Month: November 2009

It took me a long time to finally come around on this one, but for years I rolled my eyes when I heard feminists kvetching about how the Barbie doll was a sexist icon which was oppressive to women. I studiously ignored the argument that Barbie dolls encouraged the subjugation of women to men by…

Great news for civil liberties: The same day they rejected a gay marriage ballot measure, residents of Maine voted overwhelmingly to allow the sale of medical marijuana over the counter at state-licensed dispensaries. … The shift is widely described as generational. A Gallup poll in October found 44 percent of Americans favor full legalization of…

I don’t know what else to conclude after seeing this, but Chris Matthews is looking downright disenchanted with Barack Obama: Here’s the short YouTube version: And at Daily Kos (which is sounding the alarm over “Chris Matthews anti-Obama rant”), they’ve posted a longer version, in which Matthews details his complaints. It’s too early to tell…

“Instead of science, I’m going with crazy.” In Al Gore’s case, I’d say that’s a distinction without a difference, but why would he say that? Most likely, it’s a Climategate backup plan. Personally, I suspect that “Crazy Al” read Dave’s proposal to give his Nobel Prize to whoever purloined the Hadley CRU files, and he’s…

Not to belabor the point I’ve made enough as it is, but I want to do a little arithmetic with last night’s health care vote. Glenn Reynolds linked the following list of Red State Democrats who voted for cloture last night, and here they are: Alaska – Mark Begich. Arkansas – Blanche Lincoln. Arkansas –…

60-39. This appears to be a good sign. They may not be able to pass anything. The problems with this bill are legion. Let’s cover a few: 1) This will explode the deficit by trillions of dollars. The Medicare cuts are a three-card monte political ploy; they will never be upheld by future Congresses. The…

Anyone who really wants to understand why the release of the Hadley CRU files is so damaging should read this piece about how “Climate change pushes poor women to prostitution.” The “evidence” is so ludicrously thin that I find myself wondering whether it was just decided somewhere by the Powers That Be amongst the AGW…

By now you have all heard that a bunch of formerly secret e-mails and data relating to climate science have been revealed. It is casting serious doubt on the integrity of a number of the big names in the field and also adding to doubt about the size of the role of CO2 in climate…

This is absolutely horrible news: WASHINGTON — Invoking the name of Edward M. Kennedy, Democrats united Saturday night to push historic health care legislation past a key Senate hurdle over the opposition of Republicans eager to inflict a punishing defeat on President Barack Obama. There was not a vote to spare. The 60-39 vote cleared…

Not only was that my immediate reaction to Roger L. Simon’s and Lionel Chetwynd’s lively and spirited discussion of “An Education,” but it was the very first IMDB User Comment on the film (which BTW, bas drawn rave reviews across the board). I haven’t seen the film, so I can’t weigh in on whether Lionel…

I found a really interesting article on how thermodynamics affects political persuasion. Conservatives and Liberals. The Theory of Island Biogeography is a theory of species population distribution. There are major evolutionary implications in the ability of a species to distribute itself across space and time, not to mention the curious thermodynamics associated with this distribution.…

Regarding the the incredible story of the leaked Hadley CRU files (a story which M. Simon helped break in the blogosphere, and which prompted Dave to suggest that the leaker deserves Al Gore’s Nobel Prize), I’m naturally curious about the whodunnit aspect. It’s beginning to look like it was no hacker but an insider. From…

As there’s been some advocacy of secession in the comments, I thought I would examine how this might occur in practice, whether legally or not. A lot of people seem to think the Civil War settled the issue of whether states have the right to secede, except it did not. The war — not a…

We constantly hear that only moderate centrist Republicans can win in some places. And that is true. But what kind of moderate? What kind of centrist? I think that it has to be a moderate with strong principles. A strange beast to be sure. At least in this day and age. The last time the…

No, really. If you haven’t heard, someone has posted a whole bunch of correspondence between AGW “scientists.” The mask has slipped, fallen, and shattered: This is part of a letter send from Michael E. Mann to Phil Jones: I think we have to stop considering “Climate Research” as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should…

In an earlier email to M. Simon, I remarked, If a woman has a right to an abortion, all people have a right to medicate pain. That happens to be what I think. Yet as I learned recently, there are some people who interpret remarks I’ve made like that as an attempt to — let…

Rand Simberg linked a post I wrote last month about the federal criminalization of wood, and I thought I should thank him here rather than in the post itself — which Glenn Reynolds linked yesterday, but which is so old that regular readers might miss updates on it. Simberg added a great point which I…

I have posted Climate Files Hacked about the release by anonymous ftp of the contents of hundreds of files and thousands of e-mails. Some have questioned their authenticity. I have partial verification from Real or Fake. Steve McIntyre (Comment#23773) November 19th, 2009 at 6:08 pm I’m having trouble getting into CA right now. I made…

I just got a tip from Jccarlton at Talk Polywell that some one has hacked a lot of Hadley CRU files on Climate Science. You can get what details that are currently available at Watts Up With That. What has been released so far is full of bombshells. Like this e-mail. From: Phil Jones To:…

Is this what it sounds like when magical gov’t healthcare ponies die? Quinnipiac 36-51. PPP 42-50. The claims that America spends more for worse health care are crumbling under closer examination; people aren’t being fooled anymore by misleading comparisons of things that don’t measure health care outcomes. The poll numbers are dropping like a rock…