Global Warming: I doubt it, so should you

The following is all a quotation from: "The Myth of the 98% By Joseph L. Bast Last updated: May 1, 2012" ...... "Why Alarmists Publish More Anderegg et al.’s assertion that “he who publishes the most must be the most credible” is implausible. There are at least four reasons why skeptics appear in print less frequently than do alarmists, and none of them has to do with credibility or expertise. They are: Publication bias. Articles that “find something” – such as a statistically significant correlation that might imply causation – are much more likely to get published than those that do not. Such “findings” are newsworthy and important to other researchers, while experiments that do not “find something” are less so. Even though falsifying hypotheses with experimental data is the essence of true science, it is the experiment that seems to generate or support a hypothesis that gets all the attention and is most likely to be published, even if that experiment had a small sample size, limited duration, or other defects that increased the odds of a false positive finding. Publication bias is also caused by heavy government funding of the search for one result, but little or no funding for other results. In the case of climate change, hundreds of millions of dollars in government grants have gone to scholars who say they are trying to find a discernible human impact on climate, or of climate change on plants, animals, fish, human health, or a litany of other things. Much less funding is available to scholars who say they are seeking to find natural causes for climate change, or explanations of natural phenomena that don’t involve climate change. Publication bias helps explain why most published research findings are false, not only in climate science but in all disciplines. Thousands of researchers are being paid to “find something,” and they publish whenever they think they might have found something, no matter how slim the evidence. We seldom read that other scholars have tried and failed to replicate their findings, but it happens all the time. Resumé padding. Climate scientist Phil Jones, before the Climategate scandal revealed that he was hiding data and illegally blocking FOIA requests, was identified as a coauthor on articles appearing in science journals an average of once a week, an astounding pace if the findings he was reporting were being carefully vetted. (As reported by Fred Pearce in The Climate Files). His data are still being cited in footnotes for scores of other published articles every week or month. This extraordinary productivity is a function of several things, but one is the practice of having large numbers of coauthors on scientific papers, so that a dozen or even two dozen writers get to list the paper in their resumé. This makes objective peer review difficult or impossible, helping to ensure publication. This practice became pervasive in climate research only in the past decade, and it is entirely a phenomenon of alarmist scientists. Most skeptics continue to publish alone or with only a few coauthors. Age and academic status. Climate scientists who are skeptics tend to be older, and more are emeritus, than scientists in the alarmist camp. This could be the result of two things: Either they are willing to speak out because they either have tenure or are retired and do not fear retaliation for taking an unpopular stance, or they are less impressed by the current fixation on computer models. These “old school” scientists recognize that computer models’ outputs are not data but hypotheses that must be tested by data (empirical observation) – a relationship that many younger scientists, accustomed to working constantly with computers and far less with observations of the natural world, tend to get exactly backward. These older scientists also were considered respected and successful if they published once or twice a year and devoted time to classroom teaching, if they are not fully retired. Climate alarmists tend to be younger, trying to get tenure by appearing in academic journals, and more likely to team up with other scientists to appear more frequently in those journals. Alarmists also are more likely to be environmental activists, drawn to the field by their interest in environmental issues rather than by pure interest in science itself. This again makes them more likely to write and publish articles specifically on the hot topic of climate change. Editorial bias. We know from the leaked Climategate emails that a small clique of influential government scientists worked behind the scenes to get academic journal editors to reject papers that would otherwise have qualified for publication. These scientists even arranged for editors who dared to publish such papers to be fired or pressured into resigning. This is gross editorial bias and likely contributed to some of the disparity in publishing numbers between skeptics and alarmists. More subtle bias, which might not be apparent even to the editors who exercise it, probably accounts for still more of the disparity. ....... For more research and commentary on the dubious claim of a “scientific consensus” on the causes and consequences of climate change, Google “You Call This Consensus?” by this author." Environmentalism (in its current form) is the greatest threat to prosperity and liberty.

The Reagan Revolution v. Fundamental Change

"Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States, serving from 1981 to 1989. Prior to that, he was the 33rd Governor of California from 1967 to 1975 and a radio, film and television actor." - Wikopedia.... If you are too young to remember Ronald Reagan, you may wonder why his name is always brought up. Here is a link to a discussion of President Reagan with a few clips from when he was running for re-election in 1984. His message was a lot different from what we hear today. Go to the site and click on the audio rewind for 6/11/12..... http://www.marklevinshow.com/sectional.asp?id=32930

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Needed: Separation between Government and Economy

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/features/npr.php?id=154579423


Today, at one of his rare press conferences, the president said that the private economy is doing fine. A few hours later, when no one could believe that statement, he said, "it is absolutely clear that the economy is not doing fine." He went on to say, "That's the reason I had a press conference. That's why I spent yesterday, the day before yesterday, this past week, this past month and this past year talking about how we can make the economy stronger.
"There are too many people out of work, the housing market is still weak and too many homes underwater, and that's precisely why I asked Congress to start taking some steps that can make a difference," Obama said.
Unfortunately, his policies will not help the economy. Billions of federal tax payer dollars and printed money were spent on stimulus packages much of which went to states and local governments to pay government employees and hire more. Because this did not stimulate the economy, tax revenue did not go up enough for the states to continue to pay the new employees or many of the original ones. Therefore they had to lay some off. They could have limited layoffs by reducing salaries but they hardly ever do that.
The federal government's base line spending has increase by the amount of earlier spending but even that is not enough for the current administration. Government regulation inhibit business creation and growth by increasing costs.  Government spending strangles business even more by competing with private enterprise for recources.

Time for a change.

Vasco da Gama Day May 18

Vasco da Gama, commissioned by the king of Portugal, sighted India on May 18, 1498. He commanded the first European ships to make that voyage. Their purpose was to out flank the Moslem powers that had had cut off Europe from the East. At the time there was no land or sea route between Europe and India (or China for that matter) that was not controlled by Arab traders. Spices had become so popular and expensive in Europe that a significant amount of European gold went to the Arab middlemen. This was as politically unpopular as spending on Middle Eastern oil is today. The Egyptian and Turkish empires had recaptured Jerusalem, driven the crusaders out of the Holy Land, and in 1453 had captured Constantinople, thus ending the Eastern Roman Empire. The road to further conquests to the West was open to the Moslem powers. The power of Christian nations was at a low point. Da Gama's mission was seen as an extension of the Crusades. By opening a trade route around Africa and across the Indian Ocean to India, where the spice markets were, the West would avoid financing the Moslems. Unlike Columbus, who had a similar goal in mind, Vasco da Gama succeeded. The Portuguese had recently developed into a seafaring nation through their explorations down the West African coast. Portugal, like Spain, had recently ended the Moorish rule in the Iberian Peninsula. While the rest of Europe had grown weary of the crusading spirit, the Portuguese were just adopting it. The eventual goal of a sea route to the east was to regain the Holy Land by an invasion from the rear. Many times during Vasco da Gama’s first Indian voyage, and latter in several naval battles, the Portuguese felt that they were protected and aided by God. Indeed their feats were remarkable. However, their luck seemed to run out. With the success of its eastern trade, Portugal lost its crusading ardor and instead, in the next hundred years, ruthlessly built a commercial empire extending to the East Indies, where the spices grew, and as far as to China. Then as the secrets of their sailing routes became known, Portuguese power in the East gradually declined. Moslem power also declined as European nations slowly began to dominate world trade. The story of Vasco da Gama and how he brought about the shift of power to Europe, is told in a new book, Holy War, published last year. This brings to mind a book published this year, American Covenant by Timothy Ballard. This is the story that starts with Columbus’ voyages and explains how his crusader goals were eventually accomplished through the birth of the United States, when it was instrumental in re-establishing a Jewish state in Israel. Who was the chief agent of God’s purposes in bringing all that about? According to the Mr. Ballard it was George Washington. Annuit coeptis.