Category Archives: Progressivism

At least one part of the data is bad, too.

If you know me, you probably know that I’m a global warming skeptic. Not a denier, per se; but I’m concerned that stories like the following seem to keep appearing:

Those, dear friends, are the clumsy fingerprints of someone messing with the data Egyptian style … they are indisputable evidence that the “homogenized” data has been changed to fit someone’s preconceptions about whether the earth is warming.

Anthony Watts has put together a great discussion revolving around the temperature data from Darwin, Australia, and how it seems to have been manipulated. Read more at Watts Up With That?.

For reference, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies published its surface temperature analysis earlier this year. Now, I don’t claim this as anything other than idle pondering, but: I wonder what the GWS/m² (Global Warming Skeptic per square meter) density is in Scandinavia…

UPDATE: From WSJ.com, The Tip of the Climategate Iceberg. Open access to the data is a two-edged sword, but it’s the best way to get to the truth.

Improper manipulation of data? Of course not

In his paper “CO2: The Greatest Scientific Scandal of Our Time,” Dr. Zbigniew Jaworowski explains why the current accepted truth about atmospheric CO2 is “fatally flawed.”

On a personal note: isn’t this exactly what otherwise reasonable scientists do on a shockingly regular basis – throw out a preponderance of outliers because they don’t fit the model, rather than questioning the validity of the model itself?

The Politics of Change

The real politics of change would start something like this:

My friends, I am lying to you.

I will tell you whatever it is that you want to hear that will get me elected to office.

I will lie about my opponents, I will lie about Iraq, I will lie about taxes, I will lie about the budget and the economy. In short, I will lie about anything that you let me lie about. And I will do it with your blessing, for my opponents are evil, stupid, unqualified, no different than what we have, and otherwise unfit for the position.

I’m sorry; I don’t mean to do this. You must understand that I’m walking a tightrope here. One misstep and I’m sunk. I don’t have time to really explain my positions, so I have to resort to canned phrases and responses to get my message across. It’s hard enough by itself, but it’s even worse when someone picks up on how these things don’t add up. And then there’s the distraction of trying to reconcile the constant yammering of my party and my advisors. Please forgive my foibles. I’m only human. I can only promise that I can and that I will do better.

… or something like that.

A unanimous Declaration

It’s fitting to read this through every once in a while. I mean, really read it; when was the last time you did more than a quick skim? This document is an example of classical liberalism – the kind associated with liberty, not socialism. I wonder what our collectivist friends over at the DU think about it (especially the part about the Indian Savages).

What really intrigues me is the thought that some significant portion of our government actually operates in some of the same objectionable manners described in the very document that sets forth the reasons we declared independence from England in the first place…

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. –That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. –Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:

Column 1 Column 2 Column 3
Georgia: North Carolina: Massachusetts:
  Button Gwinnett   William Hooper   John Hancock
  Lyman Hall   Joseph Hewes Maryland:
  George Walton   John Penn   Samuel Chase
    South Carolina:   William Paca
      Edward Rutledge   Thomas Stone
      Thomas Heyward, Jr.   Charles Carroll of Carrollton
      Thomas Lynch, Jr. Virginia:
      Arthur Middleton   George Wythe
          Richard Henry Lee
          Thomas Jefferson
          Benjamin Harrison
          Thomas Nelson, Jr.
          Francis Lightfoot Lee
          Carter Braxton
 
Column 4 Column 5 Column 6
Pennsylvania: New York: New Hampshire:
  Robert Morris   William Floyd   Josiah Bartlett
  Benjamin Rush   Philip Livingston   William Whipple
  Benjamin Franklin   Francis Lewis Massachusetts:
  John Morton   Lewis Morris   Samuel Adams
  George Clymer New Jersey:   John Adams
  James Smith   Richard Stockton   Robert Treat Paine
  George Taylor   John Witherspoon   Elbridge Gerry
  James Wilson   Francis Hopkinson Rhode Island:
  George Ross   John Hart   Stephen Hopkins
Delaware:   Abraham Clark   William Ellery
  Caesar Rodney     Connecticut:
  George Read       Roger Sherman
  Thomas McKean       Samuel Huntington
          William Williams
          Oliver Wolcott
          New Hampshire:
          Matthew Thornton

Getting it all backwards

From the “well, duh” department:

US President George W Bush says the threat of terrorism in America and across the world is not just because of hostility to the Iraq war.

War not to blame for terrorist threat: Bush – ABC

al Qaeda-affliated terrorists have been attacking civilian targets since at least August 7, 1998, when U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya were bombed. Our President should not need to remind Democrats of this incident, or of the attack on the USS Cole. Of course, there were the 1993 World Trade Center and 1996 Khobar Towers bombings, which while they were not apparently related to al Qaeda, they were certainly not related to the war in Iraq.
It seems to me that we’ve done an awful lot in the United States to curb the terrorist threat. Are we less safe than our friends in the United Kingdom, who deal with terrorism on multiple fronts? I fear that we’ve already given up too many fundamental freedoms as it is, regardless.

The President is right: the terrorists are using Iraq as a primary battlefield, and we must not shirk our responsibility to meet them there.

Nancy and Harry vs. FEMA

Via the Mercury News, this AP story:

In a report entitled “Broken Promises,” House and Senate Democratic leaders described what they called “the failed response” of the administration since the hurricane hit.

Released Wednesday by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and her Senate counterpart, Harry Reid, D-Nev., the report asserted that “thousands of families are still waiting” for FEMA trailers and that a significant proportion of money that FEMA has spent there “has been waste, fraud and abuse.”

Bush: Katrina recovery will take time – Associated Press

How, exactly, are they differentiating their own waste from the “waste, fraud, and abuse” they’re laying at FEMA’s feet?

This seems like a very dangerous game that they’re playing.