Disqus - Latest Comments for ncgstokes

Re: Efforts to Push Australian Fire Conspiracy Theories Debunked by Officials

Nick Stokes — Wed, 08 Jan 2020 23:53:22 -0000

Good post. But

"CNN’s top story in its World News section today, which is also featured in its website's top stories banner this morning, included the misleading headline, “Police in Australia are accusing 24 people of deliberately setting bushfires”

is actually a correct statement based on the NSW Police statement:

https://www.facebook.com/ns...[0]=68.ARDW2KAurOLMKiJg33J11HI6kuu4reVORDhDg5FMjUTj0kvkSSYKEHlOIrfwl4PQDyT7NJSOzfT55CaDbEbb7DdCyfK-Zs8zbBX0c_hklAmPrf5PIuOOatN2nguDW-bsfwIKded-dVzqIZm1I-yHqKySG-4QQOQTuATAV3cCr7KKOw1JhDYoChCidHLtfTQ2YlotQvQrxsbFe9tC2J4m2_QxqvBBd-zyP0mq6IvRc3V7-9-kwoHEiCiotrRYIGcs0v1qbVuLxCBgCIVBDVKgVTAnehoPH6PQzceCf96F7SlXtR0M-zphnQMlhqwkjw88INERkrWj6Il3lFb3&__tn__=-R

Re: The Gerrymander Effect, Take 2

Nick Stokes — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 05:03:57 -0000

Indeed. My point is that protecting the ruling incumbents runs counter to the gerrymander effect. And I suspect it gets a lot of priority.

Re: The Gerrymander Effect, Take 2

Nick Stokes — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 00:42:11 -0000

The time when incumbency shifts votes is when new members first stand as incumbent. Following the 2010 election gains, a lot of Rs were in that position in seats that would have been highly competitive. So a vote shift focused on competitive seats can boost seats won without shifting (much) the total vote.

Re: The Gerrymander Effect, Take 2

Nick Stokes — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 00:36:04 -0000

I'm wondering if gerrymandering is actually done effectively. It requires that you spread your own supporters over a large number of narrowly won seats, while corralling opposition voters into a few safe seats. But I suspect Republican influence is focussed on making incumbent's seats safer. This does not maximize the number of seats won.

Re: New poll shows Romney up by 4 in Pennsylvania; Update/Correction: Poll is not new

Nick Stokes — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 03:22:23 -0000

"Susquehanna Polling and Research results for Pennsylvania released today
shows Mitt Romney leading President Obama 49% to 45% among 1376 likely
voters."

Are you sure about that report? Those numbers are identical to the one in this report from Oct 18.

Re: State of the Race, Part 2: Why Romney Wins | Comments | RealClearPolitics

Nick Stokes — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 19:39:59 -0000

Sean, your pitch is based heavily on R&R prospects in Wis and Iowa. Iowa had had little polling. But there are new polls NBC/WSJ/Marist showing on this page. Wis O +5, Iowa O +8.

Re: The Wall Street Journals Disclosure Issue: Bolton Edition

Nick Stokes — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 18:10:36 -0000

285? That's less than Agamemnon took to Troy!

Re: Is Fracking Good for the Environment?

Nick Stokes — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 08:03:37 -0000

It seems to me to be a simple question - yes it's bad. There is a finite amount of carbon that we can burn - a while ago it looked like maybe 3000 Gigatons (we've burnt about 350 Gt C). The practical question was - will we burn all of it, with drastic climate effects, or will we find some way to leave at least part of it in the ground?

Now there's a whole lot more C (shale gas). It's not a question of whether it might replace coal. The default is that we'll burn the lot, with even worse effects.

Re: We Should Focus on Deception, Not Lying

Nick Stokes — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 07:44:16 -0000

Over four minutes is pretty ordinary. I think Ryan should take his own advice (to Akin) and withdraw in favor of Sarah Palin.

Re: GBR not endangered

Nick Stokes — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 00:55:47 -0000

Nah! I'm just Geoff's typo's.

Re: GBR not endangered

Nick Stokes — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 17:04:48 -0000

Ah yes, Geoff, I'm everywhere!

But when I'm not, I think we actually live in the same city.

Re: On the Use of the Virial Theorem by Miskolczi

Nick Stokes — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 19:31:30 -0000

Measurements? Can you locate mention of a measurement in Adolf's paper?

As to M's new theory, I still haven'y been told where to find it.

Re: On the Use of the Virial Theorem by Miskolczi

Nick Stokes — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 19:28:45 -0000

It's pure arm-waving. He takes a textbook derivation of the IGL in which PE is elastic PE of a volume of gas, and claims that because this relates to temperature in that case, so can the gravitational PE of the whiole atmosphere be related to Su. There's just no connection. An explanation needs to say, about PE, what's body's PE we're talking about, and relative to what state.

On KE it's even worse. It just says that because the proposition is wrong in two extreme cases, somehow it must be right in the middle.

The graphs are arm-waving with a pencil.

Re: On the Use of the Virial Theorem by Miskolczi

Nick Stokes — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 17:11:27 -0000

Well, would you like to explain the explanation? It seems to me to just amount to "Ferenc says so".

Re: On the Use of the Virial Theorem by Miskolczi

Nick Stokes — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 16:59:51 -0000

Before another round of ill-explained VT stuff, why doesn't someone try to explain (for the first time ever) what is the connection between PE, KE (of what, and however related) and the IR fluxes. A glaring absence in FM's paper.

Re: CSIRO Affair?

Nick Stokes — Mon, 31 May 2010 17:34:14 -0000

Yes, Paul Fraser is a person, and an excellent scientist. But to refer to him as the Chief Research Scientist clearly implies that he is the organisation's scientific supremo, which is just not true. CSIRO does have Chiefs of Divisions, and he isn't one of those either.

Re: CSIRO Affair?

Nick Stokes — Sun, 30 May 2010 20:03:44 -0000

Paul Fraser is not the Chief Research Scientist at CSIRO. There's no such person.

Re: Celestial Origins of Climate Oscillations

Nick Stokes — Wed, 26 May 2010 17:35:26 -0000

He seems to be supported by the South Dakota legislature!

Re: Blood in the Water

Nick Stokes — Tue, 25 May 2010 03:38:50 -0000

No, your report was from the Warrnambool Standard. What The Age said was
Ms Purcell's email makes no mention of the Hockey speech and yesterday Mr O'Neill said the reference to Mr Hockey was his "interpretation" of why the noon deadline had been set.

"There was no political pressure," Mr O'Neill told The Age.

Re: Australia's Relatively Stable Rainfall

Nick Stokes — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 21:55:11 -0000

It isn't a rebuttal of AGW; it's just saying (if true) that something happened that had a stepped effect.

Yes, I agree that there's a place for looking for steps when you have reasonable belief in a mechanism that would cause them. But these things feed on each other. An ocean oscillation like PDO doesn't normally imply steps. A change of sign of a phase isn't a step, but people see that and go looking regardless.

Re: Australia's Relatively Stable Rainfall

Nick Stokes — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 18:42:41 -0000

Tom Quirk, who is a nice guy
Indeed. He was my physics tutor once.
Are you really saying there was not a climate shift in 1976
I didn't say that. But I don't think anything useful follows from such a belief. You can apply Chow tests to all sorts of data, and find many breakpoints. DS likes doing that, but how does it help?

Re: Australia's Relatively Stable Rainfall

Nick Stokes — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 06:43:26 -0000

Well, the concensus is that Lindzen is eccentric :) And Swanson is a mathematician! And Seidel & L also say:
[38] Although we have combined several statistical techniques to select models in an objective fashion, the reader should be aware that our approach involves some underlying assumptions and is based on some subjective decisions.

So not so objective. It's OK to play with this stuff, but you can't expect that CSIRO etc will modify their wording to accommodate anyone who might find a breakpoint somewhere.

Re: Australia's Relatively Stable Rainfall

Nick Stokes — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 20:14:39 -0000

I didn't offer two interpretations. The first is the obvious one.

The parsing that goes on here is ridiculous. The paper simply remarked that over the last fifty years there have been divergent trends in N and S, while the total hasn't changed so much. It's a perfectly reasonable observation which they can make without any obligation to provide a ream of graphs covering every possible time period that you might prefer to think about. And they don't have to anticipate your eccentric breakpoint theories.

Re: Australia's Relatively Stable Rainfall

Nick Stokes — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 16:53:14 -0000

David, you persistently mis-state things. They didn't say
total rainfall has been “relatively stable” last century
They said:
While total rainfall on the Australian continent has been relatively stable, the geographic distribution of rainfall has changed significantly over the past 50 years.
The only time period mentioned is the last 50 years. And “relatively stable” means stable relative to the changes in distribution.

Re: Orders of Integration

Nick Stokes — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 15:33:04 -0000

No. Air CO2 is as measured. Accounting for its sources is harder.

If you want to know your weight, you check the scales, rather than estimate your calorie intake.