TechnoUtopia: February 2007

Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Ann Althouse smacks down moonbat:

Althouse: Eric Alterman contemplates whether he has "the typical liberal tendency toward fascism."

You can't have your democracy, and there are a lot of complex reasons why you can't, as elite, intellectual study shows. I own the truth. I write the books. If you can get your hands on the hard-to-find book and spend some good long time with it, you might come to understand what I already know. I am the gatekeeper of this information explaining why you can't have democracy. Trust me.

Here she's making fun of Alterman's assertion that he understands complex processes that make media "gatekeepers" necessary for the functioning of modern democracy. Basically Alterman wants a semi-official "panel" of top bloggers who should decide which blogs deliver good information and which blogs are not to be trusted, and Ann Althouse (rightly and thoroughly) dresses him down for his anti-free speech mentality.

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Funny Sony'sPS3-suckage video

I admit it. I'm an xbox 360 fanboy.

Sunday, February 25, 2007

More on global warming

Patrick J. Michaels on An Inconvenient Truth on National Review Online

It would be nice if my colleagues would actually level with politicians about various “solutions” for climate change. The Kyoto Protocol, if fulfilled by every signatory, would reduce global warming by 0.07 degrees Celsius per half-century. That’s too small to measure, because the earth’s temperature varies by more than that from year to year.

The Bingaman-Domenici bill in the Senate does less than Kyoto — i.e., less than nothing — for decades, before mandating larger cuts, which themselves will have only a minor effect out past somewhere around 2075. (Imagine, as a thought experiment, if the Senate of 1925 were to dictate our energy policy for today).

Mendacity on global warming is bipartisan. President Bush proposes that we replace 20 percent of our current gasoline consumption with ethanol over the next decade. But it’s well-known that even if we turned every kernel of American corn into ethanol, it would displace only 12 percent of our annual gasoline consumption. The effect on global warming, like Kyoto, would be too small to measure, though the U.S. would become the first nation in history to burn up its food supply to please a political mob.

Thanks to Heidi for bringing this article to my attention. A good summary of the meaninglessness and general gormlessness of the proposed "solutions" to the non-existent global warming catastrophe.

Friday, February 16, 2007

George Will on global warming

Will: Inconvenient Kyoto Truths - Newsweek George F. Will - MSNBC.com

Climate Cassandras say the facts are clear and the case is closed. (Sen. Barbara Boxer: "We're not going to take a lot of time debating this anymore.") The consensus catechism about global warming has six tenets: 1. Global warming is happening. 2. It is our (humanity's, but especially America's) fault. 3. It will continue unless we mend our ways. 4. If it continues we are in grave danger. 5. We know how to slow or even reverse the warming. 6. The benefits from doing that will far exceed the costs.

Only the first tenet is clearly true, and only in the sense that the Earth warmed about 0.7 degrees Celsius in the 20th century. We do not know the extent to which human activity caused this. The activity is economic growth, the wealth-creation that makes possible improved well-being—better nutrition, medicine, education, etc. How much reduction of such social goods are we willing to accept by slowing economic activity in order to (try to) regulate the planet's climate?

George Will is on the money. Read his whole column. I especially love the subtitle of his piece: "Was life better when a sheet of ice a mile thick covered Chicago? Was it worse when Greenland was so warm that Vikings farmed there?". Because really, even if you grant the global warming fanatics that everything they claim about the physics of global climate are true ... I'm left with a big ... "so what?" If the earth continues to warm and the warming accelerates then in a hundred years places like Vermont and Calgary and Scandanavia are going to be a whole lot nicer! Sure, the sahara might be an even worse place to live ... and folks in texas might have to buy bigger ACs ... but so what? should we impoverish ourselves to prevent that end-state?

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Czech President -- my new hero ...

DRUDGE REPORT FLASH 2007®

For example, we know that there exists a huge correlation between the care we give to the environment on one side and the wealth and technological prowess on the other side. It's clear that the poorer the society is, the more brutally it behaves with respect to Nature, and vice versa.• It's also true that there exist social systems that are damaging Nature - by eliminating private ownership and similar things - much more than the freer societies. These tendencies become important in the long run. They unambiguously imply that today, on February 8th, 2007, Nature is protected uncomparably more than on February 8th ten years ago or fifty years ago or one hundred years ago.

Read the whole interview. this guy has some serious sack, and he happens to be right.

Monday, February 12, 2007

Piracy isn't bad.

Study: P2P effect on legal music sales "not statistically distinguishable from zero"

A new study in the Journal of Political Economy by Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Koleman Strumpf has found that illegal music downloads have had no noticeable effects on the sale of music, contrary to the claims of the recording industry.

Enough said.

Another "Global Warming" Article

An experiment that hints we are wrong on climate change-News-UK-TimesOnline

So one awkward question you can ask, when you’re forking out those extra taxes for climate change, is “Why is east Antarctica getting colder?” It makes no sense at all if carbon dioxide is driving global warming. While you’re at it, you might inquire whether Gordon Brown will give you a refund if it’s confirmed that global warming has stopped. The best measurements of global air temperatures come from American weather satellites, and they show wobbles but no overall change since 1999.

That levelling off is just what is expected by the chief rival hypothesis, which says that the sun drives climate changes more emphatically than greenhouse gases do.

I'm just amazed at how many otherwise intelligent people go in for the global warming scam ...

Thursday, February 08, 2007

mmm mmmm...

Double Chocolate Fudge Coca Cola Cake like Cracker Barrel's

Double Chocolate Fudge Coca-Cola® Cake
like Cracker Barrel's®
Rich, delectable cake with Coke® and plenty of chocolate,
topped with an icing of more Coke® and chocolate.

OK follow the link for an awesome recipe.

Note to my wife: plz make this for me for valentines day. xoxo

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Digital Freedom is coming ...

Court Calls [Record Industry] Lawsuits Frivolous And Unreasonable

The judge also noted that it was completely unfair to put liability on "an Internet-illiterate parent, who does not know Kazaa from a kazoo." The judge found that the "settlement offers" the RIAA puts forth offer no real way to contest the charges without going to court, and found that such a system does "not advance the aims of the Copyright Act." Indeed.

Score one for the good guys. As I've noted before, and as even Stevie Jobs recently admitted, DRM sucks big nobby rocks. DRM is stupid because:
A -- it doesn't work. I have at my fingertips any and all media (music, video, text, picture) sold at any store in the country. DRM simply doesn't prevent piracy.
B -- it penalizes those who obey the law, yes the people who actually pay for their music have to jump through a bunch of annoying little hoops to do something trivial like move it to another device or computer.
C -- Becase of (A) and (B) above it creates a perverse incentive: its in consumers' best interests to simply pirate media.
D -- DRM relies on the courts to enforce a defunct and unworkable business model. Repeat after me -- its not the government's job to protect somebody's business model. Times change and in business you adapt or you die. If the RIAA wants my business, then they should find a way to create value for me ... instead of trying to extort money from me by threatening lawsuits if I download a song.
When will the RIAA and other media-peddling industries realize that transferring bits on shiny disks adds zero value to their customers? And since when has instigating mass lawsuits against your customers been a sound business practice?

Update: Dvorak agrees with me.

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

13% of Republicans buy into Global Warming Alarmism

Think Progress » POLL: Only 13 Percent Of Congressional Republicans Believe In Man-Made Global Warming

POLL: Only 13 Percent Of Congressional Republicans Believe In Man-Made Global Warming

And they'd be right to be skeptical. The thing I find funny is that 95% of the Dems buy into this global-catastrophe BS. Its laughable except that they're running the country.

Atmospheric Weather Data

MSU Science Homepage

The overall trend in the tropospheric data is now +0.08 deg. C/decade (through 2004). Click on the charts to get the numerical data. Surface thermometer measurements indicate that the temperature of the Earth is warming at an average rate close to +0.20 deg. C/decade since 1979, while the satellite data shows a warming trend of about half of this. These differences are the basis for discussions over whether our knowledge of how the atmosphere works might be in error, since the warming aloft in the troposphere should be at least as strong as that observed at the surface.

The news here is that the satelittes show modest warming consistent with about 1-2 degrees F per 100 years. This is about what happened in the last 100 years and is not very alarming in terms of climate change. This is also much less than the global-warming-alarmist crowd says will happen. The beauty of these satellite readings are that they are basically impossible to fudge and stand as a testable and verifiable check on the wild claims of Environmentalist nuts.

Filibuster: Good when used by D-rats, BAAD when used by republicans

Instapundit.com

As a commenter notes, filibusters were essential to democracy when they were used against a Republican majority, but now that Democrats are in the majority they're back to being bad efforts to shut down debate. . .

More Here.

Libertarians and Liberals ... an uncomfortable fit.

TCS Daily - Why Be a Conservative Libertarian?

My point is not that the liberals have no case for an alternative approach. What disturbs me is that they are issuing rhetorical put-downs as a substitute for laying out an alternative and thinking through its consequences. Unfortunately, this is an all-to-typical modus operandi.

The Left's religion often comes dressed up as science. Marxism is one example. The eugenics movement of the early twentieth century is another. The Global Warming crusade is probably another.

I like this article by Arnold Kling ... it lays out some of the challenges libertarians face when trying to find common ground with liberals.

Monday, February 05, 2007

Global Warming causing record low temperatures!

Bitter cold grips northern states

From Minnesota to New York, some schoolchildren are getting an extra long weekend because of the bitter chill that has spread over the eastern half of the country.

ADVERTISEMENT

Wind chills are minus 25 degrees or lower and some high temperatures today aren't expected to climb above zero.

Experts say exposed skin can get frostbite and school officials didn't want kids outside waiting for buses.

Maine is getting hammered with wind chills forecast as low as minus 45 by tonight in the western mountains.

Global Warming in action. oh yeah.

Thursday, February 01, 2007

WaPo: soldiers too dumb and naive to be anti-war

The Troops Also Need to Support the American People - Early Warning

I'll accept that the soldiers, in order to soldier on, have to believe that they are manning the parapet, and that's where their frustrations come in. I'll accept as well that they are young and naïve and are frustrated with their own lack of progress and the never changing situation in Iraq. Cut off from society and constantly told that everyone supports them, no wonder the debate back home confuses them.

Sorry, I just had to post another snippet from this asinine article penned by William Arkin. What a total ass.

WaPo: We indulge our raping murdering troops.