Screw you, Apple

In the FBI"s fight with Apple about unlocking the dead San Bernardino terrrorist Syed Rizwan Farook's iPhone, Apple has insisted that its cooperation would jeopardize the security of millions of iPhone users. This was true, Apple said, even though the software that Apple would generate could be kept within the company but might "escape" nevertheless. I've been skeptical about this because Apple has very elaborate provisions to protect its proprietary software - its "crown jewels," so to speak - and protecting the particular piece the government is asking it to generate should be no harder. In other words, if Apple is able to protect its operating systems, its life blood, from hackers, why shouldn't they be able to protect the small piece in question?
But the government announced yesterday that it may have a method for unlocking the phone without Apple's help. So Apple's concern about the millions of iPhone users - concern enough to plead Constitution issues and to defy a government order - seems rather hollow since apparently the iPhone security has already been hacked.
The irony is that we probably would never have heard of the issue if Apple hadn't made such a fuss about it. Now that they did, the whole world knows that iPhone security has been cracked.
I have felt from the beginning there was a strong element of grandstanding in Apple's position, a certain pleasure in telling the government where to put its request for cooperation. Something that it considered would play well with its customer base, about which they were probably right. Now it's blown up in their face, a certain justice prevails after all.

The science is settled, so shut up

Ninety-seven percent of scientists say global warming is real; the other three percent are unemployed.

Seriously, let's review some "facts" from the science.

First, the IPCC says that the Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (rise in global temperature caused by a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere) is between 1.5 and 4.5 degrees C. Now, the participants in COP21 in Paris are delirious with joy that they have saved the earth by getting promises to limit CO2 emissions that will keep the temperature from rising more that 2.7 degrees. That's like telling a pilot that his navigation system says the airport is between 15 and 45 miles but that he should touch down in 27 miles.

Speaking of accuracy, the actions that will cost the billions (or trillions, no one knows) we're being asked to commit are based on forecasts by computer models. Are they accurate? Well, the difference between the current temperature anomaly and the model forecasts made just 20 years ago is skirting the confidence limit of the model forecast. What this means in technical terms is that if the model is valid, the probability of seeing what we're seeing should be less that 5%, or less than one chance in 20. But don't worry, folks; repeat after me: "The Science is Settled."

To make any sense of what we're talking about, we need to know what the recent past global temperatures were. Some preeminent labs are studying this and have published their estimates which everyone is using as a basis for current studies. A puzzling fact from this record is that the temperature anomaly has been statistically unchanged for about the past 18 years, what people call "the pause." Various theories have been put forward to explain the pause, twenty in number by one person's count. A group at NOAA has put forward the most startling, namely that the pause doesn't exist. They concluded this by rejiggering the temperature record. In other words, the scientists don't  even agree on the instrument record for the last twenty years.

But: The science is settled, so shut up.

Hillary was concerned about security

It is not true that Hillary Clinton chose to use a private email account while Secretary of State because she didn’t value security. The problem was that she valued security against Congressional committees over that against foreign enemies, and the scheme worked very well: Keeping complete control with the private server permitted her to discard everything she considered politically damaging before Congress could get their hands on it. The fact that she had to step on a few rules and possibly laws in the process was a small price to pay, and the current brouhaha will die down by election day. The only danger is that (as Jonah Goldberg put it) “another fetid cloud of Clintonism erupts” in the meantime.

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.

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.

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.