When the law is an ass and the law-makers are donkeys then judges have to be mules

September 24, 2013

A horse is a vicious species apparently.  I am not sure what the legal definition of a “naturally vicious species” might be, but if it includes a horse then the definition is an ass and any judge applying such a definition would be a mule. The law-makers who put such a definition in place would of course then be donkeys.

Connecticut Post: 

The owner of a horse farm on Wheelers Farms Road in Milford said he will be in Hartford on Tuesday when the state Supreme Court hears arguments about whether his horses — and all horses in Connecticut — should be classified as a “naturally vicious species.”

The court case dates to 2006, when one of Timothy Astriab’s horses at his Glendale Farms operation bit a toddler on the cheek. Astriab says he is not sure which of his half-dozen horses bit the child. 

“The horse is still here,” Astriab said Monday afternoon at the farm. “The parents couldn’t identify which horse did it.”

As Astriab describes it, the incident happened when a father, visiting the farm to buy plants, held his 1½-year-old son up to the horse, which was on the other side of a fence. The boy, at the urging of his parents, might have been attempting to feed the animal some grass, Astriab suggested.

“I wasn’t here at the time,” said Astriab, but the signs are clearly visible on his property: “Do not feed or pet the horses.” …..

…. Astriab said he posted the warning signs before the boy was bitten. But he said none of his horses could be considered vicious, adding that a ruling by the state Supreme Court that all horses are vicious “would open up a whole new ball game” of increased insurance costs for horse owners.

“We would be the only state in the nation that would define horses as vicious,” Astriab said, noting that horses have been working alongside humans for more than 5,000 years.

Horse owners and farmers have indicated they plan to mobilize Tuesday to get the state Supreme Court to overrule a lower court ruling that defined National Velvet, Flicka, Trigger and their ilk as vicious creatures.

And if a horse is to be considered vicious, how then would we classify humans? Especially humans addicted to horse meat!

But perhaps common sense will prevail at the Supreme Court even if it was noticeably absent in the lower court which determined the natural viciousness of horses.

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Posted in Behaviour, Law | Comments Off on When the law is an ass and the law-makers are donkeys then judges have to be mules

“Black hole” vortices in the oceans

September 24, 2013

Intriguing.

This could help explain how bodies of water and other matter are transported around the oceans. But I expect there are as yet unknown mechanisms (probably connected with tectonics and vulcanism) for the exchange of water between the oceans and the earth’s mantle.

Ocean eddies

Mathematically speaking, ocean eddies are counterparts to the black holes in space. (Illustration: G. Haller / ETH Zurich)

ETH Life: According to researchers from ETH Zurich and the University of Miami, some of the largest ocean eddies on Earth are mathematically equivalent to the mysterious black holes of space. These eddies are so tightly shielded by circular water paths that nothing caught up in them escapes. 

The mild winters experienced in Northern Europe are thanks to the Gulf Stream, which makes up part of those ocean currents spanning the globe that impact on the climate. However, our climate is also influenced by huge eddies of over 150 kilometres in diameter that rotate and drift across the ocean. Their number is reportedly on the rise in the Southern Ocean, increasing the northward transport of warm and salty water. Intriguingly, this could moderate the negative impact of melting sea ice in a warming climate.

However, scientists have been unable to quantify this impact so far, because the exact boundaries of these swirling water bodies have remained undetectable. George Haller, Professor of Nonlinear Dynamics at ETH Zurich, and Francisco Beron-Vera, Research Professor of Oceanography at the University of Miami, have now come up with a solution to this problem. In a paper just published in the Journal of Fluid Mechanics, they develop a new mathematical technique to find water-transporting eddies with coherent boundaries. …… Haller and Beron-Vera were able to restore order in this chaos by isolating coherent water islands from a sequence of satellite observations. To their surprise, such coherent eddies turned out to be mathematically equivalent to black holes. …

Haller and Beron-Vera discovered similar closed barriers around select ocean eddies. In these barriers, fluid particles move around in closed loops – similar to the path of light in a photon sphere. And as in a black hole, nothing can escape from the inside of these loops, not even water.

It is precisely these barriers that help to identify coherent ocean eddies in the vast amount of observational data available. According to Haller, the very fact that such coherent water orbits exist amidst complex ocean currents is surprising. …. 

Because black-hole-type ocean eddies are stable, they function in the same way as a transportation vehicle – not only for micro-organisms such as plankton or foreign bodies like plastic waste or oil, but also for water with a heat and salt content that can differ from the surrounding water. Haller and Beron-Vera have verified this observation for the Agulhas Rings, a group of ocean eddies that emerge regularly in the Southern Ocean off the southern tip of Africa and transport warm, salty water northwest. The researchers identified seven Agulhas Rings of the black-hole type, which transported the same body of water without leaking for almost a year.

Haller points out that similar coherent vortices exist in other complex flows outside of the ocean. In this sense, many whirlwinds are likely to be similar to black holes as well. Even the Great Red Spot – a stationary storm – on the planet Jupiter could just be the most spectacular example of a black-hole type vortex . ”Mathematicians have been trying to understand such peculiarly coherent vortices in turbulent flows for a very long time“, explains Haller.

Just after the publication of Haller’s and Beron-Vera’s results, Josefina Olascoaga, also a Professor of Oceanography in Miami, tested their new mathematical method. She unexpectedly found a large, black-hole type eddy in the Gulf of Mexico. (VIDEO) Olascoaga now uses her finding to assess the coherent transport of contamination from a possible future oil spill.

Haller G, Beron-Vera F: Coherent Lagrangian Vortices: The Black Holes of Turbulence. Journal of Fluid Mechanics, vol. 731 (2013) R4: doi:10.1017/jfm.2013.391

Animation of the Agulhas Rings, ocean eddies of the black hole type.

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Another fraudster unmasked in Dutch academia: Anthropologist Mart Bax

September 23, 2013

After the unmasking of the massive scientific misconduct committed by Dirk Smeesters, Don Poldermans and Diedrik Stapel, the Netherlands can ill afford yet another scandal. But that would be living in hope. Now comes this scandal involving an anthropologist, Mart Bax, which appears to be just as massive a fraud.

It does seem that Dutch Universities are cleansing their academic stables. And by the amount of excrement being found it seems to be quite a task! I don’t think that attitudes and pressures in Dutch scientific research are much different to those in other parts of Europe. Which only suggests that while the Dutch are cleaning house, there is a great deal of muck waiting to be found in other countries.

(The picture in the earlier posting was not of Mart Bax but of the journalist who exposed him. The picture has been removed. My thanks to thinkerandtinker for pointing out my error and my apologies to Mr. Frank van Kolfschooten).

Bax retired as a Professor from the Free University (Vrije Universiteit) of Amsterdam in 2003. But for 15 years – at least – he has been making up data. He has invented places where he has claimed to have carried out research, he has made up titles for himself along with claims of non-existent teaching at prestigious universities. Some 64 papers of his 161 claimed publications do not exist.

  • Of the 161 publications claimed by Bax, 64 are non-existent.
  • The book Medjugorje: Religion, Politics, and Violence in Rural Bosnia (1995) mentions a blood feud for which there is no evidence at all. None of the inhabitants of the area are aware of anything like this happening.
  • Shortly after the publication of book mentioned above, Bax acknowledged that he misinterpreted some information, but claimed he did not have the chance to make any rectifications.
  • The commission established he did have the opportunity to rectify these errors at various occasions, yet never did.
  • After the publication of Medjugorje: Religion, Politics, and Violence in Rural Bosnia, Bax referred to the blood feud in three other articles, after he already acknowledged to be aware of the misinterpretation, which the commission labeled as “serious scientific misconduct”.

Retraction Watch: Bax, who studied an Irish town he called Patricksville, a Dutch pilgrimage site he called Neerdonk, and Medjugorje, a Bosnian pilgrimage site, retired from the Free University in 2002. The university began investigating Bax’s work last year after science journalist Frank van Kolfschooten published Ontspoorde Wetenschap (“Derailed science”). In that book, van Kolfschooten raised questions about Bax’s work into an alleged massacre at Medjugorje during the Bosnian War.

 NRC Handelsblad: Again fraud in science is exposed by a university inquiry. Former professor of political anthropology Mart Bax from the Free University has invented research, published nonexistent items put on his list of publications and  committed forgery in university documents. That concludes a commission of inquiry headed by historian Prof. Michiel Baud from the University of Amsterdam.

Volkskrant: The retired professor of political anthropology at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Mart Bax has committed at least 15 years of serious scientific misconduct, forgery and plagiarism itself. That is the conclusion of the inquiry led by historian Michiel Baud in a report released today.  ….

The committee also calls it “very likely” that Bax has made up much of his fieldwork in Brabant and the Bosnian pilgrimage site of Medjugorje from his imagination. But the committee can not formally call it science fraud since Bax insists he was misled by informants themselves. Notes have been destroyed and the informants themselves are untraceable or deceased. The Committee therefore holds it as “serious scientific misconduct “,” deception” and “unethical scientific behavior”.

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Posted in Academic misconduct, Anthropology, Holland, Scientific Fraud, scientific misconduct | 4 Comments »

Move over Nessie! Make way for the Heat Monster in the deep oceans

September 23, 2013
Heat Monster of the Deep

Heat Monster of the Deep (Artist’s impression because it has never been seen)

Global warming has stalled. Global temperatures have been static and may have declined slightly over the last 17-18 years.

Antarctic ice extent is higher than it has been for many years.

Arctic ice extent has just reached its annual minimum and has grown by about 70% from last year’s low.

Polar bears are thriving. Sea levels are increasing ever so slightly and are matching the expected levels for the recovery from the last ice age. The oceans are not getting very acidic (and remain alkaline). Harvests are higher than they have ever been before. The world is feeding more people than ever before. The developing world is crying out for available and affordable energy.

Global warming has gone negative.

But Global Warmists, the IPCC and the policy makers who have been duped for the last 2 decades are in a state of complete denial.

The Guardian (who else?):

“The heat is still coming in, but it appears to have gone into the deep ocean and, frustratingly, we do not have the instruments to measure there,” said Professor Ted Shepherd of Reading University. “Global warming has certainly not gone away.”

How very scientific!

We know the warming is there because our models must be correct. We can’t see it, we can’t measure it and we don’t know how it got to the deep ocean from the surface but we are sure it’s there!!!!!! The Heat Monster of the Deep ate it.

We seem to have entered a cooling cycle – courtesy of the Sun – and settled climate science is reducing to inventing new monsters of the deep. We may even be entering a new Little Ice Age but the policy makers are continuing with useless measures to restrict carbon dioxide emissions which seem to have little impact – if any – on our climate cycles.

Move over Nessie!

The Heat Monster of the Deep is here. It comes to the surface every so often and swallows the heat and dives straight down to to the deep ocean.

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Posted in Alarmism, Climate | 1 Comment »

A parasite which makes for fearless mice

September 22, 2013

A new paper about the effects of the toxoplasma parasite.

Wendy Marie Ingram, Leeanne M. Goodrich, Ellen A. Robey, Michael B. Eisen. Mice Infected with Low-Virulence Strains of Toxoplasma gondii Lose Their Innate Aversion to Cat Urine, Even after Extensive Parasite Clearance. PLoS ONE, 2013; 8 (9): e75246 DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0075246

Abstract: Toxoplasma gondii chronic infection in rodent secondary hosts has been reported to lead to a loss of innate, hard-wired fear toward cats, its primary host. However the generality of this response across T. gondii strains and the underlying mechanism for this pathogen-mediated behavioral change remain unknown. To begin exploring these questions, we evaluated the effects of infection with two previously uninvestigated isolates from the three major North American clonal lineages of T. gondii, Type III and an attenuated strain of Type I. Using an hour-long open field activity assay optimized for this purpose, we measured mouse aversion toward predator and non-predator urines. We show that loss of innate aversion of cat urine is a general trait caused by infection with any of the three major clonal lineages of parasite. Surprisingly, we found that infection with the attenuated Type I parasite results in sustained loss of aversion at times post infection when neither parasite nor ongoing brain inflammation were detectable. This suggests that T. gondii-mediated interruption of mouse innate aversion toward cat urine may occur during early acute infection in a permanent manner, not requiring persistence of parasite cysts or continuing brain inflammation.

Science Daily writes:

Researchers found that mice’s lack of fear of cats persisted even when inflammation markers or cysts could not be detected in mice. (Credit: Wendy Ingram and Adrienne Greene)

The Toxoplasma parasite can be deadly, causing spontaneous abortion in pregnant women or killing immune-compromised patients, but it has even stranger effects in mice. 

Infected mice lose their fear of cats, which is good for both cats and the parasite, because the cat gets an easy meal and the parasite gets into the cat’s intestinal track, the only place it can sexually reproduce and continue its cycle of infection.

New research by graduate student Wendy Ingram at the University of California, Berkeley, reveals a scary twist to this scenario: the parasite’s effect seem to be permanent. The fearless behavior in mice persists long after the mouse recovers from the flu-like symptoms of toxoplasmosis, and for months after the parasitic infection is cleared from the body. ….

“Even when the parasite is cleared and it’s no longer in the brains of the animals, some kind of permanent long-term behavior change has occurred, even though we don’t know what the actual mechanism is,” Ingram said. She speculated that the parasite could damage the smell center of the brain so that the odor of cat urine can’t be detected. The parasite could also directly alter neurons involved in memory and learning, or it could trigger a damaging host response, as in many human autoimmune diseases. …..

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Angela Merkel triumphs – could even govern without the FDP?

September 22, 2013

Angela Merkel’s CDU/CSU have made a very strong showing at over 42% and the exit polls are predicting that both the FDP and AfD (Alternative for Germany) will both miss the 5% threshhold and get no seats. But the FDP and the Greens are the big losers and the AfD are sending a clear anti-European message even if they get no seats.

Angela Merkel is only 2 or 3 seats away from having her own majority without any coalition partners.

The SPD are around 26% and the Greens are down to 8%.

This could give the CDU/CSU around 298 seats in the Bundestag. With the SPD at around 185 seats and the Greens at about 57 seats it is even conceivable that Angela Merkel could govern without any coalition partner dragging her down. It is highly unlikely that the SPD/Greens would call upon the 59 or so seats of the Far Left.

The tactical voting to help the FDP that I was half-expecting does not seem to have taken place.

The Greens will have little leverage.

The way is now clear for a slow reversal of the disastrous nuclear policy pushed by the Greens though Angela Merkel will have to be very dainty on her feet to make this U-turn.

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Feynman lectures now on-line

September 22, 2013

File:The Feynman Lectures on Physics.jpgRichard Feynman is one of my heroes.

The Feynman Lectures on Physics

Caltech and The Feynman Lectures Website are pleased to present this online edition of The Feynman Lectures on Physics. Now, anyone with internet access and a web browser can enjoy reading a high-quality up-to-date copy of Feynman’s legendary lectures. This edition has been designed for ease of reading on devices of any size or shape; text, figures and equations can all be zoomed without degradation.

(This is a work in progress. Initially we are publishing Volume I; We hope to eventually publish Volumes II and III, and lectures will be posted as time and funds permit.)

Some Feynman quotes: (Especially for Global Warmists)

  • The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.
  • It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong  
  • There is a computer disease that anybody who works with computers knows about. It’s a very serious disease and it interferes completely with the work. The trouble with computers is that you ‘play’ with them!
  • If you thought that science was certain – well, that is just an error on your part.
  • Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.
  • No government has the right to decide on the truth of scientific principles, nor to prescribe in any way the character of the questions investigated. 
  • An ordinary fool isn’t a faker; an honest fool is alright. But a dishonest fool is terrible.

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Posted in Philosophy, Physics, Science | 1 Comment »

Tactical voting in the German polls today?

September 22, 2013

Talking to some of my German friends over the last few days, I get the impression that there could be some tactical voting today.

German polls

German polls

The latest polls (via der Spiegel) give Angela Merkel’s CDU-CSU 39% but their coalition partners the FDP are running close to the 5% barrier. The Green vote has come down to around 9% and the recent ballyhoo about their pro-vegetarianism, anti-car and pro-paedophilia positions could hurt them further. The dawning realisation that they have been most responsible for the very high cost of electricity that Germans are burdened with has probably been the underlying reason for their steady decline in the last few months. The far Left are also around 9% and their votes are probably solid especially in Eastern Germany where die-hard communists are still hankering for the “good old days”.

The anti-Euro AfD are running below the 5% barrier and it has been politically incorrect to show any support for them. They could spring a surprise and creep over 5% and that would lead to interesting times – especially if their success is allied with a weakening of the Greens. Paradoxically some of their far-right support could be enhanced by some support from the very far Left.

To get any kind of a comfortable right-of-centre coalition Angela Merkel needs the FDP. For the FDP to fall below 5% could lead to some unnecessary pressures. A Grand Coalition with the SDP is something to be avoided. And this leads to the possibility that some CDU-CSU voters will cast their primary vote for their CDU-CSU candidate but will give their second vote to the FDP party. While no single FDP candidate will be advantaged in winning their own seats, this tactical approach could ensure that the FDP gets close to 7 or 8%. The seats they win as a party could then be close to the number won by the Greens and could provide the cushion that Angela Merkel could be quite thankful for. Talking to my friends (2 CDU supporters and one SDP) I got the impression that

  1. in very strong CDU-CSU constituencies some of the second “party” vote could well go to the FDP, and
  2. in strong SDP constituencies, CDU-CSU voters could cast both their votes for the FDP.

Well, the results will be known in about 12 hours and Angela Merkel’s performance is almost a foregone conclusion. She will be returned for the 3rd time. It is the performance of the Greens, the FDP and the AfD which adds some spice and interest to an otherwise rather low key and almost “boring” election. But it is the very mundane nature of the election which – I think – reflects the mood in Germany and is Angela Merkel’s greatest advantage. She makes common sense and being “boring” virtues devoutly to be sought.

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Posted in Behaviour, Germany, Politics | 1 Comment »

Simple truths are becoming highly inconvenient for the IPCC

September 21, 2013

The simple truths are

  1. Global temperatures exhibit no warming for the last 17-18 years, and
  2. Carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere have increased continuously during the same period  noting that man made carbon dioxide emissions constitute about (at most) 5% of all carbon dioxide emissions.

The tag of “Denier” is now shifting to the Global Warmists who are denying that there is a hiatus in “global warming”. And to those who deny that the causal link between carbon dioxide concentration and global warming – which itself is highly speculative – is now clearly broken.

The Global Warming brigade are now putting pressure on the IPCC and “learned” journals to conceal, cover up, explain away and generally deny these two simple truths for the upcoming release (in parts) of the AR5 report. It is a full-court denialist press to try and ensure that AR5 is not treated as scrap even before it is released.

The reality of global temperatures is increasingly diverging from increasingly discredited climate models. In fact the reality of global temperature measurements since about 1978 would not provide any convincing evidence that any concern regarding “global warming” was justified.

Climate Models versus Reality

Not only are temperatures not increasing as the models  – and their religious adherents – would like but atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide have continued to increase unabated.

Global temparature and carbon dioxide – last 17 years

The two simple truths lead to two simple – but inescapable – conclusions

  1. There is no evidence that “global warming” is an irreversible phenomenon. There is no evidence either that global warming or global cooling are anything other than “natural” variations of climate.
  2. Carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere is not strongly indicated – if at all – as anything but a very small component of the very many which affect global temperature. The man made contribution to global carbon dioxide emissions itself  is about 5% of all carbon dioxide emissions.

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Friday 13th, seven sentenced to death and Narendra Modi chosen as PM candidate

September 14, 2013

In Delhi, 4 of the 5 adults accused of the Delhi rape were sentenced to death. The 5th died earlier in custody. It waas as uicide according to the authorities and an “execution” according to the defence lawyers. The 6th accused – a juevenile – received tham maximum 3 year sentence. The odds oh his surviving his sentence must be considered far from certain.

In Madhya Pradesh a court sentenced 3 to death and a 4th to life in prison. Thry were bus employees who in a dispute with another bus driver torched that bus driver’s bus. That bus was packed with passengers and the accused barricaded the doors. 15 died.

And the BJP announcd the selection of Narendra Modi as their PM candidate for the 2014 elections over the opposition of LK Advani. I suspect Advani may be correct in thinkng it a strategic mistake and too early. I think Modi would have been better served by a few more months of speculation without offering a clear target for the Congess and other parties. The opposition to Modi now has time to mobilise.

It was Friday 13th September 2013 yesterday.

it remains to be seen if it was a Black Friday.

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