OK, enough political incorrectness. Back to plain old BS.
Category Archives: Science and Edumacation
Weekend Linkorama
When Obama won the Nobel Prize, he promised to give the $1.4 million cash prize to charity. Looks like he fulfilled that promise. I can’t think there’s a single name on there that will cause controversy, although I’m some idiot will find something they don’t like.
More From The Climate Front
It looks like the computer code at East Anglia isn’t as bad as the Bad Skeptics claimed it was. Think they’ll withdraw that statement? Don’t bet on it. Every climate denial checklist from now on will include that debunked claim, along with global cooling, the withdrawn study on sea level rise, etc.
We’re also seeing lies built upon lies. Lie One was that the CRU data was faked. So now Lie Two comes alog — the CEI claiming that NASA admitted that their climate data is inferior to the fraudulent CRU data.
Of course, the e-mails say nothing of the kind. The e-mails say that in studying the climate, you can’t proclaim one data set (NASA’s) to be the end-all, be-all; that you should use all four temperature lines.
But that doesn’t matter to the Chinese Whisper factory that is Bad Climate Skepticism. What matters is that Algore and a whole bunch of dirty hippies believe in global warming. So it must be fake.
One Up, One Down
Good and bad news out of Texas. On the one hand, young Earth creationist Don McLeroy lost his primary campaign for the board of education seat. On the other hand, moderate Republican Tincy Miller lost her primary and her opponent looks to be a “teach the controversy” creationist.
On balance, this is good. Removing McLeroy is a huge step. I just hope his replacement is more reasonable.
Tuesday Linkorama
Lomborg Love
Many environmentalists hate Bjorn Lomborg. Actually, they hate anyone who doesn’t respond to environmental concerns with hysterical panic. Thus, Paul Ehrlich — who has been wrong about everything he has ever said — is venerated because he’s a doom-monger. And Lomborg — and Gregg Easterbrook and Ronald Bailey and many others — are vilified for being optimistic and realistic about environmental scares.
A few years ago, Lomborg was the victim of a witch-hunt over his book The Skeptical Environmentalist. Now they’re at it again, with a new book that’s attacks his accuracy. Lomborg’s response is here (PDF). I find it compelling, as always.
It’s shit like this that gives red meat to those who claim environmentalism — and global warming acceptance in particular — are a religion. They environmentalists are treating Lomborg like a heretic. It’s not enough that he might be wrong; he has to be evil.
Weekend Linkorama
I don’t think you’ll find a more perfect series of links to show why I left the “Right”, even though my political philosophy was and remains staunchly conservative/libertarian. All five deal with false memes — lies — that the Right is using to promote an agenda of anti-intellectualism, torture and bad climate skepticism that is anathema to everything I believe in.
Sarah Palin isn’t just ignorant; she’s proud of being ignorant. Her cluelessness is seen as proof of how much of an “outsider” she is and how good she would be as the conservative leader or, God forbid, President.
But that’s just nonsense. Guys like Reagan and Goldwater were outsiders, they were not ignorant. Reagan was intensely intellectually curious. Goldwater was so forthright about issues, he got massacred in the election. Even Gingrich, when he first came about, was all about ideas. Palin is none of that. She is pure resentment against a perceived “other”.
Then you have the pants-shitting terror — or pretense thereof for political purposes — that leads people to declare terror suspects to be unpersons. No conservative should believe any human being to be an unperson, to have no rights. Rights may be restricted or conditional, but they always exist. Abducting people, imprisoning them without trial and torturing them is against everything conservatives supposedly believe in — specifically the universality of our divinely given rights and the need to restrain government. How can you possibly say you triumph the individual over the state when you embrace the greatest subjugation to which a state can subject the individual — imprisonment and torture with trial?
And finally, I can understand — I support — skepticism about hysterical environmental claims. I especially support opposition to collectivist solutions to them. But that has now morphed from Good Climate Skepticism to Bad Climate Skepticism — a mix of conspiracy mongering, anti-science, witch-hunting and quote-mining. A conservative approach would say, “Maybe AGW isn’t real. But if it is … we need to do something about it.” A conservative would do what I do every time a Right Wing blog links up to some article that “disproves” global warming — look into it and see what it actually says.
Until these things are purged from the Right Wing, I will remain outside. This is simply not what I signed on for.
Thursday Linkorama
Everyone’s Tired
A study claims that poor people are less well-rested than rich people and women are less well-rested than men. Now with a claim like that, you expect huge differences, right?
The percentages of those who are not well rested are 29% vs. 35% for rich against poor and 33% vs. 26% for women vs. men. Call me crazy, but these sound small. That’s one in 16 extra poor people and one in 14 women. The only group that shows anything remotely interesting in seniors, who are at 19% poorly rested. Even that’s not a HUGE difference.
The result for the poor, of course, prompts the usual wringing of hands about the poor are up worrying all night. Maybe. But the poor have higher rates of alcoholism, drug abuse, smoking and obesity — all of which negatively impact restfulness. I would suspect this is a larger factor than any mental issues.
Allow me to rewrite the analysis for Gallup:
A well-being survey shows that about a third of Americans claim they are not well-rested. There were slight upticks for the rates of being well-rested for those with higher incomes, for men, for people without children and especially for seniors.
Social scientists. I swear.
More on the Climate
I sometimes use this space as a scratch pad for points I can mention elsewhere. WordPress’s search function is so easy that it makes it possible for me to dig up just about any post I’ve written.
Here’s one I’ll be referencing for a while: a little background on Lord Monckton, one of the chief climate “bad skeptics”.
(I’m now using “bad skeptics” in place of “denialists” to reference people who use debunked or unscientific arguments against global warming. This is as opposed to “good skeptics” like Ron Bailey, Bjorn Lonborg and Pat Michaels, who use appropriate scientific skepticism.)
He theorizes that NASA crashed its own satellite, promotes a quack cure for everything from the flu to HIV and compares Obama to Hitler.
Monckton is not just some random guy I’m picking on. He is cited constantly by “bad skeptics” as their warrior priest in opposing the onslaught of environmentalism.
In other news, I’ll link to Penn State’s evaluation of Climategate but will refrain from comment on a fellow faculty member.
Weekend Linkorama
Midweek Linkorama
Weekend Linkorama
Tuesday Linkorama
Hah! A non-political all-science linkorama. Almost.