1) As a small-l libertarian (like you), this part of the election year is usually spent by me growing gradually more and more disappointed in one or both of the presidential candidates. This year, as I already know enough about McCain to never vote for him in a million years, I've only been getting disappointed with Obama. Would you care to discuss his missteps lately vis a vis failing to maintain a moral high ground (Ayers, the racism card, etc.) and do you see this as an almost inevitable polluting of a good and well-meaning man by the political process, or just another example of another politician being shown to be just another politician under scrutiny?
My recent post on McCain inspired a heated email exchange as to whether or not these alleged missteps might reveal something important about McCain's character. It occurred to me, with some surprise, that the Obama supporter with whom I was debating actually thought that it was important to determine which of the two candidates was a finer human being. It's refreshing to be reminded that educated and intelligent people actually think Obama is a better grade of person than the usual politician.
I never did. I have a very low opinion of politicians as people. People who run for office are, well, the kind of people who crave power and fame more than almost anything else. These are not my favorite kinds of people. Now, I do think there are some extra-specially awful politicians (no, I name no names). But I don't think McCain is one of them. I disapprove of the man as a politician, but I'm not going to not vote for him merely because I think he cheats. My interlocutor argued that this shows that McCain thinks the rules apply to everyone but him. I would say that such a belief seems to be a prerequisite for running for office. Check, say, Al Gore's position on a) vouchers and b) sending his own children to private school.
I have other reasons not to vote for McCain, namely that I do not think I would like the policies he would put into place. I'm not sure I'd like the policies Obama put into place either, which is why I'm wavering between him and Bob Barr. But "playing the race card" or any of his other alleged sins won't enter into it. Politicians will do whatever they think will get them elected.
2) Given that the last couple years' weather and some near future forecasts have not gone the way global warming hypothesis supporters expected, what would it take for you to say, "I think I was wrong." Certainly the true believers will smoothly find another crusade without acknowledging what I believe (but am not totally sure) will turn out to be much ado about nothing, but what about you, Megan? Not that you should be there yet, but what would it take, assuming AGW is either wrong or just not a big deal, for you to change your mind?
Evidence that the planet isn't warming any more. So far, I haven't seen it.
Again, why is slight global warming a bad thing? It opens up a lot of northern tundra for farming!
I fail to see how opposing vouchers and sending your own kids to private school is hypocritical, or indicates a belief that you don't think the rules should apply to you.
Opposition to vouchers does not mean you think that everyone should have to attend public schools. It merely means you don't think subsidizing those folks who are wealthy enough to send their kids to private school is the best use of education dollars.
I think it's a said day for our country when a black man and his campaign can't ever claim that any statements have racial implications without being harangued for playing the "racism card". These days it's better to be perceived as having said something racist than to be perceived as having complained about racism.
Again, why is slight global warming a bad thing? It opens up a lot of northern tundra for farming!
There's no such thing as slight global warming; the climate is incredibly sensitive to small changes in overall temperature.
It indicates that you believe that the quality of public schools is good enough for every child but yours.
It merely means you don't think subsidizing those folks who are wealthy enough to send their kids to private school is the best use of education dollars.
Al Gore opposes voucher programs targeting the poor, not just the rich.
Evidence that the planet isn't warming any more. So far, I haven't seen it..
That makes no sense. You need baselines: at what time did we have normal temperature? is it land, sea or atmosphere that you measure? What is acceptable fluctuation off that baseline?
For example, I can accurately say that the average earth temperature has not warmed in 10 years and the troposphere has declined in temperature. Nor has the earth warmed compared to 700 years ago. So, you no longer believe in GW?
[Note to the apoplectic, of course I gamed the question, but the point is illustrate that Megan has not picked a rational target for her to change her mind.]
I'm never voting for President or Congress again, unless A)I think there is a chance the candidate will pursue policies I mostly agree with in an effective manner, and B) I think the candidate has a chance to win, or draw a large enough percentage of the vote to begin to supplant one of the two existing major parties. I don't expect to vote again for President, and only rarely for Congress.
Crusader,
Because the temperatures, sea levels, glacial activity, etc. of 12 years ago was the precise optimum level it "should" be over our planet's 5 billion year history.
And if that answer isn't good enough for you, answer #2 is that any changes in that optimum level will be too expensive so we have to spend a lot now in an attempt to deal with a problem that we will probably have to pay for later anyway.
The planet cooling isn't evidence of it not warming?
Evidence that the planet isn't warming any more. So far, I haven't seen it
The average global temperature has been dropping for several years now. In a literal sense, it isn't warming anymore.
It may be that the last few years of cooling are an anomaly in a warming trend that will continue into the future. But the question is, how many years will have to pass without a return to warming before you change your mind?
"These days it's better to be perceived as having said something racist than to be perceived as having complained about racism."
You may want to think that one over, Freddie. Famous people lose their jobs for the former; who was the last famous person who lost his job for complaining about racism, let alone for being "perceived to complain" about it? (I ask for famous people because I want instances we can discuss without special knowledge, not to bias the results. But I will entertain arguments that obscure people are often fired for complaining about racism.)
"I have a very low opinion of politicians as people."
Having met many of them, I have to say that I have exactly the opposite impression.
While its true that politicians tend to have more ambition than most people, I've found that their failings are rarely more dire or grand than the average person, and most of the narratives about their "true" character are based on cobbled together BS from all sides of the political spectrum. They live brutal daily lives and have their every utterance twisted and poured over with a scrutiny no one could endure.
I've also lost more and more respect over the years for those people who style themselves as jaded about politicians and politicians. That, as far as I'm concerned, is a stance of laziness: an easy out for what is actually a very complex reality.
People who run for office are, well, the kind of people who crave power and fame more than almost anything else.
Do you know of any evidence to support this statement? Personality studies maybe? I'm curious because this does not match my limited experience.
Megan,
I've always wondered what your position on the Electoral College is. That is to say, how do you feel regarding our current system of presidential elections - Do you feel it is anachronistic and misleading, and favor a national popular vote? Or do you feel that it is a safeguard of states' rights and against a tyranny of the majority?
"Evidence that the planet isn't warming any more. So far, I haven't seen it"
If that were to happen, would your position on the measures you advocate to control/prevent AGW change one iota? That's the real test of whether we're talking about a reasoned, scientific opinion or a religious belief.
Again, why is slight global warming a bad thing? It opens up a lot of northern tundra for farming!
Moving the temperate growing zone further towards the poles makes it substantially smaller. It's an inevitable consequence of the fact that we live on a sphere.
My impression is that the Global Warmists have already eliminated the possible interpretation in general. They repeatedly warn that any evidence of cooling trends are further confirmation of AGW.
The AGW hypothesis is thus unfalsifiable.
Chet, please see globe. Land is not distributed evenly over sphere.
Bad, I have no idea of whether, on average, a politician's failings are worse than other people's failings. However, I can say definitively that it is the politician who most frequently seeks to use the inherent violence of state power to force other people to submit to his will. Now, I'm no anarchist, so I recognize the need for the inherent violence of state power (no person is more silly than a non-anarchist who claims to be a pacifist, unless it is an anarchist who claims to be), and if there is going to be state power, it is best that it be exercised via elected politicians. Such people, however, should be frankly recognized for what they are, fallible humans who have worked extremely hard to gain control of the most powerful instrument of violence in human society, the state. Don't trust them. Don't even imagine trusting such people. Ever.
One revision; if we were to measure one failing, lying, in terms of the number of people lied to, the politician is certainly worse, on average, than other people, especially the politician who seeks office from an extremely large electorate. It is impossible to build a winning coalition from such a constituency without lying to huge numbers of people. The corrosive effect, on the liar's personality, of a long career built on lying to vast numbers of people, is sobering to think of, unless one presumes the liar started out as a sociopath, which is another sobering thought.
Freddie 4:32 PM: If I recall correctly, the racist complaint arose in the following context. McCain made a criticism of Obama’s position; Obama responded that ‘they’re going to criticize me for not looking like the presidents on the dollar bill.’ It went on further as you suggested. This exchange was something like the recent exchange where McCain said Obama had said the surge was wrong, had voted against funding it, now recognizes violence is down (implication: it succeeded) but still won’t recognize the error. Obama responded that ‘it’s improper to question his patriotism.’
In my practice experience ‘street’ logic or argument goes as follows:
I. ‘I like you and sure wouldn’t want to see aggression (which would be detrimental to you) happen.’
II. ‘My arguments a1, a2, a3 lead to my desired result b.’
III. ‘Not b will result in the aggression referred to above.’
IV. ‘So grant me b and we’ll allow that it was due to the "a" sequence of arguments above.’
This is the formal structure of what Obama has been telling us and McCain.
"Evidence that the planet isn't warming any more. So far, I haven't seen it"
Then I guess you aren't looking. There are plenty of climate change sites out there ... both pro and con AGW. Learn a little science and nose around. I won't be tedious enough to try and recite the evidence here, but there are LOTS of reasons to doubt AGW, and a few reasons to not be totally sure.
If you're going to spout off with an opinion about it, at least do us the courtesy of doing a little homework. Open your mind and apply some logic. It isn't a PR contest, despite what the MSM would like.
"Evidence that the planet isn't warming any more. So far, I haven't seen it."
There is some evidence that there hasn't been any warming for about the last decade. Is it true? Who knows!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/02/a_tale_of_two_thermometers/
Even assuming that AGW is a problem, there is not a single "solution" currently proposed which would have a "snowball's chance in hell" of solving the problem as defined.
The closest anyone has come to a "solution", to the best of my knowledge, is the IEA program to invest/spend ~$45 trillion by 2050 to half-"solve" the problem. Assuming that their half is the cheap, easy half, the "ultimate solution to the AGW problem" would probably require the expenditure of > $100 trillion. Even then, there is no guarantee that the "problem" would actually be "solved".
However, there is near certainty that global economic growth would be slowed for half a century or more. That is a rather expensive potential precaution!
Todd,
There is GISS "data" collected from a number of measuring stations. However, the plots in the article you linked are not based on "data". Rather, they are based on a number set which supposedly represents what the "data" could/should/would have looked like if it had been collected from properly sited and maintained measuring stations.
Arguably, places in the numbers which have been affected by the "corrections" necessary to "improve" the "data set" are no longer significant. On that basis, we haven't got a clue what global average temperatures have done, based on the material provided by GISS.
Investing/spending somewhere "north" of $100 trillion based on "massaged" numbers, which may or may not bear any real relationship to actual global average temperatures, seems rather foolhardy. But then, that's just me!
I think that Ms McArdle overlooked the "A" in "AGM" when she answered the question about global warming.
Certainly falsifying anthropocentric global warming is very difficult: even a long cooling trend could be dismissed as "it would be even colder without AGW."
If she did mean to answer the question without the "anthropogenic", then I support earlier commentators who note that the globe is not warming and I wonder how many decades of cooling are required before we agree that "global warming" is not currently taking place.
(As for me, I'm an astronomer. I'm looking at the current sunspot cycle and, with many other better-known astronomers, predicting continued cooling. Hopefully not another 'little ice age'.)
Freddie,
Of course there could be slight global warming. All one needs to do is look at consensus climate data from the past. The problem with AGW is that its effects are alleged not to be slight. The fear among some is that the IPCC underestimates the highly unpredictable feedback loops that might cause runaway effects and the counterargument from others is that the IPCC overestimates the same. Obviously it would suck to find out that the former were correct.
There is a problem with discussing an 'ideal' temperature the globe should be at. The main problem isn't what the actual temperture is. The main problem is that we don't want to have major climate shifts in so short a period that ecosystems, societies and especially agriculture cannot keep up.
I'm a meteorologist, so I have some idea what the issues are. There is definite evidence in the past 8-10 years that the average global temperature is not following projections. Does this mean that global warming is false? No...I think that there is not enough respect made to regional climate change, and short-term climate change (ie on a timescale of 30-50 years). It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if the planet actually remained the same temp, or cooled slightly over the next 20 years, but then suddenly ramps up after that. This is mainly due to a climate cycle in the North Pacific that is only beginning to be understood. That doesn't mean that the 100-year mean won't continue to climb though.
That said, I find a lot of the hyperbole about flooding, hurricanes, droughts, heat waves etc without evidence...ESPECIALLY if it's stated that we're already seeing changes due to global warming. Recent research has shown that the variation in weather isn't getting beyond noise. What DOES concern me though is the prospect of rapid melting of the icecaps, at least as far as Greenland and the ice shelfs of Antarctica go. The reason I'm concerned about this is that we just don't understand the processes of ice melting on that sort of scale. It's a known unknown. :-)
As to what would be evidence to me that the global warming hypothesis is false? If we see a shift in the North Pacific like we saw from 1977-2005 but don't see an increase in temp.
Will Allen writes: "Now, I'm no anarchist, so I recognize the need for the inherent violence of state power (no person is more silly than a non-anarchist who claims to be a pacifist, unless it is an anarchist who claims to be), and if there is going to be state power, it is best that it be exercised via elected politicians. Such people, however, should be frankly recognized for what they are, fallible humans who have worked extremely hard to gain control of the most powerful instrument of violence in human society, the state. Don't trust them. Don't even imagine trusting such people. Ever."
It's funny reading a comment like this from Will Allen, an unabashed supporter of Dumbya Bush's war on Iraq and torture. I can only guess that by "violence" he means the possibility of raising the marginal tax rates slightly, as opposed to obliterating thousands of people for no good reason.
Moe, I've always opposed the use of torture, and I've never once suggested that George W. Bush is to be trusted. You are lying once again, and are just too stupid to grasp that you are neck deep in the violent tyranny of every oil producing despotic regime. You're no better than the people who wore fine cotton clothing produced by the lash of American slavery, except, unlike those people, you aren't bright enough to grasp how you benefit from the tyranny, and thus you can't be bothered to come up with a rationale as to why those you participate in tyrannizing aren't really people. The whole topic just zooms right over your pointed little head.
Similarly, you have the sort of intellect which cannot grasp that every law produced by the state inherently contains the threat of violence, and your brain is in such a rut that you reflexively start jabbering about progressive tax rates. I bet you can only guess, since actually thinking is beyond your reach. Sheesh.
Can't you read? I said "Dumbya"! I win! End of discussion, chuckles!
Will Allen replies: "Similarly, you have the sort of intellect which cannot grasp that every law produced by the state inherently contains the threat of violence, and your brain is in such a rut that you reflexively start jabbering about progressive tax rates."
There's the threat of violence and then there's actual mass slaughter, chuckles. We'll have taxation regardless, and so a minor increase in taxation, backed though it be by power, is a much lesser matter of concern than is the actual murder of men, women, and children for your "Shock and Awe" amusement.
It's still incredible that you're pretending the Iraq War will somehow end tyranny in Iraq. You're a very funny boy, but not in an amusing way.
And stop saying you don't support torture. You voted for it.
In the same way you vote for slavery, moe. Wake up and acknowledge that you support the murder of any who won't submit to the pursuit of your material desires. You're just too stupid to grasp it.
It might be worth pointing out that global warming is actually not a particularly good way to describe a complex phenomenon. Also, it leads to caricatures by the scientifically illiterate on the grounds that 'it ain't warmer here, sir, nohow!". Climate change is more accurate and less open to misinterpretation.
Megan, I'm surprised to hear that a self-identified "libertarian" would consider voting for a Democratic president while there is a Democratic majority in the legislature. Don't you want government to do less? How will a torrent of bad bills getting green-lighted into law advance your cause?
I have libertarian leanings myself, leading me to prefer a divided government that doesn't manage to get much done, most of which will doubtlessly be for the worse. My vote for McCain will be for one reason and one reason only: the veto!
Moe's on the torture horse again. What a surprise.
ISTM that with respect to global warming there are at least 3 separate levels of belief:
1. The globe is warming
2. The cause is primarily man-made CO2
3. We can reverse global warming by reducing CO2 production.
#1 has strong evidence. The globe has had a warming trend for over 100 years, although there have been decades within that period when the globe cooled.
#2 is less certain than #1, because causation is very difficult to prove.
#3 is not believed by anyone who looks realistically at what the developing countries are doing. Man-made CO2 is going to continue to rise for at least several more decades, regardless of what the US does. So, even if man-made CO2 is causing global warming, we had better find some new, practical way to reduce the globe's temperature.
Will Allen replies: "In the same way you vote for slavery, moe. Wake up and acknowledge that you support the murder of any who won't submit to the pursuit of your material desires."
Again, untrue. If that were the case, I'd support the Iraq War, which was always a war for oil, no matter how much you and Dumbya and Cheney deny it.
John Mc snores: "Moe's on the torture horse again. What a surprise."
Sorry to bore you. Maybe you enjoy living in a torture state, but I don't. I'll get off that horse when torture is no longer official US policy.
I have nothing to add to this discussion. I just think that "Torture Horse" is a great screen name.
Why do you continue to?
Really, I mean you can live abroad and vote here, and your life would be better.
Skullberg quotes and writes: " Maybe you enjoy living in a torture state, but I don't.
Why do you continue to?
Really, I mean you can live abroad and vote here, and your life would be better."
My life is fine. I'll stick it out. The Age of Warmongering Cheapskates will end some day.
Besides, I live in Massachusetts. Most Repiglicans think it's already a foreign country.
Moe, what do you suppose happens to a Persian Gulf slave, whose lot in life is supposed to be, according to your desires, to suffer silently as the stuff that keeps you comfortable gets extracted, if the slave decides that he or she will resist the despots that you pay? Do you suppose they are offered sweet tea? They are killed or, yes, tortured, you moral titan, all to keep you warm and comfortable. You simply lack even a molecule of the honesty required to admit it, so desperate you are to preen. Your entire world view, or more accurately, willed blindness, is constructed around a desperate desire to be morally self-congratulatory. You are too pathetic for words.
Also, liar, you have lied again by attributing to me any belief as to what I think this war is "for", if that means I have any opinion as to why the Bush Administration took the actions they did. I have no opinion as to what motivated the Bush Administration.
Will Allen replies: "Moe, what do you suppose happens to a Persian Gulf slave, whose lot in life is supposed to be, according to your desires, to suffer silently as the stuff that keeps you comfortable gets extracted, if the slave decides that he or she will resist the despots that you pay? Do you suppose they are offered sweet tea? They are killed or, yes, tortured, you moral titan, all to keep you warm and comfortable. You simply lack even a molecule of the honesty required to admit it, so desperate you are to preen."
What is it that I don't admit, chuckles? That oil-producing countries that are run by despots aren't big on human rights? Well, NO SHIT.
That's why I don't refer to "our friends the Saudis," among other things.
Your solution was to support the sham war on Iraq. Mine is that we should develop non-petroleum based fuel sources, something that will never happen under oil company lackeys like Dumbya and Cheney. It may not happen under anyone else, either, but it's 100 % certain it won't happen under your guys. (And stop pretending you're not a lickspittle for the GOP.)
"Also, liar, you have lied again by attributing to me any belief as to what I think this war is "for", if that means I have any opinion as to why the Bush Administration took the actions they did. I have no opinion as to what motivated the Bush Administration."
If you think they acted for any reason other than concern over the oil much supply I say you're nuts. But I don't care what your opinion is on that or any other subject. You paleocons are small potatoes.
What you don't admit, idiot, is that you fully support enslaving millions to keep you comfortable, while yammering about some future when you won't be paying the despots. Meanwhile, you pretend to give a damn about the people you wish to enslave for your comfort. You're a complete, solid-gold, phony.
You are also so indescribably idiotic as to think the Bush Administration matters, by still yammering stupidly about it. It doesn't, and hasn't for nearly two years.
By the way, lackwit, the Saudis really are your friends, or at least one of your strongest allies in being opposed to the removal from power of the Iraqi Baathists. Congratulations, you really know how to pick'em. You just observe what side your bread is buttered on! Yes, yes, I know....., there will come a day when you won't pay them anymore!
Neigh
@Megan - how can you call yourself a small l libertarian, and even consider voting for Obama? He is more liberal than John Kerry or Ted Kennedy. If you read 'Dreams from my father' you would know that he is a borderline socialist. McCain is not a libertarian, and is not a consistent conservative, but he is the only choice for anyone that calls themselves a libertarian in this election cycle.
P.S. a Libertarian is a conservative with too many liberal friends :o)
Neigh
Will Allen replies: "What you don't admit, idiot, is that you fully support enslaving millions to keep you comfortable, while yammering about some future when you won't be paying the despots. Meanwhile, you pretend to give a damn about the people you wish to enslave for your comfort. You're a complete, solid-gold, phony."
So what exactly am I supposed to do in order to "free" those millions, hammerhead? You were stupid enough to support the Iraq invasion, which never had a shred of a hope of doing anything along those lines. What's your next bright idea, Sherlock?
The North Koreans have it even worse, so I suppose you want to invade that country, too? Wait, I don't mean YOU, personally, I mean you want OTHER people to die there.
You're a fool with a death wish for untold millions of others and that's all you are. You're a complete solid-gold wackaloon warmonger.
McCain's never seen a potential war he didn't like. You and your ilk will vote for him and FOUR MORE WARS - the ultimate extension of the Bushpig legacy.
Keep paying the slave-masters, Moe. Your comfort depends on it, and really, that's the most important thing! Besides making yourslf feel good, by attributing the worst motives to others, of course! Really, anyone who disagrees with you just likes killing foreigners! Really!
In case your titanic intellect hasn't grasped it yet, my point is that people with an ounce of intellectual honesty can acknowledge that when the trade-off is between participating in the tyrannization of tens of millions, in order to effect resource extraction, for at least several more decades, and supporting actions which violently destabilize that paradigm, all the choices are really, really, crappy. Nobody has a crystal ball which guarantees the ability to predict which path will provide for less suffering overall. My estimate is that sticking with the paradigm which has existed since oil was discovered in the region is going to lead to far worse suffering than what has been case in the last five years in Iraq.
You are so monumentally dumb as to think you can see into the future, and thus know that the existing paradigm is manageable enough for several more decades to allow for less suffering than what has occurred in Iraq over the last five years. You could be right, meaning that your views are sensibly conservative. However, you very well could be entirely wrong, meaning that you are just a slow-witted reactionary.
What leads me to believe that you are the latter is the fact that you really seem to think that you have cornered the market on sooth-saying and mind-reading, thus causing you, repeatedly, to participate in this forum, with nothing more than fevered ranting about what you imagine is going through the minds of others. You lie repeatedly. You relate everything, so pathetic is your obsession, to a politician who will be forever retired in about five months. Your tribalism runs so deep that you obviously project that quality onto others, yammering stupidly about things about which know extremely little. You are an exact replica of that which you presume to denounce.
By the way, you cretin, read the thread. I've already stated I'm not voing for President. You see, unlike you, I don't define myself by my relationship with the two predominant tribes.
Will Allen voted for the Bushpigs in 2000 and 2004. He continues to support the bizarre misadventure in Iraq. It's nice that he has some sense that his past actions amount to support for war crimes, but it's beyond pathetic that he now claims that anyone who opposed such evil now actually is just as evil and stupid as he was/is.
You voted for torture, Will. Admit it and take your beating like the proud neocon you are.
While I'm at it - Will Allen voted for and supports a president who holds hands with and kisses Saudi Arabia's Abdullah in public. For Will Allen to pretend that he supports ANY reform in the Middle East is a complete joke. He has his lips firmly attached to the Bush family tailpipe and he loves GOP exhaust.
It's refreshing to see Moe mention "Bush's war on Iraq and torture". I don't recall the last time a leftie acknowledged that Bush has shut down all of Saddam Hussein's torture chambers and most of those established by al Qaeda in Iraq, Moqtada al-Sadr, and various other brutal thugs. Calling his liberation of Iraq a "war on Iraq" is a bit misleading, but calling it a "war on torture" is exactly right. Perhaps Moe is starting to grow a brain, and a conscience.
Megan,
You threw open the doors to suggests yesterday. I have one question on which I'd like to hear your thoughts. Should Moe be banned from posting about torture? The torture horse is dead by now, tortured to death, I might add, by Moe himself. There is rarely a thread here that Moe doesn't somehow turn in to a forum about his favortite two topics -- himself, and torture. His monotony and predictability add nothing to the discourse here, and in fact, constitutue a form of torture for the rest of us. The IRONY! The man who hates torture is himself the torturer!
He always manages to get under someone's skin, and I'm sorry to see Will, whose comments I always enjoy, take the bait this time.
But it's BORING. If Moe wants to bang on his pots like Ruprecht the Monkey Boy in "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" then I say let him get his own blog.
So you DO enjoy living in a torture state...
Global surface temperatures are cooler because of El Nino (or La Nina, I forget which it's called). Colder, deeper waters come closer to the surface, causing a cooling effect.
Average surface temperature just measures temperatures at the surface (duh), and does not average in temperature from different water depths. Presumably, some of the deeper water is now somewhat warmer than it used to be.
This phenomenon is well-known and does not mean there is no global warming. Comparisons with temperatures in past El Nino cycles would help clarify if temperatures are actually above or below average El Nino temperatures.
Will Allen:
Although this argument has merit, where it comes apart for me as an analytical proposition is at the verb "to lie." People seem to toss the term around too lightly in political debates, and especially when talking about politicians.
It would be more helpful if there were a threshold for accusing someone of lying. For me, the minimum would have to be when someone intentionally tells someone something as a statement of knowable fact that the teller knows to be untrue. So there has to be some knowledge about what is undisputed truth.
A statement of a person's own subjective impression can only be considered a lie if the teller does not actually believe what he says. In this case, the "lie" cannot be proven, so the accusation is nearly worthless.
Politicians certainly are capable of lying and they might find lying useful to obscure what they know to be true in order to gain support. So are the rest of us non-politicians. But it only seems useful to me to speak about someone having lied if the issue at hand is a knowable and indisputable fact.
The proliferation of accusations of lying rather stifle sincere, good-faith debate.
Moe, as much as you like to lie about it, you are the one who has chosen to closely ally yourself with the House of Saud's policy with regard to Baathist rule of Iraq. Congratulations, ya' ol' Saudi-lover, you!
MarkG, if you don't believe that the politician seeking election from a large electorate, does not, on average, lie to more people about what actions he intends to take in the future, more than other citizens typically do, even by your definition of "to lie", well, I shudder to think about the company you must be keeping.
Given that the last couple years' weather and some near future forecasts have not gone the way global warming hypothesis supporters expected,
Where did this commenter think get this "given"? Seems to me she stole it. Where I'm sitting, I see 130 flooding deaths over the past 10 days in northern Vietnam and the Mekong rice fields getting too salty to farm due to rising sea levels.
As was alluded to previously, it's also worth noting that we're in a long solar min period. There's a warm/cold cycle strongly correlated to the 11-yr solar cycle.
Besides, I live in Massachusetts. Most Repiglicans think it's already a foreign country.
Based on the behavior of its drivers I'd say it is a foreign country, probably European. I'm thinking it's most likely the outermost province of Italy.
Will, I find that there's little room for discussion once accusation of lying are let fly. There are gradations that deserve distinction: flawed argumentation, incorrect assumptions, insincerity, bad-faith argument, obfuscation, broken agreements, etc.
We're molded by our personal experiences, and I've had the personal pleasure of getting into arguments in which I was accused of lying over a difference of opinion. I eventually learned to respond to such an accusation with complete indifference: If my interlocutor thinks I'm lying then there's nothing I can do about that, and so I just don't care whether the other fella thinks I'm lying or not.
But debate and discussion are impossible and worthless if you believe your opposite is untrustworthy.
MarkG, that is why I hardly ever listen to speeches given by major politicians, nor would I ever have any interest in having a conversation with one. On an objective basis, people who choose such a career are by professional necessity forced to be deliberately untruthful, to vast numbers of people, regarding what they intend to do once they are elected. Why bother listening, or having a conversation, with such a person?
People who run for office are, well, the kind of people who crave power and fame more than almost anything else.
Incidentally, this isn't really true. People who run for office are often people who find through the course of their early adult life that other people expect them, due to certain character traits, to assume a leadership role.
I am skeptical of the claim that politicians lie or break promises more often than businessmen, cable repairmen, or journalists. The great difference is that the statements of politicians are made in public. An easy contempt for politicians is a near step away from an easy contempt for politics, which is the way democracy dies.
brooksfoe, please explain how a cable repairman would even have the opportunity to lie to tens of millions of people. After that, we can begin exploring the different incentive structures for lying that are presented to the typical national politician and the typical cable repairman.
Some businessmen have the opportunity to lie on the scale of a national politician, but the feedback loops are very, very, different. Large scale journalism kind of occupies a strange middle ground between the politician and the businessman.
Will, politicians are trying to sell us something -- a policy or some vague aspiration. Politicians are salesmen, and as such they stretch their arguments in attempt to make the sale.
Now, I'm all for skepticism. But I'm also open to hearing the sales pitch and taking it into consideration: What parts are verifiable? What bits are exaggerated? What aspirational goals do I share? What compromises would I be willing to entertain to achieve those aspirations?
That's why I bother to listen to and converse with political salesmen, as I would with any other salesmen.
MarkG, if the salesman I dealt with had the power to legally imprison or kill me, I wouldn't have anything to do with them.
More seriously, look, politicians are necessary. So are a lot of unpleasant people. Just because they are necessary doesn't mean we have to avoid the reality that they have a very strong incentive, in fact a professional necessity, at least with politicians who are seeking votes from a very large and complex electorate, to deliberately promise things which they have no intention on following through on. I don't know about you, but when I encounter a salesman doing this to me, I no longer communicate with them.
Will, it pretty obviously doesn't make sense to calculate someone's sliminess based on the number of people who are witness to that sliminess. Plenty of people are perfectly odious despite having quite small circles of acquaintances -- indeed, odious people probably tend in general to have more limited relations. I recently had a computer repairman who, having tried to fix my wife's laptop and instead screwing it up even worse, disappeared and became unfindable. This person will never get the chance to lie to millions of people because he can't even deliver on a promise to five. Few people become successful politicians despite being lazy, incompetent, or unreliable. The ones who do tend to have been thrust into the spotlight by having a famous last name, or through celebrity due to some completely unrelated media exposure -- sports, movies, battlefield exploits, etc.
brooksfoe, I didn't write that national politicians have their lies witnessed by more people. I wrote that they lie to more people. They do. Some do it more skillfully than others.
Will: let me make this clear. If OJ had not been a celebrity and there had been just 50 people and no media at his trial, his promise to devote his life to tracking down the real killer would have been no less disgusting. George Bush is not a worse person than a mediocre, unqualified, ineffective CEO of a small-to-medium-sized business, and he is not a bigger liar because the lies he's told have been to the entire American people rather than to a small customer base. He's not a uniquely terrible person; he's just a uniquely terrible President of the United States.
"It's refreshing to see Moe mention "Bush's war on Iraq and torture". I don't recall the last time a leftie acknowledged that Bush has shut down all of Saddam Hussein's torture chambers and most of those established by al Qaeda in Iraq, Moqtada al-Sadr, and various other brutal thugs. Calling his liberation of Iraq a "war on Iraq" is a bit misleading, but calling it a "war on torture" is exactly right. Perhaps Moe is starting to grow a brain, and a conscience."
Of course he closed down some old torture chambers. He needed the space so he could open his own.
And of course the puppet government of the "sovereign state of Iraq" (hah!) is now torturing people all on its own.
Ain't it sweet? The puppet wants to be a real Bush-boy.
John Mc writes: "Should Moe be banned from posting about torture? The torture horse is dead by now, tortured to death, I might add, by Moe himself. There is rarely a thread here that Moe doesn't somehow turn in to a forum about his favortite two topics -- himself, and torture. His monotony and predictability add nothing to the discourse here, and in fact, constitutue a form of torture for the rest of us. The IRONY! The man who hates torture is himself the torturer!
He always manages to get under someone's skin, and I'm sorry to see Will, whose comments I always enjoy, take the bait this time."
I'm glad you're enjoying yourself, Johnny. Sweep the leg!
fallible humans who have worked extremely hard to gain control of the most powerful instrument of violence in human society, the state.
I thought those people were called "lobbyists".
brooksfoe writes: "George Bush is not a worse person than a mediocre, unqualified, ineffective CEO of a small-to-medium-sized business, and he is not a bigger liar because the lies he's told have been to the entire American people rather than to a small customer base. He's not a uniquely terrible person; he's just a uniquely terrible President of the United States."
I'd say he's a worse person than any minor CEOs, though perhaps on the same level of scumbaggery as an Exxon or Halliburton CEO.
That one's for you, Johnny Mc!
Ah yes, I thought I smelled horse. Moe just rode in on his sorry-ass nag.
MoeLarryAndJesus - something that will never happen under oil company lackeys like Dumbya and Cheney.
You know, this "Republicans are oil company lackeys" narrative never quite checked out for me. Nuclear power is, by far, the most effective alternative source of power. It can replace coal, and could be a stepping stone to the creation of biofuels. With nuclear power, farms wouldn't take .9 gallons of oil to make 1 gallon of biofuel since farm equipment could run on electric power.
If I was a lackey of an oil company, I'd be screaming left and right about how dangerous nuclear power was, how we needed to tack on so many regulations to make it "safe" (with the effect being that the technology would become too expensive to be of any use.)
Instead, we get that kind of garbage from Democrats, year in and year out, since Carter.
MoeLarryAndJesus - something that will never happen under oil company lackeys like Dumbya and Cheney.
You know, this "Republicans are oil company lackeys" narrative never quite checked out for me. Nuclear power is, by far, the most effective alternative source of power. It can replace coal, and could be a stepping stone to the creation of biofuels. With nuclear power, farms wouldn't take .9 gallons of oil to make 1 gallon of biofuel since farm equipment could run on electric power.
If I was a lackey of an oil company, I'd be screaming left and right about how dangerous nuclear power was, how we needed to tack on so many regulations to make it "safe" (with the effect being that the technology would become too expensive to be of any use.)
Instead, we get that kind of garbage from Democrats, year in and year out, since Carter.
Ryan W writes: "You know, this "Republicans are oil company lackeys" narrative never quite checked out for me. Nuclear power is, by far, the most effective alternative source of power. It can replace coal, and could be a stepping stone to the creation of biofuels. With nuclear power, farms wouldn't take .9 gallons of oil to make 1 gallon of biofuel since farm equipment could run on electric power.
If I was a lackey of an oil company, I'd be screaming left and right about how dangerous nuclear power was, how we needed to tack on so many regulations to make it "safe" (with the effect being that the technology would become too expensive to be of any use.)
Instead, we get that kind of garbage from Democrats, year in and year out, since Carter. "
Um, yeah... that's why when the Repiglicans had complete control of the government they did everything they could to get nuclear energy rolling again.
What? They didn't?
If folks actually looked at historical oil prices they would see that:
1. Oil prices collapsed during the republican reagan presidency
2. They stayed collapsed under the republican bush one presidency.
3. Petroleum prices increased under Bush 2. This increase is pretty closely correlated with increase in demand and geo political risk in almost every oil producing region.
4. In spite of the run up in petroleum prices the oil companies profit margin has not substantially increased. Most of the increase in revenue has been eaten up by higher costs for materials, and labor.
The number of people who aren't aware of or choose to ignore that set of facts is depressingly large.
Regarding AGW one needs to be exceedingly cautious implementing policies that attempt to reduce carbon output.
The vast and broad nature of carbon generating activities makes policies in this area horrendously susceptible to counterproductive rent seeking.
Furthermore, the complex nature of the problem combined with the technical ignorance of many of the advocates on the issue combine to provide abundant opportunities for rent seeking entities to:
1. Use advocacy groups to help enact policies
2. That increase carbon emissions instead of decreasing them.
ADM and the environmental communities support for ethanol mandates is a very good example of this risk.
TJIT writes: "In spite of the run up in petroleum prices the oil companies profit margin has not substantially increased. Most of the increase in revenue has been eaten up by higher costs for materials, and labor.
The number of people who aren't aware of or choose to ignore that set of facts is depressingly large."
In the interest of intellectual honesty, what has happened with the compensation of oil company executives over the past couple of years?
Has that "substantially increased"?
Evidence that the world is no longer warming? The issue has gone past that point; what used to be a rough consensus is now a matter of considerable disagreement among scientists in the business. See, for instance, both sides of the discussion on Wikipedia; there are literally hundreds of professional climatologists who doubt various parts of the standard model. By now, many of the experts say that we don't have reliable data to start with. Evidence that the earth is no longer warming? We now need to check the evidence that it has been.
Scientific consensus is not the same thing as in politics. A theory is accepted when none of the major players in the field doubt the basic outlines of the theory any more. Global warming no longer fits the bill, regardless of whether 30% or 75% of scientists believes in it.
What should we do? In such a situation, we need to spend more money to study the issue, before we try to solve it. Let's spend the next decade trying to get some reliable data and working models, without preconceived notions. Taking severe actions based on what we now know to be poor understanding is a really bad idea. Some scientists now think there's a bigger chance of global cooling than global warming! And that would would be a whole lot worse. Maybe we need to be increasing our CO2 production. We should find out first.
This link neatly summarizes some of the disastrous consequences of rent seeking related to global warming.
One of the more interesting (and cautionary) consequences is the fact that policies enacted to decrease carbon emissions actually massively increased carbon emissions.
Unintended Consequences ,the Politics of Biofuels
How exactly can a real libertarian ever support this current Republican party? Isn't that something like a free-market communist or a black white supremest?
Hmm, let's see: 2008 is same temp as 1998. Press reports that, for various reasons, we expect the world temp not to increase over the next ten years.
What part of that doesn't equal "world not warming"?