Brent Nyitray
Fairlington Blade
Let the mutherfuker burn!
jnc4p
Kevin S. Willis
Michigoose
lmsinca
markinaustin
Memetrics
novahockey
quarterback
ScottC
yellojktVital Statistics:
| Last | Change | Percent | |
| S&P Futures | 1872.1 | 0.5 | 0.03% |
| Eurostoxx Index | 3135.9 | -0.5 | -0.01% |
| Oil (WTI) | 102.9 | -0.4 | -0.41% |
| LIBOR | 0.234 | -0.001 | -0.40% |
| US Dollar Index (DXY) | 80.24 | 0.067 | 0.08% |
| 10 Year Govt Bond Yield | 2.70% | 0.01% | |
| Current Coupon Ginnie Mae TBA | 105.6 | -0.1 | |
| Current Coupon Fannie Mae TBA | 104.5 | 0.0 | |
| RPX Composite Real Estate Index | 200.7 | -0.2 | |
| BankRate 30 Year Fixed Rate Mortgage | 4.32 |
Markets are flat this morning as Ukranian Euphoria meets a putrid ADP jobs report. Bonds and MBS are flat, after bonds cratered yesterday, with the 10 year yield trading to 2.7% from 2.6%.
The ADP jobs report came in at 139k, much lowers than the estimate of 155k. More importantly, January was revised downward form 175k to 127k. The first impulse is to blame the weather, but construction increased 14k. Manufacturing was flat, and (you guessed it) financial services fell. Friday’s payroll estimate is 150k, which now seems high. N.B. – ADP has been a pretty lousy predictor of the BLS number lately, so keep that in mind. FWIW, Mark Zandi of Moody’s believes weather is playing a part here, which is creating some pent-up demand for workers. He is calling for some 250k prints in the Spring.
Last week’s flight to safety bond market rally, helped increase mortgage applications by 9.4%. Both purchase and refi apps rose the same amount. The indices also benefited from an easy comparison with the holiday shortened prior week. The average 30 year fixed rate mortgage fell from 4.53% to 4.47% last week. Refis as a percent of all loans fell to 57.7%.
The FHA insurance fund will have a positive capital reserve balance at the end of 2014 and will not require a draw from the U.S. Treasury. FHA is asking for authority to collect an additional administrative fee, which will undoubtedly annoy affordable housing advocates who are pressing FHA to reduce fees. This fee may be part of the White House’s 2015 budget, which is DOA.
First time homebuyers continue to struggle with tight credit and competition from professional investors. Until the first time homebuyer comes back to the market, the housing recovery (and the mortgage business itself) will be fragile. This also speaks to the completely bifurcated credit markets out there. While credit to consumers is still tight, banks are throwing money at private equity firms and institutional investors.
It has gotten so bad that private equity firms are outbidding strategic buyers in industrial mergers, which is astounding when you consider that strategic buyers have the benefit of synergies and private equity firms do not. Historically, private equity firms were the ones who would swoop in to buy assets on the cheap; now they are winning bidding wars.
This speaks to a theme I have been discussing for a while – the stock market is at or near record highs, and yet the broader economy is in a completely different place. Corporate America is flush with cash, and wages / hiring are flat. Ironically, the cash they have will probably be spent on productivity enhancing CAPEX, which will be good for stocks, but not necessarily good for wages. Consumption and wage growth are currently correlating at 95%, when that number has been closer to 50%. So, when you have about 2% wage growth, you get about 2% GDP growth. Which accounts for this kind of “meh” recovery we have had.
Filed under: Morning Report |
All Things in Moderation 
This is some sweet, sweet…
Frist!
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Heh.
Brent, what’s a CAPEX? I’m sure it has to be something completely different from the military acronym.
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Although the D’s didn’t nominate Laroushie Keisha Johnson, enough voted for her that there will be a run-off. So, now the D’s have to spend money in a primary run-off just to avoid embarrassing themselves. Plus, they’ll be money spent on a doomed campaign not to mention the money spent already on Wendy Davis’s campaign thus far and the money yet to be spent. All so she can host a weekend show on MSNBC.
Wow.
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CAPEX = Capital Expenditures… Basically investment in corporate infrastructure that increases capacity and / or productivity
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Thanks, Brent. I was relatively certain it wasn’t a Capabilities Exercise!
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Ethnic grievance in full display:
“Why I can’t stand white belly dancers
Whether they know it or not, white women who practice belly dance are engaging in appropriation
Randa Jarrar
Tuesday, Mar 4, 2014 06:59 PM EST”
http://www.salon.com/2014/03/04/why_i_cant_stand_white_belly_dancers/
Someone needs to tell the author she’s not allowed to wear blue jeans anymore as she’s stealing from the caucasian cultural experience.
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Why I can’t stand white belly dancers
I can usually understand where the left is coming from on things economic and social. While I may not agree with their arguments, but at least I understand them.
Stuff like this makes zero sense to me.
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OK, that column was just plain crazy, jnc.
Or, what Brent said. And I’m a leftie!
EDIT: And from reading the comments, nobody agrees with the author.
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It’s about being authentic. If suburban soccer moms are taking belly-dancing classes, it’s no longer cool. And rather than celebrate that someone has taken an interest in your culture/ethnicity, you lament the fact that it’s “appropriated” because you can’t say “crap, this food/dance/activity has gone mainstream and I’m no longer unique b/c of it.”
It’s singling that you sit at the cool-kids table.
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The belly dancing thing might be the stupidest thing any of us reads in 2014. Should we start listing the things that are exclusive domain of nasty white Europeans (seeing how Randa Jarrar is “white” herself: http://randajarrar.com/about/) and off limits to non-Europeans or Arabs?
All music based on western scales
Ballet
All western fashion — sorry, no more desinger purses and shoes for you!
On her website, she comments that her son “hasn’t told any of his friends he’s Arab.” So apparently only she can tell the difference between “white” and Arab people when she wants to. What a miserable excuse for a human being she must be.
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I do see, however, why Jarrar is bitter at thin women.
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“seeing how Randa Jarrar is “white” herself:”
QB, I didn’t even check that. It’s the perfect coda to this.
NoVA & Michi, this is just the latest iteration. You saw all the controversy over Miley Cyrus “appropriating” twerking, correct?
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Some on the left finally get it:
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You saw all the controversy over Miley Cyrus “appropriating” twerking, correct?
I didn’t. But then, I avoid Miley Cyrus news in general. IMHO her dad was modestly talented and she doesn’t rise even that far. . . but then, I don’t have kids who adore Hannah Montana.
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NoVA: What did you and The Decider decide about a snow blower (vs truck with snowplow)?
Be forewarned as one who’s bought three over the years: the minute you buy it you won’t get any snow that winter. So you might want to put it off till next October or so.
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@quarterback: “I do see, however, why Jarrar is bitter at thin women.”
F**k that. She’s appropriating fat culture, and I hate it when thin women appropriate fat culture. Go eat your carrot sticks and vegan tofu-salads. Stay in your own culture! Don’t appropriate the cultural icons of my culture. Such as fatness. And Big Macs.
That’s just insanity. Stop appropriating the Roman alphabet. Oh, and, what, since I’m of Euro-Mongrel descent, I can’t use Arabic numerals anymore?
For most on the left, those people have to be like Ted Nugent without the sense of humor for the right. Just all, hey, I’m on your side. I’m totally with you. You’re totally right. And also, the aliens are coming to take us to the planet Klatau in 2017!
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@novahockey: I think you have it exactly correct. This is 100% what is going on:
It’s about being authentic. If suburban soccer moms are taking belly-dancing classes, it’s no longer cool. And rather than celebrate that someone has taken an interest in your culture/ethnicity, you lament the fact that it’s “appropriated” because you can’t say “crap, this food/dance/activity has gone mainstream and I’m no longer unique b/c of it.”
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OT: Travolta-fy your name!
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/low_concept/2014/03/john_travolta_called_idina_menzel_adele_dazeem_what_s_your_travolta_name.html
My Travolta name is Kayden Wailson. I gotta say, I like it.
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Kevin:
Travolta-fy your name!
Stuart Colezan.
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We all know, of course, that Elvis, the Fab Four, and the Stones appropriated black music, so this is nothing new. They might as well have been in blackface. The white man never stops his dirty work of cultural appropriation and imperialism.
We’ll overlook that the stolen music was based on western scales and harmonies. Oh well. I demand, however, that Randa stop blogging in English.
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Stop appropriating the Roman alphabet.
D’oh, corked by KW as usual.
Oh, and, what, since I’m of Euro-Mongrel descent, I can’t use Arabic numerals anymore?
Yes, you must stop using 0 especially.
Btw, on a seriouser note, did anyone notice Jarrar’s use of “Orientalist” in her column? Am I missing something? Why is she putting the -ist on there? What’s the correct usage?
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I wonder whether a woman who is half Arab is allowed to belly dance if she does a crappy job of it.
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Michi, to catch you up on the controversy:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/28/miley-cyrus-twerking_n_3830560.html
http://www.salon.com/2013/06/24/is_miley_cyrus_twerking_racist/
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/27/miley-cyrus-twerking-cultural-appropriation
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jnc,
The Miley stuff is priceless. I thought you were mostly joking.
The Guardian columnist apparently has the view that degrading, trashy behavior is the sole province of black women (and black men who degrade them for profit). Unreal.
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Travolta-fy your name!
Kacey Moozure
With a last name like that I think the Thin Women’s Guild is going to rip up my card. 🙂
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Michi, to catch you up on the controversy:
I stand 100% with The Bear Association. Especially that particular bear. Isn’t it Kevin who is afraid of bears taking over the world?
But an Oscar nominee clearly culturally appropriated her video:
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It’s about being authentic. If suburban soccer moms are taking belly-dancing classes, it’s no longer cool.
The entire lululemon franchise is based on appropriating Easter mysticism for poseur soccer moms. The last time I was at the mall, I saw a new store selling “athletic wear” (read yoga pants) that looked even tonier and more upscale than lululemon.
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Come to think of it, I am really angry at how the Brits appropriated rock and roll.
And black women straightening their hair.
I guess whites started it with I Dream of Jeannie and tanning.
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I just read the belly-dancing piece that jnc linked to. In all honesty it depresses me.
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Global warming has brought Niagara Falls to a standstill. Cool Pictures.
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lululemon is so last year. Athleta is the status symbol now and i’m willing the bet the store you saw.
Michi — I have a friend in Albany in the landscaping businesses. I’ve penciled in a trip over the summer to see him and likely will return with a used snow blower or something at cost from one of his suppliers.
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The Travoltify page must be getting bombarded.
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likely will return with a used snow blower or something at cost from one of his suppliers.
Excellent plan. And may I thank you in advance for the dearth of snow next year!
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FWIW, a friend (she) at State who traveled extensively in the ME said that belly dancers were basically a step of from prostitutes social pecking order. Whether that’s true or not?
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I guess whites started it with I Dream of Jeannie and tanning.
And Jeannie went and misappropriated her belly button! Have we come full circle?
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Deep thought, lifted from Sargent’s headline.
“The Morning Plum: Why GOP won’t evolve on gay marriage
The GOP base overwhelmingly opposes same sex marriage.”
You can’t find insights like that just anywhere! That’s why it is called a reported opinion blog.
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You can’t find insights like that just anywhere!
lol
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@jnc4p: From the Salon article:
“appropriating black masculinity is a right of passage for white boys”
WTF? Since when? What a mess the Salon piece is. Can’t decide who is racist, the people appropriating black styles or the people criticizing white women for appropriating black styles or . . . Not to mention the whole issue of what is exactly being appropriated and why. It’s always framed as if white people are seeing something awesome and saying: “I must take that from the black man. I must make it mine!” When it’s rarely race related and more: hey, I can just talk over a drum beat and that’s music now? Cool! I’m gonna get some of that action.” There’s not a lot of “oh I’m going to culturally appropriate this” in there. Human beings pick up on things and some of us emulate the things other people do in various areas of human endeavor.
Is a minority who goes to school and gets good grades and studies hard “appropriating” white culture, or do they just think it’s a good idea to study hard and get good grades?
@ScottC: “Global warming has brought Niagara Falls to a standstill”
Climate change! It’s not global warming any more. It’s climate change that creates both extreme hot and extreme cold weather events, and possibly earthquakes. And the cause is American’s not paying a tax collected by the UN to be distributed to impoverished nations. It’s a really weird cause, I know, but there it is.
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Kevin:
Climate change! It’s not global warming any more.
I’m always behind the times.
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Global warming has brought Niagara Falls to a standstill.
90% of the normal flow to Niagara Falls is diverted to underground hydroelectric generation. The falls itself is just a glorified water feature. Just enough water is left to go over the falls to keep the tourism industry afloat. That the falls freeze in winter is hardly surprising.
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yello:
That the falls freeze in winter is hardly surprising.
Indeed. Particularly in light of all those incandescent bulbs we’ve been using. And the pictures are still pretty cool.
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@yellojkt: I’m sure, anecdotal stuff (today is hot, today is cold) really says nothing about climate. Although I thought 50% of normal flow is diverted during non-tourist periods, approximately? 90% would be a trick. But that may be how it is!
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“appropriating black masculinity is a right of passage for white boys”
Hmmm. White boys invented all the major sports now heavily populated by blacks; is Peyton Manning appropriating Russell Wilson’s masculinty now? Why not the other way around?
Are we talking flat-brimmed caps and pants down the butt? Who invented baseball caps and pants with zippers?
These folks really are disturbed.
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qb;
These folks really are disturbed.
Indeed. And they are hardly lone nuts. Hence the depression I spoke of earlier.
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A couple of select quote from the belly dancing article:
Google the term “belly dance” and the first images the search engine offers are of white women in flowing, diaphanous skirts, playing at brownness. How did this become acceptable?
Because it’s clearly perfectly acceptable unless you are a puritanical prude or a sociopathic race baiter. Sorry.
The last time I forgot, a white woman came out in Arab drag — because that’s what that is, when a person who’s not Arab wears genie pants and a bra and heavy eye makeup and Arabic jewelry, or jewelry that is meant to read as “Arabic” because it’s metallic and shiny and has squiggles of some kind
I’m reading this is that “drag” is bad in this case. Is men dressing as women a bad thing, or is dressing stylistically only a bad thing when the author doesn’t approve?
“How is this OK? Would you wear a dashiki and rock waspafarian dreads and take up African dance publicly? Wait,” we’d probably say, “don’t answer that.””
Why is that bad? I can’t dress like a Jamaican and dance to reggae music if I want to? Wear me a Bob Marley hat? That’s some bullshit.
These women are more interested in their investment in belly dancing than in questioning and examining how their appropriation of the art causes others harm
You know, the belly dancing gulag they created. Or is it the fact there is only so much belly dancing in the world, and they are hoarding it all for themselves?
To them, I can only say, I’m sure there are people who have been unwittingly racist for 15 years.
Maybe you’re being unwittingly racist now. What? No? Because we never accuse ourselves of unwitting racism.
It’s not too late. Find another form of self-expression. Make sure you’re not appropriating someone else’s.
This is just retarded. On so many levels.
She needs to stop appropriating the geek cultural expression of blogging. That belongs to us. She can express herself, but not on the backs of the geeks.
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Kevin:
This is just retarded. On so many levels.
Doesn’t Salon have some kind of duty of care not to allow its writers to publicly embarrass themselves? I smell a lucrative lawsuit in the making.
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People sent a lot of time and energy looking to be offended. What a sad way to go through life.
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nova:
People sent a lot of time and energy looking to be offended.
I think such a gross generalization is intolerably insulting.
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@quarterback: “You can’t find insights like that just anywhere! That’s why it is called a reported opinion blog.”
Indeed. It’s a tough question: why won’t the GOP “evolve” on same sex marriage?
I’m thinking it might have something to do with the fact that the vast majority of the people who voted for them do not want them to “evolve” on same sex marriage. I mean, that’s just a wild guess. I’m not a professional like Greg or anything.
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I’m not a professional like Greg or anything.
And I would advise you to stop trying to figure it out or recreate his thought process. You might hurt yourself, not being a qualifed pro and all.
Speaking of PL, I haven’t been able to get comments to load of like a month and a half, and have no idea why. But it’s probably better for my sanity and work ethic.
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I haven’t been able to get comments to load of like a month and a half, and have no idea why
The whole WaPo commenting system has devolved (from a promising overhaul) into a hot mess. It all depends on your browser, what add-ons you’re running, your hardware, and the mood that the hamsters are in that day.
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I’m gonna be sick if hack Sargent skips a Immigration post today.
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https://twitter.com/bdomenech/status/441249736067407872
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I’m begging, what does this conversation look like?
I literally have no understanding.
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McWing:
I’m begging, what does this conversation look like?
It actually involves involves only a single voice, Obama’s, giving a speech that the left and the MSM (but I repeat myself) will hail as epic and groundbreaking, the contents of which 2 months later not a single person will be able to recall without accessing the internet.
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Reid has few rivals for stupidity. He really doesn’t.
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MRWoW
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Funny day here, sorry I missed it. I do have one story re white girls belly dancing. My oldest daughter went to school up in SF and is a bit of a hippie, can’t imagine where that came from, but after she graduated she stayed up there and worked for awhile. She wanted dredlocks in the worst way so we paid for her to get them for graduation, it’s an art I guess, or something. Anyway, she applied to volunteer at a women’s clinic in her spare time and after the interview she was told that the black woman sitting in on the interview objected to her dredlocks as she had appropriated her culture…………………..and that was her offering her expertise for free.
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lms:
Anyway, she applied to volunteer at a women’s clinic in her spare time and after the interview she was told that the black woman sitting in on the interview objected to her dredlocks as she had appropriated her culture…
The world is full of insane people. Unfortunately this is exactly the kind of thinking that the identity politics of the left produces.
Imagine a white person interviewing a black person for literally anything, and upon finding out the black person likes to play golf, announces that he objects to the black person “appropriating” white culture. The uproar would be deafening and the white person would be out on his ear.
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finding out the black person likes to play golf, announces that he objects to the black person “appropriating” white culture.
You just can’t get past Tiger Woods can you? Just wait until they start inner-city hockey leagues.
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yello:
You just can’t get past Tiger Woods can you?
I guess you entirely missed the point.
BTW, I was actually a huge Tiger fan until he blew himself up in the infamous Thanksgiving incident, and I think the Tour was much better and more interesting when he was dominating it.
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Has Alan Grayson given his fortune to the poor yet, or is he still a raging hypocrite?
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Is that the one where he threw his own grandmother under the bus?
But in all seriousness, what does the conversation look like?
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McWing:
Is that the one where he threw his own grandmother under the bus?
You must have internet access!
But in all seriousness, what does the conversation look like?
It doesn’t look like anything. No one who talks about a national “conversation about race” wants to have an actual conversation, least of all Harry Reid.
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Also, a loving question for yello. What would we be seeing if there was global cooling instead Meaning, suppose there was man-made global cooling, what kind of weather conditions would we be seeing going forward?
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Scott, I’m pretty sure the “left” is to blame for pretty much every idiot out there.
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lms:
Scott, I’m pretty sure the “left” is to blame for pretty much every idiot out there
Not every one, but it certainly does have a lot to answer for.
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Meaning, suppose there was man-made global cooling, what kind of weather conditions would we be seeing going forward?
For one thing, winters would be getting colder instead of warmer.
NOAA: January 2014 Was 4th Warmest on Record
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So, we would not be breaking records for low temps, for example?
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So, we would not be breaking records for low temps, for example?
Forest and trees. Forest and trees.
Did you bother reading the link?
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McWing:
So, we would not be breaking records for low temps, for example?
You sad, silly ‘bagger. How stupid can you be, thinking that the temp on a couple of days is indicative of anything? Clearly it is the average temp over 31 days that is a truly indicative metric.
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McWing:
BTW, you may be interested in knowing that, despite the blazing hot January that humanity has just suffered through, the end of February apparently marked the 220th month of a no-warming trend.
Also worth noting is that talking about statistics “since record keeping began in 1880” represents barely 2% of the earth’s history…on a creationist’s calendar. On a slightly more accepted understanding of the age of the earth, it represents a whopping .00000298%. Make of that what you will.
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lms, your daughter story is brilliant. My favorite part is that you as loving parents paid for the dreads. Here is how dumb I am: I guess I didn’t know it’s something you have to pay to have “done.”
Anyway, the king of all dread’ appropriators I have seen was a white dude trucking through an airport with a huge mass of dreads that went down to his knees. I kid you not, actually a little past his knees. The whole thing was tied together, hanging down his back. All I could think of was, that must be what the transatlantic cable looks like, and it is totally hanging off that guy’s head. Why doesn’t his scalp tear off?
Well, anyway, as I said, if appropriating black culture is a crime, that guy was like the Hitler of cultural appropriation. But it was impressive.
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My favorite part is that you as loving parents paid for the dreads.
It was a hell of a lot cheaper than a new car. She also had them dyed different colors. I think she lasted about a year and then they got too heavy and she was over it. Can’t imagine the pain that guy must be suffering. Aaaaaaahhhhh 22 year olds. The funny thing is now she’s that she’s all grown up she’s actually in a belly dancing group……………I kid you not! Let’s just say she dances to her own tune!
Her asthma has damn near killed her so many times that she figures why not do what she wants……………….fuck what people think.
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90% of the normal flow to Niagara Falls is diverted to underground hydroelectric generation. The falls itself is just a glorified water feature. Just enough water is left to go over the falls to keep the tourism industry afloat.
This is pretty much true of Great Falls (as in, Great Falls, MT) also. About 15 years ago Brian was going on a guys’ trip canoeing in MT and he left me a voicemail saying “They turned the falls off.” I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what he was talking about and they hit the river the next day and were out of cell phone coverage for about a week. When he called me back he explained; they’d stopped at Great Falls for dinner and had gone to the falls to take pictures. . . but the water level was low and everything was being run through the generators, so there was a sign up saying that they’d turned the water off to the falls.
No doubt Obama’s fault.
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I guess I didn’t know it’s something you have to pay to have “done.”
Non-black people do. Blacks have a different way (basically just rolling the strands together, from the description I was given) of getting the dreds. When I was in the Caribbean for a trip I asked about getting braids done, but when it was explained to me (1) how it was done and (2) that the braids are so tight that the hairs actually bond to each other after a couple of weeks and the only way to get rid of them is to cut them off I took a pass on it.
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Yello, what I am asking is in what way would the weather we are experiencing over the last few years would be different if we were experiencing man-made global cooling?
I also very much appreciate the double “forest and trees,” followed by the “did you even bother…”
Powerful stuff, P.O.W.E.R.F.U.L. S.T.U.F.F.
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Don’t real Rasta’s use mud in the dreadlock process?
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Guess where I’m going!
http://www.masslive.com/news/boston/index.ssf/2014/03/massachusetts_upskirt_photo_court_ruling.html
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He’s one of us so no biggie.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/05/obama-cia-senate-intelligence-committee-torture?CMP=twt_fd&CMP=SOCxx2I2
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It seems ballsy to me for a insurance company to continue to sell a product that is illegal to sell even if the government says it won’t prosecute.
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Weird story.
Senior congressional Democrats were incredulous about the White House’s surprise. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, called Mr. McDonough at 10 p.m. Tuesday to inform him the votes were not there. He made the same call Wednesday morning, also informing the attorney general. The White House pressed forward anyway.
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This is getting good!
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/03/05/220273/senate-staffers-slipped-secret.html
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Scott, I’m a denier. I literally think climate is unchanging.
Seriously.
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McWing:
Scott, I’m a denier. I literally think climate is unchanging.
I think climate is always changing, which I think, oddly enough, makes me a “denier”, too. Funny how that works.
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Brent, Mon Cher.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/55369/15-things-you-might-not-know-about-spinal-tap
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For the past 15+ years, there has been no increase in global average surface temperature, which has been referred to as a ‘hiatus’ in global warming.
Unpossible! It’s like we’re living on the surface of the sun!
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Silly baggers. Real scientists know that the fact that temperatures have not cooled more than they have during the past 15 years is evidence that man-caused warming is as bad or even worse than we thought.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2014/02/going-with-the-wind/
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@lms: “Scott, I’m pretty sure the “left” is to blame for pretty much every idiot out there”
Actually, idiots are to blame for pretty much every idiot out there. The reality is, many geniuses are on the left. It’s just that being a brilliant physicist or geneticist or mathematician doesn’t make you a brilliant political philosopher.
In fact, the only thing that real makes one brilliant in terms of policy is the evidence of history, and even that gets rewritten (I tend to think Hoover gets less credit than he deserves, I also think Eisenhower gets less credit than he deserves, while FDR gets way more credit than he deserves, as does the New Deal in general.
I think the reality is frequently both left and right have ideas that can work, or are ineffectual in that they don’t do the promised good but also don’t actually do the threatened bad. However, human beings have human weaknesses and those weak human beings will often roll up their political beliefs into their own personal disfunction, and so you get people who are ostensibly on your side, politically, saying things that are clearly very “lefty” or very “righty” that are just nuts.
Culturally, right-wingers going nuts tend to get called on the carpet more by media and the press and get a lot more coverage, while left-wingers being idiots tend to be excused, or effort made to normalize their nuttiness, or ignored in some fashion (or, at least, there’s no effort made to make their nuttiness go viral). So we can be sensitive.
As human beings, we like to group and generalize, but I like to take most folks on a case-by-case basis. If you hate belly dancers for appropriating Arab culture or because it’s sexually suggestive and that’s sinful, I think you’re an idiot, either way. The latter person just doesn’t get the kind of platforms on Salon and HuffPo that the former does.
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@ScottC: “I think climate is always changing, which I think, oddly enough, makes me a “denier”, too. Funny how that works.”
Very true. But is it changing because, you know, sunspots and stuff, or is it changing like when bacteria poisoned the entire earth’s atmosphere with oxygen and killed off almost everything else (clearing the way for us, which was awesome, right?).
I tend to think it’s the former, and that we have seasons within seasons within seasons. Ice ages counterpointed by hot-ages. And each has their drawbacks, but you really would prefer a hot-age to and ice-age. Especially after the invention of air conditioning.
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@Troll: “For the past 15+ years, there has been no increase in global average surface temperature, which has been referred to as a ‘hiatus’ in global warming.”
Roy Spencer, the “crazy” denier climatologist that all “real” scientist dismiss with a pish-posh was saying ten years ago that global warming models ignore precipitation and cloud cover, and that increased average temperatures would increase both cloud cover and precipitation, both of which are cooling, and thus acting as buffer to global warming (no matter what the cause of the warming). Ergo, these graphs that extrapolate global warming continuing inevitably upward ignore the fact that, when hot, evaporation increases, increasing precipitation and cloud cover.
I think the reality of global warming is that we do get warmer, and cooler, and those trends can continue in one direction or the other for decades and perhaps even centuries. We could be on an upward tick of warmer weather that persists for 100 years (with some years being cooler than others, or a decade or three where the trend seems to be going the other direction, only for it to reverse and get even hotter, on average).
And there’s plenty of evidence that that’s been how our climate has been, pre-industrial and post-industrial. However, without being able to accurate identify macro seasonal changes in climate, drawing conclusions about global temperature and climate change is like picking one day in the middle of summer each year and basing your conclusions on comparison of that one day over a ten year period.
Or, another way of putting that: when summer comes, I think it’s generally understood that summer is hotter than winter, and that the increase in temperature from winter to summer is not going to increase forever, and will eventually reverse come the fall. Well, the same would be true of a macrosummer, but we don’t have the historic records to accurately identify macrosummers and macrowinters, although there seems to be a 30 year trend in temps going up then going down, and there could well be a 300 year trend on top of that. We don’t have that data yet, and our global temperature collection data is still less than perfect. But one day . . .
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@Troll: Causes and implications of the growing divergence between climate model simulations and observations
The models were base-extrapolations of temperature trends with so little understanding of inputs that to think they might be accurate based on anything other than sheer luck was willful delusion. We can’t predict weather 4 days out, and climate models are in the same boat on a larger scale over a longer time. Global Warmists will smirk at the weatherman comparison but in fact it is entirely apropos: the further you get away from the present, the less accurate the models are, and now that we’ve had the models prediction to compare real world results against, it’s obvious how apropos the weatherman model is: the further we are from the date of the original prediction, the less accurate or useful the models prove to be.
Which was always going to be the case. Because you write some simple extrapolation routines with a modest amount of largely arbitrary inputs for what is in reality a million-input system (or a billion input system) and shroud it in semantic hocus locus, it doesn’t magically make the model anything more predictive or relevant than a PowerPoint presentation. And that’s being borne out.
The stadium wave hypothesis provides a plausible explanation for the hiatus in warming and helps explain why climate models did not predict this hiatus.
And what will throw the models off over the next fifteen years? Because we are a long way away from being able to model long term climate trends; the idea that we can is self-delusion. It’s not impossible, but it’s going to take Ray Kurweil-level advanced AI to do so. And decades and more of additional data.
Modeled pauses longer than 15 years are rare; the probability of a modeled pause exceeding 20 yrs is vanishing small
But, I predict, should the “pause” last longer than 15 years, or reverse, there will be an explanation that doesn’t obviate the pressing need for a carbon tax.
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“Real scientists know that the fact that temperatures have not cooled more than they have during the past 15 years”
You guys are way off. It’s just that the climate change implementation date has been delayed.
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@Troll: I’m begging, what does this conversation look like?
It looks like: anytime the black guy doesn’t win, it’s racism. End of conversation.
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Ahead of the curve!
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@ScottC: Also worth noting is that talking about statistics “since record keeping began in 1880″
Stats that still aren’t standardized. A lot of temperature recording has happened over areas where, during a ten or twenty year period, there was significant urban build up that increased local temperatures in and around the thermometer, basically. And I’m still not sure that has been adequately adjusted for. But the idea that stats since 1880 don’t have a plist or minus temperature error of 5 degrees or more is just . . . well, very, very wishful thinking. It’s enough to draw broad conclusions but if you’re trying to base warming trends on .02 degree increases in temperature, the data just isn’t there.
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@qb: (from RealClimate)“the fact that global average temperatures can deviate for a decade or longer from the long term trend comes as no surprise.”
There needs to be a drinking game for RealClimate articles where cool summer and freezing winters and downward trends in global temperature and whatever else that happens that is the opposite of what was predicted 15 years ago by global warmists “comes as no surprise”.
Literally any weather event or trend imaginable can be attributed to man-made global warming as is exactly what the smarter-than-you climatologists at RealClimate have always expected.
A very consistent understanding is thus emerging of the coupled ocean and atmosphere dynamics that have caused the recent decadal-scale departure from the longer-term global warming trend
Which is another, less-correct way of saying our a priori predictions, based mostly on what we want to be true, were entirely wrong. But they are right now because we’re smarter than everybody else. I mean, it’s amazing ass-backwards: there hasn’t been a decadal-scale departure from the long-term global warming trend, the planet is just doing what it does, and your climate models were mostly bullshit and narcissism plus some calculus.
It presents the earth’s ability to regulate climate as a one-off, unexpected flaw that caused earth to be wrong, when compared to their obviously correct climate models. Instead of one climate regulatory system in a complicated brew of them. If anything, there limited understanding of this one system (in a brew of millions) should indicate the insane hubris of thinking their ultra-simplified climate models (often with “forced” numbers in order to “correct” for predictions that don’t seem right, rather than finding the “flaws” in the model) can predict anything.
It’s an easy argument to say carbon dioxide is a problematic greenhouse gas and we’re dumping a ton of it in the atmosphere. Where we can stop doing that, it’s probably a good idea. Why they can’t be happy with that, I dunno.
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“Whitaker. Motherfucking. Chambers, on March 5, 2014 at 4:52 pm said:
I’m begging, what does this conversation look like?”
If it doesn’t involve cultural appropriation of belly dancing, then there’s no point.
QB’s point about the author is dead on. In addition to her appearance, the bio says that she “grew up in Egypt & Kuwait”, but specifically avoids mentioning where she was born. I smell a Lady McBeth protesting a bit too much.
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@jnc4p: “In addition to her appearance, the bio says that she “grew up in Egypt & Kuwait”, but specifically avoids mentioning where she was born.”
I get a sense that her own “cultural identity” is deeply a product of “appropriation”. Though I doubt she sees it that way.
I’d be curious if that’s her given name.
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KW,
Yes this is exactly my view. I’ve mentioned before that a few years ago I read Real Climate a lot to try to understand the facts and the controversy. It is a remarkable little outpost of epistemically-closed expertise. They are hyper-technical and scientific by all appearances, and I would not call what they do exactly pseudo-science.
But what one does observe is that their modes of analysis and conclusions are dogmatically biased in one direction and without exception. It become clear that man-made warming is in fact a non-falisfiable article of faith to them, because, as you say, every piece of data and every observation, no matter how inconsistent with prior predictions and models, is with Herculean effort explained away, diminished in significance, or cleverly turned into more evidence of their hypothesis. The most consistent dichotomy in their analytical approach that I have observed is their contradictory treatment of “pro” and “con” data: if surface temperatures are level or falling, their responses is that this alone does not prove anything. They then go to great lengths to explain it away. They say we must look at larger time frames and contexts; the develop new explanations consistent with their theory. If there is “pro” data, however, there is no searching around for other explanations. They don’t seek to put it in context, diminish it, say it doesn’t support their theory. It is just proclaimed more proof of our theory.
There is a commonly stated rejoinder: well, of course, this is how science works! When the data do not confirm your prediction, you have to go back and adjust your model! But they never seriously consider the data as a more fundamental challenge to their theory. They instead make the theory more complex and convoluted. It couldn’t be that AGW isn’t happening as we believe it to be (the a priori), so the mechanism must be more complicated than we thought. It must be that the western tropic zone of the Pacific ocean has been collecting all that heat for 15 years. Yes, that’s it. In fact, our model now predicts that the surface temperature should have been falling for 15 years! It’s even worse than we thought!
This is the scientific equivalent of conspiracy theories. What makes conspiracy nuts conspiracy nuts is that every piece of evidence, no matter how contrary to the conspiracy theory, is incorporated into the theory as just more proof. These warmists are doing the same thing with science. Hey, look, it’s always possible that there is a negligible uptick in average temperatures because of us. It seems quite clear, though, that these scientists are cooking the books.
I read many, many posts and comment threads over there when the comments went into the hundreds, and intelligent people would try to get them to explain how their analyses were consistent with valid scientific methods of making falsifiable predictions, and I never saw anything but what boiled down to very elegant, effective double talk in response. And that is still their game. It’s consensus among all the good people, so that’s the end of it.
Btw it reminds me again of an article I read in which one of the world’s leading organic chemists said that, privately, leading chemists all admit that no one has any idea how macro-evolution could work at a chemical level. But it’s not polite to say that.
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qb:
But they never seriously consider the data as a more fundamental challenge to their theory. They instead make the theory more complex and convoluted. It couldn’t be that AGW isn’t happening as we believe it to be (the a priori), so the mechanism must be more complicated than we thought. It must be that the western tropic zone of the Pacific ocean has been collecting all that heat for 15 years. Yes, that’s it. In fact, our model now predicts that the surface temperature should have been falling for 15 years! It’s even worse than we thought!
It’s like the classic conspiracy theory. Whenever evidence arises proving the theory wrong, the automatic response is “My God, the conspiracy is wider than I thought!”
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@qb: “leading chemists all admit that no one has any idea how macro-evolution could work at a chemical level.”
Of course, that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t work at a chemical level. But, more importantly, nobody is trying to figure out what sort of creatures will exist in a million years at set health policy based on what “evolution models” are predicting.
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Kevin:
But, more importantly, nobody is trying to figure out what sort of creatures will exist in a million years at set health policy based on what “evolution models” are predicting.
Jeez. Don’t give them any ideas.
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@qb: “Hey, look, it’s always possible that there is a negligible uptick in average temperatures because of us. It seems quite clear, though, that these scientists are cooking the books”
My objections are less about the idea of anthropogenic global warming (although, I admit, I have my objections there) than about the absurd notion that we can accurately predict future climate conditions based on climate models for which we have a paucity of long term data to inform our extrapolations, and which are new and have never correctly predicted climate previously. It’s crazy. “Well, it’s in a computer, so it must be right!”
I’ve been a computer enthusiast and user for 33 years now. Since the beginning, I have watched how TV and movies get it wrong, showing computers doing things either in ways they can’t possibly (or couldn’t at the time), or doing things in ways that they do not. Climate models remind me of those scenes in movies where they have a blurry photo from a crime scene and the police officer says: “Sharpen that”. And a blurry blob slowly resolves into a detailed high definition photo. That they can zoom into. Fun for a crime drama, I suppose, but you can’t actually make data out of nothing by saying “sharpen that”.
Climate models are like that. You can’t just punch in number and weight your results with a few various algorithms that take into account some of what you know about large scale trends or causal effects as regards global climate and then say: this will predict our climate in 10 years, or 20 years, or 30 years.
When they say “sharpen this” in the movies, the fx department started out with a super hi-res photo or several, already at a resolution a security camera would never have, and then blurred it up before having it slowly un-blur for a dramatic reveal of the killers face.
Climate models are basically the same thing: they start with the basic end in mind and design a model that gets to that end. When previously publicly published climate models were back-dated, and et to predict climate from 1900 to 1980 or whatever, they are similarly off. Because the climate models are going to be wrong, because a lack of data and almost no real opportunity to tune them, and limited knowledge of all the inputs that effect climate. You can’t just sit down at a computer and say: I’m going to predict the climate, and then do it, or we’d do it for much simpler systems, like financial markets, and be able to protect aggregate market trends and thus know when the market is going to peak and when its going to crash.
If we can’t model that with way more relevant data and understanding of inputs, were not modeling climate 20 years out with any accuracy.
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