Saturday, February 20. 2010
Reshaping the Guggenheim. Not a bad idea.
Climate exile speaks out. I wonder whether Maggie's Farm would be legal in the Netherlands.
Our favorite Congressman, Thad McCotter, on love and sex.
More NASA climate corruption reports at Pajamas. A blockbuster NASA story which the MSM avoids. The NY Post: The crackup of the climate 'consensus', a quote:
...the climate campaign's most ludicrous contortion is its response to the recent record snowfalls across the eastern United States. Ordinary citizens, repeatedly shoveling snow from their sidewalk, see global warming as a farce.
In answer, the climate campaigners note that "weather is not climate" and that localized weather events are consistent with climate "change." They may be right -- yet these are the same folks who jumped up and down claiming that Hurricane Katrina was positive proof that catastrophic global warming had arrived, even though the strong 2005 hurricane season was followed by four quiet years for tropical storms that made a hash of that narrative.
The ruckus exposes the greatest problem of Al Gore & Co.: They've pointed to any weather anomaly -- cold winters, warm winters, in-between winters -- as proof of climate change. That is, they can't name one weather pattern or event that would be inconsistent with their theory.
Not again! Dems with new government medical plan. I thought it was dead and buried. But we have some States Rights rebels. I love it.
Related: Trial lawyers threaten the O. Related: John Edwards, Mesothelioma Man, and Health Care Reform
Newspapers: Atlanta paper rejects objective reality. Reality is, no doubt, an evil, reactionary concept. See the NYT's Zernicke, who also will not permit facts to get in the way of the narrative.
American households, from Will:
Friday, February 19. 2010
 I hear the snow is good at Jay Peak.
Tofu: Bad for the earth. h/t, Englishman. In my view, it is poison.
Every grandma knows, to her dismay, that personality traits are inherited: The Genetics of Job Choice
Gotta like Mike Pence
Via Insty, A Monstrous Vision For Media Reform. These totalitarians want government to run media - and the internet. Good luck, jerks. We'll die first, with Maggie's Farm in our cold dead hands.
News to me: Farming discrimination. Seeds discriminate?
Dalai Lama literally out with the trash. What? No recycling?
Not another one? Czechgate: Climate scientists dump world’s second oldest ‘cold’ climate record. This is called "science"? h/t, SDA:
The latest independent analysis of world climate data by acclaimed skeptic blogger ‘Chiefio’ (aka E. M. Smith) and his blog contributors confirm that the Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN) has cynically dumped the world’s second oldest and reliable climate record at Prague in the Czech Republic for no scientific reason.
Climate skeptics claim the censoring of the Czech’s raw data has been perpetrated by climate scientists because the Prague records prove there has been no warming in Europe for over two hundred years.
John H:
In my view, there is something a bit sinister about the petulance with which Democratic leaders bewail their inability to compel their own members to vote for legislation that is massively unpopular with the American people. This is, after all, a democracy.
Truth is no defence? Condell tells it like it is about the Wilders travesty. The Dutch should execute him for speaking out! h/t, Vandy.
I hope our three Dutch readers spread this around.
From Krauthammer's Excuses for Obama:
In the latter days of the Carter presidency, it became fashionable to say that the office had become unmanageable and was simply too big for one man. Some suggested a single, six-year presidential term. The president's own White House counsel suggested abolishing the separation of powers and going to a more parliamentary system of unitary executive control. America had become ungovernable.
Then came Ronald Reagan, and all that chatter disappeared.
I, for one, am just as happy that leadership skills are lacking in the White House right now. Many are unhappy about it, such as this guy - a Rabbi no less - who is disappointed in his Messiah. Good grief.
From Had Enough Therapy? with a post on narrative vs. reality:
Amazingly, led by the self-appointed arbiters of truth, no one seemed to care that Obama lacked a record of achievement, either legislative or executive. It doesn't stop there. Obama never released his medical records. We know nothing of his grade point averages. We have never seen his SAT or LSAT scores.
For the therapy culture, your narrative is the meaning of your life. The therapy culture is about teaching us all to construct our life stories. As a reactionary movement it has pointed us to our past, encouraged us to regress, and imagined that we would find meaning once we discovered which myth we were playing out.
...this may be a once-in-a-generation opportunity for right thinking people to confront a specific, widespread mental disorder that has long driven us crazy: what I call Airhead Liberalism Political Disorder or ALPD for short. This is not a coherent ideology like Socialism or Marxism. Rather, it is a style of political engagement whose purpose is psychological satisfaction independent of actual of costs or benefits. In a nutshell: if advocating a policy makes me feel good about myself, it’s a good policy.
 The WellPoint Mugging: The brawl over rate increases is a preview of ObamaCare.
Robin's life in Berkeley. The group-think there is creepy. One would like to imagine that a college town would have free-thinkers.
Interesting idea: Grad from HS when you pass the exam
The state and municipal pension scam
Bill Maher: People are too stupid to understand. I guess he means me.
Afghan Offensive May Take a Month, U.K. General Says. Reminds me of Fallujah. Jules wonders where the anti-war movement went.
How do so many pols end up so rich?
Rosen: The Tea Partiers vs. "progressive" leftists and statists. EJ Dionne and the like are going crazy, it seems:
Dionne dismisses anti-statism by narrowly associating it with 18th century anti-federalists who opposed the Constitution. In fact, most of our founders mistrusted a powerful central government, which is why the Constitution enumerated and restricted federal powers, safeguarded the independence of states, and reserved ultimate power to the people. "Progressive" leftists like Dionne are inherent statists with unbounded faith in the virtue and wisdom of elite bureaucrats who share their ideology to run our government, our economy and our lives.
This is the great divide between left and right in our country and the real root of opposition from Tea Partiers and, as the polls reveal, from most Americans to Obama, Pelosi, Reid and their statist agenda.
What gridlock? The O decries government spending:
When calculated by the average annual percentage of the Gross Domestic Product that he will spend during his presidency, Obama is on track to become the biggest-spending president since 1930, the earliest year reported on the OMB’s historical chart of spending as a percentage of GDP. When calculated by the average annual percentage of GDP he will borrow during his presidency, Obama is on track to become the greatest debter president since Franklin Roosevelt.
Thursday, February 18. 2010
Sea levels have been slowly rising since the end of the Little Ice Age. Some people seem to imagine that the world never changes, and never should change. Yet it always has changed.
From The Madness of Prince Charles, this basic inter-glacial temperature graph is always worth bearing in mind:
We tend to feel, here on the Farm, that AGW is a hyped-up, trumped-up carnival designed by people with their own economic, political, pagan-religious, or etc. agendas. Real science-minded people are always skeptics about the science du jour, and know full well that all speculative theories fail in time. The tell, with the Warmists, is how ardently they desire to believe in the projective computer models, regardless of the facts.
We believe that good stewardship of the earth means humbly respecting nature and its power, and preserving natural land as best we can during our brief time here.
Here's what we think, specifically:
1. Warming would be net a good thing for humanity. It always has been, in the past.
2. It's certainly not happening in any catastrophic way - if it is in any way that makes much difference. Climates always change, and the one thing we know for certain is that another Ice Age is coming down the pike eventually. Now that will be a real challenge to humanity. We are due another, and the last Ice Age did no favors for the human species.
3. Even if warming were, somehow, a bad thing (I would need a lot of convincing), nothing meaningful can or will be done about it.
4. Any futile or symbolic effort to do "something" about it will only enrich certain scam-artists, rent-seekers, and grant-seekers, and be exploited by governments to increase their domination of regular people and their tax receipts. Even the big oil companies are hedged and poised to make huge bucks on government legislation internationally in case it ever happens - which I doubt.
Addenda:
- I doubt that the frequently-misguided Tom Friedman has seen the above chart. For stunning Friedman hypocrisy, see here. He won't change his life, but he wants all you little people to change yours. Typical. Just like Al Gore with his private jets and his half-billion he's made on carbon credits, etc.
- If you cannot predict, it isn't science. The non-droughts in the US Southwest. Name one Warmist prediction which has proven accurate over the past 10 years. (Indeed, the Coolists in the Global Cooling frenzy back in the 70's have been better predictors.)
- From Dr. Sanity's Environmental Fantasies:
If the radical environmentalists really wanted to "do something" about global warming, then they would be calling for funding projects that explore countermeasures and methods to adapt to it. What we see instead is the same kind of religious fanaticism and holy fervor that the left so despises in the fundamental right. What they really want is power over people.
Theirs is basically a totalitarian agenda in which they, the "elites", will dictate how people should live on this earth.
- Pajamas: Noble Corruption. I see nothing noble about refusing to be skeptical about scientific theories and computer models. Just ask any hedgie how Nobel-laureate computer models work out as long-term predictors of complex systems.
- Also, How Climate-Change Dance Theory spells the end of a movement. Good grief. All Bozos on that wacky bus.
 Global Cooling kid's book via Vanderleun - who links today's climate scandal: Antarctic sea ice increasing rapidly
They offered us $100 million for Maggie's, but we said no, on principle. Thus this blog deal.
Raccoons in Central Park? Who knew? How did they get there?
If you were a Conservative on the fiscal commission, what would you say?
Rubio rocks
Harsanyi: Who Doesn't Trust Science Now?
Related: Climategate and the NASA Files
Via Surber:
From the New York Times: “The state of Texas and a coalition of free-market and global warming skeptic groups are asking a federal appeals court today to review U.S. EPA’s finding that greenhouse gases threaten human health and welfare… The state argues that EPA’s finding is legally unsupported because it relies heavily on reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.”
Sow it, reap it, liars.
Hewitt: Meme Of The Left: "Gridlock" iS The Problem, Not Obama's Policies. Quote:
When the GOP lost control of the House and Senate, the annual budget deficit was $161 billion. President Obama's budget for next year --with no stimulus and no TARP-- calls for $1.6 trillion in red ink.
Thus in three years of democratic control the deficit has swell from 161 billion to 1,600 billion.
That's the opposite of gridlock --that is one party rule by the party of massive spending and unlimited pork.
Sowell: Politicians Taking Away Your Freedom
Barack Obama Mocked at This Year’s Mardi Gras Parade
Insty:
HAYEK’S THE ROAD TO SERFDOM continues to rack up stellar sales. Well, if ever there were a time. . . .
Trial lawyers: Democrats' other money machine
Wednesday, February 17. 2010
Hope and change...Economists Predict Cutbacks, Tax Increases That 'Aren't Even Imaginable'.
VDH has it right: What a Difference a Year Makes. A quote:
...what changed? The Obama administration offered a statist agenda of massive deficits, and it blamed Bush for America's current problems. The people revolted, and even the combined power of large Democratic congressional majorities, a ministry-of-truth media, and an Ivy League technocracy could not push through hope and change — largely due to Democratic legislators' worries that they were walking out on a plank that would soon be sawed off by the next election.
The implosion of the Obama administration is newsworthy, but not as astonishing as this petulant liberal reappraisal of both popular political participation and the structure of American government...
Remember this from Nov., 2008? Republicans still in denial as wilderness years stretch ahead
From today's WSJ: Another failure of liberal governance:
For the fourth time since the 1960s, American voters in 2008 gave Democrats overwhelming control of both Congress and the White House. Republicans haven't had such large majorities since the 1920s. Yet once again, Democratic leaders have tried to govern the country from the left, only to find that their policies have hit a wall of practical and popular resistance.
Democrats failed in the latter half of the 1960s, as the twin burdens of the Great Society and Vietnam ended the Kennedy boom and split their party. They failed again after Watergate, as Congress dragged Jimmy Carter to the left and liberals had no answer for stagflation. They failed a third time in the first two Bill Clinton years, as tax increases and HillaryCare led to the Gingrich Congress before Mr. Clinton salvaged his Presidency by tacking to the center.
A fourth crackup is already well underway and is even more remarkable considering how Democrats were set up for success.
and
The central contradiction in modern liberal politics is that Otto von Bismarck's entitlement state for cradle to grave financial security is no longer affordable. The model has reached the limit of its ability to tax private income and still allow enough economic growth to finance its transfer payments.
You can see this in bankrupt Greece, where government spends 52% of GDP; or in California and New York, where the government-employee unions have pushed tax rates to punishing levels and the states still can't pay their bills. Americans can see that this is where Mr. Obama's agenda is also taking Washington, and this is why they are rejecting it.
Few Americans, outside the universities, wish to end up like Europe.
Whenever you have just the furthest left elements of the Democratic party attempting to impose their will on the rest of the country — that’s not going to work too well.
Sen. Evan Bayh
In Brookhaven Collider, Scientists Briefly Break a Law of Nature. It's about anti-matter, in part, and the mystery of baryogenesis: Why does matter exist?
The evil 60s: The Night They Burned Ranum's Papers
Red wine and dark chocolate are cancer killers (h/t Tiger)
Democrats Reeling Under Losses of Veteran Lawmakers, Declining Poll Numbers
Free Conrad Black!
From Gordon's Milksop Nation (h/t, Boing Boing via I Forget)
For two decades and counting, we citizens of the land of the free and the home of the brave have happily traded freedom for every scrap of bogus safety dangled before us. Indeed, we have devoted prodigious energy to inventing threats that demand the sacrifice of liberty, privacy and even basic human dignity.
Blowing threats out of proportion is, of course, the stock in trade of TV news, whether the menace in question is a summer rainstorm or the distressing stains revealed when an investigative reporter shines ultraviolet light on a freshly laundered bed sheet at an upscale hotel. But television reflects its viewers' attitudes as well as shaping them, and clearly there exists a very large audience receptive to the never-ending theme: Life is meant, ever and always, to be safe--and you're not safe.
Nigerian activist and Nobel laureate for Literature Wole Soyinka:
England is a cesspit. England is the breeding ground of fundamentalist Muslims. Its social logic is to allow all religions to preach openly. But this is illogic, because none of the other religions preach apocalyptic violence. And yet England allows it. Remember, that country was the breeding ground for communism, too. Karl Marx did all his work in libraries there."
Go figger: 2009- Global Warming Causes Foggy Days in San Francisco… 2010- Global Warming Causes Fog-less Days in San Francisco. At best, we are talking one degree per century since the Little Ice Age. As they say, "Is there anything global warming can't do?"
Prof Plimer:
Since Copenhagen there have been weekly revelations that the IPCC used non-valid sources for some of its exaggerated claims. If such activities took place in the corporate world, the courts would be full. All the poster displays of a forthcoming climate catastrophe such as Himalayan glaciers, Amazonian forests, inexorable rise in global temperature, Arctic ice, polar bears, retreating Kilimanjaro ice, etc., have been shown to be implausible, wrong, or fraudulent.
And at Am Thinker, The experiment that disproves AGW:
...the results of three different peer-reviewed papers show that over a period of 36 years, there is no reduction of OLR emissions in wavelengths that CO2 absorb. Therefore, the AGW hypothesis is disproven.
Tuesday, February 16. 2010
 From the post:
The Nazi propaganda poster says: "This person suffering from hereditary defects costs the community 60,000 Reichsmark during his lifetime. Fellow German, that is your money, too."
Grad school in the humanities is a big lie
Soda = Big Tobacco, According to No-Fun NYT Food Writer
Was there any actual warming to begin with?. Well, don't tell Cambridge, MA because they are going to save the planet!
WSJ: The continuing climate meltdown. And WaTimes: The Scam Unravels. One quote:
Not everybody is on to the global-warming scam, not yet, but all the people — or enough of them — are getting there. "Global warming," or even "climate change" as Al's marketing men now insist that it be called, is becoming the stuff of jests and jokes. Sen. James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, a Republican, built an igloo of that hot stuff that buried Washington last week on the Capitol lawn and dubbed it "Al Gore's new home."
It has been a topic of jest at Maggie's Farm for years.
Glenn says the Climategate story reminds him of the Bellesisles story
The skeletons of wind energy. Meanwhile China is buying Canadian oil sites
Race and fairness:
A few years ago, however, when I worked as a reader for Yale’s Office of Undergraduate Admissions, it became immediately clear to me that Asians - who constitute 5 percent of the US population - faced an uphill slog. They tended to get excellent scores, take advantage of AP offerings, and shine in extracurricular activities. Frequently, they also had hard-knock stories: families that had immigrated to America under difficult circumstances, parents working as kitchen assistants and store clerks, and households in which no English was spoken.
But would Yale be willing to make 50 percent of its freshman class Asian? Probably not.
Why not?
Somin on political ignorance
Amy Bishop Is A Far-Left Extremist "Obsessed" with the President
Obama's chance to be next FDR or Reagan fading fast. The fellow is a classic Legend in His Own Mind.
Why the Russkis still see the US as an enemy
Monday, February 15. 2010
It's like a full-time job trying to keep up with all of the debunking of the IPCC report. Today, Hurricanegate. There has been no increase in tropical cyclones, contrary to the IPCC claims.
Monster waves. Wonderful photos.
Sunday, February 14. 2010
The University of California campus at Irvine was the scene a few days ago of pro-Palestinian demonstrators interrupting the presentation by Israel’s Ambassador to the US, Michael Oren. Scott Johnson at PowerLine sums up the demonstrators’ core proposition: “The actions are based on the proposition that the defense of Israel in speech is beyond the bounds of civilized discourse just as the defense of Israel in deed is illegitimate because Israel is illegitimate.”
Martin Solomon posted a video of the action. More details at Solomon’s post. Oren conducted himself with dignity in not backing down from free speech. This key question: “Where are the grownups in the UC Irvine administration?”
The usual suspects defend the protestors as somehow engaged in rightful “civil disobedience.”
Max Boot, a graduate of "Berzerkley", wrote at Contentions, of this and similar campus attacks, “Anything short of expulsion, or at least suspension, would seem to be a wrist-slap that will only encourage more such misconduct in the future and make a mockery of the free speech that universities are supposed to champion.”
The San Diego Union-Tribune editorial read: “It was an embarrassing display of inhospitality [at Irvine]. It was also a wasted opportunity. The critics should have stayed and listened. As a U.S.-born scholar on the Middle East and a best-selling author with a Ph.D. from Princeton, Oren has much to say about one of the most important and interesting corners of the globe.”
By contrast, Ambassador Oren appeared at the University of California campus at San Diego a few days later.
Thanks to the firm position taken by UCSD’s administration led by Chancellor Marye Ann Fox, this lecture was not a repeat of the unfortunate incident in UC Irvine on February 8th where the Israeli Ambassador’s speech was disrupted by a well-organized group of student protesters.
In sharp contrast, UCSD’s administration demonstrated resolve and determination to conduct a program in a peaceful and civilized manner and in the best traditions of the university’s commitment to freedom of speech and exchange of ideas. The presentation started with a strong statement from Peter Cowhey, Dean of the UC San Diego School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, that interruptions would not be tolerated during Ambassador Oren’s presentation and that members of the audience would have the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the presentation. The lecture proceeded smoothly…
Though the Q&A was dominated by pro-Palestinian students, “Ambassador Oren responded to each question with the knowledge of the accomplished historian that he is and with the wisdom of a true diplomat.”
The audience and the subject were treated with respect and benefited from civil discourse. University administrators or others who are willing to forfeit that freedom of speech and minimal manners themselves do not belong on campus.
Where is the MSM with this story?
We never doubted it for a minute: Moonbattery. Manchurian Candidate, thanks to the MSM's homo- or hetero- or Lefto- or whatever-eroticism.
I wouldn't mind if he had changed his view of the world since then, but I haven't heard that road-to-Damascus story yet.
Climategate's Phil Jones Confesses to Climate Fraud. For starters,
Imagine a man who has spent the better part of the past 25 years toiling to convince the world of CO2-forced 20th-century warming now admitting that the difference in warming rates for the periods 1860-1880, 1910-40 and 1975-2009 is statistically insignificant. Jones even acceded that there has been no statistically-significant global warming since 1995; that in fact, global temperatures have been trending to the downside since January of 2002, although he denied the statistical significance of the -0.12C per decade decline.
All the details at link above. And he said:
And he said that for the past 15 years there has been no ‘statistically significant’ warming.
Related, IPCC admits that they are not a scientific organization.
Related, World may not be warming, say scientists. Al Gore, Call your Agent.
Their party is over. My big question is "Why aren't the Warmists pleased and relieved to learn that it was a giant hoax perpetrated by grant-seekers, rent-seekers, carbon-credit investors like Al Gore and the oil companies, greedy governments, and the absurd, corrupt, and amoral UN?" Why not celebrate! They should be thrilled to know that they can quit worrying, and just get on with life.
But it just seems to make them more angry. Go figger. Maybe some people just like to be angry and upset about something or other to give life a bigger meaning.
Saturday, February 13. 2010
Poof! You're in the union. Right when you thought you were your own boss.
Steyn. A quote re the USA:
...the difference between America and Europe is that, when the global economy nosedived, everywhere from Iceland to Bulgaria mobs took to the streets and besieged Parliament, demanding to know why government didn't do more for them. This is the only country in the developed world where a mass movement took to the streets to say we can do just fine if you control-freak statists would just stay the hell out of our lives, and our pockets. You can shove your non-stimulating stimulus, your jobless jobs bill, and your multitrillion-dollar porkathons. This isn't karaoke. These guys are singing "I'll do it my way" for real.
Photo: A fair likeness of your News Junkie at Cannon Mountain this winter, with his few remaining brain cells well-protected after a nasty run-in with a hostile tree in early January.
Remember the Global Cooling hysteria? Well, Rare snowfall in Rome as cold snap grips Italy
Vibrator addiction?
Addicted to growing opium. Is it a Libertarian thing?
Licenses to use the internet? (h/t, Insty)
Homeland Sec refuses to use the I word. It might offend, I guess. The problem is that this sort of baloney offends me, and insults my intelligence. Plus I am paying for it.
VDH: The New Commandments on the Animal Farm Barn Wall
Putin Orders Obama Not to Defend America. Like Iran, the Russians see the O as a pussy to be pushed around. Yes, we did just call the O a pussy.
Re Sowell's Intellectuals and Society
Tough love for Greece:
Members of both government and opposition parties in the Bundestag said there would be no parliamentary support for any financial rescue package for Greece without clear evidence of drastic cuts in state spending. Eurozone finance ministers are due to meet on Monday, but no detailed rescue plan will be on their agenda.
Re NJ, at Tiger:
One state retiree, 49 years old, paid, over the course of his entire career, a total of $124,000 towards his retirement pension and health benefits. What will we pay him? $3.3 million in pension payments over his life and nearly $500,000 for health care benefits -- a total of $3.8m on a $120,000 investment. Is that fair?
Pretending that it was not the Dems who were blocking civil rights
Chose your side: Salmon vs. farmers. Not enuf water for both.
Joe Biden: We did it
Laurence Tribe via Surber:
“Laurence Tribe, one of the most brilliant lawyers in America, has said that Barack is the most incandescently brilliant student he ever taught. I think brains count. When you combine it with the kind of international background that he’s had, what’s he’s been through as a black person. It has not made him angry, but he’s rather hopeful by it. He’s an extremely positive person about the future of America. He’s the president I’ve been waiting for all my life.”
Get a room, Laurence.
Re the anti-obesity campaign:
"As the government assumes a larger share of health care costs, it is increasingly able to use that as a justification to intrude into personal decisions or private enterprises, whether it's a matter of smoking policy, trans-fats, or salt," we wrote last month. Now the Wall Street Journal is out with an editorial praising Michelle Obama's campaign against childhood obesity, reasoning, "the reality is that U.S. obesity imposes huge costs on taxpayers. In 2006, the per capita increase in spending attributable to obesity was 36% for Medicare and 47% for Medicaid, according to a paper last year in Health Affairs. Many fat kids grow up to be fat adults, and you've got to start somewhere."
This is treacherous turf.
Friday, February 12. 2010
Two assessments of the O:
Pajamas: Academically approved. A quote:
If only someone as gifted and righteous as The One were able to work freely on behalf of the common good, all would be well. After all, how could America go wrong pinning its destiny to a man that uses the word “elegant” and the phrase “academically approved” in the same sentence? You certainly weren’t going to get that from George Bush.
God save us from "academically-approved."
Noonan: The Off-center President. She asks "How did the president lose the room? How did he lose popularity?"
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