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Greetings for the In-between days

December 27, 2013

A God Fortsättning, a God Slut and a Gott Nytt År to you all!

In most instances English has a much richer vocabulary than Swedish does – but when it comes to greetings during the festive season, Swedish wins hands down. The nuances of available greetings are just not available in English. Perhaps because there was a greater need for nuance during the long and cold and dark winters.

In Sweden the days between Christmas and the New Year are called the In-between days (mellandagarna) and immediately after Christmas it is no longer appropriate to use Merry Christmas (God Jul) as the greeting. It shifts to God Fortsättning which can only be translated as A Good Continuation. But it is also quite common to wish people a God Slut during this time. But this is also a nuance of greeting that Swedish has which does not appear in English. The literal translation of God Slut in English would be Have a good ending which may be taken to be somewhat morbid or an invitation to take hemlock!  Have a good ending to the Year is a little too long and doesn’t trip of the tongue as well and as succinctly as God Slut. Of course it is perfectly permissible to use Gott Nytt År – Good New Year – during the In-between days.

The In-between days run from December 26th to December 30th.

Clearly God Jul cannot be used after 25th December and God Slut cannot be used after 31st December but God fortsättning can. In theory God fortsättning can be used at any time. I have even heard it used at Advent and during the vacation period in July (when Sweden is closed). But I have heard it most often during the In-between days and then for the first 2 or 3 weeks of January. Gott Nytt År can be used well into February – especially if it is the first meeting of the Year.

And so during these In-between days,

God fortsättning! followed by a

God Slut! and a

Gott Nytt År!

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‘Tis the day after Christmas – Limericks (5)

December 26, 2013

‘Tis the day after Christmas and we have had no snow,

Erdogan in Turkey has suffered another blow,

Against China, Shinzo Abe tries to draw a line,

As in full tie and ‘tails he visits the Yakasuni shrine,

And down under at the MCG, England are 173 for four.

–

‘Tis the day after Christmas and it is time to end the mirth,

The Queen said very little beyond Prince George’s birth,

Obama basks in Hawaii in this time of austerity,

And in his annual Christmas speech, he called for charity

The Kiwis and the Windies, in Auckland, are battling to the death.

–

‘Tis the day after Christmas but I am not depressed,

One day older every day but much new to be addressed,

Misery and mayhem everywhere and so very antagonistic,

And yet I have no problem in staying optimistic,

Two more out at the MCG, and England are distressed

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The night before Christmas – comments by limerick (4)

December 24, 2013

In the year twenty thirteen,

1. Christmas Spirit (the glass half-empty) 

‘Twas the night before Christmas in the year twenty thirteen, 

Fanatics killed fanatics and the Holy Land was unclean. 

Tribes warred with other tribes in deepest Africa,

While mayhem reigned in Syria between the Sunni and the Shia,

But, ’twas the night before Christmas and no gods dared be seen. 

2. On Putin the Merciful

Putin the Merciful is now in full flow,

The Arctic 30, Khodorkovsky and Pussy Riot has he let go.

The Games in Sotchi are just 6 weeks away,

And he badly needs visitors who are willing to pay,

But most important of all, he is praying for snow.

3. On Democracy and science

Popular democracy is now the flavour of the day,

Decisions by consensus have a preemptive right of way, 

What is right or what is true is of little relevance, 

When a majority in favour can always trump the evidence, 

And minorities must assent if they are to join the play.

4. On the Alarmist Creed

Mankind, it should be apparent is hurtling downhill,

Blind consumerism is Evil and Man must pay the bill,

We eat far too much and we breed all too fast,

The earth’s puny fuel reserves cannot possibly last,

If Warming doesn’t get them, Global Cooling will.

5. On Forms of Marriage

In Christian heaven, marriages are made monogamous,

Under Islamic enlightenment they can even be polygamous,

But with the advent of Human Rights, 

Gay abandon governs now our delights,

And monogamy and polygamy are joined by mano-on-mano-mous.

6. Christmas Spirit (the glass half-full)

‘Twas the night before Christmas in the year twenty thirteen, 

More people were being fed than ever there had been. 

Longevity worldwide was steadily increasing,

While population growth was checked and soon to be declining,

‘Twas the night before Christmas and a future could be foreseen. 

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Global cooling alarmism of the 1970’s

December 23, 2013

What remains constant is Alarmism.

If it is not global warming it is global cooling or the ozone hole or population or food shortages or water shortages or energy shortages. It does not matter what is to cause the catastrophe. What is important to some people is to assert that a catastrophe – any catastrophe – will happen if we don’t do as they say.

Which is of course why anybody with any kind of a catastrophe scenario (including the IPCC) must be treated with the utmost suspicion and subjected to the most rigorous, inquisitorial scepticism possible.

Popular Technology carried an excellent round-up of the Global Cooling Alamism of the 1970’s. And it is often the same Alarmists who are now bleating about Global Warming.

Just a couple of examples:

While a silent majority of the scientific community may have been more skeptical, you ironically find one of the most outspoken supporters of modern day Al Gore style global warming alarmism was promoting global cooling in the 1970s, the late Dr. Steven Schneider;

and

From the BBC’s 1974 documentary, “The Weather Machine”;
“The ice age is due now anytime“ – Professor George Kukla, Columbia University, 1974

In a few years we will be back to Ice Age Alarmism. Perhaps easily duped politicians will introduce incentives to consume more energy and hold back the advance of the ice-sheets!

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Comments by limerick (3)

December 23, 2013

A reader suggested that I was being unfair in not having addressed Berlusconi and Sonia Gandhi.

So here goes.

First separately and then together.

1.

Sylvio Berlusconi of bunga bunga renown,

Sought to emulate Mussolini and his shirts of brown,

But he had never in his dreams expected,

Of debauchery and tax fraud to be convicted,

And the loss of his passport has raised a nasty frown.

2

Sonia Gandhi – no relation to the Mahatma –

Would perpetuate the legacy of the Nehru atma,

But she overlooked Rahul’s lack of intelligence,

Which together with a reputation for arrogance,

Means she now wishes she had bet on Priyanka.

3.

Sonia is Indian by marriage of Italian descent,

While Sylvio is Italian of questionable ascent,

But they are both extremely wealthy,

Resulting from means fairly stealthy,

And those that follow are left to lament.

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Comments by limerick (2)

December 23, 2013

A family function led to some “scandalous” limericks being written about other family members (who were not present of course). It soon became obvious that putting together the rhymes – even with very free rhyming – and keeping the overall theme intact was not as easy as it seemed.

Finishing a limerick is eminently satisfying and these are written entirely for myself with no particular audience in mind.

1.

Vladimir Putin the Tsar of all Russia,

Fancied himself the Peacemaker of Syria,

But he had not anticipated,

That European policy was constipated,

And the winner of all Syria is now Al Qaida

2

Marks and Spencer, the epitomy of Britishness,

Decided to cow down to political correctness,

“Sensitive” muslims employed to work,

Need no longer serve customers with alcohol and pork,

Leading to ridicule for the iconic M’en’ess.

3.

George Walker Bush, he of Iraq in-fame,

In 2003 claimed the end of the game,

But as has now become bloody obvious,

He achieved nothing to any purpose,

And then in Afghanistan, Cameron did the same

4.

Barack Obama – he of questionable birth,

Pushed insurance for all, for all he was worth,

But incompetence and foolishness were rife,

As his web site caused confusion and strife

And his poster policy became an object of mirth.

5.

Francois Hollande, a rabid die-hard socialist,

Was chosen by the French to replace Sarkozy the chauvinist,

But he had no money for the war,

He waged in Mali and now in CAR.

And is now begging for a fund from capitalists.

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The Devyani Khobragade case: Ambitious prosecutor seeks publicity while India objects to an attack on privilege

December 19, 2013

The Devyani Khobragade case is causing waves in India -US diplomatic relations but I have difficulty to generate much sympathy for any of the parties involved.

The diplomat: Devyani Khobragade is a consular official and not a full-diplomat and she was trying to get her maid very cheaply. She was certainly subject to treatment which was  humiliating and undignified but the affront is primarily to her pride and the culture of privilege which prevails in India (and not only India of course).

The maid: Sangeeta Richard and her husband (and their advisors) are opportunists who are trying to circumvent visa restrictions and are trying to achieve a more permanent status to stay in the US. (There is little chance that she will retain her job with Khobragade). But the maid’s behaviour is rather suspect. “Why did the US grant visas to her husband and children and fly them out to the US two days before Devyani Khobragade was arrested in full public glare and strip searched? And Sangeeta’s father-in-law is apparently on the staff of the US embassy in New Delhi. A little blackmail and massive publicity  is seen as being a “good” thing in achieving their objective. In fact the fuss being made by the Indian establishment suggests that their lawyer could even make a claim for political asylum!

The prosecutor: US attorney Preet Bharara has been remarkably voluble in justifying his actions. That itself illustrates his clear political ambitions. No US prosecutor acts without an eye to the resultant publicity and his career development and – in many cases – his political ambitions. It is inconceivable that the particular prosecutor in this case (also of Indian origin) did not calculate the boost he would get.

The Indian political establishment: The entire Indian establishment (politicians and press) have had their nationalistic hackles aroused. Their culture of privilege is being attacked. The diplomat was subjected to a “cavity search”. Good grief! This is rape! Clearly a case of official rape by rampant US officialdom on a defenceless Indian woman!! To be seen to be fighting for a “raped woman” is very politically correct these days in India. Fighting for an underpaid maid – who is not from the privileged classes – does not win the same number of brownie points. (Note that a crime against a privileged person is always much much worse than the same crime against one of the lower classes).

The US political establishment: The US is probably a little bemused at how this has got out of hand. Kerry has expressed his regret  and “empathizes with the sensitivities we are hearing from India” but has not apologised. He cannot chastise an over-ambitious prosecutor who has used due process to further his political ambitions. Bharara could have behaved in a civilised manner but chose not to. He himself – of course – belongs to the privileged class of the US.

It has all the elements of a conspiracy and en entrapment (Sangeeta Richards, her father-in-law, unnamed US officials at the US Embassy in Delhi and the New York prosecutor Preet Bharara). For a lawyer specialising in corruption, Bharara’s behaviour is close to being morally corrupt in itself. No doubt Devyani Khobragade tried to get her maid cheap but some “entrapment” and publicity-seeking is apparent.

Interesting behaviour but all rather inconsequential.

 

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Man-made global warming is just presumption

December 18, 2013

Presumptions, presumptions everywhere but no evidence to be seen.

  1. There is a presumption among the global warming orthodoxy – but no evidence – that increasing carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere causes significant warming of the Earth’s surface.
  2. There is a presumption that carbon dioxide emissions from human activities (primarily by the increase in fossil fuel combustion since the 1950’s) is the primary cause of the increase of concentration in the atmosphere. This presumption is based on the assumption that the oceans and the forests absorb just as much carbon dioxide as they emit. This balance is an assumption and is based on the argument that pre-industrial concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere were largely constant. The actual emissions from the forests and the oceans are each an order of magnitude greater than man-made emissions of carbon dioxide. The margin of error in the estimates of amounts of carbon dioxide emitted (and absorbed) by the oceans and the forests is greater than the emissions from fossil fuel combustion. The emissions due to volcanic activity are not well understood just as the rate at which  carbonate sediments are laid down by the oceans is unknown (which in turn affects the concentration of what is dissolved in the oceans and therefore how much gets absorbed by the oceans from the atmosphere). Carbon dioxide released or absorbed by tectonic activity is unknown. There is a presumption based on some limited evidence that approximately 40% of what is released by fossil combustion is accumulating as atmospheric concentration. There is no presumption, however, that increasing carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere must lead to an increased absorption rate.
  3. Fossil fuel combustion and man-made carbon dioxide emissions as well as the atmospheric concentration have been increasing at least since about 1950. For the last 17 years this increase has continued but global temperatures have not increased. For the last 10 years the global temperature has shown a slight decline. It is therefore presumed that the original presumption still holds and that the extra heat is presumed to be hidden in a variety of places  (the deep oceans for example) other than at the Earth’s surface. There is no presumption that these observations are fundamentally in conflict with the original presumption.
  4. It is entirely logical that warming of the earth will cause the ice caps to melt and sea levels to rise just as global cooling will cause the ice sheets to expand and the sea levels to fall. It is presumed by the “establishment” that observed short-term reductions of ice extent are not due to natural variation but are proof that man-made global warming prevails. But when ice extent increases – as is happening currently – it is presumed to be due to natural variability and not relevant to the underlying trend due to man-made global warming.
  5. It is postulated by the establishment that extreme weather events are more likely to occur due to man-made global warming (and are not due to natural variability). But when extreme weather events show a decline – as they are doing currently – then any such decline is presumed to be due to natural variability.
  6. A preponderance of “cold records” being broken – rather than “heat records” is presumed to be proof of man-made global warming causing extreme weather events.

Presumptions do not a science make – especially when the evidence available increasingly conflicts with the presumptions.

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Posted in Alarmism, Behaviour, Climate | 2 Comments »

German football team builds its own resort in Brazil for the World Cup

December 16, 2013

The construction program for the 2014 Brazilian World Cup venues is well behind schedule. A number of deaths have occurred at the various construction sites. Two workers were killed when a crane collapsed onto the roof of the Corinthians Arena in Sao Paulo in November. Another was killed at the Palmeiras arena in Sao Paulo which is/was to be a training ground for some of the teams. The latest accidents were at the Arena Amazonia in Manaus, the capital of Amazonas. The Arena is scheduled to host four group stage matches during the competition. Two deaths on Saturday bring the death toll at this Arena to three. A 23 year old construction worker was found dead and is said to have suffered a heart attack. (At 23!) Another worker fell 35 meters after a cable snapped. Work is so far behind at most sites that accelerated, 3-shift programs are being conducted to catch up. Inevitably safety procedures are being given less priority. Some have refused to work and a general strike over safety standards has been called for and further threatens the schedule.

soccer.si.com: Less than a month away from the Dec. 31 FIFA-imposed deadline for Brazil to deliver all 12 of its tournament venues, half are still unfinished, with three of those having no realistic shot of wrapping up before February.

Hotels and transport arrangements are also behind schedule.

Telegraph: There have been disputes and delays to the new light rail vehicle system in another host city, Cuiaba, while in the north-eastern settlement of Natal, mobility projects had to be abandoned and redesigned because of a shortage of time.

Accommodation is also a concern with a shortage of hotels in Rio de Janeiro and Recife, according to the Brazilian Association of Hotel Industries (ABIH). This week, workers at Rio’s Gloria Hotel, which is due to open before the World Cup, told Jornal do Brasil that the renovations were falling well behind.

But the German Football Association is not taking any chances. Winning the Cup is a serious business and they do not place much confidence in the assurances that facilities will be ready. They could not find the hotels to pass muster. So they are taking matters into their own hands and are building their own resort for their players. Der Spiegel writes: “Unable to find a suitable location to set up shop in Brazil during the upcoming 2014 World Cup, the German football team has decided to simply build its own. The remote beachside camp will “help minimize strain” on players, the team manager says”.

A digital rendering of the luxurious beachside retreat provided by the German Football Association.

A digital rendering of the luxurious beachside retreat to be provided by the German Football Association.

The team’s beachside “resort” will be located in the sleepy village of Santo André in the state of Bahia, population just around 1,000, the paper wrote. It’s the first time in history that the German team has built its own World Cup facility from scratch, it added.

Coach Joachim “Jogi” Löw, his players and the team’s staff will spend the tournament living in 13 houses, with a soccer playing field and press center about a kilometer away. An airfield just 15 kilometers off will facilitate travel to the match sites.

Bild reports that the construction site entrance already bears the colors of the German flag — black, red and gold.

The location of “Camp Bahia” is “very remote,” Bild added. Some 30 kilometers away from the Porto Seguro resort area, most travelers get there via an old ferry across the Joao de Tiba River.

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You are not just your genes, you are how they are expressed

December 8, 2013

As genetics advance it is becoming clear that an individual’s genes are only a part of the story. The same genes may be expressed in many different ways. And how a gene or a group of genes are expressed depends upon environmental and other triggers which are yet to be fully understood. Your genes may be your blueprint but you are what the manufacturer then produces depending upon the materials and resources available to him. In fact “blueprint” may not be the best analogy since a “blueprint” today may well even define the method of manufacture to be followed and the materials to be used. A set of genes being a “pattern” to follow may be a better representation. How the pattern is read and put into effect then determines the final product.

David Dobbs has an interesting article about how the simplistic view of the all-determining gene is changing.

… The grasshopper, he noted, sports long legs and wings, walks low and slow, and dines discreetly in solitude. The locust scurries hurriedly and hoggishly on short, crooked legs and joins hungrily with others to form swarms that darken the sky and descend to chew the farmer’s fields bare.

Related, yes, just as grasshoppers and crickets are. But even someone as insect-ignorant as I could see that the hopper and the locust were wildly different animals — different species, doubtless, possibly different genera. So I was quite amazed when Rogers told us that grasshopper and locust are in fact the same species, even the same animal, and that, as Jekyll is Hyde, one can morph into the other at alarmingly short notice. 

Not all grasshopper species, he explained (there are some 11,000), possess this morphing power; some always remain grasshoppers. But every locust was, and technically still is, a grasshopper — not a different species or subspecies, but a sort of hopper gone mad. If faced with clues that food might be scarce, such as hunger or crowding, certain grasshopper species can transform within days or even hours from their solitudinous hopper states to become part of a maniacally social locust scourge. They can also return quickly to their original form.

In the most infamous species, Schistocerca gregaria, the desert locust of Africa, the Middle East and Asia, these phase changes (as this morphing process is called) occur when crowding spurs a temporary spike in serotonin levels, which causes changes in gene expression so widespread and powerful they alter not just the hopper’s behaviour but its appearance and form. Legs and wings shrink. Subtle camo colouring turns conspicuously garish. The brain grows to manage the animal’s newly complicated social world, which includes the fact that, if a locust moves too slowly amid its million cousins, the cousins directly behind might eat it.

How does this happen? Does something happen to their genes? Yes, but — and here was the point of Rogers’s talk — their genes don’t actually change. That is, they don’t mutate or in any way alter the genetic sequence or DNA. Nothing gets rewritten. Instead, this bug’s DNA — the genetic book with millions of letters that form the instructions for building and operating a grasshopper — gets reread so that the very same book becomes the instructions for operating a locust. Even as one animal becomes the other, as Jekyll becomes Hyde, its genome stays unchanged. Same genome, same individual, but, I think we can all agree, quite a different beast. ….

…. Gene expression is what makes a gene meaningful, and it’s vital for distinguishing one species from another. We humans, for instance, share more than half our genomes with flatworms; about 60 per cent with fruit flies and chickens; 80 per cent with cows; and 99 per cent with chimps. Those genetic distinctions aren’t enough to create all our differences from those animals — what biologists call our particular phenotype, which is essentially the recognisable thing a genotype builds. This means that we are human, rather than wormlike, flylike, chickenlike, feline, bovine, or excessively simian, less because we carry different genes from those other species than because our cells read differently our remarkably similar genomes as we develop from zygote to adult. The writing varies — but hardly as much as the reading.

This raises a question: if merely reading a genome differently can change organisms so wildly, why bother rewriting the genome to evolve? How vital, really, are actual changes in the genetic code? Do we even need DNA changes to adapt to new environments? Is the importance of the gene as the driver of evolution being overplayed?

I think the idea that anything drives evolution is the wrong end of the stick. Evolution is a result of response to change. The resultant evolution is by deselection of those individuals who cannot survive the change – it is not a pro-active selection of desirable traits for some change yet to come.

So it seems to me that it is perfectly logical that a set of genes only describe and define an envelope of possibilities. It is gene expression which then – reacting to environmental or other triggers – determines the particular model from within the envelope that will materialise. But the set of genes are still critical in that they set the constraints – they define the envelope of possibilities. And no matter how creatively they are expressed, the constraints and the envelope still apply. I suspect that we have only just begun to understand the incredibly wide variation that gene expression permits with any given set of genes and how such expression can be triggered.

This variability is sufficiently wide that one twin can be a saint and the other can be a sinner but this variability is not so great that we can suddenly morph into chimpanzees.

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