Opinion Forum

Global Climate Change

May 14th, 2009

It seems I may have been a bit premature in agreeing with a respondent to my previous assertions regarding global warming. The one and only purpose of developing scientific theories, and then subsequently vetting them, is to use them as predictive tools. As I said about a month ago, the models we are using fail [...]

Articles written by Brian Bagent
Tags: global cooling, global warming, Science
Categories: Life, News, Politics | Comments (4) | Home

Computer Modeling and Climate Change

April 17th, 2009

When I studied Computer Science way back in the 80s, we were constantly impressed with the lesson “GIGO,” which means “garbage in, garbage out.” It means that if your input data is no better than what I clean out of my pigs’ cages every couple of weeks, then your output (the whole purpose of writing [...]

Articles written by Brian Bagent
Tags: climate change, computer modeling
Categories: Life, Politics | Comments (16) | Home

And now for something completely different…

April 12th, 2009

No politics, philosophy, or economics today. Well, OK, a little philosophy, but not really the kind you’d expect. C.S. Lewis wrote, during the height of WWII, that we should continue to live our lives. I couldn’t agree more. To that end, here are some of the things I recommend to live your life, and I’ll [...]

Articles written by Brian Bagent
Tags: good life, independence, philosophy
Categories: Life | Comments (12) | Home

It Doesn’t Take a Prophet

March 27th, 2009

About a month ago, I wrote an article on inflation. Well, the specter of it is rearing its ugly head with this Reuters Story. China, the largest holder of US debt in the world, doesn’t plan on dumping the dollar, but they have indicated that they will probably not be making as many Treasury purchases. [...]

Articles written by Brian Bagent
Tags: economy, inflation
Categories: Economics, Politics | Comments (3) | Home

More on AIG

March 24th, 2009

The Rank Hypocrisy Continues Unabated Wow. I watched the 60 Minutes interview with President Obama regarding the AIG bonuses that came as such a surprise to the Administration and to Congress. The prevarication and obfuscation continues. The President lays this entire mess at the feet of Wall Street, completely ignoring the laws and regulations that the financial industry has [...]

Articles written by Brian Bagent
Tags: AIG, economy, Obama
Categories: Economics, Politics | Comments (4) | Home

When 2+2 Doesn’t Equal 4

February 27th, 2009

Imagine, dear reader, that you live in a country whose entire economy has exactly $100 in circulation. Let us further suppose that you buy a widget for $1.00. That widget represents 1% of the entire value of the economy. Since we are in a suppositional mode here, we might as well continue on with it: [...]

Articles written by Brian Bagent
Tags: economy, money
Categories: Economics, Politics | Comments (3) | Home

The False Dichotomy of Left v. Right

January 10th, 2009

In formal logic, we are taught that if a conclusion is in error, then at least one of our premises is wrong. So it is with modern politics (well, not just modern politics). An inordinately large number of people in the United States believe in the supremacy of their party over the other guy. They [...]

Articles written by Brian Bagent
Tags: conservative, liberal
Categories: Politics | Comments (12) | Home

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