By Jo Nova

Like rats jumping on to a burning ship, the Australian Labor Govt picks the worst possible moment

Today the Australian Senate will consider whether to put the Labor MAD Misinformation bill into law, which will give government bureaucrats at ACMA the right to use draconian fines on  “digital communications platform” (blogs with comments) and Social Media that publish opinions the high priest bureaucrats don’t like. And they are rushing it through so they can shut down or scare off critics before the next election. They only need to win over three more Senators out of six independent ones. They should all be aware of how corrupt and stupid this will look.  See details below on which Senators to write to.

Trump takes a warhammer to the censorship cartel

Things were so bad in the US, the left-wing-corporate-deep-state cartel even shut down the US President’s Twitter account. The First Amendment was vaporized. Government officials had told Twitter and Facebook to censor political opinions they didn’t like. Since the FBI-CIA-State-Department have the money, the spies, the army and the assassins, the tech giants complied. The social media corporations also needed the government legal immunity of Section 230, which protects them from liability. Like a post office delivering poison letters — the Tech Giants couldn’t be blamed for what people posted. But Post Offices are supposed to deliver every letter, and the Tech Giants were allowed to read the mail and toss out what they didn’t like. Imagine if US Post decided just to lose Conservative letters, and not even tell them? That’s what shadowbanning is.

And thus and verily, a horrible trillion-dollar-monster was welded together, and this response below, wow.

What a blockbuster speech:

Thanks to @SpartaJustice for the transcript:

ENDING THE CENSORSHIP CARTEL: If we don’t have Free Speech, then we just don’t have a Free Country. It’s as simple as that. If this most fundamental right is allowed to perish, then the rest of our rights and liberties will topple just like dominos one by one. They’ll go down.

Trump will cut off the money flow to government agents to censor Americans.

FIRST, within hours of my inauguration, I will sign an executive order banning any federal department or agency from colluding with any organization, business, or person, to censor, limit, categorize, or impede the lawful speech of American citizens. I will then ban federal money from being used to label domestic speech as “mis-” or “dis-information”.

Then he will sack anyone involved in domestic censorship:

And I will begin the process of identifying and firing every federal bureaucrat who has engaged in domestic censorship, directly or indirectly, whether they are the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Health and Human Services, the FBI, the DOJ, no matter who they are.

He will use the full force of the law: “Preserve those emails”

SECOND, I will order the Department of Justice to investigate all parties involved in the new online censorship regime…

These include possible violations of federal civil rights law, campaign finance laws, federal election law, securities law, and anti-trust laws, the Hatch Act and a host of other potential criminal, civil, regulatory, and constitutional offenses.

He will cut off legal protection for any platform that curtails legal speech:

From now on, digital platforms should only qualify for immunity protection under Section 230 if they meet high standards of neutrality, transparency, fairness, and non-discrimination.

Then he’s going after universities that drive the censorship labels — they will lose funding for research and students for five years or more!

FOURTH, we need to break up the entire toxic censorship industry that has arisen under the false guise of tackling so-called “mis-” and “dis-information.” The federal government should immediately stop funding all non-profits and academic programs that support this authoritarian project. If any U.S. university is discovered to have engaged in censorship activities or election interferences in the past, such as flagging social media content for removal and blacklisting, those universities should lose federal research dollars and federal student loan support for a period of five years, and maybe more.

There will be criminal penalties for any federal bureaucrat found to interfere with elections by depriving Americans of information:

We should also enact new laws laying out clear criminal penalties for federal bureaucrats who partner with private entities to do an end-run around the Constitution and deprive Americans of their First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendment rights. In other words, deprive them of their vote. And once you lose those elections and once you lose your borders like we have, you no longer have a country.

He will stop government employees from profiting by quitting their job and moving to a Big Tech platform:

Furthermore, to confront the problems of major platforms being infiltrated by legions of former Deep Staters and intelligence officials, there should be a 7-year cooling-off period before any employee of the FBI, CIA, NSA, DNI, DHS, or DOD is allowed to take a job at a company possessing vast quantities of U.S. user data.

He’s calling for a digital bill of rights, where people have a right to be treated equally online:

FIFTH, the time has finally come for Congress to pass a digital Bill of Rights. This should include a right to digital due process, in other words, government officials should need a COURT ORDER to take down online content, not send information requests such as the FBI was sending to Twitter. Furthermore, when users of big online platforms have their content or accounts removed, throttled, shadow-banned, or otherwise restricted no matter what name they use, they should have the right to be informed that it’s happening, the right to a specific explanation of the reason why, and the right to a timely appeal. In addition, all users over the age of 18 should have the right to opt-out of content moderation and curation entirely, and receive an unmanipulated stream of information if they so choose.

Our quality of life depends upon it:

The fight for Free Speech is a matter of victory or death for America and for the survival of Western Civilization itself. When I am President, this whole rotten system of censorship and information control will be ripped out of the system at large. There won’t be anything left. By restoring free speech, we will begin to reclaim our democracy, and save our nation.

For Australians, the Senators who may stop our Misinformation bill tomorrow are:

Senator David Pocock, Jacquie Lambie, Tammy Tyrrell, Fatima Payman, David Van, and Gerald Rennick*.

[email protected] | [email protected] | [email protected] | [email protected] | [email protected] | [email protected] |

But write to all your key elected representatives — let the Labor party know their deceptive methods are obvious, the legislation is a bomb that our largest most powerful allies will detest. It will be unwound. They need to know, so they don’t sell their souls to win the last three Senators over.

*Rennick is obviously a Saint who already opposes this bill and needs our help.

From Dr. Roy Spencer’s Global Warming Blog

Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.

NOTE: Since he has done extensive investigation into some implausibly hot temperatures reported in Death Valley, I asked Bill Reid to comment on my previous blog post where I maintain that the world record 134 deg. F highest recorded air temperature was likely biased warm by about 10 deg., and should not be accepted as a world record. What follows are Bill’s initial thoughts on the subject. Also, based upon his comments, I will likely update the charts found in my previous blog post with more realistic temperature lapse rate values in the early 20th Century when insufficient stations were available to determine accurate lapse rates.

by William T. Reid

A big thank you to Dr. Spencer for investigating the current (very dubious) world high-temperature record and for bringing attention to my Death Valley climate research. There are a handful of ways, both climatologically and meteorologically, to show that Greenland Ranch’s reported maximum of 134F on July 10, 1913, is likely not valid.

Dr. Spencer’s methodology here (comparing the Death Valley maximums to those the closest surrounding stations, with adjustments for station elevation) is indeed a devastating blow to the authenticity of the suspect observations. What it basically demonstrates is that the lower troposphere was not hot enough to support temperatures much above 125F in July, 1913. I have compared regional maximums for all of the hottest summertime events since 1911. In practically all instances (in which the Greenland Ranch and Death Valley reports appear reasonable), ALL of the maximums at the closest surrounding stations lend support to the maximums for Death Valley.

From July 7 to 14 of 1913, when eight consecutive afternoons had reported maximums of 127, 128, 129, 134, 129, 130, 131 and 127F in Death Valley, NONE of the maximums from the closest surrounding stations supported the Greenland Ranch maximums! The departures from average for maximums for the hottest five-day stretch were about +4 to +8 at the closest stations, while maximums at Greenland Ranch were nearly 15 degrees F above the average for July. (see table)

Annual maximums at Greenland Ranch from 1911 to 1960 ranged from 120F to 127F, except for the 134F in 1913. If the reported maximums at Greenland Ranch in July, 1913, were authentic, then the maximums at the closest surrounding stations in that month would have been much higher than reported. In addition, numerous regional heat waves have been hotter than the one during the first half of July, 1913. Why have Death Valley maximums failed to exceed 130F in the interim when three days in July 1913 purportedly reached 134, 130 and 131F?

In his “bias” chart, Dr. Spencer notes the “substantial warm biases in the temperatures reported at Greenland Ranch in the first 10-15 years.” And, he mentions that the observer(s) may have been relying to some extent on thermometers other than the official instrumentation. I do think that the observer was comparing “household thermometer” readings with the official equipment on occasion from spring to summer of 1913. Higher readings off of the poorly-exposed thermometers near the ranch house and under the veranda were probably (and inappropriately) entered onto the official climate form. But, I have not uncovered much evidence of this particular type of deviation from standard observational procedures outside of 1913.

I would contend that the generally higher “bias” numbers from the early years comparably are due primarily to changes at the closest area weather stations which promoted cooler maximums early on and warmer maximums later. For example, two of the closest stations to Greenland Ranch in 1913 were Independence and Lone Pine, in Owens Valley. In 1913, Owens River water was diverted to Los Angeles, and the Owens Valley gradually dried up. Summer maximums increased as Owens Lake evaporated, irrigation was not possible and farmland was abandoned, and desert-like conditions developed. (Roy’s note: The early years had very few stations within 100 miles of Death Valley, and the temperature lapse rates I computed from those few stations appear to be biased as a result. I will correct this in a future blog post, and will provide what should be better estimates of average July daily maximum Death Valley temperatures.)

Also, in the early decades of the 20th century, thermometer shelters were (almost invariably) sited above grass. This resulted in very conservative (i.e., coolish) maximums at desert stations. Low humidities promoted cooling due to evapotranspiration effects. In the early decades of the 20th century, desert weather stations were generally in towns, amidst shade trees and lawns. The resulting maximum temperature reports were very conservative. By mid-century and thereafter, the town weather stations were more likely to be at the airport or at a municipal utility site, fire station or equipment yard. Grass cover and shade trees were usually absent at these locales. Today, desert weather stations in towns and cities are (almost invariably!) above bare ground.

You can imagine the difference in maximums between desert stations above oft-irrigated grass and those above bare ground. (Roy’s note: In my experience, unless the vegetation area is rather large, and there is almost no wind, a weather station’s daily maximum temperature will still be largely determined by air flowing from the larger-scale desert surroundings. But note… this is different from, say a poorly sited thermometer next to a brick wall or heat pump where hot air from an isolated source can elevate the daily maximum temperature recorded).

The Greenland Ranch station was originally sited above a patch of alfalfa grass, immediately adjacent to forty acres of cultivated and irrigated land.

It is my belief that the new observer in 1913 (Oscar Denton) was rather disillusioned with the conservative maximums from the official station above grass and next to the evaporatively-cooled farmland. I think he felt compelled to fudge the maximums upwards in 1913. Photographs of the Greenland Ranch weather station show that it was above bare ground by about 1920 (see example photo at top of post).