Category Archives: Mail

Mail 686 Wednesday, August 03, 2011

NPR Top 100 SF&F

Dear Dr. Pournelle:

I did not know if you knew that you and Niven have 2 books on the NPR top 100 SF&F list and they are winnowing down to 10. Time to mobilize the fans?

The link is here: http://www.npr.org/2011/08/02/138894873/vote-for-top-100-science-fiction-fantasy-titles

Rick Cartwright

I know it now. Thanks!

A Federal Case

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-wind-eagles-20110803,0,2891547.story

Federal authorities are investigating the deaths of at least six golden eagles at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s Pine Tree Wind Project in the Tehachapi Mountains, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Tuesday.

So far, no wind-energy company has been prosecuted by federal wildlife authorities in connection with the death of birds protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act. A prosecution in the Pine Tree case could cause some rethinking and redesigning of this booming alternative energy source. Facilities elsewhere also have been under scrutiny, according to a federal official familiar with the investigations…

*** ***

Developing alternate sources of energy was supposed to help the environment. Now that wind energy is a viable business it’s a threat to the environment?

Do you remember Norman Spinrad’s “Holy War on 34th Street” about a brawl between the competing sects’ street evangelists? Maybe this news article will inspire him to write a story that ends with a standoff between the Department of Energy SWAT Team and the Wildlife Service.

–Mike Glyer

I can even imagine writing that one myself. Thanks.

The Economy is Dead

China and Russia renew their attacks, albiet financial, on the United States:

<.> China, the largest foreign investor in U.S. government securities, joined Russia in criticizing American policy makers for failing to ensure borrowing is reined in after a stopgap deal to raise the nation’s debt limit. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-03/china-s-zhou-to-monitor-u-s-debt-as-xinhua-sees-bomb-yet-to-be-defused.html

Of course, government programs still won’t work; we can see why our creditors might be concerned:

<.> Way back in March I made fun of the Volt for selling 281 units in February. Turns out, February was a good month. But wait, there’s more! GM says they’re going to increase production to 5,000 Volts per month in order to keep up with demand. You see, they claim that the reason the Volt isn’t selling is that they can’t keep enough cars on the lot. A GM spokeswoman recently claimed that they are “virtually sold out.” Which is virtually true. Mark Modica called around his local Chevy dealers and found plenty of Volts waiting for an environmentally conscious driver to bring them home.

All told, GM has sold close to 2,700 Volts. (Funny aside: There’s a Volt in my neighborhood and a Volt that parks in my garage at work. So I see almost 0.1 percent of all the Volts in America on a daily basis.) But hey, the EV future is just around the corner. </> http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/chevy-volt-still-not-selling_581956.html

Stocks are down; gold is up — and layoffs are on the rise…  We might still lose our AAA rating, but we knew that more than five years ago — we "conspiracy theorists" who use speculative devices e.g. critical thinking, complex reasoning to estimate future events.

<.> Come Jan. 1, 2012 American workers will see less in their paychecks as a temporary two-percentage-point cut in the Social Security tax expires. That’s a $2,136 tax hike for someone earning $106,800, the maximum subject to the tax. Obama had pushed for this as a short-term stimulus and would like to see it extended, but this is one tax cut Republicans are ready to let die. http://blogs.forbes.com/janetnovack/2011/08/02/higher-taxes-and-epic-tax-fight-are-on-the-horizon

Of course, we can always leave — until they put up an Iron Curtain to go with TSA.  I mentioned this to my mentor.  He seems to think that Americans will stay in America because that is what Americans do.  I disagree and evidence supports my disagreement.  Here is the latest:

<.> Taxed-out New Yorkers are voting with their feet, with a staggering 1.6 million residents fleeing the state over the last decade. </> http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/new-yorkers-fleeing-state-ncx-20110803

And corporations are fleeing Chicago as they fled Oregon and as they increasingly flee California.  Let’s keep giving away money to "undocumented aliens".  Let’s keep spending money on foreign aid programs; we know an exposed breast exists out there and we must use the Federal Bunny Inspectors to cover it or the American people will never feel secure.

—– Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC Percussa Resurgo

I have mail pointing out that eliminating Bunny Inspectors would have a negligible effect on the Budget, as if that were the objective. I trust it is clear that a nation that can’t even get rid of Bunny Inspectors who harass stage magicians will not be able to control the regulatory army that produces the Permit Raj? And a nation that seems to believe that the solution to borrowing too much is to borrow more probably has a problem.

shovel ready

Jerry

When the current administration (Obama) first mentioned shovel ready projects in the stimulus package, I thought, maybe, just maybe, the government spend all campaign might at least produce something tangible like infrastructure improvements.

Little did I realize what SHOVEL READY really meant was we are just digging ourselves deeper in the hole.

Sigh.

MIke J=

Subj: How to create a double-dip recession

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/273459/how-turn-recovery-another-recession-victor-davis-hanson

J

Hanson is always worth reading. This one points out what we have been saying for a year or more. Well done.

spending reform

Jerry,

My take on the budget crisis, for what it’s worth. (Nobody seems to listen, anyway).

1. Agree to develop a clear plan to return to a federal balanced budget without increasing federal tax revenues above the current levels as a percent of GDP (not through repeal of the so-called "Bush tax cuts," not through further engineering the tax codes so that deductions available to all businesses are suddenly denied to high-income multinational companies, not through ANYTHING). Note that this plan does not necessarily mandate an immediate balanced budget, and in that sense is closer to the Paul plan than "penny" plan and the variants you are recommending.

2. Explicitly avoid default (which has a specific meaning in terms of debt service; I think the President has been scaring people by using the term in a more generic sense of not making promised payments.) Debt service is the first priority, and when we do have a surplus, the first priority become retirement of any treasury obligations to sovereign funds, then to foreign individuals.

3. Maintain the National Defense (including required homeland security functions). That is not to say that defense expenditures shouldn’t be delicately pruned, or even grossly reprioritized, and defense contractor spending reigned in, but John Stossel’s "chainsaw" (http://www.foxbusiness.com/on-air/stossel/blog/2011/07/29/take-chainsaw-budget-2) is a non-starter. Our defense needs are NOT and can not be determined by an arbitrary 2/3 cut, or by Democratic party fiat. They are what we need to preserve the safety and security of the American people. Any other tact is, frankly, treason, and in the literal sense of the word. It may be that 1/3 of current expending is enough to do that — but get there by a reasoned process. I would eliminate Homeland Security and the Veteran’s Administration as separate departments from Defense, but might then consider splitting Defense back into Army / Air Force and Navy departments.

4. Maintain essential national law enforcement. That is the U S Marshals, the Secret Service, the Customs and Border Patrol, and the FBI. TSA should be privatized and funded by the airports, airlines, and municipalities. BATF, DEA, the Education SWAT team, bunny inspectors, and other groups should be disbanded and any essential functions turned over to one of the other services (the Marshals as the agents of federal crime, the Secret Service in its protective and anti-counterfeiting role, Customs regarding all border issues including drug trafficking, and the FBI if interstate crime, where it should be subsidiary to local and state authorities and the Marshals instead of vice versa).

5. Maintain Social Security but adjust payments to match revenues — and raise the retirement age (to 70) fairly quickly. Social Security cannot draw on its holdings of federal debt until all foreign parties have been paid.

6. Maintain the "national seed corn." Another objectionable element of Stossel’s "chainsaw" was total cancellation of NASA, NSF, and Department of Energy research. Those should be pruned and forward-focused but not eliminated, as part of our national "strategy of technology." Similarly maintain government services such as the National Weather Service, NOAA, and USGS, but without the political adventuring on global climate control — keep it to pure research until we do know what is going on. Note that these agencies may in many cases require substantial reform, and DoE needs to get out of most research related to improvements in products already on the market, that is to say most research on alternatives to conventional fuels, battery’s, and fuel cells. Let the marketplace decide on the maturity and wisdom of such technologies. I would probably reorganize these elements, together with Commerce, into one department on the model of Japan’s Ministry of International Trade and Industry (call it the Department of Science, Technology, and Industry).

7. Contain Medicare, Medicaid, Veteran’s benefits, and federal pensions on a constant-funding basis. A good start on pension reform is reducing or eliminating most "double dipping" of federal retirees. (We have to maintain our commitment to war veterans, but not to the vast retired federal bureaucracy who are bringing bureaucracy to the private sector, to its detriment.) Consolidate Medicate and Medicate, Centers of Disease Control and National Institutes of Health, and the current federal departments, into a Department of the Public Health and Safety.

8. Significantly reduce the regulatory apparatus. Focus strictly on safety and fraud prevention. Turn to the Marshals as the principal enforcement mechanism. We do not need to maintain the US Code and a separate Code of Federal Regulations — combine the documents by making Congress vote on the regulations.

9. NOW apply Stossel’s chainsaw, for values. Wholesale disbanding of remaining departments and consolidation of functions; I think we should end up with State, Treasury, Justice, Defense, Public Health and Safety, and Science Technology and Industry. And the surviving departments must be smaller and more streamlined.

Jim

Eligibility Ages

You stated that you thought the retirement age should be brought up to 68 (or 70). I have a different thought. Rather than tying retirement age to a specific age in the law, and then having to revise the law as medical technology and lifestyle choices extends our lifespans, why not define the retirement age related to life expectancy and then have the transition period defined in law.

For example, if the retirement age is defined as the median life expectancy at birth and the transition rate is one month per year, then Social Security and Medicare eligibility ages will increase one month per year until they are both 80. If, in the meantime, some new medical procedures are placed into service which raise the median life expectancy to 85, the ages would automatically be slowly increased to 85. On the other hand, if some huge environmental disaster lowers everyone’s life expectancy by five years, then the eligibility age would slowly drop.

This makes for a self correcting system. The big question would be what ratio of life expectancy should we set. Once that’s done, we may never have to tinker with eligibility ages again.

—

Fredrik V Coulter

The details are important, but first we must establish principles.

Fiction of privacy

Facial recognition combined with cameras everywhere means you can find anyone on the grid.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14386514

"The researchers have also developed an ‘augmented reality’ mobile app that can display personal data over a person’s image captured on a smartphone screen."

R

It’s a brave new world…

SWATs raid raw milk producer/distributor.

<http://blogs.laweekly.com/squidink/2011/08/cops_raid_rawesome_foods_owner_james_stewart_arrested.php>

Roland Dobbins

I have mixed emotions on such matters. I know the conditions we had on our farm when we collected milk. I miked the cow by hand before school and my sanitary habits were not savory. Most of it we drank ourselves or gave to the field hands, but I expect I am a bit more squeamish today…

Freedom or “public” health…

"I was just amazed by the idea that you can test for all these other universes out there – it’s just mind-blowing."

<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14372387>

Roland Dobbins

"Part of what we found was that there are certain places on Earth where tidal energy gets dissipated at a disproportionately high rate, real hot spots of tidal action."

<http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-08-ancient-tides-today-higher.html>

Roland Dobbins

That’s fascinating. There’s a lot of energy in tides, and it’s constant. What effects it has…

Mail 686 Tuesday August 2, 2011 – 1

I had Hollywood Bowl tickets tonight. Rachmaninoff Third Piano Concerto, and Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony. I’ll deal with more mail tomorrow, but this one indicates that I haven’t been entirely clear on a subject that’s not easily understood in the first place.

federal spending

just wondering where you got this:

"The most important thing to understand is that if the Congress were to freeze government spending: pass a Bill that says that we will next year spend precisely the same amount as we did last year, same salaries, same payments to pensions, same purchases, same veteran benefits, same payments to Bunny Inspectors and SWAT teams, same amount to Food Stamps and Free Lunches – if we froze government, the result would be called a $9.5 Trillion cut."

The fed budget is only $4 Trillion. With off budget spending, the highest I’ve seen is around $6 Trillion.

yves

If the budget is only 4 Trillion, how can a freeze be a $9.5 Trillion cut?  But note that the Congressional Budget Office scores the effects not on next year, but on the effects over ten years. And do not forget the magic of compound interest. Exponentials are exponentials.

In CBO’s March 2011 baseline, total outlays over the ten-year period from 2012-2021 are $45.8 trillion.  If annual outlays throughout that period instead stayed at 2011’s level ($3.6 trillion), they would sum to $36.3 trillion over the ten years — a difference of $9.5 trillion.  That’s the apparent basis of Limbaugh’s figure. [Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, email to Media Matters, 7/28/11]  http://mediamatters.org/mobile/research/201107280029No

Note that the freeze discussed here is a total freeze on everything: a continuing resolution, in which the Congress says that no department of government may spend more next year than it did in the preceding year. That means social security, Medicare, military salaries, Bunny Inspector pensions.

The “Pournelle Plan” couples the one year freeze with a 1% reduction in the next year, along with permission and encouragement of Federal managers to eliminate needless activities such as Bunny Inspectors. And adjust Social Security by raising the age of eligibility one month every month until the age of eligibility is 68. Consider 70. Adjust ages of eligibility for other entitlements; the total outlay is already limited by the freeze. The goal is real cuts, to levels of expenditure approaching those of the mid 1990’s after the end of the Cold War. When we get there and pay off the National Debt, we can consider again the question of do we have enough government, or should it be reduced more?

My inclination, incidentally, is not necessarily automatically to less government, but it is to less Federal government. If Government should do more, let it be through the states. Massachusetts experimented with something like ObamaCare. Let others see if they want to copy that. Leave welfare to the states, and get the egalitarian courts out of that picture. I suspect that would lead over time to less government in most places. Investors would flee some states and seek others. Let them all compete for smart people who create jobs. But that’s my proclivity.

If something cannot go on forever it will stop. We cannot continue to go another trillion a year in debt.

But that is how a freeze becomes a massive cut.

Rush Limbaugh proposed that the government institute a "spending freeze," which he claimed would be demagogued as a "draconian cut." In fact, according to federal budget experts, such a proposal would lead to "a massive reduction in the services provided by government to a growing population" and would mean that "no new person could retire on Social Security until a current beneficiary dies."

No. It means that the department can’t pay out more this year than it did last year. That might mean a cut in payments in the first months of the year until it is clear what the total payments for the year will be. If so, then there will be a cut in payments to individuals.

Mail 685 Sunday, July 31, 2011

· Possession of child porno

· Federal and local terror

· WWII and the Depression

· Rolling back government (No Cut)

· Balanced Budget

· Laser Pointers

·

PFC Abdo

You said:

“I had not heard that and I don’t know. I would not think that making bombs was part of a clever way to avoid prosecution for possession of child pornography. Incidentally, I don’t really think that possession of pornography should be a punishable crime or that making it a crime is constitutional. Looking at pictures isn’t a crime. Acting on what you see is. PFC Abdo is welcome to spend his life looking at any pictures he likes if that were left to me. Making bombs is another matter.”

I agree with you regarding the issue of possession of pornography as not a criminal issue. It appears that our lawmakers have confused cause and effect. (Most pedophiles have child pornography, therefore child pornography causes or increases child abuse). In many states (including California and Texas) the penalty for possession of child porn is much greater than the penalty for actually raping a child. But it is not a subject of rational debate in today’s society, and no politician was ever turned out of office for being too hard on (perceived) crime against children.

But that was not my main point. I see PFC Abdo as acting according to what one might call the Butch Cassidy Effect. (I just coined that, BTW). That is, when faced with almost certain confinement for committing a crime, the criminal choses to go out in a “blaze of glory” rather than pay the piper. Faced with doing time in a federal prison, Abdo was prepared to blow up his fellow soldiers to “make a statement.”

This type of nihilistic thinking scares me as much or more than actual terrorism. It does not bode well for my three sons who will be in this world after I am gone.

But despair is a sin. <sigh>

Lee

Or, just maybe, he prefers to be jailed as a Muslim terrorist rather than for possession of child pornography given the usual fate of child molester suspects in prisons? Of course much of our prison system seems designed to meet the definition of cruel punishment; it would be cruel and unusual if it were not common. I am not sure I have any remedies to that.

Fullerton Police Beating & Police State

Dr. Pournelle:

There is no explanation for this beating and people are right to be scared. Scott Greenfield’s blog is right on point:

http://blog.simplejustice.us/2011/07/30/theres-no-explanation-for-this.aspx

But with a United States where the Dept. of Education has a SWAT, but where a federal judge blasts the prosecutor for waiting 2 1/2 years to indict an alleged NSA leaker, and then dropping all of the 10 felony charges (leaving one misdemeanor charge) a week before trial, why is anyone surprised?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/national-security/judge-blasts-prosecution-of-alleged-nsa-leaker/2011/07/29/gIQAfFcDiI_story.html

quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Lee

These are not comparable cases. The Fullerton situation is adequately dealt with by the local press and local political means; it is not necessary to make this horror a Federal Case, although it will be used as an example of why Federal power ought to be expanded. Yet I would be less afraid of the Fullerton Police (who have, under local pressure, taken the officers involved off the active duty list) than of Federal authorities.

How WWII ended The Depression

Dr. Pournelle —

There’s an interesting article in this weekend’s WSJ refuting the Keynesian argument about how WWII ended The Depression.

World War II Stimulus and the Postwar Boom by Richard P. Rumelt

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903554904576458413656841844.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion 

"Government policy didn’t stimulate personal consumption, as Keynesian policy makers aim to do today, but rather enforced thrift. "

Rationing and diversion to war use kept people from purchasing, therefore the increasing salaries of the remaining work force went to savings and paying down personal debt. Millions of milkitary personel were taken out of the work force and sent to places where it was almost impossible to spend the meager wages they did receive. After the war, as factories shifted to peacetime manufacturing, these savings became available for consumer products. [However, since much of the savings was in the form of war bonds, the savings weren’t immediately available and were gradually freed up.]

Unfortunately, as Rumelt points out:

" If one wanted to replay the economics of World War II (without the war), it would mean high consumption taxes aimed at the middle class, and putting 30 million Americans to work at minimum wage or less. No serious politician could put forward such a plan. "

[The only other way is for there to be a major shift in attitudes away from consumption and towards saving and avoiding debt, something I don’t see happening soon.]

Pieter

The relationship between WW II and the end of the Great Depression is not fully agreed, but as noted, price and wage controls were employed as well as the enormous demand the War created. The boom came about with Freedom and the end of the war demands. In any event the situation is not comparable.

rolling back government

Dear Dr Pournelle – the relentless expansion of government appears to afflict many, if not all countries. If we assume that the career length of most employees, government or otherwise, is about 40years, the annual replacement rate, if there were no premature fatalities, and the numbers stayed static, would be about 2.5% per year. If government were to reduce recruitment to 1% of the established staff on a given year, after a few years staffing levels would fall due to natural wasteage of more retiring than were being recruited. Public service unions would more than likely resist this, but they should be made aware that the country does not exist to provide them with work entirely on their own terms. The longer steps to curb this expansion are postponed the harder it will be, but it has to be done sooner or later.

Sandy Henderson

Yes. It is important to note that NONE of the “Deals” being agreed to cut ANYTHING. The latest “deal” we have heard of says they will “cut” a Trillion over a ten year period, which means a 7% exponential growth of government and a similar growth in the Deficit. And of course this will mean we pay higher interest rates, which is equivalent to a rise in taxes on all of us. See today’s View.

The Debt Ceiling Dance

Dr. Pournelle,

This reminds me of the movie Groundhog Day. We keep reliving this and over.

More spending now.

Spending cuts later.

Appoint a bipartisan panel to solve the problem.

The media acts like they have never seen anything like this before.

But as you say, if something can’t keep continuing, it will stop.

Steve Chu

We are not yet Portugal or Greece, but wait a while.

Balanced budget amendment

Hello Jerry,

While I am all for ‘balancing the budget’, it may be well to remember that a constitutional amendment mandating a balanced budget will be the equivalent of an amendment mandating massive tax increases, because you can bet your sweet bippy that the Democrats WILL NOT COUNTENANCE an actual reduction in spending. Ergo, because of the constitutional requirement, taxes WILL be raised. Dramatically. As required by the newly amended constitution.

Lucky us.

Bob Ludwick

I have to agree. A “balanced budget amendment” would be an automatic tax raise. Year after year. The remedy is to stop electing liberals.

Clark Gable III arrested for pointing laser | Video | abc7.com

Jerry,

http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/html5/video?id=8279508&pid=&section=news/local/inland_empire

I understand the potential safety issues of higher pored lasers. However; laser pointers are limited to low power to ensure that they can’t injure someone and the tiny optical diameter results in a large diffraction angle. The average person would be unable to keep it aimed at a helicopter unless it was attached to a rifle with a scope at which point the laser would be irrelevant.

Jim Crawford

Yes I have wondered about the danger of laser pointers pointed at aircraft or car drivers. It can’t be all that great.

Obama at the Bat CLEVER…WATCH!

YOU JUST GOT TO LOVE THIS ONE,A REAL CLASSIC — WILL BE SENT OVER AND OVER AGAIN I’M SURE.

AN INSTANT CLASSIC!!!!!!

SOMEONE HAS SPENT A LOT OF TIME ON THIS….

Click here: Obama at the Bat http://www.angelfire.com/ak2/intelligencerreport/obama_at_bat.html

J

With apologies to Jarry Cologna, I’m sure…

Mail 685 Thursday, July 28, 2011

· Birth of Fire

· PFC Abdo

· Quote of the year

. Evidence and Global Warming

· Earth’s Trojan Asteroid

· The Pournelle Plan

 

Birth of Fire review

Dr. Pournelle,

My review of Birth of Fire is up at Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/review/R3L01RV57BJAZO/ref=cm_cr_dp_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B005EAWPFY&nodeID=133140011&tag=&linkCode=

I had to read the book in one sitting, it was that good. Thank you!

Because Amazon is not the place for politics, there’s one thing I didn’t mention in the review. Because I didn’t realize that this was a decades old reprint, I read into it a lot of commentary on our current social and political climate. I really did think it was a comment on Bunny Inspectors and Department of Education SWAT teams and runaway taxation to pay for unaffordable government. My guess is it’s not an accident that you chose to reprint this particular book at this particular time.

I look forward to more of your back catalog on Kindle. I have every one of your books and Niven’s that they offer, and I’m eager for more.

Martin L. Shoemaker

Thank you. That is a rather perceptive review. I am glad that Birth of Fire has held up so well over the years, and you didn’t realize it was not a new work until you finished it.

PFC Naser Jason Abdo

Dr. Pournelle:

PFC Naser Jason Abdo is not a Muslim extremist, he is apparently a possessor of child porn who got caught and was going to be court martialed for it. He had requested and obtained conscientious objector status based on his faith. Problem is, the Army put that on hold pending his court martial.

The “blow up Fort Hood” thing was apparently an afterthought. Maybe he thought he’d get 40 underage virgins if he died for Jihad?

Lee

I had not heard that and I don’t know. I would not think that making bombs was part of a clever way to avoid prosecution for posession of child pornography. Incidentally, I don’t really think that posession of pornographym should be a punishable crime or that making it a crime is constitutional. Looking at pictures isn’t a crime. Acting on what you see is. PFC Abdo is welcome to spend his life looking at any pictures he likes if that were left to me. Making bombs is another matter.

Quote of the year so far

“If you think you have a right
to force me to pay for your health care,
then why don’t you have a right
to force me to pick your cotton?”

Just controversial enough to make people think.

Would make a good bumper sticker. A bit too big for a ball cap, alas.

J

We have a number of new items on Global Warming and Climate Change Models

Global Warming Fraud Update

Well, more NASA data against anthropogenic climate change.  Time and common sense strike again?  We knew the polar bear data was fake, but now the scientist making that claim is — finally — under investigation according to the Associated Press:

<.> Just five years ago, Charles Monnett was one of the scientists whose observation that several polar bears had drowned in the Arctic Ocean helped galvanize the global warming movement. Now, the wildlife biologist is on administrative leave and facing accusations of scientific misconduct. The federal agency where he works told him he’s being investigated for "integrity issues," but a watchdog group believes it has to do with the 2006 journal article about the bear. </> http://news.yahoo.com/apnewsbreak-arctic-scientist-under-investigation-082217993.html

But, I digress, here is the NASA data I promised – or a Forbes article about it.  :

“NASA satellite data from the years 2000 through 2011 show the Earth’s atmosphere is allowing far more heat to be released into space than alarmist computer models have predicted, reports a new study in the peer-reviewed science journal Remote Sensing. The study indicates far less future global warming will occur than United Nations computer models have predicted, and supports prior studies indicating increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide trap far less heat than alarmists have claimed. Study co-author Dr. Roy Spencer, a principal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and U.S. Science Team Leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer flying on NASA’s Aqua satellite, reports that real-world data from NASA’s Terra satellite contradict multiple assumptions fed into alarmist computer models.” http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-data-blow-gaping-hold-global-warming-alarmism-192334971.html

I’m sure you know how to undertake research and get to the studies if you have questions about the data. For other readers, consider the article first and then search in a library using academic and proprietary research services. Many public libraries have resources like Ebsco, ProQuest, etc. ——–

Most Respectfully, Joshua Jordan, KSC Percussa Resurgo

Roy Spencer has a number of good criticisms of the Climate Change Models. I do not talk about frauds; but I do think that it is bad science. The models depend on data accuracies that they cannot prove, and now the evidence is that the Earth radiates more energy to space than the models suppose. That changes their predictions, but I don’t see many changes in the models.

Real data may tell the tale!

http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-data-blow-gaping-hold-global-warming-alarmism-192334971.html

John F. Gothard, Ph.D.

I would have thought that real data was the essence of science, but in the climate modelling game that does not appear to be the case.

New NASA Data Blow Gaping Hole In Global Warming Alarmism – Yahoo! News

Jerry,

This is definitive but should surprise no one given the fundamental physics of radiative heat transfer. The equilibrium temp of the Earth is proportional to the Solar Constant, the Earth’s Albedo and IR Emissivity raised to the one-fourth power. I know even the global warming alarmist understand this, but they ignore or trivialize mechanisms that increase effective emmissivity, particularly the process of evaporation, convection and condensation over the tropical oceans that effectively short circuits the greenhouse effect.

http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-data-blow-gaping-hold-global-warming-alarmism-192334971.html

Jim Crawford

And what we tell you three times is true. Apparently the Earth loses more energy to space than the models assume. One wonders about the accuracy of the other transfer parameters in the models, including earth core to ocean. And the IPCC models know from nothing about clouds.

At some point we might have an objective study about the ideal level of CO2 in the atmosphere. We might be able to remove some of the CO2 with biological engineering systems; we certainly cannot, short of conquest of developing nations, shut down the CO2 sources. And conquering China has not, historically, been a good thing for would be empires. Is it the destiny of the US to keep everyone else in poverty so that they will not emit CO2?

I never thought the liberals would shriek in such an asinine fashion and it’s Pelosi!  She must be on the way out; she has to know how ridiculous this sounds:

<.> Nancy Pelosi on today’s vote: "What we’re trying to do is save the world from the Republican budget. We’re trying to save life on this planet as we know it today." </> http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/pelosis-reactionary-liberalism_577709.html

Trying to save life as we know it on this planet today from a lower number of promised, increased spending?  Saving the world from more heavily taxed Americans who might spend their money doing nefarious things like ruining life as we know it on this planet today?  The world is at threat from a Republican budget?  I am beginning to think that when you fail acting class and don’t get to Hollywood that you might end up in Washington.

It gets better!

Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC): "I’ve said time and time again, if the President gets up to August 2nd, without a piece of legislation, he should not allow this country to go into default. He should sign an Executive Order invoking the 14th Amendment and send that to all the governmental agencies for us to continue to pay our bills. He could do that with a stroke of a pen.

"We’ve seen many big things done in history that way. I’ve joked with my staff the other day, ‘tele me what was the bill number of the Emancipation Proclamation.’ It was an Executive Order. We integrated the armed services by Executive Order. We integrated public schools by Executive Order. Sometimes executives must order that things get done." http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/07/28/clyburn_likens_executive_order_to_raise_debt_ceiling_to_emancipation_proclamation.html

If you are against the President’s budget then you must be racist! You are a holocaust denier if you don’t do what he says! I can’t believe you would take a position against mine; you are an evil person responsible for the deaths of millions! This is all the same crap Marxists pull on the streets. I saw videos of them doing this crap. This is the same crap the President did from day one. When will this Don King con get exposed to enough people for them to stop the insanity? I do not know.

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

I am not astonished that Clyburn would call for rule by executive action, but I do not think the Congress will surrender meekly.

Subj: Earth’s Trojan Asteroid Companion

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-trojan-asteroid-20110728,0,284121.story

jim

Cool news,

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-trojan-asteroid-20110728,0,284121.story

My first thought was that visiting a Trojan would take more Delta Vee than a Hohman Transfer to Mars. Then I realized that all you needed to do was boost a ship into an orbit with a slightly longer or shorter period (brain cramp, is this a trailing or leading Trojan?), let the ship drift to the Trojan object, then match trajectories. Of course the Moon is closer, takes less time and Delta-Vee, and we no how to build mass drivers.

Jim Crawford

PS, it was amusing to have you refer to the Nebish sharps committee.

LaGrangian poits are fun…

The Pournelle Plan = The Penny Plan

Jerry:

You should check out Connie Mack’s "Penny Plan". It does what you’ve specified, in that each year it starts from the assumption of zero built-in increases, and each year calls for true cuts equaling one penny on the dollar of the full budget from the previous year (hence the name "Penny Plan"). After 6 years of that, it caps spending at 18% of GDP, and the budget becomes fully balanced in the eighth year.

Combine that with a Balanced Budget amendment (to get around the issue of future Congresses not being bound by the plan), and it’s a pretty simple and relatively painless solution to the problem.

But since that makes far too much sense, I predict it will go nowhere fast… but I thought you’d like to know that there ARE some like-minded individuals in Congress that align with your thoughts.

Barry Kearns

Subject: Graph of Budget Projections and Actuals

Great graphic showing Federal budget projections and actuals. Guess what? The reality is always worse than the prediction. So, in the future…

http://flowingdata.com/2011/07/26/how-the-deficit-got-so-big/

—

Dwayne Phillips

Very revealing. Thanks!