Jumpingmanjim posted:

Weather bureaus have changed. They are no longer invisible organisations where avuncular bureaucrats use basic computers to deliver dodgy forecasts. Today’s weather bureaucrats are visible, sophisticated and ideological. But, despite a huge investment in supercomputers, their record for accurate forecasts remains dismal.

Their mission has expanded to include climate change advocacy, where agnostics are left in no doubt that significant weather abnormalities are evidence of global warming. They tinker with raw data but give inadequate explanation as to why. Their terrestrial records diverge increasingly with satellite and radiosonde datasets. Confidence in their integrity has been called into question.

Today’s bureaus have become climate change citadels. Their records are the repository of the Holy Grail. Regardless of doubts about their accuracy, they are protected. Hundreds of billions of dollars annually, including huge international transfer payments and tens of thousands of highly paid jobs, may depend on keeping records away from prying eyes.

Last August, a BBC Radio 4 program called What’s the Point of the Met Office? detailed the British agency’s history of dud predictions and its role as a parliamentary lobbyist. Rather than wait for an official complaint, the BBC issued a full-blown apology for “giving voice to climate-change sceptics” and “for failing to make it clear that they are a minority voice out of step with the scientific consensus”. According to program host Quentin Letts, Roger Harrabin, the BBC’s environment analyst, “went nuts” that the program was aired. Later, several BBC officials were required to undertake online training with a “substantial scenario on reporting climate-change science”.

Across the Atlantic, the US house science committee is conducting an investigation into the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a $6 billion-a-year government weather service, seeking access to internal deliberations around a groundbreaking climate change study. Amid allegations that the NOAA attempted to shape and direct the committee’s oversight, chairman Lamar Smith demanded to see thousands of emails that he thinks will show that by homogenising temperature records, researchers were able to refute claims that global warming over the past decade had paused. He accused the agency of altering the data to “get the results they needed”.

Whistleblower allegations say the NOAA “rushed to publication over the objections of numerous scientists at the agency”. The NOAA has refused to hand over the emails.

Australia has its own concerns with homogenisation. Blogger Joanne Nova has reported on it for years. Scientist Jennifer Marohasy has been persistent in seeking answers to why perfectly good raw data is manipulated to turn a cooling trend into a warming one.

Auditor Ken Stewart studied thousands of Bureau of Meteorology records and demonstrates it has a case to answer. The response is to stonewall and, when information is released, to offer no means of replication. Data is converted into vague probabilities that, when technically correct, are still often meaningless. Weather agencies stand accused of a culture of “snowing” sceptics.

When then prime minister Tony Abbott wanted to establish a taskforce to investigate the bureau’s temperature dataset and other related records, the cabinet, Environment Minister Greg Hunt and his department all came to the bureau’s aid by watering down the proposal and setting up a panel approved by the BoM to “strengthen governance oversight”.

Hunt said: “In doing this, it is important to note that public trust in the bureau’s data and forecasts, particularly as they relate to bushfires and cyclones, is paramount.”

It is good to have friends in high places. Better not to know that the bank’s books have been fiddled in case the market loses confidence.

At least American taxpayers have a champion in Lamar Smith, who complained to the US Commerce Secretary that the NOAA’s top officials had “obstructed” his committee’s oversight role. He said NOAA had refused voluntarily and under subpoena to hand over critical information. “It is the end product of exchanges between scientists — the detailed understanding of scientific work that underpins the authors’ findings,” he said.

The scientists argue that Smith is setting a dangerous precedent of interfering with independent scientific work.

Australian weather officials seem to share NOAA’s views. They reject full transparency in the face of informed criticism of their work. Stonewalling, and appeals to authority, are the defence. In any other field this would be a scandal.

Is the BoM’s methodology commercial in confidence or do taxpayers, who pay more than $300 million a year for this agency, have a right to know?

Confidence in weather bureaus will continue to decline until the world is finally satisfied through thorough independent investigation and audit that the vital records over which they exercise monopoly control are the result of a scientifically rigorous, replicable process. Nothing has changed since 2009, when John Theon, retired chief of NASA’s Climate Processes Research Program and responsible for all weather and climate research, testified “scientists have manipulated the observed data to justify their model results”. Complaining about lack of transparency, he said: “It is contrary to the way science is done.”

Memo to Australia’s Auditor General: There is an urgent job to be done.

open24hours posted:

I don't hate kittens and I didn't attack them. I said that the existence of pets enables their suffering. Do you think that something that doesn't exist is capable of suffering, or do you think that the suffering of pets is necessary?

open24hours posted:

That X exists therefore X can suffer is not, or at least doesn't have to be, an argument against the existence of X.

open24hours posted:

I'm pretty sure people would call you that anyway.

Do you disagree with the argument, Amethyst?

open24hours posted:

Well it's not one I would expect people to disagree with.

Laserface posted:

My dog is happy as poo poo 24/7.

open24hours posted:

Well I'm responsible with my gun.

Laserface posted:

Birb is the new amethyst.

Zenithe posted:

No, not at all, you're just getting butthurt that you aren't allowed to own pretty bang bang sticks because an animal rights group managed to stop something that makes dogs regularly hang themselves.

quote:

The private purchase, import and use of fireworks in Canberra is now prohibited, Industrial Relations Minister John Hargreaves announced today.

Canberra had previously been one of only two regions where fireworks were available for purchase.

"Fireworks are about celebration, but unfortunately for many in the community they are about damage to property, distress and injury to animals, and public nuisance,'' Mr Hargreaves said.

This had resulted in significant government and community resources being tied up to deal with fireworks incidents over the long weekend and beyond.

The Divine Orator posted:

Hey, just a lurker here but could you all maybe cut back on the Pavel stuff? It makes the thread really uncomfortable to read and given the state of Australian Politics it's kind of uncomfortable enough by default!

hooman posted:

Your idiotic meltdowns are far more childish and asinine than anything else that gets shitposted here. You are in no place whatsoever to critique.

hooman posted:

Congratulations on not being the cause of this particular shitposting disaster. This clearly makes you a wise and good poster and not a huge idiot who melts down at the slightest provocation.

EDIT: I'm sorry Amethyst, I'm grumpy today and the whole refugee thing is really loving getting to me.

tithin posted:

Amethyst, friend, you are too uptight for this thread. Please return yo the best thread of all

Birb Katter posted:

https://twitter.com/rooshv/status/694327787889528832

https://twitter.com/ABFComm/status/694425943159414784

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_maigg1Mty61r13tm3o1_1280.jpg

Vladimir Poutine posted:

BlitzkriegOfColour posted:

I have all those issues too but you don't see me trying to get DSP. Get a job

Bifauxnen posted:

Holy crap, anyone mind doing a copy paste?

open24hours posted:

Should start with the entire state of Tasmania.

Cartoon posted:

There's a reasonably strong case to support that the big boom in English cultural achievements in the late fifties and sixties was due to welfare funding and the art school system. Not exactly ABI, but a similar economic circumstance.

http://fineart.ac.uk/collection/html/stroud.html

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/apr/10/art-schools-funding

quote:

Solving Sydney’s Lock Out Law Problem. The Licence to PARTY.

One topic has dominated discussion lately and that is NSW’s Lock Out Laws.
These new laws have been instigated to “crackdown on drug and alcohol-fuelled violence”.
So the real issue is a violent minority is ruining it for everyone else.
How can we fix this?
I propose a “licence to party” which basically grants a licence holder to party beyond the lock out times and enjoy themselves responsibly.
People who are violent will have their licence revoked and will have to obey the new laws.
Just like a drivers licence you have points and major offenses will result in an instant loss of licence. Small infractions will have you losing a few points which reset each year. Those aged <25 get less points and basically go on a Learners Party Permit of sorts.

hooman posted:

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it points toward the majority of fraud (by dollar value) is not being committed by people on welfare especially when compared to white collar crime.

Birb Katter posted:

Not sure how someone committing welfare fraud has any bearing whatsoever on Llamas ideas on welfare fraud? Good job

hooman posted:

They are both defrauding the government of money...

How many mates deals are there with property investors, with preferred contractors, with developments, grants, land approvals do you think are entirely above board?

How many private investigators is the government hiring to track these down? All of it is fraud committed against the Australian Government.

hooman posted:

EDIT: ^^ I'm pretty sure embezzlement is a type of fraud.

Bifauxnen posted:

Except the thing SL was specifically worried about was that there was less money available to welfare recipients like him, thanks to welfare cheats.

We are pointing out something that is an even bigger problem, that threatens his pool of welfare money even more, and thus should get him even more outraged.

Bifauxnen posted:

While I was catching up on that argument, the point I wished I'd been around to make earlier is that enforcement has its own costs, and could very well end up costing more than the amount you're trying to recoup. If SL's main worry is not punishing bad guys, but keeping as much money available for welfare programs as possible, then he should be against enforcement when it is not cost effective.

A big embezzlement case like this however, serves as an example of when enforcement is worth it.