Michelle Malkin: al Qaeda on the run

Michelle Malkin: al Qaeda on the run

One Hand Clapping � Blog Archive � More on ethanol fantasies

One Hand Clapping � Blog Archive � More on ethanol fantasies

One Hand Clapping � Blog Archive � Wal-Mart video download - not ready for primetime

One Hand Clapping � Blog Archive � Wal-Mart video download - not ready for primetime

Cafe Hayek: Let's Have Less Hot Air About Global Warming

Let's grant (if just for the sake of argument) that environmental scientists have proved that Earth's ideal average temperature was reached about a century ago and that the temperature is rising because of human activity ("Just the facts," Op-Ed, yesterday).

The truth remains that these scientists have no expertise to judge whether government can be trusted with the power and resources to "combat" global warming. Nor can these scientists tell us how a free market likely would deal with global warming's consequences.

Contrary to widespread belief, environmental scientists can legitimately say nothing about whether, or how, to respond to global warming.

DONALD J. BOUDREAUX
Chairman
Department of Economics
George Mason University
Fairfax

Cafe Hayek: Let's Have Less Hot Air About Global Warming

CHARMING, JUST CHARMING: Something to Think About...

CHARMING, JUST CHARMING: Something to Think About...: "'A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.' .....................by Marcus Tullius Cicero"

CHARMING, JUST CHARMING

CHARMING, JUST CHARMING: "Charles Krauthammer has made the right call in THIS COLUMN. The 'hate America'..'blame America'..crowd is quick to criticize anything that our forces do in Iraq. But as Krauthammer writes:

We have made a lot of mistakes in Iraq. But when Arabs kill Arabs and Shiites kill Shiites and Sunnis kill all in a spasm of violence that is blind and furious and has roots in hatreds born long before America was even a republic, to place the blame on the one player, the one country, the one military that has done more than any other to try to separate the combatants and bring conciliation is simply perverse.

It infantilizes Arabs. It demonizes Americans. It willfully overlooks the plainest of facts: Iraq is their country. We midwifed their freedom. They chose civil war."

CONTROLLED GREED.com: Book Values: Self-Help

The four books I've enjoyed are:

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, by Benjamin Franklin. Some dispute this even being considered a "Self-Help" book. I include it because Old Ben offers more wisdom for living life and dealing with people in a few pages than most could offer up in volumes.

How to Win Friends & Influence People, by Dale Carnegie. I read this book in 1996 when I took The Dale Carnegie Course: Effective Communications & Human Relations. One of the best things I ever did. If I owned a company, it would be mandatory that every employee took this course. If you don't care to take it, reading this book is the next best thing.

Succeeding, by John T. Reed. This gem isn't available in book stores or on Amazon. You have to buy it from Reed's website. Reed is a West Point grad, former Army Ranger, Harvard Business School grad, football coach, former real estate investor and author of numerous books, mostly on real estate investing. His style might not appeal to some, and you or I might not agree with all his views, but we can all find this work worthwhile.

The Templeton Plan, by John Marks Templeton and James Ellison. Yes, this is the same John Templeton who made global investing a household term. No stock tips. Just 21 steps to personal success and real happiness.

Of course, you may have benefited from works by folks like Norman Vincent Peale, Stephen Covey, Les Brown and many more. Like I said, the bookstores are packed this time of year with people looking at bookshelf after bookshelf of these books. I could never begin to read them all -- I'd never have to time to read anything else. Or do anything, either.

But getting a bit of inspiration here or there, and gaining a few nuggets of wisdom, can only impact our lives for the better. And wouldn't that have left Samuel Smiles with a grin on his face? ;-)

CONTROLLED GREED.com: Book Values: Self-Help

Herb Greenberg

Herb Greenberg: "'No. We've been here before, and the consequences -- though not always immediate -- have invariably been bad. There is not a single instance in historical data since 1871 when the S&P 500 traded above 18-times record earnings and there was not a low a year or more later that erased every bit of advantage over Treasury bills. Not one.'

He concludes, 'Simply put, there is no investment merit to the stock market at these valuations.'"

: "Sex and Intoxication"

See the info for young girls and boys after the story!

.:. WitNit .:.: Another Scientist Speaks Out Against Global Warming

.:. WitNit .:.: Another Scientist Speaks Out Against Global Warming

Another Scientist Speaks Out Against Global Warming

n case you missed it, check out this article written by a former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg. Here's a sample:

I think it may be because most people don't understand the scientific method which Thomas Kuhn so skilfully and briefly set out in his book "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions." A scientist makes certain assumptions and then produces a theory which is only as valid as the assumptions. The theory of Global Warming assumes that CO2 is an atmospheric greenhouse gas and as it increases temperatures rise. It was then theorized that since humans were producing more CO2 than before, the temperature would inevitably rise. The theory was accepted before testing had started, and effectively became a law.

As Lindzen said many years ago: "the consensus was reached before the research had even begun." Now, any scientist who dares to question the prevailing wisdom is marginalized and called a sceptic, when in fact they are simply being good scientists. This has reached frightening levels with these scientists now being called climate change denier with all the holocaust connotations of that word. The normal scientific method is effectively being thwarted.

Meanwhile, politicians are being listened to, even though most of them have no knowledge or understanding of science, especially the science of climate and climate change. Hence, they are in no position to question a policy on climate change when it threatens the entire planet. Moreover, using fear and creating hysteria makes it very difficult to make calm rational decisions about issues needing attention.

And more interesting material from The Wall Street Journal:

Take rising sea levels. In its 2001 report, the U.N.'s best high-end estimate of the rise in sea levels by 2100 was three feet. Lord Monckton notes that the upcoming report's high-end best estimate is 17 inches, or half the previous prediction. Similarly, the new report shows that the 2001 assessment had overestimated the human influence on climate change since the Industrial Revolution by at least one-third.

Such reversals (and there are more) are remarkable, given that the IPCC's previous reports, in 1990, 1995 and 2001, have been steadily more urgent in their scientific claims and political tone. It's worth noting that many of the policymakers who tinker with the IPCC reports work for governments that have promoted climate fears as a way of justifying carbon-restriction policies. More skeptical scientists are routinely vetoed from contributing to the panel's work. The Pasteur Institute's Paul Reiter, a malaria expert who thinks global warming would have little impact on the spread of that disease, is one example.

U.N. scientists have relied heavily on computer models to predict future climate change, and these crystal balls are notoriously inaccurate. According to the models, for instance, global temperatures were supposed to have risen in recent years. Yet according to the U.S. National Climate Data Center, the world in 2006 was only 0.03 degrees Celsius warmer than it was in 2001--in the range of measurement error and thus not statistically significant.

The models also predicted that sea levels would rise much faster than they actually have. The models didn't predict the significant cooling the oceans have undergone since 2003--which is the opposite of what you'd expect with global warming. Cooler oceans have also put a damper on claims that global warming is the cause of more frequent or intense hurricanes. The models also failed to predict falling concentrations of methane in the atmosphere, another surprise.

Meanwhile, new scientific evidence keeps challenging previous assumptions. The latest report, for instance, takes greater note of the role of pollutant particles, which are thought to reflect sunlight back to space, supplying a cooling effect. More scientists are also studying the effect of solar activity on climate, and some believe it alone is responsible for recent warming.

Posted by witnit at February 5, 2007 3:12 PM

CHARMING, JUST CHARMING

CHARMING, JUST CHARMING

Forewarned is forearmed!

Econbrowser: Cantarell in decline

Econbrowser: Cantarell in decline: "im Puplava (of Puplava Securities and financialsense.com) mentioned back on 13 January 2007 that Cantarell was declining at around 14%/year, Ghawar at around 8%/year, and Burgan (in Kuwait) at around 11%/year. The WSJ article's figures make Cantarell's drop more like 25% over the past year or so."

Econbrowser: Cantarell in decline

Econbrowser: Cantarell in decline: "From Saturday's Wall Street Journal ($$$): Mexico's biggest field declining significantly!

The virtual collapse at Cantarell-- the world's second-biggest oil field in terms of output at the start of last year-- is unfolding much faster than projections from Mexico's state-run oil giant Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex. Cantarell's daily output fell to 1.5 million barrels in December compared to 1.99 million barrels in January, according to figures from the Mexican Energy Ministry.

Mexico made up for some of the field's decline. Mexico's overall oil output fell to just below three million barrels a day in December, down from almost 3.4 million barrels at the start of the year. It marked Mexico's lowest rate of oil output since 2000....

The field's decline is expected to continue, if not worsen, this year, according to most estimates."

The real deal?

The real deal on GLOBAL WARMING?

"Solar activity can explain a large part of the 20th-century global warming," he states, particularly because of the evidence that has been accumulating over the past decade of the strong relationship that cosmic- ray flux has on our atmosphere. So much evidence has by now been amassed, in fact, that "it is unlikely that [the solar climate link] does not exist."

The sun's strong role indicates that greenhouse gases can't have much of an influence on the climate -- that C02 et al. don't dominate through some kind of leveraging effect that makes them especially potent drivers of climate change. The upshot of the Earth not being unduly sensitive to greenhouse gases is that neither increases nor cutbacks in future C02 emissions will matter much in terms of the climate.

Even doubling the amount of CO2 by 2100, for example, "will not dramatically increase the global temperature," Dr. Shaviv states. Put another way: "Even if we halved the CO2 output, and the CO2 increase by 2100 would be, say, a 50% increase relative to today instead of a doubled amount, the expected reduction in the rise of global temperature would be less than 0.5C. This is not significant."

The real deal?

The real deal on GLOBAL WARMING?

"Solar activity can explain a large part of the 20th-century global warming," he states, particularly because of the evidence that has been accumulating over the past decade of the strong relationship that cosmic- ray flux has on our atmosphere. So much evidence has by now been amassed, in fact, that "it is unlikely that [the solar climate link] does not exist."

The sun's strong role indicates that greenhouse gases can't have much of an influence on the climate -- that C02 et al. don't dominate through some kind of leveraging effect that makes them especially potent drivers of climate change. The upshot of the Earth not being unduly sensitive to greenhouse gases is that neither increases nor cutbacks in future C02 emissions will matter much in terms of the climate.

Even doubling the amount of CO2 by 2100, for example, "will not dramatically increase the global temperature," Dr. Shaviv states. Put another way: "Even if we halved the CO2 output, and the CO2 increase by 2100 would be, say, a 50% increase relative to today instead of a doubled amount, the expected reduction in the rise of global temperature would be less than 0.5C. This is not significant."