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Monday, January 29. 2007

Science and Politics

They do not mix. The UN Report will be another silly exercise, like the Stern Report. Truth is, nobody knows anything, and it is difficult to find opinions which are not emotion-driven, or agenda-driven, or eco-religionist-driven.

When the climate scientists and the paleoclimatologists stop driving and flying on airplanes and eating beef, I will listen...maybe. 

Already, The UN Report is being slammed.

Image via Tangled Web

Posted by The Barrister in Politics at 15:33 | Comments (22) | Trackbacks (0)

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I don't see how anyone could argue with a report that has such a grand title. I mean, really, WG1/IPCC sounds right to me! Let's get started!
#1 buddy larsen on 2007-01-29 15:58 (Reply)
Someone, it my have been Buddy asked earlier who were the people sending Kerry back to the Senate. It's a great question.

My question is why are we still giving a dime to the UN. We can retain our seat on the Security Council to veto stuff but we can cut off all funding and let it wither on the vine. Could we possibly be worse off? I say no.

Then we could devote some energy to slapping NATO around and getting them reengaged in the real world.

Seriously, does anyone you know take the UN seriously?
#2 Habu on 2007-01-29 16:09 (Reply)
Habu,

I was talking with a friend about this. You remember a little while back when Rice introduced her reforms to the state department. Her desire was to get outside of the capitals and into the real heart of the nation. Cut out the middlemen, the bottleneck you know?

Odd thing is, that bottleneck, those middlemen, comprise entirely the General Assembly, as well as the non veto-carrying members of the UNSC. I think what's implicit in such an effort is an agreement with your sentiments and the observations of many Americans. We want to be engaged in the world, but talking with corrupt bureaucrats is not any form of engagement.

I'm honestly excited about how this new direction could change the world for the better. Those capitals can make all sorts of noise, but if we're cutting deals in the countryside and the outskirts and the suburbs where most of the population lives, well, I think there's some appealing mutual interests to incentivize both us and our new friends.
#3 ppab on 2007-01-29 16:19 (Reply)
Any nation can talk to any other nation any time they want, anywhere they want - with or without the UN.

And they do.
#4 Silent Cal on 2007-01-29 16:21 (Reply)
The UN site in NY is some of the best real estate in the world. Who wouldn't love to have a condo there? Just sayin.
#5 Patina on 2007-01-29 16:25 (Reply)
ppab,
You realize the Democrats will undermine those efforts, and should they gain the WH it'll be business as usual for them...bury the USA.
Right now, and the window is closing, the world MUST deal with us. We do not need the UN structure at all. Prior to it and the failed LON we negotiated quite nicely one on one.
Nothing says we can't continue to form alliances a la NATO,ANZUS et al. Anything but the truly putrified UN.
Let it move to Switzerland, we don't need it here, in our face, insulting what is the most giving nation that's ever been in existence.
Let the UN poseur's do it in failing Europe.
#6 Habu on 2007-01-29 16:31 (Reply)
Habu,

I know, I know. The Dem's have NGOs and government programs to fund, but businesses want customers and that's exactly who lives outside the capitals of those corrupt countries. So when those two forces goto bat, who do you bet on: the communists or the capitalists?

Mind you, the communists may have AQ but the capitalists have Blackwater - perhaps even NATO as you mention. I try to remember that Security and Education (as in PhDs as well as MA and BS etc) are two of America's current exports. Neither of those bode well for the Dems' projects. Every little success Education and Security services achieve is going to be awfully hard to take back, I'd wager. The problem that comes down that pike is what we lament often at the Bar: complacency, apathy, all in all lack of incentives in the national entreprize, in even the national "notion".

Through this same lense, you have to ask, have we successfully exported EITHER of those services to Iraq? Seems ambiguous at best, you know?

Insofar as the United Nations has never and could never export either of these invaluable services, it will fade away. Anyone who wants to do business, does business.
#7 ppab on 2007-01-29 16:51 (Reply)
Barbaro euthanized
#8 Habu on 2007-01-29 16:51 (Reply)
Pore ole horse. Damn good try, tho. Light cannon bone--the jinx of speed.

ppab, I loved reading what you said but i don't know what it meant. But that's ok, it was good!
#9 buddy larsen on 2007-01-29 17:36 (Reply)
ppab...excellent points which I may well steal.

BTW...since the thread is Science and Politics let me mention someone not well known today but was a giant, Herbert Spencer. When people hear the phrase "survival of the fittest" they are likely to think of the great biologist Charles Darwin. The phrase in fact appears to have been coined by a contemporary of Darwin's, the philosopher Herbert Spencer. Spencer coined the phrase a full two years prior to Darwin's use of it.
In fact it is very much a misapplication to call anything "Social Darwinism" when it was Spencer who addressed that very thing, not Darwin. It should by all knowledgeable people be referred to as Spencerian Selection.
If you have the time try to make it through his work on "Ethics" which spends about 300 pages talking about lower order organisms, but by the end of the 1500 pages he pulls it all togther. zzzzzz,snort,zzzzzzz
#10 Habu on 2007-01-29 17:42 (Reply)
Oh dear God--it is tooo perfect! But, there are some steps you forgot:
1. Don't forget to add 3 unqualified women for every qualified male actually doing the research. These gals will take charge of the calendar, and choose how many unqualified women will be employed as assistants to the project and also who shall get paid how much out of the research funds.

2. Don't forget that you must add at least one and possibly as many as three top level administrators from your local university to be project supervisors, or advisors. They get paid the most; having had prior experience in the particular field of study is not required.

3. Don't forget to co-ordinate your proposal with another university that also wants to have a piece of the research pie.

4. Finally, you got to find some way to make the oversight guy at the funding agency happy--perhaps, a part time faculty position at your buddy's university?

5. Oh wooops. I almost forgot the secretaries, administrative assistants, file clerks, etc. who work in the grants department at your own university. They will all want to have "INPUT"does not matter if they are qualified in the field--they just want you to be sure to listen to them whenever they want to offer their concerns. You know--like they want to "collaborate", because the only difference between the expert doing the research and them is that the world has these levels (layers) of things (accomplishments) that are meant to hold back the masses from speaking their mind, etc., etc.,etc.
#11 apple pie on 2007-01-29 19:26 (Reply)
Oh geez--I almost forgot! You have to add at least one person of color, and everybody but the file clerks get to have their name on the project as co-researcher (Principal Investigator).
#12 apple pie on 2007-01-29 19:34 (Reply)
Woops--one more: the gal who is the assistant to the project overseer at the funding agency: her sister-in-law needs a part time job as an entry level instructor at a university, preferably one of the better schools. Right now she is having to baby sit her sister-in-law's kids, because of the divorce, and she is not in the office "all the time", so proposals are getting piled high on her desk. I also forgot the guy in charge of the agency: he just found out you live/work in a beautiful part of the country--he is getting ready to retire--can you introduce him to folks at your campus?
#13 apple pie on 2007-01-29 19:46 (Reply)
Apple Pie:

Welcome to the Lewis Carroll Society of North America.
#14 E. Schuyler Cavendish, Esq. on 2007-01-29 20:56 (Reply)
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

'Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!'
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought--
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

'And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
#15 buddy larsen on 2007-01-29 22:00 (Reply)
All mimsy were the borogoves......


It just doesn't get any better than that..it's The Elysian fields, when the borogoves get mimsy.

What say mate? Or could it be Elysian Fields, Texas in Harrison County? Seen any mimsy there?
#16 E. Schuyler Cavendish, Esq. on 2007-01-29 22:09 (Reply)
Mimsy Borograves, a great name for a bubble dancer. Harris County is more or less the city of Houston. There is no Harrison County, that's more of a Florida-sounding name.

say, apple pie, all that wouldn't be so bad, would it, if it were private biz rather than taxpayer money.
#17 buddy larsen on 2007-01-29 22:35 (Reply)
cavendish, you DO know, that was Lewis Carroll's work, and not, uh, mine, don't you?
#18 buddy larsen on 2007-01-29 22:38 (Reply)
that flow chart is pretty hilarious BTW.
#19 buddy larsen on 2007-01-30 00:06 (Reply)
Buddy, yes there is a difference. As you mentioned what makes this particular situation so onerous is that they are stealing tax payers money throught the process of featherbedding. If it was a private business, if the sister-in-law, or daddy, or the newly hired CEO didn't do the job they would be out in short order. Here in this situation they just submit another proposal to continue the work. It is easier to get a project extended than it is to get the original funding. Then you never have to come up with a real product (answer/information).
#20 apple pie on 2007-01-30 06:08 (Reply)
Thank you for printing that perfect piece--I had forgotten the pure joy of it!
#21 apple pie on 2007-01-30 06:12 (Reply)
It was definitely related somehow to the story you were telling, apple pie. Esp after habu mentioned Lewis Carroll. Life in the nutty groves, you two were observing. Where does it lead, once people--such as that project team, have to 'talk around' everything they're doing? Well, jabberwocky, of course!
#22 buddy larsen on 2007-01-30 10:12 (Reply)

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