Noah Sachs, over at PrafsBlawg, is kind enough to respond to my post on the Copenhagen meetings and collective action problems. It is worth reading the whole thing, but here is a chunk of it. (If you comment, please remember that Professor Sachs is my guest here, so be courteous. And my thanks to him […]
Archive | November, 2009
We Now Have a Twitter Feed
It’s VolokhConspirac. I know next to nothing about Twitter, so I might well have not configured this optimally; if so, let me know. Also, I couldn’t set up a twitter feed called VolokhConspiracy, because that was 16 letters long — but perhaps that’s just the user name length limit, and I can somehow set up […]
Clive Crook (at The Atlantic) on “ClimateGate”
Here’s what Crook writes: I admire expertise, and scientific expertise especially; like any intelligent citizen I am willing to defer to it. But that puts a great obligation on science. The people whose instinct is to respect and admire science should be the ones most disturbed by these revelations. The scientists have let them down […]
This Pie Goes To 193%
Pie chart zaniness from Fox Chicago News, reported by David DiSalvo (True/Slant). UPDATE: I originally said this was from Fox News; commenter AJK points out that this was Fox Chicago News, a local Fox affiliate.
Against the War Tax
Representative David Obey’s Share Our Sacrifice Act would finance the war in Afghanistan by imposing a tax on the public. The idea is yet another in a line of gimmicky populist measures that are sprouting like dandelions this political season, and it has garnered the support of apparently sensible people. But it has little to […]
Honduras election results in decisive win for democracy
In Sunday’s presidential election, the voters of Honduras chose Partido Nacional candidate Pepe Lobo, who won 58%, compared to 33% for Partido Liberal candidate Elvin Santos. Both candidates supported the removal of former president Manuel Zelaya, who had violated Articles 373 and 374 of the Honduran Constitution and forfeited his office by attempting to arrange a second […]
“Scientists at the University of East Anglia (UEA) Have Admitted Throwing Away Much of the Raw Temperature Data on Which Their Predictions of Global Warming Are Based”
So reports the Sunday Times (London). The data apparently got “dumped to save space when the CRU [Climate Research Unit] moved to a new building,” “in the 1980s, a time when climate change was seen as a less pressing issue.” Only the adjusted data, adjusted based on decisions by the CRU scientists, has been kept. […]
Swiss vote to ban minarets
Pre-election polls showed support for an initiative to ban the construction of new minarets in Switzerland at only about 35%. However, thanks in part to backing from feminists, the ban passed with 57.5% on Sunday, sweeping all but a few of Switzerland’s 26 cantons. The website for the ban’s supporters is here, along with a […]
Criminal Charges for the White House State Dinner Crashers?
CBS/AP reports: America’s most successful party crashers, Michaele and Tareq Salahi, who stormed the gates of a White House state dinner and somehow managed to get in, may soon be facing criminal charges, according to the Secret Service. Secret Service spokesman Jim Mackin says the agency is moving closer to beginning a criminal investigation. He […]
How Are the Copenhagen Talks Supposed to Overcome Collective Action Problems?
By Kenneth Anderson on November 29, 2009 7:42 pm in Climate Change, Collective Action Problems, Environment, International Law
Let me leave aside for the moment all the leaked memos and stuff. I would describe myself as a non-expert on climate issues who has been gradually persuaded to the following positions: Agnostic on the question of warming and human impact on it; Getting less agnostic as I read the emails and leaked materials; Unpersuaded […]
How Your FICO Score Is Calculated
I am not an expert in consumer debt, so if this is incomplete or incorrect, I welcome comments on this. However, here is an article from Yahoo Finance on how FICO scores are calculated, and specifically walking through the hits to your score taken for various credit events, ranging from maxing out a card to […]
Alleged Anti-Christian Riot in Egypt
From the Catholic News Agency: For several days massive mobs of Muslims have been attacking Coptic Christians in the Egyptian town of Farshoot 300 miles south of Cairo. The mobs’ looting, vandalism and arson have caused at least $1 million in damage as Copts hide indoors for fear of their lives. Many Copts have been […]
Sunday Song Lyric
I’m sure you know Adam Sandler’s “Hanukkah Song,” but did you remember that he has a Thanksgiving Song too? It’s almost as funny. Here’s a taste of the lyrics — much funnier sung by Sandler than read. Love to eat turkey ‘Cause it’s good Love to east turkey Like a good boy should ‘Cause it’s […]
More One-Sided “Reporting” from the NYT
Here’s the way the New York Times describes an ongoing controversy over whether the Berkeley Daily Planet is obsessively anti-Israel and perhaps anti-Semitic: For the last six years, The Berkeley Daily Planet has published a freewheeling assortment of submissions from readers, who offer sharp-elbowed views on everything from raucous college parties (generally bad) to the […]
“‘We’re the Experts, Trust Us,’ Has Clearly Gone by the Wayside”
The NYT has a follow-up story on the continuing controversy triggered by the leak of e-mails and internal documents from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit. The story provides a quick summary of the central issues in the controversy. The most serious criticisms leveled at the authors of the e-mail messages revolve around […]