December 10, 2009
Russia does it again, to NATO’s benefit
Sometimes, the Russian approach to diplomacy results in exactly the opposite to the intended outcome:
In the 1990s, when enlarging NATO to take in the ex-communist countries still seemed perilous and impractical, help came from an unexpected source. Yevgeny Primakov, a steely old Soviet spook who became first head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, then foreign minister and even, briefly, prime minister, liked to say that it would be “impermissible” for the alliance to admit ex-communist states.
His remarks, and others in similar vein by leading Russian politicians, proved counterproductive. The more the Kremlin huffed and puffed about ex-captive nations deciding their own future, the harder it became to dismiss those countries’ fears: if your neighbour terms it “impermissible” for you to install a burglar alarm, people will start taking your security worries seriously. Some wags even suggested that a “Primakov prize” be established to mark the boost he had given to the cause.
But the lesson apparently was not learned:
Instead, Russia is adopting the opposite course. It habitually violates Baltic airspace. It maintains a vocal propaganda offensive (such as a report being launched in Brussels this week by a Russian-backed think-tank, which criticises Baltic language and citizenship laws). This autumn, it scandalised NATO opinion by running two big military exercises, without foreign observers, based on highly threatening scenarios (culminating in a Strategic Rocket Forces drill in which Russia “nuked” Poland). The exercises demonstrated weakness and incompetence, as well as force of numbers and nasty thinking. But they made life hard for peacemongers and strengthened the arguments of NATO hawks and the twitchy eastern Europeans.
At this rate, we’ll all think of a place when we hear the name “Darwin”
It’s a long article, but well worth reading in full:
People keep saying “Yes, the Climategate scientists behaved badly. But that doesn’t mean the data is bad. That doesn’t mean the earth is not warming.”
Let me start with the second objection first. The earth has generally been warming since the Little Ice Age, around 1650. There is general agreement that the earth has warmed since then. See e.g. Akasofu. Climategate doesn’t affect that.
The second question, the integrity of the data, is different. People say “Yes, they destroyed emails, and hid from Freedom of information Acts, and messed with proxies, and fought to keep other scientists’ papers out of the journals . . . but that doesn’t affect the data, the data is still good.” Which sounds reasonable.
There are three main global temperature datasets. One is at the CRU, Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia, where we’ve been trying to get access to the raw numbers. One is at NOAA/GHCN, the Global Historical Climate Network. The final one is at NASA/GISS, the Goddard Institute for Space Studies. The three groups take raw data, and they “homogenize” it to remove things like when a station was moved to a warmer location and there’s a 2C jump in the temperature. The three global temperature records are usually called CRU, GISS, and GHCN. Both GISS and CRU, however, get almost all of their raw data from GHCN. All three produce very similar global historical temperature records from the raw data.
[. . .]
Yikes again, double yikes! What on earth justifies that adjustment? How can they do that? We have five different records covering Darwin from 1941 on. They all agree almost exactly. Why adjust them at all? They’ve just added a huge artificial totally imaginary trend to the last half of the raw data! Now it looks like the IPCC diagram in Figure 1, all right … but a six degree per century trend? And in the shape of a regular stepped pyramid climbing to heaven? What’s up with that?
Those, dear friends, are the clumsy fingerprints of someone messing with the data Egyptian style . . . they are indisputable evidence that the “homogenized” data has been changed to fit someone’s preconceptions about whether the earth is warming.
One thing is clear from this. People who say that “Climategate was only about scientists behaving badly, but the data is OK” are wrong. At least one part of the data is bad, too. The Smoking Gun for that statement is at Darwin Zero.
I’m in no way qualified to pass judgement on any of this. My bias is usually to trust that the scientist has no pre-decided outcome in mind . . . and that they verify their data supports the conclusions before publishing. Climategate/Climaquiddick shows that, at least in one field, this is not true.
Normally, this sort of science-by-press-release is quickly exposed (think of the cold fusion and the Korean human cloning announcements, for example), which works to quickly stamp out the inclination among others who might try to game the system. In the case of AGW, they did more groundwork before going to the press . . . but if Darwin Zero is an example of the kind of work they did everywhere, then it’s just a better-hidden case of science-by-press-release.
Except — and this is huge — the implications of the deception were not limited to a few undeserving white-coated “scientists” getting press coverage and grant money. The AGW movement aimed at nothing less than a take-over of the entire economy, putting carbon commissars in charge of everything. Their work would lead to pseudo-scientific based controls over all human activities (because, as the EPA recently decided, all greenhouse gases must be regulated . . . and there’s carbon dioxide produced every time you exhale).
On a cosmic scale, this is still a bad idea
In the last Ontario Wine Review for 2009, Michael has a short rant on a rant-worthy topic:
South Africa has tar; Chile has mint; Australia, eucalyptus; Ontario: baby-poo . . . It’s quite possible that next time you wander into an Ontario winery you may be confronted by a ‘child-friendly-winery’ thanks to a website called JustTheFactsBaby.com. Now who really thinks having toddlers (or infants) along in a winery is a good idea? Honestly? There are so many reasons why not that I’m surprised that somebody has actually deemed this to be a good idea. For Godsakes, where’s MADD when you need them? I don’t have time to argue this one out again, especially in this short-rant forum, so I’ll begin here with my top three reasons and then you can input your views to me in an email. #1 — With all the talk about, and new laws against, drinking and driving and the safety of people and children on the road (heck you can’t smoke in a car with your child), I’m shocked somebody would offer up this idea that mom should get out there and sample wine with junior in tow (Is this the newest version of the Rolling Stones “Mother’s Little Helper”?) #2 — Who amongst us really wants to see toddlers running around playing tag in and amongst the bottles of wine and stemware displays; can you say ‘disaster waiting to happen’. #3 — With the whole world turning politically correct and wanting to include more people in more places, wineries should still be a sanctuary for adults. There are so many kid-centric and family oriented things to do in this world, shouldn’t a winery be a bastion where adults can congregate and still talk about adult things without hearing, “I’m sorry, did junior bump into you, I’m sure that won’t stain, at home we use …”
December 9, 2009
QotD: Conservatives and God
I think what really offends me most about this sort of proclamation is the notion of the need for ‘unity’ rather than just a simple commonality of interests: if I am going to support someone politically, I am damned if I will to seek in that politician an additive “whole world view”. If Sarah Palin wants to trim the intrusive regulatory state, as she seem to want to do, well that is splendid, but I would rather not hear about how she thinks others need to include some anthropomorphic psychological guy-in-the-sky construct in their decision making processes.
Perhaps it is my English sensibilities but I am deeply suspicious of anyone who cannot keep their religious sentiments to themselves. I am willing to tolerate the religious views of others but, like most vices, religion is something best practised behind closed doors with other consenting adults as can be very unedifying when indulged in public.
Perry de Havilland, “Sigh . . .”, Samizdata, 2009-12-05
“There is no app for that”
Alex Tabarrok looks at the Chilean “Cybersyn” project:
Cybersyn was a project of the socialist government of Salvador Allende (1970-1973) and British cybernetic visionary Stafford Beer; its goal was to control the Chilean economy in real-time using computers and “cybernetic principles.” The military regime that overthrew Allende dropped the project and probably for this reason when the project is periodically rediscovered it is often written about in a romantic tone as a revolutionary “socialist internet,” decades ahead of its time that was “destroyed” by the military because it was “too egalitarian” or because they didn’t understand it.
Although some sources at the time said the Chilean economy was “run by computer,” the project was in reality a bit of a joke, albeit a rather expensive one, and about the only thing about it that worked were the ordinary Western Union telex machines spread around the country. The IBM 360 two computers supposedly used to run the Chilean economy were IBM 360s (or machines on that order). These machines were no doubt very impressive to politicians and visionaries eager to use their technological might to control an economy [. . .] Today, our perspective will perhaps be somewhat different when we realize that these behemoths were far less powerful than an iPhone. Run an economy with an iPhone? Sorry, there is no app for that.
[. . .] The control room is like the bridge of the Starship Enterprise in another respect–both are stage sets. Nothing about the room is real, even the computer displays on the wall are simply hand drawn slides projected from the other side with Kodak carousels.
Tim Cavanaugh: would-be terrorist
Tim Cavanaugh recently had to travel within listening range of some conversationalists:
Readers will say I’m making the following story up to further Reason‘s anti-Palin agenda, but it’s true: On a recent airplane flight, I sat behind two women who were not traveling together but broke the ice by discussing the late Ted Kennedy’s memoir, which one was reading. The other lady had never heard of Ted Kennedy, and needed the first to describe who he was. From the exchange it seemed to me that the second woman didn’t even know that there had ever been a president named John Kennedy, though I’m hoping I just misheard. The first woman patiently went through the storied careers of the Kennedys, and when she’d finished the other one said, “Well I want to get that Sarah Palin’s book. I’m a big fan of hers.”
Yet the two of them — separated by about 100 years in age, an apparently great distance in awareness of political matters, and sharply distinct attitudes toward politicians who are said to be among the most polarizing in recent history — got along famously, gabbing amiably through a four-hour journey. It was an encouraging show of our open and gregarious national character — unless you had to listen to it, in which case you were wishing you could crash the plane into a tall building.
I have to admit it’s hard to believe that any American adult hadn’t heard of the Kennedy clan . . .
Hyping space travel
Colby Cosh finds the marketing hype from Virgin Galactic to be more than a little over the top:
I continue to be awestruck at Sir Richard Branson’s gift for hype. On Monday he rolled out Virgin Galactic’s “SpaceShipTwo”, dutifully described by Wired magazine as “the first commercial spacecraft” and “the first commercial spaceship”. This must be galling for the folks at the spaceflight research firm SpaceX. In July of this year, to little fanfare, they successfully put a Malaysian satellite into low earth orbit using a privately designed and built unmanned rocket, the Falcon 1. This is definitely commerce, and RazakSat is definitely up there in space, bleeping away in Malay. Surely everything else is Bransonian semantics?
SpaceShipTwo, despite the name, is an airplane — a very sophisticated and impressive airplane, designed to make brief suborbital hops after being carried aloft by another airplane. Branson’s hundreds of more-money-than-they-know-what-to-do-with customers are buying the aviation experience of a lifetime, one that nobody returns from unmoved. But it will be an aviation experience. “Space” is defined in custom, international law, and Virgin marketing literature as “high enough that airplanes mostly don’t work anymore”. To get there as an airplane passenger, by virtue of a few seconds of rocket boost tacked onto a conventional flight, seems a little like a technical cheat — the equivalent of trying to join the Mile High Club by oneself in the john.
The EPA wants to regulate, well, everything
The EPA’s decision that greenhouse gases fall under their regulatory control, while not surprising, should be overturned:
What Jackson has done, though, is inadvertently offer the strongest case against the EPA’s dubious decision on carbon dioxide. If the EPA’s actions really converge on as many spheres of public life as Jackson asserts, then a single crusading regulatory agency is in no position — and should have no authority — to regulate all of them.
No worries, we’re told. The EPA wouldn’t do it. It’s a bluff. It has other things in mind. In this case, it is all about hastening much-needed “action” on climate change by employing a technique universally known as blackmail.
The timing of the EPA announcement gives President Barack Obama the ammunition he needs to make a climate deal in Copenhagen, where leaders from around the world have gathered for one last chance to save mankind — until they all fly to by-then temperate Mexico next year for the last last chance to save mankind.
Obama, as we know, has no authority to enter into a binding international treaty (isn’t the Constitution irritating?), as any treaty must be ratified by the Senate — a Senate that won’t pass a cap-and-trade scheme any time soon if we’re lucky.
Now that the EPA can duplicate any suicidal emissions pact world leaders can cook up (exempt: emerging nations, poor nations, and nations that value prosperity), the president would not need to ratify a thing. And who needs treaties when the Obama administration has already threatened the Senate with unilateral regulations on greenhouse gases unless a cap-and-trade bill is passed? The administration need only mirror the agreement it can’t make.
Apple pulls entire line of apps after systematic bogus reviews
It’s certainly not the only case, but it’s good to see that Apple is willing to police their App Store:
Bogus reviews have landed Chinese iPhone app developer Molinker in deep trouble, resulting in all 1000-plus of its apps being removed and banned from the App Store. This is great news for consumers who are tired of downloading subpar apps based on inflated reviews, and bad news for companies looking to shill their products with internal misdeeds.
The App Store is simultaneously the strength and the weakness of Apple’s control of the iPhone development market: it’s the only approved channel for non-jailbroken iPhone users to access new applications, but it’s not scaling well to the demand (or the supply). It’s a victim of its own success, in many ways.
I’m sure that Apple will eventually come up with a winning revamp for the current App Store, but as it is right now, it is not serving customers or developers particularly well. The review system, which Molinker was actively gaming, is one of the weaker links, but there are lots of other issues that become more irritating as there’s more apps available, but no easy way to find them.
December 8, 2009
Can’t disagree with this, either
Also from today’s TMQ column:
Minnesota boasts about its defensive line, but against Arizona, the front four were getting little pressure on Kurt Warner, so defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier started calling blitzes. The result: Touchdown passes to Anquan Boldin and Larry Fitzgerald against the blitz, with safeties nowhere to be seen. But good Arizona defense carried the day. Cardinals leading 24-10 in the third quarter, Minnesota went: Adrian Peterson loss of 5, sack, interception, and TMQ wrote the words “game over” in his notebook. Brett Favre stayed on the field till the final snap despite the fact the hosts led 30-10 with a couple of minutes remaining, which indicates coach Brad Childress is concerned with padding Favre’s stats — a bad sign.
This is what qualifies as “toughened” standards?
An aside in this week’s Tuesday Morning Quarterback column by Gregg Easterbrook caught me completely by surprise. I had no idea that the US housing market was quite this dysfunctional:
As Part of Tough New Standards for Subsidized Mortgages, Home Buyers Will Be Required to Rub Their Heads and Pat Their Stomachs at the Same Time: The Federal Housing Administration underwrites mortgages for people having problems. Before 2008, the FHA supported about 2 percent of the nation’s mortgages, now the number is nearly at 30 percent, which shows how deep the subprime mortgage issue runs and how much taxpayers now subsidize home ownership. Last week, the FHA said it will toughen lending rules. Borrowers will now be required to put up 3.5 percent of the mortgage as cash or gifts from relatives, and there will be a cross-check against the down payment’s appearing to come as a gift from a charity but actually coming from the seller or builder through a middleman disguised as a charity. A generation ago — a decade ago! — home buyers were expected to have a 20 percent down payment; that made them unlikely to try to buy something they could not afford, and banks wouldn’t be exposed if something went wrong, since they were lending only 80 percent of the value of the property. Now requiring 3.5 percent down is viewed as “toughening” standards. Isn’t this an invitation for yet another cycle of mortgage problems?
Absolutely mind-boggling.
The downside to “ethical” shopping
There are some odd results of changing your shopping habits to be more environmentally conscious, says a recent study:
As the owner of several energy-efficient light bulbs and a recycled umbrella, I’m familiar with the critiques of “ethical consumption.” In some cases, it’s not clear that ostensibly green products are better for the environment. There’s also the risk that these lifestyle choices will make us complacent, sapping the drive to call senators and chain ourselves to coal plants. Tweaking your shopping list, the argument goes, is at best woefully insufficient and maybe even counterproductive.
But new research by Nina Mazar and Chen-Bo Zhong at the University of Toronto levels an even graver charge: that virtuous shopping can actually lead to immoral behavior. In their study (described in a paper now in press at Psychological Science), subjects who made simulated eco-friendly purchases ended up less likely to exhibit altruism in a laboratory game and more likely to cheat and steal.
[. . .]
It would be foolish to draw conclusions about the real world from just one paper and from such an artificial scenario. But the findings add to a growing body of research into a phenomenon known among social psychologists as “moral credentials” or “moral licensing.” Historically, psychologists viewed moral development as a steady progression toward more sophisticated decision-making. But an emerging school of thought stresses the capriciousness of moral responses. Several studies propose that the state of our self-image can directly influence our choices from moment to moment. When people have the chance to demonstrate their goodness, even in the most token of ways, they then feel free to relax their ethical standards.
H/T to Radley Balko for the link.
How to get rid of pesky dinosaurs
According to recent theorizing, you don’t incinerate ’em, you broil ’em:
The asteroid impact that ended the age of dinosaurs 65 million years ago didn’t incinerate life on our planet’s surface — it just broiled it, a new study suggests. The work resolves nagging questions about a theory that the impact triggered deadly wildfires around the world, but it also raises new questions about just what led to the mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous period.
The impact of a 10-kilometre asteroid is blamed for the extinction of the dinosaurs and most other species on the planet. Early computer models showed that more than half of the debris blasted into space by the impact would fall into the atmosphere within eight hours.
The models predicted the rain of shock-heated debris would radiate heat as intensely as an oven set to “broil” (260 °C) for at least 20 minutes, and perhaps a couple of hours. Intense heating for that long would heat wood to its ignition temperature, causing global wildfires.
India grounds their SU-30 fighters (again)
The Indian military has grounded their fleet of Russian SU-30 fighters after a crash involving a more advanced version:
For the second time this year, India has grounded its Su-30 fighters because one of the aircraft crashed. This time, the grounding of the 98 Su-30s in service is expected to last only a few days. Earlier this year, in May, its Su-30 fighters were grounded for a month after one of them appeared to develop engine problems and crashed. One of the pilots survived, but the parachute of the other failed to open. Four days before the Indian Su-30 went down, a Russian Su-35 also crashed because of engine problems. The Su-35 is an advanced version of the Su-30, and uses a similar engine. Earlier this year, Russia grounded all its MiG-29 fighters to check for structural problems, after one of them came apart in flight. All this is particularly upsetting to Indians, who had been assured by the Russians that the Su-30 was a modern (built to Western standards of reliability) aircraft. Such assurances were necessary because of earlier Indian experience with the MiG-21, and Russian aircraft in general. So far this year, India has lost twelve military aircraft, most of them of Russian design.
