All in a good cause:
Framing science for public policy

I was interested in this quotation on the use of the word “denier”, in which Prof Kellow compares the use of this with “Godwin’s Law”

Anyone want to tell Prof Gluckman?

One of the means commonly employed is the use of
the term ‘denier’, a rhetorically powerful signifier quite
deliberately first used (as far as I can tell) by a couple
of defenders of the faith reviewing Bjorn Lomborg’s The
Sceptical Environmentalist for Nature. It was used quite
deliberately by Jeff Harvey and Stuart Pimm to liken
Lomborg to a holocaust denier for daring to question the
highly questionable estimates of the number of species
extinctions that supposedly occur every year.
The computer-based estimates of species extinction
range all the way from a few tens of thousands to
50-100,000 (if you can believe Greenpeace). The actual
documented number accepted by the International
Union for the Conservation of Nature is around 800 over
the 500 years for which we have records.
While I’m prepared to accept we have missed more
than a few, and I’m a passionate advocate for the conservation
of charismatic megafauna (such as tigers and
orangutans), I think the use of the term ‘denier’ tells us
more about the person using it than about the target. I
think the use of it amounts to an example of Godwins’s
Law of Internet Discussions, which holds that eventually
someone will liken someone else to Hitler, at which
point rational debate is over. (Implicitly, the person using
it loses).
Unfortunately, the use of the term is rife in debates
over climate change, where those on one side seem finally
to have cottoned on to the point that scepticism in science
is actually a good thing, and it was even used last
year by the now minister responsible.
If it has served any purpose, this use of illiberal name
calling serves to remind us of what is needed to ensure
that noble cause corruption does not afflict the science
informing public policy.

http://www.ipa.org.au/library/publication/1210830063_document_aynsley_kellow_brisbane_club_speech.pdf

and here

http://biased-bbc.blogspot.com/2010/03/conspiracy-part2.html

This has all spun off the story about GLOBE published by the Telegraph which Richard North writes on so eloquently here

http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2011/04/hail-msm.html

So here is your one-stop shop for all those useful idiots who howl with laughter at all your conspiracy theories.

Fraud and corruption on a massive scale might be a better description.

http://jtcontracelsum.blogspot.com/2011/04/another-convert-to-scepticism.html

Dr David Evans talks( video)

A Police spokesman said the arrest of skipper Elvis Teddy came after a blatant breach of safety by the boat.

My markup got a bit lost.

I am sure Easter Bunny will sort it out.

I have been shown pictures of the (in)famous Elvis Teddy, saviour of our planet and the Biggest Baddest Bear to stop the tracks of Big Oil polluting our beautiful coastline and spoiling our Clean Green Image ™

Here:

http://www.freakingnews.com/pictures/34000/Elvis-Teddy-Bear-34460.jpg

Doesn’t it make your heart swell with pride?

Protests over the Brazilian oil giant Petrobras’s ship heated up when police from a patrolling navy boat boarded San Pietro, which is owned by local iwi.

Whanau a Apanui tribal leader Rikirangi Gage radioed the Captain of the Orient Explorer and said he was not welcome in the iwi’s waters.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/4921260/Police-make-arrest-on-protest-ship

Such a great day for NZ.
Big high fives for Elvis Teddy, slayer of the evil Oil Dragons.

http://vimeo.com/20911553

Infrared (IR)

Heat:

Heating:

* Near-infrared (NIR),
* Short-wavelength infrared (SWIR),
* Mid-wavelength infrared (MWIR),
* Long-wavelength infrared (LWIR),
* Far infrared (FIR)

http://science.widener.edu/svb/ftir/ir_co2.html