Linney Tunes

Vincent J. Curtis

26 July 23

RE: When good people fail to speak up.  Op-ed by Grant Linney.  The Hamilton Spectator 26 July 23

“I can confidently say there is no real climate crisis, and that climate change does not cause extreme weather events.”  Thus spoke the 2022 Nobel Laureate in Physics, Dr. John Clauser at Quantum Korea 2023.  Quoting a colleague of his, he said, “I’m not seeing in the data what you’re telling me I’m supposed to see.”

Grant Linney once again sings his sad song that no one is paying attention to him or his crisis, and that the lip-service extracted from politicians turned out to be just that – lip service.  The news fora are filled with panicked stories of heat waves everywhere, overheating oceans, ocean currents changing, and water around Antarctica failing to freeze.  I take this upsurge in panicked reportage as a sign that the climate crisis message is no longer being believed.  Skepticism over previous failed forecasts, unaddressed scandals, and of the economic costs being demanded of people is rising, and the funding may be cut off.

True believers of the climate cult are noticing the effects, and that, in effect, was what Linney was complaining about.  People aren’t responding anymore as they’re supposed to at the cry of “wolf!”

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Laughed out of court

Vincent J. Curtis

24 July 23

RE: Haudenosaunee mark 100^th anniversary of Deskaheh’s attempt to speak at the League of Nations

At the end of 1918, after France, Britain, and the United States, Canada stood as the fourth military power of the west.  The performance of the Canadian Corps during the 100 day campaign caused the German war effort finally to collapse.  The respect with which Canada was held in the world in 1923 couldn’t have stood higher.  A chaotic Germany was demilitarized under the Treaty of Versailles, and lay in the grip of its hyper-inflation crisis.  The League of Nations was trying to restore order in the world out of the debris of the collapsed Russian and Austro-Hungarian Empires.

To Geneva arrive a tiny group of illiterate and technically stateless aborigines to demand, effectively, that Canada be embarrassed before the world.  Adding to the air of comedy was that the Chief was not democratically elected, (an important fact in those days to the League) and by the customs of the people he claimed to represent (for laws is too strong a term) he could not compel obedience to an agreement by anyone but himself.

Aboriginal issues were an internal Canadian matter so far at the League was concerned, and dismissed the supplicants without a hearing.  There was no stomach to embarrass Canada by so much as giving this guy a hearing.  Never mind the triviality of his complaint compared to the wants and sufferings of war-ravaged Europe.

Perhaps Deskaheh;s visit to Geneva is a memorable event.  Band councils are now elected. But that some aboriginals in Canada haven’t advanced a yard politically since then, speaks volumes.

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She strikes again!

Vincent J. Curtis

18 July 23

RE: University employee enters into a peace bond, charge withdrawn. The Hamilton Spectator 18 July 23.

McMaster University’s infamous honey trap has struck again.  This unnamed woman has been a denizen of McMaster’s neuro-psychology department for approximately ten years, as student and Ph.D. candidate.  She had an affair with her Ph.D. advisor, Professor Scott Watter, and destroyed his career with her salacious allegations.  Nevertheless, Watter was acquitted at trial.

Her second allegation of sexual assault was lodged against another man, named in the story, was made more than a decade after the alleged assault.  Her reputation is starting to get around; and the prosecutor and trial judge both agreed on a wrist slap, just to keep up appearances, withdrawing the criminal charges and leaving the accused with no criminal record.  Yet, the name of this serial accuser remains under wraps in a second court order.

This woman is obviously neurotic, and is a threat to the reputation of any man who might engage with her.  Her name needs to be published, so that men will know who to steer clear of.

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What is HIMARS?

Vincent J. Curtis

9 Jan 23

HIMARS is a Lockheed-Martin product, and HIMARS stands for High Mobility Artillery Rocket System.  It is designated the M142 by the U.S. Army.  HIMARS is as distinct from the missiles it fires as the M777 is from the 155 mm shell it fires.

HIMARS is a multiple launch rocket system that is relatively lightweight.  If you read “Katayusa: Stalin Organ” in the March 2022 issue of Esprit de Corps you will be familiar with the concept of rocket artillery.  However, instead of unguided missiles with a range of 3 to 9 km, the HIMARS rockets have ranges from 15 to 93 km.  Hence, the rockets are larger and of necessity have sophisticated guidance systems; and because sophisticated guidance systems are expensive, HIMARS is not an area-saturation weapon as multiple batteries of Stalin Organs could be.

A typical HIMARS rocket is 227 mm in diameter; and a pod of six is carried on the back of a specialized truck, somewhat like an HLVW in style and size.  The combination of truck chassis and missile pod is what’s designated the M142.

Why is HIMARS being talked about?  On New Year’s Eve, Ukraine attacked with four HIMARS rockets a large ammunition dump in Makiivka in the Donetsk region, thought safe well behind the lines.  Right next to the ammo dump was a vocational school serving as a temporary Russian barracks. TV pictures afterwards showed “a huge building reduced to rubble, with cranes and bulldozers picking through the concrete debris several feet deep”, according to Reuters.  The Ukrainians claimed to have killed 400.  Russia denied that number, admitting to 89.

The second reason HIMARS is in the news is that the Canadian Army wanted to acquire the system back in 2010, according to a leak, er, news report by CBC News, released a week after the Ukrainian success with the system hit the news.  Besides HIMARS, the wish list included a “ground based air defense system and a modern anti-tank system (ADATS Redux?).  The list was prepared for the Scrooge-like Harper government, and went nowhere.

In response to the operational tempo in Ukraine, Lockheed-Martin has increased annual production rate to 96 units per year.

HIMARS is reported to fire the following missiles: the MLRS system of 227 mm rockets (used for testing and practice.  These have only inertial guidance systems and are of reduced range.); and a high precision GMLRS, which have GPS guidance systems, called the M30.  These have a range of 15 to 92 km, and variants carry warheads of submunitions; an area effects warhead containing 182,000 pre-formed tungsten fragments, or a more conventional steel cased HE warhead with a 23 kg bursting charge; or a straightforward 91 kg bursting charge HE warhead.  Extended range rackets, with a range of 150 km, have bigger motors at the expense of smaller bursting charge HE warheads.  (By comparison, the bursting charge of a 16” AP shell fired by the USS New Jersey is 18.6 kg).

There are systems similar in concept to HIMARS, called tactical missile systems, which are much larger, and fire bigger missiles with bigger warheads for longer ranges.

The progression from short-range unguided missiles, like those fired from “Stalin Organs”, to HIMARS, to theatre tactical systems involve orders of magnitude changes in quality and expense.  The short-range rocket artillery systems can blanket an area with cheap firepower preparatory to a major assault.  HIMARS involves missiles costing $3.5 million each.  You have to be pretty sure of the target before you fire one of these babies; and since the target is over the horizon, it means drones, satellites, SIGINT, or HUMINT to identify the target.

Does the Canadian Army need a HIMARS system or two?  Well, to stay current and credible it should have a couple, and it sure would have been handy to have a system in inventory to lend out to a friend in need, as we did with the M777 artillery pieces.

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Democracy deniers

Vincent J. Curtis

16 July 23

RE: Poilievre plays politics with bigotry.  By Emma Tietel The Hamilton Spectator 15 July 23

Opinion writer Emma Teitel is another political Leftist who doesn’t believe in representative democracy.  Anyone whose opinions she finds abhorrent ought to be shunned by politicians; and those who don’t shun them are, by association, guilty of being abhorrent also.

We had an example of this during the Calgary Stampede.  Both Pierre Poilievre and Premier Danielle Smith was photographed posing with, as they were with many others, a fellow whose T-shirt proclaimed that he was a proud heterosexual.

The political Left went crazy over their alleged insensitivity and this indelible proof of their hatefulness, having just concluded the seven weeks of gay pride month.

In a representative democracy, a politician has to be able to talk to anyone about anything, including the unclean about their uncleanliness.  The political Left think that only those who, in their objective opinion, are politically clean are even allowed to be photographed with a politician.  They don’t believe in representative democracy.

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Conspiring against the parents

Vincent J. Curtis

11 July 23

RE: N.B. premier and gender in schools.  Toronto Star editorial board.  The Hamilton Spectator 11 July 23.

The Toronto Star editorial board solemnly assures that the government of New Brunswick has many more important things to worry about than regulating provincial school policies.  It is that small a matter that is a Toronto newspaper is editorializing about it!

New Brunswick School Policy 713 requires the schools to involve the parents whenever their child at school expresses a deep psychological problem with their gender.  The Star, and most others infected with this transgender mania, want the schools to collude with the confused child against the parents, who may not know.  Allegedly, this collusion is for the benefit of the child.  Apparently, it’s humanitarian to discourage the child from mutilating itself.

Ideologues of both left and right have long seen schools as a vehicle for advancing their agendas.  In this case, after inculcating sexual deviancies on children as early as the age of five, some have fallen for the propaganda and have developed the desire to gain the love of the institution by mutilating their sexual organs.  Parents, who have invested their lives, their love, and their fortunes in the rearing of their offspring – and see the schools as one element of the rearing process - might expect that they, in future, be blessed with grandchildren.  They wish the happiness of marriage and children on their children.  But the Star, and others, hide behind a phoney humanitarianism which would see the boys castrated and the girls have their breasts torn out, in accordance with their childhood wishes.  But for the sake of what?

Government institutions cannot be used to advance cultural agendas so at odds with the interests of their voters and of the parents whose taxes they take.  This sort of treachery deserves the harshest condemnation, and perhaps more.

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Amateur political analysis

Vincent J. Curtis

10 July 23

RE: Poilievre and the CPC can’t win culture wars.  Op-ed by Craig Wallace.  The Hamilton Spectator 10 July 23.

Craig Wallace falls out of bed, gets an idea, and the Spectator publishes whatever incoherent rubbish he submits.  The other day, Wallace fell on his head, and decided to write a piece giving Pierre Poilievre advice on how to get elected; and the Spec ran it.  The gist of the piece was that Canada was center-left politically, and therefore Poilievre should stop running on a social conservative platform.

I can understand that progressives fear the political success of a social conservative; we’re seeing that in Alberta, where Danielle Smith won re-election.  They fear all their policies being repudiated, and once the trace is broken Humpty-Dumpty can never be put back together again.

Wallace misses two points.  Poilievre speaks weekly to hundreds, even thousands, of people at a time who want to hear his message.  If his message wasn’t resonating with the voters, he’d know it.

The second point is that Canada needs a dose of social conservativism.  The trans agenda has gotten out-of-control crazy.  When the gays can expose themselves in a Pride Parade to children and get away with it, something’s wrong.  When over-exuberant gays can chant “we’re coming for your children!” something’s got to change, and social conservativism is the direction in which things have to change.

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The First Law and Climate Change

Vincent J. Curtis

9 July 23

The First Law of Thermodynamics equates the system’s total internal energy E to the difference between heat, Q, and work, W.  In differential form the equation is:

                                                dE = dQ – dW

 You will notice the strike-throughs of the differential notations before the Q and W terms.  This indicates that these differentials are inexact; and the reason they’re inexact is that in the course of adding heat to the system some work can be done; and similarly some work being done by the system can be converted into heat.

We see an example of this when we heat a beaker of water on a hotplate.  As heat is added to the water at the bottom of the beaker, the water begins to move around and circulate.  This is work being done.  Similarly, when a solid is heated, it is subject to thermal expansion; and this expansion is work.  Some of the heat added to the solid was converted into the work of expansion.  That’s why the heat capacity of a solid or liquid at constant pressure, C_p , is different from the heat capacity at constant volume, C_v; the heat capacity at constant pressure takes into account the energy required to do the work of expansion. Just as in expansion, when a solid cools, it will be subject to thermal contraction, and this is negative work being done.

When the sun heats the earth, some of that heat energy gets converted into work in the atmosphere.  Air circulation patterns, wind, and weather in general is work being done by the atmosphere as it is alternately heated and cooled. 

Climate change is supposed to result in more intense storms.  Since a storm is work being done by the atmosphere, a more intense storm is one in which more work is being done.  Where is the energy to do this extra work to come from?  If E is constant, the only place is from Q.  Somehow, the atmosphere, as a result of climate change, is supposed to take more Q and convert it into more W.  The Second Law of thermodynamics says this is impossible.

The sun’s irradiation of the earth is constant, meaning the sun isn’t providing more energy to drive the earth’s weather systems.  That means that E is a constant.  More W requires less Q.  The Second Law of thermodynamics is:

                                                dS  -dQ/T

where S is entropy, Q is heat and T is absolute temperature.  The negative sign before the Q term is to account for the convention that heat is expressed as a negative number.  Entropy never spontaneous becomes smaller.  We never see a beaker of water spontaneously separating into hot and cold regions.  If the atmosphere spontaneously converted even more heat Q into work W at constant E, that would result in a smaller Q, meaning that S would become smaller; but this violates the Second Law.  Hence, climate change that allegedly produces more intense storms, or in general more work in the atmosphere, is impossible because it requires the Second Law of Thermodynamics to be violated.

Note, insulation doesn’t solve the problem for climate changers.  Insulating the solid that is being heated doesn’t change the amount of work done by thermal expansion, or make the solid expand more at the same T.  There is only so much internal energy available to drive the earth’s atmosphere, and to put more energy into the atmosphere so that it can do more work requires that heat to be taken from somewhere else.  But where?

The oceans are one place the atmosphere can gain additional energy, and El Nino is one such phenomenon.  Consistent with the First Law, the ocean releases heat into the atmosphere and cools itself.

If the sun isn’t putting more energy into the earth, where else can additional energy come from?

Energy in the earth’s atmosphere is reflected to a great extent by temperature.  If the global atmospheric temperature were higher, would that mean more heat in the atmosphere available to do work?  No, it wouldn’t, for at a constant E (regardless of what E is) the conversion problem remains; the conversion of heat into work spontaneously has an entropy problem.  If E is constant, it doesn’t matter at what T the conversion takes place.

The problem is resolved by recognizing that it is during the process of heating and cooling that the doing of work spontaneously is possible.  Hence if the sun were to heat the earth more intensely, then the spontaneous conversion of more E into W is possible without an entropy problem.  If Q remains constant, and all the additional energy E is converted to W, the system doesn’t have an entropy problem because S is not required to spontaneously get smaller.  Hence, it is only when the earth is being heated more intensely by the sun, putting in more energy, that weather patterns can produce more W.  If the sun were to decrease the energy it transferred to the earth, making E smaller, during the transition not only would the atmosphere cool, reflecting less Q, but work (technically, negative work) would be done.  (Just as a solid shrinks in size due to thermal contraction.  This is negative work.)  At a new level of solar irradiation, a new system would be established.

This analysis is T independent, meaning that the analysis holds regardless of what the underlying global average temperature is.  Whether the GAT is 287K or 291K, it is the input of energy from sources external to the atmosphere that causes weather, that is the doing of work W, in the atmosphere.  And somehow, climate change is supposed to alter the conversion ratio of input E into Q and W, emphasizing more W and less Q.  How tiny changes in atmospheric composition is supposed to effect this remains a mystery.

Global warming, within reasonable limits, does not impact the intensity of weather, or enable more work to the done by the atmosphere.

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Entropy and Climate Change

Vincent J. Curtis

8 July 23

A glass of water does not spontaneously separate into hot and cold sections, even if it were insulated.  Such a separation would reduce the system’s entropy, and that doesn’t happen spontaneously.  Air conditioners, refrigerators, and heat pumps do external work to separate ambient air into hot air and cold air.  The earth’s weather patterns, and the separation into hot air and cold air needs external work from energy supplied by the sun.

Now, climate change is supposed to make storms more intense, the wet, wetter; the dry, drier; the hot, hotter; and cold colder.  These are reductions in entropy. To do this means more work is being done.  Where is the energy to do this additional work to come from?  Not the sun, as solar irradiation is constant.

It can’t come from the earth’s atmosphere itself, as this work would reduce the heat content of the atmosphere, cooling it, and reducing its entropy.  This is impossible; it would be like the insulated glass of water spontaneously separating into hot and cold.  We would observe a reduction in the heat content of the atmosphere in the form of a reduction in global average temperature.  The oceans could put heat into the atmosphere resulting in a reduction in ocean temps. (El Nino)

In sum, intensification cannot occur spontaneously.  It would require a reduction of the atmosphere’s entropy, and that requires external work.  It requires energy input above the current energy balance.  More insulation won’t enable spontaneous reductions in entropy, any more than insulating a glass of water will enable the spontaneous separation of the water in it into hot and cold sections.

Climate change in the form of intensification is impossible as it requires a spontaneous reduction of the earth’s entropy.  Insulating the system still won’t permit a spontaneous reduction in entropy.  We need to see higher global average temperatures for intensification to occur, and that additional heat has to come from greater solar irradiation or heat pumped into the atmosphere from the oceans.

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What to make of “hottest day ever?”

Vincent J. Curtis

6 July 23

RE: Tuesday set unofficial record for hottest day on Earth.  AP story by Melima Wallace and Seth Borenstein The Hamilton Spectator 6 July 23.

Ref: The UMaine temperature graph, included on the Twitter announcement.

The UMaine temperature chart forms the basis for the claim of the ‘hottest day ever recorded.’ You’ll notice that the global average temperature starts in January at about 12.5℃, rises to about 17℃ in summer, and then falls back to 12.5℃ in December.  The northern hemispheric bias is staring at you.  The other funny thing is the annual fluctuation of 4.5 degrees annually.

We’re constantly told that the planet cannot stand a 1.5 or 2 degree rise in temperature, and that a rise of 3 or 4 degrees would spell climate disaster.  Well, the planet annually goes through a fluctuation of 4.5 degrees, according to the chart, greater than the most fearful scenarios and no climate disaster appears.  And even if disaster lay 1.5 degrees above annual maximum, the planet would fall below the danger level within two months.

The other funny thing is the hemispheric bias.  The earth is closest to the sun in the Northern winter and furthest away in the Northern summer, but the chart shows the planet at its hottest when furthest away and coldest when closest to the sun.  This makes no sense if the temperature shown were truly global.

The climate crazies seized on the UMaine chart because it purported to show what they wanted, that man is overheating the planet.  They didn’t look close enough.

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Are gender studies a fake but dangerous discipline?

Fake scholarship isn’t risk-free

Vincent J. Curtis

5 July 23

RE: The dangerous field of gender studies.  Op-ed by Catherine Anderson, who is Director of McMaster University’s Gender Studies program.  The Hamilton Spectator 5 July 23.

Forcing people to believe nonsense is not without risk.  Catherine Anderson has probably never heard of British philosopher Sir Roger Scruton, but in the last years of his life Scruton railed against fake disciplines in academia.  These disciplines rely upon a massive fake scholarship and fake philosophy to give them apparent authority.  His example of a fake discipline was Feminist Studies. Scruton found it very difficult to imagine that you would succeed in that subject if you didn’t have at the outset, or certainly at the conclusion, Feminist opinions.

“The fake scholarship industry enables people to claim authority for nonsense; the purpose of that nonsense being that it make conformity to orthodoxy the only thing that you have,” he said. “If the scholarship is nonsense, what is there?  Only the conclusions, and those conclusions turn out to be the usual liberal axioms from which you actually begin.”

Ms. Anderson writes that has become accustomed to students complaining that her courses are too political, and she protests that she doesn’t understand what they mean.  You’d think after 20 years of complaints, she’d reflect upon the observations, but no.  Unconsciously, in defense of her program, she gets political: “There’s also ample evidence that our narrower social and political systems disadvantage pretty much anyone who’s not a white, cis, straight man.”

And if you don’t believe that, you can’t pass the course.  Gender studies is a fake discipline that enforces political orthodoxy at the cost of an open-minded pursuit of truth.

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The op-ed was written in the wake of a knife attack on a gender studies professor and two students at the University of Waterloo, which took place in her classroom while teaching the class. The attacker was a recent UW graduate, and the police immediately called the attack a hate crime.  The professor and two students suffered serious, but non-life threatening, injuries.  Never let a crisis go to waste, and the political advantages of this attack are being taken by everyone who can.  The claim that gender students are dangerous is self-flattery.  But when you force people to speak nonsense on pain of failure or banishment or personal destruction, some can get a little irate.

 

Race hustlers evade the obvious

Vincent J. Curtis

4 July 23

RE: Who speaks up for Black communities? Op-ed by Kojo Damptey, who is currently a sessional instructor at McMaster University.  The Hamilton Spectator 4 July 23.

Why, its none other than Kojo Damptey who speaks up for Black communities, that’s who!  Race hustling brings in employment!  Damptey complains that Hamilton Police deal with Blacks at “grossly overrepresented” rates in use-of-force incidents as well as in arrests in general.  In addition, teachers, bastions of progressivism, in the HWDSB suspended Black students at higher rates than white students.  When police and teachers are punishing Blacks at highly disproportion rates, what does Damptey conclude? Racism!

It would never occur to Damptey to look in the mirror and wonder if the problem doesn’t lie within the Black community itself.  Oh, no - it’s everyone else.  But you know which groups are underrepresented in the categories of arrests and suspensions - below that of whites?  Asians.  Asians don’t have an attitude problem with white society; they know how to get ahead in it, and take full advantage of their opportunities.

This whole subject matter of the disproportionate treatment of Blacks and other races was analyzed extensively by Hoover Institution Senior Fellow Thomas Sowell (who is Black, BTW) in his books: Discrimination and Disparities, Visions of the Anointed, and The Search for Cosmic Justice. But it would be too much to expect university sessional instructor Damptey to read them; it would be bad for business.

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Climate scamming a new tax

Vincent J. Curtis

3 July 23

RE: City to start charging storm water fees in 2025.  News item.  The Hamilton Spectator 1 July 23.

The climate change scam has many uses, and one of them is to provide a moral distraction for this new tax on the alleged additional storm water runoff caused by “climate change.”  You know this is a tax scam because farmers in rural areas not connected to the city storm sewer system are going to be charged as well.

It’s not enough just to allege climate change, you have to prove it.  Average annual rainfall records go back a long way.  If you were to take the average from, say, 1950 to 1990, you’d get a reasonable estimate of the pre-climate change volume of storm water runoff.  That could be used as a base; and if annual rainfall exceeded the annual average, that extra could be charged in fees under the veil of climate change.  If rainfall were less than average one year, that deficit would be carried over into the next year to the taxpayer’s benefit.

This isn’t going to happen.  The storm water system ceased being adequate after the construction of the Red Hill Valley Parkway; and to avoid embarrassing admissions, the city is waving the bloody shirt of climate change.

It would never occur to proper society to take the $5 billion that’s going to be sacrificed to the god of LRT and spend it on infrastructure.  The city is going to put 200,000 more people downtown, and that will require a completely reengineered water and sewer system.

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