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shut up and pull

climber
May 16, 2011 - 03:12pm PT
THE "STIMULUS" WAS NOTHING MORE THAN A PAYOFF BY DEMS TO THEIR CORE CONSTITUENCY -- THE PUBLIC EMPLOYEES' UNIONS.

STIMULUS! “Our benchmark results suggest that the ARRA created/saved approximately 450 thousand state and local government jobs and destroyed/forestalled roughly one million private sector jobs. State and local government jobs were saved because ARRA funds were largely used to offset state revenue shortfalls and Medicaid increases rather than boost private sector employment. The majority of destroyed/forestalled jobs were in growth industries including health, education, professional and business services.”

shut up and pull

climber
May 16, 2011 - 03:15pm PT
REMEMBER -- THERE IS NO DEBT/SPENDING PROBLEM:

U.S. borrows $58,000 a second...

China cuts holdings of Treasurys for 5th month...

USA HITS DEBT CEILING
TREASURY RAIDS PENSIONS

This is from a speech Obama made in 2006:

The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies.

Over the past 5 years, our federal debt has increased by $3.5 trillion to $8.6 trillion.That is “trillion” with a “T.” That is money that we have borrowed from the Social Security trust fund, borrowed from China and Japan, borrowed from American taxpayers. And over the next 5 years, between now and 2011, the President’s budget will increase the debt by almost another $3.5 trillion.

Numbers that large are sometimes hard to understand. Some people may wonder why they matter. Here is why: This year, the Federal Government will spend $220 billion on interest. That is more money to pay interest on our national debt than we’ll spend on Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. That is more money to pay interest on our debt this year than we will spend on education, homeland security, transportation, and veterans benefits combined. It is more money in one year than we are likely to spend to rebuild the devastated gulf coast in a way that honors the best of America.

And the cost of our debt is one of the fastest growing expenses in the Federal budget. This rising debt is a hidden domestic enemy, robbing our cities and States of critical investments in infrastructure like bridges, ports, and levees; robbing our families and our children of critical investments in education and health care reform; robbing our seniors of the retirement and health security they have counted on.

Every dollar we pay in interest is a dollar that is not going to investment in America’s priorities.

Senator Barack Obama
Senate Floor Speech on Public Debt
March 16, 2006

Chiloe

Trad climber
Lee, NH
May 16, 2011 - 04:47pm PT
And to interrupt SUAP's spam attack with actual breaking news, the journal Computational Statistics and Data Analysis has just retracted a 2008 anti-climate-science paper by Prof Edward Wegman, which they found contained text plagiarized from Wikipedia and other sources.

Here's the story in USA Today:

http://www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/globalwarming/2011-05-15-climate-study-plagiarism-Wegman_n.htm

In a followup story, the reporter notes that Wegman's paper got accepted for publication in the first place following a rushed one-man review by the editor who happened to be Wegman's friend. That's ironic because the paper's whole point was to criticize professional networks among climate scientists.

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2011/05/retracted-climate-critics-study-panned-by-expert-/1

Wegman quickly blamed a student for the original plagiarism which he says went into his "Wegman Report" to Congress (thereby admitting that is plagiarized too, but it has larger statistical problems as well).
JEleazarian

Trad climber
Fresno CA
May 17, 2011 - 03:57pm PT
I think the best thing the Union of Concerned Scientists could do on this issue is be quiet. Anti-business organizations, such as UCS, play into the hands of those who claim the findings of climate science are driven by an anti-capitalist agenda, rather than a search for truth. This is something where the apolitical scientific literature is more than adequate -- and much more convincing.

John
JEleazarian

Trad climber
Fresno CA
May 17, 2011 - 04:20pm PT
Fixing the climate IS anti-capitalist, almost by definition.

No, it's not. It's dealing with externalities. That false connection has done a great deal of harm to the acceptance of the findings of climate scientists.

John
JEleazarian

Trad climber
Fresno CA
May 17, 2011 - 04:45pm PT
truth ^^^^^^^

John
bookworm

Social climber
Falls Church, VA
May 23, 2011 - 04:28pm PT
from james taranto:


"Something else bothers us about the media mockery of Harold Camping, as justifiable as it may be. Why are only religious doomsday cultists subjected to such ridicule? Reuters notes that "Camping previously made a failed prediction Jesus Christ would return to Earth in 1994." Ha ha, you can't believe anything this guy says! But who jeered at the U.N.'s false prediction that there would be 50 million "climate refugees" by 2010? We did, but not Reuters.

Doomsday superstitions seem to fulfill a basic psychological need. On the surface, the thought that God or global warming will destroy the world within our lifetimes is horrifying. But all of us are doomed; within a matter of decades, every person alive will experience the end of his own world. A belief in the hereafter makes the thought of death less terrifying. But so does a disbelief in the here, after. If the world is to end with us--if there is no life for anyone after our death--we are not so insignificant after all.

To reject traditional religion is not, as the American Atheists might have it, to transform oneself into a perfectly rational being. Nonbelievers are no less susceptible to doomsday cults than believers are; Harold Camping is merely the Christian Al Gore. But because secular doomsday cultism has a scientific gloss, journalists like our friends at Reuters treat it as if it were real science. So, too, do some scientists. It may be that the decline of religion made this corruption of science inevitable."


# "Decline in Snowpack Blamed on Warming"--headline, Washington Post, Feb. 1, 2008
# "Record Snowpacks Could Threaten Western States"--headline, New York Times, May 22, 2011
dirtbag

climber
May 23, 2011 - 04:31pm PT
Christ, what a wanker.
JEleazarian

Trad climber
Fresno CA
May 23, 2011 - 04:32pm PT
To deregulate is to lose control. Thanks Ronnie Raygun.


Actually, that started with Jimmy Carter under Alfred Kahn's advice. It was one of the very few worthwhile actions of that otherwise most inept administration.

John
JEleazarian

Trad climber
Fresno CA
May 23, 2011 - 05:00pm PT
I don't remember any significant deregulation with Nixon, Coot. I do remember his disastrous wage and price controls, the national 55-MPH speed limit, and universal year-round Daylight Savings Time happening under his watch.

I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just curious what Nixon deregulated.

John
Dropline

Mountain climber
Somewhere Up There
May 23, 2011 - 05:26pm PT
In 2005 the hedge fund Amaranth bet on futures prices of natural gas in accordance with the National Hurricane Center forecast for many hurricanes, several major. Most of those storms never materialized. The spread on natural gas wasn't what Amaranth predicted. The Amaranth fund lost several billion dollars in the matter of a few weeks and shut down.

That smart people predict a certain outcome doesn't necessarily make that outcome certain.
Dropline

Mountain climber
Somewhere Up There
May 23, 2011 - 05:37pm PT
And if the intensity of the Joplin tornado was a consequence of global warming, what factor of equal or greater effect caused the even more intense 1953 Worcester tornado?

The reasoned, not hysterical, position seems to be, no one knows if the intensity of the Joplin tornado is related to AGW or not.
Dropline

Mountain climber
Somewhere Up There
May 23, 2011 - 05:39pm PT
At the time the energy trader of that fund apparently said he based his big bet on the hurricane center season forecast. That's what was reported in the NY Times anyway.
Dropline

Mountain climber
Somewhere Up There
May 23, 2011 - 05:59pm PT
Wrong. I used the wrong year above. Brian Hunter made a killing on Katrina in 2005. At Amaranth he thought he could make a killing in 2006 on the "spread". "Amaranth bet that the price of the March '07 and March '08 futures contracts would increase relative to the price of the April '07 and April '08 contracts (i.e., they were "long" the March contracts and "short" the April contracts)."

That bet was made based on the 2006 National Hurricane Center forecast for many storms and their probable impact on a decrease in natural gas supply and an increase in price.

Smart people, Amaranth hedge fund managers, made a big bet based on the extreme weather forecast of other smart people, the National Weather Center people. They lost that bet. Still other smart people, or at least rich people, lost several billion dollars as a consequence.

The point is, that you are smart, like insurance company loss prediction smart, doesn't mean you are right.

The future is uncertain.
Dropline

Mountain climber
Somewhere Up There
May 23, 2011 - 07:35pm PT
I guess I'm a bit of a skeptic about the motivations of large insurance companies. I think they, like the oil companies, and any other large publicly held company, will use virtually any justification they can think of to raise rates, and profits and share prices, bonuses, and stock option values, if they think they can get away with it. Really, if the PR departments at large reinsurance companies, public or private, can raise enough fuss about predicted future losses in low lying areas ultimately they may get the US government to cover their bets. How convenient. It's about spin not science. Sounds kind of familiar. If they take a large risky bet and win, they win. If they lose, the government, meaning the taxpayer, picks up the tab. I'm just voicing my distrust of their motives and speculating.

And I don't think the decision to not react to AGW is limited to people who have decided to not do so because of a lack of concrete proof. A high percentage of people who are swinging from the rafters screaming about the perils of AGW also are reacting in the same way, by doing nothing, or almost nothing.

Why? Because people act in accordance with their own best interest most of the time, especially when other people can't see what they are doing. So in my view, instead of berating people for not taking the environmental high road, it's best to assume they will not. Adapting to a warmer planet would be, in my very humble view, a more realistic response to AGW than expecting, or forcing, everyone to become carbon saints. I mean, does anyone think we're going to ever return to 350ppm CO2?

There are a few people on this board who have small carbon footprints. Jstan comes to mind. Most of us are road tripping jet setting gas guzzlers despite our awareness.


Dropline

Mountain climber
Somewhere Up There
May 23, 2011 - 08:59pm PT
I find it interesting that the ultimate justification for reducing our carbon emissions is the well being of future generations, people who haven't yet been born. We have no idea what life will be like for people generations hence, just like the people alive 200 years ago had no idea what life would be like for us now.

Also, what about people in need who are living right now? There are plenty of people in dire need of help in developing countries and also here in the US. They need food, housing, medical care and education. What about helping them? Maybe the same folks who are so concerned about people in the future are also concerned about people who are alive now and need help. It's just that they rarely, if ever, talk about it.

The "future generations" argument only makes sense if we can predict the future, which we can't. It's complete and unfounded arrogance to think we can.

That said, I have no issue with a carbon tax, in wealthy countries like the US as long as it's a value neutral tax, meaning, other taxes for people of modest means are somehow reduced to offset the carbon tax. Otherwise it will be a very regressive tax which will disproportionately affect poor and working class people.
corniss chopper

climber
breaking the speed of gravity
May 23, 2011 - 10:48pm PT
Flash!

Whirling Dervishes apologize for causing tornado's.

Felt the need to come forward and accept responsibility
out of concern that Global Warming was
being falsely blamed for the twisters. But also say they cannot agree to
only 'whirl' in a clockwise direction (forbidden) as that direction does not have the quantum parallel reciprocity of inducing religious ecstasy or for
that matter inducing tornado's in the northern hemisphere.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJIofU-0jC0


Dropline

Mountain climber
Somewhere Up There
May 23, 2011 - 11:42pm PT
Ed, I think we should try to understand what is happening, but I also think the degree to which our necessarily limited understanding is extrapolated into the future is unfounded.

I have difficulty embracing some of the AGW hoopla, not because I doubt the planet is warming or that we are at least part of the cause, but because the consequences of AGW will unfold against a tapestry of change we cannot predict or perhaps even envision.

justin01

Trad climber
sacramento
May 24, 2011 - 12:02am PT
I am a longtime troller, but wanted to add this article to put a perspective on this topic.

Yes it is from the WSJ and yes it is snarky, but I thought you all loved snark...

By JAMES TARANTO

"With no sign of Judgment Day arriving as he had forecast, the 89-year-old California evangelical broadcaster and former civil engineer behind the pronouncement seemed to have gone silent on Saturday," Reuters reports.

Talk about liberal media bias! Were they expecting him to keep broadcasting from heaven?

OK, that's a joke. We don't really expect doomsday cultists to be taken seriously. One could, indeed, fault the liberal media for taking Harold Camping too seriously, "as a prime piece of proof that American evangelicals are nuts," in the words of historian Tim Stanley, blogging for London's Daily Telegraph.

In fact, the Reuters piece respectfully quotes one Stuart Bechman, "national affiliate director of a group called American Atheists," who says: "There are a lot of silly and even unfounded beliefs that go on in the religious community that cause harm." That's such a broad-brush statement that one can't exactly claim it is false, and it's not hard to think of examples of harmful acts that result from religious beliefs: terrorism, widow-burning, refusing or withholding medical treatment. But these are practices of different faiths and are far from universal within them. The obvious flaw in Bechman's conception is his notion that there is a single "religious community" consisting of everyone outside the world of organized irreligion. In fact, that world is as tiny and eccentric as any religious sect or cult.

Something else bothers us about the media mockery of Harold Camping, as justifiable as it may be. Why are only religious doomsday cultists subjected to such ridicule? Reuters notes that "Camping previously made a failed prediction Jesus Christ would return to Earth in 1994." Ha ha, you can't believe anything this guy says! But who jeered at the U.N.'s false prediction that there would be 50 million "climate refugees" by 2010? We did, but not Reuters.

Doomsday superstitions seem to fulfill a basic psychological need. On the surface, the thought that God or global warming will destroy the world within our lifetimes is horrifying. But all of us are doomed; within a matter of decades, every person alive will experience the end of his own world. A belief in the hereafter makes the thought of death less terrifying. But so does a disbelief in the here, after. If the world is to end with us--if there is no life for anyone after our death--we are not so insignificant after all.

To reject traditional religion is not, as the American Atheists might have it, to transform oneself into a perfectly rational being. Nonbelievers are no less susceptible to doomsday cults than believers are; Harold Camping is merely the Christian Al Gore. But because secular doomsday cultism has a scientific gloss, journalists like our friends at Reuters treat it as if it were real science. So, too, do some scientists. It may be that the decline of religion made this corruption of science inevitable.
justin01

Trad climber
sacramento
May 24, 2011 - 12:36am PT
blast...my first post was a repost...

Oh well, I think it was a clever analogy from one of my favorite columnists. Maybe it deserves to get reposted. It may be completely unjustified, but none the less I think it takes those with an inflated view of their knowledge down a notch.

I violated one of the first rules of forum-dom, and for that I apologize...2500 posts is a rather daunting list to pre-read before participating though.
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