The Arrogance of Power

I've been trying to read the cap and trade bill, but it is so large that when I tried to pull it up it crashed my computer. That alone tells me that it is not a good piece of legislation. But I finally did find the text of an early version, this one only 936 pages long. Therefore, it is missing all of the additions used to buy the votes of the dissenting Congressmen, many of which accepted that bribe.

So why is the bill so long? Is it because it sets the goals for reductions of carbon emissions and the creation of alternative clean energy? No, it's because it attempts to lay out exactly how this is to be achieved. Congress, in their immutable arrogance, has decided that they are the only people who know how to make this happen. Not the engineers. Not the scientists. Not those who have been researching and experimenting for years. But a bunch of lawyers, most of which have never had a job in the private sector.

It would be one thing if the legislation set goals for reduction of emissions and a deadline to achieve them, and then stated a company would be fined if they don't meet them, but instead it levies a heavy tax on them based on where they are now. The belief being that the heavy taxes will incentivize them to reduce their emissions. But the problem is, that these companies will not have the capital to expend on research and innovation for their energy usage, because they are sending that money to the federal government. So the method by which Congress hopes to achieve their goal, will actually serve to defeat their goal. And is the money collected from these taxes going to fund energy research? Maybe some of it. But a lot of it will go to fund the new government agencies and organizations set up to administer this convoluted new plan.

As I read more and more of the bill, one thing became quite clear. The bill sets up organizations to determine further regulations. In nearly every section is an area dedicated to researching what additional regulations will be required. This bill, like so many that have come out of Congress in the last 50 years, is a power grab. They are setting up more government agencies with unelected authority to slap the American people and American companies with more regulations.

They even have a section in this bill to use the American taxpayer dollars to explore carbon emissions in other countries, and they give themselves the right to tell those other countries what to do. This one has me scratching my head just a bit.

So when it comes right down to it, Waxman-Markey is not an energy bill, it is legislation to set up government agencies to explore regulation. Again, believing that only the federal government can determine what needs to be done and how.

If the only true wisdom is knowing that you don't know everything, then our Congress is sadly lacking in wisdom.

Think I'm kidding? Think I'm exaggerating? Think I'm just being angry, bitchy and confrontational? Then please read the bill yourself. I encourage you to do so. We must be informed on what Congress is doing in order to hold them accountable. Our form of government cannot work if we the people abdicate our power over our elected officials.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

I'm a statistical process control analyst for my day job. This means that I deal with statistics every day and I know what they can tell you and what you can MAKE them tell you. The trouble with statistics is that it's pretty easy to manipulate your data to tell you what you want to hear instead of the truth. This appears to be what has happened with CO2 and climate change.

I can hear the outrage already from some, but the theory (yes, it's only a theory) that CO2 emissions has caused global warming isn't supported by the unmanipulated data. The main theory around the CO2 levels causing global warming comes from the work of G.S. Callendar and C.D. Keeling who based their work on historic arctic ice core readings. The problem is that they didn't use all of the data. They used only the low readings over the years and discarded the high ones. In essence, they manipulated their data.

I decided to do some research on this and found a wonderful site with lots of excellent, though technical, information in an article written by Dr Tim Ball in the Canada Free Press. Much of what I'm going to share with you comes from that article.

Here is what is called a scatter plot. It's a very simple tool we geeks use to see what's going on. In this scatter plot, the historical CO2 levels from the ice core readings are logged. All of them. The circled dots are the ones that were selected for use by creators of the CO2 emissions theory on global warming. Notice anything a little wonky? Only the low readings were used. By throwing out the high readings they can make the statistics say whatever they want. And the world swallowed it hook, line and sinker. And think about this, if the historical CO2 levels we base our theories on are wrong, then what they put in the climate model is wrong, and all of the dire predictions that model gave us are, you guessed it, wrong.

But let's not stop here. One of my favorite graphs in the analysis is that as the CO2 levels rise so does the temperate. But what they don't tell you while looking at all the lines and dots on the graph, is that the temperate actually rises BEFORE the CO2 levels. It just keeps getting curiouser and curiouser. This looks more like a temperature increase is causing higher CO2 levels than the currently accepted theory of the opposite.

Here's the bottom line, statistics are only as good as the data used to calculate them. And the data is only as good as the people obtaining it. The data collection, and therefore the data, used to determine that CO2 is causing global warming (or climate change as it's now known) has been called into serious question, but are we taking another look at the data as we should? Nope. Instead we're working to pass expensive legislation to impact the CO2 levels that real data shows is not our problem.

Could global warming be accelerated by man? Yes, it is a possibility. But the data, the real data, all the data, shows that CO2 is not what's causing it. By focusing on a theory that has been disproved, we may be missing the real issue. We're acting like bad cops who ignore exculpatory evidence and work to convict the wrong man while letting the real criminal go free. Of course, man may also have little to no impact on global warming at all. Who'd have thunk it.

For more information, please read Dr Ball's article here. http://doctorbulldog.wordpress.com/2008/12/10/exposing-the-global-warming-myth-co2-levels/

Michael Jackson Vs Cap and Trade

The single largest tax increase in history passed the house today but does anybody know or care. Nope. And why is that? Because Michael Jackson is dead.

Jacko was all over the news today while the bill that will increase taxes on all Americans, put our companies at a disadvantage against the rest of the world, increase the utility costs for everyone and opens the door to government control of all industries falls into the background.

Why is this you may ask. Because more Americans care about the death of Michael Jackson than about what is going on in their own legislature.

Don't get me wrong here. I believe we lost a great talent. Michael Jackson had a profound impact on pop music and dance, but couldn't coverage of his death played second fiddle to the near government takeover of all American industry?

What is really sad is that the people who didn't care today will be wondering what the hell happened when they can't pay their utility bill next winter. And then they'll be crying how could this happen.

I am pretty much disgusted with everything tonight. I'm ticked at the news, I'm ticked at the American people, I'm mad as hell at the House of Representatives and the only people I'm not angry with are the bloggers that were fighting so hard to make people care.

So America, come December I reserve the right to say "I told you so."