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Does France have special information about Fukushima?

March 15, 2011

o600 CET : Wednesday 16th: France is now urging its nationals in Tokyo to leave Japan or head to the south of the country, Reuters reports. It says Paris has asked the Air France carrier to provide planes for the evacuation. The BBC’s Chris Hogg in Tokyo says the evacuation will begin on Thursday. Two French planes are already on their way to Japan.

It could be that France has access to some special information that the problems at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plants are much worse than anything being reported in Japan or by the IAEA, but the almost orchestrated negativity from French Agencies is noteworthy.

Politicians and agencies are positive about support for Japan regarding the earthquake and the tsunami, but the negativity  is focused around the Fukushima nuclear plant and is particularly noticeable from Agence France Presse, the French Nuclear Agency and French Radio.

I tend to be extremely suspicious of  French nuclear politics and cannot help feeling that there is an agenda here which involves being as negative as possible about the Japanese nuclear industry to later show up how the French nuclear industry is so much better.

  1. France’s nuclear safety authority says it classifies the Fukushima plant accident as level six. The maximum is level seven, used only once for the 1986 Chernobyl accident, Reuters reports. The Japanese Nuclear Agency has classified the event as Level 4.
  2. Europe’s Energy Commissioner says Japan’s nuclear disaster is an “apocalypse”, adding that Tokyo has almost lost control of events at the Fukushima power plant, AFP report.
  3. AFP reports that several countries are screening passengers on flights arriving from Japan.
  4. Radio France to withdraw staff in Japan after nuclear accidents: Dow Jones

But at the same time France’s Foreign Minister Alain Juppe has said: “We expressed our admiration for the dignity and the courage shown by the Japanese during this unprecedented ordeal. We expressed our confidence in the way the Japanese authorities have faced the aftermath of the disaster with such efficiency, which the whole world has recognised.”

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Posted in Alarmism, France, Japan, Media, Natural Disasters | 3 Comments »

Pakistan Navy photoshop fail

March 9, 2011

Advertising agencies are supposedly very creative but much of their output is little more than plagiarism.

The Indian and Pakistani Armed Forces share a common past before 1947 but are the most intense rivals and virtually paranoid about each other. But it seems that the Pakistani Navy (or their advertising agency Orient Advertising) is a little short of stock photographs and imagination. Photo-shopping provides a cheap alternative.

Reminiscent of the Chinese publicity film about their new generation fighter aircraft which had spliced in images from “Top Gun”!

In an embarrassing goof-up, an advertisement issued by the Pakistan navy on Tuesday for a multinational exercise prominently featured images of Indian Navy warships even though India is not among the participating countries.

The full-page advertisement for the Aman-11 exercise in the Arabian Sea, which appeared in The Nation and Nawa-e-Waqt newspapers, featured photographs of Indian Navy’s Delhi, Godavari and Talwar-class warships. The insert also featured images of US warships under the slogan: “Together for peace” .

Warships, aircraft, Special Forces and representatives from 39 countries are participating in the exercises for fostering peace in the region and enhancing cooperation to counter maritime threats like piracy.

Within hours of the advertisement being posted on websites of newspapers, blogger Shahid Saeed posted the original image of American and Indian warships from the Malabar 2010 exercise that was used in the advertisement . There was no official word from the Pakistan Navy.

The Advertisement (with 2 ships removed, one helicopter removed and one ship added)

Photoshopped advertisement in The Nation

The original picture from the Indo-US Naval Exercise, Malabar 2010:

Indo-US Naval Exercise Malabar 2010

Shahid Saeed has another example of an incompetently photo-shopped image of UN envoy Ellen Margrethe Løj apparently pinning UN Medal to a Pakistan Army Doctor during a Special Award Ceremony held for Pakistani UN Peace Keeping Mission serving at Minrovia, Liberia. (23-2-2011), but which is remarkably careless with the bodies and limbs of people in the background.

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Posted in Behaviour, Defense, India, Media, Pakistan | 1 Comment »

Guttenberg (aka “Googleberg”) at a loss for words over plagiarism charges says Deutsche Welle

February 18, 2011

Update 2!

Breaking –

BBC reports that zu Googleberg has temporarily renounced his PhD.

That’s easily done but guilt cannot be as easily renounced!!

Update on my previous post:

Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg (aka “zu Googleberg”) is in hot water. Without the ability to “cut and paste” he is apparently at a loss for words! Clearly Google is the corrupting influence.

The German MSM are having a field day.

Deutsche Welle: Guttenberg is back from Afghanistan and

Chancellor Merkel called Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg to her office in Berlin to explain severe allegations of plagiarism in his doctoral thesis. Opposition politicians, meanwhile, want Guttenberg to go.

After returning from Afghanistan on a short visit with German troops, Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg had to let down excited guests at a campaign fundraiser in Saxony-Anhalt on Thursday because he was “unavailable and engaged in Berlin.”

Public broadcaster ZDF reported that the popular politician had been called in by Chancellor Angela Merkel for a question-and-answer session regarding allegations that he plagiarized complete – and numerous – passages of his doctoral dissertation.

“Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg did not credit me as the author of excerpts that came from an article I once wrote,” Barbara Zehnpfennig, a professor at Passau University, told news channel N24. “This breaks all academic rules.”

Zehnpfennig is not the only source not “properly cited” in Guttenberg’s text; several German law professors have accused him of blatant plagiarism, citing up to 70 dubious passages.

Newsmagazine Spiegel said Guttenberg even passed off US Embassy material as his own text – translated directly into German – in a string of allegations that has prompted German media to turn the posh Franconian surname “zu Guttenberg” into a far less noble “zu Googleberg.” …….

…… The university has given the minister 14 days to issue a written explanation of the allegations.

Der Spiegel’s headline calls him the Minister of Scandals

Plagiarism Scandal Threatens ‘Merkel’s Minister of Scandals’


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Posted in Behaviour, Corruption, Fraud, Germany, Media, scientific misconduct | 2 Comments »

Paid news: The cancer in the Indian media

February 5, 2011

The Hindu stands out as one of the few main-stream media prepared to discuss the insidious and increasing trend towards “paid news” in Indian newspapers and on the multiplicity of Indian TV channels fighting for advertising revenue. The TV “news” channels abandoned the rigour of traditional journalism some time ago and are mainly in the business of manufacturing or sensationalising news or of presenting “paid news”. TV anchors are chosen on their ability to rant and programmes are dominated by

  • instant “breaking” news – much of it manufactured – or
  • revelations of scams filmed by “secret” cameras – but usually provoked, or
  • so-called chat shows and panel discussions where  only antagonistic participation is permitted (and the more one can screech over the other the more likely it is to be re-invited to participate – paid of course).

The Hindu writes:

In newspapers and TV channels, choking with stories on corruption, this is the one story you are the least likely to see. The media are their own worst censors when it comes to reporting on ‘Paid News.’

Just before the 2009 Assembly elections in Maharashtra, a large newspaper group in the State brought its editors together for a meeting in Pune. Generally, it was agreed, winning a seat in the State legislature would cost Rs. 3 crore to Rs. 5 crore. ($700,000 to $1.1 million). ….. If there’s that kind of money being spent, said the cash-box boys, we should get a decent share of it. What, after all, is election expenditure but campaign and propaganda expenses? Detailed plans for ‘pay-to-print’ were soon under way in one of the biggest media groups in the State. ……

Paid news comes in many packages: pre-paid, post-paid and yet-to-be-paid, for instance. There are also deluxe tariffs and aam aadmi tariffs, the former in crores (10s of millions), the latter in lakhs (100,000’s). Sadly, these media groups met, even exceeded, their targets.

But it’s not just during elections that paid news or its Euclidian variants occur. The crazy saturation coverage of Davos in some channels was not caused by breathless public interest or media curiosity. It had a lot to do with ‘partnerships’ and corporate subsidies the public can’t see, and won’t be allowed to see. Some channels sent out ‘rules’ to their journalists of things that just had to be done. Rules with no particular journalistic rationale at all. …..

It is a scam worth more millions than anyone can accurately estimate. Most other institutions of Indian democracy and regulatory structures have tried doing something about it. But in the free media, there was a costly silence…..

So the ECI, Parliament, SEBI and top political leaders have all contributed to the fight against the slaughter of honest journalism. Even the spineless PCI did so, before deserting ship. But in the media there is near-total silence. True, there are the exceptions. And the fact that all those journalists went public at those meetings shows how deep their resentment runs. But institutionally, the media’s failure is huge and, if not reversed, will extract a terrible price. The corporate media have censored the Paid News story, browbeaten their own journalists and cheated the public of information it has every right and need to know.

Read the entire article.

Related: India’s Election Commission To Address It’s Paid News Problem

Paid news syndrome is a full blown cancer in Indian Media

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Posted in Corruption, Ethics, India, Media | Comments Off on Paid news: The cancer in the Indian media

Egypt, Iraq, Who Cares!

February 1, 2011

This is actually two years old from 27th July 2008 but is doing the rounds again on Twitter.

But as a commentary on the competence of some of the more superficial main stream media it remains valid.

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Posted in Media | Comments Off on Egypt, Iraq, Who Cares!

Another perversion of science: Confirmation bias in the name of global warming dogma is also scientific misconduct

January 25, 2011

A new paper has been published in Ecology Letters

Ran Nathan, Nir Horvitz, Yanping He, Anna Kuparinen, Frank M. Schurr, Gabriel G. Katul. Spread of North American wind-dispersed trees in future environments. Ecology Letters, 2011; DOI: 10.1111/j.1461-0248.2010.01573.

In this paper the authors have assumed that climate change will cause changes to CO2 concentration and wind speed. They have assumed also that increased CO2 will “increase fecundity and advance maturation”. They have then modelled the spread of 12 species as a function of wind speed.

So far so good – they have actually modelled only the effect of wind speed  which they assume will reduce due to climate change.

Their results basically showed no effect of wind speed:

“Future spread is predicted to be faster if atmospheric CO2 enrichment would increase fecundity and advance maturation, irrespective of the projected changes in mean surface windspeed”.

And now comes the perversion!

From their fundamental conclusion that wind speed has no effect and that therefore any CO2 increase resulting from climate change will enhance the spread of the trees, they invoke “expected” effects to deny what they have just shown:

“Yet, for only a few species, predicted wind-driven spread will match future climate changes, conditioned on seed abscission occurring only in strong winds and environmental conditions favouring high survival of the farthest-dispersed seeds. Because such conditions are unlikely, North American wind-dispersed trees are expected to lag behind the projected climate range shift.”

This final conclusion is based on absolutely nothing  and their modelling showed nothing and yet this paper was accepted for publication. I have no problem that a result showing “no effect of wind speed” be published but suspect that it needed the nonsense, speculative conclusion to comply with current dogma.

Science Daily then produces the headline: Climate Change Threatens Many Tree Species

when the reality is

This study Shows No Effect of Wind Speed But Yet We Believe that Climate Change Threatens Many Tree Species

“Our research indicates that the natural wind-driven spread of many species of trees will increase, but will occur at a significantly lower pace than that which will be required to cope with the changes in surface temperature,” said Prof. Nathan. “This will raise extinction risk of many tree populations because they will not be able to track the shift in their natural habitats which currently supply them with favorable conditions for establishment and reproduction. As a result, the composition of different tree species in future forests is expected to change and their areas might be reduced, the goods and services that these forests provide for man might be harmed, and wide-ranging steps will have to be taken to ensure seed dispersal in a controlled, directed manner.”

Whether the perversion is by the authors themselves anticipating what is needed to get a paper published or whether it is due to pressure from the Journal Ecology Letters or by their referees is unclear.

Abstract:

Despite ample research, understanding plant spread and predicting their ability to track projected climate changes remain a formidable challenge to be confronted. We modelled the spread of North American wind-dispersed trees in current and future (c. 2060) conditions, accounting for variation in 10 key dispersal, demographic and environmental factors affecting population spread. Predicted spread rates vary substantially among 12 study species, primarily due to inter-specific variation in maturation age, fecundity and seed terminal velocity. Future spread is predicted to be faster if atmospheric CO2 enrichment would increase fecundity and advance maturation, irrespective of the projected changes in mean surface windspeed. Yet, for only a few species, predicted wind-driven spread will match future climate changes, conditioned on seed abscission occurring only in strong winds and environmental conditions favouring high survival of the farthest-dispersed seeds. Because such conditions are unlikely, North American wind-dispersed trees are expected to lag behind the projected climate range shift.

In essence this paper is only based on belief and the results actually obtained are denied. It seems to me that denying or twisting or “moulding” results actually obtained to fit pre-conceived notions is not just a case of confirmation bias but comes very close to scientific misconduct.

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Posted in Alarmism, Climate, Environment, Media, Peer review, Science | Comments Off on Another perversion of science: Confirmation bias in the name of global warming dogma is also scientific misconduct

Next target for Wikileaks will be a megadump of banking information

November 30, 2010

The information paradigm is changing, whether in the political or industrial or commercial or academic world. We are now in the age of megadumps of information and megaleaks from Wikileaks and its inevitable successors.

While the world’s governments threaten legal action against Wikileaks, and bemoan the damage to diplomacy, Australia is considering whether to revoke Julian Assange’s passport. Media which were not in the group of 5 who received the documents in advance are writing heavyweight editorials about the dangers to society of publishing “confidential” information. Some politicians want Wikileaks to be declared a terrorist organisation and many are warning of the “number of lives that will be put at risk”. Professors are weighing in with the dangers to history ! They are all attacking the messenger but “methinks they do protest too much”.

The risk, if any, emanates ultimately from the information or action that is the subject of the document released, not from the release in itself. Diplomats – or others – who are involved in “speaking with a forked tongue” must accept that their duplicity may be revealed. When governments – in the name of the society they represent – take upon themselves the right to tap telephones, intercept documents divert emails, search or arrest members of that society to collect “confidential” information then they will just have to live with the fact that members of that society may feel – technology permitting – the necessity to access and disseminate “confidential” government information. The information world has changed irreversibly and megadumps of information is a reality. It is not a genie which can be stuffed back into the bottle — though some politicians will try.

Attacking the messenger is essentially counter-productive.

I am sure that the self-righteous (and self-serving) indignation currently being exhibited by many politicians and diplomats as their dirty laundry becomes visible will not be present with the next megadump – according to Forbes – of Wikileaks revelations – concerning the banking sector. I find that this information may be of greater public interest than some of the secrets of governments – but that is because I have such low expectations of politicians and diplomats. I have the belief that being in government is inherently corrosive (the corruption of power) and all who attain “positions of power” will always engage in hypocrisy and double-talk. Forbes writes:

Early next year, Julian Assange says, a major American bank will suddenly find itself turned inside out. Tens of thousands of its internal documents will be exposed on Wikileaks.org with no polite requests for executives’ response or other forewarnings. The data dump will lay bare the finance firm’s secrets on the Web for every customer, every competitor, every regulator to examine and pass judgment on.

Sitting for a rare interview in a London garden flat on a rainy November day, he compares what he is ready to unleash to the damning e-mails that poured out of the Enron trial: a comprehensive vivisection of corporate bad behavior. “You could call it the ecosystem of corruption,” he says, refusing to characterize the coming release in more detail. “But it’s also all the regular decision making that turns a blind eye to and supports unethical practices: the oversight that’s not done, the priorities of executives, how they think they’re fulfilling their own self-interest.”

The diplomatic cable megadump is already a reality. The banking megadump will follow. And after banking it may be Energy.

The full transcript of Assange’s interview with Andy Greenberg is here.

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Posted in Behaviour, Business, Corruption, Ethics, Media | Comments Off on Next target for Wikileaks will be a megadump of banking information

Battle lines are being drawn: EADS + Airlines versus Rolls Royce

November 5, 2010

After yesterdays midair failure of a Trent 900 engine on a Qantas Airways A 380 flight the German press today are unanimous in blaming Rolls Royce (and thereby protecting Lufthansa and EADS). Qantas is also positioning itself and questioning Rolls Royce’s engine design.

Der Spiegel writes:

‘Airbus and Qantas Are Victims’ of A380 Engine Problem

While the incident may be damaging to Airbus, German editorialists argue that the Rolls-Royce engine is to blame.

But I think the airlines (Qantas, Lufthansa and Singapore Airlines) and the manufacturer of the Airbus A380 (EADS) cannot so easily paint themselves as victims and absolve themselves of all responsibility. It is the airlines who pressurise the engine makers and the aircraft manufacturers for never ending improvements in fuel efficiency. EADS can ill-afford to market a plane which does not have more than one engine supplier.

Der Spiegel continues:

Qantas Airways CEO Alan Joyce said on Friday that it did not seem to be a maintenance problem. “This is an engine issue and the engines have been maintained by Rolls-Royce since they were installed on the aircraft,” he told a news conference in Sydney. Joyce confirmed that the engine failure had caused damage to the plane’s wing. “That was part of what made this a significant engine failure,” he said.

The center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung writes:

“The problem is not that one of the Airbus A380’s engines failed. … What makes the emergency landing such a serious incident is that parts of the debris damaged the wing. … Rolls-Royce, the manufacturer of the engines, now has to ensure that such a thing never happens again, even if this means that the A380 is grounded for a time.”

“Airplane manufacturer Airbus, as well as the airline Qantas, are the victims here. Yet the failed engine will not do their image much good, following the dramatic images of the damaged aircraft that were seen around the world on Thursday.”

“The A380 was two years late coming to the market. The delay cost the company billions, caused an internal revolution and undermined confidence. … Yet, despite all the criticism, one must not forget that the airlines and passengers praise the aircraft: A380 flights, despite somewhat higher ticket prices, are always full.”

The Financial Times Deutschland writes:

“The engine blow-out on the Airbus A380 that forced the Qantas flight to conduct an emergency landing on Thursday is above all a problem for the engine manufacturer Rolls-Royce.”

“The disaster highlights the dilemma that the entire industry faces. … The necessary and correct demand to make modern aircraft with lower emissions is taking its toll.”

“No one would imply that the testing was consciously sloppy. However, it is obvious that when it comes to a flagship aircraft like the A380 there is immense pressure to get it on the runway as soon as possible. Those who demand more tests do not make any friends. The close call shows, however, how much is at stake.”

In the meantime Singapore Airlines has resumed A380 flights following checks of the aircraft’s engines, despite the head of Qantas saying a design fault may be to blame for yesterday’s engine failure on one of the Australian carrier’s A380s.

Shares of Rolls-Royce Group PLC continued to get battered by the market, losing another 2.7% over fallout from the midair failure of one of its engines on a Qantas Airways flight. They lost 3.3% in value yesterday.


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Posted in Aviation, Business, Engineering, Media, Technology | Comments Off on Battle lines are being drawn: EADS + Airlines versus Rolls Royce

The End is Nigh!

October 26, 2010

Various headlines today tell their own story:

  1. Global Warming to Bring More Intense Storms to Northern Hemisphere in Winter and Southern Hemisphere Year Round
  2. As Arctic Warms, Increased Shipping Likely to Accelerate Climate Change
  3. Thermogeddon: When the Earth gets too hot for humans
  4. Space tourism could have big impact on climate
  5. WARMER ARCTIC SPELLS COLDER WINTERS, and finally
  6. Colorado climate scientists tell Ken Buck: Global warming is not a ‘hoax’

The scam is unravelling.

 

 

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Posted in Alarmism, Climate, Media | Comments Off on The End is Nigh!

Chinese Science Ministry vindicates academic fraud journalists

October 13, 2010
Chinese Academy of Sciences

Chinese Academy of Sciences: Image via Wikipedia

The case of the two crusading journalists in China who were brutally attacked after they had exposed academic fraud has been reported by Retraction Watch and the risks they take has been reported here.

In one case after a quick trial, a local court in Beijing convicted urologist Xiao Chuang-Guo on 10 October of assaulting two well-known advocates of academic integrity in China.
One victim of the attacks was Fang Shimin, freelance writer and self-appointed watchdog of research misconduct. Fang had questioned Xiao’s academic achievements, but this was not what prompted the attack, Xiao claimed. Xiao told the court that he had a decade-long personal conflict with Fang, mainly because Fang had insulted Xiao’s wife and teacher.
http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/10/doctor-sentenced-in-beijing-for.html

But the Chinese Science Ministry has today issued a statement castigating Xiao.

China’s Ministry of Science and Technology has lambasted a doctor at the center of an academic fraud scandal who masterminded two violent attacks on his critics, and denied he was still on the payroll of a medical research project. The ministry issued a statement on its website late Tuesday, claiming Doctor Xiao Chuanguo had no respect for the law and disrupted social order.

It said Xiao should be condemned for his vicious misconduct and lack of integrity. Xiao, 55, head of the Urology Department of Wuhan Union Hospital, was sentenced Sunday to five and a half months in detention by the Shijingshan District People’s Court of Beijing. The court found Xiao hired four men to attack two writers who had accused him of academic fraud.

Xiao believed the accusation had led to his failing to become a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The victims of the violent attacks were Fang Zhouzi, a science writer with a reputation for exposing academic fraud, and Fang Xuanchang, an editor at the economic journal, Caijing.

The ministry denied claims that Xiao was still a chief scientist on a ministry-sponsored science project.

According to the statement, Xiao used to be the chief scientist researching neurological damage repair on the “973 Plan,” a key national science project. The statement said Xiao’s program ran from 2003 to 2008 and that Xiao was no longer responsible for any “973 plan” projects. It said “chief scientist” was not an honorary title.

 

 

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Posted in China, Media, Scientific Fraud | 2 Comments »

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