Author: Kevin

Quote of the Day – “Health Care Reform” Edition

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The health-care debate presents the kind of sharp ideological contrast that makes it hard for unprincipled politicians to seek shelter in the mushy bog of the middle ground. Over the weekend, the libertarian Cato Institute calculated that the true cost of ObamaCare would exceed $6 trillion, after the various deceits used to make it seem close to revenue-neutral are stripped away. How much does real estate in the “middle ground” of such outrageous spending cost? Three trillion? When a radical program of such massive size is proposed, anything less than determined opposition is equivalent to submission.

— Dr. Zero, The Consent of the Governed

My Take on WarmerGate

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My Take on WarmerGate

Van der Leun points to an excellent piece at Chicago Boyz, Scientists Are Not Software Engineers, which contains an outstanding visual representation of the issue, which I will reproduce here:

It’s hard to explain to non-programmers just how bad the code is but I will try. Suppose the code was a motorcycle. Based on the repeated statements that Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming was “settled science” you would expect that the computer code that helped settle the science would look like this…


…when in reality it looks like this:

Do read the whole piece.

I am reminded of this Sidney Harris cartoon from (I believe) the late 1960’s that I have had hanging on my office wall for literally years:

(Note: cartoon pulled due to requested $35 honorarium by artist. It can be seen here. It’s the “Then A Miracle Occurs” cartoon.)
As many have said, we’re supposed to rein in the entire economies of all the Western nations, cutting fossil fuel use by huge percentages and adversely affecting the standard of living of billions of people based on this? Man adds carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, “Then a miracle occurs!” and irreversible global warming kills us all?

I don’t fucking think so. We’ve played this “mankind kills Mother Gaia” game before, and the point of it is and has always been “Give up your rights or we all DIE!!“

No. They’ve gotten farther with this scam than any before, but NO. Not this time either.