Customized learning has led the education news cycle over the past few weeks as back to school season gets in full swing. And for good reason. Every day there is growing evidence that a seismic shift in the delivery of instruction is underway, bringing with it a tidal wave of educational options for families.
Earlier this month, the news site Education Week published an inside look at one family’s hybrid schooling experience.
Emmy Elkin’s school day starts with a cooking show.
The 10-year-old and her mom, Jill Elkin of Peachtree City,Ga., are up at8 a.m., making breakfast along with “Iron Chef America” and chatting about algebra. Last week, Emmy left home after breakfast to meet a new Japanese tutor, around the time her sister Kayla, 14, dragged herself awake to get her independent mathematics study done before a friend came over for a joint British literature course. The sisters spent the afternoon working through a chemistry course online, with Jill Elkin giving more individual coaching to her younger daughter.
Kayla and Emmy are part of the modern generation of home-schooled students, piecing together their education from their mother, a former Fayette County math teacher, other district and university teachers, parent co-ops, and online providers.
Education Week goes on to profileBaywood Learning Center in California, which provides courses à la carte to homeschooling families:
Parents usually design a patchwork quilt of different classes and activities for their children,” [school director Grace Neufeld] said. “What I see is they sign up for various classes being held in various locations like science centers or museums or different places. They also add things like music lessons, art lessons, sports, or martial arts.
The Paul Ryan Primer: Medicare, Medicaid and Why His VP Nomination Matters
Written by Molly Gamble | August 14, 2012
Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney named Representative Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) as vice presidential nominee last week. As chairman of the House Budget Committee, Mr. Ryan is heavily involved in fiscal policy and has outlined plans to address the growing costs of Medicare and Medicaid. While Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan agree on repealing President Barack Obama’s healthcare law, Mr. Ryan has some ideas of his own to curb the rising expenses within the two major federal healthcare programs.
Medicare
Mr. Ryan has called Medicare “the big budget issue,” and he has stood by his plan that involves significant changes to address the program’s costs. Although known for his fiscal conservatism, Mr. Ryan has sometimes worked across the aisle and collaborated with Democrats such as Sen. Ron Wyden (Ore.) and Alice M. Rivlin, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office, to establish his plan for Medicare.
The Obama administration’s $700 billion reduction in Medicare spending is one matter in which Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan differ. While Mr. Romney would reverse that reduction, along with the entire Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Mr. Ryan has called to maintain those cuts and redirect the savings into a Medicare trust fund. Nearly every House Republican has backed Mr. Ryan’s plan, whereas Mr. Romney continues to advocate a full-force repeal of the PPACA. Some attribute this disagreement to Mr. Ryan’s more textured understanding of math and politics and Mr. Romney’s long-held political stance against “Obamacare” and his opposition to lessen it at this point in the campaign.
In his fiscal year 2013 budget resolution, The Pathway to Prosperity, Mr. Ryan advocates a premium support payment program for Medicare, which some refer to as a voucher program, that would begin in 2023. The program would affect people who are now 54 and younger. Seniors who choose to accept the premium support payments — which would have capped annual increases — would use them to purchase health insurance in a private Medicare marketplace. This could be a private insurance plan that is still regulated by the government or a government-run program, much like traditional Medicare.
Through competition, Mr. Ryan has said this Medicare marketplace would ideally reward providers who offer high-quality and low-cost care. Seniors who choose plans with more benefits would then pay more out of their own pockets. “It’s better to have a system where the beneficiary is the driver and the decision maker, where she gets to decide among competing providers for her benefit,” Mr. Ryan has previously told reporters.
Mr. Ryan’s plans for Medicare also include gradually raising the eligibility age from 65 to 67 by 2034. He would also cap the Medicare growth rate after 2023 so that it does not exceed the growth rate of the economy, plus an additional 0.5 percent.
Activists to take on Capitol Hill: Lay off our milk, lemonade
Milk and lemonade may seem like the staples of youthful innocence, but on Saturday a group of activists hope to turn them into the tools of protests when they take to the Capitol to demand the government stop interfering in sales of fresh milk and stop shutting down kids’ lemonade stands.
The Raw Milk freedom Riders and Lemonade Freedom Day, two separate groups that each want the government out of their transactions, are unifying their voices, saying that together they can drive home a message that the government should butt out.
“This issue is not just about raw milk and it’s not just about lemonade. It’s about every individual’s right to consume the food of their choice,” said Robert Fernandes, founder of Lemonade Freedom Day.
The food freedom movement has grown dramatically in recent years, spurred by consumers looking for alternatives to supermarkets and big-brand items — and has faced pressure from local authorities, in the case of lemonade stands, and from federal authorities in the case of milk.
The Food and Drug Administration has deemed unpasteurized milk harmful and, while it cannot interfere with sales in the 30 or so states that allow them, it can prevent farmers, stores and coops from selling across lines to states where fresh milk is illegal.
Rain or shine, from 9 to 3, this Fri and Sat, Aug 17 & 18
121 Doremus Ave, Ridgewood, NJ 07450
(about one block off Godwin Ave)
We are making a big move and need to sell a lot of stuff. We have furniture, antiques, small appliances, teenage girls clothes, womens shoes (7-8), crafts and sewing, potting bench, collectables ….. and so much more
Facebook hits new low as IPO lock-up ends and shares flood market
August 16,2012
PJ Blogger
Ridgewood NJ, Facebook’s IPO lockup ended to day only to the see the stock plunge to new all-time lows . Today , Thursday marked the expiration of a lock-up period that has provided some early investors and insiders with an opportunity to exit.
The end of the lock-up period freed up 60% or an additional 271.1 million shares that could hit the market for trading and has weighed heavily on the stock since it went public.
The stock has not seen the sunny side of it’s IPO price since the first day of trading . This is the first of a series of expirations that could result in almost 2-billion shares being released to the public over the next two years.
The smart money has for sometime become very skeptical of Facebook’s long term prospects ,thinking the huge social media site maybe well past it peak. With sky high exceptions there is no place to go but down .Leading to an old Wall Street adage , “if it cant get any better than this it can only get worse ” .
Various sources were used to compile information for this post ; Bloomberg News, Yahoo Finance and AP .
‘Black box’ standards coming for cars
By Pete Kasperowicz – 08/14/12 09:13 AM ET
New federal standards for “black boxes” that record information leading up to auto accidents will will take effect Sept. 1, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) ruled on Tuesday.
The decision means the new standards for the devices will not be delayed by one year, as automakers had requested.
The federal standards will apply only to cars that are voluntarily outfitted with event data recorders (EDRs), also known as black boxes. But while the government does not yet require all cars to have black boxes installed, NHTSA is still thought to be considering a federal mandate as a next step, possibly this year.
NHTSA standards for black boxes were proposed in 2006, but have been delayed since then. In 2009, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers suggested a delay to Sept. 1, 2013, arguing that this would give auto companies more time to work with original equipment manufacturers to ensure the standard can be met.
NY Times does hatchet job on Chris Christie
August 15,2012
PJ Blogger
Ridgewood NJ, The NY Times does hatchet job on Chris Christie while omitting the McGreevey / Corzine follies that proceeded Christie , looking to lay all the blame for New Jersey’s down fall on the current Governor .While this blog has issues from time to time with the Governor the NYT piece is so one sided and so inaccurate it almost boarders on offensive.
While criticizing New Jersey’s 47th place in economic growth the author ignores all the effort since the Kean administration by incompetent ,clueless and corrupt state politicians that has killed the golden goose for job growth in the state . New Jersey now ranks last of near last in almost every business environmentally survey .
Some years ago this blogger had the opportunity to meet with Tome Kean Jr. and while I told him of my fears that North Jersey had become too Wall Street dependent with no home grown private sector job growths , Tom was focused an banning smoking at the time .
The truly scary fact is that New Jersey had not created one new private sector job since before McGreevey untill recently and the state was left perilously insolvency by the ethically challenged Corzine. How is that for candor.
Little candor from Gov. Christie before keynote
It didn’t take long for the watch-it, buster, I’m-a-bodacious-truth-teller verbiage to start flowing.
Mitt Romney publicly tapped Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey as the keynote speaker at the Republican National Convention, and within hours, Mr. Christie promised to deliver “very direct and hard truths” to the American people.
“Fixing these problems is not going to be easy for any of them,” he warned USA Today.
If the governor is in a mood for genuine candor about the economy, he could make one hell of a speech. His once prosperous state has lately become a national laggard.
Last year, New Jersey ranked 47th in economic growth, and as The Record newspaper noted, its economy shrank by 0.5 percent, even as the economies of 43 other states grew. State employment figures also do not offer much comfort. (Powell, The New York Times)
Ridgewood Chamber 19th Annual Car Show
Fri, September 07, 2012
Time: 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Memorial Park at Van Nest Square and E. Ridgewood., Ridgewood, NJ
This event is always fun for anyone who loves cars of all ages.
FREE to the public
Please click the download below for a car registration form. For more information, please contact the Ridgewood Chamber office at 201-445-2600 or email: [email protected]
Trenton looks to pick Winner for states lottery
August 14,2012
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, The state of New Jersey looking for bids for the right to run the state’s massive lottery .
The winning bid could fetch over $120 million up front and a share of profits annually, according to The Asbury Park Press, which first reported on the plan. The winner could see potential profits of over $1 billion for the length of the contract that would run from next year until 2029.
The NJ Lotter is the 8th largest in the US . Former Gov. Jon Corzine’s administration had explored the idea of letting a private company run the lottery previously . Last years a task force recommended the change to Gov. Chris Christie . Several other states like Illinois have outsourced their lottery operations and more states are also looking into privatization.
Village Of Ridgewood Bid Notice – Tree Maintenance and Snow Removal – Bids Open August 28
NOTICE TO BIDDERS
Sealed bid proposals will be received by the Village of Ridgewood, in the Level Four Courtroom at the Village Hall, 131 North Maple Avenue, Ridgewood, New Jersey 07451 on Tuesday, August 28, 2012 at 10:00 am prevailing time, and then publicly opened and read aloud for following project:
“Tree Maintenance/Snow Removal Services for the Village of Ridgewood Beginning October 1, 2012, through September 30, 2013, inclusive”
The work of the contract shall consist of providing tree maintenance/snow removal services to the Village of Ridgewood, upon notification, in accordance with the specifications and technical requirements described in the contract documents. The Village will consider partial awards for the various tasks requested. Upon mutual agreement of all parties, the Village will consider extending this contract for an additional year beyond the term stated.
Specifications and bid forms may be obtained by mail from the office of the Engineering Division, Department of Public Works, Level 3, 131 North Maple Avenue, Ridgewood, New Jersey 07451, telephone (201) 670-5500, extension 238. Documents may be examined or picked up in person between the hours of 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. at the Engineering Division, Department of Public Works, Village Hall, Level 3, 131 North Maple Avenue, Ridgewood, New Jersey 07451, Monday through Friday. Prospective bidders requesting bid documents be mailed to them shall be responsible for providing their own postage/delivery service remuneration. No Specifications and/or Proposal forms shall be given out after 4:30 p.m. on Friday, August 24, 2012.
Prices quoted must be net and exclusive of all federal, state and local sales and excise taxes. Bids may be submitted in person or by mail. Mailed bids shall be addressed to the Office of the Village Clerk. The Village assumes no responsibility for loss or non-delivery of any bid to the bid opening location sent to it prior to the Bid opening.
The contractual obligation of the Village of Ridgewood under this Contract for these Items is contingent upon the availability of appropriate funds from which payment for this Contract can be made.
Each bid must be enclosed in a sealed envelope with the name of the bidder thereon and endorsed, ” Tree Maintenance/Snow Removal Services for the Village of Ridgewood Beginning October 1, 2012, through September 30, 2013, inclusive ” and must be accompanied by the following: either a certified check, cashier’s check, or Bid Bond (Schedule B), drawn to the order of the Village of Ridgewood for $5,000; a Consent of Surety (Schedule A); a Corporation or Partnership Statement (Schedule C); a Non-Collusion Affidavit (Schedule D); and a Statement of Responsibility (Schedule E). Any award or awards may be made at a later or subsequent time or meeting of the Village Council. All required schedules, that is Schedule A, B, C, D, and E, are required to be submitted on the forms enclosed in the bid documents. No other forms will be accepted.
All contractors, their subcontractors, and material suppliers shall comply with all applicable provisions of the Contractor Business Registration Program, pursuant to Public Law 2004 Chapter 57. Evidence of satisfactory registration(s) shall be submitted at the time of the bid. All bids submitted shall contain a copy of the bidder’s New Jersey Business Registration Certificate.
The successful bidder shall furnish and deliver to the Village of Ridgewood a performance and payment bond in the amount of $10,000.00 as security for the faithful performance of the Contract. Additionally, the successful bidder shall furnish policies or Certificates of Insurance as required by the Contract. In default thereof, the said checks and/or bid bond submitted with the bid, and the amount represented thereby shall be forfeited to the Village of Ridgewood as liquidated damages, not as a penalty.
Proposals submitted by Bidders and/or Bidder’s Insurance Company(ies) not chartered in the State of New Jersey, must be accompanied by proper certificate(s) from the Secretary of State, indicating that such Bidders, Bidder’s Insurance Company(ies), and/or Surety Company(ies)’s is (are) authorized to do business in the State of New Jersey. The Village of Ridgewood reserves the right to reject any or all bids, to waive any informalities or to accept a bid which, in its judgment best serves the interest of the Village. No bids may be withdrawn for a period of sixty (60) days after the date and time set for the opening of bids.
“BIDDERS ARE REQUIRED TO COMPLY WITH THE REQUIREMENTS OF N.J.S.A. 10:5-31 et seq. and N.J.A.C. 17:27). A complete statement as to these requirements is included in the specifications.”
Leading Proponent of Global Warming Hysteria Dr, Kevin Trenberth will speak at the Ridgewood Public Library : Friday, 8/31/12 @ 7:30pm
PJ,
Just received the following email from the Library Overlords to let us know that this guy is going to tell us how bad we have behaved and how screwed we are going to be.
Having never heard of him, I checked him out. Yeah, yeah – I know, it’s all the human’s fault. But when I found a few contra positions, I was amused by what I read – especially this article about Dr. Trenberth and the global warming hoax.
Given that global warming is “unequivocal”, to quote the 2007 IPCC report, the null hypothesis should now be reversed, thereby placing the burden of proof on showing that there is no human influence [on the climate].
The “null hypothesis” in science is the condition that would result if what you are trying to establish is not true. For example, if your hypothesis is that air pressure affects plant growth rates, the null hypothesis is that air pressure has no effect on plant growth rates. Once you have both hypotheses, then you can see which hypothesis is supported by the evidence. In climate science, the AGW hypothesis states that human GHG emissions significantly affect the climate. As such, the null hypothesis is that human GHG emissions do not significantly affect the climate, that the climate variations are the result of natural processes. This null hypothesis is what Doctor T wants to reverse. As Steve McIntyre has often commented, with these folks you really have to keep your eye on the pea under the walnut shell. These folks seem to have sub-specialties in the “three-card monte” sub-species of science. Did you notice when the pea went from under one walnut shell to another in Dr. T’squotation above? Take another look at it.
The first part of Dr. T’s statement is true. There is general scientific agreement that the globe has been warming, in fits and starts of course, for the last three centuries or so. And since it has been thusly warming for centuries, the obvious null hypothesis would have to be that the half-degree of warming we experienced in the 20th century was a continuation of some long-term ongoing natural trend. But that’s not what Dr. Trenberth is doing here. Keep your eye on the pea. He has smoothly segued from the IPCC saying “global warming is ‘unequivocal’”, which is true, and stitched that idea so cleverly onto another idea, ‘and thus humans affect the climate’, that you can’t even see the seam.
The pea is already under the other walnut shell. He is implying that the IPCC says that scientists have “unequivocally” shown that humans are the cause of weather ills, and if I don’t take that as an article of faith, it’s my job to prove that we are not the cause of floods in Brisbane. Now, lest you think that the IPCC actually did mean that ‘humans are the cause’ when they said (in his words) that ‘global warming was “unequivocal”‘, here’s their full statement from the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report Summary For Policymakers (2007) (PDF, 3.7 MB): Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global mean sea level (see Figure SPM-3).
Despite the vagueness of a lack of a timeframe, that is generally true, but it says nothing about humans being the cause. So he is totally misrepresenting the IPCC findings (which he helped write, remember, so it’s not a misunderstanding) to advance his argument. The IPCC said nothing like what he is implying.Gotta love the style, though, simply proclaiming by imperial fiat that his side is the winner in one of the longest-running modern scientific debates. And his only proffered “evidence” for this claim? It is the unequivocal fact that Phil Jones and Michael Mann and Caspar Amman and Gene Wahl and the other good old boys of the IPCC all agree with him. That is to say, Dr. T’s justification for reversing the null hypothesis is that the IPCC report that Dr. T helped write agrees with Dr. T. That’s recursive enough to make Ouroboros weep in envy …
And the IPCC not only says it’s true, it’s “unequivocal”. Just plain truth wouldn’t be scientific enough for those guys, I guess. Instead, it is “unequivocal” truth. Here’s what “unequivocal” means (emphasis mine):
unequivocal: adjective: admitting of no doubt or misunderstanding; having only one meaning or interpretation and leading to only one conclusion (“Unequivocal evidence”)
Notice how well crafted Dr. T’s sentence is. After bringing in “global warming”, he introduces the word “unequivocal”, meaning we can only draw one conclusion. Then in the second half of the sentence, he falsely attaches that “unequivocal” certainty of conclusion to his own curious conclusion,
that the normal rules of science should be reversed for the benefit of … … well, not to put too fine a point on it, he’s claiming that normal scientific rules should be reversed for the benefit of Dr. Kevin Trenberth and the IPCC and those he supports. Probably just a coincidence, though. For Dr. Trenberth to call for the usual null hypothesis (which is that what we observe in nature is, you know, natural) to be reversed, citing as his evidence the IPCC statement that the earth is actually warming, is nonsense. However, it is not meaningless nonsense. It is pernicious, insidious, and dangerous nonsense. He wants us to spend billions of dollars based on this level of thinking, and he has cleverly conflated two ideas to push his agenda.
I understand that Dr. T has a scientific hypothesis. This hypothesis, generally called the “AGW hypothesis”, is that if greenhouse gases (GHGs) go up, the temperature must follow, and nothing else matters. The hypothesis is that the GHGs are the master thermostat for the globe, everything else just averages out in the long run, nothing could possibly affect the long-term climate but GHGs, nothing to see here, folks, move along. No other forcings, feedbacks, or hypotheses need apply. GHGs rule, OK? Which is an interesting hypothesis, but it is woefully short of either theoretical or observational support. In part, of course, this is because the AGW hypothesis provides almost nothing in the way of a statement or a prediction which can be falsified. This difficulty in falsification of the hypothesis, whileperhaps attractive to the proponents of the hypothesis, inevitably implies a corresponding difficulty in verification or support of the hypothesis. In addition, a number of arguably cogent and certainly feasible scientific objections have been raised against various parts of the hypothesis, from the nature and sign of the forcings considered and unconsidered, to the existence of natural thermostatic mechanisms.
Finally, to that we have to add the general failure of what few predictions have come from the teraflops of model churning in support of the AGW hypothesis. We haven’s seen any acceleration in sea level rise. We haven’t seen any climate refugees. The climate model Pinatubo prediction was way off the mark. The number and power of hurricanes hasn’t increased as predicted. And you remember the coralatolls and Bangladesh that you and the IPCC warned us about, Dr. T, the ones that were going to get washed away by the oncoming Thermageddon? Bangladesh and the atoll islands are both getting bigger, not smaller. We were promised a warming of two, maybe even three tenths of a degree per decade this century if we didn’t mend our evil carbon-loving ways, and so far we haven’t mended onething, and we have seen … well … zero tenths of a degree for the first decade. So to date, the evidentiary scorecard looks real bad for the AGW hypothesis. Might change tomorrow,
I’m not saying the game’s over, that’s AGW nonsense that I’ll leave to Dr. T. I’m just saying that after a quarter century of having unlimited funding and teraflops of computer horsepower and hundreds of thousands of hours of grad students’ and scientists’ time and the full-throated support of the media and university departments dedicated to establishing the hypothesis, AGW supporters have not yet come upwith much observational evidence to show for the time and money invested. Which should give you a clue as to why Dr. T is focused on the rules of the game. As the hoary lawyer’s axiom has it, if you can’t argue facts argue the law [the rules of the game], and if you can’t argue the law pound the table and loudly proclaim your innocence …
So now, taking both tacks at once in his paper, Dr. T. is both re-asserting his innocence and proposing that we re-write the rules of the whole game … I find myself cracking up laughing over my keyboard at the raw nerve of the man. If he and his ideas weren’t so dangerous, it would be truly funny.
Look, I’m sorry to be the one to break the bad news to you, Dr. T, but you can’t change the rules of scientific inquiry this late in the game. Here are the 2011 rules, which curiously are just like the 1811 rules.
First, you have to show that some aspect of the climate is historically anomalous or unusual. As far as I know, no one has done that, including you. So the game is in serious danger before it is even begun. If you can’t show me where the climate has gone off its natural rails, if you can’t point to where the climate is acting unusually or anomalously, then what good are your explanation as to why itsupposedly went off the rails at some mystery location you can’t identify?
(And of course, this is exactly what Dr. T would gain by changing the rules, and may relate to his desire to change them. With so few examples to give to support his position, after a quarter century of searching for such evidence, it would certainly be tempting to try to change the rules … but I digress.)
But perhaps, Dr. T., perhaps you have found some such climate anomaly which cannot be explained as natural variation and you just haven’t made it public yet. If you have evidence that the climate is acting anomalously, then Second, you have to show that theanomaly can be explained by human actions. And no, Dr. T., you can’t just wave your hands and say something like “Willis, the IPCC sez you have to prove that what generations of people called ‘natural’, actually is natural”. There’s an arcane technical scientific name for that, too. It’s called “cheating”, Dr. T., and is frowned on in the better circles of scientific inquiry …
(N.B. – pulling variables out of a tuned computer model and then proudly announcing that the model doesn’t work without the missing variables doesn’t mean you have established that humans affect the climate. It simply means that you tuned your computer model to reproduce the historical record using all the variables, and as an inevitable result, when using only part of those variables your model doesn’tdo as well at reproducing the historical record. No points for that claim.) Third, you have to defend your work, and not just from the softball questions of your specially selected peer reviewers who “know what to say” to get you published in scientific journals. In 2011,curiously, we’ve gone back to the customs of the 1800s, the public marketplace of ideas — except this time it’s an electronic marketplace of ideas, rather than people speaking from the dias and in the halls of the Royal Society in London. If you won’t stand up and publicly defend your work, it’s simple – you won’t be believed. And not just by me. Other scientists are watching, and considering, and evaluating.
This doesn’t mean you have to reply to every idiot with a half-baked objection and a tin-foil hat. It does mean that if you refuse to answer serious scientific questions, people will take note of that refusal. You must have noticed how such refusal to answer scientific questions totally destroyed the scientific credibility of the website RealClimate. Well, they’re your friends, so perhaps you didn’t notice, but ifnot, you should notice, here’s an example. (PDF, 147K) Running from serious scientific questions, as they make a practice of doing at RealClimate, makes you look weak whether you are or not.
And Always, you have to show your work. You have to archive your data. You have to reveal your computer algorithms. You have to expose everything that supports and sustains your claims to the brutal light of public inquiry, warts and all. Dr. T., I fear you’ll have to get used to the sea change, this is not your father’s climate science. The bottom line is we’re no longer willing to trust you. You could publish in the Akashic Records and I wouldn’t believe what you said until I checked the figures myself. I’m sorry to say it, but by the actions of you and your colleagues, you have forfeited the public’s trust. You blew your credibility, Dr. T, and you have not yet rebuilt it.
And further actions like your current attempt to re-write the rules of science aren’t helping at all. Nor is trying to convince us that you look good with a coat of the finest English whitewash from the “investigations” into Climategate. Didn’t you guys notice the lesson of Watergate, that the coverup is more damaging than the original malfeasance?
Dr. T, you had a good run, you were feted and honored, but the day of reckoning up the cost is has come and gone. Like some book said, you and the other un-indicted co-conspirators have been weighed in the balances, and found wanting. At this point, you have two choices — accept it and move on, or bitch about it. I strongly advise the former, but so far all I see is the latter.
You want to regain the trust of the public, for yourself and for climate science? It won’t be easy, but it can be done. Here’s my shortlist of recommendations for you and other mainstream climate scientists:
• Stop trying to sell the idea that the science is settled. Climate science is a new science, we don’t even have agreement on whether clouds warm or cool the planet, we don’t know if there are thermostatic interactions that tend to maintain some temperature in preference to others. Or as you wrote to Tom Wigley, Dr. T, How come you do not agree with a statement that says we are no where close to knowingwhere energy is going or whether clouds are changing to make the planet brighter. We are not close to balancing the energy budget. The fact that we can not account for what is happening in the climate system makes any consideration of geoengineering quite hopelessas we will never be able to tell if it is successful or not! It is a travesty! SOURCE: email 1255550975
Curious. You state strongly to your friend that we’re not close to knowing where the energy is going or to balancing the energy budget, yet you say in public that we know enough to take the most extraordinary step of reversing the null hypothesis … how does that work again? At this point, there’s not much about climate science that is “unequivocal” except that the climate is always changing.
• Don’t try to change the rules of the game in mid-stream. It makes you look desperate, whether you are or not.
• Stop calling people “deniers”, my goodness, after multiple requests that’s just common courtesy and decency, where are your manners? It makes you look surly and uncivilized, whether you are or not.• Stop avoiding public discussion and debate of your work. You are asking us to spend billions of dollars based on your conclusions. If you won’t bother to defend those conclusions, don’t bother uswith them. Refusing to publicly defend your billion dollar claims make it look like you can’t defend them, whether you can or not.
• Stop secretly moving the pea under the walnut shells. You obviously think we are blind, you also clearly believe we wouldn’t remember that you said we have a poor understanding of the climate system. Disabuse yourself of the idea that you are dealing with fools or idiots, and do it immediately.
As I have found to my cost, exposing my scientific claims to the cruel basilisk gaze of the internet is like playing chess with Deep Blue … individual processors have different abilities, but overall any faults in my ideas will certainly be exposed. Too many people looking at my ideas from too many sides for much to slip through. Trying anything but absolute honesty on the collective memory and wisdomof the internet makes you look like both a fool and con man, whether you are one or not.
• Write scientific papers that don’t center around words like “possibly” or “conceivably” or “might”. Yes, possibly all of the water molecules in my glass of water might be heading upwards at the same instant, and I could conceivably win the Mega-Ball lottery, and I might still play third base for the New York Yankees, but that is idle speculation that has no place in scientific inquiry. Give us facts, give us uncertainties, but spare us the stuff like “This raises the possibility that by 2050, this could lead to the total dissolution of all inter-atomic bonds …”. Yeah, I suppose it could. So what, should I buy a lottery ticket?
• Stop lauding the pathetic purveyors of failed prophecies. Perhaps you climate guys haven’t noticed, but Paul Ehrlich was not a visionary genius. He was a failure whose only exceptional talent is the making of apocalyptic forecasts that didn’t come true. In any business he would not have lasted one minute past the cratering collapse of his first ridiculous forecast of widespread ffood riots and worldwide deaths from global famine in the 1980s … but in academia, despite repeating his initial “We’re all gonna crash and burn, end of the world coming up soon, you betcha” prognostication method several more times with no corresponding crashing burning or ending, he’s still a professor atStanford. Now that’s understandable under tenure rules, you can’t fire him for being a serially unsuccessful doomcaster. But he also appears to be one of your senior AGW thinkers and public representatives, which is totally incomprehensible to me.
His string of predicted global catastrophes that never came anywhere near true was only matched by the inimitable collapses of the prophecies of his wife Anne, and of his cohorts John Holdren and the late Stephen Schneider. I fear we’ll never see their like again, a fearsome foursome who between them never made one single prediction that actually came to pass. Stop using them as your spokesmodels, itdoesn’t increase confidence in your claims.
• Enough with the scary scenarios, already. You’ve done the Chicken Little thing to death, give it a rest, it is sooo last century. It makes you look both out-of-date and hysterical whether you are or not.
• Speak out against scientific malfeasance whenever and wherever you see it. This is critical to the restoration of trust. I’m sick of watching climate scientists doing backflips to avoid saying to Lonnie Thompson “Hey, idiot, archive all of your data, you’re ruining all of our reputations!”. The overwhelming silence of mainstream AGW scientists on these matters is one of the (unfortunately numerous) reasons that the public doesn’t trust climate scientists, and justifiably so. You absolutely must clean up your own house to restore public trust, no one else can do it. Speak up. We can’t hear you.
• Stop re-asserting the innocence of you and your friends. It makes you all look guilty, whether you are or not … and since the CRU emails “unequivocally” favor the latter possibility, it makes you look unapologetic as well as guilty. Whether you are or not.
• STOP HIDING THINGS!!! Give your most private data and your most top-secret computer codes directly to your worst enemies and see if they can poke holes in your ideas. If they can’t, then you’re home free. That is true science, not hiding your data and gaming the IPCC rules to your advantage.
• Admit the true uncertainties. The mis-treatment of uncertainty in the IPCC reports, and the underestimation of true uncertainty in climate science in general, is a scandal.
• Scrap the IPCC. It has run its race. Do you truly think that whatever comes out of the next IPCC report will make the slightest difference to the debate? You’ve had four IPCC reports in a row, each one more alarmist than the previous one. You’ve had every environmental organization shilling for you. You’ve had billions of dollars in support, Al Gore alone spent $300 million on advertising and advocacy. You’ve had 25 years to make your case, with huge resources and supercomputers and entire governments on your side, and you are still losing the public debate … after all of that, do you really think another IPCC report will change anything?
If it is another politically driven error-fest like the last one, I don’t think so. And what are the odds of it being an honest assessment of the science? Either way the next IPCC report won’t settle a single discussion, even if it is honest science. Again, Dr. T, you have only yourself and your friends to blame. You used the IPCC to flog bad science like the Hokeyschtick, your friends abused the IPCC to sneak inpapers y’all favored and keep out papers you didn’t like, you didn’t check your references so stupid errors were proclaimed as gospel truth, it’s all a matter of record. Do you truly think that after Climategate, and after the revelations of things like IPCC citations of WWF propaganda pieces as if they were solid science, and after Pachauri’s ludicrous claim that it was “voodoo science” to point out the Himalayan glacier errors, after all that do you think anyone with half a brain still believes the IPCC is some neutral arbiter of climate science whose ex-cathedra pronouncements can be relied upon?
Because if you do think people still believe that, you really should get out more. At this point peopledon’t trust the IPCC any more than they trust you and your friends. Another IPCC report will be roundly ignored by one side, and cited as inerrant gospel by the other side. How will that help anyone?
Forget about the IPCC, it is a meaningless distraction, and get back to the science. That’s my free advice, Dr. T., and I’m sure it’s worth every penny you paid for it. Look, I don’t think you’re a bad guy. Sadly for you, but fortunately for us, you got caught hanging out with the bad boys who had their hands in the cookie jar. And tragically for everyone, all of you were seduced by “noble cause corruption”. Hey, it’s nothing to be ashamed of, it’s happened to me too, you’re not the first guy to think that the nobility of your cause justified improper actions. But as far as subsequently proclaiming your innocence and saying that you and your friends did nothing wrong? Sorry, Dr. T, the jury has already come in on that one, and they weren’t distracted by either the nobility of your cause, nor by the unequivocal fact that you and your friends were whitewashed as pure as the driven snow in the investigation done by your other friends … instead, they noted your emails saying things like:
In that regard I don’t think you can ignore it all, as Mike [Mann] suggests as one option, but the response should try to somehow label these guys a[s] lazy and incompetent and unable to do the huge amount of work it takes to construct such a database.
Indeed technology and data handling capabilities have evolved and not everything was saved. So my feeble suggestion is to indeed cast aspersions on their motives and throw in some counter rhetoric. Labeling them as lazy with nothing better to do seems like a good thing to do. SOURCE: email 1177158252
Yeah, that’s the ticket, that’s how a real scientist defends his scientific claims … w.
Slow path to progress for U.S. immigrants
43% on welfare after 20 years
Immigrants lag behind native-born Americans on most measures of economic well-being — even those who have been in the U.S. the longest, according to a report from the Center for Immigration Studies, which argues that full assimilation is a more complex task than overcoming language or cultural differences.
The study, which covers all immigrants, legal and illegal, and their U.S.-born children younger than 18, found that immigrants tend to make economic progress by most measures the longer they live in the U.S. but lag well behind native-born Americans on factors such as poverty, health insurance coverage and homeownership.
The study, based on 2010 and 2011 census data, found that 43 percent of immigrants who have been in the U.S. at least 20 years were using welfare benefits, a rate that is nearly twice as high as native-born Americans and nearly 50 percent higher than recent immigrants.
Exclusive: U.S. banks told to make plans for preventing collapse
By Rick Rothacker
Fri Aug 10, 2012 8:41am EDT
(Reuters) – U.S. regulators directed five of the country’s biggest banks, including Bank of America Corp and Goldman Sachs Group Inc, to develop plans for staving off collapse if they faced serious problems, emphasizing that the banks could not count on government help.
The two-year-old program, which has been largely secret until now, is in addition to the “living wills” the banks crafted to help regulators dismantle them if they actually do fail. It shows how hard regulators are working to ensure that banks have plans for worst-case scenarios and can act rationally in times of distress.
Officials like Lehman Brothers former Chief Executive Dick Fuld have been criticized for having been too hesitant to take bold steps to solve their banks’ problems during the financial crisis.
According to documents obtained by Reuters, the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency first directed five banks – which also include Citigroup Inc,, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase & Co – to come up with these “recovery plans” in May 2010.
NJ TRANSIT MAKES THE GRADE IN LATEST CUSTOMER SURVEY
Customers rank overall satisfaction at 6.0 systemwide; agency achieves Fiscal Year 2012 goal, sets goal of 6.5 for FY13
August 8, 2012
NEWARK, NJ — Marking the first complete fiscal year of Scorecard, NJ TRANSIT today posted an overall customer satisfaction score of 6.0 systemwide, achieving the agency’s Fiscal Year 2012 goal with its fourth quarter results. The results, which will continue to guide system and customer service improvements across NJ TRANSIT services, were announced at this month’s regularly scheduled NJ TRANSIT Board of Directors meeting.
Scorecard, which launched in July 2011, is an initiative designed to provide the public with a clear measurement of how the organization is performing, while driving strategic decisions to improve the overall customer experience. Along with the latest survey results, the agency also announced its new customer satisfaction goal of 6.5 for the current fiscal year.
“As the key driver and performance measurement tool for all areas of the corporation, Scorecard has shaped NJ TRANSIT into a more accountable, results-driven agency that is more responsive to the needs of our riders who use the system every day,” said Transportation Commissioner and NJ TRANSIT Board Chairman James Simpson. “While we are proud of achieving our FY12 goal for overall customer satisfaction, our work is far from over. We will continue to raise the bar to further boost that score by making improvements across the system, with a focus on the areas most important to customers.”
The fourth quarter survey was conducted online at njtransit.com and in the field between June 8 and June 29. The survey asked bus, rail, light rail and Access Link customers to rate NJ TRANSIT on a scale of 0 to 10. Customers also considered 41 attributes of the system related to facilities, service, vehicles, communications and the overall experience using NJ TRANSIT. In addition, customers were asked to identify the most important aspects of NJ TRANSIT service among the items they rated.
Of the approximately 440,700 customers who use NJ TRANSIT service on a typical weekday, NJ TRANSIT received nearly 16,000 responses to the online and field survey.
Regarding customer loyalty, 76 percent of the customers surveyed said they would recommend NJ TRANSIT to a friend, relative or neighbor (up from 67 percent from the baseline rating). NJ TRANSIT established the baseline with the first customer survey conducted in advance of the launch of Scorecard last year.
“In just one year since its launch, Scorecard has changed the very culture of NJ TRANSIT to focus on performance standards and absolute results to best serve our customers,” said NJ TRANSIT Executive Director James Weinstein. “With improved customer satisfaction ratings, and the notion that three out of every four NJ TRANSIT customers continue to recommend our service, it is clear that Scorecard is moving the agency in the right direction.”
Survey Results – Fourth Quarter FY12
For the fourth quarter of FY12, customers rated their overall satisfaction with NJ TRANSIT service as above average with a score of 6.0—a substantial increase over the baseline rating of 5.2—achieving the agency’s FY 2012 goal of 6.0 for customer satisfaction.
“By establishing a baseline rating along with a concrete goal, as an agency NJ TRANSIT knew exactly where we were at and where we needed to go,” said Executive Director Weinstein. “However, we want our customers to understand that as we achieve our original goals, we are not going to sit back and relax—we are going to set new ones to make additional progress in terms of moving the needle for customer satisfaction.”
Current customer satisfaction ratings on NJ TRANSIT’s four service modes are as follows:
Bus customers rated their overall satisfaction with service at a 6.1, higher than the 5.5 baseline rating and a low of 5.4 (2nd quarter, FY12). The most important areas for NJ TRANSIT to improve again included on-time performance, fares and the weekday PM peak schedule. About 270,900 customers use NJ TRANSIT’s interstate and local bus system on a typical weekday, representing approximately 62 percent of all NJ TRANSIT customers.
Rail customers gave NJ TRANSIT an overall score of 5.7, a significant increase from the baseline score of 4.5 and a low of 4.1 (2nd quarter, FY12). Customers ranked fares, mechanical reliability and the handling of service disruptions as the most important attributes that need improvement. Approximately 130,600 customers ride NJ TRANSIT trains on a typical weekday, comprising nearly 30 percent of all NJ TRANSIT customers.
Light Rail customers gave NJ TRANSIT an overall satisfaction rating of 6.9, an improvement over the baseline score of 6.5. Customers indicated that seating availability, fares and cleanliness on board are the most important aspects of service to improve. About 35,800 customers use NJ TRANSIT’s three light rail lines on a typical weekday, making up more than eight percent of total NJ TRANSIT customers.
Access Link, NJ TRANSIT’s paratransit service for customers with disabilities, was given an overall rating of 8.2, higher than the 7.5 baseline. Access Link serves approximately 3,500 customers on a typical weekday.
Of the 41 attributes of the system customers were asked to rate, systemwide scores increased on all but two attributes—Payment Options and NJ TRANSIT’s website—both of which remained constant at a strong score of 7.0.
“Through the Scorecard initiative, NJ TRANSIT has achieved measurable results over the last year, due to in large part to the invaluable feedback we have regularly received from the people who use our services,” said Executive Director Weinstein. “For the upcoming year, we are setting our overall customer satisfaction goal at a 6.5, and we intend to see that every area of the agency—from the rail, bus, light rail and Access Link operating divisions, to customer communications, to fare collection, to capital construction—continues to make improvements to enhance the customer experience.”
NJ TRANSIT will continue to use the survey results to target specific improvements needed to boost customer satisfaction. Surveys are being conducted quarterly so NJ TRANSIT can track results, with the first survey of Fiscal Year 2013 set to be available from August 13 through August 29.
Detailed survey results are available at njtransit.com/surveyresults. In addition to the customer survey results, NJ TRANSIT has also published final FY12 Scorecard metrics in the areas of customer experience, safety and security, financial performance, corporate accountability and employee excellence, available at njtransit.com/scorecard.
Obama White House told GSA to ‘stand-down’ on Occupy protesters
August 7, 2012
Documents obtained by Judicial Watch confirm that somebody in the White House told officials with the General Services Administration (GSA) to “stand down” and not arrest Occupy Portland protestors who may have broken the law last year.
Former GSA Public Buildings Service Commissioner Robert Peck told a senior Department of Homeland Security official that the federal housekeeping agency had been instructed by the Obama White House to go easy on the Occupy protestors.
In a Nov. 6, 2011, DHS/National Protection and Programs Directorate Chief of Staff Caitlin Durkovich asked GSA’s Peck if it was true that his agency had asked Federal Protective Service officials not to take action against the Occupy Portland protestors.
