Eric Scheie wonders why the global warming scolds don’t scold us about eating meat.
Why Do People Believe In God?
Razib asks.
Myths About Markets
Here’s a paper with twenty of them. A useful corrective to economic ignorance.
[Via Lynne Kiesling]
Are Hybrid Motors Safer?
An interesting discussion on the subject, involving Jim Benson, at Space Transport News.
My opinion? I think that the danger of liquids is overrated, but may the best concept win. The ultimate answer is competition, on both safety and cost.
No Vindication For Joe
The nutroots may be celebrating their long-awaited “Fitzmas” tonight, but it’s pretty weak tea compared to their fantasies of “Rove being frog marched out of the White House.” And they can’t take much comfort from Fitzgerald’s comment that the investigation is essentially over. Also, people should be reminded that Joe Wilson is still a liar, regardless of Scooter Libby’s fate:
Wilson’s assertions — both about what he found in Niger and what the Bush administration did with the information — were undermined yesterday in a bipartisan Senate intelligence committee report.
The panel found that Wilson’s report, rather than debunking intelligence about purported uranium sales to Iraq, as he has said, bolstered the case for most intelligence analysts. And contrary to Wilson’s assertions and even the government’s previous statements, the CIA did not tell the White House it had qualms about the reliability of the Africa intelligence that made its way into 16 fateful words in President Bush’s January 2003 State of the Union address…
…The report may bolster the rationale that administration officials provided the information not to intentionally expose an undercover CIA employee, but to call into question Wilson’s bona fides as an investigator into trafficking of weapons of mass destruction. To charge anyone with a crime, prosecutors need evidence that exposure of a covert officer was intentional.
In the end, the only crime was Libby’s alleged perjury. Well, and the fact that the media for so long promulgated and continued to provide oxygen to the loony left conspiracy theory that this was “retribution” against Wilson by the White House.
I agree with (former federal prosecutor) Andy McCarthy:
I don’t think there ever should have been an investigation in the first place. The Justice Department should quickly have realized that the facts here did not warrant a prosecution under its standards for the espionage act or the agent identity protection act. DOJ, under intense political pressure from Democrats and the anti-Bush media, did not close the investigation and kicked it to an independent prosecutor, but the most culpable person in this mess is Wilson, and I wish no one had been charged if there was no legal way of charging him. The administration had every good reason to refute Wilson
Atrocity Against Free Speech
France continues downhill, in terms of civil liberties:
The council chose an unfortunate anniversary to publish its decision approving the law, which came exactly 16 years after Los Angeles police officers beating Rodney King were filmed by amateur videographer George Holliday on the night of March 3, 1991. The officers
“A Few Signs Of Progress”
From Iraqpundit:
Are my aunt and her neighbors kidding themselves out of desperation? That’s possible; it’s hard to live without hope, and people can be creative at manufacturing reasons to be optimistic. (Though the truth is that Iraqis are not, as a rule, an optimistic group, and are inclined by cultural habit to see things darkly. But that’s another story.) It’s true that the murderers in Iraq are still at work. On the other hand, I’m far more inclined to take seriously a picture of Baghdad that comes from a life-long Baghdadi than one coming from a Westerner who has parachuted into town for a while, and who doesn’t speak the language.
Yet Iraqis who desperately want to lead normal lives are not the only ones with an incentive to interpret events in their own interests. If one listens to the usual suspects among certain journalists, academics, and politicians, the ongoing crackdown is futile and doomed to fail. But that’s a conclusion that many of these figures reached even before the security sweep began. In other words, some of the crackdown’s critics have created incentives, professional and personal, to perceive Iraqi and American failure. People can be creative at manufacturing reasons to be pessimistic, too.
“A Few Signs Of Progress”
From Iraqpundit:
Are my aunt and her neighbors kidding themselves out of desperation? That’s possible; it’s hard to live without hope, and people can be creative at manufacturing reasons to be optimistic. (Though the truth is that Iraqis are not, as a rule, an optimistic group, and are inclined by cultural habit to see things darkly. But that’s another story.) It’s true that the murderers in Iraq are still at work. On the other hand, I’m far more inclined to take seriously a picture of Baghdad that comes from a life-long Baghdadi than one coming from a Westerner who has parachuted into town for a while, and who doesn’t speak the language.
Yet Iraqis who desperately want to lead normal lives are not the only ones with an incentive to interpret events in their own interests. If one listens to the usual suspects among certain journalists, academics, and politicians, the ongoing crackdown is futile and doomed to fail. But that’s a conclusion that many of these figures reached even before the security sweep began. In other words, some of the crackdown’s critics have created incentives, professional and personal, to perceive Iraqi and American failure. People can be creative at manufacturing reasons to be pessimistic, too.
“A Few Signs Of Progress”
From Iraqpundit:
Are my aunt and her neighbors kidding themselves out of desperation? That’s possible; it’s hard to live without hope, and people can be creative at manufacturing reasons to be optimistic. (Though the truth is that Iraqis are not, as a rule, an optimistic group, and are inclined by cultural habit to see things darkly. But that’s another story.) It’s true that the murderers in Iraq are still at work. On the other hand, I’m far more inclined to take seriously a picture of Baghdad that comes from a life-long Baghdadi than one coming from a Westerner who has parachuted into town for a while, and who doesn’t speak the language.
Yet Iraqis who desperately want to lead normal lives are not the only ones with an incentive to interpret events in their own interests. If one listens to the usual suspects among certain journalists, academics, and politicians, the ongoing crackdown is futile and doomed to fail. But that’s a conclusion that many of these figures reached even before the security sweep began. In other words, some of the crackdown’s critics have created incentives, professional and personal, to perceive Iraqi and American failure. People can be creative at manufacturing reasons to be pessimistic, too.
Heretic
One of the early proponents of anthropogenic global warming has changed his mind:
His break with what he now sees as environmental cant on climate change came in September, in an article entitled “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” in l’ Express, the French weekly. His article cited evidence that Antarctica is gaining ice and that Kilimanjaro’s retreating snow caps, among other global-warming concerns, come from natural causes. “The cause of this climate change is unknown,” he states matter of factly. There is no basis for saying, as most do, that the “science is settled.”
Let the inquisition begin.