Reference: Group floats plan to keep rising sea out, Bangkok Post, November 26, 2007

It has been more than a year now that scientists and climate experts sought a budget of 100 billion baht to build a sea wall 80 kilometers long from the mouth of the Ta Chin river to the Bang Pakong river to protect the city of Bangkok from being inundated by the sea that was projected to rise by 20 cm per year due to man-made global warming (Group floats plan to keep rising sea out, Bangkok Post, November 26, 2007). The following year, the fear factor was further stoked by one of these climate experts with a forecast that sometime during October of 2008, global warming will give us a Nargis-like tropical cyclone that will cause a killer storm surge and devastate Bangkok and Samut Prakarn (Fear of a storm surge in Samut Prakarn, Bangkok Post, August 27, 2008). Happily, as of this date, the sea level has not risen at all let alone by 20 cm; and October of 2008 has come and gone with no cyclone and no storm surge. Sadly, however, the media that had allowed itself to become embroiled in spreading fear have yet to hold their fearologists accountable or to give us a post-hoc report on their prophecies of doom.

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand

 

Reference: Rohingya ugly, Bangkok Post, February 12, 2009

Asians unfairly target Westerners when in comes to racism often unable to detect accepted social behavior among themselves as racism. As a case in point compare the weeks of turmoil in the Asian media over a reference by Prince Harry to a fellow cadet from Pakistan as "our little Paki friend" to the apparent acceptance of the Burmese junta's persecution and genocidal expulsion of one of their ethnic minorities because they are dark skinned and ugly looking and unlike the Tibeto-Chinese Burmans who are fair and soft skinned (Rohingya ugly, Bangkok Post, February 12, 2009).

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand

 

Reference: Australia must go greener to prevent fires, Bangkok Post, February 13, 2009

The scare scenario used by global warmists depends on what's making the news. After Hurricane Katrina, they scared us with hurricanes. After floods in China, they scared us with floods. After a drought in Africa they scared us with droughts. And now, right after the tragic forest fires in Australia, they are scaring us with forest fires (Australia must go greener to prevent fires, Bangkok Post, February 13, 2009). They have an uncanny ability to relate any and all natural disasters to greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels as if natural disasters were unnatural and therefore man-made.

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand

Reference: New sudy warns of climate time bomb, Bangkok Post, February, 16, 2009

It is reported that nature could emit 1000 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere from the Arctic permafrost and unleash climate change devastation upon us (New sudy warns of climate time bomb, Bangkok Post, February, 16, 2009). In comparison, the 10 billion tons per year of carbon dioxide we emit from fossil fuels seem irrelevant. The global warmists appear to have over-reached once again in their scare strategy; for faced with overwhelming natural forces that would kill us anyway, we would be less motivated to continue funding the Kyoto Protocol and its future incarnations. In 2007, scientists had announced that global warming had reached a "tipping point" - some kind of point of no return - and that we were doomed; that even if we cut carbon emissions climate change was now irreversibly upon us and there was no escape. Realizing their tactical error they soon released a revised assessment saying that there was still time for scientists, properly funded, to save the earth (Still time to avert the worst, Bangkok Post, September 27, 2007). There exists an optimal degree of scariness that maximizes funding and exceeding the optimal degree could itself become a tipping point for global warming researchers.

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand

Reference: Australia must go greener to prevent fires, Bangkok Post, February 13, 2009

The attempt by global warmists to link every large scale every human tragedy with global warming (Australia must go greener to prevent fires, Bangkok Post, February 13, 2009) surely erodes their credibility and does more harm than good for their cause particularly since they have yet to redeem themselves from their Katrina misadventure. Australia has a history of bush fires and it has been determined that this particular one was a work of arson. It is a scandalous thing to use such a tragic event to hype global warming. 

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand

Reference: Birds shifting north global warming cited, Bangkok Post, February 11, 2009

It is reported that from 1966 to 2005 the annual surface temperature in the United States went up by an average of 3 Celsius degrees due to global warming and that as a result half of the 305 species of migratory birds studied that fly south for winter compensated for the increased temperature by cutting short their southward migration by an average of 56 km (Birds shifting north global warming cited, Bangkok Post, February 11, 2009). These findings are inconsistent and incomplete. It is not possible to compensate for 3 Celsius degrees of warming by moving only 56 km northward. Also the report fails to explain why the other half of the 305 species was left out of the study and whether the findings are biased by this omission. 

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand

Reference: Diamonds back theory of earth impact before cooling, Bangkok Post, February 11, 2009

It is claimed, in an article about another alleged mass extinction event, that a 10 km wide meteor struck the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico 65 million years ago and caused the mass extinction of dinosaurs (Diamonds back theory of earth impact before cooling, Bangkok Post, February 11, 2009). It is true that in Chicxulub, Mexico, there is a crater that measures 180 km across and is about 65 million years old, and that, coincidentally, dinosaur bones can be found in geologic formations dating back about 65 million years and older but not since. It is tempting to conclude that climate change induced by a meteor caused a mass extinction of dinosaurs until you take a closer look at the data. There is at least a 300,000 year gap between the supposed meteor event and the last of the dinosaur bones and no one can come up with a good reason for climate change to take that long to cause mass extinction; or for meteors to take that long to cause climate change. Mass extinction theory is full of holes and is not as universally accepted as scientific fact as this article implies. 

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand

What global warming scientists can learn from greenhouse operators

Carbon dioxide is called a "greenhouse gas" because it is injected into greenhouses for the purpose of feeding the process of photosynthesis. A greenhouse is a heated building made of transparent material in which vegetables such as tomatoes are grown during weather when it would be too cold to grow these plants outside. Specially designed greenhouse heaters are used to keep the greenhouse warm. The heating requirement during daylight hours is computed as heat losses through the walls and ventilation less the heat gained by solar radiation. 

Carbon dioxide injection is used to maintain a CO2 level in the greenhouse of anywhere from 500 ppm to 5000 ppm according to the amount of solar radiation available for photosynthesis and other factors. If global warming scientists are right, that a change in atmospheric carbon dioxide from 300 to 380 ppm can cause a significant increase in heat entrapment, one would think that the heating requirements of greenhouses during daylight would be different for different CO2 levels. Yet, ceteris paribus, the heating requirement of greenhouses does not change measurably over a large range of carbon dioxide concentraton. In other words even at 5000 ppm, CO2 does not cause greenhouse warming.

Footnote: It should be noted that CO2 is normally generated by burning fossil fuels, and then fed to the greenhouse plants as a nutrient. In that way carbon from fossil fuels is recycled into living matter in the plant. A part of the weight of a hothouse tomato used to be a fossil fuel. And out here in the atmosphere with all that fossil fuel injecting CO2, our food chain surely contains carbon derived from fossil fuels. Part of your body weight used to be oil. 

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand

Reference: The WAIS is melting

Recently global warming scientists have renewed their old story with new vigor that carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels is causing the West Antarctic Ice Sheet to melt and that its complete melting will raise sea levels by seven meters unless we do something about greenhouse gas emissions (Maybe it's time to heed the warnings, Bangkok Post, February 8, 2009). These reports omit the effect of sub-glacial volcanic activity in a highly localized phenomenon that is absent from the bulk of Antarctica. A reference to the under-ice volcanic activity may be found at the Science Daily website at http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080120160720.htm. It includes the following statement: "The subglacial volcano has a 'volcanic explosion index' of around 3-4. Heat from the volcano creates melt-water that lubricates the base of the ice sheet and increases the flow towards the sea. Pine Island Glacier on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is showing rapid change and BAS scientists are part of an international research effort to understand this change."

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand

Reference: Maybe it's time to heed the warnings, Bangkok Post, February 8, 2009

A Bangkok Post editorial says that if the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) were to melt in its entirety, the sea level would rise by seven meters and cause a great inundation of Biblical proportions (Maybe it's time to heed the warnings, Bangkok Post, February 8, 2009). The statement is a hypothetical truism. The relevant information has not been provided. We don't know if the WAIS will melt and if so how long that process would take and we don't know whether our selection of energy source would make a difference. The further claim that climate change will turn California into a desert by reducing snowfall in the Sierra Nevada takes no measure of the role of the Colorado River in irrigating what used to be a desert into an agriculturally productive area or of recent trends in snowfall in the Sierra. My guess is that the real purpose of these allegedly scientific reports is to serve a marketing function ahead of the Copenhagen meeting that will likely decide the fate of the global warming agenda and its financial benefits to the scientists engaged therein.

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand

Reference: Three factors for good putt, Bangkok Post, February 8, 2009

The time that the average Thai golfer takes these days to line up a putt is absurd. I imagine that this practice derives from a desire to imitate Tiger Woods (Three factors for good putt, Bangkok Post, February 8, 2009). That in itself is fine and good; but something must be done about the extreme slowness of play that it encourages. 

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand

Reference: India already hit by rising temperatures, Bangkok Post, February 3, 2007

It had been reported for some time right up until 2007 that carbon dioxide emission from the use of fossil fuels is melting so much ice and causing so much thermal expansion of the oceans that the consequent rise in the sea level has inundated 2 out of 104 islands in the Sunderbans mangrove forests that straddle India and Bangladesh (India already hit by rising temperatures, Bangkok Post, February 3, 2007). These reports have now ceased. The Sunderbans form the delta of three giant rivers - the Ganges, the Meghna, and the Brahmaputra - and although there is river erosion that destroys existing islands, in the net, the millions of tons of silt end up making more islands than erosion takes away. The delta is not a static thing but ever changing and  always growing by virtue of the amount of silt the rivers bring and deposit in the delta. That two out of 104 islands were taken by the rivers is not an unusual occurrence and in the net since then there are more islands in the delta than there were when the IPCC issued the alarm that global warming was flooding the delta. 

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand

Reference: India already hit by rising temperatures, Bangkok Post, February 3, 2007

For about two years from 2005 to 2007 the IPCC and its entourage of global warmists raised a hue and cry saying that carbon dioxide from fossil fuels was causing the Gangotri glacier in the Himalayan mountains to melt and retreat at an accelerating rate (India already hit by rising temperatures, Bangkok Post, February 3, 2007). The rate of retreat in 2001 was estimated to be 34 meters/year compared with 19 meters/year in 1971. This rate of acceleration was projected forward and we were told that catastrophe and devastation were only a decade away for hundreds of millions of people who depend on rivers fed by the glacier and that the retreat of the Gangotri was a clarion call for their cause.

This clarion has now gone silent possibly because the rate of retreat did not accelerate but slowed to 12 meters/year in 2006 and by 2008 it had stopped altogether. No reason was given for such a big difference between forecast and reality. Instead, the Gangotri glacier, once the darling of the IPCC, was simply forgotten and the global warmists went elsewhere to fish for data that would support their cause.

In the period since data collection began, most of the recorded retreat occurred between 1780 and 1933 well before atmospheric carbon dioxide began to rise.

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand

A letter to President Obama

Mister President

Global warming is a scam. A correlation between x and y in historical survey data does not establish causality because it could mean that x causes y or that y causes x or that a third unobserved variable causes both x and y or even that the correlation is spurious and it does not contain any causality information whatsoever. Causality may only be inferred from controlled laboratory experiments and there has been none. Please don't let the global warming junk science derail your economic stimulus plan. Please take a good unhyped unhysterical cold logic look with that well-wired brain of yours at what the global warming people are saying. It will not make sense. What's worse, they are actually cheering on the economic meltdown because it will lower greenhouse gas emissions. These people are the enemy of your economic revival plan. Please do not trust people who are happy about recession to help you in your efforts to revive the stalled economy.

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand

Reference: Stoking the fear factor in India, Bangkok Post, February 1, 2009

To defend Islamic extremism and terrorism by pointing fingers at Hindu and Sikh extremists is communal bigotry at its worst (Stoking the fear factor in India, Bangkok Post, February 1, 2009). Nothing positive can be achieved for Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, for India, or for humanity at large by this kind of narrow minded communalism. Let the Hindus clean their house. Muslims must clean theirs.

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand

Reference: Global warming hitting all of Antarctica, Bangkok Post, January 23, 2009

It is claimed that temperature data from 1957 to 2008 show that the whole of Antarctica including Western Antarctica, the Antarctic Peninsula, and Eastern Antarctica, is warming due to greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels (Global warming hitting all of Antarctica, Bangkok Post, January 23, 2009). Temperature data from weather stations in Antarctica are available online from the British Antarctic Survey website (http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/met/gjma/). These data cover the entire time frame of interest from 1957 to 2008. The Antarctic Peninsula stations (eg. Faraday and Esperanza) do indeed show a warming trend but the eastern and central weather stations (eg. Amundsen-Scott, Halley, Mirny, and Dumont) show either no temperature trend at all or a slight cooling trend. These data are inconsistent with the claim that Eastern Antarctica, the bulk of the continent, is warming. We should also consider that known volcanic activity underneath the ice in Western Antarctica (The fire below, Bangkok Post, April 28, 2008) at the base of the Peninsula is absent in the global warming climate model so that whatever warming or melting the volcanoes may cause is attributed to greenhouse gases. The article also refers to the ozone hole over Antarctica and we note in that regard that the size of the ozone hole turns out to be not an effect of human activity but part of a natural cyclical phenomenon caused by shifting wind patterns in the upper atmosphere. It is likely that the loss of the ozone scare is what has driven the same scientists who once made a living by scaring us with ozone to shift their attention to carbon dioxide.

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand

Reference: Thai firms not ready for climate change, Bangkok Post, January 22, 2009

It is reported that "Southeast Asia is facing problems from rising sea levels that bring more frequent flooding in coastal zones and river basins" (Thai firms not ready for climate change, Bangkok Post, January 22, 2009). It is noteworthy that none of these flooding events has been reported in the media. It should also be noted that there are several sea level measuring stations in the area that are monitorned by the University of Hawaii sea level center and these data are freely available online. I have examined these data in a time series from 1996 to 2008 and i have not found any trend in the data. Interested parties may evaluate the data for themselves. They may be found at http://uhslc.soest.hawaii.edu/.

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand

Reference: Take a deep breath, Bangkok Post, January 22, 2009

On the eve of the Chinese year of the Ox, Feng Shui masters have predicted that the coming year will be calm, feminine, and peaceful and that the stock market will stay put for a while but will rise in the long run (Take a deep breath, Bangkok Post, January 22, 2009). All this is based on the absurd idea that the universe is made up of five elements, namely, fire, earth, water, wood, and metal and that the Chinese lunar year, though a flawed timekeeping device, is an meaningful period for fortune telling.

On January 19, 2008, Feng Shui masters had predicted a global shortage of potable water leading to a sudden rise in the price of bottled water. It didn't happen. At the same time the masters failed to get any inkling of the huge rise and fall in the price of oil, a global economic collapse of historic proportions, or of the dramatic changes in U.S. politics. We also note that the year of the Rat was supposed to give us abnormally high frequencies of earthquakes, extreme weather events, and "tall building disasters" and a huge and unusual discovery of diamond deposits. All of these predictions turned out to be wrong. What keeps these masters in business is that we tend to forget their miscues particularly those of omission, and remember only their rare freak hits.

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand

Reference: Islamic party calls for ban on sexy pop star Rihanna, Bangkok Post, January 22, 2009

Rihanna's crime is that her dress shows some skin on her upper torso mostly arms and shoulders, and yet, like Beyonce, Stefani, and Lavigne before her, the Malaysian Islamic authorities wish to stop her scheduled performance in KL in order to protect the morals of Malaysian Muslims (Islamic party calls for ban on sexy pop star Rihanna, Bangkok Post, January 22, 2009). Sheltering Muslims from enterntainers like Rihanna is only a short term solution and one that will have to be applied time and again for ever until they come up with a structural solution to the underlying problem. That problem lies not with the way performers dress but with the quality of faith and moral values inculcated in the Muslims of Malaysia. Adult Christians, Jews, Buddhists, and Hindus are able to watch these shows and still carry their faith and morals in their heart. Adult Malaysian Muslims should endeavour to build the same strength of faith in their belief system so that they are not so easily beguiled. 

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand

Reference: Rudd's APC proposal does not belittle Asean, Postbag, January 21, 2009

It may be true that it is not the intent of the Asia Pacific Community proposal to belittle Asean (Rudd's APC proposal does not belittle Asean, Postbag, January 21, 2009), but there is no doubt that should a powerful new Asian community of rich nations arise that sidelines Asean it will make Asean even less relevant than it is today. The APC, does pose a threat to Asean even if it is unintentional. Australia has apparently overlooked its closest Asian neighbors when it chose to identify more closely with Asia; possibly because the inclusion of Burma makes Asean too toxic to handle.

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand

Reference: Note from the editor, September 1, 2008

In September 2008 the Bangkok Post raised its price citing rising newspirnt costs (Note from the editor, September 1, 2008). Now that newsprint prices are falling precipitously, should we expect a corresponding reduction in the price of the Post? 

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand

Reference: Coastline lost to rising seas, Bangkok Post, January 19, 2009

It is reported that an increase in coastal erosion observed this year in Phuket, Thailand, is due to rising sea levels caused by man made global warming (Coastline lost to rising seas, Bangkok Post, January 19, 2009). Phuket is on the Andaman side of the isthmus of Thailand. Nearby is the Koh Tapao sea level measuring station monitored by the University of Hawaii sea level database. The time series of these data from 1996 to 2008 do not show any trend. The oft repeated claim that the sea level is rising along Thailand's coastlines is not supported by the data. 

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand

Reference: More rain speeding up glacier melt, Bangkok Post, January 17, 2009

The continued attempt by global warming alarmists to blame carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels for the accelerated flow of certain West Antarctic glaciers (More rain speeding up glacier melt, Bangkok Post, January 17, 2009) does not take into account the effect of active volcanoes under the ice (The fire below, Bangkok Post, April 28, 2008). Localized events may not be attributed to allegedly global phenomena.

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand

Reference: Impressions of a Swiss nuclear power plant, Bangkok Post, January 17, 2009

While nuclear power may well have a place in Thailand's energy portfolio, the claim by the Ministry of Energy that the safety of nuclear power generation is assured because the Swiss have them and that if it is good enough for the educated and wealthy Swiss it is certainly good enough for Thais (Impressions of a Swiss nuclear power plant, Bangkok Post, January 17, 2009) is an ad hominem argument and an insult to the Thai people who are certainly intelligent and educated enough to evaluate the safety and utility of nuclear energy by themselves in the context of their own unique energy supply, demand, policy, and long term goals.

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand

Reference: "2009 will be one of the five warmest years on record"

Their predictions for 2007 and 2008 having fared badly, the IPCC has now turned its attention to forecasts for 2009 to get some breathing room for new research funding at the Copenhagen meeting. For the record the mean surface temperature of the earth in 2008 was 14.54C, the lowest annual mean since the year 2000. The drop in temperature from 2007 to 2008 was 0.22 Centigrade degrees, a very significant difference, but it has been dismissed the global warmists probably because the change did not occur in the direction in which they needed it to happen. These prople are not sincere and unbiased scientists but people with an agenda and a bias for which they seek legitimacy and funding by scaring us and that is why the scare factor is more important than science in their global warming program.

Ch-am Jamal

Thailand

Reference: Greenland meltoff not so fast, Bangkok Post, January 13, 2009

Over the last two or three years we have been told over and over again that man made global warming was causing Greenland's glaciers to melt at an alarming rate and that by the year 2100 all the ice there will have melted causing a calamitous rise in the sea level that will inundate Bangladesh, the Maldives, Bangkok, New Orleans, and atolls in the Pacific (Worrisome cracks in ice, Bangkok Post, October 1, 2008). Now it appears that the extralpolation of a couple of years of data as a trend that will continue for a hundred years was scientific nonsense (Greenland meltoff not so fast, Bangkok Post, January 13, 2009) and that the accelerated glacier calving that had so alarmed the global warming people is just a localized and temporary phenomenon that cannot persist. That raises a troubling question. Are the global warming people bad scientists trying to do good or good scientists trying to do bad?

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand

Reference: German geneticists concemn Nazi-era medical abuses, Bangkok Post, July 16, 2008

In the 1930s, scientists armed with the theory of evolution, set out to micromanage nature and thereby  to produce a superior race of humans by making sure that those with undesirable traits do not reproduce. Hindsight has allowed us to see the evils of eugenics (German geneticists concemn Nazi-era medical abuses, Bangkok Post, July 16, 2008) but we have still to learn that we are not the stewards of nature and that scientists are not always right. The hysterical "scientific" movement against carbon dioxide emissions gains legitimacy and support because we have forgotten that scientists can go berserk and cause more harm than good. History will judge the economic and environmental harm caused by the global warming movement as harshly as we now judge eugenics as its ill effects become increasingly apparent (Crime against humanity, Bangkok Post, July 12, 2008; Orangutans may be first great apes to die out, Bangkok Post, April 6, 2008). 

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand

Reference: Climate change forces skiers uphill, Bangkok Post, January 7, 2009

An article on climate change claims that 25 to 50 years from now global warming will have a measurable impact on ski slopes by melting snow at lower altitudes and forcing skiers to move uphill (Climate change forces skiers uphill, Bangkok Post, January 7, 2009). The article demonstrates a subtle shift in the tactics being employed by global warming scaremongers. First they have moved away from the idea that it is already happening and retreated to forecasts with a sufficiently long time horizon so that they cannot be proven wrong in their lifetime. Secondly, while we weren't looking, they changed their language from "global warming" to "climate change" as if to hedge their bet just in case things go the other way.

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand

Reference: Condemned to single-sex life by climate change, Bangkok Post, January 7, 2009

The article on the tuatara (Condemned to single-sex life by climate change, Bangkok Post, January 7, 2009) is one of a slew of articles that subscribe to the thesis that climate change threatens biodiversity because it will reduce the number of species by causing some of them to become extinct. Yet, if one looks at the geological history of the planet, one fnds that in every prior episode of climate change, there has been, not a reduction, but a veritable explosion in the number of species. In fact, these explosions have forced biologists to revise the theory of evolution to include the idea that most of our biodiversity did not happen at random but at times of environmental stress that forced life to adapt to change.

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand

Reference: City governor candidates to improve night club safety, Bangkok Post, January 4, 2009

Other than the insanity of indoor fireworks, the major contributng factors in the Santika pub tragedy on New Year's Day incldued (1) an overcrowded indoor public gathering; and absent or inadequate (2) smoke alarm and sprinkler systems (3) emergency procedures (4) emergency exits and (5) access for emergency vehicles. It is also reported that (6) there was only one way out of the building (The big issue: only one way out, Bangkok Post, January 4, 2009). The fact that this particular public gathering happened to be in a pub is not one of the contributing factors that led to the tragedy and yet the response of the authorities has focussed completely on night clubs as if the the tragedy would not have occurred had function of the Santika venue been something else (City governor candidates to improve night club safety, Bangkok Post, January 4, 2009). All public places where these six factors could occur should be examined and audited for safety, not just night clubs. We spent our New Year's Eve in a wat with a thousand other devotees in a facility that was designed for no more than five or six hundred. There was only one way out. There were no emergency exits nor any emergency procedures or drills. There were no smoke alarms and no sprinkler systems. There was inadequate access for emergency vehicles as the wat was at the dead end of a narrow soi with hundreds of cars and food vendors parked willy nilly and enormous crowds shoulder to shoulder an chest to back moving about trying to queue up for food. Had there been any emergency situation at all it would have been a much bigger tragedy than the Santika event. To focus on night clubs as the safety issue would be a tragic mistake. 

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand

Reference: Gaza strikes remind foes Israel has teeth, Bangkok Post, January 2, 2009

An oped piece from the New York Times (Gaza strikes remind foes Israel has teeth, Bangkok Post, January 2, 2009) represents Israel's failed invasion of Lebanon in 2006 as an inconclusive stalemate that alowed the Hizbollah to win "a great deal of credit among Arabs". In fact it won more than that. It won the war and humiliated the Israeli military whose fabled intelligence services grossly understimated the number and effectiveness of Hizbollah's rocket and anti-tank aresenal and their ability to engage in a protracted guerilla war in the face of overwheming force. If that were not so it would not be necessary now for the Labour Party, ahead of the upcoming elections in February of 2009, to put on a shock and awe display in the Gaza as a way of re-establishing Israeli military might.

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand

Why so many older Thais celebrate their birthday on January 1

In the old days in Thailand, before they issued certificates of live birth at birth, the date of birth was first recorded when the child went to school or required a government document of some kind. At that point the parents were asked to declare a date of birth and, as was usual, if the parents could not remember the exact date, they were asked to simply declare the birth year and the birth date was then recorded as January 1 of that year. That is why so many older Thais celebrate their birthday on New Year's Day. Only now you know-ho the wrrest of the story.

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand

Reference: Stunning victory for the Awami League in Bangladesh elections

The two main parties vying for control of parliament in the elections held in Bangladesh on December 29, 2008, are the BNP and the Awami League. Early returns show an unexpectedly huge margin of victory for the Awami League. To grasp the measure and meaning of this lopsided result one has to consider that BNP's primary ally in the elections was the Jamaat-e-Islami Party of Bangladesh, an organization whose stated mission is to establish Islamic Sharia law. Jamaat-e-Islami's sister party in Pakistan, also called Jamaat-e-Islami has ties to Lashakar-e-Taiba, the Islamic organization with alleged links to the terrorist events in Mumbai. These events in November 2008 have raised the specter of yet another war between India and Pakistan and generated unprecedented geopolitical tensions in South Asia. The Bangladesh elections follows in the heels of these events and the results are best understood in this context. The crushing defeat of the BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami alliance is a clear rejection of Islamic extremism by the Bangladeshis.

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand

Reference: Pakistan groups banned but not bowed, Asia Times Online, December 18, 2008

In "Pakistan groups banned but not bowed" you write "At the same time, on the 37th anniversary on the fall of Dhaka and the split of Pakistan that led to the creation of Bangladesh in 1971, the media played up Indian intelligence's proxy operations and the attack of the Indian armed forces that resulted in the separation of East Pakistan." Please note that the "attack of the Indian armed forces" was a response of an attack by the Pakistan air force in the western front. The 1971 war started in the west and moved to the east. The war resulted in a comprehensive and humiliating defeat of a Pakistani miliatary apparatus that was thought to have been one of the world's best by Pakistani citizens. The scary part of the post Mumbai reaction is that we are seeing the same kind of bravado among Pakistanis once again. We are getting scarily close to a war scenario posted by a youtuber named Rakesh in October 3 of 2008. Here is the link to that video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=er9_eM9_8Do

Rakesh's real fear is that terrorists may seize control of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. 

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand

Reference: Fear of a storm surge in Samut Prakarn, Bangkok Post, August 27, 2008

It was reported several times earlier this year that a noted weatherman had predicted that a tropical cyclone the likes of Cyclone Nargis was likely to cause a devastating storm surge along Samut Prakarn and Bangkok sometime during October of 2008 and that global warming was to blame (Fear of a storm surge in Samut Prakarn, Bangkok Post, August 27, 2008). October 2008 and the cyclone season has come and gone since that prediction without even a cyclone let alone a storm surge in the Gulf of Thailand. The credibility of the expert and the gullibility of the media were derived from the claim that this particular weatherman had correctly predicted the 2004 tsunami with otherwise intelligent and diligent newsreporters failing to note that tsunamis are not weather events but geological events and that geologists have yet to claim that earthquakes are predictable. The media are being taken for a ride by global warming scaremongers. 

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand

Reference: Poznan only marking time, Bangkok Post, December 18, 2008

According to the newspaper you can trust, the volume of sea ice in the Arctic basin "fell to its lowest recorded level to date" this year and that reduced ice coverage is causing a non-linear acceleration in the loss of polar ice because there is less ice to reflect sunlight (Poznan only marking time, Bangkok Post, December 18, 2008). This scenario was sold to us in October of 2007 when the summer melt in the Arctic basin was more extensive than normal. Their theory predicted that due to the loss of sunlight reflection by ice, the Arctic ice extent would not fully recover in the winter of 2007-2008 and that the summer melt in  2008 would be greater yet and the ice formation in the winter of 2008-2009 lesser yet and so on and so forth until the artic basin becomes completely ice free. They said that the Arctic was the "canary of global warming" meaning that what happens in the Arctic is a harbinger of what awaits the rest of the world. It's all very scary except for the data. The ice extent in the Arctic basin fully recovered to well above 4 million square km that is considered "normal" for that time of year by December of 2007; and even worse for the scaremongers, the summer melt in 2008 was less than that in 2007, not more; and today in December of 2008 we find that the Arctic ice extent is back above 4 million square km. The Arctic ice melt scenario reported in the Bangkok Post editorial was postulated in the fall of 2007 and today, about 15 months later, we find no evidence to support it and if anything the data seem to be pointing in the other direction. I have attached the data for your reference. They were downloaded from the University of Illinois website.

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand

Reference: Govt has populist agenda, Bangkok Post, December 17, 2008

It is reported that populist policies of the new government in Thailand are "aimed at helping grassroots people in rural areas" (Govt has populist agenda, Bangkok Post, December 17, 2008). What are "grassroots people"? Are some Thais grassroots and others not? How does one make this distinction? And what criteria will the government use to decide whom to help and whom not to help? 

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand

Reference: Hua Hin villages declared disaster zone, Bangkok Post, December 15, 2008

It is reported that certain mountain villages near Hua Hin have been declared a disaster zone because of extremely cold weather with temperatures as low as 10C (Hua Hin villages declared disaster zone, Bangkok Post, December 15, 2008). It was only a year ago that Thai scientists had said that temperatures lower than 15C in Thailand was a thing of the past because of global warming caused by our use of fossil fuels (Rise in average temperatures seen, Bangkok Post, November 3, 2007).  

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand

Reference: Greenhouse gas talks falter, Bangkok Post, December 11, 2008

It is not likely that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is "the world's most respected scientific agency" (Greenhouse gas talks falter, Bangkok Post, December 11, 2008). In spite of its best efforts, it has failed time and again and now in Poznan as well to convince the world that its scaremongering scenarios are credible. All of its scientific predictions and climate relationships that could be empirically tested have proven false. They are left with nothing more than climate devastation that "could" occur a hundred years from now under certain unsubstantiated hypothetical conditions. The proof of their credibility is in the pudding. The IPCC has now failed three times, in conferences they convened, to convince the world that the Kyoto Protocol should be extended beyond 2012. They have completely run out of empirical support for their position and are now running entirely on inertia. They will likely survive one more year until the meeting in Copenhagen in 2009 unless common sense prevails and they are disbanded sooner. 

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand

Reference: Climate change is quickening, Bangkok Post, December 1, 2008

More than 10,000 delegates are attending a meeting in Poland of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) from December 1 to the 12th. During this period we can expect a flurry of scary press releases saying that human activity is causing the earth to become warmer and that global warming will soon be out of control and that there will be devastating consequences (Climate change is quickening, Bangkok Post, December 1, 2008). If one reads these press releases carefully one will find that they consist entirely of hypothetical statements that state that if event X occurs then a devastation Y is likely to follow. They are limited to hypothetical data because the real data do not support their thesis. The earth is cooling not warming and arctic sea ice has fully recovered from its summer melt and shows no sign of ratcheting downwards as they had hoped it would to prove their point that the arctic is the canary of climate change. The great gathering of global warming scaremongers comes at a very inconvenient time for them because the data have not cooperated with them at all and the global economy is so devastated that the competition for research dollars is fiercer than ever.

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand