Anyone with an e-mail account likely knows that police can peek inside it if they have a paper search warrant. But cybercrime investigators are frustrated by the speed of traditional methods of faxing, mailing, or e-mailing companies these documents. They're pushing for the creation of a national Web interface linking police computers with those of Internet and e-mail providers so requests can be sent and received electronically.
It ends with a quote from Cato Institute...
Jim Harper, a policy analyst at the free-market Cato Institute, says that he welcomes the idea of a police-only Web interface as long as it's designed carefully. "A system like this should have strong logins, should require that the request be documented fully, and should produce statistical information so there can be strong oversight," he says. "I think that's a good thing to have."
I really don't get all the foofaraw about Audi's 2010 Super Bowl Ad, portraying a dystopian near-future with an all-pervasive "Green Police," and an Audi driver who gets the a-ok from them. Sure, libertarians will argue that there's no reason to be proud of a car that slavishy obeys the most absurd state directives. And the greens are the butt of the joke; maybe they're a bit miffed. But complaining about the Ordnungspolizei is a bit of a stretch -- must everything be tied back to the Holocaust?
Bottom line: I thought the ad was funny. And if it gets up a few politically-correct nostrils, that's a bonus. Lighten up, people.
I never thought I would seriously study arcane economic mechanisms like "the carry trade" but I've become convinced that I cannot understand the world around me without grasping at least the basics of arbitrage and the like. Perhaps the world was always ruled by financial elites who manipulate mechanisms that are foreign to common folk -- in fact, I'm sure of it -- nevertheless those mechanisms now assume an unusually blatant role in politics and I keep stumbling over my ignorance of them.
A case in point...I keep watching the American dollar and wondering what will happen if Obama continues on Bush's course of expanding the deficit like a huge balloon. Or, rather, I keep wondering when it will happen because the what is almost certainly a collapse in the value of the dollar itself. Last week, the Wall Street credit agency, Moody's, warned that the U.S. could lose its AAA credit rating unless it curbs the budget deficit. (Such reductions in rating have caused financial chaos in other countries like Ireland.) When asked about the possibility of losing the AAA, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner insisted, "Absolutely not....that will never happen to this country. When people were most worried about the stability of the world, they still found safety in the Treasuries and the dollar. That is a very, very important sign of basic confidence in our capacity as a country to work together to fix these problems.”
If Geithner sincerely believes the greenback is bulletproof, then he will not feel pressured to push for the reforms and reductions that could prevent a rating dip. And the damnable thing is that, in the short term, he may be proven correct. As bad as the dollar may be, I think the euro is probably worse. Thus, in the short term, the greenback may rebound as investors flee the euro.
Everything seems driven by panic these days... But when the greenback actually confronts a debt level at which the interest payment is as much as or more than government revenues, then we will see panic that will make the current situation look pale. At that point, the collapse of the dollar may well be as swift as the subprime mortgage one. My current passion for understanding economic mechanisms comes from fear as well; understanding the dynamics of what's happening is the only form of control I can exercise over it. The macro-economy is otherwise and utterly beyond my ability to affect.
It would be more than 'nice', however, to be able to recognize the signs of an imminent collapse before the roof actually lands on my head.
Doug Hoffman, co-author of The Resilient Earth, has written a very informative post on CO2 warming and climate feedback, "Why I Am A Global Warming Skeptic". For anyone interested in a deeper understanding of these phenomena -- and the problems with current climate models -- I recommend the post; it's an easy (though lengthy) read.
Here, for example, is how he states a point that I made last month:
For instance, there must be limiting factors or opposing negative feedback to counter the proposed positive ones or Earth's temperature, once warming began, would spiral ever upward—a runaway greenhouse like that of Venus. We know such limiting factors exist because Earth's climate has remained within a range conducive to life for a half a billion years. Still, this has not prevented climate change proponents from positing a number of simple positive feedback relationships which they say will cause a dangerous rise in planetary temperature.
Do read the whole thing; it's full of interesting facts -- such as the fact that the contributions of different greenhouse gases are not additive.
Global warming hysterics may scream in anguish, but I find it refreshing news that the next ice age, which was calculated to be a few millenia overdue, may in fact not happen for a few more millenia:
Many aspects of the Earth-Sun orbital configuration during MIS-11 [the interglacial period 400,000 years ago] were similar to those of the current interglacial. For this reason, MIS-11 is often considered as a potential analogue for future climate development in the absence of human influence.
Previous studies had used the analogy to suggest that the current interglacial should have ended 2-2.5 thousand years ago. So why has it remained so warm?
According to the 'anthropogenic hypothesis', long-term climate impacts of man's deforestation activities and early methane and carbon dioxide emissions have artificially held us in warm interglacial conditions, which have persisted since the end of the Pleistocene, about 11,400 years ago.
...The researchers found that the current interglacial has indeed lasted some 2.0-2.5 millennia longer than predicted by the currently dominant theory for the way in which orbital changes control the ice-age cycles. This theory is based on the intensity of solar radiation reaching the Earth at latitude 65 degrees North on 21 June, the northern hemisphere Summer solstice.
But the anomaly vanished when the researchers considered a rival theory, which looks at the amount of solar energy reaching the Earth the same latitude during the summer months. Under this theory, sea levels could remain high for another two thousand years or so, even without greenhouse warming.
Looking at both geological and human history, I'd say global cooling is a greater threat than global warming. I hope these researchers are right. (And do note that this is yet another aspect of climate change about which the science is not "settled.")
Which circumstances promote happiness as a character trait?
Show your support:
In an earlier post I addressed the question "What is Happiness?" and I tried to answer in such a manner that happiness did not rely upon momentary circumstance or the ebb and flow of fortune. To recap: I sketched what happiness as a character trait or a habit of character involves. I argued along Randian lines that fundamental happiness is basically a value response; that is, "a happy man" -- as opposed to a man who is experiencing happiness this moment -- is one who both likes himself and likes how his life is generally going. My purpose wasn't to dis the delights of circumstance -- a wonderful meal, a perfect beach, a massage; it was to root happiness in something that was more than the sum of total of transitory pleasures, something more than a response to an acquisition like a new car. How can a resilient happiness be achieved?
In this post I want to explore which circumstances promote the development of happiness as a character trait. Yesterday, Brad stumbled across an article that listed five circumstances as prerequisites for happiness: health, food and shelter, a good relationship with at least one person, satisfying work, and adequate sleep. (I quibble with that list but it is a useful starting point.) I believe you can set a fairly low bar for at least three of the five prerequisites. Take shelter or food, for example. Happiness may well depend upon enough food to sustain health and stave off hunger but it does not require expensive meals, the finest cut of beef, or imported delicacies. In North America, we have the best quality of food in the world; it is abundant and affordable. Even though nutritious and sufficient food may be a prerequisite of happiness, I don't think eggs benedict satisfies that prerequisite better than oatmeal. The other two for which I would set a fairly low bar are health and sleep. Better health may promote better happiness but as long as someone is not disabled or in frequent pain, then I think the prerequisite has been met.
And, yet, we all know well-fed people in acceptable health who are unhappy. A lot of us are those people. I think a key to understanding the persistent of unhappiness lies in the two more difficult prerequisites -- a satisfying relationship and satisfying work, paid or unpaid. And, since I don't want to get into the dynamics of personal relationships, I'll concentrate on the latter.
Satisfying work, paid or unpaid, is part of the value judgment re: whether you like how your life is generally going. A defining feature of satisfying work is purpose -- the sense that you are doing something worthwhile. The worth doesn't need to be real; for example, a man could spend his life "doing God's will" or serving in the military. But he must experience it as worthy. I believe a purpose with genuine worth is based in reality creates a more resilient happiness -- for example, the purpose of family, truth, scientific endeavor, literary achievement etc. but purpose in-and-of-itself encourages happiness.
This view of happiness as activity is in contrast to the popular view of happiness being relaxation or 'the lack of demands'. There is common phenomenon: people naturally feel satisfaction at achieving a goal but they also report feeling empty or letdown after achieving a pinnacle. Perhaps that's because a pinnacle leaves nothing left to achieve and happiness lay as much in the striving -- in the goal-directed action -- as it does in the achievement itself. Happiness is a process rather than an end-result. Otherwise stated: you don't pursue happiness as though it were a gold medal or a goal-in-itself and, then, say "here it is in my hand, I've won happiness." Fundamentally, happiness occurs in the process of striving for what you believe is worthwhile, from the activity as much as from the achievement.
Everyone recognizes the value of physical activity in maintaining health and happiness. If you exercise regularly, then you start to like the way your body feels and motion becomes more pleasurable. Everything in life becomes a bit easier -- sleep, weight-loss, keeping an even keel... But few people recognize the equal value of intellectual activity in maintaining happiness. They see the joy that solving problems (stacking blocks) brings to child but they don't make the connection between intellectual activity in adults and pleasure. Yet human beings are as much their minds as they are their bodies; activity in both is experienced as pleasurable and both are necessary to happiness. To what degree and in what ratio...those matters are subjective and personal.
It's starting to seem that my "wicked sense of humor" theory to explain the G7 meeting in Iqaluit is wrong. Rather, it appears to be a not-too-subtle protest by Canada to the European Union.
The EU, whose collective knickers are in a politically-correct twist, either has banned or is about to ban (accounts differ) the trade in seal products. And seal hunting is an important part of the Inuit culture. So in addition to a farewell feast of seal meat, the meeting will be held in Nunavut's legislative building, where the chairs are covered with sealskin. And the participants will be given sealskin mittens and vests as parting gifts.
Short of grabbing a baby seal and whacking the visitors across the face with it, I can't imagine a less-subtle message.
Oh, wait, yes I can:
Image from The Guardian, who are none too subtle themselves.
Veteran activist and lawyer Manny Klausner chimes in on Climate Gate. He emails, For those of you who haven't been following the deluge of shocking climate-change fraud revelations that have recently been disclosed in the media (sadly, excluding most of the American main-stream media), here's a quick round-up:
1. How Climate-Change Fanatics Corrupted Science By Michael Barone, Washington Examiner, February 3, 2010: "[P]eople will look back and wonder why so many government, corporate and media elites were taken in by propaganda that was based on such shoddy and dishonest evidence. And taken in to the point that they advocated devoting trillions of dollars to a cause that was based on flagrant dishonesty and dissembling."
2. Resisting Temptation By David Warren, Ottawa Citizen, February 3, 2010: "To my survey, there is not a single aspect of the 'anthropogenic global warming' hypothesis that has been left standing by recent revelations, and more shoes drop every day."
3. IPCC: International Pack of Climate Crooks By Marc Sheppard, International Thinker, February 4, 2010: "[A] glut of ongoing recent discoveries of systemic fraud has rocked . . . [the] foundation, and the entire man-made global warming house of cards is now teetering on the verge of complete collapse."
4. My Two Cents on AmazonGate Posted by Marlo Lewis, GlobalWarming.org Blog, January 27, 2010@3:25 pm: "Climategate, Himalayagate, Pachaurigate, and now NOAAgate — [i]t’s hard to keep up with all the relevations and allegations buzzing around some of the biggest names in climate science. Earlier this week in the Telegraph, the intrepid James Delingpole debuted 'Amazongate.' Like Himalayagate, this is a case in which the IPCC relied on a World Wildlife Fund (WWF) report, rather than a peer-reviewed scientific study, to make a scary claim about global warming."
5. Climategate News and Links Posted by Steve McIntyre, Climate Audit, January 31, 2010, 11:24 am: "It’s hard to keep up with the explosion of stories on Climategate, Pachauri and similar stories now that coverage has expanded outside the climate blogs."
6. UK Greenpeace Chief Calls on Pachauri to Resign: Al Gore Still Silent Posted by Walter Russell Mead, The American Interest Online, February 3, 2010. "[i]n the face of an increasing cascade of inconvenient truths, Al Gore remains silent. Even the leadership of Greenpeace UK understands that low scientific standards and reckless disregard for the truth are destroying the credibility of the global warming community . . . ."=====================================
I can't keep up with all the global-warming revelations:
New Zealand's National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA), in response to an Official Information Act request, has admitted that it no longer knows what adjustments it made to raw temperature data.
The notorious Phil Jones of the CRU lost the locations of the rural Chinese weather stations that he and a co-author used to attempt to refute the "Urban Heat Island" effect. He then stonewalled Freedom of Information requests for this data, perhaps to hide the fact that he didn't have it.
The IPCC reported that 55% of the Netherlands is below sea level, and 65% of their GNP is produced there, and supposedly at risk from sea level rise. In fact, the real numbers are 20% and 19%, respectively.
Among the "peer reviewed" citations in the IPCC report are newspaper articles from the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Economist, and -- strangest of all -- the Nassau Guardian and Tribune.
Further, the IPCC has cited not one, but nine Master's student dissertations (two of them unpublished).
Conspiracy Theories: Is Rebutting Them Government's Job?
Show your support:
Conspiracy Theories: Is Rebutting Them Government's Job? By Victor Morawski [hat tip to Get Liberty blog]
Conspiracy theories abound in the U.S. about everything from who killed JFK to America's alleged involvement in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Most of us, while we may not agree with them, tolerate them nonetheless. That's what freedom of speech is all about.
Unless, of course, you are Obama Administration Regulatory Czar, Cass Sunstein.
In a recently written "Preliminary Draft" of a research paper entitled "Conspiracy Theories," he and his co-author Adrian Vermeule claim that, "government might do well to maintain a more vigorous counter misinformation establishment than it would otherwise do, one that identifies and rebuts many more conspiracy theories [than] would otherwise be rebutted."
What reasons do they give for justifying such an intrusion by government into freedom of expression? And even more important, do their suggestions have any place in a free and open society?
Well, you have to understand that the government to which they wish to hand such unfettered, intrusive power has only the best of intentions — that it is "a well-motivated government that aims to eliminate conspiracy theories … if and only if social welfare is improved by doing so." They then add, rather cryptically, that they will not give us a clearer idea of what they mean by "social welfare." We're to look at this expression as a hole into which the "right account" of social welfare is to be plugged later.
Were they merely discussing some abstract philosophical concepts with little practical import, most of us would likely be willing to cut them some slack as starry-eyed academics typically out of touch with the real world. But they are arguing that the Federal government actually adopt a widespread program of infiltration and attempted overthrow of groups allegedly harboring "conspiracy" theories on a scale never before envisioned in the history of the Republic. And, of course, the government is to conduct this witch-hunt at significant taxpayer expense.
Now most readers may believe that the vast majority of conspiracy theories are harmless, inconsequential and best ignored by government. Not surprisingly, Sunstein and his co-author try to disabuse us of this notion. They want them all investigated – especially if, in any way, they depart from current government dogma.
They make a legitimate point that, while many conspiracy theories—like the Roswell UFO cover-up—seem to require no action from believers, some others may foment violent action, like the beliefs about the malevolence of the Federal Government resulting in the isolated actions of the Oklahoma City bomber. So some beliefs might result in significant harm if acted upon by "only a small fraction of adherents." With this, most would agree, theoretically, at any rate.
But that hardly justifies where Sunstein goes from here. For even though he recognizes that not all conspiracy theories foment violence, he still maintains that many of them, in fact, the most common cases, "can still have pernicious effects from the government's point of view." You see, he posits somewhat hysterically, they "induce widespread public skepticism about the government's assertions." Or, worse yet, they motivate people not to participate in "government-led efforts." in some area.
Here he opens the door to declaring a whole host of such theories "pernicious." By the guidelines he lays down, practically any theory that contains beliefs that dissent from the government's official line in almost any area or subject now qualifies as "pernicious"—not as legitimate free speech. He recommends against ignoring these theories as their proponents may "draw ominous inferences from the government's silence."
So, Sunstein's recommendation is to go after all so-called "conspirators" tooth and nail. He wants to unleash a whole host of government operatives on them, infiltrating their meetings, bugging their phones, monitoring their credit card transactions, tailing their cars, and likely even hiding under their beds if the Obama Administration so desires.
It all sounds like some bizarre scenario culled from the "Coming Attractions" of a science fiction epic. But, unfortunately, in this case, it's not science fiction at all. And, it's not "coming;" it's here.
Cass Sunstein, as mentioned above, is the Obama Administration's Regulations Czar. As such, he is responsible for deciding what government agencies are allowed to do. And that means when he says it's time for government enforcers to start spying on "conspirators" who express "skepticism about government's assertions," it's time for you to start looking over your shoulder.
Victor Morawski, professor at Coppin State University, is a Liberty Features Syndicated writer for Americans for Limited Government.
A short video of a speech given by a military soldier explaining the truth as to why we are actually in iraq. Excellent, except for the railing against "profits" at the very end.
Either someone in the Canadian government has a wicked sense of humor, or they are really determined to keep protesters away from this week's G-7 finance meeting. They're holding it in Iqaluit:
Capital of the newest Canadian territory of Nunavut, Iqaluit lies on an inlet in the southeast corner of vast, barren Baffin Island, 200 miles south of the Arctic Circle. The largely Inuit population that lives here was once nomadic, following seal and caribou across the frozen terrain.
With a population of 7,000, Iqaluit (pronounced ee-KA-loo-it) today is known as a cold-weather testing center for jet makers such as Boeing Co. It has one main traffic intersection and temperatures that can dip to 40 degrees below zero in February.
Canada's Finance Department, the organizer of the G-7 event, has been limited in the activities it could plan. There are only 300 hotel rooms in town. And because some 500 guests, including ministers, security and media are expected, some will have to sleep in dorm rooms.
In February, no less. Bienvenue au Canada, chaps!
Update: Adding to the "wicked sense of humor" theory, I learn that the guests will be invited to a farewell feast of seal meat.
There is so much bad news in the world that I've spent much of the night thinking about "What is happiness?" It's a fascinating question and one that I answered to my own satisfaction quite a few years ago. Like every other question, answering it depends largely on how you define the item that's under the microscope.
The word 'happiness' is used in different ways. When you laugh at a joke, you could be called "happy"; this approach links happiness to specific experiences and, so, makes it a transitory state. Other views of happiness link it to specific things that satisfy desire -- e.g. money -- and, so, turns happiness into an acquisition or, at least, into the by-product of an acquisition. I don't doubt that experiences and acquisitions can promote feelings of joy, satisfaction, relief, triumph, etc. and that these feelings constitute happiness to some people.
Defining happiness is a personal business but I have always been suspicious of definitions that seem to view it as the sum total of pleasures or things. There are too many walking-talking counter-examples of people with money who are miserable, of people who are in agony because they dependent on experiences for happiness (e.g. drug addicts). Certainly pleasure and enjoyable things are associated with happiness but I suspect that being happy depends more upon the person than upon the experience.
The approach that has always intrigued me is the view of happiness as a character trait -- almost as a habit of personality. You sometimes refer to an individual as a "happy person" in the same way you call someone "an angry man" or "a worry-wart." The "happy people" I've met exude a sense of self-acceptance and peace-of-mind. But more than this, they enjoy the process of living and their enjoyment doesn't seem to hinge upon specific experiences or acquisitions. They probably prefer to be rich but great wealth wouldn't make them significantly happier than having enough to satisfy their basic needs.
To back up a bit, the main reason I am suspicious of basing happiness upon specific experiences or things is because happiness then becomes utterly dependent upon events and circumstances that are often beyond control. Approaching happiness as a character trait, however, gives it roots and makes it resilient in the face of bad experience or the want of things.
Although I have profound disagreements with Ayn Rand's evaluation of human psychology, especially her analysis of sexuality, my own thinking about happiness springboards off Rand's basic approach to the entire area. Rand considered emotional states to result largely from the value judgments people make about themselves and the world. I think "happy people" have made specific value judgments about the most basic psychological questions an individual can ask about himselves and his life. They are: "do I fundamentally like and respect who I am?"; "is my life successful by the standards by which I define success?" These questions are different than from other similar ones such as "do I like how I look today or how I scored on a test?" The questions and answers are fundamental, not based on any one experience or circumstance...or even a set of experiences or circumstances.
Logically, those who can answer both questions with an overwhelming "yes" will feel happiness as natural, as the state-of-being that they bring to experience and circumstance. In other words, as a character trait or habit. Happy people might get depressed from time-to-time -- e.g. because of an illness or a death -- but they remain "happy people" in the same way an angry person remains filled with bitterness even if he laughs occasionally. In other words, happiness is not an omnipresent, constant state but more of a "default position" or a defining aspect of the person's overall character through time.
No doubt, pleasure and circumstance can promote happiness both as a transitory state and as a character trait. If a person is born with an agonizing disease or endures one for years, it would be very difficult for him to develop the characteristic of happiness. Equally, if your self-image is as the pawn of a malevolent reality, then anything but brief episodes of happiness are unlikely. Otherwise stated...an abundance of pleasure or things do not create lasting happiness. However the presence of pain or extreme want can prevent happiness from developing as a character trait or habit.
What else aids or dissuades the development of such happiness? I hope to touch on them tomorrow.
I'll depart from the theme of "ludicrous unreviewed citations" today, and instead comment on ludicrously flawed computer code. You may recall that the notorious computer program that generated the "hockey stick" graph of global warming also generates hockey sticks when fed random data. Now we learn that the NASA computer models that compute temperature change report the oceans infinitely hot when fed unchanging null data (hat tip to Watts Up With That):
I thought it would be 'interesting' to step through parts of the baseline bit by bit to find out where it was "hot" and "cold". (Thinking of breaking it into decades.... still to be tried...) When I thought:
Well, you always need a baseline benchmark, even if you are 'benchmarking the baseline', so why not start with the "NULL" case of baseline equal to report period? It ought to be a simple all white [no change] land area with grey oceans for missing data.
Well, I was "A bit surprised" when I got a blood red [infinitely hot] ocean everywhere on the planet.
Unfortunately, it appears that NASA does not publish this computer code, so qualified programmers can't go through it and find the bug* that causes this to happen. I'd guess that when it subtracts null data from null data, their algorithm returns a ridiculous number instead of "null." But a lot of the world has no temperature record, and, as E. M. Smith suggests, this may have consequences:
If a map with no areas of unusual warmth (by definition with the baseline = report period) has this happen; something is wrong.
I'd further speculate that that something could easily be what causes The Bolivia Effect where areas that are lacking in current data get rosy red blobs. Just done on a spectacular scale.
Further, I'd speculate that this might go a long way toward explaining the perpetual bright red in the Arctic (where there are no thermometers so no thermometer data). This "anomaly map" includes the HadCRUT SST anomaly map for ocean temperatures. The striking thing about this one is that those two bands of red at each pole sure look a lot like the 'persistent polar warming' we've been told to be so worried about....
__________ *Yes, NASA writes buggy software from time to time. Let us not forget that NASA once launched a satellite into the Atlantic Ocean because of a transcription error in a computer program; and more recently, they lost a Mars orbiter because someone mixed up English and Metric units.
