Filed under: Bureaucracy, Democrat Corruption, Education, Environment, Global Warming, History, Junk Science, Media Bias, News the Media Doesn't Want You to Hear, Regulation, Science/Technology, The United States | Tags: Fool Me Twice?, Irresponsible Journalism, Mistaken Predictions
Fool Me Once Shame on You,
Fool Me Twice, Shame on Me.
It was just 30 years ago this week that James Hansen, the former NASA scientist who testified before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee during a prolonged heat wave, which” he described as a climate event of cosmic significance.” Just to be sure he arranged for the meeting room to be warmer than usual. He expressed to the senators “his high degree of confidence” in “cause-and-effect relationship between the greenhouse effect and observed warming.”
There was an accompanying paper in the Journal of Geophysical Research, and it ignited a world wide panic that continues today about the energy structure of the entire planet. So 30 years on we can pause and take a look at just how well his predictions have turned out, and check on how we are doing.
Mr. Hansen’s testimony described three possible scenarios for the future of carbon dioxide emissions. He called Scenario A “business as usual,” as it maintained the accelerating emissions growth typical of the 1970s and ’80s. This scenario predicted the earth would warm 1 degree Celsius by 2018. Scenario B set emissions lower, rising at the same rate today as in 1988. Mr. Hansen called this outcome the “most plausible,” and predicted it would lead to about 0.7 degree of warming by this year. He added a final projection, Scenario C, which he deemed highly unlikely: constant emissions beginning in 2000. In that forecast, temperatures would rise a few tenths of a degree before flatlining after 2000.
He was not just wrong, but completely wrong. Global surface temperature has not increased significantly since 2000. The computer Models devised by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have, on average, predicted twice as much warming as has actually occurred since temperature monitoring began 40 years ago. I have not seen a summary of the expenditures devised to save the planet, but it’s big. Very big. The small amounts of increased CO2 have not meant increased warming, but increased plant growth, feeding the world and decreasing famine and hunger. CO2 is a natural fertilizer for plants.
He claimed in a 2007 case on auto emissions that most of Greenland’s ice would soon melt, raising sea levels 23 feet over the course of 100 years. The Australian Climatism blog has a wonderful pictorial post on the predictions of catastrophic sea level rise, and scroll on down for the reality which is quite something else.
And by the way, the polar bears are just fine as well, multiplying nicely’
It’s more than a little scary to see the extent to which governments can be manipulated by irresponsible fake news from irresponsible journalists, and the people manipulated as well. We’re getting another dose of that today, different subject, but just as irresponsible.
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Capitalism, Crime, Democrat Corruption, Domestic Policy, Economics, Economy, Education, Environment, Free Speech, History, Immigration, Law, Media Bias, National Security, News, Politics, Pop Culture, Progressives, The Constitution, The United States, Unemployment | Tags: Democrat Hysteria, Struggling to Understand, Trump Derangement Syndrome
The general era of hysteria, one crisis after another that Democrats erupt over, we have usually attributed to “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” But I ran across this video from November of last year of Victor Davis Hanson chatting with Ginny Thomas, and Dr. Hanson explains it all perfectly. So if you are wondering about all the weeping and gnarling of knuckles over “poor innocent children ‘ripped’ from the arms of their mothers” here’s why: Look closely at the county map of the election, and listen to the whole explanation.
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Crime, Domestic Policy, Education, Foreign Policy, Humor, Immigration, Latin America, Law, Mexico, National Security, Politics, The United States | Tags: My Emotions are Better than Yours, Tiresome Twats, Virtue Signaling
This new era when everybody is a victim and everybody else has to prove how virtuous they are by emoting with the proper passion is getting remarkably tiresome. Tucker Carlson discusses “virtue signaling” which is one of those recent additions to the lexicon, in this audio from his program. Other than those who are doing the “virtue signaling” I don’t know if anyone is actually impressed.
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Capitalism, Crime, Domestic Policy, Economy, Education, Immigration, Latin America, Law, Mexico, National Security, Progressives, Regulation, The Constitution, The United States | Tags: Are We a Free Country?, Are We Entitled to Borders?, Solving the Border Problem
Now I’m getting irritated. This entire problem of illegal aliens and their children is getting warped far beyond any resemblance to facts. Did you know that the Canadians have sent people down to our southern border to inform illegals that they are not welcome in Canada, and to not even think of trying to cross the U.S. northern border into Canada. Surely you saw all the newspaper headlines explaining how cruel and inhumane the Canadians are, didn’t you? Comparing Prime Minister Trudeau to Hitler, Canadian border guards to concentration camp guards? Hmmnn?
We do not yet have a wall on the southern border with Mexico. Mexico is at its very widest at the border with the United States, at about 2,000 miles. Nobody is proposing to build a wall along the entire border. We have some fencing, but an athletic young man can scale the fence. Some parts of the border are inaccessible. A good portion of the problem is not border crossers from Mexico, but people from other Central American countries, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. But the current problem about illegal immigration is not about people crossing the border illegally, avoiding the legal crossing stations. It’s about the emotional horror of innocent little children being “ripped” from the arms of their mothers. Democrats must rely on emotional language to persuade, to enlist compassion, for they are terminally short on actual facts or useful ideas.
It has been explained that illegals who cross the border uninvited are breaking the law, and committing a crime. They will be detained. It is against the law to imprison children with their parents. The law must be changed, the Democrats insist. Just how it must be changed is not clear. Do we want it made legal to put the kids in prison with their parents? O.K. that solution is out. Do we want to just admit the illegal aliens with their children? Insist they return for an immigration hearing when called? Unfortunately that doesn’t work either. They don’t turn up for their hearings, they have already melted into the general population. Many adult illegals steal real or buy fake Social Security cards so they can get above the table jobs. What is it that you want Congress to change? Just make our Southern border open to all? If you think the taxes your city or state have imposed on you for building homes for the “homeless”, try to conceive of 70,000 or more illegals a year swarming into our cities, and the changes that would make.
How do we determine if the adults with children are actually their real parents or are traffickers? The Obama administration could not figure out how to vet them, and many children ended up in horrendous circumstances. You want the law changed so that children are not “ripped from their mother’s arms”—to what? Show up with a child and you get in? Really? That’s why Democrats have talking points designed to elicit emotions of compassion. Lately we have had large groups of Bangladeshis illegally crossing the border. President Obama’s illegal 2012 DACA amnesty meant a big increase in the numbers trying to cross the border for another amnesty.
If you have a real good idea about how we should fix all this, you might pass your ideas on to your representatives. They seem a little short on good ideas too.
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Crime, Democrat Corruption, Domestic Policy, Education, History, Immigration, Law, Media Bias, National Security, Politics, Progressives, Progressivism, Statism, The Constitution, The United States | Tags: Children in Cages, Evil Incarnated?, Trump administration
A leading Democrat spoke out this week to say that they needed Obama because they didn’t have anyone else — I assume meaning anyone else who was so popular, or perhaps anyone who could defeat Trump—I have no idea. The Obama administration is not coming off too well in the wake of the FBI and the Inspector General’s report.
But clearly, the Trump administration is in deep trouble. They are yanking innocent little children from the arms of their parents at the border, depriving them of their parents and putting them in detention for no reason except that Trump is Hitler reincarnated. Or at least that is what most Leftist websites are shrieking. Forgive me, but we’ve heard this “innocent little children” vocabulary before, applied to the DACA children who were brought here “through no fault of their own,” “against their will,” eager for “a chance at college.” Pure propaganda to arouse emotions.
The requirements were only that they came to the U.S. before their 16th birthday, be under 31 by June 15, 2012, enroll in school or get an honorable discharge from the military. The fraud rate for these simple requirements is estimated to be 40 to 50%. Only 49% have a high school education, 24% are functionally illiterate, another 46% have only “basic” English ability, and the rest are school dropouts. For every DACA recipient who joined the military (about 1 in 1,000), 2 have committed serious crimes. At least 1,500 are gang members (as of Feb. 2017, but by August 2017 the number had increased to 2,139. American taxpayers have already funded “resettlement” of 13,000 unaccompanied minors who managed to enter the United States. Those who claim to be age 17 and under must be accommodated in staying here while their cases wind their way through a years-long process of evaluation.
But Democrats are told to be up in arms about Trump taking innocent little children away from their loving parents and putting them in prison. Fact: Illegal immigrants are criminals, breaking immigration laws by entering the country illegally. There is a legal way to become a citizen. Criminal illegal immigrants are detained. It is not acceptable to imprison their children as well.
HHS took news media on a tour of a facility in El Cajon, California where migrant children are being sheltered while separated from their parents. (follow the link for pictures) The facilities are comfortable, providing lodging, meals, clothing, medical care, They get English lessons, trips to the zoo, museums, parks. No, they are not being put in “cages,” that was the Democrat charge last week, when they rounded up pictures of children in cages. Turned out the pictures were from the Obama administration, which actually did put kids in cages, and New York magazine also reports the Obama Administration handed child migrants over into the custody of human traffickers after neglecting the most basic checks on these “caregivers,” failing to discover if they were relatives or sex traffickers.
Democrats count heavily on the “talking points” they are given, which are meant to rouse up emotions, but to provide just barely enough information to allow them to know anything real about the situation. This is the source of much of the “fake news” which is unfortunately all too pervasive. Nancy Pelosi cleared it all up with her statement to CNS News. (short video here) Which is an unintended gift to the GOP. “She informed the world.” to quote Tom Lifson “that she doesn’t care about Americans. “That is not the point. ” The point is the hurt feelings of illegals when they are called “Illegal.” You have seen the signs in the pictures of protests “No Human Being is Illegal.”
It really simplifies the world when you can just rely on the talking points that you are given by your betters, and don’t have to do a lot of tiresome reading or thinking. Keeps life delightfully simple, and when the talking points really arouse you to action, you can go to a protest with your friends and shout and feel important.
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Democrat Corruption, Domestic Policy, Economy, Education, Intelligence, Law, Media Bias, National Security, Politics, Progressives, Regulation, Statism, The Constitution | Tags: Politics as a Way of Life, Six Hundred Pages, The Washington Swamp
The breathlessly awaited Inspector General’s report has been released, and Singapore has vanished from the news. The report is some 600 pages long, so everybody is frantically trying to read it all very quickly, and only dribs and drabs are getting out. Those who hoped to see James Comey off to jail promptly will be disappointed. It is quite clear that there has been some improper behavior, but how much and who and whether it amounts to anything significant remains to be seen. Be patient.
What is clear is that there is indeed a swamp. Too many people who have been around too long, feel entitled, and have lost their sense of being servants of the people of the United States working to make the country better have got it all backwards. They believe they are in charge, and entitled to run the show. Throw in a goodly mixture of hard left bias learned from the faculties of the nation’s colleges and universities, and you have a glimpse of the problems. The media suffer from the same delusions. It ‘s going to take some real work to put it all back together.
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Capitalism, Domestic Policy, Economy, Education, Free Markets, Freedom, Health Care, Immigration, Law, National Security, Regulation, Taxes, Unemployment | Tags: Andrew Klavan on the Culture, Hollywood And Propaganda, Hollywood's Leftism
This video was made last year, but the ideas are perhaps even more relevant today, in the age of Trump Derangement Syndrome. Republicans try to inform people by explaining the laws of economics and the lessons of history, discussing the pros and cons of proposed legislation. They believe that some people are in real need and try to arrange that they can be helped, but for those who are able, they believe that a paycheck is better than a handout.
Democrats, on the other hand, believe in buying votes with handouts and promises of free education and free healthcare. I always remember the young black woman at Obama’s inauguration who was so excited that now she wouldn’t have to worry about paying her bills, because of Obama. Democrats are very good at propaganda. They don’t worry much about economics, but promise to relieve the worries of life with the good things they will vote for. That they seldom work out is just the way things go and never mind.
Of course movies are powerful propaganda. Think about the extent to which people quote lines from a popular movie in ordinary conversation. Why is the news, on any day filled with comments from celebrities in the entertainment industry. They are celebrities because we have seen them in movies or on TV. We recognize them, know their names and are fascinated by gossip about them. Yet do they have any qualifications for assuming that their thoughts and ideas will be of value?
If celebrities were banned from the news, the news would be about real events and real problems, and much, much shorter. Is your view of the world clearer and better understood because Bill Mayer said he hopes for another recession so we can get rid of Trump? But that is what passes for news today, and people are upset when President Trump says something about “fake news.”
