Oh, that’s right — we hate it. Big hole in the federal budget and all.
Then you should be dancing that it died Sunday night, right? Yeah, that’s right: TARP expired.
But, maybe we should be lamenting its passage, and celebrating it. It ended up costing us almost nothing but the problem of having Tea Party, ignorant ingrates involved in the campaign. It might even have turned a profit. In any case, it didn’t leave a big hole in the federal budget, and there is little doubt that it saved us from the Greater Depression.
What if, in the end, the Toxic Asset Relief Program so controversial at birth and vilified throughout its two years of life turns out to have turned a profit for the government and the taxpayer?
We — most of the news media this is — simply don’t know what to do with this news.
The suggestion that TARP did not blow a hole in the federal budget potentially blows a hole in some other presumptions as well. Economists will argue for years over the necessity of TARP, and the rest of us can argue over the bonuses investment bankers still got (and continue to get).But we won’t argue about whether the government could or should have done more to prevent the collapse of the credit markets and the mass failure of banks in 2008. Because the government did do TARP, and those other things did not happen. We did not go back to 1929 or worse. And, unlovely as it may be, TARP remains the closest thing we have to an explanation for that.
Still, the expiration of the program as Sunday turned to Monday passed largely unremarked. And insofar as the media have noticed the story of TARP’s apparently much-reduced cost, that tale has been anything but ballyhooed.
On the last business day before TARP expired, The New York Times and The Washington Post did report the much-reduced cost figures — mentioning the potential for the program to actually make money for taxpayers in the final accounting. But the Times put the story in the Business Section, and the Post played it on the Federal Page.
What other “common sense” delusions will misdirect this year’s election vote?
What thanks do we get? What thanks do we give?
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
John Mashey assembled a massive document that nails down the case that bad science and politics make the complaints against scientists and the science that indicates global warming occurs, and can be attributed to greenhouse gases. It is a scandal, though it’s unlikely to be reported that way.
Mashey’s paper indicts staff work done for Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas — not that any of the voters in Barton’s district will let this major breach of ethics sway their votes, but those who want to vote against him can be gratified that they are on the moral side of the ballot.
This report offers a detailed study of the “Wegman Report”: Edward J. Wegman, David W. Scott, Yasmin H. Said, “AD HOC COMMITTEE REPORT ON THE ‘HOCKEY STICK’ GLOBAL CLIMATE RECONSTRUCTION”(2006).
It has been key prop of climate anti-science ever since. It was promoted to Congress by Representatives Joe Barton and Ed Whitfield as “independent, impartial, expert” work by a team of “eminent statisticians.” It was none of those.
A Barton staffer provided much of the source material to the Wegman team. The report itself contains numerous cases of obvious bias, as do process, testimony and follow-on actions. Of 91 pages, 35 are mostly plagiarized text, but often injected with errors, bias and changes of meaning. Its Bibliography is mostly padding, 50% of the references uncited in the text. Many references are irrelevant or dubious. The team relied heavily on a long-obsolete sketch and very likely on various uncredited sources. Much of the work was done by Said (then less than 1 year post-PhD) and by students several years pre-PhD. The (distinguished) 2nd author Scott wrote only a 3-page standard mathematical Appendix. Some commenters were surprised to be later named as serious “reviewers.” Comments were often ignored anyway. People were misused.
The Wegman Report claimed two missions: #1 evaluate statistical issues of the “hockey stick” temperature graph, and #2 assess potential peer review issues in climate science. For #1, the team might have been able to do a peer-review-grade statistical analysis, but in 91 pages managed not to do so. For #2, a credible assessment needed a senior, multidisciplinary panel, not a statistics professor and his students, demonstrably unfamiliar with the science and as a team, unqualified for that task. Instead, they made an odd excursion into “social network analysis,” a discipline in which they lacked experience, but used poorly to make baseless claims of potential wrongdoing.
In retrospect, the real missions were: #1 claim the “hockey stick” broken and #2 discredit climate science as a whole. All this was a facade for a PR campaign well-honed by Washington, DC “think tanks” and allies, underway for years.
Now, if only Mashey had some e-mails stolen from Joe Barton, we could get some traction on the issue, eh? ::wink-wink, nudge-nudge::
One may wonder what it will take to rehabilitate the skeptical side of the debate, to the point that they contribute more than mau-mauing.
Mashey’s paper makes that case that Joe Barton worked hard to pull off a great, hoaxed political smear, with a high degree of success. Who will have the backbone to do anything about it? Global cooling will proceed to the next ice age before any Republican shows backbone, I predict.
But, how long before the Fort Worth Star-Telegram or the Dallas Morning News picks up the story?
Other Texas bloggers? Anyone?
It’s not an air-tight legal brief (I could quibble with some of the legal material), but in a better world, a world where politicians actually do good politics and public servants do public service, the House Rules Committee and Ethics Committee would be reading Mashey’s piece, and asking pointed questions. U.S. attorneys in Washington, D.C., and the Northern District of Texas, would also be downloading Mashey’s piece, and puzzling it out. Journalists in Dallas, Fort Worth, Austin, Galveston and Houston in Texas, and Washington, D.C., and New York, would also be poring over the piece. KenCuccinelliin Virginia would also be paying attention to it, if he were concerned about justice.
Although reserved, Roosevelt had a quiet sense of humor. When commenting about how she felt about having a rose named after her, she remarked: “I was very flattered . . . but not pleased with the description in the catalogue: no good in a bed, but fine up against a wall.”
Can anyone tell us when and where she said that? Gardeners, can you confirm? Can anyone find a photo of the rose, “Eleanor Roosevelt?” (It’s probably a yellow rose, but I haven’t found a description.)
Fascinating story well told by the man who lived it: After D-Day, an Allied unit was pinned down by a sniper. Unable to move, and on an inspired whim, one of the American soldiers, Jack Leroy Tueller, took out his trumpet, and played “Lili Marlene.”
Jack Tueller holding his trumpet, at 90 (image from maniacworld/ Wearethemusic.com)
In the morning he was introduced to a German soldier, a sniper who had surrendered, unable to keep fighting after some mysterious trumpeter played the song that made him think of his home, his mother, his girlfriend, and love.
Two minutes of amazing history, vividly told and played, suitable for classroom use.
Videos say that Jack Tueller is 90 years old. I’m guessing the video is about a year old — does anyone know any more about Col. Jack Tuler, his story, or where he lives? Could this be the late Jack Tuler of Chicago? Hey, anyone: Where is Jack Tueller today? Who has his life details? (Tueller lives today in Bountiful, Utah, with his wife, Marjorie. He still plays the trumpet.)
Tip of the old scrub brush to Kenny, in China, and to Common American Journal, who had a YouTube copy. Special tip of the old scrub brush to J. A. Higginbotham, who tracked down the Deseret News stories.
(Our YouTube host misspelled the name of the song, I think.)
_____________
Update, October 3, 2010: Reader J. A. Higginbotham tracked down two stories in the Deseret News, in Salt Lake City, about Col. Tueller. I’ve corrected the spellings above, and edited otherwise to point to the details. A new post is probably warranted. Go to the Deseret News site and read their fine work, especially the long story by Doug Robinson.
Update March 2019: Both video links above seem to have died; here’s a video from StudiesWeekly.com, put up on YouTube in 2015.
Last November and December, in their campaign to impugn science and promote air pollution, climate change “skeptics” said that global warming is done, and that we are in a new planetary cooling phase.
“The interesting thing about it is the temperature anomaly map for June shows it was pretty much warm everywhere over land except for a few places,” said David Easterling, of NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C., which released the data. “That’s somewhat of an uncommon pattern to see almost all the land mass being that warm.”
Only the U.S. Pacific Northwest, northern Europe and southern China were cooler than average, according to NOAA.
As the Earth continues to heat up from rising levels of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, the planet is likely to see more record-breaking years. “As we continue to get warmer, the odds of any given year breaking the record are pretty high,” Easterling said.
Indeed, four of the five warmest years on record have come in the last decade. The reigning warmest year on record is 2005, followed by 1998, 2003, 2006 and 2009, Easterling said.
We don’t even have to see their intimate e-mails to know they fibbed to us. The thermometer on the patio has the news.
Last year, when the world’s leaders were preparing to meet in Copenhagen, harpies from the radical and crazy right insisted that global warming had ceased its advances, and the global cooling would be the norm for the near and midrange future. They promised!*
Good heavens! Do you think they were fibbing when they said the scientists were wrong, and mean? Were they fibbing when they said CO2 is not a pollutant?
How many more broken promises? (/sarcasm off)
Would Copenhagen’s result been different had this information been available a year earlier?
* Note: No, they didn’t promise, not really. Critics of taking action for a better future never promise anything solid. They only carp that whatever being done is wrong, unnecessary, and too expensive. Plus, they complain that the food is horrible to the point of being inedible, and the portions are too small.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Alan Dale June, Navajo Code Talker, accepted the Congressional Gold Medal from President George W. Bush, in a ceremony in the U.S. Capitol on July 26, 2001. June died in September 2010, at 91. Photo Credit: John Klemmer, U.S. Senate Photo Studio.
June was one of three surviving Navajo Code Talkers out of 29 who developed the code and system by which they communicated by radio across the South Pacific Ocean, in Navajo. Using a simple code for troops, ships, airplanes and other armaments, the Navajo Code Talkers passed crucial information between far-flung American forces, on regular radio waves. Japanese forces could easily intercept the broadcasts, but they did not speak Navajo, nor did they break the Navajo code.
After the original 29, many more Navajos got training and performed the critical communications functions.
I met several of these men through the good graces of my brother, Jerry Jones, who helped promote their recognition when he worked in Page, Arizona, in public relations for the Salt River Project’s Navajo Power Station. Jerry drew deep inspiration from the quiet dignity and great humility of these patriots. He would have been gratified to see them get the Congressional Gold Medal, a belated and too-small recognition for the great service they rendered our nation.
Columbus feared that King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella would not honor pledges they had made to him as recompense and honor for his great work of discovery on their behalf. Before his final voyage, he assembled a legal document showing those promises made to him, and his work for Spain.
This illustrates, once again, the human dimension of the great drama of the age of exploration, of Columbus’s stumbling on to the America’s in his efforts to get to China.
On January 5, 1502, prior to his fourth and final voyage to America, Columbus gathered several judges and notaries in his home in Seville. The purpose? To have them authorize copies of his archival collection of original documents through which Isabel and Fernando had granted titles, revenues, powers and privileges to Columbus and his descendants. These 36 documents are popularly called “Columbus’ Book of Privileges.” Four copies of his “Book” existed in 1502, three written on vellum and one on paper. The Library’s copy, one of the three on vellum, has a unique paper copy of the Papal Bull Dudum siquidem of September 26, 1493, which extended the Spanish claim for future explorations.
Steve Schafersman, now president of Texas Citizens for Science, played the yeoman then:
Description of the program:
Did humans coexist with dinosaurs? The tracks tell the tale. Dr. John R. Cole, Dr. Steven Schafersman, Dr. Laurie Godfrey, Dr. Ronnie Hastings, Lee Mansfield, and other scientists examine the claims and the evidence. Air date: 1983.
September 25, 1789, Congress had approved and enrolled the proposals, and sent twelve proposed amendments to the Constitution to the states for ratification. Ten of the twelve amendments were approved, rather quickly, and by 1791 the were attached to the Constitution, known as the Bill of Rights.
The two proposals that failed to earn the required approval of three-fourths of the 13 states fell into a special limbo for Constitutional amendments that became clear only in the late 1970s when Congress discussed how long to wait for states to approve the Equal Rights Amendment (this is a much-simplified explanation, I know). Congress put deadlines on the ratification process in the late 20th century, but the first twelve proposals had no deadlines. In the 1980s, Congress passed a law that said any amendments floating around, unapproved, would be considered dead after a date certain.
Before that date passed, more states took a look at one of James Madison’s 1789 proposals, liked it, and passed it.
No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Spent half a day with H. W. Brands, professor of history at the University of Texas, and author of at least one of my favorite history books, The First American (and several others).
Brands banned the use of computers for notetaking in his classrooms this fall. It’s not the notes he objects to, of course, but the students’ side-activities of checking e-mail, eBay, and ESPN, rather than paying attention to the lecture, and other activities in lieu of taking notes.
Nominally our discussion centered on the decade of 1890 to 1900, the Reckless Decade, as Brands’ book on the era titles it. Brands took a larger, circular route to the topic, today. These discussions come under the aegis of the Dallas Independent School District’s Teaching American History Grant, and the Gilder-Lehrman Institute chipped in today, too. We are a polyglot group of teachers of American history, and a few other related social studies subjects, in Dallas high schools.
I asked about technology beyond lecture, or “direct instruction” as the curriculum and teacher berating rubrics so dryly and inaccurately phrase it. Brands focused on the effects of connected students in the lecture, a problem which we officially should not have in Dallas schools. We discovered he’s using Blackboard (probably the electronic classroom standard for UT-Austin). I’ve used Blackboard in college instruction, and a somewhat less luxurious version in high schools. Blackboard works better than others I’ve tried.
Over several hours Brands said he teaches best when he performs well as a story teller — when the students put down their note-taking pencils and listen. Two observations: It helps to be a good story teller, and, second, that requires that one know a story to tell.
Our grant could give us better stories to tell. Most educational enterprises produce great benefits as by-products of the original learning goal. Our teacher studies of history are no different.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Teachers looking for a good way to portray urban sprawl, for geography and history classes, should take a look at this photo essay at the New York Times; unfortunately for teachers, Christoph Gielen’s stunning aerial landscapes cannot be copied for PowerPoint.
(Caption from New York Times presentation): Untitled XI Nevada, 2010 This Vegas-area community was built by the same company that designed the circular communities on the outskirts of Phoenix in “Untitled X / XII / XI.” Credit: Christoph Gielen (Go see the presentation at the Times site to see the other photos)
From the utterly delusional Christine O’Donnell [Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Delaware], said on the Bill O’Reilly show in 2007:
“They are — they are doing that here in the United States. American scientific companies are cross-breeding humans and animals and coming up with mice with fully functioning human brains.”
Which gives those hypothetical mice a sizable leg up on O’Donnell.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Good works are oft’ interred with the bones of the good workers, according to that Brutus Mark Antony guy — and at Watts Up With That, many work to bury any good workers, too.
Among these, Affordable Medicines for Malaria (AMFM), is one of the cleverest, and may even work. The idea is that AMFM will buy ACT (artemisinin combination therapy – something else the Wattoids didn’t know about) drugs directly from the manufacturers in huge amounts at deep discount, and pass the drugs on to the distributors, public health agencies, private wholesale pharmacies, and NGOs at so far below cost that even counterfeit drugs cost more. The private wholesalers can take their profit.
One may hope someone will find the magic bullet to fight malaria. There’s the Ghost of Santayana pacing the chalkboard again, however: Our experience shows that magic is not real, no magic bullet has ever existed against malaria, and DDT is not now the magic bullet it never was in the first place. “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” Ghost of Santayana mutters.
A special place in hell is reserved for those who remember the past, but tell false tales about it instead.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Or, until that account is unsuspended by the forces supporting Donald Trump: Follow @FillmoreWhite, the account of the Millard Fillmore White House Library
We've been soaking in the Bathtub for several months, long enough that some of the links we've used have gone to the Great Internet in the Sky.
If you find a dead link, please leave a comment to that post, and tell us what link has expired.
Thanks!
Retired teacher of law, economics, history, AP government, psychology and science. Former speechwriter, press guy and legislative aide in U.S. Senate. Former Department of Education. Former airline real estate, telecom towers, Big 6 (that old!) consultant. Lab and field research in air pollution control.
My blog, Millard Fillmore's Bathtub, is a continuing experiment to test how to use blogs to improve and speed up learning processes for students, perhaps by making some of the courses actually interesting. It is a blog for teachers, to see if we can use blogs. It is for people interested in social studies and social studies education, to see if we can learn to get it right. It's a blog for science fans, to promote good science and good science policy. It's a blog for people interested in good government and how to achieve it.
BS in Mass Communication, University of Utah
Graduate study in Rhetoric and Speech Communication, University of Arizona
JD from the National Law Center, George Washington University
Posted by Ed Darrell 
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
