Muslims don't understand the Western mind

Vincent J. Curtis

31 Dec 23

RE: Inclusivity, empathy, and respect needed. Op-ed by Ibrahim Hindy, who is the religious direct at Yaqeen Institute for Islamic research, and imam at Dar-al-Tawheed Islamic Center.

It’s a little late for Muslims to begin calling for inclusivity, empathy, and respect after Hamas slaughtered over 1,200 Israeli citizens, took over 240 hostages, and committed unspeakable atrocities against beautiful, young Israeli women.  When the mutilated corpses of those women were dragged in triumph through Gaza, the populace, quite gratuitously and unnecessarily, spat upon them in contempt.  Israel has business to finish with Hamas before turning to the issue of what to do about Gaza and its populace.

The author, Ibrahim Hindy, does not understand the Western mind.  He thinks that by calling attention to the alleged suffering of Gazans in a war their government started, that we will turn against Israel. In World War 2, the allies killed hundreds of thousands of civilians in the firebombing of Hamburg, Dresden, Berlin, and other German cities; and firebombed many cities in Japan, which culminated in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Westerns can be more savage than the Muslims imagined.  The alleged suffering in Gaza is nothing compared to what a Westerner is capable when roused to righteous anger.

Gaza is getting nothing more than what it asked for, and less than it deservers. The goal of Hamas and all “Palestinians” is a Palestine “from the river to the sea,” which requires the genocide of the Jews, something the Muslim author neglects to mention.  It’s not as easy this time as it was the last.

Business first.

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There’re scientists and then there’re King Canutes

Vincent J. Curtis

30 Dec 23

RE: We can’t abandon climate targets.  Op-ed by Steve Easterbrook, professor and director of the school of the environment at the University of Toronto.

You’d expect a professor and director of the U of T school of the environment to be a serious scientist and, as such, to be up on his science.  Not so. Professor Easterbrook makes a pathetic plea, in the manner of a King Canute, that “we”, meaning Canada, can’t give up on “the 1.5ºC target.”

The hard and most current science from serious atmospheric physicists is that a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere from 400 to 800 ppm will result in a global temperature increase of only 0.72ºC. Either the professor knows of this fact and ignores it, or, worse, doesn’t know it.

Conspicuous by their omissions are serious explanations: like, 1.5 above what? “Pre-industrial” temperature is the commonly given answer, except what is that number, exactly? None dare say what, because the moment they do, they can be challenged as to how do they know it? Truly global temperature measurement did not come into being until 1979.  It’s 1.5 above a guess.  The current global average temperature is 14.45ºC, and the IPCC requires a GAT of 16.3ºC to make its radiation budget work; so we have plenty of leeway in any event.

Finally, Professor Easterbrook is talking to the wrong people.  Canada contributes 1.5 percent of global CO2 emissions, while Asia contributes over 50 percent. Heroic efforts by Canada won’t solve his issue with CO2, and Asia doesn’t buy into this Western mania about atmospheric plant food.

Some scientists are more serious than others.

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See my “How Will Happer computes temperature increase” 20 Oct 23 entry of this blog.

 

What do you think they’re fighting for?

Vincent J. Curtis

19 Dec 23

RE: Should we celebrate while war rages? Editorial by Julia Marach, who “lives with her family in Inivano-Frankvisk Ukraine.” The Hamilton Spectator 19 Dec 23.

War is raging for Ukrainian independence, and what do we get? An essay on some non-combatant’s feedings: her dreams of garlands, and embarrassment at her alleged “friend” upbraiding her for thinking pleasant thoughts while “our soldiers are freezing in the trenches.”

What in hell do these self-absorbed fairies think Ukrainian soldiers are fighting for?  They’re fighting so that Ukrainians can do Ukrainian things in a free Ukraine; and that includes Ukrainian girls being beautiful, and dreaming of pleasant things like celebrating Christmas.

If you want to be one with your soldiers freezing in the trenches, remember it is for your sake and your country’s sake they are doing it, so keep being and doing the things they are fighting for.

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Ukraine in NATO?

Vincent J. Curtis

11 July 23

Ukraine in NATO?  What a dumb idea!

The latest, greatest, and dumbest idea for NATO expansion is to admit Ukraine into the alliance.  Never mind that Article 5 of the NATO pact - that an attack on one is an attack on all - would place the NATO powers, including Canada, at war with Russia.  What could go wrong?

Look at Ukraine’s pre-2014 frontiers.  The Russian city just across the eastern border is Rostov-on-Don, where the Don River empties into the Sea of Azov.  In 1941, Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt drove Army Group South in Operation Barbarossa over 800 miles through modern Ukraine; and in mid-November, 1941, captured Rostov-on-Don.  Rundstedt assessed that his army lacked the strength to hold the city against Russian counterattacks, and ordered his army to withdraw to an excellent defensive position on the west bank of the Mius River, about 45 miles to the west, in Ukraine.

Hitler went nuts over Rundstedt’s withdrawal, sacked him, and replaced him with Walter von Reichenau who, agreeing with Rundstedt, persuaded Hitler to complete the withdrawal.  The next year, 1942, the main German offensive began from Army Group South’s winter position, and German armies advanced eastward to Stalingrad and southward into the Caucasus, the capture of the oilfields of which was the aim of the offensive.

Ukraine in NATO would enable the placement of German, American, and other forces at the starting position of Germany’s 1942 offensive.

Napoleon began his advance on Moscow in 1812 when he crossed the Niemen River, which runs near the modern Polish-Belarusian border.  Napoleon advanced 600 miles, roughly, to occupy Moscow.  Army Group Center, in 1941, advanced 750 miles from occupied Poland, and reached the outskirts of Moscow in one campaign.  It’s about 400 miles from Kharkov to Moscow.

Lenin sighed at the losses of territory in Belarus, Ukraine, and the Baltic States in the short-lived Treat of Brest-Litovsk.

Ukraine in NATO would give German, French, and American armies jumping off points that Russia has only seen deep in a war.  That Russia is unconquerable on account of space suddenly may not be true when the space between the enemy’s starting points and Russia’s vital political and economic centers are dramatically shortened.

It may be hard for us to understand, but Russian political leadership is suspicious of America’s good intentions; and having a senile, grinning sock-puppet as president does not inspire Russian confidence in American motives, or actions.  Imagine Russian President Vladimir Putin as a Russian patriot, and he’s confronted with the prospect of what, for hundreds of years, was Russian territory absconding to the empire of Western Europe.

In Barack Obama, Putin detected weakness, and immediately after the 2014 Sochi Olympics, he seized the Crimea, with its vital port and fortress of Sevastopol, from Ukraine.  America accommodated itself.  The prospect of Ukraine joining the EU or NATO began to percolate, until Donald Trump became president.

Trump offered American friendship to Putin, and raised Putin’s personal prestige.  Howling at the uselessness of NATO, Trump forced NATO countries to spend $100 billion more on defense.  Trump howled about the corruption of Ukraine - how it interfered against him in the 2016 election, and how Ukrainian interests paid off the Biden family.  But, Trump also gave Ukraine lethal aid in the form of Javelin missiles, which Obama never did.  Trump showed a dexterity in foreign policy not seen since the days of Nixon and Kissinger, embarrassing and offending the Washington foreign policy establishment.  Nothing happened while Trump was president.  Putin saw strength, was outmaneuvered, but Trump kept Ukraine out of NATO.

In Joe Biden, the weakness is palpable.  Facing the real prospect of Ukraine entering the embrace of the EU and NATO, Putin struck.  The Russian military let him down, and he was unable to install a puppet regime in Kiev; but he does possess a land bridge from Rostov to the Crimea, as well as the mineral rich Donbas region.

A status quo armistice would suit his purposes for now.

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Worthless credentials

Vincent J. Curtis

7 Dec 23

RE: Heat pumps are an important tool. By Norman W. Park and Heather McDiarmid. Park is a Professor Emeritus of Psychology at York University and Chair of the Education Committee of the Group of Seniors for Climate Action Now.  McDiarmid is the principal at McDiarmid Climate Consulting, and is a research associate that the University of Waterloo. The Hamilton Spectator 7 Dec 23

Economist Thomas Sowell observes that it can be hazardous to be a high IQ, low information writer, and Norman W. Park, Professor Emeritus of Psychology, and Heather McDiarmid, a climate consultant, demonstrate this hazard in their article.

They claim, “Heat pumps…are two to three times more efficient than burning natural gas for heat.”  This is arrant nonsense. The authors couldn’t even be bothered to check the Carrier website for its cautions about heat pumps.  You can burn natural gas in your furnace to heat your home, or you can burn it in an electrical generator which powers the heat pump, which, in turn, rather inefficiently tries to heat your house when its cold outside.  The authors don’t grasp the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

They also claim that heat pumps “move heat and don’t generate it,” as well as, “by using electricity, they generate no greenhouse gases.” Actually, the motors and pumps do generate heat; and greenhouses gases are generated to power the heat pump if natural gas is used to generate the electricity.

The proffered credentials of these alleged experts aren’t relevant to the topic they write about, and even a college student can pick out the flaws in the argument.  Unfortunately, the public is flooded with “credentialled” nonsense like this, while the people really qualified and knowledgeable on the subject, like 2022 Noble Laurate in Physics John Clauser, and Will Happer get cancelled.

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Alberta says no!

 Vincent J. Curtis

5 Dec 23

RE: Canada proposes new methane emissions rules. CP story by Mia Rabson. The Hamilton Spectator 5 Dec 23.

In 2014, Alberta agreed to commit to a reduction of its methane emission by 45% by the year 2025, and achieved that target early, in 2022.  Now, quite arbitrarily and without consultation, Minister of Climate Change Steven Guilbeault announces to the world that Alberta will eliminate nearly all its methane emissions by 2030.  As recent court cases have demonstrated, the Federal government has no authority to impose such a standard.

Guilbeault knows this, and doesn’t care.  Needless to say, Alberta has grown tired of this style of arbitrary governance and is about to invoke her Sovereignty Act to assert that she will not be bound by this commitment, and will fight in court, if necessary, to resist this imposition of arbitrary and unconstitutional assertion of Federal power.

What’s thunderingly stupid about this whole matter is that methane is of no consequence as a greenhouse gas.  It ranks a distant fourth on the list of GHGs after water vapor, CO2, and ozone.  The contention that methane is so much more powerful as a GHG falls apart under critical examination.

There’s the lab, and then there’s the real world.  In the real world, methane’s infra-red absorption peak is masked under a large band of water vapor absorption, and the absorption peak is in a low energy part of the spectrum.  In addition, methane only comprises 2 ppm of atmospheric gases. It simply isn’t worth the economic effort, nor the risk of destroying confederation over.

Canada won’t survive four more years of the arbitrary nonsense of fanatics.

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