February 2012 Open Thread

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Olaus

Have a read of Edwin Black's,

'IBM And The Holocaust - The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany And America's Most Powerful Corporation'

and consider GW Bush's antecedents up the Walker line. Interesting stuff.

So that's what deregulated, free market based 'education' might look like?

Time to man the barricades, comrades. These people make even Nixon look like a progressive lefty.

Frank @ 989: Good times, good times. Revisiting that golden thread from your link, I noticed an entity calling itself aelfheld (which is apparently old saxon for bladder or rectum...) making its debut. Said debut was stylistically rather like Olaus the Rock. I wonder if it was the first fart from the STC?

Olaus' thinking pattern:

1. Olaus admits he dislikes politics and vested interests interferring in science
2. Heartland are caught funding deniers with oil money
3. ??????????
4. Warmists are Nazis!

Speaking of that David Evans article (cross-commented at RealClimate):

Evansâ piece claims amongst other things that climate sensitivity is about 0.6 C per doubling.

Actually, it's arguably worse than that. In the article text it claims:

The feedbacks dampen or reduce the direct effect of the extra CO2, cutting it roughly in half.

It provides no citation for the claim, although it does have a footnote at that point - but it says, in entirety:

The effect of feedbacks is hard to pin down with empirical evidence because there are more forces affecting the temperature than just changes in CO2 level, but seems to be multiplication by something between 0.25 and 0.9. We have used 0.5 here for simplicity.

So Evans argues - without evidence - that a doubling of CO2 may lead to as little as 0.275 degrees C warming.

And then there's the absolute howler of a deliberately deceptive claim that:

If a system instead reacts to a perturbation by amplifying it, the system is likely to reach a tipping point and become unstable (like the electronic squeal that erupts when a microphone gets too close to its speakers).

This, from a guy who is touted as having a Stanford Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, a discipline about which the article claims:

The area of human endeavor with the most experience and sophistication in dealing with feedbacks and analyzing complex systems is electrical engineering, and the most crucial and disputed aspects of understanding the climate system are the feedbacks.

All of this means that he must have studied automatic control theory (likely to an advanced level) and knows that positive feedbacks with gain below unity are stable - and should know that net feedback in the climate system is considered to have a gain of well below 1.

And yet he has the unmitigated gall to argue that:

The earth's climate is long-lived and stable â it has never gone into runaway greenhouse, unlike Venus â which strongly suggests that the feedbacks dampen temperature perturbations such as that from extra CO2.

I think Stanford might want their Ph.D. back.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 26 Feb 2012 #permalink

Dear Lionel,

you can't let go, can you? I know there is tons of evidence of american corporations in suspicious business with Germany. Sweden (claimed to be neutral) was a lot worse though, even admitting German troop transportations within its borders (The Germans needed a passage to the Finn-Russian front).

And you know what? On the other hand we have the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. What does that tell you?

To me it is only a proof of pragmatism and NOT a proof that nazism is left, nor that Stalinism is right for that matter.

And its only in your mind that I associate "warmistas" with Hitler. The ones doing that kind of allegations/associations are usually the warmistas, pointing fingers at "denialists".

Take care!

Olaus,

"Science must be settled then! ;-)"

I don't know about that Olaus. But it is some indication that the on-line community has reached a decision.

;)

@ 604 Barnyard J said,

"Read carefully what I said:

This ongoing summer rain is mostly derived from the oceans warmed during the current La Niña event. "

A very dumb statement from Barnyard.

Oh and... he has the cheek to call me a trollop in the Wegman thread and here he is @ 928 flirting with a man, sicko !

Wow, Olaus has descended to argumentum ad Nazium. Unfortunately for him, whilst the reality is complex, the facts are:
- Hitler was a barking mad nationalist interested only in German supremacy with him in charge
- To achieve this, he was prepared to use any method possible of achieving power.
- this included taking over a previously more left wing party and making promises to various more left wing types that his party would look after the workers.
- However for much of the late 20's and into the 30's, the Nazi party was funded by rich, heavy industry industrialists on the basis that it would act to curb workers enthusiasm for communist and socialism.
- this is in fact what happened, with unions crushed and the workforce arranged as labour for the industries.
- He was finally allowed to take over the German state on the basis that he was pro- Germany and pro-business and pro-elite, and thus even the General staff were to find doing as he said a perfectly good thing.
- ultimately though he was prepared to use anyone and thus ground up and destroyed the general staff, many of the industrialists etc. They realised too late that he was a madman, hence the 1944 bomb plot.

So any claim for Hitler being a leftie are idiotic. Now, if you want a sensible discussion of what fascism stole from previous ideologies, that might be interesting, but it seems clear you don't have the knowledge necessary for such a thing.

Well, I looked, honestly I did, in fact, you could say that I scoured the list of winners of the Weblog Awards and guess what? Not a mention of this distinguished site! Disgraceful! All I could see in the winners' list were people like Anthony Watts and Steve MacIntyre, Tallbloke and, in Australia, JoNova.

Come on, boys and girls, you must try harder because I have that sinking feeling that you are, er, sinking!

[Diddums](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2012/02/february_2012_open_thread.php#c…).

Yes, a trollop and a sockpuppet*.

Although given the latter, the former probably reverts to 'troll'. Whichever gender, the thickness remains the same.

[* For the curious, "Karen" is actually "sunspot", the troll who raised about a week and a half ago the issue of my comment about the relationship between the Queensland floods and human-caused global warming, and who can respond with nothing more than fatuous ad hominem and no analysis of his own.

Sunspot broke the rule about posting only on the eponymous thread, and as can be seen he was subsequently removed from this one. Having been sin-binned, spotty obviously decided that Plan B should involve transvesticism and pursing his lips at the bouncer.]

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 27 Feb 2012 #permalink

Duffer @1011. If you did but know that your crowing masks the ideal there once was that the internet would provide a forum for honest people of good faith to interact, and possibly even herald the dawn of a truly representative democracy.

Of course that ideal was corrupted absolutely by corporate astroturfers and Heartland funded mouthpieces like Watts using entirely dishonest methods to attain popularity 'votes', as if such votes were equal, and like Midas in reverse turning everything they touch to excrement. Perhaps it should be retitled as the Best At Gaming The System Award. The most obvious pointer being that any relationship that Watts has to science is entirely illusory.

The amusing thing is that the cheaters are still vain enough to brag about their victories as if they were attained honourably, and love to brandish their worthless awards as if they meant anything, just as you're doing now.

As [sea ice volume is currently at the edge of record territory again](http://i42.tinypic.com/2vj1rhk.jpg), I thought that it might be interesting to see how people think that it might trend over the next six months, and at what value it will bottom out.

Thoughts?

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 27 Feb 2012 #permalink

Guthrie, the one denying complexity isn't me. All my post have been about highlighting exactly that: historical complexity. Your latest post show nothing of the kind, only the same ramblings about Hitler as a shouting right wing demagogue. Shouting and demagogue yes, right wing no, which I have argued for, claiming that "right" used in a modern sense is anachronistic.

And now you even claim that Mussolini was a thief of ideologies? For christ sake he was a leading radical bloodthirsty commie that slowly became more nationalistic, still though hating liberalism, capitalism and "the bourgeoisie".

So who's the one using contextualized arguments and not emotional crap based on anachronistic postulates?

But as I have said many times before, this is a digression initiated by chek, not me.

I'm perfectly happy scrutinizing the evidence of the multi-billion right-wing denial machine.

You're one confused pile of puss Petri. This 'digression', as has been previously pointed out, is all yours. You'll need to reference any disagreement with that, which you can't.

As guthrie so rightly says, you've proved yourself way too stupid to discuss anything substantive, and as for politics - forget it. You're merely a staggeringly dishonest troll with delusions and any such pursuit is a waste of time.

Yes yes, all those evil communist industrialists funded Hitler because they wanted to support a socialist revolution or world communism or something.
As for Mussolini, why yes, he did steal ideas from all over the place. He did seem somewhat more true to his roots than many other fascists, except for the whole imperialism and capitalism supporting bit.

Hehehe...Guthrie, a bit strange though if Mussolini was puppet mastered by the "capital" but not the other commies. Very convincing argument. Maybe it was the right-wing illuminati that took control over him and his commie friends becoming fascists? Why did it (right wing illuminati capitalists) not convert all commies into fascism, one can only wonder. ;-)

Isn't it more likely that M was in control?.

As for Germany the industry was in the hand of Hitler and not the other way around. And like have told you many times already you have to make difference between ideology and real politics. Most of the so called proofs of fascisms and nazism firm footing on the right could be turned on there heads and prove Stalin or Social democrats as Right wing.

A summary:

1. Stalin was mad and only about force and power (Hitler wasn't?)

2. Hitlers socialism wasn't real because it was based on ethnicity (Stalin's pogroms wasn't?)

3. Stalin hated capitalism, liberalism and the bourgeoisie (Who didn't?)

4. When Mussolini was a commie he hated capitalism, liberalism and the bourgeoisie.

5. When Mussolini became a fascist he still hated no 4.

6. Nazis killed commies and social democrats, hence they can't be left (nazis killed other nazis too, most prominent was Röhm of the SA who dreamt of a second revolution. Commies also kill other commies and socialists defined as dissidents.

7. American industry had shady German connections, accordingly its a sign that nazism is right. For some strange reason isn't the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact not a sign that Nazism is left.

8. The leader of Sweden's communist party went from being an international socialist to an national one, still convinced he represented the only right (sic) socialism.

9. Und so weiter...

What's left defining only left but not right?

Could it be anti-ca... :-)

That is a pretty poor dodge, Olaus. Hitler was in charge of INdustry after 1932 and the laws he and his pals put through. The Nazi party in turn was funded by industry in the late 20's and early 30's, secretly.

Hmm, lets see. stalin was pretty mad and mostly about force and power, and made it up as he went along. Hitler had a clear agenda that he laid out in Mein Kampf and followed through.
Hitler's national socialism, (which to anyone capable of reading, isn't quite the same as socialism) was real and based on ethnicity, and indeed I understand Stalin liked GEorgians and hated everyone else, including of course Jews. But what Stalin said and did did not comport to any previous definition of socialism.

As you carefully ignore, the Bolsheviks were against capitalism, liberalism and the bourgeosie, and at the outseet planned to replace them with an internatioanl socialist revolution.
This is a little different from Hitler, who wanted to build a greater Germany in the east of Europe with lots of nice pure Aryans.

Your mention of Mussolini makes no sense.
As for killing people, you might have noticed that what Stalin and Hitler had most in common was that they were dictators. Dictators kill anyone who gets in their way. This overrode any sympathy for fellow travellers or such. Therefore it is not a deciding characterisitic of any particular side of politics when you are talking about dictators.

Oddly enough, American big industry was generally right wing anyway, that is well known and established, see the work across the country in crushing unions and driving down wages. That some of them did business with Russia is irrelevant; I presume you know the old saw about the last capitalist selling the rope to hang the second last capitalist? Of course precisely what Nazi sympathies specific businesses had is something for you to go and investigate. Some were definitely pro Nazi, some weren't.

Sweden, hmm,I don't know much about there, but we'll assume you are wrong anyway since you clearly don't have a clue about anything else anyway.
This open thread is getting way too long as well, it is slowing my computer right down so I'll have to see you in the next open thread.

Dear Guthrie,

You seem as fixated as the rest here that I somehow claim that Hitler and Stalin are identical twins. I have, and never will do such a statement. On the contrary I have emphasized that there are many socialism/extreme lefts where the main demarcation is between national and international socialism. Can't you let go of that smelling straw-man and argue against what's actually is being said by me?

"As you carefully ignore, the Bolsheviks were against capitalism, liberalism and the bourgeosie, and at the outseet planned to replace them with an internatioanl socialist revolution."

Never ignored this, but it's irrelevant. National socialism and international socialism isn't the same, like I have said all along. You go on:

"This is a little different from Hitler, who wanted to build a greater Germany in the east of Europe with lots of nice pure Aryans."

I totally agree, and I haven't said anything else. Socialism based on nation and ethnicity is still socialism. Socialism are neither monolithic nor static and that's been MY argument all along.

Here is another one of my argument, but written, oddly enough, by YOU:

"As for killing people, you might have noticed that what Stalin and Hitler had most in common was that they were dictators. Dictators kill anyone who gets in their way. This overrode any sympathy for fellow travellers or such. Therefore it is not a deciding characterisitic of any particular side of politics when you are talking about dictators.

EXACTLY my point dear Guthrie. It's your fellow deltoids that you are fighting with. They are the one stating that Hitler killing socialist is a proof that nazism is right wing. I say that is bogus because Stalin dis the same. And of course they killed many, but Stalin killed many more socialists than Hitler did. The Gulag was full of them.

Here's another big own goal of yours:

"Oddly enough, American big industry was generally right wing anyway, that is well known and established, see the work across the country in crushing unions and driving down wages."

I agree that American big industry is right wing, but not that its method is "right wing one". Consider this: Did Stalin allow different kind of unions? In other words a pseudo-argument. Strangely enough you said that killing people wasn't something that defined socialism. I totally agree, but crushing unions isn't either. It's only opression/repression. violence like racism hasn't a political color.

Get it?

"That some of them (USA) did business with Russia is irrelevant"

Again, I totally AGREE with YOU Guthrie.

"I presume you know the old saw about the last capitalist selling the rope to hang the second last capitalist? Of course precisely what Nazi sympathies specific businesses had is something for you to go and investigate. Some were definitely pro Nazi, some weren't."

Again, I totally agree with YOU Guthrie. Some were pro, others not. And?

So, what's left defining socialism? Could it be anti-capita.... :-)

Take care!

Olaus

If you don't want to be mistaken for a Nazi, stop acting like a Nazi.
This Big Lie you are pushing here (Fascists/Nazis were really leftists) is not helping your case.

If you want to put some distance between yourself and the man with the little mustache, you could try doing something that Hitler wouldnât do.

Here is a partial list:

You could support Labor unions; Increased Taxes on the Rich; Human rights.

You could oppose: Wars of Aggression; Torture; Lies; Slander of Scientists.

I know what you are going to say⦠But Nazi Germany had universal health care.
Yes and so does every 1st world country. But the Nazis didnât invent that, they invented the freeway.

As it is you are just playing Hitler as a clown, which has been done better before.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Chaplin#The_Great_Dictator_.281940…

Murdoch press reports study explaining why Murdoch, the Koch brothers, Gina Reinhardt et al have few ethics.

[Wealthy people less ethical: study](http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/wealthy-people-more-unethica…)

...when given a jar of lollies that they were told was for children in a nearby lab - though they could take some if they wanted - the richest people took more than anyone else.

... self-interest is "a more fundamental motive among society's elite, and the increased want associated with greater wealth and status can promote wrongdoing,"

Climate science denial in a nutshell.

Olaus not safely trussed-up in his own little box yet? That's unfortunate!

Tim, while you were away many of us feel that he more-than-merited confining his own thread, this ridiculous constant peri-autistic assertion and reassertion - Left=Nazis Deltoid=Left hence Deltoid=Nazis - being just the latest example

I'd like to suggest it might be called 'The Petri Dish', because of the highly dubious things that will doubtlessly grow there.

Or we could call it 'The Breivik Ideological Hinterlands', whereupon he will squawk that he's being Godwinned, because recognising an irony even when it falls on him from several stories up is yet another thing he just can't do.

re: 1002 Lotharsson
"I think Stanford might want their Ph.D. back."

Actually, I asked around a while back, didn't find anyone who remembered him.

By John Mashey (not verified) on 27 Feb 2012 #permalink

Like every other thing Olaus intellectually contaminates, he is pissing in the wind on his defintiion of Hitler as a 'left wing socialist'... he might as well have obtained his education from Sean hannity or Rush Limbaugh.

From yahoo answers:

*The Right wing insist that Hitler was left wing because he used the term National Socialist, but isn't it reversed?
The term National Socialism is not the same as "Socialism". Hitlers idea was that of a corporate factory state, wherein the state had final control but the private ownership made profits and paid into the system, also having a "say" in the distribution and marketing so that they could export their wares. Hitler never embraced socialism for the people, only for his state run enterprises. He killed all the socialists in his circle and rounded up trade unionists, communists, and socialists first.. portraying them as the enemy of the Fatherland.*

Of course fascism as demonstrated under Hitler, Mussolini etc. was a far right political ideology. This is beyond dispute, except amongst contemporary crackpots on the far right. As with most of the bilge he writes, Olaus further humiliates himself here. I agree with Guthrie: confine this idiot to his own thread or to the other one with his love-in sympatric countryman.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 27 Feb 2012 #permalink

Sorry chaps, it's you that can't defend your emotion-based anachronistic postulate.

Some of you are even whining about that I claim Deltoid to be fascists because its left leaning. Absurd! As usual no problem with that YOUR line of reasoning then must brand all right leaning people as fascists? C'mon! There must be some level of consistency, even among you?

On top of it you accuse me of being a nazi despite the fact that I firmly state that I find nazism disgusting from top to bottom. So where is the Godwin? On my side or yours? Amazing stuff you come up with.

And now elpsi provides a link to Chaplin's movie. I'm baffled of the kind of evidence you can muster.

Everything you say boils down to emotions followed by smearing, including calling me a Breivik paragon. Neat.

I'm not the one presenting stupid anachronistic evidence. Using your logic there would be no doubt that marxism is Right since Marx was bourgeoisie and Friedrich Engels was capitalist. Not me though.

And I sure label both Stalin, Mussolini and Hitler as clowns, but ideology driven scary ones.

Violence, repression, oppression, racism etc hasn't a political color. But when framed inside a totalitarian utopian ideology that singles out enemies based on a dichotomy, the road to dystopia is mapped out. And that's a historical fact.

But like I have said, I'm fully content talking about the evidence proving the existence of a right wing multi-billion dollar conspiracy on climate science.

So stop bringing up this left/right wing discussion.

Olaus,

"Violence, repression, oppression, racism etc hasn't a political color. But when framed inside a totalitarian utopian ideology that singles out enemies based on a dichotomy, the road to dystopia is mapped out. And that's a historical fact."

Cogently argued Olaus.

"But like I have said, I'm fully content talking about the evidence proving the existence of a right wing multi-billion dollar conspiracy on climate science."

If any good can be said to have resulted from the Gleick affair, it is that finally we can agree that this multi-billion dollar conspiracy just does not exist. They'll have to think of another reason for the poor position they find themselves in.

To misquote Feynman (apologies to him).

"Climate Science doesn't make predictions, just excuses."

;)

GSW

Are we supposed to be impressed by your misquotation?

Mangling a respected Nobel laureate's name into something you want to say doesn't make your words insightful you know.

Quite the opposite in fact.

@ GSW :-)

@Jeffrey H

Poor logics again. What was Stalin about then? His elitism was for the good of the people?

Hitlers social reforms were very progressive by contemporary standards, though they were nation and race based.

So?

And yes, Hitler killed lefties all over the place, including many nazis like Ernst "second revolution" Röhm. But what about all these socialists ending up in Gulag then? Stalin probably killed more socialists than Hitler.

Does that make Stalin Right? No, of course not.

There are many socialisms though and they have in common that they hate capitalism, liberalism and the bourgeoisie.

@Hasis

"Quite the opposite in fact."

Hardly Hasis. Feynman was making the point that if a theory doesn't make useful (can tell whether they are wrong) predictions, and the field spends must of its time running around publishing papers to prop it up.

Then what is the point of it?

Feynmans words are as true now as they were when he made them. It's your error to ignore them.

As an interesting aside, and since Petri mentions Rohm. Rohm was the co-founder of the Sturmabteilung (SA) militia. Some members of the SA were thought to be unreliable and were compared by Hitler's faction to beefsteak â "brown on the outside and red on the inside". Does that sound familiar?

By lord_sidcup (not verified) on 27 Feb 2012 #permalink

@Hasis #1034,

Ah, you've located a "propping up" exercise. A good example in fact.

Congrats!

;)

And don't forget to acknowledge that conversely, your popularity-based argument just ground itself face first into the dust, GSW.

The fact is that Olaus joins the ranks of such luminaries as Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck and other right wing idealogues in trying to foist a reformist argument that Nazi idealogy was left, not right wing. But most scholars vehemently disagree with this conclusion: (see ref. 20, below).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Party

As "Anti-fascist" says on his website:

Fascism: Left Wing or Right Wing?

*A very popular argument by the Right is say that the Nazis were Leftwing, when in fact they were Rightwing in both Germany and the United States. The Nazis were pro-Christian, anti-communist, certainly anti-Marxist, imprisoned atheist and labor leaders--that sounds right-wing to me! So since the Nazis embraced the Catholic Church (and the Church embraced Hitler), should we call Christianity fascist? And why did the Nazis view "liberals" as their enemy?*

*In America, German Fascism dazzled many American leaders of capitalist industry. They were William Randolph Hearst, Joseph Kennedy(JFKâs father), Charles Lindbergh, John Rockefeller, Andrew Mellon(head of Alcoa, banker, and Secretary of Treasury), DuPont, General Motors, Standard Oil (now Exxon), Henry Ford, ITT, Allen Dulles (later head of the CIA), Prescott Bush (donât forget him), National City Bank, and General Electric.*

The bottom paragraph obliterates the nonsense spewed by 'revisionists' like Olaus. Many prominent American industrialists and corporate heads were very sympathetic to the Nazi government in Germany. This is common knowledge, hardly obscure. See how many prominent 'captains of industry' expressed support for communism in any of its guises, and even during the McCarthy era. Virtually none. And for obvious reasons. And today, which groups identify most with neo-Nazi leanings? Let's be frank here: they ain't on the left.

The remarkable thing is that anyone with a scintilla of common sense - aside from those working for the far right media - would bother to waste time arguing that Nazi Germany was left-leaning. I read much of what Olaus wrote in shock - not just because a dolt like him would write such utter tripe, but that anyone with half a brain would. But trust Olaus to do it. The sad thing is that discourse on Deltoid has been dragged to its lowest common denominator by since the likes of Olaus, PentaxZ and Jonas N arrived. My only hope is that time will drive these clowns away to the shadows of ignorance from where they emerged.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 28 Feb 2012 #permalink

Dear Olaus, I believe I have been more than patient with you. From now on, please confine your comments to the Jonas thread. Everybody else, if you must reply to Olaus, please do so on the Jonas thread.

By Tim Lambert (not verified) on 28 Feb 2012 #permalink

And to sum up what I believe to be the general mood with a single, out of context, line from Monty Python and the Holy Grail:

"There was much rejoicing"

"I really don't understand why Jeff thinks I have said otherwise."

I really don't understand why you asked that, since Jeff never said he thinks you did.

Yes. There is much rejoicing. I will enjoy a drink tonight to celebrate.

Last point: corporate industrialists are not in the habit of supporting left-wing regimes. Olaus needs to put two and two together for once in his life. He can do so now in a political exile of his own making.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 28 Feb 2012 #permalink

What else would Petri dish end with other than a strawman.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 28 Feb 2012 #permalink

Olaus complains about the Breivik references.

In his manifesto Breivik stated that he was a staunch anti-Nazi and [stated](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Anders_Behring_Breivik) that the Nazi party

"was a left wing organisation, they hated Christendom, capitalism and propagated a strict definition of socialism

This idea did not start with Breivik - it has been a mantra of the new far right for a while.

As I said @ 808

Olaus - you have been drinking from the same ideological well as Anders Breivik.

Bernard @1041: lovely link. Haleleujah indeed.