NSA – Balancing the Risk

The NSA has been tracking details of every phone call and email by every American for years.   I have no doubt that this is the case.  Yes, this is in violation of the fourth amendment which states:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

I know people rightfully blame both parties, although we should remember which one is in power when the “loophole” in the patriot act was taken advantage of.  There are still differences worth noting between political views.  However, despite the future blame-game the loophole isn’t specific to the patriot act and it wasn’t even really created by the patriot act.  The actual loophole is that a secret court can approve things by any convenient interpretation of nearly every applicable law is able to provide a legal basis for whatever goal a political party in power has in mind.  When you give your power away to governments, elected or not, you are guaranteed to get corruption.  People want … period.  Whether that corrupts their decisions is up to them and no “party” or person is immune.

This not-really-secret court is designed to approve search warrants by the federal government.  It operates without public review, and the approval of a warrant requires little effort for the truly overworked federal judges.  When a ruling for a search warrant is rejected, a reason must be given by the first judge which requires a lot of work.  Rejected applications then pass up the chain for review again by a panel of judges.  So the federal agents who apply, get two chances to have their motion approved.  Interestingly, the article claims that no request for a search warrant has been denied since 2002.

Basically, America has set up a false secret court, outside of the purview of even the powerful leftist media, for the explicit purpose of approving search warrants at a maximal rate.  Recently it was discovered, that the tired federal agents found their own loophole (judge) and simply issued blanket search warrants for the entire American republic.  The whole damned thing.

Why not?  It’s legal after all.  At least it is according to a certain political view and it saves money and time over the constant individual warrant approvals.

Despite Real Climate hopes, global warming politics are a symptom of the problem, not the center.  These two events have one similarity, layer after layer of expense based on exaggeration and unproven accusation.  It is flatly obvious now that giving others control over every detail your lives will result in an existence under the sole of their shoe.   It is a mathematical problem weighted against the individual and for the collective.

But there is a problem with all of my thoughts above that is worth some consideration.  I believe that this phone-search is likely one of the most effective anti-terrorist programs in the federal government.   Do you ever wonder how they find out about some of these weird bomb-plots or terrorists?   Like the FBI somehow hangs out with 100% of the bad guys to find the newly converted ones?  Basically, I believe with only tangential evidence that the programs for monitoring existed prior to the bulk warrant.   It just took more work then and the collected info wasn’t admissible in court.  How hard is it for our government to tap major land based phone lines.

This program clearly means that we have essentially become a herd of humans being hunted by NSA, FBI, CIA for the outliers.   They claim that they are only hunting the truly dangerous people today but does anyone know whether the FOX reporters phone conversations have been used to out anti-leftist informants? How about those who know or reveal the truth about Benghazi or fast and furious. If the IRS abused its power, why wouldn’t a far more secretive NSA group do the same?  Nobody is policing the police so it is unlikely that their powers aren’t regularly being abused.

Still, despite the obvious situation, gathering all phone records is a substantial component of our anti-terror defense.  Patterns in calls and emails reveal international connections, pending dangers and coordination between anti-US groups.  At the same time, we would be naive to assume that the information would not be used against the innocent for political purposes.   One thing is for certain, the United States Government is more powerful and more corrupt than any time in history.

In the balance, allowing this kind of power in their hands is more than a little foolish.  Not that being a fool ever stopped anyone from charging ahead.  As always, it isn’t up to me which way policy goes, but were it up to me, I would endeavor to create a more difficult and transparent warrant system which only allowed warrants for specific threats.   This would leave us more open to attacks by terrorists but the silent destruction of individuals lives has already been practiced by this government on a large scale for purely political purposes.  I believe the balance is worth the additional risk.

My Apologies to Readers

I have really let this blog go to pieces.

I will post useful stuff in the future but allowing Mr Cotton to take it over again was a mistake. It seemed reasonable to allow him to write, because the topic was PSI.   It won’t happen again, even though I am starting to think a serious discussion on back radiation is necessary because people are very confused on the matter.   Other PSI members will always be allowed to comment in the future, any time they wish, but they will be treated with an open mike reply as we all are.

Is it is my blog so I will highlight one more ridiculous Doug comment for which he will not be allowed to reply.  He will attempt to, and his answers will be deleted when I have time, so don’t bother discussion with him here in the future months.

No it won’t be pretty and it is my fault for making this happen – my apologies.

(a) How the microwave radiation appears to pass through the opaque plastic bowl, not in a straight line like normal transmission, and not having its energy converted to thermal energy, and yet coming out the other side (in random directions) but with the same frequency.

For Fuck’s sake Doug, plastic is nearly perfectly transparent to household microwaves. [self snip]

Go away. I will delete your comments later.

New posts tomorrow, sorry again folks.  I will be avoiding the blog so there will be a short time delay between deletions.

PSI – Theory Destroyed

So PSI completely surrendered discussion of a highly emotional topic like…. thermodynamics after only a few days.   It turns out that photons emitted from a cold body which then strike a warmer one, are the Kryptonite of the organization.   A group so cocksure of itself that it would throw out an entire field of science based on its own superior scientific integrity and self-described intellect.   Yet on all counts, they have failed to address any of the serious questions asked of their theory.

In  the end, a simple question, a single one unanswerable by this group of people who have been so condescending, so self righteous,  that they make Real Climate look humble and welcoming.

We have spent years listening to odd proclamations about the second law of thermodynamics.  We have endured the extreme rhetoric against climate science.   We have heard the absolute certainty of true zeal in their comments.  PSI “science” is so distorted that many readers wonder why I would engage them at all. More faith than math in my opinon.

Why give them the credibility of  a discussion here?

Because they have asked for an audience of science.   A peer review of their work.  Quite literally, I have been repeatedly asked to review their papers.  Instead of a single paper, they got a little more than they bargained for.   A chance to explain themselves, yet the group failed to understand the implications of the questions being asked here.   That failure alone is enough to dismiss any further work on their part, yet they also failed to answer any simple questions of thermodynamics.

One last chance?   Sure why not.    Let’s make sure this backradiation duck is completely dead…

Lets say we have two perfect blackbodies, one at 100K, another at 200K. What happens to a single photon emitted by the cold body that strikes the warm one?

Rest in peace…

 

 

Problematic Science Incorporated

Holy crap.  I have realized it isn’t practical to do a half of a blog.  Did you know that the Internet is full of crazy people.   I’ve heard rumors, read other blogs, often commented on the generally high quality of tAV readers but when I don’t blog on science for months, guess what happens.

Wierd stuff.

Anti-science stuff as far as the eye can see! So many people with a crazy, poorly understood concept of science on the planet seems to fill in the crevices of conversation.  Enough to thoroughly upset my understanding of reality.    Everyone who thinks they have solved a new form of backradiation, new thermodynamics, black body radiation, global warming or whatever asinine concept in the world seems to have a crazy opinion.   Not one lick of common sense to regulate the mess.   F-ing frustrating.

Then there is Joe Postuma, PSI “super-genius”,

who left a link explaining his new theory of zero backradiation locked up in a pile of chapter 1 thermodynamics equations. Joe has solved the problem!  As I have found typical of the PSI crowd, he is unable to explain his physics using “English” or other earth language and many are confused.

As a fellow human who lacks a universal translator yet can handle basic math, let me help explain Josephs post.  In science, certain variables are defined as dependent and others are independent.  It is a simple concept which means that some variables are representations of physical processes driven by others.   Often, you find the dependent letters on the left side of the equals sign.  Joe gets a little carried away with the concept and decides that the form of the math in his first equation dictates which variables are which, and forgets to consider the physics to see if he is correct.  Lo and behold!!,  many Internet morons on his thread agree.  —– Shocking, I know.  Thus Joe decides that the “independent” Earth temperatures dictate the “dependent” power received from the sun.  I know it is unusual but we humble observers are the idiots (or worse — undergrads) who need to open our minds!!

Vigorous rants ensue!  Global warming is proven wrong again, even though there is no evidence in the post supporting or rejecting AGW presented.

It is frustrating because I left 4 questions.  Four simple questions on the last thread for the entire PSI group and only one person attempted an answer.  Joe.

In answering, he combined my questions, failing to note that they asked for explanation of the differentiation between PSI and standard physics.  It isn’t his fault though because, as we have recently uncovered, PSI cannot tell the difference between their own theory and standard physics.

I am only partially surprised by that but that is because I have read some of their work.  Below are my four original questions from the last post.  Note that groups (1 and 3) and (2 and 4) request differentiation.  Do you wonder why I did that?

1 Define and describe the probability characteristics of Second Law of Thermodynamics as interpreted in classical physics using your own words.   Demonstrable understanding of the standard version of the second law is important so that we have common ground.

2 Describe standard physics interpretation of radiation absorption from a cold to hot body.

3 Describe the PSI interpretation of the Second law highlighting differences in energy transfer from the standard interpretations.

4 Describe the PSI interpretation of what happens to radiation from a cold to hot body, with focus on temperatures.

Joe’s, being the only PSI representative capable of attempting answers provided:

1) & 3) are related, so: A closed system tends to a state of maximum entropy. Basically this means that all energy density differentials disappear and the system becomes totally useless, unable to perform any work within itself. Energy spontaneously transfers from low probability to high probability states. Low probability is high density (hot), high probability is low density (cool). This will manifest as spontaneous heat flow from hot to cold. There is no PSI difference from the traditional laws.

2) & 4) are related: Cold radiation does not heat up hot bodies as this would be a violation of the laws of thermo as discussed. It is the hot body which transfers heat to the cold and causes the cold temperature to increase. The presence of a cold body does not mean that a hot body has to warm up – the cold body just warms up until the same energy states are shared by both the cold and hot bodies, and then energy is available to transfer to other things on the far side of the cold body if some condition exists there. The PSI position is the traditional one, whereas we routinely see GHE advocates argue that radiation from a cold body has to heat up a hotter body, or, that the cold body can heat the hot body as long as the “majority net” heating is from hot to cold, which is of course sophistry, but it sounds good. Energy can be shared both ways between hot and cold, but the cold does not cause or require the hot to become hotter – the cold is simply heated by the hot.

Regarding 1 & 3 from Joe’s answers above,  excepting the indecipherable probability statements, there isn’t much to take home from it.  Apparently PSI does recognize the second law of thermodynamics it even seems to realize the second law is a bulk property although the description left me confused.  Regarding 2 & 4 though,  it has more errors discontinuities than a first grade calculus exam.   It is impossible to begin except that Joe claims radiation from a cold body doesn’t “heat up” or in other words, it doesn’t “add heat energy” to the hot body.  Which leaves one wondering, just what the hell happened to those photons of energy?

Being a naturally curious person, I asked:

Lets say we have two perfect blackbodies, one at 100K, another at 200K. What happens to a single photon emitted by the cold body that strikes the warm one?

This seems a innocuous question, one which would deserve an answer, especially from individuals purporting to understand thermodynamics better than everyone else.  Basically, I got this for an answer, along with a bunch of silliness:

“It is the macroscopic behaviour where heat flow is observed in net, and no heating occurs from cold to hot. Cold doesn’t heat hot up in aggregate or in partiality at all.“

It is a surprising answer which seems to be supported by others in the group.

And heat energy associated with the photon’s journey can only move from warm to cold (from the higher excitation state to the lower excitation state); just as water in a river only flows downhill – there is no backward journey (eg no back radiation heating).

Really!? I ask with incredulity.   Just what happened to the effing photons then (Joe or anyone else at PSI)?   Where the hell did they go?  Wormholes, reflection, tri-synchronous absorption, WHAT!???

Stupid individual photons anyway but did they reflect, reverberate, re-incarnate, recirculate, reciprocate or simply retarderate?  Since asking the obvious question about what happened to the energy in our universe, I have been told:

Discussing individual quantum events is beside the point of the 2nd Law

Jeff, surely you would agree that energy is not the same thing as heat

When photons enter a body they will not add heat if the receiver is warmer than the emitter.

The photons do generate light, which we can see, but there is not necessary any added heat.

Besides, Postma already did give the answer when he said heat flow is proportional to a temperature differential – this still doesn’t mean that photons from the cold source cause heating, it means the two objects find equilibrium, but the cold object does not heat the hotter object. What the photons from the cold source are doing is expressed in this equation: Q = s*(Th^4 – Tc^4). This does not mean that the cold source raises the temperature of the hot source.

They want us to believe gases respond to the heat radiated by the Earth’s surface and send that energy back, which makes the surface warmer.

For some strange reason you seem to want to focus on a SINGLE photon from cold to hot – when this still isn’t even what the laws of thermo are because the laws are about the whole behaviour of a large ensemble of trillions of trillions of entities and interactions etc.

Thus far not one PSI individual can answer my question.  NOBODY with wits enough to answer what any reasonably studied student of standard physics can.    So I tease on, waiting for the group to rise to the challenge, hoping for a reasoned answer to my questions.

In the meantime, the same guys who cannot provide the answer to a simple question are generating complex finite element climate models which assume the result before calculating it.   Sound familiar?