Quick Links
Hillary did not leave a tip at Chipotle. I don’t typically tip at a Chipotle. If I were running for President and eating a burrito as a media stunt, I probably would.
Small-town Michigan auto repair shop guy says he would not serve the openly gay. It’s different from the pizza place story in two ways: 1) he posted the sentiments online rather than answering a question from a reporter, and 2) he does not confine his views to participating in a gay marriage. Maybe he wants a GoFundMe lottery ticket. I support his freedom to associate with who he wants, and I also think he’s too judgmental. Let the market take care of people like him.
Westboro Baptist Not to Picket ISIS After All. After being challenged to do so, the cretins claimed to be willing to do it, but now they’re seemingly backing out. I guess they discovered ISIS hates gays almost as much as they do?
Jonathan Adler: What does it take to convince libertarians and conservatives that climate change is a problem? He says evidence of human contributions to warming is “substantial” — even “without relying upon the conclusions drawn by computer models or contested studies, such as Michael Mann’s infamous ‘Hockey Stick.’”
Marco Rubio would attend a gay wedding. Ah, but would he eat a burrito? Would he tool around in a luxurious van? Would Big Media drool over him if he did?
Hillary wants to amend the First Amendment. Remember: the Citizens United decision grew out of an attempt to suppress criticism of Hillary.
Our poll on your pick for President is still live. Go make your choice. Almost 1000 votes in, it’s neck and neck between Cruz and Walker, with Cruz holding a slight edge.
Ding.
Patterico (9c670f) — 4/16/2015 @ 7:37 amThe comments to that WaPo article are seriously confused. Mixing creationists and anti-vaxxers. Those two groups are poles apart.
Mike K (d85405) — 4/16/2015 @ 7:45 amI don’t typically tip at a Chipotle. If I were running for President and eating a burrito as a media stunt, I probably would.
I’m kind of a sucker: if a tip jar is on the counter I generally hit it up, even if it is at a fast food place like Subway. But I only put in about 8-10% of the bill — a buck or two depending upon what I ordered. But yeah, if I was a millionaire Presidential candidate embarking upon a billion dollar campaign, I would be the most generous guy they had ever seen.
JVW (a1146f) — 4/16/2015 @ 7:46 amIn the words of the Blogfather, re: Jonathan Adler:
“I’ll believe it’s a crisis when the people who keep telling me it’s a crisis start acting like it’s a crisis.”
Chaser:
Another Anon (f43943) — 4/16/2015 @ 7:49 am“I don’t want to hear another goddamn thing about my carbon footprint.”
when we get all our other problems resolved, then we’ll concern ourselves with climate change,
narciso (ee1f88) — 4/16/2015 @ 7:51 amA baker declining to bake a wedding cake for a homosexual couple is declining to take part in a ceremony he finds offensive, but what does changing the oil on a homosexual’s car have to do with participating in his lifestyle?
Most of what homosexuals do is the same thing as what normal people do: eat, work, sleep, lawn the mow, clean the house, do the laundry, and all of the other things that are a part of everyday life. They need (hopefully gas-guzzling, carbon dioxide spewing) automobiles to get to the grocery store and work and the dozens of other places which have nothing to do with their choice of bed partners.
This is where things get dicey: we all know what would eventually happen to a mechanic who said he would not work on cars owned by blacks.
The mechanic Dana (f6a568) — 4/16/2015 @ 8:50 ami always hit the tip jar except not at starbucks cause i don’t go there anymore cause they’re so creepy with all their weirdo racial profiling and it makes me uncomfortable
happyfeet (a037ad) — 4/16/2015 @ 8:50 amyou are running out of handbaskets over there:
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2015/04/millionaire-spike-lee-wants-3-milllion-in-taxpayer-assistance-to-make-his-next-film-chiraq/
narciso (ee1f88) — 4/16/2015 @ 8:53 ami’m a sell my car in a couple weeks cause i’m so over the whole street parking thing
but even if i kept it i wouldn’t drive to some sad armpit in michigan for to get the oils changed
so this counts as my social justice for the month
happyfeet (a037ad) — 4/16/2015 @ 8:55 amYour number 5. seems to self evidentially prove they are not cretins. So they have that going for them.
Now if Adler could only point to evidence. But most conservatives and libertarians acknowledge that climate change exists, else Chicago would be under a thousand feet of ice. Or northern Montana would still have semi-tropical climate. Climate change happens, just as the Earth orbits the sun. Humankind will adapt, or die. It’s evolution, which is scientific.
Loren (1e34f2) — 4/16/2015 @ 8:55 amJVW wrote:
And it was discovered that her three random lunch companions were all staged Democrats. Maybe before Al Gore invented this internet thingy, we’d never have heard about that, but, alas! there are no secrets any more, something that the Clintons ought to know better than anybody. After all these years, after all of this planning, it seems as though Mrs Clinton’s campaign is being run by amateurs.
This would never have happened to her husband; he was savvy, and an actual politician. His darling bride isn’t a real politician, but a wholly self-absorbed woman trying to play politician. She’ll get a lot of votes because of her name and her genitals, but I’m thinking that Her Inevitableness might not be so inevitable after all.
The politician Dana (f6a568) — 4/16/2015 @ 8:57 amtechnically the christian post link says the comedian sponsor backed out, more likely Westboro would end up joining IS, they agree on so much,
narciso (ee1f88) — 4/16/2015 @ 9:00 amthis was a big priority, last fall:
http://dailysignal.com/2015/04/15/future-indictments-related-to-export-import-bank-likely-agency-watchdog-says/
narciso (ee1f88) — 4/16/2015 @ 9:04 amwhat does the store owner mean by “openly gay”? if they are not performing acts in front of him, and homosexuality is not illegal then i’d say he needs to take the sign down and not deny service.
Rubio, however, has lost me. I wonder how many who voted in the poll for him would like to change that vote. (i didn’t)
Adler doesn’t address what is normal , how normal was determined and what it would take to prove the claim false. he also does not explain the previous warmings.
seeRpea (d1cf05) — 4/16/2015 @ 9:24 amnow Cage wouldn’t have anything to do with this:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3033069/Four-ten-British-Muslims-believe-MI5-police-partly-responsible-radicalisation-teenagers-join-Isis.html
narciso (ee1f88) — 4/16/2015 @ 9:32 amAGW simply requires carpet bombing Gaza with hydrogen bombs, according to a mathematical theorem. See Nuclear Winter: Global Consequences of Multiple Nuclear Explosions, R. P. Turco, O. B. Toon, T. P. Ackerman, J. B. Pollack 2, and Carl Sagan, Science, vol. 23, December 1983, Vol. 222. no. 4630, pp. 1283 – 1292 According to consensus®, this will create a climate paradise, with shorter allergy seasons, no storms, and no other horrible stuff.
Michael Ejercito (d9a893) — 4/16/2015 @ 9:46 amJonathan Adler: What does it take to convince libertarians and conservatives that climate change is a problem? He says evidence of human contributions to warming is “substantial” — even “without relying upon the conclusions drawn by computer models or contested studies, such as Michael Mann’s infamous ‘Hockey Stick.’”
People like Adler irk me the most because in too many instances — disregarding their arguments about the pros or cons of the science or the solution to what they’re wringing their hands about — they aren’t willing to do even modest things to curb their own CO2-polluing lifestyle. I was debating this topic with a woman not too long ago — who prays at the holy altar of enviromentalism — and she recently purchased a big SUV to tool around town in.
Fans of AGW like her (or Al Gore, etc, etc) should be required to move to some non-comfy-oriented shantytown in South America or lead a bare-bones existence in the savannah of Africa so they can finally show to the world they’re not just talking the talk, but are now walking the walk, and trying to be a part of the solution.
Marco Rubio would attend a gay wedding.
Squish, squish. Hugs, hugs. Who knows? Rubio may eventually say that it’s perfectly reasonable for the US military to treat people like Nidal Hassan with care, compassion and understanding.
Rubio could have at least qualified his statement by saying “only if the gay couple were staunch conservatives and had been forced into tying the knot by their leftwing parents.”
Mark (6c31df) — 4/16/2015 @ 9:55 amRe: the auto repair shop guy who won’t serve gays, I understand why gays and people who sympathize with gays find this troublesome. I’m sure they feel like they are being targeted and judged. But I feel that way when I shop at the local Hispanic market, where my blonde hair and blue eyes mark me as someone different. The store doesn’t make me feel welcome, not only because of the stares but also because they don’t speak English so it’s harder for me to get help when I need it. Should I sue or complain if stores cater to (or exclude) specific groups, or should I let the market handle it?
I think we will have a more free society if we let the market handle this issues, and we will have a more regulated, controlled society if we don’t. Both will have inequalities, but we will have government-based inequality instead of market-based inequality. There will be as much corruption and inequality in the government system — especially with Obama’s attack on the rule of law — but politicians will decide who gets the spoils instead of the market.
DRJ (e80d46) — 4/16/2015 @ 9:55 am‘blonde hair and blue eyes mark me as someone different.”
pics, or it didn’t happen!
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 4/16/2015 @ 10:35 ami do not believe that climate change is a problem
i got your parts per million right here Jonathan
happyfeet (a037ad) — 4/16/2015 @ 10:50 amI don’t typically tip at a Chipotle. If I were running for President and eating a burrito as a media stunt, I probably would.
At places that have a tip jar I almost always dump the coins from the change in the tip jar. I use so little cash anymore that it’s almost like getting rid of an annoyance.
auto repair shop guy says he would not serve the openly gay.
It would be easier if aholes wore identifying badges or something, but failing that this kind of self-identification will do. He’d better be a damn good mechanic.
Westboro Baptist Not to Picket ISIS After All.
Envy.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/16/2015 @ 10:58 amJonathan Adler relies on a highly flawed article at Reason. And once of the reasons it’s highly flawed is that Ronald Bailey asks the wrong questions. The right questions are variations of “how much?” How much warming will occur, and will it be harmful? How much is human activity contributing to it? And then you go on to ask are there any reasonable steps we can take to mitigate it? Would it make more sense not to destroy our economies so we have the wealth to adapt to it? Rather than impoverish ourselves while having no measurable impact on the rate of warming (the Australian experience, which is why they abandoned the nonsense). Because if we do that, then all we’re doing is damning future generations of the wherewithal to adapt to a changing climate.
But to get back to the article, if the world is warming, and there is some evidence that it is, it’s not outside the realm of natural variability. Even climate alarmists have to admit that. According to the latest RSS data, we have now gone 18 years and 3 months with no measurable warming. And here’s what NOAA had to say about that on page 23 of this climate assessment:
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/bams-sotc/climate-assessment-2008-lo-rez.pdf
So we are well outside of even the five year cushion they provided themselves when it comes to the climate alarmists’ claims of disastrous anthropogenic global warming. We still remain within natural norms. And these people can’t account for it. Which is why we have a plethora of new theories about why the predicted catastrophic warming isn’t happening, that there’s no indication it will happen, but dammit they just know it is and it’s going to be horrific, trust them.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7580294.stm
First of all it has to be noted that the vast majority of the Earth’s mountain glaciers are in Antarctica, and they’re in no danger of melting. In areas where they are melting, like the alps and the andes, they reveal that people used to live there. Those glaciers haven’t been there forever; according to the park’s own literature the glaciers in Glacier National Park are about 3,000 years old. Which is about the age of the human artifacts they’re finding as glaciers in the alps melt.
So if we follow the evidence, we’ll get the climate of 3,000 years ago. When people flourished in places they can’t live now.
Steve57 (cd6f9a) — 4/16/2015 @ 11:02 amRubio, however, has lost me. I wonder how many who voted in the poll for him would like to change that vote. (i didn’t)
No, you wanted Santorum, so this attitude doesn’t really surprise me. If a gay person I knew invited me to his/her wedding, I’d probably go, unless the venue or participants had been coerced. Not a big deal to me. But I’d defend to the death your right to NOT go.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/16/2015 @ 11:04 amAll I really know about AGW is that it is probably not a real good idea to make large perturbations in a working system. Basic engineering caution. CO2 levels cannot continue to increase without consequence, and we may not know what those consequences are until too late.
Sure the models are wrong and overstate the incremental problem, but that does not mean nothing bad will happen.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/16/2015 @ 11:09 ami say we chance it
happyfeet (a037ad) — 4/16/2015 @ 11:14 amAlso, there’s no evidence that Polar bears are being harmed by climate change.
http://polarbearscience.com/2015/04/12/challenging-polar-bear-fearmongering-about-arctic-sea-ice-extent-for-march-2015/
It’s almost funny how easy it is to poke holes in the activist claims that the polar bears are going to go extinct. One of the recent claims is that they can’t live on land sources of food. And they cite as an example bird eggs. As Dr. Susan Crockford (she’s the zoologist with 35 years experience who owns and writes for the site) points out, polar bears do 2/3 of their eating well before the late spring break-up of the ice. Then go on a fast until late fall, i.e. November/December, when nobody denies there will be ice and do the remaining 1/3 of their eating of the year.
So it’s ridiculous to cite bird eggs as a source of food that can’t maintain polar bear populations as the arctic breeding season doesn’t produce eggs or hatchlings until late June or early July at the earliest. The USFWS service studies Eider ducks (and other waterfowl) near Barrow, AK and have for as long as I can remember (I hunt ducks, so this information is important to me). They don’t even start their census of arriving birds until the middle of June, then continue for about 2 weeks. Only after that do they start looking for nests, as there won’t be any earlier. So, no, the people who are crying about the demise of the polar bears may be scientists but they aren’t doing science when they write their alarmist crap. They’re putting on their activist hat.
http://polarbearscience.com/2015/04/03/superb-sea-ice-conditions-for-polar-bears-worldwide-during-their-critical-feeding-period/
Steve57 (cd6f9a) — 4/16/2015 @ 11:16 amseeRpea wrote:
As recruiters used to say, you don’t always have to ask to be able to tell.
The Army-daddy Dana (f6a568) — 4/16/2015 @ 11:18 amHillary wants to amend the First Amendment
Great. Lets ban flag-burning and sedition, and establish Judeo-Christian values as the core principles of the Republic. Just as likely to be enacted, Hill.
If there was one thing that has become clear in this administration, though, it is the need to allow Congress a veto of regulations, short of passing a law over a veto. There used to be legislative vetoes, but these were struck down in a woeful 1983 decision (INS v. Chadha).
Justice Powell … argued that to invalidate all legislative veto provisions is a serious matter, as Congress views the legislative veto as essential to controlling the executive branch…
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/16/2015 @ 11:22 amAll I really know about AGW is that it is probably not a real good idea to make large perturbations in a working system.
My characterizing such caution as both amusing and contemptible isn’t directed at you (unless you’re a leftist like Obama), but at those particular environmentalists (or politicians or their supporters in the electorate) who are up in arms about global warming vis-a-vie the dynamics of a captialistic system, yet show no alarm about the environmental (and social, and economic) degradation of the US becoming more and more like a half-baked society of Central or South America. (I won’t say anything about the political degradation, since I’m sure environmentalists of the left love the idea of this country’s changing demographics making it increasingly liberal.)
Unless do-gooder environmentalists are residing in the center of a dystopia like, say, Detroit, Michigan or a favala in Brazil, they really need to start practicing what they preach.
Mark (6c31df) — 4/16/2015 @ 11:36 amseeRpea wrote:
what does the store owner mean by “openly gay”?
As recruiters used to say, you don’t always have to ask to be able to tell.
The Army-daddy Dana (f6a568) — 4/16/2015 @ 11:18 am
For the mechanic??? any owners of VW Golf Cabriolets, Toyota Prii or anything French and for the store owners, bright colored clothing or light leather loafers would be possible tell-tale signs.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 4/16/2015 @ 11:46 amalso VW New Beetle Cabiolets…
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 4/16/2015 @ 11:46 amFor all the scientists know, CO2 levels can fall and that doesn’t mean nothing bad can happen.
They can’t even prove that human activity are causing any large perturbations in that working system. That’s why they have to limit themselves to a) the globe is warming and b) human activity is contributing to it. Because they can’t answer the important questions based upon the words “how much?”
As a matter of fact the paper John Cook, a researcher at the University of Queensland, is an example of just how corrupt and agenda driven this climate hysteria is. It’s not anything resembling science that’s driving this train.
You may be familiar with the work of Dr. Richard Tol. He used to be one of the IPCC academicians cited in their various reports. A couple of years back he demanded his name be removed from their masthead as after studying the data he concluded that it didn’t support any of their claims. He dismantles the Cook report here.
http://richardtol.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/now-almost-two-years-old-john-cooks-97.html
This is important as many of the scientists they cited as part of their consensus objected to being used that way. Because their consensus is on essentially meaningless issues.
I love that part. The mutually exclusive pleading. “My dog doesn’t bite, your honor. My dog was tied up. I don’t even have a dog!”
I don’t even believe Dr. Tol covered all the problems other academicians have cited in Cook’s paper. It’s the Bellesiles report of “climate science.” Which is in scare quotes because you might as well believe human activity is going to destroy the earth based upon astrology.
Steve57 (cd6f9a) — 4/16/2015 @ 11:50 amQuestion: Would you vote for a candidate who said he would not attend his daughter’s [hypothetical] gay wedding?
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/16/2015 @ 11:53 amwho’s gonna go to a wedding if it’s not even for sure there’s gonna be cake?
happyfeet (a037ad) — 4/16/2015 @ 11:59 amFor all the scientists know, CO2 levels can fall and that doesn’t mean nothing bad can happen.
If you mean back to the historic baseline, this is possible, but likely wrong. If you mean to a significantly lower amount, quite possibly.
The point is, from a purely systems approach, that we are stressing a working system. So far the consequences have been minimal. But somewhere, there is a point of catastrophe (e.g. a rubber band only stretches so far). We should probably not go look for it.
And again, do not tell me that the models are wrong, or that they are driven by ideologues. Of course they are. I’m not talking about polar bears or this year’s rainfall, I’m talking about effing with the unknown.
The fact that the models are all wrong isn’t a comfort.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/16/2015 @ 12:00 pmRe Rubio on gay weddings…again points to him. He specifically noted that a gay wedding has for him the same status as a hetero divorced person marrying, since he is a Catholic, and he would treat them from the same basis, depending on who they were, how important they are in his life, and how hurtful non attendance might be.
kishnevi (adea75) — 4/16/2015 @ 12:01 pmwho’s gonna go to a wedding if it’s not even for sure there’s gonna be cake?
You go for the cake? As in “Boy, I shouldn’t have eaten so much cake at the reception last night”?
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/16/2015 @ 12:02 pm@33. Yes, Kevin. Because I’m tired of hypocritical Republicans who say they believe in traditional marriage. Until it’s their own kid. Then all of a sudden they reveal their principled positions aren’t principled at all.
I have the same problem with theologians and clerics whose past work demonstrates that the Bible actually means what it says. Until they find out they have a gay son or daughter. And then start producing works that say no, the Bible doesn’t mean what we’ve thought it said for the past several thousand years.
The names escape me at the moment, but the “gay Christian” movement is based upon a small body of works. And at least a couple of those works were produced by supposed Biblical scholars who were exactly in that position. You’ve got to question the integrity of their research at that point.
Question: Would you vote for a candidate who reveals that their position on any issue that they say are based upon his or her principles have always been hypocritical and self-serving?
Steve57 (cd6f9a) — 4/16/2015 @ 12:02 pmthat’s not something I’ve never said
happyfeet (a037ad) — 4/16/2015 @ 12:04 pmkishnevi–
Well put. I wonder what would be said if a Catholic candidate said that he wouldn’t go to Protestant weddings. Or Hindu ones? One could make a religious objection to either and be justified, but the public would not stand for it.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/16/2015 @ 12:05 pmCheney’s position was principled, then.
But in any event, a candidate who would spurn his child like that would be unable to be elected anything at all in any country save ISIS.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/16/2015 @ 12:07 pmThere is zero evidence that we are stressing a working system. You really need to read Dr. Tol’s entire takedown of Cook’s work.
Again, that claim that we are playing the major or even a substantial role in climate change isn’t based upon any scientific evidence. It’s based upon those very same models that we know are wildly out of whack. You might as well sacrifice a goat to the climate gods and divine the notion from examining its entrails.
Steve57 (cd6f9a) — 4/16/2015 @ 12:12 pmQuestion: Would you vote for a candidate who reveals that their position on any issue that they say are based upon his or her principles have always been hypocritical and self-serving?
Hunh? Do you mean: “Question: Would you vote for a candidate who reveals that their principled positions have always been hypocritical and self-serving?”
Aren’t they always?
Scalia voted against private pot in a state that did not outlaw pot, after going on for years about Federalism. He must be a bad man.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/16/2015 @ 12:12 pmSteve, you know nothing.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/16/2015 @ 12:15 pmWow, Kevin. So a candidate that tells his or her child that they love them no matter what, but they can’t approve of something their child is doing is “spurning” them? If their child is doing it, then it must be right and the parent has to change.
That’s reversing the parent-child role. Which means if such a condidate is unelectable, that would explain why we’re going off a cliff. The perpetual adolescents are in charge.
Steve57 (cd6f9a) — 4/16/2015 @ 12:15 pmSo, Kevin, I take it you can’t cite any evidence that we are what’s stressing the climate?
There’s a reason for that. There is none.
There is no scientific evidence that human activity is causing climate change. We could follow every single recommendation the climate alarmists demand of us and have no measurable effect on the climate.
Steve57 (cd6f9a) — 4/16/2015 @ 12:21 pmI feel to unsafe to eat at chipotle.
mg (31009b) — 4/16/2015 @ 12:21 pmI am a generous tipper as I have been involved in the service business for years.
If you find a place with food to your liking, I have found it very rewarding to take care of the wait staff.
“I understand why gays and people who sympathize with gays find this troublesome. I’m sure they feel like they are being targeted and judged. But I feel that way when I shop at the local Hispanic market, where my blonde hair and blue eyes mark me as someone different. The store doesn’t make me feel welcome, not only because of the stares but also because they don’t speak English so it’s harder for me to get help when I need it.”
– DRJ
Has the store ever refused to serve you/sell goods to you, though?
Leviticus (f9a067) — 4/16/2015 @ 12:22 pmhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS-cLp1PEGQ
If you accept the demonstrably faulty assumptions of the climate alarmists as true, then, Kevin, your point about the systems approach would be valid.
Steve57 (cd6f9a) — 4/16/2015 @ 12:27 pmBut in any event, a candidate who would spurn his child like that would be unable to be elected anything at all in any country save ISIS.
Your struggling not to be (1) an alarmist about AGW and, in line with such sentiment, your (2) desire to burn the bright flame of political correctness when a politician isn’t into the ethos of hugs-hugs-hugs and opposes a gay wedding for his (or her) son or daughter are symptoms of left-leaning squish.
The foolishness and phoniness of such emotion is best illustrated by one of America’s shining reprobates, Bill Clinton. In spite of all the garbage surrounding him, including cases of sexual harassment and probable rape (which truly reaches the level of hurtful, to say the least), he nonetheless is greeted with merely a shrug, if not cheers (particularly by the biggest fans of political correctness) because, well, he is into the ethos of (real or imagined) hugs-hugs-hugs.
Mark (6c31df) — 4/16/2015 @ 12:43 pmThe perpetual adolescents are in charge.
^ Truer today than ever before.
Mark (6c31df) — 4/16/2015 @ 12:49 pmWould I vote for a person who did not attend a wedding of their homosexual or polygamous child? Maybe, depends on the person’s position on other interests of importance to me.
As for Rubio and the clarification that he would treat it as a divorced person getting remarried – is he saying that he objects to any divorced person getting married as a Catholic or only to divorced Catholics getting married? If any divorced person, than i do not think he is correct.
I don’t understand how one gets from disapproving of homosexual , polygamous and divorced Catholics marriages to ipso facto disapproving of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish , Protestant, etc marriages.
The polar bears situation was always a scam. they used photos from the summer melt, repeated several times data from one year when there was a bit less ice coverage and didn’t point out that the situations in polar bear area are regional and not throughout the Arctic Circle.
seeRpea (181740) — 4/16/2015 @ 12:54 pmSo, Kevin, I take it you can’t cite any evidence that we are what’s stressing the climate?
Steve, this is one of those things. I have a degree in physics from the best undergraduate STEM school in the world, and 40 years experience as an engineer. I know the way systems work (and fail) like you know the way to your mailbox. I am not really very interested in books trying to spin these concepts for advocacy.
Effing with a working Criticality Zero system without knowing what the results might be is the height of hubris. I have no idea if the system WILL break, but I just think that we shouldn’t muck with it like we are. That does not mean that I buy the BS solutions offered — I favor municipal thorium reactors and home solar — but just adeding CO2 to the atmosphere, year after year, is a recipe for disaster.
Analogy: I have a cat that is just absolutely fascinated by a yard across the street. Every day she shoots across the street, without a real good understanding of the “car” thing. Sure it’s a quiet street, but still it’s a risk. Maybe she’ll never get hit. Can’t say. This is like that. We, as a people, ought to have more sense than a cat.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/16/2015 @ 12:54 pmIf you accept the demonstrably faulty assumptions of the climate alarmists as true, then, Kevin, your point about the systems approach would be valid.
No. My systems approach is valid without such acceptance. Engineering is not subject to wishes.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/16/2015 @ 12:58 pmre #50: I don’t think we should be using Bill Clinton as any sort of example. He really is a unique political animal. Much like FDR and Reagan were. You can not get another Reagan Republican, he was one of a kind.
I know/knew people who hated his policies and his moral’s that would come away from an encounter or speech with him just enthralled with Bill Clinton.
seeRpea (181740) — 4/16/2015 @ 1:00 pmSteve,
The “Politics of Global Warming” doesn’t interest me either. One one had we have a bunch of fatuous self-propelled scare-mongering Communist blowhards trying to get control of the means of production. So what? On the other hand we have a bunch of fatuous self-interested greedy bastards wanting to squeeze the last dime out of their investments in carbon.
And then there is, over to the side, the science and the truth, which neither side feels the least interested in. That’s where I am. A pox on both their houses.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/16/2015 @ 1:03 pm*On one hand…
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/16/2015 @ 1:03 pmbut just adeding CO2 to the atmosphere, year after year, is a recipe for disaster.
But you don’t seem quite as cautious (or cautious at all) about the effects of the gradual, continuous dumbing down of the social parameters of society. And that’s in spite of your knowledge of engineering or your degree in physics. Simply put, ideological biases can make even learned people surprisingly naive, nonsensical or blind.
Mark (6c31df) — 4/16/2015 @ 1:05 pmNo, Leviticus, it hasn’t refused to serve me, although the store will special order items for its Hispanic customers but not for me. Hispanic customers go there because the manager will stock and special order Hispanic items, things I also buy, but I also wanted a general grocery item that the store wouldn’t order I understand the store is trying to specialize in Hispanic items and customers, so it makes sense to me why the manager wants to focus on that.
DRJ (e80d46) — 4/16/2015 @ 1:09 pmWhen you cite your undergrad degree and your experience in engineering you’re arguing from authority, not evidence, Kevin.
Other than that produced by the models, which we already know are useless to predict climate change, do you have evidence that human activity is increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration? Do you have evidence that human activity is raising CO2 concentration substantially? Do you have evidence that greenhouse-gas emissions will cause much warming? Will temperature feedbacks amplify that warming? Will warmer worldwide weather be dangerous? Will any realistic measures avert the danger? And, as Dr. Tol asks, do you have evidence to support the contention that the risks of climate change outweigh the risks of climate change policy?
Because I’ll need answers to those questions. Not “Is climate change real?” Or “Does human activity play a role?”
Also, what role does consensus play in science?
http://www.academia.edu/5123536/Copernicus_and_Fracastoro_the_dedicatory_letters_to_Pope_Paul_III_the_history_of_astronomy_and_the_quest_for_patronage
Why did Copernicus need papal favor? Because, scientific consensus! And it was just as vicious as it is today, so he needed protection.
Steve57 (cd6f9a) — 4/16/2015 @ 1:20 pmI appreciate your comments @53, 54, and 56, Kevin. But the standard of evidence the global warming enthusiasts use to claim that it’s CO2 is the main factor in climate change, and that human activity is the main cause of increased CO2 in the atmosphere, can at best be claimed to be “preponderance.”
I say at best because they won’t share this preponderance of evidence; it’s all proprietary, they claim, or subject to confidentiality agreements. So no one can check their work. Which convinces me the evidence isn’t there.
Yes, there’s a risk human activity is causing harm to the climate. But there’s no way to quantify that risk, and therefore the risk of doing something about it could easily outweigh the risk of doing nothing.
Even if you show more sense than your cat, you’re still running a risk when you cross a street. But if you have to cross that street to get to work then the benefit outweighs the risk.
Steve57 (cd6f9a) — 4/16/2015 @ 1:35 pmSorry about the long link. I thought it would wrap around.
Steve57 (cd6f9a) — 4/16/2015 @ 1:36 pmThere may not be two houses.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/06/us-india-climatechange-idUSKBN0MX0FF20150406
Doubling coal production, as Modi intends, would greatly benefit India’s energy companies. And you know who else would benefit, unless he’s cut his decades long ties to those companies?
He may have had to, given that he’s under police investigation for sexual harassment.
Tom Steyer made a fortune investing in fossil fuels overseas. I can’t prove he’s still investing in oil, gas and coal production overseas while spending 100s of millions of dollars advocating green energy in the US. But I’m positive many people are doing exactly that, Pachauri like. Because there’s a fortune to be made as a rent-seeker in the US, growing rich by investing in government subsidized “green energy” here, while investing in fossil fuels overseas. Since they’d be eliminating the competition by getting the US out of the business.
There oil would be worth more per barrel if they could lobby the government to “wean” the US off of fossil fuels. And considering there is no alternative to fossil fuels in the foreseeable future, we’d then have to buy their pricier products.
The communist blowhards and the greedy bastards are often one and the same people, depending on what audience they’re in front of.
Steve57 (cd6f9a) — 4/16/2015 @ 2:26 pmI do not see a necessary conflict between saying one would likely go to the SS wedding of a gay friend and that a baker should be free to turn down participation in a SS wedding.
That Rubio said he would go to the SS wedding of a gay friend does not at all endorse the idea that SSM and heterosexual marriage is equivalent and you must believe so, and if you don’t shut up.
Going to witness an event and to participate in making it happen are also two different things.
People may claim it is nit-picking, but the application of principles depends on specifics, lawyers should know that and I assume most people do.
It is a matter of individual conscience, does a person think their attendance at a SS wedding is an automatic endorsement of it, or do they figure whether they are there or not makes no difference, it will happen anyway (or both and then what to do). Does one feel free to attend the event of a friend, but not make money by providing services for it, or “materially participating” in it?
Would one want to run a small business and by their decor and slogan, etc., make clear they live by a “conservative” view of Scripture and do business with anyone, just not compromise their slogan? Perhaps some business that was focused on weddings could have as their slogan, “For this reason a man shall leave his mother and a woman leave her home and they shall become one flesh”,. and if a SSW reception really wants that to be on all of the napkins with the cake then so be it.
MD in Philly (not in Philly at the moment) (deca84) — 4/16/2015 @ 3:14 pmHillary didn’t leave a tip at Chipotle because she used her own server…
Beasts of England (370024) — 4/16/2015 @ 3:46 pmThe entire theory of AGW was that an increase in CO2 causes an increase in the Earth’s temperature. That’s been disproven over the last ~two decades. There’s not much more to say.
Beasts of England (370024) — 4/16/2015 @ 4:00 pmBut you don’t seem quite as cautious (or cautious at all) about the effects of the gradual, continuous dumbing down of the social parameters of society.
I would stop it if I could. I particularly dislike the rampant innumeracy pushed by the press. But I have long since accepted that I live in a world of lazy, stupid people.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/16/2015 @ 4:02 pmWhen you cite your undergrad degree and your experience in engineering you’re arguing from authority, not evidence, Kevin.
No. If I quoted something by Albert Einstein, I’d be arguing from authority. Here I am arguing from experience and hard-won understanding of How Things Work. It would take quite an argument to change my mind about something I have seen happen the same predictable way for decades. As a general rule, if you keep kicking something, it will break.
You will note that I make no prediction about when it will break, or if we are kicking it hard enough to even rattle it. But I do know we are kicking the system pretty hard and I urge caution.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/16/2015 @ 4:13 pmI have gone to a SSM, had a great meal – no pizza, bought a gift, and would go again. That really is a silly question.
This election is going to be about small-ticket items. Watch.
JD (3b5483) — 4/16/2015 @ 4:13 pmHow do you “know” we are kicking the system hard?
JD (3b5483) — 4/16/2015 @ 4:14 pmWhat evidence do you have for the assertion assertion that we are “kicking the system pretty hard?” No one else has that evidence. We could be kicking the system so softly the system doesn’t even notice it. And when it comes to climate no one even knows how the system works.
Steve57 (cd6f9a) — 4/16/2015 @ 4:22 pmhttp://www.al.com/news/huntsville/index.ssf/2015/04/7_questions_with_john_christy.html
I’ll repeat JD’s question, Kevin. How do you know we’re kicking the system pretty hard?
Steve57 (cd6f9a) — 4/16/2015 @ 4:39 pm@68, I know you said we may not be kicking the system hard enough to even rattle it, but that appears to conflict with your conclusion that we are kicking it pretty hard.
I don’t understand how you can draw that conclusion if, as you apparently admit, there’s too much uncertainty to know how hard we’re kicking the system.
Steve57 (cd6f9a) — 4/16/2015 @ 4:46 pmThis absolutely disgusts me.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/oregon-court-orders-ranchers-debark-tibetan-mastiffs-article-1.2188182
elissa (38339b) — 4/16/2015 @ 4:46 pmAs well it should, elissa. It’s cruel and inhumane. That’s one reason I don’t need to respect a decision from some dude or dudette who has a black robe. As if that gives him or her moral authority. Or wisdom. Most of them merely managed to win an election. Then there’s this from your link:
The only reason Tibetan Mastiffs exist is because they are excellent livestock guardians. What’s next? A judge is going to deem Alaskan Malamutes as ill-suited to be sled dogs?
Steve57 (cd6f9a) — 4/16/2015 @ 4:57 pmI wonder if the rancher will send the dogs somewhere to another state where they will be safe from mutilation, or if they are so necessary for managing his herd that he’ll have no choice. Ugh.
elissa (38339b) — 4/16/2015 @ 5:04 pmBut I have long since accepted that I live in a world of lazy, stupid people.
Kevin M, if you think that’s the reason a presidential candidate known to not have approved of his son’s or daughter’s same-sex wedding will be immediately cast off and cast aside by the electorate, then I totally agree with you—or the opposite reaction to the way that same segment of the US public has dealt with scrounges like a Bill and Hillary Clinton, etc. Simply put, a world of people who are lazy — if not also stupid — for falling for the cheap, easy philosophy of compassion for compassion’s sake. Or tolerance for tolerance’s sake.
This is why facets of America are becoming increasingly corrupt, in various shapes, ways and manners. IOW, people of over 50 years ago would have been totally astounded or shocked by what’s accepted, even popularized, today (eg, student behavior in public schools, high rates of teenage motherhood, unmarried Hollywood actresses having children without a whim, the rowdy trashiness of rap music, the US military accommodating an anti-US-spouting, Islamic-sympathizing enlistee until the bitter, bloody end, politicians with the sleazy background of Clinton and Obama, etc).
Mark (6c31df) — 4/16/2015 @ 5:20 pmThat is so wrong, elissa. But then so is this… http://t.co/Jtu6Lm2KP6
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 4/16/2015 @ 5:26 pm44. Mr. M has returned to his ‘tard equilibrium.
300 million years ago all the Earths landmasses save Antarctica and Australia were combined together in a continent called Pangea. The global average temperature was 72 degrees F, cloud cover was universal, Venusian, and dinosaurs roamed Antarctica in its current antipodal position.
The atmospheric concentration of CO2 was over 2000 ppm.
100 million years ago, Pangea had begun breaking up and the remaining supercontinent, Gondwanaland, was torn into South America and Africa. Tens of millions of years on we entered, once again, an extended regime of ice ages primarily due to the thorough distribution of an oceanic reservoir of heat over radiative landmasses.
What is less than nothing, Mr. M?
DNF (208255) — 4/16/2015 @ 5:28 pmelissa, according to another story on the case (link in your article) they can send them away and replace them.
This judge now thinks he’s the expert on what breeds are or not suitable to guard livestock. I have no clue as what breeds this judge thinks are suitable, but I don’t know of any that won’t bark. A lot, if they think the flock or herd they’re defending is being threatened.
Take the Maremma (sometimes called the Maremma Abruzzese) from Italy.
http://www.maremmaclub.com/faq.html
Any dog large and intimidating to keep cougars at bay is going to do things exactly the same way as these Tibetan Mastiffs this idiot judge declared “unsuitable.” Huh? They were bred to keep Snow Leopards and wolves away from whatever livestock they were guarding. They’re perfectly suited for the job.
Steve57 (cd6f9a) — 4/16/2015 @ 5:38 pmre #65: excellent!
re the dogs in Oregon: did the judge say the breed or just these particular dogs?
seeRpea (d1cf05) — 4/16/2015 @ 6:18 pmWhat would you have done in order to quiet the dogs down? The lawsuit decision about the barking is not a minor point.
The Mail Tribune article (linked in Elissa’s link) gives the address. Google Earth reveals it to be a neighborhood of very small farms, close enough that zealous barking might be a problem. Not a California cul de sac, but not the wild open prairie either. It also mentions citations for noise in 2002 and 2004. It is also relevant that four dogs are mentioned, which to me seems a lot for the size of that farm, and that the dog owners “moonlight” as breeders of Tibetan mastiffs. I would not be surprised if breeding is their primary intention and sheep guarding only an excuse.
What can not be doubted is the presence of an old fashioned neighborhood feud, in which the judge decided the complaints were justified.
kishnevi (adea75) — 4/16/2015 @ 7:16 pmhow about that:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/04/16/inside-richard-engel-s-abrupt-nbc-mea-culpa.html
it turns out ‘Spies like Me’ was a very prescient film.
narciso (ee1f88) — 4/16/2015 @ 7:36 pm@81, considering per the reporting the judge “ordered them debarked within 60 days or replaced with a more suitable breed” then it’s not just tese particular dogs. It’s all Tibetan Mastiffs.
I would have done nothing to quiet the dogs down. That’s the main part of their job; to intimidate predators. If they can’t bark, they can’t work together as a team to scare an animal off. If they can’t bark loudly, then the odds go way up they’ll have to fight the predator off. Which if you have enough dogs could result in either a dead or badly injured predators. And even then could easily result in either dead or badly injured dogs.
http://rurallivingtoday.com/livestock/livestock-guardian-animal-need/
If the people who own the farm in question are telling the truth, then these neighbors have been filing lawsuits for years. This is the first one that stuck.
https://fundrazr.com/campaigns/9a4Y5
But there’s no question it’s a working farm and has been for decades, with livestock that need to be guarded. And a debarked livestock guard dog is practically useless for the purpose.
Steve57 (cd6f9a) — 4/16/2015 @ 7:43 pmSo it is an old fashioned neighborhood feud…
kishnevi (9c4b9c) — 4/16/2015 @ 8:08 pmGoogle Earth is instructive. There is a small street with several houses set in lots too small to call a farm, and too big to call a back yard. The back of Liongate Farm apparently directly abuts these houses, one of whom must be the plaintiff. The Szewcs moved there in 1997, so 18 years of harassment means it started almost on day one, before the Tibetan Mastiffs even appeared.
I can’t get a handle on how many acres these people own (you have to pay for membership), but the that property is primarily zoned for agriculture. Property sub-type: agriculture.
http://www.loopnet.com/Property-Record/14314-E-Evans-Creek-Road-Rogue-River-OR-97537/MtM02-D0A/Property/
But I’d say you’re right, kishnevi. They have more dogs than they need. From a USDA publication, Livestock Guarding Dogs; Protecting Sheep From Predators:
http://www.nal.usda.gov/awic/companimals/guarddogs/guarddogs.htm
It isn’t always the size of the property that determines how many dogs you need, as the article notes, but also the animals you need to guard. One dog could be able to do it, depending on the type of predators you have to deal with. I’d use two, as dogs are pack animals and consequently two are better than one. Plus when you stagger them by age when one dog gets too old to work then its replacement has already been trained. Which is time to get a younger dog, so you’ll be ready when the new top dog is too old as well.
Numbers are important. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking dogs or people. When you run into a mountain lion or a bear alone the predator thinks it has the advantage. If you’re with other people and get into a group then the animal isn’t as confident.
Steve57 (cd6f9a) — 4/16/2015 @ 8:26 pmIf you don’t want to live next to farm animals, don’t move next door to a farm.
JD (3b5483) — 4/16/2015 @ 8:55 pmhttp://babalublog.com/2015/04/16/ana-belen-montes-and-the-castros-get-the-last-laugh/
narciso (ee1f88) — 4/16/2015 @ 8:56 pmYeah, that’s what I was thinking after I looked up the property description. It’s an agricultural property. The proprietors are using it for an agricultural use. Using dogs to guard their flocks is a legitimate agricultural practice.
The people who filed the suit claim their home is unusable for entertaining guests.
http://mmdev.ot.atl.publicus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20150403/NEWS/150409812/3325/MEDIA01
If that’s what you want, live in an area zoned for residential use. Not agricultural use.
That said, any livestock guard dog has to remain true to its breeding and training. They don’t act as aggressively toward people as they do toward predators, but they will bark at people until they move far enough away from their flock or herd.
If you have too many dogs on too small a property then people can never be far enough away for at least one dog to bark at them. And if you have dogs then you know that when one dog starts barking the rest join in.
There’s just no way that sheep farm is more than a couple of dozen acres. The people living there should be able to make a living off of it. Or a portion of their living. But if they wanted to stay on the good side of their neighbors they shouldn’t have started breeding livestock guard dogs.
I mentioned the Maremma because Italy is an overcrowded country. And they have their environmentalists too, so they’re reintroducing wolves and bears. And while they don’t have mountain lions the European Lynx is a 90 pound cat and quite capable of killing a sheep, possibly a cow, just like it can kill deer. A Maremma is going to be just as noisy as a Tibetan Mastiff when it’s guarding a flock and sees strangers. And sheep grazing doesn’t take place that far from civilization. Because you just can’t get that far from civilization. Yet somehow they make it work.
In fact, the Maremma is extremely popular in other overcrowded European countries as a livestock guard dog where they’re also having problems with wolves, bears, and lynx. Because it has a reputation as the most effective dog for the job.
I bet this Oregon judge, though, would deem it “unsuitable” because it barks a lot.
But back to the point, a little compromise would have gone a long way. The people on Liongate farm need guard dogs for their flock. No doubt. A couple would have done the job. And if they were introduced to the neighbors they would eventually stop barking at them. If the neighbors were willing to go along with the plan and introduce themselves to the dogs.
Steve57 (cd6f9a) — 4/16/2015 @ 9:34 pmWow. I appreciate all the good comments and the research that people here have done and shared with respect to fleshing out the mastiff link. It’s an interesting case. I continue to be utterly disgusted by both the judge and the outcome, I pray (and assume) that these gorgeous dogs will be re-located instead of being debarked, and hope that the farmer’s flock can be safely and successfully guarded by a different breed of sheep dog that wont p*ss off the “neighbors”. But I predict that as long as these two families live next door to each other there will be ongoing and serious problems.
It appears that an early compromise would have been so much better for everybody as Steve57 suggests. But these long lived feuds often take on such a life of their own that reason goes out the window.
And I most definitely agree with JD.!
elissa (cb946d) — 4/17/2015 @ 9:01 amJust one more thing to toss into the mix about those Tibetan Mastiffs. I’d be awfully wary of getting a dog like that from people who started to “moonlight” as breeders in 2002. They’re not a common breed. They weren’t even recognized by the AKC until 2007. The original dog, as found in Tibet, China, Mongolia, Nepal, etc., usually has a pretty nasty temperament. Westerners imported them because it’s such a large, powerful, and impressive dog. But they tried to do something about the temperament. And through selective breeding they’ve been able to produce dogs that generally are more mellow than the dogs in Asia.
But if people don’t know what they’re doing it would easy to breed throwbacks.
I had a similar experience with a Chesapeake Bay Retriever. Most retrievers were bred by British nobility (despite it’s name the Labrador is not from Canada). All they did was retrieve birds, and be companions. That’s why Labs and Goldens and Flathairs have such friendly personalities.
But the Chessie was a working dog for the watermen. It had to retrieve ducks under any conditions, help with the nets, and then guard their owner’s boat when he went to market to sell the ducks or fish. So Chessies have the same basic personality as these dogs. In fact they got a reputation as a generally nasty dog.
Breeders have been able to improve their temperaments, but even though I went with a well respected breeder and my dog had several show and field champions in his pedigree (and I drove out to her place and met the dogs first, friendly as h3ll) I got a throwback. He did not like strangers in my house. I could go camping with friends and he’d be playful with everybody. But those same people he was playing with down by the campfire were NOT getting near my tent or my truck.
He eventually mauled my wife when I was recalled after 9/11 as he was truly a one-person dog. I wanted to put him down but at my wife’s insistence we returned him to the breeder. Who was willing to take him back as she realized she had made a mistake after his dam snapped at a judge in a show ring (that’s an immediate disqualification). She had bred her too young, before her personality had fully developed. Which is another similarity; these livestock guard dogs take a long time to mature. Their personality when they’re young is not the same as when they reach full adulthood.
That was a 70 pound dog from an experienced breeder. I shudder to think what you might get in a 150lb dog from a part-time, inexperienced breeder working with a very small population.
Steve57 (cd6f9a) — 4/17/2015 @ 10:26 amBack to Jonathan Adler. This article came out today, and it essentially restates the reasons for my skepticism.
http://thefederalist.com/2015/04/17/what-it-would-take-to-prove-global-warming/
Steve57 (cd6f9a) — 4/17/2015 @ 10:31 am