Category Archives: Media Criticism
The Climate Models
On the verge of failure.
It’s an interesting exercise to attempt to model climate, but the notion that we should base public policy on these toys, particularly given the incompetence of many of those doing it, is insane.
[Update a while later]
It’s worth quoting the conclusions here:
It is impossible to present reliable future projections from a collection of climate models which generally cannot simulate observed change. As a consequence, we recommend that unless/until the collection of climate models can be demonstrated to accurately capture observed characteristics of known climate changes, policymakers should avoid basing any decisions upon projections made from them. Further, those policies which have already be established using projections from these climate models should be revisited.
Assessments which suffer from the inclusion of unreliable climate model projections include those produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the U.S. Global Climate Change Research Program (including the draft of their most recent National Climate Assessment). Policies which are based upon such assessments include those established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency pertaining to the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act.
In other words, all of the president’s latest job- and wealth-destroying power grab.
[Update a few minutes later[
Failure deniers– the problem with public-sector science:
Private companies which kill products or ideas administer the pain quickly and move on. If government ever tries to end a program or operation — “ever” is the operative word, as Ronald Reagan frequently noted: ”The nearest thing to eternal life we will ever see on this earth is a government program” — they go about it slowly, in hopes that outraged politicians or constituents will come to their rescue. If total termination ever occurs, they call it “a learning experience,” which of course was carried out with other people’s money, and rarely includes any learning.
Because they can do it with other peoples’ money. Time to take their (that is, our) money away.
“It’s Just Like Nazi Germany”
But it’s in Canada.
As one of those abused notes, this is why we have a Second Amendment.
Contempt For The Citizenry
Some thoughts from Mark Steyn on freedom of expression in the UK and Canada, and Justice Kennedy’s insulting opinion in DOMA.
@sscrackers
This is an excellent example of the value of hyphens.
[Update a few minutes later]
That’s real retarded, witness.
It’s almost like they’re setting it up for an acquittal from a mostly-white jury so they have an excuse for race riots.
The IRS Lies And Spin
What’s really happening.
Werfel was brought in not to investigate, but to help the White House kick litter over the turds. And Obama’s acolytes, in this comment section and elsewhere, lick it up like a dog does his vomit.
[Update a couple minutes later]
IRS auditor confirms that conservative, not liberal groups were targeted.
But remember, the scandal is “fizzling out.”
Environmental Groups
How they’re destroying the environment.
The Leftist View Of The Constitution
It is both perverse, and inverse:
The Left generally sees a vast sea federal power limited by islands of protections for various rights. From that perspective, the relevant question is whether there is something in the Constitution (or its principles) that defeats federal legislation. Many on the Right start from a different premise: The Constitution authorizes islands of federal power in what is otherwise a sea of questions reserved to states or the people. These characterizations are broad generalizations, to be sure, but I think they capture a real divide in conceptions of federal power.
From the Right’s perspective, the question is not whether some specific provision in the Constitution invalidates Section 4 of the VRA, but whether it is expressly authorized — whether it fits on one of these islands of federal power. The argument for the Shelby County majority is that the extraordinary nature of the federal authority exercised through the VRA (as authorized by the 15th Amendment) can only be justified by extraordinary conditions. This is because the 15th Amendment only authorizes Congress to “enforce” its protections through “appropriate legislation.” Therefore, Congress has to be careful about imposing limitations on states that are not constitutionally required. In the majority’s view, justifying limits on states in 2006 based on conduct from the 1960s and early 1970s fails this test — it does more than “enforce” the 15th Amendment’s guarantees, and therefore exceeds the scope of federal power. Although the majority never says so explicitly (perhaps intentionally), this imposes limits on the 15th Amendment’s enforcement power similar to those imposed Section 5 of the 14th Amendment. the enforcement power.
Yes, that’s what limited government was supposed to be about. The Left thinks that anything that’s not explicitly unconstitutional is constitutional, whereas the Founders specifically enumerated the powers of the federal government. That was the idea of the Ninth and Tenth amendments, which have largely become dead letters, but which some, such as Justice Thomas, are trying to revive.
Limits To Growth
The authors of the report were wrong about everything:
The Limits of Growth got it so wrong because its authors overlooked the greatest resource of all: our own resourcefulness. Population growth has been slowing since the late 1960s. Food supply has not collapsed (1.5 billion hectares of arable land are being used, but another 2.7 billion hectares are in reserve). Malnourishment has dropped by more than half, from 35 percent of the world’s population to under 16 percent.
Nor are we choking on pollution. Whereas the Club of Rome imagined an idyllic past with no particulate air pollution and happy farmers, and a future strangled by belching smokestacks, reality is entirely the reverse.
In 1900, when the global human population was 1.5 billion, almost 3 million people – roughly one in 500 — died each year from air pollution, mostly from wretched indoor air. Today, the risk has receded to one death per 2,000 people. While pollution still kills more people than malaria does, the mortality rate is falling, not rising.
Nonetheless, the mindset nurtured by The Limits to Growth continues to shape popular and elite thinking.
Because it gives them an excuse to run our lives for us.
[Update a couple minutes later]
I agree with Glenn: “Personally, I’ll be more impressed if we’re ever warned of a pending doom whose aversion won’t require giving a lot of power to bureaucrats, technocrats, and other hangers-on while being left poorer and more constrained ourselves. Because no matter what the crisis being propounded, the remedy always seems to be the same…”