Category Archives: Media Criticism

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society

The Climate Hoax

10 Comments

Like Joe Katzman, I don’t think that’s too strong a word for it any more. Steve Hayward has an extensive roundup of all the problems at the IPCC (though I could have done without the naked Al Gore picture).

Also, remember how we were told, even by warm mongering commenters here, that the CRU data didn’t matter because we had GISS?

Nope.

The NASA scientists also felt that NASA GISS data was inferior to the National Climate Data Center Global Historical Climate Network (NCDC GHCN) database.

These emails, obtained by Christopher Horner, also show that the NASA GISS dataset was not independent of CRU data.

Further, all of this information regarding the accuracy and independence of NASA GISS data was directly communicated to a reporter from USA Today in August 2007.

The reporter never published it.

Of course not. Didn’t fit the template.

Hansen should be drummed out of the global “science” community, if they want to regain any credibility.

[Update a few minutes later]

As I’ve noted before, this isn’t just a science scandal, it’s a media scandal. If they were fooled by these charlatans, it’s because they wanted to be.

[Late morning update]

More from Chris Horner — three of the four data sets are irrevocably tainted. But the faithful will not waver in their religion.

[Early afternoon update]

A video interview with Chris Horner — the climate cover up spreads to NASA.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture

Academy Awards?

40 Comments

There goes the neighborhood.

When I moved out here decades ago, one of the reasons that didn’t cause me to do so was proximity of the movie business. It was just for the space work, and the climate, and a general love of California. Just never had that much interest in it, or its denizens, and I can’t remember the last time (if ever) I watched an Oscar ceremony. Of course, I hardly ever go to the movies, so it’s likely that I haven’t even seen ninety percent of the contenders.

My big hope for this year is that Avatar wins an award for effects, and gets shut out on everything else. When a producer/director comes out and blatantly states that he was setting out to make an anti-corporate pro-“environment” movie, that should seal the deal, as far as I’m concerned. As Mayer famously said, if you want to send a message, use Western Union.

[Monday morning update]

Overall, I’d say that the Academy got it right. I think it’s interesting that, now that the evil tyrant George BusHitler is no longer terrorizing us from the White House, it’s all right to praise the troops, and to give an Oscar for best actress to a woman who played a Christian conservative (though maybe they were imagining what a feat of acting it must have been, as it would have been for them, for her to do so).

And we finally went to see Avatar yesterday afternoon (it’s no longer playing in IMAX, having finally been shoved aside by Alice, but still in 3D). It was just about as annoying as I expected.

Amoral anti-science philistine corporate toady interested in nothing but this quarter’s bottom line? Check. (Though to be fair, probably a lot of people in Hollywood have no experience with any other kind of businessman.)

Evil military guy who takes great joy in wiping out folks he considers subhuman? Check.

Scientists good, businesspeople evil? Check. Though again, to be fair, Hollywood often portrays scientists as evil as well.

Mindless worship of nature over technology (which is evil and destructive)? Check.

Perpetuation, even elevation of the pernicious myth of the noble savage? Check.

The last two, of course, are greatly aided by the propaganda effort that has been undertaken in our public school system for the past three or so decades. The Indians lived in peace and harmony, and in sustainable balance with their environment, bla bla, with no evidence to the contrary offered (e.g., mass slaughter of buffalo by driving them over cliffs, their horrific imagination for torture, the human sacrifices, the slash and burn, etc.). It’s all part of the ongoing effort to turn us from a nation founded on the principles of Locke to one based more on Rousseau. I’m glad that it wasn’t rewarded last night (though, had they invested one percent of the amount they did in effects on writing and story telling, and less cartoonish characters of a dimension greater than a half or so, that they did on effects, they might have gotten away with it).

[Update a while later]

Here’s an example of the brilliant dialogue:

NEYTIRI
Why save you?
JAKE
Yes, why save me?
NEYTIRI
You have a strong heart. No fear.
She leans closer —
NEYTIRI
But stupid! Ignorant like a child!

I think I know where the scriptwriters got their inspiration:

Eros: “You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!”

Harsh, I know. But that doesn’t make it not true.

Also, as Ray Kurzweil notes, Cameron seems to have a warped view of technology. Daisy cutters: bad. Arrows that can stop a man’s heart in less than a minute: good. And noble. And strangely, their bows and arrows are the only technology that these people seem to use. There is no mention of how their clothes and jewelry are made, though they clearly have them. And they clearly needed the Skypeople’s technology to destroy them. It’s all fine to have Gaia or whatevertheheckhername send a herd of stampeding hammerhead rhinocerous-like things, but that daisycutter would have been delivered if they hadn’t had a gunship and ordnance of their own.

And their only transport is the animals, though they don’t seem to use saddles. How do they expect to make serious war when they can get knocked off at the first impact with the enemy? The invention of the stirrup how the Mongols wiped up the place with everyone else. And really, don’t those flying things need seatbelts? I was quite amused to watch Sully firing his full auto cannon without being knocked off the creature from the recoil.

What this movie reminded me of was another movie with groundbreaking (at the time) effects, and terrible story, dialogue, and annoying characters. It was called Jurassic Park.

Media Criticism, Science And Society

The Science Is Settled

24 Comments

A giant asteroid hit really did kill the dinosaurs.

OK, the title is a joke (on the warm mongers) — the phrase “the science is settled” is an oxymoron, and goes against the very nature of science. But there does seem to be a growing “consensus” (another scientific oxymoron) that Louis Alverez got it right three decades ago. The initial resistance, it always seemed to me, to be resistance to the notion by paleontologists, who were extremely terracentric, that something extraterrestrial could have such a sudden and catastrophic effect on the planet and its most dominant order. It didn’t help that it was in a field far outside their domain.

Media Criticism, Space, Technology and Society

Here We Go Again

96 Comments

Every time there’s a test of a scramjet, there’s associated overhype about how great it will be for space access. The upcoming X-51 flight is no exception:

Ms. Waldman said in her report that as scramjet technology is developed testers believe that in the near future it could be used to aid warfighters as a weapons delivery system. She said officials believe that in the future the scramjet technology will make space access easier.

“The application really is all about space lift,” Mr. Brink agreed, and said, “This is the one, I think, in the Air Force Research Lab we’re most excited about.”

Mr. Brink pointed out that they currently transport payload into space with the shuttle, which has to carry all of its oxidizers for the propulsion concept. He said the shuttle is a pure rocket system and said if they can incorporate scramjet engine technology into the space lift systems, they wouldn’t have to carry the oxidizers and could carry more payload instead.

Yeah, if there’s any payload left after you count the weight of the engines, which have terrible T/W compared to rockets, and all of the extra drag you incur staying in the atmosphere to collect the oxygen. I’ve discussed this more than once in the past. I’ve never seen a hypersonic airbreathing conceptual vehicle design that was an improvement in performance over a rocket for a space transport, at least if there was any analysis more serious than the above performed on it. Scramjets have plenty of utility for military applications. I wish that people selling the program didn’t always feel the need to oversell it. And if we had a smarter space media, they’d get called on it.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space

There Is No “Plan B”

51 Comments

Or if there is, it wasn’t at the administrator’s request. And I think that Andy Pasztor should have done a little more digging before running his original story.

I think that all these rumors and leaks are just guerilla warfare by Ares/Constellation dead enders. And the end is growing near. If you look at the Senate Authorization language, it essentially buys into the new policy, for all intents and purposes.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society

“The Science Is Settled”

5 Comments

…they told Copernicus.

[Late morning update]

Several “scientists” are continuing to plot attacks on the “deniers.” And they’re being led by Paul Ehrlich, one of the most discredited pseudoscientific totalitarian doom’n’gloomers in modern history? It doesn’t help that the president’s current science advisor was one of his protégés.

These folks have apparently never learned the old rule about holes.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Some Shocking Consistency

20 Comments

…from the editorial board of the LA Times:

…if the court would identify an important individual right — in this case, the right to bear arms — and then deny that it applied to the states, those who never accepted the incorporation doctrine might try to “de-incorporate” other rights. That’s not a risk worth taking.

A lot of the gun grabbers want to have it both ways — that the Second Amendment shouldn’t be incorporated, but that other rights do. At least the Times recognizes the inconsistency of this, even if they don’t understand the meaning and purpose of the amendment.

Media Criticism, Popular Culture, Space

CSI: Suborbit

17 Comments

Dwayne Day has an amusing review of what seems to have been a particularly stupid episode of CSI: Miami. I’ve never actually sat through an entire show (the only reason I’ve ever been able to see for watching it is Emily Procter, and that’s not enough, particularly since she doesn’t have anywhere near the southern accent that much of the hype about her would lead you to believe). Are they all this dumb?