Through a Picket Fence

"Cherry Picketing"

(Pick the pickets to bracket the "trend")

-- by Horatio Algeranon

We see the world

In black and white

Up and down

Wrong and right

A picket fence 

Obstructs the view

And even changes

Neighbors too.

Inspired by a post by Tamino of the same title (albeit on a mathematical subject: aliasing).

Freedom of Hate Speech

"I disagree strongly with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to make death threats." -- Revoltaire

Unfortunately, there seem to be more than a few who subscribe to the philosophy of "Revoltaire", especially in the climate change "debate" -- and who also believe that the First Amendment gives them the right to say anything they please.

Swan Song

-- by Horatio Algeranon

When some are wrong

They sing a song

Instead of just admit

They do a dance
In burning pants

To make the story fit

The Diatribe

-- by Horatio Algeranon

The Diatribe is filled with rage

By those who never passed the stage

When Ego is free of Super’s cage.

From About.com "Psychology"

The last component of personality to develop is the superego. The superego is the aspect of personality that holds all of our internalized moral standards and ideals that we acquire from both parents and society--our sense of right and wrong. The superego provides guidelines for making judgments. According to Freud, the superego begins to emerge at around age five.

So, the "stage" referred to above ends pretty early for most folks. But, for some, it never ends.

The Curry Cornfield (updated)

--by Horatio Algeranon 

The Curry Cornfield never ends
O'er hill and dale the labyrinth wends
With row upon row of science dead ends
And Uncertainty Monsters 'round all the bends.

The scarecrows guard the fields each day
And frighten the science crowd away
With libel and threats of bloody harm
That grow in rows on the Curry Farm

For context, read this.

Sea Ice Prediction

-- by Horatio Algeranon

Ice will melt
And then refreeze,
In summer and winter

If you please.

Don't believe?

Then prove it wrong.

Won't have to wait

So very long.

Predicting sea ice extent has become a cottage cheese industry on the web. When it is done to test scientific (eg, physical or statistical) models, it is legitimate, but in Horatio's humble opinion, much (if not most) of what goes on is just wild speculation with the hope that one's "estimate" will prove correct and one will get blogcolades as a result.

But as they say, even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Reminds Horatio more than a little of the situation with psychics: make enough "prognostications" and one of them is bound to eventually turn out "right'. Of course, wrong predictions are quickly forgotten and the "psychics" who do happen to get it right (by pure chance) are held up as soothsayers.

Horatio's "prediction' above is tongue in cheek, of course -- and just a little less meaningful than most (but not by much). And (believe it or not Ripley) many of the arguments made by climate change pseudo-skeptics actually revolve around the obvious fact that ice refreezes in winter, which some refer (quite seriously) to as sea ice "recovery".

I left my Heartland in Ad Fiasco

Horatio's parody of "I left my Heart in San Francisco" (the lovely song by Tony Bennett)

The memory of Gleickgate
Seems somehow sadly gay
The glory that was Climategate
Is of another day
I've been terribly alone
And forgotten in DC
I have a feeling, I'm going to have to pay

I left my Heartland in Ad Fiasco
High on a billboard, Ted calls to me.
To be where Fargo armored trucks
Deliver piles of bucks!
The funders' flight may chill the air
I don't care!
My love waits there in Ad Fiasco
Above the dark and stormy sea
When I come home to you, Ad Fiasco,
Your golden sun will shine for me!

Click here to listen to Horatio sing I Left My Heartland in Ad Fiasco (Sorry Tony)

Significant Difference

-- by Horatio Algeranon

The difference between the science and math

Can not be seen from just a graph.

The science requires reality’s touch.

The mathematics, not so much.

The difference between the scientist and fake

Can not be seen from what they bake.

The scientist requires confirmation.

The pseudo-skeptic, mathturbation.

It would undoubtedly come as a huge surprise to some, but doing science involves far more than simply "diddling around" with mathematics until you get a certain outcome  (aka "mathturbation", with which some are so enamored.)

Hurtland Destitute?

-- by Horatio Algeranon

Heartland is Hurtland

A funders' Desertland

Treasure Trollve

-- by Horatio Algeranon

Classy trolls are hard to find

But if you're really in a bind

Relax the quality con-troll a tad

A treasure trollve can then be had.

On the other hand, Tamino is complaining that he "deserves a better class of troll" on his blog.

"The troll is always better"
-- by Horatio Algeranon


"The troll is always better
On the far side of the ridge"
Or so I'm told by those who've trolled
..Or maybe it was "bridge".

Heartland Chickens

-- by Horatio Algeranon

The Heartland chickens 
Are home to roost.

On Heartland Farms 
They have been loosed.

Blissful Thinking

 by Horatio Algeranon

If ignorance is bliss

Americans are blissful.

And as for Fortune's kiss

Our thinking is quite wishful.

Fossil Fools

-- by Horatio Algeranon

"Fossil fools" is what they'll call us

 (If extinction doesn't befall us.)

Posterity won't forgive or forget

That on their future we did bet.

The Mathgic Box

--by Horatio Algeranon

"Plug and Play" Is what I say 

Don't worry whether it's "OK" 

To fit a curve to the nth degree 

And plot a graph of what will be 

Or take a trend on just two years 

Just fudge ahead, and have no fears 

The "Higher math" is where it's at
And magic, black-box math at that.

The Mathgic Box is really swank 

Dump data in and turn the crank

And what comes out, so I am told,

 Is worth it's weight in Fort Knox gold.

"Plug and Play" (also known as "Black Box") mathematics seems to be very popular in some circles -- eg, among climate "skeptics" and economists* (who also seem to make up a not insignificant fraction of climate skeptics, coincidentally. )

Physics? Chemistry? Biology? Reality?

Who cares about that stuff?

Just plug the data into the "Mathgic Formula" and see what comes out. That's it! No need to understand the underlying assumptions of the mathematical model and whether the model is valid for the particular problem at hand.

*Black-Scholes ( "a mathematical model of a financial market containing certain derivative investment instruments")   is a perfect example. As we know, all those economists and financial "analysts" plugging and playing with Black Scholes to price options in the derivatives market in the years leading up to the recent economic collapse understood precisely what they were doing. 

For more on the subject, read Econumeroclimatologic, Econolyin' and Wreckonomics.

Game Over for the Climate

-- Horatio Algeranon's versification of Climate scientist James Hansen

Global warming isn't a prediction. 

It's happening. It's real.

It's what the science tells us,

Not simply what I feel

If Canada mines the tar-sands, 

And we do naught about it, 

It almost certainly will be

"Game over" for the climate.

The following is from Game Over for the Climate, by James Hansen:

"Canada’s tar sands, deposits of sand saturated with bitumen, contain twice the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by global oil use in our entire history. If we were to fully exploit this new oil source, and continue to burn our conventional oil, gas and coal supplies, concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere eventually would reach levels higher than in the Pliocene era, more than 2.5 million years ago, when sea level was at least 50 feet higher than it is now. That level of heat-trapping gases would assure that the disintegration of the ice sheets would accelerate out of control. Sea levels would rise and destroy coastal cities. Global temperatures would become intolerable. Twenty to 50 percent of the planet’s species would be driven to extinction. Civilization would be at risk."

"If this sounds apocalyptic, it is. This is why we need to reduce emissions dramatically. President Obama has the power not only to deny tar sands oil additional access to Gulf Coast refining, which Canada desires in part for export markets, but also to encourage economic incentives to leave tar sands and other dirty fuels in the ground."

"President Obama speaks of a “planet in peril,” but he does not provide the leadership needed to change the world’s course. Our leaders must speak candidly to the public — which yearns for open, honest discussion — explaining that our continued technological leadership and economic well-being demand a reasoned change of our energy course. History has shown that the American public can rise to the challenge, but leadership is essential."


"The science of the situation is clear — it’s time for the politics to follow"

Tiger Tailer

-- by Horatio Algeranon

I am a tiger tailer

By trade, a wagger-trailer

I track the trend

In the tiger end

A vector, 

Not a scalar.

Obsessing about what temperature is doing right now  and has done in very recent years is more than a little like following the tail of the tiger (which some seem to have adopted as a full-time job -- updating the "trend" for the last decade with each new month of data, as it were).


Maybe (just maybe) we should be more worried about what is attached to that tail (3 decades of significant warming)

Mean Spirited

--  by Horatio Algeranon

The basic tenet:
(It certainly seems)
“The end justifies
Ignoring the means”

"Means" as used here has a double meaning: everyday (methods) and mathematical (averages). 

Unfortunately, it's all too common among those who deny or downplay the significance of climate change to simply ignore (in some cases quite purposely) the change in the average  (eg, of temperature, arctic sea ice extent and volume, glacier ice mass) and instead compare individual years (eg, "There has been no net warming since 1998"), which include year-to-year weather noise (eg, the strong El Nino of 1998) and are often (if not usually) not an accurate gauge of what is happening with the climate.

Inspired by Tamino's In The Classroom

The Heartland Institute's New Ad Campaign

Heartland Institute's last ad campaign:

Heartland's new (and improved) ad campaign:

In case you don't get the joke* ("I still believe in Heartland Institute Do you") read Beneath Contempt (where Horatio originally posted a link to the second [doctored] image)

*basically what Heartland is, a cruel,pathetic joke.

And if you have been living on another planet and never heard of Heartland before this, read Heartland Hotel  wherein Elvis (or at least Horatio's interpretation of him) tells you everything you never wanted to know about Heartland.

Lord of the Updates

– by Horatio Algeranon (with some help from JRR Tolkien)

Two Updates for the Jester’s on the net, 

Two for the Denier-Lords in the Halls of Congress, 

One for the Public in their ways set, 

One for the Blogger Lord that you can guess 

In the Land of Shortrends where the statistics lie. 

One Update to rule them all, One Update to find them, 

One Update to bring them all and in the confusion bind them 

In the Land of Shortrends where the statistics lie.

For context, read Let's do the math!