Friday, July 25, 2014
Doctor alive only because he defied a "gun-free zone"
As reported by USA Today, a doctor shot a patient after the patient shot and killed a caseworker in his office. The facility is a "gun-free zone," which means that the doctor violated that policy. Thank God he did because otherwise it is almost certain that he'd be dead as well as an unknown number of others. It is another illustration of what gun advocates have been saying for years: "gun-free zones" are places where only the criminals have guns. Fortunately, there are some peaceful citizens who defy the policy.
Tuesday, June 3, 2014
Desertion? Is that bad?
Chuck Todd of NBC said the administration was expecting "euphoria" over their announcement of the release of Bowe Bergdahl. An illustration of how far off the administration was was Susan Rice's statement on television that Bergdahl "served with honor and distinction." Some are speculating over the reason for the White House's gross misreading of what the reaction would be. Here's my theory: Obama and the White House are so ignorant of things military that they didn't understand what a serious matter desertion in a combat zone is. Desertion carries a possible death penalty. That hasn't happened since 1945, and I'm not recommending it for Berdahl, but it illustrates how serious an offense it is. Anyone who's been in the service understands it very well, especially the troops who were there in Afghanistan. Obviously, the White House didn't.
Saturday, May 24, 2014
Left and right in the climate debate
There are few issues in politics where the alignment between left and right is clearer than in the matter of catastrophic anthropomorphic global warming. In case there's any mystery in the reason for that, it is cleared up succinctly by Bob Ludwick in a comment on Judith Curry's blog:
As you [another commenter] point out, ‘Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Change’ is not the problem, it is the solution.
And the problem? How to concentrate power and money in the hands of the ‘progressives (Democrats/liberals/socialists/Marxists/communists/greens/politically correct euphemism du jour)’.
And a huge and growing success it has been in achieving just that.
Bengtsson defects
Lennart Bengtsson, former director of Germany's Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, recently announced that he was joining the board of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), a well-known skeptic organization. The reaction in the climate science community, which he compared to "McCarthyism," was so strong that he quickly withdrew. The event has occasioned a widespread debate in the community about the extent to which the science has been politicized, well summarized in an article in Der Spiegel by Axel Bojanowski.
Bojanowski quotes various members of the community with opinions on
all sides of the issue. Comments by Roger Pielke Jr., an
environmental scientist at the University of Colorado, were on the
money: "In a democracy people will organize around all sorts of
shared interests, as they should, and many will share values that I
don't. So what? Bengtsson's justifications for associating with GWPF
are perfectly legitimate. That he was pressured by his peers with
social and other sanctions reflects the deeply politicized nature of
this issue."Also Roger Pielke Sr.: "Unfortunately, climate
science has become very politicized and views that differ at all from
those in control of the climate assessment process are either ignored
or ridiculed. From my experience, I agree 100 percent with the
allegations made by the very distinguished Lennart Bengtsson."
There is an orthodoxy in climate science from which no dissent can be tolerated. The truth is that the whole structure is based on a shaky foundation, and everyone knows it. To admit it, though, would threaten the fiction of "settled science" and the gushers of money that goes into grants and other sources of money from governments. Climate science is a hot topic, and scientists who play their cards right can win fame and fortune: being called to testify before Congress, appearing on television, writing books. The whole game is threatened by a few spoil sports who insist on telling the truth, and they must be stopped.Thursday, May 22, 2014
Peer review: not what it's cracked up to be
Peer review is held up as the holy grail in scientific papers. The IPCC trumpets its strict policy of using only peer-reviewed literature in its proceedings (but has been caught deviating from it, but that's another story). I had no reason to doubt the efficacy of the process until I became aware of these two things: (1) the leaked emails from scientist in the "climategate" controversy and (2) the disintegration of Michael Mann's Hockey Stick.
Peer review consists of the review of papers submitted for publication by independent panels of scientists chosen by editors. The reviews are voluntary, anonymous, and unpaid. When defined this way, it is already clear that the process is not going to be in the depth that some may assume.
In the email controversy the scientists at Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia were caught attempting (and probably succeeding to some degree) using the peer-review process to prevent the publication of papers that they deemed damaging to their campaign to promote the theory of anthropomorphic global warming. There can be no doubt that that's what they were up to, and they were quite explicit about it.
With respect to Michael Mann's Hockey Stick, his original papers in 1998 and 1999 were duly peer-reviewed and published in prestigious journals, but were soon comprehensively debunked (in my opinion) by Canadians Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick. The story of their efforts has been told in excruciating detail and remains controversial, but the Hockey Stick, while making quite a splash at first, has gone out of style, so to speak, the victim of a torrent of criticism from many directions.
Whatever the truth of the matter, a significant lesson learned from the experience of the Hockey Stick is how superficial peer review is. Apparently, McIntyre, a retired mining engineer well versed in statistical analysis, was the first person to look closely at Mann's results, close enough to raise very substantive questions about the data and methods of analysis. Also learned from McIntyre's work was that the availability of the underlying data and methods of analysis, supposedly required by the written policies of the scientific journals to be made available, may not be at all. It was only by the energetic efforts of the two Canadians, both outsiders to the closed community of climate science, to raise some real issues with the Hockey Stick.
Peer review consists of the review of papers submitted for publication by independent panels of scientists chosen by editors. The reviews are voluntary, anonymous, and unpaid. When defined this way, it is already clear that the process is not going to be in the depth that some may assume.
In the email controversy the scientists at Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia were caught attempting (and probably succeeding to some degree) using the peer-review process to prevent the publication of papers that they deemed damaging to their campaign to promote the theory of anthropomorphic global warming. There can be no doubt that that's what they were up to, and they were quite explicit about it.
With respect to Michael Mann's Hockey Stick, his original papers in 1998 and 1999 were duly peer-reviewed and published in prestigious journals, but were soon comprehensively debunked (in my opinion) by Canadians Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick. The story of their efforts has been told in excruciating detail and remains controversial, but the Hockey Stick, while making quite a splash at first, has gone out of style, so to speak, the victim of a torrent of criticism from many directions.
Whatever the truth of the matter, a significant lesson learned from the experience of the Hockey Stick is how superficial peer review is. Apparently, McIntyre, a retired mining engineer well versed in statistical analysis, was the first person to look closely at Mann's results, close enough to raise very substantive questions about the data and methods of analysis. Also learned from McIntyre's work was that the availability of the underlying data and methods of analysis, supposedly required by the written policies of the scientific journals to be made available, may not be at all. It was only by the energetic efforts of the two Canadians, both outsiders to the closed community of climate science, to raise some real issues with the Hockey Stick.
Monday, May 19, 2014
Firing of Jill Abramson at the New York Times
There's quite a kerfuffle going about the firing of Jill Abramson as Managing Editor of the New York Times. The Times is owned by the Sulzberger family and run by Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. as Publisher, who abruptly fired Ms. Abramson last week. There is much consternation about it including accusations of sexual discrimation, both for the firing and an allegation that Ms. Abramson was paid less than her male predecessor in the position.
Now I could care less about the New York Times' problems. I think the attention to this business in the press is well overblown, particularly since most of it seems sympathetic to Ms. Abramson and the discrimination charge. It is said that Ms. Abramson is not taking it lying down.
The working principle for employment used to be "at will," meaning that it was entirely a matter discretion on the part of the employer, and workers could be fired any time with no requirement to justify it to anyone. That is no longer the case, of course, and labor laws are shot through with all kinds of requirements having to do with unfair labor practices, etc.
However, at the dizzying heights of top corporate management, we all know that top mangers are fired all the time, albeit many with "golden parachutes" that are built into their contracts. In fact, I would be very much surprised if Ms. Abramson was not working on a contract, which would certainly have had explicit terms covering termination.
So I would say to Ms. Abramson, stop whining, you're in the big league and managers get fired all the time. Get used to it.
Now I could care less about the New York Times' problems. I think the attention to this business in the press is well overblown, particularly since most of it seems sympathetic to Ms. Abramson and the discrimination charge. It is said that Ms. Abramson is not taking it lying down.
The working principle for employment used to be "at will," meaning that it was entirely a matter discretion on the part of the employer, and workers could be fired any time with no requirement to justify it to anyone. That is no longer the case, of course, and labor laws are shot through with all kinds of requirements having to do with unfair labor practices, etc.
However, at the dizzying heights of top corporate management, we all know that top mangers are fired all the time, albeit many with "golden parachutes" that are built into their contracts. In fact, I would be very much surprised if Ms. Abramson was not working on a contract, which would certainly have had explicit terms covering termination.
So I would say to Ms. Abramson, stop whining, you're in the big league and managers get fired all the time. Get used to it.
Friday, May 16, 2014
George Will today on Fox today (5/16/2014)
On the subject of the VA scandal: "This is a little glimpse into the rationing of health care by bureaucratic obfuscation and in some cases cruelty, so this is our future."
Thursday, May 15, 2014
The climate models are wrong
Richard P. Feynman famously said, "It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong." The global warming climate models can be said to have been subject to the experiment of observations over the last 17 years, and they don't agree.
Therefore, they're wrong.
To put a finer point on it, climate modellers generally show confidence intervals with their projections. A confidence interval is the range within which observations should fall with a certain probability if the model is correct. For example, typically 95% confidence intervals are shown as lines above and below the expected future temperatures, meaning that observations should fall within the limits with a probability of 95% or greater. Actual temperatures are skirting the lower limit, below which there should be only 2.5% probability of occurring if the model is correct. Another way of saying that is that there is no more than one chance in 40 that the models are correct, rather long odds to base a policy involving hundreds of billions of dollars.
Oh, yes, they have excuses. The alarmists say a decade or two isn't long enough to draw a conclusion and that what they call the "hiatus" can be explained as natural variability. In testimony to the U.S. Senate by Judith Curry (Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology), she said: "If the recent warming hiatus is caused by natural variability, then this raises the question as to what extent the warming between 1975 and 2000 can also be explained by natural climate variability."
Another explanation, often expressed with exasperation as if explaining something to a child for the umpteenth time, is that the excess heat is "hiding" in the deep ocean. This is handwaving: There is no theory to explain just how the heat gets transferred to the deep ocean, and it's nothing more than speculation.
It is true that the ocean has enormous capacity to store heat with only small changes in temperature, but can they point to measurements showing these changes? No: the Argo system collects temperature and salinity data by means of floats distributed over the globe down to 2000 meters, and if it showed an increase in ocean temperature to explain the hiatus, there is no doubt that we would have heard about it. Hence the "theory," if it can be called that, is that the heat is below 2000 meters, hence the reference to the "deep ocean."
If we suppose for the sake of argument that the deep ocean theory is correct, then why isn't it in the models? The reason, of course, is that the models don't take it into account because they have no idea by what mechanism the excess heat gets there. Isn't this in effect an admission that the models are wrong?
Therefore, they're wrong.
To put a finer point on it, climate modellers generally show confidence intervals with their projections. A confidence interval is the range within which observations should fall with a certain probability if the model is correct. For example, typically 95% confidence intervals are shown as lines above and below the expected future temperatures, meaning that observations should fall within the limits with a probability of 95% or greater. Actual temperatures are skirting the lower limit, below which there should be only 2.5% probability of occurring if the model is correct. Another way of saying that is that there is no more than one chance in 40 that the models are correct, rather long odds to base a policy involving hundreds of billions of dollars.
Oh, yes, they have excuses. The alarmists say a decade or two isn't long enough to draw a conclusion and that what they call the "hiatus" can be explained as natural variability. In testimony to the U.S. Senate by Judith Curry (Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology), she said: "If the recent warming hiatus is caused by natural variability, then this raises the question as to what extent the warming between 1975 and 2000 can also be explained by natural climate variability."
Another explanation, often expressed with exasperation as if explaining something to a child for the umpteenth time, is that the excess heat is "hiding" in the deep ocean. This is handwaving: There is no theory to explain just how the heat gets transferred to the deep ocean, and it's nothing more than speculation.
It is true that the ocean has enormous capacity to store heat with only small changes in temperature, but can they point to measurements showing these changes? No: the Argo system collects temperature and salinity data by means of floats distributed over the globe down to 2000 meters, and if it showed an increase in ocean temperature to explain the hiatus, there is no doubt that we would have heard about it. Hence the "theory," if it can be called that, is that the heat is below 2000 meters, hence the reference to the "deep ocean."
If we suppose for the sake of argument that the deep ocean theory is correct, then why isn't it in the models? The reason, of course, is that the models don't take it into account because they have no idea by what mechanism the excess heat gets there. Isn't this in effect an admission that the models are wrong?
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
The Minimum Wage
The idea of a minimum wage law polls well because few people think through its unintended consequences. Who, after all, can be against higher wages for workers at the bottom of the job ladder?
The trouble is that the effect of a minimum wage law is that it places the lowest skilled workers in the position of getting the statutory minimum or the real minimum, which is $0.00. Some will wind up with the latter.
Unemployed workers compete in the market to sell their services for the best price they can get.When competition is intense, i.e., when there are many workers competing for few jobs, the only way workers with few or no marketable skills - the ones the law is supposed to help - can compete is to offer their services at a lower price. Setting a minimum by law forecloses this option and shuts them out.
It is the same as selling a product in a competitive market: when sales are slow, raising the price is not a good strategy.
The trouble is that the effect of a minimum wage law is that it places the lowest skilled workers in the position of getting the statutory minimum or the real minimum, which is $0.00. Some will wind up with the latter.
Unemployed workers compete in the market to sell their services for the best price they can get.When competition is intense, i.e., when there are many workers competing for few jobs, the only way workers with few or no marketable skills - the ones the law is supposed to help - can compete is to offer their services at a lower price. Setting a minimum by law forecloses this option and shuts them out.
It is the same as selling a product in a competitive market: when sales are slow, raising the price is not a good strategy.
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
Oh, well,it was just campaign rhetoric...
O'Reilly (interrupting): - those are your words -
Indeed they were: Here is Obama speaking at a campaign rally at Columbia, MO, Oct. 30, 2008:
After decades of broken politics in Washington, and eight years of failed policies from George W. Bush, and 21 months of a campaign that's taken us from the rocky coast of Maine to the sunshine of California, we are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.
(emphasis added)
Indeed they were: Here is Obama speaking at a campaign rally at Columbia, MO, Oct. 30, 2008:
After decades of broken politics in Washington, and eight years of failed policies from George W. Bush, and 21 months of a campaign that's taken us from the rocky coast of Maine to the sunshine of California, we are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.
(emphasis added)
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