…and its ideological underpinnings. My thoughts on that, and Paul Krugman, over at PJMedia.
Category Archives: Political Commentary
Kaus Versus Krugman
It’s like Godzilla versus Bambi:
Krugman knows all this, of course. He just writes as if we don’t.
Which is what makes him a hack, for whom the Times should be embarrassed to provide a platform. Of course, they have a lot of hackery to be embarrassed about.
“Blue” Science
As I noted a couple days ago, denial of science is bi-partisan. The only difference is the issues affected by the denial.
The “Hollywood Holocaust”
…and other Cold War myths. I agree with Glenn:
Leaving aside the obscenity of comparing out-of-work screenwriters with gassed Auschwitz inmates, there’s this: Communists are no better than Nazis. Refusing to hire Communists is on the same moral plane as refusing to hire Nazis. Which is to say: It’s a good and admirable thing, not a sin. Go broke and starve, commies. It’s what you deserve for being eager, willing servants of totalitarianism.
That it’s perfectly acceptable to be a communist, but not a Nazi, in society at all, let alone teaching students on campus, is morally disgusting. All children of Rousseau should be ostracized in a truly liberal democracy.
The Outpost
Kurt Schlichter says that Jake Tapper’s book on Afghanistan
A Failed Commune
How it gave us Thanksgiving:
I’m often asked why our current leadership class forgets the lessons of the past so often. They are, after all, very smart men and women. Don’t they know that collectivism will fail?
No, they don’t. Not anymore. For much of our history, our leaders were educated in the principles which were to help them avoid errors once they have joined the ruling class. They studied to learn how to not misuse power. Now our leaders learn nothing of the dangers of abusing power: their education is entirely geared to its acquisition. All of their neurons are trained on that one objective – to get to the top. What they do when they get there is a matter for later. And what happens to the country when they’re done with their experiments is beside the point: after all, their experiments will not really affect them personally. History is the story of the limitations of human power. But the limits of power is a topic for people who doubt themselves and their right to rule, not the self-anointed.
It’s always worth a reminder this time of year (and particularly in light of the disastrous recent election) that socialism doesn’t work.
Also, giving thanks for a free market (to the degree it still exists), and the absence of a turkey czar.
Carbon Emissions Reductions
The U.S. leads the world in them, but don’t tell anyone:
Efforts to curb so-called man-made climate change had little or nothing to do with it. Government mandated “green” energy didn’t cause the reductions. Neither did environmentalist pressure. And the U.S. did not go along with the Kyoto Protocol to radically cut CO2 emissions. Instead, the drop came about through market forces and technological advances, according to a report from the International Energy Agency.
…”It’s good news and good news doesn’t get reported as much,” John Griffin, executive director of Associated Petroleum Industries of Michigan, said of the lack of reporting about the CO2 reductions. “The mainstream media doesn’t want to report these kinds of things.”
Doesn’t fit the narrative.
One Third Of The Way There
It’s been up less than 24 hours, but I’ve already raised 33% of my goal on the Kickstarter. Hope I can keep it up, and vastly exceed it.
The Continuing Bengazi Lies
What is the administration hiding?
Whatever it is, they sure didn’t want us to find out before the election. Or even now. And Congress shouldn’t allow itself to be distracted with a sex scandal, as the media has.
Politicians’ “War On Science”
Who said it, Rubio or Obama? It’s useful to point this kind of thing out, of course, and I’ve always thought that Chris Mooney’s theses
But I disagree with this:
So Obama believes in evolution, and presumably he’d like to teach it in the nation’s public schools, while Rubio suggests that “multiple theories” should be given equal time. But even so, both men present the science as a matter of personal opinion. Obama doesn’t say, Evolution is a fact; he says, I believe in it.
Well, he shouldn’t say that, because evolution is in fact not a “fact.” It, like gravity, is a scientific theory. And it is perfectly philosophically legitimate to say that alternate theories should be taught in school, but it should be done not in a science class but in one on comparative religions (of which science is one). That there is an objective reality about which we can discover things through scientific methods is not a fact, or “truth,” but an axiomatic assumption. Science is a form of faith, but in terms of understanding the natural world, and forging new artificial creations from it, it is a very successful and powerful one.