Albuquerque's GHG "reductions"

John Fleck had a great article recently on Albuquerque's purported 6% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions since 1990. As he wrote in his lead:

It is a claim every Albuquerque resident who cares about global warming could be proud of: Since 1990, city residents have cut their greenhouse gas emissions by 6 percent.
It is also untrue.

The story is here.

In June, [Mayor] Chávez accepted an award from the U.S. Conference of Mayors, which declared Albuquerque "the greenest city in the nation." The award application, written by city staff, was based in part on the erroneous preliminary data.

John really takes the study apart. Read the whole thing.

I think this is an important story. A lot of cities are making similar claims (as did Portland, Oregon last year), and over the next few years, lots of countries are going to be doing the same thing. They are based on sketchy data and incomplete models, and often seem driven by political posturing more than anything, with the bureaucrats writing the reports determined to put their leaders in a good light.

It's too bad there's no way easily measure their claims by simply measuring regional GHG concentration levels. I expect a lot of cities and countries are going to be making similar claims over the next several years, but curiously the Keeling Curve will keep going up.

Life on Mars

"I'm certain that we'll find bacterial life on Mars."

 -- Craig Venter, Digital Life Design Conference, Munich, Germany, Jan. 21, 2008

indiscrete mathematics?

This is one of the most interesting ideas I've heard in a long time:

The linguist George Lakoff, of the University of California, Berkeley, along with Rafael Nunez, a cognitive scientist at the University of California, San Diego, have for several years advanced the argument that much of mathematics, from set theory to trigonometry to the concept of infinity, derives not from immutable properties of the universe but from the evolutionary history of the human brain and body. Our number system, they argue, and our understanding of addition and subtraction emerge from the fact that we are bipedal animals that measure off distances in discrete steps.

"If we had wheels, or moved along the ground on our bellies like snakes," Lakoff argues, "math might be very different."

Gaza

The Egyptians can't keep the Palestinians from tearing down their pathetic walls, and all the Palestinians want to do is shop.

Imagine if they were really angry.

GM Food and Health

On Reason's Hit & Run blog, Katherine Mangu-Ward writes:

America has been chowing down on modified corn and soybeans for years now to no ill effect.

I know everyone says this, and I guess I more or less believe it too, but really, has anyone ever proven this? Are there scientific studies that show no consequences from eating GM foods? Even one? It'd be a difficult study -- you're have to account for a lot of different factors, and GM foods have only been around for ~7-10 years.

I'd just like to know if there is indeed any scientific evidence for Mangu-Ward's claim.

Economic Stimulus Package

I've seen very little (i.e. no) analysis of the "economic stimulus" package passed by the House, with the encouragement of the White House. It's about $150B. I assume this will all be added to the deficit. So it will cost something over the next X years. It will also presumably create some revenue over the next X years. So how does it all figure out? This, frankly, doesn't sound like a very hard economics problem, one with probably some existing data already. Are we gaining more in revenue than we'll be paying in interest? It's a simple question.

So where is this analysis? Or are we just going to pile this on top of the deficit without regard to its consequences? Can't the grown-ups in charge of our country answer even these simple questions?

Why aren't journalists insisting on this analysis?

Sacred Life

If life is so sacred, a gift from God and all that crap, I don't understand why pro-life groups aren't extremely opposed to the creation of synthetic life now taking place.

The Wonderful Health Care in the U.S.

George W. Bush: The US has "the best health care system in the world."
Rudy Giuliani: The US provides "the best medical care in the world."


Ellen Nolte and C. Martin McKee,
Health Affairs, The Public Journal of the Health Sphere
27, no. 1. (2008) 58-71:
The United States ranks last among 19 industrialized nations on preventing deaths by assuring access to effective health care, report researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

More than 100,000 lives per year could be spared if U.S. performance equaled the top-ranked countries on effective health-care measures: France, Japan, and Australia.

Cloverfield

I saw Cloverfield this evening. Wow.

It is probably the most unique movie I have even seen. I want to think about it overnight and will post more tomorrow.

Just go see it.

PS: Don't surf around for reviews or spoilers or any more information about the movie than you know already from the very first trailer. Just go see it.

Huckabee

I have done my fair share of interviews, and although I've never interviewed a Presidential candidate I've interviewed some important people and it's not *that* difficult. You prepare. You listen. You think. So when Mike Huckabee says something this stupid and offensive:

Well, I don’t think that’s a radical view to say we’re going to affirm marriage. I think the radical view is to say that we’re going to change the definition of marriage so that it can mean two men, two women, a man and three women, a man and a child, a man and animal. Again, once we change the definition, the door is open to change it again.

You call him on it. You immediately stop and ask him, are you really equating the love between two human beings with that of a man and an animal? And on what grounds? What is your logic?

That the BeliefNet writer didn't even do this tells me he is probably biased to believe what Huckabee said about gays without really thinking about it, that he (or she) more or less agrees with Huckabee on this issue and finds nothing remarkable that need to be verified. Either that or they're just an idiot giving him questions at rote. He just goes on to the next question, as if he's not even listening and doesn't even realize that something remarkable has been said. Which I wouldn't doubt at all. I just can't understand it.

Huckabee's Pandering

Andrew Sullivan highlight's Huckabee's "repulsive pandering":

Huckabee, today, in Florence, South Carolina: "I know what would happen if somebody comes to my state in Arkansas and tells us what to do, it doesn't matter what it is, tell us how to run our schools, tell us how to raise our kids, tell us what to do with our flag — you want to come tell us what to do with the flag, we'd tell them what to do with the pole."

Uh, Mr. Huckabee.... the rest of us DID come to Arkansas (and Alabama and Mississippi and Georgia and South Carolina) circa 1860, and again circa 1963, and we DID tell you what to do, and you eventually realized the shame and immorality of your racism and caved.... so don't go trying to put on a big show now. You lost that battle 40 years ago, as well you should have. Today, getting all puffed up, you just look foolish and ignorant.

Cloned Animals as Food

I have been thinking more about the prospect of eating cloned animals, which I first wrote about here, and I am not quite as sure about it as I was a few days ago. Clones appear to have biological problems. Or, at least, we don't know that they don't. The egg fertilization rate is very low. Many of the born fetuses die young. They are often born bigger than average, and may live shorter lives. Why? Scientists don't really seem to know. There are still a lot of uncertainties.

Why, then, the rush to approve their meat? How hard is the industry pushing for it? Can't we do a few more years of research to understand the nature of these pathologies?

For one thing, is it ethical to create an animal you know may have such problems?

For the other, do we really know enough about the biological roots of these issues to be declaring the meat healthy? It's difficult to tell from journalistic accounts like this one from the BBC, which mostly merely quotes the two different sides and doesn't provide a lot of insight into how the decisions are being made or on what basis. If food from clones is "essentially identical" to those of conventionally bred animals, why don't these animals lead equivalent lives?

Nonetheless, I expect the passive, stupid, ignorant, greedy American consumer, who say they are about two-thirds "uncomfortable" purchasing cloned meat, to immediately forget about their qualms and ignore the questions altogether.

Have you ever tried to ask your grocer about the genetic modification of their products? I asked one about four years ago, in New Hampshire, and they told me that none of the food they sold was genetically modified. I told that that was certainly not true, as most corn and soy sold in products on grocery store (even in 2004) shelves was GM. The manager seemed very surprised, and frankly I wasn't even sure he knew what I meant by "genetically modified."

MRSA Deaths

I heard this on NPR this morning, and was surprised: MRSA kills 19,000 Americans a year, and AIDS only 17,000.

Michigan

Not that I am a fan of Mitt Romney, but I am extremely glad to see that Huckabee has done poorly in the Michigan primary. I was shocked and appalled at his pandering statement that the Constitution ought to be amended to adhere to "God's standards." There cannot be a more anti-American or dangerous idea in this country, and one more intended to take us backwards and not forwards, and Huckabee is hardly better than the Taliban, IMO. Perhaps this will be the last of him.

Funny Professors

"Global warming" trend

Here's Blogpulse's trend line for the term "global warming" over the last 6 months. That spike in mid-October was when Al Gore was announced as the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. It seems to have increased interest in the topic by at least 50%....

HEP Budget Cuts

Robert Park summarizes the federal budget's high-energy physics cutbacks:

DOE will pull the plug on the PEP-II collider at SLAC on March 1, seven months ahead of schedule, resulting in the layoff of 125 employees. To keep the Tevatron at Fermilab going in the search for the Higgs, all employees will take 2 or 3 days a month of unpaid leave. Work on the International Linear Collider was terminated. The U.S. reneged on its commitment to the international fusion energy program, ITER. Other DOE programs were also cut along with NSF and NIST."

What a shame, and what a shameful disgrace for a country to value war and military spending over scienctific research. When I think about these things I am always reminded of the following exchange, one of the best rejoinders ever:

When Robert Wilson, first director of Fermilab, was in front of a Senate or House Committee, they would often ask him "What will your laboratory do to improve the defense of this country?" And basically what he said was, "What this lab does is make this country worth defending."

Pundits

I am absolutely sick of every pundit in this country, the Sullivans and Yglesias's and Klein's and Freddoso's and every other idiot who changes their minds every half-hour over the latest blip of a candidate's poll.

Here's the latest embarrassment from Andrew Sullivan. Now he's apparently for Fred Thompson. A few days ago he seemed to be for Barack Obama, because he was temporarily on-top, even though Obama is a liberal and Sullivan is supposed to be a conservative. It didn't seem to matter -- Obama was interesting. And then it was McCain. Lots of rationalizations throughout, of course. Now we're back to Thompson, a loser if there ever was one. It doesn't matter -- people are talking about him in the last 6 hours. So might as well go with it.

Such dishonestly. Such pandering for blog hits. Such an embarrassment. And this is supposed to part of America's intelligentsia??

Acer & CDW disappointments

I just bought a new system from Acer (Veriton 6900) via CDW, and man am I disappointed. The DVD drive button does not work, and the sound card does not work, and that's too many problems for a system that cost $730....

I just want to be able to plug in my components and let them go.... anything else is ridiculous, given how long PCs have been around now. Simple things like DVD players and sound cards should work from the get-go -- I don't have the time, expertise, or interest in fixing these kinds of problems, and I shouldn't have to.

I was really happy with a PC purchase I made from CDW circa 2003, and thought I would do business with them again. Big mistake. My purchase did not even make clear that I was buying a new keyboard/mouse with my system. That's inexcusable. The first day, when I called them, the person who answered the phone said simply "Hello," not even identifying themselves professionally.They have a lot to learn.

I will never do business with CDW, or Acer, again.

Today in Oregon

A tornado comes down just north of Portland early this afternoon, though barely a F1, and a fairly big earthquake (R 6.4) broke off the Oregon coast yesterday. No tsumani, though.

Also, in New Zealand, Sir Edmund Hillary is dead. He was a classy guy, refusing to say whether or or his climbing companion Tenzing Norgay was the first atop Mt. Everest until Norgay's death. They were a team, he always said when asked.