Unintentional Humor

If find it funny that Prog economist Paul Krugman comes out with this:

Republicans against Science, Paul Krugman, New York Times.

Jon Huntsman Jr., a former Utah governor and ambassador to China, isn’t a serious contender for the Republican presidential nomination. And that’s too bad, because Mr. Hunstman has been willing to say the unsayable about the G.O.P. — namely, that it is becoming the “anti-science party.” This is an enormously important development. And it should terrify us.

On the same day CERN comes out with this:

Science Getting Settled, Lawrence Soloman, Financial Post.

The science is now all-but-settled on global warming, convincing new evidence demonstrates, but Al Gore, the IPCC and other global warming doomsayers won’t be celebrating. The new findings point to cosmic rays and the sun — not human activities — as the dominant controller of climate on Earth.

The research, published with little fanfare this week in the prestigious journal Nature, comes from über-prestigious CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, one of the world’s largest centres for scientific research involving 60 countries and 8,000 scientists at more than 600 universities and national laboratories. CERN is the organization that invented the World Wide Web, that built the multi-billion dollar Large Hadron Collider, and that has now built a pristinely clean stainless steel chamber that precisely recreated the Earth’s atmosphere.

In this chamber, 63 CERN scientists from 17 European and American institutes have done what global warming doomsayers said could never be done — demonstrate that cosmic rays promote the formation of molecules that in Earth’s atmosphere can grow and seed clouds, the cloudier and thus cooler it will be. Because the sun’s magnetic field controls how many cosmic rays reach Earth’s atmosphere (the stronger the sun’s magnetic field, the more it shields Earth from incoming cosmic rays from space), the sun determines the temperature on Earth.

I'm not going to go out on a limb and suggest to you that the Republicans were somehow "right" about the whole climate change deal. Many of them have been denying that there was any significant change all along. On the other hand, it's the Prog's who seem to be in danger of becoming the party of pseudo-science, happily believing unproven theories left and right because they are told to by their political heroes who stand to gain Billions of dollars based on a series of politically influenced financial bets.

Neither am I going to say the issue of climate change is dead. There are still open questions as to whether or not ground level pollution is a partial driver, or whether the chemicals needed to drive climate change are mostly natural in origin. In short, the Sun drives MOST of our climate's change, but there still is a benefit from not polluting etc. not only from a climate perspective but from a general health and natural beauty perspective as well. These study results are not carte balanche to pollute, but they should spell the end of the "stop climate change by shutting down the economy" nonsense that we've seen for a while.

The simple fact is that the Earth's climate has always been changing. The idea that human beings had the ability to stop or alter that change is arrogant. It's high time we started finding ways to deal with climate change now that we're seeing its effects, and stop wasting Trillions of dollars trying to stop something we have no control over in the first place.

What should terrify us is not the GOP's refusal to believe man is altering the climate, but that the Prog's are willing to destroy our global economy in a vain attempt to become King Canute.


RELATED: CERN Press release on CLOUD

100% Newsish

That should be a label on The Texas Tribune's "31 days, 31 ways" list of progressive candidate's talking points examination of the "effects" of the 2011 Texas Legislature.

Expect these issues to be parroted repeatedly by Prog* candidates as they attempt to try and gain back some relevancy in Texas politics during the next election cycle, and expect the same Prog politicians to quote The Trib (and their Progressive/Democratic board and financial backing) as an "independent source of journalism" verifying their claims.

That's not to say that newsish outlets can't report hard news. The can, and do. As a matter of fact some of the best day-to-day legislative reporting in Texas comes out of Evan Smith's shop. On election day, when their site is up, they're required reading for political junkies. However, when they move into news-editorial content (what I call newsish material) that's where their bias slip shows.

In many ways this is not a bad thing. To me it's OK that the Trib writes from a Progressive perspective, in many ways that this blog writes from a center-right perspective as does my other project Texas Iconoclast. Of course, the big difference is we readily admit our bias so that it's out there for all to see. The Trib, on the other hand, will swear up and down that the bright, young, trendy group of reporters with edgy eye-wear (who happen to all be Progs that Editor-in-Chief Evan Smith (himself a trendy, hip proponent of edgy eye-wear who's also a staunch Prog) has gathered around the Prog campfire have NO BIAS AT ALL in their writing. It's the same newsish fallacy that the public is supposed to follow with groups like Politifarce, the opinion cum "fact-checking" site that proved the Pulitzer to be nothing more than a giant journalist circle-jerk. (Much in the same manner Obama's Peace Prize proved the Nobel to be a big Prog circle-jerk)

The problem with party bias is that, when ideas become politically untenable, you look a fool when you about face on an issue because the party Politburo has suddenly done an about face. Party bias doesn't work well for news organizations, or newsish organizations for that matter. Were the Tribune to come out and say "Hey, we're a Democratic news outlet!" that would (1) be false and (2) ruin their access to Republican candidates. In short, they'd become a Democratic party blog. Their mission is much bigger than that.

Reporting the news with a particular ideal however is A-OK. As a matter of fact, I would argue that ALL journalism is reported from a certain ideological perspective. Just as the MSM groups all possess a liberal (note: note Democratic) bias so does Fox News post with a conservative (note: not Republican) bias. The problem arises when Fox and the MSM say they're "right down the middle", which is just so much bull. They're no more "down the middle" than is the Trib, or Iconoclast, or this blog.

As a matter of fact, I would argue that ALL of the news you read today is mostly newsish, from one perspective or the other. The difference between a news organization producing newsish material and a newsish organization reporting the news is really just a matter of funding. From a newsish perspective the best outlet in Texas is the Trib, with a couple of sub-par outlets (Texas Observer and Texas Independent) occasionally producing a blog post or three.

But the Trib is the Majordomo, no other outlet can compete with products such as their "31 in 31" series and, given the level of writing talent that Smith has assembled, they probably shouldn't try.

Long-live the King of Newsish.









*Prog: Short for progressive, also a poke at the French.

If you read one thing this weekend.....

Please make it this great piece by Mike Cronin and Jennifer Peebles of Texas Watchdog...


Interwoven ethics problems at Houston ISD, Houston Community College, port authority, Harris County -- all one big ball of string

You're welcome.

I reject your reality.....

...and substitute my own.

That seems to be the mantra of City Controller Ronald Green when dealing with S&P:


(City dropping S&P as its investment-rating agency. Chris Moran, Chron Houston Politics blog.)

The city of Houston will drop Standard & Poor’s as the rating agency for its investment portfolio as a result of getting downgraded earlier this month, said City Controller Ronald Green.

The rating only applies to Houston’s investments, not its debt, so it has no effect on the city’s borrowing costs, Green said.

I get it, there are a LOT of things wrong with S&P as a ratings agency: They blew it on the sub-prime mess, haven't found a bubble they didn't like (or missed it's coming POP!) The problem is people are using these examples as factual arguments for why S&P is wrong NOW.

It's just more logical fallacy argument-making posed as fact. It only makes sense that, if the US Government is downgraded, that the investments stemming from US Government sources would be downgraded as well. Despite Green's claims, there's really nothing arbitrary about that. Political? Possibly, but not arbitrary.

The problem is, like Metro, City of Houston finances are on increasingly shaky ground. At times like these the main focus should be on efficiency and cost-cutting, not funding trinkets and expensive light-rail lines that don't serve those who need transit services the most.

The focus by Houston City and area elected officials (as well as appointed quasi-governmental bureaucrats) on trinket governance would be considered incompetent if you removed the understanding that today's government is not about citizen service. Put in their proper perspective, these decisions make perfect sense*.





*We'll let you decide the proper perspective for yourselves.

Seattle: Quick Thoughts

Just got back in (Haaawt) Houston after a week spent in Seattle. As with my Toronto trip, here are some quick thoughts.

1. Yes, cost of living is HIGH there.

2. No, they aren't getting their money's worth for the high taxes they pay.

3. Seattle's monorail = Houston's light rail, only it has cooler destinations at each end of the line. To be honest, Seattle is a city full of boondoggles that probably sounded good at the time.

4. Whatever you do, don't drive during rush hour. - Seattle may be beautiful but its roads are crap. For all the money that City is taking in you'd think they could afford some decent pavement.

5. Hub and spoke bus/train/monorail routes may be easier to administer, but they don't make getting around all that easy.

6. Crosswalks....optional. Watch out if you're driving.

7. Seattle residents STILL don't like George W. Bush, although they do seem to be enamoured with Bar-B-Q.

8. Two words: Deodorant pal.

9. There are a lot of edible fish on display at the Seattle Aquarium, some of which are advertised to live in Puget Sound. Despite this most restaurants serve only fried cod.

10. Pike's Place Market is neat, but the whole throwing the fish thing is overrated.

Red-light cameras and stupidity.....

So City Council has voted, in a non-binding resolution, to turn the city's controversial red light cameras off immediately.

As you can imagine, this has the pro ATS (or, possibly, ATS themselves for all I know) all in a tizzy:

(From the comments in the linked story)

Kent L. Hunley says:
August 24, 2011 at 10:33 am
Congrats voters of Houston, your will has been honored. One small thing, you might have to pay more taxes since you voted the cameras out, unfortunately when you are stupid enough to think that just getting rid of the cameras doesn’t come with a several million dollar penalty, you pretty much get what you deserve.

Left unsaid: The City could have avoided a "several Million dollar penalty" had the escape clause in the contract not been removed by Bill White, super genius.


All of which goes to show you that there's "smart" and then there's "political smart". The two have nothing in common.