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Our topic today is charity, as befits the season, and I’ll hope to convince you of how today’s modern wise men would effectively prescribe charity. 

It is roughly 2000 years after the birth of Jesus and whether God or Man, if the entire planet followed His philosophy the world would be a beautiful place - but knowing humans that can only be a dream. I am sure some of my dear readers likely think, most incorrectly, due to my so-called right wing beliefs I am the most Scrooge like character on this planet. They are entitled to their beliefs but I would like to hope that should they know me, they would find themselves grievously mistaken.

(Even before the ghosts, Scrooge effectively reduced poverty)

First of all, I am not right wing, I am libertarian. Secondly I’ll leave it up to those who truly know me to figure the second part out. For they say that he who doth protest much…

The fact is, despite the attempts by socialists to portray them as greedy, the group of most generous humans by far are Right Wing Christians from the United States. They are so generous that no other country comes even close to matching private donations per capita made by these people. Ireland comes one third as close, but it is another hot-bed of capitalist Christians. Canada is pretty dismal but they’re way better than the Swedes, and France makes Scrooge look like Santa Claus. Strangely the government doesn’t need to tell these delusional Americans to give this money, they just seem to do it.

Sadly in this day and age, Charity has become Big Business. How many times have you been presented with a glossy expensively printed flier and asked to donate to a certain charity? Where is that money going? For example 18% of your donations to the American Red Cross go to wages alone.

So how can one be more generous more effectively? Perhaps Biological Science can help us. Researchers have concluded that people injected with oxytocin are 80% more generous. However half of us don’t want to run around with painful uterine contractions more than we need to, and the other half of us being big babies (AKA: Men) are plain scared of needles. That one is simply out.

Government will save the poor right? Wrong. Economic Science presents a pretty dreary picture of just how effective governments are in reducing poverty. As we all know, subsidies cause more harm than good, that much is basic. However there is a more insidious creature lurking within that realm called the Tullock Theorem. (Dr. Gordon Tullock is also famous for the theory of rent seeking of which we shall discuss later). Tullock states that the income redistribution process [social programs] is one that yields gains back and forth across the middle class with little gain at the lower end of the distribution due to voter preferences. This theorem has been demonstrated by evidence from Dr. Daniel Slottje and Dr. Gerald Scully of the Scully curve fame.

The results of this study indicate that Tullock’s (1986) theorem holds again - government’s agenda is not served by a redistribution to the poor, except perhaps as a secondary effect. - Slottje et al

A natural question is why don’t the low income types vote in candidates who will consistently redistribute income in their favor? The result of such a political process would be a downward trend in income inequality. In point of fact, there is no evidence whatsoever of any trend in income equality over the period. The answer to both questions may be that Tullock (1983, 1986) is on to something. If the middle class voters transfer gains back and forth, the poor can’t gain and they don’t, then the distribution should be stable and is. - Scully et al

Well what then? Economic freedom, first ellucidated by Milton Friedman, has been demonstrated to improve economic redistribution and standards of living in the lower income classes. It consists of defined and enforced property rights, free trade and open borders, little government intervention, low taxes and capital markets. Economic growth also helps the poor but it does so while causing a slight increase in gap between rich and poor, however such gap is a meaningless exercise in relative statistics. For instance compared to Bill Gates I am poor, however I can still afford a house, car, tons of modern gadgets, computers, and three good meals a day for my family while someone living in economic growth poor Africa is lucky if he can score any of the above. The question is how are the poor doing at the bottom, and the evidence doesn’t require an economist to confirm the obvious - yet economists still show that the poor in North America have more now than ever.

In this study, it is found that the amount of economic freedom across nations has the attribute of increasing the rate of economic progress and improving the distribution of market income. That economic freedom is a positive and significant macroeconomic determinant of economic growth is not a controversial finding. The empirical evidence here indicates that economic freedom reduces income inequality (i.e., lowers the Gini). Estimation of the structural model applied to the quintile income shares indicates that it does this by increasing the share of market income going to the two lowest income quintiles and lowering the share going to the highest income quintile. - Scully 2002

Unfortunately, you and I dear reader are not the government of some poor dirtbox nation so we cannot fix their heady problems.

Perhaps there is yet another way. While Bill Gates, realizing his mortality, has donated a substantial amount of his wealth to charity it is likely that his creation of Microsoft has done more to help people than his charity ever will. Especially after the lawyers, socialists and other rent seekers run his money through their greedy mitts. In fact no group of people do more to help other people than those who create business, or in the devil’s language: a corporation. Indeed a profitable corporation actually helps people, believe it or not. You don’t need an economist to tell you that, just drive through Hamilton or Detroit and look at where the old factories used to be.

Walmart has done more to help poor people than the federal government this year. Walmart sells goods at very cheap prices (causing what economists call an increase in consumer welfare) and while doing so provides thousands of jobs to people which includes a dental and health plan, and if you are a doctor worth his licence you have a list of their cheap generic medications under your prescription pad for those low income folks who badly need medication. (I was quite literally stunned the first time I saw a five fold reduction in one generic medication compared to a certain famous pharmacy chain and some colleagues in the U.S. tell me that they see even more, as much as 10 times cheaper - quite literally a difference between spending $10 vs. $100 per month!)

(Long the whipping boy of socialists, a modern day Pontius Pilate would find no fault with Wal-Mart)

Unfortunately not all of us have what it takes to start a corporation and become as beneficial to the poor as Charles Dicken’s Ebenezer Scrooge. What, Scrooge noble? If you’re questioning that you haven’t learned anything. Ironically before his transformation Scrooge had done more for Bob Cratchit than anyone, and Cratchit himself says as much multiple times in the Christmas Carol. Scrooge gives to Cratchit employment and a paycheck something he would not otherwise have as Cratchit is horribly unqualified and very close to the poor house during the depths of the 1843 recession in Great Britain and arguably much of the world. Ironically it is in this year that the Economist is first published espousing free market ideas and it is also during this time that the Poor Laws in Britian are at their peak with the Workhouses being at the height of  depravity.

The Poor Laws, a product of Christian philosophy, were created in the 16th century as a method of dealing with poverty though public taxation and wealth distribution. It can be argued that such a system was well in effect in many Christian communities throughout the last 2000 years, but it was during this time that such a philosphy began to have secular interest. Unfortunately the apparent enlightened thinking had, according to Parliament, very little effect on aleviating povery and by the 1830’s desperate measures were taken to provide incentives for poor people to work. By this time the people handling the money meant for the poor had largely managed to seize as much as they could for themselves, rent seeking in full effect. Moreover some parliamentarians felt that if the Workhouses were made as horrible as possible poor people would have an incentive to work rather than go there adding to the corruption and abuse practised by the people managing the Workhouses. Some parliamentarians idealistically felt that by working some of the poor would learn skills enabling them to gain adequate employment elsewhere.

In modern language, welfare given to poor people in return for work is called Workfare. Workfare has been practiced by governments throughout human history, and it is at its most notable during the Great Depression as part of the New Deal policy of Franklin Roosevelt. Ironically most economists view those policies as causing the depression to last longer than it would have. Currently Workfare exists in many countries in the first world. It is one method Sweden uses to hide its high unemployment rates and is a philosphy often bought into by both Right and Left wing governments.

(Our good intentions made this worse.)

Sadly economists cannot find any evidence demonstrating Workfare being an effective means of reducing poverty. While working at even a low income job does increase a worker’s ability to become upwardly mobile in wage through work experience and credentials, it seems that those who partake of welfare have other issues that prevent them from becoming employed or even seeking employment.

Ironically what was at one time deemed charity is now apparently a human right according to that embodiment of failure, the United Nations. Now some people feel that Workfare conflicts with their human right to collect welfare. If you can connect the dots it means some people have a right to your wallet. The Romans tried this, Emperors promising the citizens of Rome daily bread. Unfortunately this removed the incentive for the citizens to learn to work, and created in effect, the mob. It appears the Left, once congratulatory, now think the New Deal is slavery.

So government is a failure when it comes to providing direct means of reducing poverty, so much so that African economists are asking western nations to stop sending aid. Governments can help poor people by providing a foundation of economic freedom so that free enterprise can do what it does best and provide employment. Finally rent seekers are everywhere ready to divert as much money to their own pockets as they can from charities and government initiatives further causing program failures. What can one person do?

In 1848, a few years after Dicken’s The Christmas Carol a German, Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen, designed a system now known as microfinance which successfully provided capital means to German farmers. In the modern age, the economist Dr. Muhammad Yunus took this concept into India using it to the advantage of the poor and winning himself a Nobel Peace Prize in a more deserving manner than Al Goreacle. Microfinance and microcredit is a simple concept where organizations or people lend poor entrepreneurs usually in the Third World small loans which enable them to develop employment opportunties. Unfortunately the economic evidence is still out regarding microfinance’s sum total benefits, but it does appear to be an effective method for enabling people to create sustainable economies.

Indeed not only is it is well established that economic freedom increases economic development, Dr. Ross Levine has demonstrated that the ease of availablity of financing is another positive factor, as reviewed in this paper. That microloans are profitable to both parties is evident by the fact that major banking corporations including HSBC have now entered that market.

So along with the benefit that microloans are not evil subsidies that simply cause more harm than good, they have the benefit of potentially causing economic growth by working with the people who know what they need for their success.

What does that mean to you? Well I have mentioned before that I recently invested in a microloan provider, Kiva.org, where I loaned a small business in a Third World Country some start up money. I have recently received my third re-payment and by all accounts this person is doing well. My small amount of money is a huge deal to this person, it is directly given to them with no rent seeker skimming, I get to monitor how effective it is working, and there is no glossy expensive pamphlet attached.

I’ll leave it up to Eric Thurman to describe his experience with microfinance in this TV Ontario lecture.

And now we have come full circle, from Microsoft to microloans. If you are feeling the need to donate to a charity this time around, consider a microloan. It could be money well spent and poverty well treated.

Merry Christmas

(Wise men seek the evidence before applying charity)

The reader will benefit from reading the blog article previous to this one.

Drs. David H. Douglass, John R. Christy, Benjamin D. Pearson and S. Fred Singer have published an article in the International Journal of Climatology in which they explain that serious discrepencies exist between the computer models of climate change and the 25 year data from satellites and weather balloons.

Christy and Dr. Roy Spencer are the world’s experts on satellite data and Christy is a United Nations International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) editor. Ironically Christy and Spencer also have serious problems with the IPCC report, claiming it is a politically biased publication and misrepresents a lot of the science, reasons for why Christy left the IPCC process recently. (Christy and Spencer however, do think the evidence suggests CO2 can cause local climate change.) 

Why am I not surprised? As I have said before, having created computer models myself, you have to be concerned with the raw data used and more specifically the assumptions you make. Garbage in can easily equal garbage out. Sometimes even good data in can equal garbage out if your assumptions are wrong. As I have mentioned before at this time the surface station data is suspect.

From the publication:

On the whole, the evidence indicates that model trends in the troposphere are very likely inconsistent with observations that indicate that, since 1979, there is no significant long-term amplification factor relative to the surface. If these results continue to be supported, then future projections of temperature change, as depicted in the present suite of climate models, are likely too high.

In summary, the debate in this field revolves around the idea of discrepancy in surface and tropospheric trends in the tropics where vertical convection dominates heat transfer. Models are very consistent, as this article demonstrates, in showing a significant difference between surface and tropospheric trends, with tropospheric temperature trends warming faster than the surface. What is new in this article is the determination of a very robust estimate of the magnitude of the model trends at each atmospheric layer. These are compared with several equally robust updated estimates of trends from observations which disagree with trends from the models.

The last 25 years constitute a period of more complete and accurate observations and more realistic modeling efforts. Yet the models are seen to disagree with the observations. We suggest, therefore, that projections of future climate based on these models be viewed with much caution.

(Bold faced emphasis is mine.)

Scientists recommending caution, imagine that? But that is what real scientists do. Just like real doctors are cautious about making promises to patients. That’s how I was trained.

Politicians and fake scientists, on the other hand, like Al Gore and the Suzuki make all kinds of hot air promises.

Which reminds me of the ancient Babylonian inscription:

Psychics who make predictions that are found incorrect shall have their heads seized from their bodies and placed upon the southeast gate.*

(How long did it take for the politicians to screw up this earthly delight created by ancient scientists?)

* The one about doctors who fail to save their patients sucks just as bad.

Update:

From the comments:

Models aren’t perfect, but they are our best means to predict the consequences of increasing GHG in the atmosphere. 

- Grant

You mean you trust this data, Grant?:

(Official NOAA Suface Station Sensor, Livermore California)

Update: Guess who was right, Danny and the media or the economist and me? And notice how the media ignores the whole issue when Harper looks like he’s right again. 

Now back to our regular programming:

Watching the recent frenzy over the Climate Conference in Bali I am very happy that we finally have a Prime Minister who is able to blow the cold air of reality into the environmental maelstrom of something that looks like a big-hot-back-slapping doldrum. Canada’s position, Japan’s, (and Australia’s, no thanks to the brainwashing organization, CBC, everyone thinks that the position in Oz has changed because of the new Labour government, but really it hasn’t) and the position of the United States is that there is no point in setting restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) when the world’s largest emittor won’t join in, and I refer to China. India’s emissions are projected to overtake the United States as well. The emissions from the US are going down each year under GW Bush, and not due to a recession either as the United States economy is better than ever, while Chinese emissions are increasing rapidly. If you’re one of those people who believes that anthropogenic GHG emissions (AGHG) is causing a disaster then by AlGlorey, why aren’t you concerned? It’s not going to matter one iota how much Canada does or even the United States for that matter, when the fat kids on the teeter-totter are all sitting on one end. Why isn’t this a bigger concern?

It’s comparable to a disarmament treaty during the Cold War that restricts the United States from building missiles but mandates the Soviet Union to build even more.

But does the media care? They’d rather follow the likes of Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio. After all, it should concern us greatly when the dogs of Hollywood fly in on Lear Jets led by Al-Goreacle, and start yapping that perhaps things are getting blown way out of proportion.

Recently a new journal article* published in 2007 by a Canadian climate researcher and external IPCC reviewer, Dr. Ross McKitrik, in the Journal of Geophysical Research has demonstrated that the increase in surface temperature is in large part due to non-GHG anthropogenic reasons, ie: urbanization - in layman’s terms our cities are warm and temperature stations near cities are recording that. Moreover the methodology used by current science to screen out this background effect isn’t doing an effective job. His work reveals that the increase in temperature is half of that which the current United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is estimating, thereby reducing their estimates even lower than their own reduction in estimates from the latest report. 

A group of Dutch scientists have independently confirmed McKitrik’s work. Dr. Jos DeLaat and Dr. A.N. Maurellis at the Royal Netherlands Meterological Institute and National Institute for Space Research Netherlands respectively showed something very interesting indeed in two recent papers. Their latest in the International Journal of Climatology, 2006, states:

Our analysis of climate model simulations of GHG warming confirms our earlier results, namely, that they do not show any kind of CO2 emission–temperature trend correlation. In fact, the modeled temperature trends are quite insensitive to the magnitude of the industrial CO2 emissions. It is possible that the response of the climate system to enhanced GHG radiative forcing is much more localized than expected in that it occurs only in specific regions and mainly in the lower troposphere, although this runs contrary to the current understanding of GHG-related processes (cf Hansen et al., 1997; IPCC, 2001; Hansen et al., 2005; Santer et al., 2005).

This confirms an earlier work of theirs in 2004 that points out that surface stations situated in regions of low economic output show relatively little change in mean surface temperatures compared to surface stations in areas of high economic output as seen in this graph:

(star = high CO2 area, cross = low CO2 area)

In other words, AGHG is not causing global climate change, only a local effect is seen.

Although the exact mechanisms have yet to be determined our findings show that a significant part of the observed surface warming is related to processes other than enhanced greenhouse warming.

Its interesting to see other scientists dispute the current mainstream thinking just for the sake of a challenge. Stephen McIntyre just cannot leave the Dr. Michael Mann et. al. famous hockey stick graph alone, and for good reason. With its projection heavily weighted by the Graybill tree ring data, McIntyre spends some time in the same Sheep Mountain woods doing core sampling to update the data and demonstrates that according to the forest, the planet has been getting colder lately.

And this brings me to my main point. I’m really concerned when science gets manipulated by politicians. Take for instance hurricane researcher and IPCC member Dr. Chris Landsea who points that fact out as he resigns from the IPCC. There is also no doubt that certain countries eye Kyoto as the holy grail of economic subsidies, a diversion of money to their coffers. It is now currently the world’s largest welfare scam. Kyoto has not much to do with saving the planet from AGHG because it’s reductions are meaningless. Kyoto is all about transplanting more factories to China and India.

(In 1614 Galileo challenged mainstream thinking about the sun revolving around the earth leading to an Inquisition where he was soundly chastized)

It disturbs me as a scientist to see things get so manipulated by certain people with certain agendas. Like for instance what happened with Dr. Paul Reiter, a leading expert on malaria and other diseases carried by the mosquito vector. His testamony in front of the British House of Parliament reveals how the lead writers of the IPCC report on the Impact on Human Health are chosen. It is worth reading the whole thing. After not being chosen as a lead author in IPCC 4, largely due to his suspicion that he is not alarmist enough because he states the research doesn’t support an increase in malaria due to Global Warming, he retorts that the people chosen are basically laymen with agendas chosen by politicians:

34.   I replied with a question about the two Lead Authors that had been selected: “It is often stated that the IPCC represents the worlds top scientists. I copy to you the bibliographies of (the two lead authors), as downloaded from MEDLINE. You will observe that (the first) has never written a single article, and (the second) has only authored five articles. Can these two really be considered “Lead authors” with experience, representative of the world’s top scientists and specialists in human health?”

  35.   I also pointed out that one Lead Author is a “hygienist”, the other is a specialist in fossil faeces, and both have been co-authors on publications by environmental activists.

Imagine that, the lead authors of part of a document that is due to set world policy and massive interference by governments at all levels was written by a group of people with no scientific publications at all. 

The list of climate scientists disillusioned with the political manipulation of the IPCC grows longer, however when they try and make their voices heard they are soundly run out of town. That’s partly the fierce nature of the whole argument which involves scientific blows from both sides, however this fight is now one sided because the media, the politicians, and the hollywood hound-dogs have chosen the side they like - the socialist side that says global warming is cause by us bad humans but we should feel sorry for China and let them emit GHG because they’re poor. So in essence lets do nothing but feel good about it. Modern Liberal policy in progress, something Jean Chretien who did nothing about Canada’s GHG emissions over the last 10 years would have been proud of.

* Note: McKitrik’s work is sponsored by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, not industry.

It probably doesn’t surprise anyone out there that I consider Milton Friedman one of the greatest minds of our century. There few philosophical scientists who are both profoundly brilliant and successful in their own field that have also have influenced mankind and public policy for the better. Genius’ like Stephen Hawking deserve all the credit due to their discoveries but at the end of the day a black hole doesn’t help anyone. Currently anyway.

As Alan Greenspan once said, “There are very few people over the generations who have ideas that are sufficiently original to materially alter the direction of civilization. Milton is one of those very few people.”

One of the things that Friedman was known for was encouraging people to discuss issues. His documentaries called “Free to Choose” involving a panel discussion at the end composed of people from all sides of an issue are still relevant to today.

In order to honor the memory of this great scientist, I am proposing that the few of you who crawl into the dangerous lair of my blog, entertain each other in a discussion of an interesting book called “Taken by Storm: The Troubled Science, Policy, and Politics of Global Warming” during the end of this year. Hence I’ll give you some time to read it, I’ll write a short review, and then we can discuss it and see what everyone thinks. I think it would be fun to do this instead of everyone not having a chance to check it out and taking my word for things.

Some points on Taken by Storm:

• Get the 2007 version. Its been updated.
• Main Author is Dr. Christopher Essex a professor of applied mathematics and theoretical physics at University of Western Ontario. He works on computational models such as climate models, and was a NSERC fellow at the Canadian Climate Center.
• Dr. Ross McKitrik is a professor of economics at University of Guelph and specializes in economic analysis of air pollution, environmental policy and climate change.
• The book was the 2002 winner of the Canadian Donner Prize in public policy.

I would like, in the future, for everyone to watch the free “Free to Choose” videos one day and hold a discussion on them. It would be a neat experience.

Anyone in?

Some few of you may be wondering what exactly happened to my website, and me for that matter over the last few weeks. Well to put it simply Rogers decided that I probably didn’t need a phone line and so they cancelled it. For no reason. After phoning their useless customer service over days and hours at a time and getting absolutely no-where my poor wife decided to go with another phone line carrier. And there it is. Thank God for the free market because it is truly what saves us from useless people and ineffective government.

(British Telecom used to “rent” people standard crappy phones like this one, whether the customer wanted it or not. As part of the phone line package one had to rent it. The joke was that there were hundreds of these things littering British junkyards as people quickly replaced them with modern phones. Thus you were renting an invisible phone.)

When the British people awoke from the stuporous haze of socialism and realized that it was at fault for their floundering economy, Margaret Thatcher privatized British Telecommunications, leaving economists with one of the greatest examples of why privatization is better for the welfare of all people. Even scientists with a social bent had to agree, as the landmark study by Galal et al. revealed that post privatization British people were better off as a whole.

***

I have just finished one of those crappy weeks where I am left to contemplate the raw state of mankind. It is quite evident from my observations working as a doctor that to put it quite simply there are some people who don’t care how much the rest of us pay for their health care. For example, they will continue to smoke when they have Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease and burn wads of taxpayer money with each breath of forced Oxygen, atrovent, ventolin, and the pitiful salary they are paying me to push on their chest when they try and die. Apparently another doctor feels the same way.

We spend a lot of money on mentally competent people who don’t value themselves. An economist would not be as judgemental, however. An economist would dryly state the fact: some people would rather trade years of life for enjoyment in the here and now. Its called opportunity costs and present value. An economist would beg the question of why we would pay to prolong someone’s life when they clearly wanted to trade years of life for puffs of smoke? Perhaps we are making the wrong moral judgement by treating them?

Unfortunately as a bleeding heart, even in a realistically structured insurance system where people pay higher costs if they chose to abuse their bodies unlike the naive one in Canada, people like me would still donate their time to push on the chests of those who try and kill themselves.

However what really crushes my soul is that some people have absolutely no emotional attachment to their children. I have seen people rather take care of a pet dog than be there for their child who is dying in hospital. It has nothing to do with being poor or rich, high IQ or low, but rather a clear lack of integrity. And this happens way too often.

The worst example of human selfishness is the woman who abuses drugs during pregnancy. As a libertarian I don’t specifically feel government has a role in regards to drug abuse, but in the case of pregnant women this is one case where government can actually do something. When anyone has a child they make a moral agreement to be there for the child and do everything to preserve the child’s health.

However government fails us here, as usual. A pregnant woman who abuses drugs cannot be incarcerated against her will in order to protect the child until it is delivered. This is a by-product ruling from our generally useless Supreme Court, made after the state of Saskatchewan incarcerated one of these women (who incidently became rehabilitated during this time and afterwards). (Winnipeg Child and Family Services v. D.F.G. in 1997). The main reason is simply to protect the women who choose to have abortions since the courts try and do everything in their power to ensure a fetus is not a human being until delivered. Only two Supreme Court judges had the intelligence to make the argument of “intent” that we make all the time for murder: if a woman intends to carry a child to term she must do everything a reasonable human would do to protect the child.

As Homer Simpson once said, “Humans are the only animals that will weasel out of things, except for the weasel.” And what do you expect of a system of toad-stools appointed by the Liberal Party of Canada?

(Pope Alexander VI was one of the most corrupt popes the world has ever known. His so called “piety” reminds me of the double-speak we get from the left. On the outside is this projection of virtue while inside is a devilish self interest.)

So there it is, another mini-tragety week.

***

A while ago I spoke of an organization called Kiva.org where you can make interest free loans to people in developing countries who are trying to make their lives better. This is much better than a subsidy since it works on a system of responsibility rather than government bureaucracy.

Anyhow my first repayment has come in from the person I lent money to. Very good. I encourage you all to give this a try instead of all the usual top heavy charities out there.

I’ve spoken time and time again about how the media are completely biased in this country and indeed influence what happens on the political scene. They don’t necessarily work for a politcal party per say, but they do work for specific people: for example there is no doubt that they killed Paul Martin for Chretien’s benefit. In fact Chretien through friends and friend’s marriages had the media quite sown up. As I’ve said before they failed to truly explain Chretien’s complicity in involving Canada in Iraq. Lately in Ontario John Tory’s Progressive Conservatives were defeated simply because the media reported only one issue and did a fifth grader job of describing the complete issue as well: I refer to the Private School funding. Yesterday I heard that the global idiot Al Goreacle won the Nobel Peace Prize at a time when there are people who actually deserve this award.

There are wild dogs, wild hogs, and then there’s the mainsteam media.

Today all you hear on CBC is their jeering tone describing Lt. General Ricardo Sanchez’s speech attacking the Bush Administration at the Military Reporters and Editors’ conference.

Now they have made mistakes in Iraq, but lately under General Petraeus’ leadership a lot of things have gone right and I have described some of them here in this blog as reported by independent journalists. I have no doubts that people involved in real real research into military and development of third world countries savaged by civil war will examine many of his methods.

The fact is that Sanchez was a failure. He was unable to interact with other members of his team and colleagues. He kicks Bush where it deservedly hurts, but fails to examine his own personal ineptitudes. Not only that but Sanchez was hung out to dry during the Abu Ghaib disaster and he’s one bitter man.

The media forgot to look in the mirror today, because Sanchez said something else. Something more significant and something you’ll never hear.

Because Sanchez spent much of his speech slamming the media’s horrible coverage of Iraq. This is something we can learn from in this country as well as the media does an abysmal job of covering Afghanistan. Some people try and blame the current government for not spreading a good message but I think the failure lies with a media doped up on the intoxication of mass death and explosions rather than boring works of human endeavor or improvement.

In Sanchez’s words:

GIVEN THE NEAR INSTANTANEOUS ABILITY TO REPORT ACTIONS ON THE GROUND, THE RESPONSIBILITY TO ACCURATELY AND TRUTHFULLY REPORT TAKES ON AN UNPRECEDENTED IMPORTANCE. THE SPECULATIVE AND OFTEN UNINFORMED INITIAL REPORTING THAT CHARACTERIZES OUR MEDIA APPEARS TO BE RAPIDLY BECOMING THE STANDARD OF THE INDUSTRY. AN ARAB PROVERB STATES - “Four things come not back: the spoken word, the spent arrow, the past, the neglected opportunity.” ONCE REPORTED, YOUR ASSESSMENTS BECOME CONVENTIONAL WISDOM AND NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE TO CHANGE. OTHER MAJOR CHALLENGES ARE YOUR WILLINGNESS TO BE MANIPULATED BY “HIGH LEVEL OFFICIALS” WHO LEAK STORIES AND BY LAWYERS WHO USE HYPERBOLE TO STRENGHTEN THEIR ARGUMENTS. YOUR UNWILLINGNESS TO ACCURATELY AND PROMINENTLY CORRECT YOUR MISTAKES AND YOUR AGENDA DRIVEN BIASES CONTRIBUTE TO THIS CORROSIVE ENVIRONMENT. ALL OF THESE CHALLENGES COMBINED CREATE A MEDIA ENVIRONMENT THAT DOES A TREMENDOUS DISSERVICE TO AMERICA.

Never were truer words spoken.

Such things remind me of how society as reflected by the mainstream media at it’s worst finds people to use as a scapegoat to sacrifice to the god of distractions. Late last week as an example that naive fraud Wei Chen agreed heartedly on CBC radio Ontario that “we’ll see how the economists like it when they are laid off as the world unites to have one main Bank to set monetary policy.” - in reference to an economist explaining the grim realities of cheap foreign labor when yet another Windsor Ontario car plant laid off people.

“The Republic has no need of geniuses,” stated a self-important and wholly ignorant judge during the sentencing and death of the scientist Antoine Lavoisier, at a time in France when genius’ and good men were needed more than ever.

The starknesss that society doesn’t need people pointing out the truth as much as it may hurt is plainly laid before us. What they really want and need is someone to blame… and quickly.

(Truth is Naked)

I firmly believe that both the mainstream media (MSM) especially CBC, as well as most socialists would rather see Iraq (and Afghanistan) a destroyed smoking heap than for the Americans to have any success there. That’s how selfish they are.

(The twisted irony is that Socialists more than any other group of people seem to have all the traits of the Seven Deadly Sins)

Whether the invasion was right or wrong, at this moment in life it is what it is.

The real question is now what? Leave when people are most vulnerable and your job is half done?

More news from yet another independent journalist Michael Totten, that you will never hear from the biased MSM. Ramadi in Anbar province was one of the worst places in Iraq and possibly on the planet. Literally the people of the entire city were terrorised and blown to bits by Al Quaeda simply for the benefit of the cameras of the Mainstream Media. Now that the surge is working and the city has been intelligently turned and the people are on the side of sanity things have cleaned up. No attacks in 81 days. The city is boring and the MSM is nowhere to be found.

Violence has declined so sharply in Ramadi that few journalists bother to visit these days. It’s “boring,” most say, and it’s hard to get a story out there – especially for daily news reporters who need fresh scoops every day. Unlike most journalists, I am not a slave to the daily news grind and took the time to embed with the Army and Marines in late summer.

…

“We have one Iraqi lieutenant here who speaks pretty good English,” Marine Lieutenant Jonathan Welch told me. “You should talk to him. He has a sarcastic sense of humor and a really interesting point of view.”

“That would be terrific,” I said. “Can you introduce me to him?”

He went to find the lieutenant, but came back with bad news.

“He won’t talk to you,” he said. “Apparently some reporters recently spent a few days with him and his men. They wrote an agenda-driven story with a few quotes yanked out of context. He said the story was a total lie and that he refuses to have anything to do with the media.”

I heard complaints of that sort about the media every day from American Soldiers and Marines, but this was the first time I had heard it, albeit indirectly, from an Arab Iraqi.

Totten’s report is worth reading. Unbiased reporting is hard to find and thanks to the internet, the power of blogs, and the power of individual private donation we have real reporting.

I was greeted by friendly Iraqis in the streets of Baghdad every day, but the atmosphere in Ramadi was different. I am not exaggerating in the least when I describe their attitude toward Americans as euphoric.

Grown Iraqi men hugged American Soldiers and Marines.

…

Ramadi has changed so drastically from the terrorist-infested pit that it was as recently as April 2007 that I could hardly believe what I saw was real. The sheer joy on the faces of these Iraqis was unmistakable. They weren’t sullen in the least, and it was pretty obvious that they were not just pretending to be friendly or going through the hospitality motions.

…

The Iraqis of Anbar Province turned against Al Qaeda and sided with the Americans in large part because Al Qaeda proved to be far more vicious than advertised. But it’s also because sustained contact with the American military – even in an explosively violent combat zone –convinced these Iraqis that Americans are very different people from what they had been led to believe. They finally figured out that the Americans truly want to help and are not there to oppress them or steal from them. And the Americans slowly learned how Iraqi culture works and how to blend in rather than barge in.

Finally this exerpt I found especially profound:

“We’re learning to use local conflict resolution strategies,” said Colonel John Charlton. “Living with Iraqis every day helps us understand local culture. We’ve actually become attached to these people on a personal level. We feel responsible for their safety. We’re concerned about what will happen to our Iraqi friends if we don’t succeed in this country.”

I heard quite a number of Soldiers and Marines express the same sentiment. Whether it’s true or it isn’t, and whether it’s supposed to be this way or not, sometimes I sensed they feel like they’re fighting for Iraqis more than they feel they are fighting for Americans.  

When one considers exactly how little most of the socialists on campus at either of my universities actually contributed to the lives of others, it is a tiny list indeed. In fact out of all the folks on this planet I meet, socialist are the most selfish people of all. I’ll say it out loud but many people feel the same way.

(This is how socialists truly feel. Greed Jealousy…)

Turns out more problems at the United States Historical Climate Network (USHCN) data are raising serious questions regarding the validity of climate change analysis and projections. The USHCN is the largest temperature database and collection system in the world. Much of the research involved in global climate change is based on the US data.

(Climate Stations)

These questions are being raised by a researcher called Anthony Watts who started looking at the changes in types of paint used on the stations. Watts can often be found on Stephen McIntyre’s site ClimateAudit. McIntyre is a mathematician well known for debunking the famous Hocky Stick graph published in Nature by Mann et al. and for pointing out the Y2K errors in the computer program analysis of the data consequently changing the hottest year in history from 1998 to 1934. The infamous Hockey Stick was analysed by a team of statisticians at the National Academy of Sciences (Wegman Report) and found to have serious problems yet it is often still referenced by people like Al Gore as evidence for climate change.

(False - more widespread high-resolution data are needed before more confident conclusions can be reached and that the uncertainties were the point of the article - Mann hockey stick author)

As Watts started to audit them for his research, he noticed serious problems with the stations themselves, serious problems regarding the actual quality of the stations.

He started a website and encouraged other people to go out and take pictures of the stations as well as perform a series of measurements on them based upon criteria on site quality designed by The Climate Reference Network (CRN) and used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) themselves. Some of the inappropriateness of the sites can only be described as disgusting.

(Top - a quality station vs Bottom - a poor quality station, note the difference in yearly temperature between sites)

Watts has now done some analysis on the 33% of the some thousand stations they have audited and the results are seriously alarming regarding the quality of the raw data. Based on his analysis presented at the CIRES meeting:

(Potential temperature errors based on site quality, 55% +2 degrees Celcius)

As a scientist this is the kind of thing that distresses us the most: poor primary data. If your initial data collection is poor than all the work later whether it is computer analysis or branching projects will be useless. There is nothing worse than this because it can mean years of work gone.

Another serious point is being raised here. If we are going to drastically alter the economies of the world, and cause more poverty in third world countries we’d better be correct about whether anthropogenic global warming is real. Economics is by and far the most important thing to a living human being, plain and simple. It can even affect his or her health.

Recently James Hansen released his computer code for the analysis of climate data after what I see as a serious breach of scientific ethics. For a long time he refused to release the code or answer questions regarding it. After any research is published in an academic journal it is fundamental that the data and methodology be available to other researchers for their interpretation. This is intinsic to the scientific method as all work requires the crucible of critism and is either weakened or made stronger by it. We’ll see what kind of criticism his code gets and whether it stands up to scrutiny.

(We eat from the tree of knowledge at our peril)

Ontario is about to embark upon the same referendum that BC participated in a short while ago. Bascially the referendum involves deciding on what kind of voting system we want to use. More information can be obtained here.

There are currently two options:

A) First Past the Post (FPTP)

B) Mixed Member Proportional (MMP)

In the FPTP system everyone in a riding votes for one person and the guy with the most votes wins. This can be a problem when only 30% of people actually vote for the winner, a usual occurance in Canada, as the other 70% get a guy they may or may not like.

In the MMP system everyone still votes for a guy in their riding as the FPTP system but you also have a second vote where you vote for a party. The party votes get divided up proportionally and then the party picks a bunch of people to sit in proportion to the number of votes they get.

(Laws are handed down to us from the meddlers in Toronto with the same profound righteousness as if they were from God himself) 

So why am I against this system? In my honest opinion this is the worst system we could have ever come up with second only to the parliamentary one we currently use. What we will have on the political party list is a bunch of party hacks who basically have never faced the crucible of public trial. Moreover these hacks can be from anywhere which means most of the Liberal ones will come from Toronto.

We’ll end up with a bunch of people who no-one really voted for deciding what to do across the province, people with no direct links to the general population and no direct responsibility to answer to the people. At the end of the day we’ll have a bunch of Toronto people deciding to raise the taxes of the rest of us since they think they know best. Great.

Secondly in Canada party leaders have a vice like grip around the votes of the members of the parliament already. With a bunch of party hacks being elected what’s the point of having members? Last thing we need is more corruption like I described in my previous post.

I propose we change to a republic system with the executive and legislative branches separated. Secondly at the ballot box voters should be able to rank the candidates from 1 to last. The top candidate will be chosen based upon the ranked choices of the voters. For example Fred, Tom and Belinda are candidates. 40 people choose Fred as their number 1 choice, 20 choose Tom and 42 choose Belinda. No candidate has the majority of the votes. The bottom candidate is excluded (Tom) and the voters for Tom give his votes to their second choice. In this case 15 for second rank votes for Fred and 5 for Belinda. Fred wins with 55 votes to Belinda’s 47. This is known as the Instant-runoff voting system.

Can anyone change my mind?

(As Promised, Monthly Blog Update) 

When it comes to the market place the Government is like a fat kid on a teeter-totter. One knows which end is coming down, and its sure to be as balanced as an elephant on ice. But how do governments in a democracy become corrupted? Surely with the voting public and the vociferous media hounding them there is no way for the fat evil merchants of capitalism to stroll in and take things from the collective?

If you have a moment, I’ll tell you how it happens.

It comes from our own best intentions gone wrong.

The latest squawking to come from the Liberals is the revival of the Income Trusts issue. For those of you unaware of what the big deal about income trusts is, I’ll explain briefly. Income trusts are a method corporations use to avoid income taxes. Plain and simple, and while some people will deny this, mature corporations wouldn’t be doing it if it weren’t advantageous to them. As any accountant knows deep down inside, the more convoluted a tax system is, the more loopholes there are. It’s called Langmann’s Law which states: l=n/5, where l is number of loopholes, and n is the number of tax legislative sections or something.

And seriously though, as economist James R. Hines points out, the more government attempts to fix tax loopholes, the more they actually encourage the implementation of new loopholes. This is one of the main reasons the old Reform Party of Canada proposed a flat personal and corporate income tax with your only deduction being your children and the basic personal exemption.

Anyhow, in case anyone didn’t notice, the Conservative government did the unthinkable late last year by taxing Income Trusts and thus slamming the lid down on this particular avoidance strategy. They did this against the promise of not doing this, which is a clear violation and a shameful act. I personally am not completely against governments changing their promises based upon new evidence as long as they were sincere in their previous promise, that the new evidence is decisive,  that keeping a promise will result in a catastrophe, and that their decision isn’t for simple political gain. We must also bear in mind that a government which makes mistaken promises should be taken to the crucible for ineffectively analysing the data. This all being said there is nothing worse than the old Liberal strategy of promising action, not doing anything, and still promising action, ie: Kyoto.

Angry in the Great White North writes about slim shady Garth Turner (a man I mistakenly used to believe was a straight shooter even while he was burning the Conservatives from within) and his grand Canada tour railing against the Conservative actions on income trusts and how the great Liberal party will do all in its power if it gets elected to make everything better for the holders of income trusts and the corporations who created them. Angry points out several interesting flaws in Garth’s argument that the taxing of income trusts hurt seniors and instead points out that income trusts were in some cases preying on ignorant seniors.

However lets look deeper into what is going on. Garth is a member of the Canadian Parliament and within the Liberal Party of Canada’s caucus. Garth is going on a trans-Canada tour who’s theme is how the Conservatives ripped off the poor senior citizens and that we should instead vote Liberal so they can fix this tragety. The sponsor of Garth’s little anti-government tour is an organization called CAITI which is in fact made up on a number of organizations that sell income trusts. Basically what we have here is the direct efforts of a series of corporations to have a government elected that will give them a market advantage simply by setting up legislation. Your vote cast for the Liberals because you feel bad for the poor ripped off seniors is how they get you to vote for their personal advantage.

That is, folks, how corruption happens.

(The Boston Tea Party - A government granted monopoly to the British East India Company culminated to this famous riot, provided evidence for the new liberal philosophy of the proper role of government and created the U.S.A. under a constitution which was supposed to protect people from the government itself)

Milton Friedman used to use the Interstate Commerce Commission as an example of how the government tries to act in the best interests and protect citizens by setting up regulatory bodies but those same bodies end up becoming a direct method corporations use to lobby governments into giving them specific entitlements to markets.

In economics this is known as regulatory capture. In Canada we have several such groups, the Canadian Wheat Board is one currently in the news as the Conservatives try and end that bloated travesty.

How does one prevent regulatory capture of a market? Simple. Define property rights and then stay out of a market no matter how tempting it is. In the case of taxes, a simple flat tax is the best way to prevent loopholes and provide equality.

Update:

I few times I have hinted at ways to responsibly help out other people while not relying on either government ineptitude and/or corporate foundations that steal most of your donated money to pay for employees, computers, or glossy pamphlets. I’d like to point your attention to a non-profit organization I think appears to be doing the kind of giving a libertarian can only dream of.

Kiva.org is a website at which you can set up private loans to other people in third world countries who are trying to better their lives by working and being entrepreneurs. All of your donated money goes directly to the borrower. You can also make a small donation to Kiva to keep them running but its not compulsory. The money gets transferred to a private bank in the borrower’s country. They then pay you back over a period of set time.

So far this looks to be on the up and up. Recently they have been covered by bloggers and media. I have tried it out and I’ll see how it goes. Let’s hope this works out.

Why is Kiva responsible giving? Because you are helping someone become self sufficient and they are paying you back. You’re also watching the borrower’s report to make sure that your investment is being used for what it was meant for. The worst kind of subsidy is one that never gets paid back.