Wednesday, June 08, 2011
Hope and Change
I've repeatedly said in the past that I think Obama wants to turn the United States into pre-Thatcher UK, and once I even agreed that he wants to turn the US into Haiti. But hopenchange continues unabated, and I am coming around to the opinion that he wants to turn the whole country into Detroit, by doing stuff like this.
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Labels: Deficit, Detroit, government, Michigan, Obama, UK
Thursday, October 01, 2009
The Broken Hockey Stick
Richard Fernandez at Belmont Club has a fascinating post about how Steve McIntyre, a Canadian mathematician, has discovered a dataset that calls into serious question (as in debunking) the infamous MBH "hockey stick" graph which purports to show a spike in global temperatures in the 20th century.
Since there were no thermometers available for most of the 1000 years that the temperature study covered, temperatures were estimated using proxy data, to wit: cores taken from larch trees that displayed the pattern of tree rings. It turns out that trees grow faster in warmer conditions, and so temperatures during the life of the tree can be estimated by analyzing whether the tree rings are close together (cooler) or farther apart (warmer).
It turns out that the dataset that was used to create the "hockey stick" was comprised of only 12 tree cores from a population of 252 cores known as the Yamal dataset. The dataset was being Bogarted for many years by Keith Briffa, a scientist at the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UK). Through dogged persistence and patience, McIntyre was able not only to finally obtain Briffa's data, but also data from other sets of tree cores that were taken from trees that were not far away from those in the Yamal dataset.
When those other datasets were used with the CRU methodology, the "hockey stick" went away!
Dear reader, since the whole anthropogenic global warming thing is based almost entirely on the MBH study, it just may be that global warming is a myth. Surprise, surprise!
If I were Mr. McIntyre, I might be considering hiring a bodyguard, because powerful people have a lot invested in stopping global warming.
If you are interested in this sort of thing, be sure to read Bishop Hill blog, which tells the story in lay terms.
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Since there were no thermometers available for most of the 1000 years that the temperature study covered, temperatures were estimated using proxy data, to wit: cores taken from larch trees that displayed the pattern of tree rings. It turns out that trees grow faster in warmer conditions, and so temperatures during the life of the tree can be estimated by analyzing whether the tree rings are close together (cooler) or farther apart (warmer).
It turns out that the dataset that was used to create the "hockey stick" was comprised of only 12 tree cores from a population of 252 cores known as the Yamal dataset. The dataset was being Bogarted for many years by Keith Briffa, a scientist at the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UK). Through dogged persistence and patience, McIntyre was able not only to finally obtain Briffa's data, but also data from other sets of tree cores that were taken from trees that were not far away from those in the Yamal dataset.
When those other datasets were used with the CRU methodology, the "hockey stick" went away!
Dear reader, since the whole anthropogenic global warming thing is based almost entirely on the MBH study, it just may be that global warming is a myth. Surprise, surprise!
If I were Mr. McIntyre, I might be considering hiring a bodyguard, because powerful people have a lot invested in stopping global warming.
If you are interested in this sort of thing, be sure to read Bishop Hill blog, which tells the story in lay terms.
Labels: Canada, Global warming, Science, UK
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
Obama's Health Care Speech
Angry. Glittering generalities. Gratuitous jabs at Republicans. How ya gonna do it? Kennedy nostalgia.
"We don't want to run the banks."
"We don't want to run the auto industry."
"If you pass the stimulus bill the unemployment rate will not exceed 8%."
"If you want to know what I'm about, look at the people I surround myself with." (OK, that's a paraphrase, or not, but it's essentially what he said. In any event, the old adage about you're known by the company you keep still applies.)
I don't believe a f***ing word this guy says.
If this bill passes, by 2016 we'll have a single payer health system in this country, and it'll look a lot like the UK and Canada systems. I'm 63, and under Obamacare I don't expect to make it much past 75, if I'm fortunate enough to get that far.
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"We don't want to run the banks."
"We don't want to run the auto industry."
"If you pass the stimulus bill the unemployment rate will not exceed 8%."
"If you want to know what I'm about, look at the people I surround myself with." (OK, that's a paraphrase, or not, but it's essentially what he said. In any event, the old adage about you're known by the company you keep still applies.)
I don't believe a f***ing word this guy says.
If this bill passes, by 2016 we'll have a single payer health system in this country, and it'll look a lot like the UK and Canada systems. I'm 63, and under Obamacare I don't expect to make it much past 75, if I'm fortunate enough to get that far.
Labels: Canada, Health Care, Obama, UK
Monday, September 15, 2008
Britain Adopts Islamic Law
If you think bilingual countries have cultural issues, how about "bilegal" countries? The UK has given Sharia courts full power to rule in Muslim civil cases.
Now, I don't know how the UK deals with the notion of equal protection under the law, but it seems to me that separate but equal legal systems will work about as well as separate but equal education systems. That is, someone's gonna get screwed.
I imagine that Sharia courts will (at least initially) only deal with disputes in which all the parties are Muslim. I figure it'll be about a year, maybe less, before some non-Muslim gets hauled before a Sharia court by a Muslim in an attempt to impose Sharia law in any case in which at least one of the parties is Muslim. The logic would be, of course, that the Muslim is entitled to be judged according to Muslim law, irrespective of the identity of the other party. That's political correctness run amok, but that appears to be the way the UK, and the rest of Europe, for that matter, is heading. Anything to prevent religious riots, right?
Neville Chamberlain's ghost is somewhere smiling in approval.
I have had a fear for a couple years now that our cousins in the UK are committing cultural suicide. This will prove to be one more nail in the coffin, and it's a damn shame.
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Now, I don't know how the UK deals with the notion of equal protection under the law, but it seems to me that separate but equal legal systems will work about as well as separate but equal education systems. That is, someone's gonna get screwed.
I imagine that Sharia courts will (at least initially) only deal with disputes in which all the parties are Muslim. I figure it'll be about a year, maybe less, before some non-Muslim gets hauled before a Sharia court by a Muslim in an attempt to impose Sharia law in any case in which at least one of the parties is Muslim. The logic would be, of course, that the Muslim is entitled to be judged according to Muslim law, irrespective of the identity of the other party. That's political correctness run amok, but that appears to be the way the UK, and the rest of Europe, for that matter, is heading. Anything to prevent religious riots, right?
Neville Chamberlain's ghost is somewhere smiling in approval.
I have had a fear for a couple years now that our cousins in the UK are committing cultural suicide. This will prove to be one more nail in the coffin, and it's a damn shame.
Labels: Great Britain, Islam, Law, Political correctness, Sharia, UK
