Tis the season to be silly
The silly season is in full swing and the epidemiologists
and psychology professors are in fine fettle, with their ill-designed
observational studies producing the sort of headlines that used to be confined
to the more populist women’s magazines. The
Times is going to town on global arming by giving much space to their
excitably warmist weather guru, Paul Simons. There is a double page piece in the
edition of August 9th on the new growing of exotic fruits in
Stephen McGuffie, the
grower, is successfully producing cantaloupes and watermelons using polytunnels
to protect them from wind and rain, as well as to raise temperatures.
“Temperature is key to getting the melons to grow quickly and get to a decent
size, and sunshine is crucial for ripening the melons and turning them sweet,”
he said.
People have been growing melons as amateurs in polytunnels for many years and would be surprised that anyone finds it surprising.
Your bending author has not maintained a polytunnel, but has grown sweet corn for many years in the open on an allotment. Yet sweet corn is featured large on the large graphic accompanying the printed article. There are several varieties available in the catalogues, which always specify “specially developed by breeders for British conditions”.
How we miss it now that ill-health has put an end to the allotmenteering!
Then we have:
The shift in climate has
already resulted in a renaissance in vineyards, growing as far north as
At least they
have the honesty to use the word renaissance,
as vineyards long existed over that range until the Little Ice Age put and end
to them.
09/08/10
It is all very well for us to talk light-heartedly about the silly season and the preposterous claims of its denizens, but meanwhile the enemy within are pushing the western world steadily towards a lunatic economic suicide, while the enormities they commit are conveniently given cover by the prevailing frivolity. The US Presidency, for example, having largely failed to recruit Congress into its war on industry, resorts to undemocratic methods by permitting the out-of-control EPA to wage it unconstrained. The mostly sympathetic media report it as just another thread in the rich tapestry of modern life.
In the
One part of the Government is looking to industry to get it out of the current mess, while another part is shackling that industry so that it is even more immersed in a fight for survival.
The incredible fact is that the whole thing turns on a preposterous theory based on maligning a wholly benign rare gas that is in fact essential to the existence of life on earth.
On the basis of the myth the British have, for example,
passively allowed Indians to take over their steel industry, close it down and
move it to
Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.
12/08/10
Footnote: an apology is owed to Richard North and Christopher Booker for failing to mention that they had covered the original story months ago. Being an assiduous follower of these writers, your bending author was aware of the fact, but simply goofed, thereby adding to the myth that the establishment media in general, and Louise Gray in particular, are first with the news.
Our complete list of things caused by global warming has now passed the 800 mark. The honour of being number 800 goes to the story that truffles are increasing. You can find it just after truffle shortage and truffles down; which just about says it all.
Astonishingly, despite the general collapse of climate change as a scientific theory, amid the revelations about fiddling the books, glaring errors of measurement, faking the peer review process etc, the rate of production of these scare stories shows no signs of diminishing. That, dear reader, is a demonstration of the power of politics and money.
... ... and counting.
19/08/10
It has been announced that there has been a scientific breakthrough in power production with Electricity pulled from the air.
Number Watch consulted international expert Dr Xavier Q Hemmeroyd of the Metropolitan University of Nether Wallop on the value of this development and he commented:
While it is true that static and tribo-electricity have been unforgivably ignored in the quest for Green power, this stuff is really old hat. Here at MUNW we have a trial production line in which young women comb their hair and continually put on then remove nylon nightdresses. The combs and garments are placed on an insulating conveyor belt whence the charge is retrieved and stored in a large capacitor. Not only are we able to derive free energy amounting to nearly a watt a day, but the plant is extremely popular with visitors from far and wide, and our male undergraduate recruitment has benefited accordingly.
More research is needed!
Footnote: Yes Number Watch is aware of the definition of the watt, but it would no more wish to edit the contributions of its consulted experts than it would question the connection of the scientists in the link with reality.
27/08/10