George Rebane
Another large impediment to making progress when attempting to reason with progressives is that their world lacks the reality of diminishing returns that accrue when any enterprise is taken past its optimum operating point, let alone being taken to an extreme. Most certainly the concept is no longer taught in schools as a short conversation with the public educated teenager of your choice will reveal.
This seminal truth about the liberal mind again displayed itself in recent debates on these pages that concern the looming fiscal cliff and bringing socialized healthcare to America. Preceding these issues has been the already decades long imperative to make our country insanely safe and risk free. Consumer advocacy groups, manned almost wholly by leftists, scream bloody murder when the next kid is injured, sickened, or killed on a playground or from his (usually) unusual use of a plaything.
Simple back of the envelope calculations (an inaccessible feat in this land) will quickly show that the rate or probability of occurrence of almost all such incidents is vanishingly small, but that makes no nevermind to the liberal brain. The clinching argument for overreaction is – ‘But what if s/he were your child?’ When presented as response, that clinching question is sure to draw a bevy of self-satisfied nods from a chorus of the like-minded. To liberal minds it appears that social policies are immune to the law of diminishing returns.
This seminal truth about the liberal mind again displayed itself in recent debates on these pages that concern the looming fiscal cliff and bringing socialized healthcare to America. Preceding these issues has been the already decades long imperative to make our country insanely safe and risk free. Consumer advocacy groups, manned almost wholly by leftists, scream bloody murder when the next kid is injured, sickened, or killed on a playground or from his (usually) unusual use of a plaything.
Simple back of the envelope calculations (an inaccessible feat in this land) will quickly show that the rate or probability of occurrence of almost all such incidents is vanishingly small, but that makes no nevermind to the liberal brain. The clinching argument for overreaction is – ‘But what if s/he were your child?’ When presented as response, that clinching question is sure to draw a bevy of self-satisfied nods from a chorus of the like-minded. To liberal minds it appears that social policies are immune to the law of diminishing returns.
The notion underpinning this is the unfounded tenet that every life is of infinite worth, and we should not rest or leave any stone unturned in the attempt to save that last life. Well, a moment’s thought about how we put finite dollar values on lives all throughout our land should dispel that belief, but alas, that moments’ thought is never forthcoming. Instead, we go forward with a fistful of new laws, regulations, and litigation cases ‘to make sure that this tragedy never happens again.’ The overall cost to the common weal is never considered when the video of the injured child or the distraught/grieving parents is shown.
As an aside for the untutored in how human life is priced in our society, look no further than the calmly made decision to spend highway funds for decorative landscaping, instead of on, say, additional center divide barriers. Again, the back of the envelope lets us calculate how our road department puts a dollar value on human life. But that sacrifice to esthetics is invisible because the losses don’t occur right after the last roadside petunia is planted.
The same opacity is ever present (for reasons that completely elude me) in the healthcare field in which we lose about 100,000 lives annually due to what are simply called “medical mistakes”. It turns out that in this statistic, ALL of these mistakes could have been prevented. Nevertheless most of these mistakes occur year after year because – you guessed it – human life is not of infinite worth. (In fact, to some professions such ongoing mortality and morbidity come as a special blessing – any guesses which ones?)
An added facet of diminishing returns states simply that there comes a point in the attempt to achieve a realworld goal where the cost of marginal benefit starts going up, and skyrockets as we try to achieve that last percentage point of perfection. A particular weakness, here again revealed in the liberal mind, is the static analysis to predict tax returns that totally ignores/rejects the reality of the Laffer Curve (q.v.) – another expression of diminishing returns.
Our progressive brethren will not accept the reality that the last indigent, and probably many more, will still die in the street or alleyway, no matter what they do. But he’s willing to spend your last cent in the attempt to create a healthcare system that will save those poor and unfortunate souls whose number seems to grow with every passing month. (The original government figure of 9M, less than 3% of the population of those who want and don’t have healthcare, has now magically ballooned to almost 50M who are pining for healthcare they can’t afford. To correct that, the government will take over and mismanage another sixth of our economy.)
Socialized healthcare also takes the profit motive out of medicine. And as cited numerous times in my posts and by RR readers, this diminishes the level of care overall and devastates the advances that science and technology enterprises have brought to healthcare (compare EU and US developments and installations). Obamacare’s new and insane excise tax on medical devices is an a fortiori example of such policies.
So on one hand the liberal wants to equate healthcare with the right of breathing air, and on the other hand thinks that taxing the bejeezus out wealth creators will provide basic medical services to even the last percent of those living within our borders (note the absence of ‘citizens’ here).
As the share of GDP of every one of their social nostrums increases, the dedicated progressive just continues to cinch tighter his blinders, and rolls out another heart rending anecdote of a family home lost to medical bills and a child gruesomely killed on a playground structure. To their similitude of logic, that is sufficient to require more spending, litigation, and the constriction of individual liberties. The dictum served is that wherever risk is found or contemplated, it must be stamped out, even unto its last vestige.
Mathematician, former floor trader, and economic philosopher Nicholas Nassim Taleb (also of Black Swan fame) has some explosive new thoughts on the matter – well, mostly new, but never so well argued. In his just released Antifragile – Things That Gain from Disorder, he makes the case that successes in evolutionary development favored critters, plants, and systems in general that accepted chaos, disorder, and unpredictability, and responded by dynamically reacting and reconfiguring themselves to tolerate and thrive in such environments.
Things that are fragile or brittle call attention to themselves by breaking. Our wrong-headed reaction to that - now institutionalized by progressives - is to launch (usually futile) attempts to remake them so that they will become robust. Using tools from the systems sciences, Taleb points out that robustness is also a form of stasis, since robust things resist change and therefore have trouble surviving. Time destroys the fragile and robust, and there is an unending supply of time. The bottom line here is that evolution selected out both fragility and robustness, and continues to favor participants in the grand scheme that were and are antifragile. I’ll have more to say about this idea in future posts.
As an aside for the untutored in how human life is priced in our society, look no further than the calmly made decision to spend highway funds for decorative landscaping, instead of on, say, additional center divide barriers. Again, the back of the envelope lets us calculate how our road department puts a dollar value on human life. But that sacrifice to esthetics is invisible because the losses don’t occur right after the last roadside petunia is planted.
The same opacity is ever present (for reasons that completely elude me) in the healthcare field in which we lose about 100,000 lives annually due to what are simply called “medical mistakes”. It turns out that in this statistic, ALL of these mistakes could have been prevented. Nevertheless most of these mistakes occur year after year because – you guessed it – human life is not of infinite worth. (In fact, to some professions such ongoing mortality and morbidity come as a special blessing – any guesses which ones?)
An added facet of diminishing returns states simply that there comes a point in the attempt to achieve a realworld goal where the cost of marginal benefit starts going up, and skyrockets as we try to achieve that last percentage point of perfection. A particular weakness, here again revealed in the liberal mind, is the static analysis to predict tax returns that totally ignores/rejects the reality of the Laffer Curve (q.v.) – another expression of diminishing returns.
Our progressive brethren will not accept the reality that the last indigent, and probably many more, will still die in the street or alleyway, no matter what they do. But he’s willing to spend your last cent in the attempt to create a healthcare system that will save those poor and unfortunate souls whose number seems to grow with every passing month. (The original government figure of 9M, less than 3% of the population of those who want and don’t have healthcare, has now magically ballooned to almost 50M who are pining for healthcare they can’t afford. To correct that, the government will take over and mismanage another sixth of our economy.)
Socialized healthcare also takes the profit motive out of medicine. And as cited numerous times in my posts and by RR readers, this diminishes the level of care overall and devastates the advances that science and technology enterprises have brought to healthcare (compare EU and US developments and installations). Obamacare’s new and insane excise tax on medical devices is an a fortiori example of such policies.
So on one hand the liberal wants to equate healthcare with the right of breathing air, and on the other hand thinks that taxing the bejeezus out wealth creators will provide basic medical services to even the last percent of those living within our borders (note the absence of ‘citizens’ here).
As the share of GDP of every one of their social nostrums increases, the dedicated progressive just continues to cinch tighter his blinders, and rolls out another heart rending anecdote of a family home lost to medical bills and a child gruesomely killed on a playground structure. To their similitude of logic, that is sufficient to require more spending, litigation, and the constriction of individual liberties. The dictum served is that wherever risk is found or contemplated, it must be stamped out, even unto its last vestige.
Mathematician, former floor trader, and economic philosopher Nicholas Nassim Taleb (also of Black Swan fame) has some explosive new thoughts on the matter – well, mostly new, but never so well argued. In his just released Antifragile – Things That Gain from Disorder, he makes the case that successes in evolutionary development favored critters, plants, and systems in general that accepted chaos, disorder, and unpredictability, and responded by dynamically reacting and reconfiguring themselves to tolerate and thrive in such environments.
Things that are fragile or brittle call attention to themselves by breaking. Our wrong-headed reaction to that - now institutionalized by progressives - is to launch (usually futile) attempts to remake them so that they will become robust. Using tools from the systems sciences, Taleb points out that robustness is also a form of stasis, since robust things resist change and therefore have trouble surviving. Time destroys the fragile and robust, and there is an unending supply of time. The bottom line here is that evolution selected out both fragility and robustness, and continues to favor participants in the grand scheme that were and are antifragile. I’ll have more to say about this idea in future posts.
Exhibit A in today's SacBee.
http://www.sacbee.com/2012/11/30/5020198/back-seat-driver-rt-looks-at-closing.html
A drunken idiot tried to jump between cars and was tragically killed. Who gets stuck with the tab? The taxpayers. "Who cares what it costs? If it only saves one life, it will be worth it." The trouble is that the person killed would probably have been done in by some other occurrence as it was his disregard for safety that killed him, not the design of the couplers. So we increase costs and no one is saved. I think of what my friends and I did for games and entertainment in the 50s and 60s would now be considered obscenely dangerous and anti-social. We actually understood that bullets came out of fire arms and could maim or kill us. So we were careful about such things and nobody was injured. A teenager in Kensington Ca back a few years ago deliberately aimed a hand gun at his friend and pulled the trigger. I kid you not - they sued Berretta. 3 times. It even had an indicator showing a live round was chambered. That fool should have gone to jail for negligent manslaughter, but instead we sue the manufacturer. Common sense would have prevented that tragedy, but common sense gives wrong answers for libs, so goodbye common sense.
Posted by: Account Deleted | 30 November 2012 at 02:58 PM
Reminds me of some economist I heard talking about California. Normally, you put an environmental measure in when the benefits exceed the costs while there that isn't the case.
Posted by: Ian Random | 30 November 2012 at 03:08 PM
I was out and about in Nevada City for dinner last night and afterwards went to Friar Tuck's for a cocktail. While sitting at the bar a woman struck up a conversation with me and it wasn't long before I knew she was a liberal. She had nothing good to say about Republicans while claiming she was an Indie. Of course we have locals like PaulE and MA and BenE who do the same things. That is, always bashing the R's and never the D's. Well, I tried to be kind but after a few minutes of telling me what devils the R's are, I had enough. When I defended the conservatism I am a part of, she would have none of it and went on a rampage of crap. This is my experience with these lefty nuts. All the things she was telling me R's are so bad at and the D's are so good at was a crock. But being a lib she could not get out of her cocoon of lib insanity to even disuss rationally the BS she was dishing out. After a bit I could see she was lost cause for rational discussion and I left (I stayed the gentleman through her diatribes). These libs are just nutty and they are totally brainwashed in their hate for R's. Just irrational, amazing!
Posted by: Todd Juvinall | 01 December 2012 at 09:00 AM
The libs are the problem with everything, aren't they. It's too bad Mitt didn't win, he could have initiated the final solution to rid our country of those evil leftys and their cadre of ignorant poor people and misguided academics.
Posted by: Joe Koyote | 01 December 2012 at 10:02 AM
"...the unfounded tenet that every life is of infinite worth, and we should not rest or leave any stone unturned in the attempt to save that last life" - sounds a lot like the neocon, right-to-lifer, mantra. How does this jive with the notion of the infamous "Death Panel" conspiracy? Are libs out to save all of us, at any expense, but only up until some, as yet to be defined, expiration date? What a hoot!
Posted by: Brad Croul | 01 December 2012 at 10:35 AM
So far we haven't been able to save the lives of those 116 and up. If and when we can, then where does all the philosophical BS go, as real estate goes sky high? ZPG, an idea who time is still with us, but ignored. We already have death panels, they're call no medical until you keel over half dead in the ER, because we have not really set up national healthcare. There is absolutely nothing in national healthcare that prevents the wealthy from buying what they want, and when they want it. They'll just have to pony up for a separate set of facilities and doctors, no big deal. Surely you wouldn't want them to get preferential treatment like members of the top levels of government, all three ranches, do today? How fair is that? Have you written your Tea Party HR representative to demand an end to such unequal treatment?
Posted by: JesusBetterman | 01 December 2012 at 11:25 AM
Was Beethoven a liberal? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBlQZyTF_LY Excellent sound and video, "I think they're turning German...I really think so..."
Posted by: JesusBetterman | 01 December 2012 at 11:28 AM
JoeK@10:02AM
I have serious doubts that Mitt could have done much if he had been elected, the nations schools have produced a large body of intellectually challenged people, who have been indoctrinated with liberal talking points, rather than the ability to think and analyze the facts in an argument. Even some of the brightest people I know, have to fall back to their liberal talking point when the facts no longer fit their liberal views. They refuse to address the facts; they just try to change the argument, shifting it to a subject covered by their indoctrination.
An example played out here on this blog is the liberal thinkers inability to explain why for 16 year global warming has stopped, while CO2 continues to increase. There liberal talking point say there is a direct connection between increased CO2 and global temperatures, yet they cannot explain why for 16 years that connection has failed.
They point with glee to a melting glacier as proof of global warming, yet refuse to acknowledge that other near by glaciers are growing rather than melting, or that the glacial melting of the glaciers they have chose to prove anthropogenic warming started to retreat in the1800s before increased CO2 was an issue. I can go one with more examples, but the response is always the same an appeal to authority, to a manufactures consensus, and their indoctrinated talking points. You know it is time to walk away from the discussion when they start recycling their talking points demand we “must think of the children”
Joe liberals are not bad people; they are just the product of an education system that promotes indoctrination rather then analytical thinking. By high school and college the students have learned the dangers of bucking the systems with facts, grade points suffer and college dreams are put in jeopardy, thus the end product is not thinkers, but talking points reciters. With no foundation in critical thinking skills they believe the crap spewed from the TV set and the liberal blogs because they were never taught to think and use scientific verifiable facts to validate their arguments.
The real danger of liberalism is the collection of misinformed voters that put like-minded people in a position of power, the Legislators, administrators and consultants who lack critical thinking skills, who are unable to fathom the unintended consequences of their actions. They lack the ability to do a second and third level analysis of their good intentions. The result is often an economic or social disaster, and the taxpayers and the ratepayer have to pick up the tab.
Posted by: Russ Steele | 01 December 2012 at 11:37 AM
" or that the glacial melting of the glaciers they have chose to prove anthropogenic warming started to retreat in the1800s before increased CO2 was an issue."
Evidence for this? Well before the time most glaciers in the USA, let along Antarctica were even walked on by scientists.
This wonderful ski season we're having, and the resulting drought late next summer if there's no snow pack, I'm lovin it. How about you? Own any property on the Truckee River, or have friends who do? Flood insurance purchased, cross fingers until Dec 29th, should have done it sooner.
Posted by: JesusBetterman | 01 December 2012 at 12:12 PM
Scott's Exhibit A, a polypropylene box, tall enough to block passage, with a good set of clamps to attach it to the existing couplers, covered with skull and cross bones, easily removed for yard work and changing the length of the train out on line, would be the cheapest way to make the couplers safer and more idiot proof. The box obviously could not obstruct the cars during turns, could be narrow in the line of direction of travel. But then, I have no engineering degree, especially not one from Harvey Mudd, so this must be wrong. Of course, next up will be someone crawling UNDER the coupler....
Posted by: JesusBetterman | 01 December 2012 at 12:24 PM
Also suggested at paper, cargo nets and eyebolts and clips, with special key to unlock the clips. Advertising on either system could pay for it.
Posted by: JesusBetterman | 01 December 2012 at 12:36 PM
Russ
It must be disheartening to see the growing support for the acceptance of global warming and climate change. By the time the repubs launch another election campaign there will be such an overwhelming acceptance of global warming as fact they will have to go along. Just like immigration, womens rights and universal health care they will have to join the modern world
"Sixty-eight percent of Americans see climate change as a "serious problem," according to a poll released on Friday.
The poll was conducted by Rasmussen on Monday, the day before the U.S. presidential election.
Of the 1,000 likely voters surveyed, 68 percent said they thought climate change is a somewhat serious or very serious problem, while 30 percent of respondents said it was not a serious problem.
The poll marks a huge shift for Americans. In 2009, a Rasmussen poll showed that only 46 percent of Americans thought climate change was a serious issue. In 2010, Gallup reported that 48 percent of Americans thought that the seriousness of global warming was exaggerated.
Friday's poll reflects one released in July by the Washington Post in which 60 percent of Americans surveyed said they believed climate change was real."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/09/global-warming-poll-climate-change_n_2105600.html
Posted by: Paul Emery | 01 December 2012 at 01:47 PM
The climate change or global warming or its man-made versions (AGW) continue to be confused in comments like PaulE's 147pm. I don't know of anyone who claims that the world's climate is in stasis; it is and always has been changing. And most certainly there have been periods of warming and cooling, depending on how and in what time window you measure it. The most tenuous part of the argument is AGW for which there is no robust proof (that cannot be counter-argued or falsified), and most certainly no consensus.
I am not sure what point is supported by citing ambiguous poll results taken over a population that is to a large extent lexicographically challenged, has a sixth grade knowledge base, and is almost totally innumerate. Most certainly 99% of them either do not know or could utter a cogent sentence about the three categories I mentioned at the start. But their opinions are most certainly a constant source of political fodder for the Left (and even sometimes for the Right). But that's democracy.
Posted by: George Rebane | 01 December 2012 at 02:07 PM
It just shows the huge shift in public opinion on the matter by 22 points in three years. Rasmussen is suspect though since they showed Romney to be a viable candidate right up to the election.
My post expresses no opinion about the issue only reflects on current public opinion.
Posted by: Paul Emery | 01 December 2012 at 02:37 PM
And yes Russ, to enhance my education please cite references re 1 December 2012 at 11:37 AM "efuse to acknowledge that other near by glaciers are growing rather than melting, "
Posted by: Paul Emery | 01 December 2012 at 02:40 PM
Paul, Rasmussen took polls during the weather scares of last summer and people were jittery, helped along by campaign BS. We're now at the beginning of what many believe is to be a 30 year cooling period and if I were Paul Emery, I'd not count on that opinion holding very long.
In the world of atmospheric physics, clouds and aerosols, the alternative views of climate are ascendant. It doesn't even look like Kyoto will survive the month. The only question left is how badly science is damaged when the people finally figure out that the IPCC brand was flawed from the start.
Here's an open letter to the UN Secretary General published a couple days ago that does a decent job of laying out the basics:
http://opinion.financialpost.com/2012/11/29/open-climate-letter-to-un-secretary-general-current-scientific-knowledge-does-not-substantiate-ban-ki-moon-assertions-on-weather-and-climate-say-125-scientists/
Posted by: Gregory | 01 December 2012 at 02:48 PM
Well Gregory we'll just have to wait and see how public opinion shifts. That's just the way it is as we speak. The insurance companies will make the deciding call on this one. Whoops, they already have
" Marsh (Charts), the world's largest insurance broker, last spring sent a 36-page "risk alert" on Climate Change to clients that, among other things, looked at the possible relationship between climate change and natural disasters.
"Climate change - often referred to as 'global warming' - is one of the most significant emerging risks facing the world today, presenting tremendous challenges to the environment, to the world economy, and to individual businesses," the report said."
http://money.cnn.com/2006/08/22/news/economy/pluggedin_gunther.fortune/index.htm
Posted by: Paul Emery | 01 December 2012 at 03:04 PM
Just more argumentum ad populum or ad vericundiam, Paul. Fallacies known for centuries.
I realize it might seem rational to a musician to get their science from an insurance company looking for ways to maximize revenues, but it ain't how science works.
Posted by: Gregory | 01 December 2012 at 03:28 PM
Paul@01:47
You see it really does not matter what the numerically challenged general population think about climate change in the end game. According the satellites that measure the earth temperature on a daily basis the measurements show that there has been no significant increase in the global temperature.
One of the official UN IPCC certified global temperature data bases is the HadCRUT which is the dataset of monthly instrumental temperature records formed by combining the sea surface temperature records compiled by the Hadley Centre of the UK Met Office and the land surface air temperature records compiled by the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia.
You will find a graphic of that data here: http://youvotedforitblog.wordpress.com/climate-change/ Please note the data sources listed in the graphics.
Another representation can be found further down the page comparing all five global monthly temperature estimates. Please note that all are in agreement that global warming varies, but the 37 month running average shows no significant increase in the global temperature for at least 10 years.
No that you have seen the data can you explain why your AGW talking points do not hold up after examination of the data?
Posted by: Russ Steele | 01 December 2012 at 03:35 PM
Let's look at one of the statements in that open letter: "The NOAA “State of the Climate in 2008” report asserted that 15 years or more without any statistically-significant warming would indicate a discrepancy between observation and prediction. Sixteen years without warming [asserted by the recently released Met/UEA data] have therefore now proven that the models are wrong by their creators’ own criterion."
In short, in 2008, it seemed logical to IPCC senior scientists to require a 15 year failure before they capitulate; now that the gap is up to 16 years they think 20 years is the right number.
Posted by: Gregory | 01 December 2012 at 03:37 PM
In reading the insurance company letter PaulE's 304pm provided, we have to be careful to keep in mind 1) what assertions the letter made about climate change, and 2) how these assertions are represented to the already qualified public.
Additionally, we know that it is in the interest of insurance companies to always have rising premiums precede potential payouts. And it is in the interest of globalist ideologues and others of collectivist bent to connect, as strongly as possible, climate change to global warming to human caused global warming (AGW) to reverseable global warming by appropriate governmental mandates. In fact, in the common mind the asserted causal link is directly from AGW public policies (e.g. cap and trade) to reversing climate change, skipping the requirement to establish the mediating links. The sheeple will not even murmur.
Posted by: George Rebane | 01 December 2012 at 03:38 PM
Paul and JB your asked some links to the glacier information:
The vast majority of the world’s glaciers are retreating as the planet gets warmer. But a few, including ones south of the equator, in South America and New Zealand, are inching forward.
Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090430144535.htm
Perched on the soaring Karakoram mountains in the Western Himalayas, a group of some 230 glaciers are bucking the global warming trend. They’re growing. Throughout much of the Tibetan Plateau, high-altitude glaciers are dwindling in the face of rising temperatures. The situation is potentially dire for the hundreds of millions of people living in China, India and throughout southeast Asia who depend on the glaciers for their water supply.
But in the rugged western corner of the plateau, the story is different, according to a new study. Among legendary peaks of Mt. Everest like K2 and Nanga Parbat, glaciers with a penthouse view of the world are growing, and have been for almost three decades.
“These are the biggest mid-latitude glaciers in the world,” John Shroder of the University of Nebraska-Omaha said. “And all of them are either holding still, or advancing.”
Source: http://news.discovery.com/earth/himalayas-glaciers-shrink.html
Alaska’s Hubbard Glacier is advancing moving toward Gilbert Point near Yakutat at an average of seven feet per day. The Army Corp of Engineers’ Hubbard Glacier website for has some great photos of the advancing behemoth.
Source: http://www.cdapress.com/articles/2009/05/11/columns/columns06.prt
Here in California while the Southern Sierra Glaciers are declining, Mt Shasta glaciers have been growing since about 2002.
Scientists first became aware of these growing California glaciers in 2002, and I began writing about them in 2003.
After this year's record snowfall, it will become harder to ignore that some Sierra Glaciers are growing while other are melting. Details here on Mt Shasta record show fall just this last storm.
Source: http://nextgrandminimum.wordpress.com/2012/11/29/just-weather-mt-shasta-14-to-18-feet-of-snow-in-next-72-hours/
A resent study showed that Southern Sierra glaciers did not exist for 6,000 years before the little ice age from 1650 to 1850. They started to melt in the 1850 long before CO2 was an issue.
If you need additional information I will be glad to provide it. The record shows that even in a warmer world some glaciers are growing, but the growing ones are not reported in the press, including Mt Shasta. However, the melting glaciers are reported. Therefore, I can understand if you are getting your news from the lame stream media, you are grossly misinformed and have failed to do any of the necessary research and analysis to discover the real facts. All the glaciers are not melting.
Posted by: Russ Steele | 01 December 2012 at 04:13 PM
Paul,
Reality check! There is rapidly cooling interest in global warming around the world. They are not listening to the American press, and are looking out the window and checking the long range forecasts.
• Joe Bastardi, Weatherbell, This is the 4th winter in a row of severe outbreak of severe cold in Europe.
• According the the Met, Britain will have its coldest, snowiest winter in a century, following 2011-12 which was the coldest, snowiest in 70 or 80 years. Europe and Alaska are in the grips of early cold snaps and Moscow has had one of its snowiest Novembers on record.
• Chris Landsea of the U.S. National Hurricane Center pointed out this week, there has been no increase in the intensity of landfalling hurricanes since 1900. While 2004 and 2005 were the two most intense hurricane years in the last century, 2006 to 2011 were the five least intense.
• Global temperatures have been flat for nearly 15 years and northern Hemisphere winter temperatures have fallen significantly in the past two years, despite predictions that global warming would be most felt in northern climates, in winter. More winter details here:
http://nextgrandminimum.wordpress.com/2012/11/28/on-the-cusp-of-a-long-long-winter/
• Contrary to the claims by the lame stream press, Martin Hoerling, who chairs the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s climate variability research program and oversees NOAA’s Climate Scene Investigators, debunked the assertion global warming played a significant role in Hurricane Sandy.
Here is the problem, all those folks in the Rasmussen Survey had never heard of any of these facts. Would they have made the same choices? Only those with a smattering of intellectual capacity.
Posted by: Russ Steele | 01 December 2012 at 05:01 PM
Please everyone - re-read Paul's screed: "It must be disheartening to see the growing support for the acceptance of global warming and climate change. By the time the repubs launch another election campaign there will be such an overwhelming acceptance of global warming as fact they will have to go along. Just like immigration, womens rights and universal health care they will have to join the modern world."
He is only concerned with winning and losing elections. There is no assertion of reality or scientific facts. Just get in with the growing crowd and shut up. Do as the masses do. Look at the last sentence - "... they will have to join the modern world" Really? Notice that dissent and differing opinion is swept away with the idea that if most folks can be convinced to want it, it must be so. If we can win elections, we can rule and we can make reality bend to our will. Scary.
Posted by: Account Deleted | 01 December 2012 at 06:45 PM
ScottO 645pm - excellent to point that out again. That is the Left's longstanding cache, convince the legions of the ignorant, and use democracy to sweep all dissent before it. If most agree that 2+2=5, then so be it and that becomes the new consensus math (e.g. the history of climate change 'science'). A surer road to tyranny has yet to be discovered.
Posted by: George Rebane | 01 December 2012 at 07:43 PM
Hoo boy, nice romp we're having here.
Yes, conservatives are X and liberals are Y. Finger pointing gone viral.
(yawn)
Anyway, we have 7 billion human critters crawling all over the planet today, and we're going to top out hopefully around 9 billion in 2050.
If you get in an airplane and fly over most of the planet you will see man's influence. Sure, there are still lots of places where things are still relatively undisturbed, but the ongoing question continues to be how much "wild and scenic" is necessary in order to preserve the seed stock.
OK, maybe AGW is bogus, but what about the rest of the effects of human occupation of planet earth? Are incrementally acidic seas OK, for example?
Is "sustainable" a dirty word?
Posted by: Michael Anderson | 01 December 2012 at 10:05 PM
Michael@10:05PM
You wrote about “acidic seas” as some thing to worry about. According to ocean research by the Scripps Institute, they found that ocean acidification happens all the time naturally and that ocean creatures adapt. Here are some details from the paper:
The authors draw two conclusions: (1) most non-open ocean sites vary a lot, and (2) and some spots vary so much they reach the “extreme” pH’s forecast for the doomsday future scenarios on a daily (a daily!) basis.
At Puerto Morelos (in Mexico’s easternmost state, on the Yucatán Peninsula) the pH varied as much as 0.3 units per hour due to groundwater springs. Each day the pH bottomed at about 10am, and peaked shortly after sunset. These extreme sites tell us that some marine life can cope with larger, faster swings than the apocalyptic predictions suggest, though of course, no one is suggesting that the entire global ocean would be happy with similar extreme swings.
Even the more stable and vast open ocean is not a fixed pH all year round. Hofmann writes that “Open-water areas (in the Southern Ocean) experience a strong seasonal shift in seawater pH (~0.3–0.5 units) between austral summer and winter.”
This paper is such a game changer, they talk about rewriting the null hypothesis:
“This natural variability has prompted the suggestion that “an appropriate null hypothesis may be, until evidence is obtained to the contrary, that major biogeochemical processes in the oceans other than calcification will not be fundamentally different under future higher CO2/lower pH conditions””
Relax, the oceans are OK. More detail here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/09/scripps-paper-ocean-acidification-fears-overhyped/
Posted by: Russ Steele | 01 December 2012 at 10:36 PM
manderson rationalizing bad science. (yawn)
Markets are better at sorting out what is sustainable, and what isn't, better than politicians who don't really care if their science scare du jour is valid or not. The time to switch over to PV, for example, might be when the costs are in line with the cost of generating electric power with natural gas, which now looks like it will be sometime in the 23rd century because we are awash in natural gas. If it's in the 22nd century or even the late 21st because of some breakthrough in PV efficiencies, great. But forcing the poor to shiver, and forcing the middle class to approach heating home and workspaces much like a Bob Cratchit in a Dicken's nightmare because of a political decision that it's good for them in the name of "sustainability", is immorality at its core.
Posted by: Gregory | 01 December 2012 at 10:52 PM
Good post Dr. Rebane. Men are from Mars, liberals are from some other planet.
Yes, seeing a poor homeless guy standing on the street talking to a stop light makes us all feel sympathy and think "What can we do for him?" The liberals first reaction is what can government do for him. All costs and personal responsibility go out the window. Social issues trump everything, including reason. The Holy Grail of liberals. Yet they fail to see that the road to socialism destroys the personal freedoms they cherish so much.
Suppose Reagen said it correctly. Pay a man not to work and he will not work. A year or so ago a former Mayor of Nevada City was quoted saying that being sick made her unhappy, so not having health care interfered with her pursuit of happiness. Thus, it is a right. All the health care in the world won't make a sickly person happy.
I suppose the best current example of the lib brain is the negotiations on this Fiscal Cliff thang. We got here by overspending. The libs (our elected representatives) do not want ANY spending controls or limits. Says it all.
Posted by: Bill Tozer | 02 December 2012 at 10:22 AM
Of course all the cold water from all the melting Greenland glaciers dumping into the normally warm Gulf Stream currents has nothing to do with Europe freezing their direirre's off, now does it? And of course the total amount of advancing glaciers represents frozen water equal to or greater than the melting waters world wide? And local weather patterns in the Tibetan area have nothing to do with one area advancing? And the Shasta glaciers area equal to the southern Sierra glaciers in water storage? And Rebane and Greg agree with all these statements? or maybe not so much?
Posted by: JesusBetterman | 02 December 2012 at 10:39 AM
Checking Jeff Porcine's, he's reblogged this thread, and Stephen Frisch, the CEO of the wretchedly misnamed "Sierra Business Council" had this to say:
stevefrisch, on December 2, 2012 at 8:12 am said:
The entire exercise in right wing blogging in Nevada County is one long diminishing return. It seems that the more evidence that piles up that Russ, George, Todd, Walt, Gregory, and company are full of shit, the less impact it has on their collective fantasy.
...
When your beliefs are so strong that they do not allow for any change, one sees the world the same way they did in 1960, and one ignores all evidence and changing conditions accumulated since, all they can see is diminishing returns, when all around them the law of accelerating change may actually be in effect."
It may well be that Steve is stuck in a 1960 time warp (I know I'm not in Camelot, maybe he is) but there is no climate catastrophe in the making.
Steve Frisch, CO2 is not driving the climate off the cliff and the science to the contrary is dominating the debate, where the debate is allowed to take place. If you check the signatories of the open letter to the Secretary General, there are a number of tenured professors of physics lending their prestige to that repudiation of Wu's statement of "the consensus".
You've been selling a false view of the science since you took the reigns at the "Sierra Business Council"; it will not be lasting much longer.
Posted by: Gregory | 02 December 2012 at 11:17 AM
JB@10:22
You wrote: Of course all the cold water from all the melting Greenland glaciers dumping into the normally warm Gulf Stream currents has nothing to do with Europe freezing their direirre's off, now does it?
In the last four years the cold had more to due with a jet stream shift, that let super cold arctic air come south, than the Gulf Stream. If you go to the Unisys Weather Page and select EU, you can seen the out break of cold. Here is an example. weather.unisys.com/gfsx/gfsx.php?inv=0&plot=hght®ion=eu&t=48h
The AMO is still in the warm phase making North Atlantic water warmer than average, yet Europe is on the cusp of a super cold winter. That cold is the result of a shift in the jet stream allowing arctic air to flow south over Europe.
Posted by: Russ Steele | 02 December 2012 at 12:58 PM
Gee guys
I was neither pro nor con on the question of climate change. I was only pointing out that you seem to be loosing the battle for public support opposing global warming concerns and the the Repubs will be hard pressed to maintain a position in your favor next election cycle to avoid the electile dysfunction that caused them to droop in this years effort.
Thanks Russ for the documentation. I'll check it out.
Posted by: Paul Emery | 02 December 2012 at 01:49 PM
Russ, Keachie just strings words together to fling into the fan. There's no thought behind them besides that of derailing the conversation.
Posted by: Gregory | 02 December 2012 at 01:52 PM
Paul@01:49
The Democratic global warming talking points are now going to keep the temperature from deciding over the next four years. If the temps do decline, what will be their position then? Warming?
Posted by: Russ Steele | 02 December 2012 at 02:07 PM
Russ. WE all know why the likes of Doug have switched to the term " climate change" talking point. Since they know what they claim is just "political science" at best, they had to come up with something. With this verbiage they can claim they were/are right no matter what happens.
I remember a long, long time ago when the cry was "global cooling", then a few years later when that didn't work out it was GW, now we are back to GC.
OK Dougy,, which one is to blame on this storm? ( and the one due in Tues.)
Posted by: Walt | 02 December 2012 at 02:46 PM
Paul, there is no "battle", and if it was loose, I'd just tighten it up.
Here's some interesting factoids:
"Only 53% of adults know how long it takes for the Earth to revolve around the Sun.
Only 59% of adults know that the earliest humans and dinosaurs did not live at the same time.
Only 47% of adults can roughly approximate the percent of the Earth's surface that is covered with water.*
Only 21% of adults answered all three questions correctly."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090312115133.htm
That's one reason why I don't get my science from public polls, or politicians. The scientifically illiterate will take their cues from the popular culture and at this point I do expect that the cult of global warming will be in full retreat by the next election cycle in 2 years; the visible changes will just be "weather" but that will have to do.
Posted by: Gregory | 02 December 2012 at 03:13 PM
Well I see that Greg's favorite desert "Baked Alaska," is not quite ready for prime time, according to those at the CERN CLOUD Cooking School:
"On 24 August 2011, preliminary research published in the journal Nature showed there was a connection between Cosmic Rays and aerosol nucleation. Kirkby went on to say in the definitive CERN press Release "Ion‐enhancement is particularly pronounced in the cool temperatures of the mid‐troposphere and above, where CLOUD has found that sulphuric acid and water vapour can nucleate without the need for additional vapours. This result leaves open the possibility that cosmic rays could also influence climate. However, it is premature to conclude that cosmic rays have a significant influence on climate until the additional nucleating vapours have been identified, their ion enhancement measured, and the ultimate effects on clouds have been confirmed"
Posted by: JesusBetterman | 02 December 2012 at 07:00 PM
This is yet another example of the rapidly shifting tide of concern about global warming. This is an editorial from the Salt Lake City Tribune of all sources.
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/opinion/55378671-82/climate-temperatures-global-greenhouse.html.csp
"The global response to climate change is incapable of addressing the catastrophic consequences to a planet dependent on burning fossil fuels for energy, spewing greater volumes of the greenhouse gases that are boosting temperatures at an accelerating rate.
This gloomy assessment is based on new scientific studies that describe, with increasing certainty, the arrival of severe climate disruption sooner and with greater intensity than scientists had predicted even a few years ago......."
Posted by: Paul Emery | 02 December 2012 at 07:09 PM
Ah, so now we get science from newspaper editors? There's nothing that is rapidly shifting, just an increasing shrillness of the alarm.
None of the 'evidence' given by the unsigned editor(s) even touches the science that actually touches on *how* CO2 is supposedly driving the temps, which, one should note, vary wildly from the hadCRUt dataset that has been at the forefront of the warmist evidence, back before they failed to show a warming over the last 16 years.
What they are relying on is "it has to be CO2, there just isn't anything else". And yes, in latin that's "argumentum ad ignorantium". But there is something else... natural variations.
Sorry, Paul. The sky is not falling. There's 125+ signatories to that letter from scientists to the UN Sec'y General. Why not pick something from that as a starting point, rather than a circular reasoning via an anonymous editor at a flyover country newspaper?
Posted by: Gregory | 02 December 2012 at 07:44 PM
An "independent software engineer at my place" is lecturing us about science. LOL!
Posted by: [email protected] | 02 December 2012 at 09:36 PM
Jeffie, how nice of you to waddle in!
Since your degrees are in rhetoric and journalism, and your favorite local global warming "scientist" can't remember ever taking a class in physics, and, true to form, when asked had no clue what temperature was besides the numbers on a thermometer, it's obvious you need some lectures.
This is a good place to check, since there are a number of regulars here that actually have degrees in physics.
The key issue in AGW claims is climate sensitivity to CO2. Typically, when a science is new the errors are great but, especially with billions of dollars spent on an important investigation, one narrows the possibilities. As physicist Nir Shaviv wrote earlier this year, "Normal science progresses through the collection of observations (or measurements), the conjecture of hypotheses, the making of predictions, and then through the usage of new observations, the modification of the hypotheses accordingly (either ruling them out, or improving them). In the global warming “science”, this is not the case". Read the whole thing here:
http://www.sciencebits.com/IPCC_nowarming
It's a good start, let us know if any of the assertions confuses you.
Posted by: Gregory | 02 December 2012 at 10:51 PM
Start him here Greg!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVmU3iANbgk
Posted by: D. King | 02 December 2012 at 11:04 PM
Sorry DK, I'd prefer to stick to some basic physics. The FUE is perfectly capable of reading the link I provided, meant for a general collegiate audience.
Posted by: Gregory | 02 December 2012 at 11:20 PM
Gregory,
Your so-called degrees obviously did not translate into a a meaningful career for you, except for a big, nasty mouth in a meaningless, uninfluential forum. You have lost the global warming argument too. Poor guy.
Posted by: [email protected] | 02 December 2012 at 11:40 PM
Goog luck Greg!
George, (O.T.)
I ran into, online, my collage cs prof.
He put a project we worked on together on his web page. We had a nice long chat.
I hadn’t spoken to him in over 30 years.
Here’s the project.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHKi4DAlMrI&feature=plcp
http://www.geom-e-tree.com/history.html
Check out his i-phone apps.
http://www.geom-e-tree.com/
Posted by: D. King | 02 December 2012 at 11:53 PM
Jeff, you just stepped over the line into a "slander per se" that has a particular meaning under the law. Near the bottom of the page:
https://www.eff.org/issues/bloggers/legal/liability/defamation
I'm happy with my choices in life and I chose being dad when that was the most important job that needed filling, after my son's mother died of cancer, at home, at age 45. My degrees in physics and electrical engineering have been useful in every endeavor I've taken on, including the patents that both US Robotics and Cisco thought were worth filing on my work.
Really, Jeff, you need to be more careful.
Posted by: Gregory | 02 December 2012 at 11:56 PM
Gregory,
You are a very unhappy man. It is evident every time you open your big, nasty mouth.
Posted by: Jeff Pelline | 03 December 2012 at 12:07 AM
A professional wordsmith should be able to craft a more mature insult than that. Drinking tonight, are we ?
A retraction after you sober up should make things better.
Posted by: Gregory | 03 December 2012 at 12:30 AM
Gregory,
You are a real creep. I feel sorry for you, personally attacking those whom challenge you. Do you have a priest who can help you sort out you nasty hostilities?
Posted by: Jeff Pelline | 03 December 2012 at 12:44 AM
Russ 2:07 AM
The democrats taking point if the temperature drops will be the same as if the temperature goes up...that being that this is consistent with what the UN, IPCC, NASA, the insurance companies, 97% of climate scientists and polling data from Gallup says...it is glow-ball warming.
Being an engineer with a real science ed-u-ma-cation does help me to have a proper prospective with regards to scieney stuff like climate change and ocean acidification.
I do wounder if Doug Jesus even has a clue what PH means and why 100% percent changes in ocean PH on a daily basis will not and do not harm the critters that live there.
Posted by: MikeL | 03 December 2012 at 06:06 AM
Come on, Greg. Be a good boy. You lost the election and now you should just be quiet and not question the will of the people. Get on the gravy train and enjoy the ride, like the middleman says.
The new mantra is "obey." Say it over and over...Obey Obama, Obey Obama...Obeyobamaobeyobamaobeyobama.
Posted by: earlcrabb | 03 December 2012 at 06:25 AM
We see in the responses of Jeff Pelline why the people of America have a "used car salesman" level of support for the media. They are all like JP. They would make Goebbels proud. And these lovelies were taught in our colleges for goodness sakes. Pelline and PaulE just keep passing along the propaganda and many in the new "moron party" accept the lies as fact. Russ and Greg have debunked here on this local blog all the institutional bunk spewed on AGW yet is never accepted as true by these nuts. Then we see the reason. It has nothing to do with science, it is all political. If these AGW nuts are successful we will see a massive redistribution of American dollars to others around the planet. This will connect the circle of the liberals guilt of having been born into a "lottery" winner in America. We all know Greg and Russ make Jeff Pelline look like a third grader on these topics. Reporting on science does not make a scientist. Greg, Russ and George are actual scientists. Pelline should stick to reporting the goings on at Victorian Christmas, that would be the best use of his "skills".
Posted by: Todd Juvinall | 03 December 2012 at 08:06 AM
Earl, I've "lost" every election since '80, and been happy about it. Maybe that's what's stuck in Porcine's craw?
It's funny; over on his reblog of this topic he's once again trying to portray my showing up for a free drink on Todd J's tab as somehow proof I'm one of those Tea Partiers. For the record, that was the first time I met George Rebane (a nice enough fellow but we didn't have much to say to one another), the second time I'd met Todd and the second time I'd met Ackerman, who I'd shared a bottle of homebrew with at a mutual friend's singlewide, and was sorry to see leave our little burg. Anyone who Pelline despises that much can't be all bad.
Posted by: Gregory | 03 December 2012 at 08:15 AM
Gregory
Again you missed the point in my discourse. 02 December 2012 at 07:09 PM I was not arguing pro or con on the issue of global warming , I was just noting that that the battle seems to be lost when The Salt Lake Tribune is the largest-circulated daily newspaper in the conservative city of Salt Lake City. is expressing its desire for action to mitigate global warming.
Posted by: Paul Emery | 03 December 2012 at 08:41 AM
All,
Declaring that the world is warming does not make it happening, especially when the factual measurements show a cooling trend.
Posted by: Russ Steele | 03 December 2012 at 08:49 AM
Opps hit the wrong button. Should read "does not make it happen"
Posted by: Russ Steele | 03 December 2012 at 08:52 AM
Paul@08:41AM
The editors of a Salt Lake Paper are encouraging citizens to start preparing for global warming, yet there is a greater probability that we will have global cooling. I have discussed that option at the Next Grand Minimum. Preparing for the wrong climate change could be life threatening for millions. It is time to get off the political band wagaon and start using some real science in forecasting our future on a earth which is warmed by a solar orb. When the orb's output declines the earth gets colder. That is what has happened for millions of years, and will happen again. Humans declaring it is warming will not change what the sun is going to do, and has done before. Bundle up, as it is going to get colder.
Posted by: Russ Steele | 03 December 2012 at 09:23 AM
Paul (8:41AM), the point wasn't missed, it was ignored as inconsequential. You are making the assumption the "journalist" who wrote the unsigned op-ed was representative of SLC before he underwent some unspecified conversion. Think of it this way: Pelline wasn't representative of Grass Valley and Nirvana Silly when he became the (short lived) Editor of our local paper and apparently pushing the global warming angles. He *was* a product of UC Berkeley's rhetoric department, a Chicago area journalism school and the Frisco Chronicle.
The "consensus" is manufactured, and you've illustrated just how that's done by the well intentioned.
Posted by: Gregory | 03 December 2012 at 10:07 AM
Can anyone tell me where JeffP's 936pm quote is from or is all about??
I was going to blow away all the snarky dialogue that the FUE brought over, but learning that he has again launched another diatribe against RR and its readership, I thought we'd leave his droppings here as a further confirmation of the issues I take with the Liberal Mind.
Posted by: George Rebane | 03 December 2012 at 10:17 AM
George, I hold you blameless in Pelline's latest round of defamatory speech.
The 9:36 is a quote from my LinkedIn page; Jeff apparently thinks I should be ashamed of doing what I chose to do after my wife died.
"Gregory,
You are a real creep. I feel sorry for you, personally attacking those whom [sic] challenge you. Do you have a priest who can help you sort out you [sic] nasty hostilities?" Pelline, 12:44AM
I do suspect Jeff was drinking last night. Unusual errors for a Cal rhetorician, not to mention a fixation on the word "nasty".
Posted by: Gregory | 03 December 2012 at 10:47 AM
Gregory,
Really, you need to be more careful.
What you should be ashamed of is your inability to carry on a dialogue without resorting to nasty, personal comments, lies and innuendo. They are directed at me, Steve, Doug, "favorite" global warming scientists, and so on. It is your debate tactic.
As for my point, an "independent software engineer at my place" is not a global warming scientist, so your views are not credible to me.
Posted by: [email protected] | 03 December 2012 at 11:15 AM
Since I've never claimed to be a "global warming scientist", that bizarre comeback of yours seems particularly misplaced, Jeff, though the lack of glaring errors of grammar seem to indicate you are again sober and rested.
I've told no "lies", and I suspect you, Steve and Doug (including Doug's plethora of sock puppets) just can't stand someone who effectively fights back who doesn't fit the "arch-conservative" pidgeonhole your rhetoric requires.
I've a fresh "libel per se" and your old libel regarding the "tantrum" that you manufactured of whole cloth. You may wish to revise your remarks. Now.
Posted by: Gregory | 03 December 2012 at 11:42 AM
Excellent examples put forth on this thread concerning the liberals diminishing diminishing minds. Ah, never mind. Never had one, they never will.
Posted by: Bill Tozer | 03 December 2012 at 12:12 PM
I know a local chiropractor who's quite good at moving body parts around so that they move around better, and it was his sending of my first wife to the emergency room (it was blood clots not a strained joint that caused her pain that time) that was her first cancer related emergency room visit. While he believes in Astrology, he also believes that Chiropractors who talk to the foot they're manipulating to find out what it's thinking are nuts. Chiropractors who reject medical science as being able to judge the results of chiropractic treatments are operating in a similar fashion to those, like you, who are now requiring anyone to be a "global warming scientist" (a non-existent branch of physics) in order to have a voice.
The rejection of people with general physics backgrounds as not being expert in climate science is central to the manufactured consensus; the signature list on that open letter to the UN Sec'y General on his recent climate claims is heavy with physics professors for a reason: climate science *is* a branch of physics, and denizens of the physics community are pointing out the errors.
This isn't a political debate, Jeff, it's science. And you are losing the debate where it counts. I realize you'll keep it up as long as you think it's politically viable, but the scientific basis is being undermined. The lack of a warming signal for a year longer than IPCC senior scientists once wrote of as indicative of a failure of their models is but one part of the impending doom of the climate change meme. It's time to head for the exits, Jeff. You don't want to be the last one there.
I'm not asking for status as a "global warming scientist". For now, I'm asking people to read and understand the open letter to the Sec'y-General and the statements within, including "There is no sound reason for the costly, restrictive public policy decisions proposed at the U.N. climate conference in Qatar. Rigorous analysis of unbiased observational data does not support the projections of future global warming predicted by computer models now proven to exaggerate warming and its effects."
http://opinion.financialpost.com/2012/11/29/open-climate-letter-to-un-secretary-general-current-scientific-knowledge-does-not-substantiate-ban-ki-moon-assertions-on-weather-and-climate-say-125-scientists/
Posted by: Gregory | 03 December 2012 at 12:22 PM
RE: Todd Juvinall |Fiscal Cliff Fairness (updated) 26 November 2012 at 07:15 AM Also Todd Juvinall Fiscal Cliff Fairness (updated)| 01 December 2012 at 09:00
I think woman should be aware that private conversations while on a date or in discourse with Todd Juvinall are subject to publication on this or his own blog.
Posted by: Paul Emery | 03 December 2012 at 12:36 PM
PaulE, I like women, I am not interested in you. LOL!
Posted by: Todd Juvinall | 03 December 2012 at 12:50 PM
Perhaps you should try a Conservative dating service, you might have better luck.
Posted by: Paul Emery | 03 December 2012 at 01:13 PM
Luck? Sorry to tell you PaulE that I have no problem getting dates. Perhaps you are concerned for yourself?
Posted by: Todd Juvinall | 03 December 2012 at 03:44 PM
Todd
Thanks for your concern Todd. Actually I have several Libertarianism women friends whose company I enjoy.
At least I have enough class not to post details about private dinner conversations on this venue.
Posted by: Paul Emery | 03 December 2012 at 04:12 PM
that's Libertarian
Posted by: Paul Emery | 03 December 2012 at 04:37 PM
"I do wounder if Doug Jesus even has a clue what PH {sic} means and why 100% percent changes in ocean PH on a daily basis will not and do not harm the critters that live there."
Love to know what you mean by a 100% change in pH on a daily basis? How are you calculating that? The pH scale is logarithmic and therefore pH is a dimensionless quantity.
Posted by: JesusBetterman | 03 December 2012 at 06:37 PM
I thought Todd was a happily married man? What went wrong, or is going wrong?
Posted by: JesusBetterman | 03 December 2012 at 06:43 PM
PaulE, so you know the person eh? I used no names so the person is anonymous. You crack me up.
Posted by: Todd Juvinall | 03 December 2012 at 07:33 PM