Article II, Section 2 of the US Constitution is simple and direct: “The President … shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur.” It served America well for 225 years.
Then, in 2015, the UN’s “international community” of climate activists gathered in Paris to hammer out language requiring that developed nations slash their fossil fuel use, tighten greenhouse gas emission targets every five years, and become “carbon neutral” within a few decades – to prevent a manmade climate chaos forecast by computer models but not supported by Earth history or real-world evidence.
Actual hourly weather observations shown here as recorded by the weather observer at Hickam Field in Honolulu, Hawaii on the morning of December 7, 1941. The highlighted text appears to say “obstructions to visibility at this (scribbled)” and then what appears to be the word “terrified”. The obstruction to visibility at this time could have been “smoke”. The weather observer on this day was PFC Sherman Levine of the US Air Corps and he died during the attack, likely a few minutes after completing the last observation on this small slip of paper. For more on the life of PFC Sherman Levine, click here.
Overview
The weather on Oahu, Hawaii in the early morning hours of Sunday, December 7th, 1941 was not at all unusual for the time of year with mild temperatures and mainly clear skies. Unfortunately, the weather conditions on that particular day would play a role in the bombing of the U.S. naval base by Japanese fighter planes at Pearl Harbor near Honolulu, Hawaii. As Japanese fighters crossed the Pacific Ocean, they were given hope that their mission would succeed when the announcement was made of “clouds mostly over the mounts…visibility good”. It is believed that the decision to attack on that particular day had plenty to do with the projected favorable weather conditions.
Pearl Harbor is in the “rain-shadow” of the Koolau Range on the south side of Oahu
Discussion
In 1941, Hawaii was a territory of the US with statehood some eighteen years away. As early as the 1870’s, the US military had scoped out the islands for commercial and defensive potential and decided that Pearly harbor on the south side of Oahu about ten miles northwest of Honolulu fit the bill. With the persistent trade winds blowing from the northeast most of the year, this particular part of Oahu is in the rain shadow of the Koolau Range. While clouds and rain are common in the Koolau Range, the downsloping winds tend to dry out for southern side of the island. In fact, Honolulu averages only about 17 inches of rainfall in a given year due to the drying effects of the downsloping winds.
On the morning of December 7th, 1941, the weather observer at Hickam Field in Honolulu reported mainly clear skies each hour with mild temperatures and light east-to-northeast winds. There was nothing that would obstruct fighter pilots lines of sight, no heavy cloud cover and no heavy rains to make flight difficult on that fateful day. After crossing the rough waters of the North Pacific, the Japanese fighter pilots in more than 350 planes reported seeing a “long white line of coast” referring to Oahu’s Kakuku Point (according to National Geographic, AccuWeather). In summary, as far as the weather was concerned, all was favorable for the attack that had been planned “many days or even weeks in advance” according to President Roosevelt in his famous speech given on the following day.
Though the US suffered greatly on that particular morning due in large part to the generally clear sky conditions, the weather actually played an important indirect beneficial role for the nation. The USS Enterprise (CV-6) was coming back to Pearl Harbor from Wake Island and was actually scheduled to arrive on the morning of December 7th, but it was delayed due to high winds and rough seas. According to the former director for the US Naval Institute, Paul Stillwell, “the vessel was behind schedule returning to Pearl Harbor, and because of this was not present for the attack. The Enterprise played a substantial role throughout the remainder of the war, and had it been in port that day, things may have been very different.”
Aerial view of USS Enterprise at sea in 1945 (courtesy Wikipedia)
USS Enterprise (CV-6) was the seventh U.S. Navy vessel to bear the name. Colloquially called “The Big E”, she was the sixth aircraft carrier of the United States Navy. A Yorktown-class carrier, she was launched in 1936 and was one of only three American carriers commissioned before World War II to survive the war. Had the mighty vessel made it back to Pearl Harbor on schedule, she would have been engaged by Japanese fighters and likely damaged or destroyed. As it turned out, the USS Enterprise earned enough commendations (20 Battle Stars) to become the most decorated US ship in World War II.
Quote of the Week: Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thought-crime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten. . . . The process will still be continuing long after you and I are dead. Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller. Even now, of course, there’s no reason or excuse for committing thought-crime. It’s merely a question of self-discipline, reality-control. But in the end there won’t be any need even for that. . . . Has it ever occurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?” – George Orwell, 1984 https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/450328-don-t-you-see-that-the-whole-aim-of-newspeak-is
Activists who came up with plan now on Biden EPA transition team
As reported in the Wall Street Journal, a trail of emails between progressive state attorneys generals (AG) offices and former Obama-Biden and career Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials – obtained over nine months by Energy Policy Advocates’ dogged public record requests – reveal a plan to use the courts to impose the “climate” agenda early in the next administration, skipping Congress. The chosen approach is even more aggressive than the disastrous and politically unattainable “Green New Deal” (now rebranded as “Net Zero”) and was previously rejected by the Obama EPA and green activists as too extreme.
The plan is for an otherwise Obama-like move: an end-run around the democratic process, avoiding political sign-off or accountability for what would be a massive, painful and ideological restructuring of the U.S. economy.
Joe Biden’s gun policy platform offers support for almost all conceivable forms of government restrictions on the Second Amendment. This includes bans and restrictions on sales, expansion of registration and background checks, expansion of buyback programs and gun-grabbing statutes, and the closing of all sorts of “loopholes.”1
While we are only at the policy platform stage, where proposals are grandiose and imprecise, Biden’s legislative agenda will clearly be anti–Second Amendment and not a program to reduce crime and violence. First, he wants to stop the “gun violence epidemic” with restriction on rifles when it is handgun shootings, not rifles, that are a problem and one that is mostly confined to big cities controlled by leftists. Second, he wants to go after “assault weapons” and “weapons of war” when he should know that rifles like the AK and AR “sporters” are not military-grade fully automatic weapons. Third, he would like to hold gun manufacturers civilly liable for criminal acts committed with guns, a move which would shut down the industry, the true goal.
How do those on the Left determine right from wrong? Since Marx, they’ve relied on a formula based on status, skin color, and wealth. But is that the way to reach a moral conclusion? Dennis Prager uses Israel and the United States to provide an illuminating perspective on this question.
By Associated Press – Re-Blogged From Headline Wealth
Volunteers distribute food to people who waited in line in their cars overnight, at a food distribution point in Metairie, La.. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
looking for work, his wife needed surgery, then the virus began eating away at her work hours and her paycheck.
The Crawfords had no savings, mounting bills and a growing dread: What if they ran out of food? The couple had two boys, 5 and 10, and boxes of macaroni and cheese from the dollar store could go only so far.
A 37-year-old Navy vet, Crawford saw himself as self-reliant. Asking for food made him uncomfortable. “I felt like I was a failure,” he says. “It’s this whole stigma … this mindset that you’re this guy who can’t provide for his family, that you’re a deadbeat.”
Hunger is a harsh reality in the richest country in the world. Even during times of prosperity, schools hand out millions of hot meals a day to children, and desperate elderly Americans are sometimes forced to choose between medicine and food.
I’ve had this data for a month or so now and I’ve been trying to decide what to say about it. I assumed someone else would show this somewhere first and I could resume my quiet observation. But I haven’t seen it anywhere and with everyone talking about locking down again I decided I should at least put it out there with minimum comment. So here it is.
Lockdowns are intended to reduce the spread of cases and therefore the number of deaths. A known side effect of the lockdowns is an increase in unemployment. So we should be able to use the increase in unemployment as a proxy for how hard a state locked down. Figure 1 shows how cases relate to lockdown intensity as measured by unemployment. There appears to be very little relationship, but maybe it reduces the number of cases slightly.
By Ken Haapala, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project
Quote of the Week: “Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real. If quantum mechanics hasn’t profoundly shocked you, you haven’t understood it yet.” — Niels Bohr (1885-1962)
Number of the Week: 75% and 145%
Greenhouse Continued: For the past several weeks TWTW has described work by W. A. van Wijngaarden and W. Happer (W & H), on the thermal radiation of the five most abundant greenhouse gases. The most abundant greenhouse gas, water vapor, and the second most abundant, carbon dioxide, are extremely saturated. This means it would take major increases in the concentrations of these gases in the atmosphere to have a significant impact on global temperatures. For carbon dioxide to have a significant impact on temperatures, it would require burning of more coal and oil than are known to exist. [There is enough CH4 in methane clathrates on the continental shelf to provide 3,000 years of all 2020 energy.]
The 2020 fire season is nearing its end. But monstrous wildfires continue to rage across America’s western states, devastating towns and habitats, and killing hundreds of people and millions of animals. Politicians and environmentalists continue to rage that climate change is the primary factor, allowing few responsible, commonsense forest management actions that could actually reduce the risks.
Manmade climate change is a convenient scapegoat, but it cannot be separated from natural climate fluctuations and effects. Moreover, even assuming fossil fuel emissions play a dominant role in the human portion of this equation – and even if the Pacific Northwest or entire USA eliminated coal, oil and natural gas – China, India and scores of other nations will not do so anytime soon.
Selina Soule was one of the top five female high school sprinters in Connecticut… until competing against biological boys changed the game. Now, women aren’t just losing their races — they’re losing their chances to compete at all. Why is this happening? And what should we do about it?
The use of Remdesivir for COVID-19 was authorized by the FDA based on a single RCT, conducted by NIAID with the participation of Gilead Sciences, the exclusive manufacturer of Remdesivir. A final report from this study was published on October 8, five months after the drug’s authorization.
The final report shows that at least 35% of the patients were treated with Hydroxychloroquine, probably with Azithromycin. The data in the final report suggests that Hydroxychloroquine, not Remdesivir, was the main factor benefitting the patients in this study.
Nothing in the study supports the hypothesis that Remdesivir is an effective antiviral for SARS-COV-19
It feels like déjà vu . Some shoppers are reporting seeing a shortage of toilet paper again.
There are concerns people may be hoarding supplies because of another coronavirus resurgence and the uncertainty of the upcoming election.
“I think we’re going to have the same problem we had when the pandemic started,” said shopper Bill Birch.
On the Costco 92127 Facebook page, toilet paper is the topic. People discuss when it’s there and when it’s not, when it’s restocked and when it’s gone again. Someone even posted Tuesday that people were lined up this morning to buy more.
Should Latinos see America as a land of systemic racism, xenophobia, and immigrant children in cages? Emma Jimenez, an independent journalist who immigrated from Peru, debunks some common myths. She also shares why becoming an American citizen was the most rewarding experience of her life.
It was one week after the terrorist attacks on 9/11 when envelopes containing a white powder began showing up at random locations in four states; among them, a newspaper office in Florida, the Washington D.C. office of then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, NBC News and the New York Post. The white powder turned out to be anthrax spores, engineered to be readily dispersed and inhaled – a potentially deadly bioterrorism weapon.
“Higher education kind of destroyed me.” Gina Florio graduated Harvard University as an angry atheist taught to hate America. So much so that she abandoned her birth country for Australia. When a freak accident sent her back to the U.S., a video by Candace Owens, then others by Dave Rubin and PragerU, opened her eyes to the lies she had been believing all of those terrible years. This is Gina’s story of discovering truth and reclaiming her freedom.
What is the difference between free-market capitalism and democratic socialism? And which system is actually more fair and responsive to the needs of the people? Here’s a hint: names can be deceiving. Dinesh D’Souza has the answers.
Black Lives Matter and the left-wing media narrative of what black Americans are supposed to be and believe left Amir Odom fearful, believing lies, and deeply unhappy. When a date became a BLM debate, he was challenged to watch a few videos presenting actual data. Empowered by truth, Amir transformed from victim to victor. He hopes his message will reach other young black Americans who have fallen prey to BLM and their dangerous, divisive agenda.
I grew up in a medical household. My father was one of the leading pediatricians of the Greater Los Angeles, California area. Every single day I was greeted with pragmatic, practical news on the advances being made in medicine, public health, and especially in the treatment and care of children and their diseases. And every day, it was plain, when my father came home, if he had lost a patient that day – he was stoic and realistic, but every baby lost, every child that died, crushed part of him. That was in 1950. There was a vaccine for smallpox but almost nothing else. Children were expected to suffer through measles, mumps, chicken pox and German Measles (Rubella). We almost all did. The worst was the dreaded risk of polio.
A white physician working in Raleigh, N.C., says he has participated in multiple diversity training exercises – including two in the last two years – without a fuss. But he was taken aback when his employer, Duke University Health System, said this summer it will roll out a comprehensive strategy to purge the last vestiges of racism from the workplace.
The way it looks to him, Duke basically wants him to admit he’s a racist and repent.
Like a growing number of organizations around the country responding to the death of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement, Duke is adopting anti-racist advocacy as an organizational mission. That mission doesn’t mention time-honored workplace goals like color-blindness, meritocracy, or equal opportunity; instead, its target is the so-called complicity of America and its citizens in “structural racism,” “oppression,” and denialism.
Brandon Tatum grew up idolizing sports figures like Michael Jordan. After his own dreams of playing in the NFL fell apart on draft day, he was devastated—until a fateful encounter with a new kind of hero helped him discover a new calling as a police officer. But when the nation’s leaders and the media turned against law enforcement, Brandon struggled to reconcile his own experiences with their anti-police rhetoric and began questioning everything he was taught about how he should think as a black man in America.
Who does the virus call ‘Daddy’? In the 1950s, oil geologist Michel Halbouty said that “oil is first found in the minds of men“, meaning that someone has to imagine the existence of an oil field before they can go out to find it. The same is true of most of the fruits of mental endeavour.
Similarly, the COVID-19 virus is artificial so someone conceived it in his mind before it was created in the lab.
WalkAway founder Brandon Straka’s political opinions were once wrapped up entirely in his sexual identity. But after a profound healing experience at an AA meeting, his resentment for heterosexual and conservative people melted away. With a clear mind and open heart, he was soon awakened to the narrative of hate and division that he had bought into. Now free to finally think for himself and honestly investigate the truth, his world turned upside down.
The claim that half the corals of the Great Barrier Reef are dead is based on a new method using ‘proxies’ (not a direct measure of coral cover), applied to badly cyclone damaged reefs, just after a major coral bleaching event – from which the corals have since recovered.
What do Democratic Socialists like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez want America to look like? They say they want America to emulate Scandinavian countries like Denmark and Sweden. But do their proposed policies reflect that? Or do they point down a darker path? Debbie D’Souza, a native Venezuelan and political commentator, investigates.
The Justice Department is expected to file a lawsuit Tuesday alleging that Google has been abusing its online dominance in online search to stifle competition and harm consumers, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.
The lawsuit marks the government’s most significant act to protect competition since its groundbreaking case against Microsoft more than 20 years ago. It could be an opening salvo ahead of other major government antitrust actions, given ongoing investigations of major tech companies including Apple, Amazon and Facebook at both the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission.
Journalist Clarissa Bye from the Daily Telegraph has done a really good job of summarizing my concerns and recommendations for better bushfire management across Australia. The article entitled ‘Burning Question on Fires and Climate Link’ has been republished in so many of the News Ltd regional papers including The Frazer Coast Chronicle and The Byron Shire News and is based on Chapter 16 in my new book, ‘Climate Change: The Facts 2020’. Clarissa writes:
Polar bears (Ursus maritimus) are the poster child for the impacts of climate change on species, and justifiably so. To date, global warming has been most pronounced in the Arctic, and this trend is projected to continue. There are suggestions that before mid-century we could have a nearly ice-free Arctic in the summer. This increases the urgency with which we must act to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions to delay or avoid some of the worst consequences of climate change.
America’s key institutions are broken. More people wake up daily to that reality. They are preparing for the moment this realization dawns on Americans at large, which explains why the markets for physical bullion are so active.
Markets certainly aren’t working. Perpetual central bank intervention, rampant Wall Street cheating, high frequency trading, index funds, and many other factors have divorced the price of securities from fundamental realities, such as high unemployment.
The adjacent screen capture from CNBC in April says it all about how badly markets are doing at reflecting true economic fundamentals.
The scientific method remains the best way to solve many problems, but bias, overconfidence and politics can sometimes lead scientists astray
It’s been awhile since I have been so struck by an article that I felt moved to immediately do a blog post. Well, maybe because today is Saturday and it is one day after the landfall of Hurricane Delta, I actually have a half hour to do this.
Matt Ridley has published an article in the WSJ What the pandemic has taught us about science, that is highly relevant for climate change as well as for Covid-19. It is excellent, I agree with and endorse every word of this.
The paper is behind paywall; Dan Hughes kindly sent me a topic of the text. Here are extensive excerpts
Pioneering new research has helped geologists solve a long-standing puzzle that could help pinpoint new, untapped concentrations of some the most valuable rare earth deposits.
A team of geologists, led by Professor Frances Wall from the Camborne School of Mines, have discovered a new hypothesis to predict where rare earth elements neodymium and dysprosium could be found.
The elements are among the most sought after, because they are an essential part of digital and clean energy manufacturing, including magnets in large wind turbines and electric cars motors.
h/t JoNova; Rajesh Khanna, a University of Arizona professor of pharmacology who specializes in researching pain and pain treatments, has discovered that a Covid-19 viral spike protein appears to block pain signals caused by inflammation. Rajesh has received multiple reports from people who suffer from chronic pain conditions stating that while they were infected, they didn’t experience any pain.
UA scientists study theory that the coronavirus may briefly block pain, masking illness
For all its deadly effects, the novel coronavirus may actually have one unexpected side effect.
…
By attaching to this receptor, called the neuropilin-1 receptor, the virus seems to decrease or stop pain entirely, according to the study’s lead researcher, Rajesh Khanna.
“The pathway for pain is shut off,” Khanna said.
…
He has received dozens of anecdotal emails since his study published from patients who had chronic pain conditions before getting sick.
“Then they got COVID and now their pain is gone,” he said. “I fully acknowledge that these are anecdotes … but it’s a recurrent theme. It’s mind boggling!”
Professor Khanna thinks this potent pain masking effect might be an evolutionary adaption. It could allow the infectious to carry on with their normal lives, blocking awareness that they are sick.
Thanks to Professor Khanna’s research, It seems likely that doctors may soon have a potent new pain medication in their arsenal, to help improve the lives of people who suffer from debilitating chronic pain.
Dr. Crockford is one of the world’s leading experts “… on the evolutionary history of dogs, especially in regards to their domestication and speciation. In 2007, she was called upon as the scientific consultant for the PBS documentary, Dogs that Changed the World, focused upon the domestication of dogs. In the two-part documentary, she was called upon multiple times to give insight into the process of domestication and the emergence of dogs as a separate species from wolves.” [ Wiki ]
What’s the difference between absentee balloting and universal mail-in balloting? The latter might sound like a great idea, but is it really? Eric Eggers of the Government Accountability Institute answers this vitally important question.
Federal regulators have not taken adequate steps to protect computer systems on airliners from hackers, a government watchdog agency reported on Friday.
The agency said the Federal Aviation Administration has not developed a training program for cybersecurity or test airplane computer systems that could be vulnerable to attack.
Water on Mars: discovery of three buried lakes intrigues scientists
Researchers have detected a group of lakes hidden under the red planet’s icy surface.
Jonathan O’Callaghan
Two years ago, planetary scientists reported the discovery of a large saltwater lake under the ice at Mars’s south pole, a finding that was met with excitement and some scepticism. Now, researchers have confirmed the presence of that lake — and found three more.
When the brightness of the star Betelgeuse dropped dramatically a few months ago, some observers suspected an impending supernova – a stellar explosion that could also cause damage on Earth. While Betelgeuse has returned to normal, physicists from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have found evidence of a supernova that exploded near the Earth around 2.5 million years ago.
Discovery of a nearby supernova 2.5 million years ago boosting cosmic rays may lend credence to Svensmark’s cosmic rays modulate clouds on Earth theory.
The urban heat island (UHI) effect is strongly affected by urban-scale changes to local land surfaces. Basically, the more asphalt, concrete, buildings, etc. that exist near a thermometer, the more the overnight low temperature is biased upwards due to heat storage.
[ Just a note about a curious thing to lighten your day. ]
This is the time of year that ladybugs start to look for places to spend the winter. They don’t migrate like songbirds, but hibernate, more like bears or turtles. Many of us find ladybugs inside our homes once the weather starts to get cold, or, even more often, in the spring when the ladybugs that have been sleeping inside our home’s walls all winter come out on the inside of the house instead of the outside!
Ladybugs are Good Bugs!
In your flower or vegetable garden, ladybugs are beneficial – both the adult (ladybug) and the larvae eat aphids, mealybugs and spider mites, all of which cause damage to your plants. Ladybugs are so helpful that they are sold as natural “pesticides”, shipped to your home for release in your garden.
Rutgers study is the first to model impact of 5G radiation “leakage” on forecasting
Upcoming 5G wireless networks that will provide faster cell phone service may lead to inaccurate weather forecasts, according to a Rutgers study on a controversial issue that has created anxiety among meteorologists.
IMAGE: THIS IMAGE SHOWS LEAKAGE (UNINTENDED RADIATION FROM A TRANSMITTER INTO AN ADJACENT FREQUENCY BAND OR CHANNEL) FROM A 5G CELLULAR NETWORK AFFECTING SENSORS ON WEATHER SATELLITES. view more CREDIT: MOHAMMAD YOUSEFVAND
I ponder curious things. I got to thinking about available solar energy. That’s the amount of solar energy that remains after reflection losses.
Just under a third (~ 30%) of the incoming sunshine is reflected back into space by a combination of the clouds, the aerosols in the atmosphere, and the surface. What’s left is the solar energy that actually makes it in to warm up and power our entire planet. In this post, for shorthand I’ll call that the “available energy”, because … well, because that’s basically all of the energy we have available to run the entire circus.
Christopher Columbus, the most famous explorer in history, was once a celebrated hero. Now, many consider him a villain, a despoiler of paradise. So which version of Columbus is true? Michael Knowles answers this question and offers some much-needed historical perspective.
I showed in my May 10th article Why herd immunity to COVID-19 is reached much earlier than thought that inhomogeneity within a population in the susceptibility and in the social-connectivity related infectivity of individuals would reduce, in my view probably very substantially, the herd immunity threshold (HIT), beyond which an epidemic goes into retreat. I opined, based on my modelling, that the HIT probably lay somewhere between 7% and 24%, and that evidence from Stockholm County suggested it was around 17% there, and had been reached.
I then showed in a July 27th update article[1] that mounting evidence supported my reasoning.
President Donald Trump has an opportunity to make his environmental regulation rollbacks permanent if he places another conservative on the Supreme Court before Inauguration Day, legal experts argue.
Adding another conservative justice will also greatly diminish Justice John Robert’s role as a swing member in which he occasionally sides with liberal justices, one legal expert at the University of Maryland suggested.
The president can pave the road for future deregulations with one more justice, Myron Ebell, an analyst at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
A number of groups and individuals are claiming that the recent major wildfires in the Pacific Northwest are predominantly or significantly the result of climate change produced by increasing greenhouse gases.
In fact, many have called these conflagrations “climate fires.” Did global warming (a.k.a. climate change) have a significant impact on the Northwest wildfires of the past few weeks?
Precious metals markets are advancing this week as a massive new stimulus bill makes its way through Congress.
On Thursday evening the House of Representatives passed a $2.2 trillion coronavirus relief bill on a party line vote.
It’s a big deal whenever Congress commits to spending that kind of cash, especially when it’s money that has to be borrowed into existence. These days, though, it’s not that unusual for Washington to dole out trillions of dollars at a time.
