Category Archives: Political Commentary

Philosophy, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Technology and Society, Weird

Adaptation

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Some have said that the cost-effective solution to climate change is to adapt (I’m in this camp). But I think this may be going overboard:

Some of the proposed modifications are simple and noninvasive. For instance, many people wish to give up meat for ecological reasons, but lack the willpower to do so on their own. The paper suggests that such individuals could take a pill that would trigger mild nausea upon the ingestion of meat, which would then lead to a lasting aversion to meat-eating. Other techniques are bound to be more controversial. For instance, the paper suggests that parents could make use of genetic engineering or hormone therapy in order to birth smaller, less resource-intensive children.

What could go wrong?

And of course, it’s all about the liberty:

It’s been suggested that, given the seriousness of climate change, we ought to adopt something like China’s one child policy. There was a group of doctors in Britain who recently advocated a two-child maximum. But at the end of the day those are crude prescriptions—what we really care about is some kind of fixed allocation of greenhouse gas emissions per family. If that’s the case, given certain fixed allocations of greenhouse gas emissions, human engineering could give families the choice between two medium sized children, or three small sized children. From our perspective that would be more liberty enhancing than a policy that says “you can only have one or two children.” A family might want a really good basketball player, and so they could use human engineering to have one really large child.

Yes, that’s what we really care about — a fixed allocation of greenhouse emissions per family.

More thoughts from Mark Wilson at Ricochet.

Education, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Anybody But Obama

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Despite the hopes of the foolish, the Tea Party hasn’t gone away:

“When it comes to the presidential contest, I think the tea partiers will turn up in droves,” she told The Daily Caller.

“They aren’t rallying in the street anymore — I think they’ve been there, done that, so they appear to be quieter. But tea party chapters are still alive and vigorous, and they are just chomping at the bit to pull a lever in November.”

What’s more, says Foley, is that tea partiers will ultimately rally behind whomever the GOP nominee turns out to be.

“And frankly, I think many tea partiers are eager to pull the lever in favor of the Republican presidential nominee — whoever that turns out to be — simply because, from their perspective, that person’s policies will be clearly preferable to those of President Obama,” she said.

And then there’s this:

Foley is the rarest of species: a tea party supporter in liberal academia. A law professor at Florida International University and chair in constitutional litigation for the Institute of Justice, Foley says many of her liberal colleagues didn’t receive her pro-tea party book too well. (RELATED: Full coverage of the tea party movement)

“It’s more than a little ironic that some of the most close-minded folks I have ever met make their living as professors whose entire job is to engage in scholarly inquiry and convey that spirit of open-minded inquiry to their students,” she said. “It never ceases to amaze and disappoint me.”

I’m long past either amazement or disappointment. They can do neither any more.

[Update a few minutes later]

Here’s a review of Foley’s book, which explains the Tea Party to the idiots in the media.