Category Archives: Business

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society

The Global Warming Hysteria

13 Comments

…is dissipating:

1. Global warming has gone AWOL over last 10 years, per the satellite record

2. Cumulating [sic] CO2 emissions in the atmosphere have had a minor impact on global temperatures over the last 20 years

3. The mainstream press, as represented by The Economist, and other proponents of convential [sic] climate orthodoxy are moving closer to the AGW skeptics’ (lukewarmers’) position

4. The publics [sic] (per Pew) belief in catastrophic AGW predictions is plummeting

As it should. As Robert Tracinski says:

So here’s the state of play of climate science a third of a century into the global warming hysteria. They don’t have a reliable baseline of global temperature measurements that would allow them to say what is normal and natural and what isn’t. Their projections about future warming are demonstrably failing to predict the actual data. And now they have been caught, yet again, fudging the numbers and manipulating the graphs to show a rapid 20th-century warming that they want to be true but which they can’t back up with actual evidence.

A theory with this many holes in it would be have been thrown out long ago, if not for the fact that it conveniently serves the political function of indicting fossil fuels as a planet-destroying evil and allowing radical environmentalists to put a modern, scientific face on their primitivist crusade to shut down industrial civilization.

I think that history will record that 2009 was the height of the hysteria, just before the release of the CRU data and emails, which broke the fever, and was a partial cause of the Copenhagen fiasco. And “FOIA,” whoever he or she is, will be viewed as a hero of humanity.

[Mid-morning update]

The new climate deniers.

[Later-morning update]

Why Freeman Dyson is a skeptic about climate “science”: “I believe any good scientist ought to be a skeptic.”

Amen.

Here‘s the full story.

Business, Economics, Education, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

Bachelor Of Arts Degree

22 Comments

The new high-school diploma:

Obviously, if Beaudry et al right, this is ferociously depressing news. It suggests that we’re pushing more and more people into (more and more expensive) college programs, even as the number of jobs in which they can use those skills has declined. A growing number of students may be in a credentialling arms race to gain access to routine service jobs. Or maybe the productivity of our nation’s wait staff is spiking as more skilled workers flood into these jobs.

And as evidence, McDonald’s is now requiring a college degree to be a cashier. And it’s positively destroying the low-skilled workers. This isn’t going to end well.

[Update on Friday]

OK, so it turns out that the McDonald’s help-wanted ad was erroneous. But the fact that it was believable should concern, and it may in fact be a sign of things to come.

Business, Economics, Education, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Social Commentary

The Corruption Of Once-Liberal Education

8 Comments

What’s the matter with Vassar?

The students I contacted were angry about the walkout and embarrassed for Vassar. The protesters, on the other hand, tweeted a proud picture with a poster they’d ripped down. These students may fancy themselves courageous, but hiding behind masks and refusing to risk public contradiction by questioning a political opponent is cowardly.

As for the talk itself, you can watch it on video. The walkout comes at about 29 minutes into the tape. You can hear students criticizing the protesters as they leave. (A brief video with a better camera angle on the walkout can be found here.) But the real takeaway from the video is that, agree or disagree, the dreaded Epstein laid out a perfectly reasonable case for the importance of fossil fuels and the dangers of putting the industry that produces them out of business without an economically viable substitute. The notion that a talk like this is out of place at a an institution of higher education is pernicious. If anything, students desperately need to hear Epstein’s side of the story.

I asked Vassar’s administration for a comment on the walkout, the ripping down of ads for the talk, and on the threat by a student to harm himself at the talk as a protest. Acting Vassar College President, Jonathan Chenette has so far addressed only the walkout. Chenette’s statement, forwarded to me by Vassar, emphasizes that Epstein took the walkout in stride (true), yet added that the students who “[exited] rather than engaging” had “lost an opportunity for exchange and questioning.” (I have some serious concerns about this statement, but I’ll raise them when I reproduce the full text in a follow-up post.) My first response to Chenette’s statement is that it won’t do much to address the underlying problems at Vassar, which run deep.

There may be faculty at Vassar who still respect the ideals of liberal education as classically understood. Notwithstanding that, Vassar appears to have passed a tipping point beyond which these ideals no longer meaningfully operate where they’re most needed. Classes filled with courteous and respectful discussion don’t mean much if students dare not raise questions that half the country might ask.

If only the problem were just at Vassar.

And always remember, it’s a right-wing war on science.

Business, Economics, Education, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Obama’s Competency Deficit

4 Comments

Some thoughts:

This administration has grand ambitions to grow government but little interest in running it. The result, according to polling, is the highest mistrust in government in years. And rightfully so. We’ve willy-nilly added bureaucracy, deepened the debt, perpetuated cronyism, slowed economic entrepreneurialism and gotten few, if any, of the promised benefits.

It’s not exactly a new problem, but more people are starting to notice it. Too bad they didn’t do so a year ago.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Obama Incompetence

15 Comments

It’s not a new theme, but it is a new source: Joe Klein:

Yes, the President has faced a terrible economic crisis—and he has done well to limit the damage. He has also succeeded in avoiding disasters overseas. But, as a Democrat—as someone who believes in activist government—he has a vested interest in seeing that federal programs actually work efficiently. I don’t see much evidence that this is anywhere near the top of his priorities.

He only just figured that out? A little slow on the uptake, I guess.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space

SLS Delenda Est

42 Comments

Kill it to save human spaceflight:

Simply put, the SLS program should be canceled now to free up approximately $10 billion programmed for this decade. This money could then be redirected to continue the planned flight tests of the Orion spacecraft with the much lower-cost Falcon Heavy booster while making a robust investment in a first-generation space station in the vicinity of the Moon. An investment in such a cislunar station would provide—by the early 2020s—a multifunctional platform to act as a fuel depot, a workstation for robotic operations on the Moon and a habitat to protect against the more intense radiation environment outside of the Earth’s magnetic field. This station could even be used as a habitat during longer-duration human missions to an asteroid and eventually to Mars.

Expect to see a lot more editorials like this as time goes on, new systems appear, and budgets get tighter.

Business, Culinary, Health, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Social Commentary, Technology and Society

Attack On The Killer Tomatoes

12 Comments

Some thoughts on the war on Monsanto:

Monsanto is just too perfect an issue for a certain class of urbane lefty already inclined to food snobbery and to activism. It harmonizes with his inherent mistrust of corporations, confirms him in the superiority of his lifestyle choices, and accords with the deep strain of Rousseauian anti-modernism that runs through him. Never mind that a world without GMOs would be a hungrier world, a world in which the poor would have to pay something closer to the prices he happily bears for the peace of mind that comes from the politically correct consumption of roughage. As for the rest, well, let them eat cake. Locally sourced, sustainably produced, certified organic cake.

I did note on someone’s FB page the other day that the GMO hysteria is the modern version of “Let them eat cake.” I don’t want to hear one more word about the “Republican” “war on science.” These nutjobs probably think that Norman Borlaug committed crimes against humanity.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Don’t Get Fooled Again On Immigration

118 Comments

“The bottom line: Most Americans would support an immigration reform plan, but only if border security comes first. And by “first” they mean before the legalization of currently illegal immigrants and before the creation of a path to citizenship. Would they be more flexible if they truly believed the federal government’s promise to secure the border? Perhaps — but they don’t believe.”

They’d be fools to. We know that the Democrats have absolutely no intention of closing the border. It’s the same kind of bait and switch that they pull with tax-rate increases and spending cuts. we get the higher rates, buy we never see the cuts.