The New Zealand Maori (of which I am a member) sometimes claim that our culture promotes sustainability and care for the environment. This has always been revisionist bs, but it was useful into guilting the pakeha into giving settlement money (which our tribal elites pocket). This study on moa is useful to show that *all* humans have and will be destructive to the habitat. Being hypocritical for the purpose of guilt-tripping another ethnic group is false and immoral. My fellow New Zealanders should not fall for this scam any longer!

Haha! Shuttleworth now agrees with Richard Stallman's assessment of the situation from thirty years ago.

Hopefully more IT leaders (and users!) also wake up to this.

If you can't control your device all the way down to the hardware, then bad guys will (and very sadly, bad guys now includes the NSA).

I acquired an Nvidia GTX780 recently and was surprised by how much easier the Linux drivers were to install than the ATI ones (I replaced an HD 5900). When I ran the Unigen Valley test the GTX780 on OpenGL was only a few frames behind the DirectX version (both on Windows). Since OpenGL is so fast I would expect that it runs fine on Linux - if not faster, as recent reports are starting to have Linux as faster for 3D. This is due to the ability of driver manufacturers being able to tune the driver to the kernel (unlike closed kernels). Please check out the following articles:

• "Faster Zombies!" [Valve Linux] - http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/linux/faster-zombies/
• "The AMD Radeon Performance Is Incredible On Linux 3.12" - http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amd_linux312_major&num=1
• "Here's Why Radeon Graphics Are Faster On Linux 3.12" - http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=linux_312_performance&num=1

Both NVidia and AMD have lifted their game a lot recently for Linux. Plus Valve has been working hard to improve things - with its Steam Box in the pipeline (which is Linux based). I suggest you take a look at Linux drivers again, they are very competitive on modern GPUs.

Funny thing is, Sarah Palin knew Obama would be a disaster for "traditional America". Now, you are free to hate "traditional America" if you wish (particularly if you strongly identify with Obama's political tribe rather than the nation) - but you cannot say that Sarah Palin did not spot him a mile away. Incidentally, you may be laboring under the "media version" of Sarah Palin (eg. attributing Tina Fey's caricature of Palin to Palin herself). If you are, then please remind yourself to look up the statements from the authentic source rather than the ridiculous statements made by someone else for laughs but often falsely attributed to the real thing.

As Palin said, "How's that hopey changey thang workin out for ya?". The US debt is 17 trillion and after the fiasco where Harry Reid shut down the government (by refusing to vote in the Senate of the 14 bills the House passed to fund the Government) there is now no apparent limit to the spending that the Executive can do (despite the US Constitution explicitly prohibiting the Executive from raising taxes like the ObamaCare mandate). The week after the shutdown US spending went up by 0.328 Trillion. With ObamaCare the economy is about to take another 2.6 Trillion hit on top of the 17 trillion debt. US citizens cannot pay this back, particularly at the rate Obama is spending (now that the Tea Party failed to constrain his spending by prompting the Constitutional law that would do this). Plus there is the lowest participation by women in the workforce in 28 years. Then you have unbelievably high youth unemployment (particularly among blacks). Then you have the US military getting ripped apart (NSA spying has been used to dismiss 9 commanders of brigadier or higher rank). Meanwhile, the DHS is being outfitted with the same military gear that the US Army had to pacify Iraq (but of course, the DHS is controlled by political elites, not the representatives of the citizens, and is not constrained by the same Constitutional limits as the Army is). Then we have the mobs of black youths that have been targetting and killing otehr races, and the media does not report this.

The writing is clearly on the wall for the US Constitutional system. Palin predicted that Obama's character would lead to this disasterous kind of "change". You can slam Palin if you want - but it turns out she was far more right than the stuck up political analysts and media "lapdogs" (openly partisan media no longer acting as watchdogs) infesting the US these days.

Nice one!

Good post Jane Q Public. Let's stick to the science, whether it supports AGW or not (at the moment the probability of AGW being the most significant factor in our climate is decreasing - as far as I can tell). So please keep posting the facts as you find them, and ignore those for who it is a 'cult' one way or the other.

The Democrats call themselves "progressives" while championing the political elite expanding Government taking the "fruits of production". Technically this is what is called "fascism" (in economic terms). Note that Fascism is actually a *left wing* socialist ideology, which is why Democrats are installing it, and not a right wing ideology (which goes from the individualism of libertarians to the no-government anarchy of the real "Far Right"). Yes, yes, I understand that you've been told that "fascism" is "far right" but it turn out that meme was disinformation from the Left that wanted to distance itself from *National Socialism* (notice the second part of that name, that's what makes it a Leftist ideology, but not as far Left as Marxism).

Since this is probbaly new to you - and you initial reaction will be of resistance - I don't ask you take my word for it, here's the great economist Thomas Sowell explaining how the system Obama is installing is not Marxism, it is what fits the *economic* definition of "Fascism" (please forget the loaded and overloaded use of the word, I'm talking economic definitions):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xi8eLSyb7RM

True. No mod points today, otherwise you'd get them my truth-telling amigo :)

Scientists are writing papers that point out that the Global Warming consensus is wrong. They get labelled as "deniers". This is a classic tactic of the political Left and their allies (of which the environmental movement is an undeniable part), the tactic is: "Do not address the facts, but slander the message bringer".

For example, Richard Lindzen of *MIT* finds the IPCC report "hilarious":
http://dailycaller.com/2013/09/29/top-mit-scientist-un-climate-report-is-hilariously-flawed/
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/09/mit_scientist_says_new_climate_report_is_hilarious_incoherence.html

What matters is not whether there is or is not global warming. What matters is that a particular political view (which in this case, happens to come from the Left; but would be just as wrong as if it had come from the Right) is trumping science. The [Cultural Marxist] Politically Correct view is that there is Global Warming. Now that the evidence is against Global Warming there is no big pronouncement that the models were wrong. Instead, the Politically Correct terms is changed to the scientifically meaningless "Climate Change" (nb: the climate is *always* changing - being alarmist about this natural and normal process is anti-scientific, and well, political).

As you wish, but understand this is a *political* decision, and not based on the observed data. Like I said, look at that lovely sinusoid - alone it is enough to *destroy* the Global Warming hoax): http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/10/17/nasa-spokesman-reacts-to-the-spectacular-growth-in-arctic-ice/
And there are plenty more predictions of the Global Warming Theory that have not met observation (eg. *zero* hurricanes in the US in the last season; global warming theory predicted larger and more frequent hurricanes; then there was a record number of states in the US that had below average winter temperatures; then we have both the Arctic and Antarctica putting on more ice; sure, we have variability like my own New Zealand having a very warm winter this year - but one year is natural variation. When it is 15 years without global warming that is a trend.

A scientist must change their position based on *all* the observations. If the observations were for global warming I'd be more than happy to promote this theory. I have nothing ideological nor political against global warming theory. All I can say is that there are significant sets of observations that are against global warming - that means the theory cannot be accepted as is. Then I couple that with the fact that it is now known that scientists have been manipulating data (indicating that their case is very weak). That leads me to conclude Global Warming is, at best, an unproven and weak theory - and there is a higher statistical probability that the null hypothesis (no warming) is correct than the probability that warming is happening (when evaluating the untampered data). Consensus doesn't enter it.

Finally, to address you real question (sorry I didn't get to it yet). Please consider what happens to those scientists (particularly the grad researchers) who do put their head above the parapet and question global warming? they get shot. Look at famous naturalist David Bellamy who was fired for questioning global warming - after decades of service and a high TV profile. Shot down. As I said, the global warming movement is political, not scientific. That's why political measures are used to silence critics rather than robust scientific debate.

If you really want to scratch the surface of what is going on then you can start to get an inkling if you look at the "Cultural Marxism" video on YouTube. There are many things in the video I don't care for (eg. I'm a rationalist and atheist, so religious sentiments mean nothing to me), but it is a good introduction to the movement's origins. It is Cultural Marxism that is underlying the modern environmental movement (sure, there are layers above this, but this is the driving force behind the politicization of it).

Tenure merely means you can personally eat. Research grants are required to have a decent lab, lab equipment, field trips, grad students, etc. It is grants that matter. And it's hard to get grants if you go against political orthodoxy - particularly one so viciously fought as this.

Huh? it takes 60 seconds to look at and analyse that sinusoidal graph of ice cover in the Arctic as published by the Danish center for ocean and ice (original link: http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/old_icecover.uk.php). Since Arctic Ice cover is the *litmus test* of AGW then I'm surprised that you would not consider *as much time as was needed* to view and understand what the graph is telling you. That's what a real *scientist* would do. I'm afraid you will burn your scientific street cred making statements like that. We're all busy men, but getting to the truth is worth spending time on (fortunately, it will only take you 60 seconds to look and understand how the Danish data destroys the obsolete AGW meme).

The media did not turn at all. They were always pro-Left. When the Left was out of power in the US they were anti-war and anti-Government. Now that the Left is in power they are pro-war (eg. all for bombing Syria after the jihadi 'false flag' chemical attack) and pro-Government.

Why are the media pro-Left? learn about "Cultural Marxism". It is part of the invisible bars that hold you in the Matrix. Once you understand Cultural Marxism's origins, its intentions, and its destination then things like the alliance of global jihad with the Left (eg. populating the West with jihadis), the acceptance of the dominance of the OIC of the UN (including the Human Rights Commission and Refugee Agency), the takeover of the humanities in universities by Cultural Marxists, and the mass media and politicians having a leftist bent (indoctrination as they passed though universities).

The billionaires playing with newspapers is nothing new. In the US the majority of the mainstream news media is controlled by only 6 corporations. Buying a mainstream media organization is becoming very cheap. This is because people are not watching old media in great numbers any more. For example, in the US many people seemed to have turned to the Internet and can see the bias in the old media (the bias is not only their choice of Marxist Politically Correct terms when they report - but more importantly, the significant events they choose not to report ["lie by omission"]).

Note: modders, this is on-topic, I am explaining how billionaires can buy media for cheap due to the falling ratings from people sick of the media bias (always a day late and leaving critical facts out of important stories). Yeah, I know there are some of you that censor anything about the Leftist-Islam Alliance (the so called "Red-Green Alliance") as -1 Off-Topic and -1 Troll, but lay off it for a bit. The Slashdotters need to know about Cultural Marxism. Then they can make up their own mind whether they agree or not.

Why does everyone think that a Black Hole is a "giant vacuum cleaner in space?". Unless you are quite close a Black Hole has no special effect that would be distinguishable from a stellar cluster of equivalent mass. 4k light years away is pretty safe. Remember that gravity follows an inverse square law with distance.

ps. I'm a former member of the New Zealand-Japanese MOA group that set up the automated survey for finding such events (there are other surveys out there too - but this one has "our" name on it :) ).

Hi David. A few scientists are indeed running a scam. They skew data (as the site I originally linked to analyses). Other scientists then take that skewed data (not realising it has been falsified) and run legitimate analyses on *bad data*.

The Scientific Method already counts for this. It demands reproducibility. Any scientist that does not reproduce results is relying on potentially bad data. It is a risk you have to take (I was an astrophysicist in a former career). It's ok to take that risk, you can't bootstrap everything from First Principles, but you must accept that the data and assumptions you are using may be incorrect.

The problem with the climate scientists is not that they are now wrong. The problem is that they dismiss dissenting views and data. That's when it turns from climate science into the "Climate Change Cult". *That* is the problem. In politics the same thing happens. The political Left may have many great ideas, but their fatal flaw is that they encourage every diversity except the one that actually matters, diversity of *opinion*. The Left are very ideological and dogmatic in their point of view, and this political outlook is what has tainted climate research to the point it is no longer conducted using the Scientific Method.

With regard to your 98% figure. Remember that the great Eddington dismissed Chandrasekhar on the theory of electron degeneracy in stars, which form "white dwarfs". Many scientists agree with Eddington, based on his track record and persuasive arguments. But it doesn't matter how many people were against Chandrasekhar, because science does not require consensus, it requires theories to account for *all* observations. Similarly, everyone was against Galileo, but it was the latter who was proved right (after being threatened by reputable researchers and the Roman Catholic Church). So yes, there have been historical cases were even more than 98% of scientists have been wrong. I believe the data are showing that the consensus on Global Warming is also wrong - based on recent observations. Please also note I can understand the basis for the Global Warming theory based on the data from the 1990s and rising temperatures there. The flaw is that scientists have been discounting the more recent data of the last decade and a half that shatter the models of the 1990s. As I said, it is ok to be incorrect a scientist - but it is always wrong to ignore increasing evidence that goes against your pet theory. That is the mistake James Hansen and Michael Mann did (and those turkeys manipulated data and fed that bad data to other scientists).

I hope that clears up your confusion about why it is entirely possible for a large number of scientists to get results based on bad data from fraudsters who contain the gates to the data (eg. those that collate and disseminate the terrestrial observations; the satellite data is harder to tamper with, and this has revealed the tampering in the published ground-based data).

Thanks also for being reasonable with your questions. Most who hear about the data that is shattering the false orthodoxy respond by slanders and assertions of craziness or stupidity or dishonesty. Once you become aware of this tactic of the political Left and their more extreme environmentalist allies then you start to see how labels and slander are used to shut down free debate that might present facts uncomfortable for their positions. Everyone cares about the planet, but the solution is to create and *revise* theories based on *new* observations, not cling dogmatically to a two decade theory that doesn't match observed reality.

Thank you for your comment. Please note that in a former career I was an astrophysicist publishing papers. When I was an Honours students I knew some of the best students faked their data for research reports (sure, the stakes were low, but it showed me that even some very good people do not possess the same ethics that you and I share - where it is unthinkable to be anything other than brutally honest).

Medical science is no stranger to fraud:
http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124
I might add that much of political "science" and social "science" are naught but obfuscation and fraud (I jest - kind of).

Really? I find your dismissal not credible. Working on acquiring and renewing grants takes up a significant part of any working researchers time. Missing out on too many grants means yourself and associates can miss many opportunities to continue your research (which is the thing you actually care about). Therefore, if you have to place emphasis some interpretation that sounds good to a grant committee then you'll do it.

Most scientists are more ethical than the average Joe. However, science has its fair share of charlatans, and a great deal more who don't intend to mislead but simply have an incorrect interpretation they they will defend *despite* the presence of contrary facts.

The site I referenced points out some of those scientists that selectively remove some data points. Without the data points you get Global Warming. Leave the data points in and you get normal variability. I'm not asking you to take my word for it (basing arguments solely on presumed authority should be avoided) - I suggest you review the evidence presented at that linked site, specifically the articles that show the data sets before and after James Hansen and Michael Mann adjusted them. Then you can make up your own mind as to whether the editing was 'creative' to reinforce a theory, or legitimate to remove outliers (always a dodgy thing to do without evidence of instrument or system malfunction; most of the time outliers should be left in an a robust fitting method used instead, such as 'least sum of squares' rather than the usual 'least squares' that has no robustness [is always skewed by outliers]).

I stand by my statement as a former research scientist. Science is not about consensus, it is about finding theories that match the observed facts (*all* the observations, not just the 'convenient' ones).

Fair enough :) I meant at the North Pole, but you rightfully pointed out what I had written was stooopid. Apologies.

Oops, sorry, my point about 'winter ice' was for the Arctic. Thanks for your comments on the Antarctic - I'll look at the data. Meanwhile, would you agree that the assertion that the 'science is settled' does not appear to be true? and that more investigation is required before instigating energy policies that will hurt modern economies and cause all sorts of problems (from food price increases to deaths of old people from lack of heating)?