Coss

Bangkok blast: Thailand's police say they consider case solved, receive cash awards again!

 

 

The Thai national police chief Somyot Pumpanmuang holding up a reward before a news conference about the Bangkok blast which killed 20 people, including foreigners, at the Royal Thai Police headquarters in central Bangkok, Thailand, on Sept 28, 2015. The reward of fat wads of cash in front of journalists was the second time ‘’award’’ money has been given to police teams working on the case.PHOTO: REUTERS

 

Thailand's police have said they consider the Erawan Shrine blast case solved, as they awarded themselves with cash, but will continue to investigate a potential domestic political angle to the bomb blast that killed 20 people on Aug 17 at the popular shrine in Bangkok.

 

At a press conference in Bangkok on Monday (Sept 28), Thai police chief Somyot Poompunmuang, who is serving his last days in office before retiring, reiterated that the bomb attack was revenge by a gang that was smuggling ethnic Uighurs out of China and had been damaged by a police crackdown.

 

But he said one of two Thai suspects in the case had also been involved in a bomb blast at an apartment in Nontahaburi on the outskirts of Bangkok in 2010.

 

"We have yet to establish these (political) links. It might have been a contract crime. A group might have hired another already bent on taking revenge to commit the crime, so both got what they wanted," he said.

 

The police have also again been awarded fat wads of cash in front of journalists for their efforts.

 

The 3 million baht (S$118,410) reward comprised donations from private businessmen as well as Gen Somyot's personal money, the chief said.

 

It was the second time "award" money has been given to police teams working on the case.

 

The Aug 17 rush-hour blast at the heart of downtown Bangkok was the deadliest in memory in Thailand, killing 20 people, including 12 foreigners.

 

The police have issued at least 17 arrest warrants, including for Chinese and Pakistani nationals, and have two people in custody.

 

Over the weekend, they said one of them, a foreigner whose nationality is still unclear but whose name has been given as Adem Karadag or Bilal Mohammed, had confessed to actually planting the bomb at the Erawan Shrine.

 

The blast at the apartment in Nonthaburi in October 2010 killed four people, including a man called Samai Wongsuwan, probably while he was assembling a bomb, the police said at the time.

 

Last year, the police arrested a Thai woman allegedly linked to the Nonthaburi case.

 

At the time, the government blamed the Nonthaburi blast on the "red shirts" who earlier that year, after months of protests against the government of then Premier Abhisit Vejjajiva, had been cowed by an army crackdown.

 

The red shirts, of the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship, were aligned with former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, who had been kicked out of of office by the military in 2006 on the back of royalist street protests against his rule.

 

The violence of the summer of 2010, which saw red shirts battling troops across central Bangkok, left over 90 dead - mostly civilian protesters.

 

http://www.straitsti...political-angle

Entirely expected, now it's 2.1 million Audi cars, http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11520636

Therein the utility of flying below the radar.

 

Without delving too much into the specifics, there is room for change there, but as with most large shifts, it'll take a generation.

 

There seem to be three strains of people, the "old school" who set it all up, the "middle" who want it all, but have no historical authority, and the "new" who've been educated abroad. These are also distributed in some random way across three power bases, being Military, Police and Political.

 

The mix is volatile, but except for occasional vanishings and transport accidents, even 'sudden onset illness', the whole kit and caboodle seems to be moving in the right direction, slowly. Just my opinion.

Yeah, that's true - the Chinese are always lurking just around the next corner...

I suppose I mean I love their frequent uselessness, some of the charming incompetence, which I came to know about 15 years ago, working briefly in the north. But also had a friend 'disappeared' in the classic sense, most likely due to a conflict between plantation business, Chinese interests, and ostensibly govt-supported conservation efforts. So, I've seen the dark side - don't mean to be unconditional in my love - for anyone, ever... except Mom.

 

I may have heard of whom you speak, your friend I mean. Luang Namtha or thereabouts ?

 

You are right about the Chinese also. And "frequent uselessness, some of the charming incompetence" is entertaining and endearing.

 

A friend on this board, introduced me to, and we had lunch with, a chap who has similarly vanished.

 

So as I say, I keep my head below the radar, and I've been tested on many occasions. Usually when drinking with folk from various govt depts, my political opinions are sought, and needless to say, I always support the efforts of the Govt in whatever subject is raised. The vanished, are never mentioned.

 

I married a lass, with some high powered cousins, this may have not hindered my marriage paperwork, but I've not seen any influence for me or my immediate family. It would be easy to assume that all is well. But then I wouldn't have a brain.

Definitely a Tuesday movie, Wednesday is nipple whitening day, Monday navigating back to reality. Tuesday, Wednesday no haircut day.

" but I cannot put much faith in their capacity for reliable analysis."

or any analysis in my opinion.

 

I love Laos, but that's coloured very strongly with an understanding that education, democracy, human rights, all that sort of stuff, does not apply.

 

If your head is below the radar, the people are warm, loving, simple, generous and fair. As soon as you raise your nose, to sniff the money stream, that flows strongly through the government and military et al, you start to play with the most corrupt, scum sucking bastards there are on the planet.

 

It's a tribute to the village mode of society that most Lao are beautiful people.

The Zero Theorem 2013 - Terry Gilliam - good movie that doesn't quite gel - worth a watch

 

Cop Car 2015 - simple plot - very good acting - well worth a watch - Kevin Bacon.

Just in case you though it was only the Thais I enjoy slagging...

________________

 

The offering of online football wagering will not encourage more local people to become gambling addicts, a senior Lao government official has stated.

 

Deputy Minister of Finance Mr Sila Viengkeo made the comment yesterday while responding to a question raised by a villager from Dongdok village in Vientiane's Xaythany district through the National Assembly hotline.

 

The villager said the legal online football service has caused great harms to students who lost their money which also led to social ills.

 

Mr Sila said the online football wagering launched six months ago by the Lao Development Lottery State Enterprise has been approved by the Ministry of Finance.

 

He cited that the ministry approved this project after discovering that illegal football wagering was widespread in major towns in Laos and the football wagering aims to create options for people to spend some of their money for lucky draws and relaxed wagering instead of risking their cash with illegal activities.

 

Mr Sila said that the online football service will also generate revenue for the government.

 

“I dismiss the claim raised by the villager. I don't think that the online football wagering will encourage more people to gamble as our ministry has regulated their business operation,†he said.

 

He explained that the Lao Development Lottery State Enterprise has been told to sell not more than 1 million kip per person per day and the punters need to be 18 years of age or older.

 

“The online football wagering is a pilot project and we will review the effectiveness of the project for the 2015-16 fiscal year. If the project results are negative we may order it to shut down, but if it proves positive we may further approve it to expand,†he said.

 

Lao Development Lottery State Enterprise also announced the football lottery service has given the opportunity for gamblers to legally forecast and bet on winners of football matches.

 

Football matches of all the famous leagues across the globe were includ ed in the new online gambling system. During the world cup, the punters in Laos moved to use the online gambling system.

 

Gamblers are required to set up an online account with the enterprise to enable them to perform online gambling.

 

Those winning a bet will receive money through the account, while losers will have their available balance decreased after paying online.

 

Mr Sila said Laos earns more than 60 billion kip annually through the lottery profit tax. The revenue generated from the lottery is a lot but he did not have the exact figure with him.

 

The Lao Development Lottery State Enterprise has branches in Vientiane and the provinces to offer the lottery service for punters.

 

However members of the public are very concerned that more products and more dates of issuing lottery could cause greater damage to young people.

 

They also urged relevant authorities to ensure a transparent process of issuing the lottery which should be broadcast live on Lao TV.

 

http://www.vientianetimes.org.la

 

Mr Sila Viengkeo, a very rich man...

In USA, car makers do bother working up a special set of specs for California, where the environmental laws are more strict than the rest of the country. It wouldn't surprise me if they do the same in other areas where the laws are different.

 

I'm not so sure, a quick search of Mr Google reveals 77 VW dealers in California and about 20 in NZ, our market is smaller than you think.

I think I've said before, the Thai (and other) police often get the right man, despite the evidence being insufficient or wrong.

 

Not the way justice should be done, but effective.

 

However, then we see problematic cases like the Koh Tao murders which point to nothing but a lack of credibility in the Police.

tinsel strength, now there's some engineering jargon

So from not being there yet, to confessing, how intriguing...

 

 

 

Bangkok (CNN) A man who has been in police custody in Thailand since August 29 has been identified as the primary suspect in a bombing that killed 20 people at Bangkok's Erawan Shrine last month, Thai police said Friday.

 

After the man admitted he was the suspect seen in video in a yellow shirt, he confessed to the bombing, Thailand national police spokesman Prawut Thavornsiri told reporters.

 

Police used new surveillance images to confirm they had the man responsible for the bombing, the spokesman said. The images showed the suspect walking into a restroom and changing his clothes before he walked out.

 

"He did admit that the man in the photo was him, and each of his admissions they became all connected. And finally he admitted it all," Prawut said.

 

Police said they are confident that the man -- who goes by several names including Adem Karadak -- carried out the bombings that also injured more than 100 people.

 

Police on Saturday will take Karadak and Yusufu Meirailee -- who was arrested earlier this month -- to the crime scene at the Erawan Shrine. The duo will go to Hua Lumphong train station where they allegedly met to swap the bomb rucksack. They also will visit the spot where they allegedly dropped a mobile phone used to set off the bomb, authorities said.

 

CNN reached out to an attorney for Karadak but didn't hear immediately back.

 

Also Friday a Thai military court issued arrest warrants for 17 people, three of whom were named publicly for the first time as members of the network responsible for the bombing at the shrine.

 

Two of the suspects -- Ali Noor and Manu Muhammad Ismail -- are suspected of buying SIM cards that were used in triggering the bomb.

 

Another man is believed to be the suspect who dropped a second bomb at a pier. That explosive fell into the water and didn't injure anyone.

 

They will face charges of premeditated murder and jointly making bombs that resulted in deaths, injuries and losses of property. If convicted, they could face the death penalty, Prawut said.

 

The shrine, at a bustling intersection near a large shopping mall, is a big draw for tourists. At least seven people from other Asian countries were reported to be among the dead as well as one Briton. The site is popular among Buddhists as well as Hindu and Sikh members of Thailand's Indian community.

 

http://edition.cnn.c...tody/index.html

I think that if NZ tested these engines at all, they'd just be impressed by the technology if they noticed it at all....

They have different environmental laws in NZ, most likely, not as strict as those in USA. VW may meet the NZ requirements but not the US requirements.

 

My point is, that the same software that's the issue here, will be installed in all cars and shipped all over. I don't think they'd bother working up a special set of specs for NZ.

Hajj: Previous tragedies

 

2006: 364 pilgrims die in a crush at foot of Jamarat Bridge in Mina

 

1997: 340 pilgrims are killed when fire fuelled by high winds sweeps through Mina's tent city

 

1994: 270 pilgrims die in a stampede during the stoning ritual

 

1990: 1,426 pilgrims, mainly Asian, die in a stampede in an overcrowded tunnel leading to holy sites

 

1987: 402 people die when security forces break up an anti-US demonstration by Iranian pilgrims

What I find interesting is that in places like NZ, the local VW dealerships and groups, are trying to claim that none of this affects NZ.

 

Like they make a different car for NZ :rotl: :rotl:

Jim?

I still reckon, that everything the warming acolytes wanna do, to combat the supposed warming, are bloody good things to do.

 

Who doesn't want less pollution? Who doesn't want renewable/free energy?

 

My issue is and has always been, why should I accept lies fed to me by marketing geniuses?

! note - this Author has a reputation as being a bit loose, but at least he attributes his facts with actual science, rather than the 'affirmative' and vague statements that warming acolytes generally proffer.

 

http://www.investigatemagazine.co.nz/Investigate/17280/review-of-climate-change-documentary-thin-ice/

 

BY IAN WISHART, author of Totalitaria and Air Con

 

It’s touted as an award-winning documentary on climate change, but if that’s true I’d like to know whether the judges were the three wise monkeys. Here’s why: the Thin Ice documentary made by Victoria University of Wellington and Oxford University in the UK is littered with factual errors and misleading statements.

 

The documentary is being toured around New Zealand high schools in a bid to drum up support for the upcoming climate treaty negotiations in Paris this December. I don’t know who’s paying for it but they must have deep pockets – barely 50 people ‘crowded’ into an 800 seat Auckland school hall, each paying a gold coin donation to see the film. But it wasn’t just the movie screening – it had an entourage. Vic University documentary maker Simon “I’m not a climate scientist†Lamb was joined by geologist and film producer Peter Barrett at the school, along with a Vic Uni undergraduate in a supporting role.

 

The gold coin donations were unlikely to even cover their airfares from Wellington, let alone accommodation, unless they managed to score $35 return flights each. Perhaps they pedalled the 700 km: “I hope you are cycling home tonight,†the cheery undergraduate told the scattered audience members.

 

“Come closer,†Barrett urged the people dotted around the hall. Few did.

 

The screening began with a message from “Xena the Warrior Princessâ€, explained Barrett, quickly realising that Lucy Lawless had starred in that role long before most of the students in the audience were born. “Maybe that’s before your time,†he added, “but anyway here she isâ€.

 

Lawless gave her ‘best supporting actress in a fictional documentary speech’, urging viewers to trust the authority of the team who made the movie and to do their part for climate justice.

 

I was prepared to give the film a chance, on the basis that I like to see my opponent’s arguments before critiquing them. But let’s cut to the chase.

 

The film begins with Simon Lamb mocking sceptics of climate change by suggesting they are alleging a grand “conspiracy†of “dishonest climate scientistsâ€. His documentary, he said, was intended to be a neutral revelation of what the climate scientists were doing so people could make up their own minds about whether they were being honest or dishonest about climate. Within a few minutes I felt they were being dishonest, but no one in the audience would have known unless they were well briefed on the facts.

 

MISLEADING CLAIM #1: Antarctic ice cores show CO2 causing temperature increases over the aeons

 

Victoria University scientist Tim Naish made the claim in the doco while Lamb and producer Barrett imposed an ice core graph over thousands of years showing CO2 and temperature moving in “lockstepâ€. What they failed to tell viewers is that a 2003 study by Caillon et al and published in the journal Science looked at 40,000 years of ice core history from the Vostok site, and found that the reverse was true, that in fact temperatures rose first and CO2 levels started to rise 800 years later.

 

As I explained in my book Air Con, this makes sense: the rising temperatures warmed oceans and released trapped CO2 bubbles as the water warmed. The CO2 did not “cause†the temperature increases – the temp increases caused the release of more CO2. The documentary Thin Ice is highly misleading in this respect.

 

MISLEADING CLAIM #2: You can trust the computer models, and they show a three degree increase in temperature but it could be double

 

Again, Lamb plays the ingénue in this part of the documentary, going to great pains to tell viewers how clever the computer modelling is and how the models are actually understating the probable warming that’s coming.

 

In reality, the computer models have been rubbished by peer reviewed climate journals, as I wrote in Totalitaria:

 

“The UN IPCC’s fifth assessment report, AR5, based its climate projections on computer models, and in particular a series of models known as CMIP5 which was described by its designers in 2012 as “a state-of-the- art multimodel dataset designed to advance our knowledge of climate variability and climate change. Researchers worldwide are analyzing the model output and will produce results likely to underlie the forthcoming Fifth Assessment Report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.â€

 

The most embarrassing aspect for the UN IPCC AR5 report is that CMIP5, the so-called “state of the art†simulation system anchoring the UN’s climate projections, has failed epically to account for the massive slowdown in warming over the past 15 years. In fact, the computer projections ran four times hotter for the period than the actual real observed temperature readings, as a just published report in the journal Nature Climate Change notes:

 

The inconsistency between observed and simulated global warming is even more striking for temperature trends computed over the past fifteen years (1998–2012). For this period, the observed trend of 0.05 ± 0.08 °C per decade is more than four times smaller than the average simulated trend of 0.21 ± 0.03 °C per decade. The divergence between observed and CMIP5- simulated global warming begins in the early 1990s.â€[ii]

 

The UN’s AR5 report was out of date even before it hit the newsstands. AR5 claims a consensus higher than “95% certainty†that human-caused CO2 emissions are predominantly driving global warming, but critics and even many scientists are now asking, “based on what evidence?â€

 

The assumptions the scientific “consensus†was supposedly built on are crumbling in the face of new evidence.

 

Confidence in the latest UN projections and journalistic fawning over them has not been enhanced by another new report in Nature suggesting the IPCC scientists are using statistical research techniques more than ten years out of date…â€

 

So much for the accuracy of the computer models then. They’ve been found in peer reviewed studies to have overestimated actual global warming by around 400 percent, yet not a word of that inconvenient truth was revealed by Lamb and Barrett in their “award-winning†documentary. Again, grossly misleading, especially when this material is being used to con schoolchildren into thinking the science is settled.

 

MISLEADING CLAIM #3: CO2 is responsible “for most, or possibly all†global warming

 

Simon Lamb made this claim in the documentary, without citing any actual studies to back up the claim. So let me do the honours. Far from CO2 being responsible for the majority of warming, the actual peer reviewed science suggests not, as I wrote in Totalitaria:

 

New research from respected climate scientist Mojib Latif and others shows the big warming periods like the late 1970s through the nineties, previously thought by climate scientists to have been caused by CO2, were in fact most likely caused by natural cycles in the oceans, or what Latif calls “climate shiftsâ€.

 

This is particularly important, because the last IPCC report in 2007 said it could only detect a possible “human signature†in climate change since the 1970s. That claim was based on the assumption CO2 was the primary driver. The latest research shows CO2 had little if anything to do with warming since that time. Ergo, the “human signature†detected by the IPCC scientists does not appear to exist.

 

“These shifts…have a profound effect on the average global surface air temperature of the Earth,†Latif says in a news release on his study. Changes in oceanic patterns turn “the world’s climate topsy-turvy and are clearly reflected in the average temperature of the Earth.â€[iii]

 

Lamb is possibly anchoring his claims about CO2 in a highly questionable 2006 study by Ben Santer, which I laid into in Totalitaria:

 

“Human-caused changes in greenhouse gases are the main driver of the 20th-century SST (sea surface temperature) increases,†Santer’s 2006 study claimed.[iv]

 

Of course, this was music to the ears of those like Al Gore who wanted to attribute ocean-created events like Hurricane Katrina to human-caused global warming. It’s a shame it wasn’t true.

 

Perhaps the easiest way of pointing out the error is an example of simple physics. The sun is the main source of heat on earth by a degree of considerable magnitude. Direct sun in the tropics can create surface temperatures hot enough to fry eggs on the pavement – 46 degrees Centigrade in the air and even hotter on dark asphalt. In contrast, reflected heat from CO2 molecules (this is solar radiation that has already hit the earth and bounced back up into the atmosphere, so it’s a fraction of the initial radiation, a mere ‘heat shadow’ if you like) is accused of causing global temperatures to rise around 0.8C over the past century and a bit, in contrast.

 

From this bare statement of fact, it follows as a point of logic that oceans will warm far more in response to direct sunlight, than they will from the miniscule blanket effect of greenhouse gases. Any study purporting to suggest that greenhouse gases are the “main driver†of ocean warming is therefore laughable.

 

One of the first to debunk it was Amato Evan. He and his team figured out, like you have, that the amount of heat that gets into the oceans is far more likely to depend on cloud cover and other variables, like dust, volcanic ash, pollution and smoke, that affect how much sunlight actually reaches the surface. Sure enough, when they plugged in the temperatures and atmospheric data for 26 years, they found ocean surface temperatures were far more influenced by these things than they were by greenhouse gases.[v]

 

“The tropical North Atlantic is unique among tropical ocean basins because of its oftentimes extensive and heavy aerosol cover, a consequence of being downwind of West Africa, the world’s largest dust source,†wrote Evans.

 

In short, when there’s plenty of dust being kicked up in Africa it keeps sea temperatures cool in the Atlantic, and when there’s not much dust the sea temperatures rise – because of sunlight, not CO2.

 

When they finally crunched the numbers, dust – or in fact the lack of it – accounted for about 69% of the warming in the Atlantic since 1980. Less dusty times meant more sunlight managed to hit the water.[vi]

 

Armed with this knowledge of how the real world works, let’s return to Mojib Latif’s “climate shift†theory. Big hot and cold cycles within the oceans come around every so often and reset the climate system, effectively they are giant belches of heat into the air from huge areas of ocean, followed by periods of oceanic cooling.

 

As their names suggest, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation or Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation don’t cycle heat in terms of months or weeks, but over decades.

 

“The AMO is an ongoing series of long-duration changes in the sea surface temperature of the North Atlantic Ocean,†the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) website explains, “with cool and warm phases that may last for 20-40 years at a time and a difference of about 1°F between extremes. These changes are natural and have been occurring for at least the last 1,000 years.[vii]

 

“Most of the Atlantic between the equator and Greenland changes in unison. Some areas of the North Pacific also seem to be affected.â€

 

Research has shown that in addition to those cycles, there are even longer term oscillations deep in the sea that can take centuries to circulate and release stored heat. Scientists studying ancient ice cores have found warming comes first as a result of solar cycles, and then about 800 years later CO2 levels rise as the oceans get warm enough to release significant amounts of CO2.[viii]

 

The importance of this cannot be overstated. It is peer-reviewed research from an IPCC-accredited research team, that essentially says the world’s temperatures since the 1970s have been driven not by CO2 at all, but by heat stored in the oceans. By definition, given the oscillation timescales, the heat emerging from the oceans in the 1970s must have been placed in the oceans decades, or even centuries earlier. Again, this means it cannot be related to human CO2 emissions.

 

Whatever heat has emerged from the oceans to date has been driven by natural cycles, not man-made gases. And again, this means the much quoted IPCC claim that a “human signature†in climate change was detected after 1970 is no longer valid. It has been disproven.

 

MISLEADING CLAIM #4: The West Antarctic ice sheet is melting because of human CO2 production

 

The inconvenient truth that the West Antarctic ice sheet sits atop a massive, active chain of volcanoes was not mentioned by Lamb, even though he is a geophysicist and should have known about it.

 

“You are making unsubstantiated claims!†Lamb protested loudly when I challenged him at question time. Oh really? He didn’t want me to quote from the studies to the audience, but here they are:

 

A 2013 scientific study admits that geothermal heat appears to be a driver of ice melt under the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS):[ix]

 

“The most common source of subglacial water is melting at the bottom of the ice sheet due to a combination of ice thickness, geothermal heat flux at the bed, and frictional heating due to rapid ice flow (Joughin et al., 2004; Llubes et al., 2006). Meltwater production could be enhanced by a higher geothermal gradient underneath parts of the WAIS (Shapiro and Ritzwoller, 2004).â€

 

The significance of that is that volcanic activity can cause runaway melt because the water helps sluice the glacier out to sea much more rapidly, which is exactly what we are seeing.

 

“A volcanic eruption has the potential to produce large amounts of meltwater and, thus, could trigger a large flood event (Roberts, 2005; Bennett et al., 2009).â€

 

A gravity survey of the earth’s crust (the barrier of rock between us and the molten interior) underneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has found the crust has thinned dramatically under the ice where a continental rift appears to be opening up, which could be letting more volcanic heat into the ice sheet:[x]

 

“Major crustal thinning, coupled with low lithosphere rigidity, attest to the considerable impact of continental rifting beneath this part of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet…Narrow-mode rifting within the Pine Island Rift is particularly important as it may serve as a geological template for enhanced glacial flow associated with Pine Island Glacier.â€

 

So far, researchers have established that the Pine Island volcano erupted massively two thousand years ago with enough force to punch entirely through the ice sheet and deposit ash fallout on an area of Antarctica larger than Wales. Significantly the volcano remains active, although we don’t know whether it has been active all the time or whether it has only recently burst into life again.

 

“We rely on the IPCC data, not just one study,†Simon Lamb claimed when I told him about the volcanoes. The objective reader can count and Google…there are far more than one study. The volcanoes should have featured in Thin Ice. They didn’t, the documentary is simply not credible.

 

And let’s not even get started on the pause in global warming measured by satellite sensors which have not detected significant warming for 18 years. As I told the school audience: “There is not a high school student in this room who has actually experienced an increase in global warming during their lifetimes.â€

 

Needless to say, Lamb and Barrett were not happy that the Thin Ice propaganda-fest had been rained on by a reality check.

 

If your kids come home having watched a climate change documentary at school, show them this review and ask whether the film covered any of these inconvenient facts.

 

“An Overview of CMIP5 and the Experiment Designâ€. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 93, 485–498. April 2012

 

doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-11-00094.1

 

[ii] “Overestimated global warming over the past 20 yearsâ€, Fyfe et al, Nature Climate Change 3, 767–769 (2013) doi:10.1038/nclimate1972 Published online 28 August 2013

 

[iii] “Hindcast of the 1976/77 and 1998/99 climate shifts in the Pacific†by Ding et al, Journal of Climate 2013 ; e-View doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00626.1

 

[iv] 190 “Forced and unforced ocean temperature changes in Atlantic and Pacific tropical cyclogenesis regionsâ€, Santer et al, September 12, 2006, doi: 10.1073/pnas.0602861103 PNAS September 19, 2006 vol. 103 no. 38 13905-13910

 

[v] 192 “African Dust over the Northern Tropical Atlantic: 1955–2008.â€, Evan et al, J. Appl. Meteor. Climatol., 49, 2213–2229. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/2010JAMC2485.1

 

[vi] 193 If you are still wedded to the idea that a warming atmosphere caused by CO2 is the most likely explanation for warmer seas, try this experiment at home: Position an illuminated 60w light bulb six

 

inches above a glass of water for ten minutes. Measure the starting temperature and the finishing temperature. Then take another glass of water and breathe on the surface of the water for ten

 

minutes (it’s nowhere near exact, nor a direct comparison, but your warm breath will be significantly warmer than any CO2 in the atmosphere would get in lab conditions in a controlled experiment using

 

enclosed environments). Measure the temps.

 

[vii] 194 http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/amo_faq.php

 

[viii] 195 “Deep-sea temperatures warmed by ~2°C between 19 and 17 thousand years before the present (ky B.P.), leading the rise in atmospheric CO2 and tropical–surface-ocean warming by ~1000 years. The cause of this deglacial deep-water warming does not lie within the tropics, nor can its early onset between 19 and 17 ky B.P. be attributed to CO2 forcing. Increasing austral-spring insolation [higher seasonal solar radiation in the Southern hemisphere] combined with sea-ice albedo [heat reflectivity] feedbacks appear to be the key factors responsible for this warming.†– SOURCE: “Southern Hemisphere and Deep-Sea Warming Led Deglacial Atmospheric CO2 Rise and Tropical Warmingâ€, L Stott, A Timmerman, R Thunell, Science 19 October 2007: Vol. 318. no. 5849, pp. 435– 438 DOI: 10.1126/science.1143791

 

All very technical, but what this study found was that solar heat in the southern hemisphere warmed the oceans enough that ice melted and CO2 was released, but that it took up to a thousand years for the warmth to trigger CO2 release in any major way. In other words, far from CO2 being the “forcer†or instigator of warming, it was a result of warming that had begun a millennium earlier deep within the sea.

 

[ix] 202 “Paleo ice flow and subglacial meltwater dynamics in Pine Island Bay, West Antarctica†F. O. Nitsche et al, The Cryosphere, 7, 249–262, 2013 www.the-cryosphere.net/7/249/2013/ doi:10.5194/tc-7-249-2013

 

[x] 203 “Aerogravity evidence for major crustal thinning under the Pine Island Glacier region (West Antarctica)â€, Jordan et al, Geological Society of America Bulletin, December 30, 2009, doi: 10.1130/B26417.1122 no. 5-6 p. 714-726. http://gsabulletin.gsapubs.org/content/122/5-6/714.abstract

you are being snarky

 

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11880921/Made-in-Germany-lies-in-the-gutter-after-Volkswagen-caught-cheating.html

 

 

VW's conspiracy to rig emissions exposes it as the 'Lance Armstrong' of the car industry, once again revealing corrupt reflexes in German boardrooms

 

Diesels may actually be emitting three times the pollution allowed under current emissions tests

Volkswagen's own vow to become the 'greenest' car producer in the world by 2018 has been exposed a hollow publicity stunt

 

 

Volkswagen has suffered a shocking loss of credibility after conspiring to violate US pollution laws and dupe customers on a systemic scale.

The scandal has once again exposed a culture of corrupt practices at the top of German export industry.

“We are facing a blatant abuse of consumer trust and a degradation of the environment,†said Jochen Flasbarth, the German state secretary in charge of pollution enforcement.

 

Hundreds of thousands of Volkswagen cars have already been recalled

The scandal is intrinsically worse than the explosion of BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. While BP and its contractors may have been negligent, VW appears to have engaged in a cynical plan to trick regulators in a wholesale breach of the US Clean Air Act.

“It is profoundly serious. The accusation is that VW deliberately set out to mislead regulators with a cleverly hidden piece of software,†said Max Warburton from AllianceBernstein.

It is of an entirely different character from earlier breaches of US law by Hyundai and Ford, which stemmed mostly from errors. The US Justice Department is weighing serious criminal charges.

“‘Made in Germany’ in the gutter,†said German newspaper Bundesdeutsche Zeitung.

 

The financial daily Handelsblatt called the deception a “catastrophe for the whole of German industryâ€, warning that it had completely undermined a joint campaign by Audi, BMW, Mercedes, Bosch and VW to convince Americans that diesel is no longer dirty and is the best way to meet tougher US emission standards.

Germany is the world leader in clean diesel. Its car companies have bet heavily on the technology, hoping to win the strategic prize in the US as new rules come into force imposing fuel efficiency of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025.

"We are worried that the justifiably excellent reputation of the German car industry and in particular that of Volkswagen will suffer," said Sigmar Gabriel, the country’s vice-chancellor and economy minister.

Volkswagen’s own vow to become the “greenest†car producer in the world by 2018 has been exposed a hollow publicity stunt.

 

Theoretically, the company could face fines of $18bn in the US, based on a standard penalty of $37,500 for each of the 482,000 cars fitted with "defeat devices", which allowed them to mask exhaust emissions of nitrogen oxide (NOx) in pollution control tests.

The actual release of these toxic particles – blamed for emphysema and respiratory diseases – is in reality 40 times above the acceptable levels imposed by the US Environmental Protection Agency. The cars will be recalled and modified, greatly reducing their fuel efficiency.

The US press is already calling VW the “Lance Armstrong†of the car market, an apt allusion to drug cheating in sport, and a deadly epithet in an industry where brand image and goodwill are the lifeblood of sales.

 

'Very sorry': Volkswagen chief executive Martin Winterkorn

VW’s share price crashed 19pc in Frankfurt. The company’s strategic ambition to dominate clean diesel sales in the US lies in ruins.

“There is no way to put an optimistic spin on this. The best case for VW is probably still a multi-billion dollar fine, pariah status in the US, and damage to its leading position in diesel,†said Mr Warburton.

The suspicion is that other car companies with diesel models may also be cutting corners, much as the Libor scandal in the City of London revealed common practices by other parts of the banking industry. The US authorities said they would widen the probe to other manufacturers.

 

Martin Winterkorn, VW’s chief executive, said he was “very sorry†and ordered an internal investigation but it is hard to see how he can survive.

Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer, from Germany’s Centre for Automotive Research, said Mr Winterkorn is either complicit or has failed to establish control over the corporation. “Either way, he is no longer viable. No politician could remain in his post in such circumstances. It is an unimaginable disaster,†he said.

It is barely a decade since it came to light that VW – still 20pc owned by the state of Lower Saxony - had set up front companies in India and Czech Republic to win contracts.

Volkswagen touched a raw nerve on the German Left by using slush funds to compromise union members on the works council with extravagant trips abroad and visits to brothels, at a time when the company was pushing through a wage freeze. That scandal led to a purge of senior management and a prison sentence for one member of the board.

 

Transparency International in Berlin said VW scores a middling grade of 5.5 out of 10 for corporate purity, but refuses to offer any breakdown of its activities in each country where it operates. This can be a warning flag. “VW provides zero information on a country-by-country basis. We find this very important,†it said.

Volkswagen is not the only German group that has lurched from scandal to scandal. The chairman of the engineering giant Siemens was forced to resign in 2007 following the exposure of bribery on an epic scale, though the company has since sought to clean out the Augean Stables.

A Siemens official revealed that he had run a bribery budget of €40m a year through a network of secret accounts from Venezuela, to Israel, Italy and Vietnam. He described overseas pay-offs as the company’s “business modelâ€.

 

Siemens was later fined $1.6bn in the US after pleading guilty to running slush funds. It then had to settle with the Greek authorities for bribing officials on a raft on contracts for the Athens Olympics in 2004.

Bribes were tax-deductible in Germany until 1997, reflecting the general attitude that whatever went on in foreign markets was fair game. The country has since tightened standards and scores relatively well in global corruption league tables.

The problem for Germany is that its global market niche is for expensive cars and machines, charging a premium for what is supposed to be the most reliable technology in the world.

Germany’s other problem is that Berlin has been lecturing the rest of the eurozone for five years that the root cause of the continent's crisis is the failure of some countries in the monetary union to abide by the law. Southern Europeans might feel entitled to a moment of Schadenfreude.

I've been avoiding this, because of the Star, but, based on your usually high standards, I'll have a look now

different as in better or worse

 

Different as in "My BG is different, really she is, she really cares..."

Malaysian police may have two bombers

 

MALAYSIAN police have sent photos of two men -one suspected of being the yellow-shirt bomber responsible for last month's Erawan Shrine blast that killed 20 people in Bangkok and the other the 'blue-shirt man' who kicked a device into the Chao Phraya River that blew up harmlessly under Sathorn Pier, a Thai security official said yesterday.

 

Thai security agencies would see if the pictures of the two men detained by Malaysia's Special Branch Police in Kuala Lumpur match the characteristics of the yellow- and blue-shirt men captured on surveillance footage.

 

Malaysian plainclothes and uniformed police on Saturday searched several apartments and rental rooms believed to be hiding places of the two bombers at the request of Thai police.

 

A Pakistani and two Malaysians suspected of being part of a human trafficking operation are already undergoing interrogation by Malaysian police in connection with the shrine attack.

 

Malaysian police said the human trafficking gang gave shelter to the yellow- and blue-shirt bombers at a location two kilometres away from Moo Noh Police Station.

 

The two were allegedly taken by boat across the Kolok River near Soi Rong Leuy, where two Malaysian men identified as A-pi and Padeh were waiting on the other side at Bukit Bintang to receive them.

 

Another Malaysian man identified as Serlin allegedly took the two to Kuala Lumpur.

 

Malaysian Special Branch Police were tipped off by an unidentified group after a man calling himself Abdul (last name withheld) phoned the Thai Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, threatening violence against it.

 

Thai security officials will show the pictures of the two suspects to Yusufu Mieraili, who was nabbed last month on the Cambodian border after the blast. He admitted meeting the alleged bomber outside Hua Lamphong Train Station and handing him a backpack containing the explosives used in the attack.

 

Thai police said if Mieraili identifies any of the men as a bomber, police will seek that person's extradition for prosecution in Thailand.

 

Assistant National Police chief Lt General Prawut Thawornsiri refused to name the blue-shirt bomber, saying more investigation was needed.

 

Police would summon the taxi driver who picked up the blue-shirt bomber for questioning, he said.

 

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/national/Malaysian-police-may-have-two-bombers-30269196.html

Quite a few intersections in Laos are just like that.

 

I remember once I slowed and stopped at an intersection, as the way forward, was not safe and two trucks overtook me and charged into the traffic, one on each side!

 

One was a petrol tanker!