green isn't gold

"Green Isn't Gold for MBAs" (Business Week)

A good environmental reputation doesn't make the grade when it comes to rating a company as a prospective employer, a new study finds.

leave everything on their hands

Expense Allowance Abuse by MEPs

proud to be an Irishman (2)

This was just before the referendum: "Ireland: know your place, you ungrateful wretch!":

How can the Irish be so ungrateful? That is the question being asked by EU officials (in private) and by EU supporters (in public) as the Irish go to the polls this Thursday to vote on whether to accept the Lisbon Treaty on the expansion of European Union institutions. The fact that the ‘No’ lobby seems to be gaining ground – in a country that has benefited enormously from EU subsidies! – has led to an orgy of bile-ridden attacks on truculent, thick and thankless Irish voters.

The message is clear: the Irish should know their place in the European set-up and slavishly bow and scrape before their paymasters in Brussels. Anything else would be ‘extraordinarily ungrateful’, according to one commentator (1). Welcome to the ‘democratic’ EU – where most countries are bypassing their electorates and simply ratifying the Lisbon Treaty, and where the one country that is holding a referendum – Ireland – has been subjected to the kind of financial, political and emotional blackmail that would make even Imelda Marcos squirm.

Lack of bank note paper threatens Zimbabwe economy

"It has come to this: Zimbabwe is about to run out of the paper to print money on."

proud to be an Irishman

In the name of all the Europeans who were denied the right to have a say about the European 'democracy', thank you Ireland.

In Defense of "Sweatshops"

In Defense of "Sweatshops'" (EconLib):

The good news for sweatshop workers today is that the world has better technology and more capital than ever before. Development in these countries can happen even faster than it did in the East Asian tigers. If activists in the United States do not undermine the process of development by eliminating these countries' ability to attract sweatshops, then third world countries that adopt market friendly institutions will grow rapidly and sweatshop pay and working conditions will improve even faster than they did in the United States or East Asia. Meanwhile, what the third world so badly needs is more "sweatshop jobs," not fewer.

high oil prices : regulation-imposed scarcity

"Union County approves zoning ordinance for Hyperion "

As midnight approached, they popped the champagne corks, celebrating a hard-fought victory that keeps alive the county's chances of landing the nation's first all-new oil refinery in 32 years.

Supporters argued that tapping into reserves from our neighbor to the north would reduce the nation's dependence on Mideast oil and add badly needed refining capacity in the U.S., where the last all-new refinery was built in 1976.

GW satire

Jobless GM Automakers Celebrate Saving The Planet (The People's Cube):

American automakers responded with great enthusiasm to yesterday's decision by General Motors to compost its gas-guzzling business model and close four pickup truck and SUV plants - a unilateral gesture of good will towards the environment that will result in 10,000 lost jobs.

How 'Sweatshops' Help the Poor

"How "Sweatshops" Help the Poor" (Mises Institute):

One of the oldest myths about capitalism is the notion that factories that offer the poor higher wages to lure them off the streets (and away from lives of begging, stealing, prostitution, or worse) or away fom back-breaking farm labor somehow impoverishes and exploits them. They are said to work in "sweatshops" for "subsistence wages."

That was the claim made by socialists and unionists in the early days of the industrial revolution, and it is still made today by the same category of malcontents – usually by people who have never themselves performed manual labor and experienced breaking a sweat while working. (I am not referring here to the red herring claim that most foreign "sweatshops" utilize some kind of slave labor. This is an outrageous propaganda ploy designed to portray defenders of free markets as being in favor of slavery).

Green armbands next?

"Every adult in Britain should be forced to carry 'carbon ration cards', say MPs" (Daily Mail):

Every adult should be forced to use a 'carbon ration card' when they pay for petrol, airline tickets or household energy, MPs say.

The idea of personal carbon trading is increasingly being promoted by environmentalists. In theory it could be used to cover all purchases - from petrol to food.

'What we are asking the Government to do is to seize the reins on this, leading the debate and coordinating research.'

Patrick Michaels, Cato senior fellow in environmental studies, comments:

Britain's parliamentary proposal to require all adults to carry a 'carbon ration card' would result in the absolute destruction of personal privacy with no detectable impact on global climate. The proposed card would track virtually all personal movements and purchases (including food), reporting them to the government. The cost of the loss of privacy is outweighed by absolutely no climatic benefit. The United Kingdom is a minor emitter of carbon dioxide, accounting for a tiny fraction compared to the emissions of China, now the world's largest source of carbon dioxide, where there is certainly no attempt to reduce personal use of energy.

Further, for such a program to be effective, the cost of energy would have to be so high that the British economy would grind to a halt. Stabilizing atmospheric carbon dioxide requires 60-80% reductions in emissions worldwide. Here in the United States, $4.00 per gallon gasoline is cutting use by a few percent. What price is required for an 80% reduction, and is this worth surrendering virtually all of one's privacy to the government?

Climate Change (3)

The Challenge:

Scott Armstrong of the Wharton School challenges Al Gore $20,000 that he will be able to make more accurate forecasts of annual mean temperatures than those that can be produced by climate models. Scott Armstrong’s forecasts will be based on the naive (no-change) model; that is, the forecasts would be the same as the most recent year prior to the forecasts. The money will be placed in a Charitable Trust to be established at a brokerage house. The charity designated by the winner will receive the total value in the fund when the official award is made at the annual International Symposium on Forecasting in 2018.

The current status of the Challenge:
- "Gore proposes new condition on climate forecasting challenge . . . Armstrong accepts and awaits a reply"

From "Global Warming: Forecasts by Scientists versus Scientific Forecasts" by Scott Armstrong:

In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Working Group One, a panel of experts established by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme, issued its Fourth Assessment Report.

The forecasts in the Report were not the outcome of scientific procedures. In effect, they were the opinions of scientists transformed by mathematics and obscured by complex writing. Research on forecasting has shown that experts’ predictions are not useful in situations involving uncertainly and complexity. We have been unable to identify any scientific forecasts of global warming. Claims that the Earth will get warmer have no more credence than saying that it will get colder.

Another presentation by Scott Armstrong, with stronger evidence than the one from IESE:
- "Global Warming: Forecasts by Scientists Versus Scientific Forecasts" (PDF)

The youtubes:
- Dr. Scott Armstrong on Climate Forecasting - Part I
- Dr. Scott Armstrong on Climate Forecasting - Part II
- Dr. Scott Armstrong on Climate Forecasting - Part III

Climate Change (2)

Marlo Lewis Testifies in the Senate on Global Warming

"Global-Warming Jujitsu" by John Tierney:

“The surprising conclusion using the Stern Review’s own estimates,” Dr. Goklany writes, “is that future generations will be better off in the richest but warmest” of the I.P.C.C.’s scenarios.

"Now for the Good News" (Cato Institute):

.... we today find that the richest countries are also the cleanest. And while many developing countries have yet to get past the "green ceiling," they are nevertheless ahead of where today's developed countries used to be when they were equally wealthy ....

Climate Change (1)

CO2 and Temperature (from An Inconvenient Truth)


Proof that the famous CO2 graph has been manipulated and therefore isn't trustworthy




The Great Global Warming Swindle (Parts 3 & 4 )

Junk Science: "Breaking the hockey stick:

The famous graph that supposedly shows that recent temperatures are the highest in a thousand years has now been shown by careful analysis to have been based on faulty data.

"If we used Mann's method on red noise, we consistently obtained hockey sticks ....

.... Mann's climate reconstruction methodology would have yielded a hockey-stick graph from any tree-ring data set entered into the model, as long as there is sufficient red noise.

Climate Change - Is CO2 the cause?- pt 4 of 4

UN Human Rights Council

From UNWatch, "Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bahrain: “Not Qualified” for UN Rights Council Election":

Geneva, May 21, 2008 — Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bahrain, Gabon and Zambia fail to meet the minimum standards required for today’s election of 15 new members to the UN Human Rights Council, according to a report by UN Watch and Freedom House, two independent human rights organizations that monitor country compliance with democracy and individual liberties.

“Unless the UN stops electing the worst violators to the Human Rights Council,” said Neuer, “we will continue to have the foxes guarding the chickens -- with the likes of China, Saudi Arabia and Cuba blocking action for Tibet, women’s rights or jailed journalists.”

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