Sunday, December 13. 2009
 Lowry: Is health care bill tottering? Via Lucianne, It's going from awful to worse. Smith at Am Thinker:
The Democrats' colossal experiment threatens to unleash forces that will ultimately overwhelm the doctor-patient relationship, ration our health care and stifle innovation and excellence in medicine.
Is it degrading to look for a job? Douthat: The Conscience of a Social Democrat. He is responding to Judt's October defence of social democracy in the widely-unread NYR of Books: What Is Living and What Is Dead in Social Democracy?
Astroturf in Copenhagen
Duke at Am Thinker: The Pathology of the Rich Socialist. He asks
How can someone preach socialism while being the most rapacious "capitalist" imaginable? Well, I have a theory about this.
Cool: Sarah Palin on The Tonight Show w/Conan O'Brien & William Shatner 12/11/09
The head of Athenahealth:
"I still have to keep going to Washington and sucking up," he says, switching metaphors. "Because the problem is when you have a baby with an Uzi, right, they might accidentally mow you down. But here's the thing . . . they're brilliant people. It's just that the idea of a market in health care never occurred to them."
What's in the Senate h/c bill? Via Betsy:
Responding to a complaint by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) that Republicans haven't been told what's in the new bill, Durbin, the number two Democrat in the Senate, responded that he's in the same position.
"I would say to the senator from Arizona that I'm in the dark almost as much as he is. And I'm in the leadership," Durbin said on the Senate floor.
Majority Leader Harry Reid has submitted the bill to the CBO from scoring, but Durbin said no one involved in the compromise will spill the beans until the score is released.
"We had a caucus after this was submitted to the Congressional Budget Office where Sen. Reid and other senators who were involved in it basically stood up and said, 'We're sorry we can't tell you in detail what was involved here, but you will learn. Everyone will learn."
Matthew 18:20
"For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them."
Yes, there is a dusting of snow:
Saturday, December 12. 2009
 In the WSJ: Deconstructing TV's No. 1 Show - 'NCIS' isn't young, hip or edgy, it just has the most viewers.
I watch it because I love Abby.
I’ve stayed away from the subject of global warming before. The primary reason is that I’m somewhat of an agnostic. It is in defense of reasonable agnosticism, or the scientific method, that I finally speak.
A thinking person will see the subject as so vast and so ultimately unknowable or predictable and the costs of global warming advocates’ proposed actions so apparently unsettling – even disastrous -- to human progress as we know it (particularly in the West where technology’s benefits are manifest compared to any prior or current alternative) that a thinking person cannot blithely go forth with global warming warnings.
Yet the possible (versus what advocates say is probable) consequences of rejection are presented as so dire that I hesitate at taking a position that may doom us to climate purgatory or worse. That’s why the scientific method, the thinking person’s agnosticism, is most needed.
A hypothesis is disproven by failure to predict, replicate, and be simpler than alternatives. The scientific bases of global warming advocates’ forecasts is now largely exposed as severely lacking in scientific rigor and reeking of manipulative deception. Global warming advocates’ “proofs” are invented vapors.
But, this is not per se a definitive disproof of the hypothesis. It is a clarion call for any of the hypothesis’ advocates who have any integrity or deserve repute to come clean and propose new, transparent, tested and testable scientific work. Otherwise, and until, none of their severe remedies can be tolerated.
At the same time, it is a repeat lesson in exposure of the destructive consequences of the past 100+ years of anti-modernist, anti-Western utopianism pursued by leftists who seek power over the rest of us. Their prior “gods” – socialism, communism, fascism, for example – failed in every way. Their fears of an inability to compete, and their seeking of power and position, impels them to new utopian schemes that again reek of self-aggrandizement, now with global warming mania, regardless of the prices and burdens imposed on the masses yearning for improved living conditions and more freedoms of choice. This, as usual, fits neatly with the self-preserving enrichment and entrenchment of faux populists in the underdeveloped countries.
We do know that reasonable emission controls on engines, smokestacks and chemical discharges are beneficial to the quality of life we require in the US. Still, the costs, the loss of jobs and manufacturing, and the dislocations of adjustments have been tremendous. We now know that when taken to minute-reduction excess, the benefits are outweighed by the penalties.
We, also, know that domestic substitutes for producing energy – whether wind or geothermal or shale or nuclear, along with conservation efficiencies -- are preferable to imports of oil that fund foes and deplete our wealth.
As with more honest scientists, we need more honest politicians. They must be willing to take strong stands, lead, and persuade based on the highest empiricism – instead of sneakily impose -- in pursuit of reasonable environmental and self-sufficiency goals rather than in pursuit of personal profiteering and election contributions. Otherwise, as with those who fail to live up to scientific standards, politicians who fail to live up to democracy’s standards should be rejected. The established measures are clear.
 Dynamite from Krauthammer: The new socialism
Forget CO2 - now it's nitrogen!
Dino on climategate: Something’s (probably) got to give
SISU on Scott Brown
About time: Britain, Long a Libel Mecca, Reviews Laws
More on the Minnesota Teacher Brainwashing Program
High Premiums in Senate Democrats’ Health Plan
Climategate’s Harry_Read_Me.txt: We All Really Should
Get a Government Job, Series #4,291 John Derbyshire
CNN: 61% Oppose Senate Health Care Plan
The Nobel speech is getting good reviews.
Bainbridge: Is Medicare Really "Big Government at its Best"?
Trying to rewrite history:
Reid, like most Liberals, is trying to revise the racist history of the Democratic Party, and better yet, to transfer that history to the Republican Party. You would too if you had the racist history of the Democrats.
Study Shows Good Little Eco-Ninnies Who Buy Organic 'n Stuff More Likely to Lie and Cheat in Experiments That Test Ethics
I do not understand this: ACORN wins in federal court
15 reasons why they fell for the hoax
No Pasaran: "It's the same old leftist playbook: Approach every desired major policy change as a crisis, and demand immediate action."
Christmas Bells
I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Till, ringing, singing on its way
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime,
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The Carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And in despair I bowed my head;
‘There is no peace on earth,’ I said;
‘For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!’
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
‘God is not dead; nor doth he sleep!
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men!’
Friday, December 11. 2009
Interview with Andrew Klavan: My Way Into and Out of the Left.
How many of us have similar stories?
A pal stopped by for a beer with his pup the other day after work. A sweet, gentle puppy. Can you name the breed?
"Carl Pham" replies in the comment thread of a post at McArdle:
Broke, you're one of the good examples of why there is a "consensus" among "scientists" that AGW is real, and it's just a question of how much. And you're also an excellent example of why that consensus should not exist, how scientists who took the vow of empiricism seriously should not be part of that herd. (And I don't mean to be too critical; I understand the temptation, as one who happens to be an expert in very similar fields.)
Here's the problem. As someone who knows the molecular physics well, you can see the components that go into the AGW hypothesis. CO2 has an infrared cross-section of foo, and the atmospheric concentration of the stuff atop Mauna Kea has increased from bar to baz since 1960, and you get CO2 from burning any hydrocarbon in O2, so...well, there you go. Plain as a pikestaff. Hitch these facts together with a little logic, and you have a hypothesis of AGW.
That's actually fine as far as it goes. But what you should bear in mind is the key distinction we always teach youngsters between a hypothesis and a decent theory: empirical verification. It's simply not enough to say oh, A follows logically from B. That's Aristotelian "science," the way the Greeks deduced that there were four Elements (fire, water, earth, air) from which everything was made. The same way 18th century chemists came up with the theory of phlogiston to explain combustion. The same reason Michelson expected to find an ether drift.
No, it only becomes plausible theory when you actually run the experiment, and show that B produces A, every time, and not B produces not A, every time. Unless and until you do that, you merely have a plausible speculation.
As you know, the big problem with climate "science" -- I'm inclined to call it "climate studies" myself -- is that it is impossible to do the relevant experiments. We can't take a planet and jack up its CO2, then see whether the climate changes relative to some identical planet where we hold the CO2 constant. In the absence of that kind of experimental test, you do not have an empirical science. Yes, the components of climate studies -- molecular physics, atmospheric chemistry, complex systems simulations -- are all legitimate sciences, because you can do the experiments that directly confirm or contradict the theories. But when you assemble all these pieces into predictions of climate -- of what happens to the whole damn planet, over centuries -- then, alas, it stops being a science, because the experiments can't be done. (It's like theories of history: in the same way, we can't run history over again, have Truman make a different decision, and see whether lives were on balance lost or saved by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. This is why history is not an empirical science.)
Good engineers recognize this problem. Even if every part of your machine has been proved to work as you expect, that doesn't mean the assembled whole is going to work as you think it will. The whole is always more than the sum of its parts, and can surprise you.
You're an expert on one component of climate studies. Excellent. The constructions seems plausible to you. Fair enough. But your experience as a scientist should convince you (unless you are so young you have not experienced any surprising failures of your ideas) that unless it can be subjected to the crucible of experimental proof, the most convincing argument in the world is merely that -- an argument -- and does not rise to the level of empirical science.
 The lists coming in to Santa this year seem to be more about work needs than personal wants. That's what happens as kids grow a bit older. It's more fun to surprise a kid with stuff they never thought of, but first things first.
The Hurricane daughter needs a new Armani business suit or two (as in photo). Armani is made for her (or vice versa), and she is expected to be well put-together at work in NYC.
Santa cannot do everything, but he can try to do a little, depending on what space is left on his Mastercard.
This year, Santa definitely needs the help of his cute nsfw elves (pictured below the fold).
Continue reading "Need, not want or wish for"
Via Climate Skeptic:
Personal anecdote:
Last spring when I was shopping around for a new source of funding, after having my funding slashed to zero 15 days after going public with a finding about natural climate variations, I kept running into funding application instructions of the following variety:
Successful candidates will:
1) Demonstrate AGW [ed: Anthropogenic Global Warming]
2) Demonstrate the catastrophic consequences of AGW.
3) Explore policy implications stemming from 1 & 2.
Follow the money — perhaps a conspiracy is unnecessary where a carrot will suffice.
If only alarmist results are funded, then it should not be surprising that only alarmist studies are produced.
"Were we directed from Washington when to sow, and when to reap, we should soon want bread."
Thomas Jefferson
Y2Kyoto: I Say We Start By Canceling The Olympics
Take This Paradigm and Shove It: Each year, I get invited to Washington DC to serve as a pimp. (h/t, Insty)
Climategate gaining traction - even in New Jersey
Dino: From the Snail Darter to CO2
Watts: The Smoking Gun at Darwin Zero
NASA Stonewalling Stokes Fears Climategate Will Spread to U.S. |
Climategate may be just the tip of the global-warming iceberg, according to experts. The next weather-science scandal may erupt right here in the United States. For nearly three years, NASA has resisted the efforts of free-market groups to release e-mails that could reflect the same sort of pro-warming bias seen in the recent e-mails from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of East Anglia University.
Breitbart launches a new Big
Medical magic:
Shut up, they explained, everybody's going to be totally stoked about the new plan. Well, everybody except the doctors and hospitals...
Betsy begins:
Something Olympia Snow gets right!
The Wall Street Journal points to a speech that Olympia Snowe made last month when she pointed out that the best social reform bills passed by Congress are ones passed by a real bipartisan majority not a phony one of just one Republican senator voting to give the whole shebang a false veneer of bipartisan cover.
|
Dems Need to Come Out of the Single Payer Closet. I thought they already had done so.
Thursday, December 10. 2009
From Frank Tipler: Orwellian Nightmare: Science Is Whatever ‘the Party’ Says It Is. ( Frank J. Tipler is Professor of Mathematical Physics at Tulane University. He is the co-author of The Anthropic Cosmological Principle (Oxford University Press) and the author of The Physics of Immortality and The Physics of Christianity both published by Doubleday.)
Guardian:
Developing countries react furiously to leaked draft agreement that would hand more power to rich nations, sideline the UN's negotiating role and abandon the Kyoto protocol.
Politico:
'Climategate' muddied the good green message that was supposed to come out of Copenhagen.
 People ask me why we seem so predictably and boringly preoccupied with the health care and climate change issues.
There is a simple answer: Those are the two topics which are currently being exploited to the max by Leftist totalitarian-minded folks, who believe themselves to be our moral and intellectual superiors, in their endless efforts to control our lives and to chip away at our freedom and our dignity as sturdy, intelligent, competent, free-thinking adults and families in a free nation with (semi-) free markets.
In history, the battles against central powers were fought on different fronts and, in the future, they will be fought on new fronts that have not been concocted yet in the Gramscian and Alinskian laboratories. It will never end. If Stalin's holocausts didn't end it, if the fall of the Berlin Wall didn't end it, if the evidence of Cuba and North Korea didn't end it, if Pol Pot didn't end it, if the turn of China and Russia to Capitalism didn't end it, if the countless failures of centralized control economies didn't end it, if the attempts to turn Euroland back to free markets and greater freedom didn't end it, if the pathetic return of Euroland to an imperial EU doesn't end it, if the countless failures of hugely-expensive but failed yet immortal government programs didn't end it, then nothing will ever end this battle.
Power, unlike wealth, is a zero-sum game. It is in the nature of governments, which we fully accept as necessary evils, to accumulate power and funds from the citizens - and to regard citizens as children or as subjects. This seems to be something that occurs regardless of the form of government. Some people seem born to seek power over others, some wish to be security-minded subjects, and others simply seek mastery of their own lives. We prefer the latter pursuit, with God's grace, while fully aware that this mortal life we hold so dear may be often full of sound and fury, but signifying little in the end beyond our relationships with the Deity, our family, and our friends.
Without wanting to sound or to be grandiose, people like us at Maggie's and similar sites aim to be perpetual revolutionaries, freedom-fighters, Tea Party Indians, Tom Paines; the minor heirs of our heroic forefathers, attempting to stay true to their ideals of the dominion of individuals seeking their own goals without the oppressive weight of an intrusive government. At least, that is what we aspire to be in our small way.
Individual freedom in relation to the State is close to sacred to us. We pay the State dues to protect us from external enemies and from internal criminals, for justice under law, plus for just a few other minor things. Otherwise, we want to be left alone and to take care of ourselves as best we can in a culture in which every person exercises their morals, their integrity, and their concern for their neighbor by the Golden Rule.
Live and let live, but don't tread on me.
We demand that individual freedom and liberty be part of every political equation - a Constant, like Avogadro's Number. The Constitutional Amendments lX and X remain real and valid to us - delusional though we may be.
We at Maggie's do not even feel entirely comfortable with the notion of "rights." We dislike and distrust the use of the word "rights" in America. In our view, the worthy subject of discussion is that of government powers and their prescribed limits. We the people need no "rights," as the US was conceived. We are free human beings. Free to fail, free to speak, free to do stupid things, free to take risks, free to succeed in our goals - if we have any- free to do almost any damn thing we want to. Yes, maybe we are crazy idealists and maybe we are foolish rubes who produce nothing but superficial cant and pointless rant.
However unheard a voice we at Maggie's may be in the big world, we will use it to resist insidious political maneuvers and manipulations until we turn senile or die - or run out of things to say.
If the latter comes first, we'll cheerfully turn our focus purely on things like shotguns and recipes and wildlife and fishing and salt marshes and architecture and history and philosophy and art and pretty girls and boats and travelogues and God and all of the other joyful, interesting, and delightful things in life.
By the way, if you have friends who might like Maggie's, email our link around. We do not like to be cybersluts (hmm - maybe we do), but we do not want people who might enjoy our eclectic offerings to be deprived of our humble efforts. Let people know that we exist, because our readership is our only reward for our enjoyable efforts here on ye olde Farm.
Doing so would be the finest Christmas present for us.
 Re our post yesterday about waxed cotton jackets, I stumbled upon this one which comes with blaze orange patches at L.L. Bean. Darn cheap too. Probably other people also make them.
Showing a bit of blaze isn't just for hunters - it makes good precautionary sense when hiking in the back woods during deer season.
Our rule is to never hike during deer season when wearing brownish clothing and antlers.
 Image via Moonbattery
More experts have second thoughts about AGW
Palin vs. Gore:
I’m putting my money on the Alaskan Mom…
It’s been nearly two years since the Goracle first announced that the arctic polar cap “will disappear in 5 years.”
Via View from 1776:
In Copenhagen Treaty negotiations, poorer nations are demanding massive transfer payments from the United States and other developed nations. Good luck to them in collecting promised payments.
AGW is a potential bonanza for rent-seekers and power-seekers. That's why the facts no longer matter.
It changes every day: Government medical takeover update
Get ready for Health Care 'Sticker Shock'
Isn't this racial profiling? The NYT: Christmas gifts for people of color?!?!?!? Shades of separate water fountains.
Another in Captain Tom's photo series on his home town -
The National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry was established in 1860 for the purpose of encouraging the local and national agricultural community to organize to protect their interests. The Grange was originally modeled along the lines of Freemasonry with ritual, degrees of advancement, secret words and handshakes and closed membership meetings. It wasn't unusual for granges and lodges to have interlocking leadership. Where The Grange differed was that it had open membership - women, men and children over the age of 14 were encouraged to join.
The Senexet Grange #40, Woodstock, CT was established in 1901. Built entirely of fieldstone, it sits on its original location. The membership is still active (a lot of granges have since been disbanded) organizing holiday pie sales (absolutely the best apple pies and peach cobbler I have ever had - sorry Mrs. Francis, but it's true), an annual bluegrass festival which attracts musicians and performers from around New England, tag sales, and has a booth at the local Woodstock Fair. The proceeds go to various projects, the most interesting is the annual dictionary donation to the Elementary School third grade.
Wednesday, December 9. 2009
Via Human Events:
The March 16, 2009 report by Dr. Alan Carlin says -- among other things -- that
“As of the best information we currently have, the GHG/CO2 hypothesis as to the cause of global warming, which this Draft TSD supports, is currently an invalid hypothesis from a scientific viewpoint because it fails a number of critical comparisons with available observable data. Any one of these failings should be enough to invalidate the hypothesis; the breadth of these failings leaves no other possible conclusion based on current data.”
You can read the entire report here. The report was disclosed by Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) at a Tuesday afternoon press conference in which he said that the report was not considered by EPA in reaching its Monday determination.
Dare I repeat this again? It's all about a political agenda.
The Annunciation. Fra Angelico, c. 1430
Matthew 1:18-25
"Now the birth of Jesus Christ was in this way: When, as His mother, Mary, was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit. Then Joseph, her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privately. But while he thought on these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary, thy wife; for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call His name JESUS; for He shall save His people from their sins. Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call His name Immanuel, which, being interpreted, is God with us. Then Joseph, being raised from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife, and knew her not till she had brought forth her first-born son; and he called His name JESUS."
I wonder how many practicing Christians accept the biological accuracy (rather than the mystical meaning) of the virgin birth.
(The Roman Catholic dogma of Immaculate Conception - an RC dogma as of 1854 - is a separate topic.)
The Isaiah prophecy was that an "alma" or "almah" (Hebrew) will bear a son, and shall call him Immanuel. What's an "alma"?
It sounds like a word that we might translate as a "maiden" or a "maid," because Hebrew has a word for a virgin - "betula." Some view our current take on Isaiah's prophecy as a simple translation error - or even as a deliberate error on the part of translators.
Interestingly,
When the Revised Standard Version of the Bible was issued in 1952, the words "young woman," not the word "Virgin, were used for alma in its translation of Isaiah 7:14. This upset the Fundamentalist Christian community, which maintains that alma in Isaiah refers to the mother of Jesus, who conceived miraculously, without cohabitation with a man. These Fundamentalists expressed their vehement opposition to the new translation by holding burnings of the Revised Edition of the Bible.
Is it a tempest in a teapot? Is it of deepest significance? If interested, one can Google these topics and read about them endlessly. As an ignorant, relatively unschooled, ordinary Christian, I am not sure that the subject of the virgin birth is all that important but, seeing as it is part of the Apostle's Creed and that there is much mystery and miraculous in Christianity, I guess wiser, deeper people than I am have decided that it is. (To me, all of creation and existence itself is a miracle, and I remind myself daily to remember that.)
The Apostle's Creed goes something like this, with some minor variation:
- 1. I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.
- 2. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.
- 3. He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.
- 4. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.
- 5. He descended into hell. On the third day he rose again.
- 6. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
- 7. He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
- 8. I believe in the Holy Spirit,
- 9. the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints,
- 10. the forgiveness of sins,
- 11. the resurrection of the body,
- 12. and life everlasting.
- Amen.
Tuesday, December 8. 2009
 Photo of one of Tiger's hos friends. We generally avoid tabloid stuff, but we had to make a little room room for the great Tiger. Via Am Thinker:
... The Tiger Woods that was constructed for corporate consumption was spotless and smooth, an edgeless brand easily peddled to sheikhs and shakers.
Given how desperately we want to believe in a human god, it didn't take much peddling from Team Tiger for us to accept Woods as a modern deity.
Vanderleun: The day we killed John Lennon
Insty on law schools:
ETHICS: NY Times: Is it OK for Law Firms to Discriminate Against Conservative Law Students?
UPDATE: Professor Bainbridge: “This episode will come as no surprise to those who believe that prejudice against conservatives is far more rampant in law firm and law school faculty hiring than any other form of discrimination.” Plus, well . . . just read the whole thing.
Althouse: Stanley Fish finds Sarah Palin's book "compelling and very well done. Related: Palin's 21st-century stealth campaign of surgical strikes keeps Obama off balance
Also related: Who's the rube? Palin sure has the internet thing down pat.
Tiger: The continuing war on business. Related from Pethokoukis: The EPA and Obama’s Uncertainty Tax
The teacher's union that stole Christmas
Sipp on virtual games life:
There is a world here. Something like it has captivated many minds. We live in a world where many things are virtual and value is placed on them in ways that are not transparent. Expectations about the way life is -- or should be -- receive a kind of nebulous reinforcement, drilled by repetition.
Opportunities to create a virtual system are considered the pinnacle of human achievement. Opportunities to game a system are considered much more achievable than running a system, and so are the second tier of accomplishment. Simple participation in the system assures enough status to keep people wandering around in it, and so there's a big bottom on our ecosystem food pyramid, though when all is said and done, it is all nothing.
Climategate: They all get the same outcomes cuz they all used the same "improved" data.
Related from Lawrence Solomon: Dirty climate data
The O and Conyers: President Obama told me to stop ‘demeaning’ him, says Rep. Conyers
Blair: Is Cap & Trade anything more than income dedistribution? Not that I can tell.
Must be want they really wanted: Euros become subjects of a New Versailles. Maybe they never really bought in to the risks, the self-reliance, and the uncertainties of human freedom and dignity.
More...
Sarah Palin discusses Climategate in the WaPo
Charter schools growing, despite union hostility
Am Thinker: Watermelon Marxists
Why is Mexico such a mess? City Journal
Sen. Inhofe: The greatest scandal in modern science
Rick Moran:
There will never be “certainty” about global warming. The question I have is, after we are finished pulverizing industrialized civilization and the climate doesn’t warm, where do we go to get our money back?
Good point from Melissa: The Left and the MSM have portrayed her as an ignorant rube. So how can she not exceed expectations?
This is cruel: The people of WalMart (video)
The press and Climategate: Like a hamster in a cage with a snake
|
