JoNova
A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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Statistics
EPA’s elegant arguments for endangerment repeal
By David Wojick
https://www.cfact.org/2026/02/19/epas-elegant-arguments-for-endangerment-repeal/
The beginning: “EPA’s arguments for repealing the Obama endangerment finding are simple, clear, and strong. So, they have a likely chance of winning in the Supreme Court (SCOTUS), which is where the final decision will be made.”
Lots in the article. There are 3.5 good arguments. Woohoo
120
Is a court case really needed since the original decision by the EPA, under instructions from Obama, was basically an arbitary political decision, not a scientific one?
120
Yes because lawsuits to stop the repeal have already been filed. It is in Court, a lesser Court first then SCOTUS.
90
Using the Clear Air act to ban gases from a tailpipe which do not come from a tailpipe! So the Obama Endangerment declaration was not just wrong, it was fraud. And Obama as a lawyer knew it. But didn’t care. The reckless disregard for the law in the Obama/Biden administrations was pervasive. Rule by executive order, not congress. And President Biden did not sign them and often did not know about them. The President was not impotent but irrelevant.
And in classic flip, Trump is accused of Imperial rule when Obama and Biden were completely out of control of Congress. Like Australia’s dictator, Anthony Albanese. Or for that matter Scott Morrison who signed Australia up to Net Zero without a word to anyone, the permission of parliament or being part of his election campaign. As Adam Bandt said, ‘tell people what they want to hear and when you get power, do what you like.’ It is the new way of ruling, like Turnbull’s $444 million gift to his wife and her friends without explanation. Never to be mentioned.
Most if not all of Australia’s many carbon laws and taxes are likely illegal and would be overturned by the High Court of Australia. As would Paul Keating’s law which has given 52% of Australian land to Aborigines and 3,000 Torres Strait Islanders as if the legal principle of Terra Nullius was overturned by the High Court, which was not true. But somehow people think governments can just walk around the Constitution which limits their powers. It’s no more true in Australia than in America. Lawmakers just ignore the Constitution.
211
Methane is a biggie.
20
Well I didn’t vote for you.
You don’t vote for kings!
Well how’d you become king then?
The great unwashed, played for the fools they are, voted for the party that promised them endless goodies under the xmas tree at no cost,and the party elected me. That is why I’m your king!
72
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor arrested.
60
Andrew MB was appointed by the Queen to act as the Sovereign’s representative in the role of a Trade Envoy.
That is NOT a ‘public office’ and his appointment was not to ‘represent the Crown’.
Very hard to prove he acted with ‘misconduct in a public office’ – when he never held one.
61
Yes. Perhaps the timing is to do with drawing attention away from Herr Starmer’s problems.
101
Misconduct in Public Office? I didn’t know there was such a thing.
Imagine how that might apply to almost every action of both Politicians and Public Servants?
110
Possibly a dig at King Charles because he is well known as NOT a Starmer supporter.
Would get some support among the Left Wing lot in the Labour Party.
10
They’ve got a perfectly good Tower of London ready and waiting for a new occupant. All they need to do is to get the tourists out first.
Guilt? Innocence? Let’s not bother too much with such new fangled concepts. It’s good to be the King. Historically not so good to be his brother.
On second thought, perhaps former prince Andrew could be a new tourist attraction. With a ducking stool and tomato throwing just like the good old days.
Where’s old fashioned royal brutality when the crowds need some entertainment?
60
Such as George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence, who was (supposedly) drowned in wine at the Tower of London by order of his brother, King Edward IV in 1478 after being convicted of high treason by Parliament.
00
The occupant who surprised me was Sir Walter Raleigh who was imprisoned along with his wife. He was permitted a garden which is still there.
Apparently he was released only to fall foul of queenie once more. Brings historical context to the Black Adder series.
00
Those inverted wooden “L” shapes were quite popular and fairly recently too!
Ditto those overgrown gravity assisted “cabbage slicers”.
They’d go blunt quickly with the current crop of Aussie cabbages though. 😆
10
Mountbatten was widely noted as a dim, entitled plonker for most of his adult life. Nothing much of the recent disclosures surprises most Poms.
The remaining question is – how will he leave it?
In the grounds; with a riding accident?
In the bedroom; with an unexpected medical issue?
In the library; with a service pistol?
50
Australians will need this too.
Also, as RFK Jr said:
I wonder what Australian censorship authorities will do about it?
And if the fake conservative Liberals get elected, will they remove the existing censorship legislation? It’s doubtful because they supported or invented it, e.g. the E Safety Kommissar, bans for under 16’s, and they voted with Labor on the latest censorship legislation. They are NOT a party which supports free speech (or freedom in general).
The site is there but not yet operational.
160
A concern is that censorious Governments like Australia’s can block access to VPN’s or specific domains or legally require ISPs to do so.
A solution might be to get Elon Musk to offer Internet access via Starlink and allow Australians to set up offshore accounts for payment. If payment is made via Australian business entities it will be subject to Australian Government censorship regulation.
90
Just as with Spain, ze global blobs will “ask” VPN’s to block undesired IP’s.
Would be nice to have access to a global VPN that no-one knows about, wouldn’t it.
40
Canadian excessive regulation vs US sensible regulation.
(CFIA is the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.)
160
At last, the question to be constated over the weekend 🙂
Why or if the blood of a horseshoe crab (not technically a crab) is worth in excess of 16000 dollars a liter to pharma big and small, why it is ultra sensitive to incredibly low concentrations of endotoxin like a bane of biological existence ‘Lipopolysacharide’ (LPS), and why, or if, even very,very low concentrations of LPS in red blooded animals and us, can cause chronic low grade inflammation or sepsis in higher concentrations, and why the blood of a horseshoe crab is blue , and why the immune system of the said “crab” is different to red blooded animals and why?
20
And how are clown fish able to swim through anemones when other creatures are stung?
And while we are at it, how do so many creatures like octopus and frogs change skin colour?
50
Forrest Gardener:
Don’t you follow politics? Clown fish (brains) change skin colour at the first sign of loss of habitat.
10
Mostly I just follow where what I laughingly refer to as my mind leads me. Less often I follow the mob but by the time I’ve figured out what direction they are going it is usually too late.
And you reckon the Lord works in mysterious ways? You ain’t seen nuthin’ yet!
I can recommend this way of “thinking” as an antidote to taking things too seriously.
🙂
40
That’s an oldie. TedX covered it in 2017.
Tardigrades are cooler. 😁
00
Such a climactic/climatic time of year:
Ch!nese New Year (commence ‘horsing’ around)
Musl!m Ramadan hilal crescent new moon
King tides (lunar sea due to above moon)
Wars and rumours of war (same old lunacy)
plus the SNOW came early –
https://www.queenstown.com/webcams
Quick! before ‘global warming’ melts it!
Fat fluffy snowflakes falling on the hills around Queenstown when it should be hot & sunny and skin cancer rates surge… Up north here it’s usually 28*C or sometimes 30 and very Fiji-like but this year (must be the horse) it’s 22*C grey overcast & windy – mind you, this is the fourth year in a row it’s snowed on my birthday weekend 😲 I’m detecting somewhat of a pattern here… and it ain’t heat!
140
Maybe it was a typo and probably meant ‘Year Of The Horseshoe crab’ That has blue blood and some say is rapidly becoming another endangered species like every other species sigh, 🙁
20
Ah, but do the deaths of the 8 skiers in the avalanche get counted as cold deaths or heat deaths?? I’m sure they’ll blame global warming for the avalanche…
110
When did covid stop being the cause of all deaths?
60
..AAHH.. yYes … hmmmmm… it stopped when publishing ‘all cause mortality’ was ceased in certain countries during the ‘COvid’ so as not to alarm people too much 🙁
10
I like the thought of not alarming people too much.
Practical governance of course relies on people being alarmed just the right amount.
60
There is something happening at astronomical levels, Saturn-Neptune at zero Aries.
Its all the talk at the moment, hasn’t happened at this degree since 4361 BC.
Looking at my climate almanac, it was the transition from the Holocene optimum into unknown territory. Requires more research.
40
There’s something happening at sea level too: had my 10am high-tide swim and as I was rinsing off, what I thought was a boil-up just offshore turned out to be a YUGE flock of muttonbirds (titi or shearwater) feasting before flying north to Siberia or Alaska or Fukushima…
They’re a month-or-more early this year – usually they arrive Mar/Apr – so if the titi are migrating in February, the South Island could might maybe in for an EPIC snow season, which is why I’m going in the opposite direction, north for the winter!
70
The warming season in the SH from Sep Eq to Dec Sol was well above average sunlight and the approaching cooling season is below average sunlight – already down on last year. That bodes well for good snowfall in higher southern latitudes.
The NH is probably past its peak extent; reaching 49.24E12sq.m in week 4 of this year. I expect that will set a new NH record for winter extent. Still plenty of snow though because the NH is just past peak cold.
50
But Saturn and Neptune have both been in Pisces for the best part of a year, and continue to be.
20
Apparently it has something to do with the Saturn-Neptune conjunction and the American Revolutionary War and other historical moments.
This conjunction is also strongly related to Russian affairs where the 36 year cycle is clearly visible.
00
FWIW
“Hollywood And The Dying Of The Light – Seedance 2.0 ”
“Hollywood, dying on the DEI DIE Agenda, Now Has DIY Competition”
More at
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2026/02/18/hollywood-and-the-dying-of-the-light-seedance-2-0/
20
FWIW
Via Chiefio
“Per Tousi TV and one other, it looks like the attack on the IRGC in Iran is underway…”
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2026/02/01/w-o-o-d-1-february-2026-florida-snow-warning/#comment-180926
More further down the thread
Check your sources and wait fore the “YSM” to catch up
10
FWIW – more in the Ununited Kingdom
“The Three P’s of Rural Racism: People, Pubs, and Pets”
https://thenewconservative.co.uk/the-three-ps-of-rural-racism-people-pubs-and-pets/
Via SDA
00
FWIW
And “Oh Canada”
“Hair Crisis”
https://thompsonblog.co.uk/2026/02/hair-crisis.html
Via https://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2026/02/19/hair-crisis/
10
Spaceship B, line to the left please…
00
This is a follow up on my last WUWT article:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NCb5DOdpwYRMNxjDpdjBKetOvVbE1cnm/view?usp=sharing
I decompose the orbit of the Sun and look at how individual planets influence the motion of the Sun and the Sun-Earth distance. I also consider tidal forces from changing gravitational torque on the Sun that cause the spin.
60
Solar eclipse photos from Antarctica
A perfectly framed annular “Ring of Fire” solar eclipse suspended in a dramatic polar sky.
https://imgbox.com/skk5woW9
The detail on the lunar surface here is spectacular, but the real star is the corona. Usually invisible to the naked eye, these plumes are actually plasma heated to millions of degrees—far hotter than the surface of the Sun itself. Nature’s greatest paradox, caught in a single frame.
https://imgbox.com/xFsn3wrw
Spectacular!
80
With Mercury:)
“The clear sky at sunset treated us to a great view,” says Quesada. “The thin crescent Moon appeared very close to the planet Mercury, shining together in the twilight. It was a night to remember.”
https://spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=19&month=02&year=2026
“Occultation of Mercury by the Moon, Nikon & Lents Nikon 1000 mmm Chihuahua, Chih.”
https://spaceweathergallery2.com/full_image.php?image_name=Andres-Paez-Joannis-DSC_6226_1771475726.jpg
20
China’s Skynet
https://x.com/UAPWixy/status/2024032523979026547
Another fine CCP product!
10
Every AI model gets dramatically worse the longer you talk to it
https://x.com/MrEwanMorrison/status/2023905050116972648
The researchers decomposed the performance drop into two components.
Aptitude (the model’s raw ability to solve the task) only dropped 16%, but unreliability (the gap between best-case and worst-case output) increased by 112%.
Pretend AI. Now go run your business with it.
60
Well, Grok5 did a damn good job at diagnosing a cow’s problem that vet (at considerable expense) could not. Explained in detail the progression of that sort of problem which completely described how it had progressed. Also confirmed my insistence that husband proceed directly to hospital after a head injury via farm accident. Havnt been able to fault my limited use of it so far. I only give it specific tasks.
20
“So you came to hospital after a head injury via farm accident…?”
“Yes, I was kicked in the head by a cow I was treating according to Grok…”
00
Duh! Two different problems at different times. The cow injury was something that preoccupied me for some time. Grok’s detailed explanation of the ongoing issue of an edema type swelling resolved the issue for me. It was a sound explanation and argued against euthanasia.
40
Obama’s new Presidential library, in Soviet brutalist style, faces a new round of mockery because the inscription on it is almost illegible.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/obama-dragged-headache-inducing-presidential-center-update-has-visitors-squinting.amp
10
This is sad for a variety of reasons.
Copied from Farcebook.
10
The latest fad is the oval face look where they pad the top of their heads…
Always take your new girl swimming on the first date so you can see what you’re really getting. 😆
30
Slow acting rat poison: An effective poison must not kill the rat immediately so that the other members of the species do not establish a causal link.
The Bernese Oberland is considered the epitome of the Swiss postcard idyll: Lake Thun with its deep blue waters, framed by the snow-capped peaks of the Eiger, Mönch, and Jungfrau. Yet behind this backdrop, in tranquil Spiez, activities are taking place that may have long since left the label “humanitarian” behind. This is where the Spiez Laboratory operates, a facility of the highest biological safery level (BSL-4).
Why are seasoned Swiss scientists and activists now turning to the new US administration under Donald Trump and his designated Secretary of Health, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., in a desperate open letter? The answer lies in a dangerous mix of diplomatic immunity, uncontrolled high-risk research, and a creeping disempowerment of the Swiss sovereign.
https://swissvox.substack.com/p/bioweapons-research-in-switzerland
Bioweapons are all fun and games until one gets loose.
10
Waste of time… the Swiss lost their sovereignty when they cracked open the secret Swiss bank accounts for the Americans a decade or two ago. You bend your knee or take a bribe once, you will always do that! Now they just do as they are told, like all the West.
So, which secret biolabs are busy in Australia right now?? What, you don’t think there are any… ah, you poor fool.
30
I think there is one in Geelong.
https://www.csiro.au/en/about/locations/state-locations/vic/geelong-aahl
10
Australia’s e-Safety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, loses fight to block a woman’s video on X, in which the woman was critical of the Montmorency Primary School hosting a “queer club” for grades 3 to 6.
Two years ago the video was posted to X and was subsequently blocked after the e-Safety commissioner issued X with a take down order. The video was geo-blocked for Australia.
The Video’s creator and poster on X, Celine Baumgarten, successfully appealed the Take Down order at the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. The e-Safety Commissioner then took it to the Federal Court where the court has ruled to uphold the Tribunal decision.
The e-Safety Commissioner has wasted an estimated $250,000 trying to prevent someone speaking up about harm to kids, instead of doing their job in protecting kids.
Ms Baumgarten says, “eSafety started out as a reputable agency, protecting children online – something that we all want to do. Unfortunately, they have morphed into an ideologically-driven powerhouse with a bottomless pit of taxpayer funds and I think most Australians actually see them as unfit for purpose.”
And she’s right.
https://www.skynews.com.au/australia-news/single-mum-wins-legal-fight-against-esafety-boss-julie-inman-grant-over-post-criticising-primary-school-queer-club/news-story/6724e8a723238e92f108ae1f7fa273a3
40
Off topic, but why is “single mum” a badge of honour and why are they more equal, thus noteworthy, than us from conventional households?
Oh dear! In the naughty corner again.
50
60 years ago you’d be saying, “Why do they try to discredit her by mentioning she’s a single mum?” 🙂
The news is always after some label.
Someone who gets into trouble with the law and happens to have played a few games with a local footy club gets written up as “ex-footballer charged with …”
40
In a previous time, when people read the paper, no soldier could get into trouble without his profession being mentioned.
10
Goes back a way – 1890
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_(Kipling_poem)
10
I’m a long time fan of VDH. He speaks of the town-taming gunslingers like Shane in the westerns, the tough generals like Patton and LeMay and how they outlive their welcome once the dirty work has been done. I would add the poles of RAF 303 Sqn. who did such sterling work during the Battle of Britain and our own SAS. Even our regulars with the conscripts were never welcomed home after ‘Nam.
10
‘Newspoll: SA Liberal wipeout looms at 14pc.
‘The Liberal Party could fail to hold a single seat as One Nation surges, guaranteeing Peter Malinauskas an emphatic victory, according to the latest Newspoll.’ (Oz)
Taylor has some serious head winds.
30
Chris Kenny has a very good article about the situation in the Australian today – wonders if Libs should bother trying to recover lost seats to Teals.
20
FWIW
“Claim: 99.999% of Climate Scientists Agree Australia was Cooler in the 1890s”
“Senator Malcolm Roberts schooling the green Aussie Senate Committee on Information Integrity on Climate Change Inquiry on the evidence.”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2026/02/19/claim-99-999-of-climate-scientists-agree-australia-was-cooler-in-the-1890s/
00
‘Dr Karl said the way to prevent AI chatbots from spreading incorrect and hallucinatory scientific information was to only train the AI chatbot on legitimate scientific papers and studies, rather than on information taken from the internet more broadly.
“Luckily I’ve got 40,000 papers that I’ve gathered over the last 40 years with accurate climate change information,” he said. (ABC)
I’m speechless.
11
The great distraction.
‘In a post on his social media platform, Trump said that he will ask the defense secretary and others “to begin the process of identifying and releasing Government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentified flying objects (UFOs).” (Guardian)
02
A great distactot,
I think there must be something going on. Epstein files?
10