Cartels and Hypocrisy. But what happened to ethics?

June 24, 2010

Firms and private cartels get fined but when OPEC countries fix prices it’s OK and when the International Diamond Cartel operates it is found to be beneficial!!!

But ethics don’t get a mention.

EU fines bathroom cartel 622m euros

Seventeen bathroom equipment makers have been fined a total of 622m euros ($760; £510m) by the European Commission for price-fixing. The companies, including Ideal Standard of the US, which was fined 326m euros, formed a cartel for 12 years covering ceramics such as sinks, baths and taps.

The fines of five companies were reduced to a level they could afford. The Commission described the firms’ practices as “very serious infringements of the EU competition rules”.

However, it said its objective was not to force companies in difficulties out of business, and so reduced the fines on five companies. One, Masco of Italy, received full immunity as it was the first to provide information on the cartel.

Public cartels were also permitted in the United States during the Great Depression in the 1930s and continued to exist for some time after World War II in industries such as coal mining and oil production. Cartels have also played an extensive role in the German economy during the inter-war period. International commodity agreements covering products such as coffee, sugar, tin and more recently oil (OPEC) are examples of international cartels with publicly entailed agreements between different national governments.

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Mining Super Tax scrapped? Perhaps sanity will return

June 24, 2010

The backlash against the mining super tax proposed in Australia I referred to here in an earlier post seems to have contributed to the exit of the Australian Prime Minister.

The Australian reports

Stocks, dollar rise on Rudd’s exit

AUSTRALIAN financial markets have reacted positively to the Labor leadership spill, with expectations new Prime Minister Julia Gillard will overhaul the controversial resource super-profit tax (RSPT).

“We understand that Gillard is a supporter of the RSPT, the current proposal following the Henry Review was largely drafted by Rudd and Swan,” Ms Ong said.

“Given the backlash from the business community and limited public support, the new leadership team is a good excuse to change the RSPT in its current form.

“We expect the new PM to announce a watered down version of the RSPT in the coming weeks. The most likely changes will probably be to the uplift the rate, tax rebate on losses over the investment life of projects, and concessions for particular commodities although we would not rule out any tinkering to the proposed 40 per cent rate of tax.

“There is also the outside chance that the RSPT is dumped all together. This, however, would be poor long term macro policy as political survival dictates.”

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Home made Fusion reactors at room temperature!!

June 23, 2010

Whatever next??

Cold fusion was a bust so it now moves to room temperature.

I note that investors are being sought but I think I’ll pass.

But Good Luck to Mr. Suppes anyway.

Building a homemade nuclear reactor in NYC

Mr Suppes, 32, is part of a growing community of “fusioneers” – amateur science junkies who are building homemade fusion reactors, for fun and with an eye to being part of the solution to that problem.

He is the 38th independent amateur physicist in the world to achieve nuclear fusion from a homemade reactor, according to community site Fusor.net. Others on the list include a 15-year-old from Michigan and a doctoral student in Ohio.

The fusion reactor in the Brooklyn warehouse

Mr Suppes has spent the last two years perfecting his reactor

“I was inspired because I believed I was looking at a technology that could actually work to solve our energy problems, and I believed it was something that I could at least begin to build,” Mr Suppes told the BBC.

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McCarthyism returns to the NAS

June 22, 2010

It seems that the high priests of global warming now believe that science is determined by who is more “authoritative”.

We have had “consensus science” and “settled science” and now we have “authoritative science”.

Perhaps we should just have a poll.

Climate change sceptic scientists ‘less prominent and authoritative’

The research indicates that scientists who blame human activity for global warming have published more relevant and influential papers than those who question man’s impact.

But the study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has been dismissed as misleading by critics.

Opponents said that the paper divided scientists into artificial groups and did not consider a balanced spectrum of scientists.

They also pointed out that climate sceptics often struggled to get their papers accepted by journals, as they must first be reviewed and approved by climate change “believers”.

Judith Curry, a climate expert at the Georgia Institute of Technology – who was not part of the analysis – called the study “completely unconvincing” while John Christy of University of Alabama claimed he and other climate sceptics included in the survey were simply “being blacklisted” by colleagues.


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Developing language of Global Warming

June 21, 2010

alarmist –  a paranoid Warmist

AGW –  a religion propogating the homo-centric view of the universe and denying any influence of the sun

climate scientist  –  one who tricks successfully; a failed  statistician

climategate –  release on the internet of the inner workings of the hockeystick team

denialist  –  a heretical sceptic

Gore   –  a figurehead for AGW

hockeystick   – a Warmist religious symbol; a graph depicting the uncontrolled increase of any paramater

hockeystick team  – a small group of fanatical Warmists who created the hockeystick symbol by a trick

IPCC   – The High Church of AGW; primarily an advocacy group for the generation of funds for Warmist projects

Jones  – A Warmist priest and member of the UK Chapter of the hockeystick team

Mann  –  A Warmist priest and inventor of the trick

mann  –  n. a successful practitioner of a trick (not to be confused with a human person)

(mann.ism  n. a trick; mann.ick  adj. manic)

Pachauri  –  High Priest of the IPCC, a railway engineer who underwent a religious conversion to Warmism

peer-review – process for preventing publication by heretics  comparable to excommunication

sceptic – a scientist; a heretic

trick  –   n. data manipulation by exclusion; v. to selectively exclude data to achieve a desired result

settled science – as defined by the High Church

voodoo science – any  scientific endeavour following the scientific method but not conforming to to Warmism dogma

Warmist    –  one who adheres to the religion of  man-made Global Warming

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Wind stops wind power…..

June 20, 2010

It is sometimes overlooked that the difficulty to store electric energy can make wind and solar power – even if they were competitive enough not to be subsidised – impractical.  Energy storage is still a major barrier to be overcome in the use of renewable power.

The economics of the subsidy mechanisms can lead to strange distortions which in turn can lead to extremely lucrative but ridiculous situations such as:

  1. solar plants using electricity from the grid to produce electricity for the grid since the subsidy makes it worth-while
  2. the intermittent nature of the power leading to inter-connection instabilities which lead to owners being paid not to produce power
  3. wind power – as in this article today – having to shut down when there is insufficient load
  4. solar plants using natural gas at night to heat up the heat transfer medium (oils or molten salts) which then generates steam and runs the steam turbine to produce electricity.

Firms paid to shut down wind farms when the wind is blowing.

A general view of Europe's biggest onshore wind farm, Whitelee Windfarm on the outskirts of Glasgow

Energy firms will receive thousands of pounds a day per wind farm to turn off their turbines because the National Grid cannot use the power they are producing. Critics of wind farms have seized on the revelation as evidence of the unsuitability of turbines to meet the UK’s energy needs in the future. They claim that the ‘intermittent’ nature of wind makes such farms unreliable providers of electricity.

Solar and Wind power have still some way to go before they are anywhere near commercial.

But the area of research which could probably do with more funding is that of energy storage but it is probably not fashionable enough. Instead of subsidising the owners of renewable energy plants (note that the subsidy rarely reaches the consumer), it might be better to conduct more R & D for the storage and recovery of electrical energy.

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Circular Arguments and Speculation masquerading as Science

June 18, 2010

It is still fashionable – and probably profitable – to connect whatever you are working with to Global Warming.

Artist's impression of mammoths in North America

“The inception of a strong carbon dioxide–greenhouse gas feedback and amplification of orbital forcing at ~2.7 million years ago connected the fate of Northern Hemisphere ice sheets with global ocean temperatures since that time.” So says Timothy Herbert of Brown University in a new paper in Science.

His speculations are less than convincing but no doubt he brings in CO2 forcing either to get funding or to facilitate publication.

Completely circular arguments !!

1. Start by assuming that CO2 induced forcing mechanisms cause global temperature change.

2. Analyse the composition of mud cores from 4 regions in the tropics laid down millions of years ago.

3. Find a temperature “fingerprint” ({delta}18O) in the tropical samples showing an increase of temperature of 1° to 3°C some 2.7 Million years ago. Assume that this is unique and exclusive to temperature.

4.Since the “patterns are similar”  the common mechanism must be via the atmosphere.

5. Voila !! This proves that a forcing mechanism induced by CO2 must have been the common cause of the temperature pattern !!!!!

A so-called science reporter  – a Victoria Gill – at the BBC then proclaims “Ancient climate change ‘link’ to CO2”.

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The Ten Cannots by Boetcker (1916)

June 17, 2010
Seen on JoNova

  1. You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
  2. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
  3. You cannot help little men by tearing down big men.
  4. You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
  5. You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
  6. You cannot establish sound security on borrowed money.
  7. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
  8. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn.
  9. You cannot build character and courage by destroying men’s initiative and independence.
  10. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they can and should do for themselves.

William John Henry Boetcker (1873 – 1962) was an American religious leader and influential public speaker.

From Wikipedia:

Born in Hamburg, Germany, he was ordained a Presbyterian minister soon after his arrival in the United States. As a young adult. Rev. Boetcker was raised in Erie, Pennsylvania and ordained in Brooklyn, New York. He quickly gained attention as an eloquent motivational speaker.  Rev. Boetcker is perhaps best remembered for his authorship of a pamphlet entitled The Ten Cannots. Originally published in 1916, it is often misattributed to Abraham Lincoln.

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World Cup Round-up: after Week 1 the vuvuzela wins

June 17, 2010

Every team has played once.

Germany – promising; England – predictable; Spain – disappointing; Brazil – still sleeping; Nigeria- no-hopers;  Holland- still-in; France- missing Zidane; Chile – Outsiders; Uruguay – impressive; Greece – in crisis.

The quality of the football has not lived up to the hype.

The greed of FIFA is breath-taking and FIFA is making an ass of itself.

Dutch women fans at the match against Denmark in Soccer City, Johannesburg, 14 June

The clear winner so far has been the vuvuzela.

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IPCC is to Science what Mussolini was to Democracy

June 15, 2010

Pachauri’s back!!

The BBC reports that “The head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Rajendra Pachauri, says he welcomes “the development of a vigorous debate” on climate science”.

It would seem that he has changed his tune such that what he once considered “voodoo science” is now elevated to  “vigorous debate”. I am afraid his credibility has evaporated completely and whatever credit he once had when simply running TERI has been fatally contaminated by his mixing of science with greed and advocacy while at the IPCC.

As Der Spiegel reported in April

Also at issue is the position of IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri, who is praised as a “leading global thinker” in his official biography. A railroad engineer by trade, Pachauri wrote an erotic novel and recommended that people reduce their meat consumption while traveling around the world to save the climate. He has cut a miserable figure during the current crisis. The climate guru summarily dismissed justified objections to the IPCC report as “voodoo science.”

After the Climategate circus and the discrediting of the IPCC the UN has established its own inquiry (which is a long way from being independent and seems slightly incestuous) to contemplate its own navel. An “expert” review panel convened by the InterAcademy Council (IAC) – a network of science academies across the world, such as the UK’s Royal Society – will hear testimony from four expert witnesses at the session in Montreal.

Pachauri’s new found respect for scientific dissent and openness is in marked contrast to his wish in February 2010 that skeptics would “apply asbestos to their faces every day.”

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