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Fred Singer past UVA prof writes on why he is a global warming skeptic.
Last month the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project released the findings of its extensive study on global land temperatures over the past century. Physics professor Richard Muller, who led the study, heralded the findings with a number of controversial statements in the press, including an op-ed in this newspaper titled “The Case Against Global-Warming Skepticism.” And yet Mr. Muller remains a true skeptic—a searcher for scientific truth. I congratulate Mr. Muller and his Berkeley Earth team for undertaking this difficult task in the realm of climate.
The Berkeley study reported a warming trend of about 1º Celsius since 1950, even greater than the warming reported by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). I disagree with this result, which perhaps makes me a little more of a skeptic than Mr. Muller.
Mr. Muller has been brutally frank about the poor quality of the weather-station data, noting that 70% of U.S. stations involve uncertainties of between two and five degrees Celsius. One could interpret the Berkeley study’s results as confirmation of earlier studies and of the IPCC’s conclusions, despite the poor quality of the stations used. But perhaps the issue is that the Berkeley study and the ones that came before suffer from common errors. I suspect that the temperature records still are affected by the urban heat-island effect—a term given to any local warming, whatever its cause—despite efforts to correct for this. The urban heat-island effect could include heat produced not only in urban areas, but also due to changes in land use or poor station siting. Therefore, I suggest additional tests: …
Prices keep going up for a product that is worse and worse. It’s great to be in the college business according to Jack Kelly.
The biggest consumer ripoff in America today — and the next economic bubble to burst — is higher education.
Tuition and fees at colleges and universities rose 439 percent between 1982 and 2007. Median family income rose just 147 percent during that period.
Median household income has fallen 6.7 percent since June 2009. The cost of attending the average public university rose 5.4 percent this year.
Student loan debt recently passed $1 trillion. It’s now more than credit card debt. The average graduate of a four-year college owes $27,000.
College students don’t get much for their money. Nearly half learn next to nothing in their first two years; a third learn almost nothing in four, according to a report authored principally by Prof. Richard Arum of New York University.
“Students who say that college has not prepared them for the real world are largely right,” said Ann Neal, president of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni. “The fundamental problem here is not debt, but a broken educational system that no longer insists on excellence.”
Or even adequacy. “A college degree nowadays doesn’t necessarily signal that its holder has any useful work skills,” said Charlotte Allen of the Manhattan Institute. …
WSJ OpEd on students who decide not to waste the money on an Ivy League diploma.
Daniel Schwartz could have attended an Ivy League school if he wanted to. He just doesn’t see the value.
Mr. Schwartz, 18 years old, was accepted at Cornell University but enrolled instead at City University of New York’s Macaulay Honors College, which is free.
Mr. Schwartz says his family could have afforded Cornell’s tuition, with help from scholarships and loans. But he wants to be a doctor and thinks medical school, which could easily cost upward of $45,000 a year for a private institution, is a more important investment. It wasn’t “worth it to spend $50,000-plus a year for a bachelor’s degree,” he says.
As student-loan default rates climb and college graduates fail to land jobs, an increasing number of students are betting they can get just as far with a degree from a less-expensive school as they can with a diploma from an elite school—without having to take on debt.
More students are choosing lower-cost public colleges or commuting to schools from home to save on housing expenses. Twenty-two percent of students from families with annual household incomes above $100,000 attended public, two-year schools in the 2010-2011 academic year, up from 12% the previous year, according to a report from student-loan company Sallie Mae. …
The GOP looks to be backing into a nomination of Mitt Romney. John Tamny lists the negatives. Pickerhead is ready to settle for Romney. We just have to be sure to hold his feet to the fire. Kinda like in October 2005 when W nominated Harriet Miers to the Court. It took 24 days of a shitstorm and he withdrew her name. That’s what the internet does for us.
Presumed Republican presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney is well known for his tendency to flip flop on issues, but as those are already well documented, it should simply be said that we should be more concerned when people’s views don’t change. If so, it suggests they’re not learning anything such that their views aren’t evolving.
Arguably the bigger problem with Romney is what he believes now, or at least what he claims to believe. It’s his existing views that are dangerous, so if Republican voters hand him the nomination and worse, he’s elected, further destruction of a limping GOP brand appears a near certainty.
To begin, rather than be realistic about what can be achieved even assuming a sympathetic House and Senate, Romney has devised a 160 page, 59-point plan to boost the U.S. economy. He fails there alone.
If we ignore for a moment what’s in his plan, economies aren’t living, breathing blobs that need to be tweaked by philosopher kings of the Romney variety. Instead, economies are nothing more than a collection of individuals producing in order to consume, delaying consumption in order to grow wealth through the provision of capital to others, and generally looking to offer the most value to others with an eye on getting the most value.
That being the case, Romney’s economic plan, if credible, would require all of one quarter of one page. …
WSJ OpEd has fun with the president’s campaigning for Jon Corzine.
Never mind Mr. Corzine’s 1% pedigree as a former Goldman Sachs chairman. Never mind how Mr. Corzine essentially bought himself a U.S. Senate seat, spending his personal Goldman Sachs loot in one of the most expensive senatorial races ever. Never mind the dough Mr. Corzine stuffed in Mr. Obama’s pocket.
Here’s what Mr. Obama said in October 2009 while stumping for Mr. Corzine’s re-election bid as the Democratic governor of New Jersey:
• “You’ve had an honorable man, a decent man, an honest man, at the helm of this state. … He’s fought for what matters to ordinary folks.”
• “People…say, ‘You know, I was saving up all my life. …. Suddenly, because of this financial crisis, I may have to go back to work.’ ”
• “Jon knows these are challenging times. This is why he got into public service. He didn’t do it for the paycheck.”
• “This crisis…came about because of the same theories, the same lax regulation, the same trickle-down economics that the other guy’s party has been peddling for years.”
• “Jon’s got the mop and he’s cleaning up after somebody else’s mess.” …
Andrew Malcolm with late-night.