John McCain, who has served the people of Arizona since 1982 as a Congressman and US Senator, a key bipartisan, notes that this is unprecedented in his experience; there was no meaningful bipartisan outreach. One only need be reminded of Obama's transparency rhetoric during the campaign: why is necessary to have a cloture vote at 1AM? Something which might affect one-sixth of the US economy? The vote was purely party line as not even Senator Snowe from Maine, whom cast a crucial vote within committee, validated this Democratic back room deal.
Post Update: Sean Goldman
Back in June, I wrote a post advocating the return of 9-year-old Sean Goldman from Brazil to his American father David. Sean's mother Bruna supposedly was taking her young son home for a visit to her homeland; she made a decision once in Brazil to divorce David. David has not seen his son in years, despite multiple trips to Brazil. Bruna remarried and died last year in childbirth. Sean's politically connected stepfather has refused to hand over Sean and has successfully obtained a number of injunctions putting off the inevitable, since this is a matter decided by international treaties. Last week a Brazilian federal court unanimously ruled in favor of David's custody of Sean with a target of last Friday, but once again the stepfather filed an injunction to the Brazilian Supreme Court.
ClimateGate: A Few Comments
Other than a late September post where I cited the disputed data (reported by others) underlying the so-called hockey stick evidence supporting global warming theory, I've mostly kept silent about Climategate. In explaining this, one needs to understand the basic concepts underlying the scientific method and theory. In science, we validate a theory by testing a hypothetical relationship between constructs (e.g., man-made carbon dioxide and the climate), obtaining relevant objective evidence using standard methods and measures. This evidence should be available on request by other scientists; this becomes particularly important when study results seem to be inconsistent with other studies. Results should be subject to review by qualified scientists, independent of the authors and with no vested interest in the study results; their principal responsibility is attesting to the application of generally-accepted scientific methods, measures, and appropriate statistical analyses and to the fit of the authors' conclusions to the observed data.
Apparently some unidentified party hacked into an email system including exchanges among some of the key scientists supporting the global warming theory. For example, there were emails expressing unreported concerns about evidence, discussing how to get rid of a scientific journal editor whom wasn't sufficiently committed to global warming ideology (and/or boycotting independently-minded scientific journals), and getting global warming-friendly reviewers placed with top journals. But perhaps most damning is a tacit self-admission of cherry-picking data points to accommodate their hypothesis and constant rejection or evasions of calls to share their study data.
How do I say this? What these emails, if accurate, show are scientists not only involved in fraud but in an unconscionable breach of professional ethics. Science is not ideology; it does not engage in groupthink beyond common agreement on the tools and techniques using to conduct and evaluate empirical research. A manipulated study is like a Ponzi scheme--ultimately undone by the inability of other scientists to validate or replicate the results using conventional methodology. Yes, they may postpone the day of reckoning by trying to control editorial boards to ban dissent, but there are too many honest scientists and means of communicating conflicting studies not under the control of any conspiracy.
The fact is scientists have been trying to make a case for global warming over the past decade, and if anything, we've been more of a bias towards cooling temperatures. How does the global warming theory fit the observed data? Surely this is a case where convoluted explanations conjecturing about a blip in the data should be subject to Ockham's razor. And one thing is for sure--you don't need to go to extremes of hiding data and stifling dissent if you know the data legitimately is behind your point of view.
The Senate minority report on the climate change issue cites over 400 scientists debunking the science behind global warming. What's worse is that we have politicians, e.g., President Obama, without scientific expertise, proposing drastic changes to our economy to accommodate not real science but some sort of politically correct ideology masking as science. The Senate should reject the climate change bill.
Political Cartoon
Ken Catalino spoofs the 1983 Christmas movie classic. No doubt Ralphie Parker is role-playing Obama IRS agent 007 holding up Santa for unpaid taxes, living in a tax haven at the North Pole. All the Democrats want is what they have coming to them (to pay for their multi-trillion dollar spending sprees), all they want is their fair share.
Christmas Musical Interlude: Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas is You"
The greatest pop songstress belts out her Christmas signature hit. A bachelor can only dream of hanging red fishnet stockings in the hope that Santa will deliver his dream girl; Nick Cannon is a very lucky man.
