Tuesday, April 20. 2010
 I heard the funniest thing back when ClimateGate hit the scene. I actually heard someone say "global warming is dead."
I had to laugh.
Obviously someone didn't get the memo.
So I started collecting headlines on my daily rounds.
All of these are since ClimateGate:
Panel Will Review U.N. Climate Work
"Let me be clear, he said. "The threat of climate change is real." (NY Times)
Despite Climategate, IPCC Mostly Underestimates Climate Change
James McCarthy of the Harvard Medical School Center for Health and the Global Environment noted that the IPCC usually errs on the conservative side. (Scientific American)
Climate Scientists Plan To Hit Back At Skeptics
Undaunted by a rash of scandals over the science underpinning climate change, top climate researchers are plotting to respond with what one scientist involved said needs to be "an outlandishly aggressively partisan approach" to gut the credibility of skeptics. (Fox News)
Study: Human Impact On Climate Now Clearer
Scientists say the research shows greater evidence for human impact on the climate now than the data available when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued its much-maligned report in 2007, warning of "unequivocal" proof of warming. (CBS News)
EPA, Countering Critics Of Greenhouse Gas Findings, Says 'Science Is Settled'
The EPA says it is going forward with "common sense measures that are helping to protect Americans from this threat" and said its critics are trying to "stall progress." (Fox News)
World Warming Unhindered By Cold Spells: Scientists
The pace of global warming continues unabated, scientists said on Thursday, despite images of Europe crippled by a deep freeze and parts of the United States blasted by blizzards. (Reuters)
Meteorologists: Last Month Warmest January On Record by Far
It is what climate scientists predict happens and will happen more frequently with global warming, according to an authoritative report by hundreds of climate scientists issued this month. (Fox News)
Peru Glacier Breaks Up, Causes Tsunami
It was one of the most concrete signs yet that glaciers are disappearing in Peru, home to 70 percent of the world's tropical icefields. Scientists say warmer temperatures will cause them to melt away altogether. (MSNBC)
Study: Stronger Hurricanes Loom
Top researchers now agree that the world is likely to get stronger but fewer hurricanes in the future because of global warming, seeming to settle a scientific debate on the subject. (MSNBC)
Earthquakes And Tsunamis Just The Tip Of The Iceberg, Say Experts
In papers published by the Royal Society, researchers warned that melting ice, sea level rises and even increasingly heavy storms and rainfall -- predicted consequences of rising temperatures -- could affect the Earth's crust. Even small changes in the environment could trigger activity such as earthquakes and tsunamis. (The Scotsman)
Undersea Arctic Methane Could Wreak Havoc on Climate
Why is the permafrost failing? According to the study, the process occurs naturally over thousands of years but is being accelerated by man-made climate warming. (USA Today)
Climate Change Will Impact Infectious Diseases Worldwide
But as Thompson noted, despite its challenges, climate change can be a relatively solid rock on which to moor infectious disease planning. Many functions of human populations, from geographical displacement to lifestyle changes, that influence disease transmission can be exceedingly hard to track, she said. "Climate is one thing you can actually measure." (Scientific American)
Climate Change May Extend Allergy Season
Sneezing, congestion, and runny noses from hay fever may be lasting longer because climate change may be extending pollen seasons, doctors in Italy said on Monday. (MSNBC)
Darwin Foes Add Warming To Targets
For mainstream scientists, there is no credible challenge to evolutionary theory. They oppose the teaching of alternative views like intelligent design, the proposition that life is so complex that it must be the design of an intelligent being. And there is wide agreement among scientists that global warming is occurring and that human activities are probably driving it. (NY Times)
Coast Guard Sees Increasing Need For Icebreakers
Allen sidestepped a question on whether he believes in climate change, though he said "certain things are undeniable," including a smaller ice cap and changes in ocean temperature and chemistry. (CBS News)
Report: March Was Earth's Warmest On Record
In addition, climate researchers have been reporting rising global temperatures for several years as a result of the Greenhouse Effect, in which rising levels of carbon dioxide and others gases in the atmosphere trap heat instead of allowing it to escape out into space. (USA Today)
Winter Was Fifth Warmest On Record
However, worldwide temperatures have also been climbing in recent years, a warming attributed by most atmospheric scientists to chemicals added to the air by human activities since the start of the Industrial Revolution. (CBS News)
On Global Warming, The Science Is Solid
While aspects of climate change impacts have been overstated, none of the errors or allegations of misbehavior undermine the science behind any of the statements made above. In particular, they do not alter the conclusions that humans have taken over from nature as the dominant influence on our climate. (Houston Chronicle)
US Senate Climate Bill To Be Unveiled April 26
WASHINGTON, April 15 (Reuters) - A long-awaited compromise bill to reduce U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases blamed for global warming will be unveiled by a group of senators on April 26, sources said on Thursday. (Reuters)
To quote Samuel Clemens,
The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.
Monday, April 19. 2010
 White Lefties go nuts when black Americans leave the plantation. They act like Simon Legree. h/t to Driscoll's Frank Rich Covers All The Bases
Related: Taranto's Why the Left Needs Racism - It serves a political purpose.
Also, at Tiger: Race as a political weapon against the right
Image is Tom's Final Beating, from the 1853 Illustrated Edition of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Tom has been a hero of mine since I first read the book in junior high school. How "Uncle Tom" became a pejorative is beyond me. His infraction, if you recall, was to refuse to whip the other blacks to "keep them down."
 A book by Randy Barnett: Restoring the Lost Constitution: The Presumption of Liberty
Dubious Grousing over the Percentage of African-American Players in Major League Baseball
Dalrymple: In Britain, compulsory virtue stifles individual liberty. "Compulsory virtue" is an oxymoron.
Goldberg:
So, how many more Priuses will the world have to buy to offset this Icelandic volcano?
The UK: Up to 75% of births to be outside marriage
John at Powerline:
Government medicine is bad medicine. Why anyone would want to dismantle our health care system and replace it with the disaster that is socialized medicine is beyond me.
Was Jesus a Marxist? Am Thinker
Is the party over for China's Communist Party?
53% of Americans are now an "aggrieved elite"
More leftist hatred and violence. Related, via Driscoll:
On the West Coast, it’s the Clash of the Poseur Totalitarians! On the East Coast, more leftwing totalitarians seek to inflict violence. Glenn Reynolds suggests alerting the Southern Poverty Law Center, but their myopia causes a distinct blindness in their left eye.
Who is this mystery man Obama?
History and Ideology in Textbooks. h/t, Weasel Watchers. A quote:
...fully 60% believe that "most school textbooks are more focused on being politically correct than ensuring accuracy."
Prof Liu:
Speaking of the nomination of now Chief Justice John Roberts, Mr. Liu opined that words like "'free enterprise,' 'private ownership of property,' and 'limited government'" are "code words for an ideological agenda hostile to environmental, workplace, and consumer protections."
"Code words" for freedom, in my view.
Sunday, April 18. 2010
Iceland photo via Thompson, who links to more photos
AVI on parachurches
It's in the top ten most dangerous cities on the planet. h/t, Tiger.
Palin: “Mr. President, is a strong America a problem?”
Obama mocks me. That is not a respectful thing to do. IBD: Thanks for what?
The Limited-Government Big Tent
VDH: How Could We Be So Stupid?
How the Left views Conservatives
Bill Clinton to America: Shut up and lie down
Afghanistan round up: Jules
Still impressed by Gov. Christie
Like we often say:
...I can’t understand how these same people who distrust the power of large corporations tend to throw all their trust and faith into government. The government tends to have more power (it has police and jails after all, not to mention sovereign immunity), is way larger, and the control mechanisms and incentives that supposedly might check bad behavior in governments seldom work.
Photo below via Vanderleun -
Saturday, April 17. 2010
Dark blue is +10 or above, dark red is -10 or below. Details at Ace:
Excellent essay from Fred Siegel at Commentary, The Anti-American Fallacy. (h/t, Insty). It is about "Down with the people!"
Adam Bellow's disenchantment with the Zabar's Left
Is it kiddie pron if the exhibitionist kids photo themselves?
JC Phillips: God in Our Classrooms
Church bells are insensitive. h/t, Moonbattery
The 50 most stressful colleges. If they think college is stressful, they should try real life.
Gay or not? Who cares? She looks slightly butch, tho. Politics is amusing.
It is Small Business Vs. Big Government
Seattle Tea-Party Lukewarm
What's wrong with Sousa? Everybody loves Sousa.
Steyn is hilarious about Canada. (the post on the left side of his page)
Can't wait for climate change legislation. These jerks want us to freeze.
When you tax a business, who pays?
"Economics is not always intuitive – and that is what makes it such a fascinating and important discipline. Take what economists call “incidence” – the study of who actually bears the burden of a particular tax. It is obvious enough that employees pay income tax. But it is much harder to actually work out who really ends up paying for other taxes; voters are often fooled into thinking that somebody else, usually big business, is being hit by higher taxes while in fact it is them who are picking up the tab, albeit in a way that is impossible to detect."
Who pays taxes on business? The shareholders and the consumers. As of 2002, 49% of Americans owned equities.
Friday, April 16. 2010
From Rick Moran's Tea Partiers Epitomize the Tension Between the Individual and the State:
The importance of their advocacy becomes apparent when you consider that President Obama and the Democrats in Congress have adopted the even more problematic “communitarian” ideal as their template for government. Where the principle of utility is part of the historic, classical liberal definition of government, communitarianism is a more radical ideal that denies individual rights in almost all cases while making forced altruism the dominant force for change.
And from Shiver:
Having spent a good deal of time with tea partying patriots, I do not see them as easily fooled, however. A very wise group they appear to be. Whether highly educated or not so much, tea partiers on the whole have the one thing so many on the left, and especially in this particular administration, lack: real-world experience.
Barack Obama and his minions have unleashed and called to rhetorical arms a veritable legion of the kind of folks they probably didn’t even know existed a year ago. These are Americans who prefer liberty over the luxury of a government-guaranteed life of mooching off the labors of others.
Silent majority? Well, not any more.
Dumb rednecks? Now, there’s a laugh.
The only reason this far-left administration and its media mouthpieces don’t respect the tea partiers is that they hold the partiers’ all-American virtues in such virulent disdain.
Call me a dumb redneck if you want. I don't care.
Congressman Henry Waxman, who never met a federal tax or mandate he didn't like to ram down Americans' throats, even when he discovers that the law he backed actually requires corporations to quickly report the negative financial impacts of ObamaCare, has decided to focus his attention on Americans' throats.
The Hill reports: Waxman calls on Major League Baseball to ban chewing tobacco.
 From the Comments:
"On behalf of the American people, I would like to submit an earmark for the next major piece of legislation, called "Bubble gum for Bubbas." This is to request $75 billion to buy smokeless tobacco from MLB athletes and to exchange it with bubble gum, just like we buy guns from people in inner cities to get those guns off the street. This legislation includes a rider for their third-party medical insurance plan that pays for any additional dental expenses that may in the course of this contract and for any reasonable time after the completion thereof be incurred by replacing said chewing tobacco with chewing gum."
And:
"The nanny state marches on. Since the government is now responsible for your healthcare, and can't afford the expense, be prepared for a rash of new restrictions. Obesity will be outlawed, alcohol consumption and lack of exercise will be next. Do you have any risky habits? Ride a motorcycle, sky dive, fly a light aircraft or hang glider? Dangerous and society should not be responsible to take care of you if you take these risks, so the government will say. Auntie Sam will take care of us all. Let's all take our morning "happy pill" and drone on like slaves."
There's another law he backed that Waxman forgets: Such a ban would have to be negotiated with the Players Union.
Can't wait to see the LA Dodgers and other teams send bottles of warm brown spit to Waxman's office.
There is a dearth of good links out there today. This one is interesting, though: Contract With America.
I tend to agree with Spruiell's take on it.
Thursday, April 15. 2010
Can we avoid 70% of the cost of the huge Medicaid expansion within ObamaCare?. Yes, says a careful analysis, from a very knowledgeable source with practical experience.
Between 2014-2019, the estimated additional cost of the Medicaid expansion within ObamaCare, that accounts for over half those with added coverage, is $436.4 billion. That’s the figure analyzed by United Healthcare’s Center for Health Reform and Modernization. That ranges from $12.2 billion for Alabama, to $32.4 billion for California, to $28.1 billion for Florida, to $19.5 billion for Georgia, to $12.6 billion each for Indiana and Illinois, to $10.7 billion for Michigan, to $2.8 billion for Nevada, to $16.6 billion for Ohio, to $27.4 billion for Pennsylvania, to $59.5 billion for Texas, to $13 billion for Virginia.
The magnitude of each state’s added cost varies with how liberal its qualifications are already. Another factor is who gets new coverage.
Continue reading "First State-by-State Costs Of Medicaid Expansion: Save 70%?"
Globalistical warmening is at it again: Icelandic volcanoes. And Fireballs from outer space!
What's next? The full apocalypse? Or maybe not?
 We do not want to dwell on the Tea Party subject, but this is cute (h/t, NRO).
Note the cheerful and friendly demeanor, the unabashed patriotism, the good grooming, and the absence of a Che t-shirt: she is the New Wholesome Cool - and the Vanguard of the Revolution!
She needs a bio, though. I can easily come up with one, but I won't.
Let’s get to the bottom line: Those claiming that their industry is too big to fail are those who are failures, failing in their basic responsibilities to plan, manage and innovate, most often accompanied by rewarding themselves with high pay and perks.
In the 1980’s, many large corporations were acquired by vulture capitalists, broken up and otherwise disposed of. Yes, hundreds of billions of dollars were sometimes wasted on acquisitions that proved worthless, except to the wheelers-and-dealers’ fees, although in far more cases reorganized leaner and meaner competitors emerged. American industries, and those who wanted to keep their jobs, were forced to adapt if they wanted to remain viable. The American economy prospered anew. Many millions of employees were dislocated, struggled, but American unemployment was at new lows as new opportunities were created.
Those lessons, like most, need to be relearned anew with each generation.
Continue reading "Too Big To Fail: Tea Party Savior"
 Image of a Japanese breakfast (that is canned coffee, BTW) from Flares
Truly the I'm Not Dead Yet post of the day.
Iowahawk wants a pic of your worst wheels.
Regarding your gross old toenails
Why do colleges care about extracurricular activities?
The Puritan Left and life's little pleasures. Related: Banning corn syrup in NY?
Gotta laugh at Gordon Brown:
“A lot of things that the BBC does are incredibly creative and quite risky. But this is a necessary means of us being a creative society. I want to safeguard the independence of the BBC and I think the licence fee is the means by which you do it."
Sarah Palin kills moose miners. Eats them too, no doubt.
John Stossel has a blog.
More people have been killed by Oregon's windmills than died at Three Mile Island
Two subsidies: Ethanol and unconventional natural gas
Rasmussen:
Twenty-four percent (24%) of U.S. voters now say they consider themselves a part of the Tea Party movement, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. That’s an eight-point increase from 16% a month ago.
Europe's VAT Lessons: Rates start low and increase, while income tax rates stay high.
Ed Koch begins:
I weep as I witness outrageous verbal attacks on Israel. What makes these verbal assaults and distortions all the more painful is that they are being orchestrated by President Obama.
Wednesday, April 14. 2010
 Info about it via Jules in Beantown.
I think it's just great for people to take the trouble to show up and express themselves. The folks are getting flak from the MSM, if not scurrilous and dishonest attacks and attempted sabotages, which must be a tell that these demonstrations/protests mean something real. As Palin always says, you know you're near the target when you start getting the heavy flak.
There was a fair amount of hate expressed - by the haters of the Tea Party.
The message of the Tea Partiers to the gummint, I think, is "You guys have done enough damage. Leave us alone to run our own lives." Hewitt is along the same lines.
Some protests are good, it seems, and some are bad. Back in the day, anti-war protests were good places to pick up "revolutionary" granola gals with no morals. When I consider how six batty old Code Pink ladies used to show up and get non-stop front page coverage about their "moral authority," and compare it to the MSM coverage of the thousands of women that show up for these Tea events across the country, I just have to smile.
It is so predictable.
 A shout-out to our Prez: Quit embarrassing me, you big pussy. And I even do like Burger King. But how come foreign leaders don't bow to Obama? And who is Chief of Protocol? Mrs. Earthworm?
AVI is re-reading Screwtape. He feels convicted in every chapter. But I feel convicted on every page - so I win!
The best teachers aren't trained to teach. All the fancy private schools know that.
How TV-watching can alter your view of reality: Cultivation Theory
The Roosevelt Mythtique
Some violence is OK - if it's from the Religion of Peace...
Angela Merkel - More American than the O
The shift of unions towards big government
MRC Special Report: How the Media Have Dismissed and Disparaged the Tea Party Movement
How propaganda works today: Volokh. Kopel responds earnestly, as if truth mattered in that game.
Speaking of propaganda, Krugman does it again
How much money do Profs make these days?
Tea Party founders were small government radicals
Palin Derangement Syndrome in Boston. It's not about Palin: same thing would and will happen to any Conservative who rises to prominence.
Why taxing the rich won't work in New Jersey anymore. Related video: Christie is Reagan with a Jersey edge. A few quotes from the big guy via the Hot Air link:
The children will be the ones to suffer from your education cuts. “The real question is, who’s for the kids, and who’s for their raises? This isn’t about the kids. Let’s dispense with that portion of the argument. Don’t let them tell you that ever again while they are reaching into your pockets.”…
Budget cuts are unfair. “The special interests have already begun to scream their favorite word—which, coincidentally, is my 9-year-old son’s favorite word when we are making him do something he knows is right but does not want to do—’unfair.’ . . . 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 $3.8 million on a $120,000 investment. Is that fair?”…
Isn’t your talk of ’stopping the tax madness’ just another ‘Read My Lips’ promise? “[Mine is] much better than ‘Read my lips.’ I’m sorry, it’s just much better. Much stronger. . . . It’s gonna be how my governorship will rise or fall. I’m not signing a tax increase.”
Fred Singer: Climategate Whitewash
Robin of Berkeley's apology letter to America
Neptunus on his taxes:
Having recently completed my taxes for 2009 – and receiving rather a nasty shock at the bottom line – I can only hope to be less productive in 2019 than I am now.
Very soon now – if I am not there already - I simply won’t be able to afford to succeed.
NYT says it now: It's about rationing care
Money from wind: It's the subsidy that will make you rich. I believe that is termed rent-seeking.
Cheerful graph from Willisms:
Tuesday, April 13. 2010
And to make matters worse, try finding this federal tax on a receipt.
I would be in favor of replacing the federal income tax with a VAT, however.
Addendum: Excellent policy piece on VAT
 More bowing to dictators. I think it's more than a twitch and I think it's more than a submissive character trait. What do our readers think?
Says Ledeen:
It’s worse than you thought, Victor. It’s not confusion at all. It’s a campaign to cut America down to size.
Insane: Hallucinogens Have Doctors Tuning In Again
More insanity: Unlearning whiteness. He includes this quote:
To ignore race is to be more racist than to acknowledge race. I call it neo-racism.
Then call me a neo-racist. Call me anything you want. I don't care. Sticks and stones...
Wilkinson: Do Libertarians Have Anything Interesting to Say to Liberals?
Phil Jones is unraveling
Surber: "Here’s an idea: Let FedEx and UPS take over the post office."
The cynical politics of immigration
More cynical politics: Incentives Not to Work - Larry Summers v. Senate Democrats on jobless benefits.
VDH: The Ongoing Melodrama of Victims and Oppressors. A quote:
...the president seems to fail to acknowledge that there are plenty of actions an individual can take to avoid becoming part of that growing crowd of "less fortunate." Instead, in Obama's world, there exists a simple zero-sum melodrama of victims and oppressors.
Bad times in South Africa. Do they want to be Zimbabwe?
The hatred never ends: Hateful East Coast Leftists Attack Sarah Palin Before Her Boston Rally… Media Silent
WaPo: We Haven't Seen Any Evidence of Tea Party Racism Yet, But Hang Tight While We Investigate
Cookbook medical care coming to the US?
Prof B: Swapping their Birthright of Freedom for an iPad
Monday, April 12. 2010
 Anchoress: The Celibacy Lecture. I say, if you want perfection, look to God for it, not to clergy or any other mortal souls.
So generous: Washington will spend $31,406 per household this year. Where's my check?
Tom Smith:
I like women. I wouldn't want to do without them. But if I were making the case for men without women, I would find Maureen Dowd very useful. Glib, self-satisfied, and neither as smart nor as good looking as she thinks, she makes a long fishing trip with nothing but the guys and a case of scotch a pretty inviting prospect.
Bob Geldof: Buffoon. He thought Africans were so pathetic that they needed mediocre Western rock musicians to "help" them.
A reporter attended a workshop for community organizers. Apparently there are a lot of people with way too much time on their hands and very little contact with the real world...
The sexism in Vet schools is approaching the crisis point. Or do girls just "love animals" more than guys? Why do you want to be a Vet? "I love animals." Sheesh. So be a farmer. Or get a rescue dog. What the world needs now is more hot babe dentists..."Why do you want to be a dentist?" "I love teeth."
All Criticism of Obama Is Racist ... Again. I love that placard.
PC Pinheads Want to Ban the Word 'Obese' So As Not to Offend Fat Kids. Did Michele O get the memo? Is Pinch a poofter? Love that word.
Spittlegate. A MSM scandal
What really drives climate changes? The Milankovitch Cycle
For Mad Men fans, a post on their props, via a piece at Driscoll
The people who do not want medical insurance
Dalrymple: Very Few Innocents in Housing Market Collapse
Parks on Leftist racism. A quote:
...I also knew that I believe in the uncelebrated work fellow black conservatives do to this day (and endure) as racism is only allowed in our society when it’s aimed at us, and instead of turning tail and running, we keep on. I think we’ve shown more guts than any ratings-driven media pundits anyday.
Comments on the Ferguson essay about behavioral economics, which we posted yesterday, at Volokh
What entitlement crisis?
The Islamist Ghost Haunting Europe
Hennessey: Should taxpayers subsidize underwater homeowners?
Amil Imani: Jews as scapegoats
The KKK in Rhode Island. It's a crisis.
Crash course: Your illustrated guide to the Tea Party saboteurs
Sunday, April 11. 2010
 Ferguson's excellent essay at Weekly Standard, titled Nudge Nudge, Wink Wink: Behavioral economics—the governing theory of Obama’s nanny state, quotes the Prez:
“Far more is now known about regulation—not only about when it is justified, but also about what works and what does not. .??.??. In this time of fundamental transformation, that process—and the principles governing regulation in general?—should be revisited.”
Gee whiz, it sounds very "scientific." My response to the notion that my supposed betters need to regulate and nudge me and my life is not printable on a family website such as Maggie's. I do not care whether it "works" or not. Mussolini made the trains run on time, too.
I believe that our Maggie's team and our readers know far more about life than Barack Obama or Cass Sunstein will ever know.
Saturday, April 10. 2010
Among our link dump Friday morning was a piece on a Cyberspace Bill of Rights.
We need no "rights." We are a free people. Our own Bill of Rights was an unfortunate (if politically necessary) error of the time. Why an error? An error because it made it appear that only the listed "rights" were the rights of citizens.
In the USA, it is the government which has (or had) strictly circumscribed powers. The rest are ours alone - our individual powers - not our "rights." Americans do not have circumscribed "rights." We are not supposed to need them.
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Iran, Islam & Cyrus the Great 
