First note — “all” in the above title is just a colloquialism, as in “all this nonsense”.

So it turns out that the scientists, you know, the folks who published all the alarming hoo-hah about global warming? Well, they selected which data to include in (and exclude from) their study, which makes the scientificity very suspect.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/12/01/EDV01ASHN5.DTL

Note that the SFGATE article only shows that, like the rest of us, even high-caliber scientists can have their own agenda and can fall prey to picking-and-choosing the data that support their pet causes. This is called confirmation bias, when we try to figure that we’re already right, instead of trying to find out what the actual data is telling us.

Second Note — This article does not mean that global warming is a fraud. Likely? Possible? Probable? Maybe, but not conclusive. Don’t fall into the trap of swinging the blindness pendulum to the other side of the argument.

Just because the little boy cried wolf… it doesn’t mean there isn’t a wolf.

Third note — where’s the hue and cry about defrauding the public? It’s not there! Could big-lobbying-dollars have anything to do with it? (Just because I’m paranoid, doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get me…)

For a much more reasonable take on Global Warming, whether it’s true or not, check out Greg Cravens’s “How It All Ends” video at Youtube.com (Greg Cravens talks about “Confirmation Bias” in chapter 3 of his book).

Cartoon from 1948 seems eerily prescient today…

http://nationaljuggernaut.blogspot.com/2009/09/this-cartoon-seemed-far-fetched-in-1948.html

Hoo boy!

Selling “security” sure feels sexy, compared to the turmoil endemic to a life of liberty. Explains why so many folks who don’t think about consequences are bamboozled by the “ism”s.

We elect representatives to lead us through trying times, right? To make policy decisions based on mountains more information than we ordinary folks have, yes? Why not have them run everything? Wouldn’t they be better at it than us uninformed simpletons?

Wouldn’t the world be a better place if we had only one organization responsible for all important decisions? Let’s have the feds determine how to educate our kids — oh that’s right, they already do. We could have the feds tell us how to handle our elder care and set up restrictions on who can access the estate and how — oh, wait, they already do. Well the feds should certainly step up and tell us how to manage our own health care and diet and exercise… um, they do.

But that’s only part-way, isn’t it?

Why leave any field open for insights and input and collaboration and production from all quarters, when instead we can restrict the decisions and activitiy to just one exclusive team? Let’s have the feds do it all. We’ll all sit back in our lawn chairs, caching stimulus checks while prices go through the roof, which our kids and grandkids will have to deal with later. Nobody will produce anything, but everyone will feel good while it lasts. It’s a great plan, and is NOT a short term fix at all; this is a well-considered approach with an eye on the future, having nothing to do with buying votes. Nothing at all.

Land of the convenient, home of the comfortable.

The most important part of this video — to most of us at large, that is; her world was forever changed by the events she recounts in the first part — is in her closing remarks to the legislators about the 2nd amendment. Still, the entire presentation is significant:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1u0Byq5Qis

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“You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it. You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom.

“What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The Government cannot give to anybody anything that the Government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is surely the end of any nation’s future.”

– Abraham Lincoln, or maybe Adrian Rogers

Hans Rosling does it again — starting with raw data he paints a very clear picture! This time it’s how news can be just plain hype.

If you’re not familiar with Hans Rosling, he’s the guy who gave the No more boring data talk. Using animation he shows multiple dimensions of data clearly, concisely and convincingly.   

Looks like Area 51 has finally been declassified. (E.T. is just hiding with Elvis.)

Karen’s mom worked with Ray McIntyre for nearly 20 years. He’d adopted three kids, ran an auto-parts/hardware store and sat on county council for four terms. Quite a guy.

ideas, politics

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