle. At least for the last three months you’ve had your face on more covers that you had ever dreamed.

Alas, my country has finally become a police state

A throw-away comment posted on a website praising a terrorist attack anywhere in the world could land a person in jail under tough new laws to be debated by State and Federal leaders today.

From the “You have got to be joking” department, Time chose Mr Bush “for sticking to his guns (literally and figuratively), for reshaping the rules of politics to fit his 10-gallon-hat leadership style and for persuading a majority of voters this time around that he deserved to be in the White House for another four years,” managing editor Jim Kelly said today.

I guess Time also chose Hitler as man of they year in 1937 and Josef Stalin in 1939 and 1942. Also in 1950 was the “American Fighting Man” and in 2003, the “American Soldier’. In 1979 it was Ayatullah Khomeini.

So, Senator Ross Lightfoot is being taken to court over comments he made in an interview that were published in two newspapers about 5 years ago. I heard this on the radio, where they claimed he said that Australian aboriginals, in the period before colonisation, were the most primitive race on earth. West Australian woman Hannah McGlade objected to the comments and filed a complaint with the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission which eventually landed in the Federal Court last December.

I tend to agree with the Senator on this. Most other cultures around the world have developed agriculture, animal domestication, permanent or semipermanent buildings, writing and the wheel. Aboriginals, in their 40000 year occupation of the Australian continent before European settlement, had developed none of these things. Besides rudimentary hunting tools such as the spear and the woomera, domestication of the dingo, and finger painting on rock walls, I haven’t heard any evidense that they developed anything more advanced.

I hope that Senator Lightfoot is not convicted of anything.