The Wall Street Jounal had an almost great article about home ownership, or how little most of own after years of making mortgage payments. Putting the "Own" back in Homeowner One of my pet peeves is the mortgage interest deduction, which encourages us to never pay off our mortgages.
The mortgage interest deduction makes no sense, and I'm in real estate. In fact, no incentives to home ownership make any sense. We need to have a mobile workforce to satisfy rapidly changing job market needs, not only in skills, but in geography. Right now the collapsed housing market in rural Northern California has many people trapped far away from the best job markets. If they leave they're forced to sell their home at a great loss, or rent it and suffer negative cash flow while trying to make rent or house payments at their new place of employment..
Home mortgage interest deduction makes as much sense as not taxing employer-provided health insurance as compensation. Where do we keep coming up with these dumb ideas? Oh, that's right, we don't. Politicians do, then buy our votes.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Friday, March 18, 2011
Global Warming Causes Earthquakes? Really?
Several "scientists" have been quoted saying that the number and size of recent earthquakes is due to anthropogenic global warming. Click this link to go to one of them.
These studies and the articles about them are such consumate pieces of pseudoscience, it's impossible to pay them serious attention, but I'll force myself. Persons who pay any credence to them have no concept of plate tectonics, geological time frames, and the comparative masses of earth, air, and water (here is a link to a great site by a Czech physicist who explains it clearly and fully). Don't they know most of the Earth's ice melted away over 15,000 years ago as the last Ice Age ended?
Apparently coincidence is now causation. Since the last Ice Age ended 15,000 years ago, research such as of Greenland ice cores shows at least six periods of greater warming than present, with warming diminishing since the Holocene Optimum 8,000 years ago. As for the intervening periods, they have been getting cooler, with the Little Ice Age 1150 to 1850 AD the coldest so far.
Along comes a bit of warming, a natural rebound from Little Ice Age cooling, and it is matched with increasing atmospheric CO2. Suddenly coincidence becomes cause, and research is launched with the charter of showing a theory based on the non-existent greenhouse effect as being driven by change in the trace gas, CO2. Oddly enough, flawed research based on tree rings as proxy for temperature - ignoring water, nutrients, competition for sunlight, disease, and other components of tree growth - research that strains to look back 1,000 years, and portions of which today show cooling when they should reflect warming - high jacked UN IPCC climate science (and Al Gore) on a wild-climate change goose chase.
It appears now that the inherent weakness in the CO2 caused warming effect is becoming obvious, so every effect is now in search of an anthropogenic global warming cause. Science is turned on its head, and where there once was a head, other body parts prevail.
These studies and the articles about them are such consumate pieces of pseudoscience, it's impossible to pay them serious attention, but I'll force myself. Persons who pay any credence to them have no concept of plate tectonics, geological time frames, and the comparative masses of earth, air, and water (here is a link to a great site by a Czech physicist who explains it clearly and fully). Don't they know most of the Earth's ice melted away over 15,000 years ago as the last Ice Age ended?
Apparently coincidence is now causation. Since the last Ice Age ended 15,000 years ago, research such as of Greenland ice cores shows at least six periods of greater warming than present, with warming diminishing since the Holocene Optimum 8,000 years ago. As for the intervening periods, they have been getting cooler, with the Little Ice Age 1150 to 1850 AD the coldest so far.
Along comes a bit of warming, a natural rebound from Little Ice Age cooling, and it is matched with increasing atmospheric CO2. Suddenly coincidence becomes cause, and research is launched with the charter of showing a theory based on the non-existent greenhouse effect as being driven by change in the trace gas, CO2. Oddly enough, flawed research based on tree rings as proxy for temperature - ignoring water, nutrients, competition for sunlight, disease, and other components of tree growth - research that strains to look back 1,000 years, and portions of which today show cooling when they should reflect warming - high jacked UN IPCC climate science (and Al Gore) on a wild-climate change goose chase.
It appears now that the inherent weakness in the CO2 caused warming effect is becoming obvious, so every effect is now in search of an anthropogenic global warming cause. Science is turned on its head, and where there once was a head, other body parts prevail.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
EPA and Science are Strangers
The EPA is trying to regulate atmospheric carbon dioxide as a pollutant, which is sheer stupidity. It is essential for healthy plant growth, and humans can live in an environment breathing ten times the current level of atmospheric CO2 with no negative health consequences.
Ask any submariner.
I think the EPA only discovered science yesterday, about the day after Al Gore did. Serious students of climate know that there have been at least six periods of greater warming in the past 15,000 years since the end of the Ice Age, and that current warmng is the weakest of the six. The greatest warm period recently was 8,000 years ago in the Holocene Optimum, and the following warming periods have steadily decreased in amplitude.
The latest warming hardly registers, even when compared to the Medieval Warm Period only 1,000 years ago. The only thing that makes it seem significant is that it comes right at the end of the Little Ice Age, the coldest period of the past 15,000 years.
Now we're in a state of lesser warming following greater cooling, which means that run-away warming is not what we need to worry about. Since warming didn't run away when atmospheric levels of CO2 were ten or more times the present, there is no reason to think it will in our current period of both low CO2 and temperature.
Unless your teacher of climate change was just born yesterday.
Will someone dry the wet behind Mr. Gore's ears?
Ask any submariner.
I think the EPA only discovered science yesterday, about the day after Al Gore did. Serious students of climate know that there have been at least six periods of greater warming in the past 15,000 years since the end of the Ice Age, and that current warmng is the weakest of the six. The greatest warm period recently was 8,000 years ago in the Holocene Optimum, and the following warming periods have steadily decreased in amplitude.
The latest warming hardly registers, even when compared to the Medieval Warm Period only 1,000 years ago. The only thing that makes it seem significant is that it comes right at the end of the Little Ice Age, the coldest period of the past 15,000 years.
Now we're in a state of lesser warming following greater cooling, which means that run-away warming is not what we need to worry about. Since warming didn't run away when atmospheric levels of CO2 were ten or more times the present, there is no reason to think it will in our current period of both low CO2 and temperature.
Unless your teacher of climate change was just born yesterday.
Will someone dry the wet behind Mr. Gore's ears?
Public Employee Union Thugs in Wisconsin
Recently a news service headlined that as a result of their defeat in Wisconsin, unions vow to target Republicans. When did the news equivalent of “dog bites man” become headline worthy?
In Wisconsin some police, firefighter, and teacher union leaders sent a letter (click here) to local businesses that contributed to Governor Scott Walker, threatening that these businesses publicly support the unions or: “In the event that you cannot support this effort to save collective bargaining, please be advised that the undersigned will publicly and formally boycott the goods and services provided by your company.”
Translation: “We’re going to make them an offer they can’t refuse.”
FDR, who opposed public employee unions, is rolling over in his grave.
Is ending public employee collective bargaining that critical for getting budgets under control? Yes, and a liberal columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, Chip Johnson, proved this point (in this article, Oakland police, firefighter pay devouring budger) using a database of local government salaries and compensation compiled by state Controller John Chiang's office. In Oakland, current pay and pension costs of police and firemen are pushing everything else out of Oakland's budget. Even the police budget: over 80 recently hired and trained policemen had to be laid off, still leaving Oakland with a $46 million budget deficit. One reason for police layoffs: the Oakland firefighters’ contract ensures no layoffs, minimum staff requirements aboard fire trucks, and no station closures. One union dog eats the other.
But the police aren’t complaining, although Oakland residents are; eight of the ten highest paid in Oakland are police, and 440 of the 500 highest paid are police and firemen.
Wisconsin taught a valuable lesson that should benefit both Democrats and Republicans. If you don’t like the way the game is going, and you grab the ball and run away, it only works if your opponents don’t have any to spare.
In Wisconsin some police, firefighter, and teacher union leaders sent a letter (click here) to local businesses that contributed to Governor Scott Walker, threatening that these businesses publicly support the unions or: “In the event that you cannot support this effort to save collective bargaining, please be advised that the undersigned will publicly and formally boycott the goods and services provided by your company.”
Translation: “We’re going to make them an offer they can’t refuse.”
FDR, who opposed public employee unions, is rolling over in his grave.
Is ending public employee collective bargaining that critical for getting budgets under control? Yes, and a liberal columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, Chip Johnson, proved this point (in this article, Oakland police, firefighter pay devouring budger) using a database of local government salaries and compensation compiled by state Controller John Chiang's office. In Oakland, current pay and pension costs of police and firemen are pushing everything else out of Oakland's budget. Even the police budget: over 80 recently hired and trained policemen had to be laid off, still leaving Oakland with a $46 million budget deficit. One reason for police layoffs: the Oakland firefighters’ contract ensures no layoffs, minimum staff requirements aboard fire trucks, and no station closures. One union dog eats the other.
But the police aren’t complaining, although Oakland residents are; eight of the ten highest paid in Oakland are police, and 440 of the 500 highest paid are police and firemen.
Wisconsin taught a valuable lesson that should benefit both Democrats and Republicans. If you don’t like the way the game is going, and you grab the ball and run away, it only works if your opponents don’t have any to spare.
The Sixth Major Extinction
According to an extremely poorly researched and presented article in Nature magazine, man-caused global warming will cause Earth's sixth great mass extinction. I won't go into the weaknesses of the article in a deep scientific manner, because I'm not a scientist. I'll leave that sort of thing to Al Gore.
But for the science, or lack of it, please go here.
I'll continue with observations of a more general nature which I have gleaned from reading and listening to experts, and briefly describe below.
In the Galapagos we watched finches adapting rapidly to natural cycles of change in their food stocks. In my brief (by geological measurement) lifetime thousands of previously unknown species have been identified, many of apparently recent vintage. An astute observer of Greenland would note dramatic natural changes in just the past 1,000 years involving fish, birds, mammals, and plants adapting to the cold and ice of the Little Ice Age following the much-warmer-than-today Medieval Warm Period. Through all the natural changes, nature has produced winners and losers, and then reversed the game. Now we are in a brief interglacial period characterised by unusal warmth, compared to the glacial periods just preceding and, most assuredly, soon following.
Button up your overcoats. We're going to be one of the challenged species when it gets cold.
But for the science, or lack of it, please go here.
I'll continue with observations of a more general nature which I have gleaned from reading and listening to experts, and briefly describe below.
In the Galapagos we watched finches adapting rapidly to natural cycles of change in their food stocks. In my brief (by geological measurement) lifetime thousands of previously unknown species have been identified, many of apparently recent vintage. An astute observer of Greenland would note dramatic natural changes in just the past 1,000 years involving fish, birds, mammals, and plants adapting to the cold and ice of the Little Ice Age following the much-warmer-than-today Medieval Warm Period. Through all the natural changes, nature has produced winners and losers, and then reversed the game. Now we are in a brief interglacial period characterised by unusal warmth, compared to the glacial periods just preceding and, most assuredly, soon following.
Button up your overcoats. We're going to be one of the challenged species when it gets cold.
Tuesday, March 08, 2011
California Democrats Say Financial Mess is Republicans' Fault
Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Governor Brown missing budget deadline! Republicans’ fault!
Brown isn’t getting the two Republican votes each in the Senate and the Assembly he needs to call a special June election for voters whether to extend taxes. It’s Déjà vu all over again. In May 2009 Governor Schwarzenegger got the votes and put tax-increase propositions on the ballot. The voters defeated them 2 votes to 1. Then, as now, Democrat politicians said that if the propositions didn’t pass then drastic cuts would be made to education and health services. Then, as now, none were.
Now the sorry state of California’s finances are the Republicans’ fault, even though Republicans for years haven’t had enough votes to raise or lower anyone’s taxes, or to either cut or raise spending. Blaming Republicans is like blaming the street sweeper after the horse parade for all the manure on the road. Believe me, he wishes it never got there in the first place.
Republicans are trying to use the only clout they have to get the majority Democrats to work on the problem. From what has been in the news recently, so far the Democrats haven’t found one program that could stand even the slightest cut. “Cut spending? We need to raise it!” they cry, as they fall in line behind “Economist” Paul Krugman of the New York Times.
Governor Brown talks some spending cuts, but he knows that even if he gets the tax extensions on the ballot, and by some miracle they pass, he still won’t be able to wring promised spending cuts from the Legislature. Even his seizure of redevelopment funds, which cities like Santa Rosa are working hard to circumvent, only moves spending from one account to another.
More smoke and mirrors.
Brown isn’t getting the two Republican votes each in the Senate and the Assembly he needs to call a special June election for voters whether to extend taxes. It’s Déjà vu all over again. In May 2009 Governor Schwarzenegger got the votes and put tax-increase propositions on the ballot. The voters defeated them 2 votes to 1. Then, as now, Democrat politicians said that if the propositions didn’t pass then drastic cuts would be made to education and health services. Then, as now, none were.
Now the sorry state of California’s finances are the Republicans’ fault, even though Republicans for years haven’t had enough votes to raise or lower anyone’s taxes, or to either cut or raise spending. Blaming Republicans is like blaming the street sweeper after the horse parade for all the manure on the road. Believe me, he wishes it never got there in the first place.
Republicans are trying to use the only clout they have to get the majority Democrats to work on the problem. From what has been in the news recently, so far the Democrats haven’t found one program that could stand even the slightest cut. “Cut spending? We need to raise it!” they cry, as they fall in line behind “Economist” Paul Krugman of the New York Times.
Governor Brown talks some spending cuts, but he knows that even if he gets the tax extensions on the ballot, and by some miracle they pass, he still won’t be able to wring promised spending cuts from the Legislature. Even his seizure of redevelopment funds, which cities like Santa Rosa are working hard to circumvent, only moves spending from one account to another.
More smoke and mirrors.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
A Ridiculous Budget Proposal
Obama’s Defense budget request for fiscal year 2011 is $549 billion, plus $159 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan. The federal deficit for 2011 will be $1.5 trillion, an increase of $200 billion. If all defense spending were eliminated, the deficit would still be $792 billion (almost twice any deficit 1946 through 2008). Defense cuts totaling $78 billion have already been proposed by the Pentagon, roughly equal to Social Security’s deficit for 2011 but not its ten-year $600 billion deficit.
We could eliminate defense R&D, $79 billion for 2011. However, liberals paradoxically remind conservatives of innovations from government expenditures, but overlook that almost all were military related: the Internet (sorry Al), GPS, cell phone, satellites, jet aircraft, space exploration, &etc.
We could save a large portion but not all of $138 billion by firing all defense department personnel. You would still be stuck with paying about $60 billion for retired military and Defense Department civilians. Of course that would save an additional $200 billion, because without people you don’t need to pay for operating and maintaining all of their bases and equipment.
This exercise is ridiculous, and only Liberals take it seriously. My point is that the defense budget-cutting Devil is in the details. Cutting waste and unnecessary expenditures is always a good idea, but I remember the political battle over closing unnecessary military bases 1988-1995. Dovish Senator Boxer became a Defense hawk trying to save over twenty unneeded California military bases.
Entitlements (Medicare and Social Security), bloated federal agencies (Commerce, Education, Transportation), and the upward-spiraling costs of ObamaCare are the real uncontrolled spending. The President and Democrats should stop trying to exploit these issues for political gain and work with Republicans to cut spending.
We could eliminate defense R&D, $79 billion for 2011. However, liberals paradoxically remind conservatives of innovations from government expenditures, but overlook that almost all were military related: the Internet (sorry Al), GPS, cell phone, satellites, jet aircraft, space exploration, &etc.
We could save a large portion but not all of $138 billion by firing all defense department personnel. You would still be stuck with paying about $60 billion for retired military and Defense Department civilians. Of course that would save an additional $200 billion, because without people you don’t need to pay for operating and maintaining all of their bases and equipment.
This exercise is ridiculous, and only Liberals take it seriously. My point is that the defense budget-cutting Devil is in the details. Cutting waste and unnecessary expenditures is always a good idea, but I remember the political battle over closing unnecessary military bases 1988-1995. Dovish Senator Boxer became a Defense hawk trying to save over twenty unneeded California military bases.
Entitlements (Medicare and Social Security), bloated federal agencies (Commerce, Education, Transportation), and the upward-spiraling costs of ObamaCare are the real uncontrolled spending. The President and Democrats should stop trying to exploit these issues for political gain and work with Republicans to cut spending.
Democrat Double Standards
Democrats applying double standards is nothing new, but events of the past week have made them starkly clear. Republicans trying to make a tiny 0.017% cut in the federal budget are assailed for bringing the country to its knees on one hand by Democrats, and on the other hand Democrats call Republicans cowards for not being true to their vows to cut even more. The tiny Republican minority in California is given full responsibility for not leading California out of its dreadful budget mess, even though the only thing Republicans can do is stop a tax increase. When California voters were last given the opportunity to raise taxes in May 2009:
“By a margin on nearly 2 to 1, Californians rejected a package of propositions that would have extended increases on the income, sales, and car taxes; shifted money from dedicated funds; and borrowed against lottery revenues. The taxes would have shaved $6 billion off a $21 billion budget shortfall stemming from a decade-long unwillingness to match desired spending and expected revenues.”
Minority Republicans, not the overwhelming majority Democrats, are the ones reflecting the will of Californians.
Republicans can’t cut spending – only Democrats can.
When Republicans are in the majority – Wisconsin for example – their courageous attempts to cut spending are met by Democrat desertion of the democratic process, aided and abetted by unethical behavior by Democrat doctors and teachers. According to the AP, Wisconsin doctors have passed out hundreds of notes to excuse public employee work absences without examination; “they seem to be suffering from stress.” Madison family physician Lou Sanner said his notes are “as valid as any other work note I’ve written for the last 30 years.”
Fraudulent doctors and teachers. Just the sort of leaders the youth of America can look up to.
“By a margin on nearly 2 to 1, Californians rejected a package of propositions that would have extended increases on the income, sales, and car taxes; shifted money from dedicated funds; and borrowed against lottery revenues. The taxes would have shaved $6 billion off a $21 billion budget shortfall stemming from a decade-long unwillingness to match desired spending and expected revenues.”
Minority Republicans, not the overwhelming majority Democrats, are the ones reflecting the will of Californians.
Republicans can’t cut spending – only Democrats can.
When Republicans are in the majority – Wisconsin for example – their courageous attempts to cut spending are met by Democrat desertion of the democratic process, aided and abetted by unethical behavior by Democrat doctors and teachers. According to the AP, Wisconsin doctors have passed out hundreds of notes to excuse public employee work absences without examination; “they seem to be suffering from stress.” Madison family physician Lou Sanner said his notes are “as valid as any other work note I’ve written for the last 30 years.”
Fraudulent doctors and teachers. Just the sort of leaders the youth of America can look up to.
Monday, January 31, 2011
An Interview with President Obama and Senator Obama on the Individual Mandate
(My particular hero is Al Gore. I especially admire his ability to channel past events in a way that supports his current postions. I remember how we raptly listened as he told us how his mother used to sing "Look for the union label" to him when he was a boy - or at least a very youthful 27-year old. Now we find another has come along who shares Al's trait. The following is an interview I channeled with the new practitioner of the Gore art, drawn from the news of the day.)
President Obama, federal judge Roger Vinson said in his ruling that the individual mandate was unconstitutional, and compared it to congress compelling all Americans to eat broccoli (click here for this news item). A White House official speaking for you said that sort of “surpassingly curious reading” called into question Judge Vinson‘s entire ruling, and added “There’s something thoroughly odd and unconventional about (his) analysis.”
Mr. President, since this is a health matter we wanted a second opinion, so we wondered what Senator Obama thought of the individual mandate proposed by Senator Clinton. Senator Obama told us (2008): “If a mandate was the solution, we can try that to solve homelessness by mandating everybody to buy a house.”
Mr. President, wouldn’t it be healthier to make everybody eat broccoli instead of buying a house?
President Obama, federal judge Roger Vinson said in his ruling that the individual mandate was unconstitutional, and compared it to congress compelling all Americans to eat broccoli (click here for this news item). A White House official speaking for you said that sort of “surpassingly curious reading” called into question Judge Vinson‘s entire ruling, and added “There’s something thoroughly odd and unconventional about (his) analysis.”
Mr. President, since this is a health matter we wanted a second opinion, so we wondered what Senator Obama thought of the individual mandate proposed by Senator Clinton. Senator Obama told us (2008): “If a mandate was the solution, we can try that to solve homelessness by mandating everybody to buy a house.”
Mr. President, wouldn’t it be healthier to make everybody eat broccoli instead of buying a house?
Saturday, January 29, 2011
The Oppressor and the Oppressed
America supports freedom for all except...
Except what?
Except we know that "freedom" is a word not universally understood.
During the Cold War we supported dictators and despots if they opposed the USSR and/or China. We knew the dictators and despots of the USSR and China wanted to spread dictatorships and despotism over all the world, so the enemy of our enemy was our friend.
After the inevitable collapse of the fraud Communism, we continued to support some dictators and despots to protect the world against the next -ism, whatever it might turn out to be.
However, we had a pretty good idea what it would be, and we were right.
Islamism.
Islam. "Submission to God."
Who can argue with that?
How do we know what God wants us to do?
God told us. In the Koran.
Well God told Mohammad, and Mohammad told others to write it down, and thus the Koran.
Since all that happens is God's will, the Koran and before and since was and will be as God desires.
Insha'Allah. God willing.
So finally God wills the faithful to be free.
Free to do what?
Follow God's will.
But they have always done that.
All that has been and will be is as God willed.
Just like the Koran says.
So if each just follows the Koran, all is in accord with God's plan, right?
Not quite.
A lot has happened since Mohammad dictated the Koran.
In fact, most murdered Muslims were and are killed by other Muslims because of religious disagreements.
I know that's impossible.
God's will, you know.
However, as Mohammad criticized Judaism and Christianity because leaders and priests following Moses and Christ allowed error and corruption to befoul their teachings, so have the teachings of Mohammad, the Prophet of God, been befouled.
Islam is interpreted by religious leaders to guide the faithful, and they are as eager to direct the actions of their followers as ancient Judeo-Christian theologians were to debate how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. (As illustration, watch Egyptian Cleric Sa'd Arafat explain the do's and don't's of beating your wife - click here)
The oppressed of the Muslim world - such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt - don't want to end all oppression. They just want to be on the side of the oppressors.
Look to Iran.
Out with the Shah, in with the Ayatollah.
The Iranian man-in-the-street was more free under the Shah than under the Ayatollahs.
Especially if the man-in-the-street was a woman.
Except what?
Except we know that "freedom" is a word not universally understood.
During the Cold War we supported dictators and despots if they opposed the USSR and/or China. We knew the dictators and despots of the USSR and China wanted to spread dictatorships and despotism over all the world, so the enemy of our enemy was our friend.
After the inevitable collapse of the fraud Communism, we continued to support some dictators and despots to protect the world against the next -ism, whatever it might turn out to be.
However, we had a pretty good idea what it would be, and we were right.
Islamism.
Islam. "Submission to God."
Who can argue with that?
How do we know what God wants us to do?
God told us. In the Koran.
Well God told Mohammad, and Mohammad told others to write it down, and thus the Koran.
Since all that happens is God's will, the Koran and before and since was and will be as God desires.
Insha'Allah. God willing.
So finally God wills the faithful to be free.
Free to do what?
Follow God's will.
But they have always done that.
All that has been and will be is as God willed.
Just like the Koran says.
So if each just follows the Koran, all is in accord with God's plan, right?
Not quite.
A lot has happened since Mohammad dictated the Koran.
In fact, most murdered Muslims were and are killed by other Muslims because of religious disagreements.
I know that's impossible.
God's will, you know.
However, as Mohammad criticized Judaism and Christianity because leaders and priests following Moses and Christ allowed error and corruption to befoul their teachings, so have the teachings of Mohammad, the Prophet of God, been befouled.
Islam is interpreted by religious leaders to guide the faithful, and they are as eager to direct the actions of their followers as ancient Judeo-Christian theologians were to debate how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. (As illustration, watch Egyptian Cleric Sa'd Arafat explain the do's and don't's of beating your wife - click here)
The oppressed of the Muslim world - such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt - don't want to end all oppression. They just want to be on the side of the oppressors.
Look to Iran.
Out with the Shah, in with the Ayatollah.
The Iranian man-in-the-street was more free under the Shah than under the Ayatollahs.
Especially if the man-in-the-street was a woman.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
What's The Problem?
I read somewhere that when Dustin Hoffman heard an ad for pills to treat erectile disfunction that cautioned: "Seek medical attention for an erection lasting longer than four hours," he commented "What's the problem?"
That was my reaction when I read a Reuters news release about Republicans proposing legislation to allow states to seek bankruptcy protection because of enormous, unfunded, unsustainable public employee pension laibilities. Some govenment analysts "are concerned that opening up a bankruptcy option would spook the buyers of state debt, driving up interest rates and making borrowing more expensive."
What's the problem?
Not doing anything about these enourmous, unfunded, unsustainable public employee pension liabilities won't make them go away.
A federal bailout won't make them go away.
Slashing other state services to the bone - education, health care, road repairs, libraries, &etc. - won't make them go away.
Even eliminating them entirely won't make them go away.
In fact, the only effective treatment is the immediate termination of existing public employee pension contracts (defined benefits), and their replacement with defined contribution plans.
Anything else is like coitus interruptus - as ineffective for budget control as coitus interruptus is for birth control, and less satisfying.
That was my reaction when I read a Reuters news release about Republicans proposing legislation to allow states to seek bankruptcy protection because of enormous, unfunded, unsustainable public employee pension laibilities. Some govenment analysts "are concerned that opening up a bankruptcy option would spook the buyers of state debt, driving up interest rates and making borrowing more expensive."
What's the problem?
Not doing anything about these enourmous, unfunded, unsustainable public employee pension liabilities won't make them go away.
A federal bailout won't make them go away.
Slashing other state services to the bone - education, health care, road repairs, libraries, &etc. - won't make them go away.
Even eliminating them entirely won't make them go away.
In fact, the only effective treatment is the immediate termination of existing public employee pension contracts (defined benefits), and their replacement with defined contribution plans.
Anything else is like coitus interruptus - as ineffective for budget control as coitus interruptus is for birth control, and less satisfying.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
How Many Global Warming Alarmists Can Dance On Al Gore?
For several years I have immersed myself in books and articles, first about man-caused global warming, and then about climate change when the term “global warming” became problematic to Al Gore and His Acolytes. It didn’t take long for me to realize there was a pattern to most of the articles, and to the supporting and opposing comments they invoked from their audience. Simply, both sides were arguing about how many angels could dance on the head of a pin before proving that angels exist.
Similarly, arguments about the effects of human activities on warming rage without establishing whether carbon dioxide significantly effects warming, or even if warming is good or bad.
So this discussion should begin at the beginning.
Is the Earth warming? Yes, at a rate of about 1º Fahrenheit (F) per century for the past two centuries, which coincidentally is the period since the end of the Little Ice Age.
Has there been similar warming in the past 1,000 years? Yes, in the Medieval Warm Period.
Has there been similar warming in the past 10,000 years? Yes, six or more, one of which – the Holocene Optimum – was much warmer.
Have there been periods of similar or greater warming in earlier periods? Yes, hundreds of them.
Were previous warming periods caused by increased atmospheric CO2? No, although Al Gore mistakenly said they were.
Is the current warming caused by increased atmospheric CO2? No, it’s just a continuation of the warming that began about four hundred years ago and ended the Little Ice Age.
Are sea levels rising? Yes, recently about six inches per century.
Have sea levels risen in the past? Yes, over 400 feet since the end of the last Ice Age 11,000 years ago.
Have sea levels ever been higher than they are now? Yes, hundreds of feet higher.
See how simple it is? We have already demonstrated that warming is not unusual. For that matter, cooling isn’t either. Neither are rising sea levels, or falling ones.
Does this surprise anyone? It shouldn’t, and you don’t have to be a climate expert, meteorologist, rocket scientist, mathematician, failed presidential candidate, or any other exalted personage to understand that climate change is natural, and has been for billions of years. The evidence is all around us.
However, historians and geologists are probably our best guides to past climate changes. Historians can tell us that the Thames would freeze over in the winter during The Little Ice Age, and that Ice Faires were held on it. Or that there were vineyards in England a thousand years ago where there aren’t now. Or that Vikings farmed parts of Greenland during the Medieval Warm Period that are in permafrost today, and that these farms and Viking settlement of Greenland failed as The Little Ice Age took hold.
Geologists can point out ancient beaches hundreds of feet above the current sea level, or channels once cut by rivers that are now under the sea.
Arrayed against these clear and simple facts, we find a so-called science that claims our current warming is caused by human activities that have increased atmospheric carbon dioxide. Further, according to Al Gore, carbon dioxide is “the most important of the so-called greenhouse gases”, and greenhouse gases cause warming. Beside the easily proven scientific fact that the greenhouse effect is a myth, such arguments begin from a premise that is in itself in error. First, water vapor, not CO2, is obviously the most important since it comprises 95 percent of total so-called atmospheric greenhouse gases. CO2 is a piddling (meaning very small) part of the total – almost four percent.
Carbon dioxide is a trace gas and is less than 0.04% of the atmosphere (Dry air contains roughly [by volume] 78.09% nitrogen, 20.9% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.039% carbon dioxide, and small amounts of other gases). Following this line of discovery, the next logical step would be to determine how much of the miniscule portion of air that is carbon dioxide results from human activity. Again, the word miniscule fits our needs, since natural sources (such as decaying vegetation) produce about 97%, and human activities produce only three percent. Therefore, human activity produces 0.001% of the volume of the atmosphere, or looking at just greenhouse gases, 0.12%. (click on this link)
Or, “Much ado about nothing.”
This chart illustrates that the green portion representing Kyoto mandated carbon dioxide reductions is about 1/20th of human-produced CO2, and that when taken in the context of the entire atmosphere achieves monumental insignificance, as does anthropogenic CO2.
“Nothing? Nothing, you say. Don’t you know that if it weren’t for the greenhouse effect, we’d all freeze?”
To which I succinctly reply, “male bovine excrement!”
Actually, opportunities to be frozen have appeared frequently in Earth’s history, although more often the Earth has been warmer and ice free. We’re now in a cool period, and have had polar ice for the past 35 million years, but for roughly 75% of its history the Earth has been ice free. This chart shows Earth’s most recent temperature history, beginning roughly 542 million years ago with the Cambrian period.
Our atmosphere does not operate as a greenhouse. A greenhouse has a cover which allows visible light to enter and to be absorbed as heat energy by the contents of the greenhouse. This heat energy then warms the air in the greenhouse through radiation, and the warm air is trapped inside the greenhouse and is prevented from mixing with the colder air outside.
Did Al get the science right?
In his introduction to “An Inconvenient Truth” Al Gore states: “I have learned that, beyond death and taxes, there is at least one absolutely indisputable fact. Not only does human-caused global warming exist, but it is also growing more and more dangerous and at a pace that has now made it a planetary emergency.”Later Gore quotes Mark Twain: “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble, it’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” Al’s “absolutely indisputable fact” is just the sort of statement that Twain would have covered by his admonition.
By my count Gore listed at least three “facts”, none of which are indisputable. We’ve already demonstrated that warming can, and has, existed without human causation. We’ve shown the Earth has been warmer without producing catastrophic conditions. As we will later show, we can’t say the same about cooling.
Our world is filled with the unbelievable, yet Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” deserves a featured place in the “Great Hall of Unbelievables.” At the most basic level, Gore got the science wrong, yet some scientists praise him, even when these same scientists must concede that Al’s predictions are unrealistic – none believe sea levels could rise 20 feet by 2100 – they mute their criticism with remarks like “Gore got the science right.”
But did he get the science right? If so, then what has driven previous periods of climate change that have been equal or greater than the present? Are prominent scientists saying that CO2 is (and by implication has always been) the driving force in climate change?
Al Gore certainly did when he showed the chart of fluctuations of CO2 and temperatures derived from Vostok ice core samples, and said that rising atmospheric CO2 levels caused global temperatures to rise. However, and very inconveniently for Al, the Vostok studies actually show that temperatures rose before CO2, and furthermore, that temperatures fell while CO2 levels were still high. For the last almost half-a-million years covered by the Antarctic ice core samples taken at Vostok, temperature changes drive CO2 changes (not vice versa)with a lag time ranging 500 to 1,500 years.
Only briefly chastened by the Vostok revelations, anthropogenic (man-caused) global warmists concede that rising temperatures (resulting from orbital and solar variations) cause rising CO2, but then theorize that rising CO2 takes over and forces a much greater increase in temperature than possible without CO2’s contribution to the greenhouse effect.
Interestingly, while they weaseled out of the box they found themselves in when rising temperatures cause increasing levels of atmospheric CO2, they’re still stuck in the box because they can’t explain why temperatures fall before all-powerful CO2 does.
And temperatures have always fallen after rising, regardless of CO2 levels.
In fact, it’s happened many times in the last 10,000 years, after our most recent Ice Age ended 11,000 years ago. Since Al Gore has made much of Greenland, and what he sees as the potential for the Greenland ice cap to be dislodged dramatically by warming and cause sea levels to suddenly rise 20 feet, it behooves us to look at what Greenland ice cores tell us about the past 15,000 years. Talk about your warming! Only 15,000 years ago Greenland warmed 22º F (12.5º C) in only 1,000 years, plunged 29º F (16º C) back into cooling, then surged upwards over 30º F (17º C), all in only 4,000 years. Then, except for two very brief periods, Greenland temperatures remained significantly higher than the present for more than 10,000 years.
The following chart shows temperatures peaked almost 8,000 years ago and that succeeding peak temperatures have been steadily lower. The chart ends at Year 0 (2004), and clearly shows the warmer Medieval Warm Period roughly 1,000 years ago, and the recent very cold Little Ice Age (1200 to 1800 AD) that we are recovering from at a rate of about 0.5º Centigrade per century.
Unprecedented warming?
Al displayed the infamous “Hockey stick” graph (created by Dr. Michael Mann et al, famous in Climategate disclosures for his trick to “hide the decline”) in “An Inconvenient Truth” which wiped out both the Medieval Warm Period and The Little Ice Age. Al then trumpeted that current warming was “unprecedented”, leaving one to wonder what Al thinks “unprecedented” means. I think I know what it means, but to be sure I checked the dictionary and found I’m right and Al’s wrong. Unprecedented means “it ain’t happened before” (I’m paraphrasing). One dictionary showed: “without previous instance; never before known or experienced; unexampled or unparalleled”.
Unprecedented warming does not mean in the past 100 years, 500 years, 1,000 years, &etc. I suppose you could say that something is unprecedented in your lifetime, or since instrumental temperature records began (Gabriel Fahrenheit invented the mercury thermometer in 1724). However, if you say that the current warming is unprecedented, you had better include a qualifier like “since the end of the Medieval Warm Period approximately 1300 AD”.
In recent history (the past one-hundred million years – see the following chart), average global temperature was steady at about 21º C (a balmy 70º F) for most of the period while atmospheric CO2 fell 75%, from 1,500 parts per million (ppm) to the present 380 ppm. This chart also shows we now live in a low-atmospheric CO2 environment compared to over a half-billion years ago when CO2 was 7,000 ppm. Only for a brief period (in geologic terms) 315 to 270 million years ago has both CO2 and temperatures been as low as now. Obviously, for a long time temperature not only has had a low correlation with CO2, but has been insensitive to changes in CO2. That’s what you would expect, since the Greenhouse Effect is a myth, a now-and-again coincidence that does not even fit the past fifty-year period of intermittent warming.
The Greenhouse Effect myth - Or the power of coincidence
“One of the most important factors is the greenhouse effect; a simplified explanation of which is as follows. Short-wave solar radiation can pass through the clear atmosphere relatively unimpeded. But long-wave terrestrial radiation emitted by the warm surface of the Earth is partially absorbed and then re-emitted by a number of trace gases in the cooler atmosphere above. Since, on average, the outgoing long-wave radiation balances the incoming solar radiation, both the atmosphere and the surface will be warmer than they would be without the greenhouse gases … The greenhouse effect is real; it is a well understood effect, based on established scientific principles."
The above sounds very neat. It’s too bad it’s wrong.
The abstract below, Falsification Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics, Version 3.0 (September 9, 2007)” was authored by two German physicists, Gerhard Gerlich and Ralf D. Tscheuschner.
“The atmospheric greenhouse effect, an idea that authors trace back to the traditional works of Fourier 1824, Tyndall 1861, and Arrhenius 1896, and which is still supported in global climatology, essentially describes a fictitious mechanism, in which a planetary atmosphere acts as a heat pump driven by an environment that is radiatively interacting with but radiatively equilibrated to the atmospheric system. According to the second law of thermodynamics such a planetary machine can never exist. Nevertheless, in almost all texts of global climatology and in a widespread secondary literature it is taken for granted that such mechanism is real and stands on a firm scientific foundation. In this paper the popular conjecture is analyzed and the underlying physical principles are clarified. By showing that (a) there are no common physical laws between the warming phenomenon in glass houses and the fictitious atmospheric greenhouse effects, (b) there are no calculations to determine an average surface temperature of a planet, (c) the frequently mentioned difference of 33º C is a meaningless number calculated wrongly, (d) the formulas of cavity radiation are used inappropriately, (e) the assumption of a radiative balance is unphysical, (f) thermal conductivity and friction must not be set to zero, the atmospheric greenhouse conjecture is falsified.”
The authors concluded their study hopefully: “The authors express their hope that in the schools around the world the fundamentals of physics will be taught correctly and not by using award-winning "Al Gore" movies shocking every straight physicist by confusing absorption/emission with refection, by confusing the tropopause with the ionosphere, and by confusing microwaves with shortwaves.”
Once the anthropogenic global warmists have their greenhouse effects taken away, what remains?
Similarly, arguments about the effects of human activities on warming rage without establishing whether carbon dioxide significantly effects warming, or even if warming is good or bad.
So this discussion should begin at the beginning.
Is the Earth warming? Yes, at a rate of about 1º Fahrenheit (F) per century for the past two centuries, which coincidentally is the period since the end of the Little Ice Age.
Has there been similar warming in the past 1,000 years? Yes, in the Medieval Warm Period.
Has there been similar warming in the past 10,000 years? Yes, six or more, one of which – the Holocene Optimum – was much warmer.
Have there been periods of similar or greater warming in earlier periods? Yes, hundreds of them.
Were previous warming periods caused by increased atmospheric CO2? No, although Al Gore mistakenly said they were.
Is the current warming caused by increased atmospheric CO2? No, it’s just a continuation of the warming that began about four hundred years ago and ended the Little Ice Age.
Are sea levels rising? Yes, recently about six inches per century.
Have sea levels risen in the past? Yes, over 400 feet since the end of the last Ice Age 11,000 years ago.
Have sea levels ever been higher than they are now? Yes, hundreds of feet higher.
See how simple it is? We have already demonstrated that warming is not unusual. For that matter, cooling isn’t either. Neither are rising sea levels, or falling ones.
Does this surprise anyone? It shouldn’t, and you don’t have to be a climate expert, meteorologist, rocket scientist, mathematician, failed presidential candidate, or any other exalted personage to understand that climate change is natural, and has been for billions of years. The evidence is all around us.
However, historians and geologists are probably our best guides to past climate changes. Historians can tell us that the Thames would freeze over in the winter during The Little Ice Age, and that Ice Faires were held on it. Or that there were vineyards in England a thousand years ago where there aren’t now. Or that Vikings farmed parts of Greenland during the Medieval Warm Period that are in permafrost today, and that these farms and Viking settlement of Greenland failed as The Little Ice Age took hold.
Geologists can point out ancient beaches hundreds of feet above the current sea level, or channels once cut by rivers that are now under the sea.
Arrayed against these clear and simple facts, we find a so-called science that claims our current warming is caused by human activities that have increased atmospheric carbon dioxide. Further, according to Al Gore, carbon dioxide is “the most important of the so-called greenhouse gases”, and greenhouse gases cause warming. Beside the easily proven scientific fact that the greenhouse effect is a myth, such arguments begin from a premise that is in itself in error. First, water vapor, not CO2, is obviously the most important since it comprises 95 percent of total so-called atmospheric greenhouse gases. CO2 is a piddling (meaning very small) part of the total – almost four percent.
Carbon dioxide is a trace gas and is less than 0.04% of the atmosphere (Dry air contains roughly [by volume] 78.09% nitrogen, 20.9% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.039% carbon dioxide, and small amounts of other gases). Following this line of discovery, the next logical step would be to determine how much of the miniscule portion of air that is carbon dioxide results from human activity. Again, the word miniscule fits our needs, since natural sources (such as decaying vegetation) produce about 97%, and human activities produce only three percent. Therefore, human activity produces 0.001% of the volume of the atmosphere, or looking at just greenhouse gases, 0.12%. (click on this link)
Or, “Much ado about nothing.”
This chart illustrates that the green portion representing Kyoto mandated carbon dioxide reductions is about 1/20th of human-produced CO2, and that when taken in the context of the entire atmosphere achieves monumental insignificance, as does anthropogenic CO2.
“Nothing? Nothing, you say. Don’t you know that if it weren’t for the greenhouse effect, we’d all freeze?”
To which I succinctly reply, “male bovine excrement!”
Actually, opportunities to be frozen have appeared frequently in Earth’s history, although more often the Earth has been warmer and ice free. We’re now in a cool period, and have had polar ice for the past 35 million years, but for roughly 75% of its history the Earth has been ice free. This chart shows Earth’s most recent temperature history, beginning roughly 542 million years ago with the Cambrian period.
Our atmosphere does not operate as a greenhouse. A greenhouse has a cover which allows visible light to enter and to be absorbed as heat energy by the contents of the greenhouse. This heat energy then warms the air in the greenhouse through radiation, and the warm air is trapped inside the greenhouse and is prevented from mixing with the colder air outside.
Did Al get the science right?
In his introduction to “An Inconvenient Truth” Al Gore states: “I have learned that, beyond death and taxes, there is at least one absolutely indisputable fact. Not only does human-caused global warming exist, but it is also growing more and more dangerous and at a pace that has now made it a planetary emergency.”Later Gore quotes Mark Twain: “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble, it’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” Al’s “absolutely indisputable fact” is just the sort of statement that Twain would have covered by his admonition.
By my count Gore listed at least three “facts”, none of which are indisputable. We’ve already demonstrated that warming can, and has, existed without human causation. We’ve shown the Earth has been warmer without producing catastrophic conditions. As we will later show, we can’t say the same about cooling.
Our world is filled with the unbelievable, yet Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” deserves a featured place in the “Great Hall of Unbelievables.” At the most basic level, Gore got the science wrong, yet some scientists praise him, even when these same scientists must concede that Al’s predictions are unrealistic – none believe sea levels could rise 20 feet by 2100 – they mute their criticism with remarks like “Gore got the science right.”
But did he get the science right? If so, then what has driven previous periods of climate change that have been equal or greater than the present? Are prominent scientists saying that CO2 is (and by implication has always been) the driving force in climate change?
Al Gore certainly did when he showed the chart of fluctuations of CO2 and temperatures derived from Vostok ice core samples, and said that rising atmospheric CO2 levels caused global temperatures to rise. However, and very inconveniently for Al, the Vostok studies actually show that temperatures rose before CO2, and furthermore, that temperatures fell while CO2 levels were still high. For the last almost half-a-million years covered by the Antarctic ice core samples taken at Vostok, temperature changes drive CO2 changes (not vice versa)with a lag time ranging 500 to 1,500 years.
Only briefly chastened by the Vostok revelations, anthropogenic (man-caused) global warmists concede that rising temperatures (resulting from orbital and solar variations) cause rising CO2, but then theorize that rising CO2 takes over and forces a much greater increase in temperature than possible without CO2’s contribution to the greenhouse effect.
Interestingly, while they weaseled out of the box they found themselves in when rising temperatures cause increasing levels of atmospheric CO2, they’re still stuck in the box because they can’t explain why temperatures fall before all-powerful CO2 does.
And temperatures have always fallen after rising, regardless of CO2 levels.
In fact, it’s happened many times in the last 10,000 years, after our most recent Ice Age ended 11,000 years ago. Since Al Gore has made much of Greenland, and what he sees as the potential for the Greenland ice cap to be dislodged dramatically by warming and cause sea levels to suddenly rise 20 feet, it behooves us to look at what Greenland ice cores tell us about the past 15,000 years. Talk about your warming! Only 15,000 years ago Greenland warmed 22º F (12.5º C) in only 1,000 years, plunged 29º F (16º C) back into cooling, then surged upwards over 30º F (17º C), all in only 4,000 years. Then, except for two very brief periods, Greenland temperatures remained significantly higher than the present for more than 10,000 years.
The following chart shows temperatures peaked almost 8,000 years ago and that succeeding peak temperatures have been steadily lower. The chart ends at Year 0 (2004), and clearly shows the warmer Medieval Warm Period roughly 1,000 years ago, and the recent very cold Little Ice Age (1200 to 1800 AD) that we are recovering from at a rate of about 0.5º Centigrade per century.
Unprecedented warming?
Al displayed the infamous “Hockey stick” graph (created by Dr. Michael Mann et al, famous in Climategate disclosures for his trick to “hide the decline”) in “An Inconvenient Truth” which wiped out both the Medieval Warm Period and The Little Ice Age. Al then trumpeted that current warming was “unprecedented”, leaving one to wonder what Al thinks “unprecedented” means. I think I know what it means, but to be sure I checked the dictionary and found I’m right and Al’s wrong. Unprecedented means “it ain’t happened before” (I’m paraphrasing). One dictionary showed: “without previous instance; never before known or experienced; unexampled or unparalleled”.
Unprecedented warming does not mean in the past 100 years, 500 years, 1,000 years, &etc. I suppose you could say that something is unprecedented in your lifetime, or since instrumental temperature records began (Gabriel Fahrenheit invented the mercury thermometer in 1724). However, if you say that the current warming is unprecedented, you had better include a qualifier like “since the end of the Medieval Warm Period approximately 1300 AD”.
In recent history (the past one-hundred million years – see the following chart), average global temperature was steady at about 21º C (a balmy 70º F) for most of the period while atmospheric CO2 fell 75%, from 1,500 parts per million (ppm) to the present 380 ppm. This chart also shows we now live in a low-atmospheric CO2 environment compared to over a half-billion years ago when CO2 was 7,000 ppm. Only for a brief period (in geologic terms) 315 to 270 million years ago has both CO2 and temperatures been as low as now. Obviously, for a long time temperature not only has had a low correlation with CO2, but has been insensitive to changes in CO2. That’s what you would expect, since the Greenhouse Effect is a myth, a now-and-again coincidence that does not even fit the past fifty-year period of intermittent warming.
The Greenhouse Effect myth - Or the power of coincidence
“One of the most important factors is the greenhouse effect; a simplified explanation of which is as follows. Short-wave solar radiation can pass through the clear atmosphere relatively unimpeded. But long-wave terrestrial radiation emitted by the warm surface of the Earth is partially absorbed and then re-emitted by a number of trace gases in the cooler atmosphere above. Since, on average, the outgoing long-wave radiation balances the incoming solar radiation, both the atmosphere and the surface will be warmer than they would be without the greenhouse gases … The greenhouse effect is real; it is a well understood effect, based on established scientific principles."
The above sounds very neat. It’s too bad it’s wrong.
The abstract below, Falsification Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics, Version 3.0 (September 9, 2007)” was authored by two German physicists, Gerhard Gerlich and Ralf D. Tscheuschner.
“The atmospheric greenhouse effect, an idea that authors trace back to the traditional works of Fourier 1824, Tyndall 1861, and Arrhenius 1896, and which is still supported in global climatology, essentially describes a fictitious mechanism, in which a planetary atmosphere acts as a heat pump driven by an environment that is radiatively interacting with but radiatively equilibrated to the atmospheric system. According to the second law of thermodynamics such a planetary machine can never exist. Nevertheless, in almost all texts of global climatology and in a widespread secondary literature it is taken for granted that such mechanism is real and stands on a firm scientific foundation. In this paper the popular conjecture is analyzed and the underlying physical principles are clarified. By showing that (a) there are no common physical laws between the warming phenomenon in glass houses and the fictitious atmospheric greenhouse effects, (b) there are no calculations to determine an average surface temperature of a planet, (c) the frequently mentioned difference of 33º C is a meaningless number calculated wrongly, (d) the formulas of cavity radiation are used inappropriately, (e) the assumption of a radiative balance is unphysical, (f) thermal conductivity and friction must not be set to zero, the atmospheric greenhouse conjecture is falsified.”
The authors concluded their study hopefully: “The authors express their hope that in the schools around the world the fundamentals of physics will be taught correctly and not by using award-winning "Al Gore" movies shocking every straight physicist by confusing absorption/emission with refection, by confusing the tropopause with the ionosphere, and by confusing microwaves with shortwaves.”
Once the anthropogenic global warmists have their greenhouse effects taken away, what remains?
California Voter Insanity
This political cartoon nails it! California has the second highest unemployment, by far the largest unfunded public employee pension liability, close to the highest taxes, almost the worst public school performance, yet reelected every Democrat incumbent while electing Democrats to every state-wide office. Still, California wonders what’s wrong with the rest of the country that went Republican?
The rest of the country wised up. Forty-six percent favor repeal of Obamacare, and the 40% that don’t believe in the Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, and Democrat leaders who gamed Congressional Budget Office conventions to “prove” that Obamacare saves money. The Wall Street Journal found: “(Obamacare)uses 10 years of taxes to fund six years of subsidies. Social Security and Medicare revenues are double-counted to the tune of $398 billion. A new program funding long-term care frontloads taxes but backloads spending, gradually going broke by design. The law pretends that Congress will spend less on Medicare than it really will, in particular through an automatic 25% cut to physician payments that Democrats have already voted not to allow for this year.”
Repeal of Obamacare actually saves $540 billion in expenditures while stopping the government from collecting $770 billion in new taxes over ten years. Even fools (but not Democrat leaders) know you can’t insure 32 million more people and save money. Or count cutting Medicare as savings when you know the cuts will never happen. Or have huge increases to Medicaid (MediCal) when the states can’t afford to cover their increased share.
The total federal, state, and municipal unfunded liabilities are staggering: public employee pensions, $5 trillion; Medicare/Medicaid, $74 trillion; Social Security, $16 trillion.
When you’re in a hole, stop digging!
The Educated Stupid at the University of California, Berkeley
UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau forcefully demonstrated that higher education did not stop him from making a public display of stupidity (Chronicle, Matier & Ross, Cal chancellor outspoken about Arizona, January 12, 2011). His conclusion that the killing in Tucson was caused by “discrimination against undocumented persons” and a “climate in which demonization and hateful speech is tolerated” was unsupported by facts or reason.
Mr. Birgeneau said: “It is not a coincidence that this calamity has occurred in a state which has legislated discrimination against undocumented persons.” Since Mr. Birgeneau claims insight into the causes of calamities, I’m sure he knows why these spree killings occurred in other states: Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 in Virginia (2007); Jiverly Wong, 14 in New York (2009); Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, 12 in Colorado (1999); John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, 10 in Maryland and Virginia (2002); Michael McClendon, 10 in Alabama (2009); Jeff Weise, 10 in Minnesota (2005); and Christopher Speight, 8 in Virginia (2010).
At least Mr. Birgeneau displayed originality by not joining the army of Liberals blaming Sarah Palin and talk radio with no resort to facts or reason.
Mr. Birgeneau said: “It is not a coincidence that this calamity has occurred in a state which has legislated discrimination against undocumented persons.” Since Mr. Birgeneau claims insight into the causes of calamities, I’m sure he knows why these spree killings occurred in other states: Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 in Virginia (2007); Jiverly Wong, 14 in New York (2009); Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, 12 in Colorado (1999); John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, 10 in Maryland and Virginia (2002); Michael McClendon, 10 in Alabama (2009); Jeff Weise, 10 in Minnesota (2005); and Christopher Speight, 8 in Virginia (2010).
At least Mr. Birgeneau displayed originality by not joining the army of Liberals blaming Sarah Palin and talk radio with no resort to facts or reason.
A Solution Seeking a Problem
Former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.”
Blood was still flowing as Democrats turned their faces northward and raved, “Sarah Palin pulled this trigger!” Then, as passions cooled, Democrats seized the opportunity this serious crisis presented: It’s right-wing rhetoric, it’s Rush Limbaugh, it’s Fox News, &etc. At Cal Berkeley Chancellor Birgeneau claims it’s discrimination against undocumented immigrants. In the UK it’s “climate-change skeptics!” Here in Gualala Democrat leader Kenny Jowers blames Conservatives.
To the Left, the solution to “The Problem” was obvious: “Shut up the Right Wing.”
But what was “The Problem”?
Obviously, when right wingers are critical of the Left they incite others to violence, even if the others aren’t right wingers, and even if they are unaware of what the Right is saying.
Was Loughner a Tea Party supporter? Some former classmates remember him as being ‘Left-wing’ and ‘liberal’.
Has any evidence been produced that Loughner was even aware of Sarah Palin’s website, or of anything she said? No.
When you Google “Bush Hitler” how many websites are linked? 55,200.
How many innocents were gunned down when ultra-liberal Democrat Markos Moulitsas (aka Kos) said he put a “bull’s eye” on Gabrielle Giffords and other “Blue Dog” Democrats for selling out progressive principles? (following Democrat reasoning, 20) Or the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee website which featured targets on a map and still instructs Democrats to “Click on a red bullseye to view a Republican targeted for opposing economic recovery.” (following Democrat reasoning, it’s just a matter of time) Unlike Palin’s map, which targeted districts, the DCCC and Kos maps targeted INDIVIDUALS.
Apparently Democrats don’t need gyms for exercise. They get theirs jumping to conclusions.
Blood was still flowing as Democrats turned their faces northward and raved, “Sarah Palin pulled this trigger!” Then, as passions cooled, Democrats seized the opportunity this serious crisis presented: It’s right-wing rhetoric, it’s Rush Limbaugh, it’s Fox News, &etc. At Cal Berkeley Chancellor Birgeneau claims it’s discrimination against undocumented immigrants. In the UK it’s “climate-change skeptics!” Here in Gualala Democrat leader Kenny Jowers blames Conservatives.
To the Left, the solution to “The Problem” was obvious: “Shut up the Right Wing.”
But what was “The Problem”?
Obviously, when right wingers are critical of the Left they incite others to violence, even if the others aren’t right wingers, and even if they are unaware of what the Right is saying.
Was Loughner a Tea Party supporter? Some former classmates remember him as being ‘Left-wing’ and ‘liberal’.
Has any evidence been produced that Loughner was even aware of Sarah Palin’s website, or of anything she said? No.
When you Google “Bush Hitler” how many websites are linked? 55,200.
How many innocents were gunned down when ultra-liberal Democrat Markos Moulitsas (aka Kos) said he put a “bull’s eye” on Gabrielle Giffords and other “Blue Dog” Democrats for selling out progressive principles? (following Democrat reasoning, 20) Or the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee website which featured targets on a map and still instructs Democrats to “Click on a red bullseye to view a Republican targeted for opposing economic recovery.” (following Democrat reasoning, it’s just a matter of time) Unlike Palin’s map, which targeted districts, the DCCC and Kos maps targeted INDIVIDUALS.
Apparently Democrats don’t need gyms for exercise. They get theirs jumping to conclusions.
Monday, December 13, 2010
Do Angels Dance on Pins? Yes, just like humans cause global warming
An article came to my attention showing that during a recent period (in geologic time), atmospheric CO2 fell over 1,000 ppm (its about 350 ppm now) while temperatures rose 7 degrees Centigrade (12.6 degrees Fahrneheit). Many questions came to mind. One, how much higher was global temperature then than now? Answer: about 12 degrees F. As the chart below shows, the Earth is usually warmer, and as expected, atmospheric CO2 was much higher because of the warmer seas and the higher rate of plant growth and subsequent decay. All natural, of course.
Now we are in a period of relatively low temperatures and atmospheric CO2. Atmospheric CO2 has increased about 80 ppm in the past 200 years, and warming increased a modest 0.6 degrees Centigrade (1 degree F) since the end of the Little Ice Age about 160 years ago.
Only Al Gore and his Acolytes would think that any of this is remarkable, or not natural. What is an icrease of 80 ppm for CO2 when previous fluctuations have been in thousands? What is an increase of 0.6 degrees C when geological records show rapid swings of 7 degrees C?
I have seen hundreds of peer-reviewed journal articles that establish such phenomena as a global Medieval Warm Period, a much warmer than present Holocene Optimum, and at least four other periods of equal or greater warming in the past 11,000 years. Arrayed against that is the discredited "hockey stick" of Mann et al, which among many shortcomings attempts to hide the divergence between what the trees are supposedly telling us compared to modern instument records. Can you have it both ways? Tree rings prove there was no Medieval Warm Period, but can't show current warming?
Concerning CO2 levels, 3% is produced by human activity, and 97% by the natural carbon cycle, which includes decaying plant material and the oceans. In terms of the nonexistent "greenhouse effect", water vapor contributes roughly 95% of atmospheric warming as the atmosphere acts as an air conditioner cooling and warming the Earth by a combination of thermodynamics and radiation.
CO2 is an insignificant trace gas, incapable of aborbing heat energy and reradiating it towards an area of greater energy concentration, the Earth. Simply, a cooler body cannot warm a warmer one.
All of the Warmist arguements are like speculating about the number of Angels who can dance on the head of a pin, without first proving the existence of Angels.
Now we are in a period of relatively low temperatures and atmospheric CO2. Atmospheric CO2 has increased about 80 ppm in the past 200 years, and warming increased a modest 0.6 degrees Centigrade (1 degree F) since the end of the Little Ice Age about 160 years ago.
Only Al Gore and his Acolytes would think that any of this is remarkable, or not natural. What is an icrease of 80 ppm for CO2 when previous fluctuations have been in thousands? What is an increase of 0.6 degrees C when geological records show rapid swings of 7 degrees C?
I have seen hundreds of peer-reviewed journal articles that establish such phenomena as a global Medieval Warm Period, a much warmer than present Holocene Optimum, and at least four other periods of equal or greater warming in the past 11,000 years. Arrayed against that is the discredited "hockey stick" of Mann et al, which among many shortcomings attempts to hide the divergence between what the trees are supposedly telling us compared to modern instument records. Can you have it both ways? Tree rings prove there was no Medieval Warm Period, but can't show current warming?
Concerning CO2 levels, 3% is produced by human activity, and 97% by the natural carbon cycle, which includes decaying plant material and the oceans. In terms of the nonexistent "greenhouse effect", water vapor contributes roughly 95% of atmospheric warming as the atmosphere acts as an air conditioner cooling and warming the Earth by a combination of thermodynamics and radiation.
CO2 is an insignificant trace gas, incapable of aborbing heat energy and reradiating it towards an area of greater energy concentration, the Earth. Simply, a cooler body cannot warm a warmer one.
All of the Warmist arguements are like speculating about the number of Angels who can dance on the head of a pin, without first proving the existence of Angels.
Friday, December 10, 2010
To Obscurity, Whoever You Are
I just posted this on Dr. Roy Spencer's blog as a comment to a post by "Obscurity", who accused skeptics of making fun of man-caused global warming by noting the current record lows in Cancun, the UK, and Europe.
Skeptics are not alone in sometimes citing weather (cold snaps, record low temperatures) as climate trend. Al Gore was awarded a Nobel Prize for that very thing. When or where did Al Gore mention that current warming started around 1850, at the end of the Little Ice Age? Or that there have been at least six periods of greater or equal natural warming in the Holocene, including most recently the Medieval Warm Period?
"An Inconvenient Truth" is replete with examples of weather (Katrina, floods, a strong storm drowning three polar bears, etc.) that Al Gore cites as proof of AGW (or climate change). Kilimanjaro is prominently featured, even though its glacier retreat occured predominantly prior to 1900 and had nothing to do with warming (the glacier field never warms above freezing - Al never heard of sublimation?). Then there's the 20 feet of sea rise by 2100 compared to about six inches in the past century (and 420 feet in the past 11,000 years, an average of four feet per century).
What explains that cooling always beginnings when atmospheric CO2 is relatively high? If increasing CO2 causes warming, why can't high levels of CO2 prevent cooling?
I'm glad Al Gore brought the Vostok ice cores to our attention, showing that changes in CO2 follow, not precede, changes in temperature. Thanks, Al.
Skeptics are not alone in sometimes citing weather (cold snaps, record low temperatures) as climate trend. Al Gore was awarded a Nobel Prize for that very thing. When or where did Al Gore mention that current warming started around 1850, at the end of the Little Ice Age? Or that there have been at least six periods of greater or equal natural warming in the Holocene, including most recently the Medieval Warm Period?
"An Inconvenient Truth" is replete with examples of weather (Katrina, floods, a strong storm drowning three polar bears, etc.) that Al Gore cites as proof of AGW (or climate change). Kilimanjaro is prominently featured, even though its glacier retreat occured predominantly prior to 1900 and had nothing to do with warming (the glacier field never warms above freezing - Al never heard of sublimation?). Then there's the 20 feet of sea rise by 2100 compared to about six inches in the past century (and 420 feet in the past 11,000 years, an average of four feet per century).
What explains that cooling always beginnings when atmospheric CO2 is relatively high? If increasing CO2 causes warming, why can't high levels of CO2 prevent cooling?
I'm glad Al Gore brought the Vostok ice cores to our attention, showing that changes in CO2 follow, not precede, changes in temperature. Thanks, Al.
Monday, November 15, 2010
Swept Away and Sinking Fast - Democrat "Leadership"
Nancy Pelosi and Democrat leadership permanently reside in “Fools’ Paradise.” The chairmen of President Obama’s fiscal commission just released a report proposing sweeping changes to Social Security, Medicare and the tax code. The plan would reduce the deficit by nearly $4 trillion over the next decade by making dramatic spending cuts and overhauling the tax code by lowering tax rates while wiping out some deductions, such as for mortgage interest. Pelosi and union leaders called it “simply unacceptable.”
What is acceptable? Drowning in our current raging, rising deficits? At the Federal level, unfunded liabilities for Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security total over $80 trillion, roughly six trillion more than the world’s gross annual product. For state and municipalities, indebtedness plus unfunded public employee pension liabilities exceed four trillion dollars, or $41,000 per household. Very soon every tax dollar will be consumed by entitlement programs. You want to increase funding for education by cutting the military budget? No problem; military spending will have to be cut – to zero! But so too will funding for education, parks, transportation, police, fire, libraries; everything but entitlements will have to be eliminated.
Is there a way out? Yes, states and municipalities can default on their debt payments. “Experts” who say this won’t happen consider only bonded indebtedness but ignore the unfunded pension liabilities tsunami. These experts suggest the Feds should rescue states and municipalities, yet they ignore the super-tsunami of unfunded Federal entitlement liabilities. Who rescues the rescuer?
Public employee pensions, “negotiated” between public employee unions and politicians (who are also public employees) seeking their contributions and votes, will be swept away by waves of municipal bankruptcies. In California pension costs rose 2,000% from 1999 to 2009, while state funding for higher education declined. That’s unsustainable.
Piloting the “Ship of Fools,” Nancy Pelosi calls that simply acceptable.
What is acceptable? Drowning in our current raging, rising deficits? At the Federal level, unfunded liabilities for Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security total over $80 trillion, roughly six trillion more than the world’s gross annual product. For state and municipalities, indebtedness plus unfunded public employee pension liabilities exceed four trillion dollars, or $41,000 per household. Very soon every tax dollar will be consumed by entitlement programs. You want to increase funding for education by cutting the military budget? No problem; military spending will have to be cut – to zero! But so too will funding for education, parks, transportation, police, fire, libraries; everything but entitlements will have to be eliminated.
Is there a way out? Yes, states and municipalities can default on their debt payments. “Experts” who say this won’t happen consider only bonded indebtedness but ignore the unfunded pension liabilities tsunami. These experts suggest the Feds should rescue states and municipalities, yet they ignore the super-tsunami of unfunded Federal entitlement liabilities. Who rescues the rescuer?
Public employee pensions, “negotiated” between public employee unions and politicians (who are also public employees) seeking their contributions and votes, will be swept away by waves of municipal bankruptcies. In California pension costs rose 2,000% from 1999 to 2009, while state funding for higher education declined. That’s unsustainable.
Piloting the “Ship of Fools,” Nancy Pelosi calls that simply acceptable.
Wednesday, November 03, 2010
E. J. Dionne Jr. doesn’t get it (and never will)
According to liberal columnist E. J. Dionne, Jr., Obama and the Democrats did the right things, they just didn’t “sell them” well, and now Republicans should do what Democrats would if they continued to control Congress. Dionne pointed to revenue sharing with the states, especially now that most will have Republican governors.
That’s a dumb idea. The states – and counties, and cities – have unleashed a tsunami of unsupportable spending for public employee pensions. Soon the only funds available to governmental units that can’t print money will be totally consumed by government employee pensions.
If Republicans cooperate with Democrats and governors through revenue sharing they will be enablers of this spending addiction. Simple mathematical analysis illustrates that current and projected tax revenues, even given the most optimistic scenarios, are insufficient in light of unfunded public employee pension liabilities. If private businesses had such unfunded liabilities, the government would immediately shut them down.
It’s inevitable that there will be massive public sector bankruptcies – cities, counties and states – and that the Federal government does not have the will or the means to rescue them from themselves.
The best thing Republicans can do is to practice “tough love” and resist vain rescue attempts, because in fifty years unfunded entitlement liabilities for Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security will squeeze out all “discretionary” Federal spending programs. Right now would-be rescuers would best serve their country by avoiding being part of long-running government incompetence that sees the problems facing later generations and doesn’t do a thing to prevent them.
So, Mr. Dionne, Mr. Obama, and all you “progressives” – give me proof that I am wrong.
Obviously you must believe I am, or else you would be doing something about it.
Wouldn’t you?
That’s a dumb idea. The states – and counties, and cities – have unleashed a tsunami of unsupportable spending for public employee pensions. Soon the only funds available to governmental units that can’t print money will be totally consumed by government employee pensions.
If Republicans cooperate with Democrats and governors through revenue sharing they will be enablers of this spending addiction. Simple mathematical analysis illustrates that current and projected tax revenues, even given the most optimistic scenarios, are insufficient in light of unfunded public employee pension liabilities. If private businesses had such unfunded liabilities, the government would immediately shut them down.
It’s inevitable that there will be massive public sector bankruptcies – cities, counties and states – and that the Federal government does not have the will or the means to rescue them from themselves.
The best thing Republicans can do is to practice “tough love” and resist vain rescue attempts, because in fifty years unfunded entitlement liabilities for Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security will squeeze out all “discretionary” Federal spending programs. Right now would-be rescuers would best serve their country by avoiding being part of long-running government incompetence that sees the problems facing later generations and doesn’t do a thing to prevent them.
So, Mr. Dionne, Mr. Obama, and all you “progressives” – give me proof that I am wrong.
Obviously you must believe I am, or else you would be doing something about it.
Wouldn’t you?
Tuesday, November 02, 2010
The Election is Over!
The election is over, and Republicans did quite well. Let the analyses begin!
First, there will be near universal agreement by the main stream media with Senator Kerry that the American public are “know-nothings” because if they were “know-somethings” they would have voted for Democrats. Another point of agreement is that Republicans are divisive – in fact, Obama considers anyone who disagrees with Democrats not only divisive, but “enemies.” Obama told Latinos that instead of sitting out the election, they should be saying, “We’re gonna punish our enemies, and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us.”
More agreement – it’s all the fault of Republicans and George W. Bush. This one’s easy, since the Republicans only lost the House and Senate four years ago, and the presidency two years ago. If the Republicans would have just gone along with Democrats, unemployment wouldn’t have doubled in two years to 9.6% and neither would the public debt.
Of course, with total Democrat control of government since 2009, the Democrats didn’t need even one Republican vote to pass anything they wanted. That didn’t change until the voters of heavily Democrat Massachusetts, the only state suffering universal healthcare, elected Scott Brown to fill the Senate seat of Mr. Universal Healthcare, Ted Kennedy, thereby giving Republicans a filibuster option – if no Republican defected. In order to claim “victory,” Democrats then hastily passed the health care bill no one (except the health insurance companies) likes, including almost all Democrats running for House and Senate seats.
Interestingly, the most important issues: enormous unfunded liabilities for public employee pensions, Medicare and Medicaid, and Social Security will soon prevent politicians from spending for anything else. Until these unsustainable entitlement programs are fixed, all else is just “grandstanding on the Maginot Line.”
First, there will be near universal agreement by the main stream media with Senator Kerry that the American public are “know-nothings” because if they were “know-somethings” they would have voted for Democrats. Another point of agreement is that Republicans are divisive – in fact, Obama considers anyone who disagrees with Democrats not only divisive, but “enemies.” Obama told Latinos that instead of sitting out the election, they should be saying, “We’re gonna punish our enemies, and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us.”
More agreement – it’s all the fault of Republicans and George W. Bush. This one’s easy, since the Republicans only lost the House and Senate four years ago, and the presidency two years ago. If the Republicans would have just gone along with Democrats, unemployment wouldn’t have doubled in two years to 9.6% and neither would the public debt.
Of course, with total Democrat control of government since 2009, the Democrats didn’t need even one Republican vote to pass anything they wanted. That didn’t change until the voters of heavily Democrat Massachusetts, the only state suffering universal healthcare, elected Scott Brown to fill the Senate seat of Mr. Universal Healthcare, Ted Kennedy, thereby giving Republicans a filibuster option – if no Republican defected. In order to claim “victory,” Democrats then hastily passed the health care bill no one (except the health insurance companies) likes, including almost all Democrats running for House and Senate seats.
Interestingly, the most important issues: enormous unfunded liabilities for public employee pensions, Medicare and Medicaid, and Social Security will soon prevent politicians from spending for anything else. Until these unsustainable entitlement programs are fixed, all else is just “grandstanding on the Maginot Line.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)