Recently the FDA issued a warning about Methylphenidate (Ritalin), that it can cause priapism, which is a pathological penile erection.
Continue reading Scary Side Effect from Ritalin for ADD
Wind Subsidies aren't Fair–Shocking
Just a little something to irritate you from our friends at NCPA.
Every time I drive to work at Fort Hood I get to review a new wind farm with 100 turbines.
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=23948&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DPD
Just a little info on Wind.
Dept of Energy has a map of the country that shows our part of Texas is not good for wind.
In fact the mountains, the coasts are the best for wind. In Texas only the coast and the panhandle are adequate. Midwest America is not good for wind.
One must consider that even when wind is good, its intermittent so the efficiency output of wind tubines is well under 50 percent of rated capacity.
When you read about a wind farm having a output for whatever, remember that’s not real output, that’s what they might put out if the ideal wind was 24/7.
Usually they are a third of capacity, for each turbine 2 or 3 Megawatts is the rated capacity, the actual is about a third with gas/coal backup or alternative to pick up the slack. Really smart–engineers tell me that gas and coal effeciciencies are lost with off and on demand.
Record Lows and Stranded Ice Cruizers
More record lows for America than record highs.
Not proof of cooling or warming, but not helpful for warmers–who now have to rejigger the models or talk loud.
Questions to consider–it is cold all the time in the Antarctic, so why does it surprise anyone that there might be more Ice.
Even in the summer precipitation in Antarctica makes snow, snow makes ice. Right?
Money, Bloomberg and the Courtesans of the NYT
This NYT article about the Bloomberg Plutocracy misses the point, but the NYT often misses the point.
Bloomberg is the ruling class elite on steroids, imposing his preferences by playing the rich bull in the china shop.
Funny, with all this flattery in the NYT piece, no mention of the prolonged hardships of the people devastated by Sandy who were ignored while Bloomberg pursued his aesthetic obsessions and meddling pretenses.
He is or was like a Medici in old Florence, but he was a Mayor in a country that is supposed to be a republic with a limited government by the consent of the people. His use of personal funds to exaggerate the role of the Mayor is misconduct in office. Someone should bring him up on charges. What he did is like what happens in Banana Republics and Oligarchies.
Constitutional Republics, recommended by Aristotle, Locke and certainly our founders, are supposed to be societies with a proper environment for the citizen, decadence follows a regime like created by Bloomberg. Nanny states are not a proper place for human development, happiness, development, accomplishment and liberty.
I am disgusted to read this devotional piece by the NYT, but they should really dedicate a chapel for such an icon, candles and incense and such would be right, Bloomberg would finance the thing out of petty cash.
I cannot comprehend how we came to this, encomiums for demogogues with big bank accounts. In America?
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/30/nyregion/cost-of-being-mayor-650-million-if-hes-rich.html?_r=1&
The NYT thinks oligarchies/plutarchies are charming?
Marx was a medievalist in outlook. So is Bloomberg, so are the ruling class elites described and condemned so insightfully by Angelo Codevilla.
The NYT is a medievalist elitist journal, and certainly committed to a statist tyranny of elites. All, of course, intended to take care of us properly, and show us how to live and what to think.
http://spectator.org/articles/39326/americas-ruling-class-and-perils-revolution
Warming Back Talk
An excellent essay by a physicist on Milloy’s concept, and the title of his good, Junk Science Judo.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/01/a_few_easy_tests_to_debunk_global_warming_hysteria.html
Monckton Demonstrates
There are two speeches from the last ten years that stand out in my mind.
One was the speech Tony Blair gave to the Joint Session of Congress–why did I have to wait for a Brit to explain the greatness of America?
Then a few years ago Chris Monckton, Viscount of Brenchley, another Brit, gave a wonderful speech at one of the Heartland Climate Conferences and I got really misty and choked up to hear him talk with such affection about my homeland and its people.
Continue reading Monckton Demonstrates
WHO is Apolitical–Really?
Tibet is a 1984 non entity.
Hard to get attention or status when you are diminished as an entity and persecuted by a huge commie country that sits on the Security Council.
The Dalai Lama, remember him? Religious and political iconic figure, thought by Tibetans to be a deity. Not so the Chinese.
So here is an example of why I don’t trust the World Health Organization, or any UN entity involved in politically charged issues.
The UN is a debating society dominated by tyrannies. Ok? Got it??
Continue reading WHO is Apolitical–Really?
Let's Hear it for Osteopathy
I have been hard on Naturopathy and Chiropracty because they cross my science line. Not so with Osteopathy, which has become mainstream and committed to scientific medicine and medical care.
Osteopathy is evidence based medicine with some osteopathic therapies (mostly manipulation) included.
Anyone with sense can see the advantages of manipulative therapy properly applied. It’s like sophisticated massage/physical therapy.
Many months ago I developed some back problems from some work I had to do and benefited from some manipulative osteo therapies from a colleague.
I know, that’s an anecdote–so???? Osteopaths started in a place where they were sorta close to chiropracters, who have no scientific theories of any substance or repute.
Osteopathic medical schools are underfunded and on a shoestring, so also with their clinical and post graduate training programs, but I find that they work hard to close the gap on quality medicine and are serious contributors to good medical care. No substitute for hard work and virtue.
http://www.theunion.com/news/9548193-113/osteopathic-body-medicine-approach
Howard the Hero
Howard Hayden is my hero because he just plain damn loves physics and studying things.
When I grow up and get better at math, which is a strong point for Howard, like most physicists, then I will be a junior Howard Hayden and I will be happy being a scientist and studying the wonders of the world.
Oh,and he is also a hero because he is a man’s man, and thinks for himself and demands good evidence be put forward for anyone asserting a premise.
I have introduced Howard Hayden and watched him in person and he is one formidable man at the podium in a debate. He loves taking to a hot head from the audience, warrior scientist that he is.
2013 was not Good for Warmers-11 Stories
Thanks Morano for linking me to this one.
I couldn’t invent stuff any better.
http://m4gw.com/eleven-global-warming-stories-from-2013-you-probably-never-heard-of/
Models Don't Model
We knew that. Below is linked a discussion by a respected climate scientist who says the models are bunkum.
There is a Prof at U Penn, Scott Armstrong, who asserts he can create reliable predictions. His protocol for good predictive model has more than 100 elements.
That makes sense as long as the elements have reliable information and are based on reliable observed and replicable experimental evidence.
The Forcing side of the climate models and their lack of mitigators creates this run away train modeling.
And that doesn’t even deal with the problems of the projected catastophic effects of warming, which are nothing more than speculations built on political agendas.
As an old man I disagree with the theory that 57 degrees F is good and warm is bad. The projected health and environmental problems from warming really are not part of the problems of the models, but they do demonstrate junk science in another context in the warming projections of the IPCC.
Am I breathless–no just respectful of the uncertainties. Physicists know stuff so well that sometimes they can predict very acurately what hasn’t been discovered or how things will work. They could predict the Higgs Boson and other elementary particles based on their calculations and experiments, but predicting in a complex uncertain environment like climate studies is not so easy.
Complexity Uncertainty Egomania
Mona Charen is a smart lady commentator who is always on the money by my assessment.
Here she talks about the things that von Mises and Hayek tried to teach us about central planning, and she very insightfully takes down the idiocy of what has properly been called “Scientism” and its latest iteration–warmer CRU/IPCC cargo cult science.
Hayek named the problem the “fatal conceit” and the nomenklatura have it and live it.
Models–now there’s something to take to the bank that is a sign of a toxic level of fatal conceit.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/367248/things-we-know-just-aint-so-mona-charen