It was also interesting to see that political interaction in Europe is not that different from the United States Senate. There's a lot of -- I don't know what the term is in Austrian -- wheeling and dealing -- and, you know, people are pursuing their interests, and everybody has their own particular issues and their own particular politics.Uh, that would be German.
While there are significant and systemic problems with USHCN stations in the United States, there are also problems with stations worldwide. One of the problems is that a good percentage of GHCN stations are at airports. For example, Paolo sent along a photo of the weather station at the Ciampino Airport in Rome, Italy. It piqued my interest for obvious reasons.Two words might characterize the culprit: "jet blast." If that isn't enough, to the North on the opposite side of the runway, there's also a parking lot. Meaning the Ciampino facility is positioned between two large expanses of asphalt--as Anthony Watts says:
source: Paolo Mezzasalma via WUWT?
caught between two modes of transportation. Trucking and aviation. I wonder which affects it more?Conclusion: The data at weather station 16239 might be meticulously recorded. But it's nonsense. And "Garbage In, Garbage Out."
Nick Robinson:"A question for you both, if I may. The prime minister has repeatedly blamed the United States of America for causing this crisis. France and Germany both blame Britain and America for causing this crisis. Who is right? And isn’t the debate about that at the heart of the debate about what to do now?"Imagine the media outrage had George Bush been so verbally indeciferable.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: "I, I, would say that, er. . . [PAUSE] . . . if you look at. . . [PAUSE] . . . the, the sources of this crisis . . . [PAUSE] . . . the United States certainly has some accounting to do with respect to . . . [PAUSE] . . . a regulatory system that was inadequate to the massive changes that have taken place in the global financial system. . . [PAUSE] I think what is also true is that. . . [PAUSE] . . . here in Great Britain. . . [PAUSE] . . . here in continental Europe. . . [PAUSE] . . . around the world. We were seeing the same mismatch between the regulatory regimes that were in place and er. . . [PAUSE] . . .the highly integrated, er, global capital markets that have emerged . . . [PAUSE] So at this point, I’m less interested in. . . [PAUSE] . . . identifying blame than fixing the problem. I think we’ve taken some very aggressive steps in the United States to do so, not just responding to the immediate crisis, ensuring banks are adequately capitalised, er, dealing with the enormous, er. . . [PAUSE] . . . drop-off in demand and contraction that has taken place. More importantly, for the long term, making sure that we’ve got a set of, er, er, regulations that are up to the task, er, and that includes, er, a number that will be discussed at this summit. I think there’s a lot of convergence between all the parties involved about the need, for example, to focus not on the legal form that a particular financial product takes or the institution it emerges from, but rather what’s the risk involved, what’s the function of this product and how do we regulate that adequately, much more effective coordination, er, between countries so we can, er, anticipate the risks that are involved there. Dealing with the, er, problem of derivatives markets, making sure we have set up systems, er, that can reduce some of the risks there. So, I actually think. . . [PAUSE] . . . there’s enormous consensus that has emerged in terms of what we need to do now and, er. . . [PAUSE] . . . I’m a great believer in looking forwards than looking backwards."
The global temperature has been rising at a steady trend rate of 0.5°C per century since the end of the little ice age in the 1700s (when the Thames River would freeze over every winter). On top of the trend are oscillations that last about thirty years in each direction:Agreed.
1882 -- 1910 Cooling
1910 -- 1944 Warming
1944 -- 1975 Cooling
1975 -- 2001 Warming
In 2009 we are where the green arrow points, with temperature leveling off. The pattern suggests that the world has entered a period of slight cooling until about 2030.
There was a cooling scare in the early 1970s at the end of the last cooling phase. The current global warming alarm is based on the last warming oscillation, from 1975 to 2001. The IPCC predictions simply extrapolated the last warming as if it would last forever, a textbook case of alarmism. However the last warming period ended after the usual thirty years or so, and the global temperature is now definitely tracking below the IPCC predictions.
[A]nother trauma, more subtle but nonetheless powerful, is an unfinished feeling, an inchoate sense that something that was supposed to happen didn’t happen and now the moment has passed, leaving us suspended in that state of nerve-wracking peace and quiet known as anticlimax. When we elected a black president by a landslide we expected to be rewarded with some kind of new dawn, an instant golden age that would render us at peace with ourselves and as one with the world overnight. It was the American pursuit of quick ’n’ easy applied to epiphanies, and we bet the farm on it. . .
A funny thing happened on the day [Obama] was plucked out of this glorious sinecure and thrust into the real job. The whole world expected his inaugural address to put Cicero to shame, but instead the Silver Tongue gave it a lick and a promise, delivering what amounted to a civic luncheon speech. Then came the State of the Union That Wasn’t, so weighted down by bureaucratic droning, list-making, and example-giving that he sounded as uninspired as the anonymous clerks who used to read the State of the Union to Congress back in the old days. After a campaign season throbbing with O Tempora and O Mores, all we got was a lousy T-shirt with a picture of O Bama advertising Oratory for Dummies.
People felt betrayed without fully understanding why. His media claques were quick to make excuses for him (he had chosen, in his wisdom, to cut to the chase; he was so confident that he felt no need to repeat himself; etc.) but the spate of teleprompter jokes that soon made the rounds sounds like a dismayed bride being as pleasant and cheerful as possible while exclaiming over the ruins.
The ex-president-elect also demolished another one of his own images: the cool, efficient, No-Drama Obama. He might not have put Cicero to shame in his inaugural but the confusion he generated with his impetuous cabinet picks has so shamed the annexation of Schleswig-Holstein that it will never be able to show its face in a history book again.
It was the running of the commerce secretaries hosted by Pamplona. The comic-opera figure in the whole who-struck-John is Tom Daschle, who was in and out so fast that the revolving door almost knocked him down. Certain to be the most memorable figure, however, is Timothy Geithner, the Treasury Secretary with a Plan, or the Plan without a Treasury Secretary, we won’t know until they put an asterisk beside his name like Roger Maris and he becomes honored and disdained at one and the same time.
"I think it's very exciting that the president emphasized green energy so much," said U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, a Boulder Democrat, one of seven of Colorado's congressional delegates who came to the bill-signing. "Colorado is going to be ground zero for ending our reliance on foreign oil."Now:
The president used the state as a stage to talk about job creation and civic investment. He said the stimulus bill could create 60,000 jobs here and 400,000 jobs nationwide.
Before the 30-minute ceremony, Obama and Vice President Joe Biden strolled the wind-whipped rooftop of the Denver museum with Blake Jones, chief executive of Namaste Solar, whose company installed 18 rows of panels. [NOfP note: photo here.] The sun generates enough energy on the museum rooftop to power about 30 homes.
The Independence Institute asked the Denver Museum of Science and Nature to provide certain statistical information regarding the now-famous solar array. Specifically, the Institute asked for:Analysis by Paul Chesser at GlobalWarming.org:
1 ) Two years worth of electric bills prior to the installation of the solar array,
2 ) All electric bills following the completion of the installation.
The Museum denied those requests.
The solar array is not owned by the Museum, however. It is owned by Hybrid Energy Group, LLC. HEG owns the solar array, sells the electricity to the Museum, and receives tax incentives from the state and federal governments, while also receiving "rebates" from Xcel Energy. The rebates are funded by a surcharge collected on the monthly bill of every Colorado Xcel customer.
A 2008 article in the Denver Business Journal sheds further light on the subject. The article notes the total price of the solar array was $720,000. And Dave Noel, VP of operations and chief technology officer for the Museum, was quoted as saying, "We looked at first installing [the solar array] ourselves, and without any of the incentive programs, it was a 110-year payout." Noel went on to say that the Museum did not purchase the solar array because it did not "make sense financially."
Given the circumstances it is absurd to believe the claims made about the amount of power generated by the panels. But note the statement: "The sun generates enough energy on the museum rooftop to power about 30 homes." Any detail beyond that hopeful generality is lost on the uncurious, lazy reporter. Note that the statement isn’t talking about the energy generated from the panels; just how much solar energy is hitting the top of the roof. And enough energy on the rooftop to power 30 homes for how long? Or how long does the sun have to hit the roof to power the homes (and for how long)? How big are the homes? Etc., etc.Conclusion: Remain skeptical that solar power is the answer (or even a major part of an answer). The performance claims tend toward the vague (see note 1 here). Like wind energy, it's most efficiently collected where least needed and output varies over the course of a day (setting a ceiling on the percentage of electricity generation that can derive from solar). And even multi-acre solar collectors remain less cost effective than coal or nuclear.
European leaders are expected to resist American pressure today to join in the Pentagon's military "surge" in Afghanistan, disappointing Barack Obama. The US president has made the campaign against the Taliban and al-Qaida the centrepiece of his new foreign policy.
A Nato summit opening in France and Germany will also struggle to commit civilian resources to match the increased US military deployments, may fail to agree on a new alliance secretary general despite months of negotiation, and is also split over policy towards a resurgent Russia. . .
With the campaign in Afghanistan repeatedly said to be Nato's biggest challenge and a test of whether the alliance will survive in the long term, the new White House appears frustrated with European reluctance. "What we expect and want is for people to look at themselves and make commitments on what they will do," said a senior US official.
But a senior German politician said public opinion in his country no longer shared the view that Germany's security was being protected "in the Hindu Kush".
"For internal political reasons, we're not in a position to produce massive new troops," said a senior European Union official. "And the scale of a civilian surge needed to match the US military surge is not there yet either."
British officials denied UK press reports that London could agree to send 2,000 more troops, raising the British contingent in Afghanistan to 10,000. "What the UK brings to the table is the civil side, the development side, not the military side," said a senior official. "There are no plans, there have been no requests," said another diplomat.
Resigned to a half-hearted response from the Europeans on Afghanistan, the Americans have already scaled back demands in order to avoid being snubbed publicly and will instead focus on manpower to train the Afghan police and to enhance security in the run-up to elections in Afghanistan in August.
"We feared this would be the first acrimonious disappointment with the Obama administration," said the EU official, "but they became realistic and asked instead what can we deliver."
Another thing Republicans cannot do is to keep liberal activists off the federal bench. In the Bush years many of them went on record saying that it is unfair, and maybe even unconstitutional, to deny confirmation to judicial nominees who had the support of 51 senators. They cannot all credibly flip-flop now. What Republicans can do, however, is to spotlight the most outrageous nominees, particularly the ones who have shown a proclivity for using judicial power to promote liberal social values, and use adverse publicity to block them. They can also spend time making the case for a judiciary confined to its proper constitutional role. An extended, slowed-down debate on judicial nominees is in the party’s interest. (And if it takes time away from the rest of Obama’s agenda, so much the better.)Despite another judicial hijack of popular sovereignty this week, agreed (and see here on why the filibuster is unconstitutional when providing "advice and consent" under the "appointments clause").
In a blaze of dazzling light from above, disciples witness the First Coming of Obama(via Best of the Web)
If one thing more than any other is used to justify proposals that the world must spend tens of trillions of dollars on combating global warming, it is the belief that we face a disastrous rise in sea levels. The Antarctic and Greenland ice caps will melt, we are told, warming oceans will expand, and the result will be catastrophe. . .
But if there is one scientist who knows more about sea levels than anyone else in the world it is the Swedish geologist and physicist Nils-Axel Mörner, formerly chairman of the INQUA International Commission on Sea Level Change. And the uncompromising verdict of Dr Mörner, who for 35 years has been using every known scientific method to study sea levels all over the globe, is that all this talk about the sea rising is nothing but a colossal scare story.
Despite fluctuations down as well as up, "the sea is not rising," he says. "It hasn't risen in 50 years." If there is any rise this century it will "not be more than 10cm (four inches), with an uncertainty of plus or minus 10cm". And quite apart from examining the hard evidence, he says, the elementary laws of physics (latent heat needed to melt ice) tell us that the apocalypse conjured up by
Al Gore and Co could not possibly come about.
The reason why Dr Mörner, formerly a Stockholm professor, is so certain that these claims about sea level rise are 100 per cent wrong is that they are all based on computer model predictions, whereas his findings are based on "going into the field to observe what is actually happening in the real world".
When running the International Commission on Sea Level Change, he launched a special project on the Maldives, whose leaders have for 20 years been calling for vast sums of international aid to stave off disaster. Six times he and his expert team visited the islands, to confirm that the sea has not risen for half a century. . .
Similarly in Tuvalu, where local leaders have been calling for the inhabitants to be evacuated for 20 years, the sea has if anything dropped in recent decades. The only evidence the scaremongers can cite is based on the fact that extracting groundwater for pineapple growing has allowed seawater to seep in to replace it. Meanwhile, Venice has been sinking rather than the Adriatic rising, says Dr Mörner.
One of his most shocking discoveries was why the IPCC has been able to show sea levels rising by 2.3mm a year. Until 2003, even its own satellite-based evidence showed no upward trend. But suddenly the graph tilted upwards because the IPCC's favoured experts had drawn on the finding of a single tide-gauge in Hong Kong harbour showing a 2.3mm rise. The entire global sea-level projection was then adjusted upwards by a "corrective factor" of 2.3mm, because, as the IPCC scientists admitted, they "needed to show a trend".
Neo-conservative, as I understand, grew from the Reagan Revolution when he helped to free those suffering inside Russian gulags ie Natan Sharansky; there can be no prosperity if there exist tyranny.See also this testament.
Paleo-conservatives, as I understand, are the isolationists in Republican Party which is why many were against America's right to defend herself from Islamic-Fascist domination.
Paleos are like Libertarians in that Libertarians have no problem doing dirty dealings with dictators, kleptocrats, Sharia-theocracy because the profit margin is greater.
The difference between the two is that Paleos don't like porn whereas the Libertarians can't have sex without porn.
The good news is that, according to the Obama administration, the rich will pay for everything. The bad news is that, according to the Obama administration, you're rich.
You may be surprised to discover you're rich, especially if you're broke. How do you know you are a member of the penurious plutocracy? Take this simple test: See if you pay double for everything.
The financial bailout, for example. Pay for it once with your IRA and 401(k) plan investments. Now pay for it again with your tax dollars.
Ditto with the economic stimulus. Write checks to cover your mortgage payment, utilities, insurance premiums, car loan, basic cable, high-speed Internet access, Visa, MasterCard, and American Express bills, and turn your teens loose in the Old Navy store. Think you're done stimulating the economy? I think not. You've also lent President Obama a godzillion dollars to go on an economically stimulational shopping spree of his own. For collateral the Bank of Obama is using a mortgage on that home of yours called America and a lien on all the future earnings of your children.
How about the new car you've paid for with government largesse to GM and Chrysler? They didn't even send a thank you note containing a scratch-and-sniff card with that new car smell. If you want a car that's visible in your driveway, you'll have to--you guessed it--pay double.
Of course paying double for everything didn't start with the Meltdown of '08. It's an integral part of the modern welfare state.
Scott Grannis has been studying Argentina since he married an Argentinan in the '80s. He was Chief Economist from 1979-2007 at Western Asset Management, a global manager of fixed-income portfolios. He keeps up and blogs on economics, markets, and politics from his condo overlooking Calafia Beach on the Southern California coast. Now Scott is blogging from Argentina while visiting with his Argentinian wife of 37 years.
He recently presented some fabulous--if anecdotal--evidence of how government meddling destroys the economy:
Our friends tell us that a year ago the city [of Mendoza, Argentina] was doing very well, thanks to hugely expanding exports of wine. Our local Costco store (in Dana Point, CA) now has a whole section devoted just to Argentine Malbec, which is a close cousin to Cabernet Sauvignon. Most of the Malbec in Argentina is grown around Mendoza. Lately exports have fallen off sharply, and the locals, one of whom we talked to today over lunch, blame it on the Kirchner [Argentinian] administration for sharply increasing tariffs on just about all exports. Governments never learn, it seems, especially not here in Argentina.
However, his view is not built upon anecdotes, as he explains:
I've followed the economic history of the country since 1980, and I've seen them make the same mistakes countless times: devaluations to boost exports, taxes on exports to boost government revenues, capital controls to keep money from fleeing overseas, wage controls to keep inflation under control, etc. These things never work, they just exacerbate the underlying problems.
He appears to know what he is talking about, and we ought to listen.
Here in the U.S., our leaders are also meddling with the economy, imbued with an indomitable belief in their own invincibility. Their interference is ostenibly to help the economy, but instead, they are acting with the improvement of their political base and manifestation of socialsim as their goal.
If we truly wish to revive the economy, we ought to empower those that read, understand and acknowledge the only proven method for improving the economy: removal of barriers to capitalism.
(Via El Opinador Compulsivo)
[E]lite business interests—financiers, in the case of the U.S.—played a central role in creating the crisis, making ever-larger gambles, with the implicit backing of the government, until the inevitable collapse. . .Economist Arnold Kling at EconLog adds:
From 1973 to 1985, the financial sector never earned more than 16 percent of domestic corporate profits. In 1986, that figure reached 19 percent. In the 1990s, it oscillated between 21 percent and 30 percent, higher than it had ever been in the postwar period. This decade, it reached 41 percent. Pay rose just as dramatically. From 1948 to 1982, average compensation in the financial sector ranged between 99 percent and 108 percent of the average for all domestic private industries. From 1983, it shot upward, reaching 181 percent in 2007.
The great wealth that the financial sector created and concentrated gave bankers enormous political weight—a weight not seen in the U.S. since the era of J.P. Morgan (the man).
The one complaint that I would make is that Johnson focuses on examples of deregulation that enabled the financial sector to grow. I do not think those are as important as the risk-based capital regulations themselves, which took a complacent view of AAA-rated assets. I think it is important to recognize that regulation per se was as much a part of the problem as part of the solution. Having said that, Johnson's main prescription is to reduce the power of big banks, which I think is quite right.
Throughout 2007 and 2008, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and others in policy-making positions assumed that the problem was that the financial system lacked liquidity, and virtually all their actions were calculated to inject more liquidity. But Taylor gives evidence, which he garnered with economist John Williams, that liquidity was not a problem. The problem, writes Taylor, was "counterparty risk." Taylor compares finance to the game of Hearts. In Hearts, you don't want to get stuck with the queen of spades. The queens of spades in finance, he writes, "were the securities with bad mortgages in them" and "people didn't know where they were." Increasing liquidity by increasing the money supply does nothing to solve that problem.(via EconLog)
