| To assess whether the airborne fraction is indeed increasing, Wolfgang Knorr of the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol reanalyzed available atmospheric carbon dioxide and emissions data since 1850 and considers the uncertainties in the data.
In contradiction to some recent studies, he finds that the airborne fraction of carbon dioxide has not increased either during the past 150 years or during the most recent five decades.
A statement like that requires some serious historical research, and a consideration of measurement accuracy. So I don't expect James Hansen to say, "Oh, gosh, maybe my elaborately tailored snafu of a computer model is in error." (I've made an assumption about his computer model: that it would be just as bad, or a little less so, than the program disclosed in the Freedom of Information files from the Climate Research Unit in Britain. Not a bad assumption when I find his supervisor saying the model is wonky. The thing about bad programming is that people who play with it a lot LIKE all those fuzzy edges. Instead, I expect assertions that, "So it's been stable for the past 160 years, and shows no change when you consider the last 50 years. It could change, you know! Catastrophically! Pay me lots more money and I'll study it!" | |
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| Well, Iowahawk has done it again: this time, George Bailey, of Bedford Falls, is a Senator, and has passed healthcare, among other interesting bills, and his constituents don't like it. Will the angel show up? And what kind of angel will it be? It's Christmas. I'm going to be a year shy of the new bill's "Do Not Resucitate" order, so I'll be interested in figuring out how to get out from under it. Good luck to us all. | |
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| Well, it looks like the medical care bill is a done deal, buying the votes of senators who had held out. Now for the aftermath: a health care plan administered by people who have no problem denying claims, since they can't be taken to court for not living up to their contracts. Think I'm exaggerating? Check out the denial of claims rates for Medicare, the other government program. Note that the report conveniently allows you to compare them to some private insurers, whose rates are generally lower (they, after all, can be sued by disgruntled policyholders). | |
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| In a fascinating article in the New York Times, N. Gregory Mankiw points out why the "stimulus bill" has failed so signally to help the economy recover: it's the wrong tool. The results are striking. Successful stimulus relies almost entirely on cuts in business and income taxes. Failed stimulus relies mostly on increases in government spending.
All these findings suggest that conventional models leave something out. A clue as to what that might be can be found in a 2002 study by Olivier Blanchard and Roberto Perotti. (Mr. Perotti is a professor at Bocconi University in Milano, Italy; Mr. Blanchard is now chief economist at the International Monetary Fund.) They report that “both increases in taxes and increases in government spending have a strong negative effect on private investment spending. This effect is difficult to reconcile with Keynesian theory.”
Supply-siders, though, might be quick to pick up the justification offered, and investigate the academic and statistical underpinnings linked to in the article. UPDATE: Corrected spelling of Bocconi University, added link to their website, thanks to fpb for pointing it out. | |
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| Despite the fact that Malthusian thinking has almost no relationship to reality, it can be an interesting proxy for finding out if someone is trustworthy on policy matters. Here, for example, we have Diane Francis dutifully echoing the line about one child per couple. The easiest response to her would be this: "Mrs. Francis, you have two children. Which one should we kill so that we can help trees?" Of course, asking that question, with a gun in hand, two children present, and a certain deadness of tone might be stressful for Mrs. Francis. And it would be even more useful to ask her why that was, and whether that gives her any insight into the thoughts of others who might object to her one child policy and the coerced abortions that lie behind it. What I'm afraid of is that she won't understand the question. And that is where I ask myself if she's worth paying attention to on matters of policy, or whether a vote is the most she should have in public discourse, not a newspaper column. What do you think? UPDATE: As pointed out, Not even the Chinese are stupid enough to keep this policy. | |
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| FPB writes:You may have heard about the decision of the European Court of Human Rights (which actually has nothing to do with the EU, although I have no doubt that its decision was welcomed by parliament and commission) to order the crucifixes to be removed from all Italian classrooms. What you will not have heard is the response to this decision. The country appears to have clenched itself like a fist, and the general feeling appears to be that if the eminent and learned judges want the image of the Crucified removed from our schools, they can bloody well do it themselves - and face the consequences.
The European court wished to rob them of their history and their culture, on the ground that Italy is not Europe, and Italy responds, correctly, that Europe is not Italy. It is ironic that a country so in favor of the European project is robbed in this way: it almost seems a deliberate flouting. Read the whole essay. | |
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| From the BBC, proof that God can be kind to men despite our many flaws. For those drinking little - less than a shot of vodka a day for instance - the risk [of heart attack -- ed.] was reduced by 35%. And for those who drank anything from three shots to more than 11 shots each day, the risk worked out an average of 50% less.
Sounds good to me. Sadly, it doesn't work out as well for women, but then SOMEBODY has to be sober enough to get me home and make reasonable decisions. Also on the down side, someone at the FDA will get wind of this and decide that drinks can only come by prescription, and organized crime & government will get their usual synergistic boost out of the silliness. Either that, or they will decide that, in line with the decreasing care afforded to people over 55, they won't allow drinking either. And with that thought, I need a drink. | |
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| It is one of the odd parts of the Christmas Season -- the name of the "major shopping day" going in is "Black Friday". The name, of course, is shared with a major financial scandal. A friend who works in retailing said "It's the day we hope to sell enough to get out of the red for the year and back in the black." That would mean that they were facing annual losses until the volume of this day pushed the chain into profit -- a pretty glum forecast. Amazon's own "Black Friday" sale will start on MONDAY of next week -- because the day is successful enough that even the Internet doesn't have the capacity to record the sales. I'm guessing that more people will be shopping on the net this year just so they have time to consider whether Uncle Fred will actually WANT a motorized scale model of the crash of the Hindenburg with hydrogen gas supply extra. What do you think? | |
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| From Bloomberg: In a bid to sustain the recovery, Congress passed and the administration signed a bill last week to extend jobless benefits and incentives for first-time homebuyers, adding a provision that also made funds available to current owners. Is Congress really suggesting that if I'm out of a job, I need to buy a house??? It's time to replace this whole crowd. | |
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As usual, I don't remember watching this: on the 9th, I spent the day traveling to get to a meeting of the Negotiated Acquisitions Committee in St. Louis, MO. I arrived early in the morning, got my luggage, and took a cab to the hotel, hoping to get a couple hours of shuteye before the meeting opened. I asked the cabbie, "So what's up? Any interesting news?" He looked at me like I was a Martian, and handed me the paper, which had an article describing the wall's fall. I read, and said, "This is really wonderful! Let's hope it goes further!" He looked at me in the mirror a moment again, and said, "Do you really think it will?" I said, "Yes, I think it's the beginning of the crumbling of the walls of the world's largest prison." He said, "I was a defector. I worked as a translator for the KGB in Greece -- and I still have a wife and son in the USSR. I haven't seen them in years. Do you think that they will have a chance to get out?" I said, "Watch for it. There will come a time that they will be able to get out. Tell them to take advantage of it, and move when they can."
He was crying. I offered to pay him for the paper, and he declined, but I did leave a rather large tip when we got to the hotel. I hope it worked out for him and his family.
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| Prime Minister Rudd, of New Zealand, has decided that climate change skeptics are holding the world to ransom.
Speaking at the Lowy Institute yesterday, Mr Rudd divided the opponents of climate change action into three groups - science sceptics, those who paid lip service to the science but opposed taking action, and the ''wait for others'' group of blockers. He said all were ''quite literally holding the world to ransom'' by provoking fear campaigns in every country they could and blocking or delaying legislation where they could, ''with the objective of slowing and, if possible, destroying the momentum towards a global deal''.
I happily accept any credit he gives on the subject, though I think he's overstating my influence. I recognize that I come from the side of the debate that invokes logic more often. But still, you'd think that he would have figured out which side is demanding money. | |
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| It's an interesting idea, despite the fact that every Washingtonian I know has, upon entering the District, ceased to have any original ideas. Why not write your Congressman? Well, mine is Henry Waxman. His website feedback form routinely hangs whenever I try and enter things -- but then, he's not much on feedback from constituents, being a national figure and all. | |
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|  I'll keep posting this. I want different results, guys: do you suppose we ought to be doing something different than we are? | |
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