Peter Risdon

I interrupt this series of, ah… long winded posts to bring you this debunking of the Great Greenland Ice Sheet Scare, from Cliff Ollier, School of Earth and Geographical Sciences of the University of Western Australia, which came to me by Benny Peiser’s excellent email list.
The following is the abstract from a lengthy paper:
Hansen is [...]

A quotation. I dipped into W L Warren’s book about King John earlier, and came across this:
Men insist perhaps most firmly on the value of custom when instability and change threaten them most closely; and they are apt to insist most tenanciously of all when in fact they allow the tide of change to carry [...]

Part 1 – Magna Carta
Parliament assembles in the Painted Chamber of the royal palace of Westminster. The King, the Lords and the Commons all assemble together to hear the King’s speech, in which he will lay out the “causes of summons” or the “points of the Parliament”. This generally involves taxes that the King wanted [...]

Magna Carta is a misunderstood document. It wasn’t some sort of ringing declaration of rights. It was much more practical than that, rooted in the politics and events of the time, so it needs to be placed in context. Let’s step back a moment.
Much of the first half of the twelfth century was pretty disorganised. [...]

What not to do.
UPDATE: I meant to point out it’s a good anecdote about people who know some cryptography (terminology), but miss the absolute basics of security.

Via Christopher Hitchens, some details about Hirsi Ali’s private security appeal.
… security for Ayaan Hirsi Ali might have to be paid for partly by private subscription. Here are the details for all who may wish to contribute to this eminently deserving cause. Checks should be made payable to the Ayaan Hirsi Ali Security Trust and [...]

Via Worstall, a Guardian leader:
Capitalism’s great advantage is supposed to be that it ensures the economy can learn from failure.
Nope. That’s the free market, not capitalism. With a free market, lots of people try lots of different things and copy the things other people are doing if they seem to be working. Capitalism can exist [...]

John Brignall at NumberWatch writes in defence of that much maligned atom, carbon. He prefaces his piece with a quote from the great H.L. Mencken:
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of [...]

Just thinking… My favourite headline of all time comes from an American newspaper in 1980 – I read it in Rolling Stone’s review of the year…
Right to Lifers demand mandatory death penalty

These smooth skinned amphibians.