53percenter's Blog

Data available in both text and csv formats at the NASA, GISS website have been routinely cited as indicative of global warming despite their known weaknesses.  The three years 2015 through 2017 are widely reported as the three hottest years on record.

Tony Heller, however, has demonstrated that tampering with data from the U.S. Climatology Network (USHCN) has created the illusion of much higher temperatures in reported data than in the original data, for the continental United States.  This leads one to wonder how much not so widely known “adjustments” in GISS data have been responsible for similar results at a global level.

The GISS data are updated around the middle of each month, and I have compared the January and March versions in figure 1, for the years 1881 through 2017.  The data are smoothed over two years, in that, for example, the 1881 data point is the average of 1880 and 1881 and 2017 the average for 2016 and 2017.  This is commonly done to make data more presentable, allowing movements to be more clearly discerned and to smooth out the effects of “abnormal” years.

This comparison allows two interesting observations.  Firstly, the March revised data indicate somewhat higher temperatures in roughly the early third of the period, and somewhat lower temperatures the last third of the period.  The overall pattern, one of warming, however, remains…

  

…albeit slightly more muted than in the January version of the data, with 2015 through 2017 still being indicated as record hot years.  Importantly, the data points for 2016 and 2017 are much lower in the revised data, and the three years 2015 to 2017 show no acceleration in temperatures.

The second observation is that the 2017 data point (an average of 2016 and 2017 anomalies) is slightly lower than the 2016 point (an average of 2015 and 2016).  This implies that temperatures have fallen substantially during some months in 2017 below those of 2016, as if some sort of cycle may be taking place.  One can observe this from the monthly data in Figure 2, where temperatures peak in the first three months of 2016 before declining sharply in April and falling below those of 2015 from October through December.  Temperatures for the first eleven months of 2017 are below those of the corresponding months in 2016.  Importantly, the downward trend in temperatures continues into 2018, where January and February anomalies are both below December 2017, and those of the previous three years.

At least part of the cycle in the record temperature anomalies begun in late 2015 is related the “El Niño” effect and was recognized as making 2016 the “hottest” year on record, as early as July of that year, by Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS).  El Niños typically occur every three to five years, with related temperature effects often lasting for many months.

Of course, any data set from only 1880, and inadequately covering the earth’s surface area, does not provide a definitive answer to the question of “global warming” in terms of geological time of thousands of years, and representing the entirety of the Earth.  But, as it has been the data set often referenced to substantiate global warming, one would have thought the substantially lower temperatures of the last many months would have merited highlighting in the mainstream media.

Is the selection of judges for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court based, in part, on their sex, race, or ethnicity?  The question arises from newly released texts sent between Federal Bureau of Investigation agent Peter Strzok and FBI attorney Lisa Page.

Most attention to these texts is focused on their revelation of an apparent friendship between Strzok and United States Federal District Court judge Rudolph Contreras, who was appointed to the United States District Court for the District of Columbia by President Barack Obama in March of 2012.  Contreras has served on the FISC since May 19, 2016, with his term expiring on May 18, 2023.  Judges are selected for the FISC by the chief justice of the United States, who presently is John Roberts.  Strzok’s relationship with Contreras might have created a conflict of interest for Contreras regarding his presiding over General Michael Flynn’s guilty plea, as discussed by Mollie Hemingway of The Federalist and by Chuck Ross of The Daily Caller.

The Daily Caller quotes one of Strzok’s texts that apparently describes a conversation Strzok had with Contreras about his appointment to the FISC:

He mentioned thinking about it even though he was junior, they needed people and they especially needed minorities, and then he said he’d gotten on a month or two ago at a graduation party we were both at. 

This raises several questions.  Do the criteria for selecting FISC judges include sex, race, or ethnicity?  Does Contreras believe that the FISC “especially needed minorities,” or does Contreras believe that this is a belief held by those who select the FISC judges, or both?  If selection of FISC judges is based, in part, on sex, race, or ethnicity, how are such preferences consistent with laws that prohibit such preferences?

Somebody should have a discussion with Contreras and Roberts about these questions.  The media should try to find out about any such preferences.

Allan J. Favish is an attorney in Los Angeles.  His website is allanfavish.com.  James Fernald and Mr. Favish have co-authored a book about what might happen if the government ran Disneyland, entitled Fireworks! If the Government Ran the Fairest Kingdom of Them All (A Very Unauthorized Fantasy).

Many English-speaking people have little appreciation of what a wonderful gift their language is.  Partly because it incorporates so many other languages, and partly because of the rich traditions of Western culture, English is the most expressive, most useful, and most powerful language in the world.  We should treasure it.

That is why it irks me to see so many professional communicators misuse it.  The abusers in the news media are the people whose errors are most widely exposed to the public, but I have also seen written communications by professionals that cause me to cringe.

The final straw (for me) came when several instances of the misuse of the word “decimate” were aired on television.  The term has so commonly been misused that its colloquial definition has become closer to the word “devastate” than to its actual definition.  Decimation was a punitive practice of the ancient Roman army, in which every tenth man in the unit was put to death, and the execution was carried out by the other nine, which made “decimation” into a “devastating” experience, even for the survivors.

Many people today think decimation means a loss of ninety percent, not ten.

Another word commonly misused is “systemic,” which is often replaced with the related word “systematic.”  Systemic more appropriately refers to an embedded problem or defect than to a systematic solution to that problem.  A systemic property need not be a problem, but systematic problems should never exist.

Very commonly, the words “affect” and “effect” are improperly interchanged, as are “dual” and “duel.” 

Some words are commonly mispronounced – for example, “politization” instead of politicization and “undoubtably” instead of undoubtedly.

Perhaps the most irksome abuse of words is the use of the term “tragedy” when, in fact, the correct word is “atrocity.”  Tragedies tend to be accidental; atrocities are inflicted with deliberate and evil intent.

I am by no means immune to making linguistic errors myself, as my former teachers and editors will readily attest.  The purpose of this commentary is not to unduly criticize the honest mistakes of well meaning people, but rather to point to a need for all of us to take seriously the need to safeguard our language, not to consign that duty to “spell-check,” which often produces these errors.

I challenge each of you to review the following list and see whether you might be able to distinguish all of the following words from the others in the same line.

If you can’t, don’t be decimated.

Affect	Effect
Exacerbate	Exasperate
Access	Excess
Dual	Duel
Futile	Feudal
Politicization	Politization
Undoubtedly	Undoubtably
Capitol	Capital
Principle	Principal
Pled	Pleaded
Lead	Led
Medal	Metal	Mettle
Sight	Site	Cite
Where	Wear	Ware
There	Their	They’re
Fair	Fare
Who	Whom
Disperse	Disburse
Discriminate	Disseminate
Systematic	Systemic
Conscious	Conscience
Role	Roll
Untold	Untolled
Decimate	Devastate

It is certainly fine that children are protesting guns and mourning the loss of students.  But it is time for parents, teachers, the media, politicians, and other adults to teach some facts about history and why we have a Second Amendment so that these students know what they are protesting about.

Does taking away guns really make people safer?  The North Korean people are not safe because the tyrants don’t allow ordinary citizens to have guns.  Disarmed, they are in danger every day.

In the same way, the far-left Nazis took away the guns in Germany in the 1930s, and millions of Jews died, in some measure because they had no way to protect themselves.

The United States would not be free today if only Great Britain and the Tory loyalists had guns.  The reason for the Second Amendment was not because of hunting.  It was to protect the people from a tyrannical government, and there have been many tyrants willing to kill their own people if they dare get out of line.  Some of them exist today.

Shouldn’t the children and the public be told that the ten-year assault weapon ban from 1994 to 2004 didn’t reduce the “lethality and injuriousness of gun violence”?  Here is an account from the Washington Times:

The federal assault-weapons ban, scheduled to expire in September, is not responsible for the nation’s steady decline in gun-related violence and its renewal likely will achieve little, according to an independent study commissioned by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ).

“We cannot clearly credit the ban with any of the nation’s recent drop in gun violence. And, indeed, there has been no discernible reduction in the lethality and injuriousness of gun violence,” said the unreleased NIJ report, written by Christopher Koper, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. 

Tens of millions of law-abiding, stable people in the U.S. have guns, and they are used in a safe manner.  A small minority of people with guns are dangerous.  The problem is not the guns themselves or the National Rifle Association; it is basically the many policies in the U.S. to which I will refer as the non-sensible “look the other way” policies.

Here are some of them:

The PROMISE program, where schools don’t report bad children to the police so they don’t have a criminal record.

The intent of PROMISE is to safeguard the student from entering the judicial system.

Broward County schools got extra money from the federal government by pretending there weren’t as many bad children.  Here is a report on that:

Bombshell Report: Broward County Schools and Police Colluded to Shield Criminal Students

Clues about how Nikolas Cruz slipped through cracks are emerging

The Broward County School Board and District Superintendent, entered into a political agreement with Broward County Law enforcement officials to stop arresting students for crimes.”

“The motive was simple.  The school system administrators wanted to ‘improve their statistics’ and gain state and federal grant money for improvements therein.”

Just those two look-the-other-way policies are enough to ensure that guns get into the wrong hands, as they did in Florida, which is what the protests are all about.

But there are so many other such look-the-other-way policies, and like these, they lead to disasters:

Sanctuary cities and states just ignore federal immigration laws.

Deaths in U.S cities because of drug addiction were ignored because President Obama saw no political advantage for himself in it and was working on his legacy.

Deviant Catholic priests were allowed to sexually abuse thousands of adolescent boys.

Penn State looked the other way as a coach abused young athletes.

Michigan State and the Olympic committee looked the other way as hundreds of children were abused.

Hollywood, journalists, Democrats, and many others looked the other way as powerful people like Harvey Weinstein abused women.

It makes me sick when I read about:

A career criminal being out on the street to commit more crime.

An illegal alien who has been deported several times committing violent crimes, including murder.

When school officials, the FBI, and local law enforcement officials knew that Nikolas Cruz was dangerous, yet they did not protect society from him, and he killed seventeen. Similar dereliction happened at Fort Hood and in the Texas church massacre.

In all the above cases, the media, politicians, Hollywood, and community organizers (Alinsky disciples) know of the breakdowns in policy and the neglect of government, yet they all blame the guns and the NRA because that is the agenda.

Today, we have a president who is trying to restore the power, freedom, and the purse back to the people where it belongs, even as a dangerous media cabal seeks to destroy him every day.  This is what the young protesters get not the least teaching on as they go about their gun protest.  It’s a downright shame.