We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
To date, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has never offered any evidence of a “human fingerprint” on the modest (0.5 degrees Celsius) warming that occurred between the 1850s end of the Little Ice Age and 1940. They haven’t even given us a convincing story about the 0.2 degree Celsius warming that occurred from 1940 to 1998 (part of that tiny warming has disappeared). James Hansen’s predictions of massive overheating, given to the Senate in 1988, have been overtaken by a quiet sun and a telling drop in global ocean temperatures.
The public has noticed there’s been none of the long-predicted runaway warming — or any warming at all since 1998. They’re reading the Climategate emails of the “consensus scientists” confessing they don’t know why warming stopped. That’s a huge confession.
The public cares less and less for tired scare stories of a parboiled planet.
The 111 new bureaucracies and agencies in the Dem health care bill, via Never Yet Melted:
1. Retiree Reserve Trust Fund (Section 111(d), p. 61) 2. Grant program for wellness programs to small employers (Section 112, p. 62) 3. Grant program for State health access programs (Section 114, p. 72) 4. Program of administrative simplification (Section 115, p. 76) 5. Health Benefits Advisory Committee (Section 223, p. 111) 6. Health Choices Administration (Section 241, p. 131) 7. Qualified Health Benefits Plan Ombudsman (Section 244, p. 138) 8. Health Insurance Exchange (Section 201, p. 155) 9. Technical assistance to employees of small businesses buying Exchange coverage (Section 305(h), p. 191) 10. Insurance risk pooling to be established by Health Choices Commissioner (Section 306(b), p. 194) 11. Health Insurance Exchange Trust Fund (Section 307, p. 195) 12. State-based Health Insurance Exchanges (Section 308, p. 197) 13. Grant program for health insurance cooperatives (Section 310, p. 206) 14. “Public Health Insurance Option” (Section 321, p. 211) 15. Ombudsman for “Public Health Insurance Option” (Section 321(d), p. 213) 16. Account for receipts and disbursements for “Public Health Insurance Option” (Section 322(b), p. 215) 17. Tele health Advisory Committee (Section 1191 (b), p. 589) 18. Demonstration program providing for “culturally and linguistically appropriate services” (Sec 1222, p. 617) 19. Demonstration program for shared decision making using patient decision aids (Section 1236, p. 648) 20. Accountable Care Organization pilot program under Medicare (Section 1301, p. 653) 21. Independent patient-centered medical home pilot program under Medicare (Section 1302, p. 672) 22. Community-based medical home pilot program under Medicare (Section 1302(d), p. 681) 23. Independence at home demonstration program (Section 1312, p. 718) 24. Center for Comparative Effectiveness Research (Section 1401(a), p. 734) 25. Comparative Effectiveness Research Commission (Section 1401(a), p. 738) 26. Patient ombudsman for comparative effectiveness research (Section 1401(a), p. 753) 27. Q/A and performance improvement program for skilled nursing facilities (Section 1412 (b)(1), p. 784) 28. Q/A and performance improvement program for nursing facilities (Section 1412 (b)(2), p. 786) 29. Special focus facility program for skilled nursing facilities (Section 1413(a)(3), p. 796) 30. Special focus facility program for nursing facilities (Section 1413(b)(3), p. 804) 31. Independent monitor pilot program for skilled nursing facilities and nursing facilities (Section 1422, p. 859) 32. Demonstration program for approved teaching health centers for Medicare GME (Section 1502(d), p. 933) 33. Pilot program to develop anti-fraud compliance systems for Medicare providers (Section 1635, p. 978) 34. Special Inspector General for the Health Insurance Exchange (Section 1647, p. 1000) 35. Medical home pilot program under Medicaid (Section 1722, p. 1058) 36. Accountable Care Organization pilot program under Medicaid (Section 1730A, p. 1073) 37. Nursing facility supplemental payment program (Section 1745, p. 1106) 38. Demonstration program for Medicaid medical conditions for mental diseases (Sec 1787, p. 1149) 39. Comparative Effectiveness Research Trust Fund (Section 1802, p. 1162) 40. “Identifiable office or program” for “coordination between Medicare and Medicaid” (Section 1905, p. 1191) 41. Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (Section 1907, p. 1198) 42. Public Health Investment Fund (Section 2002, p. 1214) 43. Scholarships for service in health professional needs areas (Section 2211, p. 1224) 44. Program for training medical residents in community-based settings (Section 2214, p. 1236) 45. Grant program for training in dentistry programs (Section 2215, p. 1240) 46. Public Health Workforce Corps (Section 2231, p. 1253) 47. Public health workforce scholarship program (Section 2231, p. 1254) 48. Public health workforce loan forgiveness program (Section 2231, p. 1258) 49. Grant program for innovations in interdisciplinary care (Section 2252, p. 1272) 50. Advisory Committee on Health Workforce Evaluation and Assessment (Section 2261, p. 1275) 51. Prevention and Wellness Trust (Section 2301, p. 1286) 52. Clinical Prevention Stakeholders Board (Section 2301, p. 1295) 53. Community Prevention Stakeholders Board (Section 2301, p. 1301) 54. Grant program for community prevention and wellness research (Section 2301, p. 1305) 55. Grant program for research and demonstration projects for wellness incentives (Section 2301, p. 1305) 56. Grant program for community prevention and wellness services (Section 2301, p. 1308) 57. Grant program for public health infrastructure (Section 2301, p. 1313) 58. Center for Quality Improvement (Section 2401, p. 1322) 59. Assistant Secretary for Health Information (Section 2402, p. 1330) 60. Grant program to support the operation of school-based health clinics (Section 2511, p. 1352) 61. Grant program for nurse-managed health centers (Section 2512, p. 1361) 62. Grants for labor-management programs for nursing training (Section 2521, p. 1372) 63. Grant program for interdisciplinary mental and behavioral health training (Section 2522, p. 1382) 64. “No Child Left Unimmunized Against Influenza” demonstration grant program (Section 2524, p. 1391) 65. Healthy Teen Initiative grant program regarding teen pregnancy (Section 2526, p. 1398) 66. Grant program for interdisciplinary training, education, and services for autism (Section 2527(a), p. 1402) 67. University centers for excellence in developmental disabilities education (Section 2527(b), p. 1410) 68. Grant program to implement medication therapy management services (Section 2528, p. 1412) 69. Grant program to promote positive health behaviors in underserved communities (Section 2530, p. 1422) 70. Grant program for State alternative medical liability laws (Section 2531, p. 1431) 71. Grant program to develop infant mortality programs (Section 2532, p. 1433) 72. Grant program to prepare secondary school students for health care training (Section 2533, p. 1437) 73. Grant program for community-based collaborative care (Section 2534, p. 1440) 74. Grant program for community-based overweight and obesity prevention (Section 2535, p. 1457) 75. Grant program for reducing the student-to-school nurse ratio (Section 2536, p. 1462) 76. Demonstration project of grants to medical-legal partnerships (Section 2537, p. 1464) 77. Center for Emergency Care (Section 2552, p. 1478) 78. Council for Emergency Care (Section 2552, p 1479) 79. Grant program to support demonstration programs for regionalized emergency care (Section 2553, p. 1480) 80. Grant program to assist veterans who wish to become EMT’s (Section 2554, p. 1487) 81. Interagency Pain Research Coordinating Committee (Section 2562, p. 1494) 82. National Medical Device Registry (Section 2571, p. 1501) 83. CLASS Independence Fund (Section 2581, p. 1597) 84. CLASS Independence Fund Board of Trustees (Section 2581, p. 1598) 85. CLASS Independence Advisory Council (Section 2581, p. 1602) 86. Health and Human Services Coordinating Committee on Women’s Health (Section 2588, p. 1610) 87. National Women’s Health Information Center (Section 2588, p. 1611) 88. Centers for Disease Control Office of Women’s Health (Section 2588, p. 1614) 89. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Office of Women’s Health Research (Section 2588, p. 1617) 90. Health Resources and Services Administration Office of Women’s Health (Section 2588, p. 1618) 91. Food and Drug Administration Office of Women’s Health (Section 2588, p. 1621) 92. Personal Care Attendant Workforce Advisory Panel (Section 2589(a)(2), p. 1624) 93. Grant program for national health workforce online training (Section 2591, p. 1629) 94. Grant program to disseminate best practices on implementing health workforce (Section 2591, p. 1632) 95. Demonstration program for chronic shortages of health professionals (Section 3101, p. 1717) 96. Demonstration program for substance abuse counselor educational curricula (Section 3101, p. 1719) 97. Program of Indian community education on mental illness (Section 3101, p. 1722) 98. Intergovernmental Task Force on Indian environmental and nuclear hazards (Section 3101, p. 1754) 99. Office of Indian Men’s Health (Section 3101, p. 1765) 100. Indian Health facilities appropriation advisory board (Section 3101, p. 1774) 101. Indian Health facilities needs assessment workgroup (Section 3101, p. 1775) 102. Indian Health Service tribal facilities joint venture demonstration projects (Section 3101, p. 1809) 103. Urban youth treatment center demonstration project (Section 3101, p. 1873) 104. Grants to Urban Indian Organizations for diabetes prevention (Section 3101, p. 1874) 105. Grants to Urban Indian Organizations for health IT adoption (Section 3101, p. 1877) 106. Mental health technician training program (Section 3101, p. 1898) 107. Indian youth telemental health demonstration project (Section 3101, p. 1909) 108. Program for treatment of child sexual abuse victims and perpetrators (Section 3101, p. 1925) 109. Program for treatment of domestic violence and sexual abuse (Section 3101, p. 1927) 110. Native American Health and Wellness Foundation (Section 3103, p. 1966) 111. Committee for the Native American Health and Wellness Foundation (Section 3103, p. 1968)
Once upon a time, scientists, unlike prophets, were inductive. They sought to interpret evidence in empirical fashion, rather than twist it to "prove" preexisting suppositions. The Enlightenment taught them to welcome transparency and free expression, not (as in the Medieval Age) to form cabals to hound out heretics. Public intellectuals and grassroots activists were devoted to promoting proven ideas, rather than making fortunes through the shrill advocacy of unproven ideas. In the age of cynicism, penances were sold to sinners to allow them without guilt to satisfy appetites that conflicted with their doctrine; by contrast, the lives of moralists reflected the simple creed they advocated for others. Governments acted on scientific consensus, not theories that were the most favored or trafficked in popular culture. Debates, not propaganda cinema or cheap invective, adjudicated honest disagreement; people of the lab and library, not Hollywood celebrities and rock stars and their wannabes on campus, informed the public about scientific dispute.
How strange: This was to be our new age of science; instead, we are getting alchemy, the inquisition, and the reign of the superstitious.
...the Obama administration is expected as early as Monday to formally declare carbon dioxide a dangerous pollutant.
An "endangerment" finding by the Environmental Protection Agency could pave the way for the government to require businesses that emit carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases to make costly changes in machinery to reduce emissions -- even if Congress doesn't pass pending climate-change legislation. EPA action to regulate emissions could affect the U.S. economy more directly, and more quickly, than any global deal inked in the Danish capital, where no binding agreement is expected.
The NYT drank the Kool-Aid years ago - for political, not scientific reasons. They know nothing about science or math (how much stats did Pinch take in college?), but they do know that they approve of any kind of authoritarianism of the elites and the experts as long as they and their Manhattan pals are the elites and experts.
I think that it is notable that they have finally admitted that Climategate exists. They have not quite gone so far as to admit that a debate about the science - or about the hysteria in which they have participated in avidly - exists.
It is important that scientists behave professionally and openly. It is also important not to let one set of purloined e-mail messages undermine the science and the clear case for action, in Washington and in Copenhagen.
They did not decide to mention that those emails go to the heart of all of the hysterical pronouncements of the IPCC. The CRU is the beating, seemingly duplicitous, heart of the entire movement.
Rather than being the cynics and skeptics that we expect of hard-nosed journalists, the NYT predictably drinks the Kool-Aid because it suits their authoritarian politics. Pathetic, limp - and unprofessional.
A nation of Watanabes. My view? There is no such thing as predatory lenders. There is such thing as greedy, predatory, amoral borrowers and risk-takers on the bank's nickel.
Sometimes Ace gets serious and, when he does, he says wise things. As in this piece (which is not really about Palin). h/t, Villainous. One quote:
...politics is not about Simon Pure purity on questions. They are advancing the idea that politics is about coalition-building, doing what is necessary to attract 51% to your flag, and that those they consider too hardcore about conservative principles are doing the party a disservice by elevating philosophical integrity and ideological coherence above the vagueries and punts often necessary to negotiate a rough consensus.
An outrage indeed. The re-do of the Sunmaid girl. They made her less ethnic, and no longer a field worker.
I have heard many views on this: House Republicans Seek Reprieve For Navy SEALs. I tend to think it's like those cases where they arrest a 6 year-old girl for having a butter knife in her lunchbox.
NSFW: Obama's Safe Schools Czar. This creep would have been arrested if he came by my elementary schoool.
It is the most important scandal of our time. Climate alarmists are trying to impoverish the world, ostensibly in order to cool it down but really, in my view, to achieve the liberal holy grail of government control over everything. The scandal comes along at a critical moment to cast doubt on whether the "scientists" behind the global warming scare are doing science at all. Rather, their own words suggest that they are engaging in a combination of politics and fraud.
The skeptics were regarded as cranks and shills for evil polluters, such as the oil companies. If they got coverage at all, it was negative.
Now comes Climategate. It is out of step with the media agenda. What does the media do now?
“Ignore it,” has been the first answer.
Regard it as an unimportant story[4]. Not nearly as important as Tiger Woods or the couple that crashed a White House party. It is just another hacker, and undoubtedly the work of one of those oil company shills. Yes, ignore it. It will fade away.
The second answer: Write about Climategate’s general unimportance and give the parties involved a platform to dismiss the charges. Various outlets took minor steps to cover the story in a limited, dismissive way.
SCIENTISTS BEHAVING BADLY: Steve Hayward on the ClimateGate scandal. “The behavior of the CRU circle has cast a long shadow over the entire climate science community, and many honest scientists will now undeservedly bear the stigma of Climategate unless a full airing of the issues is conducted. Other important climate research centers with close ties to the CRU–including NASA’s Goddard Institute and the Climate Change Science Program at NOAA–should not be exempt from a full-dress investigation. Such a reevaluation must begin with an understanding of the crucial role the CRU circle has played in the global warming drama.” Read the whole thing, which provides a nice summary of the issues so far.
Image: The new palms and rising balmy waters at Maggie's Farm Resort and Spa in central New England. It's about time. We bought the place for that exact purpose, cleverly anticipating the arrival of the palms and beaches.
...according to a number of recently released scientific studies, dogs are not merely emotional con artists: they are also intellectual con artists. They've learned not only to fake love; they've managed to convince us that they are a lot smarter than they really are. In both cases they play us for the saps we are.
The new analysis of the data will take three years, meaning that the Met Office will not be able to state with absolute confidence the extent of the warming trend until the end of 2012.
...from a letter Jefferson wrote in 1762: “The old-fellows say we must read to gain knowledge and gain knowledge to make us happy and admired. . . . Mere jargon! Is there any such thing as happiness in this world? No: And as for admiration I am sure the man who powders most, perfumes most, embroiders most, and talks most nonsense, is most admired.”
The Massachusetts model, yet again - Boston Globe "Six hospitals to sue state over payment shortfalls": "The suit charges that Massachusetts violated a law requiring adequate reimbursement to hospitals for patients insured by the government. The hospitals contend the state set repayment rates so low they do not cover the cost of such medical care." Fear not, all these issues will be ironed out in the federal plan. Paul Krugman told me so.
You may suppose that those with a resilient faith in end-of-days global warming would be more distraught than anyone over these actions. You'd be wrong. In the wake of the scandal, we are told there is nothing to see. The administration, the United Nations, most of the left-wing punditry and political establishment have shrugged it off. What else can they do?
To many of these folks, the science of global warming is only a tool of ideology. To step back and re-examine their thinking would also mean — at least temporarily — ceding a foothold on policy that allows government to control behavior. It would mean putting the brakes on the billions of dollars allocated to force fundamental economic and societal manipulations through cap-and-trade schemes and fabricated "new energy economies," among many other intrusive policies.
Krauthammer spoiled his excellent piece on medical insurance by claiming a moral imperative for medical insurance.Not for medical care - for medical insurance. I agree with the Powerline guys that this part of Krauthammer's piece makes no sense.
It is a moral imperative for parents to take care of their kids as best they can. And, in a nation founded on equality in the face of the law, you could make a case for universal free national legal care.
Socialized medicine is no more insurance than Social Security is. What it is is having the government - ie your neighbors - pay your bills. That's not insurance.
OK, now Obama’s presidency is becoming super embarrassing. I honestly feel like someone is going to come out and pat him on the head all patronizingly. His latest Jobs Forum, (kind of like a Summit, I think, only not as fancy pants) to be hosted on Thursday, is yet another example of how woefully unprepared and hopelessly in over his head he is.
...even if you accept the IPCC predictions, look what happens. The IPCC says that world temperature will increase by 2100 by somewhere between 3.2F and 7.2F. A warming of half way between these two points works out at an average temperature increase of 0.05 degrees F per year. In the last 25 years of the past century, temperature increased at the rate of 0.04 degrees per year. (In this century, it has not increased at all!) Has this proved so appalling to manage?
Lord Lawson then notes that the IPCC predicts that, at this level of temperature rise, global food production will actually increase. He takes the IPCC's gloomiest prediction of the economic effects of global warming over the same period. By its own figures, the difference between what would happen with global warming and without it amounts to this: in a hundred years' time, people in the developed world would be "only 2.6 times better off than they are today, instead of 2.7 times, and their contemporaries in the developing world would be "only" 8.5 times as well off as people in the developing world are today, instead of 9.5 times better off". So this is the projected catastrophe, to avoid which the people of the present generation are being asked to curtail their carbon emissions by 70 per cent.
Slice your average environment correspondent through the middle and you're going to find a left-leaning liberal arts graduate who is utterly out of his/her depth. Their world view is being swept from underneath them and they are being shown — in ways that they do not really and have never had to understand — that the guys they thought were the goodies are in fact "at it" and that those they have spent a decade disparaging as deniers were in fact spot on.
...the Climategate e-mails reveal an unprecedented, systematic conspiracy to stifle discussion and debate, conceal and manipulate data, revise temperature trends that contradict predictions of dangerous warming, avoid compliance with Freedom of Information requests, and pressure scientific journals and the IPCC to publish alarmist studies and exclude dissenting analyses so as to manufacture "consensus."
I am not a professional climatologist but a common-sense fellow. Therefore I think I have more credibility than the average person who makes a living from "climate change." I enjoyed Coyote's Catastrophe Denied, but I think even he gave too much credence to existing data.
It seems to me that there is no accurate way to measure "global temperatures" or "global climate" other than via the troposphere. Tree rings and sediments and weather stations are ridiculous "proxies" for "global climate." Furthermore, there is no such thing as a "global climate" anyway.
The reason is that, at sea level, the earth consists of thousands of climates and millions of micro-climates - all on land undergoing constant fluctuation and all impacted by natural ebbs and flows and much of it impacted in some way by man and his land use, urbanization, etc (The earth's population was 1.2 billion in 1850, now it is 6.8 billion.) - and the ocean remains incomprehensibly complex with all of its oscillations and strange fluctuating vertical and horizontal currents.
I am not a climatologist, but I am always a skeptic about whatever experts tell me. I am a skeptic even about the 0.6 degree F change in the past 150 years. I think all of our temperature data is meaningless beyond its immediate locale - except for the troposphere data which we have only for recent years.
Science is never about truth. It's just about the theory and hypothesis du jour. That's what it's supposed to be.
I was being facetious yesterday about Climategate and Palin, but not today: is the Afghanistan "plan" timed to provide cover for health care? Sort of a wag the dog thing?
Am I getting smarter about how pols manipulate us, or am I getting paranoid? Or both?
Cute gal, to cheer us up, via 
Christmas puddings 
The NYT drank the Kool-Aid years ago - for political, not scientific reasons. They know nothing about science or math (how much stats did Pinch take in college?), but they do know that they approve of any kind of authoritarianism of the elites and the experts as long as they and their Manhattan pals are the elites and experts. 
Image via 
Just when it seemed as if, finally, there could be some real open discussion about the data, 
Tiger Woods drives 
Via 
