Category Archives: Economics

Today’s EPA Hearing On The Hill

I listened to some of it. Here is Judith Curry’s prepared testimony, and here are Moynihan’s live tweets.

The Democrats were sufficiently unhappy that they abandoned the hearing before it was over. They can’t handle the truth.

[Update in the afternoon]

Before he walked out, Professor Curry assisted one of the Democrats in beclowning himself.

[Update a few minutes later]

Post-hearing thoughts from her. I agree that the economist’s testimony was valuable, too. They basically told the Democrats that what the EPA plans to do would hit the poor hardest. Which is absolutely true.

SpaceX’s Latest “Failure”

Thoughts on why it was a spectacular success, from Bob Zimmerman.

By the way, the podcast of my talk on The Space Show is available.

Also, I’ll be on John Batchelor’s Hotel Mars segment tonight, at 6:30 PM PDT.

[Update a few minutes later]

Here’s the video, though it doesn’t show the tipping over.

[Afternoon update]

OK, here’s the best video yet. Looks like they may not get much back. Note the top thruster trying to keep it vertical, but lacking adequate thrust.

[Update a few minutes later]

Whoops. If you missed it, you missed it. They just made it private. But I think plenty of people saw it, so not sure what the point of hiding it is now.

[Update a few more minutes later]

OK, I’ve update with a new one that seems to have come back on line.

[Late-afternoon update]

Slow motion, color corrected. This looks official (I got it from Elon, via Amanda Stiles).

An Epistemological Question

Ron Bailey wonders what it would take to convince you that AGW was occurring.

Roy Spencer responds.

I agree that Ron is a smart guy, but I do think there’s some of this going on:

I hate to impute motives, but I really have to wonder if he is succumbing to peer pressure, since believing anything that smacks of denial-ism is really frowned upon in the intellectual circles I’m sure Ron is part of.

I think it’s compounded by the fact that it’s hard enough to change your mind once. It would be kind of embarrassing to revert back to skepticism. The key point, of course, is that Ron doesn’t necessarily believe that the problem demands any particular policy solution.