Philosophers Worry About These Things, So Should Bunnies

From Futility Closet

Suppose I pour poison in the water tank of a space ship while it stands on earth. My purpose is to kill the space traveller, and I succeed: when he reaches Mars he takes a drink and dies. Two events are easy to distinguish: my pouring of the poison, and the death of the traveller. One precedes the other, and causes it. But where does the event of my killing the traveller come in? The most usual answer is that my killing the traveller is identical with my pouring the poison. In that case, the killing is over when the pouring is. We are driven to the conclusion that I have killed the traveller long before he dies.

– Donald Davidson, “The Individuation of Events,” in N. Rescher et al., eds., Essays in Honor of Carl G. Hempel, 1969

From Rabbet Run by Barry Brook

End of the Century-2184

"...Hansen's bones are quiet at last,
...No science disturbs the lucid line,
For sun-scorched Earthers tune their thought
To Offword Station 'Holocene-1'
From where they know just what they ought,
...memories of times past that should be banished
Only relics, philosophies and a parched wasteland lie below..."

Ready to Go Virial

e/t James Risbey

Not a Slam Dunk

Columbia Journalism Review on professional ethics and legal liability of Peter Gleick and the blogs with respect to the Heartland Institute. Eli told you that third thing would show up.

Thanks to J Bowers for the pointer

Pay No Attention to That Man Behind the Curtain

Charles and David Koch have sued the Cato Institute, Kathryn Washburn, the widow of William Niskanen, former President of Cato, and a Director herself and Edward Crane, a shareholder and current President of Cato, essentially for control of the Institute.

Before reaching for the popcorn, a bit of history is useful, which is provided at Politico and in the complaint.  Cato was originally founded in Kansas as the Charles Koch Foundation by Charles Koch, George Pearson, Roger MacBride, Murray Rothbard and Ed Crane.  Rothbard left, Pearson sold his shares back and who knows (RTFR) what happened to MacBride, but David Koch and William Niskanen joined.  Each of the partners has an equal number of shares and there are agreements, which on the face say that if anyone leaves the Institute or the mortal coil, the shares have to be offered back.  Before Nishkanen's death there were four shareholders, Crane, Niskanen and the two Kochs.

Crane and widow Washburn claim (read infra) that the shares were offered back and refused, therefore they pass by Niskanen's will to Washburn, the Institute and the Institute for Justice in equal shares (see the will, Politico appears to have gotten this wrong).  That leaves control of Cato well up in the air.  Eli hopes for a washing of laundry.

That Doesn't Even Make Good Nonsense

The tailoring rule is part of the EPAs greenhouse gas emissions regulation under consideration in the US Court of Appeals.  It essentially only applies limits to emissions from large stationary sources and specifically exempts smaller sources

As Brian said in comments about the US Court of Appeals hearing on EPA's CO2 emission rule making

I haven't looked at this too closely, but the Bloomberg link correctly identifies the tailoring rule as the most vulnerable aspect of the law.

The irony is that tailoring limits the reach of EPA regulation. The denialists are trying to forcibly extend the reach so far that Congress comes in and kills it under President Romney.

The forces of evil (and this includes Ken Cuccenelli) are trying to get tailoring overturned.  Well they are trying to get the whole regulation thrown out to be honest, but not having much success at this level.  As to the bought and sold 5 on the US Supreme Court, who knows.  Reuters was there

Mitchell told the three-judge panel that the court should remand the tailoring rule to send a strong message to the EPA that it has overstepped its boundaries.

"We are asking the court to hold the EPA's feet to the fire and force them, if they are going to regulate stationary source greenhouse gas emissions, to do so based on what the statue says," he said.

But Chief Judge David Sentelle interrupted Mitchell, and said that the petitioners did not have the standing to challenge the rule because they did not demonstrate the harm it would cause states and industry.

"The harm you allege is a regulatory burden. The remedy you seek is a heavier regulatory burden. That doesn't even make good nonsense,"

Carrot Eater points out, the comments on this blog are degenerating.   Raise your game bunnies.

A pox on hat-tipping

Saw this blog post via another blog that I'm not linking to:

When I write a post on a study from the Journal of Minutae and Obscurity, though, and later in the day you happen to post on it? I’m suspicious. We need those links. They’re how we build readership and grow.

Spare me.  Say Apu writes a blog post, and Bart writes about Apu's post, and finally Cartman sees Bart's post and decides to write about Apu's original post.  The intellectual contribution from Bart is so small that I see no reason to link to Bart with the unnecessary hat tip. If Cartman's post is also inspired in some substantive way by Bart's riff, that might be different.

I've done hat tips and vias out of sheeplenish in the past, but I plan to stop.  No one needs to do them for me either (just speaking for myself tho, not my cobloggers).

John Abraham would not approve

Since not everyone reads the comments, Doug wins the internet with his comment on Tom Harris climate science qualifications

Mr. Harris is a MechE; as we know, the Earth's climate is governed by a system of sprockets, springs and chains similar that found on bicycles so it's wise to defer to his judgment. In the case of "negative discovery" I think he's trying to use nontechnical terms to explain that we have to pedal backward in order to go forward.

Emissions match Hansen Scenario B; Keystone delay is a victory; EDF Insider podcast; and Machete Order Star Wars

Three climate shorts here.

First, maybe others have already known this for years, but I'd been bothered by claims that Hansen's 1988 worst case emission scenario matched actual emissions while temps were far cooler.  Of course that's not true.  Actual emissions were slightly under Hansen's middle road scenario.  Temps were also under the middle scenario, partly because of emissions.  His model may have been slightly oversensitive for temperature reaction to GHGs but overall looks good. David Evans sadly has it wrong, is strongly criticized by William.


Second, in my comments elsewhere:

In my career, I've won much more often than I've lost when I'm on defense, trying to stop something I oppose, rather than trying to achieve something I support.

We're on offense on many aspects of climate, but on Keystone we're on defense.  I've also found in my career that delay is good when you're on defense.  Keystone now has to spend money while waiting longer to make a profit, making it somewhat more likely that they'll throw in the towel.  And even if they do build their monstrosity, doing it later makes it more likely to happen when the evil Harper/Santorum government of Canada is replaced by something reasonable that would put some restraints or mitigation on the project.


Third, Environmental Defense Fund did another of their irregular podcasts.  Highlights include a non-rejection of a carbon tax approach to climate mitigation.  OTOH, they say that in the end, groups should coalesce around a single approach at the national level, and we can predict what has the best chance of being that approach.  They also say that things  may get so bad that we might need to consider geoengineering and should be trying to figure out how we can research that approach carefully.  Sounds reasonable enough, sadly.


Finally and unrelated:  watching Star Wars movies in Machete Order.  Good way to introduce them to newbies.

Doug Proctor: Climate Change Is Caused by Smoke and Mirrors

Eli translates from the Tallbloke.  Comments building at the Weasel's.

It comes in threes

The first is the Court of Appeals hearing on the EPA endangerment finding, Eli did a series on that but the long and the short is that the Supreme Court said that EPA had to treat CO2 as a pollutant, and it is going to be REAL hard to get past that. Brad Johnson sets the stage and it looks like the judges are not happy campers with denial (from Greenwire, paywall)

Patrick Day of the Coalition for Responsible Regulation argued that the finding “erroneously decided to completely divorce” the risk assessment from the agency’s regulatory decisions. EPA’s inadequate endangerment finding, he said, authorizes “ineffective and perhaps even fruitless regulations.”
Judge David Tatel, who was particularly aggressive in questioning both sides, sharply dismissed Day’s logic.

“I do not understand your argument,” he said. “Why don’t you try again?”
Tatel and Sentelle both seemed concerned that the petitioners were asking the court to overturn the scientific basis for EPA’s endangerment finding or the Supreme Court’s decision in Massachusetts. Both judges indicated that was not their job.

UPDATE: From Reuters

U.S. Circuit Judge David Tatel pointing out the agency had found the science certain enough. "To win here, you have to make an argument that EPA's decision is actually arbitrary and capricious," Tatel said.

and from the Environmental Defense Fund

Against this backdrop, today’s Petitioners forwarded non-scientific reasons that they claimed would permit EPA to avoid finding that greenhouse gases are harmful to human health. That line of reasoning prompted Chief Judge Sentelle to note that:

Sometimes in reading Petitioners’ briefs, I got the feeling that Massachusetts hadn’t been decided.

Among these non-scientific factors: Petitioners urged that EPA must consider humans’ ability to adapt to a changing climate in determining whether greenhouse gases endanger human health. In a hypothetical, Judge Tatel probed the flawed implications of that argument – he asked whether Petitioners’ position meant that EPA could determine that a cancer-causing pollutant did not pose a danger to public health on the grounds that society may, at some future point, develop a cure for cancer.

The second is a bit of serious merriment, as the folks at the Canadian Committee for the Advancement of Scientific Skepticism (CASS) fisk Tom Harris' version of a climate change course. Tom, a public relations guy, took over a Carleton University course from Tim Patterson, a noted rock head and denialist there. Evidently lectures at CU are (partially) available as videos to those taking the class and to staff, so a staff member asked for and got access. The Ottawa Skeptics had a field day and dug out 142 issues for the bunnies delectation. Eli, being a backwards bunny will start at the back. Others (one, two, three, ) have taken the lead

T. Harris Claim 142. ‚Climate science is changing quickly.‛

CASS makes the excellent point that climate science is undergoing refinement reinforcing basic ideas rather than rebuilding from scratch but Eli asks why not, we bunnies are changing the climate at lightening (for geology) speed, which is the problem. One of the principles of engineering is if you want to understand how a system works, give it a kick and observe. Unfortunately, if you are in the box, this can be annoying.

T. Harris Claim 141. ‚Prepare for global cooling.‛

Often referred to as the Year 10K problem. Eli would suggest that it would be a good thing to hang around for.

Oh hell, its the usual spinach. Go read the CASS report, Skeptical Science or Coby Beck and the other blogs.

Eli admires how CASS anticipates the spittle headed its way. The CU faculty find that academic freedom depends on academic responsibility

Academic freedom carries with it the duty to use that freedom in a manner consistent with the scholarly obligation to base research and teaching on an honest search for truth.

They show in their report, that in Harris' class

There was no free exchange of ideas, but the one-sided presentation of a biased viewpoint that contradicts much established research. Indeed, not only were alternative views not given time, but students were actively encouraged to ridicule those individuals who espoused views considered "alarmist" by the instructor (see our comment concerning "blooper of the week" above). Finally, as we demonstrate extensively in our analysis, the material presented was not an adequate representation of the current state of the field of climate science. The teaching of critical thinking and skepticism is healthy in a university setting where students are expected to move beyond the confines of rote learning.

but, dear parents of pre-college bunnies who wonder what they will expose the young'uns to, there is a far more serious issue here. The major responsibility of the faculty at any university or college is to evaluate itself. In the strongest form this occurs in hiring and the granting of tenure, where the department faculty plays a decisive role in figuring out if the applicants have half a clue about the field they will teach and do research in.

Not so well known is that the faculty also evaluates adjuncts, instructors, whatever you call em. There is no way that the Carleton University Department of Earth Sciences met its responsibilities in this case. Harris is simply not qualified to teach a course on climate change.

Something else will turn up

Book Tour

Well known, but who could resist


Excerpts

-------------------------------

28 February 2012 4:26PM

Mr Mann,
The other day I thought I’d play around with some randomly generated time-series and see if I could ‘reconstruct’ northern hemisphere temperatures. The reconstructions clearly show a ‘hockey-stick’ trend. Rhis is precisely the phenomenon that Steve Mcintyre has been talking on about.
Have you attempted to process random data with your statistical procedures in order to verify that they don't make hockey stick shapes simply as a result of an incorrect methodology?

28 February 2012 4:33PM

Response to RobinsonRM, 28 February 2012 4:26PM

Hmm. You really need to read the book, since I discuss this in some detail. That claim is been refuted in a number of actual studies in the peer-reviewed literature, by folks like Von Storch, Huybers, Wahl & Ammann, etc. McIntyre engaged in some rather dubious cherry-picking to falsely make this claim. Among other things, he sorted through thousands of random series to eventually find some that had the shape he was looking for. There is a good discussion at the site "DeepClimate", search on "mcintyre": http://deepclimate.org/?s=McIntyre
----------------------

28 February 2012 4:34PM

Dr. Mann,
James Hansen is widely quoted as saying that climate-sensitivity is "nailed" at 3C by paleoclimate. What are your views on this?
PS, loved the book.

michaelemann

28 February 2012 4:39PM

Response to aphillips, 28 February 2012 4:34PM

thanks for the kind words about the book. Jim is a great scientist, who has made substantial contributions to our field, and I never take anything he has to say about the science lightly. I am surprised if he stated this, as there is still a very vigorous debate within the climate research community about precisely how much constraint we can put on equilibrium climate sensitivity. In my own (somewhat expert) assessment I would suspect that the range is somewhere between 2-4C for the "fast feedback response", but larger, for the long-term response where land surface and carbon cycle feedbacks fully kick in. but here especially there are many 'known unknowns' and almost certainly quite a few 'unknown unknowns'. As I remarked earlier, there is no reason at all to assume that uncertainty will cut in our favor. Indeed, there is more reason to be believe it will cut against us, because of the possibility of some very high cost albeit low probability impacts.

aphillips

28 February 2012 4:46PM

Thanks for the reply Mike. I've had a look - Hansen said it at an AGU meeting, and did add "plus or minus half a degree." Good luck with the book - great bit of science communication, even if I still don't quite grasp the details of PCA.
All the best.

-------------------------------

lionelsacks

28 February 2012 4:40PM

As someone who did not cope well with the level of bullying that can occur in academia, between colleagues! ... I was deeply moved, reading your book by what you and others been subjected to. Being anti-science is one thing, but the violence that's involved in this debate is astonishing...
What can be done to re-civilize the debate on climate change policy?

michaelemann

28 February 2012 4:47PM

Response to lionelsacks, 28 February 2012 4:40PM

thanks for your comment. well sadly, I think it is symptomatic of something much deeper, at least in the U.S. Its part and parcel to the poisoning of our public discourse, where every issue seems to have to be construed as falling along partisan political divide, and immediately you have gridlock and stagnation when it comes to advancing policy solutions to read problems. Part of the problem is the loss, in our media, of an honest broker. It wasn't that long ago that, as legendary New York Senator Patrick P. Moynihan once said, "you're entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts". Unfortunately, it now seems that with climate change---and so many other matters of policy relevance--people seem to think they are entitled to their own facts. Sadly, much of that is evident even in some of the comments that have been posted here today. There seems to be a loss of good faith in the public discourse. And until we solve that problem, I see little hope for substantial progress in solving just about any substantive problem faced by society.
-------------------------------

Salamano

28 February 2012 4:48PM

Thank you for your consideration :) My sister-in-law had you in class as a student at UVA...
My question concerns the 'loading the climate dice' studies that are starting to pop up in the literature. What are your thoughts on the validity of such studies? In my view, it's either the methodology is uniformly applicable, skillful, and revelatory, or the methodology is flawed.
For example, Stefan Rahmstorf's study showing the 'loading of the climate dice' when it comes to attribution of the Moscow heat wave (y'all discuss this at RC as well) ... What if his same methodology (or others like it) were to be applied to the extreme cold gripping Eastern Europe / Balkans this winter?

michaelemann

28 February 2012 4:55PM

Response to Salamano, 28 February 2012 4:48PM

Thanks. Please say hi to your sister for me. I hope she had a positive experience! Your question is a great one. Generally speaking, we expect the "climate dice" to be increasingly loaded towards more "sixes" (extreme heat) and fewer "ones" (extreme cold). Certainly, we see that for the U.S., where the incidence of extreme heat over extreme cold has doubled over the past several decades to where the records run 2-to-1 (in the absence of climate change, it should be 1-1). Last summer in the U.S. it was closer to 10-to-1. So we are seeing climate change in the collective rolling of the weather dice. W.r.t. the Moscow heat wave, the Rahmstorf finding was recently reaffirmed in an independent study using so-called "detection-plus-attribution" approaches by some scientists at Oxford.
Now, the extreme cold during parts of the winter in Europe for the past few years is very interesting. I would have guessed that there was no particular connection to climate change. However, a number of recent peer-reviewed articles have argued that there may indeed be a connection: the loss of Arctic Sea Ice in the summer and the impact that has one the transfer of heat form the Arctic ocean into the overlying atmosphere in fall and winter, may be perturbing the jet stream in such a way that you get more frequent wiggles favoring northerly (arctic) air flow over parts of Europe during winter. But the jury is still out on this. That's what makes the science so interesting. There are real uncertainties & controversies, and they have implications. Were that the discourse was over these issues, rather than the false debate we're still having in the public discourse about whether or not climate change is even real :(

--------------------

thefandango

28 February 2012 4:47PM

Micheal
Given that the term "denier" has obvious holocaust denial connotations, do you think that your use of that word is:
1. unacceptable for a scientist to use
2. one that could incite certain elements to violence against people who question the concensus
Or do you consider it a reasonable term?

michaelemann

28 February 2012 5:06PM

Response to thefandango, 28 February 2012 4:47PM

Frankly, I think those who complain about this are often just producing crocodiles tears. As someone who lost relatives to the religious persecution of the jewish people, I would be as sensitive to anyone if I really though the use of the term has anything whatsoever do do with the holocaust. I find that argument quite disingenuous if not downright dishonest. For those who are denying mainstream science, the logical thing to call them is "deniers". they are certainly not "skeptics" and even "contrarian" doesn't always fit the bill. Given that some of the fiercest of our detractors have proudly declared themselves deniers (one such individual even wrote a book "The Deniers") I find that this argument has no currency at all. I suspect its often used as a somewhat disingenuous ploy to get journalists and other commentators to grant the highly undeserved term of "skeptic" to those who are nothing of the sort.
------------------------

Thorstein Veblen and Occupy Wall Street

From Richard Lichty emeritus at UMN Duluth, by way of Crooked Timber, (comment 2) an explanation of the world according to Thorstein Veblen, the man who created the Theory of the Leisure Class and Conspicuous Consumption, providing much intellectual framework with which we today parse the world.

TV nailed it about the time Arrhenius was explaining the Greenhouse Effect

Veblen identified two different behavioral traits in history: the trait of workmanship and the predatory trait (the tendency to exploit and plunder). Workmanship includes such things as parenting and "idle curiosity" in addition to the more usual use of the term - creativity. It is out of this trait that advances in civilization stems. It is also out of this trait from which the instinct for cooperation stems.

The predatory instinct is what made early societies revere the strong. The booty from victory at war, including slaves, ears, scalps, etc., were often displayed by the mightiest of warriors. In other systems, the instinct might be less obvious - but it always leads to sexism, racism, subjugation, and exploitation. If this instinct is hidden in society, it is usually hidden behind sportsmanship and ceremonialism.  .  .

Veblen asserted that the businessperson's desire for pecuniary gain would cause him/her to lose any interest in producing things. Buying and selling companies, closing and opening companies, in short, financial wheeling and dealing would take precedence over production. Absentee ownership would become the pinnacle of success. The absentee owner spends his/her time with accountants, lawyers, stockbrokers, advisors, but not with the engineers.  The engineers would keep production going for the business leaders so that at least something will be produced.

UPDATE:  Hank delivers the experimental evidence in the comments

"New research suggests that the upper classes are more likely to behave dishonorably than those lower on the economic spectrum. The rich are more likely to cheat, steal, and even disobey traffic laws than those with less money and power (abstract).

Higher social class predicts increased unethical behavior by  K. Piff, Daniel M. Stancato, Stéphane Côté, Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton and Dacher Keltner
 PNAS  doi: 10.1073/pnas.1118373109 February 27, 2012 

 Seven studies using experimental and naturalistic methods reveal that upper-class individuals behave more unethically than lower-class individuals. In studies 1 and 2, upper-class individuals were more likely to break the law while driving, relative to lower-class individuals. In follow-up laboratory studies, upper-class individuals were more likely to exhibit unethical decision-making tendencies (study 3), take valued goods from others (study 4), lie in a negotiation (study 5), cheat to increase their chances of winning a prize (study 6), and endorse unethical behavior at work (study 7) than were lower-class individuals. Mediator and moderator data demonstrated that upper-class individuals’ unethical tendencies are accounted for, in part, by their more favorable attitudes toward greed.

Galt is evil

Santorum will be the Republican nominee, in 2016

(Idle speculation time here....)

Interesting NYMag article here on the Republican race and its repercussions depending on who wins.  I'm sticking with my prediction from last August that Romney will win the nomination, and I think he'll probably (hopefully) lose the election.  Then what?

Two factors then push in the same direction in 2016 - the Republicans will turn against the faction that led the way to failure in 2012, and the Republicans strongly favor nominating the "next in line" who was closest to winning the nomination.  The NYMag article somehow misses how well Santorum would be set up in '16, especially given the inevitable claim that the Rs failed to be true to their roots by nominating Romney.

Santorum would be an exceptionally weak candidate given demographics, increasingly secular voters outside of the GOP, and increased acceptance of homosexuality.  He'll respond to this problem but he would tack slightly, only slightly, to center, de-emphasizing some social issues and maybe even changing  a bit on a few.  Mostly he'll spend the next four years raising money for himself, creating an organization, and putting deposits in the favor bank among the GOP.  He'll defeat a libertarian challenger and someone attacking him from the right.

The Ds won't be that strong, either.  The ruling party tends to get tired and accumulate scandals after eight years and will be without an obvious successor, although a 69-year old Hillary Clinton will have set herself up for running by leaving the Obama Administration four years earlier.  Balancing that out against Santorum, the Democrats win.  Then what?

I've thought for a while that Republicans need to lose consistently before they'll change.  Losing this year isn't enough, but it might be in 2016.  Hopefully more will have wakened from the Republican opium dream of climate denial.  We could see a more realistic Republican party by then.  Maybe 2020 or 2024 there will be a Republican President Chris Christie, not nearly as good as a Democrat but not a total disaster.


UPDATE, March 1:  might as well add another idle prediction - Ron Paul won't run on a third party ticket. Not for the general reason that this would make trouble for his son, but the specific reason that his son would have to choose between endorsing his father and endorsing his own party, which would be bad for Rand's future.  Blood is thicker than libertarianism.

UPDATE, March 7:  the Lamestream Media catches on to Santorum 2016.  No hat tip but I doubt I was the first to publicly notice it, and Santorum probably thought it through as a possibility when he was still a polling asterisk.

UPDATE April 2015:  I've been meaning to say something for at least year - this post worked out pretty well for 2012, but Santorum is going nowhere. He could've reacted like Reagan did after 1976 and reached out beyond his constituency, but he isn't bright enough to do that. Clearly we can't just apply simplistic rules like "next in line always wins" to political outcomes.

The puke funnel

The churnalists are playing ping pong with Peter Gliek.  TBogg, who has some handsome hounds, describes this in terms of the push to the Iraq war

You may be aware of the term “puke funnel” which is used to describe either a well-orchestrated right-wing campaign to smear and discredit people or, depending upon the topic, to create a new and improved reality more amenable to the instigators’ needs. A classic example is how Ahmad Chalabi plied Judith Miller with access and lies about WMD’s in Iraq which Miller unquestioningly reported, only to have Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, and Condoleezza Rice cite her reporting as further evidence for the need to go to war.

and you remember how well that turned out.  Well now

You can see the same forces at work in the matter of Peter Gleick and the Heartland Institute papers as the people who support the institute unleash their yappy attack dogs on Gleick in order to deflect from the fact that Heartland is a corporate front group for companies who see the world as their ashtray. Earlier in the week you had I’m-not-angry, I’m-just-very-disappointed Andrew Revkin at the NYT (is gullibility a feature or a bug at the Times?…discuss) display his Miller-esque knack for being manipulated while over at The Atlantic our gal Megan McArdle was putting in a serious amount of work (as noted by DougJ) arriving at the conclusion that the disputed memo must be fake because…well, she has mad forensic skillz so just shut up

 T points out that every puke funnel needs a self reinforcing daisy chain, the full Santorum as it were being passed about madly in a single Koch Industries funded chain letter

In the meantime, her work for the Kochs is done here. The circle of life is complete. The check is in the mail. This is the way the world ends, this is the way the world ends, not with a bang, but a whisper campaign…

Putting some credibility behind predictions of Libya's future

In the spirit of William's sea ice bets, I'd like to see if the people who call intervention in Libya a mistake, based on what will happen in the future, are themselves willing to put some money behind those predictions.  It's the same idea of betting elsewhere, I think it concentrates the mind and reduces some level of over-expressed certainty.

So, Freedom House gave Libya the worst possible ratings in 2010 on a scale of 1 to 7, with a 7 for political rights and 7 for civil rights.  I predict at the end of 2013 there will be at least three grades of improvement, e.g. political rights could improve to at least 5 and civil to at least 6, but it could be in other combinations.  My guess is that it'll be more like four or five (and one has already happened), but I think three grades clearly represent a benefit to the country.

I'm looking at small scale bets, $50-$100, where the actual bet is ego-based and the money is just to make it a little more real.  You can judge my lack of confidence in making huge bets (and my lack of huge assets) accordingly.  Bets open to people who seem real to me, and especially open to people who posted their various predictions of doom on the web.

UPDATE September 2013:  still standing by this bet offer, despite the latest bad news. I'm open to other objective measurement standards for people who don't trust Freedom House. One possibility is the first credible nationwide poll taken in Libya after January 1 2014 that asks whether people are glad or regret that Gaddafi failed to defeat the movement against him.

Tax Free Shenanigans?

Perhaps Eli is not cynical enough, but to the Bunny the small family business climate blog operated by the Idsos has always seemed a curious thing.  True, the world is replete with aging denialists and some of them have incorporated, some for profit, some for retirement funding.  Other strokes for other folks.  Live and let live.  Have a carrot and chill.

Yet the recent revelation about money going into and out of the Heartland Institute gave impetus to another poke into their Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change.  Reading the 990s brings up a curious thing (which had already been noticed by Sourcewatch).

The business supports the Idso family (about $300K/year) but also in 2009 and 2010 (2011 is not yet available), Robert E. Ferguson of the Science and Public Policy Institute, Chris Monckton's home base in the US, to the tune of again, about 300K$/year.  SPPI is not registered as a 501 c3, it appears to be a shell (its DC address is a mailbox in a building devoted to mailboxing, Eli has breakfast around the corner).

The question is why.  Well, the obvious guess is that because donations to the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change are tax free.  Since SPPI is basically a one person operation, and the CSCDGC aka the Idsos house the SPPI web site, there are not many other expenses above a few drinks for Chris when he drops by. That makes donations to support BobF much cheaper.  So why not simply use the Idso family business for SPPI, but in that case, not being a 501 c3 allows messing around in all sorts of lobbying and politics.  


Perhaps the IRS might take a poke?  Shenanigans like that could make the Idos' 501 c3 registration shakey.

UPDATE:  John Mashey had laid most of this out in his "Fakery from SEPP"

“Charity” donations come to CSCDGC from unspecified sources, but the fragmentary data includes ExxonMobil, Scaife, {Lambe, Bradley, and DONORS}, of which the latter group sent money to CSCDGC, but at Ferguson’s address. IRS-7F. The IRS might inquire about that. CSCDGC’s governance is the Idso family. IRS-6G I allege that CSCDGC needs investigation for possible violations of charity rules on governance and finances, IRS-6G, IRS-7F.
 
Craig Idso is listed as a “science advisor” for SPPI, but, in his role as CSCDGC Treasurer, pays Ferguson as an employee, unusually well for executing a tiny operation.
 
I allege that CSCDGC and Ferguson violate charity rules on education and research, IRS-0E. The nature of SPPI would have been difficult to reconcile with CSCDGC’s claims to do science.
 
In any case, SPPI is a fake organization, a front for CSCDGC. The staff is essentially Ferguson, with a cast of the usual “advisors.”

Eli differs only on the last paragraph, CSCDGC appears to be more of a charitable deduction front end for SPPI than visa versa.  Ferguson is a hell of a lot better connected.  SPPI now only maintains it's mailbox office in Haymarket, VA.  According to John, the flow of checks into that hole in the wall are interesting.

Calling Andrew Gelman

Eli has seen the future and it is confused.  In a report on release of teachers rankings, the bunny saw this gem

At a briefing on Friday morning, an Education Department official said that over the five years, 521 teachers were rated in the bottom 5 percent for two or more years, and 696 were repeatedly in the top 5 percent.

But citing both the wide margin of error — on average, a teacher’s math score could be 35 percentage points off, or 53 points on the English exam

Average. Off.  Head.  Wall.  Bang.  Notify Andrew Gelman

Syrian safe havens, and R2P overreach in Libya

I supported and continue to support the vast majority of what international community did in Libya.  For those who continue to predict bad things in Libya's future, I'm going to put up a post soon to give them a chance to put their money where their mouths are, while I do the same.

Our governments did, however, go too far at the tail end of the war and I opposed it. There were earlier examples too were we twisted the international authorization of force under the Responsibility to Protect civilians doctrine and used it for the only-partially overlapping goal of regime change.

That's part of the problem in Syria today, that the military overreach in Libya makes it harder to apply R2P in Syria.  But that doesn't mean we should put all military options off the table.

I partially disagree with Marc Lynch and his analysis that no military options should be pursued.  Asad should be given a choice (in private communication), to either back off from rebel-held zones or face the establishment of safe havens along the Turkish border.  Safe havens wouldn't be the first choice but it would be the alternative.  There also should be some, only some, covert military assistance to the armed opposition - not an attempt to make them strong enough to win, but to help them be strong enough to protect the areas they control and retain the possibility of further fractures in Syria's military.

Marc is right that armed observers are useless absent Syrian authorization, which won't happen, and that a no fly zone is a bad idea (mostly).  Punitive air strikes are also useless in themselves, but not as a limited mechanism to protect safe havens.  If safe havens become necessary, Asad gets warned (privately) that any attack on a safe haven will face reprisal air strikes that will degrade his air defenses, making it incrementally easier to do still more punitive strikes or establish a no fly zone.  We don't need to do a no-fly zone, just make him fear one.

(More after the jump....)

Shock, Horror, Surprise: GMU finds Wegman slightly pregnant, but only in one case, not the other

GMU as expected has taken the minimum slap at Wegman's wrist.  Dan Vergano has the story

In a statement to GMU faculty, provost Peter Stearns said that one investigation committee unanimously found that "no misconduct was involved" in the 2006 Congressional report. "Extensive paraphrasing of another work did occur, in a background section, but the work was repeatedly referenced and the committee found that the paraphrasing did not constitute misconduct," he said, in the statement. 

A second university committee found unanimously, "that plagiarism occurred in contextual sections of the (CSDA) article, as a result of poor judgment for which Professor Wegman, as team leader, must bear responsibility." Wegman will receive an "official letter of reprimand", Stearns said, as sanction for the plagiarism.

GMU had to acknowledge the plagiarism in the paper by the journal having withdrawn it.  Of course, Prof. Wegman was not the one who plagiarized, he was merely responsible for it.  Will GMU sanction whoever did?  Don't hold your breath bunnies.  Other issues not to hold your breath on are the multiple other acts of plagiarism from the Wegman group.  Obviously GMU is not interested in following up unless ORI forces them to.

There was, of course reaction

"Yes, plagiarism does matter," says scientific misconduct expert Nicholas Steneck of the University of Michigan, a former Office of Research Integrity official, by e-mail. Plagiarism is one of the "Big Three" of science misconduct offenses, alongside falsifying and fabricating data that trigger punishment from federal research agencies."If the project is federally funded, the results of the investigation must be forwarded to the appropriate agency," Steneck says.

The Rabetts will see if ORI accepts the GMU report.  GMU is not releasing it.  Further surprise.

Keep your eye on the ball

Here's an aside in a post I wrote about Roger Pielke Jr. two years ago, who was mad about a study criticizing his father but didn't have much substantive to say about it:

an interesting choice of tactics here - during the whole stolen climate emails thing, some people wanted to focus on the privacy invasion and illegal theft, which I thought would be viewed as an attempt to distract people from the content when the content wasn't that bad.  Here, denialists and unhelpful types like Pielke Jr. are ignoring the PNAS study content and screaming about blacklists.  Maybe it's like the lawyer's saying that if you can't pound any arguments in your favor, pound the table instead.

I'm just trying to be consistent here.  Content is king.  Set aside the strategy document.  Heartland has now had plenty of time to review and deny the accuracy of the other documents and it hasn't.  The docs seem generally supportive of John Mashey's analysis of public records.  The outrage you're hearing from the denialists are attempts to distract people from the content when the content is bad.

Time to send the IRS and state attorney generals after these fake charities.