Some hackers broke into the computers at a leading global-warming-is-killing-us-all think tank in the United Kingdom. Apparently, the so-called scientists were doing their very best to make sure their conclusions were sound in spite of the data.

See yesterday’s post. Today’s post just shows the motivation isn’t real science at all.

Climatologists Baffled by Global Warming Time-Out

None of these climatologists, you know the allegedly smart people telling us if we don’t ruin our economy and revert to hunter gatherer status we are all going to die soon, seem to be willing to revise the hypothesis.

Perhaps global warming is taking a time-out because man-made global warming is a myth. Just this week, in the same source, the United States (well Obama anyhow) was taking heat for not being the leader in reducing carbon emissions. Nevermind the fact that the United States doesn’t have the socialized transportation network that Europe has, or that our culture is different, or that roughly half of American think global warming is a load of crap.

“When the facts change, I change my opinion. What do you do, sir?” – John Maynard Keynes

The philosophy advanced by Keynes is one all scientists should adopt. Indeed, the scientific method requires that scientists adopt theories that are supported by the evidence. When the the evidence no longer supports the theory in question, intellectually honest scientists create a new hypothesis that accounts for all the facts, including those that were the counterexample to the prior hypothesis or theory.

The problem in the global warming arena is that the proponents are dishonest intellectually. They start with the desired conclusion and work backwards to find data to support the conclusions, otherwise known as data mining. Counter evidence is debunked by any manner of logically fallacious argument ,e.g., alleging bias of the groups that perform the counter evidence, attacking the way in which the evidence was gathered, etc. Intellectually honest scientists don’t attack counter evidence, even if they suspect the evidence to be fraudulent. Rather, the seek to verify or refute the findings by trying to reproduce them or improve upon them. This is how science should be done, in the lab, not in the political forum.

The simplest explanation tends to be the correct explanation – Occam’s Razor

Ten years data show a decrease in the temperature of the earth while carbon emissions continue to increase. The global warming hypothesis hold that global temperature increases as man made emissions, particularly carbon dioxide emissions, increase.

However, rather the accept the simplest explanation, which is that the hypothesis linking man-made carbon emission and temperature is incorrect, global warming scientists are evolve ever convoluted theories to account for what seems like a pretty obvious explanation. In an effort to retain the current global warming hypothesis, they continue to tweak the confounding factors in an increasingly into an increasingly complex tangle of arguments supporting their position.

The simplest explanation with respect to the evidence of the last ten years is that there is no correlation between man-made carbon emissions and the temperature of the earth. This is what the data says in its simplest form.

Duh.

Here are my five favorite albums from the 2000’s:

1. Rooney – Rooney. Just a great album from start to finish. “You’ll be out milking cows before you cash the check… these are the words the popstars, these are the words of the unsophisticated money machines, for the killers of rock and roll…”
2. Phantom Planet – The Guest. Same as with Rooney. The OC kind of tainted California; Lonely Day and Anthem and others more than make up for any taint.
3. Taylor Swift – Taylor Swift. It is just that good. She is the biggest thing to happen to country music since Garth Brooks. And she deserves it — she is incredibly talented, and more as a song writer than a performer.
4. X&Y – Coldplay. I liked Coldplay. Then they released Viva la Vida, which was OK, but not great. Then UPop (the Pop heard around the world) on XM decided to play nothing but Coldplay for a month. It was an improvement over the occasional French songs that came on, but the end result totally turned me off Coldplay (that and Gweneth “Europe is better than America” Paltrow). Nevertheless, I cannot deny that every song on this album is catchy and good.
5. The Killers – Personal Compilation. I love the Killers with a caveat. But the albums are a hodgepodge of really great and really ok songs. Each of their albums have two or three gems, and two or three always fast forward. One thing about the Killers that I love is that many of the songs start off kind of bland, but have hooks buried minutes into the songs that are pure genius. Try:
   • Mr. Brightside
   • All These Things I Have Done
   • Glamorous Indie Rock & Rolls
   • Ballad of Bobby Valentine
   • Bling (Confessions of a King)
   • Read My Mind
   • Why Do I Keep Counting?
   • A Dustland Fairy Tale
   • Human

My five favorites from the 90’s:

1. OK Computer – Radiohead. Probably my favorite album of all-time. Except for Fitter, Happier.
2. The Bends – Radiohead. This album is what started me on my Radiohead oddessy.
3. Weezer – The Blue Album. I listened to this endlessly while playing the original Doom from start to finish.
4. U2 – Actung Baby. Freshman year of college.
5. Tom Petty – Greatest Hits. I know it is a little bit of a kopout to cite a Greatest Hits album. Nevertheless… Does anybody remember the Free Fallin’ video that was always on MTV and VH1 in the late 80’s?

The Dowd Conundrum

To be fair, I don’t think President Obama… well, *I hope*… President Obama is fully against letting Iran and North Korea have nuclear weapons. But it is naive for him to think that he can negotiate his way out of Iran and N. Korea out of their nuclear programs. He can’t even convince half of America he is competent, and most of that half just disagrees with his ideology. So what makes him think he can convince two groups of people that hate America to stop, especially without leverage?

Since he has taken office, both Iran and North Korea have accelerated their progams and both are affirmatively testing what Obama will do about it. Let’s face it, the UN isn’t going to do anything unless the U.S. makes a stink. North Korea has launched long range missiles and performed a second underground nuclear test… and what have we done about it??? Nothing. Even our condemnation of the acts is weak.

As I said, I don’t think President Obama wants Iran and North Korea to have nucs, but his lack of doing anything about it is getting really close to impliedly rubber stamping their nuclear weapons programs.

Iran’s Ahmadinejad rejects Western nuclear proposal.

The text:

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday rejected a Western proposal for it to “freeze” its nuclear work in return for no new sanctions and ruled out any talks with major powers on the issue.

The comments by the conservative president, who is seeking a second term in a June 12 election, are likely to further disappoint the U.S. administration of President Barack Obama, which is seeking to engage Iran diplomatically.

Did anybody with a brain, for even a nanosecond, really believe that the Iran problem was going to be solved diplomatically? These guys have been playing a complex PR game now for years, and we somehow expected that to change because Barak Obama was elected?

Iran will come to the bargaining table when they have the nuclear missile in their pocket and pointed at Israel. Then they will make their demands. And why wouldn’t they? Who wants to come to the bargaining table knowing they have the weak position? It is better to negotiate when you are doing so from a position of strength.

The Iran problem must be addressed. And now. We simply cannot allow crazies to have nucs for our own personal safety. We need to shut down Iran’s nuclear program. Economic sanctions might work, but we have to be serious about it. Alternately, a few well place bombs might do the trick.

Oh, and if you want a compelling reason why even a single nuclear warhead attached to a missile is a problem. Read about electromagnetic pulses — which could be the most devestating threat to the United States.

Obama will argue that so-called enhanced interrogation techniques such as waterboarding are not the most effective, undermine the rule of law, alienate the U.S. in the world, serve as a recruitment tool for terrorists and increase the will of our enemies to fight us, while decreasing the will of others to work with America.

The president will say that while the nation must ensure that its security measures and our justice system are ready to address the threats of the 21st century, the Obama administration will uphold America’s laws and its values that are the reason we have become the strongest nation in the world and persisted through crises that have threatened our core.

Obama will say that the paramount responsibility of any president is to keep the American people safe. That is what he thinks about every morning when he wakes up and every night when he goes to sleep. The president believes with every fiber of his being that we cannot keep this country safe unless we enlist the power of our most fundamental values. (emphasis added.)

Pro-Obama supporters are right in a sense. I do fear the Obama administration. Not because President Obama is black. But because of what Obama does. He may have flourishing rhetoric and he is a gifted politician, but as George Will points out in the article quoted below, what scares me about Obama is the “tinctiture of lawlessness” we are seeing from the Obama-run federal government.

Will points out:

Anyway, the Obama administration, judging by its cavalier disregard of contracts between Chrysler and some of the lenders it sought money from, thinks contracts are written on water. The administration proposes that Chrysler’s secured creditors get 28 cents per dollar on the $7 billion owed to them but that the United Auto Workers union get 43 cents per dollar on its $11 billion in claims — and 55 percent of the company. This, even though the secured creditors’ contracts supposedly guaranteed them better standing than the union.

…

The Economist says the administration has “ridden roughshod over [creditors'] legitimate claims over the [automobile companies'] assets. . . . Bankruptcies involve dividing a shrunken pie. But not all claims are equal: some lenders provide cheaper funds to firms in return for a more secure claim over the assets should things go wrong. They rank above other stakeholders, including shareholders and employees. This principle is now being trashed.” Tom Lauria, a lawyer representing hedge fund people trashed by the president as the cause of Chrysler’s bankruptcy, asked that his clients’ names not be published for fear of violence threatened in e-mails to them.

Yes, I am scared. I am scared of high taxes and wealth redistribution. I am scared of increasing Federal power dictated by elitists on the coasts and non-reflective of traditional American values. I am scared of what high taxes will do with our economy in terms of incentive and ingenuity. On the incentive point, I am scared that America will lose its economic influence in the world, which is part of what secures our comfortable lifestyle and provides for the peaceful defense (for the most part). I am scared that the whim of the president and his friends (and make no mistake, if you are not a friend of Obama you are deemed an enemy, citizen or not) dictate to businesses what they must do, how they must act, and the metes and bounds of contracts already entered into, even when contrary what was agreed–all this by people who have never sat in a corporate board room, let alone been to a corporate board room.

Yes. I am scared. Not of Obama’s skin, but of what Obama is doing.