Obama Transparency Talk
Apparently Obama’s response to Chicago Tribune reporter John McCormack’s questions about the Blagojevich affair have riled certain media commentators, who are now questioning Obama’s commitment to transparency. What a bunch of whiners. They either don’t understand the role of transparency in public policy, are desperate to make some news about something, or are just exaggerating…
Read MoreWhere is Presidential Leadership in the Economic Crisis?
Like many people, I’ve been wondering, “What is President Bush doing about the economic crisis?” Apparently, not leading. Maybe hiding under his desk. CNN suggests that nobody is really stepping up to provide direction. As the United States writhes in a collapsing economy, analysts and observers are wondering: Who’s skippering the ship? President Bush has…
Read MoreBleak Predictions in the ODNI Global Trends for 2025 Report
This was recently released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence: News Release No. 19-08 November 20, 2008 ODNI Releases Global Trends Projections By 2025, the accelerating pace of globalization and the emergence of new powers will produce a world order vastly different from the system in place for most of the post-World…
Read MoreWhat Are the Indicators of the Financial Crisis?
It would be nice to have a concrete way to know if the financial crisis is getting better or worse. Or course the indicators would probably include the housing market, asset-backed securities, commercial paper, interest rates, GDPs, and the availability of credit. I couldn’t come up with a complete picture, but here’s what’s out there…
Read MoreHow The Press Manufactures Drama in the Polls
Today in the Wall Street Journal we have the headline “Gap Narrows in Florida and Ohio, Not Pennsylvania.” The article has a lot of graphs and looks pretty impressive. But taking a wider view shows that this is a red herring. I don’t know if the writer knows this or just didn’t bother to look…
Read MoreMcCain’s “Dangerous” Rhetoric Creates Real Danger
Senator McCain was forced to drop his attempts to associate Senator Obama to domestic terrorist Bill Ayers. In the end, McCain himself had to defend Obama as a “decent man.” The problem, of course, was that calling Obama a terrorist was inciting people to feel physical action, such as killing a prospective future President of…
Read MoreC02 Lags Temperature and Human Causes of Global Warming
As I was researching some of the comments on a previous post, here are some interesting items that I found: 1. C02 has historically lagged temperature, a fact that is often cited by global warming skeptics. Temperature and CO2 are difficult to measure and compare. The time resolution is low, and while C02 is an…
Read MoreGlobal Temperature Regains 20 Years of Lost Movement
While perusing the arguments on global warming, I happened across an article by Lorne Gunter that claims that “30 years of warmer temperatures go poof.” The article asserts that because recent global temperature anomalies went down to around the 0 mark, the temperature rise claimed by global warming researchers has been erased and all the…
Read MoreThe Foundational Case for Global Warming
Despite what seems to be an ironclad case for global warming and the assumption that it is human caused , there is still considerable debate in the media. If we are going to create appropriate public policy to deal with climate change, then we have to keep from being diverted by the fallacious arguments. Unfortunately,…
Read MoreDoes Negative Campaigning Work? Findings from Recent Research
Personal attacks have become increasingly sharp in the U. S. presidential election. The McCain campaign has even reportedly decided to make character attacks on Senator Obama a primary strategy. Just recently, Telegraph reported, A former McCain strategist familiar with the senator’s tactical discussions told The Sunday Telegraph that he would pursue the “nuclear option” targeting…
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