Friday 11 December 2009

Friday morning ramble #666

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 . . .

 

  • 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 Sleephttp://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

_quote 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

_quoteThe EPA declared CO2 a pollutant, and I joked that maybe I should stop breathing.
Then realized that was the whole point.”

- Vodka Pundit

  • mg20427381.200-1_300 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 


               _quoteComplex things must have been created by even more complex beings.
  (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

 

_quoteI now accept that it is looking increasingly likely that
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


_quoteShould the next Nobel Peace Prize go to the
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:

Anonymous said...

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.

Anonymous said...

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.

Jenn Casey said...

Thanks, as always, for the linkage! :D

Richard McGrath said...

Thanks for drawing my attention to the video clip from Lord Monckton, PC. He certainly doesn't pull punches in dealing to the warmists!

Anonymous said...

"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.

Callum said...

Anon, I highly suggest you find out what Capitalism is before making a fool of yourself.