Just My Luck

Just my luck: the year I move out of New England, I miss all kinds of record breaking floods, and now forecasters anticipate a major hurricane along the eastern seaboard. The weather in Oregon is fairly staid and sedate by comparison--even by normal standards. There hasn't been even one good thunderstorm here this summer.

Portland, Kyoto, and Kristof

Yesterday Nicholas Kristof of the NY Times repeated what's now become an urban myth, that Portland, Oregon (actually Multnomah County, where it sits) has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions to below 1990 levels. This claim, made by Portland's Office of Sustainable Development (OSD) in 2005, is wrong. Kristof made the same error last July as well. He's not the only one--Google searches show that the error has propogated widely.

Besides numerical errors that Portland's Office of Sustainable Development admitted to, the statement doesn't pass the smell test, it seems to me. Multnomah County's 1990 population was 583,887. By 2004 it was up to 685,950, a 17.5% increase in 14 years. US greenhouse gas emissions were up 16% over the same period of time. Portland's light rail systems and compact development zoning seem fairly minimal measures and unlikely to cancel that increase. What smells even worse is OSD's contention that there was an actual decrease in transportation-related CO2 emissions since 1990. Transportation emissions are typically the largest sector of CO2 emissions.

Multnomah County used gasoline sales as a proxy for CO2 emissions, which doesn't seem very precise considering that (1) gasoline prices fluctuate widely, and (2) car and truck fleet miles per hour vary, and (3) the car/truck ratio has undergone changes over the 14 year period. As the free-market Cascade Policy Institute put it,

Since 1990, Multnomah County gasoline sales have increased by less than 1 percent, despite a huge increase in the number of vehicles registered in the county. The OSD used these fuel sales as a proxy for vehicle miles traveled and concluded that CO₂ emissions from automobiles in MC have not increased much over this time period.... Also, the Oregon Department of Transportation estimates that total travel on state-owned highways within MC during the 1990-2004 period increased from 2.70 million vehicle miles traveled (VMT) annually, to 2.99 million VMT, an 11 percent increase.

I looked in to this a little early last month, and was told by the City of Portland's Office of Sustainable Development that the next update to this report would be "summer 2007 at the earliest."

BLEG: Anyone have access to TimesSelect and could send me Kristof's entire column of yesterday?

Heroes

"Just when we thought our children might have a hero — someone to smile at, to say, 'This guy overcame such obstacles' — we get hammered with this," said Steven Ungerleider, an Oregon researcher and anti-doping expert, LA Times

Floyd's Look

Here's the thing about Floyd: he doesn't look guilty. Look at him in this picture, taken at today's press conference in Madrid. He looks confident. He's wearing the backwards cap just like always and he's smiling confidently, not sheepishly. He looks sure of himself. That says a lot, I think.

Here's the other thing about Floyd: he grew up in Pennsylvania. That's my home state. Pennsylvania boys don't cheat.

Oil Company Profits

Just to keep score, here are the 2Q06 profits of the major oil companies:

ExxonMobil $10.36B
BP $7.27B
Royal Dutch Shell $6.3B
ConocoPhillips $5.19B
Chevron $4.35B

What can you say? When your expenses stay about the same and the substance you're hawking goes up drastically in price, profits will rise. Unless you lower the price of your product. And who in this greed-forsaken world ever expects that to happen?

Actually I don't really mind the obscene profits of the oil companies, because Americans and the rest of the world will not decrease their demand by buying more efficient automobiles, reducing development and sprawl, and driving less or taking mass transportation. We deserve to get screwed because we're as selfish and greedy as they are. But what does really piss me off are the huge tax breaks the oil companies are granted by Congress and the Administration even in the face of these large profits. That is wholly unnecessary and a sign of real corruption. Politicians deserve to lose their jobs for it (read: Republican politicians--they're the ones doing the granting). I hope high gasoline prices are a factor in the November elections, but overall I am not very confident they will be. Americans simply don't seem to mind getting royally screwed. Oh sure, they complain when the TV cameras show up at the gas pumps, but they don't seem to translate into votes in November.

Floyd says....

At least he wore the backwards cap. Floyd always wears the backwards cap and at least he's being consistent. He also says he's not guilty:

“I would like to leave absolutely clear that I am not in any doping process,” Landis said in a news conference in Madrid today.

What more can he say, really? What would YOU say if you weren't guilty and a test somehow said you were?

Landis said today that he, like many athletes, has naturally high levels of testerone. He also insisted that he has never been involved in doping and has high regard for cycling because it is a “clean” sport.

“I’m proud of the fact that I won the Tour because I was the strongest guy there,” Landis said.

Speaking from Europe on Thursday in a teleconference with reporters, Landis said a “disastrous feeling” swept over him when he heard about his positive test. He said he had never used performance-enhancing drugs and was mystified by the abnormality of his testosterone level.

One thing Floyd can do, it seems to me, is to have the same T(estosterone)/E(pitestosterone) test performed on him right now, and publicize the results. If it gives the same ratio, it's at least some evidence in his favor that he has a naturally high T/E ratio. (Why would he still be doping after the race?)

After hearing the news, the German television network ZDF said it might stop broadcasting the Tour de France because it had signed on to show a sporting event, not “the performances of the pharmaceutical industry.”

Floyd's press conference

Floyd Landis is holding a press conference in about 10 minutes to discuss his test results. I'm not sure what more he can say that he hasn't said already (the Boston Globe has a pretty good article on it today), especially in the absence of the B sample results. Two experts quoted in the Globe article say something smells fishy (in Floyd's favor), but you have to wonder if damage hasn't already been done and that Floyd and his victory are going to be forever tainted no matter what the B sample results show.

Floyd Says No

Floyd Landis said today that he didn't dope, and that he doesn't know why he tested positive for an overly high level of testosterone. I believe him. I do. I mean, I want to believe him, it is true, and it's difficult to separate one's feelings, but he strikes me as honest and so I believe him. I have no facts beyond what you do. True, I'm still waiting on sample B. I think it is worth starting to ask questions about how an athlete could test for high levels of testosterone without having doped. But I am hoping sample B comes back clean. Floyd says, "But it was not from an exogenous outside source of testosterone." That's a big word, exogenous--it sounds like something his handler's told him to say, something like Al Gore's "no controlling legal authority" remark. Here's hoping Floyd and his big words are right.

still more on "Cold Hard Facts"

As John Fleck has pointed out to me, NYT author Peter Doran commented on Cliff Harris's piece (scroll down), telling Harris he was quoted incorrectly. And yet Harris still did nothing.... That's not really the kind of reaction you'd expect from one of the top 10 climatologists in the world, is it???

more on "Cold Hard Facts"

In his op-ed in today's NYT, "Cold Hard Facts," Professor Peter Doran claims he was misquoted. In particular, he says

One recent Web column even put words in my mouth. I have never said that “the unexpected colder climate in Antarctica may possibly be signaling a lessening of the current global warming cycle.” I have never thought such a thing either.

As Doran details on his personal Web page, this quote comes from an article by Cliff Harris of Coeur d'Alene Press, "Weather Gems: The current cycle of global warming may have peaked!"

Where did Harris get this quote from? That's a good question. I have a message in to him (CliffHarris@longrangeweather.com) with a Cc to his managing editor, Mike Patrick of Coeur d'Alene Press. I'll report what he has to say -- if anything.

Harris says he's been rated one of the top ten climatologists in the world for nearly 4 decades. He doesn't say who did the rating. Maybe I'll ask him. He also says he operates a weather station in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, and is the exclusive climatologist for the Coeur d'Alene Press. Sounds like quite a gig.

"Cold, Hard Facts"

Did you read Peter Doran's op-ed in today's NY Times? He's a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago who's done research in Antarctica, and he writes how his work has been misrepresented by Michael Crichton and Ann Coulter. Do you think either of these authors will have to answer for their representations? That either will even be asked questions about it? That either's book sales will suffer as a result? That either even cares? Ha ha, what a big fat joke.

Pat Michaels

Pat Michaels gets caught taking $100K to do the coal industry's dirty work of denying global warming. If there is any justice in this world this ought to be the end of his inglorious career, and if I was the U of Virginia I think I'd run him out of there as well.

Here is the IREA memo that spells out the dirty deal. (IREA = Intermountain Rural Electric Association.)

Floyd

Man, I will be very disappointed if it turns out that Floyd was definitely doping. There is still the B sample to test and hopefully that will clear him. Or maybe he has some medical reason related to his hip about why his testosterone level was higher than normal, although it's hard to imagine what it'd be that would be legal. I'd hate to think it was plain old cheating. He was a really good story and I thought he was truly inspiring. I got up early every day last week just to watch the Tour live. (No small feat in the Pacific time zone.) I was with him when he first won the yellow jersey, then when he bonked, and then on that great day afterwards, and then on the final time trial too when he really sailed. Does everything have to be rigged--can't there be just one good thing in this world that is genuine?

"Into the Wild"

They are making a movie out of Jon Krakauer's book "Into the Wild," a great story about Christopher McCandless, a free-spirit who dropped in and out of civilization and who ultimately starved to death in an abandoned bus in Alaska. I'm disappointed. I'm always disappointed when they make a movie about a book I've read, because they always ruin it. I try to make a point of not seeing the movies, and I even try to avoid the commercials, as I did with "All the Pretty Horses" by Cormac McCarthy. You just can't improve on a Cormac McCarthy book and any movie based on it is going to be a pale and shallow imitation. I've only ever seen one movie that came anywhere near what I imagined the book to be, and that was "A Separate Peace," one of my favorite books as an adolescent. I also thought "The World According to Garp" was pretty good, and perhaps even an improvement on the book. Perhaps. But beyond these I've always been so disappointed by movies-based-on-books that I've vowed not to see them and I will certainly not see "Into the Wild." I'm a little disappointed in Jon Krakauer that he even sold the movie rights, although if I was an author I'd probably sell the movie rights too. But there's no way I'd go to the theatre to see the final product. No way.

Andrea Yates

My God, Texas does a decent, humanitarian thing--can you believe it? Andrea Yates found innocent by reason of insanity.

Washington & Same-Sex Marriage

Today's Washington State Supreme Court decision against same-sex marriage is quite intellectually vapid, and you only need to read a few paragraphs in to see how the justices strove to find something--anything--to back up their personal prejudices. Here is the core of the decision:

In brief, unless a law is a grant of positive favoritism to a minority class, we apply the same constitutional analysis under the state constitution’s privileges and immunities clause that is applied under the federal constitution’s equal protection clause. DOMA does not grant a privilege or immunity to a favored minority class, and we accordingly apply the federal analysis. The plaintiffs have not established that they are members of a suspect class or that they have a fundamental right to marriage that includes the right to marry a person of the same sex. Therefore, we apply the highly deferential rational basis standard of review to the legislature’s decision that only opposite-sex couples are entitled to civil marriage in this state. Under this standard, DOMA is constitutional because the legislature was entitled to believe that limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples furthers procreation, essential to survival of the human race, and furthers the well-being of children by encouraging families where children are reared in homes headed by the children’s biological parents. Allowing same-sex couples to marry does not, in the legislature’s view, further these purposes. Accordingly, there is no violation of the privileges and immunities clause.

Yes, God knows, the human race would miserably fail to procreate itself if a tiny minority of individuals were allowed to love members of the same gender, the continued existence of the human race being in such precarious position and all. And logically speaking the the marital existence of all childless or post-menapausal couples should not be granted either. What a joke.

To be clear: these justices are bigots and homophobes (Sartre: "Only actions determine intentions"), probably on account of their advanced age. But that is no real excuse. Their backwards views will, not so far into the future, be found to be as antiquated as the notion that whites can own black slaves, that women should not vote, or that that different races should not marry. It's only a matter of time, and history will remember who was on the wrong side. "Positive favoritism." What assholes.

Dissension from some right-thinking members of the court: "The plurality and concurrence condone blatant discrimination against Washington’s gay and lesbian citizens," Justice Fairhurst wrote, adding that the 1998 law "was motivated solely by animus toward homosexuals."

Justice Bobbe J. Bridge went further, equating the majority’s position with favoring racial discrimination. The majority, she wrote, contended "that it is not our place to require equality for Washington’s gay and lesbian citizens." Under that reasoning, she said, "there would have been no Brown v. Board of Education," the 1954 United States Supreme Court school desegregation case.

New Hampshire primary

I have a letter in today's Concord (N.H.) Monitor arguing that it's high time New Hampshire gave up its special position in the presidential primary process. (And yes, I felt the same way when I lived in New Hampshire.)

Inhofe's Extremism

How extreme is Sen. James Inhofe? On Saturday he equated contemporary climate science with Naziism:

In Saturday’sTulsa World, Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), the Chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, reiterated his stated belief that global warming is “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people” by comparing it to the lies told by the Nazis during the Holocaust.

In an interview, he heaped criticism on what he saw as the strategy used by those on the other side of the debate and offered a historical comparison. "It kind of reminds . . . I could use the Third Reich, the big lie," Inhofe said.

Reminder: Inhofe is afraid to be interviewed by climate specialist Andrew Revkin of the New York Times and prefers to spit out his vile accusations via overly friendly media such as the Fox Network and home town newspapers.

Us vs. Them

(Via Kottke.org)

Lebanese casualties

A Lebanese family trying to flee is devasted by the state of Israel:

They're not the only ones: By the Lebanese official count, Israel’s attacks have killed more than 380 Lebanese.

A family such as this should have the right, in a just world, to bring criminal charges against the Israeli state, via the U.N., and to extract both financial compensation from the state of Israel and criminal charges against the soldiers, commanders, and politicians who ordered, planned, and executed these deadly attacks.