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First day of the year and I have a correction from last year

Posted: January 1, 2011 by datechguy in fun
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As you know I’ve given an inordinate amount of my time in the last month to a young lady named Hallie Miller.

She is part of a contest where the top 10 finishers get a magazine spread. She is working hard to chase her dream and when I went to bed at 2 a.m. she was in 6th. I assumed the contest was over and went there this morning to see a thank you post.

Much to my surprise I saw this post which said:

This is the last day of the contest that I am in and I could really use your vote.

She is not making the Lyndon Johnson mistake of Aug 1941 letting her guard down on the last day. I’ve seen a couple of people suddenly surge (including a chance in 1st place) over the last few days and wisely is not taking any chances.

Between the open house today and the show, I am going to be VERY busy but I’ll take one last moment today to ask you go here and vote for Hallie Miller.

She is about 100 votes out of 5th. I’d love to see her get those votes. so head right over there now and cast that last vote for Hallie Miller and help her take that first step toward her dream.

The rest will be up to her but someday when you see her on the cover of magazines you will be able to say to people there. “That’s Hallie Miller; I helped her get her start!”

If that’s not worth a vote I’d like to know what is?

The surest sign that “Climate Change” has jumped the shark…

Posted: December 31, 2010 by datechguy in blogs, oddities
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…is Charles Johnson attacking those who don’t fall for this bunk.

Well tomorrow is another year and to my knowledge he still hasn’t changed sides on Israel so there is still a slight hope for him, but I wouldn’t want to make book on when that will change.

Predictions old and new

Posted: December 31, 2010 by datechguy in oddities
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Nope this isn’t a post about my predictions for 2011 this is instead about predictions in the past that have become busts:

It is always entertaining to look at predictions from the past, and see how far off they were. In the 1920s, the assumption was that by the 1950s, we would all be getting around in flying cars. Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward describes how by the year 2001, capitalism would have completely disappeared (at the instigation of the capitalists, who would see the advantages of socialism), replaced with a democratic socialism where everyone ate in common mess halls, owned everything in common, and there was almost no violence anymore.

Clayton then links to this list of predictions of environmental catastrophes that weren’t and concludes thus:

When scientists make apocalyptic predictions based on claims of science, I expect them to hit their marks, or have a darn good explanation for why not.

The problem being these days that huge amounts of cash ride on these predictions and the right way of looking at things can be the difference between a well-funded grant keeping you in champagne for decades to teaching chemistry at a community college. More importantly with the amounts of money involved any challenge to the orthodoxy becomes not so much a scientific debate as a threat to a person’s standard of living requiring a strong and sometimes devastating counter.

The whole Global Warming bit has become basically a giant 21st century version of The Sting with the taxpayers of the western world as the mark. I predict that when it fails there will be a new version with a new prediction and a new urgency that will drive media coverage and funds for NGO to keep them in caviar for another decade or two.

Light dawns on marble head

Posted: December 31, 2010 by datechguy in oddities
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The internet has many interesting side effects the most pronounced being that when you make a fool of yourself you are going to be called on it. And if you work for a major newspaper and say something breathtakingly stupid not only will it be preserved forever but if you don’t walk it back fast it will define you.

Journolist was something Ezra Klein managed to dodge because although there was plenty of text, there was no video, Places like the NYT have been able to avoid putting up the Climate Gate e-mails because there is no video of the people involved talking about the fudging involved.

But Ezra said what he said about the constitution live on MSNBC and although figures suggest that few people actually watch it all it takes is for the video to be out there for you to end up with stuff like this at the top of memeorandum on a slow news day.

Thus Klein’s mea culpa

I went back and watched the clip — or at least the part someone clipped and sent me, which is above — and thought I was clear enough. But when a lot of people misunderstand you at once, the fault is usually yours.

Ya think?

Update: Don Surber notices something I didn’t

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