George Rebane
Data homogenization is not an objective scientific process.
Recreational marijuana will be legalized across the country over the next several years. RR is on record as a proponent of judicious progress in this direction. Nevada County’s economy already enjoys a major contribution from the illegal RMJ that various estimates put above the $100M range annually. Legalization will drastically change the local RMJ production industry, but our county’s political and economic development leadership continues to ignore the existential contribution of RMJ to our economy. A better approach would be to recognize NC’s role as a major RMJ producer, and plan for the coming changeover as California is about legalize RMJ production. NC should create an environment which will benefit the local economy as RMJ moves into prime time so as to attract commercial growers that will produce the weed in legal grows that contribute zero nuisance to established developed areas and generate taxable revenue to the benefit of all. In today’s Union George Boardman makes a good case (here) for such preparations. (Russ Steele has another take here on the impact of RMJ legalization on Nevada County's economy. I contend his assessment that NC cannot support large commercial RMJ grows and processing to replace the current 'mom & pop' illegal producers.)
Public pensions are not inviolate when a municipality declares Chapter 9 bankruptcy. CALPERS has been arguing that funding such pensions must be done first, last, and always even if it means selling off every last asset belonging to a city. People are finally beginning to recognize that almost all of such pension agreements were negotiated under some demonstrable presumption of fraud or gross incompetence, and therefore they are not as sacrosanct as the public service unions and their account managers like CALPERS have insisted. Now in the case of Stockton’s bankruptcy, federal judge Christopher Klein has ruled in favor of providing Stockton (and by case law, other jurisdictions) relief so that they don’t have to sell their fire trucks and parks to fund fat pensions to public retirees. In sum –
What all this means is that Calpers can’t stop cities from modifying pensions in bankruptcy. This has ramifications across the U.S. because unions are trying to make public pension benefits inviolable as a matter of constitutional law. If that view prevails, then politicians can make irresponsible deals to get elected that no future politicians can rescind even if they become unaffordable. (more here)
The hushed up climate change debacle continues. New evidence comes in almost daily about another discovery of doctored data and mangled models to make the political case that runaway manmade global warming is getting worse, and time for draconian policies needed to save mankind is running out. Recently RR readers have been posting links (here and here) that cite foreign media reports picked up by bloggers that no US lamestream outlet will touch. One of the most dangerous consequences of such fraudulent climate change promoting is the support it gives to the UN’s blatant promotion of Agenda21 (here). And in Nevada County we continue denying both AGW fraud and the advance of A21.
The local hard left continues its ballistic trajectory to criticize The Union’s editorial policy and journalistic practices. Our Designated Duty Reader of those outlets emailed me the recent blast from the Cosmic Critic and Monument to Morality who again takes publisher Hemig to task for running a “cesspool” of an op-ed page. It seems that the latest infractions include not declaring a contributor’s affiliation to organizations like the local tea party, even if the submitted piece only reflects the writer’s personal opinion. But the main complaints of the leftwing arise for the usual reasons that their writers’ opinion pieces build upon specious and unsupported arguments that are ludicrous on their face, and therefore easily refuted by people of opposite views and even political independents.
In 'The Dangerous Lie that 'Bush Lied'' Laurence Silberman points out that lamestream journalists have taken Bush2's post 9/11 pronouncements of Saddam's WMDs as deliberate lies to be revealed truth unexamined and inscribed in stone. As an example, Silberman cites reporter Ron Fournier's assaults on Bush2's credibility. (We note that some RR commenters are similarly afflicted.) Mr. Silberman is a senior federal judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, and was co-chairman of the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction. He concludes –
The charge is dangerous because it can take on the air of historical fact—with potentially dire consequences. I am reminded of a similarly baseless accusation that helped the Nazis come to power in Germany: that the German army had not really lost World War I, that the soldiers instead had been “stabbed in the back” by politicians. … Sometime in the future, perhaps long after most of us are gone, an American president may need to rely publicly on intelligence reports to support military action. It would be tragic if, at such a critical moment, the president’s credibility were undermined by memories of a false charge peddled by the likes of Ron Fournier.
[10feb15 update] Kudos to Heidi Hall who in her 10feb15 Union column – ‘High time for cannabis common sense’ – outlines her position on RMJ that is very similar to that long-promoted here on RR.
Kissinger explains Obama’s backpedaling on Iran to the Senate. It is clear from the record that the west, led from behind by Obama, has quietly switched its strong initial policy (backed by UN resolutions) of preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapon capability, to one of managing the scope of Iran’s nuclear weapons development program. Specifically, these dumbos are now trying to negotiate an agreement calling for detecting a “breakout period” of one year to Iran’s having a nuclear weapon. This, of course, requires the deployment of a very intrusive inspection effort which Iran will oppose, and on which our lame duck will cave. (more here)
Speaking of the lame duck, David Axelrod gives evidence that we also have a lame brain in the White House. In his newly released memoir – Believer: My forty years in politics – Axelrod makes the case that Obama really does believe that his socialist policies calling for an ever bigger, more intrusive, and higher taxing government is good for America. And here we thought the sumbich was doing all that to keep harvesting more Democrat votes. But then again, we may have been right since Axelrod also reports that luminaries like Barbra Streisand advises Obama “to talk to people in simpler terms, for the Gruberesque reason: ‘I hate to say it, but people are stupid.’”
[13feb15 update] Almost all longtime temperature records used in the current climate hysteria analyses and reporting have been subjected to what is known as 'data homogenization' (here). This is an extremely subjective process involving substitution into the temperature record of variously interpolated or homogenized temperatures for the actual raw measured temperatures. The interpolation process is the entry point of subjectivity since the neighboring temperature points may be selected on any arbitrary basis involving temporal, spatial, or other attributes chosen by the investigator. And therefore, these attributes and identification of suitable 'neighbors' can be done to suit any given conclusion. Homogenized data records need to be highly qualified before being used in any subsequent analyses like calculating regressions or determining trends.
[16sep15 update] Sarin in Iraq. What revoltin’ development this is to the ‘Bush2 lied’ progressives! Is there no more equitable, inclusive, sensitive social justice left in the world. The NYT, the Gray Lady herself, has the temerity to report (here) that Iraq was indeed full of Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction. Enough even to covertly sell to the CIA over a multi-year period through its ‘Operation Avarice’. Why did the NYT report this now? I can’t believe that this is the first leak of Operation Avarice, and the story of why it has been suppressed for so long would be even of greater interest to me.
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