UPDATE: The HULC sounds like a hoot. I have concerns about power lifetime and practicality. Perhaps if you put generators on the hip joints you could generate power and it’d go infinitely long?
UPDATE 2: Ah, a new lease on life for the Bedwetter Society.
But climate is known to be variable — a cold winter, or a few strung together doesn’t mean the planet is cooling. Still, according to a new study, global warming may have hit a speed bump and could go into hiding for decades.
That is called an end run, saying that you can’t prove we’re wrong because all facts you’d use to prove us wrong are invalidated by our proven premise.
Here’s my own end-run:
UNTIL CURRENT CLIMATE MODELS CAN PREDICT ACCURATELY THE OBSERVED HISTORICAL WEATHER EVENTS USING THE SAME PRECURSOR DATA, MODELS PREDICTING FUTURE GLOBAL WEATHER/CLIMATE ARE OF LOW RELIABILITY.
There is also a major flaw with even that because the models are always tweaked to account for the latest anomaly. Just because they are so tweaked does not mean that the model can and will predict tomorrow’s events.
This is Hubris. The idea that one can account for every variable and is well documented as a form of god complex.
Update #3: So sayeth the rich asshole.
President Obama said Tuesday that now is a good time for investors to buy stocks if they focus on the big picture.
****
Obama apparently isn’t giving anyone anything they can hold on to, just “we have plans”. When Russian President Dmitry Medvedev gets a letter from Obama with no hints or suggestions, I’m just not surprised.
The letter contained an assessment of the situation, but there were no concrete proposals about any mutually binding decisions
Update: Huh. Well I can be wrong…
Senior U.S. officials say Obama suggested missile shield might be unnecessary if Moscow helped with Iran
But, we’ll probably never know given how untransparent the most transparent administration ever has been so far. Prove me wrong again, Obama.
Elsewhere, we see the results of this concrete made of air. For example, the stimulus package was supposed to stimulate (never mind that it was ill-conceived no matter what) but instead became entitlement money as the largesse morphed into another form.
Most of his “stimulus” spending was devoted to social programs, rather than public works, and nearly all of the tax cuts were devoted to income maintenance rather than to improving incentives to work or invest.
WSJ has a nice graphic. Wanna see?
Funny how the sharp loss events seem to correlate to pronouncements of the O-administration that relate to economic policies. For the White House to whisper words monetary is akin to the kiss of death.
For those not in a state of active denial:
…after five weeks in office, it’s become clear that Mr. Obama’s policies are slowing, if not stopping, what would otherwise be the normal process of economic recovery. From punishing business to squandering scarce national public resources, Team Obama is creating more uncertainty and less confidence — and thus a longer period of recession or subpar growth.
[later]
The market has notably plunged since Mr. Obama introduced his budget last week, and that should be no surprise. The document was a declaration of hostility toward capitalists across the economy. Health-care stocks have dived on fears of new government mandates and price controls. Private lenders to students have been told they’re no longer wanted. Anyone who uses carbon energy has been warned to expect a huge tax increase from cap and trade. And every risk-taker and investor now knows that another tax increase will slam the economy in 2011, unless Mr. Obama lets Speaker Nancy Pelosi impose one even earlier.
Ouchie. Another complaint from those who were either deprogrammed or never sucked into the cult in the first place is the fact that capitalism is not being allowed to do it’s job. One nice feature of capitalism is that it is self-cleaning. Think of ants – they eventually pick clean stuff that is dead, usually after predators have taken care of the weakest in the ecosystem.
Obama is keeping the predators at bay, giving the one or two sickly lemurs horribly expensive life support that takes up an entire hospital’s resources, and all for terminally ill critters. The rest of the system is being starved of resources and competed with. Ok, bad analogy, a blend of analogies, and kind of a waste of both your time and mine.
His Treasury has been making a similar mistake with its financial bailout plans. The banking system needs to work through its losses, and one necessary use of public capital is to assist in burning down those bad assets as fast as possible. Yet most of Team Obama’s ministrations so far have gone toward triage and life support, rather than repair and recovery.
What’s he going to do when even the deniers realize that he can’t pin this on Bush any more?
Update on the financial issue: Bernanke Says U.S. May Need to Expand Bank Rescue
No, no, no, no, NO. Let the bad banks FAIL and let the ones that are still viable grow stronger without the crippled resource-wasting competition. Zombie companies are not adding anything valuable to the party, only serving as a fiscal black hole (think AIG).
** Note, if you have not read clear through this post and you ping me about the HULC and the impossibility of perpetual motion, rather than recognize sarcasm, please be aware that I’m going to skewer you verbally.
Lemur King's Folly 