Patchy’s gone – joins the growing line of privileged sexual predators

February 24, 2015

There will be those who say that Pachauri’s resignation from the IPCC for sexual harassment charges will not hurt the IPCC. After all the transgressions of the Chairman are not necessarily those of others in the IPCC.

But they would be wrong.

The privileged arrogance of Pachauri parallels the privileged arrogance of the IPCC. Pachauri’s sleaze is now being exposed. The IPCC sleaze was revealed with Climategate. And glaciergate and global-ice-gate and global-warming-hiatus-gate and Kilimanjaro-gate. But with so many people in the IPCC the sleaze was spread thin. And we hear now that much of the supposed “global warming” is due to the use of “adjusted” temperatures to cool the past! The sleaze increases. Now even climate itself is denying the global warming /climate change creed.

pachauri grapples mail today http://epaper.mailtoday.in/443860/mt/Mail-Today-February-21-2015#page/2/1

pachauri grapples mail today

I remain hopeful that wallowing in the IPCC sleaze will eventually reach a critical level and become unacceptable. The Mail Today carries details of the “creepy” nature of Pachauri’s harassment. He sounds like a love-sick teenager.

(I met him a few times back in 2000 when we were considering engaging TERI for a project. Partly because of the lack of impact he had, we engaged another party).

FirstPost:

The Daily Mail (Mail Today), has published a detailed report on the interaction between Pachauri and 29-year-old research associate who has sued him for sexual harassment. The several text messages and emails exchanged suggest that Pachauri was relentless in his pursuit of the woman, and had on one occasion embraced her and even tried to kiss her.

When the woman ticked him off saying that such behaviour would not be entertained, he played a miffed teenager complaining that an act spurred by ‘love’ has been misunderstood by the victim as a case of sexual misdemeanour.

“Please you are not to grab me and or kiss me,” the complainant told Pachauri in a text.

To which Pachauri replied, “I wish you would see the difference between something tender and something tender and loving and something crass and vulgar. So I shall slink away and withdraw.” 

It’s a bit of a horrifying image, but you can almost picture Pachauri pouting and crying ‘not fair’.

In another email Pachauri says, “I find it now very difficult to hug you. What haunts me are your words from the last time that I ‘grabbed’ your body. That would apply to someone who would want to molest you. I loved you in the soul, mind, heart…”

While you might be shocked at the audacity of a man, who has been asked to back off by a woman for sexual misbehaviour, Pachauri’s defence will probably strike a chord with many in India.

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Indian government plays down swine flu epidemic which has killed 833 so far

February 24, 2015

Over 14,000 people have been affected so far and the death toll till yesterday had reached 833. The swine flu epidemic in India is spread across the northern states – mainly – though deaths have also been reported in Telengana. But health officials both at state level and in the central government are resisting any discussion and insist that all is under control.

There are reviews and review committees galore and the bureaucratic process is in full swing. State and central government health departments are assiduously collecting data. But state assemblies will not allow debate. There is no shortage of medicines. Health departments “are on the job” but the number of states affected and the number of deaths are rising.

It is not so much being in denial as trying to sweep “unpleasantness” under some bureaucratic carpet. The public private partnership in health care is broken. It is the partnership of an underfunded and hopelessly inadequate public service and a rampant and avaricious private sector. Private hospitals are turning away “public” patients – who they are normally obliged to accept – on the grounds of lacking isolation wards. Private labs are charging exorbitant rates for tests. Tamiflu is being hoarded for the use of paying patients.

DNA: Every time a disease outbreak is reported, the government swings into action. High level review meetings are held in the health ministry and the cabinet secretariat, guidelines are issued for states, health minister visits hospitals and makes reassuring statements that  there is ‘no shortage of drugs and vaccines’. On the ground, however, government hospitals are crowded with patients complaining about lack of proper care, confusion prevails on diagnostic tests and medicines, and generally there is an atmosphere of panic among the general public. This is pretty much the picture whenever a disease outbreak occurs in India or there is a threat of a pandemic touching Indian shores. We have had a series of them in the past decade – Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), Avian influenza (bird flu), swine flu, Ebola and so on. The current outbreak of Influenza A (H1N1) — popularly called swine flu because it originally got transmitted to humans from swine — is no different. The last major outbreak of this flu in India was in 2009 when Influenza A (H1N1) was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organisation. ….. 

…. The private sector today provides nearly 80 per cent of outpatient care and about 60 per cent of inpatient care. However, when outbreaks like swine flu or SARS occur private sector draws into a shell. Patients are denied admission on the pretext of private hospitals not having isolation wards or the fear of losing medical tourists. Pathological labs start charging exorbitant fees for conducting diagnostic tests, as has been happening in the case of the current outbreak. Chemists begin hoarding or black marketing essential drugs like oseltamivir (trade name Tamiflu), working in tandem with private doctors and hospitals.

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Nasty, heathen, Asian gerbils were responsible for European plagues

February 24, 2015

It was fleas on the giant gerbils of central Asia which were to blame. Wet springs followed by warm summers caused giant gerbil populations in the heathen wilds of central Asia to boom. The plague carrying fleas they were infested with also boomed. The fleas jumped – as fleas are wont to do – onto domestic animals and onto humans. These thoughtless Asians forced their trade onto hapless, innocent, Christian Europeans along the Silk Road and through European harbour ports. The fleas, which carried the plague bacteria, jumped again to European rats, found the living good and multiplied. This was back in the 1300s. And for 400 years it was waves of Asian gerbils and their fleas which preyed upon the hapless Europeans. The plague outbreaks in Europe came 15 years after the wet springs and warm summers in Asia. The poor innocent European rats were demonised quite wrongly. This we now know by studying tree rings.

It is, in fact, the Asians who must be blamed for gerbils and the plague and also for language, for agriculture and for religion.

Boris V Schmid et al, Climate-driven introduction of the Black Death and successive plague reintroductions into Europe, PNAS, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1412887112

Abstract: The Black Death, originating in Asia, arrived in the Mediterranean harbors of Europe in 1347 CE, via the land and sea trade routes of the ancient Silk Road system. This epidemic marked the start of the second plague pandemic, which lasted in Europe until the early 19th century. This pandemic is generally understood as the consequence of a singular introduction of Yersinia pestis, after which the disease established itself in European rodents over four centuries. To locate these putative plague reservoirs, we studied the climate fluctuations that preceded regional plague epidemics, based on a dataset of 7,711 georeferenced historical plague outbreaks and 15 annually resolved tree-ring records from Europe and Asia. We provide evidence for repeated climate-driven reintroductions of the bacterium into European harbors from reservoirs in Asia, with a delay of 15 ± 1 y. Our analysis finds no support for the existence of permanent plague reservoirs in medieval Europe.

The gerbil theory is not implausible but it smacks a bit of confirmation bias. The 15 year time lag is less than convincing. A gerbil lives for 3 to 4 years. A flea lives 30 – 90 days. Correlation is not causation. That European outbreaks of plague came 5 gerbil lifetimes later than the population boom in Asia, and about 60 flea generations later than the flea which first infested the sorry gerbil, is a little far-fetched.

 

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The more we know the more we know we don’t know

February 24, 2015

It’s a slow day – so far – and I can’t help yawning.

I don’t know why.

If we can describe all that we know within a circle, whether in a finite or an infinite space, it is clear that

the more we know the greater is what we know we don’t know

what we know we don't know

So the never ending search for knowledge can only increases the knowledge of our lack of knowledge. And that includes (top 3)

  • why we are
  • why we yawn,
  • why gravity is

 

 

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Critical PR exercise for Greece today

February 23, 2015

Greece needs to present its own reform package today to get the rest of the Eurozone countries to ratify the 4 month extension of its bailout tomorrow. The extension was agreed on Friday provided the package to be presented today was sufficiently credible for the lender countries.

That leaves the new Greek government with the PR problem of presenting what is essentially an “austerity package” but which

  • is its own package and not “imposed” by others,
  • is packaged as something different to “austerity” for domestic consumption.

No doubt the leftist government will include items which are ideologically sound but which have little relevance in monetary terms. Among these cosmetic items will be such things as attacking tax evasion by the rich, and getting rid of some “fat-cat” bureaucrats in the civil service, reemploying some who lost their jobs and increasing some social spending.

But the bottom line is that they will have to present a package which is all about “austerity” in everything but name.

In every financial crisis in the last 40 years I am struck by how using economic jargon and quoting high-sounding economic theory does not alter the fundamental fact that a country’s economy is just like that of any household. Past profligacy leads inevitably to current austerity. That many of the profligates may have fled the nest does not alter the fact that the rest of the household must bear the burden of the austerity. There is little doubt that in Greece, the profligacy of a few (the nexus of corrupt politician/civil servants/ business) is leading now to the austerity of the many. Unfortunately not all of the profligacy is a thing of the past. Not all the profligates have fled.

A bankrupt household must increase its earnings to get out of debt. It has no other option. Of course it must first end profligate spending. All household members must “tighten their belts”. Luxuries must be given up. All external expenditure must be curtailed. Assets may have to be sold off. And Greece must do the same. (Selling some islands to Turkey is beyond the pale). The only quick way that I think Greece can increase its earnings is by tourism – not by industry which will take much longer.

And I am convinced that tourism to Greece will do much better with a Greek drachma which is allowed to find its own level rather than being forced to use a Euro which – for Greece – is at too high a level.

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Does Swedish emergency service have a rejection quota?

February 20, 2015

If the manner in which emergency services react to emergencies is a measure of an advanced and civilised society, then the corporatised central emergency service in Sweden (SOS Alarm tel. no 112) leaves a great deal to be desired. It is owned 50% by the State and 50% by counties and municipalities. But it is required to make a “profit”. And the most significant cost cutter it has in its arsenal is not to respond. The latest events and especially the response of their press spokesman makes me wonder if the emergency operators at SOS Alarm are judged by the number of emergency calls they reject?

It has an amazingly bureaucratic method for complaints. But complaints from the dead aren’t too many. Being a state owned institution, it and its employees have little liability and virtually no accountability for their decisions.

Right now it is facing a massive amount of criticism – not for the first time – for its arbitrary decisions on what constitutes an emergency.

The Local: A 16-year-old boy says he feared he would die when he made an emergency call to report he’d been shot, but wasn’t believed by the operator.

The teenager, who hasn’t been named by Swedish media, says he was seriously injured in the shooting and managed to crawl to a bus stop before calling Sweden’s emergency services. He dialed the emergency number 112 several times but was cut off. After then trying the general number for police in Sweden, 114 14, he says the operator did not believe his story. “I was frustrated and yelled that I was dying. Yet she did not believe me,” he said of the woman who picked up the call ……… 

The attack on the boy took place last October during a shootout in Norrahammar just outside Jönköping in southern Sweden. He was also stabbed during the incident in which his friend, 17, died. 

According to the surviving teenager, the phone operator thought he was lying, because he could not tell her his exact location. ……. 

After trying to reach friends and family members instead, he eventually got through to a different operator via 112 and an ambulance was called to the scene.  “I do not feel good. I think my friend might have been saved if the ambulance had arrived immediately,” ……
It has happened before. Emil Linell, 23, died in Stockholm after the SOS Alarm operator arbitrarily decided that his claims that he couldn’t breathe were false. Even though one of his many calls to 112 was terminated as he fainted. He was found dead by a neighbour.
The operators are trained nurses and SOS Alarm uses 3 call centres to cover all of Sweden. Of course the operators then have little local knowledge. The recording of the shot boy’s calls released recently also shows that the operator – who takes a very sharp tone in her suspicions about the boy being shot – could not comprehend the address he was giving.  But my suspicion is that the operators are under instructions to minimise costs by reducing the number of emergencies they respond to. That shows up quite clearly in the very defensive response of SOS Alarm’s Press spokesman:
Swedish Radio: Now SOS Alarm’s spokesman Anders Klarström responds to the massive criticism it has received. … 
“First I want to say that I have great sympathy for this boy’s terrible experiences and the frustration he felt, but I also want to say that this conversation is not true for all the 10 000, 112 calls that come in every day to our SOS centers, of which 4000 should not have been called.
Note that the spokesman starts with the excuse about unnecessary emergency calls. I know many who have nothing but praise for the emergency services. But what I discern here is a corporate culture which is very disturbing. It seems as if SOS Alarm start with the assumption that the call is unnecessary and the caller is required to prove the emergency. The spokesman is clearly justifying the rejection on the grounds that 40% of the calls are unnecessary (in the opinion of SOS Alarm). It would not surprise me at all if the number of rejections by each operator was logged and constituted a Key Performance Indicator (KPI). I begin to suspect that SOS Alarm gives its operators a rejection quota or a rejection target to fulfill.
To give him his due the spokesman does go on to acknowledge the mistake – 6 months after the event. But there are no real repercussions beyond an “internal investigation”. Liability is diluted and nobody needs to take responsibility.  There is no hint of a change of attitude where each call is first assumed to be genuine. If the boy had died – as his friend did – there would be no story.
I note that the tone was too hard on this well-behaved boy. Here we would have presented a smoother attitude. However, I want to emphasize that aid has not been delayed. The actual treatment received during the call is not okay.
And no responsibility was ever taken for the negligent death of Eric Linell.
And if I am ever in an accident or have a heart attack and call 112, I just hope I get a sympathetic operator who does not have a rejection quota to fulfill.

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Fossil fuel use still growing and will provide over 80% of global energy in 2035

February 20, 2015

The BP Energy Outlook for 2035 is out.

  • In absolute terms total energy usage will grow 37%.
  • Two-thirds of the increase in demand is met by fossil fuels. Roughly one-third of the increase in energy demand is provided by gas, another third by oil and coal together, and the final third by non-fossil fuels.
  • In 2035 fossil fuels will still provide 81% of the world’s energy (down from 86% in 2013).

It is fortunate that man-made carbon dioxide emissions are of little significance for global warming since man-made carbon dioxide emissions will increase by over 50% in the next 20 years. But it is unfortunate that the global warming/extreme climate lobby will continue to waste precious resources in attacking something quite irrelevant. So far a massive increase in emissions has caused no global warming for over 18 years. perhaps the fanaticism will decline after another 20 years (probably when the current crop of “climate scientists” have retired).

BP Energy Outlook 2035

BP Energy Outlook 2035

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Net global warming?

February 19, 2015

Climate is the integral of local weather across space and time. This is only weather of course as the bitter cold sweeps across the eastern US.

The coldest outbreak of the season is pushing south into the eastern United States this week. Temperatures will be running as low as 30 to 40 degrees below normal across the Ohio Valley and Mid-Atlantic on Friday morning. Thursday night’s departure from normal temperatures is shown above in Celsius. tropicaltidbits.com via Washington Post

 

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If you want it to survive, print it out!

February 17, 2015

The Google VP Vint Cerf has been warning of the dangers of the loss of digital material as newer programs become unable to read older files and as digital material is corrupted.

Guardian:

Piles of digitised material – from blogs, tweets, pictures and videos, to official documents such as court rulings and emails – may be lost forever because the programs needed to view them will become defunct, Google’s vice-president has warned.

Humanity’s first steps into the digital world could be lost to future historians, Vint Cerf told the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s annual meeting in San Jose, California, warning that we faced a “forgotten generation, or even a forgotten century” through what he called “bit rot”, where old computer files become useless junk.

Cerf called for the development of “digital vellum” to preserve old software and hardware so that out-of-date files could be recovered no matter how old they are.

“When you think about the quantity of documentation from our daily lives that is captured in digital form, like our interactions by email, people’s tweets, and all of the world wide web, it’s clear that we stand to lose an awful lot of our history,” he said.

“We don’t want our digital lives to fade away. If we want to preserve them, we need to make sure that the digital objects we create today can still be rendered far into the future,” he added.

It’s my birthday today and it comes as a sobering thought as I look around my study, that the only things in here that are older than myself are around 20 books which were published and printed in the first half of the 20th century. There is not a single artefact that is older than me. There is one book here printed towards the end of the 19th century.

If you want any writings or images or presentations to have a chance of surviving 100 years, PRINT IT OUT. That may not be enough but it stands a better chance on paper than as a digital file. (I have a large granite rock – a 2m tall “obelisk” – in my garden and possibly the surest way to leave my mark would be to carve something into it. It will have to be symbols since the alphabet may be long forgotten in 10,000 years).

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Mysterious high altitude Martian plume — probably manoeuvres of the Earth invasion fleet

February 16, 2015

There is a new paper in Nature:

A. Sánchez-Lavega et al, An extremely high-altitude plume seen at Mars’ morning terminator, Nature(2015),

doi:10.1038/nature14162

Abstract: ……. Here we report the occurrence in March and April 2012 of two bright, extremely high-altitude plumes at the Martian terminator (the day–night boundary) at 200 to 250 kilometres or more above the surface, and thus well into the ionosphere and the exosphere. …….. They were spotted at a longitude of about 195° west, a latitude of about −45° (at Terra Cimmeria), extended about 500 to 1,000 kilometres in both the north–south and east–west directions, and lasted for about 10 days. The features exhibited day-to-day variability, and were seen at the morning terminator but not at the evening limb, which indicates rapid evolution in less than 10 hours and a cyclic behaviour. We used photometric measurements to explore two possible scenarios and investigate their nature. For particles reflecting solar radiation, clouds of CO2-ice or H2O-ice particles with an effective radius of 0.1 micrometres are favoured over dust. Alternatively, the plume could arise from auroral emission, of a brightness more than 1,000 times that of the Earth’s aurora, over a region with a strong magnetic anomaly where aurorae have previously been detected. Importantly, both explanations defy our current understanding of Mars’ upper atmosphere.

Mars plume

The plume appeared twice in 2012, and stretched for 1,000km (via BBC)

 

Of course what it really was, was the Martian fleet on manoeuvres.

The fleet consists of millions of minute – by Earth standards – spacecraft. Each carries a strand of aggressive RNA specially tailored to modify the DNA of earth based species. They are due to invade Earth probably in February 2018.

This will be the Third Martian Invasion of Earth. The First Invasion introduced life to Earth. The Second got rid of the dinosaurs who were not performing or evolving to expectations. This Third Invasion is to correct the cumulative errors – as perceived by the Martians – building up in human DNA.

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