No Oil for Pacifists:
Aristotle-to-Ricardo-to-Hayek turn the double play way better than Plato-to-Rousseau-to-Rawls
I've been skeptical about , and especially about claims by
that Spain's experience shows that
(Carbon cuts further reduce employment, .)Don't trust NOfP, or ?
Well would you prefer ?:
Half the solar power installed globally in 2008 was installed in Spain. . . [A]s low-quality, poorly designed solar plants sprang up on Spain’s plateaus, Spanish officials came to realize that they would have to subsidize many of them indefinitely, and that the industry they had created might never produce efficient green energy on its own.In September the government abruptly changed course, cutting payments and capping solar construction. [The] brief boom turned bust. Factories and stores shut, thousands of workers lost jobs, foreign companies and banks abandoned contracts that had already been negotiated.[The] wrenching fall points to the delicate policy calculations needed to stimulate nascent solar industries and create green jobs, and might serve as a cautionary tale for the United States, where a similar exercise is now under way. . .In 2008 the nation connected 2.5 gigawatts of solar power into its grid, more than quintupling its previous capacity and making it second to Germany, the world leader. But many of the hastily opened plants offered no hope of being cost-competitive with conventional power, being poorly designed or located where sunshine was inadequate, for example. . .In its haste to create a solar industry, Spain made some miscalculations: solar plants can be set up so quickly and easily that the rush into the industry was much faster than anticipated. And the lavish subsidies inflated Spanish solar installation costs at a time when they were rapidly decreasing elsewhere -- in part because of increasing competition from panel makers in China, but also because higher volumes produced economies of scale.See also :
[G]reen jobs have become the ginseng of progressive politics: a sort of broad-spectrum snake oil that cures whatever happens to ail you.
They are the antidote to economic malaise, an underskilled labor force, the inherent unwillingness of the public to suffer any significant economic and personal dislocation in order to save the environment.
They enhance nationalistic vigor. (If we don't act now, the Chinese will steal all of our green jobs!)
They stave off aging of stale political platforms.
And I'm pretty sure they're good for bunions, too.Obviously it is true that if we subsidize various environmental activities, this will create jobs for some people.
Unfortunately, it will also destroy jobs for other people--people who make the things that would otherwise have been purchased with tax dollars.
They may partially offset the economic losses of switching off a very efficient, cheap, high density energy source.
They will also, hopefully, give us cleaner, cooler air to breathe.
But they do not represent a net improvement in either GDP or the unemployment rate.
They represent a loss.But they're green!
And green is such a pretty color.
Also, everyone loves frogs.
So who could possibly be against my green jobs except some cranky libertarian?At best, .
At worst--well, remember .
On March 1st,
appeared before the British House of Commons Science and Technology Committee and, :
He admitted withholding data about global temperatures but said the information was publicly available from American websites.And he claimed it was not 'standard practice' to release data and computer models so other scientists could check and challenge research.In contrast to Jones,
sees science properly, :
The CRU e-mails as published on the internet provide prima facie evidence of determined and co-ordinated refusals to comply with honourable scientific traditions and freedom of information law. The principle that scientists should be willing to expose their ideas and results to independent testing and replication by others, which requires the open exchange of data, procedures and materials, is vital. The lack of compliance has been confirmed by the findings of the Information Commissioner. This extends well beyond the CRU itself - most of the e-mails were exchanged with researchers in a number of other international institutions who are also involved in the formulation of the IPCC's conclusions on climate change. . .The e-mails reveal doubts as to the reliability of some of the reconstructions and raise questions as to the way in which they h for example, the apparent suppression, in graphics widely used by the IPCC, of proxy results for recent decades that do not agree with contemporary instrumental temperature measurements.There is also reason for concern at the intolerance to challenge displayed in the e-mails. This impedes the process of scientific 'self correction', which is vital to the integrity of the scientific process as a whole, and not just to the research itself. In that context, those CRU e-mails relating to the peer-review process suggest a need for a review of its adequacy and objectivity as practised in this field and its potential vulnerability to bias or manipulation.BTW, the
is "a scientific charity devoted to increasing the practice, understanding and application of physics . . . [with] a worldwide membership of over 36,000."
Notwithstanding Climategate, it .
See also .(via , )
On Tuesday, : source:
Patrick Caddell and Douglas Schoen -- pollsters for Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, respectively -- combine on :
Bluntly put, this is the political reality:First, the battle for public opinion has been lost. Comprehensive health care has been lost. If it fails, as appears possible, Democrats will face the brunt of the electorate's reaction. If it passes, however, Democrats will face a far greater calamitous reaction at the polls. Wishing, praying or pretending will not change these outcomes.Nothing has been more disconcerting than to watch Democratic politicians and their media supporters deceive themselves into believing that the public favors the Democrats' current health-care plan. Yes, most Americans believe, as we do, that real health-care reform is needed. And yes, certain proposals in the plan are supported by the public.However, a solid majority of Americans opposes the massive health-reform plan. , while only half of those who support the plan do so strongly. Many more Americans believe the legislation will worsen their health care, cost them more personally and add significantly to the national deficit. Never in our experience as pollsters can we recall such self-deluding misconstruction of survey data.The
arguing that reform is becoming more popular is in large part fighting the last war. This isn't 1994; it's 2010. And the bottom line is that the American public is overwhelmingly against this bill in its totality even if they like some of its parts.The notion that once enactment is forced, the public will suddenly embrace health-care reform could not be further from the truth -- and is likely to become a rallying cry for disaffected Republicans, independents and, yes, Democrats.Second, the country is moving away from big government, with distrust growing more generally toward the role of government in our lives. Scott Rasmussen asked last month whose decisions people feared more in health care: that of the federal government or of insurance companies. . This is astounding given the generally negative perception of insurance companies.CNN found last month that . When only , as was also reported last month, we face an alarming crisis.Health care is no longer a debate about the merits of specific initiatives. Since the spectacle of Christmas dealmaking to ensure passage of the Senate bill, the issue, in voters' minds, has become less about health care than about the government and a political majority that will neither hear nor heed the will of the people.Voters are hardly enthralled with the GOP, but the Democrats are pursuing policies that are out of step with the way ordinary Americans think and feel about politics and government. Barring some change of approach, they will be punished severely at the polls.--and I still think .(via reader Doug J.)
Sell your islands, you bankrupt Greeks -- and the Acropolis too! (Verkauft doch eure Inseln, ihr Pleite-Griechen . . . und die Akropolis gleich mit!)The , a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union party, :
A bankrupt must use everything he has to raise money -- to satisfy creditors.
Greece owns buildings, companies and several uninhabited islands, which can now be used to repay debt.As : The Germans are fed up with paying the bills of everybody in Europe, they don't want to bail out the feckless Greeks with their flagrantly inaccurate official statistics, they resent being Europe's banker of last resort, they object to the universal demand that they plug the vast holes in the Greek deficit in the name of "European unity" -- and for the first time in a long time they are saying this out loud. . .The euro -- the continental currency that has been rendered wobbly by Greece's national debt -- was created to help the single European market compete with the United States. But political feelings run deeper than economic needs, and without that fundamental German urge to sacrifice national sovereignty, the whole thing will fall apart.As always, see , including in
blame NOfP for the language translations.)
Liberal New York Times columnist .
Was he reading , specifically ?:
According to [the Inner Mongolia Electric Power Industry Association] EPIA, Inner Mongolia's installed wind power capacity approaches 3.5 gigawatts, and currently nearly one-third of that is sitting idle. The remaining two-thirds capacity is supplied by turbines that run erratically, shutting off and on according to demand."Wind power is too concentrated" in certain regions of China including Inner Mongolia, Ma said. "When there is wind, wind power plants need to generate electricity. But power grids get overwhelmed."And that wastes money. Nationwide, some 5 million gigawatts of wind power generating capacity never made it to the grid during the first half of 2009. Since wind farm construction costs some 10,000 yuan per kilowatt, the total idle investment is worth about 50 billion yuan [=$7.3 billion]."The winter wind blows hard, but things aren't easy for wind power," Ma told Caijing.Outside Inner Mongolia, wind power capacity is unevenly spread across sections of Gansu Province in the northwest, Heilongjiang and Jilin provinces in the northeast, and coastal areas such as Jiangsu Province.With the exception of Jiangsu wind farms, most of the nation's wind energy operators concentrate power generation at a grid terminus or in areas with high concentrations of thermal plant capacity. And factors such as local market demand, power grid links, wind farm expansions and capacity peaks contribute to the fact that equivalent full load hours (EFLH) are relatively rare for wind farms.Unsurprisingly, the shortcomings of Chinese windmills
).(via reader OBH via , )
House Speaker :
[W]e have to pass the [healthcare reform] bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy.
(MEMRI transcription and translation):
Storyteller: "Once upon a time, when the bullets were flying all over the village, and the Zionist gangs were destroying everything, invading cities and villages, killing the young and the elderly, Muhammad and the guys were hiding. There was a heavy exchange of fire. Between whom? Between people wearing masks – nobody knew who they were - and the accursed Zionists. One side was shooting at the other, and the whole village was ablaze."Everybody was afraid, and people were yelling: 'Stop! The house of the mukhtar [NOfP note:
] is on fire!' Everybody started screaming and crying, and the men didn't know what to do."After a few moments, a group of masked men came down from the roof of the house of the mukhtar. Two of them opened the back door, which led to the garden, and they took the women, the children, and the elderly out. Two other masked men continued shooting at the Jews through the window."Everyone started running under the cover of those masked men, until they reached Sheik Nuh in the mosque. What did they see there? They saw Sheik Nuh giving guns to the masked men, saying to them: 'Allah be with you, men! Defend your country and your honor! Don't let any Jew be happy! Attack them, men!'"Muhammad saw his friend Isma'il among the men. Isma'il was as happy as if it was his wedding night. He held the gun firmly -- a beautiful new gun. Muhammad approached him and said: 'I see that you are happy, Isma'il.' 'Of course I am. Let's show those lowlifes what heroes we are. Let's go, Muhammad!'"Child: "Did Muhammad know how to use a gun?"Storyteller: "My dear children, there is not a single Palestinian village or city whose people do not know how to use a gun. Why? Because they have suckled this with their mother's milk.Video .Given
starting , and
the brainwashing of children , is peace possible in the near term?(via reader Ken R.)
The Washington Post: :
If the Republicans pushing against the filibuster love majority rule so much, they should propose getting rid of the Senate altogether. But doing so would mean acknowledging what's really going on here: regime change disguised as a narrow rules fight. We could choose to institute a British-style parliamentary system in which majorities get almost everything they want. But advocates of such a radical departure should be honest enough to propose amending the Constitution first.:
[T]he Founders said nothing in the Constitution about the filibuster, let alone "reconciliation." Judging from what they put in the actual document, the Founders would be appalled at the idea that every major bill should need the votes of three-fifths of the Senate to pass.The New York Times::
The battle is asymmetric, in the sense that scientists feel compelled to support their findings with careful observation and replicable analysis, while their critics are free to make sweeping statements condemning their work as fraudulent.:
For months, climate scientists have taken a vicious beating in the media and on the Internet, accused of hiding data, covering up errors and suppressing alternate views. Their response until now has been largely to assert the legitimacy of the vast body of climate science and to mock their critics as cranks and know-nothings.Not like this
in the .(via , )
If increasing the government's role in healthcare
to , why has Medicare and Medicaid spending grown faster than private insurance premiums?
NOfP chart via Yes, I know that the recession .
But the fact remains that current government-funded health insurance programs are
and , while
of excessive private insurer profits--more than
than . With , why do liberals lobby for larger government?
And, as for government paying for health care,
I'm out of the blogging will be light for a few days.
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