Oct 29, 2007 | Dollars & Crosses
Irvine, CA--The Senate will soon decide whether to ratify the Law of the Sea Treaty, which deems most of the earth's vast ocean floor "the common heritage of mankind" and places it under United Nations ownership "for the benefit of mankind as a whole."
"This treaty vests monopoly authority over most of the world's seabeds in a U.N. agency that issues licenses burdened by complex regulations, fees, royalties, and mandatory land transfers," said Thomas Bowden, an analyst at the Ayn Rand Institute. "Licensees are required to give back half or more of the submerged land they explore, to be mined by the International Seabed Authority using the licensees' technology and know-how, with proceeds going to U.N. members such as Cuba, Uganda, and Venezuela, who contribute nothing to the productive process.
"The proposed treaty ignores the fundamental principle that unowned natural resources should become the private property of the people whose efforts make them valuable," Bowden said. "Although the ocean floor is full of potentially valuable minerals, they remain useless until some pioneer discovers how to retrieve them. Under this treaty, however, the deep-sea mining companies whose science, exploration, technology, and entrepreneurship are being counted on to gather otherwise inaccessible riches are treated as mere servants of a world collective.
"This treaty is an injustice that will hamper, if not halt, the exploitation of undersea wealth," Bowden said. "Because no self-respecting entrepreneur will work under such conditions, the U.N. regime will attract only the kind of lumbering state-owned enterprises that have historically failed to match the performance of private, profit-seeking companies."
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee recently held hearings on the treaty, which has the support of the Bush administration. The treaty, which President Reagan refused to sign in 1982, was submitted to the Senate by President Clinton in 1994 but never ratified. The treaty requires a two-thirds Senate majority for ratification.
"Governments have legitimate options regarding how to deal with undersea explorers' need to establish property rights in the deep ocean," Bowden said. "But it would be totally improper for America to declare eternal hostility to private property in the ocean floor by ratifying a treaty dedicated on principle to denying such rights."Oct 24, 2007 | Dollars & Crosses
Dr Vincent Gray, a member of the UN IPCC Expert Reviewers Panel since its inception, has written to Professor David Henderson, to support the latter's call for a review of the IPCC and its procedures. But Dr Gray goes further: calling for IPCC's abolition.
SUPPORT FOR CALL FOR REVIEW OF UN IPCC
Thank you for your latest article containing your analysis of the limitations of the IPCC and your belief that it is possible for it to be reformed.
I have been an "Expert Reviewer" for the IPCC right from the start and I have submitted a very large number of comments on their drafts. It has recently been revealed that I submitted 1,898 comments on the Final Draft of the current Report. Over the period I have made an intensive study of the data and procedures used by IPCC contributors throughout their whole study range. I have a large library of reprints, books and comments and have published many comments of my own in published papers, a book, and in my occasional newsletter, the current number being 157.
I began with a belief in scientific ethics, that scientists would answer queries honestly, that scientific argument would take place purely on the basis of facts, logic and established scientific and mathematical principles.
Right from the beginning I have had difficulty with this procedure. Penetrating questions often ended without any answer. Comments on the IPCC drafts were rejected without explanation, and attempts to pursue the matter were frustrated indefinitely.
Over the years, as I have learned more about the data and procedures of the IPCC I have found increasing opposition by them to providing explanations, until I have been forced to the conclusion that for significant parts of the work of the IPCC, the data collection and scientific methods employed are unsound. Resistance to all efforts to try and discuss or rectify these problems has convinced me that normal scientific procedures are not only rejected by the IPCC, but that this practice is endemic, and was part of the organisation from the very beginning. I therefore consider that the IPCC is fundamentally corrupt. The only "reform" I could envisage, would be its abolition.
I wonder whether I could summarize briefly some of the reasons why the scientific procedures followed by the IPCC are fundamentally unsound. Some of you may have received more detail if you received my recent NZClimate Truth Newsletters (see under "Links" on this website).
The two main "scientific" claims of the IPCC are the claim that "the globe is warming" and "Increases in carbon dioxide emissions are responsible". Evidence for both of these claims is fatally flawed.
To start with the "global warming" claim. It is based on a graph showing that "mean annual global temperature" has been increasing.
This claim fails from two fundamental facts
1. No average temperature of any part of the earth's surface, over any period, has ever been made.
How can you derive a "global average" when you do not even have a single "local" average?
What they actually use is the procedure used from 1850, which is to make one measurement a day at the weather station from a maximum/minimum thermometer. The mean of these two is taken to be the average. No statistician could agree that a plausible average can be obtained this way. The potential bias is more than the claimed "global warming.
2. The sample is grossly unrepresentative of the earth's surface, mostly near to towns. No statistician could accept an "average" based on such a poor sample. It cannot possibly be "corrected"
It is of interest that frantic efforts to "correct" for these uncorrectable errors have produced mean temperature records for the USA and China which show no overall "warming" at all. If they were able to "correct" the rest, the same result is likely
And, then after all, there has been no "global warming", however measured, for eight years, and this year is all set to be cooling. As a result it is now politically incorrect to speak of "global warming". The buzzword is "Climate Change" which is still blamed on the non-existent "warming"
The other flagship set of data promoted by the IPCC are the figures showing the increase in atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide. They have manipulated the data in such a way to persuade us (including most scientists) that this concentration is constant throughout the atmosphere. In order to do this, they refrain from publishing any results which they do not like, and they have suppressed no less than 90,000 measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide made in the last 150 years. Some of these were made by Nobel Prizewinners and all were published in the best scientific journals. Ernst Beck has published on the net all the actual papers.
Why did they do it? It is very subtle. Brush up your maths. In order to calculate the radiative effects of carbon dioxide you have to use a formula involving a logarithm. When such a formula is applied to a set of figures, the low figures have a greater weight in the final average radiation. The figure obtained from the so-called "background figure" is therefore biased in an upwards direction.
My main complaint with the IPCC is in the methods used to "evaluate" computer models. Proper "validation" of models should involve proved evidence that they are capable of future prediction within the range required, and to a satisfactory level of accuracy. Without this procedure, no self-respecting computer engineer would dare to make use of a model for prediction.
No computer climate model has ever been tested in this way, so none should be used for prediction. They sort of accept this by never permitting the use of the term "prediction", only "projection". But they then go ahead predicting anyway.
There is a basic logical principle that a correlation, however convincing, is not proof of causation. Most scientists pay at least lip service to this principle, but its widespread lack of acceptance by the general public have led to IPCC to explore it as one of their methods of "evaluating" models.
The models are so full of inaccurately known parameters and equations that it is comparatively easy to "fudge" an approximate fit to the few climate sequences that might respond. This sort of evidence is the main feature of most of the current promotional lectures.
The most elaborate of all their "evaluation" techniques is far more dubious. Since they have failed to show that any models are actually capable of prediction, they have decided to "evaluate" them by asking the opinions of those who originate them, people with a financial interest in their success. This has become so complex that many have failed to notice that it has no scientific basis, but is just an assembly of the "gut feelings" of self-styled "experts". It has been developed to a complex web of "likelihoods", all of which are assigned fake "probability" levels.
By drawing attention to these obvious facts I have now found myself persona non grata with most of my local professional associations, Surely, I am questioning the integrity of these award-winning scientific leaders of the local science establishment. When you get down to it, that is what is involved.
I somehow understood that the threshold had been passed when I viewed "The Great Global Warming Swindle". Yes, we have to face it. The whole process is a swindle, The IPCC from the beginning was given the licence to use whatever methods would be necessary to provide "evidence" that carbon dioxide increases are harming the climate, even if this involves manipulation of dubious data and using peoples' opinions instead of science to "prove" their case.
The disappearance of the IPCC in disgrace is not only desirable but inevitable. The reason is, that the world will slowly realise that the "predictions" emanating from the IPCC will not happen. The absence of any "global warming" for the past eight years is just the beginning. Sooner or later all of us will come to realise that this organisation, and the thinking behind it, is phony. Unfortunately severe economic damage is likely to be done by its influence before that happens.
Sep 21, 2007 | Dollars & Crosses
Irvine, CA--An al Qaeda representative in Iraq recently called for the murder of an artist and his editor after a Swedish newspaper published a sketch of Muhammad's head on the body of a dog. The sketch appeared alongside an editorial decrying self-censorship by Swedish museums that refused to display the sketch for fear of Muslim reprisals.
"This death threat is the latest consequence of the West's disgraceful failure to stand up for free speech in the face of Islamic totalitarians' attempt to squash it," said Dr. Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute.
"Islamic totalitarians are enemies of free speech. Nations like Iran, for instance, suppress the speech of their own citizens, punishing those who criticize Islam, and actively seek to extend these brutal policies worldwide. In 1989, for instance, Iran's ruler Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa calling for the murder of British writer Salman Rushdie following the publication of Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses. More recently, in the wake of the publication in a Danish newspaper of cartoons satirizing Muhammad, Islamists across the Middle East rioted and called for the death of the cartoonists.
"In both cases, most Western leaders refused to stand up for the principle of free speech. Indeed, some leaders denounced as equally offensive both the publications and the Islamists' decree to murder those who created and published them. Such craven appeasement has emboldened the Islamists and helped spawn an alarming trend of self-censorship in the West--the very trend that inspired the Swedish paper to publish the Muhammad sketch."If we are to end the jihadists' attempts to silence the West, Western leaders must stop apologizing, denounce the jihadists as immoral enemies of freedom, and defiantly assert their citizens' right to free speech."Sep 20, 2007 | Dollars & Crosses
The online version of the Fall issue of The Objective Standard has been posted to their website. In connection with all the press surrounding the fiftieth anniversary of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged—from the New York Times article "Ayn Rand's Literature of Capitalism," to the Los Angeles Times piece "Ayn Rand's Epic Storytelling," to Lionsgate's selection of a director for the Atlas Shrugged movie—TOS presents Andrew Bernstein's essay "Transfiguring the Novel: The Literary Revolution in Atlas Shrugged." Bernstein examines Rand's dramatization of the novel's plot-theme, her use of literary techniques, and the nature and significance of key figures in the story, showing how Rand employed such elements to tap the full potential of this supremely conceptual art form, and shedding new light on Rand's literary genius. Also in this issue are "The Morality of Moneylending: A Short History" by Yaron Brook (which is accessible to all for free) and "How to Analyze and Appreciate Paintings" by Dianne Durante (which is accompanied by fifteen color images of the paintings discussed).Sep 19, 2007 | Dollars & Crosses
As toy companies recall numerous toys based on safety concerns about lead paint, many are using the events to call for a dramatic increase in regulation. "To guarantee the safety of the nation's children," says the New York Times, "American toy makers must be truly regulated by a well-financed, powerful government agency." Toy makers themselves have expressed similar sentiments; the Toy Industry Association, according to the Times, "called on the government to require mandatory safety testing with uniform standards."
Alex Epstein, an analyst at the Ayn Rand Institute, blasted the proposals. "To establish a new toy agency is exactly the wrong response to concerns about lead paint. Establishing testing procedures and safety standards is the right and responsibility of toy manufacturers, parents, and any private safety organizations they choose to employ. Such organizations exist in many other fields, from bicycle helmets to rock climbing gear, and have exemplary records. And no wonder; they live and die based on their reputation.
"By contrast, if the government gets to dictate what companies must do to make their toys safe, the judgment of toy companies about toy safety will be superseded by the whims of bureaucrats. Already, protectionists are using the occasion to try to restrict imports from countries like China as uniformly ‘dangerous.' And this is in response to a ‘crisis' that has not injured one single child!
"The government's only role in toy safety should be to prosecute those who, through malice or negligence, sell toys that provably harm children in the course of normal use. Such a role is consistent with the government's proper function of protecting individuals against force and fraud; being a toy safety czar is not.
"The toy recall should remind American parents to take greater responsibility for the safety of their children, and should remind toy companies to improve their testing procedures. It should not be used to justify taking away the rights and responsibility of both."Sep 19, 2007 | Dollars & Crosses
IRVINE, CA--The government has been investigating and prosecuting Microsoft under antitrust law since 1990--including a 2001 judgment that forced the company to be subject to government dictates of its business practices that apply to no other software company. This regime was scheduled to end in November, but a group of states, led by California, are saying that it must be extended. According to the Wall Street Journal, their reason was that "Microsoft has faced little new competition" in "operating-systems and Internet-browser technologies."
"This justification for further government control of Microsoft is a microcosm of the fundamental injustice of the government's entire prosecution of the company," said Alex Epstein, an analyst at the Ayn Rand Institute. The criticism against Microsoft amounts to: Microsoft has been too successful in comparison to its competitors for their liking. By this perverse logic, only if the company had been a miserable failure in producing desirable operating systems and Web browsers would it deserve to be free.
"Of course, Microsoft's tremendous success is the whole reason it ever fell under antitrust prosecution in the first place. Antitrust law regards any company that has earned substantial market share as a dangerous ‘monopolist.' Microsoft has suffered almost two decades of government threats and punishment on the grounds that its 90 percent plus market share in operating systems was a ‘threat' to the consumers who eagerly chose Microsoft Windows over the competition. Microsoft used no force or fraud against anyone; its ‘crime' was to choose to add a valuable feature, a Web browser, to its popular operating system."If the government extends its coercive ‘oversight' of Microsoft, it will further compound this injustice. Instead, the government owes Microsoft an apology--and it owes other successful companies the justice of abolishing the success-punishing antitrust laws."