IPN, Prizes for free market journalism

Journalists and opinion writers in major newspapers and magazines who write on the virtue of individual freedom and free market, here is an opportunity to win thousands of dollars.

The International Policy Network is announcing the Bastiat Prize for Journalism. Really huge prizes for the winners -- $50,000 1st prize, $15,000 2nd prize, and $5,000 3rd prize.

The award is in honor of Friedrich Bastiat, a 19th century French journalist who authored several books like The Law, criticizing government coercion that stifle individual liberty and the free market.

The only problem with this kind of award is that it attracts REALLY big names in global journalism who advocate the free society and less government coercion. So the competition should be very stiff. The panel of judges are also top caliber journalists, including former winners of the award.

Deadline for submission of entries is July 31, 2011. Check the IPN website to see more details.

Fundanomics: Dr. Roy Spencer's book on free market

Dr. Roy Spencer, a climatologist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), former NASA scientist, and book author, is among the high profile climate scientists who question the man-made warming fiction. And he correctly links the heavy politics of the UN and its member-governments who want more environmental regulations and energy taxation, with IPCC reports. See my earlier article, Dr. Roy Spencer on IPCC defunding, February 21, 2011.

Late last year, he wrote about individual freedom and the free market. I was so elated to read his blog article, I posted Dr. Roy Spencer on individual freedom, November 2, 2010.

Now the man has produced a new book, not about climate but about free market. Wow!

From Fundanomics.org: FUNDANOMICS is the simplest and most concise exposition you will find of what energizes the Free Market, and why it should be celebrated by all social classes.

Best-selling author Roy W. Spencer looks at the fundamental driving force that propels a society to ever higher levels of prosperity, generation after generation: People having the freedom to provide as much stuff as possible to each other that is needed and wanted...no matter what that stuff happens to be. Everything else in economics is details.

In his blog post about his book, Dr. Spencer wrote,

When we allow politicians and opportunistic economists to fool us into supporting a variety of technical and murky government “fixes” for the economy, we lose sight of the fundamental motivating force which must be preserved for prosperity to exist: Liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

The main role of the government in the economy is help ensure people play fair…and then get out of the way.

Amen. Just promulgate the rule of law, that's the single most important role of government. All other functions are either secondary or unnecessary. Like "fighting global warming", a totally useless but very expensive program by so many governments.

I am reposting my picture with him. This was during the 4th ICCC, also sponsored by the Heartland Institute, in Chicago last May 2010. I've been a fan of Dr. Spencer since a year before that, so when I finally met him at the conference, I obliged him to have a photo with me :-)

Almost the entire blogosphere is a product of free market. Google, blogger, facebook, twitter, yahoo, wordpress, hotmail, linkedin, etc. were developed by private entrepreneurs as a response to human wants, human need, for fast and cheap communication and social networking with other people around the world.

Free market after all, simply means free individuals. All markets are made of individuals -- consumers and producers, buyers and sellers, young and old, male and female, rich and poor. When we free up markets away from the interventionist hands of many politicians, bureaucrats and statist economists, especially those who work in the multilateral and foreign aid institutions (UN, WB, IMF, ADB, USAID, etc.), human creativity, entrepreneurship and innovation will naturally flourish.

There will be lazy and irresponsible guys of course, they are everywhere. The good thing in free market is that these guys will become very poor, if not starve. There will be no heavy entitlement programs that will subsidize and feed them and bail them out from poverty.

Car plates and power trip, Part 2

The use of special car plates sold and issued by certain government agencies, especially the police, implies "power trip" on the part of the owner or driver of those cars. It bestows certain exemptions from a number of government traffic rules that otherwise will require some high and expensive penalties. On the part of the issuing agencies like the PNP, those car plates give them additional revenues, give their family members and friends certain power on the roads.

I took these pictures sometime last year: PNP CSG, LEAP (Law Enforcers Association of the Philippines), PNPA (Phil. National Police Academy), and a "Prosecutor"

Another set of pictures I took, also last year. Councilor, House of Reps., LEAP and Lead PNP.

Some plates have "Mayor", "Governor", "Board Member", "Immigration" on them.

More pictures of cars with PNP-CSG and PNP-PMA plates.

Some pictures I took this year. NBI (National Bureau of Investigation), an SUV with car plate "SSSSS".

Meanwhile, see this white van, a government vehicle (red plate) parked along Buendia, a very busy road in Makati City. Of course the police and city traffic enforcers do not apprehend the driver of those vehicles. Their laws against "No Parking" on certain roads apply only to private motorists who have no connection to high police and government officials. The "rule of law" in traffic rules and regulations is a joke for them.
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See also Car plates and power trip, March 20, 2010. There are 2 comments there.

Labor Econ 4: Minimum Wage Law is Wrong

Setting government-mandated minimum wage law is wrong because it only protects those who have jobs already while discouraging the hiring of the jobless who have less skill, or have little or no job experience yet.

That regulation is supposed to protect workers from "capitalist exploitation", thus, even the unskilled or the young and unexperienced should be given the minimum wage by their employers. When faced with a higher labor cost, plus other labor regulations that make it difficult for employers to fire even lazy workers, the tendency of employers is to hire as few workers as possible, then let those who are hired to work as fast and as productive as possible.

The Economist released a good chart the other day, "Youth Unemployment: the outsiders" in its July 5th 2011 issue, Daily Chart.

The Economist gave this observation on this graph:

OF THE many gloomy indicators generated by the financial crisis in the rich world, the sharp rise in youth unemployment is perhaps the most dispiriting. Countries that entered the crisis with this problem already entrenched, such as Spain, have fared the worst. Their labour markets tend to be characterised by privileged cliques of workers with high levels of job protection, and indignados who are outside the system, banging on the window in the hope of being let in.

It should be a terrible condition for many young, fresh graduates in universities (or university drop outs) in Spain, Croatia and Greece, to find a job.

I concur with the description by the magazine above about youth unemployment. I developed this graph today to help explain the phenomenon.

If there is no government-imposed minimum wage law, then even the most unskilled, those with zero job experience, can easily find a job as there will be takers for them at a lower pay. There is a market for everyone, both job-seekers and job creators. The result is a wide range of wages (the "equilibirum point" or intersection between supply and demand) among different workers and employers, for the same job category, say house construction workers or bus drivers, etc.

Enter the nanny state and imposes a minimum wage law, whether at the national or regional/provincial level. A minimum wage is the "floor wage" that even the most unskilled job seeker should be entitled to receive. The tendency of employers then is not to hire the unskilled, the little or zero experience young job applicants. There are also additional costs in training them before assigning them in actual work. What results is a hollow space below the minimum wage curve or line. It represents the level of unemployment in the economy.

So the higher the mandatory or minimum wage, plus other rigid labor regulations, the higher will be the unemployment rate.

The implication is simple: governments should abolish their minimum wage laws and regulations.

Allow the employers and potential employees to craft their own employment contracts. Employment is a private contract between the two, and government has little role in such contract. Only when one party will breach their private contract (the employer does not give the stipulated salary rate, other benefits; or the employee is lazy and insist that he should be entitled to so many separation benefits before he should be fired; many other cases) will government comes in. To enforce the rule of law, the law or contract between the employer and employee/s.
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See also:

Labor Econ 1: What Determines Wage? May 26, 2006

Labor Econ 2: Labor Laws and Employee Forever, May 04, 2010

Labor Econ 3: Wages and Marginal Product of Labor, April 18, 2011

Foreign Aid 13: Freedom from Borrowing

Among the most abused, also hypocritical term in public finance in the country, is "freedom from debt." For instance, there have been many attempts in the past by members of the House of Representatives to "dishonor the automatic appropriation for debt payment" so that "unjust loans" will not be paid. There is also an old but still big association called the Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC).

If we look around, there is no counterpart group called Freedom from Borrowing Coalition (FBC) :-)

Seriously, one will NEVER have freedom from debt if one's mentality is to borrow as much as possible to finance each and all subsidy and welfare programs that one can think of. Thus, it will be a rising public debt situation. Like what is happening now in the Philippines, the US, Japan, the PIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Spain) and many other European countries,

To have freedom from debt, one must have freedom from borrowing mentality and policy.

See the most recent public debt data for the Philippines below. I got this table from the Bureau of Treasury website, National Government Debt, March 2011.

See that, P4.7 trillion of outstanding public debt as of March 2011, which was almost P248 billion larger than its year ago level. If we include contingent debt of another P525 billion as of the same period, that's more than P5 trillion of public debt. Or P500+ billion x 100.

A friend suggested that public borrowings are justified so long as they are done the "right way." Well, if we listen to the various government agencies which lobby for ever bigger budget each year because they want to make a difference in the lives of the poor, all borrowings are done the "right way." And if we also listen to the debt pushers (similar to drug pushers) like the WB and ADB, all loans from them are done the "right way."

I believe that by simply NOT borrowing more for whatever bleeding heart program, government simply living within its means, that act is already poverty-reducing. Why? See the next table, I constructed from a table in the DBM's Budget of Expenditures and Sources of Financing (BESF).

For this year, of the P1.645 trillion total obligation of the national government including transfers to local governments (internal revenue allotment or IRA), P357 billion or 21.7 percent will be for interest payment alone.

This means that ALL the other agencies (education, healthcare, agriculture, public works, justice, social welfare, police, local governments, military, etc.) will have to fight it out for the remaining P78 out of every P100 total budget.

So if the government can resist borrowing P300 billion (the average budget deficit per year recently), at say, 6 percent annual interest rate, we will spare ourselves of P18 B per year in interest payment alone. What to do with the P18 B savings? Government can spend for the poor, instead of borrowing more to spend for the poor. That's the estimated savings for not borrowing for just one year alone. If the government will stop borrowing for the next 10 years, meaning the entire government bureaucracies will learn to live within their means, then there will be lots of savings. And the FDC can self-destruct as there will be real freedom from debt as a result of freedom from borrowings policy.

Another friend commented,

The other side of this is poor tax collection (tax administration). 78-85% of professionals do not pay or pay poorly their tax obligations (that includes me), somehow, government has to bridge that gap by .... borrowing. Only QC has the will & the means to collect from professionals, even sari-sari stores are taxed through indexing.

I think the law on personal income tax is a joke. Who are the people who do not pay or underpay income tax?

- hold-uppers, kidnappers, thieves, smugglers, plunderers, other criminals, both in the private sector and in government like legislators, mayors, military generals, ex-presidents, etc.
- people who work in foreign aid, multilaterals, bilaterals (UN, WB, IMF, ADB, WTO, USAID, JICA, CIDA, etc.); these people are by law, exempted from the mandatory withholding tax system
- jeepney/taxi/tricycle drivers, ambulant vendors, public market or tiangge-tiangge stall vendors, etc.;
- many self-employed professionals (physicians, lawyers, accountants, showbiz folks, etc.), many businessmen

The bulk of individual income tax collection falls on the fixed income earners. So the law on personal income tax is a joke, a really bad joke for fixed income earners. Ironically, some of the strongest opponents for the reduction, if not abolition of income tax, are those who work in the multilaterals like the UN, WB and IMF because according to them, the government will "suffer revenue losses". Duh.

It is important that government bureaucracies should learn to live within their means. If the people and taxpayers perceive them as lazy or inefficient or thieves, so that many people avoid paying taxes as much as possible, they must accept that. If total revenue collection is only P1.3 trillion, then spending should be only P1.3 trillion, not P1.6 trillion because government will borrow P300 B.

Of course I do not stop at "good governance". For me, a lean, small and limited government that is focused on promulgating the rule of law is good governance.
---------

See also:
Foreign Aid 6: IMF is Engineerable and Abolishable, September 05, 2006
Foreign Aid 7: Wolfowitzoellickation of the WB, May 30, 2007
Foreign Aid 8: Abolish the IMF, August 08, 2007
Foreign Aid 9: WB Wants Hike in Gasoline Excise Tax, July 10, 2009
Foreign Aid 10: Why We Don't Need It, February 15, 2010
Foreign Aid 11: People Mobility and Aid Hypocrisy, September 21, 2010
Foreign Aid 12: WB Corruption of Civil Society, March 23, 2011

Climate stupidity 14: AGW fiction and cooling reality

(This is my article today in thelobbyist.biz with original title, Warming racket vs. Cooling reality)

The man-made warming camps keep their political science alive by clamping on climate science and data that contradict their belief. Their end-goal remains the same: global ecological central planning. From the United Nations (IPCC, FCCC, UNEP, WMO, etc.) to the foreign aid establishments (WB and ADB especially) that give out tens of billions of dollar in climate adaptation/mitigation loans and renewable energy (RE) loans, to national governments to local governments.

The various environmental lobbying groups like the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Greenpeace and Oxfam play the alarmist role to support such global agenda.

Kyoto Protocol (KP) of expensive and bureaucratic carbon cap and trade and similar schemes will end next year. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) and many member governments tried hard to hammer a successor to KP, thus the high profile Copenhagen meeting in December 2009, then the Cancun meeting in December 2010. Those expensive global meetings attended by thousands of UN, foreign aid, national government officials, environmentalist groups and media failed to produce a binding agreement that will succeed KP.

The debate about climate is and was, NEVER SETTLED. There was no such thing as "scientific consensus" of anthropogenic (man-made) global warming (AGW). The big problem of the warming camp is that most data available show that recent global temperature is either flat or declining. Air or tropospheric temperature (UAH and RSS satellite data), land surface temperature (HadCRU data), sea surface temperature (NOAA, BOM, AMSRE, etc. data). Even sea ice data in both Arctic and Antarctica show a purely natural, 100 percent natural cycle of melting-growing-melting-growing of ice each year.

Here is air/tropospheric temperature data from satellites, interpreted by the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) and the Remote Sensing System (RSS) from 1979 to 2011. The past century’s warming ended in 1998 with the big El Nino that year. Since then, global temperature has been fluctuating with a declining trend. Ssource: http://friendsofscience.org/

From January 2002 to May 2011, the trend line for UAH and RSS air temperature data showed a decline of 0.03 C, while carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration in the atmosphere kept rising, now at nearly 400 parts per million (ppm). There is little or zero linkage or causality between the two.

Below is the sea surface temperature (SST) anomaly (or deviation from the average temperature) for Nino region 3.4 of equatorial Pacific Ocean. Temperature change in this region is the main indicator if the planet is in an El Nino or La Nina period. Source of this graph and the next, http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/enso/

From 2000 to 2011, there were 4 periods of El Nino: 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2010, and there were 6 periods of La Nina: 2000, 2001, 2006, 2008, 2009 and 2011.

There is no such thing as “unprecedented warming” or “unequivocal/definite warming”. There is only the natural climate cycle of warming-cooling-warming-cooling.

Since most if not all, actual climate data show a flat or cooling trend, the warming camps are forced to stick to their faith and belief in the projections made by the IPCC global computer models (GCMs) that are said to be very sophisticated. Their GCMs, say that 90 years from now, by the end of the century, global temperature will rise by 2.4 to 6.3 C, with "best case scenario" of 4 C warming.

Now, all weather projections, also using the most sophisticated computer models and mathematical tools, cannot even predict with at least 90 percent certainty, what will be the weather and correct temperature range some 5 or 10 days from today. So why were we made to believe that those projections 90 or 100 years from now?

Consider this projection of where the current La Nina is headed to. Will it end soon this year, or late this year, or next year or what? The color-coded lines (perhaps almost a hundred) represent various projections by different models. The black dotted line is the average for those different projections.

This graph is a double slap on the AGW fiction. First, the number of SUVs, airplanes, ships, malls, factories and “non-clean” power plants keep rising, but global cooling, the colder than normal condition of La Nina, is going to be extended. It could be a “double dip” La Nina, stretching for two years or longer, when an average El Nino or La Nina phase normally lasts for about 12 months only. And second, the range of projections is as wide as 3 C, indicating deep uncertainty among those sophisticated computer models even if they are just projecting future temperature up to nine months ahead. If projecting the temperature 1-9 months ahead can be uncertain and unreliable, why are we made to believe that those projections of up to 6.3 C warming 90 to 100 years from now are reliable?

There is a repeated accusation of "climate change deniers" for people who do not believe the AGW fiction. Even the most skeptical scientists and ordinary folks recognize and hence, do not deny climate change. Climate change of warming-cooling-warming- cooling is purely natural, 100 percent natural. A better term is “natural climate cycle”.

What is being "denied" by those who question the AGW fiction is the "man-made warming" claim. Global warming DID happen. Global cooling also DID happen, like the cooling of the 70s, even if the number of SUVs and malls were rising. Now we are in a period of global cooling despite the much larger number of SUVs, computers, buildings, commercial jets, etc.

The warming camp deny (in a sense they are also “climate deniers”) the role of natural factors on the Earth's climate: the Sun, galactic cosmic rays (GCRs), clouds, volcanoes, water vapor, etc. For the warmers, the past century's warming was almost 100% due to human carbon emission. Thus, all these mad regulations and rackets that they have advocated and enacted into laws to control carbon emission, to control human progress.

AGW is the biggest science fiction of the century. It has persisted because it involves the biggest attempt at global ecological central planning by the UN and many governments, with the cheering applause of big environmentalist groups and corporate interests that will benefit from carbon cap and trade, energy rationing and other forms of government coercion and new business cronyism.
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See also, Part 13: IPCC 1990 projections don't match with reality, and Part 12: Recent flooding are unprecedented?

Twitter notes, June 2011 (b)

Here are my tweets, second half of June 2011. Tweets in the first half of the month is here.

Montberte Steve Cushing by Noysky
I find it ironic that the Alzheimer's Association sponsored an event called "A Night To Remember". #stevec

MyMathCloud My Mathematics Cloud by Noysky
Stop "friending" me: Twitter is for people I like but don't know. Facebook is for people I know but don't like.

Montberte Steve Cushing by Noysky
Atheists don't solve exponential equations because they don't believe in higher powers.

@philoquotes "A home w/o bks is a body without soul" - true before. Now, bks & mags are available online, little need for bookshelves :-)

Jimparedes Jim by Noysky
A hospital in Valenzuela city is flooded INSIDE.. Terrible. Doctors ride wheelchairs to move about or go to second floor.

JokesForFree JokesCentral by Noysky
JUAN:Dok, bakit TRIPLE ang singil nyo eh 1 ngipin lang ang ipinabunot ko? DENTISTA:Paano sa lakas ng sigaw mo, natakot yung 2 pang pasyente!

philo_quotes Philosophers quotes by Noysky
Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does. ~ Sartre http://bit.ly/philq

Fr Mymathcloud: Algebraic symbols are used when you do not know what you are talking about... Polar coordinates aren't just arctic fashions.

Another heavy flooding in Metro Manila for almost 4 hours now. Reminder of global cooling upon us, bit.ly/ilVzYk

My brief stint as one of the tv comedians of Sic O'Clock News, a political satire in the late 80s, bit.ly/lBAAHt :-)

If man makes himself a worm he must not complain when trodden on... It's not God's will that we be happy, we shd make ourselves happy - Kant

Jimparedes Jim by Noysky
Di baling pangit. May refund. ha ha ha Dating site un-invites 30,000 'ugly' members, refunds $112K http://bit.ly/kkvbYq

From Mymathcloud: I understand mathematics, I just can't do proofs… Life is complex: it has both real and imaginary components.

Tomorrow (24 June) Metro Manila's education sector will turn communist -- classless :-)

The energy of the mind is the essence of life... The end of labor is to gain leisure. ~ Aristotle

From Mymathcloud: Without geometry life is pointless.... The only angle from which to approach a problem is the TRY-Angle.

@bayanmo Makati City govt personnel are busy with towing cars, apprehending number coding cars, etc. but lazy in cleaning clogged drainage

@dost_pagasa Why does PAGASA give local names to typhoons with int'l names already? 2 names can cause confusion when we check past typhoons

From Mymathcloud: Life is too short for long division... A circle is a round straight line with a hole in the middle.

@gpph Bad weather, more rains, more flooding, more cooling, is also caused by "man-made-warming" fiction, bit.ly/ilVzYk

Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty... The comic & d tragic lie inseparably close, like light and shadow. - Socrates

Fr Mymathcloud: Old mathematicians never die; they just get disarrayed.... or they just go off on a tangent... or they just become angles.

@tonylavs Another case of global cooling in heavy Phil. flooding and the man-made warming train keeps running, bit.ly/ilVzYk

From Mymathcloud: Old mathematicians never die; their systems just become unsolvable.... and their second derivative goes to zero

philoquotes PhiloQuotes by Noysky
Reverie is when ideas float in our mind without reflection or regard of the understanding. ~ John Locke

philoquotes PhiloQuotes by Noysky
Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking. ~ Marcus Aurelius http://bit.ly/philq

philoquotes PhiloQuotes by Noysky
Those who are believed to be most abject and humble are usually most ambitious and envious. ~ Spinoza http://bit.ly/philq

MyMathCloud My Mathematics Cloud by Noysky
Everyone knows what a curve is, until he has studied enough mathematics to become confused by possible exceptions

MyMathCloud My Mathematics Cloud by Noysky
The notion of infinity is our greatest friend; it is also the greatest enemy of our peace of mind. James Pierpont

There are three kinds of people in the world; those who can count and those who can't... Decimals have a point. - Mymathcloud

Time discovers truth.... Life, if well lived, is long enough.... The deferring of anger is the best antidote to anger. - Seneca

The superior man is modest in his speech but exceeds in his actions... An oppressive govt. is more to be feared than a tiger. - Confucius

Old mathematicians never die; they just disintegrate... or they just lose their identities... or they just tend to infinity. - Mymathcloud

Those believed to be most abject & humble are usually most ambitious & envious.... Fear cannot be w/out hope nor hope w/o fear. - Spinoza

The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal... There was never a genius without a tincture of madness. - Aristotle

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it anywhere, analyzing with wrong diagnosis, and prescribing with troublesome solutions

Six out of five people in the world are lousy with fractions.... Fractions and decimals have a point.

Son: Papa, whats d least common denomination (LCD) bet 3/4 and 5/6? Papa: They haven't found it yet? They asked that question many yrs ago.

What happens to a plant when you put it in a math classroom? It develops a square root. Or a cube root.

Will minus intellect constitutes vulgarity.... Honor has not to be won; it must only not be lost. - Schopenhauer

philo_quotes Philosophers quotes by Noysky
The more man meditates upon good thoughts, the better will be his world and the world at large. ~ Confucius

Montberte Steve Cushing by Noysky
Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen. Winston Churchill

philo_quotes Philosophers quotes by Noysky
When there is an income tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income. ~ Plato http://bit.ly/philq

@Karen_DaviLa When Saudi firms are forced to hire locals first, then they will become less competitive as they'll be forced to pay more

@philoquotes "The state is a creation of nature", I disagree. The state and its endless expansion, is human creation.

C3Heditor C3H Editor by Noysky
Since 1990, IPCC's Climate Predictions Have Been Wrong - Billions Wasted On Worthless Fortunetelling: Read here,...http://bit.ly/k5YYCI

What is ignorance and apathy? I don't know and I don't care.

Laws control the lesser man. Right conduct controls the greater one.. Of all strategems, to know when to quit is the best.- Chinese proverb

Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them... Fear is pain arising from the anticipation of evil. ~ Aristotle

The cheapest and most effective way to remove warts, big moles, wrinkles in one's face and skin, zero side effect, is Adobe Photoshop.

The golden rule: those who have the gold make the rules. Money is relative: more money, more relatives :-)

AncientProverbs Motivational Quotes by Noysky
Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them. -Aristotle

2 US missile destroyers + Phil. WW2 ships to patrol Sulu Sea. To guard Exxon Mobil exploration ships in the area?


Tell me why, I don't like Mondays -- Bob Geldoff. Tell me why, I don't like more aid -- me

I heard it was you, talking 'bout the world where all is free, it just couldn't be, and only a food would say that. -- Steely Dan

What orators lack in depth they make up for in length... Laws undertake to punish only overt acts. -- Montesquieu

Statistics means never having to say you're certain... Parallel lines actually do meet, but they are very discrete. - Mymathcloud

CONFERENCE: The confusion of one man multiplied by the number present... Without geometry life is pointless. - Mymathcloud

DavidRoads Motivational Quotes by Noysky
sometimes the smallest things take up the most room in your heart. -winnie the pooh

Come what may, all bad fortune is to be conquered by endurance... Trust not to much to appearances. -- Virgil

GreatestQuotes Great Minds Quotes by Noysky
"Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes." - Oscar Wilde

Rain songs: Meteor rain-F4. Purple rain-Prince. November rain-GNR. Let it rain-Razorback. Rain song-Imago. Rudolf d red nose RAINdeer :-)

Abswelto yang Michael Ray Aquino. Aquino eh.. .US to boost Philippine intelligence. Bobo daw kasi ng Pinoy. - Dong Abay

PCSO-Perang Corrupt Sugalan Onsehan... China to invade Phils? Tagal na kaya me Chinatown... Kumbaga sa siopao, gobyerno ay bola2 - Dong Abay

The people I distrust most are those who want to improve our lives but have only one course of action. - Frank Herbert

philo_quotes Philosophers quotes by Noysky
What gift has providence bestowed on man that is so dear to him as his children? ~ Cicero

@east_asia_forum Urbanization is a reality for all countries. People congregate in crowded cities bec. jobs, infra, utilities are plentiful

@charievilla @ABSCBNNews New species discovered in Phils., meaning claims of "diminishing species" is a scam, like man-made warming scam.

ChrisKitze Chris Kitze by Noysky
US Could Be Forced To Sell Sovereign Assets To China To Pay Off Over $100 Trillion In National Debt | Before It's Newshttp://ow.ly/5sAeA

One person's constant is another person's variable, - Susan Gerhart... Calculus has its limits. - mymathcloud

People who can't argue on the issue tend to attack the proponent of an issue. Shoot d messenger, not the message -- typical act by cowards.

If you're weak on facts, pound on the law. If you're weak on law, pound on facts. If you're weak on both law and facts, pound on the table.

@Karen_DaviLa Liberalism as political philosophy of the LP was not highlighted as populism, even near-socialistic policies, dominated.

The 6th International Conference on Climate Change

Today, the Sixth International Conference on Climate Change (6th ICCC) will start in Washington DC and end tomorrow at noon (June 30 to July 1). The event is sponsored by the Heartland Institute, a free market think tank based in Chicago, Illinois, USA. As the title implies, this is the 6th time since 2008 that Heartland has been sponsoring this important conference on climate realism, not alarmism.

The proceedings of the first 5 conferences can be downloaded at the earlier link I gave. In this photo is Dr. Willie Soon, a Malaysian-American solar physicist from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Boston. He was among the keynote speakers during the 2nd ICCC in NYC in March 2009. I have befriended Willie since then.

The 5th ICCC was originally called the Pacific Rim Conference on Climate Change, held in Sydney last year. It was a one-day activity only, attended by mostly Australian participants. The event was after the two-days Pacific Rim Policy Exchange, September 29-30, 2010, held in the same hotel. Heartland was a co-sponsor of this event. There were many international participants in that two-days conference, from North and South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia-New Zealand. I have attended both events, thanks to the Americans for Tax Reforms for providing me a travel grant.

The 4th ICCC was held in Chicago last year. I attended it, courtesy of Heartland's travel grant as our think tank, Minimal Government Government Thinkers, Inc. was one of the international co-sponsors of the event.

I have written several articles about the 4th ICCC. Among them were:

1. Chicago, 4th ICCC, day 1, May 17, 2010
2. Sea level, the Sun and climate, May 20, 2010
3. Governments and climate research, May 29, 2010

The 3rd ICCC was held in Washington DC sometime in June 2009. It was a one-day activity and targeted US legislators, their staff, other interest groups as the US was debating then the carbon cap and trade legislation.

The 2nd ICCC was held in NYC, where the United Nations holds its headquarters. It's the UN's IPCC that fanned global warming alarmism and another UN body, the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) is responsible for the global coercion on various environmental and energy regulations, taxation and subsidization to certain favored or crony energy sources.

I also attended that event, again, courtesy of Heartland which gave me a travel grant for the same arrangement, our think tank was one of the international co-sponsors of the event. Well, we were the only think tank from South East Asia actually, that co-sponsored the event. My article about the event is here, Politicizing science via climate alarmism, dated March 12, 2009.

Some pictures during the 2nd ICCC, from top left, clockwise: With Jose Luis Tapia of ILE, Peru, Joe Bast, President of Heartland Institute; Barun Mitra of Liberty Institute, India; Dr. Willie Soon, and Jose Luis Tapia; Jose and Alex Chafuen, President of the Atlas Economic Research Foundation; and with Pres. Vaclav Klaus, President of Czech Republic, who was one of the keynote speakers of the conference.

I wish Heartland and other organizers/sponsors of the 6th ICCC another successful event. MG Thinkers is actually among the international co-sponsors again of the event, but the secretariat may have forgotten to include our name and logo in the list.