Quote :

my post was out of line, however true...

I think Mike needs to work on some of his assumptions, but that of course goes for everybody. Jumping in with insulting criticisms over others assumptions without showing any sign or willingness to reflect on or engage with one's own assumptions comes across as pretty shallow...

Nobody's perfect. Doesn't mean we're all retarded.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

Smothers Brothers!

Man those guys are good.

Haha!

PS,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v ... B1kww&feature=related


PSS, I made a fun sample/loop. Ah Yeah!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v ... p;feature=player_embedded

Quote from mookie427 :

http://ccgi.newbery1.plus.com/blog/?p=327

Oxburgh report into the 'scandal' looking more and more shambolic....

Yeah thanks Mookie. The Climate Audit links at the bottom of that page are pretty interesting as well.

edit: and here's another one (More Oxburgh Misrepresentations)

Last edited by Electrik Kar, Fri, 10 Sep 2010 15:11.

Quote from DieKolkrabe :

In the West, Muslims get given a lot of slack, whereas in Muslim countries other religions get treated with something approaching contempt.

I think you'll find through experience that most religions will tend to treat other religions with 'something approaching contempt'.

Quote from flymike91 :

so because we're big ol qur'an burning meanies radical muslims should murder thousands of american citizens and women and children all over the world in so called honor killings?

That really doesn't make any sense Mike. Violent people kill other people all the time, whether they're Qur'an burners, bible burners, or non-book burners, they will do it for no reason at all (although in their minds there is usually some lame justification). In no instance is the murder of innocents acceptable, where ever you are and whatever your religion. Saying that being against Qur'an burning means that you like to see Americans get killed is ridiculous. I wonder if you really think like that or whether you're just arguing your point with over the top emotionalism because your argument otherwise is fairly weak?

I read this today in the paper:

http://www.theage.com.au/world ... lians-20100909-15392.html

Who are these guys? Do they represent America? Do they represent Christianity? What do these actions represent to you? What is the justification here?

The Treasury??? You can't HANDLE THE TREASURY!!!!!!!

http://gawker.com/5634055/the- ... peech-youll-see-this-fall


edit: damn, already posted

Last edited by Electrik Kar, Fri, 10 Sep 2010 05:30.

Quote from Greboth :

I agree with you to an extent Electrik car though some songs (or at least part of them) work so well, take fade to black http://www.youtube.com/watch?v ... y93a0&feature=related I personally thing it goes wrong from ~ 1:50 but up until that I love this cover. This is probably due to the fade to black being a calmer? song than others usually covered.

Yeah. Probably a chamber music format (4 or so people) is a much more appropriate format for rock covers than trying to accommodate a full blown orchestra.

The problem with '1:50' on, is that electric guitars are capable of so much more attack and crunch- that's really a limitation of orchestral instruments in this case. Sometimes you just need a guitar!

Last edited by Electrik Kar, Thu, 9 Sep 2010 20:55.

I've found that orchestral covers of rock music tend to be a bit hokey. I guess it's because as the songs were originally written for 1 or 2 guitars, bass, drums, vocals- the orchestral version just embellishes that very limited material out to accommodate the full orchestra, but it's really just ends up as decoration, frills. Fun to try, maybe, but the orchestra was designed for so much more.

I also always think of the book 'The Divine Invasion' by Philip K Dick, which described a future world where all of the popular music was just endless 'soupy strings' covers of older songs. Kind of chilling!

PS, there are even orchestral techno covers these days... (I don't actually mind this one so much, still hokey though...)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STpOak4iAJY

Quote from flymike91 :

a war that has been going on for a thousand of years and will not end until one of the sides is eliminated.

No... It will end when both sides manage to grow the hell up enough to be able to start dealing with people as actual people, as opposed to dealing with them soley as the cartoon representatives of this or that particular book/ideology.

Last edited by Electrik Kar, Thu, 9 Sep 2010 07:50.

Quote from Scott Mckenzie :

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11223457
I know its more than likely been blown out of proportion, hick town with a small church...

Radical Islamists only have to see this book burning appear on the T.V. and it will incite them to action. They're not looking at context or proportion here, just images.

On the other hand, I noticed that there was an American flag burning demonstration in anticipation of this event. It pays to keep in mind that 'radical' Islam itself has very little to do with mainstream Islamic practices and beliefs- people should also keep that in mind.

Tempests in cultural teapots.

Last edited by Electrik Kar, Thu, 9 Sep 2010 02:33.

Hey Kev- here's that band I was telling you about-

http://www.labjacd.com/

They're called Labjacd- and they're actually not really that dubby listening to them now... might have gotten them confused with another band! Check 'em out though

I know Declan (trumpet player) from another band Dec and I used to be in (I play keys). This new band of his is doing really well apparently, getting some good gigs.

Quote from Woz :

I understand most news has moved onto the Aussie floods now. They look bad there as well.

It's actually pretty exciting. There has of course been some damage, but people are more hopeful than panicked or depressed about these floods for the most part- all that rain has broken a pretty bad drought, it's given the state a much needed drink. Flood, drought, flood, drought, etc... that's Australia for you.

Quote from 5haz :

Safety standards in the Gulf and perhaps further abroad need a serious looking at though, one serious accident could be considered unlucky, but two in such a short time suggests there are major corners being cut on safety.

I know a guy who worked as head chef on an oil rig out in Bass Straight, who was fired for pointing out a very serious safety flaw to do with how the platform was engineered. It was a few years ago now so I'm hazy on the details, but I could find out what it was all about pretty quickly.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

Cheers

Those tunes are all the ska beat, we tracked them back in March when the band was still pretty young, but the stuff we're working on now is darker-sounding reggae/dub. Proper thick bass and BIG beats, three harmony voices and delay-soaked trumpets, doesn't sound anything like as white as we actually are.

I've got a friend who plays trumpet in a really great Melbourne ska/dub/hip-hop type band. When I remember the name of it I'll send you a link there's also another band around town you might dig called 'Red Eyes'. Seen them perform quite a few times-

http://www.myspace.com/themightyredeyes



PS Kev, how did the big gig go the other day?

Last edited by Electrik Kar, Sun, 5 Sep 2010 05:48.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

I played bass on this, feedback welcome.

thumbs up Kev

Quote from SamH :

Gosselin reports that the German MSM broadly acknowledges that the scientific well has been poisoned, while still claiming that the water is fine to drink. That seems to be pretty common across most of MSM. How do you trust a source that doesn't even blink when it presents such dichotomies?

The dichotomy isn't limited to the MSM reporting (of the IAC report), it's in the actual report itself - specifically when it concludes that "the IPCC assessment process has been successful overall and has served society well" and then goes on to say that "fundamental changes are needed". This has been a definite pattern from both the MSM and the various reviews of climate science we've seen to date... it allows anyone to take what they want away from the conclusions and then nothing ever gets fixed. It leads to a squabbling over soundbites from the various camps. It's a bit like the NAS report that has been used in defence of the hockeystick... on the one hand it was completely damning of the science behind the HS itself, but since it also concluded that there were other lines of evidence supporting it then people argue that must mean that the hockeystick is also robust. Well no, it doesn't mean that at all but it doesn't stop people from trying. We need to be able to look at these things from a very case specific viewpoint and stop defending the indefensible. This applies in reverse as well. The HS may be shot down, but what about those other lines of evidence? Let's look into those as well. They may very well hold up under closer scrutiny. But just who is doing the scrutinising here?

Last edited by Electrik Kar, Fri, 3 Sep 2010 07:30.

Quote from Klutch :

Darren Styles - Sorry

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7ZP-gmTEHw

Another 'old man' gripe... X-Treme Hardcore? That has to be false advertising

That's not noise, that's music!

(*covers ears... grumpily shuffles off)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v ... sWM0k&feature=related

Quote from Boris Lozac :

You obviously didn't get the memo..

http://i.imgur.com/UxShq.png

Heh. This has become one of my few minor gripes with online distribution- you start losing those special moments, the ones when you finally come across that super rare album you've been searching for for five years, purely by luck, in some no name little record store. Moments like that just cannot exist online.

Sad but true...

Quote from Tomba(FIN) :

Thanks Took a while yes, 4,26gb. But got them now!

OMG- the modern world..


PS, how many do you have now? There are supposed to be over 300 albums, with more being discovered all the time

Quote from Tomba(FIN) :

nice. have to get the whole discography

Hehe- that might take a while! Sun Ra probably released more albums than any other artist of the 20th C.

Here's a guide to some other stuff you may enjoy by Sun Ra. Glad you like

Quote from flymike91 :

sry to pick apart your post but I disagree here. The mainstream (left) media will shut out, censor, and discredit these skeptics in spite of the newly awakened public's desire for balanced debate. The main American news outlets are already doing this with people who stand against Obama and the socialist left agenda, and environmentalism is a large part of that agenda to those who stand to profit greatly from legislation like cap and trade, not to mention government research grants.

Yeah, I wasn't really referring specifically to who's going to be allowed to be shown on which news station or not, they are all biased to certain degrees in favour of one political ideology or the other. There's nothing you can really do about that apart from turning the TV off if you don't like it I'm noticing that Andy Revikin's latest piece has had people calling for the redefinition of the New York Times as tabloid news. It's pretty funny.

I was really talking more about the nitty gritty science. There was a UN report issued only yesterday making recommendations on IPCC process. Again from the NYT:

Quote :

The United Nations needs to revise the way it manages its assessments of climate change, with the scientists involved more open to alternative views, more transparent about possible conflicts of interest and more careful to avoid making policy prescriptions, an independent review panel said Monday.

The IPCC, even though it's assumed by people that it's conclusions are representative of the full scientific literature, is tremendously weakened by the fact that the lead authors of each chapter basically get to write the 'story' of that chapter as they see fit. Lots of input from other scientists but in the end it comes down to one guy to explain what they think is an appropriate summary of the available science. This process has led to authors picking and choosing studies which are supportive of their own studies and ignoring or glossing over criticisms by other scientists.

Another poster on Bishop Hill sums it up:

Quote :

As Ross McKitrick has remarked, it isn't difficult to predict which perspective will dominate a particular chapter of the IPCC report simply by looking at the names of the authors selected to write it. By virtue of their IPCC author roles, these same people then pretend that their viewpoint is the only/official/consensus viewpoint.

There's not much longer this can go on before a lot of people really start to become cheesed off. The IPCC will either find a way to be more inclusive of the full gamut of scientific views, or it will fold. This is pretty much well understood by now.


Also, from the report:

Quote :

[A]uthors reported high confidence in some statements for which there is little evidence. Furthermore, by making vague statements that were difficult to refute, authors were able to attach “high confidence” to the statements. The Working Group II Summary for Policy Makers contains many such statements that are not supported sufficiently in the literature, not put into perspective, or not expressed clearly.

Again, these are sceptical arguments.

Last edited by Electrik Kar, Tue, 31 Aug 2010 12:34.

Quote from Intrepid :

My question is, in basic terms, where are we now, has the debate changed?

It's a hard thing to discern. Certainly on the surface it might appear that nothing has changed, you get the feeling that climategate did nothing really but to entrench and embolden the old opinions- the skeptics have their 'proof' of a grand conspiracy and coverup and the other side has 'proof' of the low character of sceptics via their willingness to pour through tons of stolen emails and hassle scientists. I don't think either of these positions are going to go away any time soon.

On the other hand you have comments like Andy Revkin's latest-

"It's perfectly reasonable to rely on the overarching trajectory of scientific inquiry into the human influence on climate and still have a (constructively) skeptical (in the best sense of that word) approach to individual studies."

You can notice by the inclusion of the bracketed words, just how sensitive this idea of the reasonable skeptical approach is to die hard followers of the mainstream position, where any form of questioning immediately gets one labeled as a 'denier' (which I actually was in the comments of this article, simply for pointing out that a particular data set agreed with a point that a certain controversial scientist was making).

This will become the new mainstream position I feel, a slightly more critical approach taken to claims being made by scientists and media. We don't need to become cynical, but there's nothing wrong with being critical. The public is becoming more educated and with education come questions as well as confusion, but it's getting harder to simply sweep aside inconvenient truths such as the poor quality of the surface temperature record, for example. Sceptics are going to be called on to offer their opinions and expertise on these matters, which they've looked into in almost exhausting detail. Similarly, only the far gone believers still think that Steve McIntyre is in the pay of Big Oil, most reasonable people are able to see where he's actually coming from (see Fred Pearce's comments in the Guardian's climategate debate, full version audio). It's kind of just starting, but there is much more desire in wanting to carry the debate forward from both sides, getting away from the echo chambers, and there are certain new platforms springing up to accomodate this. Of course, that's going to provoke fear and lashing out from certain people as well.

Last edited by Electrik Kar, Mon, 30 Aug 2010 14:24.