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.
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.
"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."
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."
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 entrenchmentof 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
Lowry: 
Dynamite from Krauthammer: 
People ask me why we seem so predictably and boringly preoccupied with the health care and climate change issues.
Image via 
Photo of 
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