REAL Charcoal, Humans First Fuel Technology

Humans have been making... and cooking with... charcoal for thousands of years.

It was literally our first processed fuel technology, making a much hotter, cleaner, and more manageable fire than wood, with MUCH lighter and easier to pack fuel.

...In fact, charcoal is STILL the most common cooking fuel in much of Africa and parts of Asia and south America even today.

We've come up with hundreds of ways of cooking, since we started cooking over charcoal... None of them taste any better, and very few nearly as good.

Sadly.. Lots of people think cooking with charcoal is a hassle and a mess. They prefer propane, or just using their ovens or broilers.. or maybe cast iron preheated in the oven, then used over really hot burner...

... all of which can produce good results of course, especially cast iron....

... and if they've only cooked with "charcoal briquettes"... which aren't anything like actual charcoal (more on that later)... I can certainly understand why they would (mistakenly) think charcoal was not that great, a mess, and a hassle...

...Because they've never ACTUALLY cooked with charcoal...

Cooking with natural lump charcoal, is one of the most efficient, quickest, easiest, and least messy means of cooking there is... And of course, one of the tastiest.

Wood, natural gas, and propane (and some types of mineral coal), all make for medium temperature, and very "wet" heat, with lots of, sometimes unpleasant, residues (and odors).

Natural lump charcoal makes for a cook fire, so hot and dry, (because it burns very efficiently and nearly completely), that it lets you get a hard sear, or even char on the outside, while still staying juicy, tender, and medium rare inside.... Even for very thin cuts of meat, or very small pieces like steak tips.

Propane can't do that, nor can any home oven or most home ranges... even with thick cast iron. In fact, it's basically impossible to get anywhere near as good delivery of heat into your food as natural lump charcoal can give you, without very expensive specialty restaurant equipment.

... and if you like cooking in cast Iron, you have no idea how great it can be, until you cook with cast iron and proper charcoal... Propane and natural gas can't hold a candle.

Now... if you're cooking with briquettes, that's another story entirely... They're awful...

Briquettes really ARE a high effort hassle for poor results...

They don't smell right, sometimes food doesn't taste right with them, they're heavy and messy, they are difficult and take forever to light and usually need starting fluid (sometimes even with a chimney starter), they make for low and uneven heating... they can even choke off their own fire and end up going out... and most of all, they can take 30 or 45 minutes before you're ready to cook.

And of course, with propane... or even with an oven or a range and cast iron, you've got to pre-heat for 10 to 20 minutes as well...

Real charcoal is nothing like a hassle...

With a chimney starter, and natural lump charcoal; going from nothing to ready to cook, is very quick, and takes almost no effort.

Literally 20 seconds of trivial effort to load the charcoal and light the starter, and 10-15 minutes of waiting for the coals to get ready...

...and then you're cooking, at a FAR higher temperature than any home oven or burner can get.

How hot can it get?

A natural lump charcoal fire, in a chimney starter, can easily get to over 1400 degrees.

If you use enough charcoal, and let it burn a few minutes longer and hotter, it will get to the point where it is generating its own blast draft, just like a furnace.

When it's blasting like a furnace, that fire can get steel to cherry red, which is over 1500 degrees... even up to a bright cherry red as high as 1700 degrees... (leave it long enough, with enough airflow, and enough charcoal, and it can go even higher, and melt the thin sheetmetal of the chimney starter. With a bellows or blower, you can easily get a charcoal fire hot enough to forge, and even to smelt, steel).

Ok... but how hot can I actually cook with it?

After dumping the chimney into the grill, when the charcoal is glowing bright red on the grate; with good airflow and proper insulation under the fire, you can see a temperature at the grill surface of 800 to 1100 degrees easily... sometimes higher (I've regularly measured 1200 with a non contact thermometer).

... Which means cooking faster, which means getting better texture and flavor, without overcooking.

In fact, if you're just cooking a couple of steaks, burgers, breasts etc... you can just take a grill grate, and cook right on top of the chimney starter, using much less charcoal.

You cook right on the starter, it takes about 3 minutes total to cook a 1" thick steak to medium rare... 90 seconds a side.

It only takes enough charcoal to make the chimney work properly... a few ounces, a few inches, and some waste paper. I light it with a blowtorch to make it even faster and easier... and more fun... When the charcoal is fully ignited... you don't have to wait for an orange hot jet of flame but you can if you like... you're ready to cook.

When you burn it that hot, charcoal burns almost completely... Almost no cleanup... because it's REAL charcoal. No pan, no oven, just a little bit of ash... and really, it's only a little bit.

... and it's not all about the fast and hot...

If you want a lower and slower cook, get your starter to the point where all the charcoal has caught, but not where it's generating its own updraft blast furnace...

Then dump on the grate, and restrict the airflow into the firebox. Everything will slow down, and smolder, for quite a long time.

You can easily sustain a low and slow, or a medium heat, for hours... anywhere from 190 degrees in the grill box, to 400-500 degrees... adding new charcoal as necessary.

With a well insulated hot box, this dry controlled heat is ideal for pizza and certain kinds of bread baking. In fact, it's likely the only way most home cooks can actually get an oven hot enough to make proper pizza (though using a combination of firebrick and a thick piece of pizza steel, and preheating for a long time, can get you close).

... and of course, you can smoke meats this way, with seasoned smoking wood added to the charcoal.

It really is just better...

When I have the gear, and the space, I cook with REAL charcoal year round, rain, shine, snow (just rig an awning)... doesn't matter.

It can actually be much LESS hassle, and much LESS cleanup, than using your kitchen.

It's not like cooking with "charcoal briquettes"...which... and this is the important part... aren't even actual charcoal.

Wait... Briquettes aren't charcoal?

No... really... they're not. Not even much like it at all actually.

"Charcoal briquettes" are actually mostly sand or clay, and binders, with a little blackened sawdust, and coal dust mixed in.

Kingsford, the %1 brand in America...

...Also the FIRST brand of charcoal briquettes, as they actually invented the product, as a way to use the leftover wood scraps and sawdust from making wooden car body pieces in Henry Fords factories. Kingsford was the name of Fords cousin, who was the first president of the company...

...lists the following as the ingredients of their briquettes:

• Wood char (partially charred sawdust and wood flour)
• Mineral char (partially burned coal dust from processing of soft brown lignite coal)
• Mineral carbon (unburned coal dust from soft brown lignite coal)
• Limestone
• Starch
• Borax
• Sodium nitrate
• Sawdust

Even the "wood char" isn't really charcoal, it's blackened sawdust and wood flour (often left over from paper and saw mills, which is good), but it hasn't really been pyrolized as proper charcoal.

Basically, they're over 90% stuff that isn't anything like charcoal, and less than 10% of stuff that is sort of like charcoal... but no actual charcoal.

That's why they can't cook worth a damn, why they take forever to heat, and why there is so much mess. They don't light well, they don't burn well, and they don't cook well.

Thankfully, you can get natural lump charcoal almost anywhere now (including walmart), and given how little you actually need, for how much you can cook with it... it's actually LESS expensive than briquettes.

Good natural lump charcoal runs between $1 and $1.50 a pound. "Good" briquettes run between $0.50 and $1.00 a pound.

Initially, that may seem significantly MORE expensive, however, with lump, you never need to use starting fluid ($4 a bottle, which lasts what... 20lbs?) and you don't waste 80% of your heat "waiting for the coals to be ready".

More importantly, because it cooks so much hotter and so much faster, and because you start cooking in 10 minutes not 30-45...

...You can cook more with 1lb of lump, than you can with 5lbs of briquettes...

Yes, really, it's about 5 to 1.

... And of course, because lump burns much more completely and cleaner, and briquettes are literally more than 90% "nothing like charcoal"...when you're done with that 1lb of lump vs 5lbs of briquettes... the briquettes end up making about 10 times the ash, and nasty residues.

So... yeah... grilling with briquettes is a high effort, expensive, messy hassle...

Which, of course, is why you should grill with... you know... actual charcoal.

A simple test of understanding, to avoid wasting time.

I have a simple test for people, to determine whether or not they actually understand enough about the issue of "Climate change" to have an informed position on it, or whether it's just a question of ingroup identification for them.

I.e. whether they actually know what they're talking about, or whether they're just repeating what "their side" are supposed to say.

Here it is: Explain your understanding of the theory of catastrophic anthropogenic climate change.

Yes, really, it's that "simple"... but their answer will be quite revelatory.

Most people will say something like "greenhouse gasses like co2 emitted by humans are making the climate change, and if we don't dramatically change how much energy we use, the whole planet will suffer" or something similar.

That indicates but doesn't confirm, that they have absolutely no idea what they're talking about; they're just repeating what they were told.

They have to understand that the FULL theory in question is more precisely described as something like:

Ultra high sensitivity, primarily anthropogenic carbon emissions forced, full climatic systemic feedback inversion; from a stable negative feedback system, to an unstable positive feedback system; leading to catastrophic rapid and runaway increase in global average temperature generally, and polar temperature particularly; with a resultant radical variability of global air and sea currents and thermoclines, massive ice melt, and 2 to 26 meter rise in global sea level; on a less than 2 century time scale, originally predicated on an immediate 1.6 to 8 degree rise in global average temperatures over the proceeding 25 to 35 years from winter 1985/86, (as distinct from the historical average rise since the last ice age of 0.8 to 3.6 degrees per century), and a doubling or more in anthropogenic atmospheric carbon in this period, with a global point of no return occurring some time between 1998 and 2008; as predicted by the Mann Hansen model of 1985, revised extended and amended periodically since...

... Note... the numbers have such broad ranges, both because the models themselves have very broad ranges, and because they have been repeatedly revised over the previous 30 years. That said, it's the principles and elements of the theory that are important, not the exact numbers...

.... Oh and by the by, we passed that global point of no return on anthropogenic carbon emissions some time between 2001 and 2008 depending on how you calculate it, and the Mann Hansen model has proven to be non-predictive thus far (in fact no models with high carbon sensitivity have proven to be anything close to reliably predictive), while models primarily driven by solar and atmospheric particulate variability have proven to be reliably predictive...

If they don't know what all the elements of the theory are, and they don't thoroughly understand what those things mean, nd how they differ from the historical record, and more conventional climate theories popular before the Mann Hansen model...

Well then... they don't actually know anything about "Climate Change". They just know what team they're supposed to be on, and what that team tells them to say.

Cleaner, hotter, blacker, better... Charcoal

Humans have been making... and cooking with... charcoal for thousands of years.

It was literally our first processed fuel technology, making a much hotter, cleaner, and more manageable fire than wood, with MUCH lighter and easier to pack fuel.

...In fact, charcoal is STILL the most common cooking fuel in much of Africa and parts of Asia and south America even today.

We've come up with hundreds of ways of cooking, since we started cooking over charcoal... None of them taste any better, and very few nearly as good.

Sadly.. Lots of people thing cooking with charcoal is a hassle and a mess. They prefer propane, or just using their ovens or broilers.. or maybe cast iron preheated in the oven, then used over really hot burner...

... all of which can produce good results of course, especially cast iron....

... and if they've only cooked with "charcoal briquettes"... which aren't anything like actual charcoal (more on that later)... I can certainly understand why they would (mistakenly) think charcoal was not that great, a mess, and a hassle...

Because they've never ACTUALLY cooked with charcoal.

Cooking with natural lump charcoal, is one of the most efficient, quickest, easiest, and least messy means of cooking there is... And of course, one of the tastiest.

Wood, natural gas, and propane (and some types of mineral coal), all make for medium temperature, and very "wet" heat, with lots of, sometimes unpleasant, residues (and odors).

Natural lump charcoal makes for a cook fire, so hot and dry, (because it burns very efficiently and nearly completely), that it lets you get a hard sear, or even char on the outside, while still staying juicy, tender, and medium rare inside.... Even for very thin cuts of meat, or very small pieces like steak tips.

Propane can't do that, nor can any home oven or most home ranges... even with thick cast iron. In fact, it's basically impossible to get anywhere near as good delivery of heat into your food as natural lump charcoal can give you, without very expensive specialty restaurant equipment.

... and if you like cooking in cast Iron, you have no idea how great it can be, until you cook with cast iron and proper charcoal... Propane and natural gas can't hold a candle.

Now... if you're cooking with briquettes, that's another story entirely... They're awful...
Briquettes really ARE a high effort hassle for poor results...

They don't smell right, sometimes food doesn't taste right with them, they're heavy and messy, they are difficult and take forever to light and usually need starting fluid (sometimes even with a chimney starter), they make for low and uneven heating... they can even choke off their own fire and end up going out... and most of all, they can take 30 or 45 minutes before you're ready to cook.


And of course, with propane... or even with an oven or a range and cast iron, you've got to pre-heat for 10 to 20 minutes as well...

Real charcoal is nothing like a hassle...
With a chimney starter, and natural lump charcoal; going from nothing to ready to cook, is very quick, and takes almost no effort.

Literally 20 seconds of trivial effort to load the charcoal and light the starter, and 10-15 minutes of waiting for the coals to get ready...

...and then you're cooking, at a FAR higher temperature than any home oven or burner can get.

How hot can it get?

A natural lump charcoal fire, in a chimney starter, can easily get to over 1400 degrees.

If you use enough charcoal, and let it burn a few minutes longer and hotter, it will get to the point where it is generating its own blast draft, just like a furnace.

When it's blasting like a furnace, that fire can get steel to cherry red, which is over 1500 degrees... even up to a bright cherry red as high as 1700 degrees... (leave it long enough, with enough airflow, and enough charcoal, and it can go even higher, and melt the thin sheetmetal of the chimney starter. With a bellows or blower, you can easily get a charcoal fire hot enough to forge, and even to smelt, steel).

Ok... but how hot can I actually cook with it?

After dumping the chimney into the grill, when the charcoal is glowing bright red on the grate; with good airflow and proper insulation under the fire, you can see a temperature at the grill surface of 800 to 1100 degrees easily... sometimes higher (I've regularly measured 1200 with a non contact thermometer).

... Which means cooking faster, which means getting better texture and flavor, without overcooking.

In fact, if you're just cooking a couple of steaks, burgers, breasts etc... you can just take a grill grate, and cook right on top of the chimney starter, using much less charcoal.

You cook right on the starter, it takes about 3 minutes total to cook a 1" thick steak to medium rare... 90 seconds a side.

It only takes enough charcoal to make the chimney work properly... a few ounces, a few inches, and some waste paper. I light it with a blowtorch to make it even faster and easier... and more fun... When the charcoal is fully ignited... you don't have to wait for an orange hot jet of flame but you can if you like... you're ready to cook.

When you burn it that hot, charcoal burns almost completely... Almost no cleanup... because it's REAL charcoal. No pan, no oven, just a little bit of ash... and really, it's only a little bit.

... and it's not all about the fast and hot...

If you want a lower and slower cook, get your starter to the point where all the charcoal has caught, but not where it's generating its own updraft blast furnace...

Then dump on the grate, and restrict the airflow into the firebox. Everything will slow down, and smolder, for quite a long time.

You can easily sustain a low and slow, or a medium heat, for hours... anywhere from 190 degrees in the grill box, to 400-500 degrees... adding new charcoal as necessary.


With a well insulated hot box, this dry controlled heat is ideal for pizza and certain kinds of bread baking. In fact, it's likely the only way most home cooks can actually get an oven hot enough to make proper pizza (though using a combination of firebrick and a thick piece of pizza steel, and preheating for a long time, can get you close).

... and of course, you can smoke meats this way, with seasoned smoking wood added to the charcoal.

It really is just better...

When I have the gear, and the space, I cook with REAL charcoal year round, rain, shine, snow (just rig an awning)... doesn't matter.


It can actually be much LESS hassle, and much LESS cleanup, than using your kitchen.

It's not like cooking with "charcoal briquettes"...which... and this is the importan't part... aren't even actual charcoal.

Wait... Briquettes aren't charcoal?

No... really... they're not. Not even much like it at all actually.

"Charcoal briquettes" are actually mostly sand or clay, and binders, with a little blackened sawdust, and coal dust mixed in.

Kingsford, the %1 brand in America lists the following as the ingredients of their briquettes:

Wood char (partially charred sawdust and wood flour)
Mineral char (partially burned coal dust from processing of soft brown lignite coal... often high sulfur coal)
Mineral carbon (unburned coal dust from soft brown lignite coal)
Limestone
Starch
Borax
Sodium nitrate
Sawdust

Even the "wood char" isn't really charcoal, it's blackened sawdust and wood flour (often left over from paper and saw mills, which is good), but it hasn't really been pyrolized as proper charcoal.

Basically, they're over 90% stuff that isn't anything like charcoal, and less than 10% of stuff that is sort of like charcoal... but no actual charcoal.

That's why they can't cook worth a damn, why they take forever to heat, and why there is so much mess. They don't light well, they don't burn well, and they don't cook well.

Thankfully, you can get natural lump charcoal almost anywhere now (including walmart), and given how little you actually need, for how much you can cook with it... it's actually LESS expensive than briquettes.

Good natural lump charcoal runs between $1 and $1,50 a pound. "Good" briquettes run between $0.50 and $1.00 a pound.

Initially, that may seem significantly MORE expensive, however, with lump, you never need to use starting fluid ($4 a bottle, which lasts what... 20lbs?) and you don't waste 80% of your heat "waiting for the coals to be ready".

More importantly, because it cooks so much hotter and so much faster, and because you start cooking in 10 minutes not 30-45...

...You can cook more with 1lb of lump, than you can with 5lbs of briquettes...

Yes, really, it's about 5 to 1.

... And of course, because lump burns much more completely and cleaner, and briquettes are literally more than 90% "nothing like charcoal"...when you're done with that 1lb of lump vs 5lbs of briquettes... the briquettes end up making about 10 times the ash, and nasty residues.


So... yeah... grilling with briquettes is a high effort, expensive, messy hassle...


Which, of course, is why you should grill with... you know... actual charcoal.

Turning Circles

Everything in the entire material universe, is circles, squares, lines and arcs.

If you can rotate one piece and hold another piece completely still against it to cut it or grind it, you can make anything perfectly round and concentric.

Once you get a set of four pieces perfectly round, concentric, and identical, you can find perfect level.

Once you can make four pieces perfectly round, concentric, and level, you can take a piece and make one surface perfectly flat.

Once you can make one surface perfectly flat and level, you can make a second surface perfectly perpendicular to it, and perfectly flat and level.

Once you can make two surfaces perfectly flat, level, and perpendicular to each other you can always find 90 degrees.

Once you can make things perfectly round and concentric, and make two surfaces perfectly flat and perpendicular to each other, you can make anything flat and square on all sides.

Once you know one exact measurement... all you need to do is hold it up to something else you know the size of... and can make something flat, square, perpendicular, and level on all sides, then you can always find a 45 degree angle.

Once you can make something flat and square on all sides, and you can always find a 45 degree angle, you can make anything flat, square, and true on all sides.

Once you can find an exact measurement, and exact 90 and 45 degree angles, you can always find the center of any measurement, and you can always double any measurement.

Once you can halve and double any measurement, find 90 and 45 degrees, and find the center of any measurement, you can find any measurement at all.

Once you can find 90 degrees, 45 degrees, and any measurement at all, you can find any angle at all.

Once you can make something round, concentric, flat, square and true, and can find any measurement and any angle, you can make any spiral or helix you want, and thus, cut any screw thread or gear you want.

Once you cut four threads and four gears to act against each other, you can double the precision of your threads and gears.

Once you can find any measurement, and the center of any measurement, and can find 90 degrees, and 45 degrees, and any angle at all... and can halve and double them... you can double the precision of your measurements... and redouble them to any degree of precision.

Once you can double the precision of your measurements, and the precision of your threads and gears, you can make anything round, concentric, flat, square, and true at double precision.

Once you can make four flat, square, and true objects at double precision, and four round and concentric flat and shafts at double precision, you can double it again...

Then you can double the precision of your threads and gears again, and redouble, and redouble, to any degree of precision.

...and by doubling, redoubling, and halving, and quartering, over and over, you can find any measurement, of any line, at any degree of precision, and make anything round, concentric, flat, and square to any degree of precision.

Once you can find any measurement, at any degree of precision, and can always find the center, 90 and 45 degrees, you can find any angle, to any degree of precision.

Once you can find always find endpoints, and center points of any line, any measurement, and any angle, at any degree of precision, you can describe any arc, at any degree of precision.

... and cut any screw or gear, at any degree of precision.

Once you can make anything round, concentric, flat, square, true, and level, find any measurement and any angle, cut any screw and any gear, and describe any arc, at any precision...

... you can make anything at all...

This is how the entire industrial world developed, and how everything is still made today...

Everything... everything manufactured piece, every machine, everything in this modern world... begins with the lathe.

Climate Change... The New Inquistion

I was searching for something else, and I came across this piece I wrote back in 2007...

...And perhaps unsurprisingly, not much has changed today, except that now catastrophists are saying EVERYTHING is proof of climate change, which can apparently do anything whatsoever, including mutually exclusive and contradictory things, because "science".

It's absolutely unfalsifiable.

I decide to republish it here, to point out, that while the science against the catastrophists has only accumulated and strengthened; their stridency and grasping demands have only increased.

...

I say again, the concept of catastrophic anthropogenic climate change, except in the case of localized micro-climates, holds absolutely no scientific water.

Honest scientists will tell you the same thing if pressed (and if their funding doesn’t depend on it), but the agenda politics of todays science (admittedly on both sides of the political spectrum, but generally on different subjects), prevents real, honest, science from occurring anymore; or from being reported if and when it is (the record of suppressing science which disproves catastrophic anthropogenic climate change is long and shameless at this point).

The mere language used by catastrophists against those who seek to use actual science rather than sociopolitical ideological faith, calling us "deniers" in an attempt to paint an equivalence with holocaust deniers, should make it clear that their concern is not truth.

The honest numbers are simple.

Global temperatures have risen an average of less than 1 degree centigrade since measurements started being taken ("adjusted measurements", which have been conclusively proven to be inaccurate and possibly deliberately manipulated say it may be as much as 1.8 degrees, but that is the absolute maximum).

There is no “sudden and precipitous increase”. There is no hockey stick. It was a lie, and even many of the climate change people have admitted it. The ice caps aren’t melting, in fact in most areas they are thickening slightly. The sea level isn’t rising any more than it would have naturally.

Oh and in case you didn't know... Polar bears are excellent swimmers.

More damning to the catastrophists faith; even by their own admission, there has been NO rise (and there may in fact have been a slight decline) in global average temperatures, SINCE 1996.

Since temperature recordings have begun, volcanic eruptions have put more carbon into the atmosphere, and caused more temperature change, than all of human industry and activity since the beginning of the human race; but it wasn’t by increasing temperatures with carbon, it was by decreasing them with dust in the air... much of which was in fact carbon particulates.

The world has been far colder than today at times when there was far more carbon in the atmosphere; even without more dust. The world has been far warmer than today with far less carbon in the air, even WITH more dust.

The amount of anthropogenic carbon dioxide and carbon particulates in the atmosphere are FAR less than one half of one percent of total carbon dioxide, and far less than one half of one percent of total carbon particulates (the vast majority of CO2 is released by soil, rotting vegetation, oceanic microorganisms, and seafloor offgassing. The vast majority of particulates, are released by forest fires, and volcanic activity ). Considering how small a percentage of our atmospheric carbon and carbon compounds (between 0.03 and 0.06 percent. Not between 3% and 6%, 3 one hundredths of a percent), that amount is completely insignificant to global climate change.

This is not to say they don't effect local microclimates, they certainly do. But in those local microclimates, these concentrations are literally hundreds to thousands of times higher.

These levels of anthropogenic CO2 in the atmosphere are not a temperature driver, or a climate forcing.

In fact, historical records show that overall CO2 levels (which, remember, human inputs make up only a tiny fraction of) TRAIL global climate change by anywhere from a few hundred years, to a few thousand.

All currently existing GLOBAL climate change can be fully and scientifically explained by natural endothermic cycles (atmospheric oceanic interaction combined with volcanic and other geothermal activity, and large particulate emissions such as forest fires, plus natural greenhouse component and other climate forcing component emissions), and the fluctuation in output of the sun (because earth is an exothermic system). The suns output has varied greatly over the course of human history (and of course long before), and periods of warming and cooling have tracked right along with that output.

Models using average sunspot activity as an indicator of solar thermal forcing, have proven to be accurate within a few percentage points at predicting historical temperatures.

Some models (those used by catastrophists) predict that there may be FUTURE global climate change based on a theory that human generated carbon inputs, even though they are far lower than historical levels which did NOT cause these things to happen, will somehow cause the entire climate system to change the way it has always functioned.

These models are ridiculous on their face. The way you test a model is to run if forwards and backwards without adjustment, and see if it can accurately predict what actually happened in the past, using the data from further back in the past; then verifying against actual future results over time.

None of the models that predict significant global climate change due to human carbon inputs, come anywhere close to predicting the historical record.

They always consistently overestimate warming by SEVERAL HUNDRED PERCENT, as in estimating 4 to 8 times the actual warming.

And NONE of them came anywhere close to predicting the variability of the historical record, always showing a consistent warming trend over time, even for CENTURIES that had a significant cooling trend.

The models were not made to predict the actual climate... they were specifically made to predict massive warming,  no matter the input. And that's what they do, as non-catastrophists have proven, running data which any rational model should predict steady or cooling temperatures through the models... and they STILL predicted significant warming.

I leave it up to you to decide whether the models were just designed badly, or whether the distortion was intentional. Either way, these models cannot be trusted, and decisions should certainly not be made based on them.

The climate IS changing, and has since the moment the earth formed a climate. As near as we can tell (through ice core samples and the like) there has never been a period of more than 200 years without at least a 1 degree change in global average temperatures.

The climate will continue to change on its own; and no normal human activity will change global climate significantly one way or the other… unless it’s something that actually would kill us all (which would by definition not be normal... Incredibly massive particulate pollution over a high percentage of the earths surface - including the oceans - would do it. It would initially trigger warming from trapped thermal radiation, followed by extremely rapid cooling from blocking out the sun, and then a sudden ice age; and likely kill all crops and food animals in the process, along with at least 80% of humanity in the first two years, if not more, and ultimately followed by mass global extinction).

That isn’t to say we shouldn’t attempt to develop better sources of energy, we should. We aren’t going to “run out” of oil... ever in fact; a basic understanding of economics would show that. But, hydrocarbon fuels are eventually going to get more and more expensive as time goes on, and hydrocarbon fueled combustion engines are relatively inefficient, and do contribute significantly to micro climate pollution.

In many ways, doing things greener IS in fact better. Saving energy is generally a very good thing. Not polluting is generally a good thing. When it isn’t, is when it destroys economies, prevents job growth, reduces food production, increases food prices, and all the other ways that forced greenism (I won’t even call it environmentalism, because it isn’t doing the environment much good), causes pain, suffering, misery, and general reductions in peoples health, quality of life, standard of living, and basic liberties.

“Climate change” isn’t about the environment... It’s about giving financial and political control to anti-western, anti-capitalists.... Or just the cynical opportunists who would use peoples good intentions and fears to increase their own power.

It’s about punishing those rich capitalist nations and people, for not being poor socialists... Or just for "not doing things the RIGHT way".... whatever that particular person or group happens to think the "right" way is.

It isn’t science, it’s a pseudo-scientific sociopolitical ideological movement, and near religion. The adherents don’t need any proof, because they have faith; and any who challenge that faith must be burned as heretics in their new inquisition.

Soylent is made out of Diabetes... DIABETES

A commenter asked what I think of Soylent, the food substitute beverage, funded through kickstarter, that is supposed to provide all the nutrition you need in three drinks a day.

I think it's an abomination before god and man.

Food is meant to be enjoyed, savored, appreciated... it isn't just caloric intake for the purpose of maintaining body temperature.

However, in all seriousness, looking at the actual nutritional information, Soylent rather closely adheres to the Food Pyramid, with appx 50% of the calories from carbs, 30% from fat, and 20% from protein.

This is the Archer Daniels Midland diet, in its purest form.

And I mean that literally... You are literally replacing your entire diet of meats, fruits, vegetables, and grains, with the products of Archer Daniels Midland (they are by far the largest supplier in the country of the primary ingredients)... processed byproducts of corn and rapeseed.

http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0421/5993/t/12/assets/files_Complete-Soylent-Nutrition-Facts-1p2.pdf

The #1 ingredient, and the largest source of calories (almost 50%), is maltodextrin, which is literally corn sugar... or rather it's a polysaccharide derived from cornstarch.

Its common use in food is as a thickening agent, to absorb oils, and as a dusting powder; either infused with a flavor (like salt and vinegar potato chips), or to prevent clumping and sticking.

It's also used to provide bulk calories in protein shakes, weightlifting supplements, carboloading supplements for runners and cyclists etc...

It has the same glycemic index as pure glucose, and it has a similar effect on insulin triggering. Diabetics are specifically warned against consuming maltodextrin in more than very small amounts, for that reason.

The lipid component is almost entirely Canola oil, which is one of the highest Omega 6 oils there is, which dramatically increase inflammatory response and arterial hardening, and may contribute to prostate cancer.

Basically, the guy formulating this stuff believed all the junk science garbage about low fat, and low saturated fat, and polyunsaturated seed oils, and high carbs being the best diet; and formulated Soylent to match that.

The original formula was somewhat better (using olive oil, and having a better carb/protein/fat balance), but it has been reformulated to be cheaper, and vegan.

He also formulated it for three meals to have 100% of the minimum RDA of those nutrients defined by the USDA to have a minimum RDA... and NOTHING else.

That's idiotic.

It's also very engineerlike... which is what the developer of Soylent is... a software engineer.

He has stated that he never wants to think about or worry about or have to cook food again, and that science should let us do this cheaper, and be healthier, than eating actual food.

He couldn't be more wrong in every way.

Never mind the aesthetic issues... and the dehumanization and mechanization of one of lifes greatest joys...

Soylent is essentially the worst diet you could possibly have, and still pretend to be "healthy". It seems almost deliberately calculated to cause diabetes and heart disease.

I honestly think that if someone who was prediabetic went on soylent for six months, they would end up insulin dependent.

"Climate Change", and the false dichotomy of "evil or stupid"

Once again the drumbeat is sounding throughout that land, that Republicans... or rather, everyone not a leftists... are "anti-science", "pro-ignorance" etc... etc...

I am constantly hearing some variant of "Republicans are either evil or stupid for not... X".

The sad part of course, is that a certain percentage of non-leftists, including libertarians and conservatives are in fact, nuts, particularly about science... and another large block are ignorant.

Of course, so are large blocks of those on the left... but that's not what we're talking about right now.

There are certainly many scientific issues over which the ideological spectrum split, but likely the biggest one, with the most uniform split (there's very few whose ideological "side" don't match the position staked out by that side, to some degree or another)....

"Climate Change"

Ok, talked about it here before, and there's plenty of great resources on the topic (try Climate Skeptic and Watts Up for a start)... But it's an issue among my friends right now, and Neil Degrasse Tyson has been talking about it lately, facebook is covered with it right now etc...

So, let me just lay things out for a bit...

First, YES, there ARE loonies out there who say that there is no climate change "because Jesus" or "It's all a conspiracy man" etc... etc... etc...

Feel free to ignore them, as you would on every other subject. They don't represent any kind of reality based universe, never mind a rational position.

There are also those who simply say that there is no such thing as climate change whatsoever... But mostly they are either ignorant of, or don't understand, the science, math, or historical record in question

And yes, there are far more of those than there should be in 2014.

However, some of us come to our positions through a knowledge of science, engineering, math, the scientific method, research methodologies and data analysis.

There are those, myself among them, who actually DO understand science, and don't believe in CATASTROPHIC, ANTHROPOGENIC, CO2 FORCED, global warming, leading to systemic, catastrophic climate change.

We are not irrational, ignorant, evil, driven by unsavory motives, or stupid.

We come to this position, because we understand that:

1. The question isn't whether climate is changing and will change in the future, it always has and always will. The question is how much has it, how much will it in the future, and why.
2. Catastrophic, anthropogenic, global warming leading to catastrophic climate change, is a tightly interconnected theory. For any element of the conclusions to be correct, ALL of the suppositions within the theory must be correct. The instant any of them changes, at all, the theory falls apart.
3. The mathematical models for this have always been highly speculative and have proven non predictive both forward and backward.
4. The data is greatly variable ( and often poor) in quality, and is adjusted in ways that make it less than useful for a model with high sensitivity predictions, because small changes or inconsistencies in the data make big changes in the model.
5. The catastrophic model adopted by the U.N. has some major dependencies which are entirely theoretical, and have not been borne out by historical facts; specifically estimates of forcing, estimates of weighting of various factors, and particularly estimates of extremely high sensitivity to certain factors (especially CO2), that while throughout all of history have exhibited one behavior (a stable, negative feedback system), for some reason (i.e. humanity is bad and stuff), things have changed now... even though CO2 has been much higher in the past, and it didn't happen then... Such that a very small change in CO2 will have a large multiplier effect, transforming the stable negative feedback system that the climate has been throughout the entirety of history to this point, to an unstable positive feedback system.
6. There is no evidence for this catastrophic theory, nor does it correspond with historical models, or models that prove to be historically predictive (i.e. if you run the model backwards and forwards in time, it matches roughly with what actually happened).
7. This prediction has been made since the mid 80s (prior to the mid 80, from the early 70s they were predicting global cooling and ice age by the way), and the models have proven to be grossly inaccurate. They are constantly revised to reflect the same conclusion, but never actually predict what ACTUALLY happens in the real world. There was initially slightly more warming than the previous historical models predicted, but by 1991 warming was back to the historical trend line, and there has actually been no significant warming since 1994-1998 depending on exactly which dataset you look at.
8. Human outputs from all of industry, vehicles etc... Make up less than 1% of total atmospheric CO2... actually between .3 and .4%. The VAST majority of CO2 comes from forests, oceans, animals, and soil (and the bacteria contained therein). They also absorb CO2 in the natural CO2 cycle.
9. If the historical, non catastrophic models prove correct, and they have so far, there will be between less than 1 and just over 2 degrees centigrade warming in the next 100 years. This is not catastrophic, and is consistent with warming/cooling cycles throughout history.
10. If all human output of carbon dioxide and other theorized elements of climate change stopped right now, today... That number wouldn't change at all, or at most very little. Within the margin of error.
11. Once you take the catastrophic sensitivity to a tiny change out of the model, many other factors become far greater "forcings", particularly the suns variability (relating to sunspot cycles).
12. If the catastrophic models are correct, either we already have, or we soon will, pass the point of no return. We would not only have to completely stop emitting CO2 entirely, but we would have to take large amounts of it out of the environment.
13. No matter what, the developing world isn't going to stop burning wood, and coal, and growing and modernizing and using as much hydrocarbons as they can. They don't give a damn what european liberals think, they just want to cook their dinners and have lights at night.
14. No matter what, China and India aren't going to stop being 80+% of all CO2 emissions from human sources, because if they did they'd all be plunged into even greater poverty and likely starve to death. 

What it comes down to is this:

1. If the catastrophic models are correct, it's too late to do anything about it anyway.
2. Even if every western nation utterly stopped producing ANY output which contributed to climate change, it wouldn't make any difference whatsoever.
3. If the catastrophic theory is wrong, and everything point to it being so, then we would be spending trillions of dollars, destroying economies, ruining millions or billions of peoples lives etc... All for little or nothing.
4. There are real, actual, proven problems that are far more likely to be important, and that we can actually do something about, that are much better ways to spend our time and money.

Ok... so why do so many people support the idea... particularly so many scientists?

The same reason anyone does anything... because it aligns with their perceived incentives, beliefs, worldview, narrative, and identity. 

To wit...

1. Funding
2. Social signaling an ingroup identification
3. Politics
4. Power and control (climate change legislation is all about taking power and control from one group, and giving it to another)
5. Ideology and alignment with world view
6. The precautionary principle
7. Anti-capitalism
8. Funding
9. Because if they don't, they don't get jobs, their papers don't get published, they don't get university positions etc...
10. Because they know that it's not as bad as the press makes it out to be, but that making it super duper scary is the only way to make the morons out there pay attention and actually make some of the good positive changes that need to happen (like more energy efficient technology, and more research into alternative energy)
11. Because the entire world has lined up into teams, not just about climate change, but about ALL social, cultural, and scientific issues... Evolution, homosexuality, everything else about the environment etc... and one team has decided to label themselves "progressive" and "liberal" and "pro science" and the other team "anti science", and nobody wants to be "regressive" and "anti-science".
12. Did I mention funding? There is no funding in saying "things are going to be about like they always have been, with some small changes as expected, and maybe a very small degree of increased change... it will have some moderate impacts". That's boring, and it gets ignored, and no-one gets any funding, and you can't do additional research on it. No-one is paying for research into squirrel populations and how "1 degree per century of climate change will impact them).

Yes... I repeated myself, in several different ways there... That was intentional.

The Broken Record

Catastrophists have a record, of being broken records... and being mostly or entirely wrong.

From 1974 until 1985 or thereabouts, many of the exact same scientists, politicians, pundits, and environmentalists who today are saying are going to warm our way into a combination of ice age, deserts, and typhoons everywhere... were saying the exact opposite.

At the time, their theories and models said that we were going to precipitate our own ice age, blocking out the sun, and that crops would fail and we would starve to death.

The fact is, we've heard over and over again for decades that if we don't do exactly what this one particular group wants us to do about any particular issue within 5, 10, 20 years etc... that we're all gonna die, the world is gonna end, everything will turn to dust, there will be no birds, no trees...

Anyone remember when acid rain was going to kill us all?

Yes, in part, it's because we did respond to the concerns of the environmentalists, regulations were changed somewhat, technology got better, we polluted less and cleaned up more. These are all good things.

But mostly it was because they were dramatically overstating both the problems, and the solutions; either because they actually believed it, or for political reasons...

Seems to me, mostly for political reasons.

Mostly we haven't done what they asked.

The world didn't end.

We didn't all die.

Of course, that doesn't mean they aren't right this time...

...One of these times they just might be... or at least they might be more right than wrong...

...it just means that we should really be very careful, and very skeptical, about what they say, what we believe, and what we do about it.

Oh and one more thing...

There is one final, and almost universal test of the validity of someones claim that "everything has to change".

It can't prove that a claim is true... but it can nearly always prove a false claim to be false, or at least greatly exaggerated.

Simplified, it's called the "Act as If" test.

Does the person making the claim, act as they would if the claim were true, and as urgent as they say?

Is it conclusive? No... but it's a pretty strong indicator.

Do those who say they believe in truly catastrophic anthropogenic global warming pass this test?

Do they actually act as they would, if they actually believed their predictions. 

The answer is very much no... not even close.

So, if they don't... why should anyone else?

When is an addiction not an addiction?

Whenever anyone says so, because no-one can agree on what an addiction actually is...

Recently, it was reported that a sex research study from UCLA has reported that sex addiction isn't really an addiction.

Sweeping aside the normal misreporting, misunderstanding, and misconstrual of scientific methodology and wording endemic to popular science and health reporting, this study has some major fundamental flaws.

As close to a consensus as exists on what constitutes addiction (as opposed to habituation, compulsion, or dependency), comes down to this:

1. Is it habituating or compulsive
2. Is there physical or emotional dependency (or both)
3. Does it require escalating input to reach the desired output
4. When deprived of it, is there withdrawal and craving
5. Is pursuing and fulfilling this thing harmful or destructive to the person or those around them

Now... read the study linked above...

This study is entirely flawed, because it is incorrect in it's basic premise.

They're measuring the wrong thing, in the wrong way, because they don't seem to understand what sex addiction really is (a lack which, unfortunately, they seem to share with most people).

The premise of this study, is that sex addicts brains should respond to sexual imagery, in the same way that substance addicts respond to imagery of, or the presence of, the substance they are addicted to.

This premise shows a complete lack of understanding as to what sex addiction (which is an expression of clinical hypersexuality, but not the only expression, as misstated in the article) is... and more importantly WHY it is, how it is expressed, and what expressing it does for the addict.

Physically, no, it isn't an addiction to the actual sex... but emotionally it every much is an addiction. Not only that, but without doubt, the brain chemistry associated with it IS an addiction. It causes physical habituation with an escalating need for stimulus to achieve the same high, it crashes after an initial high, it has a strong compulsion and craving associated with it, and it has withdrawal symptoms (which can be dramatic).

And of course, the final element that separates habituation from addiction; sex addiction can be very destructive to the addict, and those around them (in fact, that can be part of the point of it).

Sex addiction isn't about sex, it's about self medication, self punishment, self harm, and self destruction; through novelty, risk, control, pushing the edge of control; and some times, for some people, losing control.

Sex addicts binge and purge... clean up, and fall off the wagon... just like any substance abuser. The behavior is the same, the emotional landscape that drives it is the same, the feelings it engenders and the psychological responses to it are the same... the only difference is the stimulus.

It's just substituting "sex"... but more importantly those things associated with risky sex... seduction, control, risk, and release... for the needle.

If you're anti-GMO, you're objectively pro-starvation of the poor

...and pretty much everyone else actually, but the poor first, and fastest...

Scientific American comes out in favor of GMOs, and I agree 

In the September 6 issue of Scientific American, the magazine’s editors pen a piece explicitly supporting GMOs and opposing GMO labeling. I applaud the editors for taking an official position on a topic that still sparks intense debate. Both the wording and content of the editorial reflect an adherence to what is called “good scientific practice”; trusting the scientific evidence as far as it takes us, leaving room for uncertainty and making a judgement call based on imperfect but still sound evidence. 

The editors start by reminding us that we have been consuming genetically modified foods for 20 years without much trouble, a point worth belaboring only because it keeps getting conveniently ignored in many debates on the topic. 

We have been tinkering with our food’s DNA since the dawn of agriculture. By selectively breeding plants and animals with the most desirable traits, our predecessors transformed organisms’ genomes, turning a scraggly grass into plump-kerneled corn, for example. For the past 20 years Americans have been eating plants in which scientists have used modern tools to insert a gene here or tweak a gene there, helping the crops tolerate drought and resist herbicides. Around 70 percent of processed foods in the U.S. contain genetically modified ingredients.

First of all, good... finally... because anti-GMO is anti-science, ignorant, frankly stupid in fact... And objectively supporting the mass starvation of the poor, particularly those in underdeveloped nations. 

Norman Borlaug fed India, through the scientific development of high yield, rain tolerant, dwarf wheat. He then fed south America.... Frankly, if scientific literacy were higher on this planet, there is no way he would not be universally recognized as one of the greatest heroes in the history of humanity. He certainly saved more lives than anyone else... possibly more than all other "heros" combined.

Of course, if you are anti-GMO, he's the villain of the piece... or he would be, in the unlikely event you had any idea who he was (he's very unpopular among malthusians and human extinctionists as well).

Really, there is no disputing, if you're against GMO's you are objectively pro starvation of the poor.

Now... thinking that ADM and Monsanto are evil is another story... they very definitely are.

Now, for those of you who think "Oh I eat all organic certified GMO free"... actually you don't. Even if you actually did (and you don't, because you won't give up all the products which aren't), you actually wouldn't be.

Wassat?

Unless you grow all your own food, from preserved viable and stable seeds which have not been selectively bred for specific characteristics... and you don't, because it's not possible... you are currently, and have been for your entire life... eating genetically modified foods.

I'm not even going to get into the stupidity of "organic" vs. everything else, except to say "organic" doesn't really mean anything, and it certainly doesn't mean "better". Oh and to point you to the Penn & Teller "Bullshit" episode on "organic" food.

But lets get a little more specific. This of course is just one of many examples, but it's the most basic one.

Without genetically modified seed, there would be NO commercially grown wheat in the industrialized world. Damp blight and root rust would have killed it all.

Or for that matter Bananas. None. Also killed by fungi.

Oh sure, you can buy those "certified GMO free" products, but if you actually believe they are... I've got this great derivative investment I'd like to sell you.

"Certified organic" doesn't really mean a damn thing. Neither does "certified gmo free". It's a joke. It's a scam.

If you have ever eaten any wheat product in the last 30 years, you have eaten a genetically modified organism. If you have EVER eaten a banana, you've eaten a genetically modified organism.

Just because a seed line existed before they came up with the name GMO doesn't mean it wasn't genetically modified, or "lab created". But they grandfathered all the pre gene patent seed lines in to their arbitrary GMO definitions for "certification".

Deliberate genetic modification goes back to frikken Gregor Mendel.

As my friend Jon from Louisiana wrote today :

"Just so we're clear, everything you eat has been genetically modified, whether by selective breeding, tetrogenic chemical or radiation induced mutation, shooting DNA-coated gold pellets into woody plants with a shotgun (No, seriously, that really was a thing.), or someone in a lab splicing genes. It's just that with the lab thing, they know exactly what traits they're going for, and have fewer unexpected side effects."

He forgot seed grafting, bud grafting, rootstock grafting, stem grafting etc (there are more than a dozen ways to graft)... but yeah... that.

If you want to eat bread that doesn't include any GMO at all, of any kind, it will have to be millett bread, because there is NO commercially grown non-gmo wheat. It doesn't matter what the grower says, there ISN'T any non GMO wheat, because all the non GMO wheat seedlines are either extinct or not commercially available; and if they were, they wouldn't produce enough crop to be commercially viable, and except under perfect conditions, probably wouldn't survive to harvest and milling.

But it doesn't matter... no-one grows wheat from seed that isn't genetically modified, because there ISN'T ANY COMMERCIAL SEED THAT ISN'T GENETICALLY MODIFIED. It's just that they developed the seedlines 30-50 years ago, before the gene grafting patents, so they don't have to LABEL them genetically modified. They're still "created in a lab".

The only non-GMO wheat left in the world is in certain remote areas of central asia, south america, and africa... and at this point, it has likely cross fertilized with airborne GMO strains to the point that it includes some of their gene lines.

Even then, it's still genetically modified through hundreds of generations of selective breeding... just the slow way.

Oh and of course, that's not to say there aren't issues with the way GMO's are currently being manufactured, distributed etc... Particularly there are some flat out despicable issues around the Intellectual Property regimes involved. As I said above, Monsanto et al... really genuine examples of corporate evil.

Even without that, there are other major issues; not in the existence of GMO's, but in how they are managed as crops.

The creation of disease vulnerable monocultures is a HUGE problem. In certain vulnerable populations, or for certain specific crops (u.s. dent corn production for example), a single pestilence could mean mass starvation, loss of staple food stuffs, lots of very bad things.

The Irish Potato famine is the canonical historical example of monoculture failure.

Just a small modern example. All eating bananas in the world... all of them... are a single genetic strain, the Cavendish. The Cavendish banana is a worldwide genetic monoculture, because all other genetic lines of bananas that are both commercially viable, and edible, were killed off by a fungus in the early to mid 20th century.

Unfortunately, the Cavendish is vulnerable to a mutated banana fungus strain that is now attacking crops in parts of the southern hemisphere. If that fungus spreads, then no more bananas. At all. Anywhere.

That's the problem with genetic monocultures.

let's not even get into the anticompetitive practices of the GMO seed producers. Or the massive issues of non-viable seed production.

Again... politically, financially, commercially... yeah there are major issues around GMOs.

But the whole "frankenfood" thing? Total anti-scientific bunk. Culturally enforced, politicophilosophical ignorance... Nothing more than pure Lysenkoism.

If you are against GMOs, you are pro starvation. You are supporting genocide. Plain and simple.

One small step...

... Further backwards that is.

Neil Armstrong passed from this world on August 25th 2012, at the age of 82.

I have only this to say about his passing:

Only twelve men have walked on the moon. The first was on July 21st 1969 (Neil Armstrong, who was 38 at the time), the last was December 14th 1972 (Gene Cernan, who was also 38).

Of those twelve men, four have died. The youngest of them will be 77 in two months, the oldest surviving will be 83 in January.

Every day that goes by without more men walking on the moon is another small step backward for mankind. Every one of those men who dies is one giant leap.

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too. -- John F. Kennedy, Houston, Sept. 12th 1962

Whenever lefties say something stupid about "renewable energy"

... Which is of course fairly frequently, I tell them flat out "no, it won't work".

They then get this look on their faces like I'm just being an obstructionist ass and indignantly shout something like:

"Why not. These guys tell me we could have 20% of our power needs met by renewables RIGHT NOW, if we only had the political will/government subsidies/laws to force everyone to do it etc... etc...  I bet you just hate the environment and love your SUV too much"

Well... it's a pickup truck, and yes, I do love it more than I love YOUR concept of what "the environment" is and/or should be (I LIVE in "the environment" you THINK you are talking about... I chose to move here specifically because of how it REALLY is... which has very little to do with how you THINK it is... but that's another story).

BUT...

No, that's not why it won't ever work.

"Ok... why not then, mr. pessimist".

Simple... Physics and Math.

...Not politics, not will, not lifestyle changes, not because we love our SUV's too much...

Just Physics and Math:

Why I'm sad, angry, and disgusted

Yesterday I posted a cartoon lamenting the death of the U.S. Space Shuttle program; and the general state of the space program, under the title "Too sad, angry, and disgusted for commentary".

Several of the responses I got were along the lines of "I'm glad the shuttle is dead, it was way overdue" and other similar sentiments.

Sentiments I happen to agree with, at least in part.

I should be clear... I'm not upset the shuttle is gone...

I'm angry that the shuttle is gone, and there's no replacement.

I'm angry that we're dependent on another country to lift our astronauts into space.

I'm ANGRY that the shuttle is 30 years old; and we've been pouring resources and energy into the shuttle program for almost 40 years now, with basically no real development of an alternate solution...

Except that's not PRECISELY true.

There has been LOTS of development on alternate solutions; none of which have been allowed to succeed (and only one has even been allowed to proceed to where NASA was in 1960).

We've spent tens of billions on alternate solutions, but public sector and private; and NASA has spent the entire time actively suppressing, delaying, or killing anything that would compete with or replace the shuttle; all as part of the bureaucratic funding fight.

I know this first hand, having been involved in several of the SSTO projects in the 90s (I was free labor; as an engineering student. My primary degree is in Aerospace engineering, and I've been a member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics since I was 18).

It has been 42 years since we first landed on the moon; and a little less than 39 years since Eugene Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon, left it.

I'm angry, because we have willingly, become a frigate navy nation.

We should have spacelines. We should have private spacecraft available for purchase to anyone.

We should be living on the moon, living on mars... we should be out in the stars.

Instead, we're navelgazing.

From liftoff to MECO... the last shuttle mission

and from Jordin Kare and S.J. Tucker:

...Then two decades from Gagarin, twenty years to the day
Came a shuttle named Columbia to open up the way
And they said she’s just a truck, but she’s a truck that’s aimin’ high
See her big jets burnin’. See her fire in the sky

Yet the gods do not give lightly of the powers they have made
And with Challenger and seven, once again the price is paid
Though our nation watched her falling, yet a world could only cry
As they passed from us to glory, riding fire in the sky

Now the rest is up to us. There’s a future to be won
We must turn our faces outward. We will do what must be done
For no cradle lasts forever, every bird must learn to fly
And we’re goin’ to the stars. See our fire in the sky
Yes, we’re going to the stars. See our fire in the sky

We've got to get off the rock.. otherwise, what's the damn point.

Too sad... disgusted... angry... for commentary

I should be clear... I'm not upset the shuttle is gone...

I'm angry there's no replacement yet.

Birth of the cool, birth of the slick, birth of the universe...

I'm trying to decide, whehether this is the single greatest concentration of cool ever photographed:

Miles Davis and Steve McQueen hanging out

Or this is:

“A Great Day in Harlem”:

Count Basie, Art Blakey, Art Farmer, Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Golson, Coleman Hawkins, Gene Krupa, Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk, Gerry Mulligan, Oscar Pettiford, Sonny Rollins, Jimmy Rushing, Horace Silver, and Lester Young (plus others).

However, I'm pretty sure this is the single greatest concentration of "smart" ever photographed:

Top row: A. Piccard, E. Henriot, P. Ehrenfest, Ed. Herzen, Th. De Donder, E. Schrödinger, J.E. Verschaffelt, W. Pauli, W. Heisenberg, R.H. Fowler, L. Brillouin;

Second row: P. Debye, M. Knudsen, W.L. Bragg, H.A. Kramers, P.A.M. Dirac, A.H. Compton, L. de Broglie, M. Born, N. Bohr;

Third row: I. Langmuir, M. Planck, M. Curie, H.A. Lorentz, A. Einstein, P. Langevin, Ch. E. Guye, C.T.R. Wilson, O.W. Richardson

All photos from: "Awesome People Hanging Out Together"

Yet more belaboring of the obvious...

I just can't help myself... since I have a couple of readers who keep insisting on citing the same discredited and fraudulent sources over and over again as if they were real science, here you go:

"Lawrence Solomon  June 6, 2010 – 10:47 pm

A cross examination of global warming science conducted by the University of Pennsylvania’s Institute for Law and Economics has concluded that virtually every claim advanced by global warming proponents fails to stand up to scrutiny.

The cross-examination, carried out by Jason Scott Johnston, Professor and Director of the Program on Law, Environment and Economy at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, found that “on virtually every major issue in climate change science, the [reports of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] and other summarizing work by leading climate establishment scientists have adopted various rhetorical strategies that seem to systematically conceal or minimize what appear to be fundamental scientific uncertainties or even disagreements.”

Professor Johnson, who expressed surprise that the case for global warming was so weak, systematically examined the claims made in IPCC publications and other similar work by leading climate establishment scientists and compared them with what is found in the peer-edited climate science literature. He found that the climate establishment does not follow the scientific method. Instead, it “seems overall to comprise an effort to marshal evidence in favor of a predetermined policy preference.”

The 79-page document, which effectively eviscerates the case for man-made global warming, can be found here.

Read more: http://opinion.financialpost.com/2010/06/06/legal-verdict-manmade-global-warming-science-doesn%E2%80%99t-withstand-scrutiny/#ixzz0rhXMr9Tc

Indeed...

Anthropogenic Global Warming is a Politically Motivated Scam

Which engenders an evil delusion in many of its adherents.

The result of this is hysteria, anti-scientific dogma and rhetoric, and witch hunt like behavior as related in the closing paragraphs of this tremendous blog post laying out the rationalist objection to the AGW premise:

There is another very serious unintended consequence that I would like to raise here; one that concerns me very deeply.

When I listen to the public AGW debate I hear very high profile politicians and prominent public figures calling for people who openly disagree with AGW to be put on trial for treason. I hear many cases of people losing their jobs because of voicing sceptical opinions. I hear prominent global warming advocates refusing to enter into debates or trying to avoid debates by claiming the science is settled, and by claiming we do not have time, we have only weeks to act. I hear AGW advocates resorting to personal attacks against people who disagree rather than addressing the technical issues they raise.

I hear AGW proponents claiming to be the under funded underdogs, fighting to protect the planet against greedy capitalists, yet the reality is their funding is at least 1000 times greater than the sceptics funding. I see many reports of scientists refusing to release their workings, thus preventing review of their methodology, despite the fact that their work was funded by public money.

I see how the established media abandons balance in reporting by strongly favouring proponents of AGW, ignoring or denigrating sceptics and forcing most onto blog sites like this one. I hear some environmental groups and activists publicly claim that its OK and even necessary to exaggerate the threat so as to get the public to engage. I see the courts condoning acts of vandalism and even violence against essential public infrastructure. I see high profile public figures supporting such acts and claiming them to be reasonable and justified.

In short I see our society abandoning some of our most vital democratic freedoms over this hysteria: Free speech, impartial enforcement of the law, balance in reporting, freedom of information. These are freedoms our forebears gave their lives to bequeath to us, they are our most valuable inheritance and we seem to be throwing them away over an unproven hysterical hypothesis.

More recently I have read articles from England advocating individual ration cards for petrol, heating oil, gas, electricity. Is water and food next? War time austerity as an ongoing future way of life? A return to the agrarian poverty of the middle ages? I note the new film “Not evil just wrong” has had to be distributed via the internet rather than traditional media. One step from distribution through an underground network? Will that apply to all future sceptical writing? What about other writing contrary to the popular opinion of the day?

These are the issues that differentiate between a free democracy and a totalitarian regime and the further one goes down this path the harder it is to pull back. History has shown us that the disease is far easier to acquire than to get rid of.

To those of you who still cling to the AGW scam, look at the behaviors and attitudes it has engendered, and ask yourself: If this was for a cause you didn't like or support, wouldn't you be condemning this behavior and denouncing it at?

Hackers interpret idiotic government restrictions as damage ...

...and route around them

By the by, for those who don't get the reference, it's a paraphrase of a quote from John Gilmore - "The internet interprets censorship as damage, and routes around it"

50 years ago, a man asked a simple question...

... with a complicated answer:

"Why cannot we write the entire 24 volumes of the Encyclopedia Brittanica on the head of a pin?"

Many years later, I read that question for the first time, and it changed my life.

The man who asked that question was Richard Feynman. He was one of my personal heroes, and he died 21 years ago today.

His speech "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom"; was the first entry into the public mind, of the possibility of nano-science:

"I imagine experimental physicists must often look with envy at men like Kamerlingh Onnes, who discovered a field like low temperature, which seems to be bottomless and in which one can go down and down. Such a man is then a leader and has some temporary monopoly in a scientific adventure. Percy Bridgman, in designing a way to obtain higher pressures, opened up another new field and was able to move into it and to lead us all along. The development of ever higher vacuum was a continuing development of the same kind.

I would like to describe a field, in which little has been done, but in which an enormous amount can be done in principle. This field is not quite the same as the others in that it will not tell us much of fundamental physics (in the sense of, ``What are the strange particles?'') but it is more like solid-state physics in the sense that it might tell us much of great interest about the strange phenomena that occur in complex situations. Furthermore, a point that is most important is that it would have an enormous number of technical applications.

What I want to talk about is the problem of manipulating and controlling things on a small scale.

As soon as I mention this, people tell me about miniaturization, and how far it has progressed today. They tell me about electric motors that are the size of the nail on your small finger. And there is a device on the market, they tell me, by which you can write the Lord's Prayer on the head of a pin. But that's nothing; that's the most primitive, halting step in the direction I intend to discuss. It is a staggeringly small world that is below. In the year 2000, when they look back at this age, they will wonder why it was not until the year 1960 that anybody began seriously to move in this direction.

Why cannot we write the entire 24 volumes of the Encyclopedia Brittanica on the head of a pin?"

Feynman was; between the time when Albert Einstein passed in 1955, until his own passing, and the entry into the public conscience of Stephen Hawking (with the publication of "A Brief History of Time" in 1988); the worlds most public face of mathematics and physics. Though Carl Sagan was arguably more famous (he did have a TV show after all); no-one had more influence, or impact, or more respect.

When the Challenger disaster was investigated, it was Feynman who was selected (as the most respected name in science), to give credibility to the largely political committee. It was also Feynman who exposed the institutional bias, and marginal competence that caused the disaster in the first place.

It wasn't because of his brilliance (not that he wasn't brilliant) so much as his uncanny ability to relate both to other scientists, and to the general public.

He had a knack for explaining physics... or anything else for that matter... in a way that anyone could understand.

He was a nobel prize winner; but he also danced like a goofball, and played the bongos, and made AWFUL jokes, and played juvenile pranks.

He was the antithesis of popular perception of scientists. He was a geek, but he wasn't JUST a geek; which is the mold popular culture tried to shove us all into for so many years.

When he died, his students placed this banner on the Miliken library:


Feynman would certainly have loved the phallic pun involved right there.

In 1960, Feynman was asked to prepare a new curriculum for freshman physics as Cal Tech (where he was a professor). He agreed to do so, provided he only had to teach the course once. Out of that course came the single greatest education in the broad base of physics, to ever have been assembled.

The Feynman Lectures on Physics are required reading for anyone seeking any kind of education on the subject. They are accessible to anyone with a more than basic knowledge of math and science; but still useful to professional physicists, who may re-read them periodically to refresh their meory on a particular topic.

I have a set, and have had since I was a teenager. They are also available electronically online; and I strongly suggest anyone with any interest in science at all seek them out and read them fully... and over again every year or two.

I also recommend his three books; "Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman", "What do you care what other people think?", and "The Pleasure of Finding Things Out" all of which were compiled from his written essays, and tapes of his extended interviews with his writing partner Ralph Leighton, and others.

Feynman gave several lengthly televised interviews towards the end of his life; I've embedded the first episode of several of them here.

Nova - "The best mind since Einstein?":

QED:

The Pleasure of Finding Things Out:

Take the World From Another Point of View: