Global Warming, or Climate Change?

Well, I don't care if it rains or freezes, long as I got my plastic Jesus riding on the dashboard of my car...

It don't matter if it warms or cools, long as we've got elected fools taxing us before we drive too far...

"Climate change" is the new name for this largest of all frauds ever perpetrated on the susceptible inhabitants of Earth, empowering tyrants worldwide. The climate has always been changing. Now the statists have secured fraudulent scientific justification to tax us for it.

My God, I wish I was a liberal right now. I'd be so damned happy. I could just sit and grin stupidly at my TV set, "knowing" that everything would be just fine...

It's not the science, "It's the ideology stupid."

From American Thinker -

President Obama's complete lack of concern for the fraudulent science associated with global warming is contrasted with the common sense of Sarah Palin. The gutsy Alaskan suggested that Obama ought to hold his horses on the whole climate change thing until the real verdict is in. Of course, the smartest man in the world will have none of that.

With the outrageous news of deceit, fraud and suppression of opposing evidence by top climate change "scientists," many conservatives had expected to see the story unfold a little differently (with actual reporting and investigating). Global warming, aka, climate change has been heralded as the preeminent story of our time. As such, the exposing of scientific fraud in the ultimate "science" movement would have made screaming headline news in a sane world.

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Ever Wonder How We Take Our Global Temperature?

Musings from the Chiefio explains it like this:

GIStemp: Goddard Institute for Space Studies, temperature Series.

If we would study global temperature change over time, we need a temperature record over time, and over the globe. GIStemp attempts to create a temperature history with full coverage over time and over space. Unfortunately, the (GHCN – Global Historical Climate Network) data start with one thermometer in Germany: Berlin Tempel in 1701.

Over time, thermometers are added, and they slowly migrate south and to both the new, and old, worlds. Eventually, about 1900 A.D., there are sufficient thermometers on the globe to get a partial idea what is happening. But climate is subject to cyclical changes. Some, like the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, have about a 40 to 60 year full cycle length. Others, like solar cycles that run 178 years, and Bond Events – a 1500 year cycle, are a bit longer. A 100 year record is inadequate to allow for these events.

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That's right, it's estimated, interpolated, or just plain made up. Only after the data are fully cooked, is it used to drive public policy.

The Proof Behind the CRU Climategate Debacle: Because Computers Do Lie When Humans Tell Them To

If this is actual code from an actual model, actually distorting data the way the author suggests, then we have a smoking gun, and plenty of ammunition:

I’m coming to you today as a scientist and engineer with an agnostic stand on global warming.

If you don’t know anything about “Climategate” (does anyone else hate that name?) Go ahead and read up on it before you check out this post, I’ll wait.

Back? Let’s get started.

First, let’s get this out of the way: Emails prove nothing. Sure, you can look like an unethical asshole who may have committed a felony using government funded money; but all email is, is talk, and talk is cheap.

Now, here is some actual proof that the CRU was deliberately tampering with their data. Unfortunately, for readability’s sake, this code was written in Interactive Data Language (IDL) and is a pain to go through.

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Speaking as a professional software engineer, his analysis looks plausible.

Update: I strongly encourage you to read Climategate Code Analysis Part 2, especially the discussion. This is how science is supposed to work -- but hasn't in the case of AGW.

(Linked by Grouchy Old Cripple -- thanks!)

So Long, And No Thanks for the Externalities

The Rational Rejection of Security Advice by Users

This is a fascinating analysis of the true cost of computer security. Since we have well-established that I am a reactionary, anti-political correctness extremist, you have some idea where this is going.

ABSTRACT
It is often suggested that users are hopelessly lazy and unmotivated on security questions. They chose weak passwords, ignore security warnings, and are oblivious to certificates errors. We argue that users' rejection of the security advice they receive is entirely rational from an economic perspective. The advice offers to shield them from the direct costs of attacks, but burdens them with far greater indirect costs in the form of effort.

Looking at various examples of security advice we find that the advice is complex and growing, but the benefit is largely speculative or moot. For example, much of the advice concerning passwords is outdated and does little to address actual treats, and fully 100% of certificate error warnings appear to be false positives. Further, if users spent even a minute a day reading URLs to avoid phishing, the cost (in terms of user time) would be two orders of magnitude greater than all phishing losses.

Thus we find that most security advice simply offers a poor cost-benefit tradeoff to users and is rejected. Security advice is a daily burden, applied to the whole population, while an upper bound on the benefit is the harm suffered by the fraction that become victims annually. When that fraction is small, designing security advice that is beneficial is very hard. For example, it makes little sense to burden all users with a daily task to spare 0.01% of them a modest annual pain.

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This is the kind of economic analysis that congress and regulators rarely do with government programs. Instead, they look at the feel-good factor, and ignore the cost entirely. One line in particular caught my eye: "... economists have long studied how misaligned incentives often produce
undesired outcomes ...". This practically defines government programs. I know many liberals would read this document, and their heads would explode. "How can you say this? Do you know the risk you are exposing users to?" Well, yes, as a matter of fact, I do. But just try having a rational discussion about bicycle helmets or seat belts with a liberal. They feel that no risk of any kind, in any amount, is acceptable. Hence, the disclaimer at the end:

Note: this paper is not to be read as an encouragement to end-users to ignore security policies or advice. The opinions expressed are those of the author.

They cannot seem to get their heads around calculated risk assessment. Since they can't, they feel that no one else can either, and regulators must force everyone to "be safe" -- whatever that means in real terms (while simultaneously ignoring the unintended and often very undesirable consequences of their nanny statism).

Or, maybe it's because most legislators are lawyers, and everything is a "slip-and-fall" situation. The possibility of getting sued and having someone be awarded an astronomically out-of-proportion-to-the-injury settlement makes no risk acceptable these days.

It’s Got to Suck to be a Climavangelist!

Here's some great red meat for all of you AGW "Deniers", by Doug Giles:

What are the global warming grunts going to do now that the Apostles of the Holy Church of Climatology have been busted for cooking the “truth” (I believe the exact word they used was “tricking” us) so that we the sheeple would step-n-fetch to their Chicken Little crap?

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Climategate -- Prof. Watson calls Morano an 'asshole' on Newsnight

This arrogant little professor keeps talking about character assasination. What he apparently fails to grasp is that what happened with Climategate wasn't character assasination, it was character suicide.



Oh, and then he calls his adversary on the interview an "asshole". With that, I think he managed an assassination and a suicide with one bullet. I think we all know which one is the rectum here.