Bull Moose Strikes Back

Only in a city like Seattle can there be such a disconnection with reality where skepticism over global warming can be compared to Holocaust denial.
From a letter to the editor in the Seattle PI (second down):

“Once a year (maybe April 1) give the entire paper over to people who believe the Earth is flat, that the Holocaust never happened, that God created the universe in six days, and that global warming is a hoax.”

This kind of hysterical, emotional letter is exactly why we need healthy skepticism over man-induced global warming. The writer slams those that take the Bible literarily, but I don’t think the writer is taking a much bigger leap of faith by blindly following the religion of global warming.

There are several reasons to be skeptical of global warming:

1) The Science.
The models – which swing wildly from global warming causing new ice age to it making a hellish landscape – are mostly based on computer simulations.
Let me tell you my own experience with computer models: There is a computer program I use at work. I enter in either the DNA or amino acid sequence, the program spits out some predictions about the physical characteristics of the protein that I use to start purification. Things like pI, presence of disulfide bonds, what amino acids are exposed after folding, nerd crap like that.
It works some times, other times it is way off. Keep in mind that this is science that is infinitely more predictable than things like weather patterns that can’t be predicted more than a day in advance with accuracy.

The sample size of the data is also tiny versus the 4.5 billion years Earth has been around. Even if we take the last 2% or so of total years (around a million) we only have accurate temperature records for the last 100 or so years – 0.01%.
How do you declare a trend with 0.01% – or much less – of the sample set.
Others will say we have tree ring data, etc. that demonstrates temperature fluctuations. Fine, but when they want to make a huge deal out of 1 or 2 degrees, I hardly think tree rings can demonstrate that kind of accuracy. Again, relating my own experiences, temperature is a big factor in growing bacteria, but it’s not the only factor. Slight changes in the media, for instance, would have a bigger effect. One would think that there are countless influences on tree rings – how many sunny days there were in a particular year, for example.

There is good reason to be skeptical of the science, especially when a lot of is seems formed to fit an agenda, which brings me to:

2) The agenda of those pushing it. When Al Gore, the celebrity spokesman for the cause admits that he –to not put too fine of a point on it – lies in order to scare people into action over global warming, how am I supposed to take it seriously? Instead of a fawning review in Entertainment Weekly, shouldn’t he be called on this?

A lot of it is about grant money. Sex up the cause, and you get the bucks. But I think more of it is the Green agenda. Keep human progress shackled. Get people out of their cars and living in blue cities where they belong. Equalize everyone through energy restrictions. What they couldn’t do with Earth Day in the Sixties, maybe they can do with the boogie man of global warming now.

I’ve also found that the laymen in the religion of global warming are often the biggest hypocrites. A co-worker of mine drives almost 200 miles round trip to Vantage, Washington, in a Toyota pickup every weekend in the summer to go rock climbing, and drives from Tacoma to Seattle and back every day, had the audacity to lecture me about how Bush isn’t doing enough to solve the global warming problem.

3) So what?
And if there is man-made global warming? So what? What are we going to do about it? Kyoto would have done almost nothing to lower carbon dioxide, but would have crippled our economy. The biggest bite we could take out of carbon emissions would be to convert to nuclear power, and we all know what the global warming religion crowd thinks about that.
So the mean temperature rises a few degrees over a couple hundred years? It has happened before, life wasn’t wiped out. As I sit here in June waiting for the mountain snow to melt so I can hike, it almost doesn’t sound like a bad deal.

The way global warming is being treated as fact is harming real science. Instead of it being worked out in peer reviewed journals over a long period of time, the media has declared global warming as fact. When I look at the assault that evolution is taking from the religious right, I have some sympathy for their confusion. Maybe they think that this is the way science works: A researcher with an agenda declares what they believe to the media who runs with whatever horror story they are told.
What most science is is dispassionate interpretation of data, with lots of back-and-forth within a group of peers, so that theories develop and gain detail over time. That is not the impression I get with science behind global warming theory.

See a skeptic climatologist’s take on Al Gore’s movie here.

UPDATE:The best review of Gore’s movie is here.

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For a long time now, I’ve been carrying around way too much weight. I carry it everywhere. To and from work everyday. To the top of Mt. St. Helens and several other peaks. I’ve decided that it will be easier to hike and enjoy life without it.

The problem is, I can never figure out how to do it. I know the thermodynamics of the situation, after all, I have a degree in Biochemistry. I exercise regularly jog, lift weights, and hike. The problem is I tend to eat any calories I lose doing things like that. It’s like getting a raise: Most people immediately shift their habits so they never seem to have any more “extra” money.

Now that I’m in the transition years between angry young white man to grumpy old bastard, I’m starting to think about what it will do to my health. I long ago asked the doc what weight I should aim for. He said where I was when I wrestled would be a good start. Uh.. That’s ninety pounds. (And a good start?!)

Since nothing else has worked for me, I’m going to try public humiliation. I’m going to break it up into three 30-pound chunks, and allow you to ridicule me if I miss my goals.
Tomorrow is June 1. August 3 is the last day before I leave on vacation to the North Carolina Coast. By August 3 my goal is to have shed the first 30-pound lot.

I will update the blog once every couple days with where I am. (Usually without comment, because who the hell wants to hear about anyone else’s diet?) Then on August 3 when I’ve lost only 20, 15, or 0 pounds you can mock me.

Hopefully my Torts prof will make me lose my appetite.

Excelsior!

Hat tip to Kim du Toit for the inspiration to “go public”.

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There is something absolutely fascinating going on here today. Where they stashed me in a desk in the QC area for my temporary assignment is right next to the coffee maker. I’m not in the lab today because today is a paperwork day. (Remember how I said there is a reason I don’t do this kind of work anymore on purpose?) Anyway, we are out of paper cups at the coffee maker. I’m amused by watching person after person come in, not find any cups, fruitlessly look through all the drawers and doors and then walk away.

Someone should do something about the situation. Like finding out where more cups are, or putting up a sign saying we are out. Not me, though. Not because I’m above making signs or finding the janitor and having him unlock the paper goods stash, but because 1) no one did it for me, and I looked through all the drawers; and 2) I’m trying something new on this side: being quiet.

I’m going to see if I can get through six months without making any new enemies in this department. The problem is it is doubtful I will make any close allies either. There are a few people over here that know me from my permanent department, (I think I may be the reason one in particular transferred over here) and I think I’m starting to freak them out. By nature of the work, it’s much more uptight over here, so there is less political talk and more behavior like we’re a company that isn’t located in Seattle. But when someone lets some remark slip about the war or something, the few familiar people’s head’s swing to me and wait for the dress down that never comes. One even asked me if I was sick.

Anyway, if I solved the cup situation, that would make some kind of impression on people outside the scope of my work and screw up my experiment. I’d be coffee-cup finder guy or something. Nuts to that, even though I need caffeine like residents of 1st and Pike need meth. I’ve just been drinking can after can of Diet Dr. Pepper from the soda machine right next to the coffee machine.

Besides, we use too many of those cups. It’s a waste in both financial and conservation standpoint. Everyone has their own company issued coffee cup with the name of the company on it in big bright letters. They can go back to their desk and get them.
When I say everyone, I don’t mean me. I had one, and I brought it home to wash it because I didn’t like the Patchouli oil soap they have here, and my wife gave it to my father-in-law because I didn’t bring it back the very next day.

The cups I do have here say “Fuck Off, I’m reading the Onion” and the other has a CIA logo on it (only until I can get an NSA mug to replace it, now that I see the NSA makes hippies more mad than the CIA – hell the CIA is on their side most of the time). So again, I can’t screw up my experiment with those mugs.

While I wrote this during my 15-minute break, no less than 5 people came in looking for cups. One was a repeat. What a moron.

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OK. 9:40, that should take care of any commercials during Lost.

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Well, I made it back to the West from the Midwest. I’m happy to report that Wisconsin is still standing, despite going on five years without my permanent presence there.

It was actually a nice, relaxing, trip. It was a small wedding, so there was no stress of having ceremonial duties. Mrs. Moose put on a dress, held some flowers, and signed the license. I took some pictures and videotaped and made sure someone had Baby Moose under control. Then we had dinner, drank some beer, ate some cake.

One thing I’m not used to anymore is the festive eating style in Wisconsin: beer-sausage-cheese-sausage-beer-beer-beer-cheese-sausage-beer…. And on and on for 4 days straight. Good thing I packed the Pepcid Complete.

I even had time to pick up 13 geocaches in the area. When I haven’t had big numbers in awhile, I love going to an area that I haven’t heavily cached and pick up the low-hanging fruit.

I’m still working on the law review paper. I had a momentary scare when I left my research on the plane in Seattle. Amazingly, the cleaning crew turned it in, and I was able to pick it up at the airport.
I’m still not sure which way to go on it. The problem basically is: Did the president constitutionally have authority to authorize NSA wiretaps. The authority they give us pretty much points to “no,” but since it is a competition, I want my best work, and it’s hard for me to be at my best writing something I disagree with.
The other concern, besides maybe not having enough authority to back a “yes” answer, is the politics of the answer. They said political viewpoint of the paper won’t be taken into consideration, but translating that to Seattle is: “It doesn’t matter if your viewpoint is ‘hang the president’ or ‘simply impeach the president,’ we won’t take politics into consideration.”
Then again, my work will stand out in one regard. It will probably be one of 4-5 papers with the “yes” answer in a flood of “no” papers. When you want 1 of 15 spots that may be good.
I guess I just have to write the best legal paper I think I can. And I have to hurry up and decide which way I want to approach that.

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It has been pointed out to me that I haven’t posted in a while. I guess I’m just slacking in conjunction with my law school break.

I’m currently in the homeland for my mother-in-law’s wedding. My father-in-law and her divorced, her second husband died, so hopefully this one will take.
Of course, this isn’t the part of Wisconsin I grew up in, buy my wife’s native area in the Northwest, much closer to the Metrodome than Lambeau. So I’m concentrating on warding off that evil.

And at work, I’m also trying to handle some Dilbert-like stuff going on to me. The director of our QC department panicked that he wouldn’t get an extremely important project done in time, so he rifled through the resumes until he found someone that had experience in what he needs done – me. Then he bitched to the VP above him, who in turn beat the VP above me in a golf game or something, and so forth until they told me last Friday that my job was changing for 6 months starting the next Monday.
Now, there is a reason that I don’t do that kind of work any more. I hate it. It’s not very challenging, and is boring. But since everyone above me is kissing my ass for doing it, I’ll do it and then milk it for all it is worth. I smell promotion!
Of course, the coda to all of this is that the Director of QC has since quit and the guy I’m working for isn’t sure if he needs me for 6 months.
Sigh.

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One of the sources for the law review write on competition is James Madison’s Letters of Helvidius. In it he quotes the Federalist Papers, and it is my quote of the day:

[An international treaty's] objects are contracts with foreign nations, which have the force of law, but derive it from the obligations of good faith. (Emphasis added.)

I wonder what Madison would think of the continuing execution of treaties that keep the US in the UN. There hasn’t been any good faith shown towards the US in years in that body. Take what’s happening now with Iran. China and Russia are playing political games with our security, while Iran is on the disarmament committee. It seems that there should be some valuable consideration for the US in this contract, instead we participate in an openly anti-US, anti-Israel (one of our best allies) organization. Time has long past when the US needs to scrap the UN and start over with some kind of international organization of true democracies (or democratic republics if you want to get technical, I mean “true” in the sense that they are not democratic like East Germany was).

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I don’t understand why the Catholic Church (both of the “universal” churches) is getting so worked up over The Da Vinci Code.
It’s fiction. Not even very good fiction from what I recall of it. The whole thing was so ridiculous I don’t understand how the book was a mega seller. In fact, I remember my only reaction to the book being a profound sadness for the lack of taste and intelligence in the world if this book was supposed to be some kind of edge-of-your-seat mystery thriller.
So the whole reaction by the church kind of smacks of a less crazy reaction to the Mohammad cartoons.
So some guy wrote a book about Mary Magdalene and Jesus being married and knocking out a kid. Jesus has had bigger problems.

I realize some people are taking this book and the movie way more seriously than it deserves, but doesn’t the Catholic Church (and any other Christian church for that matter) have anything more important to worry about?

It seems to me rather than the way they’re handling the situation, they could use it as kind of an outreach to all the secular humanists that will be going to see Tom Hanks. You’ve seen the movie, now find out what the Church’s story, especially in France where much of the story takes place. When the frogs show up to see the real places have somebody there doing a little recruiting. Couldn’t hurt.

UPDATE:
Yes. Exactly the right way to handle it.

UPDATE #2:
How can you debunk fiction? Is fiction supposed to be bunk in the first place?

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Deciding that one ferry ride free from law school stuff was enough; I looked over the problem for the law review write-on competition problem. We are to write a judicial opinion as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States about President Bush’s NSA wiretapping authorization.
Great.
They specifically say the politics of the answer won’t matter. Sure. Then they go on to give us the only cases we can use, cases that point towards one possible outcome: the unconstitutionality of the wiretapping.
OK. I’ll play the game to try to get on.

If you don’t know, Law Review at law schools is a scholarly journal, membership of which looks better on the resume than almost anything else one could do in law school short of graduating #1 (and that person will be on Law Review anyway.)
They offer the top 15 1Ls positions, and then allow another 15 on through competition. I didn’t do bad this first year, but I don’t think I’m top 15. I also don’t think anyone in the top 15 is working 45 hours a week, has a 1-year-old, and is competing against the smarter evening students, either. (Poor me. Can we start the violins?)
So, I’ll try to write on. If I get on not only will it be a great boost to my resume, but also someone else, who I likely don’t like, won’t get on.

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As Lando once said,
YEEEEEE-HAAWWWW!

(I’m bored, when does Torts start?)

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The last exam of the semester will be over in:
7.5 hours…
7 hours…
6 hours…
5 hours…
Time to make my way over to school. Some people are posting on the discussion board and I think they are purposely trying to throw people off at the last minute. Kind of shady, I think.
Well, I guess it’s what should be expected from people who are studying to become lawyers.

4 hours… Now it’s just a wait for the exam room to open.
3.5 hours…
3.25 hours… Time to launch the exam program on my computer which shuts off all other access. See you on the other side!

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I’m trying to find out some specific information on HD-DVD, since I noticed Netflix is offering HD-DVD discs now.
I googled something regarding HD-DVD. I noticed an article on C-Net called, “Ten Ways HD-DVD falls short.” When I clicked over to it, an ad for Blu-Ray popped up.
I’m not saying C-Net has sold out to Sony in the Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD contest, but it certainly doesn’t look good for a supposedly neutral article about the shortcomings of HD-DVD to be preceded by an ad for Blu Ray.

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Harley-Davidson is having a sweepstakes for this tricked out V-Rod as an X-Men 3 cross promotion. Word is the movie is going to suck, but this bike is killer.

I’m winning it, so don’t bother entering.

The ferry passed the USS Stennis out for a joyride again yesterday morning.

As you can see, the rain has went away.

Because the rain has went away, and it is nice and Sunny, a co-worker and I went to a near-by eatery with outdoor seating to watch the female joggers from University of Washington bounce by.
Lest we forget we were in Seattle, this guy showed up:

He’s either one of those comet cult guys, or is the real-life Max Headroom.

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Property exam was a bitch.
A. Bitch.
First of all, I hate exams that cover so much material that very important things like the rule against perpetuities weren’t even mentioned. And as would be expected, the essay questions focused on the areas I didn’t.
Oh well. It sounds like most people thought it was tough, so that’s good. And in just the few minutes I had before I had to run to the ferry I heard plenty of people talk about mistakes. The curve means hope springs eternal. As with all of the other exams I’ve taken, I’m positive I passed, but couldn’t begin to tell you if I got an B+ or a D-.

Who cares? Property is done! Now for the catharsis of taking the case book off the “Currently Reading” links.

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I hate the last 90 minutes before an exam. There’s nothing I don’t know now that I’ll know before the exam, so there’s nothing to do but wait for the damn thing to start. Which is what I’m doing.

I’m tired. Too many late nights getting ready for this one. Hope it doesn’t backfire.

It all starts over tomorrow morning for the Civ Pro exam.

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I heard Neil Young’s “Let’s Impeach the President” for the first time on the radio just now.
I’ve never been a fan of Neil Young’s music, not because of the lyrics or anything, but because I don’t know how much pot you have to smoke before his singing stops sounding like someone’s strangling a cat, but I know it’s more than none.
And believe it or not, adding a whiny tone to the cat strangling didn’t help. At least in some of Young’s songs the guitar mitigates his voice, but not here.

On a positive side, I’m motivated to vote in November again. I know there are a lot of conservatives who are thinking about staying home because they are so frustrated with the lack of movement on a conservative agenda by this congress and President. However, if we do that and the D’s retake the congress, “Let’s Impeach the President” is going to be the national anthem for two years. And we can’t have Canadians writing our national anthem.

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I’m finally done studying for Property tomorrow.
My outline is 800 pages and better than the case book. (Stupid law student joke.) It’s actually 32 pages and is here for your property learnin’ pleasure.

Flashback: My first outline from last summer here.

What a difference a year makes. Wait… Not really.

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