NC Media Watch

Could "Leading from behind" be Obama's "Malaise" Moment?

Russ Steele

Some readers may not remember the Jimmy Carter Malaise Speech, in which he never actually used the word, but it became the label that characterized his Presidency. At least it did for all of old enough to remember the Jimmy Carter years of malaise.  Now an unnamed adviser may have given us an indelible label for the Obama Presidency - "leading for behind". Ryan Liza writes in the New Yorker:

Obama may be moving toward something resembling a doctrine. One of his advisers described the President’s actions in Libya as “leading from behind.”

The Polipundit has the details and the fallout here.  Being a Charles Krauthammer fan, here is what he had to say:

Leading from behind is not leading. It is abdicating. It is also an oxymoron. Yet a sympathetic journalist, channeling an Obama adviser, elevates it to a doctrine. The president is no doubt flattered. The rest of us are merely stunned.

One year for fathers day my daughters gave me this t-shirt.  It often comes to mind when listening to our President on TV try to explain how he is NOT leading the country, while we all recognize the path we are on can only lead to pain and misery for us all. We hunger for leadership and respond to those on the right who speak their mind, and demonstrate some real leadership skills. While we may not recognize malaise, we all recognize the lack of leadership. 

It is all in the words

Russ Steele

I am reading James Gleick's new book, The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood.  In the the early chapters Gleick examines the development of the alphabet and how words were, defined, refined and codified in Dictionaries. There are also a few paragraphs on the how and why scientific word were created to explain new concepts. 

Still digesting Gleick's words on the mean of words in science, I came across this paper on Misleading Language by The Scientific Alliance and wanted to share it with you. 

Use of language is one of the main factors which defines humanity. At its best, it can not only express our deepest feelings and be a source of great beauty, but also put across complex concepts with clarity and lack of ambiguity. However, language can also be misused and be deliberately misleading. Most obviously, this is in the form of propaganda, but more subtle misuse can be just as bad. This is as true in the case of science as for politics, finance or other areas.

It is often assumed that misuse of a concept can change its meaning quite easily, by simple repetition. There are two ways of looking at this. Lenin is quoted as saying “a lie told often enough becomes the truth”, whereas Franklin Roosevelt took a different view when he said “repetition does not transform a lie into a truth”. Although apparently incompatible, each is equally valid in its own way. The Bolshevik view, unfortunately, tends to reflect real human behaviour: if people only hear a single view they tend – at least superficially – to accept it as the truth

The paper goes on to examine the abuse of language to distort the meaning of carbon dioxide pollution, addition to oil, and sustainability.

Take, for example, the term ‘carbon dioxide pollution’, which has become commonplace. The Oxford dictionary defines pollution as ‘the presence in or introduction into the environment of a substance which has harmful or poisonous effects’. This seems fairly unambiguous, and the only argument about, for example, sub-micron carbon particulates in the air, copper and other heavy metals in the soil or harmful bacteria in water would be about the maximum acceptable level. There can be little doubt that each is a form of pollution and may be harmful.

Carbon dioxide, on the other hand, is vital to life on Earth. Without it, plants could not photosynthesise. Without photosynthesis, there would be no oxygen. Without oxygen, there would be no life apart from anaerobic bacteria. To consider it to be a pollutant therefore seems somewhat perverse.

You can read the rest of the paper here.  In the climate change debate, it is vital that we all understand the mean of the words we are using and abusing.  We must look behind the words to insure we are dealing with the truth.

Climate of Corruption: Politics and Power behind Global Warming Hoax

Russ Steele

I have been writing about global warming and how bad science was being used to play a hoax on the American tax payers for years.  This position has been critiqued by both the left and the right, claiming it cannot be a hoax if the promoters truly believe what they are promoting. While there maybe global warming true believers, there are also powerful special interests with agendas that have warped the scientific debate for their economic and political gain. 

Larry Bell an expert in space architecture, a professor at the University of Houston who has launches several space based companies, examines how global warming alarmists are using this issue to enrich themselves and gain power and influence in the Climate of Corruption.  

Bell makes case for the corruption which is being fostered by political leaders, environmentalist, and major US corporations, all it an effort to enrich themselves at the cost of US tax payers. This is well researched book with foot notes and extensive notes on information sources. Even though it is well documented, the book reads like a detective novel. Bell uses the facts, and in some case their own words, to detail how the climate alarmist have presented their “facts” as deceitful lies with no supporting evidence.

I have listed many excellent books in the left sidebar that make a sound science case that we have no real measurable control over the climate, Mother Nature rules. Now Bell through his outstanding investigative reporting explains why and how the global warming hoax has been so successful for nearly 20 years, and we are sufferting the economic consequences. 

If you have an open mind,  I highly recommend reading this insightful book. You can order a copy from Amazon by clicking on thumbnail picture in the left margin.

Ah yes, another climate change study based on a computer model.

Russ Steele

Now it is the boreal forest of Alaska and Canada that have attracted the attention of rent seeking scientist with a computer model -- Shift in Northern Forests Could Increase Global Warming.  The article is in the Scientific American, which used to be a real science magazine and now it a propaganda organ for the environmental left.  You can read the article for yourself, but here are the paragraphs that attracted my attention.

The researchers used a climate model to assess the impact if evergreens continued their march northward at the expense of leaf-dropping larch. The Russian boreal forest sits over a tremendous repository of carbon-rich but frozen soil. As the forest cover changes, the permafrost begins to thaw, potentially releasing huge quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the scientist said.

"Such changes in that vast region have the potential to affect areas outside that region," said Jacquelyn Shuman, a post-doctoral researcher at the university and the study's lead author.

In Alaska, similarly transformative changes are already underway. Shorter, drier winters and severe weather are taking a toll on the forest, Juday said. In late November, in what should be the depth of winter, Fairbanks had three days of rain that later froze, snapping limbs and downing trees.

"You talk to people down in Canada, where the temperate forest meets the southern limit of the boreal forest, and they say that's nothing new," Juday [a forestry professor at the University of Alaska], said. "But the boreal forest is not adapted to that. (Trees) just get devastated when that happens."

For the last thirty year I have been living on a Banner Mountain ridge and this winter we have seen the worst damage to our black oaks in 30 years, first an early snow storm in November and now a late snow storm in March. the first winter in 30 years we had to hire a tree climbers to take down the widow maker, not once but twice.

I guess it was due to global warming and the oak had not learned to adjust to the change in the computer models. Or, it could be that we are having an La Niña winter.  And, I think that maybe the Fairbanks rain and freeze could be attributed to an La Niña winter as well. Note, the real observers "down in Canada" said it was "nothing new" in the boreal forest.  It was only a problem in those nasty computer models run by Jacquelyn Shuman and Glenn Juday.

One of the wonderful things about computer models is thay can produce almost any desired result. Now if they could just figure out how to clean up all those broken trees in my yard!

More Energy Boondoggles from Obama Adminsitration

Russ Steele

The Power Line is one of my regular blog reads everyday as John, Scott and Steven usually have some cutting edge analysis of national and mid-western issues. They have this analysis of the Presidents Economic Report (ERP) by  Ken Haapala, Executive Vice President of the Science and Environmental Policy Project. Ken's comments on the Report:

The ERP promotes the development of solar and wind, but has significant omissions:

* The ERP omits any plan for sensible development of the huge oil resources in the United States and its off-shore boundaries.

* It omits stating imported oil is principally used as a transportation fuel - less than one percent is used to generate electricity. Generating electricity from solar or wind does not significantly reduce the need for transportation fuels.

* It omits any plan for promoting the construction of modern nuclear power plants to include the recycling of nuclear fuel.

* It omits any discussion of the poor 120-year economic history of wind-generated electricity - erratic wind power was always rejected by consumers demanding reliable, affordable electricity.

* It omits the staggering investments China is making in traditional sources for generating electricity. The EPR emphasizes China's development of solar and wind but ignores massive investments in nuclear, coal, and hydro. This omission leads to the false assertion that the US is in a race with China for wind and solar power.

* It omits any rigorous economic discussion of the difference between government expenditures and government investment. Expenditures are exactly that, they may create jobs and prosperity for a few, but not for the general public. Successful investments create general prosperity yielding far more to the general public than the cost. Replacing coal plants which reliably generate affordable electricity with wind farms or solar plants that unreliably generate more expensive electricity is an expenditure, not an investment. Such an action is no more an investment than replacing the reliable family car with an exotic, expensive, high-maintenance sports car. It may create jobs for some but at the expense of the family.

* It omits any discussion of an existing technology that can economically store electricity on an industrial scale. Without one, spending heavily on solar or wind is speculation.

In short, the EPR does not provide a path to a prosperous energy future, but a path to a boxed canyon that will make the US uncompetitive in the world markets.

It would be wise for California Legislators to read Ken's comments, as there are some valuable messages for our future.  Especially with growing concern over the safety of nuclear.

Look to Texas or California’s distant past for economic model?

Russ Steele

Our local left leaning blogger thinks that Assemblyman Dan Logue should not be looking at business development in Texas as a model for California, but should be looking at California’s past under former Governor Pat Brown for the right model.

“For a better model than Texas, we need only look to California under former Gov. Pat Brown, whose investments in schools, services and infrastructure underpinned a prosperity that lasted for decades.”

Edmund Gerald "Pat" Brown, Sr. was the Governor of California from 1959 to 1967. His tenure was highlighted by enormous water-resources development program which later evolved into the Governor Edmund G. Brown California Aqueduct. He enacted the California Master Plan for Higher Education, and laws creating the fair employment practices and state economic development commissions. He established a consumer's council and more than doubled state highway mileage.  A time of great prosperity in the state.
 
The question is could we replicate this past performance? I do not think so as this prosperity was not hindered by a plethora of environmental laws, friction that is hampering our current economic recovery.  Pat Brown left office in 1967. The California Environmental Quality Act was signed by Governor Reagan in 1970. CEQA has allowed every environmental organization to stop any project they did not like, increasing business development friction.  A restaurant owner in Texas can get a permit of open his business in six to eight week, in California it can take a year or more.

Texas has an Texas Commission on Environmental Quality similar to the California Air Quality Board, but it’s focus is more in protecting the right of citizens to access Texas natural resources, principally surface water. Over time it mission was expanded to protect public health and conservation of natural resources. However TCEQ is NOT attempting to save the planet from CO2 emissions like CARB.  All the CO2 reduction regulations like AB32, SB375 and 1493 are not not killing jobs in Texas like they are in California. 

In addition, the Texas Legislature passed Sunset legislation in 2001, which continued the TEQC until 2013 and changed its name to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. During the special session of the 81st Legislature (2009), legislation was adopted amending the 2013 termination date to 2011, transferring responsibilities to existing agencies, like the Public Utilities Commission and the Rail Road Commission.  Like New Mexico, Texas is making sure that they do not have a CARB to increase business and job development friction.

What Dan Logue is going to find in Texas is a Legislature focused on job creation and not one that is focused on knuckling under to every environmental  group in the State, like we are in California.  He is going to find a Governor well grounded in reality who is not a sock puppet for the government unions. However, those are not models we are likely to adopt in California, at least not untill we clean out the political swamp in Sacramento.

The Unintended Consequences of feel good decisions

Russ Steele

I hate low-flow flush toilets!  Ellen and I have a travel trailer and visit campground across the nation. Although we have a bathroom on board, it is some times more convenient to use the public campground facility.  Cuts down on the number times we have to use the dump station. Many of the RV parks have upgraded their facilities with low-flow flush toilets and more often than you would expect they are plugged, close to over flowing.  In my experience, your have to flush a low-flow flush toilet multiple times to get the waste product to disappear down the drain.  This seem to be contrary to the intended purpose of saving water.

Now we learn of another unintended consequences of those low flush toilets from a story in the San Francisco Chronicle.  

San Francisco‘s big push for low-flow toilets has turned into a multimillion-dollar plumbing stink.

Skimping on toilet water has resulted in more sludge backing up inside the sewer pipes, said Tyrone Jue, spokesman for the city Public Utilities Commission. That has created a rotten-egg stench near AT&T Park and elsewhere, especially during the dry summer months.

The city has already spent $100 million over the past five years to upgrade its sewer system and sewage plants, in part to combat the odor problem.

Now officials are stocking up on a $14 million, three-year supply of highly concentrated sodium hypochlorite – better known as bleach – to act as an odor eater and to disinfect the city’s treated water before it’s dumped into the bay.

I wonder of anyone ever thought about the unintended consequences of less water in the sewer system before mandating low-flush toilets?  If one of our standard flush toilets break, I am going the junk yard and find replacement. No low-flow toilets for our house! We do not need any unintended consequences.

Another CA green manufacturer gone, but economic leaders fail to understand

Russ Steele

The Fox and Hounds has the details in an article by Gino DiCaro, Vice President of Communications for the California Manufacturers & Technology Association here:

Yesterday the Inland Daily Bulletin wrote about a California-based hydrogen-powered fuel cell company, Bing Energy, deciding to locate its manufacturing, along with a headquarters and a technology lab, in Tallahassee, Florida.

Bing officials indicated clearly that it was 15 percent cheaper to operate in Florida and that the Sunshine state unequivocally wanted them there.

However, Beacon economist Chris Thornber and the Public Policy Institute of California are not buying that large numbers of business are leaving the state, they think these stories are just self-fulfilling prophocy.  See the article for details here.

• Thornberg "we've lost a lot of manufacturing jobs, but a lot less than in other states. ..."

• Public Policy Institute of California "only a small fraction of the state's job losses are due to businesses leaving the state."

Gino DiCaro, Counters:

. . . Since 2007, California is among the worst in investment dollars and new facilities.

New manufacturing investment has come in at only $235 per person in California but a whopping $1,335 per person nationally.

New and expanded manufacturing facilities have been built or expanded at only 3.7 facilities per million people in California compared to 28.7 per million nationally. 

This tells us all we need to know about the climate for manufacturing in California. We are near the bottom in new manufacturing growth.

See the original article for more details here, which concludes with this:

This raises a troubling question: If we can’t count on economists to avoid magical thinking, how can we expect legislators to govern with a higher standard?

Another California company is seeking a new HQ's location in Texas

Russ Steele

Lisa Carter, writing in the American Statesman has the story. Another company is considering a new location for their headquarters outside of California.

CKE Restaurants Inc., the owner of the Carl's Jr. and Hardee's chains, is considering moving its headquarters from California to Texas. It could be an easy sell for the Lone Star State.

CEO Andrew Puzder and President Michael Murphy met with Gov. Rick Perry on Tuesday for the first time to talk about the company's possible expansion. The move could mean 500 new jobs for Texas, which the company already had identified as a top growth market for its fast-food restaurants.

Austin, among other large Texas cities, would be a possible site for a new headquarters.

Exit Question: When will Californian's political leaders wake up and stop the hemorrhaging of California businesses? 

H/T to John Blethen at Heliogenic Climate Change for the tip.

Our nation in trouble, college students are not learning to think critically

Russ Steele

It aways has been a mystery to me why college educated people, especially the X and Y generations, were taken in by Al Gore and his global warming hoax. Now there is some insight in a forthcoming book by New York University sociologist Richard Arum  Arum was the lead author on a study that followed several thousand undergraduates through four years of college found that large numbers didn't learn the critical thinking, complex reasoning and written communication skills that are widely assumed to be at the core of a college education. McClatchy has the details here.

Nearly half of the nation’s undergraduates show almost no gains in learning in their first two years of college, in large part because colleges don’t make academics a priority the report shows.

Instructors tend to be more focused on their own faculty research than teaching younger students, who in turn are more tuned in to their social lives, according to the report, based on a book titled Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses. Findings are based on transcripts and surveys of more than 3,000 full-time traditional-age students on 29 campuses nationwide, along with their results on the Collegiate Learning Assessment, a standardized test that gauges students’ critical thinking, analytic reasoning and writing skills.

After two years in college, 45% of students showed no significant gains in learning; after four years, 36% showed little change.

Students in the survey nonetheless managed a 3.2 GPA on average according to the study’s author, which tells you most of what you need to know about grade inflation and the rigors of modern higher learning.

Many of the students graduated without knowing how to sift fact from opinion, make a clear written argument or objectively review conflicting reports of a situation or event, according to New York University sociologist Richard Arum, lead author of the study. The students, for example, couldn’t determine the cause of an increase in neighborhood crime or how best to respond without being swayed by emotional testimony and political spin…

Now we know why many college graduates are taken in by Al Gore's emotional message of climate doom and gloom all wrapped in some nice political spin. They are incapable of shifting global warming facts from the opinions of a huckster, his rent seeking academic sycophants, and the uncritical journalist who parrot his message.    

If these are the generations that are going to be taking care of us in our old age we are doomed. How can they lead, if they are incapable of critical thinking?  Let's hope there are a few students that escaped the intellectural sausage mill with some thinking skills.