Global Warming BS

We routinely see misrepresentations of global warming.  Few commentators seem interested in sharing the facts.  It appears discussion regarding global warming are extreme with highly polarized claims.  So let offer a very brief summary about what is real.

Global Warming is Caused by Humans:  That is a lie!
The planet has been heating up and freezing for millennia, long before any human was present.  Most recently we have the warm period around 1000 AD and the little ice age around 1800.  The planet is currently warming up after the little ice age.

However, in the late twentieth century the warming seems to have accelerated.  Nearly all scientists agree that humans are responsible for this change through the increased additions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Global Warming is a hoax:  That is a lie!
Same comment as above.

Virtually all scientists agree that the planet is warming and increases in greenhouse gases are the major factor.  This is the case where the science is not disputed.

The Paris Accord can halt Global Warming:  Not Likely
Nothing in the Paris accord will reduce the continued increase is human produced greenhouse gases.  India and China are expected to continue increasing their output of significant greenhouse gases, more than equal to the rest of the world combined.

The posturing by various world governments is mostly for show, including the US's withdrawal.

Climate Models provide a good idea of future warming:  That is a lie
The climate models which have been the basis of much of the global warming hysteria are hugely wrong.  In the last two decades, they have forecasted a 2 to 3 times greater temperature anomaly than actually occurred.

There was an 18 year hiatus in temperature increase that the models totally missed and still have not explained.  The only thing we feel reasonably assured is that the temperature of the planet is increasing, but no where near at the rate the alarmist predicted.

Sea levels are rising:  That is true
Warmer water occupies greater volume.  The seas have been rising at a constant rate since measurements began before the industrial age.  There has been no accelerated rate of increase in recent years.

Polar bears are in danger of extinction:  No one knows
In the last twenty-five years the numbers of polar bears have been increasing.

Weather extremes are getting worse:  Not true
The numbers of tornadoes and hurricanes have been decreasing.

Evidence for these comments can be found on this blog along with adequate reference to sources.
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Mass Hallucinations and Shoddy Journalism

      About 15 years ago, we posted our research of the Bell Witch Legend on-line.  At that time there were NO skeptical examinations of the legend.  It was a good candidate for our work.  The legend was reported to have occurred in Adams TN, which was a forty-five minute car ride from our office. We also read somewhere on the Internet that this Legend was the most documented of any similar occurrence.  However, researching this legend taught us a very valuable lesson -- always trace reports to the "source".  If a report does not identify its basis then one should discard it as strictly opinion and not evidence.

       We found lots of reports of the Bell Witch legend.  It was a very popular story in Middle Tennessee.  Almost none of these reports identified their source.  Every one that did give reference, pointed to only one source -- an 1894 novel by Marvin Ingram, a newspaper man who had a colorful background in "Enquirer type" reports.  He was reporting on an event that occurred three generation prior and for which no eye-witnesses existed.  It didn't take a rational mind very long when reading this novel to ascertain that the whole thing is "poppycock." Nevertheless, that never hindered the spreading of the legend.  Those who want to believe do so regardless of lack of evidence.

     The propensity to exaggerate and report in hyperbolic terms with minimal concern for "facts" is big business.  The king of the 'Alternative' facts is the "Exaggerator-in-Chief" who occupies the White House.  It is almost comical when he points the finger at popular media sources for their "yellow" journalism.  Nevertheless, like it or not, he has a valid point.

      Pull up any popular media website and it is packed with "click bait" -- boring stories with explosive titles or lead-in paragraphs, mostly by advertisers who have paid for internet real estate.  The websites could care less.  They do not realize (or maybe don't care) that these garbage articles "throw mud" on their entire website and diminish their credibility. 

      Robert Bartholomew writes in the Skeptic Magazine 22.1, AN OUTBREAK OF MASS HALLUCINATIONS AND SHODDY JOURNALISM: Why We Need Skepticism More Than Ever, about a mysterious epidemic of hallucinations which was reported to have broken out in Oregon in October of 2016, media outlets around the world portrayed the story as a baffling medical mystery. There’s only one problem, like the story of the Bell Witch, -- it never happened.  https://goo.gl/9SPqNU 

     Bartholomew concludes

What does this episode tell us about the state of journalism in the 21st century? Most sites simply carried the initial breaking news story, never bothering to verify it or contact authorities for clarification. In fact, when the Coos County Sheriff suspended his investigation into the episode on October 27th, local media outlet KCBY-TV continued to maintain that the Department had closed its inquiry into the “five people [who] showed symptoms of hallucinations. This is a story of two outbreaks, the first involving mass suggestion, while the other was even more concerning: an outbreak of shoddy journalism.

      As far as we are concerned, the only thing which is new is the ease at which garbage spreads via the internet and chain email letters, and that it has reached the highest office in America. In Trump's proclivity to throw mud he diminishes his credibility in the eyes of the world and that in turn hurts us all. That is no hallucination.

Chiropractors are Bullshit

We try to keep the posts on this blog relatively fact-based with a minimum of opinion-based article referrals, but this article that we scraped off of Slashdot caught our eye with its catchy title, "Chiropractors are Bullshit". Since it concurs with our general experience with chiropractors and with the skeptical medical community, we decided to read the article.  You can find it at https://theoutline.com/post/1617/chiropractors-are-bullshit 

After reading the article we said, "The article pretty much tells it like it is and offers good advice.  Maybe its good to refer to it on our blog.  But who or what is 'TheOutline.com'?  Are they credible or are we being lured by another smartly crafted fake reporting website?"

We did our usual pro vs con research and found very little.  The organization appears to be less than a year old.  So this is a case of -- we agree with the chiropractic report, but caveat emptor. 

From a report in the Wall Street Journal we found

The Outline, is a new publication from a former Bloomberg and Verge editor, Joshua Topolsky, who says he wants to establish a next-generation version of The New Yorker while also fixing many of the ills facing digital publishing and advertising.

whatever that means.  It continues

Topolsky says, It is aiming for a smart, highbrow readership -- an audience that falls somewhere between traditional brands like the New York Times and digital natives like BuzzFeed. We want to help people discover things, and keep moving. We don’t want to rewrite lots of stories or just do hot takes.”