Global temperatures are heading downward, and fast

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Good information.

Watts Up With That?

It’s no surprise to us that the “monster” El Niño of 2015/2016 created a very large global temperature spike, after all, that’s what the natural process that creates the phenomenon results in due to the Pacific ocean near the Equator not being able to dissipate heat to space as effectively as it usually does. NOAA says that “ENSO is one of the most important climate phenomena on Earth due to its ability to change the global atmospheric circulation, which in turn, influences temperature and precipitation across the globe. ”

But, as they say, “what goes up, must come down”. NOAA has this to say about the current state:

After dominating the tropical Pacific for more than a year, El Niño ended in May 2016. Near- or below-average temperatures existed in 3 out of 4 ENSO monitoring regions of the tropical Pacific. And for the first time in 2016, wind and…

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For Fathers’ Day

I know I am not the only fatherless child.

I had to listen. I hope you appreciate the share.

All Gay Guys have dads in Orlando

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I can’t add much. Well said.

The Daily Mush

I talked to my father today — he and I see eye to eye on many subjects. I guess I’m still the apple at the base of the tree. We talked of many things in our hour long conversation on Father’s Day … and Orlando came up — for how could it not? And he blamed it fair and square on a crazed Muslim Jihadi. He didn’t try to jump through hoops about the man’s secret repressed homosexuality that caused him to lash out at open gay men – -because just this once the super secreted closeted self-loathing homo — was also a crazed jihadi Muslim — my dad and I agree on this simple point. It was just another off the shelf normal run of the mill everyday crazed Muslim Jihadi out to kill infidels. It was most decidedly NOT a secret self-loathing gay man. Not a gay man…

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Oklahoma County Clerk 2016

I received a flyer from Ms. Mena Samara for Oklahoma County Clerk.

There are no primary races for the Democratic or Libertarian primaries this summer.

The Republicans have two besides Ms. Samara. Ms. Linda Amick Dodson, and Mr. Rick Warren.

Two of those names were just voted on a couple of months ago. The clerk position came open, and we had a special election. Ms. Dodson is in the Oklahoma County Clerk’s office, and she ran a good race. Mr. Warren edged her out though, and then he won the general (special) election for the abbreviated term. So, he is up again, and he has the two challengers.

To be clear, I enthusiastically support the right to ignore the voting booth. If you don’t want to vote, okay. If you want to go and leave a given block blank, I support you. That is our right just as much as to cast the ballot. Either way, we are free. Frankly, in the system as it is now, not voting is probably more important than voting. Either way, I hope you have looked into it and made an informed decision. I encourage all to evaluate the choices available and decide, then act. I hope you don’t just muddle through and find yourself in the ballot booth with no idea what you are looking at, or waking up Wednesday morning realizing you just hadn’t bothered. Life in general, and voting in particular, is worth some effort. Think it through and decide and act.

Mr. Warren has the following description of the Clerk office on his page.

The Oklahoma County Court Clerk presides over the largest, and busiest, Court Clerk’s office in the state. Approximately 120,000 new court cases are filed in Oklahoma County annually, more than any other state, local or federal court in Oklahoma.

The Oklahoma County Court Clerk’s primary duty is to record and maintain court records filed in Oklahoma County, Oklahoma. From the inception of the office until 2002, records were maintained almost entirely in paper form. That year, the first ever document imaging process began, with approximately one-third of the county’s case files being electronically recorded. The large majority of records kept by the Court Clerk are open for public inspection.

Another important duty of the Oklahoma County Court Clerk is to collect and account for all funds deposited in connection with court proceedings. The Oklahoma County Court Clerk’s office annually receives more than $60 million in criminal fines, court costs, bond forfeitures, child support and other such payments. Fiscal oversight of Court Clerk funds is provided by the Supreme Court, the State Treasurer, the State Auditor, the County Treasurer, by internal audit staff and the dozens of government entities to which the Court Clerk transmits funding.

Other services provided by the Oklahoma County Court Clerk’s office include passport processing; marriage licenses; and licensing of private process servers and low point beer providers.

It is a significant public position.

I’m glad we seem to have three well qualified candidates.

Mr. Warren gives some sound files worth hearing. He’s only been in office long enough to get started, but I can’t find complaints. So far, so good.

Ms. Dodson certainly has the experience, and she seems to have the mindset and attention to detail that would keep her successful in the position.

Interesting news note on Ms. Samara’s current occupation at the link.

My hope for the county, our courts and all the county offices, is that we simplify.

From the 120,000 cases per year information above, that is 10,000 per month, which works out at over 460 cases per day (work days). That is practically a case a minute. Really?

Do we need to have so much going in our county that legally requires government involvement?

That doesn’t even count the city or the fed. It is all such a waste.

At least we can pretend we are free when we consider voting, right?

We need less government. We need fewer laws. We need much less regulation.

I wonder if I can get one or more of these candidates to commit to such reductions?

Summer Reading 2

Referencing my initial post on Stark’s Triumph of Christianity, https://gottadobetterthanthis.wordpress.com/2016/06/11/summer-reading/, a little more.

I didn’t double check it, but wikipedia summarizes Stark’s earlier Rise of Christianity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_Christianity

My summary of the summary is that Christians were legit, and they proved it by sticking around and helping, and by preferring martyrdom to armed revolt. Christianity was also mostly strong among the working middle and upper class. The same can be said today. Like most religion, Christianity appeals to the downtrodden masses, but the poor can only take religion so seriously. Bread and health first. The soul second.

To lend credence to his view that Christianity grew only through one-to-one conversions dependent upon family bonds and social circles, he points to modern Mormonism. I think it is a valid point. From the perspective of sociology, it sure seems a sound comparison and good explanation.

I think it is worth mentioning the wikipage for Stark; again, I didn’t run the references. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_Stark I found it interesting.

Changing subject, working from memory without rereading, Stark shows various aspects of Jewish history before and during the Roman era. He points out the armed rebellions, revolts, and simple acts of terrorism conducted throughout those centuries.

I couldn’t help but notice this is another similarity between the Roman Empire and the modern world, particularly similar to the USA. The Jewish people have become almost entirely peace-loving, though they are determined to defend themselves, and terrorism arises from a different source, though the root-causes look almost identical. It is quite legitimate to call for the complete withdrawal of the West from the region. Let them work out what they must. Frankly, it isn’t likely to be worse than what we are doing there.

We really don’t have the problem with oil now. We need to leave.

Here is the stark reality: Rome finally had enough of radical terrorism after the midpoint of the first century. Rome utterly destroyed all that was Jewish in Palestine, including Jerusalem and most of the region. Stark concludes chapter 2 thus, “This was the Jewish world into which Jesus was born and raised, conducted his ministry, and was crucified. It was a society of monotheists dedicated to the importance of holy scripture. In addition to sustaining a remarkable number of scholars and teachers, it was also a world prolific in prophets and terrorists. Hence, this tiny society of Jews at the edge of the empire caused Rome far more trouble than did any other province. It even might be said that in the end, despite having been reduced to rubble by Titus in 70 CE, Jerusalem conquered Rome.”

His point is consistent with the intent of his book. My point is that history is repeating itself.

I really don’t want to be part of a society that is responsible for the destruction of another, no matter how bad terrorism might get. If we leave, and it doesn’t get better, perhaps it will come down to survival. Perhaps the West will have to utterly destroy all that the current terrorists fight for. However, I really don’t see people as that suicidal. The radicals are self-destroying. The extremists die or wise up.

We need to leave. All of the West needs to get out of all of the Middle East. Let them sort out their religions and their politics. It doesn’t really matter if it takes centuries. History always takes centuries. Besides, I think if we let them alone and treat them as equals and as fair trading partners, well, I bet they start acting like equals and fair trading partners.

Let’s try.

The alternative is written in the world of the followers of Jesus in the First Century. We need to at least determine to not repeat that history. Let us learn its lessons and live.

 

Friday Funny: Study claiming psychotic traits linked to conservatism gets reversed–finds liberalism more likely to have those traits

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I don’t put a lot of stuck in such studies. Digging deep in the data usually shows less than claimed, and looking hard at methodology and controls usually leaves me skeptical, wondering how it got past not only the reviewers, but the grant providers in the preliminaries.

Still, the leftists liked it, until they found it was exactly reversed.

Watts Up With That?

From the friends of Stephan Lewandowsky, and upside-down Mann department

From the movie “Young Frankenstein” by Mel Brooks. Igor peruses the brain of “Abby Normal”

Ralph Dave Westfall submits this story:

Here’s an interesting example of possibly politicized research findings getting blown out of the water: Conservative political beliefs not linked to psychotic traits, as study claimed.

Researchers have fixed a number of papers after mistakenly reporting that people who hold conservative political beliefs are more likely to exhibit traits associated with psychoticism, such as authoritarianism and tough-mindedness.

As one of the notices specifies, now it appears that liberal political beliefs are linked with psychoticism. That paper also swapped ideologies when reporting on people higher in neuroticism and social desirability (falsely claiming that you have socially desirable qualities); the original paper said those traits are linked with liberal beliefs, but they are more common among people with conservative values.

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Summer Reading

Rodney Stark is an author. Pastor is conducting a book study on Sunday afternoons of Stark’s The Triumph of Christianity, which is a history of the Jesus-Movement, from just before the first Christmas to modern times. We start this coming Sunday, and we are to discuss the first three chapters. I’ve read them now, and even at this point I can highly recommend this book. Good Reads gives it 4.2 stars out of five. (293 ratings with 59 reviews.)

So insightful.

I appreciate that he keeps pointing out incorrect assumptions. I thank him for taking a matter-of-fact stance and just discussing the facts. He takes the Bible seriously, but he points out where things don’t match up. He also doesn’t cotton dismissing the bible just because there are no other confirmations.

I like his style. Very conversational and easy to read. Good story telling for a history book.

I keep thinking of things I want to write about while reading, and now that I have sat to write, I can’t think of them.

Well, one: He points out serious studies of such things and shows how people’s beliefs primarily match their social circles. Family first, then friends, then community. Well, duh.

He has some interesting comments about evangelization, and he compares Paul to Billy Graham briefly. Good stuff. Mostly, I have discovered that souls can only find agreement with mine when they know I love them, and they love me. It really is one heart at a time.

Oh, Jewish-Roman relations. I need to write about that.

He doesn’t write a lot about most topics he mentions, but the topics are loaded, and I need to write out some of it.

More to come.

Historian Naomi Oreskes fails in historical research

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Facts aren’t usually hard to find, if one will simply look and ask questions of those involved.

Watts Up With That?

By Ron Arnold (from his blog Left exposed)

Naomi Oreskes Warps History

Harvard historian of science Naomi Oreskes is best known to climate realists by her 2010 book,Merchants of Doubt and its scurrilous demonization of climate skeptics as paid hacks parroting the fossil-fuel industry’s self-serving opposition to the “consensus view” of man-made climate catastrophe, but that screed doesn’t reveal the flaws in her work. [See this review of Merchants of Doubt by Dr. S. Fred Singer.]

A short, obscure, error-riddled essay titled, “My Science is Better than Your Science,” that she wrote in 2011 is more significant. It was a chapter in a book titled, How Well Do Facts Travel? The Dissemination of Reliable Knowledge, and examined the 1991 origin of the “skeptics are paid industry shills” narrative supposedly found in a legendary set of “leaked Western Fuels memos.”

That short chapter is important because Oreskes totally misinterprets…

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