Paul Driessen - Olympic-sized climate propaganda
I am posting this article at Paul Driessen's request. I would add to the comments of the Egyptian commentators he quotes about Obama's belief that man-made global warming is our foremost crisis that Hillary Clinton claims she will have an even more radical program of fossil fuel use suppression than does Obama. And yes, I do believe that Hillary is so divorced from reality, such a criminal, and so mad for power that it is very reasonable to evaluate her as insane. Here is Paul Driessen's article: *Olympic-sized climate propaganda* It was wrong to interrupt Rio’s delightful opening... more »
The Failed ObamaCare: Lost Issue of the Presidential Race
Unfortunately, the Republicans have once again chosen a presidential candidate who is unable to and uninterested in fighting a major suppression of individual rights, namely the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act known as ObamaCare. This big government effort to claim the collective ownership of everyone's mind and body should still be a critical issue with those of us who value our liberties. The American Enterprise Institute has produced a series of articles about the failures of parts of the ObamaCare Act. The latest article (1 August 2016) says about the cooperatives s... more »
The Obama Economic Growth Record
In the seven years 2009 - 2015 under Obama, the rate of real GDP growth has averaged 1.4% a year. It takes zero increase in productivity to increase the GDP at the rate of growth of the population. Over the six Obama years 2009 - 2014, the population of the USA has decreased from an initial high of 0.98% in 2009 to a 2015 rate of 0.77% as hope has died. The average population rate over those six Obama years was 0.91%. The real, per capita GDP growth rate is then about 1.4% - 0.9% = 0.5%. This real, per capita GDP rate is the rate that actually tells us how fast our standard of livi... more »
Progressivism Evolves from Soak the Rich to Soak the Poor
Progressivism used to pretend to soak the rich in order to provide welfare for the poor. To some degree it did what it pretended to do, but it mostly hurt the middle class to provide welfare for the poor and a false and easy sense of morality to the rich. Of course the rich looked down on the poor and claimed to make their supposedly miserable lives better even as they shut them off from joining the middle class. The platform of the Hillary-run Democratic Party has now been proclaimed the most Progressive in terms of its environmental policies ever. Tom Steyer, the single largest... more »
Science or advocacy? by Prof. David R. Legates
*Science or advocacy? * Students are learning energy and climate change advocacy, not climate science David R. Legates For almost thirty years, I have taught climate science at three different universities. What I have observed is that students are increasingly being fed climate change advocacy as a surrogate for becoming climate science literate. This makes them easy targets for the climate alarmism that pervades America today. Earth’s climate probably is the most complicated non-living system one can study, because it naturally integrates astronomy, chemistry, physics, biology, ge... more »
UnitedHealth Losses Under ObamaCare Accelerate
Earlier, UnitedHealthcare, the nation's largest health insurer, announced that it was leaving most of the 30 ObamaCare markets due to losses. Its earlier loss estimate was $600 million, but it has just upped that estimate to $800 million. It has insured 800,000 enrollees under ObamaCare, so it is losing $1000 per enrollee due to their rapidly rising health care costs. It is quite understandable that one would not want enrollees one loses an average of $1000 apiece on. That is not a business to be in. There is definitely a sustainability problem here.
Real Climate Denial by Megan Toombs
Potential Democratic VP nominee misrepresents Cornwall Alliance on Senate floor Megan Toombs Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) is a potential running-mate choice for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. Yet he recently joined other Democratic Senators on the Senate floor to attack the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation and other Virginia-based organizations, in an attempt to defend climate alarmism against its critics. As has been the case with other attempts to vilify, intimidate and silence experts who disagree with alarmist views on global warming and ... more »
Independence Day Thoughts on Freedom
When Americans declared their independence from Great Britain 240 years ago, they were a people who were largely self-employed and proud to manage their own lives. They believed they had no need for a government to choose their values for them and to micromanage their lives. Their principal need for a government was to prevent individuals from initiating the use of force against one another and to protect them from outlaw gangs, warring Indians, and attacks by other nations. Most of those needs they were quite willing to fulfill in large part at the very local level, including a lo... more »
ObamaCare Continues to Lose Altitude with Crash Inevitable
The biggest problem with ObamaCare is the loss of the fundamental ownership of your own mind and body. ObamaCare is primarily a declaration that no one has individual rights. According to the ObamaCare philosophy one is nothing but an infinitesimal part of the Collective. Some persons in the Collective did not have health insurance or had health insurance that was not approved by the Regressive Elitists who controlled the government with a claim as benevolent caretakers for the unwashed masses such as you and me. That claim bears a great similarity to that of the aristocracy of med... more »
Paul Driessen: Ben Rhodes spins climate change
“Climate refugee” claims reflect deliberate mendacity and belief that we and reporters are stupid Employing his college degree in fiction writing, White House communications strategist Ben Rhodes wrote deceitful talking points on the Benghazi attack and one-sided Iran nuclear deal – and later bragged about manipulating “clueless reporters.” Perhaps he’s also orchestrating administration climate spin. Rising ocean tides will bring “waves of climate refugees” to America and Europe, President Obama has declared. “Environmental migrants” are already fleeing shrinking islands in the Paci... more »
The Severe Limits of Social Justice
The idea that the government should force every individual of our society to provide Social Justice is a central belief of Progressive Elitists. The implementation of their Social Justice agenda is a massive injustice. Let us examine the reasons that make this the case. Justice has meaning in the relationships of individuals and meaning as an aim of government. In the relationships of individuals, justice exists when an individual correctly identifies the value of another individual based on his character and actions. This evaluation is clearly dependent upon one's ethical code.... more »
Donald Trump Again Proves He is Not Trustworthy
Donald Trump has stated that it is right for a businessman to do anything to make money that is not illegal. Such an attitude is the basis for many claims that big government is justified to control unethical big businesses. He has tried to steal the property of others by using eminent domain for his benefit. He has long made most of his campaign contributions to Democrats to buy a position as one of their favored special interests. Within two days of Senator Ted Cruz suspending his campaign for the Republican nomination for the presidential race in 2016, Trump has now - Stat... more »
Hillary Clinton Makes 12 Million Illegal Aliens Citizens
Hillary Clinton, on the campaign trail, accused Donald Trump of wanting to deport 12 million Americans. He has said, though he is not consistent in this, that he wants to deport 12 million illegal aliens. Hillary, being a Clinton, may well say that she is right because most of the illegal aliens, no undocumented persons, are from either North America (Mexico and Central American states) or from South America, so they are Americans. But for political reasons, she is trying to create the impression that she is conferring legal status on all of the illegal aliens, whose votes she want... more »
Washington Post and Published Research Falsely Report Largest U.S. Reef Dissolving Due to Increased CO2
Chelsea Harvey reports in the Washington Post that the work of University of Miami and Florida International University researchers concludes that the Florida Keys Reef is dissolving and it is because of man's use of fossil fuels. The research was published in the journal Global Biogeochemical Cycles and is based on surveys of the reef throughout the Florida Keys from 2009 to 2010. The researchers analyzed the water from near the reef to determine whether the reef was dissolving or calcifying according to the Washington Post article. The period of time in this study is short and i... more »
Inside climate propaganda by Paul Driessen
Paul Diessen's article is a good lesson in how the socialists coordinate their activities to maximize their impact. I am posting some of his articles here in an effort to partially counteract that conspiratorial effort. I suggest that it would be a good idea to go to the movie *Climate Hustle* on Monday, 2 May, which may be the only night it will be shown in theaters. In the theaters in my area, it has only one showing at 7 PM. *Inside climate propaganda * InsideClimate News excels at propagating environmentalist and Obama thinking and policies Paul Driessen Have you ever w... more »
It is Not a Tax, But Oh It is a Tax -- It is Not a Treaty, but Oh It is a Treaty
Recall that when ObamaCare was passed by the House and Senate and signed by Obama against the preponderant opposition of the American people, ObamaCare was not a tax. The American People were told this over and over by the Democrats trying to pass the bill. But when the Supreme Court ruled on whether ObamaCare was constitutional or not, ObamaCare suddenly became a tax. Of course its being a tax in no way actually made it constitutional in any case. There was no way that Americans in 1789 approved a Constitution that would allow the federal government any power so long as the law... more »
Dr. Allen on The Great Green Fleet, Chicken Fat, and Hillary Rodham
Dr. Steven J. Allen's article on the green energy deception called The Great Green Fleet, Chicken Fat, and Hillary Rodham is a good read. You will learn that the Protecting Americans From Tax Hikes Act of 2015 hides green energy special treatment in plain view. The name of every law produced in Washington is designed to hide a plethora of harmful actions in the bill. The green energy industries are almost entirely predicated on special interest legislation at the federal and state government levels, whether it be subsidies, mandates, or tax advantages. Very little of the green e... more »
“Ayn Rand Said” is Not an Argument by Craig Biddle
I have just read Craig Biddle's article *"Ayn Rand Said" is Not an Argument* in The Objective Standard. It is posted here. As Biddle says, his argument is one that should not have to be made. I have made this argument myself many times and have tried to operate on it while arguing points on this blog. I left the following comment, which might be moderated out of existence: While I greatly admire Ayn Rand's work and believe that I learned useful thinking skills from her, it is always a challenging task to quote her appropriately in the many discussions of politics, economy and bus... more »
RICO for government climate deniers? by Paul Driessen and Ron Arnold
How corrupt and fraudulent is the government “science” that denies natural climate change? A self-appointed coalition of Democrat state attorneys general is pursuing civil or criminal racketeering actions against ExxonMobil, the Competitive Enterprise Institute and other organizations. The AGs claim the groups are committing fraud, by “denying” climate change. The charge is bogus. What we contest are false assertions that “humans are creating a dangerous climate change crisis.” We do not accept false claims that “the science is settled” and will not be limited to discussing only “... more »
Paul Driessen on Prosecuting climate chaos skeptics with RICO
Paul Diessen asked me to publish this article on 3 April 2016, but I have been extremely busy in my laboratory, even as we have been very short-handed in the laboratory of late. Today, I am celebrating my relief from the unrewarding effort of doing paperwork for the Individual Rights Suppression IRS) agency of the federal government today by catching up on some blog entries, even as I continue to feed samples into the x-ray photoelectron spectrometer to analyze the surface properties of materials by harnessing radiation and detectors. Paul's article makes it clear that we are in a ... more »
Why Do the U.N. and Socialists Push the AGW Hypothesis so Hard?
The United Nations organization and socialists generally are so enamored of the catastrophic anthropogenic global warming hypothesis that they will do anything to distort climate science to pretend that falsified hypothesis is true. Why? Ottmar Edenhofer, who co-chaired the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change working group on Mitigation of Climate Change 2008 - 2015, recently said One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with the environmental policy anymore, with problems such as ... more »
Krugman Demonstrates Lack of Focus Once Again
Paul Krugman has once again demonstrated his lack of focus and poor reasoning skills. His column criticizes Ayn Rand, Paul Ryan, and Ted Cruz. He claims that Ted Cruz's tax reform plan will increase taxes on the poor and he references this analysis by the Tax Policy Center of the Urban Institute and Brookings Institute, for a very socialist viewpoint on Cruz's tax plan. So what does that report say: In 2017, the proposal would cut taxes at every income level, but high-income taxpayers would receive the biggest cuts, both in dollar terms and as a percentage of income. This is not... more »
Global Warming Controls Pointlessly Hurt the Poor Most
I am going to summarize the key points of a Daily Caller article entitled "How the Poor Bear The Brunt of Europe's Obsession with Global Warming" by Andrew Follett. The important points are: - From 2005 to 2014, the cost of residential electricity in Europe increased by 63%, compared to a smaller increase of 32% in the USA, which was itself driven upward by Global Warming Policies. - The poor in Europe are hurt by their global warming policies about 1.4 to 4 times as much as the rich are. - Britains paid 54% more than Americans for electricity in 2014 than Ameri... more »
Cummins on Ayn Rand's View of Human Nature
Dr. Denise Cummins wrote an article entitled This is what happens when you take Ayn Rand seriously, on which I commented extensively. She has followed that article up with another in which she takes exception to one of my comments and generally finds fault with Ayn Rand for not embracing altruism. Her second article is entitled What Ayn Rand got wrong about human nature. She starts her article by saying that the complaints of Rand's followers "primarily objected to my assertion that Rand celebrated unbridled self-interest." Her first quote and the only quote of such a "follower" ... more »
Obama Justice Department Considers Persecution of Catastrophic Man-Made Global Warming Doubters
I am more than a doubter on the matter of catastrophic man-made global warming. I say the hypothesis is based on faulty physics and as such it is wrong. There is certainly no empirical evidence it is right and the claim of a scientific consensus is wrong. Even the committed insiders funded to make the gigantic climate computer models produce widely divergent results, hardly indicative of a settled science and a scientific consensus. The hypothesis has so much politically and financially invested in it that NOAA and NASA GISS are constantly fudging the surface temperature data to ... more »
Why Some U.S. Companies are Fleeing to Mexico and Trump Cannot Negotiate Us Out of this Mess
In my recent 1 March post Making America Great and Donald Trump, I said the primary reason the opening of new trade markets around the world has not led to the growth of the American economy is because the American government does not allow American businesses to be competitive. He notes the importance of corporate tax reductions, but only after implying that bad trade negotiations caused job loses in America. The job losses in America are due to excessive taxes, paperwork, and regulations that American businesses are hobbled with, thanks to Washington. Business expenses are very... more »
Europe, Where Mineral Rights Belong to the State, Cannot Frack
In most of Europe, the mineral property rights and sub-surface property rights of land belong to the state, not the landowner. Consequently, the landowner is only hurt if minerals or oil or natural gas are extracted from his property. This makes it politically impractical to extract minerals or oil or gas from most of the land. Consequently, the hydraulic fracturing now common in the United States is not helping the Europeans at all to free themselves from a heavy dependence on Russian natural gas. Because of fracking, made possible by mineral rights ownership being commonly in ... more »
Brown University Dorms Do It In the Dark
This is the sixth March that Brown University dorms are having a Do it in the Dark competition to reduce energy use. Actually, it is to reduce electricity use in particular. They are not doing this to save the university money, so it can lower its tuition. No, they are doing this to Save the Earth! The administration is telling the students, mostly eager to hear the message, that this is "a time when there is a growing concern about the environmental impact of traditional energy sources." Never mind the obvious fact that this is a time of lessening concern about the environment... more »
Comments from Comments Following an Article Attacking Ayn Rand's Ideas
A very scurrilous article called This is what happens when you take Ayn Rand Seriously by Denise Cummings has elicited many comments. The article itself sets up many a straw man interpretation of Ayn Rand's ideas and makes some incredibly obvious false statements about her ideas. I have commented rather extensively in the comments following it. Here is one of my comments in reply to other comments opposing Ayn Rand's ideas: Blaming businessmen for their business practices is one of the frauds most commonly used to justify governments that micromanage our lives and prevent us from... more »
Steven Allen on Hillary Clinton as Thief and Liar
Dr. Steven Allen, the Vice President and Chief Investigative Officer of the Capital Research Center, has written a clever article on Hillary Clinton describing what she has accomplished in matching the record for corruption of many a male politician. He goes on to quote a number of progressives about why her lack of honesty and trustworthiness is a positive attribute or at least not a negative one. On Hillary's mendacity and her advance of female equality: She has advanced gender equality by proving that a woman in politics can be as corrupt as any man—with the “commodities deal” s... more »
Making America Great and Donald Trump
America is great when the American People are free to exercise their broad and sovereign rights to life, liberty, property, self-ownership, and the pursuit of their own happiness. There is no greater value than that of enjoying these liberties. Donald Trump is a materialist who does not seem to have any concept of this. I do not like Donald Trump. I do not like how he has practiced business. He has been a crowing crony capitalist who has used subsidies and eminent domain extensively in his business dealings. Several of his businesses went bankrupt, though this happened just aft... more »
The Educational Attainment of Americans Before 1850
It is widely assumed that few Americans prior to 1850 and the development of government-run school systems were capable of reading and that knowledge was sparsely distributed. This is a myth which there is much evidence to refute. Here is an excerpt from an article by Andrew Berstein which was published in The Objective Standard, Vol. 5, No. 4 (2010) under the title The Educational Bonanza in Privatizing Government Schools. Prior to the mid-19th century, government schools did not exist in America. All schools were private, and education was widespread and outstanding. For example...more »
An 1840 Massachusetts Legislature Committee Prediction on a Government-Controlled Education System
In 1840, Horace Mann was pushing the state of Massachusetts to establish a government-run education system after the model of the state-run schools of Prussia and France. A legislative committee upon evaluating this proposal made three predictions: - It would destroy America's republican principles. - It would be a tool to increase government power. - It would spread propaganda and diminish the influence of parents on their children. All of these predictions have come true. The committee appears to have failed to anticipate how broadly incompetent a government-controlle... more »
Free Speech is Mostly Restricted in American Colleges and Universities
FIRE, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, has just produced its newest evaluation of the speech codes and policies of American Colleges and Universities. FIRE has a list of the ten worst colleges and universities for free speech. They are: *Mount St. Mary’s University* *Northwestern University*, where a high school friend is an Economics Professor and Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education *Louisiana State University* *University of California, San Diego* *Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota* *University of Oklahoma*, from which a sister earned a BBA degr... more »
Rationally Choosing a President
As an American with the right to vote for President, how does one rationally exercise that right? The first task the rational individual has is to determine what the legitimate purpose of government is and how government acts to achieve that purpose. It is easier to understand how government acts to achieve its purposes, than it is to understand what its legitimate purposes are. Government achieves its purposes by using force. If challenged by any of the people it governs, it is willing to use overwhelming and fatal force. It is the nature of government that it achieves its ends... more »
NOAA Fudges Temperatures in My Backyard to Bolster Failed Man-Made Warming Hypothesis
Tony Heller at Real Science has once again shown how our federal government through NOAA has provided a faked data plausibility for the failed catastrophic man-made global warming hypothesis. This example of NOAA data fudging is from my own backyard. It is amazing what can be done to take advantage of very local urban heat island (UHI) effects. Having taken advantage of UHI, NOAA then adds further corrections to temperature measurements to lower those of the past, when population densities were generally lower, instead of lowering recent measurements to compensate for increasing ...more »
Unconstitutional Rule by Bureaucracy
There is an excellent article by John Yoo and Dean Reuter at AEI on this subject. I think it is instructive, but not surprising given the general incompetence of our federal government, that there is no authoritative list of all the rule-producing government agencies. This fits in very well with the fact that the federal government has no authoritative accounting of its assets. It is not even clear that it knows who it employs. Yet this unaccountable government expects individuals and companies to be much more accountable than it is. It is the old "Do as I say, not as I do." rul... more »
Educating Students Around the World in Materials Analysis and Characterization
In addition to my writings on this blog, I have written most of the content for my materials analysis laboratory, Anderson Materials Evaluation, Inc. That website consists of nearly 80 pages of information about the laboratory, materials analysis techniques, applications of materials characterization to a wide range of materials to make better use of materials and better products, information about the industries, companies, universities, and governmental agencies we support, and background and specialization information about our scientists. AME's Dr. Kevin Wepasnick is a home bre... more »
The Aggressive Maryland Ban on "Assault" Firearms Must Defend Itself Again
The Maryland law banning 45 types of firearms as assault weapons and high-capacity magazines was ruled constitutional in a lower court ruling, despite the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution. The U. S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit has now ruled in a 2-1 decision written by Chief Judge William B. Traxler Jr. that the lower court ruling must be based on a more stringent legal standard. The Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh, Democrat, helped to pass the law when he was a state senator. He remains an ardent supporter of the arms ban. He claims it is just common sense th... more »
Prof. Walter E. Williams on Education and Guns
Prof. Walter E. Williams, professor of economics at George Mason University, has written two thoughtful columns this month. One is on education, with some emphasis on the education of black Americans, and one is on guns, which are treated as though they are evil, though bombers are treated as the source of evil rather than bombs. These columns may be read here.
Supporting the Open Evaluation of NOAA Scientists' Scientific Claims of Catastrophic Man-Made Global Warming
I am one of the scientists who has signed the following letter to Representative Lamar Smith, Chairman of the Science, Space and Technology Committee of Congress. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), an agency of the federal government, has refused to share the scientific data which NOAA scientists have used to adjust the surface temperature records of the Earth. This is a clear violation of federal law and it is a clear thumbing of the noise by NOAA of representative government. Rep. Lamar Smith is simply trying to perform due diligence in evaluating data... more »
One Person, One Vote?
The Supreme Court just heard a case on Tuesday, Evenwel v. Abbott, over whether state legislative districts must equalize the number of voters or the number of people. The particular state in this case is Texas, where districts are apportioned by number of people and where the number of voters per district then differs greatly in some cases. One person, one vote sounds nice -- until you give it some thought. Of course children are persons, but we exclude them from voting. Non-citizens are also not supposed to vote, though many do in some districts, especially those controlled by ... more »
On Prohibiting Guns to Those on the No Fly List
The No Fly List is an often incompetently compiled list which does not follow the judicial procedures that are a necessary protection of individual rights. It denies individuals the right to travel by air with the false claim that one does not have a right to travel by air. It is claimed that travel is just a privilege which government can revoke at its whim. This is not true. The right to travel is a very fundamental right. Just as no one has the obligation to provide us with happiness, no one is obliged to enable our travel. But, no one is justified in preventing our traveli... more »
Obama Nonsense on Islam and Its Claim to Freedom of Religion
In his speech Sunday night, Obama claimed that those who use violence as a means to advance Islam are practicing a perverted form of Islam. Since Islam is essentially a religion that obligates its believers to emulate Mohammad's life practices and Mohammad used violence and terror to advance his religion, it is nonsense to claim that people who believe they are using violence and terror to advance Islam are practicing a perverted form of Islam. In the context of Islam, they are not radical, however radical they are as human beings. Yes, most people who think of themselves as Musli... more »
An Ignorant Petition to Further Impoverish the Poor
With the international conference on Man-Induced Global Warming coming up soon in Paris, there is a petition circulating to support government efforts to suppress the use of inexpensive and reliable fossil fuels. Here is the petition with my comments in blue added to it: World leaders are coming together this year for climate talks in Paris. Their decisions affect all of us. Darned, pesky nuisances these interfering world leaders are. With most of the nations of the world having weak economies and too little respect for individual rights, these leaders are looking for ways to div... more »
Helium-Pressurized Homebrew Beer at AME Featured in C&EN Article
Our own Anderson Materials Evaluation (AME) chemist Dr. Kevin Wepasnick guided a *Chemical & Engineering News* (C&EN) investigation of the properties of a helium-pressurized beer in an article entitled *Helium Beer, From Prank to Tank* in its 2 November 2015 issue written by Craig Bettenhausen. C&EN is a publication of the American Chemical Society. Kevin brewed a 5-gallon batch of a cream stout beer for C&EN over a two-week fermentation period at Anderson Materials Evaluation, Inc. with writers from C&EN visiting our laboratory at the start and the end of the process. He used a ... more »
NASA Finally Agrees that Antarctic Ice has Long been Increasing
A NASA paper published in the *Journal of Glaciology *found that Antarctic ice has long been increasing in agreement with many other studies, but in disagreement with the UN IPCC report of 2013. Its main conclusions are: - The Antarctic ice sheet had net gains in ice of 112 billion tons per year from 1992 to 2001. - Antarctic ice from 2003 to 2008 had a net gain of 82 billion tons per year. - Extra snowfall in East Antarctica began about 10,000 years ago as the Earth warmed after the last Ice Age and this snowfall thickened the East Antarctic and the interior re... more »
Obama NOAA Refused to Provide Research Documents to House Science Committee
Rep. Lamar Smith, Texas Republican and chairman of the House Science Committee subpoenaed NOAA for research documents related to their adjustments of the temperature record. These adjustments were recently used to remove all evidence of the pause in surface temperatures from 1998 to 2013 and replace that pause with a temperature surge. NOAA refused to hand the documents on the adjustments over, in direct violation of law. Smith's committee wants to know why. According to Rep. Smith: The American people have every right to be suspicious when NOAA alters data to get the political... more »
Impeaching the Crooked Obama IRS Head
Thanks primarily to government e-mails and information obtained by Judicial Watch, House Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) introduced a resolution this week to impeach the IRS commissioner for "high crimes and misdemeanors." IRS Commissioner Koskinen has obstructed justice while protecting the criminal actions of Lois Lerner, whom the Obama Justice Department has just refused to prosecute even as the investigation into her and other IRS managers' activities is still underway. Representative Chaffetz has based his call for impeachment of the IRS Commission... more »
Can 400 ppm CO2 Provide the Heating Required by the AGW Hypothesis?
This is a thought experiment. The idea is to make a simple test of the plausibility or even possibility of the claim of the catastrophic man-made or anthropogenic global warming (AGW) hypothesis that the increase from about 300 ppm (parts per million) of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere over the last 120 years or so has caused a surface temperature increase of 1°C or 1K. Now I know that this is a concept very much ignored by the advocates of catastrophic man-made global warming, but I am going to assume that the Law of Conservation of Energy, which they have not explicitly refut... more »
President Thomas Jefferson Slashed Government Spending -- We Need a Jeffersonian Slasher
I am reading *Six Frigates -- The Epic History of the Founding of the U.S. Navy* by Ian W. Toll. After the War of Independence, the United States had no navy until the Quasi War with the French under the John Adams administration caused the government to re-establish the U.S. Navy. In the Quasi War with the French, the revolutionary government in France was raiding American ships at sea and confiscating them and their cargoes. The French were trying to do this on the sly, because the Americans traded with their enemies, especially Great Britain. This confiscation of American shi...more »
Our Watery Earth Responds to Warming with Increased Water Cooling -- Water is the Enemy of AGW
The claim that increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere leads to catastrophic warming is based on the UN IPCC claim that back-radiation from carbon dioxide absorption of infra-red radiation warms the Earth's surface. This results in increased water vapor in the atmosphere and that causes an even greater increase in the temperature than did the increased carbon dioxide. Even the gigantically exaggerated warming by the carbon dioxide back-radiation effect (see here and here) requires the proponents of this alarmist hypothesis to conjure up a much stronger positive feedback warming... more »
Should Children of Illegal Aliens Born in the US be Automatic Citizens?
Robert Tracinski, who is usually a very astute thinker, has written on this subject in the Federalist. This is a case where I believe he has used too broad a brush in making his argument in favor of the idea that literally anyone born in the U.S. is a citizen. One may say it is a classic case of failing to understand context. "All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." 14th Amendment First, in the present context of massive illegal immigration, it appears th... more »
You Would Not Believe How Busy Santa's Elves Are in March - The World's Top CO2 Emitters
NASA has a program called Eyes on the Earth that allows one to download a program to examine satellite images and measurements around the world. I decided to examine some month-long results for the AIRS satellite measurements for CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere. The more red the color, the higher the carbon dioxide concentration. Of course one expects to see higher concentrations of CO2 over areas with high populations, much industrial activity, and areas with many coal-fired power plants. At least this is what one expects given the hype that man is causing catastrophic man... more »
The EPA -- Once Again Incompetent
I have shown that the EPA rulings on harm done by mercury from coal fired power plants make no sense at all. There is absolutely no epidemiological evidence of increased mercury sickness or of asthma downwind of major clusters of coal-fired power plants. Indeed, maps of mercury concentrations precipitated from the air show no such correlation with coal-fired power plants. The EPA also cherry-picks studies of the health effects of mercury from fish on some islanders, while ignoring other studies of other islanders which show no mercury effects. They then extrapolate from the cher... more »
Most Okies are Better Off than Most New Yorkers
When discussing the impact of the current New York state minimum wage of $9.00/hour and the law requiring that the minimum wage for fast food workers will rise in stages to $15/hour, I discovered how surprisingly bad off compared to the national household median income most New York residents were. Because I have family in Oklahoma and it is considered to be backward, poor, and only worth flying over by New York Progressive Elitists, I have decided to do a comparable comparison of Oklahoma to New York. After all, Oklahoma is the home of many poor Native Americans and a land of peo...more »
New York Further Damages Economy with a Minimum Wage of $15/hr.
A minimum wage mandate is a serious infringement upon the rights of individuals to earn a living, to enter into contracts with one another, and their freedom of association. It is a fundamentally unethical use of force in which third parties impose their ignorance and values upon others. It should be opposed with great vigor as a matter of principle. Too often, Americans believe they are pragmatists with little need for the principles that actually make it easier and far more efficient for them to identify the values and means by which people secure their lives and happiness. The... more »
Greenhouse Gases Warmed the Earth Somewhat, but Additions Now Cool the Earth
Let us examine the net effect of infra-red active (so-called greenhouse) gases on the Earth’s surface temperature under present conditions and then the effect of a perturbation of that condition. First, the net effect of the greenhouse gases presently on the surface temperature is usually found as the presently measured surface temperature minus the temperature predicted by a simple black body radiation calculation. The average power flux of energy from solar insolation at the top of the atmosphere on the Earth system is usually given as S (1-A)/ 4, where S is the total solar ... more »
All-Controlling Governments Are Identity Theft Accomplices
When governments take on the task of micromanaging our lives, they acquire massive records on the personal information of individuals and their interactions with others. This information is needed to perform the micromanaging. It is needed to exercise control of those ruled by the Ruling Class. It is acquired with the force of law because the Ruling Class is curious. It is acquired so the Ruling Class can construct still more arguments to control still more aspects of the lives of those ruled. It is highly useful as a means of enrichment through investments and bribes using ins... more »
Ambiguity, Context, Legislative Deference, and State Emasculation in King v. Burwell ObamaCare Decision
This is my belated rational analysis of the Supreme Court's 6-3 decision to approve federal tax subsidies for health insurance exchanges mandated under ObamaCare whether they were established by the state or not in the King v. Burwell case. I am not a lawyer. I am simply a man who regards the protection of individual rights as the sole legitimate role of government, as stated wonderfully in the Declaration of Independence. A very limited government consistent with that goal of legitimate government was mandated by the People in the Constitution of the United States of America. Th... more »
20 Years of Materials Analysis by Anderson Materials Evaluation, Inc.
Today is not only Bastille Day, but it is also the 20th Anniversary of the founding of Anderson Materials Evaluation, Inc. For 20 years we have been providing high quality materials analysis and characterization services in our laboratory to our discerning customers. We want to thank you for using our analytical services and for making it possible for us to enjoy solving many challenging and fun materials problems, while helping you to improve your products and processing operations. The founder, Dr. Charles Anderson, wants to thank his business partner, Dr. Lorrie Krebs, for her ... more »
Skin Color Identifications and the Washington Redskins
A federal judge has ruled that the Washington Redskins cannot be allowed trademark protections for the name Redskins because that name is offensive to some native Americans of ancient stock and apparently to many Socialist Elitists. This ruling was not impeded by the fact that one of the states of the union, Oklahoma, has a name meaning Home of the Red People, which was given to it by native Americans. It is somewhat offensive by means of the omission of far more essential and important characteristics whenever anyone is identified by the color of their skin. Despite this, federal... more »
Marriage and Party
There is an interesting post at the American Enterprise Institute on the correlation of the percentage of children raised by their biological parents by state and the correlation with Republican or Democrat states. It has long been clear that college education results in a higher percentage of children being raised by their biological parents and a higher fraction of the population in the Democrat states has a college education. It has been clear that having Asian ethnic parents provides the highest parental presence, followed by white parents, Hispanic parents, and finally black ... more »
The Greenhouse Gas Hypothesis and Thermal Radiation -- A Critical Review
One of the keystone claims of the catastrophic man-made global warming (CAGW) hypothesis is that infra-red thermal radiation emitted from a cooler body and incident upon a warmer body is entirely absorbed by the warmer body. They claim that both the warmer and the colder body emit photons with a power density proportional to T4. What is more, the flux of photons emitted from a body due to its temperature is said to be unchanged by the nearby presence of a body at a different temperature. As long as each body is at a given temperature, each is claimed to send out a flux of photon... more »
Asserting the Right to Trial is a Felony Punishable by 95-Year Imprisonment
According to Stephen Heymann's actions as a U.S. attorney in Massachusetts, and as approved by the U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, a crime that might be punishable with 3 - 4 months in jail bears with it up to a 95-year imprisonment for asserting one's individual right to a jury trial. These are the choices given Aaron Swartz for the possible illegal downloading of academic papers. Rather than plead guilty to a felony and serve 3 - 4 months in prison or fight conviction and a 95-year imprisonment by asserting his right to trial, Aaron Swartz committed suicide. Aaron Swartz was... more »
Is the Clinton Foundation a Charity?
It is widely being said that the Clinton Foundation gives only about 15% of its income to charity, with the rest going to administrative costs. The truth is actually worse than the unbelievably low 15% pass-through rate. Out of $140 million of donations, the Clinton Foundation has only delivered about $9 million to direct charity work. That is 6.4% or only 43% of the widely stated 15% pass-through rate. It is usually held that a decent charity foundation has a pass-through rate of at least 75%. To be sure, one may make charitable donations to a think tank, where one expects most of ... more »
Congressman John Sarbanes Favors FCC Takeover of the Internet
In response to my e-mail in opposition to the FCC subjecting the Internet to its ancient and bureaucratic controls, the Democrat Congressman of my unbelievably gerrymandered district in Maryland replied today: Mr. Anderson, Thank you for contacting me to express your opposition to net neutrality. I always appreciate hearing from individuals who carefully follow the legislative proceedings of Congress. On February 4, 2015, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Wheeler proposed a set of rules to safeguard net neutrality. These rules include reclassifying broadband servic... more »
Asthma and Coal-Fired Power Plants -- Is there a connection?
As the concern of Americans about claims of catastrophic man-made global warming has diminished, the Progressive Elitists and their EPA have ramped up a campaign against coal-fired power plants based on those plants causing asthma. The ads put particular emphasis on them causing asthma in children. Obama even recently claimed that one of his daughters has asthma because of coal-fired power plants and other use of fossil fuels. Does this viewpoint have an anchor in science and known data? Let us examine this issue, because surely none of us want children to suffer because coal-fi... more »
Give Up Your Life Day
Well, it is once again Tax Day and once again the federal government and most state governments have confiscated many of the productive hours of each of our individual lives. The more hours you chose to work and the more your productivity was recognized by others in trade, the more progressively the hours of your life were stolen from you. The politicians and bureaucrats used this ill-gotten plunder to buy votes, to live the good life themselves, and to relish their success as our overlords. Not content with just claiming many of the productive hours of our lives, this is the firs... more »
Computer Climate Model Incompetence and the Settled Science
An examination of the prediction spread from the 90 CMIP5 climate models makes it immediately obvious that the settled science of catastrophic man-made global warming is not at all well-understood. Various combinations of bad science input into the models and computer programming incompetence must be the reason for the spread in results seen below: This graph also shows the highly fudged HadCRUT4 surface temperature "measurements" adjusted in a desperate attempt to minimize its disagreement with the many climate model predictions of a steady and rapid global surface temperature in... more »
An Update on the Temperature Record Fudging Scandal
James Rust, a retired professor of nuclear engineering and now a Heartland Institute adviser, has written a good summary of the Earth surface temperature record fudging scandal. NOAA (USHCN) and NASA GISS in the USA and the University of East Anglia with the MET office (Hadcrut) in the United Kingdom have basically adjusted earlier temperature records downward and increased the more recently measured temperatures despite increased urban heat island effects systematically to support the catastrophic man-made global warming hypothesis. Yet, even with these unjustified temperature re... more »
The Context for the Prohibition Against Initiating the Use of Force
Ayn Rand and Murray Rothbard: The Verdict After Fifty Years By Nelson Hultberg - See more at: http://www.thedailybell.com/editorials/36138/Nelson-Hultberg-Ayn-Rand-and-Murray-Rothbard-The-Verdict-After-Fifty-Years/#sthash.VDBHJde7.dpuf Ayn Rand and Murray Rothbard: The Verdict After Fifty Years By Nelson Hultberg - See more at: http://www.thedailybell.com/editorials/36138/Nelson-Hultberg-Ayn-Rand-and-Murray-Rothbard-The-Verdict-After-Fifty-Years/#sthash.VDBHJde7.dpuf A talk given at Freedom Fest, Las Vegas, Nevada by Nelson Hultberg entitled Ayn Rand and Murray Rothbard: The Verdict Aft... more »
Why Greenhouse Gas Theory is Wrong -- An Examination of the Theoretical Basis
I am posting a much enhanced and edited version of a post which appeared on 17 February 2013 so it will gain new attention in light of the on-going Obama administration effort to misrepresent Catastrophic Man-Made Global Warming as Settled Science. With that claim, the lawless and tyrannical Obama administration is attacking scientists who are less than totally convinced and enthusiastic for that alarmist view of the science. The heartless Obama administration is proceeding vigorously to use Executive Branch agencies such as the EPA to attack American industries, reduce the reliab... more »
Hillary Clinton -- Lawless, Power-lusting, Opaque, and Now, Finally, Done
Hillary Clinton has hung around and hung around, despite her long record of lawlessness, secrecy to hide her power-lust, and disregard for others. As an admirer of Saul Alinsky, she, like Obama, is a proponent of class and group warfare who sees oppressors and victims everywhere in American society. That vision is most useful in justifying never-ending power grabs by government and the politicians who use that power to extort wealth and further power from the People and their private sector enterprises. As does Obama, she turns a blind eye to the obvious conclusion that her gover... more »
Representative John Sarbanes Replies About Gun Controls
Sadly, people who do not believe in the 2nd Amendment are far too common in American society. Most of them believe in the ubiquitous use of government force to dictate value choices and to micromanage the lives of individuals unknown to them and about whom they do not care even a smidgeon. The way of life of a criminal depends upon the ability to initiate the use of force. Having dangerous weapons is at the center of his profession. Most Americans are very busy with their careers in the peaceful private sector in which force is not initiated. We have two major dangers we face.... more »
The Minimum Wage in Maryland
Maryland is a very progressive state with the Progressive Elitists dominating both legislative bodies. It did just elect a Republican governor, after the last two Democrat governors with the help of the Democrat state legislature enacted 40 straight tax increases, including the tax on rain and one on high income citizens. The last governor, Martin O'Folley, er.... O'Malley, claims to have done the people of Maryland a favor by mandating that employers will pay a higher minimum wage for their services, if employer's can find a reason to hire them any more at all. From December 2007... more »
Minnesota is Misrepresenting the Effects of Higher Taxes and Minimum Wages
It is being claimed that higher taxes on high income persons and increases in the minimum wage are the key to jobs creation and a fast-growing economy. The example of Minnesota since Democrat Gov. Dayton took over is being used to "prove" this. Gov. Dayton certainly benefited relative to Gov. Pawlenty in that he became Gov. in the year that the recovery from the Great Recession began, however meekly. He did not create the 172,000 jobs either. But let us note that 172,000 jobs in two years is just barely a match for an anemic population growth. The article notes that the Minnesota ... more »
Simple Illustration of the Limits of Alternative Power for the Electric Grid
The Institute for Energy Research has just put out a new report: *Assessing Emerging Policy Threats to the U. S. Power Grid* by Travis Fisher. There are two graphs that quickly illustrate some of the critical limits on using solar and wind power generation on the electric power grid. The first important plot is the daily average power output of the alternative energy sources: Here one can easily see that the average daily output of electric power generated by solar power is a very small fraction of its peak output at the time of day when the electric power need is at its peak, na... more »
Absurd Claims for Catatrosphic Man-Made Global Warming Never Stop
Absurd claims of catastrophic man-made global warming continue at a mad pace in preparation for the "climate change" conference to be held in Paris later this year. At that conference, developed nations are supposed to place themselves under energy restrictions so severe that income inequality will be reduced around the world by virtue of decreasing the future standard of living in the developed countries. In addition, the developed countries are supposed to deliver large sums of cash to underdeveloped and largely poorly governed and corrupt nations to "aid them in adapting to the ... more »
Employment Growth or Contraction By State Since December 2007
It is very interesting that if one plots the number of jobs created in Texas since 2008 against the change in the number of jobs in all other states combined, one gets an astounding story of job creation in one state that does little to prevent the creation of jobs: There is no contest. Texas added jobs without ever dropping below the number of jobs in December 2007 despite the Great Recession. It has now added 1.44 million jobs, while the remainder of the nation has yet to recover all the jobs lost since December 2007! [The oil and gas industry in Texas, which Obama has fought ... more »
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