Category Archives: Media Criticism

Education, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Making The Klan Boring

28 Comments

Jonah Goldberg on more whitewashing of “progressive” history:

I’ve long argued that there’s an infuriating tendency among mainstream liberal historians to take two approaches to evils in American history. Sins are always either the result of conservatives doing conservative things or they’re the product of America’s fundamentally bigoted nature. It’s just never, ever, the case that liberalism or progressivism has something to apologize for. Liberalism is never wrong, because essential to the concept of liberalism is the idea that it must always be right. The fact that racism and other evils were commonplace, even central, to much of the progressive project is simply too jarring to contemplate and so we get either a whitewash or blame-shifting. And with Boyle, we get both.

And we’ll continue to as long as people continue to take these people seriously. Meanwhile, here’s the real story of the 20s Klan.

Business, Economics, Education, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

The War Between The Useless And The Useful

7 Comments

I think we know who will win in the end, but it’s going to get ugly. The Occumorons are just the beginning. And Glenn Beck was right.

[Update a couple minutes later]

This seems peripherally related: the Great Jobs Massacre.

[Update a few minutes later]

Three reasons that colleges are oversubscribed. It’s been a scam for decades and, like housing, a government subsidized bubble that’s about to pop.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

It Is Not Unconstitutional

12 Comments

…to amend the Constitution:

This article embodies two maladies of the mainstream media that Ramesh Ponnuru pointed out on another occasion also afflicts the Left: (1) they don’t really understand conservative arguments; and (2) they don’t really understand the Constitution.

It’s nothing new. Actually, I’d go further and say they don’t understand arguments, period. They’ve grown up in a propagandistic cocoon in which they’ve never had to actually make arguments, or rationally defend or question their own beliefs, because it is simply given by all around them that they are correct.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society

An Open Letter To Dr. Phil Jones

3 Comments

We are dealing with liars:

Your explanation of your statement is this:

At the end of the IPCC process, chapters, formal comments and responses are all published and that is the appropriate place for this information. It is important that scientists should be allowed free and frank discussion during the writing process. I might also point out that I decided not to take part in AR5 because of the time commitment it requires.

That sounds perfectly logical … if we were dealing with honest men. But if the Climategate emails have shown anything, they have shown that we are not dealing with honest men. Far too many of the leading AGW supporting climate scientists have been shown by their own words to be serial liars like yourself.

But in any case, only scientists with something to hide need privacy to have a “free and frank discussion” about science. Honest scientists have no reason to hide their views. Honest scientists discuss these scientific issues on the web in the full light of day. Why on earth would someone need privacy to discuss the intricacies of the climate models? Do you really have to go into a closet with your best friend to speak your true mind about atmospheric physics? Is it true that you guys actually need some kind of ‘private space’ to expose your secret inner ideas about the factors affecting the formation of clouds? From my perspective, these kinds of private discussions are not only not what is needed. This two-faced nature of you guys’ statements on the science are a large part of the problem itself.

This is quite visible in the Climategate emails. In your communications, you and many of the scientists are putting out your true views of other scientists and their work. You are expressing all kinds of honest doubts. You are discussing uncertainties in your and other scientists understandings. You are all letting your friends know which papers you think are good and which you think are junk, and that’s valuable information in the climate science discussions.

But you never say any of this in public. Not one word. For example, in public it’s all about how great Michael Mann’s science is, not a word of criticism, while in private some of you guys justifiably tear both him and his work to shreds.

I find this double-speak deceptive and underhanded. It has nothing to do with “free and frank discussion” as you claim. I think that if AGW supporting scientists actually broke down and told the truth to the public, you would fare much better. I think that if you disavowed your beloved Saint Stephen (Schneider) and his advice, and you expressed all of your doubts and revealed all of your uncertainties about the climate and told the plain unvarnished truth about your opinion of other scientists’ work, we’d be infinitely better off. Nobody likes two-faced people. You would be miles ahead if you said the same things in public you say in private, and so would the field of climate science.

But it wouldn’t serve “the cause.” When will people realize that the climate “scientists” have not been engaging in science? And they’re not just liars. I don’t know what the FOIA laws are in England, but I think that if Jones had done here what he did in East Anglia, he could be subject to criminal prosecution. And would be, at least under an administration that was more interested in enforcing the law than in maintaining politically correct pieties. I hope we’ll get an administration like that some day.