Okay, time to ramble round the web again on another fine Friday, based on links I’ve been updating at my Twitter page. There’s a bit of a theme here, this week . . .
- For years the world’s governments have bleated that “something must be done” about cleaning up third world water, and done nothing. Enter Indian entrepreneur Rajan Tata who’s brought to market a new “low-cost water filter or rural poor.” “It uses ash from rice milling as a matrix, impregnated with nano-silver particles particles to kill the bacteria that cause 80 percent of waterborne disease.”
Capitalism: it cures the places that governments can’t.
Rural water purifier hits the market in India - Pharyngula calls it a “fabulous godless variety show going on in England this year. It's Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People, organized by Robin Ince, and featuring a host of secular personages of note.”
Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People - We’ve earlier marvelled at the amazing adjustments by which the IPCC created warming from no warming in Northern Australia. Now see what they’ve done with Alaska.
More man-made warming - this time in Alaska - “Environmentalists have seized upon global warming as a flagship issue … precisely because it is hard to understand. The better to befuddle their opponents.” Too true.
http://gusvanhorn.blogspot.com/2009/12/quick-roundup-490.html - The crazy, progress-stalling carbon cuts being proposed at Copenhagen just aren’t going to happen – and it’s a good thing too, says Rob Lyon at Spiked.
Turn the clock back to 1875? No thanks - CNN wheels in Al Gore to debunk ClimateGate, and he tries again with the ten-year lie. Says The Deceiver, better wipe your lens. “When you confront him with the end of all his dreams, you have to wipe the flopsweat off the lens.”
- But they also wheel in debates like these, the sort of debates we should have been seeing for years, Patrick Michaels vs. Bill Nye the Science Guy, in which “Michaels pretty much eats Nye for lunch in one gulp”:
- Sarah Palin to Al Gore:
The Climategate Scandal Exists. You Might Even Say It’s Like Gravity: You Simply Can’t Deny It - By the way, if you want some basics, here’s Christopher Monckton outlining the basics of global warming in Berlin, en route to Copenhagen.
- "Global warming is a religion, not a science. The prospect of governing every action of every individual on the planet in the name of staving off “catastrophic climate change” … makes belief in global warming as tenacious and anti-reason as the literal interpretation of the Bible is to a fundamentalist or evangelical holly-roller… They want to rule, or at least see men ruled by others."
The Climate “Creationists” by Edward Cline - Research shows "Stimulus Spending Doesn’t Work" says Robert Barro in Wall Street Journal. Never has, never will.
http://bit.ly/gzU0H - The cure to recession? If you listen to the talk after Bollard’s bollocks this week, you’d think it was credit, credit and more credit. But, as if he were writing yesterday instead of in 1850, Frederic Bastiat points out, “In all times, but more especially of late years, attempts have been made to extend wealth by the extension of credit….The only basis, alas, of this solution, is an optical delusion — if, indeed, an optical delusion can be called a basis at all.”
http://mises.org/daily/3807 - Check out Inflation Watch Update posted at Krazy Economy. "The entries on this blog are economic analysis from a free market and Objectivist postion. It is intended to both keep people informed as to what the government is doing with the money supply and other important economic issues and help them understand what may affect their own immediate welfare."
Inflation Watch Update - So, hell, let’s ask the central question: Do we really need a central bank? Well, do we?
- Next question: "Religion: help or hindrance to philosophy?" Well, what do you think.
http://www.stephenhicks.org/2009/12/10/religion-help-or-hindrance-to-philosophy/ - Here’s two related Spanish-language Objectivist blogs that I know at least one of you will enjoy.
Capitalismo and Homo Homini Lupus - And since someone was saying that nutritionists and climate scientists have roughly the same credibility:
- Check this out. 'There's probably no God' coming to a bus near you.
http://bit.ly/8W4wMC
Come on NZers-vote like the world is watching, because they are:
http://bit.ly/7ki7fS) - Updated blog post: Scroll down to see John Christy debate Gavin Schmidt on CNN
http://tinyurl.com/yba9lsz - - Yaron Brook talks ClimateGate, explaining the ethics & politics at the heart of the warmist religion:
1. Guilt &
2. Redistribution of wealth
It’s politics, not science.
http://bit.ly/5HLuq2 - New blog post: http://tinyurl.com/ykztosa - Easter in the bureaucracy
- Here’s the interview Frank Bainimarama needs to hear. In this interview, Ayn Rand discusses:
The importance of a written constitution; A republic vs. a democracy; The nature of the checks and balances in America’s constitution; Electoral re-apportionment and “one-man-one-vote”; Amending the Constitution.
Listen Now: Structure of Government [audio] - Speaking of interviews, Raymond Chandler & Ayn Rand both appear on Kim Hill’s show tomorrow, Saturday. Well, a Rand biographer anyway - of sorts. Along with talk about my favourite Chandler, The Big Sleep. http://bit.ly/5ABjm1
Listen in here: www.radionz.co.nz/saturday
[UPDATE: That was appalling. One of the first jobs of a biographer is surely to know her subject, but Heller falls down completely on that job. To take just one example, to talk about your subject’s “contradictions” as she did is simply an admission that you don’t know your subject. It’s a biographer’s job to explain things that to them appear contradictory; to be unable to do so is a confession that you’re not up to the job. Which Heller clearly isn’t. Bizarrely, Kim Hill appeared to know more.] - And speaking of Ayn Rand biographies, Robert Mayhew reviews the other Rand biography making waves at the moment, Jennifer Burns’s Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand & the American Right.
He says, “What readers might have expected—what such a book could have been—is a presentation of the development of Ayn Rand’s political thought and its basis in her more fundamental philosophy, a history of her political activities and interactions with others on the right explained largely in terms of her philosophy, and a discussion of how she compares to others on the right in terms of essentials… Burns, however, has no grasp of or interest in Rand’s philosophical ideas or arguments, and chose to write a different sort of biography . . . ”
Read REVIEW: 'Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right' by Jennifer Burns - When in Rotorua this summer, check out the award-winning Croucher's beer-one of 8 beers judged as NZ's best.
http://bit.ly/87fwyy - A Hockey stick has been observed in NOAA ice core data:
http://wp.me/p7y4l-3CP - "An Answer for Businessmen" by Ayn Rand: ". . . to save capitalism there is only one type of argument you should adopt." Here it is:
http://bit.ly/5YPN54 - Now this is real science. CERN's Big Bang machine records first hardcore atom smash. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/technology/news/article.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10614570
- New blog post: Warmist Witch Doctors
http://pc.blogspot.com/2009/12/witch-doctors-meet-attila.html - New blog post: A tribute to the model-makers of climate & macroeconomics . . .
http://tinyurl.com/yet8rns - It’s a ClimateGate Christmas, y’all
- 12 NZ children were killed through abuse over the two years since Sue Bradford’s anti-child-abuse law was introduced. That’s as many as the previous two-year period. So that worked well.
http://bit.ly/7X3OiB - New blog post: http://tinyurl.com/yz4xd5p - School of Art, Design and Media at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore–CPG Consultants
- New blog post: http://tinyurl.com/yzweow9 - Quote of the day: Comrade Lysenko in Copenhagen 3:24 AM Dec 9th from API
- Marsha Enright on "Montessori's Liberating Ideas on Social Skills": “
“Maria Montessori's thinking and work presents some of the most liberating ideas about education to be found on the planet.
“Here's her answer to a question about how the set-up of her classrooms advances excellent social skills which prepare the child for a life of productive work, trade, collaboration, and individual expression . . .”
http://direttoressa.livejournal.com/22842.html
So the New Zealand Government is reforming SOEs
to forcibly reduce power bills, having just legislated
an Emissions Trading Scheme to increase power bills. Clever.”
- Mark Hubbard
- CO2 Regulation: “It’s the essence of immorality”:
- The evidence really does say ”we can’t account for the lack of warming” and we are going through ”a slight cooling trend.” How inconvenient.
http://bit.ly/7VGzk9 - Save, save, save we’re told; we need to save the economy. What’s this “we”? Whose “need”?
"Saving money is not an end in itself, and forcing me to do so is wrong." - Many parents use rewards -- stamps, star charts and the like – as a means to discipline their children. Two good posts here argue the point:
Rational Jenn doesn’t use reward systems to encourage our kids to do certain things or behave in a certain way, and she explains way. “There's some interesting discussion in the comments, too."
Read Discipline Without Rewards.
Jenn says no, Amy Mossoff says “sometimes."
Read Reward Systems.
(And if you’re really interested in the subject and want more, read Alfie Kohn’s excellent book Punishment by Rewards.) - Andrew Bernstein answers questions:
- Is the purpose of Objectivist ethics to increase the number of human beings and maximize their number?
- How does Ayn Rand’s egoistic ethics reconcile with the fact that we live in a universe of finite resources?
- Observe the long queues and organisational cock-ups at the CopenHuggin- the UN can’t organise a simple conference yet they assume they can restructure the global economy! Yeah right.
http://bit.ly/86aRI9 - Last year, ExxonMobil donated $7 million to a grab-bag of public policy institutes, the bastards.
http://bit.ly/5OAtBg - At Wall Street Journal's site, Bret Stephens on Copenhagen and the psychology of true belief [HT Stephen Hicks]:
http://tinyurl.com/ykf4atj - Warming, cooling, warming, cooling . . . 100 years of climate scaremongering reveals a basic AGW fact: Fear equals funding.
http://bit.ly/18c6sD - "Look at the graph." Which graph? James Hansen's GISS keeps changing them. See:
http://bit.ly/5OLVa6 - It’s the new Father Ted - 'For The Love of Mrs Brown' - [HT Simon Pound]. Very funny if you like good Irish old person comedy : http://bit.ly/632v2Q
- GlobalWarming science is settled? Not so, say 141 scientists from 17 countries in an open letter tabled in CopenHagen
http://bit.ly/89iH0a - A bar owner uses the Coase Theorem to flout anti-=smoking bans. Smart stuff!
http://bit.ly/8I5sjd - Top 10 travel loves and hates. What are yours?
http://bit.ly/4Kq122 - Horner, McIntyre & Oppenheimer Speak Up on #Climategate http://bit.ly/90M0da revealing the "trick." James Hansen concedes the point.
- Daily Beast fabricates an AynRand quote, see article http://bit.ly/6y2hUO then c/f w/ actual text: "Loathe your ideals." http://bit.ly/8LQQAr Typical web scholarship.
- "Atlas Shrugged and Public Choice: The Obvious Parallels"
http://ow.ly/JZwP - America's Religious Right Takes a Deep (& Frightening) Philosophical Breath
http://bit.ly/5niAKJ - Cooking the decline [update 5: TVNZ debate climate & ClimateGate]
http://tinyurl.com/yzjsx3t - It’s NOT just "scientists are bad, but the data is OK.” The data is bad, too. The Smoking Gun is Darwin Zero.
http://bit.ly/7Hy40x - American's belief of global warming sinking - below 50% for the first time in 2 years:
http://wp.me/p7y4l-3BH - #Climategate in WSJ: "latest twist is hidden notations in the data": "Apply a VERY ARTIFICIAL correction for decline!"
http://bit.ly/8lj3Fa - A Climate Depot Exclusive: Real Climate Exposed! A Comprehensive Report on "neutral" climate blog RealClimate.org, run by Michael “Hockey Stick” Mann, and Gavin “Warmist Shill” Sdhmidt.
http://bit.ly/eYcL4
Then realized that was the whole point.”
- Vodka Pundit
The world is divided into "dog people" and "cat people," each passionately believing that their preferred pet is superior.
New Scientist magazine checks out new evidence either way.
Read Dogs vs cats: The great pet showdown- New blog post: Cooking the decline [update 4: Darwin & the Smoking Gun]
http://tinyurl.com/yzjsx3t - CBS finally reports on Climategate. Expat kiwi Kevin Trenberth defends his work & his email . . .
http://bit.ly/8La8Xf - Lapped by the Gulf of Mexico, Houston normally boasts balmy year-round climate. Except this winter and the last one, when they’ve been shovelling up several inches of global warming.
http://bit.ly/7PPL4q - Mises' Theory of Money and Credit: Beautiful Cover, Amazing Price, Best explanation yet for booms and busts.
http://tinyurl.com/yd96f9d - New book 'An Ideal Guide to Keynes's Dangerous and Destructive Economics .' And so it is.
http://bit.ly/5OcbZ3 - Sitting down, Kiwis? Chris Trotter thinks National Govts follow laissez-faire - ROTFL. http://bit.ly/7K2D6B
- New blog post: Warmist flip-flops
http://tinyurl.com/yer9cob - New blog post:NOT PC’s Blog Stats for November
http://tinyurl.com/yhb2dsq - There’s no other way to say it. Reading ClimateGate’s "HARRY_READ_ME.txt" it's clear that the data & files representing the backbone of climate science are a mess.
http://bit.ly/5G6QSj
(Note: doesn't apply to me.)”
- Tweeted by @almightygod
- New blog post: Stossel on Fox, Rand, Gekko and more
http://tinyurl.com/ybghubc - - Sarah Palin: "I feel so at home here in Washington. I can see the Russian Embassy from my hotel room!”
http://bit.ly/4xslHi - CNN: Climategate “has landed like a bomb” -- Phil Jones Has 'Literally Gone Underground' - well, figuratively anyway.
http://bit.ly/5cPgwI - And for Copenhagen's opening ceremony some fear mongering
http://bit.ly/8pYEXB - Ocean Acidification: Another Failing Scare Story? You betcha.
http://bit.ly/7UN88Y - Check out this hilarious site:
http://autocompleteme.com/ - ClimateGate: One by one they’re waking up. Megan McArdle is persuaded there IS something to see here. "I've become considerably more concerned"
http://bit.ly/5uVvq2 - Ben Bernanke's great. "Inflation will not get out of control," he says. No, really, he is great. His comedic skills rival those of Baghdad Bob.
http://bit.ly/6hZfwu
Tiger Woods is, in fact, straight.”
- Stephen Fry
- Straw man alert! Who says the market economy is a perfectly balanced, self-regulating machine? Certainly not market economists anyway!
http://bit.ly/4qnCpu - While NIWA was cooking the data their raw figures were cooking themselves: NIWA's Kelburn station, against which all Wellington’s data for one-hundred years is correlated, is surrounded by cars, asphalts and tourist buses. Can they even spell Urban Heat Island?
http://bit.ly/7ZbRGb - Here's how to "hide the decline": just ramp up the fudge factors to fake the figures. That's how Keith Briffa does it
http://bit.ly/84UGfN - ClimateGate: BBC's Newsnight examines the CRU source code : well below commercial software standards say s-ware dvlprs
http://bit.ly/8wuN72 - ClimateGate fallout continues Stateside:
http://bit.ly/6d8CjX - More measurement errors: If you want to measure the world's CO2, why would you measure it next to the world's volcanoes and exhaust stacks? Unless . . .
http://bit.ly/4Rj5PY
unnamed Hadley hacker or whistleblower?”
- EricCrampton
- Enviro-wacko Ed Begley does shoutfest & finger pointing about ClimateGate "You're spewing your nonsense again" he doesn’t say to himself.
http://bit.ly/6LeIJv - New blog post: 2025, Don Brash, Garth George, and the letter the Herald would/wouldn‘twould/wouldn‘t print
http://tinyurl.com/yfwmuuw - New blog post: Here’s rejection letter we'd like to see
http://tinyurl.com/ykh8mdh - New blog post: That homeopathic emergency room look
http://tinyurl.com/ydkkk4k - 1,200 Limos, 140 Private Jets—Let the Copenhagen Hypocrisy Begin!
http://bit.ly/6m7d5x - McCartney’s Meat-Free Mondays? Why stop there? Meat-Free Mondays, Travel-Free Tuesdays, Wash-Free Wednesdays, Technology-Free Thursdays...
http://bit.ly/6mwPEU - New blog post: How do you feel about that “That Afghan Plan."
http://tinyurl.com/ycb44u4 - Updated Anna Woolf's ‘Last Post’ with her funeral music and ongoing tributes: http://tinyurl.com/ybe5az7
- New blog post:- Anna Woolf's Funeral, and the catharsis of music
http://tinyurl.com/yflffp6 - And finally, courtesy Lindsay Perigo, the Finale to Tchaikovsky's Second Symphony. To the Grandeur of Man. Between us we dedicate it to Phil Jones, Anne Heller and the world they don't believe in:
6 comments:
Interesting CNN debate, if again a little short.
This thing's all about the data and I get the impression that the AGW scientists don't feel too comfy with it being scrutinised. But the lid's lifted on Pandora's box.
Van Horn's article on saving is good - the "We must save" meme has been beaten into the collective consciousness and it is quite wrong and smacks of altruism.
We are "Weapons of Massive Consumption" as Lily Allen says - and good on us as long as we are rational about how much we can afford.
Thanks, as always, for the linkage! :D
Thanks for drawing my attention to the video clip from Lord Monckton, PC. He certainly doesn't pull punches in dealing to the warmists!
"Capitalism: it cures the places that governments can’t." [PC, on Tata's water filters for Indian poor]
Yeeeeh, right! You seem to be conflating "can't" with "won't" PC. Of course the Indian government could provide clean water for all their people, but they are capitalists, so don't want to. They would much rather spend the government wealth enriching their mates and themselves.
The most recent example of this is India's neighbour - Pakistan, whose 'President' has been found to have wealth (roughly $1.5bn) that far surpasses anything he could legitimately have earnt. That is, dodgy capitalist politicians serve themselves, not the poor.
Anon, I highly suggest you find out what Capitalism is before making a fool of yourself.
Post a Comment