First Sunday of Advent - 2009

From Agnus Day

"Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD,
when I will fulfill the promise
I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah.
In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring forth for David;
and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.
In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will dwell securely.
And this is the name by which it will be called: 'The LORD is our righteousness.'
Jeremiah 33:14-16 RSVCE

"And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and upon the earth distress of nations in perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the waves, men fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world; for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. And then they will see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, look up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near. But take heed to yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a snare; for it will come upon all who dwell upon the face of the whole earth. But watch at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of man."
Luke 12:25-28,34-36 RSVCE


Advent is a time of preparation. To prepare to celebrate the birth of our Lord, the righteous Branch to spring forth for David. But even more important to prepare for our own meeting with Jesus, be it at the Second Coming or should we die before then. In either case a day which may come upon you suddenly like a snare; so pray that you may have strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of man for The LORD is our righteousness!

Presidential Proclamation - Thanksgiving Day

George Washington Thanksgiving Day Proclamation -- October 3, 1789

HT: Creative Minority Report

Comment Verification

In the last few days a some advertising bot has posted a number of comments selling Viagra.

I have turned on the comment verification Function.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Climate Change Schadenfreude

Anthony Watts, a leading critic of "Global Warming," of Watts Up With That and is trying (not very hard) to avoid an overdose of Schadenfreude. The Climate Research Unit computer assoiated with East Anglia University has been hacked.

The details on this are still sketchy, we’ll probably never know what went on. But it appears that University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit has been hacked and many many files have been released by the hacker or person unknown.
Snip
An unknown person put postings on some climate skeptic websites that advertised an FTP file on a Russian FTP server, here is the message that was placed on the Air Vent today:

We feel that climate science is, in the current situation, too important to
be kept under wraps.
We hereby release a random selection of correspondence, code, and documents

The file was large, about 61 megabytes, containing hundreds of files.

It contained data, code, and emails from Phil Jones at CRU to and from many people.

I’ve seen the file, it appears to be genuine and from CRU. Others who have seen it concur- it appears genuine. There are so many files it appears unlikely that it is a hoax. The effort would be too great.

More posts from Watts Up With That

Mike’s Nature Trick
Release of CRU files forges a new hockey stick reconstruction
CRU Emails – search engine now online
Bishop Hill’s compendium of CRU email issues Several pages of interesting (salacious) quotes for the email messages.
CRU Emails “may” be open to interpretation, but commented code by the programmer tells the real story A comment from a programmer

People are talking about the emails being smoking guns but I find the remarks in the code and the code more of a smoking gun. The code is so hacked around to give predetermined results that it shows the bias of the coder. In other words make the code ignore inconvenient data to show what I want it to show. The code after a quick scan is quite a mess. Anyone with any pride would be to ashamed of to let it out public viewing.



Gavin Schmidt on the premier Global Warming advocacy blog
Real Climate provides this response.

As many of you will be aware, a large number of emails from the University of East Anglia webmail server were hacked recently (Despite some confusion generated by Anthony Watts, this has absolutely nothing to do with the Hadley Centre which is a completely separate institution). As people are also no doubt aware the breaking into of computers and releasing private information is illegal, and regardless of how they were obtained, posting private correspondence without permission is unethical. We therefore aren’t going to post any of the emails here. We were made aware of the existence of this archive last Tuesday morning when the hackers attempted to upload it to RealClimate, and we notified CRU of their possible security breach later that day.

Nonetheless, these emails (a presumably careful selection of (possibly edited?) correspondence dating back to 1996 and as recently as Nov 12) are being widely circulated, and therefore require some comment. Some of them involve people here (and the archive includes the first RealClimate email we ever sent out to colleagues) and include discussions we’ve had with the CRU folk on topics related to the surface temperature record and some paleo-related issues, mainly to ensure that posting were accurate.


He also quotes the official comment of the East Anglia Univeristy

“We are aware that information from a server used for research information
in one area of the university has been made available on public websites,”
the spokesman stated.

“Because of the volume of this information we cannot currently confirm
that all of this material is genuine.”

“This information has been obtained and published without our permission
and we took immediate action to remove the server in question from
operation.”

“We are undertaking a thorough internal investigation and we have involved
the police in this enquiry.”



ANALYSIS


At the very least a major Climate Change research institution has been caught publishing and defending false data. More embarrassing is that the data in question is what under lies the famous “hockey stick” graph which is widely used in popular presentations supporting Global Warming. This data has been questioned by many, Steve McIntyre of Climate Audit has proven it false with two different methodologies.

How far this extends beyond East Anglia is anyone’s guess for now, but even Der Spiegel in an article published just before the hack became public headlines Climatologists Baffled by Global Warming Time-Out. Actually climate data has been getting more and more out of line with preditions for several years.

The hack was released about a month before the Copenhagen climate conference next month. Early enough to get wide publicity possibly influencing participants, but late enough to make a complete response impossible.

There are two questions of illegality alleged. Hacking a computer is a crime, The second is that it appears from the information released that CRU was suppressing Freedom of Information Request which I gather is a criminal offense in Britain.

Watch the unfolding drama at:

Watts Up With That
Real Climate
Climate Audit



HT: Duff and Nonsense

Mr . President - Make a Decision!

Over the last two years a revitalized Taliban has been trying to take back what it lost in 2001. An active enemy requires more troops to control than a passive one.

There are several strategies that could be adopted if we are going to stay, all of which require more troops. No one thinks a purely military victory is possible, the military perquisite for enabling the non-military aspects will require troops. To use the General Petraeus’s catch phrase Clear, Hold, Build build is the key part and largely non-military, but until an area is cleared and held building cannot happen. It appears we have barely the strength on the ground to hold what we have. A couple weeks ago Michael Yon had video where he told of commander who pointed to an area on the map “The Taliban control that place, we could move in and clear them out but we don’t have the the strength to hold it and when we left the Taliban would back and kill everyone who helped us.” So they were not clearing it.

So we are at an impasse, we can cut our losses and leave, or we can reinforce. Either is better than hoping the problem will go away if we ignore it. A decision needs to be made soon.

Golly Schazamm! This Blog is Five Years Old!

I made my first post on, Cause Not Harm five years ago. I was trying to think of a good first post. Then Glen Reynolds said something to annoy me, and I meandered into it.

I was tired of just leaving comments on other Blogs. But I was not sure where I wanted to go with a blog. Since my interests are eclectic and I meander between them “Eclectic Meanderings” seemed like a good name. I did a Google search, and while I did not find a blog named “Eclectic Meanderings,” it seemed to be a rather common expression so I put my name in front to avoid conflicts.

Since them I have had a lot of fun looking things up to post. Getting my thoughts in shape to post has helped clarify a number of issues. My writing has improved marginally. So as I find things that are interesting, important, or entertaining I’ll keep posting. Who knows maybe some one will read them.

Veterans Day

The First World War nominally ended on November 11th. First celebrated as Armistice Day, it became Remembrance Day for the Commonwealth to honor those who had fallen. In the United States where Memorial Day already commemorated those who died defending our country it became Veteran’s Day to also honor the veterans who came home.


Lord Grey, the British Foreign Minister described the beginning of the war as "The lamps are going out in Europe". The immediate costs in dead and treasure of this ultimately pointless war were horrific. The horror of the trenches scarred the psyche of the Western world. The resulting despair allowed political movements to come to influence and power, which have changed for the worse Western culture, the holocaust and gulag being just the tip of the iceburg. Too many of the lamps are still out.

It is a hard truth that this is an especially appropriate day to remember our veterans living and dead. One of the very few bright spots were the solders and sailors whose dedication, loyalty, and valor shamed the politicians and “statesman” who sent them to war. They should always be remembered.

But also we need to remember that in other wars it was this same dedication and valor that bought our Freedom and Liberty, certainly against the forces released as a result of the First World War.


Enjoy the holiday, but remember to think of and pray for those who served.




In 2007 David Duff objected to the war being called pointless. El Jefe Maximo responded. Their interesting and informative discussion is a must read..

Related posts:

Le Soldat Americain dans Afgaistan
Soldiers are People, too
The Last of the Light Brigade.
The Bivouac of the Dead
Roy Nickerson




Labels:WWI and Veterans Day posts

Veterans Day

From The Gilbert Family Singers at
Rock the Facts

Fort Hood

Post Cemetary, Ft Sheridan, Illinois


Pray for the solders and others who were killed at Fort Hood and for their families.

It is still to early to know exactly why it happened, psychological instability, disapppointment and revenge over a failing career, sympathies with the enemy, a hate crime, or some combination. Let us keep the tone down until there is a good accounting of the facts. Jumping to conclusions does not honor the fallen.


Lord grant them eternal rest, and let Your perpetual light shine upon them.