Mathematics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society

Unprecedented Non-Warming

5 Comments

A new global temperature index:

What we see is that the halt in warming is without precedent in the recent warming period. As such, something *is* amiss with predictions of not only continued, but *accelerated* warming. The something that is amiss appears to be that:

  1. Sensitivity has been very significantly over estimated and
  2. Natural climate variability, whatever the cause, has been under estimated.

The former undermines the claim of drastic future warming, the latter undermines the claim that recent warming was uniquely attributable to anthropogenic forcing.

Let’s be absolutely clear: that represents a complete vindication of the skeptical position and a refutation of the alarmed position.

Anyone who disagrees is obviously a denier.

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

Going Galt

15 Comments

America’s already done it:

The implications of this are actually terrifying. What are those nearly 92 million people doing with their time, other than sitting around depressed?. Many, of course, are on some version of welfare. Some are panhandling. We see the homeless on the streets of all our big cities. Others are moving into a shadow economy, much of it illegal (drugs, prostitution), not paying taxes on whatever they earn. It’s truly a sad situation. No wonder so many states are moving toward legalizing grass. Everyone wants to zone out.

This is rapidly approaching a a pre-revolutionary condition, but not for a revolution many of us would want to undergo. To avoid it, a massive change must occur at the federal level. But Barack Obama, mired in a dead ideology, doesn’t seem prepared to do anything but prolong the situation with highly conventional liberal solutions that have failed for decades, maybe even centuries.

And yet there is so much he could do. The most obvious, many of us know, is to unshackle the energy industry. He should dismantle much of the bureaucracy as well. There’s a lot more, of course. But the point now is to realize that when you have nearly 92 million people deserting the labor force in a country of 317 million (many of who are children too young to work), you have a catastrophic problem on your hands.

Even if he’s capable of realizing that, he’s ideologically incapable of changing.

[Update a few minutes later]

Non-Recovery

This is a recovery only in the narrow, technical sense of growth in GDP. But it’s not growing anywhere near fast enough to provide jobs for those who want and need them. It’s the worst economy since the Great Depression, brought on by similar foolish policies.

[Late-morning update]

December probably wasn’t a one-off:

The smiley-face crowd’s next line of defense is that December was a one-off — some are even blaming inclement weather, which is pretty pathetic, given that those who predicted seasonally adjusted job additions of almost 200,000 already knew what the month’s weather was like — and that the generally upward trajectory seen during most of 2013 will resume. There are many reasons to question that optimism.

I think a lot of wishful thinkers are underestimating the destructive effects of uncertainty in health insurance on hiring.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

“Liberal” “Apologies”

30 Comments

Tammy Bruce: It’s time to stop accepting them.

In the normal world, accepting an apology is the classy thing to do. We all do make mistakes, and the apology ritual is one that allows people to forgive and forget, and move on.

This is all well and good if the issue at hand truly was a “mistake” delivered by someone of good will. When dealing with partisan liberals, however, neither of those apply.

Arguing for harm to come to someone because you disagree with them is neither a mistake nor an accident. It’s a contemplated idea, cultivated into a message and delivered as an argument. Targeting a toddler for derision because it serves a political agenda isn’t something that mistakenly pops into someone’s head. It springs from an existing loathsome well.

It would be valuable for today’s conservative leadership to recognize that comments like Mr. Bashir’s and Ms. Harris-Perry’s aren’t mistakes — they are public illustrations of what sits at the core of today’s liberalism — hatred, paranoia and cruelty.

Romney should have said something like “While I wouldn’t be so ungracious as to accept an apology, it’s worth pointing out that this was not an isolated incident. It’s just the latest outburst of lies and calumny against me and my family that have been coming from the left ever since I had the temerity to run against Barack Obama for president.”

Business, Space

Off To Mojave

16 Comments

Hoping to get up there and see SS2 in flight.

[Update mid-afternoon]

OK, I’m back. Got to the flight line a few minutes before the drop. I took some pictures, but I’m sure that Virgin’s are better. I’ll look at them and see if I have anything worth posting, but I didn’t have a lot of zoom on the camera.

On a related note, I stopped over at XCOR and fulfilled some of the last of my Kickstarter obligations, where it was gently pointed out to me that I’d deployed some sloppy wording in the section on Lynx, unintentionally implying that it doesn’t have engine-out capability at takeoff. I meant to say loss of thrust, not premature engine termination.

It’s quite annoying to me, given how much effort and time I spent to get it right. Most people won’t notice it, but to me it’s like a mountain, a VAST BOWL OF PUS. Now people will be saying, “Gee, what else did he screw up?”

So if you don’t hear from me after this, it will be because I went down the local SCA chapter to borrow a sword with which to ritually liberate my viscera.

[Update a few minutes later]

Here are a couple of nice shots, courtesy of Doug Messier.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Social Commentary

The Grauniad On The Mann Lawsuit

14 Comments

Journalism:

Mann, who currently directs Penn State University’s Earth System Science Center, is one of the authors of the so-called “hockey stick graph”, which Al Gore used in his film, An Inconvenient Truth, to illustrate the precipitous rise in global temperatures since the dawn of industrialization when humans started spewing the heat-trapping greenhouse gas CO2 into the atmosphere. For the “sin” of helping to create this “exhibit A” in the scientific case for climate change, the conservative semimonthly, the National Review, called Mann “the Jerry Sandusky of climate scientists”. Blogger Rand Simberg wrote on the Review’s online site:

Except that instead of molesting children, [Mann] has molested and tortured data in the service of politicized science.

The Penn State researcher didn’t take this insult lying down. He sued the National Review and the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which also published the offending blog; the case is currently pending.

For the record:

a) I wrote that at CEI’s Open Market blog, not at National Review (and no, I received no money from the Kochs, from Big Fossil Fuel, or even from CEI to do so, thanks for asking). The Jerry Sandusky phrase was later removed by CEI’s editors in response to Mann’s complaint (prior to his filing the lawsuit).
b) Before it was deleted, Mark Steyn quoted it at National Review‘s blog, The Corner.
c) The reference to Sandusky was not so much to compare Mann to Sandusky as to compare the Mann “investigation” by Penn State to the Sandusky “investigation” at Penn State (under the same Penn State administration), and it had nothing to do with the “sin” of creating the hockey stick, per se.

And the comments section over there is a supersaturated solution of ignorant moonbattery.

[Update on January 14th]

Based on what I’ve since learned, the phrase was in fact removed by CEI’s editors before they learned that Mann’s attorney had complained to National Review.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!