Lilburne Archive
A Credibility Meltdown for the World's Leading Climate Scientists
NewLiberty on the LvMI Forum shares a bevy of links covering the recent climate scandal that seems likely to become even bigger than the Yamal Controversy...
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/hadley_hacked/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/20/climate-sceptics-hackers-leaked-emails
http://www.nature.com/news/2009/091120/full/news.2009.1101.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8370282.stm
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,576009,00.html
"So the 1079 emails and 72 documents seem indeed evidence of a scandal involving most of the most prominent scientists pushing the man-made warming theory - a scandal that is one of the greatest in modern science. I’ve been adding some of the most astonishing in updates below - emails suggesting conspiracy, collusion in exaggerating warming data, possibly illegal destruction of embarrassing information, organised resistance to disclosure, manipulation of data, private admissions of flaws in their public claims and much more. If it is as it now seems, never again will “peer review” be used to shout down sceptics."
...as well as a torrent of the actual leaked emails and documents.
Elsewhere in the web, the heroic Bishop Hill provides us with an extensive collection of summaries of some of the more interesting "CRUgate" e-mails.
But LvMI Forum member Le Master has his own choice nugget to share. He enjoins us to particularly "check out the PDF in the documents folder. It's a five-page document titled The Rules of the Game. It seems to be like a primer for propagating the AGW message to the average subject of the UK. The document suggests that it is a precis of a longer document housed at the Web site of the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs."
Hopefully some readers here will follow Le Master's example and make the leaked emails and documents their weekend reading, and post what they find here or on the relevant forum thread. Many eyes make light work!
Let's give them something to talk about in Copenhagen.
Curing Virulent Health Care Myths in the LvMI Forum
In my last post on recent discussions in the Mises Institute Forum, I highlighted the "ardor for erudition" among Forum members. However, the Forum's gaze is not only drawn to timeless truths and aureate authors. Hot-button issues are also given their due.
Regarding such issues, there are a great many virulent myths floating around out there in the internet leftyverse; it's easy to get infected by one. So, many come to the LvMI forum as a sort of intellectual clinic for an argumentative antidote against the latest strain of strained state apologia.
One of the issues most stricken with fallacies, and thus most in need of curative care, has been health care itself. In the following, I will quote the three best recent posts on this topic.
Forum Member "Snowflake" reported the passage of Obama's healthcare bill in the House with his own splendidly biting commentary:
220-215. 50.6% voted for the plan, 49.4% against. Rounding up the winners' vote to 100% and the losers vote down to 0%, democracy is clearly of the people and by the people.
The Affordable Health Care for America Act will apply to everyone whether they want it or not because that's just how it works this is a democracy case closed.
A short summary of provisions is posted on wikipedia, but I would like to add some clarifying notes for all those naysayers out there who doubt the wisdom and good will of lobbyists who spent millions of their own dollars pushing this bill through. All for our benefit.
They are as follows:
"prohibit health insurers from charging different rates based on patients' medical histories or gender [and] prohibit health insurers from refusing coverage based on patients' medical histories" Because you have a right to the pooled resources of other people. They have NO right to deny you entry into their free and voluntary associations."repeal of the exemption for insurance companies from anti-trust laws" Because otherwise government would be in violation of anti trust laws, and government is NOT a monopoly.
"requiring most employers to provide coverage for their workers or pay a surtax on the worker's wages up to 8%" Because those greedy employers hate poor people! If the government didn't require employers to offer health benefits they wouldn't."An expansion of Medicare to all low income Americans." Because what if someone needed pharmaceuticals or they'd die? We need to stop people from dieing so lets massively expand the pharm industry. It had an annual 17% growth rate before this bill, I wonder what will happen next? :D
"provide a subsidy to low to middle income Americans to help buy insurance." The subsidy will also be paid for by low and middle income Americans."a central insurance exchange where the public can compare policies and rates" Because that information isn't available anywhere else!
"a government run insurance plan (public option)" Because the free market isn't competitive enough for some reason..."requiring most Americans to obtain health insurance or face penalties" Because people are dumb! What if you had an accident and didn't have insurance? You should have bought insurance! For your own good you should be forced to buy some.
"a 5.4% tax on personal income over $500,000 (individuals) or $1,000,000 (families)" Because those people are rich and greedy! Don't worry though, The valuable rich people of society like doctors and lawyers will more than break even under our expanded health care system.
"reductions in projected spending on Medicare by $400 million per year" Because we'll spend less... eventually. But right now we need to expand the $#@! out of health care. We can stay on budget just like we always do.
"a 2.5% excise tax on medical devices" Because we're going to pay for health care by taxing health care...
Anyway, I hope this answers your questions! Libertarians just seem not to get it. Hang in there mises people, you'll come around sometime ;)
In his thread "How Do you Talk to the Average Person about Health Care?" Forum member "Democracy For Breakfast" posed the following condundrum:
A lot of people buy onto the myth that Canada's health care system is "flourishing", I don't know why but everyone seems to think that Canada has a great system.
"Poptech" responded with a mini-armory of some excellent resources:
This part is easy, have them watch these videos:
Health Care: Does Canada Do It Better? (Video) (6min) (ABC News)
Sick in America (Video) (41min) (ABC News)
And read the following:
Canadacare May Have Killed Natasha (New York Post)
Canadian Health Care (Ludwig von Mises Institute)
Wait times for surgery in Canada at all-time high: study (CBC, Canada)In Canada, the average wait for a simple MRI is three months. In Manitoba, the median wait for neurosurgery is 15.2 months. For chemotherapy in Saskatchewan, patients can expect to be in line for 10 weeks. At last report, 10,000 breast cancer patients who waited an average of two months for post-operation radiation treatments have filed a class action lawsuit against Quebec's hospitals.
In his thread "Why Is Healthcare So Expensive?" Forum member "jct181" asked...
I understand why a universal healthcare plan will drive healthcare costs up. But why is American healthcare currently so expensive? What is going on in the current market that is keeping costs up?
"Bogart" came forward and answered with an excellent summation:
Here are my top 5 reasons in order of most significant to least significant. These are all caused by government intervention in the marketplace for health care:
1. Price/Payment Fixing by Medicare, CHIP, Medicaid, etc make it difficult for people without insurance to afford health care. Moreover the government has laws about who care providers can serve and what they can charge if participating in these programs. So health care providers have no reason to to compete on price as all the folks using these services have no incentive to economize. The result of this fascism is predictable: Higher prices and Fewer Choices.
2. Regulation of the development, manufacturing, marketing, distribution, advertising, etc of medical devices, pharmaceuticals, alternative medicine etc only helps those large organizations who have expertise in managing the process over those other providers. For example: Kellogs is removing a claim on cholesterol reduction under pressure from the FDA. Why, who does this help, it certainly does not help consumers of food. It does help cholesterol reducing pharmaceuticals.
3. Licensing of doctors, nurses, etc. These licenses are extremely difficult to get. They are given out by "accredited" agencies to people they favor only. The medical industry would save billions by letting the licensing be done by private organizations. Then people would have the ability to request the certifications of their providers. You can have the following done by non-certified people: parenting, educating, communicating, manufacturing, producing food, etc. Why does the government need to license doctors when it does not license who makes your food?
4. Regulation of insurers, people are not allowed to buy insurance across state lines and insurers have lots of mandates on them that increase costs. If the mandates were removed and people could buy insurance across state OR BETTER YET INTERNATIONAL boundaries then the price would be dramatically reduced.
5. Insane liability system for negligence. This part is completely nuts. There is a weird lottery where the whole system is at the whims of a jury. How about a system where the two parties the plaintiff and defendant each select an arbitrator or agree on one to hear the case. Then the arbitrators would pick a third who has binding authority. This would not only save billions but would be much fairer to those who have been damaged.
Social democrats like to point to health care as one of "their" issues, because to them, the case for government-provided universal health care is a slam dunk. But a Misesian, armed as he or she is with the insights of the Austrian tradition, isn't even given pause by such presumptuous preening. Whether the issue is health care, education, or even public roads, sacred cows are always on the menu in the LvMI Forum.
Lifelong Learning in the LvMI Forum
I'll be periodically posting about interesting topics and discussions going on in the Ludwig von Mises Institute Forum. I encourage anyone interested in the scholarship of liberty in the Austrian tradition to join and partake of the bounty of intellectual stimulation on offer there.
One of the best things about the LvMI forum is the passion for lifelong learning that is in the air; the place is chock full of autodidacts who pursue their independent Austrian studies with more dedication than you're likely to find in any university study hall.
This ardor for erudition has especially been on display in the past couple of weeks with several threads devoted to the subject of independent learning.
Forum member Fephisto sought advice on how to most efficiently pursue his Austrian studies:
Given that there is so much to study, so much to read, so many skills to obtain, and so many things to learn....
How do you guys remain productive?
Answers included forswearing TV, maintaining one's health, and utilizing podcasts and ebook readers to fill in idle moments.
And ebook readers were the main topic of another thread started by Forum member Toban, who wrote:
It's nice having all the books available as free pdfs, but it's not so nice having to read them on a computer screen (eyestrain). That's why ebook readers will be such a boon to the Austrian readership. They use a non-lit screen (think etch-a-sketch), so it's like reading paper: no more eyestrain.
Unfortunately, the technology (E Ink) is patented and that's slowing down the competitive process, so the devices are still pretty expensive and lousy. But more and more companies are putting out devices, so in the near future there could be some decent ones for reasonable prices.
Once they get better, ebook readers will be the perfect combination for the Mises.org literature. You could download all the books you want for free, and read them on an eye-friendly display. This could be a huge new medium for spreading the Austrian literature.
In a response, forum member Le Master gave a mixed review of his Sony eBook Reader:
I have hundreds of PDFs from Mises.org spanned across a couple memory cards. It's extremely convenient to have a library in which you can take everywhere.
The PDFs aren't in the best format, though, for the reader. The text is extremely small, so you have zoom in. When you do that, the format goes out of whack.
It's still well worth it. I read in its entirety Man, Economy, and State on it, and I was able to switch over to the study guides whenever I desired.
Laughing Man gave us the low-down on the Kindle DX
Well Kindle DX is the only Kindle that can recognize PDF's. The other ones you would have to convert [ Kindle 1 and 2 ]. However with the Kindle DX you get the look exactly as they do on computer. You can zoom in on the PDF by turning it sideways. I had a Sony Reader before this Kindle and I actually returned it because of a lot of what Master was having problems with. The Sony had broken text and it had a small screen and didn't have a big library. I would recommend the Kindle DX to any member here because the whole Mises library is PDF and so is the Online Library of Liberty. So we obviously read a lot of PDF's.
And of course, people are excited and hopeful about Barnes and Noble's "Nook".
For my part, I recommended that everyone with an iPhone download Stanza, a free ebook reader. Both Human Action and Man, Economy and State are available in Stanza's "epub" file format in the LvMI media section. And to paraphrase John Adams, you're never alone with an economist in your pocket. I posted a mini-tutorial on how to put both Stanza and the wisdom of Mises and Rothbard in your iPhone.
Peter Sidor started a thread in which people shared sources for online books to read on your computer.
Le Master started a thread for the celebration of paper-and-ink Austrian books. He enjoined Forum members to post photos that "show off your [ever-expanding] library of Austrian books." His own collection looks quite impressive, especially poised majestically upon his Oxford English Dictionary set. (By the way, Le Master has successfully petitioned the Oxford University Press to add "panphysicalism", a term frequently used by Mises and Hazlitt, to a future update of the OED. And he's working on making a case for the term "Misesean".) And finally he also shared an anecdote soaked (quite literally) with painful irony.
I was carrying a stack of my Austrian books to my car today (which was parked in the street) and something pretty amusing happened. The Privatization of Roads and Highways by Block fell and landed in a puddle of mud in the road.
I like to keep my books in pristine condition, so I'm pretty bummed. I've trying to clean it all day, but it's ruined.
However as passionate as Forum members are about independent learning, most any of us would jump at the chance to study under the guidance of our heroes in Austro-academia. Forum member Adam Knott in particular has a dream of an online, year-round Mises University.
K.C. Farmer, at first had some misgivings about the idea
Self education and research seems to be a driving force behind Mises.org. While a full-fledged traditional university would be cool, how many of the excellent people who contribute would be unable to do what they do now? I'd also suggest that the last thing to do in spreading the word is to draw professors away from other universities and colleges where they may be more effective in converting students to our position.
An understandable concern to be sure, but I respectfully differed:
Unfortunately, I haven't seen a lot of students who have had the fortune to study directly under Block, Salerno and others at their current universities, going on to become strong voices for human freedom and Austrian Economics. I've heard Block and Raico in lectures express frustration at the overwhelming Commie tendencies of most of their students. I think most University students of these great men simply are deaf to their message.
I think Adam's idea would be more effective. It would involve teachers like Block and Salerno providing students, who already have the passion (gained from their own independent studies), with rock solid and super-efficient academic training.
For example, Liberty Student, Laughing Man, and nirGraham are strong writers as they are already: LS in political theory, LM in history, and nir in economics. But can you imagine how strong they'd be if LS studied directly under Block, LM under Raico, and nir under Salerno? They'd be titans!
After their tutelage directly under such brilliant teachers, they then could go on to edify their own students in the same way.
Now THAT would be a recipe for a victorious academic movement.
K.C. Farmer later on had some of the most interesting and compelling ideas in the whole thread regarding how such a university might actually work.
As you can hopefully see, the LvMI Forum is a place teeming with the dynamic interplay of ideas and aspirations, as well as an excellent resource for advice and information. So pick a username and join in!
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