"My new years resolution: Never be afraid to be kicked in the teeth. Let the blood and the bruises define your legacy." - Lady Gaga 2012

Paul Biegler: Socialist Moonbat of the Week

I have read a lot of stupid crap spewed by the left, but this guy takes the cake. Paul Biegler, postdoctoral fellow in 'bioethics' (whatever the hell that is) at Monash University in Australia claims that 'climate skeptics' like me are 'captive to basic emotions':

Given the choice of $100 now or $120 in a month, most take the money and run, sacrificing what amounts to an annual return on their one-month investment of 240 per cent. How could we be so dumb? It turns out that the allure of the immediate reward is strongly reinforced by emotions at the more pleasant end of the spectrum. Put simply, it often feels better to be rewarded straight away than to wait.

Paul, has anyone ever made a promise to you that was not kept? The reason why most take the immediate $100 over $120 in one month is because they are uncertain whether or not they will receive the $120. They do not have a certain return on their investment of 240% annualized. Their return on the investment is a random variable that ranges between minus 100% (don't receive anything) and positive 240%. Given those facts, all but the least risk-averse people will take the certain $100 now.

Climate scepticism is a strong candidate example of temporal discounting. A truckload of science supports global warming and its attendant perils. Yet, addressing this temporally far-flung threat, while generating distant benefit for our planet's inheritors, will cost us real pleasure now. Self-imposed measures to reduce our carbon footprint do not bring universal glee, and the carbon tax will hit both our wallets and our wellbeing.

Before I commence with my criticism, I must give Paul credit for one insight. Unlike Al Gore and some others, he does not try to claim that the 'imposed measures to reduce our carbon footprint' will help the economy.

Paul, there is no 'truckload of science' that supports global warming. What we have is a small thimblefull of evidence, much of which has been falsified, subjected to questionable statistical techniques, or subjected to data mining. To review the objective evidence:

There is no evidence the earth's atmosphere has warmed since 1998 and very little if at all before that.

There is no evidence that the oceans are warming.

There is no evidence of an increase in the number or severity of tornadoes

I could go on and on. For anyone who wishes to review the objective evidence, it is available.

And even many people who have not reviewed the actual data have become skeptics. You know why, Paul? Because most people can detect BS when they hear it.

Update:
Received the following via email from Paul:

Thanks Jim - not sure how to take this honour!

I do appreciate your response and I'll certainly take your comments on board as my own views on this subject evolve.

Best wishes to you and yours over Xmas.

Paul

My response via email to Paul:

 

Thanks for your response, Paul. I have appended it to my blog post.

If you truly want the global warming alarmists theories to be given serious consideration, ask Mann, Briffa, Trenberth, Jones, et al, to:

1. Share their data with anyone who asks for it. Contrary to their ridiculous claims, this is little or no hassle or inconvenience. I am a researcher in economics and have had many requests for my data. It is usually handled by simply emailing someone a spreadsheet. When the climatologists publish a new paper, they could make the data available on a website for anyone to download.

2. Likewise share their computer programs used in statistical analyses of the data.

3. Stop trying to suppress the 'skeptics' research. Both the alarmists' and skeptics' research will stand or fall on its own two feet.

Christopher Hitchens: 1949 - 2011

A brilliant man has left us. Chris was never afraid to call it as he saw it.

Tony Bennett did a good job of capturing Gaga's naked essence.

Humane Society of the United States (HSUS)

You likely have seen the commercials on TV of the HSUS. They show pitiful pictures of abused animals and ask for donations.

In spite of these heart-rending images, the HSUS actually gives less than one percent of the money from the donations to animal shelters like the local SPCAs and Humane Societies. They spend most of the money in lobbying efforts to ban hunting, and to put bans on keeping pets, eating meat, or wearing fur.

A very useful site: HumaneWatch reveals the gory details about the HSUS.

Main Event: Taylor vs World Series at Sportatorium in Dallas tonight. Three falls to a finish. Who will win?

Who knows, but that the universe is not one vast sea of compassion actually, the veritable holy honey, beneath all this show of personality and cruelty?

Yo Selena!

Love You Like a Love Song

Gorelick 'Withdraws' From Duke University Defense

We have discussed previously on this blogue about how Duke university foolishly hired Jamie Gorelick, aka the 'Mistress of Disaster', to represent them in their defense against a lawsuit from the unindicted lacrosse team players. Now we learn that Gorelick has withdrawn from the case. Her reason:

Several motions filed on behalf of defendants Duke University and Duke University Health System Inc. have successfully narrowed the focus of the case to the point it makes sense for the two North Carolina firms that have been part of the defense team to assume control of the matter, says Wilmer public policy and strategy chair Jamie Gorelick.

That's BS if I've ever heard it. I suspect that Duke university has realized that having a serial fuckup like Jamie defending them won't help their chances in court.

Eric Hobsbawm: Marxist Moonbat of the Week

Don't you just love the elegant sneer on this "intellectual's" face? It's easy to imagine him thinking something like 'You stupid middle-class Brits and Americans are such idiots for not wanting to live in a worker's paradise like the Soviet Union was'.

Eric Hobsbawm, who at the age of 94 has been singing the praises of slavery over the drawbacks of freedom for nearly a century, has written a new book "How to Change the World: Reflections on Marx and Marxism." I have no plans to read his book. But I read an excellent review of it in the WSJ by Michael Moynihan:

In a now infamous 1994 interview with journalist Michael Ignatieff, the historian was asked if the murder of "15, 20 million people might have been justified" in establishing a Marxist paradise. "Yes," Mr. Hobsbawm replied. Asked the same question the following year, he reiterated his support for the "sacrifice of millions of lives" in pursuit of a vague egalitarianism. That such comments caused surprise is itself surprising; Mr. Hobsbawm's lifelong commitment to the Party testified to his approval of the Soviet experience, whatever its crimes. It's not that he didn't know what was going on in the dank basements of the Lubyanka and on the frozen steppes of Siberia. It's that he didn't much care.

From what I can determine, Hobsbawm lived most of his life in the UK, and spent a fair amount of time in the USA. If his Marxist paradise is so delightful, why didn't he go to live in the Soviet Union, or Cuba, or Maoist China, or....?

And I'm not referring to the practice of going to one of those big prisons as a guest of the warden, like Michael Moore did in Cuba. Nor am I talking about going to live the lifestyle of a member of the nomenklatura of one of those countries. I would like to see someone like Hobsbawm (or Michael Moore, or Jane Fonda) go to live in a country like North Korea as a member of the proletariat. That way he could realize the full experience of living in a worker's paradise.

But Eric has never done that. Nor has Michael, nor Jane, nor any number of other western admirers of marxism. There are only a small handful of people who have actually gone to live in a communist country on their own volition. Eric has lived his long life in a capitalist democracy. He has never been punished for advocating overthrow of our way of life. His right to advocate slavery is guaranteed by the very freedoms he opposes. He gets to live in a country with the rule of law, rather than the arbitrary whim of dictators. His needs are rather well met by the free enterprise system he so vigoorously opposes. He doesn't have to stand in line for hours just to buy basic necessities like they did in the Soviet Union, nor does he have to eat cats like many Cubans have, nor grass like many North Koreans.

But Eric wants to impose that complete lack of freedom and poverty on other people. What a despicable old man he is.

Warren Buffet Complains of Being Undertaxed

Poor Warren, he only had to pay $6,938,744 in taxes:

OUR leaders have asked for “shared sacrifice.” But when they did the asking, they spared me. I checked with my mega-rich friends to learn what pain they were expecting. They, too, were left untouched.

Last year my federal tax bill — the income tax I paid, as well as payroll taxes paid by me and on my behalf — was $6,938,744. That sounds like a lot of money. But what I paid was only 17.4 percent of my taxable income — and that’s actually a lower percentage than was paid by any of the other 20 people in our office. Their tax burdens ranged from 33 percent to 41 percent and averaged 36 percent.

Hey stupid. If you're so undertaxed, why don't you send your personal check to your hero Barack? You and George Soros and John Kerry and all the other poor, undertaxed billionaires may donate any portion or even all of your wealth to the federal government.

We don't need sacrifice. What we need is investors putting their money in the private economy. That will do much more good for the economy than giving it to Barack, who has demonstrated his complete incompetence at managing the US economy.