According to Stephen Heymann's actions as a U.S. attorney in Massachusetts, and as approved by the U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, a crime that might be punishable with 3 - 4 months in jail bears with it up to a 95-year imprisonment for asserting one's individual right to a jury trial. These are the choices given Aaron Swartz for the possible illegal downloading of academic papers. Rather than plead guilty to a felony and serve 3 - 4 months in prison or fight conviction and a 95-year imprisonment by asserting his right to trial, Aaron Swartz committed suicide. Aaron Swartz was a highly regarded programmer who help create Reddit, RSS, and Creative Commons.
Alexander Cohen has written more about this miscarriage of justice in an interesting article here. Alexander Cohen is also setting up a new non-profit called the Center for the Individual.
Is the Clinton Foundation a Charity?
It is widely being said that the Clinton Foundation gives only about 15% of its income to charity, with the rest going to administrative costs. The truth is actually worse than the unbelievably low 15% pass-through rate. Out of $140 million of donations, the Clinton Foundation has only delivered about $9 million to direct charity work. That is 6.4% or only 43% of the widely stated 15% pass-through rate. It is usually held that a decent charity foundation has a pass-through rate of at least 75%. To be sure, one may make charitable donations to a think tank, where one expects most of the money to go to organization employee salaries, office expenses, and travel to meetings. But, the Clinton Foundation claims to be a charity devoted to women's rights, environmentalism, and mitigating harm caused by catastrophic man-made global warming.
The Clinton Foundation has large contributors from Ukraine, Russia, Saudia Arabia, and other Middle Eastern countries. In view of the following observations, why are wealthy people from these countries giving money to the Clinton Foundation?
Then Hillary compounded the bad perception by actually approving the take-over of a company that provides 20% of the U.S. uranium needs by Russian interests with close ties to Putin. Our extensive aid to Ukraine is now subject to being questioned as the result of bribes, rather than as a result of our national interest as well. I expect we will learn about many other questionable decisions now that this Clinton Foundation is in the spotlight.
Any rational individual will be greatly influenced by the past history of immorality exhibited by the Clintons in assessing the likelihood that they were actually influenced by these bribes to make decisions that might be contrary to the national interest of the United States.
The Clinton Foundation has large contributors from Ukraine, Russia, Saudia Arabia, and other Middle Eastern countries. In view of the following observations, why are wealthy people from these countries giving money to the Clinton Foundation?
- These countries are not very keen on women's rights, environmentalism, or catastrophic man-made global warming.
- There is so much need for charity in work within these countries that they ought to donate their money locally.
- Large donors do their homework to find out what the charity pass-through rate is. If they are really interested in doing charity work, they will not accept a 6.4% pass-through rate to actual charitable aid.
Then Hillary compounded the bad perception by actually approving the take-over of a company that provides 20% of the U.S. uranium needs by Russian interests with close ties to Putin. Our extensive aid to Ukraine is now subject to being questioned as the result of bribes, rather than as a result of our national interest as well. I expect we will learn about many other questionable decisions now that this Clinton Foundation is in the spotlight.
Any rational individual will be greatly influenced by the past history of immorality exhibited by the Clintons in assessing the likelihood that they were actually influenced by these bribes to make decisions that might be contrary to the national interest of the United States.
27 April 2015
Congressman John Sarbanes Favors FCC Takeover of the Internet
In response to my e-mail in opposition to the FCC subjecting the Internet to its ancient and bureaucratic controls, the Democrat Congressman of my unbelievably gerrymandered district in Maryland replied today:
To which I replied:
John,
Government does not make the affairs of man fair and equitable. It simply replaces voluntary acts of cooperation in the private sector with coercion to achieve political, rather than individual, purposes. With government so big that the People do not understand what it is doing, let alone the effects of its actions, those political purposes become the purposes of special interests. The takeover of the free Internet by the FCC only means that my individual choices will be replaced by the government's enforcement of special interests' will. All of the verbiage about protecting individuals is just the usual smokescreen behind which government once again wrests individual value choices out of our hands. It is a false front so that government can further expand its ignorant micromanagement of our individual lives.
You have to admit that you do not know me, so it is not plausible when you claim to be protecting my interests, about which you know nothing. What is more, it is highly pretentious of you to assume that you know better how to manage my life than I do. Because I know this, I much prefer making the voluntary associations with others in the private sector of my choice, compared to being the subject of government coercion in my associations.
Charles
Charles R. Anderson, Ph.D.
http://www.AndersonMaterials.com
http://AndersonMaterials.blogspot.com
http://ObjectivistIndividualist.blogspot.com/
Of course the Big Government proponents have a biased viewpoint that government is benevolent, while companies operating in the private sector are largely malevolent. It is assumed by many that the profit motive pushes companies to behave immorally and without regard to the interests of their customers. How odd it is that the profit motive which is exactly what mostly motivates companies to behave morally and with a great regard for the interests of their customers is assumed by so many to have the opposite effects. Meanwhile, governments which have the power motive are assumed to be benevolent!
To be sure, when governments are small and effectively managed by the People with the intelligent use of their votes, government has a substantial interest in the best interest of the People. But as I have so frequently argued, when government becomes big enough, the People are no longer able to effectively manage it. While with the occasional company that comes along and has little interest in its customer's welfare, it can usually be avoided by taking one's business elsewhere, except when government has given that company a monopoly. The action to deny a government coercive control over us is usually more drastic. It requires us to uproot ourselves, our families, and our businesses to move out of the jurisdiction of that government. This is a sufficiently drastic remedy that its avoidance is a powerful argument for highly limited government.
Mr. Anderson,
Thank you for contacting me to express your opposition to net neutrality. I always appreciate hearing from individuals who carefully follow the legislative proceedings of Congress. On February 4, 2015, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Wheeler proposed a set of rules to safeguard net neutrality. These rules include reclassifying broadband service as a public utility under Title II to allow for greater oversight and consumer protection; prohibiting the blocking of lawful websites, the impairing of lawful Internet traffic, and the prioritization of certain traffic for a fee; requiring Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to protect customers' private information; and providing widespread access to Internet service. February 26, 2015, the FCC voted to approve the proposed rules.
I strongly believe that technology-including broadband, digital communications and other information technology - is an important tool for the economic and social advancement of individuals and communities. Going forward, I also believe that we must put in place a regulatory framework that ensures the relationships between consumers and providers are fair and equitable. As a member of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, which has jurisdiction over telecommunications issues, I will be certain to keep your views in mind when the House of Representatives considers any relevant legislation.
Again, thank you for your input on this important issue. If I can be of further assistance to you, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Sincerely,
John P. Sarbanes
Member of Congress
To which I replied:
John,
Government does not make the affairs of man fair and equitable. It simply replaces voluntary acts of cooperation in the private sector with coercion to achieve political, rather than individual, purposes. With government so big that the People do not understand what it is doing, let alone the effects of its actions, those political purposes become the purposes of special interests. The takeover of the free Internet by the FCC only means that my individual choices will be replaced by the government's enforcement of special interests' will. All of the verbiage about protecting individuals is just the usual smokescreen behind which government once again wrests individual value choices out of our hands. It is a false front so that government can further expand its ignorant micromanagement of our individual lives.
You have to admit that you do not know me, so it is not plausible when you claim to be protecting my interests, about which you know nothing. What is more, it is highly pretentious of you to assume that you know better how to manage my life than I do. Because I know this, I much prefer making the voluntary associations with others in the private sector of my choice, compared to being the subject of government coercion in my associations.
Charles
Charles R. Anderson, Ph.D.
http://www.AndersonMaterials.com
http://AndersonMaterials.blogspot.com
http://ObjectivistIndividualist.blogspot.com/
Of course the Big Government proponents have a biased viewpoint that government is benevolent, while companies operating in the private sector are largely malevolent. It is assumed by many that the profit motive pushes companies to behave immorally and without regard to the interests of their customers. How odd it is that the profit motive which is exactly what mostly motivates companies to behave morally and with a great regard for the interests of their customers is assumed by so many to have the opposite effects. Meanwhile, governments which have the power motive are assumed to be benevolent!
To be sure, when governments are small and effectively managed by the People with the intelligent use of their votes, government has a substantial interest in the best interest of the People. But as I have so frequently argued, when government becomes big enough, the People are no longer able to effectively manage it. While with the occasional company that comes along and has little interest in its customer's welfare, it can usually be avoided by taking one's business elsewhere, except when government has given that company a monopoly. The action to deny a government coercive control over us is usually more drastic. It requires us to uproot ourselves, our families, and our businesses to move out of the jurisdiction of that government. This is a sufficiently drastic remedy that its avoidance is a powerful argument for highly limited government.
16 April 2015
Asthma and Coal-Fired Power Plants -- Is there a connection?
As the concern of Americans about claims of catastrophic man-made global warming has diminished, the Progressive Elitists and their EPA have ramped up a campaign against coal-fired power plants based on those plants causing asthma. The ads put particular emphasis on them causing asthma in children. Obama even recently claimed that one of his daughters has asthma because of coal-fired power plants and other use of fossil fuels. Does this viewpoint have an anchor in science and known data? Let us examine this issue, because surely none of us want children to suffer because coal-fired power plants provide us with inexpensive and reliable electric power. It may well make sense to use more expensive power, whether natural gas or better scrubbed coal-fired power plants if the coal-fired power plants are truly implicated as the cause of asthma.
In examining this, I am going to use information from a slide presentation on the prevalence of asthma in the US by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). It is found at the bottom of the page here.
Now, it might be that emissions from coal-fired power plants are the exception and this is a known cause. Let us see if that would be consistent with other data of the CDC.
This graph shows increasing asthma from 1980 to 1996 and then increasing asthma from 2001 to 2010. The gap in data is because the method for making the determination of asthma prevalence changed in the years between these two sets of data, so it is difficult to be sure that we are comparing apples to apples. The apparent increase in asthma is very large in this time. The odd thing is that the fraction of electric power generation by coal fell in this time and of that falling fraction, more and more effort was made to produce the power from coal more cleanly. If asthma increased from 3% of the population to 8% during this time, there must be factors causing asthma which are far more important than the contribution that might be made by coal.
It is interesting that the increase in asthma since 2011 is primarily due to an increase in asthma among Black Americans. Now it might be that coal-fired power plants are much more likely to be upwind of Black neighborhoods, the white Progressive Elitists being so efficient at Not in My Back Yard special interest tactics. But let us remember this difference as we look at the following data and remember that people of different ethnic backgrounds do often have different susceptibilities to different diseases.
Now this is fascinating data. Note how dramatically asthma prevalence changes by gender and age. Surely exposure to the emissions of pollutants does not change so dramatically by age or gender as this. It might be possible that the susceptibility to pollutants does change this dramatically, but that sure would seem to be a stretch. Boys to 14 years old are much more likely to have asthma than girls, but girls have a steadily increasing probability of becoming asthmatic through age 17 and then have a slight general decrease in asthma after that, while remaining much more likely than males to have asthma at all ages 18 and beyond. But males after 14 have a substantial lowering of probability to about age 44, before their probability starts to rise again. This happens despite the fact that men are more likely than women to spend more time outside in their adult years, where they are supposedly being more directly assaulted by the emissions of coal-fired power plants. These age and gender behaviors sure seem more likely to suggest a primarily internal biochemical cause as the primary cause of asthma.
Now here it is interesting to note that ethnic Asians are much less likely to have asthma. I doubt that ethnic Asians are much less likely to live downwind from coal-fired power generators than is the average American. In fact, a disproportionate fraction of them live in California, which despite its history of smog, has few coal-fired power plants. Also, while Native Americans have high rates of asthma, most of them live in the American West where coal-fired power plant density is low compared to that in the East. For some reason, people of multiple race have much higher rates of asthma than any other racial group, except those of Puerto Rican descent, who are about twice as likely as White Americans to suffer asthma. Once again, this would all seem more likely to point to asthma causes with more of a basis in human biochemistry than in exposure to coal-fired power plant emissions. Apparently, it is also very bad to have a low income.
By area of the country, it is slightly worse to be from the Northeast and Midwest than from the South and West. It is worse to be from outside a metropolitan area than from inside one, though the difference is small. In general, this makes one suspicious of the idea that pollution is an important cause of asthma. To be sure, one might question whether the use of insecticides by farmers might be the reason for higher rates outside of cities, but one would think if this were true that this would be well-documented. Besides, insecticides are actually used heavily in cities to fumigate dense housing from cockroaches and other insect inhabitants and mice and rats. Metro areas are hardly free of similar insecticides as are found in the country. The slightly greater non-metropolitan asthma percentage is more likely due to natural allergens such as pollen then it is to man-made chemicals. Many people with asthma have a very rough time when pollen levels are high. Again, this is a suggestion that the main causes of asthma are not environmental, but genetic or internal human biochemistry combined with natural irritants. This is so much the case that there is a small advantage in living in a metropolitan area where overall human emissions pollutant concentrations are much higher than in the non-metropolitan areas.
Of those who have asthma, are they more likely now than earlier to have more asthma attacks? Well no. The graph above shows a slight drop in the number having attacks in the last 12 months, whether children or adults. If the causes of asthma were environmental and those environmental factors were getting worse to cause an increase in the number of people reporting that they have asthma, then would it not be likely that the percentage of those with asthma who had attacks in the last 12 months would be increasing? That it is not seems to suggest a likelihood that asthma is caused by human biological factors and/or more people are becoming aware of what asthma is and are becoming conscious of having the disease.
Now, let us examine the data for those who have actually had an asthma attack in the last 12 months. Among those who have asthma, the percentage of each group having an asthma attack in the last 12 months varies very little. The very small differences in the percentage of each ethnic group's asthma population having an asthma attack in the last 12 months inclines one toward the idea there may be an asthma gene which one either has or does not have. The very similar percentages by region tends to argue that coal-fired power plants are at most a small factor and that environment generally is likely also to be a small factor.
This map of asthma incidence is remarkable. It is interesting that there are sharp gradients by state. Texas and Louisiana have low incidences, while New Mexico and Oklahoma have relatively high incidences of asthma in their populations. Washington and Oregon on the West Coast have high incidences, but California has a low incidence. All of the Rocky Mountain states have high incidences, despite those states not being noteworthy for pollution. A narrow band of states across the middle of the Great Plains has relatively high incidences, while states north and south of the band have low incidences. All of the South has a low incidence and all of the Northeast above the Mason-Dixon line has a high incidence.
The EPA makes the false claim that half the mercury in the atmosphere comes from coal-fired power plants. I proved this nonsense in my blog post Evaluating the Mercury Emissions Danger from Coal-Fired Power Plants. In that post, I showed that any mercury output from the coal-fired power plants was overwhelmed by natural sources of mercury in the atmosphere. I showed that there was a complete lack of correlation between the EPA map showing their claimed power plant mercury emissions and actual measurements of mercury precipitation from the atmosphere. However, their mercury emissions map may be of use here as a general measure of the pollutant output of coal-fired power plants, such as it is, around the country. If the plant is supposedly not removing mercury output, then there may be other pollutants it is not removing in proportional measure. So, here is that map:
Now comparing this map to the asthma prevalence by state in the map above this one, it is seen to be plausible that the high asthma incidences in the states Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky might be due to emissions from coal-fired power plants. But, there is almost no coal-fired power plant emission in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho to explain their high asthma incidences. The large concentration of coal-fired power plants in East Texas where most of the state population is coexists with a very low incidence of asthma in Texas and downwind Louisiana. The high incidence of coal-fired power plants in northern Alabama and Georgia near those states highest population centers coexists with a low rate of asthma in those states. Oklahoma has a high rate of asthma, but its coal-fired power plants are almost all downwind of its population centers in Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Broken Arrow, Norman, Lawton, and Edmond. It is also hard to understand how West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, and South Carolina can have low incidences of asthma with so many coal-fired power plants. In short, there is no correlation between the coal-fired power plant emissions and the incidence of asthma.
This is not too surprising given that the CDC started its slide presentation on asthma by stating that its causes were generally not known. The CDC has decades of skill in measuring and mapping the regional incidence of diseases and tracing them back to common sources. If coal-fired power plants were a significant cause of asthma, surely they would have identified this cause long ago.
You would never know about this glaring lack of evidence from the ads being shown of asthma-suffering children on TV lately, which the Progressive Elitist propagandists are shamelessly blaming on coal-fired power plants. This claim is as false and base as the claim that man's use of fossil fuels will cause catastrophic degradation of the environment and represents a threat to man's continued existence. There is no rational justification for the claims in either case made by the alarmists who are endeavoring without let-up to further empower the government to eliminate our equal, sovereign individual rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of our own happiness. It can only be understood as a power grab, allowing Progressive Elitists to dictate our values to us and to micromanage our lives.
Update 21 April 2015: If man-made global warming is causing asthma attacks as the EPA and Obama claim, why is it that hospital admissions for asthma are lower in the summer than in the winter? If the claim is that smog and ozone are playing a role, then how is it that asthma prevalence has increased while both smog and ozone have generally decreased each decade since 1970? What is more, ozone and smog levels caused by man are surely higher in metropolitan areas than outside them, so why is the prevalence of asthma lower in metropolitan areas than in non-metropolitan areas? The EPA claims that common pollutant emissions are down 62% as of 2013 from levels in 1980! Smog is down 33% since 1980 according to the EPA. Is it possible to be more irrational than this Obama EPA is in its asthma claims?
In examining this, I am going to use information from a slide presentation on the prevalence of asthma in the US by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). It is found at the bottom of the page here.
Now, it might be that emissions from coal-fired power plants are the exception and this is a known cause. Let us see if that would be consistent with other data of the CDC.
This graph shows increasing asthma from 1980 to 1996 and then increasing asthma from 2001 to 2010. The gap in data is because the method for making the determination of asthma prevalence changed in the years between these two sets of data, so it is difficult to be sure that we are comparing apples to apples. The apparent increase in asthma is very large in this time. The odd thing is that the fraction of electric power generation by coal fell in this time and of that falling fraction, more and more effort was made to produce the power from coal more cleanly. If asthma increased from 3% of the population to 8% during this time, there must be factors causing asthma which are far more important than the contribution that might be made by coal.
It is interesting that the increase in asthma since 2011 is primarily due to an increase in asthma among Black Americans. Now it might be that coal-fired power plants are much more likely to be upwind of Black neighborhoods, the white Progressive Elitists being so efficient at Not in My Back Yard special interest tactics. But let us remember this difference as we look at the following data and remember that people of different ethnic backgrounds do often have different susceptibilities to different diseases.
Now this is fascinating data. Note how dramatically asthma prevalence changes by gender and age. Surely exposure to the emissions of pollutants does not change so dramatically by age or gender as this. It might be possible that the susceptibility to pollutants does change this dramatically, but that sure would seem to be a stretch. Boys to 14 years old are much more likely to have asthma than girls, but girls have a steadily increasing probability of becoming asthmatic through age 17 and then have a slight general decrease in asthma after that, while remaining much more likely than males to have asthma at all ages 18 and beyond. But males after 14 have a substantial lowering of probability to about age 44, before their probability starts to rise again. This happens despite the fact that men are more likely than women to spend more time outside in their adult years, where they are supposedly being more directly assaulted by the emissions of coal-fired power plants. These age and gender behaviors sure seem more likely to suggest a primarily internal biochemical cause as the primary cause of asthma.
Now here it is interesting to note that ethnic Asians are much less likely to have asthma. I doubt that ethnic Asians are much less likely to live downwind from coal-fired power generators than is the average American. In fact, a disproportionate fraction of them live in California, which despite its history of smog, has few coal-fired power plants. Also, while Native Americans have high rates of asthma, most of them live in the American West where coal-fired power plant density is low compared to that in the East. For some reason, people of multiple race have much higher rates of asthma than any other racial group, except those of Puerto Rican descent, who are about twice as likely as White Americans to suffer asthma. Once again, this would all seem more likely to point to asthma causes with more of a basis in human biochemistry than in exposure to coal-fired power plant emissions. Apparently, it is also very bad to have a low income.
By area of the country, it is slightly worse to be from the Northeast and Midwest than from the South and West. It is worse to be from outside a metropolitan area than from inside one, though the difference is small. In general, this makes one suspicious of the idea that pollution is an important cause of asthma. To be sure, one might question whether the use of insecticides by farmers might be the reason for higher rates outside of cities, but one would think if this were true that this would be well-documented. Besides, insecticides are actually used heavily in cities to fumigate dense housing from cockroaches and other insect inhabitants and mice and rats. Metro areas are hardly free of similar insecticides as are found in the country. The slightly greater non-metropolitan asthma percentage is more likely due to natural allergens such as pollen then it is to man-made chemicals. Many people with asthma have a very rough time when pollen levels are high. Again, this is a suggestion that the main causes of asthma are not environmental, but genetic or internal human biochemistry combined with natural irritants. This is so much the case that there is a small advantage in living in a metropolitan area where overall human emissions pollutant concentrations are much higher than in the non-metropolitan areas.
Of those who have asthma, are they more likely now than earlier to have more asthma attacks? Well no. The graph above shows a slight drop in the number having attacks in the last 12 months, whether children or adults. If the causes of asthma were environmental and those environmental factors were getting worse to cause an increase in the number of people reporting that they have asthma, then would it not be likely that the percentage of those with asthma who had attacks in the last 12 months would be increasing? That it is not seems to suggest a likelihood that asthma is caused by human biological factors and/or more people are becoming aware of what asthma is and are becoming conscious of having the disease.
Now, let us examine the data for those who have actually had an asthma attack in the last 12 months. Among those who have asthma, the percentage of each group having an asthma attack in the last 12 months varies very little. The very small differences in the percentage of each ethnic group's asthma population having an asthma attack in the last 12 months inclines one toward the idea there may be an asthma gene which one either has or does not have. The very similar percentages by region tends to argue that coal-fired power plants are at most a small factor and that environment generally is likely also to be a small factor.
This map of asthma incidence is remarkable. It is interesting that there are sharp gradients by state. Texas and Louisiana have low incidences, while New Mexico and Oklahoma have relatively high incidences of asthma in their populations. Washington and Oregon on the West Coast have high incidences, but California has a low incidence. All of the Rocky Mountain states have high incidences, despite those states not being noteworthy for pollution. A narrow band of states across the middle of the Great Plains has relatively high incidences, while states north and south of the band have low incidences. All of the South has a low incidence and all of the Northeast above the Mason-Dixon line has a high incidence.
The EPA makes the false claim that half the mercury in the atmosphere comes from coal-fired power plants. I proved this nonsense in my blog post Evaluating the Mercury Emissions Danger from Coal-Fired Power Plants. In that post, I showed that any mercury output from the coal-fired power plants was overwhelmed by natural sources of mercury in the atmosphere. I showed that there was a complete lack of correlation between the EPA map showing their claimed power plant mercury emissions and actual measurements of mercury precipitation from the atmosphere. However, their mercury emissions map may be of use here as a general measure of the pollutant output of coal-fired power plants, such as it is, around the country. If the plant is supposedly not removing mercury output, then there may be other pollutants it is not removing in proportional measure. So, here is that map:
Now comparing this map to the asthma prevalence by state in the map above this one, it is seen to be plausible that the high asthma incidences in the states Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky might be due to emissions from coal-fired power plants. But, there is almost no coal-fired power plant emission in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho to explain their high asthma incidences. The large concentration of coal-fired power plants in East Texas where most of the state population is coexists with a very low incidence of asthma in Texas and downwind Louisiana. The high incidence of coal-fired power plants in northern Alabama and Georgia near those states highest population centers coexists with a low rate of asthma in those states. Oklahoma has a high rate of asthma, but its coal-fired power plants are almost all downwind of its population centers in Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Broken Arrow, Norman, Lawton, and Edmond. It is also hard to understand how West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, and South Carolina can have low incidences of asthma with so many coal-fired power plants. In short, there is no correlation between the coal-fired power plant emissions and the incidence of asthma.
This is not too surprising given that the CDC started its slide presentation on asthma by stating that its causes were generally not known. The CDC has decades of skill in measuring and mapping the regional incidence of diseases and tracing them back to common sources. If coal-fired power plants were a significant cause of asthma, surely they would have identified this cause long ago.
You would never know about this glaring lack of evidence from the ads being shown of asthma-suffering children on TV lately, which the Progressive Elitist propagandists are shamelessly blaming on coal-fired power plants. This claim is as false and base as the claim that man's use of fossil fuels will cause catastrophic degradation of the environment and represents a threat to man's continued existence. There is no rational justification for the claims in either case made by the alarmists who are endeavoring without let-up to further empower the government to eliminate our equal, sovereign individual rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of our own happiness. It can only be understood as a power grab, allowing Progressive Elitists to dictate our values to us and to micromanage our lives.
Update 21 April 2015: If man-made global warming is causing asthma attacks as the EPA and Obama claim, why is it that hospital admissions for asthma are lower in the summer than in the winter? If the claim is that smog and ozone are playing a role, then how is it that asthma prevalence has increased while both smog and ozone have generally decreased each decade since 1970? What is more, ozone and smog levels caused by man are surely higher in metropolitan areas than outside them, so why is the prevalence of asthma lower in metropolitan areas than in non-metropolitan areas? The EPA claims that common pollutant emissions are down 62% as of 2013 from levels in 1980! Smog is down 33% since 1980 according to the EPA. Is it possible to be more irrational than this Obama EPA is in its asthma claims?
15 April 2015
Give Up Your Life Day
Well, it is once again Tax Day and once again the federal government and most state governments have confiscated many of the productive hours of each of our individual lives. The more hours you chose to work and the more your productivity was recognized by others in trade, the more progressively the hours of your life were stolen from you. The politicians and bureaucrats used this ill-gotten plunder to buy votes, to live the good life themselves, and to relish their success as our overlords.
Not content with just claiming many of the productive hours of our lives, this is the first year in which the claim that the government owns our minds and bodies generally has appeared on the tax forms. See Line 61 below:
By virtue of government ownership of every American's body and mind, it claims the right to dictate how every individual will maintain their property in trust for the government, unless that individual pays tribute to the Mongol Horde in order to maintain a pretense of self-ownership. Of course, self-ownership should mean the payment of tribute was not necessary. So, there really is no way to maintain the exercise of one's sovereign right to self-ownership within the borders of the United States. All payment of the tribute or the purchase of ObamaCare approved health insurance does is to cede one's right to self-ownership. The government claims you must cede self-ownership one way of the other.
Did you know that 8 out of 10 tax filers in 2013 received a tax refund? Did you know that in 2012 the typical tax filer received a tax refund of about $3,000? Clearly this happens because the government provides tax tables to employers that demand over-withholding from income and few people adjust their allowances to eliminate this severe over-withholding. It is clear that this does two things the wily government plunderers love:
You might think you might just ignore the tyrannical Line 61 claim of government ownership of your body and mind, but the government will take the tribute out of your tax refund, if you have one. I have heard it said that if you arrange to have no tax refund, unlike 80% or more of the filers, then the government cannot force you to pay the tribute, which they call a shared responsibility payment in the IRS 1040 Instruction publication. But, the 1040 Form lumps it under the heading of Other Taxes, consistent with Chief Justice John Roberts absurd rationale for declaring ObamaCare a tax, even after it had been insisted over and over during the passage of ObamaCare that it was not at all a tax on the Middle Class. ObamaCare was passed on the basis of innumerable lies. This phrase "Shared Responsibility Payment" is most explicitly collectivist and makes it very clear that at most each individual owns only some portion of his own life and mind and body. That portion is always subject to being reduced so long as the law that reduces the number of shares the individual holds in his own life is accompanied by a tax. This is the Chief Justice John Roberts ruling. The presence of a tax in a law allows the law to deprive the individual of any individual right, except insofar as that right is most explicitly spelled out in the Amendments to the Constitution and the courts choose to recognize that right in a reasonably broad manner.
Let us suppose you decide to ignore the abhorrent Line 61 and you have no tax refund coming or it is very small. You might think you are home free. Not necessarily. The IRS has a Catch-22 for almost anything. They may not be able to answer your phoned in question or if they do answer it, you may be more likely to be given the wrong answer than the right one and you will be 100% responsible for "your" error. There is no sharing of responsibility in this. But, there are a people in the IRS who are quite cunning and out to get you. So, how do they get you in this case? Did you know that the IRS may impose a penalty of $5,000 on top of any other penalties for what they deem a frivolous return? See page 92 of the Form 1040 Instructions:
Not content with just claiming many of the productive hours of our lives, this is the first year in which the claim that the government owns our minds and bodies generally has appeared on the tax forms. See Line 61 below:
By virtue of government ownership of every American's body and mind, it claims the right to dictate how every individual will maintain their property in trust for the government, unless that individual pays tribute to the Mongol Horde in order to maintain a pretense of self-ownership. Of course, self-ownership should mean the payment of tribute was not necessary. So, there really is no way to maintain the exercise of one's sovereign right to self-ownership within the borders of the United States. All payment of the tribute or the purchase of ObamaCare approved health insurance does is to cede one's right to self-ownership. The government claims you must cede self-ownership one way of the other.
Did you know that 8 out of 10 tax filers in 2013 received a tax refund? Did you know that in 2012 the typical tax filer received a tax refund of about $3,000? Clearly this happens because the government provides tax tables to employers that demand over-withholding from income and few people adjust their allowances to eliminate this severe over-withholding. It is clear that this does two things the wily government plunderers love:
- The government gets a large interest-free loan from most taxpayers.
- Most taxpayers are distracted by their refunds from the larger sum of money plucked from their hides.
You might think you might just ignore the tyrannical Line 61 claim of government ownership of your body and mind, but the government will take the tribute out of your tax refund, if you have one. I have heard it said that if you arrange to have no tax refund, unlike 80% or more of the filers, then the government cannot force you to pay the tribute, which they call a shared responsibility payment in the IRS 1040 Instruction publication. But, the 1040 Form lumps it under the heading of Other Taxes, consistent with Chief Justice John Roberts absurd rationale for declaring ObamaCare a tax, even after it had been insisted over and over during the passage of ObamaCare that it was not at all a tax on the Middle Class. ObamaCare was passed on the basis of innumerable lies. This phrase "Shared Responsibility Payment" is most explicitly collectivist and makes it very clear that at most each individual owns only some portion of his own life and mind and body. That portion is always subject to being reduced so long as the law that reduces the number of shares the individual holds in his own life is accompanied by a tax. This is the Chief Justice John Roberts ruling. The presence of a tax in a law allows the law to deprive the individual of any individual right, except insofar as that right is most explicitly spelled out in the Amendments to the Constitution and the courts choose to recognize that right in a reasonably broad manner.
Let us suppose you decide to ignore the abhorrent Line 61 and you have no tax refund coming or it is very small. You might think you are home free. Not necessarily. The IRS has a Catch-22 for almost anything. They may not be able to answer your phoned in question or if they do answer it, you may be more likely to be given the wrong answer than the right one and you will be 100% responsible for "your" error. There is no sharing of responsibility in this. But, there are a people in the IRS who are quite cunning and out to get you. So, how do they get you in this case? Did you know that the IRS may impose a penalty of $5,000 on top of any other penalties for what they deem a frivolous return? See page 92 of the Form 1040 Instructions:
"A frivolous return is one that does not contain information needed to figure the correct tax or shows a substantially incorrect tax because you take a frivolous position or desire to delay or interfere with the tax laws. This includes altering or striking out the preprinted language above the space where you sign."The IRS will brook no challenge to its role as Master. It will not allow you the "right to petition the Government for a redress of grievances" on your tax form filings. The First Amendment is of no concern to the IRS, though we might think the IRS was a part of the Government. But then we have all too clearly seen how this IRS does not believe in freedom of speech at all, with its vendetta against Tea Party and Constitution Education organizations. The IRS makes it very clear that it is an enemy of the Constitution! It is also very clear that the IRS and the Obama Regime are explicitly enemies of all of our individual rights, including the most fundamental right of all, self-ownership!
12 April 2015
Computer Climate Model Incompetence and the Settled Science
An examination of the prediction spread from the 90 CMIP5 climate models makes it immediately obvious that the settled science of catastrophic man-made global warming is not at all well-understood. Various combinations of bad science input into the models and computer programming incompetence must be the reason for the spread in results seen below:
This graph also shows the highly fudged HadCRUT4 surface temperature "measurements" adjusted in a desperate attempt to minimize its disagreement with the many climate model predictions of a steady and rapid global surface temperature increase. The UAH Lower Troposphere measurements are also shown. These satellite measurements are more reliable measurements, though they are not actually surface temperature measurements. Almost all of the CMIP5 computer models of the climate are predicting substantially higher temperatures than are measured. This is an additional indictment of the idea that the climate models represent settled science.
Among the inputs into these models are the man-made or anthropogenic forcings shown below:
Now examine the error bars closely on these anthropogenic effects. The error bars on the stratospheric ozone effect are several times bigger than the expected effect. The error bar on the tropospheric ozone effect is as big as the expected effect. The error bar on the stratospheric water vapor effect is as big as the expected effect. The same is true of the land use and black carbon on snow effects. The error bar on the direct aerosol effect is as big as the expected effect, while that on the cloud albedo effect is larger than the expected effect. The error on the linear contrails is larger than the expected effect, as is that for what is here called the solar irradiance effect. According to the analysis of errors used for this graph, the net anthropogenic component is anywhere between 0.60 and 2.40 W/m2 . The settled science is so settled that the effect that is so widely claimed to be of a catastrophic scale may be a mere 0.60 W/m2 or it may four times greater.
Note that these inputs are only those in which man has played a role. The uncertainties relating to many natural effects are no smaller. Indeed, many natural effects are not included in the models at all because they are too poorly understood to be included!
It sure is hard to produce a plausible settled science from a great number of effects which are clearly not well-understood individually and which are not necessarily stochastically independent. Indeed, it takes some knowledge of an effect's science and magnitude to actually make an informed estimate of error. With errors this large, it is clear that there is insufficient knowledge to even estimate the errors accurately because they imply a massive lack of understanding.
Some time ago, we learned that the global climate models do not have sufficient spatial resolution to properly model convection, which is a critical effect I have long noted was underestimated in the catastrophic man-made global warming hypothesis. See http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2013/09/new-paper-finds-ipcc-climate-models.html Dr. Noor van Andel explained that the human fingerprint so long predicted in the climate models was actually an artifact of the models not properly handling convection.
It is also known that the computer models have up to 30% errors relative to the observed absorption of solar insolation by the atmosphere. This is a huge error which at least in part is due to inadequate knowledge of the absorption of near ultraviolet radiation by water vapor. See http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2013/09/new-paper-finds-up-to-30-discrepancy.html
I have long claimed that the catastrophic man-made global warming hypothesis was based on a number of violations of energy conservation. It turns out that the actual computer models find still more ways to violate energy conservation. Some of them concentrate energy in regions in a manner to violate both the Second and the First Laws of Thermodynamics, making nonsense of the alarmist claim that the computer models simply incorporate well-known physics. It was found that the water vapor fluxes of some models are wrong by up to 10% due to the model causing decreases in entropy, thereby violating the Second Law of Thermodynamics. See http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2014/05/new-paper-finds-climate-models-violate.html
A new paper has shown that the "settled science" computer models have variations in the top of the atmosphere incident solar radiation of up to 30 W/m2, which vary with the longitude, not the latitude. This is nonsense and is entirely due to very poor thought in the programming. Compared to the claimed 1.68 W/m2 value for the effect of doubling CO2, this variation in the top of the atmosphere solar radiation is a very large error. See http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/03/10/whoops-study-shows-huge-basic-errors-found-in-cmip5-climate-models/
The climate computer models do not attempt to model the actual interface of the surface with the atmosphere. They do not properly handle water evaporation or evapotranspiration. They also do not handle advection (wind) effects well, particularly as it interacts directly with the surface in molecular collisions and in inducing water evaporation.
The climate computer models are wrong for many reasons:
This graph also shows the highly fudged HadCRUT4 surface temperature "measurements" adjusted in a desperate attempt to minimize its disagreement with the many climate model predictions of a steady and rapid global surface temperature increase. The UAH Lower Troposphere measurements are also shown. These satellite measurements are more reliable measurements, though they are not actually surface temperature measurements. Almost all of the CMIP5 computer models of the climate are predicting substantially higher temperatures than are measured. This is an additional indictment of the idea that the climate models represent settled science.
Among the inputs into these models are the man-made or anthropogenic forcings shown below:
Now examine the error bars closely on these anthropogenic effects. The error bars on the stratospheric ozone effect are several times bigger than the expected effect. The error bar on the tropospheric ozone effect is as big as the expected effect. The error bar on the stratospheric water vapor effect is as big as the expected effect. The same is true of the land use and black carbon on snow effects. The error bar on the direct aerosol effect is as big as the expected effect, while that on the cloud albedo effect is larger than the expected effect. The error on the linear contrails is larger than the expected effect, as is that for what is here called the solar irradiance effect. According to the analysis of errors used for this graph, the net anthropogenic component is anywhere between 0.60 and 2.40 W/m2 . The settled science is so settled that the effect that is so widely claimed to be of a catastrophic scale may be a mere 0.60 W/m2 or it may four times greater.
Note that these inputs are only those in which man has played a role. The uncertainties relating to many natural effects are no smaller. Indeed, many natural effects are not included in the models at all because they are too poorly understood to be included!
It sure is hard to produce a plausible settled science from a great number of effects which are clearly not well-understood individually and which are not necessarily stochastically independent. Indeed, it takes some knowledge of an effect's science and magnitude to actually make an informed estimate of error. With errors this large, it is clear that there is insufficient knowledge to even estimate the errors accurately because they imply a massive lack of understanding.
Some time ago, we learned that the global climate models do not have sufficient spatial resolution to properly model convection, which is a critical effect I have long noted was underestimated in the catastrophic man-made global warming hypothesis. See http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2013/09/new-paper-finds-ipcc-climate-models.html Dr. Noor van Andel explained that the human fingerprint so long predicted in the climate models was actually an artifact of the models not properly handling convection.
It is also known that the computer models have up to 30% errors relative to the observed absorption of solar insolation by the atmosphere. This is a huge error which at least in part is due to inadequate knowledge of the absorption of near ultraviolet radiation by water vapor. See http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2013/09/new-paper-finds-up-to-30-discrepancy.html
I have long claimed that the catastrophic man-made global warming hypothesis was based on a number of violations of energy conservation. It turns out that the actual computer models find still more ways to violate energy conservation. Some of them concentrate energy in regions in a manner to violate both the Second and the First Laws of Thermodynamics, making nonsense of the alarmist claim that the computer models simply incorporate well-known physics. It was found that the water vapor fluxes of some models are wrong by up to 10% due to the model causing decreases in entropy, thereby violating the Second Law of Thermodynamics. See http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2014/05/new-paper-finds-climate-models-violate.html
A new paper has shown that the "settled science" computer models have variations in the top of the atmosphere incident solar radiation of up to 30 W/m2, which vary with the longitude, not the latitude. This is nonsense and is entirely due to very poor thought in the programming. Compared to the claimed 1.68 W/m2 value for the effect of doubling CO2, this variation in the top of the atmosphere solar radiation is a very large error. See http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/03/10/whoops-study-shows-huge-basic-errors-found-in-cmip5-climate-models/
The climate computer models do not attempt to model the actual interface of the surface with the atmosphere. They do not properly handle water evaporation or evapotranspiration. They also do not handle advection (wind) effects well, particularly as it interacts directly with the surface in molecular collisions and in inducing water evaporation.
The climate computer models are wrong for many reasons:
- The physics behind the infra-red gas warming effects is wrong, as I pointed out in Why Greenhouse Gas Theory is Wrong -- An Examination of the Theoretical Basis
- Still further errors in the physics are input into the computer models as missing information or wrong information.
- The computer models are poorly programmed so that they often do not preserve well-known scientific laws.
- The computer models do not have sufficient spatial resolution to calculate some of the effects they are tasked to calculate.