Note: There is an email link embedded within this post, please visit this post to email it. ]]> http://www.stoneforge.com/2012/04/17/state-equality/feed/ 0 http://www.stoneforge.com/2012/03/04/the-bell-tolls/ http://www.stoneforge.com/2012/03/04/the-bell-tolls/#comments Sun, 04 Mar 2012 20:14:07 +0000 Editor http://www.stoneforge.com/?p=4758 The latest mandate from the health care bureaucrats concerning contraception is confusing. To my knowledge, no one opposes the right of each and every woman to choose whether to use contraception or not, but why should the federal government fund that choice so that everyone pays? But then a good friend suggested that I follow the money, and that’s made all the difference. There is no wisdom in government, but there is financial corruption.

Contraception is available to all, and affordable by all. Medicaid covers all forms of contraception for the poor in Connecticut with the federal government picking up 90% of the cost, the state the rest: no co-pay. Private groups, such as Planned Parenthood, provide many contraception types for free or at low cost for those who do not qualify for Medicaid. This is not a scarce or expensive resource like some healthcare services.

Yet Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, testifying at a House panel, said, “The reduction in the number of pregnancies compensates for cost of contraception.” Let’s see now: having fewer children is for the public good. Only in Washington would evil like that sound acceptable.

But let us look at the proposition. Contraception is ubiquitous. Because almost all women who need contraception already use it, there is no savings accrued by preventing pregnancy. Unwanted pregnancy is usually a mistake, but, even then, free emergency contraception exists (the morning after pill, sources as above). And, if there were significant savings here, you can bet that insurance companies at every level would cover contraception already. Sebelius willingly lied to Congress.

In spite of protests, the final form of the mandate was released unchanged. Now, under rules established by the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), all insurance plans must include birth control as part of free preventative services. And, because we must all have health insurance by fiat, we will all pay for it indirectly either through taxes or through less income from companies who must insure us. Private purchase will no longer be necessary, or, more importantly, desired by the federal government.

The free market for such products will cease to exist, just as the market for many drugs was destroyed by Medicare Part D in 2006. So who gets the benefit of this captive marketplace? For the Medicare program, the federal government is not permitted to negotiate prices of drugs with the pharmaceutical companies. This contraceptive program is no different, an excellent example of crony capitalism. The mandate places these medicines outside a free market so that pharmaceutical companies can set prices in conjunction with insurance companies and government with very little check on overall costs. And we all pay increased costs without any control. The federal government doesn’t have any money of its own: you will pay.

(Parenthetically, government funding of contraception also removes the necessity of such costs from groups like Planned Parenthood, indirectly providing extra funds for abortion.)

However, mandating coverage of contraception does run into one problem; it violates the rights of religious employers by forcing them to provide, either directly or indirectly, drugs and medical procedures that go against their religious principles. This is an unequivocal violation of the first amendment of the US constitution. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;”

Considering that the vast majority of women (>90%) are said to use contraception already, the only reason to force this issue is to further limit the presence of the church in civil society. The Catholic bishops have opposed this mandate as it applies to Catholic organizations, such as Catholic hospitals, schools, and charities. Cardinal Francis George of Chicago has said that they will close religious institutions rather than submit to such government intrusions into religious beliefs. Can anyone imagine the closing of all Catholic hospitals, schools, and charities? And don’t for a moment think that it won’t happen. The Catholic Church has already closed some of its adoption services when state laws conflicted with its beliefs on homosexuality.

Of course, some people may not care because the mandate does not affect them. Some may think even that this mandate is positive, a celebration of women’s “rights” or free stuff in an election year. Yet beware. The reduction of individual liberty by federal edict for some presages the enslavement of all. When the diktats of government come calling, send not to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee. We keep the rights we are prepared to defend.

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend’s were.
Each man’s death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

John Donne

Prof. Richard Lindzen, MIT

On November 26, 2008, the United Kingdom became the first nation to set legally binding carbon budgets when they passed the Climate Change Act. This is not a carbon credit system, that is, cap and trade, which is already operative in the European Union and dragging down their economies. This is a foolhardy plan to forcibly reduce carbon emissions, primarily energy, by 80 % of its 1990 value by the year, 2050. Already, following a particularly cold winter, the cost of energy has energized an effort to Repeal the Climate Change Act. In a presentation before Parliament on February 22, 2012, climate scientist and MIT professor Richard Lindzen debunked the climate models used by the UN by simply considering the science or lack thereof produced by these climate alarmists.

The carbon budgets instituted by the Department of Energy and Climate Change in the UK follow a path to reduce carbon emissions by 34% (in million tons of CO2 equivalent) in 2020 and by 80% by 2050. Of course, energy used in making and transporting imported products isn’t counted, so the UK is losing jobs to overseas manufacturers. And the allowable carbon credits that can be purchased to keep business running are legally limited well below those allowed by the EU program. And solar energy is losing steam, even in that bastion of solar subsidies, Germany. So what to make of the poor law which will cost each British household more than many have?

Into this muddle steps an American climate scientist, Richard Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In his presentation, he summarized the situation succinctly:

Stated briefly, I will simply try to clarify what the debate over climate change is really about. It most certainly is not about whether climate is changing: it always is. It is not about whether CO2 is increasing: it clearly is. It is not about whether the increase in CO2, by itself, will lead to some warming: it should. The debate is simply over the matter of how much warming the increase in CO2 can lead to, and the connection of such warming to the innumerable claimed catastrophes. The evidence is that the increase in CO2 will lead to very little warming, and that the connection of this minimal warming (or even significant warming) to the purported catastrophes is also minimal. The arguments on which the catastrophic claims are made are extremely weak – and commonly acknowledged as such. They are sometimes overtly dishonest.

And, oh yes, the earth hasn’t been warming for the last 15 years!

Of course, the mainline British press (BBC and The Guardian) ignored this statement; it doesn’t fit with their political view of science. The only apparent coverage came in the Telegraph. The newspapers in the U.S. have been similarly struck dumb (New York Times, Washington Post, etc.).

In a previous statement to the Committee on Economic Affairs, Lindzen was questioned closely about the difference of opinion among scientists on the subjects of global warming and climate change. He responded that scientists can frequently give statements that are purposely ambiguous, and can be interpreted strongly by the political listener: science in the service of politics. In the subject of money given to scientists working in alarmism, he said:

In Europe, the Laboratory for Dynamic Meteorology’s climate modelling effort exists because of global warming. At the Max-Planck Gesellschaft, their climate modelling effort exists because of global warming. The Hadley Centre exists because of global warming. The only place in the world where there were efforts before global warming was the US, but even in the US the first President Bush responded to the alarmism with two billion dollars a year for research. I do not think you are going to see much objection to the alarmism…

The discussion then turned to the overall expenditure on global warming alarmism, because the parliamentarians were concerned with cost of looking into the science. Lindzen responded,

I have realized, over the last 20 years and in dealing with public officials and ordinary people, that the last thing in the world they want to do is dig into science, to deal with mathematics, read this. If they can avoid that by spending a trillion dollars, they will do it. … I think at least 25 billion, 30 billion at the research end, but then there is probably a smaller but not insignificant amount surrounding. By now I figure that well over 10,000 diplomats and bureaucrats are working on negotiating the various things and analyzing them and working out the economics, and so on, so it is a growth industry, but I do not think it is terribly productive.

Have you read the science summary in the Lindzen presentation included here? Can you imagine how much money was lost to the mistakes in handling cloud formation in climate models? Do you understand that NASA has modified historical data to emphasize global warming? Do you want the economic catastrophe in the UK to be repeated here, only by regulation through the EPA?

The final mission of the NASA Space Shuttle ended when Atlantis rolled to a stop at Kennedy Space Center in Florida on July 21, 2011. The International Space Station is currently being serviced by the Soyuz and Progress spacecraft from Russia, with the latest delivery of crew and supplies coming on December 23, 2011. But this year could bring a resurgence of American space flight, albeit with a twist. The first private, commercial, delivery by the American company, SpaceX, is scheduled for February 7, 2012.

Update: According to news reports, SpaceX has rescheduled to April due to a myriad of small problems.

Update:The Falcon 9 rocket is on track to blast off on Saturday, May 19, with a backup date of May 22.

Dragon on Falcon 9, Photo: Mike Sheehan / SpaceX.

The International Space Station (ISS) is a joint project between the United States, Russia, Canada, Japan, and Europe to build and maintain a modular, inhabited structure in earth orbit. The ISS was designed not only as a research laboratory but also as a testing site for spacecraft systems and equipment. Currently, six astronauts are in residence conducting numerous experiments and observations.

When the space shuttles were retired, NASA was left with no American option to bring either people or supplies to the ISS; the follow-on projects had missed both cost and delivery milestones and were cancelled or significantly delayed. To compensate, NASA started the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) in 2006 to bring a free market solution and private industry on line. The second round of financing in 2008 went to SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corporation.

Orbital Sciences is an established space firm, having engaged in satellite delivery to orbit since 1990. They have delivered over 100 spacecraft for commercial, military and civil customers worldwide. Orbital provides a complete set of reliable, cost-effective small- and medium-class space and rocket systems products. Their satellites include geosynchronous Earth orbit (GEO) satellites for communications and broadcasting, low Earth orbit (LEO) spacecraft that perform remote sensing and scientific research, spacecraft used for national security missions, and planetary probes to explore deep space. Working alone and with Boeing, they have been especially valuable in military applications. However, a delivery vehicle for the ISS, with its added weight and docking requirements, is something new for them, and return is not part of their current plan.

SpaceX, on the other hand, is relatively new to the space arena entirely. Established in 2002 by Elon Musk , the founder of PayPal, they have developed new launch vehicles from the ground up. They launched their first successful Falcon 1 rocket in 2006, and a larger Falcon 9 rocket with Dragon module combination in 2010. Further, the Dragon module was returned to earth in typical NASA fashion, drogue chute into the Pacific. Their video brings with it the excitement and danger of space flight. NASA was enthusiastic about this success. Now SpaceX and Dragon are poised to rendezvous with the ISS.

Dragon Approaching ISS, (Simulation). Courtesy NASA

A letter from distinguished scientists to the Wall Street Journal, see story.

The education of our children is an important local priority. Yet we currently measure its effectiveness using yearly standardized tests, as mandated by the federal government. In fact, Connecticut had such tests a decade prior to the intervention of the federal government. But do these tests actually aid in evaluating our schools? How do they measure the value added by our teachers?

Our local high school, Housatonic Valley Regional High School, provides a good case in point. Housy always, almost always, exceeds the state average for students meeting state testing goals. For instance, in reading, Housy exceeded the state average four of the last five years as shown.

This appears to be satisfactory performance, until one realizes that the state average is pulled down by the inner city schools. And this does provide a direct measure of student performance measured against state standards. But is it indicative of the school and its teaching? Does student performance depend on other factors besides the teaching environment?

One of the best ways of measuring the influence of teachers and the curriculum is to build a statistical comparison of the standardized tests, year to year. In that way, the effect of student performance is minimized; we assume that the same students perform the same way, year to year. The model we use, as shown in Meyer and Dokumaci[1], will make use of Connecticut standardized tests. In particular, we will use the Connecticut Mastery Tests (CMT) for the 8th grade and the Connecticut Achievement and Performance Tests (CAPT) for 10th grade. As in the data above, we use the Reading test results because Housy emphasizes the humanities in its curriculum.

CAPT = λ*CMT + [Student Effects] + [State Effects] + [Unknown Student Effects]

The school and district effects are not included; most small towns in Connecticut have only a single high school fed by one or more elementary/middle schools.

In order to evaluate this model, we used over 100 Connecticut schools that met those desired characteristic, and where good data existed at the state level.

As can be seen, the model fits reasonably well. From the R2, the high schools added about 46% of the value of the test on average; the elementary schools provided some of the base. The state effect was negative, but this could easily be due to a difference in the difficulty of the tests. The slope of the model exhibits diminishing returns from education at this level.

Of more interest is the ordered plot of all the schools:[2]

On this plot of reading enhancement, the ranking of the schools is obvious and indicates the value added of each school relative to the other schools. Our local high school was 109th out of 119 schools studied, a very poor ranking for a school concentrating in the humanities.

Of course, we must consider unknown student effects. In particular, a significant number of students in Region 1’s six elementary schools go to private school. This leaves the perception that the remaining students are less capable than those who left, a “brain drain”. Consider the following flow of students:

While it is very difficult to account for the students coming into Housy, we can compare the CMT scores of all students in 8th grade, and the subset that go to Housy. When we do that for reading we find that there is no statistical difference between the two groups; there is no “brain drain”. Private school attendees, on average, are no more capable than those who remain in the public school system.

In summary, we can compare the effects of different schools on a good relative scale. The value added of teaching can be measured. However, we cannot determine the cause of any differences; say the teachers, the curriculum, or the school environment. And measuring individual teachers is likely to be more difficult, not impossible if the subject matter is well tested, just more difficult.[3]

[1] “Value-Added Models and the Next Generation of Assessments”, Meyer and Dokumaci, Value-Added Research Center, University of Wisconsin–Madison, 2011

[2] For the mathematically curious, this data fits a Weibull distribution, not a Normal, so relative separation by standard deviations cannot be used.

[3] http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/teacher-assessment/should-test-scores-be-used-at.htm

Dear Ms. Kirby

Thank you for your letter inquiring about my membership. I did not renew it because I can not live with the statement below:

Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth’s climate. Greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide as well as methane, nitrous oxide and other gases. They are emitted from fossil fuel combustion and a range of industrial and agricultural processes.  The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring.  If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.

In the APS it is ok to discuss whether the mass of the proton changes over time and how a multi-universe behaves, but the evidence of global warming is incontrovertible? The claim (how can you measure the average temperature of the whole earth for a whole year?) is that the temperature has changed from ~288.0 to ~288.8 degree Kelvin in about 150 years, which (if true) means to me is that the temperature has been amazingly stable, and both human health and happiness have definitely improved in this ‘warming’ period.

Best regards,

Ivar Giaever

In essence, this is similar to the previous resignation of Physicist Hal Lewis in October, 2010.  Dr. Lewis had complained to the APS about their political stance, and noted “the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave.”