The “Born That Way” Identity Lie

Posted on by Ron Clutz

In June, my son’s teacher asked his class, “What does transgender mean?”  A student answered, “A transgender is someone who decided to change their gender.”  The teacher said:

That’s not true.  They were always that gender, but now they are able to express themselves and are taking certain actions to be the gender they always were.

The words above are from Gamaliel Isaac writing at American Thinker The Identity Lie.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

The current travesty of giving estrogen to boys and testosterone to girls and of cutting off their genitalia has its roots in a lie that was promoted by the homosexual community. It is the identity lie. It is the lie that people are born gay, that they have no choice, and that they are not responsible for their behavior. This lie is told by the media. It is told in our schools. It is everywhere.

Robin Goodspeed is an ex-lesbian. She wrote the following:

I was not born a homosexual. I was not ‘born that way.’ There is no scientific proof, or proof of any kind, that there is a homosexual gene or that homosexuals are ‘born that way.’ I was sexually molested at the age of 2 and I began making choices at that age that led to a life of homosexuality. I chose that life and I clung desperately to the lie that I was ‘born that way’ so I would never be held accountable for my choices.

Walt Heyer, a former transgender, was asked if transgenders are born that way. He answered:

There is no evidence that transgenders are born that way. There is, however, evidence that they are suffering from untreated mental disorders such as bipolar disorder, dissociative disorder, separation anxiety, schizophrenia, and personality disorder.

There is a popular TV show called Say Yes to the Dress. With the help of experts, brides search for the perfect dress. On October 26, 2012, there was an episode in which the woman getting married was heterosexual, and her bridesmaid was a lesbian. What was unusual was that the bridesmaid was her identical twin. How can one be born a lesbian and the other be born a heterosexual if they are identical twins?   There are other examples of identical twins in which one is gay and one is not.

The fact that there are many ex-homosexuals also speaks against the genetic argument. If they were born homosexual, and they can’t help being homosexual, then how did they stop being homosexual?

The blogger John Aravosis was one of many critics who pounced on Nixon. “Every religious right hatemonger is now going to quote this woman every single time they want to deny us our civil rights.” Aravosis leveled the same accusations against Brandon Ambrosino in 2014, when Brandon wrote a piece for The New Republic saying his gay behavior was a choice. Calling Brandon “idiotic” and “patently absurd,” Aravosis wrote, “The gay haters at the religious right couldn’t have written it any better.”

John Aravosis is showing us why many gays insist that they are born that way. They believe that if they don’t say that gays are born that way, it helps make the case of people who disapprove of homosexual behavior. The idea is that people who disapprove of homosexuals can’t fault them if homosexuals can’t help it and are born that way, but if gays have a choice, then they are responsible for their actions.

Jane Ward, a professor of feminist studies at UCAL Santa Barbara, wrote:

People who challenge the Born This Way narrative are often cast as homophobic, and their thinking is considered backward — even if they are themselves gay.

That’s why so few have had the courage to speak the truth the way Cynthia Nixon and Brandon Ambrosino did. Ex-homosexuals who have suggested that gays are not born that way have even been threatened by homosexual activists.

Although promotion of the identity lie has not helped homosexuals, it has hurt a lot of people, and that number is increasing. According to the 2020 Plastic Surgery Statistics provided by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, females had 6,368 “gender confirmation surgeries” performed in the US in 2020 compared to 5,616 in 2019.

Are transgender people individuals with another gender trapped in the wrong body? Do they have a different identity? In June, my son’s teacher asked his class, “What does transgender mean?” A student answered, “A transgender is someone who decided to change their gender.” The teacher said:

That’s not true. They were always that gender, but now they are able to express themselves and are taking certain actions to be the gender they always were.

There are many people who “de-transitioned” who have testified that they were persuaded by teachers, peers, and social media that they were a different gender and that they would be a lot happier if they transitioned. Then reality hit, and they de-transitioned. They were able to stop taking hormones, but they couldn’t undo the damage or get the organs back that “gender-affirming” surgeons had cut off.

People who have nothing to do with the identity lie pay a price with higher insurance premiums, because if insurance doesn’t pay for transgender surgery, that is considered discrimination and so is illegal. Women and young girls are forced to share bathrooms and locker rooms with males. Women locked up in prison are locked up with male criminals who claim to be female. Innocent children are brainwashed into ruining their lives.

And all this because they were persuaded to believe the identity lie.

See Also Messing Up Child Identities

Ten minute video here: http://www.comprehensivesexualityeducation.org/act-now-2/stop-cse-petition/

 

Finally, a Legal Rebuttal on the Merits of Kids’ Climate Lawsuit

Posted on by Ron Clutz

As reported last month, the Oregon activist judge invited the plaintiffs in Juliana vs US to reopen that case even after the Ninth Circuit shot it down.  Now we have a complete and thorough Motion from the defendant (US government) to dismiss this newest amended complaint.  Most interesting is the section under the heading starting on page 30.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Plaintiffs’ Claims Fail on the Merits

Because Plaintiffs’ action fails at the jurisdictional threshold, the Ninth Circuit never reached—and this Court need not reach—the merits of the claims. . . Plaintiffs’ second amended complaint, which supersedes the first amended complaint, asserts the same claims that were brought in the first amended complaint, which this Court addressed in orders that the Ninth Circuit reversed. Defendants thus renew their objection that Plaintiffs’ claims fail on the merits and should be dismissed pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6).

A. There is no constitutional right to a stable climate system.

The Supreme Court has repeatedly instructed courts considering novel due process claims
to “‘exercise the utmost care whenever . . . asked to break new ground in this field,’… lest the liberty protected by the Due Process Clause be subtly transformed” into judicial policy preferences. More specifically, the Supreme Court has “regularly observed that the Due Process Clause specially protects those fundamental rights and liberties which are, objectively, ‘deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition.’”  Plaintiffs’ request that this Court recognize an implied fundamental right to a stable climate system contradicts that directive, because such a purported right is without basis in the Nation’s history or tradition.

The proposed right to a “stable climate system” is nothing like any fundamental right ever recognized by the Supreme Court. The state of the climate is a public and generalized issue, and so interests in the climate are unlike the particularized personal liberty or personal privacy interests of individuals the Supreme Court has previously recognized as being protected by fundamental rights.  “[W]henever federal courts have faced assertions of fundamental rights to a ‘healthful environment’ or to freedom from harmful contaminants, they have invariably rejected those claims.”. Plaintiffs’ First Claim for Relief must be dismissed.

B.  Plaintiffs fail to allege a cognizable state-created danger claim.

The First Claim for Relief must also be dismissed because the Constitution does not impose an affirmative duty to protect individuals, and Plaintiffs have failed to allege a cognizable claim under the “state-created danger” exception to that rule.
As a general matter:

[The Due Process Clause] is phrased as a limitation on the State’s power to act, not as a guarantee of certain minimal levels of safety and security. It forbids the State itself to deprive individuals of life, liberty, or property without “due process of law,” but its language cannot fairly be extended to impose an affirmative obligation on the State to ensure that those interests do not come to harm through other means.

Thus, the Due Process Clause imposes no duty on the government to protect persons from harm inflicted by third parties that would violate due process if inflicted by the government.

Plaintiffs contend that the government’s “deliberate actions” and “deliberate indifference” with regard to the dangers of climate change amount to a due process violation under the state-created danger exception.

First, Plaintiffs have identified no harms to their “personal security or bodily integrity” of the kind and immediacy that qualify for the state-created danger exception. . . But here, Plaintiffs allege that general degradation of the global climate has harmed their “dignity, including their capacity to provide for their basic human needs, safely raise families, practice their religious and spiritual beliefs, [and] maintain their bodily integrity” and has prevented them from “lead[ing] lives with access to clean air, water, shelter, and food.”  Those types of harm are unlike the immediate, direct, physical, and personal harms at issue in the above-cited cases.

Second, Plaintiffs identify no specific government actions—much less government actors—that put them in such danger. Instead, Plaintiffs contend that a number of (mostly unspecified) agency actions and inactions spanning the last several decades have exposed them to harm. This allegation of slowly-recognized, long-incubating, and generalized harm by itself conclusively distinguishes their claim from all other state-created danger cases recognized by the Ninth Circuit.

Third, Plaintiffs do not allege that government actions endangered Plaintiffs in particular. . . As explained above, Plaintiffs’ asserted injuries arise from a diffuse, global phenomenon that affects every other person in their communities, in the United States, and throughout the world.

For all these reasons, there is no basis for finding a violation of Plaintiffs’ due process right under the state-created danger doctrine, and Plaintiffs’ corresponding claim must be dismissed.

C. No federal public trust doctrine creates a right to a stable climate system.

Plaintiffs’ Fourth Claim for Relief, asserting public trust claims, should be dismissed for two independent reasons. First, any public trust doctrine is a creature of state law that applies narrowly and exclusively to particular types of state-owned property not at issue here. That doctrine has no application to federal property, the use and management of which is entrusted exclusively to Congress. . .Consequently, there is no basis for Plaintiffs’ public trust claim against the federal government under federal law.

Second, the “climate system” or atmosphere is not within any conceivable federal public trust.

1. No public trust doctrine binds the federal government.

Plaintiffs rely on an asserted public trust doctrine for the proposition that the federal government must “take affirmative steps to protect” “our country’s life-sustaining climate system,” which they assert the government holds in trust for their benefit.  But because any public trust doctrine is a matter of state law only, public trust claims may not be asserted against the federal government under federal law. . . The Supreme Court has without exception treated public trust doctrine as a matter of state law with no basis in the United States Constitution.

2. Any public trust doctrine would not apply to the “climate system” or the atmosphere.

Independently, any asserted public trust doctrine does not help Plaintiffs here. Public trust cases have historically involved state ownership of specific types of natural resources, usually limited to submerged and submersible lands, tidelands, and waterways. . . The climate system or atmosphere is unlike any resource previously deemed subject to a public trust. It cannot be owned and, due to its ephemeral nature, cannot remain within the jurisdiction of any single government. No court has held that the climate system or atmosphere is protected by a public trust doctrine. Indeed, the concept has been widely rejected.

For all these reasons, the Court should dismiss Plaintiffs’ Fourth Claim for Relief.

Background Post Update on Zombie Kids Climate Lawsuits: (Juliana vs. US) (Held vs Montana)

 

 

Little Warming in June 2023 UAH Air Temps

Posted on by Ron Clutz

The post below updates the UAH record of air temperatures over land and ocean. Each month and year exposes again the growing disconnect between the real world and the Zero Carbon zealots.  It is as though the anti-hydrocarbon band wagon hopes to drown out the data contradicting their justification for the Great Energy Transition.  Yes there is warming from an El Nino buildup but no basis to blame it on CO2.  

As an overview consider how recent rapid cooling  completely overcame the warming from the last 3 El Ninos (1998, 2010 and 2016).  The UAH record shows that the effects of the last one were gone as of April 2021, again in November 2021, and in February and June 2022  Now at year end 2022 and continuing into 2023 global temp anomaly is matching or lower than average since 1995, an ENSO neutral year. (UAH baseline is now 1991-2020).

For reference I added an overlay of CO2 annual concentrations as measured at Mauna Loa.  While temperatures fluctuated up and down ending flat, CO2 went up steadily by ~60 ppm, a 15% increase.

Furthermore, going back to previous warmings prior to the satellite record shows that the entire rise of 0.8C since 1947 is due to oceanic, not human activity.

gmt-warming-events

The animation is an update of a previous analysis from Dr. Murry Salby.  These graphs use Hadcrut4 and include the 2016 El Nino warming event.  The exhibit shows since 1947 GMT warmed by 0.8 C, from 13.9 to 14.7, as estimated by Hadcrut4.  This resulted from three natural warming events involving ocean cycles. The most recent rise 2013-16 lifted temperatures by 0.2C.  Previously the 1997-98 El Nino produced a plateau increase of 0.4C.  Before that, a rise from 1977-81 added 0.2C to start the warming since 1947.

Importantly, the theory of human-caused global warming asserts that increasing CO2 in the atmosphere changes the baseline and causes systemic warming in our climate.  On the contrary, all of the warming since 1947 was episodic, coming from three brief events associated with oceanic cycles. 

Update August 3, 2021

Chris Schoeneveld has produced a similar graph to the animation above, with a temperature series combining HadCRUT4 and UAH6. H/T WUWT

image-8

 

mc_wh_gas_web20210423124932

See Also Worst Threat: Greenhouse Gas or Quiet Sun?

June 2023 Update Little Warming Added After May El Nino Spike

banner-blog

With apologies to Paul Revere, this post is on the lookout for cooler weather with an eye on both the Land and the Sea.  While you will hear a lot about 2020-21 temperatures matching 2016 as the highest ever, that spin ignores how fast the cooling set in.  The UAH data analyzed below shows that warming from the last El Nino Had fully dissipated with chilly temperatures in all regions. After a warming blip in 2022, land and ocean temps dropped again with 2023 starting below the mean since 1995.  Now in March to May EL Nino appears in a Tropical ocean Spike.

UAH has updated their tlt (temperatures in lower troposphere) dataset for June 2023. Posts on their reading of ocean air temps this month preceded updated records from HadSST4.  I last posted on SSTs using HadSST4 El Nino Ocean Warming Abates May 2023. This month also has a separate graph of land air temps because the comparisons and contrasts are interesting as we contemplate possible cooling in coming months and years. Sometimes air temps over land diverge from ocean air changes.  For example in February, Tropical ocean temps alone moved upward, while temps in all land regions rebounded after hitting bottom.

In June, as shown later on, Global ocean air cooled led by dropping SH temps, despite continued warming in the Tropics and NH.  OTOH Global land air temps rose in both NH and SH with Tropical land little changed.  Thus the land + ocean Global UAH temperature record remained the same.

Note:  UAH has shifted their baseline from 1981-2010 to 1991-2020 beginning with January 2021.  In the charts below, the trends and fluctuations remain the same but the anomaly values change with the baseline reference shift.

Presently sea surface temperatures (SST) are the best available indicator of heat content gained or lost from earth’s climate system.  Enthalpy is the thermodynamic term for total heat content in a system, and humidity differences in air parcels affect enthalpy.  Measuring water temperature directly avoids distorted impressions from air measurements.  In addition, ocean covers 71% of the planet surface and thus dominates surface temperature estimates.  Eventually we will likely have reliable means of recording water temperatures at depth.

Recently, Dr. Ole Humlum reported from his research that air temperatures lag 2-3 months behind changes in SST.  Thus the cooling oceans now portend cooling land air temperatures to follow.  He also observed that changes in CO2 atmospheric concentrations lag behind SST by 11-12 months.  This latter point is addressed in a previous post Who to Blame for Rising CO2?

After a change in priorities, updates are now exclusive to HadSST4.  For comparison we can also look at lower troposphere temperatures (TLT) from UAHv6 which are now posted for June.  The temperature record is derived from microwave sounding units (MSU) on board satellites like the one pictured above. Recently there was a change in UAH processing of satellite drift corrections, including dropping one platform which can no longer be corrected. The graphs below are taken from the revised and current dataset.

The UAH dataset includes temperature results for air above the oceans, and thus should be most comparable to the SSTs. There is the additional feature that ocean air temps avoid Urban Heat Islands (UHI).  The graph below shows monthly anomalies for ocean air temps since January 2015.

 

Note 2020 was warmed mainly by a spike in February in all regions, and secondarily by an October spike in NH alone. In 2021, SH and the Tropics both pulled the Global anomaly down to a new low in April. Then SH and Tropics upward spikes, along with NH warming brought Global temps to a peak in October.  That warmth was gone as November 2021 ocean temps plummeted everywhere. After an upward bump 01/2022 temps reversed and plunged downward in June.  After an upward spike in July, ocean air everywhere cooled in August and also in September.   

After sharp cooling everywhere in January 2023, all regions were into negative territory. Note the Tropics matched the lowest, but since  have spiked sharply upward +0.9C, with the largest increase in May and June 2023.  NH also warmed, but SH ocean air was cooler by 0.23C, resulting in Global Ocean air cooling slightly. Mid-year 2023 looks similar to both 2021 and 2022, which also had summer peaks followed by cooling.  The strength of the El Nino will determine the latter half of this year.

Land Air Temperatures Tracking Downward in Seesaw Pattern

We sometimes overlook that in climate temperature records, while the oceans are measured directly with SSTs, land temps are measured only indirectly.  The land temperature records at surface stations sample air temps at 2 meters above ground.  UAH gives tlt anomalies for air over land separately from ocean air temps.  The graph updated for June is below.

 

Here we have fresh evidence of the greater volatility of the Land temperatures, along with extraordinary departures by SH land.  Land temps are dominated by NH with a 2021 spike in January,  then dropping before rising in the summer to peak in October 2021. As with the ocean air temps, all that was erased in November with a sharp cooling everywhere.  After a summer 2022 NH spike, land temps dropped everywhere, and in January, further cooling in SH and Tropics offset by an uptick in NH. 

Remarkably, in 2023, SH land air anomaly shot up 1.2C, from  -0.56C in January to +0.67 in April. Now in June, rising SH and NH Land air temps rose, pulling up the Global land anomaly by 0.13C.

The Bigger Picture UAH Global Since 1980

 

The chart shows monthly Global anomalies starting 01/1980 to present.  The average monthly anomaly is -0.06, for this period of more than four decades.  The graph shows the 1998 El Nino after which the mean resumed, and again after the smaller 2010 event. The 2016 El Nino matched 1998 peak and in addition NH after effects lasted longer, followed by the NH warming 2019-20.   An upward bump in 2021 was reversed with temps having returned close to the mean as of 2/2022.  March and April brought warmer Global temps, later reversed, and with the sharp drops in Nov., Dec. and January 2023 temps, there was no increase over 1980. Now in 2023 the May and June peak matches the two previous Julys.  Where it goes from here, up or down, remains to be seen.

TLTs include mixing above the oceans and probably some influence from nearby more volatile land temps.  Clearly NH and Global land temps have been dropping in a seesaw pattern, nearly 1C lower than the 2016 peak.  Since the ocean has 1000 times the heat capacity as the atmosphere, that cooling is a significant driving force.  TLT measures started the recent cooling later than SSTs from HadSST3, but are now showing the same pattern.  It seems obvious that despite the three El Ninos, their warming has not persisted, and without them it would probably have cooled since 1995.  Of course, the future has not yet been written.

 

June 2023 the Hottest Ever? Not So Fast!

Posted on by Ron Clutz

For sure you’ve seen the headlines declaring June 2023 the Hottest month ever.  If you’re like me, your response is: That’s not the way June went down where I live.  Fortunately there is a website that allows anyone to check their personal experience with the weather station data nearby.  weatherspark.com provides data summaries for you to judge what’s going on in weather history where you live.  In my case a modern weather station is a few miles away  June 2023 Weather History at Montréal–Mirabel International Airport.  The story about June 2023 is evident below in charts and graphs from this site.  There’s a map that allows you to find your locale.

First, consider above the norms for June from the period 1980 to 2016.

Then, there’s June 2023 compared to the normal observations.

The graph shows May was warm, but not so much during June, pretty normal in fact.  But since climate is more than temperature, consider cloudiness.

Woah!  Most of the month was cloudy, which in summer means blocking the hot sun from hitting the surface.   And with all those clouds, let’s look at precipitation:

So, 19 days when it rained, including heavy rain, and sometimes thunderstorms, especially toward month end.  Given what we know about the hydrology cycles, that means a lot of heat removed upward from the surface.

So the implications for June temperatures in my locale.

There you have it before your eyes.  One Hot day, then cold, cool, warm
and ending comfortable.  Hottest June Ever!
Maybe in some imaginary world,  but not in the real one.

Summary:

Claims of hottest this or that month or year are based on averages of averages of temperatures, which in principle is an intrinsic quality and distinctive to a locale.  The claim involves selecting some places and time periods where warming appears, while ignoring other places where it has been cooling.

Remember:  They want you to panic.  Before doing so, check out what the data says in your neck of the woods.

 

EV Revolution Winding Down

Posted on by Ron Clutz

An article from John Ray explains how the Electric Vehicle movement is losing steam The electric car ‘revolution’ is a disaster before it’s begun.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images. (The UK references are due to the original article appearing in The Telegraph.)

The electric car revolution is stalling, of that there can no longer be any doubt. It has left the big global carmakers floundering, uncertain of how to proceed in a race they reluctantly entered in the first place.

Electrification was initially met with fierce resistance. But once politicians held a gun to the heads of company bosses with a series of cliff-edge deadlines for phasing out the combustion engine, carmakers had little choice but to go all-in.

Century-old business models were declared dead and ambitious plans hurriedly drawn up to electrify entire portfolios from small city run-arounds to family saloons and SUVs, at astronomical cost. Even Ferrari has embraced the movement – much to the consternation of petrolheads everywhere.

But with electrification barely off the starting grid, one by one the big carmakers
are already pulling back as demand badly falters.

Volkswagen is so concerned about flagging sales that it has taken the extraordinary decision of halting electric vehicle production at one of its biggest plants. Assembly lines for electric models will be paused for six weeks at the Emden factory in northwest Germany and 300 of its 1,500 staff laid off after sales fell 30pc short of forecasts.

This means production of the new VW ID.7 electric model, which had been due to commence in July will be pushed back until the end of the year. The ID.4 electric SUV and the upcoming ID.7 electric sedan will also be delayed.

“We are experiencing strong customer reluctance in the electric vehicle sector,”
plant boss Manfred Wulff said.

That is remarkably plain language from the largest car manufacturer on the planet, and a company that recently announced plans to invest €120bn (£103bn) over the next five years in “electrification and digitalisation”.

It comes months after Ford poured cold water on the shift to electric
with thousands of job losses in Europe.

Electric vehicle production is unable to support anything like the same number of jobs that petrol and diesel models are able to sustain, it said. Boss Jim Farley estimates that 40pc fewer staff will be needed to develop battery versions.

A generation of pure electric vehicle makers has hardly fared any better. On Tuesday, Lordstown Motors, the US electric truck specialist that Donald Trump once heralded as the saviour of a depressed Ohio town, filed for bankruptcy protection.

Even Elon Musk has been forced to repeatedly cut the price of Teslas in a desperate effort to prop up demand and protect market share.

But it’s the setback at VW that stands out, raising serious questions about whether politicians are making the catastrophic mistake of forcing electric cars on a public that doesn’t want them. Indeed, the decision to impose strict deadlines for the phase out of petrol cars could turn out to be one of the most ruinous policy decisions of our lifetimes.

Think about it for a second: an entire industry not only forced to abandon a product that the vast majority of people still want and use, but also bullied into channelling all its resources into making something on a colossal level that there simply isn’t the market for – at least not within the horrendously short timeframe that is being imposed on car manufacturers.

It’s industrial self-sabotage and a commercial, economic and social catastrophe in the making. But what’s worse is that the damage risks being far greater in the UK than anywhere else in the Western world thanks to the Government’s myopic obsession with arbitrary net zero targets.

While the rest of the industrial world seems to have largely settled on a 2035 deadline for petrol and diesel phase out, ministers, for reasons destined to remain a mystery, have decided Britain needs to hit this milestone five years earlier than everyone else.

It makes no sense at all, and yet the ramifications threaten to be huge. By diverting capital into something that lots of people essentially don’t want, it risks inflicting massive losses on an already fragile UK car industry.

It is pure fantasy to imagine that Britain – with a dearth of battery factories (consultants Alix Partners estimates as much as a third of Britain’s battery requirements will need to be imported), a paucity of chargers and dramatically higher energy costs – will be in any position to go fully electric in the next seven years. And the Government simply isn’t capable of solving any of these challenges in time, if at all.

The UK risks becoming the unfortunate guinea pig in a costly and dangerous experiment that persuades the rest of the world to push their own deadlines out even further, turning this country into an example of how not to become a nation of electric car owners.

 

Election Fraud is Weaponized Identity Theft

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Jay Valentine explains how ballot harvesting depends on industrial scale identity thefts, and only the Left is willing and organized to do that.  There is an antidote to restore free and fair elections, but it won’t happen by trying to out-harvest the Left’s machine.  Note this is not about voter turnout but the opposite.  It’s stealing votes from people on the voter rolls by sending their ballots to invalid addresses where they will be collected and filled in, when and where they will make victory for favored candidates.  His American Thinker article is A Line of Defense Against Mail-in Ballot Fraud.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

The RNC, the Trump Campaign, almost every Republican state party chairperson believes the road to 2024 electoral victory is to “out-ballot-harvest the left.” It’s hard to argue with absolute nonsense.  To the rescue, however, comes a retired mail carrier who sent the following message:

Message: I am a retired mail man.

I just saw your War Room interview.
I now know where the mules got their ballots. Straight from the post office in returned/undeliverable mail.
While I have zero proof of where they ended up, I had those ballots you were talking about in my mail bag with wrong addresses or lacking apartment numbers or even people that moved and still had ballots delivered to their old apartment.
We put those ballots in a basket and someone came by and picked them up.
Hundreds or even thousands of ballots.
Who picked them up, where did they go?
Now we know why signature match was removed…
Someone needs to investigate the post office and their democratic union run activities.

Tell us, RNC, how are you going to beat this? 

The only way to stop the government, in particular the United States Post Office, from gathering hundreds of thousands of loose ballots, all of which go somewhere other than to Republican candidates — is to stop those ballots in the first place.

We know, from numerous sources, that the Post Office is one of several ballot-gathering apparatuses of the Left.  How much ballot harvesting at evangelical churches is needed to make up for government-sponsored ballot harvesting — industrial scale?

A key to winning in 2024 is to identify every, or as close to every as technology and diligent work can enable — every ballot being sent out that will land in that “basket” that “somebody” later picked up.

What are the addresses on those ballots?
  • Ballots mailed to vacant lots — or in Arizona, street corners.
  • Ballots sent to apartment buildings without the unit or APT number.
  • Ballots sent to college dorms for students registered there for decades.
  • Ballots sent to fraternities with a 105-year-old student.
  • Ballots sent to churches — which have no bedrooms, thus cannot be someone’s domicile.
  • Ballots for the person who moved — over a year ago.
  • Ballots mailed to hotels and casinos.
  • Ballots where the address was modified — by the voter commission (as in Arizona) — the week those ballots went out, thus missing the recipient.
  • Ballots sent to Manchurian restaurants, laundromats, banks, and 7-Elevens — all of which are not valid addresses for voters.
  • Ballots sent to UPS and FedEx boxes — sometimes to a dozen people living in that little box.
  • Ballots sent to the apartment building — but the address is the clubhouse — which has no bedrooms.
  • Ballots sent to the 22,000 new voters in a single county entered just days before the election — who were invisible to Arizona Republican candidates in 2022.
  • Ballots sent to Mr. Gonzales, Mr. Gonzalez, Mr. Gonzalles, all at the same address with the same date of birth.
  • Ballots sent to the Wisconsin college dorm that has 1,000 registered voters but can house only 250 adults.
  • Ballots sent to the 11 adults at the single-family Houston home that is 823 square feet with one bedroom and one bathroom.
  • Ballots mailed to people registered at an address in 2020 but the building was not built until 2022.
  • Ballots sent to the rehab facility for dozens of people who claim it as a residence for years.  (Rehab is not a “years” thing.)

Welcome to the Undeliverable Ballot Database.

A simple mail carrier, supported by other mail carriers we interviewed in person, shows how completely useless is the GOP campaign to “out-ballot-harvest” the Left.

Ballots — which will not land in an eligible recipient’s hand – must be identified,
months in advance of being mailed.

Most of those ballots, using super-compute technology, can be identified, shown to be illegitimate, and brought to everyone’s attention 6 months before election day.

When Harris County (Houston) floods the zone six months before early voting with 240,000 new voters, each needs to be instantly checked, verified, validated, and if necessary challenged — before the 2024 election.  Wake up, Ted Cruz!

When Arizona and Wisconsin counties change identifiers the week mail-in ballots
go out, then change them back, real time compute needs to flag it and ask “why?”

Here, let’s do it.

Two state legislatures invited the Fractal team to do a “proof of concept” for their state voter rolls.  So, that’s what we’re doing.

We ingest multiple copies of the voter rolls.  We want at least three dates but in one of the states, we will probably do a dozen.  Multiple copies of voter rolls shows movement, lights up changes made to the voter rolls that make you say hmm.

We compare every copy of the voter roll with every other copy — every cell against all corresponding cells.  If someone’s zip code was changed, we flag it.  Might be no big deal, but then, might be Arizona where 33,000 zips were changed days before the election.

In a state rep election, for a Republican candidate, a primary, we found 212 people who moved from all over the state to this guy’s district.  They all voted.  Then about a month after the election, they all moved out of the district.  Where do you think they moved?  Back to their original houses!  He won!

We ingest the personal property tax rolls for the county.  Those show the type of building, if it is a business, the number of bedrooms, baths, units, year built, square footage of living space, and about 40 other useful attributes.  In Austin, Texas, we add the construction/permit rolls, giving us a closer to real time view of every property improvement.

For these two state legislatures, we want something for the Attorney General.

We bring in the FEC (Federal Election Commission) contribution rolls.  With a single click, the AG can see every “contribution mule” in the state.  If that’s not enough, we bring in the massive Medicaid rolls — all claims, all providers, all recipients for dozens of years.  At this point, we are in the tens of billions record level — and guess what we find?

Some of those same sketchy voter addresses — fake people living in UPS boxes correspond to Medicaid providers — who are likely fake.  We migrated from just cleaning voter rolls to making a state some real dough — identifying Medicaid fraud.

This is the power of real time super-compute.

Our thesis to state governments is that it isn’t just voter fraud.  It’s identity fraud and
not just in their voter rolls, identity fraud permeates every state government roll.

While we developed the Undeliverable Ballot Database to identify every address where a ballot will be sent yet not find an eligible recipient, we also created an address and identity database for people who claim one identity in Medicaid, another in WIC and another on the voter roll.

Vast government databases are virtually invisible to current SQL/relational technology.  Fractal and other super-computes are delivering real-time visibility to identity fraud lasting decades.

One of the first benefits is the Undeliverable Ballot Database — saving the mail carrier all those fake ballots.

Ten Days Melt in Hudson & Baffin Bays

Posted on by Ron Clutz

 

The previous June Arctic ice update suggested that shallow basins on the Atlantic side will now lose their ice rapidly.  The animation above shows in the last 10 days how much open water has appeared in Hudson Bay (bottom right) and Baffin Bay (center right).  Just those two regions combined lost ~500k km2 of ice in 1.5 weeks and are now holding ~30% of their maximums.  The images also show little change elsewhere.  This is all normal melting of Arctic drift ice, presently at 63% ( 9.5 M km2) of last March maximum, heading toward the September minimum.

 

Illustration by Eleanor Lutz shows Earth’s seasonal climate changes. If played in full screen, the four corners present views from top, bottom and sides. It is a visual representation of scientific datasets measuring Arctic ice extents and snow cover.

2023 Update: Fossil Fuels ≠ Global Warming

Posted on by Ron Clutz

gas in hands

Previous posts addressed the claim that fossil fuels are driving global warming. This post updates that analysis with the latest (2022) numbers from Energy Institute and compares World Fossil Fuel Consumption (WFFC) with three estimates of Global Mean Temperature (GMT). More on both these variables below. Note: Previously these same statistics were hosted by BP.

WFFC

2022 statistics are now available from Energy Institute for international consumption of Primary Energy sources. Statistical Review of World Energy. 

The reporting categories are:
Oil
Natural Gas
Coal
Nuclear
Hydro
Renewables (other than hydro)

Note:  Energy Institute began last year to use Exajoules to replace MToe (Million Tonnes of oil equivalents.) It is logical to use an energy metric which is independent of the fuel source. OTOH renewable advocates have no doubt pressured EI to stop using oil as the baseline since their dream is a world without fossil fuel energy.

From BP conversion table 1 exajoule (EJ) = 1 quintillion joules (1 x 10^18). Oil products vary from 41.6 to 49.4 tonnes per gigajoule (10^9 joules).  Comparing this annual report with previous years shows that global Primary Energy (PE) in MToe is roughly 24 times the same amount in Exajoules.  The conversion factor at the macro level varies from year to year depending on the fuel mix. The graphs below use the new metric.

This analysis combines the first three, Oil, Gas, and Coal for total fossil fuel consumption world wide (WFFC).  The chart below shows the patterns for WFFC compared to world consumption of Primary Energy from 1965 through 2022.

The graph shows that global Primary Energy (PE) consumption from all sources has grown continuously over nearly 6 decades. Since 1965  oil, gas and coal (FF, sometimes termed “Thermal”) averaged 88% of PE consumed, ranging from 93% in 1965 to 82% in 2022.  Note that in 2020, PE dropped 21 EJ (4%) below 2019 consumption, then increased 31 EJ in 2021.  WFFC for 2020 dropped 24 EJ (5%), then in 2021 gained back 26 EJ to slightly exceed 2019 WFFC consumption. For the 58 year period, the net changes were:

Oil 194%
Gas 525%
Coal 178%
WFFC 239%
PE 287%
Global Mean Temperatures

Everyone acknowledges that GMT is a fiction since temperature is an intrinsic property of objects, and varies dramatically over time and over the surface of the earth. No place on earth determines “average” temperature for the globe. Yet for the purpose of detecting change in temperature, major climate data sets estimate GMT and report anomalies from it.

UAH record consists of satellite era global temperature estimates for the lower troposphere, a layer of air from 0 to 4km above the surface. HadSST estimates sea surface temperatures from oceans covering 71% of the planet. HadCRUT combines HadSST estimates with records from land stations whose elevations range up to 6km above sea level.

Both GISS LOTI (land and ocean) and HadCRUT4 (land and ocean) use 14.0 Celsius as the climate normal, so I will add that number back into the anomalies. This is done not claiming any validity other than to achieve a reasonable measure of magnitude regarding the observed fluctuations.[Note: HadCRUT4 was discontinued after 2021 in favor of HadCRUT5.]

No doubt global sea surface temperatures are typically higher than 14C, more like 17 or 18C, and of course warmer in the tropics and colder at higher latitudes. Likewise, the lapse rate in the atmosphere means that air temperatures both from satellites and elevated land stations will range colder than 14C. Still, that climate normal is a generally accepted indicator of GMT.

Correlations of GMT and WFFC

The next graph compares WFFC to GMT estimates over the decades from 1965 to 2022 from HadCRUT4, which includes HadSST4.

Since 1965 the increase in fossil fuel consumption is dramatic and monotonic, steadily increasing by 239% from 146 to 494 exajoules.  Meanwhile the GMT record from Hadcrut shows multiple ups and downs with an accumulated rise of 0.8C over 56 years, 6% of the starting value.

The graph below compares WFFC to GMT estimates from UAH6, and HadSST4 for the satellite era from 1980 to 2022, a period of 43 years.

In the satellite era WFFC has increased at a compounded rate of nearly 2% per year, for a total increase of 92% since 1979. At the same time, SST warming amounted to 0.53C, or 3.7% of the starting value.  UAH warming was 0.52C, or 3.8% up from 1979.  The temperature compounded rate of change is 0.1% per year, an order of magnitude less than WFFC.  Even more obvious is the 1998 El Nino peak and flat GMT since.

Summary

The climate alarmist/activist claim is straight forward: Burning fossil fuels makes measured temperatures warmer. The Paris Accord further asserts that by reducing human use of fossil fuels, further warming can be prevented.  Those claims do not bear up under scrutiny.

It is enough for simple minds to see that two time series are both rising and to think that one must be causing the other. But both scientific and legal methods assert causation only when the two variables are both strongly and consistently aligned. The above shows a weak and inconsistent linkage between WFFC and GMT.

Going further back in history shows even weaker correlation between fossil fuels consumption and global temperature estimates:

wfc-vs-sat

Figure 5.1. Comparative dynamics of the World Fuel Consumption (WFC) and Global Surface Air Temperature Anomaly (ΔT), 1861-2000. The thin dashed line represents annual ΔT, the bold line—its 13-year smoothing, and the line constructed from rectangles—WFC (in millions of tons of nominal fuel) (Klyashtorin and Lyubushin, 2003). Source: Frolov et al. 2009

In legal terms, as long as there is another equally or more likely explanation for the set of facts, the claimed causation is unproven. The more likely explanation is that global temperatures vary due to oceanic and solar cycles. The proof is clearly and thoroughly set forward in the post Quantifying Natural Climate Change.

Footnote: CO2 Concentrations Compared to WFFC

Contrary to claims that rising atmospheric CO2 consists of fossil fuel emissions, consider the Mauna Loa CO2 observations in recent years.

Despite the drop in 2020 WFFC, atmospheric CO2 continued to rise steadily, demonstrating that natural sources and sinks drive the amount of CO2 in the air.

See also: Nature Erases Pulses of Human CO2 Emissions

Temps Cause CO2 Changes, Not the Reverse

Arctic Ice in Surplus June 2023

Posted on by Ron Clutz

The animation shows Arctic ice extents on day 151 (end of May) through yesterday June 30, 2023  As usual, the Pacific basins Bering and Okhotsk (far left) became ice-free and are no longer included in these updates. Years vary as to which regions retain more or less ice.  For example, this year Hudson Bay (bottom right) lost half its ice by June 30, earlier than average.  That is a shallow basin and can quickly lose its ice in coming days.  Despite this early melting, the NH Ice extent remains greater than the 17 year average.

The graph below compares the June monthly ice extents 2007 to 2023 and compared to the 17 year average.

Clearly June ice appears as a plateau, and most years MASIE shows greater extents than SII, with differences of only a few 100k km2.  Previously 2019-20 were in deficit to average, but June 2022-3 have returned to surplus years.  More on MASIE dataset at the end.

The graph shows the melting pattern during June 2023 remained above average all month, and greatly exceeded 2007 and 2020, especially in the last 2 weeks.  June 30, 2023 was 322k km2 in surplus, and exceeded 2007 by 0.4 Wadhams (M km2).

The table below shows ice extents by regions comparing 2023 with 17-year average (2006 to 2022 inclusive) and 2007.

Region 2023181 Day 181 Average 2023-Ave. 2007181 2023-2007
 (0) Northern_Hemisphere 10072140 9750262 321878 9672969 399171
 (1) Beaufort_Sea 919937 927608 -7671 939209 -19272
 (2) Chukchi_Sea 804545 723247 81299 670088 134457
 (3) East_Siberian_Sea 1021758 1010088 11669 901963 119795
 (4) Laptev_Sea 738148 699906 38242 658742 79406
 (5) Kara_Sea 568642 542617 26025 657478 -88836
 (6) Barents_Sea 99262 117038 -17776 130101 -30839
 (7) Greenland_Sea 650550 499950 150600 548399 102152
 (8) Baffin_Bay_Gulf_of_St._Lawrence 703359 513540 189819 450461 252898
 (9) Canadian_Archipelago 743003 780546 -37543 773611 -30607
 (10) Hudson_Bay 577518 707353 -129835 718441 -140923
 (11) Central_Arctic 3241230 3204305 36925 3218999 22231

2023 is 322k km2 above average (3.3%). The main deficit is in Hudson Bay, more than offset by large  surpluses in Baffin Bay and Greenland Sea, along with additonal ice elsewhere.

Footnote on MASIE Data Sources:

MASIE reports are based on data primarily from NIC’s Interactive Multisensor Snow and Ice Mapping System (IMS). From the documentation, the multiple sources feeding IMS are:

Platform(s) AQUA, DMSP, DMSP 5D-3/F17, GOES-10, GOES-11, GOES-13, GOES-9, METEOSAT, MSG, MTSAT-1R, MTSAT-2, NOAA-14, NOAA-15, NOAA-16, NOAA-17, NOAA-18, NOAA-N, RADARSAT-2, SUOMI-NPP, TERRA

Sensor(s): AMSU-A, ATMS, AVHRR, GOES I-M IMAGER, MODIS, MTSAT 1R Imager, MTSAT 2 Imager, MVIRI, SAR, SEVIRI, SSM/I, SSMIS, VIIRS

Summary: IMS Daily Northern Hemisphere Snow and Ice Analysis

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration / National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NOAA/NESDIS) has an extensive history of monitoring snow and ice coverage.Accurate monitoring of global snow/ice cover is a key component in the study of climate and global change as well as daily weather forecasting.

The Polar and Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite programs (POES/GOES) operated by NESDIS provide invaluable visible and infrared spectral data in support of these efforts. Clear-sky imagery from both the POES and the GOES sensors show snow/ice boundaries very well; however, the visible and infrared techniques may suffer from persistent cloud cover near the snowline, making observations difficult (Ramsay, 1995). The microwave products (DMSP and AMSR-E) are unobstructed by clouds and thus can be used as another observational platform in most regions. Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imagery also provides all-weather, near daily capacities to discriminate sea and lake ice. With several other derived snow/ice products of varying accuracy, such as those from NCEP and the NWS NOHRSC, it is highly desirable for analysts to be able to interactively compare and contrast the products so that a more accurate composite map can be produced.

The Satellite Analysis Branch (SAB) of NESDIS first began generating Northern Hemisphere Weekly Snow and Ice Cover analysis charts derived from the visible satellite imagery in November, 1966. The spatial and temporal resolutions of the analysis (190 km and 7 days, respectively) remained unchanged for the product’s 33-year lifespan.

As a result of increasing customer needs and expectations, it was decided that an efficient, interactive workstation application should be constructed which would enable SAB to produce snow/ice analyses at a higher resolution and on a daily basis (~25 km / 1024 x 1024 grid and once per day) using a consolidated array of new as well as existing satellite and surface imagery products. The Daily Northern Hemisphere Snow and Ice Cover chart has been produced since February, 1997 by SAB meteorologists on the IMS.

Another large resolution improvement began in early 2004, when improved technology allowed the SAB to begin creation of a daily ~4 km (6144×6144) grid. At this time, both the ~4 km and ~24 km products are available from NSIDC with a slight delay. Near real-time gridded data is available in ASCII format by request.

In March 2008, the product was migrated from SAB to the National Ice Center (NIC) of NESDIS. The production system and methodology was preserved during the migration. Improved access to DMSP, SAR, and modeled data sources is expected as a short-term from the migration, with longer term plans of twice daily production, GRIB2 output format, a Southern Hemisphere analysis, and an expanded suite of integrated snow and ice variable on horizon. Source:  Interactive Multisensor Snow and Ice Mapping System (IMS)

Now Can We Stop the Blame Game?

Posted on by Ron Clutz

See Also Virtue Signaling Is a Vicious Circle

One key to understanding much of the bewildering behavior we see around us is to recognize the power and popularity of “virtue signaling.” Keeping virtue signaling in mind will help you understand a lot of behavior that otherwise makes no sense.

What, for example, is the point of removing Confederate statues or attempting to disown the country’s Founding Fathers because some were slave owners? It makes sense if your objective is to be sanctimonious. You make yourself feel better by looking down your nose at Thomas Jefferson.

Virtue signaling is the modern version of what St. Augustine in the 5th century referred to as “outward signs of inward grace.” A major difference, however, is the kind of grace he referred to actually meant something.

A precondition to needing to virtue signal is guilt. Virtue signaling is one of the left’s package deals that typically involve two steps. Firstly, make people who have done nothing wrong feel guilty. Then, offer them ways to assuage that guilt. It’s little more than a con game but it has worked amazingly well for social revolutionaries.

It always helps to keep in mind that everything is relative. In order to feel superior, you need something to feel superior to. Virtuous relative to what? In order to feel holier than thou you need a thou.

Does virtue signaling accomplish anything outside of the individual? Anything tangible, significant? Any activity as widespread and long-lasting as virtue signaling has to have payoffs. The payoffs for virtue signaling are inner, not outer, directed.

An irony is that the need to virtue signal is an insecurity about your own virtue. An observation a psychologist friend likes to make is, “The bigger the front, the bigger the back.” Or as Ralph Waldo Emerson observed, “The louder he spoke of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.” Virtue signaling is motivated more by insecurities than virtue.