Category Archives: Science And Society

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

A Superstorm

1 Comment

…in climate “science.” An extensive and even-handed report at Der Spiegel.

McIntyre’s findings did not make him very popular. In the hacked Climategate emails, he is referred to as a “bozo,” a “moron” and a “playground bully.” But with their self-aggrandizement, the climatologists made him into a legend on the Internet. A million people a month visit his blog, climateaudit.org. They include climate skeptics and the usual conspiracy theorists, but also, more recently, many academics who are able to do the math themselves.

McIntyre asserts that he does believe in climate change. “I don’t want to throw the baby out with the bath water,” he says, “but when I find mistakes, I want them to be corrected.”

He repeatedly bombarded Jones with emails in which he drew his attention to freedom of information laws. This tenacity would prove to be disastrous for Jones.

McIntyre doggedly asked for access to the raw data. Jones was just as dogged in denying his requests, constantly coming up with new, specious reasons for his rejections. Unfortunately for Jones, however, McIntyre’s supporters eventually included people who know how to secretly hack into computers and steal data.

Their target was well selected. Jones was like a spider in its web. Almost every internal debate among the climate popes passed through his computer, leaving behind a digital trail.

But the US media continues to ignore the fraud and loss of credibility.

Political Commentary, Science And Society

A Whitewash

67 Comments

…of Climaquiddick.

I’m struggling to say something polite about this. By way of an illustration, can you imagine the reaction if a scientist reported in the safety literature that there was a critical flaw in the design of a nuclear power station, but told policymakers that everything was fine? Do the committee really think it’s fine to hide important information from policymakers so long as you report it in the literature?

Astonishing.

Or it should be astonishing. Unfortunately, it’s become increasingly difficult to be astonished at these power mongers.

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

The Green Pharaoh

10 Comments

See, he was just trying to save the Nile delta. I’m even more amused at the leftist outrage in the comments. But then, leftists, and particularly watermelons, don’t have much of a sense of humor.

[Update a couple minutes later]

I love this comment from Bernstein:

Jon Stewart is funny because of the ways he bugs his eyes out, and otherwise makes funny faces. Can’t get that effect on a blog, I’m afraid.

It’s funny ‘cuz it’s true.

Economics, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Space, Technology and Society

Asilomar Two

19 Comments

Here’ is the first report I’ve seen on the conference this past week on geoengineering. I would have like to attend, but didn’t have either time or money right now. I was a little disturbed by what seemed to be an absence:

Participants…split into groups representing the two broad kinds of geoengineering: methods which block solar radiation from the sun, like spreading aerosols in the stratosphere, and techniques to remove carbon from the atmosphere, like growing algae blooms at sea.

…A vexing question for participants was the role of commercial companies in this controversial field. A breakout group devoted to the idea of blocking sunlight—by whitening clouds or the ocean surface, for example—couldn’t agree on whether it should propose barring for-profit companies from the enterprise.

Ignoring the issue of the role of private enterprise, what I’m reading seems very terracentric (which isn’t uncommon among the scientific community — I think it was one of the reasons that it there was so much skepticism about Alverez’ dinosaur-extinction theory). After all, if the goal is to block sunlight, the closer to the source you are, the easier the job might be. Maybe there were some space-based solutions discussed, but you can’t figure it out from this report. One of the reasons that I wanted to attend was to provide a perspective that might not otherwise be there, and it looks like my fears were born out.

I’d bet that if you proposed (say) Ehricke-type solettas, or sunshades, you’d be laughed out of the room, largely out of ignorance of space transportation economics. I would have provided a tutorial to explain why it’s foolish to extrapolate costs of current launch systems to future large-scale space access, because I’ll bet that’s exactly what most of them would do (because it’s what most people do now). I’ll look forward to a more detailed report on the conference, though, including a full list of presentations.

[Monday afternoon update]

It should be noted that I’m not advocating geoengineering. I’m just pointing out that for those who do, they shouldn’t exclude space-based solutions because of false preconceptions. It’s sort of like my attitude toward NASA. I wouldn’t weep much if the agency was defunded (other than the personal impacts on my friends who are employees and contractors). But seeing as how that’s unlikely to happen, I’ll continue to lobby to at least have the funds spent sensibly, in terms of actually advancing us in space.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society

Another Blow To The Warm Mongers

23 Comments

Apparently cattle aren’t a greenhouse problem.

Is there anything they’ve gotten right?

[Update a couple minutes later]

You know, the correlation between things that leftists dislike (the beef industry, the energy industry, free markets, personal freedom) and things that we’re told are destroying the planet is positively uncanny. I’m sure it’s just coincidence, though.

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

Faith-Based Deficit Reduction

30 Comments

Note: I’ve been continually updating this post, and will probably continue to do so all day, and keep it at the top. New posts are below it.

Thoughts on the health-care deform by Jimmy Pethokoukis.

[Update a few minutes later]

Nationalizing health care by proxie:

Insurance companies are now heavily regulated government contractors. Way to get big business out of Washington! They will clear a small, government-approved profit on top of their government-approved fees. Then, when healthcare costs rise — and they will — Democrats will insist, yet again, that the profit motive is to blame and out from this Obamacare Trojan horse will pour another army of liberals demanding a more honest version of single-payer.

The Obama administration has turned the insurance industry into the Blackwater of socialized medicine.

Like the financial crisis, it’s right out of the standard fascist playbook. Screw up the market with government regulations, then claim that government regulations are required to fix it. Rinse, repeat, until they control every aspect of our lives.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Is the tax power infinite?

Americans today are not bound to meekly accept the most far-ranging assertions of congressional power based on large extrapolations from Supreme Court cases that themselves come from a short period (the late 1930s and early 1940s) when the Court was more supine and submissive to claims about centralized power than was any other Supreme Court before or after in our history. American citizens, in the political process and in their personal lives, will ultimately have the final word on the Constitution.

Let’s hope that ultimately comes soon.

[Update a while later]

“Every power grab is the base camp for the next power grab.”

[Update a while later]

Ten Obama promises that reached their expiration date this morning.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Americans: the health care debate wasn’t about health care at all.

You can fool some of the people all of the time, but not all of them.

[Update mid morning]

Dennis Prager: the Cold Civil War has begun:

Thank God this civil war is non-violent. But the fact is that the Left and the rest of the country share almost no values. The American value system and the leftist value system are irreconcilable. If the Left wins, American values lose. If American values win, the Left loses.

I like his idea of calling the Democrats “Social Democrats.”

And Mark Steyn has some depressing thoughts on our accelerating journey to Declinistan.

[Update a while later]

Awakening a sleeping giant:

Instead of being discouraged by passage of health care reform, tea party activists across the country say the defeat is a rallying cry that makes them more focused than ever on voting out any lawmaker who supported the measure.

“We’re not going to stop. Obviously, the whole tea party movement started because we’re about smaller government and less spending and less taxes. There is absolutely no way we can pay for this,” said Denise Cattoni, state coordinator for Illinois Tea Party, an umbrella group for about 50 groups from around Illinois.

Cattoni says the health care defeat doesn’t deflate tea party activists. “We couldn’t stop it because of the shenanigans that went on in Washington,” Cattoni said. “People are definitely more driven today than they were yesterday without a doubt.”

Actually, the giant awoke last year, as we saw in Virginia, New Jersey and (most of all) Massachusetts. And it’s not going back to sleep any time soon, contra the fantasies of the Democrats. It’s not only awake, now — it’s enraged. The retribution in November will be huge.

[Update a couple minutes later]

I just noticed this quote at the end of the article from an idiot:

While tea party activists have made themselves heard, University of North Florida political science professor Matthew Corrigan said the movement alone won’t be enough to oust incumbents.

“Do they have energy? Yes. Have they been getting into the media? Yes, but they still haven’t sold me on the fact that they can swing elections,” Corrigan said.

Tell it to Martha Coakley. If I were one of his students, I’d want my course tuition back.

[Update a few minutes later]

Kevin Williamson says that ObamaCare will never happen. Unfortunately, it’s not as good a news as it sounds:

Our budget deficit is currently about 10 percent of GDP and going higher. Greece’s is 12.7 percent of GDP — significantly higher, sure, but not outrageously so. At the end of fiscal 2009, U.S. federal government debt equaled 83 percent of GDP, 53 percent of which is held by the public. (Another 30 percent is “intra-government” debt, meaning money owed to the mythical Social Security trust fund and the like. The usual approach is to talk only about publicly held debt and to pretend that the rest does not represent real obligations, which is malarkey.) But even that does not tell the whole story: Official government debt figures do not account for the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac obligations taken on by the government, and those amount to $5 trillion, i.e. more than all 2009 federal spending. They also don’t count remaining liabilities related to the Wall Street bailout.

So here’s a prediction for you: Obamacare is not going to happen, regardless of the fact that the president is going to sign it into law today, regardless of what happens in the 2010 and 2012 elections, and regardless of any speech given anywhere in Washington. The government’s ability to simply say “Make it so!” and ignore economic reality is coming up against its limit. If Nancy Pelosi thinks the Republicans are obstructionists, wait until she wants to borrow money from people who don’t want to lend it to her and don’t have to run for reelection.

[Bumped]