All posts by Maurizio Morabito (omnologos)

Omnologos

Here We Live…off Air

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My personal translation of an old song by Calabrian singer-songwriter Otello Profazio, whose sad sarcasm perfectly describes much of the under-developed conditions of Southern Italy and Sicily. I was born more or less here.

 

The Italian South is an area very beautiful,
The sun is warm and it never gets any cold,
The sea is sprarkling and blue-green
Here you never see any pollution
We are happy people, we’re super-happy
We never need really any thing ..
Here we live off air .. -Here we live off air!

The Italian South is truly a paradise
If you really want to die you have to get killed
Oh peoples believe me when I say
Here we do not know what illness is ..
And I do not understand what is the reason
They build a hospital in all our cities
It’s all useless! ..
Here nobody ever dies ..
Even the cemeteries don’t exist here!

The Italian South’ climate is amazing
Physiological needs: there are none at all
It is in the North that people drink and eat
And so they need free up their bellies
Oh peoples believe me when I say
We in the South do not feel this need
Here we live off air .. -Here we live off air!
Here we live off air, right?

And what’s going through the rulers’ head?
They want industrialize through us all
Why can’t they mind their business -what need
Could the South have for any industry?
Because what need is there to work
With sky, moon and sea like ours?
Here we live off air .. – Here we live off air, right?

And what’s going through the rulers’ head?
They even want to build us schools
Don’t they know that here in the South
We are all people of sciences and of letters?
Schools are made for those who are ignorant
Not for us that we are intralligent

But you say: if there you live of air
All this emicration, how does one explain it?
One can explain, one can explain!
Because we really like to travel
To know other peoples, other countries:
America, Australia, France,
Germany, Switzerland, Belgium …
And even Italy! Why, do you think Milan is bad?
And Turin, is there anything missing from Turin?
“Ye were not form’d to live the life of brutes,
‘But virtue to pursue and knowledge high.’”
The emicration … One can explain, one can explain!! For sure!

They tell me that in the North the nights are dark,
Them full of fog and them all full of fears
But here it’s always a day so clear
So why would we any electricity really need?
Why did they put up all these streetlights
If there is the moon that can brighten us?
It’s all useless! ..
Here we see very well even at night ..
We’ve got such a moon!
Our moon mood swings start from the morning!

And you have built us super-motorways
Long and wide and forty thousand meters
But why did you have to get them paved?
For we now can’t plant there potatoes!
But not for us,
Because we do not need to eat
But to send them potatoes to the North!
Because we do not need anything
Because here we live off air
Here we live off air

We do not need anything
Never mind do not worry
Nothing needs be done!
Here we live off air, off air, right?
What now, do I need to convince you with a beating
That here we live off air, we live off air, right?
Forget it … you do not have to get upset …
Do not worry! Here we live off air
We live off air! We live off air! No? Didn’t you know?

Climate Change, English, Global Warming

Interstellar a year later – climate change film but with many twists

2 Comments

Finally came around to watch Interstellar. Climate change is hardly topical…we’re told something very bad happened 10 years before, and there is a “blight” consuming all food. People look remarkably healthy and society functions very well. Not even when the sandstorms get worse do we see any breakdown among the crowds.

The movie maker seem to have a grudge against a Dr Mann, portrayed as ruthless, murderous and ready to cause suffering for some Superior Good only he and another scientist understand. If my family name were Mann I’d feel quite bad about such a character.

Of course all climate-interested will see Dr Mann’s first name (not revealed in the movie AFAIK) to be Michael. And likewise the old scientist who condemns the world all by himself back home (Michael Caine) is very much resembling Stephen Schneider.

I am sure those are all coincidences. In the meanwhile, technology, hope and love save the day, and humanity. That’s everything one renounces to, when becoming a climate alarmist.

English, Omnologos, Terrorism

Six Reasons Not To Panic About Terrorism

3 Comments

What is the long-term perspective of present-day, often suicidal terrorism?

It’s that there isn’t much to fear about, because terrorism is peculiarly idiotic and bound to destroy itself (unless we do anything egregiously wrong)

  1. For the law of diminishing returns, either attacks get bigger and bigger, or the targeted population will choose habituation rather than increased fear. It’s like opening the proverbial bonfire with the stakes too high, and having to destroy one’s forest simply to keep up
  2. With millions of potential victims, some of them will surely come up one day with novel solutions to prevent the killings, making further attacks quite hard to organize: think the Israeli wall, think the changed tactics of the US Navy after the first round of Japanese Kamikaze pilots
  3. Just like then, “the best and the brightest” in the terror organization are bound to blow themselves up. They can be substituted, but it does take around two decades to make another terrorist. In the meanwhile, ranks will be increasingly more replete of coward weasels that couldn’t stomach the suicide they themselves require of others
  4. For the same reason, terrorists will become stupider and stupider, lone losers who will discredit the terror organization by their very existence
  5. Those people want to die whilst the rest of the world wants to live. Guess who’ll be sticking around the longest? On average, both aspirations are bound to be fulfilled.
  6. In the fight against relatively well-organized societies, the only way to victoryfor the terrorists is to get hold of weapons of mass destruction – otherwise the chances of any one person becoming a victim will remain vanishingly small. And what will happen of WMDs in the hands of a suicidal terror organization populated by coward weasels and lone losers? Boom…and there go the terrorists

The only rational response to terrorism is to get on with one’s life.

(a version of the above appeared in this blog in 2006)

Catholicism, Climate Change, English, Omniclimate

About the Pope’s wasteful climate change efforts

7 Comments

There is a lot of naivety about all these Papal efforts on climate change. You can see how much political weight he’s got by listing the countries that follow his teachings regarding abortion or homosexuality for example.

It is also quite dumb to pretend only people who follow Ban Ki-Moon or Francis care about the poor and the planet. I know for a fact that economic development makes the world greener after a while, and the percentages of poor people have never been lower – not to mention longer lifespans and a lot fewer childhood deaths.

Therefore I can state that I can follow the Pope’s moral imperatives even if I totally disagree on the way he wants to tackle them. This means all his push for a negotiated agreement in Paris may as well be a total wasteful enterprise.

And I haven’t even mentioned the profound theological problems when Holy See pronouncements are made on the base of science.

Climate Change, Environment, Omniclimate, Omnologos

You can lead a bear to a wildlife corridor but…can you make her cross it?

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I’m constantly amazed by the la-la-land approach of self-styled environmentalists.

Step forward Russell McLendon, opining on grandiose-sounding Mother Nature Network about “Why wild animals need wildlife corridors“.

McLendon like countless before him appears to be spending a lot of energy on stuff that looks good without any worry about effectiveness. It’s a lot of grandstanding without a proper concern for nature, as if environmentalists did it to soothe their soul and nothing else.

In this case I remember reading about the shaky scientific basis of these corridors and bridges. In other words…you can lead a bear to a wildlife corridor but…can you make her cross it?

For the record Wikipedia says

The effectiveness of these structures appears to be highly site-specific (due to differences in location, structure, species, habitat, etc..

Maybe our enviro-friends have more up to date information to share. Or maybe McLendon and friends don’t worry about the small detail of considering what the animals really want/need to do.

Climate Change, English, Journalism

Campaigning Journalism…How?

4 Comments

(in reply to Jay Rosen’s “Journalists have to decide what to do about candidates who are climate change denialists“)

It’s sad to see an experienced journalist and several pathetic commenters completely naive on the fact that taking sides isn’t the only or the best option for a reporter to inform the readers.

Candidates subject to Rosen’s Persistence or Confrontation will clam up, for example, and the public will know less about them than they should.

In practice the best way to handle any situation is by treating it as unique and devising the strategy that will bring about the best journalism on the there and then. Ideology and prejudice won’t ever work in that respect.

In fact, each of Rosen’s four ways assumes that the journalist goes out there with some Truth in his/her mind and has to protect the public from exposure to some particular Untruth.

What I’m saying is that this is not an approach that will elicit great pages of campaign journalism, especially as it automatically and prejudicially isolates the politician from the journalist.

What if anything genuine will those politicians do and say when this Truth Holder of a journalist is around, I cannot fathom. At best, he or she will be considered by the candidate and the entourage as an eco zealot buffoon, somebody who should be fed made-up morsels of non-news.

The only way for a campaign journalist has to be to find the best way to extract news from candidate and campaign, considering the uniqueness of each situation. To go around with pen, paper, microphone and a lot of self-important grandstanding, isn’t good journalism.

catastrophism, Climate Change, English, History

Was There a Global Crisis in the 17th Century?

2 Comments

(the following refers to David Parrott’s LRB review of “Global Crisis: War, Climate Change and Catastrophe in the 17th Century” by Geoffrey Parker)

This reader has been left quite perplexed.

Was there a global crisis in the 17th century? Mr Parker’s basis for a book is left mostly unchallenged. If there has been one, for example, how was such a “fact” overlooked as recently as “over the last two decades“, when, in the words of Mr Parrott,

“the issue has vanished so completely…that today otherwise well-read students are baffled by any reference to it”?

The fact that many places suffered from wars and famines, or that Voltaire said so, is no answer.

Was it a time of crisis? Was it global? One would have to show the 17th century as truly special compared to the centuries before and since. The Sack of Rome, however, happened in the 16th century. The American and French Revolutions changed the course of Western politics in the 18th century. China and India succumbed to the Europeans only in the 19th century, when also the Irish perished in the millions because of the potato famine. Even the Wikipedia contributors failed to find more wars in the 17th century than in the 16th or 18th.

Furthermore, Mr Parrott’s focus continually oscillates between local and global causes and consequences of the “global crisis” of the XVII century. We are told that

“there are no general, let alone monocausal, answers to explain the diversity of outcomes”

– and yet –

“it’s..unsatisfactory to deny long-term and structural factors”

Or is it? I am under the impression that Mr Parker’s book should demonstrate the existence and importance of those factors, so his readers should not be expected to take those for granted.

Again: contrarily to Mr Parrott’s assertion, in the states of Northern Italy “warfare and its burdens were” not “kept in check“. The War of the Mantuan Succession (1628-1631) brought several local and foreign armies into open warfare with each other in the Po valley, including the infamous Landsknecht. Famine and a devastating plague brought Lombardy to its knees, in a mass tragedy that inspired Manzoni’s Promessi Sposi two hundred years later.

Finally (in order to leave this comment short), Mr Parrott’s finds
“more convincing” the idea that

“in many areas the Global Crisis eliminated surplus population”.

Or did it? Where are the scholarly works showing a dip in the number of people alive on any given year between 1650 and, say, 1750? European population for one did increase almost continuously during those hundred years – or so we have been told until now.

Maybe Mr Parrott and Mr Parker are aware of new data showing otherwise – in that case, we should be shown those. It’s the same point as before: a new and remarkable thesis is presented as an established fact not needing a proper demonstration.

One is left wondering if Mr Parrott is just too partial to the ideas put forward by Mr Parker.

Energy, English

What information in Jeremy Grantham’s Quarterly Letters?

3 Comments

Mr Jeremy Grantham is a huge force sponsoring those who want to change the world’s economy based on their forecasts for 2100. And yet…

GMO’s Quarterly Letter – Third Quarter 2014 (text by Jeremy Grantham)

“Oil was $14 a barrel in 1998 and has now dropped to $83 from $115 (Brent). With costs of production at $60 or $70 a barrel, oil prices are not going back to $14 or even $40 (at least until renewables displace it more or less completely in a few decades). “

Quarterly Letter – Fourth Quarter 2014 (text by Jeremy Grantham)

“Under glut conditions, oil (and natural gas) is uniquely sensitive to declines toward marginal cost (ignoring sunk costs), which can approach a few dollars a barrel – the cost of just pumping the oil.”

Today’s news on CNN

“Crude plunged 4% to as low as $42.85 a barrel on Monday”

Back to Grantham’s 4th-quarter letter

“I believe the reason for the glut is not complicated…yes, my major regret for 2014 is, “How on earth did I miss this!” A combination of laziness and distraction is my lame excuse. “

What’s the value of the information published in the Quarterly Letters then?

Climate Change, English, New York Times, Omnologos

Climate Chaos at the New York Times

32 Comments

Follow up to my “ANTI-SOON CAMPAIGN GOES SMEARING WHOLE CATEGORIES OF SCIENTISTS” post, I can now show how Somebody at the NYT noticed exactly what I pointed to, and tried to change history but ultimately failed in the process.

Yesterday I had noticed that casual readers would only get the message that a climate researcher was somehow involved with undeclared corporate interests. This is because the online article was titled “Ties to Corporate Cash for Climate-Change Researcher” with no reference to the outside-of-the-consensus position of Willie Soon, who found himself representing literally any climate scientist.

Given what happens with politicians, it would then be expected that the same casual readers would conclude some form of corruption be endemic to climate science. Not exactly the Narrative favored by the New York Times.

Turns out the same online article has since been changed, at least in the title, that now reads “Deeper Ties to Corporate Cash for Doubtful Climate Researcher“. Apart from the dramatizing use of “Deeper”, the important bit is the addition of “Doubtful” – removing at last the apparent smear against all climate scientists of every opinion.

A last-minute correction following a blog post? It’s not so simple. Here’s the story as I can see it now

1. The original article (“Ties to Corporate Cash for Climate-Change Researcher“) appeared online before 2AM EST Sunday Feb 22, as per Wayback Machine. It was timestamped “3:05PM”, presumably Saturday Feb 21

Wayback Machine
Wayback Machine

 

2. The same title appeared on the official Facebook NYT pages, timestamped 12:53AM Sunday – AFAIK, that’s GMT, or in other words, 7:53PM Saturday EST

Facebook
Facebook

3. Same title got propagated by various news outlets and blogs

Google Search
Google Search
Google News
Google News

4. Then something happened. The printed (US) edition of Sunday showed the new title (“Deeper Ties to Corporate Cash for Doubtful Climate Researcher“). I do not know if more than one printing is done on Sundays: assuming it is not, the change was made in a real hurry as one can only presume 2AM is already a little late for the printers

NYT Sunday A1 page

5. Whoever ordered the change, forgot to distribute it in full. So the International New York Times, printed for delivery on Monday, still carried a version of the old title (apologies for the small size of the picture)

International New York Times Feb 23
International New York Times Feb 23

6. Both versions of the article are visible on the International NYT archive – in fact I am not aware of any material change in the text between one title and the other

International New York Times search
International New York Times search

7. Yesterday I then noticed that the original “Ties” version was on the NYT website – another misdistribution of the correction. But by sometimes in the AM GMT, the online title was changed to the new “Deeper” version too.

On past performance, this is yet another heavy handed intervention by Somebody High Above at the NYT to correct a climate article that had gone astray, just as for this 2010 article, dramatically changed between the IHT printed edition and the NYT website.

(yes I have imagery demonstrating the changes)

In that case, the newspaper of record made Judith Curry disappear, to be replaced by a nobody from the UCS with zero climate science background. And Gavin.

 

Omnologos

Anti-Soon Campaign goes smearing whole categories of scientists

5 Comments

Whatever one thinks of Willie Soon’s stupid idea of concealing corporate funding – and even admitting the story is not yet another Greenpeace half-baked job – for some reason the NYT has titled the article “climate change researcher” (not “skeptic” or “denier” or “contrarian”) in the website and “climate researcher” in the printed international edition.

In the website the link Soon/denial (of risks) is at the 9th line. Not sure how many went that far.

This means that in the eyes of casual viewers (who would have only read the title) the entire category of “climate change researchers” has now suffered ignominy.

Partially-interested viewers (those who only read the title and the end of the article) will be given the impression that science publications don’t work too hard on enforcing their own standards. Once again, a collective smearing job.

Never say a climate change alarmist is any good for science.

Italiano

#Schettino, uomo d’altri tempi

2 Comments

Come ricordato da un lettore della London Review of Books (19 Febbraio 2015), pratiche di navigazione che consideriamo il minimo indispensabile (capitano che affonda con la nave, donne e bambini i primi ad entrare nelle scialuppe) sono una tradizione moderna, comparsa nel XIX secolo.

Nel 1782, invece, i capitani abbandonavano 400 marinai a un triste destino, e poi venivano pure celebrati per il loro coraggio. Ad esempio, Capitan John Nicholson Inglefield perse la nave HMS Centaur, ma non la vita. E guadagnò un quadro per la posterità.

 

Climate Change, English, New York Times, Omniclimate

Remember when the @nytimes promoted skepticism?

15 Comments

Wednesday, May 5, 1897, page 4

“PROMINENT MEN.
Some of the Leading Scientists Agree Upon an Important Subject.
It is not only natural but just that proof should be demanded by the public for every statement or claim that is made to the public”

The piece continues:

“When, therefore, it is asserted that a certain article is not only pure and palatable, and a most delightful beverage, but also that it possesses qualities almost invaluable for the human system, people are right in demanding the proof.”

Say what? Actually, it concludes so:

“Do not be persuaded by any druggist or grocer to accept anything but the pure, the real Duffy’s malt.”

Oh wait. It’s just an ad. Of course. Why, it’s the same New York Times that on Sunday, April 28, 1912, page 43 told its readers that, according to “the leading microbiologists of the world”,

“To take a bath only leaves one’s skin in a dirtier condition than before, from the medical point of view. “

Asinine deference to mad scientists long predates the climate change scares. Unless there is some whisky to sell.

Climate Change, English, Omniclimate

A Day in the Life of a #climatechange Alarmist

18 Comments

By commenter Parma John on Steven Goddard’s “Dana Nuttercelli Says There Never Was A Global Cooling Scare”

I wake up in the morning to one temperature, only to find that it goes up and up during the day. Naturally extrapolating the day’s progression I have a nervous breakdown around 3PM, and I’m incapable of speaking as the rest of the afternoon confirms that we will all boil to death before the week is out.

Then evening rolls around, and just as things are returning to a stable state the temperatures plunge inexorably toward (and sometimes beyond) freezing. By the time I hit the sack I can’t close my eyes, since my calculations tell me we will surely all be lifeless blocks of ice before the next day’s end. Exhausted and paralized by fear I finally pass out until the cycle starts over.

Then there are those pesky seasons….

English, Science

Mother Jones vs Science

28 Comments

Unsurprisingly asinine piece on Mother Jones purportedly in defence of Science (confirming the saying…”with friends like these”..etc etc).

Anti-vaxxers are stupid but the answer “trust the scientists” is just as unscientific. “Scientists are a special group of people” is risible to anybody who’s ever been one.

Never mind the problem of who’s uttering that stuff. Why should we believe a paleontologist telling us to believe in what astronomers say, when the paleontologist is just as alien as anybody to the matters of astronomy?

There is no point in arguing that we should believe in the Most Optimal Caste of Science Priests instead of in google searches. Obviously we should believe in neither and be scientific ourselves.

Eg if A is true then B is expected so if B isn’t observed then A is unlikely to be true. In this case A is the anti-vaxxers propaganda and B is children falling into autism in the millions worldwide. This approach doesn’t depend on scientists being Good People. And that’s another characteristic of a scientific approach.

And by the way, MJ’s description of Climategate is just plain wrong. As usual, and forever.

Climate Change, English, Global Warming, Skepticism

About the Holocaust and Climate Change skepticism

22 Comments

A comment posted at the SoD and Keith Kloor‘s blogs:

Sad isn’t it when both SoD and Kloor find it necessary to go for brownie points, and clarify, clarify and clarify again that they ARE part of the Good Guys Brigade indeed, and have NO DOUBTS about the greenhouse effect, or the fact that increasing anthropogenic GHGs has been a significant contribution to rising temperatures of the last 100 years.

You are missing a very important point.

I have been labelled a D many many times. I have even collected all the insults received during a brief period in the Greenfyre blog

http://omnologos.com/the-agw-debate-challenged-game-1-word-list/

The insults haven’t gone away…they just resurface whenever I say anything in “warmist” blogs.

What’s the issue? The issue is that in my About page there is a text from 2007 where I clearly state that I have no doubts about the greenhouse effect, or the fact that increasing anthropogenic GHGs has been a significant contribution to rising temperatures of the last 100 years.

It’s from eight years ago. Yet the “concerned heretic watchers” would not and will not accept my membership of the Good Guys Brigade.

And who wrote that text? Why, Willis Eschenbach of WUWT fame. This should obviously and clearly and definitely destroy Kloor’s defense. WUWT is not the Very Bad Place he tried to describe in order to get brownie points.

Know what, the vituperated Bishop Hill has a blog owner who I suspect would subscribe to the same – that is, he has no doubts about the greenhouse effect, or the fact that increasing anthropogenic GHGs has been a significant contribution to rising temperatures of the last 100 years. There is a category of self-style Lukewarmers: Ridley, Lomborg, Lawson among them.

However, as seen countless times and for at least seven years and again in this thread, and about Ridley and Lomborg and Lawson, this does not matter. The people who utter the D word do not care about what the objects of their ires actually think: because the issue is not one’s opinion on the GHG properties of CO2, and not even what the temperature record says, or what the equations may indicate, or how good the numerical solutions we call Models are.

The issue for those who want/need to use the D word has been indicated by the Guardian some time ago: a skeptic is somebody who thinks at least some of the alarming claims made about climate change are exaggerated.

Conversely, a Believer is somebody who thinks no alarming claim is exaggerated.

In other words, a Believer does see the world as destined to a fiery and burning death. With the catastrophe approaching, anybody who doesn’t agree we’re a few years away from total collapse of civilization and more, is put in the D category.

You guys, (SoD and Kloor) are hovering about, almost ready to fall in the B camp. Maybe you should make it clear to yourselves and to your readers.

Are some claims of what is going to happen about global warming and climate change, exaggerated?

English, London

The Mysterious Light Changing Motel One in Aldgate, London

2 Comments

Does it do it? Doesn’t it? Does it too?

The mysterious Motel One in Aldgate, London (still unopened) may have baffled at least one passer-by, but finally I have definitive evidence it does change its colours.

What for and why, still not known. Maybe to get blog posts like this.

Anyway, here is how it appeared on Nov 4, 5:24PM GMT:

20141104_172403
20141104_172403

Then on Nov 17, 5:30PM GMT:

20141117_172937
20141117_172937

Maybe somebody spotted the photographer and decided to have fun, because all of a sudden, 30 seconds later:

20141117_173002
20141117_173002

And finally on Nov 18, 5:50PM:

20141118_175016
20141118_175016

======

What can be deducted from the above?

  1. Curious as they already are, the hotel lights can change
  2. For some reason, they do not change often, but can change a lot
  3. Sometimes at least, they can change completely in a few seconds
  4. The photographer seldom remains in the office after 5:30PM (…wait!! I have a good excuse for that!!!)
English, Morabito, Omnologos

Veteran’s Day: Story of Charles (and Anthony and Frank)

6 Comments

Since it’s Veteran’s Day in the USA, I am posting a recap of the story of Charles J Morabito, killed in the proximity of the Berga extermination camp in the last weeks of World War II, and whose temporary resting place appears in a relatively famous picture taken shortly after the war.

“A special area of the Berga cemetery was set aside for the bodies of 22 Americans, some of whom were buried in the same grave without coffins. The helmet of John Simcox displays the insignia of the 28th Division”. Charles’ helmet and cross are to the left. (NARA photo)

Plus I’ll mention brothers Anthony “Tony” F. Morabito and Frank A. Morabito, Purple Heart both of them, killed in action in December 1944 and February 1945 respectively and currently next to each other at the Épinal American Cemetery and Memorial, France.

I feel particularly attached to these stories having researched them for more than four years before being able to collate some information. BTW I have had the privilege to visit Tony and Frank in France and plan to go see Charles as soon as I can arrange a trip to his cemetery in Cuyahoga County, OH.

I will also travel one day to what remains in Berga.

Charles J. Morabito (1924-1945):

  • Born in 1924 (less probably, in 1916 or 1919) in Cuyahoga Falls, OH (Cleveland area)
  • Son of Santo “Sam” Morabito (Feb 16, 1889-Oct 26, 1975) and Mamie Foll (August 17, 1892-April 24, 1975)
  • Charles’ siblings: brother Frank (d. Oct 1969) , Frances Edith (d. 2004), Grace (March 22, 1930-Feb 8, 1931) and Tony Joseph (d. 1991)
  • Completed first year of high school
  • Listed as “semiskilled chauffeurs and drivers, bus, taxi, truck, and tractor” – somebody able to handle a motor vehicle
  • Last address in America: 9022 Kinsman Rd, Cuyahoga Falls, OH
  • Enlisted at Camp Perry Lacarne in Cuyahoga County, OH on March 3, 1943, “for the rest of the war, plus six months” in the U.S. Army, Service #35050065
  • Probably assigned to the XVIII Infantry Division, Regiment 106, 109, 110, 111 or 112
  • Captured by the German army in December 1944 during the “Battle of the Ardenne”
  • Spent a few months in captivity in Bad Orb, near Frankfurt
  • Became prisoner of war #25084 in the enslavement and extermination camp in Berga, Germany around Feb 18, 1945 (less than three months before VE-day)

    Barracks in Berga, where 200 prisoners were cruelly cramped
  • Described by fellow prisoner Joe Mark as “reckless”
  • Escaped in March 1945, probably on the 15th. Was captured while milking a cow not far from the camp, a reckless act indeed but still done after having been starved for weeks (the cow, has it happens, made a noise)
  • Killed by his captors, probably shot on the spot with wooden bullets
  • After many vicissitudes, the survivors of Berga were freed on April 18 (or 23), 1945. Histomil has more details. There are also a NatGeo video and pictures.
  • Charles’ tomb in Berga (where the body was transferred after the camp was liberated) was photographed by NARA (see photo at the top of this post). In 2006, by pure chance that same picture got printed on the pages of the International Herald Tribune and that’s where I noticed it, kicking off all the search to collect this information
  • The body was returned to the U.S. around 1948
  • Charles’ funeral with family and friends was held Dec 14, 1948 at St. Anthony-St.Bridget Church (appropriately serving at the time also the Italian community from Cleveland’s Haymarket area) 

    Two views of the Church were Charles’ funeral was held
  • Chales was finally buried at Calvary Cemetery in Cuyahoga County 
  • He is there now with his mother and father. The following pictures were kindly taken for me by volunteers of the Find A Grave project:

—

Some details about the rest of the family (the whole Cuyahoga area in Ohio is full of people with surname “Morabito”):

  • Sister Frances married Anthony Giancola (d. 1990)
  • Brother Tony lived probably in 4538 Hunting Valley Lane, Brecksville, OH 44141 with his wife, J.A.
  • Descendants of Charles’ siblings: Anthony, Frances, Tina. Maybe Lisa A Morabito, daughter of Tony.
  • Probable relatives: Sebastiano and Carmela Morabito Prefiero, whose son Giuseppe was born Dec 7, 1908 and died Apr 12, 1912; and Giovanni (John) Morabito and Concetta A. Conti

And this is what I know of New-York-State born Anthony “Tony” F. Morabito (1921-Dec 4, 1944) and Frank A. Morabito (1920-Feb 20, 1945), both killed in action and thankfully resting next to each other:

  • Sons of Frank Anthony Morabito and Maria Nicola Salvatore.
  • Last US address: 161 West Avenue, Spencerport, Monroe County, NY
  • Tony enlisted on May 22, 1944 at Fort Dix, NJ. Service #42142051 in the 12th Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division, U.S. Army
  • Frank enlisted on April 14, 1944 at Fort Dix, NJ. Service #56374374 in the 274th Infantry Regiment, 70th Infantry Division, U.S. Army
  • Both ranked Private First Class, noted as mechanics, single, without dependents.
  • Tony and Frank “died of wounds” during action in Germany and France respectively, only 11 weeks apart
  • They had at lest two brothers: Arthur Carmelo Morabito, veteran of WW II, Korea and Vietnam, retired a Lt. Colonel from the U.S. Air Force; and Joseph Bruno Morabito, veteran of WW II as a Tech. 5, 154th engineers and awarded four battle stars having seen combat in Peilelu, Saipan Leyte Gulf and Iwo Jima.
  • This means their family might have had four siblings fighting in WWII at the same time 
  • Tony and Frank are buried next to each other in Épinal American Cemetery and Memorial, Vosges, Lorraine Region, France respectively in Plot A Row 36 Grave 51 and Plot A Row 36 Grave 50

English, Italy

Luttwak on Italy and the Euro

4 Comments

From the LRB‘s “Opportunity Costs” by Edward Luttwak, Vol. 35 No. 22 · 21 November 2013

[…] Overy’s account of the ignominious defeat of Italian airpower is utterly fascinating, especially in current circumstances, because – permit me a brief diversion – it was a result of the same pathologies that today condemn the Italian economy to relentless decline under the euro, that most un-Italian of currencies, which Italy’s ruling élite is obliged to hang onto whatever the cost, in order ‘to be able to look Germans in the eye’, as one of that élite recently confessed to me. In other words, Italy should accept impoverishment because the ruling élite has to pretend that it is far more efficient industrially than it is or could be. In the process, the peculiar but very real talents that continued to raise real standards of living for decades after 1945 must be nullified in the hopeless attempt to compete with the Germans exclusively on German terms. The nation of Ferrari, Lamborghini and Maserati must compete only with Volkswagen. […]

Instead of accepting Italian aviation talents for what they were – artisanal rather than mass-produced, with individualist ace-pilots rather than mass-trained war pilots – Mussolini just had to compete with the Germans. The disasters started as soon as German-style air fighting started, with the arrival of the Corpo Aereo Italiano at Ursel in occupied Belgium in late September 1940, to participate in the bombing of Britain. […]

because of consistently unrealistic plans, utterly irresponsible command decisions and absurd priorities, 2293 Italian pilots were dead, invalided out or prisoners of war by the autumn of 1942, while only 1920 new pilots qualified in 1940-43 – and all for naught, since Italy could neither attack by air nor defend itself from air attack.

Radar, searchlights, anti-aircraft guns and night fighters: all were in short supply and incompetently used. Civil defence preparations relentlessly favoured form over substance as is still the Italian habit. In spite of very strict blackout regulations and years of theatrical drills, when RAF bombers arrived over Turin on the night of 10 June 1940, the city was entirely illuminated […]

AGW, catastrophism, English, Global Warming, Omnologos

Savant Idiots

52 Comments

There was a commenter at a blog I shall not mention who simply could not get anything I mentioned. Anything at all.

There was the blog owner at another unmentioned site who simply could not see anything wrong in people describing a prominent climate skeptic’s work as non accidentally cherry picked bad statistics [that] generated misleading graphs – all in the comments section of a blog post allegedly questioning where the dividing line stands between scientific criticism and libel (on the back of Mann’s latest juridical foray).

There was the anti-GMOer who turned pro-GMO for reasons that virtually coincide with all that’s good in climate skepticism, and still refused to abandon the “planet is doomed, skeptics are evil” party line. And he was not alone.

There was the superstar multimedia physicist who simply could not make any reasonable point about climate change, and wrote what was probably the longest badly thought-out column in the history of the Multiverse. And he was not alone.

There was the accidental Nobel Prize winner who wrote column after column about how fearful climate change is, and how wrong it is to live in fear. Sadly, those points never appeared in the same column.

There was the famous environmentalist who took a February flower for the end of the world, in the first recognized case of weather-related anthophobia.

There was the climate scientist who became the best thing that ever happened to climate skeptics, and would not have been able to win a debate against a primary-school Year-1 distracted opponent.

There were countless climate scientists who were so specialized in their own little field, they started reading and linking to the almighty pile of scientifically sounding garbage written by a cartoonist and the climate blogger with the biggest conflict of interest imaginable, a site where no research was safe from manipulation.

When climate alarmism is around, rooms really look clever.

English, Geography, Omnologos

Curious Continents (Geography has still a lot to discover)

9 Comments

A recent tweet has inspired some curious fact-finding.

It shows that there is little dry land on Earth where the antipodes are dry land as well, instead of just ocean. This can be explained at least partially by there being only 29.2% of land.

In theory then, every piece of land has only 29.2% chance of being a place where “if you drill through the globe, you’ll hit land on the other side” (as written by a commenter on Twitter to describe the situation very briefly). However, since the land is concentrated in huge continents the actual number is likely smaller.

For example Africa covers 20.3% of the Earth’s land, i.e. 5.9% of the total surface. The simplified chance of finding land on the other side of Africa is therefore (remaining land)/(ocean surface+remaining land), i.e. (29.2-5.9)/((100-29.2)+(29.2-5.9))=22% (this is because Africa cannot be at its own antipodes).

End of story? Not quite. A comprehensive look at the situation reveals it as full of tantalizingly curious details.

The world and its antipodes

The picture above (click to enlarge -hope it’s clear enough even if a bit rough!) uses transparency to show what’s on the other side of the world (original Mercator projection by Google Maps -used here as I’m interested in directions – the map by Amazing Maps uses the Peters projection instead).

Among the amazing peculiarities:

  1. Australia seems cut out of the lower North Atlantic ocean. Its coastline follows the contours of the eastern US coast, then the coasts of Venezuela, the Guyanas and Brazil, and even partially the western coast of Africa
  2. Likewise North America has the perfect shape to fit in the Indian Ocean, roughly following the south-eastern coast of Africa and then curving as if to “avoid” Australia
  3. The northern coasts of Russia and Alaska eerily follow (on the other side of the world) the same path as much of the coast of Antarctica: what is land to the north is ocean in the south, and vice-versa
  4. The antipodes of Africa and of most of the Eurasian continent sit comfortably in the Pacific ocean. Europe manages to just touch New Zealand, and only partially so (mostly, this concerns the volcanic northern island of NZ)
  5. The entire path of India’s migration from Madagascar to the Himalayas is antipodal to and follows the contour of the ocean to the west of Mexico
  6. The odd ones out are (a) the area of Chile and Argentina, corresponding to central China and eastern Mongolia; (b) the Antarctic Peninsula, just to the south of Chile and Argentina and jutting towards them and (c) Greenland and the Canadian Archipelago
  7. Note also that almost exactly on the other side of the narrow strip of land known as Central America, there is the elongated archipelago known as Malaysia and Indonesia.

If confirmed with a more accurate map, my impression would be that there is a hitherto-hidden physical law at play here. It seems that continents cannot simply hang about at random locations, and their place in the Big Schema of the Planet depends on something that has been overlooked until now.

For example, consider that Pangea was constituted 300 million years ago and began to break up 200 million years ago. Now, if we reduced 100 million years to just one year, Earth would be spinning at more than 1,000 revolutions a second. From the point of view of a continent, our planet is like a centrifuge. This has to have its consequences.

 

AGW, Climate Change, English, Omnologos

The Climate Elusion

6 Comments

Some early morning realization here…

What Steven Goddard, suyts, WUWT, the Bish, McI and many others are writing about (and myself at times during the years) is not so much what climate science should be and actually isn’t. Climate science is obviously being done somewhere else. You need time, money, political support, access to mainstream media, and much more, in order to do public health policy-affecting climate science.

They/we are describing the elusion that has taken over much of what passes as climate science.

It was surface temps before it was heat hiding in the deep oceans. It was decreasing snow before it was increasing snow. It was ice extent before it was ice volume. Etc etc. Whatever happens, there is always a new story devised/concocted to “explain” that whatever is happening is wholly compatible with AGW and especially with the “it’s worse than we thought” meme.

And sadly that’s all true. Whatever happens _is_ wholly compatible with AGW. We all know that there is no possible observation that would disprove the idea that the climate is changing for the worse (if anybody knows of of any, please do tell). This has made the whole enterprise extremely foggy, and constantly bordering between science and faith.

We have no way to tell what is scientifically plausible to think about future climates.

AGW, Climate Change, English, Omniclimate, Omnologos

Hole in the Fog: an extraordinary visualization of UHI

2 Comments

Says Wikipedia

An urban heat island (UHI) is a metropolitan area that is significantly warmer than its surrounding rural areas due to human activities. The phenomenon was first investigated and described by Luke Howard in the 1810s, although he was not the one to name the phenomenon. The temperature difference usually is larger at night than during the day, and is most apparent when winds are weak. UHI is most noticeable during the summer and winter.

Does UHI have a large role to play in global warming? Maybe. Maybe not. But it surely has a very visible impact in the Po Valley in Italy.

This is a Eumetsat picture from sometimes on Dec 8, 2013. Can you spot where the city of Milan is?

Po Valley, Italy, Dec 8 2013

…

…

…

…

…

…

Of course you can. It’s the hole in the fog. With just 8 million people and a GDP of $150 billion (not far from New Zealand’s) Milan wouldn’t affect its weather, would it? /sarc

As a rough guide to the areas involved, Milan covers 70 sq mi, and the fog on that day around half of the Po Valley‘s 17,760 sq mi (4 parts in 1000).

(H/T Meteogiornale where the original news appears)

Omnologos

What They Were Looking At…

2 Comments

(original idea by a fan of George Takei’s)

What They Were Looking At

AGW, Climate Change, English, Global Warming, Omnologos

Guardian’s Nuccitelli linked to leading alternative energy company

28 Comments

Remember when rabid arch-warmist Dana Nuccitelli of Skeptical Science and Guardian fame was discovered to be in the pay of an “oil and gas” company (Tetra Tech) (aka Dana’s Dirty Little Secret) and thus probably the worst person to pontificate about eg how bad coal and tar sands could be for the world’s climate?

It actually gets worse.

It turns out that Tetra Tech has a subsidiary company called Tetra Tech Construction, Inc. And what do they do? For example, they do “energy” (of the ALTERNATIVE variety that is):

Tetra Tech Construction expertise in the alternative energy field allows us to support and deliver energy-related projects using engineer-procure-construct (EPC), design-build and/or bid-build models. We provide design and construction services for wind, solar, hydroelectric, cogeneration, geothermal, natural gas drilling and extraction, combined-cycle, waste-to-energy, and electric transmission projects. […]

Surprise, surprise, they are also big in…”wind energy“:

Tetra Tech Construction brings our expertise to support and deliver energy related projects using engineer-procure-construct (EPC), design-build, bid-build models. We provide design and construction services for solar, hydroelectric, cogeneration, geothermal, natural gas drilling and extraction, combined-cycle, waste-to-energy, and electric transmission.

[…] We have completed construction services to clients on 19 wind construction projects in the past two years valued at more than $340 million. These projects supported nearly 1,700 MW of power, over 1,000 foundations, and over 600 turbines installed in states from New York, Alaska, Wyoming, Kansas, Oklahoma, Washington, Texas, Idaho, to Oregon. In fact, the Tetra Tech family of companies has experience on more than 250 wind projects in 34 states and Canada, totaling more than 20,000 MW of wind power generation. Our experience in the construction of wind facilities provides a more practical understanding of front-end activities, including environmental compliance and engineering, thus providing a more complete perspective for achieving project goals.

Wind power is so important for Tetra Tech Construction, it takes special pride of place in their Projects portfolio map:

Tetra Tech Construction, Inc.
Tetra Tech Construction, Inc.

It also means Tetra Tech Construction is in trouble if wind power subsidies disappear, as mentioned in a newspaper article published just two days ago. In what has to be a fantastic coincidence, Tetra Tech is juxtaposed to “interests” linked to “fossil fuels” and the “XL pipeline”:

Renewal of the wind tax credit, which can provide up to $1 million to developers of a large turbine, is a politically contentious issue. In addition to tea party congressional Republicans, opposition to continuing the wind credit comes from the American Energy Alliance, a Washington, D.C.-based industry group linked to petrochemical interests that promote expanded drilling for fossil fuels, including in the protected Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, and approval of the proposed XL pipeline to bring Canadian tar sands oil to refineries in Texas and the Gulf Coast.

“This lack of certainty over the wind credit creates a boom and bust cycle, which is really detrimental to wind project developers,” said Valerie Strauss, executive director of Alliance for Clean Energy New York, an Albany-based lobbying group for alternative energy companies.

One such local business is Gloversville-based Tetra Tech Construction. Its website says it has built 21 wind projects in the U.S. It is currently involved in building the Orangeville wind farm outside of Buffalo, owned by Chicago-based Invenergy, and the only wind farm project under construction this year.

A Tetra Tech official declined comment, referring questions to a corporate office; phone calls to that office were not returned.

The article continues revealing another fantastic coincidence: Tetra Tech’s fortunes go down with the expansion of fracking.

Wind energy plans have been shrinking in the state, as the industry faces a glut of cheap natural gas from hydrofracking, uncertainty over federal support and dwindling financing. The amount of wind power expected to one day plug into the state’s electrical grid has fallen by more than two-thirds since 2009 as developers shelve projects.

I think that’s digging enough. Dana Nuccitelli, rather understatemently described by a reticent Guardian as “blogger on environmentguardian.co.uk […] environmental scientist and risk assessor, and also [contributor to] SkepticalScience.com” has for all intents and purposes an undeclared conflict of interest the size of a planet.

I’ll let readers decide how much such an individual can be trusted with speaking anything near the bare, honest, transparent scientific truth in anything climate change, global warming or even energy in general.

Disclaimer: I never blog or tweet or write on facebook about my day job exactly to avoid any conflict of interest. Because if you write positively about the company you work for, everybody will be entitled to believe you’re brown-nosing or worse. And if you write negatively, you’re immediately out of a job.

AGW, Climate Change, English

The day I got snipped at Climate Audit

9 Comments

Plenty of gnawing of teeth by newly-famous heat-discoverer Robert Way, having been found out as a McIntyre Supporter, or rather, as a singularly scientifically well-prepared SkS “secret forum” member who behaved in public very, very differently.

In the course of today, Steve McI decided to remove a comment of mine, here reproduced for future reference.

Mr Way may have a point. This thread allows him to bring himself into disrepute, if only because duplicity and lack of integrity is the opposite of an excuse. Whoever thinks any good of Albert Speer?

You see, somebody like Buzz [see thread at CA] can always find refuge in ignorance and inability to understand. For example I have demonstrated him that “secret” doesn’t mean “private” because a forum of strangers cannot be considered as “private”. Yet his answer completely misses the point.

That’s different from a person who we now know was fully aware of what was going on. Way’s intellect is way above the SkS average, that is, his behaviour is way below.

As for motives, I find this assertion [by Way] particularly revealing: “I was speaking reflectively on the history of exchanges with climate scientists as a whole rather than this individual case”. So Way’s Crusade has been fuelled by a desire to defend “climate scientists”, with whatever means one suspects. In other walks of life, it is not hard to imagine Eugène Terre’Blanche possessed a very good intellect too, and put it to work to “defend” people he believed to deserve defending with whatever means was necessary. And whoever thinks of any good of Eugène Terre’Blanche?

And just to clarify, when Way asked “Really? Comparing me to a white supremacist?” I replied (comment also removed)

No. Comparing your behaviour to the behaviour of some other people, notorious for their behaviour. As for who is the real you, I have no idea.

(For some reason, Way didn’t find issues regarding the mention of Speer)

This being my blog, let me state that I am not too comfortable with Steve McI’s approach to the topic. First of all, given that he wasn’t born yesterday, he surely must have know that the revelation that Way had supported CA’s stance time and again, would have put Way in deep trouble and caused him the aforementioned gnawing of teeth. As per another comment of mine:

Imagine [Way’s] PhD discussion…a large room with a giant desk, a small army of stern-looking professors sitting as if to surround Candidate Way.

A balding, goatee-sporting professor starts roaring with an even sterner voice: “Tell me, boy…what do you agree with MCINTYRE on?”

A sound of thunder fails to break the icy silence. In the boy’s mind, a portion of fries, and a customer to serve…

I suspect this comment is still live because Way didn’t understand the obscure references especially at the end.

Secondly, Steve McI went way out of his way for Way…to the point of meaninglessly snipping comments a-way:

All these snips are meaningless. These guys [Way and friends at SkS] think the worst of the author of this blog, and deserve protection from imaginary abuse as much as a rhino needs band-aids after stampeding through a china shop.

Anyway, since … cannot be named and … cannot be named either, does anybody know of any historical figure that has been found to be secretly candid and publicly a follower of the party line? WIth 1933-1945 … impossible to mention, I shall presume the state with Moscow as capital is out of bounds as well.

I would just like to know how people who behaved similarly in the past, went on to become great citizens and pinnacles of their profession, that’s all.

(I am still looking for such individuals)

The end result is that we do not have any idea if the CA post was the coldest of revenges, or an invitation to work together in the future.

 

AGW, Climate Change, English

Calvin and Hobbes explain why Climate Change alarmists are almost invariably rabid about it

10 Comments

From the strip first published on 7/7/1995:

Enmity sells

From a Calvin and Hobbes search engine:

Script
I’m writing a fund-raising letter. The secret to getting donations is to depict everyone who disagrees with you as the enemy. Then you explain how they’re systematically working to destroy everything you hold dear. It’s a war of values! Rational discussion is hopeless! Compromise is unthinkable! Our only hope is well-funded antagonism, so we need your money to keep up the fight! How cynically unconstructive. Enmity sells.

Description
Calvin is writing a fund-raising letter. He tells Hobbes the secret is to depict everyone who disagrees with you as the enemy. You explain how they’re destroying everything you hold dear. It’s a war of values. Rational discussion is hopeless. We need your money to keep up the fight. Hobbes says that’s cynically unconstructive. Calvin informs him that enmity sells.

English, Omnologos

Wet Pet Wisdom

1 Comment

Random thoughts inspired by the wettest nighttime walk ever…

  • There is only one enemy to worry about in the world and it’s other people but
  • Inclement skies and falling temperatures make for safer streets
  • Before adopting a dog, get hold of a volunteer who’ll walk that same dog whatever the weather
  • You realize you had it with the stormy deluge when the dream becomes having the same clothes as those guys in “Deadliest Catch”

and finally

  • Nothing like a windswept torrentially rainy English October night makes you understand how much you really really love that dog
AGW, Climate Change, English, IPCC, Omnologos

When Dilbert channeled a hairy Mann

6 Comments

Incredibly or maybe not, the media collapse of AR5 is being responded by the usual Great Communicators meeting the usual Great Communicators, trying to figure out who is so evil as to prevent them from greatly communicating (when, in fact, it’s obviously their dumb selves).

Soul-searching what are you.

With climate change “science” reduced to a marketing exercise by marketing amateurs, it’s time to remember two Dilbert strips from exactly three years ago.

Marketing isn't a real thing, is it?
Marketing isn’t a real thing, is it? (Oct 1, 2010)
Baby-eating hobos (Oct 2, 2010)
Baby-eating hobos (Oct 2, 2010)

Replace “baby-eating hobos” with “deniers”. There is obviously something about the goatee.

 

AGW, Climate Change, English, IPCC, Omnologos

Calvin and Hobbes explain…the IPCC

2 Comments

Dramatic foretelling by Bill Watterson of why the IPCC has become such a risible failure. It also explains why so many unknowledgeable people are so enthusiastic about the work of “scientists” when it suits their pet causes:

Calvin and Hobbes
Calvin and Hobbes

(original run: Sep 21, 1993 – above taken from a recent copy of the IHT)

Calvin (looking at a book):

The more you know the harder it is to take decisive action. Once you become informed, you start seeing complexities and shades of gray. You realize that nothing is as clear and simple as it first appears. Ultimately, knowledge is paralyzing.

Calvin (throwing the book away):

Being a man of action, I can’t afford to take that risk.

Hobbes:

You’re ignorant, but at least you act on it.

English, Islam, Politics, Terrorism

After the Kenyan Mall Attack: against anti-Islamic propaganda

15 Comments

Nothing can hurt Islam like the awful behavior of those who pretend they’re defending it.

That’s quite a general statement. Replace “Islam” with whatever else highly-held concept, and it works just as well. Nothing hurt Communism like Stalin. Nothing hurt Roman Catholicism like Torquemada. Nothing hurt Anthropogenic Climate Change like Michael Mann. Etc etc.

And yet that is a valid point mostly if not only from a propaganda point-of-view. There comes a point when one has to stand and state that the same awful behavior is no indication of there necessarily being anything intrinsically wrong with Islam, Communism, Roman Catholicism or Anthropogenic Climate Change.

The actual flaws, if there are any, must be discovered and argued for what they are. A simple labelling “Some of their supporters are up to no good” cannot demonstrate if Milwall is or isn’t a good team. Likewise the millions killed by Tamerlane have zero logical relationship with the standard of behavior of the average Muslim citizen. And the fact that France and Germany started a war 99 years ago that led to more than 100 million dead, does not necessarily mean there is something very wrong with France and Germany.

There could be, but we cannot know before finding a proper argument above and beyond the behavioral one.

The above is an introduction to a series of comments I have made in another blog, where the diffuse anti-Islam propaganda has unfortunately found some new victims. I’m posting most of the comments unedited or slightly so.

Continue reading After the Kenyan Mall Attack: against anti-Islamic propaganda →