Category Archives: Media Criticism

Business, Economics, Mathematics, Media Criticism, Science And Society, Technology and Society

Climate Change “Consensus”

12 Comments

“When it’s a consensus among the uninformed, it’s not worth much“:

What can we take away from all this? First, lots of people get called “climate experts” and contribute to the appearance of consensus, without necessarily being knowledgeable about core issues. A consensus among the misinformed is not worth much.

Second, it is obvious that the “97 per cent” mantra is untrue. The underlying issues are so complex it is ludicrous to expect unanimity. The near 50/50 split among AMS members on the role of greenhouse gases is a much more accurate picture of the situation. The phony claim of 97 per cent consensus is mere political rhetoric aimed at stifling debate and intimidating people into silence.

Yes. Anyone who cites that number at this point is either a liar or appallingly ignorant.

[Update a while later]

Related, I was going to post about this interview with Jerry Taylor, formerly of Cato, who seems to aspire to be continually out of synch with reality:

I began to change, maybe five or six years ago, for several reasons.

One, the scientific evidence became stronger and stronger over time. A lot of conservatives think of climate change as similar to the population issue. You have to remember, in the ’60s and ’70s people were frantic about population growth. And it just peeled away as an issue, simply because it was wrong — or the projections were. And so I would say the same thing: [climate change] is just one in the endless parade of environmental apocalypse stories.

That’s simply not true. The scientific evidence has not become “stronger and stronger over time.” In fact, particularly with the pause, and the complete failure of the models, the uncertainty is growing.

Judith Curry addresses it:

…it is interesting to see Libertarian arguments about climate change policy they [sic] don’t seem overly caught up in the UNFCCC/IPCC ideology, or its antithesis ideology. The Climate Hawks (e.g. Dave Roberts) love this kind of libertarian ‘conversion’ story. But to my mind, Jerry Taylor’s argument for a carbon tax doesn’t really hold up.

Nope.

Humor, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

Barack Obama

1 Comment

Is he the most sexist president ever?

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Technology and Society

Amtrak

11 Comments

It doesn’t need more taxpayer cash, it needs to be sold off, or given away. Actually, it’s not so much what it needs, but what the taxpayer needs. As noted, it’s primarily an income transfer scheme from lower-income taxpayers all over the country to the wealthy in the northeast corridor and union members.

[Update a few minutes later]

“‘Amtrak doesn’t get enough government money,’ is the kind of thing someone says when that person doesn’t understand anything about Amtrak, or government, or money.”

Heh.

Humor, Media Criticism, Social Commentary, Weird

The White Man Reading List

38 Comments

So, I saw this tweet:

I decided to see how accurate it was.

It was sort of a fail, at least for me. I own less than 25% of those books, and have read fewer than a third. Many of them I read as a kid, when my parents had copies.

Law, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Abortion

11 Comments

What gives Congress the right to regulate it?

Nothing in the Constitution.

Note that (as with Roe v. Wade), one’s position on abortion is, or at least should be, irrelevant to whether Congress (or SCOTUS) has the power to declare it either legal or illegal. It’s about process, not outcome. But too many from both sides of the aisle (as we saw with ObamaCare) don’t give a damn about process if they get the outcome they want.

History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture

Richard Dreyfuss

50 Comments

Has he finally been mugged by reality?

Here’s a flashback:

Dreyfuss, who in 2006 called for the impeachment of then-President George W. Bush, has long been a critic of special interest money in politics; in 2011, during an appearance at the National Press Club, he called for a constitutional amendment “prohibiting money, politics and television.” He also started The Dreyfuss Initiative in support of teaching civics in schools.

Well, the latest piece is at least consistent with that. And at least he recognizes that “getting money out of politics” would require a Constitutional amendment. But he doesn’t seem to recognize that the best way to get money out of politics, at least federal politics, would be to remove the incentive, by limiting the power of the federal government to what the Founders intended, particularly restoring the 9th and 10th Amendments.

[Late Tuesday-morning update]

Given the turn the comments have taken, this seems relevant: Government corruption, from the IRS to the DOJ.

[Bumped]