Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Ilivid Searchqu Solution

Well, a temporary solution... a workaround. (or not)

Add this Youtube downloader to your Firefox browser, and it will block attempts by the Iliviid searqu malware to hijack your browser. It wont destroy the virus, but at least you can have some peace while you're finding a way to permanently kill it.

youtubedownloadersite.com

It seems to protect at least some major browsers from being hijacked.

And it's quite a useful piece of free software, too.

Jan 2012.
Not sure that was what was blocking it... I think it may have been one of the other programs I installed. I've disabled and removed just about everything including Glary Utilities (which, as it turned out, had malware in it too - I've emailed Glary so they can fix this problem but as yet have had no reply) and the searqu virus has not raised its ugly head again for the last couple of weeks.

I visited the Ilivid Facebook page last night - it seems they're having difficulty removing the sometimes very nasty comments that keep appearing there.

Sunday, December 18, 2011

Ilivid makes me livid




Wrote the following to Google tonight:

"The advert is for ilivid browser plugin. This plugin is malware and is responsible for many thousands of infections. Google 'ilivid malware', 'searchqu'. Go to http://bentinck.blogspot.com/search/label/malware for more information."

I found the advert on paint.net.

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Flatearthing VI - Ian Plimer



A former Australian Prime Minister launched a children's book at the Sydney Mining Club by Professor Ian Plimer on the evening of December 12th 2011. The book is described as "an anti-global warmist manual for the younger reader" and is a follow-up to Prof. Plimer's Heaven and Earth.

James Randerson, a Guardian columnist who interviewed him about that work writes: "I found him to be one of the most difficult and evasive interviewees I have spoken to in my career, frequently veering off on tangents rather than answering the question I had put." and that Plimer dismissed critisicms of his book as "pathetic nit-picking". He points out that the first diagram in the book has two major errors, whch this reader understands to mean that the whole tenet of the book is basically wrong. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2009/dec/14/climate-change-sceptic-ian-plimer


Barry Brook, head of Adelaide University's Research Institute for Climate Change and Sustainability writes:
"In short, my view was that Ian’s assertions about man’s role in climate change were naive, reflected a poor understanding of climate science, and relied on recycled and distorted arguments that had been repeatedly refuted."
http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/04/23/ian-plimer-heaven-and-earth/

The Australian (April 23 2009) quotes him as saying " [Plimer's] stated view of climate science is that a vast number of extremely well respected scientists and a whole range of specialist disciplines have fallen prey to delusional self-interest and become nothing more than unthinking ideologues", and "Plausible to conspiracy theorists, perhaps, but hardly a sane world view, and insulting to all those genuinely committed to real science."


The Australian Science Media Centre has a collection of critiques of Palmer's Heaven and Earth, all from reputable scientists. Here are a few extracts:

"Plimer’s book has many errors in it. Below I draw particular attention to his misinterpretation of sea-level changes and their significance, and comment on his misrepresentation of the IPCC."
Professor Colin Woodroffe

“In 2008 I debated Ian Plimer on one of Sydney’s top rating radio stations about the facts and fiction surrounding climate change. All of what he had to say was either patently untrue or horribly misleading. "
Professor Matthew England

"The most disappointing aspect of this book is the wide use of subjective and often emotive text, unbecoming of a scientific treatise..."
Dr Graeme Pearman

In previous publications Plimer has expressed the viewpoint that the present warming is principally due to ‘natural’ forcings rather than anthropogenic CO2. The evidence included in the 2007 IPCC Report explicitly refutes this.”
Dr Harvey Marchant

“I have also twice debated climate change in public with Ian Plimer. His position is a combination of sound geological knowledge which is irrelevant to the debate about climate change, and a wilful misunderstanding of recent climate science.
Professor Ian Lowe



Wikipedia also has a few things to say about the learned professor, including:
"Scientists from many disciplines have reviewed the book, and have accused Plimer of misrepresenting sources,[34][35] misusing data,[36][34][37] and engaging in conspiracy theories.[38][39] They describe the book as unscientific,[40] and containing numerous errors from which Plimer draws false conclusions."

"The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) stated that Plimer's claim [that undersea volcanoes emit huge amounts of CO2] "has no factual basis."

Wikipedia also mentions that Palmer is a director of three Australian mining companies and an associate of the Institute on Public Affairs.



And as a footnote, former PM John Howard is not the first prominent Australian Liberal Party member to lionise Ian Palmer.

"I think that in response to the IPCC alarmist — in inverted commas — view, there've been quite a lot of other reputable scientific voices. Now not everyone agrees with Ian Plimer's position, but he is a highly credible scientist and he has written what seems like a very well-argued book refuting most of the claims of the climate catastrophists."
Tony Abbott, leader of the Opposition, Sydney Morning Herald 2009




Monday, December 12, 2011

Rock Around the Clock - Telstra

Every time it rains (and it seems to be doing that a lot up my way of late) my phone goes all crackly and my internet (ASDL II) drops out, sometimes several times a minute.

Last time it happened I spent a looong time on the phone and eventually got someone to agree that a technician would come out, which he did, several days later - by which time it had stopped raining, everything had dried out, and my phone and internet were all good again.

This time I thought I'd be a bit clever, and at the first hint of things going haywire in the wiring department I used the direct number the technician had given me. I explained the problem and he replied that he was busy, ring Telstra. "Uh..., but" I said. He hung up.

So I rang Telstra and got onto a nice Indian lady who, after a long conversation much of which consisted of the phrase "I beg your pardon" she told me that as the main fault was the internet connection she would transfer me to another department. Nice lift music. New person tells me I don't have an account with Bigpond so I would have to speak with Telstra.

"Uh..., but" I said. She hung up.

Oooh, I so love Telstra!

Flatearthing V - Sea Ice


A colleague wrote the following:

"About 15 years ago a friend went to Antarctica and found that a fiord up which Shackleton had sailed his wind-jammer in the 1800s could not be approached nearer than 10 miles by ice-breaker - it was frozen over.
At about the same time an explorer managed to sail across the top of Canada to Russia - no sea ice and then a couple of years later everyone died trying to repeat the passage because the ice returned and crushed the ship's hull."

Arctic sea ice drops to record low - September 12, 2011


Arctic sea ice extent last week dropped to a new record minimum. At 4.24 million square kilometres, sea ice cover on 8 September was 27,000 sq km below the previous record low, observed in 2007.

Satellite observations of Arctic sea ice have been available only since 1972. However, this year’s sea ice minimum may well be the lowest in 8,000 years.

Nature
http://blogs.nature.com/news/2011/09/arctic_sea_ice_drops_to_record.html

Arctic sea ice decline breaking records over 1,000 years old

According to a new paper in Nature, sea ice in the Arctic is now declining at a pace and scale not seen for over a thousand years. It estimates that after decades of decline, the amount of ice locked away in the High North is now 2 million km2 smaller than it was at the end of the 20th Century and that ice-free summers at the Pole are likely sooner rather than later.

Greenpeace
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/makingwaves/arctic-sea-ice-decline-breaking-records-over-/blog/38002/



Arctic sea ice and record lows
Scientists at University of Bremen in Germany thought it was a new record, while data from NSIDC showed the sea ice at its second-lowest level.

National Snow and Ice Data Center
http://nsidc.org/icelights



Climate change logic lost in translation

In 2010, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences expressed the scientific consensus on climate change by calling it a “settled fact”.


http://theconversation.edu.au/climate-change-logic-lost-in-translation-1279



One should probably read what the denialists are saying on the matter...

The Official blog of Australia's NO CARBON TAX Climate Sceptics party
"The science is out on whether Sea Levels are rising. As this blog has written before, data show that Sea Levels are falling "

The page above quotes that doyen of social justice and fair play, Andrew Bolt, and also implies that coastal engineer Doug Lord lost his job for attempting to publish results on sea levels contrary to mainstream science, as does this page by News Ltd's Miranda Devine:
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/drowning-in-a-tide-of-fear/story-e6frfhqf-1226216622028

What neither page mentions is that

The Office of Environment and Heritage said the paper by Doug Lord and a colleague were withdrawn over “concerns raised by an independent statistician about the statistical analysis of tide gauge records”.

http://watchingthedeniers.wordpress.com/2011/12/08/mirandas-devines-annus-mirabilis-2011-the-year-she-overturned-climate-science-in-a-single-article/

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Flatearthing IV - Lavoisier Group



I was sent a PDF signed by Philip R Wood of The Lavoisier Group, Australian climate change denialists. It contains the sentence

Hilarious! –World Leaders meet to discuss controlling the climate

Here are a few rebuttals:

"Author Clive Hamilton, in his book Scorcher, says that one can find the following arguments in the various papers promoted by the Lavoisier Group:

There is no evidence of global warming.


If there is evidence of global warming, then it is not due to human activity.


If global warming is occurring and it is due to human activity, then it is not going to be damaging.


If global warming is occurring and it is due to human activity, and it is going to be damaging, then the costs of avoiding it are too high, so we should do nothing."


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavoisier_Group



"Climate change is about science, but not just about science. It's about business and politics and wielding influence. The men - there was just one woman present - were all climate change sceptics, members of an organisation called the Lavoisier Group that argues global warming is nothing to worry about. ... The only problem for the sceptics is that the vast majority of scientists think they are the ones that are deluded. "There's a better scientific consensus on this than on any issue I know - except maybe Newton's second law of dynamics", Dr James Baker, of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration"

The Age, 2004
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/11/26/1101219743320.html


"Global warming scepticism is being manipulated by tactics reminiscient of an earlier campaign of denial, writes David McKnight.
When the tobacco industry was feeling the heat from scientists who showed smoking caused cancer, it took decisive action..."

"In May, the multibillion-dollar oil giant Exxon Mobil acknowledged it had been doing something similar. It said it would cease funding nine groups that had fuelled a global campaign to deny climate change.
Exxon's decision came after a shareholder revolt by members of the Rockefeller family and big superannuation funds to get the company to take climate change more seriously."

"In Australia, the main body trying to undermine the science of global warming is the Lavoisier Group. It maintains a website with links to the Competitive Enterprise Institute (more than $2 million from Exxon), the Science and Environmental Policy Project ($20,000) and the Centre for the Study of Carbon Dioxide (at least $100,000)."

The Sydney Morning Herald, August 2nd 2008
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2008/08/01/1217097533885.html



The "Hilarious" Lavoisier article mentioned above was sent to my colleague by Cliff Ollier. Here is a link to the only article I could find by him online, although I'm sure there are many more as he is credited with publishing hundreds. I'll allow you to draw your own conclusions as to the article's merit.
http://www.lavoisier.com.au/articles/greenhouse-science/method/ollier2008-28.php

The good professor is listed among the 413 "prominent scientists" listed in 2008 by Senator James M. Inhofe as having "voiced significant objections to major aspects of the so-called 'consensus' on man-made global warming."

According to thedailygreen.com,

  • 84 have either taken money from, or are connected to, fossil fuel industries, or think tanks started by those industries.
  • 49 are retired
  • 44 are television weathermen
  • 20 are economists
  • 70 have no apparent expertise in climate science

http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/inhofe-global-warming-deniers-47011101

Flat Earth cartoon with kind permission of http://www.sprattiart.com/

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Flatearthing III


Lord Monckton


A colleague sent me a link to a page which I initially took as a hoax, and then realised it was in fact a collection of articles by climate change deniers and other loonies. He had received the initial email from a chap claiming to be a university professor.

Here's my reply:

I just phoned the good Prof., Michael. There was no answer and no answering machine so difficult to confirm whether he really sent it. I'm fairly confident, however, that that's not a number at the UWA.
It's quite possible he is a real person and he has credentials a little more credible than those of "Lord" Monckton - after all, we both know that there are quite a few characters out there who are not in the employ of the oil and energy companies and who really do believe that stuff.

For every one of them, there are roughly a thousand highly credible scientists who say they're a sandwich short of the picnic.

Here are a few pages which I'm sure you're already familiar with:

http://www.abc.net.au/science/expert/realexpert/climatechange/

http://www.abc.net.au/science/features/globalwarmingswindle/

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/the-warmest-year-yet-says-nasa-20100603-x7f5.html

and for light entertainment:

http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2009/10/21/MonktonClimate/