Black Lies Matter

Here is another insightful video from PragerU.

The Lives Matter campaign is based on the underlying 'lie' that police unfairly target Blacks. There are many analyses that prove this to be patently false ( see here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRIML2sQTe4 or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJMb1mz_o9A) yet the campaign has had wide recognition and many ,who should know better, have given it legitimacy. Alas as Sheriff Dave Clarke notes it would be better name "Black Lies Matter"

The poor are not getting poorer...Shhh don't tell Shorten

In what seems to be rampant hysterical amnesia, Socialism is being viewed by too many in our liberal Western societies as a 'better' alternative to Capitalism. Social justice warriors constantly decry the exploitation of the impoverished masses by the greedy capitalists. The rich are getting richer and the poor are, as a consequence, getting poorer. This class warfare mantra is widespread; from Jeremy Corbyn in the UK, Bernie Sanders in the US to our very own Bill Shorten in Australia. Hardly a day passes without Bill claiming he will restore some sort of equality by attacking the "Rich".

Yet, it is a patently false narrative. History shows the opposite to be true. As the rich get richer the poor have been getting richer too! Indeed the supposed rise inequality in Australia is also a myth perpetuated by self serving politicians to advance their cause , and I have to note, abetted by a media blinded by their own political bias.

A recent Prager video makes the argument clearly, as always. Well worth the few minutes.

A

Welfare disadvantages recipients

The recent Prager video titled "Blacks in Power Don't Empower Black People" exposes, at least indirectly, another 'inconvenient truth' burdening our Western societies. The video itself, like many Prager videos is aimed at the American viewer, focusing on the fate of African-Americans in modern America. It highlights the failed expectation, by many in the A-A community, that political power would raise the quality of life for African-Americans. Alas not so. The video is worth a view see below.

While well argued and no doubt enlightening to many viewers, especially American ones, I see it as but another example of a 'deeper' truth that afflicts many Western Societies; That living standards of the disadvantaged are not improved by increased welfare.

In America the living standards of African-Americans have not improved despite increases in a range of measures directly intended for that purpose (political power is just one).

Similarly in Australia, despite the very best intentions, sustained attention and significant investment over decades, there has been little progress in "Closing the Gap" between the indigenous and other Australians. The very first sentence of the Executive Summary of the "Close the Gap report for 2017 tells the story

"After 10 years, and despite closing the gap being a national bipartisan priority, it is clear that Australian governments at all levels are, in key respects, failing Australia’s First Peoples."  Close the Gap - Progress & Priorities report 2017

Since it is clear that the measures we have been using for decades do not work, we should do something different.

I suggest something really novel, and I guess abhorrent to many, simply treat all indigenous Australians in exactly the same way as all other Australians are treated. Provide the same job opportunities, the same in welfare payments, and exactly the same law enforcement. Remove the many institutions that over the years have been created specifically for indigenous communities. (There are indeed many. See Key Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations for a start.)

No doubt some, or even most, have made some positive contribution to some individuals' living standards.  However this has come at a cost. The very existence of such organisations discourages self reliance, engenders a victim mindset and promotes a false sense of entitlement. They are not helping to 'close the gap' at all , but are perpetuating it.

The impact of this change in approach would have slow but long term consequences. No doubt the closing of the many support organisations would save a considerable sum. But much would have to be redirected towards the provision of the types of services all other Australians can expect even in remote country towns; schools, hospitals, policing, doctors, etc. The indigenous communities would not suddenly become 'disadvantaged' as they would receive the same level of welfare and related services as all other Australians.

Of course such a wide-ranging change in approach would have to be phased in over a few years and would take a decade to show results. Still we have tried the alternative and failed, so a new approach is overdue.

Yet the politics make this well nigh impossible. It would take a government with much more intestinal fortitude and political capital than the current mob, so we can only look forward to the next "Close the Gap" report and again shake our heads and point fingers.

Ami does it again!

Here is another entertaining and incisive video by Ami Horowitz. titled "Ami presents: Communist Manifesto or Democratic Party Platform?"

Very funny, and mind boggling!

Is Climate Change Falsifiable?

I have seen many, perhaps too many, critiques of climate change to remain a convert. For some time now I have been sitting on the sidelines weighing the arguments (see my earlier posts ) and leaning increasingly to skepticism.

Most recently I came across an older video, on the skeptical side, that brought up what I think are most pertinent points often glossed over by the zealots.

The video is rather long, covering a presentation titled "A funny think happened on the way to Global Warming" presented by Steven F Hayward . If you have the time you can watch the whole video.

I found two areas compelling. The first is where Hayward covers the so called 97% consensus, and in particular where he quotes from the abstract of John Cook's paper. If you have followed this saga it was Cook who published a paper that lead to the 97% consensus myth. (If you are inclined you can read the paper here - Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature )

I guess for anyone debating this mythical 'consensus' it is worth seeing how this 97% figure was derived. Here is the abstract to the above paper.

Abstract

We analyze the evolution of the scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming (AGW) in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, examining 11 944 climate abstracts from 1991–2011 matching the topics 'global climate change' or 'global warming'. We find that 66.4% of abstracts expressed no position on AGW, 32.6% endorsed AGW, 0.7% rejected AGW and 0.3% were uncertain about the cause of global warming. Among abstracts expressing a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming. In a second phase of this study, we invited authors to rate their own papers. Compared to abstract ratings, a smaller percentage of self-rated papers expressed no position on AGW (35.5%). Among self-rated papers expressing a position on AGW, 97.2% endorsed the consensus. For both abstract ratings and authors' self-ratings, the percentage of endorsements among papers expressing a position on AGW marginally increased over time. Our analysis indicates that the number of papers rejecting the consensus on AGW is a vanishingly small proportion of the published research.

There are many critiques of this study so I won't labour the point, but the widespread reference to a "97% consensus" shows how statistics can be used "by knaves as a trap for fools" , or indeed that there are "lies, damn lies and statistics".

The second part of the presentation that struck me was his quotation from the IPCC report of 2013 (Climate Change 2013 - Working Group Contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report of the IPCC) .

In particular the admission that uncertainty in the simulation of clouds results in cloudy (sorry about that one) predictions. Here is the actual quote; - 

"In summary, despite modest improvements there remain significant errors in the model simulation of clouds. There is very high confidence that these errors contribute significantly to the uncertainties in estimates of cloud feedbacks (see Section 9.7.2.3; Section 7.2.5, Figure 7.10) and hence the spread in climate change projections reported in Chapter 12. ( see Chapter 9, Page 782,)

and most significantly the qualification about the nature of these climate model projections,in that ;-

" these projections were not intended to be predictions over the short time scales for which observations are available to date" (Chapter 9 page 825 )

In other words you cannot dismiss a model as being inadequate if it happens to predict incorrectly in the near term, as it was designed to predict for the long term.

Really?!!

This highlights a fundamental problem with the Climate Change dogma.

Any scientific hypothesis that 'the world's climate is warming in response to anthropogenic Carbon Dioxide emissions' must be falsifiable.  Yet it seems for the many CC zealots the very idea that CC can be falsified by observations is totally out of question. If observations contradict climate models' predictions, new heretofore unknown scientific causes must be at work. For example the observation of a 'pause' in temperature increases over two decades, presented a problem until new theories of heat captured by the ocean were rolled out to a gullible populace. If indeed the heat was to be captured by the oceans shouldn't the models have predicted that in the first place? And why hadn't the oceans captured the heat of earlier decades?

Not surprisingly any record setting hot days are used as clear proof of global warming, but record setting cold days, as currently being experienced by many parts of the globe this Northern winter, are also claimed as examples of global warming. How are both possible?  No doubt some new ideas will be sought and found, but the audience is becoming skeptical.

My single question to the CC zealots remains - tell me what would prove your hypothesis wrong?