Eli meant to behave but there were way too many options.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Who dressed Lombog?
Bjorn Lomborg showed up for his testimony before the House wearing a black T-shirt. This must have made a wonderful impression. Here is the link to the testimony
I would say that it might be a cultural difference as Northern Europeans are less formal in this respect, but it is so obviously stupid to show up in Congress dressed like that I can't bother.
Is he ever going to shut up about his Copenhagen Consensus?
Now that you mention it, I think you're right. He always wears this... Still, when you go to testify before congress you might consider wearing a suit. Now the attention is partly moved to his outfit. Hardly the outcome he would wish for.
My Realplayer icon said this was an hour and 54 minute file. Did he really go on for nearly two hours? After I heard Bjorn's four points (does that mean I was Bjorn again?) I clicked it off. I know Danes like herring, but is Bjorn known in Copenhagen as a purveyor of the red kind?
At least the skeptic giving the counter weight this time is someone not denying the basic science. We've moved on from Crighton to Lomborg. One writes fiction the other writes fictional non-fiction...
"My Realplayer icon said this was an hour and 54 minute file."
If Lomborg's book is any indication, I'd say he probably spent 4 minutes (5 tops) at the hearing making his "points" and the other 1 hour 50 minutes (speed) reading off his list of footnotes.
Not having seen the video or anything, but I would assume that Lomborg was dressed like that in order to emphasise his non mainstream outsider challengeing the stodgy consensus status.
Of course, now he has a think tank of his own, he is a fully paid up insider. (Albeit inside the people who have no science behind them)
Is anyone seriously fooled by this pose these days?
It's not so much that attention has moved to his dress, it's that there is a code of dress and he will be taken less seriously for having disregarded it.
You post several different pictures of Lomborg on your site in different possible outfits (say, ten or so) -- T-shirt, Armani suit (yech), Spedo (yaaa), Tarzan diaper, superman cape, batman, Roger Pielke outfit, etc, etc and let us anonymice comment on (ie, tear to shreds) the various outfits and then vote on the one we like best.
Then, at the end, we all pitch in an buy Lomborg the outfit that got the most votes.
May I suggest you all actually listen to the testimony?
Lomborg repeatedly said he agrees with the IPCC, and Hansen, and Gore (at one point he said Gore was 'right, for the wrong reason' -- causing the questioner to quickly cut him off before he explained any further why Gore's statement was correct and gave his reasoning).
He seemed to hold quite closely to the notion that there are other ways to spend the money. He also chastened the US for having the self-stated ability to "do it all" and deal with both malaria and climate change, by pointing out that in recent years the US has cut its support for all sorts of programs that would have helped the world.
He was an inconvenient witness, for the people who called him, I'd say.
Seriously -- listen, or watch and listen. Whatever the reason, he didn't give comfort to the people who brought him there.
I did listen. I have listened to him many times. I have read his book. He consistently operates by assuming that all the best case scenarios will happen without giving any weight to more likely scenarios or indeed the worst case situations. It is also not a situation of "another way to spend the money". We are perfectly capable of dealing with both malaria and global warming. Indeed, not acting on global warming is going to have a serious impact on all these other things he thinks are more important.
His little Copenhagen Consensus is the perfect reason not to trust him. He set out to show that if you have 50 million and five years it would be better to spend the money on something else than dealing with global warming. Well, yes. Thank you. Rather than travelling the world and trying to get people to fund the problems that his CC put top of the list he is travelling the world talking about global warming. The issue that was at the bottom of his priorities... Funny that.
I would like to talk about his book and the almost unending list of factual errors in it, but I can't be bothered.
Anonymous, I have seen Lomborg on TV before, and he was dressed in a snappy fashion, in a kind of BOHO or Casual Yuppie look. So no, I donb't think he's a slob, I think his dress is part of his self image.
Hank, that is interesting. If Lomborg agrees with the IPCC etc, then all that is left is for him to play politics with other peoples money and lives. Perhaps we have here one of the most blatant examples of someone leveraging a controversial topic for direct personal gain.
I've read his book and Lomborg is basically a know-it-all know-nothing
Or is it a know-nothing know-it-all? I forget.
Anyway, he believes that because he is a statistician, that makes him an expert on anything that statistics is used for, which is basically all of science -- which is a lot of nonsense, of course.
What is important about Bjorn's testimony is that his claims about climate science show him to be a fool and a charlatan. His manner of dress is relevant only to the stupid.
Hey, watch who you call stupid, unless you want the anonymice to go into attack mode an start nibbling at your heals. We can be vicious (just ask John Fleck)
Point is --- if you listen to his testimony, he is (now) arguing only that political choices are to be made about spending money, but he is (now) telling his Republicans the IPCC and Mr. Gore are right about the problem.
Yes'm, yessir, he's got a record for dumbfuscation on the whole issue, he's never going to live it down.
But it's really interesting to listen (wish I'd had a video feed, but twern't possible) --- the voices of the Republicans trying to ask him questions they thought they knew the answers to were remarkable.
It was the Republicans, his sponsors, who repeatedly sounded uncomfortable with his answers and actually cut him off when he was obviously going somewhere they did NOT want on record from him.
"Just because you're on their side doesn't mean they're on your side" (Teresa Nielsen Hayden).
But also, just because he's not on our side doesn't mean he's on the Republican denialists' side _now_.
Gotta listen for the glimmerings of fact in all the testimony, not write off people on the basis that they didn't say the right things _last_ time 'round.
There's always hope. People change, or at least fudge, once their positions start to seem less tenable. The people who never mike mestakes are the ones who have the hardest time _not_ getting fossilized. But we don't need to stone them while they're giving flickering glimpses of changing.
Q: How many Bjorn Lomborgs ... does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: Experts estimate that between 1 and 1000 lightbulbs are changed every day in Svyerkasgaard. Furthermore, these same experts estimate that it takes between 1 and 1000 people to change them. Using these estimates, we can conclude that it takes as many as 1000 people to change a lightbulb, an investment that far outweighs any possible benefit in terms of visibility. So forget that.
UPDATE: The spambots got clever so the verification is back. Apologies
Some of the regulars here are having trouble telling the anonymice apart. Please add some distinguishing name to your comment such as Mickey, Minnie, Mighty, or Fred.
Perhaps he is trying to look like an environmentalist in (the) morning.
ReplyDeleteWhat does this guy think, we were all Bjorn yesterday?
Wonder how many thousands of dollars that little visit cost our government. Your tax dollars at work (mine too).
Put it on the tab (along with the cost of Iraq and global warming). Hey, who's keeping track, any way?
I would say that it might be a cultural difference as Northern Europeans are less formal in this respect, but it is so obviously stupid to show up in Congress dressed like that I can't bother.
ReplyDeleteIs he ever going to shut up about his Copenhagen Consensus?
Bjørn Lomborg always wears tight T-shirts. Always.
ReplyDelete(I am from Denmark -- I have never seen a picture of him or seen him in person wearing anything but T-shirts.)
peter,
ReplyDeleteNow that you mention it, I think you're right. He always wears this... Still, when you go to testify before congress you might consider wearing a suit. Now the attention is partly moved to his outfit. Hardly the outcome he would wish for.
I think it has been fairly well established -- by Harvard's E. O Wilson and others who know -- that Lomborg is clueless.
ReplyDeleteYet another mediocre mathematician who knows how to play with his equations but does not undestand (or even care) what they mean.
I suspect that the only job he'd be able to get here in the US would be at American Enterprise Institute.
It's not necessary to dress Lomborg down.
ReplyDeleteHe does it himself.
My Realplayer icon said this was an hour and 54 minute file. Did he really go on for nearly two hours? After I heard Bjorn's four points (does that mean I was Bjorn again?) I clicked it off. I know Danes like herring, but is Bjorn known in Copenhagen as a purveyor of the red kind?
ReplyDeleteAt least the skeptic giving the counter weight this time is someone not denying the basic science. We've moved on from Crighton to Lomborg. One writes fiction the other writes fictional non-fiction...
ReplyDelete"My Realplayer icon said this was an hour and 54 minute file."
ReplyDeleteIf Lomborg's book is any indication, I'd say he probably spent 4 minutes (5 tops) at the hearing making his "points" and the other 1 hour 50 minutes (speed) reading off his list of footnotes.
I'd categorize what Lomborg writes as "Frickin Fiction" -- "Friction", for short.
ReplyDeleteNot having seen the video or anything, but I would assume that Lomborg was dressed like that in order to emphasise his non mainstream outsider challengeing the stodgy consensus status.
ReplyDeleteOf course, now he has a think tank of his own, he is a fully paid up insider. (Albeit inside the people who have no science behind them)
Is anyone seriously fooled by this pose these days?
"Is anyone seriously fooled by this pose these days?"
ReplyDeleteYou mean, anyone besides James Inhofe and our Kammandant in Chief, Klink?
I wouldn't read too much into Lomborg's dressing habits.
The guy may just be a slob, in addition to being clueless. The two are not incompatible, after all.
It's not so much that attention has moved to his dress, it's that there is a code of dress and he will be taken less seriously for having disregarded it.
ReplyDeleteI just had an idea, Eli.
ReplyDeleteHow about a little election here in the burrow.
Sort of a Rabett Run Idol, if you will.
You post several different pictures of Lomborg on your site in different possible outfits (say, ten or so) -- T-shirt, Armani suit (yech), Spedo (yaaa), Tarzan diaper, superman cape, batman, Roger Pielke outfit, etc, etc and let us anonymice comment on (ie, tear to shreds) the various outfits and then vote on the one we like best.
Then, at the end, we all pitch in an buy Lomborg the outfit that got the most votes.
IMHO Bush as Hoffstetter (the Gestapo officer character) is much more apt than Klink.
ReplyDeleteYou could be right, Steve, though Bush does have the bumbling idiot routine down -- though, admittedly, it is undoubtedly just that.
ReplyDeleteBut if Bush is Hoffstetter, who does that leave for Cheney and Rove?
Seems to me Rove fits the (propagandist) Hoffstetter character very well.
May I suggest you all actually listen to the testimony?
ReplyDeleteLomborg repeatedly said he agrees with the IPCC, and Hansen, and Gore (at one point he said Gore was 'right, for the wrong reason' -- causing the questioner to quickly cut him off before he explained any further why Gore's statement was correct and gave his reasoning).
He seemed to hold quite closely to the notion that there are other ways to spend the money. He also chastened the US for having the self-stated ability to "do it all" and deal with both malaria and climate change, by pointing out that in recent years the US has cut its support for all sorts of programs that would have helped the world.
He was an inconvenient witness, for the people who called him, I'd say.
Seriously -- listen, or watch and listen. Whatever the reason, he didn't give comfort to the people who brought him there.
Hank,
ReplyDeleteI did listen. I have listened to him many times. I have read his book. He consistently operates by assuming that all the best case scenarios will happen without giving any weight to more likely scenarios or indeed the worst case situations. It is also not a situation of "another way to spend the money". We are perfectly capable of dealing with both malaria and global warming. Indeed, not acting on global warming is going to have a serious impact on all these other things he thinks are more important.
His little Copenhagen Consensus is the perfect reason not to trust him. He set out to show that if you have 50 million and five years it would be better to spend the money on something else than dealing with global warming. Well, yes. Thank you. Rather than travelling the world and trying to get people to fund the problems that his CC put top of the list he is travelling the world talking about global warming. The issue that was at the bottom of his priorities... Funny that.
I would like to talk about his book and the almost unending list of factual errors in it, but I can't be bothered.
Anonymous, I have seen Lomborg on TV before, and he was dressed in a snappy fashion, in a kind of BOHO or Casual Yuppie look. So no, I donb't think he's a slob, I think his dress is part of his self image.
ReplyDeleteHank, that is interesting. If Lomborg agrees with the IPCC etc, then all that is left is for him to play politics with other peoples money and lives. Perhaps we have here one of the most blatant examples of someone leveraging a controversial topic for direct personal gain.
I've read his book and Lomborg is basically a know-it-all know-nothing
ReplyDeleteOr is it a know-nothing know-it-all? I forget.
Anyway, he believes that because he is a statistician, that makes him an expert on anything that statistics is used for, which is basically all of science -- which is a lot of nonsense, of course.
Does anymouse know of a virtual model program that you can put faces/bodies onto from image files and use to try clothes on online?
ReplyDeleteEli looked last night and could not find one
This might be what you're looking for, Eli.
ReplyDeleteIt's called Bjørn Dresser 1.0
What is important about Bjorn's testimony is that his claims
ReplyDeleteabout climate science show him to be a fool and a charlatan. His manner of dress is
relevant only to the stupid.
Hey, watch who you call stupid, unless you want the anonymice to go into attack mode an start nibbling at your heals. We can be vicious (just ask John Fleck)
ReplyDeletePoint is --- if you listen to his testimony, he is (now) arguing only that political choices are to be made about spending money, but he is (now) telling his Republicans the IPCC and Mr. Gore are right about the problem.
ReplyDeleteYes'm, yessir, he's got a record for dumbfuscation on the whole issue, he's never going to live it down.
But it's really interesting to listen (wish I'd had a video feed, but twern't possible) --- the voices of the Republicans trying to ask him questions they thought they knew the answers to were remarkable.
It was the Republicans, his sponsors, who repeatedly sounded uncomfortable with his answers and actually cut him off when he was obviously going somewhere they did NOT want on record from him.
"Just because you're on their side doesn't mean they're on your side" (Teresa Nielsen Hayden).
But also, just because he's not on our side doesn't mean he's on the Republican denialists' side _now_.
Gotta listen for the glimmerings of fact in all the testimony, not write off people on the basis that they didn't say the right things _last_ time 'round.
There's always hope. People change, or at least fudge, once their positions start to seem less tenable. The people who never mike mestakes are the ones who have the hardest time _not_ getting fossilized. But we don't need to stone them while they're giving flickering glimpses of changing.
Ankh = Hank Roberts
ReplyDeleteSwitching from Windows to Mac confuses Blogger no end, apparently.
"ankh" is a fine name.
ReplyDeleteI think if I ever have a boy, I'll name him that (lower case and all).
I'll tell him he (or at least his name) was conceived in the internet tubes.
Ah, yes, Copenhagen ...
ReplyDeleteeRiposte had this:
Q: How many Bjorn Lomborgs ... does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: Experts estimate that between 1 and 1000 lightbulbs are changed every day in Svyerkasgaard. Furthermore, these same experts estimate that it takes between 1 and 1000 people to change them. Using these estimates, we can conclude that it takes as many as 1000 people to change a lightbulb, an investment that far outweighs any possible benefit in terms of visibility. So forget that.
How many Bjorn Lomborgs ... does it take to change a lightbulb?
ReplyDeleteBjorn Lomborgs don't change lightbulbs.
They don't even change T-shirts.