Digireads for May

The next book in line for perusal and discussion is "Looking for Jack: Massacre at Fort Sage 2." Some thoughts: Will Peter Dawes find Jack Rhodes? Will an Irish gang pose more problems for Dawes? What about Hake Madden? Finally, are there any solutions to these problems?

Usuality

Check out Thomas Mueller's latest: http://www.amazon.com/Usuality-Thomas-Mueller/dp/1530091349/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1461193752&sr=1-1&keywords=usuality

Amazon Scout

Amazon Scout has a new program in which you as a reader get to recommend whether they should publish a book. My sequel "Movie World 2" has just been approved and the start date is April 2. Scout allows 30 days for comments before they make a decision to publish. I would appreciate it if you would take the time to check out the campaign and, if so motivated, nominate the book for publication. If Amazon publishes the book you, as a reviewer, will receive a complimentary copy. The link to the campaign is: https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/1WW400W0CZVV1,

Thanks very much for your participation. I look forward to seeing the response to the campaign.

The Rifle

April's digiread is The Rifle. This novel is a post-apocalyptic tale with men in a cabin struggling with the occupants of the valley below. The cabin possesses a lever action rifle. The men in the valley build a catapult. As with most wars death and destruction reign, but there is a glimmer of hope, which is usually all that remains after the shooting stops.

Digireads

I’ve opened a new discussion group on Facebook called “Digireads.” 

The purpose of this effort will allow readers to get author comments, background, and writing tidbits by reading the books written by William Behr Mueller. 

One book will have the spotlight during the month. So far there has been a good response to the forum with comments by a number of readers. Since all my books are available in the Kindle Owners Lending Library you can borrow the selected book for free. Of course, it would be serendipitous if you were to purchase a book, but that’s for you to decide. If you do buy a copy you will be able to leave a review. Amazon frowns on reviews from non-purchasers. On the other hand you can always make a comment on Digireads. And if you don’t want to have your comment reviewed publicly you can always email it to me and I’ll respond, if appropriate.

You might want to take a look at the page on Facebook to get some idea of what the effort is all about.

Politics

The political process hasn't changed that much since the founding of these United States. As reported in Fred Kaplan’s biography of John Quincy Adams the vitriol, name calling, outright lies and physical violence are much the same as they were a couple of hundred or more years ago. The real difference is that then the rent-a-mob phenom hadn't been invented to exploit the meaning of the First Amendment. Of course, the size of the population compared to Adams’ day is partially to blame for the number of participants that disrupt political events. However, the real culprit in Adam’s eyes is the quest for power that leads to the anger and hatred that makes potential politicians fear for their lives. He was convinced that his enemies (much like his father’s) would do or say anything, true or false, to keep him from having a second term.  If the outcome weren't so vital to the future direction of the country and if he weren’t such a concerned citizen it might have been a case of a pox on both their houses. But, like Adams, we have to face the fact that there will be an occupant of the White House even if he or she is antipodal to our views. Since that is a given we should forget all the negativity and ask what their policies would be. That would be the enlightened way to elicit information that might be helpful to our participation in the republic.

Climate Change

Like many of the vox populi I was skeptical of man-caused climate change, but with so many on board the climate train it was hard not to jump on. My brother was even more skeptical than I and in many ways we agreed that the ice cores showed that carbon dioxide levels were higher in the past when it was colder than they are at present.

Recently he bought a copy of “Climate Change: The Facts.” He was so enthusiastic that I borrowed and read it.

The evidence against anthropogenic climate change is vast and unimpeachable. The first part of the Al Gore/pro climate change scientists’ Holy Grail was the “hockey stick” graph that showed a precipitous rise in global temperatures due to fossil fuel burning. In fact the overall energy balance for the earth has not changed for the past seventeen years. So much for that bit of nonsense.

Another bit of science fiction promulgated by those in favor of anthropogenic climate change is the “heat sink” proposal. That is all the heat that must have been generated by the carbon dioxide in the air must be locked up in the ocean. But there is no evidence for that assertion; in fact, the ocean temperature has not varied much more than a fraction of a degree over the same time that the earth was supposed to be warming from all that CO2.

If the evidence weren’t enough there are numerous occasions where the international panel on climate change has manipulated the data to show that their models of man-caused climate change are correct. If this kind of manipulation were discovered in any other professional body the scandal would reverberate from pole to pole and around the Equator. But as some of the authors in the book point out climate science appears to be immune from a thorough investigation of not only the evidence but also the scandalous assertions that are made in the name of the IPCC.

The silver lining in this cloud of obfuscation is that the “undeveloped” countries have balked at having to meet the same carbon reduction criteria that the biggies have to meet (USA, UK, etc.). What that means is that the rush to limit, curtail or eliminate fossil fuel burning, especially coal, is on hold for who knows how long.

All in all the book goes a long way to show that climate is such a complex mix of gases, winds, solar radiation, oceans and other natural elements that have nothing to do with fossil fuel burning that one’s carbon footprint doesn’t loom as large a contributor to a catastrophic end for humanity as before the writers and editor began to analyze exactly what the gloom and doom anthropogenic climate change bloc was all about.

The statistics and charts in the book are explained in plain English so most of the scholarly approach to discussing the evidence is readable. But the book is not a page turner and one wouldn’t expect it to be so since it takes a while to digest the information presented.