Seventy public-employee unions have been dismantled in Wisconsin. One of the few things that FDR was right about was that they should have never been legal.
Category Archives: Media Criticism
Of Ducks And Gays
…and tolerance:
The advantages of classical liberal market cosmopolitanism–the idea that it’s best to set aside peaceful differences of opinion and creed and worries about different races, nationalities, and genders when deciding how we interact with the world–has a great track record of making us all richer and happier.
The idea that that people should be punished with boycott or losing their jobs over having wrong beliefs hobbles the flowering of tolerant classical liberal market cosmopolitanism.
There may have been a good reason why classical tolerance of expression was summed up in the epigram: “I disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it!”
That has a different feel than: “I disagree with what you say, I think you are evil for having said it, I think no one should associate with you and you ought to lose your livelihood, and anyone who doesn’t agree with me about all that is skating on pretty thin ice as well, but hey, I don’t think you should be arrested for it.”
It’s a “heads I win tails you lose” situation, as it often is with the Left. As I noted at Twitter yesterday:
I despise hate speech. I won't say I hate it, though, because that would be hate speech. I think. #IAmSoConfused
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) December 20, 2013
I can't stand that intolerance exists. I won't say I won't tolerate it, though, because that would be intolerant. I think. #IAmSoConfused
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) December 20, 2013
As I also noted there, declaring someone a sinner does not justify bullying or assaulting them. There will always be bullies, but their existence is not a reason to suppress freedom of expression or religion.
[Update a few minutes later]
Joel Achenbach has a pretty amusing take: The Ducksters are the Flintstones.
[Update a while later]
The show is likely to be canceled. I noted yesterday on Twitter that A&E needed Duck Dynasty a lot more than the latter needed A&E. A&E can run whatever programs it wants, but I think that they’ll realize that this was a stupid business decision.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Thoughts from Jonah: Real rednecks.
Impeachment
Looking back, fifteen years later.
That episode was the point at which the Democrats lost me permanently, as a party of shameless corruption.
Climate Models
They seem to be modeling some other planet:
Christy compared the outputs for the tropical troposphere of 73 models used by the IPCC in its latest report with satellite and weather balloon temperature trends since 1979. “The tropics is so important,” Christy explains in an email message, “because that is where models show the clearest and most distinct signal of greenhouse warming-so that is where the comparison should be made (rather than say for temperatures in North Dakota). Plus, the key cloud and water vapor feedback processes occur in the tropics.”
When it comes to simulating the atmospheric temperature trends of the last 35 years, Christy found, all of the IPCC models are running hotter than the actual climate. The IPCC report admits that “most, though not all, of [the climate models] overestimate the observed warming trend in the tropical troposphere during the satellite period 1979-2012.” To defend himself against any accusations of cherry-picking his data, Christy notes that his “comparisons start in 1979, so these are 35-year time series comparisons”-rather longer than the 15-year periods whose importance the IPCC downplays.
Why the discrepancy between the IPCC and Christy? As Georgia Tech climatologist Judith Curry notes, data don’t speak for themselves; researchers have to put them into a context. And your choice of context-say, the year you choose to begin with-can influence your conclusions considerably. While there may be nothing technically wrong with the way the IPCC chose to display its comparison between model data and observation data, Curry observes, “it will mislead the public to infer that climate models are better than we thought.” She adds, “What is wrong is the failure of the IPCC to note the failure of nearly all climate model simulations to reproduce a pause of 15-plus years.”
There is too much that they don’t, and at least for now, can’t capture. And it would be economically insane to base policy on them.
Depressed Obama?
I don’t know if this is true, but if so, that sound you hear from me is the world’s tiniest violin.
Ender’s Game
Jon Goff has some gripes (with spoilers) about the movie.
I haven’t read the book in a third of a century, so I wasn’t as bothered by some of those things as he was. As he notes, in retrospect, it’s probably a mistake to read the book just before seeing the movie. If you haven’t read it, it would probably be better to watch the movie first.
The Pump-Repair EVAs
For the record, I want to commend NASA on its willingness to send astronauts out when they still have an unknown problem with the EMU. Fixing the ISS justifies the risk.
Is Safety Stifling Space Development?
In which I’m interviewed by Popular Mechanics about the book. Which can be purchased on the button over to the leftright.
[Update a few minutes later]
I’d forgotten that it was on the right in the new template.
Coal Versus Eco-Bullies
It has to engage in an all-out, unapologetic war.
Yes, call them out for the unscientific ideologues that they are.
The EPA On Trial
An amicus brief has been filed against the agency. Bottom line: the purpose of the Clean Air Act was to deal with local air-quality issues, not mythical global ones. The SCOTUS’s previous ruling was a terrible one, based on what can now be seen to be junk science.