Friday 5 April 2013

FRIDAY MORNING RAMBLE: The four-day week edition

Oh look, it’s Friday…

Shop owners should be allowed to decide for themselves whether they open on Easter Sunday, says the Retailers Association spokesman Barry Hellberg. This I agree with entirely. However …
The Retailers Association Is Confused – AUCKLAND BANNER

Public-private partnerships of the sort that is the Key Government’s flagship policy “are less honest than true socialism.”
The Problem With Public-Private Partnerships – Fred Smith, OPEN MARKET

How bad is both unemployment and the “degrees for everyone” phenomena in the US? Well, you now need a demands bachelor's degree and two years experience just to apply to work  as a cashier in McDonald’s.
McDonald's want ad demands bachelor's degree, two years experience for cashier – THE EXAMINER

Wondering about all the hype about Bitcoin? Me too. Bitcoin enthusiast Jeffrey Tucker tries to sell you on the concept of digital money.
Bitcoin for Beginners – Jeffrey Tucker, THE FREEMAN

"By virtue of exchange, one man's prosperity is beneficial to all others"
- Frederic Bastiat

So, in answer to the question “will trade with China with help improve China culturally and politically…?”
Robert Garmong on Cultural Influence via Trade with China – NOODLE FOOD

While everywhere else in the nation tanks, Washington DC is booming. Why? Because Washington DC is crony capitalist boom town.
“The Rise of Crony Capitalism” by Peter Schweizer – AGAINST CRONY CAPITALISM.ORG

How long since you’ve done an economics quiz. Three years?
QUIZ: Test your economic knowledge – NOT PC, 2010

What could possibly go wrong? The Japanese edition…
Competitive Easing Madness; Japan to Double Monetary Base;  Yen Plunges 
– MISH’s GLOBAL TREND ECONOMIC ANALYSIS
Forget Cyprus, Japan Is The Real Crisis – ZERO HEDGE

What could possibly go wrong? The American edition…
You want economic insanity, I’ll show you economic insanity – CATALLAXY FILES
Whence the next bubble: Housing market (again)? Bond market? – ON LIBERTY STREET

But isn’t borrowing and spending the way to wealth and riches?
Borrowing and Spending: The Way to Wealth – KRUGMAN IN WONDERLAND

Like him or not, but Milton Friedman knows how to answer questions.  “Spending isn’t good, it’s producing that matters.”

“Many years ago, I remember thinking that it would take many years to refute the panicked claims about global warming. Unlike most political movements, which content themselves with making promises about, say, what the unemployment rate will be in two years if we pass a giant stimulus bill—claims that are proven wrong (and how!) relatively quickly—the environmentalists had successfully managed to put their claims so far off into the future that it would take decades to test them against reality. But guess what? The decades are finally here.”
Global Warming: Was It Just A Beautiful Dream After All? – Harry Binswanger, FORBES

Vincent Gray, a five time expert reviewer of the Assessment Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has reassessed his earlier review of the origins of the “greenhouse effect,” and many errors that arise in the models. The models, he finds, are far too highly simplified to reflect the real climate system, failing to recognise for example that the world is not an actual greenhouse, and heat transfer occurs by convection as well as radiation.
The paper (22 pages including references) may become controversial, as it should be. Because if Gray is correct, then all the models, all the predictions, all the scare stories—and the entire UN IPCC program, and all the ones that parrot it, and all the many the few Emissions Trading Schemes around the world—are all built on false assumptions that must be revised.
Dr Vincent Gray has Revisited his Paper on 'The Greenhouse Effect' – Vincent Gray, NZ CLIMATE SCIENCE COALITION

The influential Economist magazine has for years been pushing the global warming barrow. Until now. In the latest issue, they signal a change of heart. Why? Because the world isn’t warming catastrophically the way the alleged climate scientists said it would. That’s their graph on the right. Not so warming now, huh.
Apocalypse perhaps a little later – ECONOMIST

And in mainland Europe, Germany’s Spiegel magazine also stops believing…
Hot Debate Over Climate: How Reliable Are The Prognoses?” Growing Doubts Over Models! – NO TRICKS ZONE

The reason they’ve stopped believing? Because the predictions are wrong, and the model is broken. Because despite increasing CO2, the globe is refusing to warm they way the models say it should:

Speaking of “not warming catastrophically the way the alleged climate scientists said it would,” in 1998 James Hansen was the first scientist to very publicly start saying we are all going to die of overheating. He published predictions, from which the global warming movement began. And now, after a quarter century of tested and failed predictions (see below), he’s resigned from the NASA position from which he borrowed his credibility. Good riddance.
‘Celebrate! It’s A Happy Day for Science!' – Mac Morano, CLIMATE DEPOT

Sensitivity of #AGW signal existence to assumptions. tested and failed

Don’t worry. Hansen isn’t on his own. All the models failed:

Exposing the failure of #climate models that make up the CMIP5 usually shown as a grayed out area in MSM graphs.

The world has pumped roughly 100 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere over the past decade. But you wouldn’t know it by looking at global temperatures. Even NASA’s James Hansen, the warmist’s warmist concedes: “The five-year mean global temperature has been flat for a decade.” What’s more, surface temperatures since 2005 are at the low end of the range of projections derived from 20 climate models. If temperatures remain flat for much longer, they’ll drop out of the models’ range entirely.
Climate may be less sensitive to greenhouse gases than previously thought. So now what? 
– AEI IDEAS

The alarmists want to place the world in servitude to the models that predict a non-existent global warming. They can’t predict the future—they can't even reconstruct the past.
Climate Models Are So Flawed They Also Fail History – INVESTORS BUSINESS DAILY

Britons are cold.
UK March is joint second coldest on record by Met OfficeCLIMATE REALISTS

But wasn’t snow supposed to have disappeared for ever?
What’s happening? Snow was ‘disappearing from our lives’ in 2000 – SPECTATOR

Europeans suffering increasingly colder winters--winters that kill—are also asking when they’re going to see these warmer winters they’ve been promised for years.
Climate Science Humiliated…Earlier Model Prognoses Of Warmer Winters Now Today’s Laughingstocks – NO TRICKS ZONE

This is what alleged scientists are reduced to … arguing warming causes more sea ice. (Wonder why it doesn’t work off Greenland?)
Global warming means seas freeze more off Antarctica – ALERT.NET

It’s not just the alleged global warming science that it bankrupt. Yet another govt subsidised “renewable energy” firm is also biting the dust.
Sunset for Suntech: The troubling bankruptcy in a troubled business – ECONOMIST

The real reason wind power is called “green energy”:

The real reason they call #WindPower green energy

Here’s how to produce the “new hockey stick” produced late last year, and broken over the weekend. Call it The Marcott (or Mann) Method. In summary:

image

Leading anti-warmist Christopher Monckton is touring New Zealand at the moment on his ‘Climate of Freedom Tour.’ (See him tonight and tomorrow in Auckland, and all points south over the next month.) “Climate scientists whose salary depend on global warming rally against Lord Monckton” but offer no scientific rebuttal. Just abuse. (Why? You know why.)
Kiwi scientists rally against climate change sceptic – HERALD

Here’s Monckton is responding to critics in the Herald, and talking to Leighton Smith earlier this week:

Archaeologists have uncovered what the ancients called ‘Pluto’s Gate,’ a place they thought because people has visions and animals died there in their droves was the gateway to hell. The discovery reveals a rational explanation for both phenomena.
Archaeologists have uncovered 'Pluto's Gate', an ancient gateway to Hell, in Turkey – DAILY TELEGRAPH (Aus)

"The mystery of how living organisms sprung out of lifeless rock has long puzzled scientists, but we think that the unusual phosphorus chemicals we found could be a precursor to the batteries that now power all life on Earth.”
Origin of Life: Power Behind Primordial Soup Discovered – SCIENCE DAILY

A great example of the benefits of living in the free, Western world and why we should keep it that way.
Chinese children scale cliff ladders on school commute – TELEGRAPH

US Senator Randal Paul’s “proposed immigration reforms are marginally better than what Republicans usually offer, but they fall far short of a policy based on the principle of individual rights.”
Rand Paul Inches Toward a Rights-Respecting Immigration Policy but Lacks the Means to Get ThereOBJECTIVE STANDARD

Some good news: The Associated Press (AP), the largest news gathering organization in the world, announced earlier this week that they would no longer allow the use of the term "Illegal Immigrant" in any of their stories. (And goddamn you if the only word you have to describe a human being determined to breathe free “illegal.”)
The Associated Press drops “illegal” from immigrant – FEMINISTING

Yes, I confess.
“I was an iPad skeptic” – ARS TECHNICA

Since I’m a big-time user, I’ve been asking this question too:
Why Is Google Killing Google Reader? – FORBES

Here’s some alternative readers I might try.

We do want test cricket in Auckland, but is Eden Park the place for it. What about a city ground at Victoria Park?
Sports Talk: Eden Park & the Future of Test Cricket – WHALE OIL

Protip: Don't claim you're too poor to pay child support, then post Facebook pic of yourself with piles of cash.
Facebook Money Pics Bust Dad for Allegedly Dodging Child Support – ABC NEWS

A statistician works out all the odds, based on past performance, for NRL teams this weekend. So when you say, “The Warriors will have to so a shitload better if they’re going to win,” turns out “shitload” means at least 14.3 points.
NRL Predictions, Round 5 – David Scott, STATS CHAT

But take note:
"Odds" Are Not Real Things That Are *Obstacles* to Achievements – Gene Callahan, CRASH LANDING

But isn’t that what swear words are for.

Amazing optical illusions, starting with this one:

Since daylight saving ends this weekend, signalling the end of summer (boo!), here’s "Summertime" from Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, as it was first written, in its original key, performed here in 2008 by Janice Chandler-Eteme with the Dallas Opera .

Listen to the moment an opera star was born: Luciano Pavarotti's amazing debut as Rodolfo from La Boheme at the Teatri di Reggio Emilia in 1961.  Listen to the crowd erupt.

Amanda Palmer announces new tour dates (Auckland in September!), and releases a new video of a new improved version of her not-very-happy Bed Song.  (And here she is at TED talking about the Art of Asking—and the joy of spontaneous voluntary association.)

Since he blew down the house in Auckland recently, here’s South African trumpeter Hugh Masekela playing the Dizzy Gillespie classic. (No idea why the video shows Tokyo though…)

And finally, here’s something to watch if we ever do get a rainy Sunday afternoon: the life of trumpeter Chet Baker in film: Let’s Get Lost. (If really rains heavily, you can watch this is well: a fantastic documentary on the classic Miles Davis’ quintet of the 1960s.)

[Hat tips to Justin Templer, Great Opera Videos, Jazz on the Tube, Warren Fahey, Virginia Murr, Joe Bastardi, P Gosselin , Climate Realists, Ari Armstrong, Berend de Boer, Tjitze de Boer, Nick Sorrentino, Paul Hsieh, Geek Press, LibertyscottN.o.a.h, Chris Hadfield, Matt Forbeck, Richard Calhoun, Roger A. Pielke Sr, James Pethokoukis, Aus Climate Madness, Robert Tracinski, Small Dead Animals, Whale Oil,]

Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend.
And Go the Breakers!

PC

PS: It sure as hell won’t be this weekend, but somehow, somewhere, I have to try this:
Beer of the month – Thomas Hardy’s Ale – A GIRL AND HER PINT

Thomas Hardy's Ale 2004. You know it's going to be good when the bottle has a gold medal around its neck.

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Is it "hell" freezing over before thieving NZ gov't (wotever hue)stops taxing petrol and electricity to save the rest of Earth from ghastly global climate change?
Presumably car manufacturers will still use rare materials to provide electrical cars for morons wanting eco travel (for 80km)
Peter

gregster said...

Binswanger update on his column in Forbes:

"By the time you read this, my Forbes column will have had 10,000 views. I hope it gets even more, because it can change how people think about this issue, asking themselves: “How long can this go on?” and, “What would be so bad about warming anyway?”

In the comments, my opponents make three rebuttals: 1. The science says otherwise, 2. my time-frame is too short, 3. warming is happening right now.

But I think people can see that if the “science says” otherwise, the science is wrong—i.e., its not science. But that depends on the answer to 2—how long is too short? If the “science says” a third of a century is too short to for any noticeable change, then how long in the future is this disaster? two centuries? Three?

Or are we to believe that there will be an acceleration of changes in the last few years? Say, in the 2050 to 2060 decade, things will rapidly go to hell. Yeah, that's a tack they could take, but it's not very plausible. And you'd have to combine that with the even more implausible idea that by taking tiny steps now (killing a lot of poor people in the third world in the process), it will make a significant difference on the scale of a whole planet, and that planet's interaction with the star it orbits.

After all, unless there's a quick and massive conversion to nuclear energy production, the carbon emissions have to increase, not decrease, as the world's energy production increases.


Although the U.S. never signed up, the Kyoto Protocol was adopted in 1997, and has been in force since 2005. The signatories agreed to cut their greenhouse gas emissions relative to 1990 levels.

And how well has that worked out? Well, Japan, which promised a 6% reduction, instead saw a 7.4% increase despite 20 years of economic stagnation; Australia, which pledged to let carbon increase by no more than 8%, witnessed a 47.7% rise; the Netherlands, which promised a 6% cut, wound up with 20% higher emissions by the end of 2010; and Canada, which committed to a 6% cut, experienced a 24% increase.


www.forbes.com

The above is a good article, covering the whole history of this statism-motivated warming movement.

Carbon dioxide emissions in energy production and use have gone up every single 5-year period in the time covered in the chart I found: tripling from 1965 to 2011. To change that trend would require the ending of industrial progress, which would mean mass starvation and an unimaginable retrogression to primitive conditions. And for what? Theoretically, to prevent milder weather, building dikes against (supposed) sea-level rises, and more food production. Actually, to prevent men from being free. And successful.

The second response to my column was that the time frame was too short. It's hard to think a third of a century is too short. But when will it not be too short for the climate-panic crowd? 40 years? 50 years? Can we assume that in 2019, they will give up? Or will it take until 2029?

The third rebuttal was: it's already happening. In support, they cite changes in the arctic and various droughts. The changes in the arctic are, according to what I read, offset by changes in the antarctic. Droughts and weather anomalies are the norm, not the exception, and my whole point is that there is no overall change in any of the world's inhabited regions. As I said, why aren't we seeing, after a third of a century, no snow in Massachusetts or at least some threatening sea-level rises in Florida (or elsewhere)."

Judge Holden said...

Objectivists are funny. When faced with a choice between reality and their religion they've chosen to walk away from reality. The weird thing is they claim reason as their highest standard - a fundamental principle of their religion. Response: shriek conspiracy and put fingers in ears and go lalallalalala!

Andrew B said...

Way to back up your points with evidence judge.

Speaking of cold in Britain... http://www.itv.com/news/update/2013-04-05/filmmaker-froze-to-death-reporting-on-homelessness/

Judge Holden said...

The evidence is the shrieking and evasion you see all around you, Andrew. See what I mean, even you're doing it.

Ben said...

Ann Rand believed the scientific link between smoking and cancer was a conspiracy, so it makes sense that Objectivists feel the same way about climate change.

Judge Holden said...

And she contracted lung cancer and later died of heart disease. You'd think they'd learn.

Peter Cresswell said...

@Ben: No, she didn't; no we don't.

@Judge: Ayn Rand Myth #9.

Peter Cresswell said...

Judge's last comment has been deleted. Too far this time.

Time to go, Judge. Don't come back.

Ben said...

How far is too far? I thought this blog was against censorship

Peter Cresswell said...

@Ben: Free speech doesn't mean I have to provide empty-headed blowhards with a microphone. If "Judge" Holden wants to yap incoherently, he can start his own blog.

How far is too far? The guidelines are posted right there, directly above the comments box.

Judge Holden said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Ben said...

What did you say Judge? Something about Rand on welfare?

Judge Holden said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Ben said...

You committed blasphemy!

Judge Holden said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.