Good Morning!
1 I’m in Boston to address a group of new admittees to the Massachusetts bar today.
2. Broadcast journalists were surprisingly restrained with Harvey, but the second major hurricane in less than two weeks is apparently too much for them, as it is for other climate change shills on social media and elsewhere (I’m looking at YOU, Jennifer Lawrence…which, I admit, isn’t all that unpleasant…)
Thus I am hearing (and reading) more and more claims that Hurricane Irma on top of Hurricane Harvey is the result of the nation’s failure to aggressively limit carbon emissions…as if two (or more) big storms in hurricane season is unprecedented, and didn’t, in fact, occur far more frequently when Al Gore was knee-high to a grasshopper. What does the cynical use of the 2017 storms as propaganda for the gullible and weak-minded tell us?
It tells us that the journalists don’t know beans about climate, weather and the science of global warming. It shows us that they are willing to mislead the public out of dishonesty, bias or incompetence, by spreading what amounts to junk science regarding an important policy issue. It tells us that they can’t resist using their position as reporters to boost what is for them a political agenda, for not one of them has first hand knowledge or genuine expertise regarding whether the earth is warming, how much, for how long, to what effect, and what will actually slow it down, and very, very few of them could explain a climate change model if their lives depended on it.
Finally, it tells us they are stupid. Every time it becomes obvious that the news media, elected officials and others are hyping this issue by using weather as an argument that climate change is occurring, they make skeptics more skeptical, and justly so. When advocates and activists resort to phony arguments and fake facts, it is fair to assume that they don’t have sufficiently persuasive actual facts, and that they cannot be trusted not to cheat to get their way.
2. It did not get the publicity and coverage it should have—Now don’t be suspicious and attribute this to conscious news manipulation; there was a lot going on last week, like the announcement of the new cast for “Dancing With The Stars”... which is one reason I missed it, but the confirmation hearing for Notre Dame Law School Professor Amy Coney Barrett, a nominee to federal appeals court seat, demonstrated that progressive activists and some prominent Democrats are beginning to try to erode Freedom of Religion as well as the Freedom of Speech.
Barrett is a Roman Catholic , and a coalition of groups, including the Alliance for Justice (AFJ), have pushed Democrats to oppose her nomination because a good Catholic can’t be trusted to uphold abortion rights.
During the hearing, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the ranking Democrat on the panel, weilded a Marquette Law Review article that Barrett wrote in 1998 entitled “Catholic Judges in Capital Cases.” In the article, Barrett argued that a Catholic trial judge who is a conscientious objector to the death penalty should recuse himself if asked to enter an order of execution against a convict.
“The conclusion one draws is that the dogma lives loudly within you,” Feinstein said of Barrett’s writings regarding the professional obligations of Catholic judges. “And that’s of concern when you come to big issues that large numbers of people have fought for years in this country.”
Translation: Abortion advocates will now argue that being a devout Catholic disqualifies a citizen for certain positions in law and government, because abortion rights are more important than the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious rights.
I must point out, as Barrett did, that the article in question was written when she was a law student, before she passed the bar, before she had professional experience, and before, practically speaking, she knew her ass from her elbow. In addition to that, law review articles are written to be provocative and prompt debate. That’s two reasons why Feinstein’s attack is unethical. Another is that the Senator either doesn’t know, has forgotten, or is intentionally pretending she doesn’t understand what legal ethics requires. It requires lawyers to put subordinate their personal views to the professional duties, and the duty of judges is to interpret what the law is, not what they wish it was. Feinstein’s argument means that Catholics and other religious legal professionals can’t or won’t perform their duties ethically. She is making, in essence, the same anti-Catholic accusation that the United States was supposed to have left in the ash heap of its history when John F. Kennedy confronted it in 1960.
Someone should also whisper in Feinstein’s ear that she and her party cannot argue that Catholics can’t be trusted to be dispassionate and objective judges while they shout “Bigot!” at those who wonder aloud how those who follow the Koran can become loyal, trustworthy, loyal Americans.
Ethics Alarms 
Bernie Sanders made a similar attack on Russell Vought, an outspoken Christian Trump appointee and opponent of Islam, saying he could worship as he chose, but didn’t belong in government with those beliefs. Ironically, it could once credibly be said that the Catholic Church was the Democratic Party at prayer, before the Democratic Party decided it could get more votes with abortion.
The fact of the matter is that the political left really doesn’t stand for any principle beyond getting in power and staying in power, but they are willing to use whatever principle they can grab onto to do that. No political figure will admit it, but yes, a large portion of the Democratic Party’s constituents do in fact believe that abortion is the most important right of all and certainly more important that the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious freedom. Anyone who’s seen the signs and slogans “keep your rosaries off my ovaries” and others more vulgar should be able to see that.
Feinstein is a career politician with an undergraduate degree in history, not a lawyer, and Bernie Sanders is also a career politician (after spending the first 40 years of his life as a layabout) who is not a lawyer. Both have spent most of their lives gauging which principles will keep them in power, and doing a damn good job of it, given their lengthy tenures (although the fact that both represent uber-liberal areas of uber-liberal states didn’t hurt). Legal ethics isn’t something they have had to live or understand or work within. That said, both are in a positon to hire the best kind of legislative counsel or get it from their party organization, and, if they were actually interested in doing the right thing on substance, they would avail themselves of those resources so they could go into these hearings fully armed with facts and principles. They aren’t. They are interested in #1. defeating any appointee from the other side, by fair means or foul, and #2. raising their own profiles by generating sound bites for NPR, MSNBC, and like-minded outlets that like-minded people will hear and applaud.
That they are trading on prejudice means nothing to them, anti-Catholic prejudice is considered the “good” prejudice against that fogey old church where the priests diddle the altar boys and the members just need to go out and get laid more often. It’s precisely because this is the good kind of prejudice that they can spew it in one breath and in the very next call those who wonder aloud at how a young man who got here in a skullcap, clutching a Koran, speaking only Arabic, with a lot of ties to a huge and poor family in some small village with no prospects, is going to be an asset to this country a bigot, and say how dare you even think that.
This motto is becoming my delenda est Carthago, but I’ll say it again: if it were not for double standards, the left would have no standards at all.
Well said.
Thanks.
2. My social media feeds are inundated with pictures of the hurricanes with captions that are variations of “Remember when you vote, only one party believes in science” and I always roll my eyes.
Yes, the climate is changing, and it’s fairly certain that at some level, human activity is effecting it, but what that means is really open to discussion. If the doomsaying of progressive voices over the last 20 years was based more in science and truth than politics and hyperbole, we’d be dead 10 times over. But we aren’t. Go figure. But I get it, there are Republicans who genuinely believe that there is no such thing as climate change, and that’s not a scientifically sound position. And the religious right also has some huge hangups on evolution that they just can’t seem to get past.
But… I just can’t give it to Democrats. Something like 70% of America believes in angels, and as progressives are so eager to tell me, Hillary won the popular vote. The Democratic Party is the party that believes hurricanes are increasing in occurrence because of global warming… despite a trending decrease in raw numbers over the last 20 years, there’s a contingent that believes there’s over 9000 genders. They’re the party of anti-nuclear activism, which keeps up burning coal, anti-vaxxers, which is thinning out our herd immunity and they’re notoriously ignorant about statistics on the issues they purport to care deeply about.
I’m not saying Republicans ARE the party of science, I’m just saying Democrats sure as hell aren’t.
So far the best memetic responses to the hyperventilation:
2006: hurricanes are going to become more frequent and destructive!!!!!!!
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017: see! We told you so!!!!
No party is the party of science. What’s terrifying is that democrats think science can solve society’s fundamental behavior-oriented problems (it can’t) and that democrats think it can rest huge swathes of public policy on phenomena it *believes* science has a solid grasp on.
But in reality “Democrats believe in science” is just a long form version of the traditional school yard insult “you’re a dummy”, aimed of course at Republicans.
“Yes, the climate is changing, and it’s fairly certain that at some level, human activity is affecting it, but what that means is really open to discussion.”
That’s all I’m saying too, and I think it’s incumbent on all of us to decry stupid silliness on both sides.
As I note that you do, though you may be more outraged by the Left.
“I’m not saying Republicans ARE the party of science, I’m just saying Democrats sure as hell aren’t.”
Listen, I agree there is over-reaction on the left, and you could’ve cited many more than crazy vaxxers.
But in general, the policy these days is not getting made by the anti-vaxxers, it’s literally getting made by the Trump administration: wholesale dismissal of chief scientists, fighting to eliminate restrictions on building codes that reflect rising water levels, dialing back on pollution standards.
A pox on both their houses? Sure. But this is not a pure equivalence issue. I hope the outrage on the Right doesn’t give in to a taunting and anti-scientific stance just because of the shrill nature of the Left. And, I’d suggest, that’s exactly what we’re seeing under Trump. (And OK I’ll grant you, Trump is not the GOP, if he ever was).
But what you don’t seem to remember is that we’ve just had a Democratic administration for eight years, of which for two of them they had a super majority. And how are those carbon emissions?
What bothers me about this conversation is how important America assumes it is. It bothers me more when Canadian activists talk about it, we’re even less significant on a global scale than america is, at a whopping 1.8% of net world emissions, but I digress. Trump has a point… A huge, massive, glaring, blinking neon red point, when he brings up China in these talks. There is no reason for America to cripple itself financially while China continues to billow out twice the emissions it ever will.
But how do you say to China, or India, or any of the developing world for that matter: “Well, we’ve developed into first world countries, enabled in part by burning a significant amount of fossil fuels… But uh… It’s bad. So you don’t get to do it now.”?
Amen, HT.
“Remember when you vote, only one party believes in science” and I always roll my eyes.
Me too. I’ve worked in energy related fields for 2/3 of my career. About 1/2 of that has been in the alternative energy world and about 1/2 if “real energy.” The advocates of alternative energy are pretty bad at science (and economics, too). For them solar and wind are a religion and practical, factual discussions are difficult to have. Any downside of wind or solar is downplayed and any benefit is exaggerated.
If global warming was a real hazard, nuclear would be the proper answer. From 1972 to 1982 the US built 100 nuclear power plants that produced 1/5 of the US power. In the same timeframe and at about the same expense, wind and solar combined have added 1/50th of US power.
[I am hearing] “more and more claims that Hurricane Irma on top of Hurricane Harvey is the result of the nation’s failure to aggressively limit carbon emissions.”
Can you cite one, as an example?
Most of the journalism I’ve seen says it’s impossible to make a causal link, but that the severity of this year’s storms can be linked to warmer oceans, which in turn, etc. etc. etc.
Far from the same thing.
Even Slate, a pretty left-leaning institution, says, “even though laypeople are willing to connect the events to the assumed cause, it is hard to show direct causation between a single hurricane (or two) and climate change.”
Charles… I don’t know how you could hold positions like this absent a deliberate effort to ignore the obvious. I mean…. We’ve all been seeing it for a week, how do you explain missing it? You can’t even say it’s outside your bubble… These are lefty “news” organisations.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/sep/11/threat-climate-change-hurricane-harvey-irma-droughts
“For the sake of keeping things manageable, let’s confine the discussion to a single continent and a single week: North America over the last seven days.
In Houston they got down to the hard and unromantic work of recovery from what economists announced was probably the most expensive storm in US history, and which weather analysts confirmed was certainly the greatest rainfall event ever measured in the country – across much of its spread it was a once-in-25,000-years storm, meaning 12 times past the birth of Christ; in isolated spots it was a once-in-500,000-years storm, which means back when we lived in trees. Meanwhile, San Francisco not only beat its all-time high temperature record, it crushed it by 3F, which should be pretty much statistically impossible in a place with 150 years (that’s 55,000 days) of record-keeping.
That same hot weather broke records up and down the west coast, except in those places where a pall of smoke from immense forest fires kept the sun shaded – after a forest fire somehow managed to jump the mighty Columbia river from Oregon into Washington, residents of the Pacific Northwest reported that the ash was falling so thickly from the skies that it reminded them of the day Mount St Helens erupted in 1980.
That same heat, just a little farther inland, was causing a “flash drought” across the country’s wheat belt of North Dakota and Montana – the evaporation from record temperatures had shrivelled grain on the stalk to the point where some farmers weren’t bothering to harvest at all. In the Atlantic, of course, Irma was barrelling across the islands of the Caribbean (“It’s like someone with a lawnmower from the sky has gone over the island,” said one astounded resident of St Maarten). The storm, the first category five to hit Cuba in a hundred years, is currently battering the west coast of Florida after setting a record for the lowest barometric pressure ever measured in the Keys, and could easily break the 10-day-old record for economic catastrophe set by Harvey; it’s definitely changed the psychology of life in Florida for decades to come.
Oh, and while Irma spun, Hurricane Jose followed in its wake as a major hurricane, while in the Gulf of Mexico, Katia spun up into a frightening storm of her own, before crashing into the Mexican mainland almost directly across the peninsula from the spot where the strongest earthquake in 100 years had taken dozens of lives.
Leaving aside the earthquake, every one of these events jibes with what scientists and environmentalists have spent 30 fruitless years telling us to expect from global warming. (There’s actually fairly convincing evidence that climate change is triggering more seismic activity, but there’s no need to egg the pudding.)
That one long screed of news from one continent in one week (which could be written about many other continents and many other weeks – just check out the recent flooding in south Asia for instance) is a precise, pixelated portrait of a heating world. Because we have burned so much oil and gas and coal, we have put huge clouds of CO2 and methane in the air; because the structure of those molecules traps heat the planet has warmed; because the planet has warmed we can get heavier rainfalls, stronger winds, drier forests and fields. It’s not mysterious, not in any way. It’s not a run of bad luck. It’s not Donald Trump (though he’s obviously not helping). It’s not hellfire sent to punish us. It’s physics.”
Much of that, by the way, is complete bollocks. In the first paragraph alone, there cannot possibly be a source for the 25,000 year figure, yet alone the 500,000 year figure, we’ve only been keeping records slightly more than a century. Neither we nor our originating species lived in trees, and historical records say that San Fransico got to 106 degrees F in June of ’61.
But why let the truth get in the way of a good narrative?
For the sake of keeping things manageable, let’s confine the discussion to a single continent and a single week: North America over the last seven days.
So with a deal of verbosity the article opens with “here, I’m gonna cherry pick”
I mean… Right. It’s a shit article, but Charles asked for an example of a news organization that ties America’s carbon output to the hurricanes. I spent 10 seconds and pasted the first result from the Google search: “Global warming hurricanes”
I did ask for one article, and you gave it. Thanks.
No problem, would you like some more?
Charles frustrates me, he’s either intellectually lazy or doggedly astute, and the difference seems to hinge on whether the facts support a progressive narrative. You know you’re right when Charles plays dumb, because if you’re wrong, he would prove it to you.
Do you believe Scientific American is an ideologically hidebound publication?
Here is an article written just after Hurricane Sandy
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/did-climate-change-cause-hurricane-sandy/
Here is an article from a few days ago, discussing global warming and hurricanes.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/what-we-know-about-the-climate-change-hurricane-connection/
The way I read them, the scientific narrative is a whole lot closer to the “holy crap this stuff is seriously contributing, even in some cases causal” narrative, than it is to the “aw calm down, nothing’s proven yet and you’re hysterical” narrative.
“Here is an article written just after Hurricane Sandy”
“Sandy” was a “Hurricane”?
Perhaps for a time, but not at NJ landfall, not according to the NWS leastways.
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/nws-confirms-sandy-was-not-a-hurricane-at-landfall-15589.
The efforts to blame it on the Global Warming that’s here and worse than the models predicted often neglect to include the “perfect storm” accompaniment of a full moon and monster high tide.
Curious, that.
Even if that were true, and I’m not entirely granting that, but even if it were…. Do you really think that the average talking head, or their content crew, reads Scientific American. How about any other peer reviewed publication? Do you really think they even approach a moderate understanding of the basic theories? I mean… I get it, there might be something there, but progressives lie, and when they aren’t lying they’re exaggerating. And they do this while hiding behind an eggshell veneer of authority and elitism.
Switching gears for a moment, I just posted to Barry’s blog for the first time in a month, because he’s causing his readership to believe things that aren’t true again: He’s regurgitated that Dreamers contribute 400 billion dollars to the economy.
Bullshit, frankly. They contribute SOMETHING, obviously, but why lie in orders of magnitude over the scale? There are less than 800,000 dreamers. They don’t add more than five million dollars to the economy each.
Even if you want to work with the theory that dollars circulate within the economy, and you want to pretend that they make the average American wage of $50,000, there’s no school of economics that even suggests that every dollar spent recirculates 100 full times. I mean, if that were true, the 6 trillion dollars in Salaries and Wages earned in the US would translate to an economy of 6 hundred trillion dollars. Now… I know GDP is a deeply flawed number, but just for reference, America’s GDP is 19 trillion dollars. So we can quibble about overstated or understated line items or the shadow market all you want but you aren’t going to get to 32 times the measure of the GDP.
When shit like this is bandied about like unquestioned truth by people we should ostensibly be able to trust…. Why should we believe anything we read?
The 400 billion stat is desperate and self-evidently a lie, except to those who just have to believe it. And again, even it it was accurate, SO WHAT? We are now going to excuse lawbreaking when the law=breaker is otherwise productive?
I don’t disagree, I would just have orders of magnitude of more respect for progressives if they just for once in their life stopped lying to me. We could still disagree, we could still debate… But that discussion, whatever it was, I think, would be SO MUCH more productive.
“We could still disagree, we could still debate…”
Progressives, in general, cannot debate and win, so do not bother anymore… like, since Clinton was in office.
This is why I appreciate charles, windy, Chris, and the others: they entertain dissent.
I think they could, not nearly as often as they like, but there are arguments they forward that I think hold water. Very often will you find that a certain political ideology is right all the time, groups benefit from a diversity of opinion.
But that’s not served with lies.
Very *rarely* RARELY. Christ.
Lies to support your position MEANS you have no facts or persuasive arguments. And political ideologies never have all the answers, as human nature precludes perfection.
I have become more cynical in my old age… or mature, take your pick. Climate Change caused by humans is a stretch, and lying to make your point to low information voters make me less likely to believe you, not more. Faking data is simple fraud, and the NOAH has been caught doing just that under Obama.
None of this is directed at you, HT. Just general comments.
I… disagree. Respectfully.
See…. I don’t know why they do this. Because you’re right… It’s so hard to claim any kind of authority once you’ve been exposed as a sham, and it’s worse if your argument is so facially absurd that you make yourself into a sham…. But they do it. Maybe this is a political thing, and it cuts both ways, and I just don’t notice it so much on the conservative side of the argument because of bias… But it’s almost like they can’t help themselves…. Even in cases where they have legitimate, winning arguments, they hyper inflate their opinions to the point of ridiculousness,
Go back to climate change… It’s beyond obvious that people have SOME kind of effect on the argument, but it’s also obvious that we aren’t living in a cratered dust bowl.
I think that if environmentalists hadn’t blown their load on ridiculous doomsaying, that we would have treated their arguments more seriously. I’m not saying they would have gotten their way all the time, but more often? Maybe. And I think people would be better informed, generally, and maybe that would cause individual behaviors to change.
I don’t think we disagreed, HT. I know the right has done this tactic as well… and was just as wrong.
As far as climate change, the many ‘scientific estimates’ and predictions that insisted that by today the coasts would be underwater, or we would have boiling hot lakes, or super hurricanes every year… just have not come to pass. Add to that the desire to lock up opponents for disagreeing (about science!) and the end of debate (about science!) by progressives, and you get a inkling that the whole AGW thing was a scam designed to put money in certain pockets. Look at algore and his failed carbon trading schemes: it was about making money from useful idiots, depending on the force of law to prop it up.
Conservatism understands that the Earth is on loan from our children, and we are to manage it responsibly. Pollution is ethically wrong. So is courting economic disaster in the name of progressive greed and virtue signalling.
I don’t know who Barry is, but your critique of his number is sound and convincing.
ampersand AKA Barry Deutsch.
Used to frequent here, left in a huff over the Obamacare fiasco.
He just replied with “It’s an estimate from a left leaning think tank that scaled it back from the cost over 10 years of removing all illegal immigrants” (paraphrased, but no strawman).
Ok… Scale back all my math to 10% it’s *less* absurd, but Dreamers still don’t add $500,000 annually to the economy. And just for the record: What keeps us from immediately replacing every single deported Dreamer with an H1-B applicant? Y’know: Legal immigrants. That go through the process.
CATO, a conservative think tank that favors lowering restrictions on immigration, found that deporting all recipients of DACA would cost the economy about $260 billion over the next ten years. That doesn’t seem terribly far removed from the liberal Center for American Progress’s estimate of $400 billion over ten years.
The fact that a conservative think tank and a liberal think tank arrived at similar numbers doesn’t prove anything, especially as both are biased in favor of more immigration. But you just saying their numbers are ridiculous isn’t persuading me, Humble. I’d need to see a debunking of their methodology to be convinced.
Chris, for Chrissakes. So not enforcing the antirobbery laws would save, say, 100 billion in law enforcement, so the crooks get credit for that as their productive output?
Surely an argument has to set off an Idiot Alarm at some point. That was beyond ridiculous.
Remember the Great Recession? When illegals left as the jobs dried up? We don’t have to deport all of them if we would enforce the laws already on the books regarding hiring them.
Put a few CEOs in jail for these practices, and the problem is mostly solved.
And we don’t need a wall in that case.
Chris, for Chrissakes. So not enforcing the antirobbery laws would save, say, 100 billion in law enforcement, so the crooks get credit for that as their productive output?
Surely an argument has to set off an Idiot Alarm at some point. That was beyond ridiculous.
I was addressing HT’s dismissal of the number. I did not say that the number was a good reason to not deport DACA recipients. I was only providing further support for the accuracy of the number itself.
But yes, if it were found that choosing to stop enforcement of a non-violent offense that doesn’t harm anyone saved our economy billions of dollars, I would consider that a point in favor of not enforcing that law. Robbery is a bad example; it is prima facie harmful. I consider illegal immigration more like illicit drug use, or moonshining during prohibition. Enforcing such laws has costs, and if the costs of enforcing a law outweighs the benefits, then we need to consider whether it is worth enforcing. (This shouldn’t be a controversial idea.)
Of course, the better solution is to change the laws.
Robbery is a perfect analog. Illegal immigrants, just like thieves, have taken something that is NOT theirs that was not offered to them. That the apparent effects are very diluted in a population of 320 million and a land of 3.8 million square miles, does not mean that there aren’t valid *rule of law* issues at play. They’ve taken something that doesn’t belong to them that wasn’t offered to them.
Presumably, the house they live in was offered to them; the job they have was offered to them; even whatever benefits those who accept them might accrue was offered to them by their local bureaucrats.
What you mean is that the people who offered them their houses, jobs and benefits were not licensed to do so by the massive federal government that you say should stop interfering in the free market.
Strange.
It’s not strange, Chris. Even though your pathetic attempt to make this out like some sort of inconsistency on my part.
I would LOVE for the government to stop interfering with the Free Market. But as long as it does, via *laws*, those laws are STILL LAWS. And the extra-constitutional FLOUTING of LAW undermines the very fabric that holds any Constitutional Republic together.
Try again though. Now focus on your errant argument in support of flouting law.
“But yes, if it were found that choosing to stop enforcement of a non-violent offense that doesn’t harm anyone saved our economy billions of dollars, I would consider that a point in favor of not enforcing that law.”
Well, that’s thoroughly depressing, and a straight choice of non-ethical considerations over ethical ones. It does explain a lot, though, and no just about where you end up on a lot of issues. Except that I thought the narrative was that conservatives were the venal ones…
Costs and benefits shouldn’t factor into ethics? What’s best for our country shouldn’t factor into who we allow to stay here? Don’t be ridiculous.
Not when you are defining benefits in terms of material gain (which is what the $400 billion argument is) vs the cost which is defined in terms of violating Constitutional principles, processes and law.
1) Cato skews primarily Libertarian, even if slightly to the Right.
2) Far looser immigration laws ARE part of libertarian ideals.
3) However, Libertarians will split between those cool with extra-Constitutional actions to loosen immigration, such as DACA and those who want freer immigration, BUT ONLY within the construct of Rule of Law & solving a wide range of related issues.
4) All this shows is that Cato is willing to argue FOR DACA *by any means*, because the author of that piece, feels looser immigration via any means is ok.
5) So no, it isn’t a Conservative Think Tank reaching nearly the same conclusion as a Liberal one. It’s a think tank, for which freer immigration IS a pet policy in a similar vein that it is a pet policy among the Left. (Though for vastly different reasons).
6) Cato is probably just as loose with it’s calculations to reach a favorable conclusion. The math is still senseless.
7) The math is still irrelevant to analyzing principles-based policy.
Any critique of their methodology?
Of course I’ll understand if you don’t have the time or inclination–I don’t spend time analyzing the methodology of the Center for Immigration Studies because I don’t take them seriously. If you feel the same about CATO and CAP I won’t hold it against you.
Humble’s summary critique of the math above is sufficient.
It really isn’t.
Sure. First off it assumes that all of the 750,000 DACA recipients will live, graduate immediately, find employment immediately, work, receive clockwork 3% raises per diem. It assumes that none of them will commit a crime, even though some already have, that none of them will serve time, even though some already are, and none would be deported for cause, even though some are. CATO *was* generous, even if I think their number was better.
First off… a 40% discrepancy in a number with eleven zeroes is not a “small difference”. It’s 20% of the American budget deficit. But yes, like I said… It’s obvious that they have positive impacts on the economy.
Second, the report says that in the overview, but there was so much more to it.
Here’s the report:
https://www.cato.org/blog/economic-fiscal-impact-repealing-daca
For instance:
“The average DACA recipient is 22 years old, employed, and earns about $17 an hour. The majority are still students and 17 percent are pursuing an advanced degree.[2] By contrast, most recipients of H-1B visas are between 25 and 34 and hold either a Bachelor’s Degree or a Master’s Degree. In short, they appear to be a close reflection of what DACA recipients will look like a few years from now as they complete their educations.[3]”
If, as I suggested, you replaced every single deported dreamer with an H-1B applicant, the economy would BENEFIT, because the earnings of the H-1B immigrants would be immediately what Dreamers contributions would be five years from now.
“Thomas Church, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, estimates that expanding the H-1B visa program over a ten year period would increase GDP by $456 billion and tax revenues by $113 billion, assuming that 660,000 new H-1B immigrants would arrive over the decade.[13] Church obtains his results by taking the mean wages for H-1B immigrants, assuming an average wage growth of 3 percent per year, and applying the appropriate tax rates.”
And, in so doing, provide an incentive for more foreign parents to violate our laws. That is ALWAYS a bad trade. Always.
hahah love that comment! 🙂 when he plays dumb… you’re right! I have people in my life like that! I’ve done it too! (ugh)
I looked up “disingenuous” in the dictionary the other there and, by golly, there was Charles’ picture!
1: Core samples, hell just digging holes in the ground carefully and studying the layers, and the stuff found in those layers gives insight and approximate times for historic droughts and floods.* No one had to actually be there at the time to take mesaruements.
2: a 25000 year or 500000 year flood does not mean that’s the last time it happened. It’s a statistics thing. Every year there’s a 1/25000 chance of a flood that big, the average time between such floods would, on a long enough timeline, be 25000 years.**
If such floods keep happening more often than expected, it could be noise, a perfect random number generator will occasionally, give enough time, produce the same number several ties in succession. It could be the model was never correct. It could be the model was correct and the environment has changed necessitating a different model.
*And volcanic eruptions
**Given continental drift, a test using real places would require access to parallel universes to obtain the necessary sample size for statistical significance. Lacking that, one needs use computer models.
1. Core samples can show flooding based on Sediments, but it’s a bridge too far to try to say that core samples can show the severity of the storms that caused the flooding.
2. First off… I doubt that those words were written like that so as to give that impression among their readership. Second, are those the same statistical models that have so far failed to with any degree of accuracy predict a five year trend?
3. Did you know that at some point in Pi…. I think it’s around the 700th decimal, there is a series of six 9s, before resuming a more seemingly randomized pattern? No reason for saying that, I just find it neat. The likelihood of that occurring was something like five thousandths of a percent.
I would like to know how heavier rainfalls result in drier forests.
“I would like to know how heavier rainfalls result in drier forests.”
Suspend your disbelief…
CG; I’ll admit I did a double take when I saw that Slate article yesterday.
However:
“Irma and Harvey lay the costs of climate change denial at Trump’s door.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/10/hurricane-irma-harvey-climate-change-trump
“When Will Trump Stop Denying Climate Change?”
https://www.vogue.com/article/harvey-irma-hurricane-climate-change-trump
“What Scientists Know About Climate Change and Hurricanes: QuickTake Q&A”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-08/how-science-links-climate-change-to-irma-s-wallop-quicktake-q-a
“Climate scientists are increasingly comfortable connecting global warming to the unprecedentedly high ocean temperatures that fuel some storms. Scientists in Germany and the U.K. drew a direct link between global warming and the intensity of Irma and the destructiveness of Harvey.” (italics mine)
“Hurricane Irma Made Worse by Climate Change, Scientists Say”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-06/hurricane-irma-was-made-worse-by-climate-change-scientists-say
“more and more claims that Hurricane Irma on top of Hurricane Harvey is the result of the nation’s failure to aggressively limit carbon emissions”
Thanks for clearing THAT up! Here I thought it was because President Trump withdrew from the Paris Accords; c’mon, much more has been made of much less, am I right?
I originally thought Harvey/Irma were because of that recently calved Blue Hen State-sized iceberg, but that was…um…deep-sixed when I realized that baby could not have the net effect of warming the world’s oceans, being made of ice & all.
Noted Climatologist/Science Denier Dr. Judith Curry: ”The surprising thing about this development (of Irma) into a major hurricane was that it developed over relatively cool waters in the Atlantic – 26.5C — the rule of thumb is 28.5C for a major hurricane.” (bolds mine)
Oy; so now cooler waters contribute to the Global Warming that’s here and worse than the models predicted?
Then Scripps Institute of Oceanography’s Professor Helen Fricker allayed some of my concern: “Most glaciologists are not particularly alarmed by what’s going on at Larsen C, yet. It’s business as usual.” (bolds mine)
Then I remembered B-15 (2000), which was twice as large. Deserving of mention is 1956’s, the size of MA AND CT combined.
While a quick look at a map will confirm those two states are together larger than DE, unfortunately there was neither a satellite to monitor its every move nor the agenda-pursuing Global Warming INC using it to shame folks into shrinking their energy usage to pre-Civil War levels.
Could it be they use the ante-bellum reference because of all that subsequent metal smelting for racist statuary spewed dangerously high amounts of plant food, I mean EVIL CO2?
I’LL be looking into it once my granting has been approved, and my Focus Factor©™® kicks in…
“Her ass from her elbow” – Down South we say, ” He don’t know his ass from a hole in the ground.” lol
Indeed.
As longtime Internet commenter Christopher C. Morton put it.
Henceforth, this pseudo-religion should be called Climate Change ™®.
Yeah, but don’t you remember when it used to be called Global Warming™®?
I sure do.
I also remember ‘Global Cooling’ from the exact same folks… but I must be old.
There was never a widespread consensus on global cooling; it was a minor theory that gained outsized attention in the media in the 70s. But by that time there was already a much larger body of work documenting the growing theory of global warming among scientists.
Google is not hard.
Reading for comprehension is not hard, either, Chris.
My comment alluded to the FACT that many of the same folks (Paul Ehrlich comes to mind) who were in on the human caused ‘global cooling’ scam were pumping ‘global warming’ when that was hot (sorry for the pun) and are now in the ‘climate change’ scam.
Climate changes. Man has little to do with it. Solar output has a LOT to do with it. The rest is hokey religion mixed with progressive fairy tales and data fraud.
If you think modern temps are unusual you have no understanding of history: the Earth was much colder (Ice Age) and much warmer (Holocene) in the past, and no SUVs were around emitting plant food.
My comment alluded to the FACT that many of the same folks (Paul Ehrlich comes to mind) who were in on the human caused ‘global cooling’ scam were pumping ‘global warming’ when that was hot (sorry for the pun) and are now in the ‘climate change’ scam.
And? That some scientists believed a bad theory forty years ago does not mean their agreement with a widely accepted and well-documented theory today means the latter is wrong. The little-supported “global cooling” theory is consistently brought up to cast doubt on the widely-supported global warming theory today, and that’s why you brought it up.
No, Chris, they are part of the same scam. Government control over our lives through artificial crisis creation and promotion.
Ugh. There is not widespread consensus of the on bulk of global warming claims, either. It’s warming. Agreed. Human activity is PROBABLY the reason. Agreed. How fast is it warming? What will be the effects? How long will it warm? Can it realistically be stopped by human policies? Is stopping it worthy the cost? None of this is a matter of consensus, and these are the questions that matter.
Ugh. There is not widespread consensus of the on bulk of global warming claims, either. It’s warming. Agreed.
That’s what I said, and that is consistently denied by Republicans in Congress.
If the left were not constantly caught falsifying data, your argument would go further. From the ‘hole in the ozone’ to changing past temp data (NOAH) to locating temp stations in the middle of cities (concrete gets hot, duh!) the cheating trend is obvious.
It may be warming: it has happened before. Without honest numbers how are we to know?
Does man have anything to do with it? Why would I trust this religion that constantly gets caught lying? I also would not trust the Catholic church with my son as an altar boy: they are proven liars who protect pedophile priests.
Uhg. That is NOAA, not the guy who built an Ark to escape a past global weather catastrophe 🙂
Are…are you saying there was no hole in the ozone layer? I honestly did not know this was controversial.
My understanding is that the hole is now repairing due to steps we took to ensure that would happen.
It’s not. It was there, there was good science behind it, a clear tie to CHCs and the international community almost immediately banded together to address it, and it’s been in repair since the mid 90’s.
It’s almost like when the science is actually there, people act on it.
First, there was no hole. It is thinner in that spot, but not a hole. Second, the man made causation is now suspect: CFCs have all but vanished, but the ‘hole’ persists. Seems likely that the thin spot was always there:
“…if you compressed the ozone down to the surface at 0°C and one atmospheric pressure you have a layer 3 mm thick. The level over Antarctica in Figure 1 is 150 DU or half the average – thinner, but not a hole.”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/12/05/the-ozone-scare-was-a-dry-run-for-the-global-warming-scare/
But lets apply a little common sense: chloroflourocarbons are 8 times heaver than air and were used almost exclusively in the Northern Hemisphere. So how does a substance that is 8 times heavier than air, cross 4 air circulation zones, go to the South Pole (where the air circulation is down) and rise to the ionosphere to “create a hole in the ozone layer”?
How about there is more chlorine evaporating from the oceans than man ever created every year? How about the fact that ozone requires solar radiation to exist, and the poles don’t get much half the year? Or that ozone is nothing more than oxygen converted by sun light, and the process runs constantly?
Some more reading:
https://realclimatescience.com/2017/07/twenty-five-years-since-the-ozone-hole-killed-us-all/
The process (and ‘hole’ size) has not changed since the CFC ban decades ago.
“The process (and ‘hole’ size) has not changed since the CFC ban decades ago.”
I’m not an expert…. But a quick Google search of “how much has the ozone layer recovered” net me about 20 different articles on the first page from sources like NASA, The Guardian, National Geographic and the BBC outlining how the ozone layer will probably be about halfway back to original levels by 2020.
I want you to consider: Environmentalists lie to overblow situations to make them seem more dire. They don’t seem particularly deterred by facts counter to their narrative. If the ozone isn’t healing… Why would they say that it is?
Not saying this is the reason, but if you really want to assume that environmentalists are less concerned with whether or not environmental policy actually works and more concerned with merely enacting policy that appears environmental, AND if, a lot of environmental “concerns” are derived from shakey, incomplete, wildly disparate data, then could not the same wild, incomplete data be used to show how a demanded policy “worked” as a type of ‘priming the pump’ for future policy efforts.
The ability to say “look, what we demanded worked, now believe us on our next demands.”
Either the ozone layer was just another natural cycle that we humans were late to game observing and drew a series of faulty conclusions on and only think we solved or have convinced ourselves we’ve solved, or the scientists were right…that time.
Simple chemistry explains the thinning over Antarctica… and CFCs have nothing to do with it.
Interesting fact: DOW was losing their patent on the old style refrigerant about that time. Not saying there was a profit motive to the ban, but it seems fishy.
CS: “Are…are you saying there was no hole in the ozone layer?”
JM: “It’s not.”
I’m having a hell of a day with stupid typos..
BLARGHGHGH
CS: “I honestly did not know this was controversial.”
JM “It’s not.”
tex;
“if you really want to assume that environmentalists are less concerned with whether or not environmental policy actually works and more concerned with merely enacting policy that appears environmental,”
IMHO, Global Warming INC doesn’t have much to do with environmentalism.
But heck, don’t take my word for it, let’s toss it over to Herr Ottmar Edenhofer, whose credentials (UNIPCC, UNIPCC working Group III, Lead Author AR4 [2007]) put him on par with a cabinet level position in our government.
In a moment of unbridled candor far too rare in these discussions:
(bolds mine throughout)
“First of all, developed countries have basically expropriated the atmosphere of the world community.
“But one must say clearly that WE REDISTRIBUTE DE FACTO THE WORLD’S WEALTH BY CLIMATE POLICY.
“Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this.”
“ONE HAS TO FREE ONESELF FROM THE ILLUSION THAT INTERNATIONAL CLIMATE POLICY IS ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY.
“THIS HAS ALMOST NOTHING TO DO WITH ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY ANYMORE, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole.”
On it’s surface, that doesn’t leave too much to the imagination, perhaps taken out of context?
So why was the hole far from anywhere downwind where CFC’s were used?
I wonder why they say Climate Change®™ now.
Did the trademark for Global Warming®™ expire?
Marketing ploy, Michael.
Sheesh, wouldn’t it be nice if stupidity hurt?
Was googling around trying to see how bad the situation was in Key West and came across this page discussing hurricanes in the Keys.
http://www.keyshistory.org/hurricanelist
The list only goes back to the 16th Century.
A little historical perspective is always beneficial. Ironically, most of the recent images I found were not of Irma but of Wilma in 2006.
Of course progressives have to oppose the argument that conscientious Catholic judges should recuse themselves if they cannot faithfully apply the law. If that kind of mind-set takes hold, progressive judges would have no cases to decide. On the one hand, that is good for their notion of getting paid for doing nothing, but it wreaks havoc on their “ends justify the means” philosophy.
-Jut
A pox on Diane Feinstein’s house. JFK must be rolling in his grave considering Feinstein and Durbin now call the shots in the Democratic Party.
Just out of curiosity- has anyone here read the UN Earth Charter? http://earthcharter.org/discover/the-earth-charter/
Particularly the religion/spirituality sections? What about Gorbachev’s take on climate change & spirituality?
I ask because I found it interesting that actress Jennifer Lawrence said the hurricanes etc. was mother earth’s revenge for America voting for Trump. Then you had Christian actor Kirk Cameron say all this was God’s revenge.
Both people sound like idiots to me but I try to remember not to judge. That being said, how many people are starting to view saving the climate as a religion? And how many, like Lawrence & Cameron, will decide any & every weather event is related to in essence, mans sin, either against God or Gaia?
I’m more convinced these days that scientism is a religion unto itself, and climate change will be another sanctimonious screed that will result in it’s own version of sin and moral repayment to their god.
Come on, Q, the Republicans and Exxon invented hurricanes during the Reagan administration! Or was it Bush II? I’m not that good on history.
OB; in my best Professor Turgeson voice (Sam Kinnison in “Back To School”): “Good answer, good answer! I’m gonna be watchin’ you!”
Actually, when it comes to the inception of the possibilities of Global Warming INC, many career deniers blame it on Rio. Not the hilarious 1984 Michael Caine flick, but the 1992 Earth Summit.
IMHO, it was there, behind closed doors, that criminally insane thieves of epic proportions, I mean UN diplomats (with the help of savvy, rent-seeking corporations) decided to part from their stated mission of improving the human condition (what an unqualified success that’s been, am I right?) to that of saving Mother Gaia from the Global Warming that’s here and worse than the models predicted.
The scope of their originally anticipated shakedown (taking $ from poor people in rich countries and giving it to rich people in poor countries) has exceeded even their wildest expectations.
In a perfect world, their brainchild/demon spawn, the UNIPCC (which conducts no research of its own and whose ranks are littered with activists and criminals, [forgive the redundancy]), would be disbanded and prosecuted under RICO.
Speaking of rent seekers, Paul, I’ve always assumed Al Gore is the front man for Goldman in their effort to own and operate the “carbon credit” exchange. I can’t imagine Al writing a book or a script for a movie. Had to have been done by some smart researcher for peanuts and a non-disclosure. Carbon credits. Now there’s a way to lower carbon emissions: allow “polluters” to pay for the right to “pollute” and Al and Goldman Sachs gets the vig for the rest of time!
“Taking $ from poor people in rich countries and giving it to rich people in poor countries.” Perfect description of the “Paris Climate Accords.”
”I’ve always assumed Al Gore is the front man for Goldman in their effort to own and operate the ‘carbon credit’ exchange.”
You assumed correctly.
A “Who’s Who” of rent-seeking Lefties (Gore, Soros, Raines, Strong, Obama, the Lefty Foundations, etc.) hit the wall when the ”Chicago Climate Exchange” (CCX) was quietly shuttered after failing to fulfill its one task: enriching Gucci-Slippered Carbon Traders and generating ten$ of Trillion$ out of thin air.
“When founded in November 2000, CCX’s carbon trading market was predicted to grow anywhere between $500 billion and $10 trillion.”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/11/08/public-carbon-trading-dead-in-the-usa/
‘Course, y’all know that 10 Trillion’s jes’ one more’n 9.
Insanity. And felony.
“Insanity. And felony.”
Yup. But the Establishment Elite is immune to prosecution, for all practical purposes. Witness Hillary, for one example.
No, you had it right: they are idiots.
You’ve spent way too much time around actors, Jackson.
The waters in the Carribean are measurably hotter than they were. The measured trend, for whatever reason, is that every year the waters are just a bit warmer than they were before.
Hotter waters make stronger Hurricanes, should they appear.
Those are objective facts.
Getting beyond that, politics get in the way, and there is controversy. Yes, the waters are getting warmer, but it is forbidden now in government documents to use the CC phrase to describe the change trend in environmental temperature.
Finally, nothing we do now can have an effect for decades. What is happening now could only have been ameliorated, not prevented, by taking action around 1980. Withdrawing from the Paris accord will have no effect until around 2050. We can’t make things good then, just less bad.
After 5 years of having these record breaking events worldwide, hottest winter on record in Australia for example, maybe there will be less controversy. Fortunately effects are relatively mild. Parts of the southern US might get Cat 3 storms every week for 6 months in a year by 2030, with the odd Cat 4 and 5, and associated tornados in the Mississippi basin, but those can be lived with with appropriate building codes and societal adjustments, just as much of Canada requires heroic measures to cope with the climate there, currently.
Other parts of the world, not so much.
Harvey was atypical, a worst case. Don’t expect to see those rainfalls again in your lifetime. Irma though -maybe a couple every year. Like the weather patterns in the 60s, but tropical storms now cat 1 and cat 1 now cat 3.
“The waters in the Carribean are measurably hotter than they were.”
You don’t say?
From above: Noted Climatologist/Science Denier Dr. Judith Curry: ”The surprising thing about this development (of Irma) into a major hurricane was that it developed over relatively cool waters in the Atlantic – 26.5C — the rule of thumb is 28.5C for a major hurricane.” (bolds mine)
Opps. An inconvenient fact!
Carribean ≠ Atlantic. Please read what was written, not what you think had to have been written.
As an aside;
With increased air temperatures, previous rules of thumb regarding sea temperatures and hurricane generation may have to be revised. I’m not convinced myself, all the models suggest sea temperatures dominate. More data needed.
I made no mention about hurricane generation because of this. I said that any hurricane that is generated would be strengthened. My wording was carefully chosen to only communicate what is not in dispute.
At least, not yet in dispute. That may change in the current ideological climate, just as the way geocentricism and platygeanism are making something of a comeback amongst Infowars fans.
“Carribean ≠ Atlantic.”
Tomato-Tomahto; the Caribbean Sea is a section of the Atlantic Ocean.
And Geocentrism is making a comeback? And seemingly only amongst the dumbfuck/denier/deplorable demographic?
Citation please, other than the 2014 documentary (as deserving of an Oscar as Gore’s ascientific Schlockumentary & its laughable sequel) and the attendant gleefully spittleflecked slobberings of the tre effete Lefty blogs and the alarmist sites.
Geocentrism was once considered “The Consensus,” am I right? And didn’t its proponents ruthlessly and unforgivingly guard its brilliance and punish its detractors.
Today’s Warmalista Alarmacysts protect the current “Consensus” (such as it is) with every bit as much virulence and fervor (if not more) as they did over 400 years ago: unquestioning adherence is mandatory and skepticism (the most fundamental aspect of scientific inquiry) is heresy.
“Geocentrism was once considered “The Consensus,” am I right?”
The Ptolemaic theory, yes. It fit the evidence until it didn’t, and collapsed under the weight of more and more epicycles being needed. First came the Copernican model, then the more accurate Kepplerian one with perfect circles being replaced by ellipses.
The Ptolemaic model was better than the competing theory of the stars being affixed to a Firmament, which idealogues of the time argued for, damning the natural philosophers (scientists) who said otherwise.
To quote Martin Luther:
“Scripture simply says that the moon, the sun, and the stars were placed in the firmament of the heaven, below and above which heaven are the waters… It is likely that the stars are fastened to the firmament like globes of fire, to shed light at night… We Christians must be different from the (natural) philosophers in the way we think about the causes of things. And if some are beyond our comprehension like those before us concerning the waters above the heavens, we must believe them rather than wickedly deny them or presumptuously interpret them in conformity with our understanding.”
– Martin Luther, Luther’s Works. Vol. 1. Lectures on Genesis, ed. Janoslaw Pelikan, Concordia Pub. House, St. Louis, Missouri, 1958, pp. 30, 42, 43.
Luther would not be out of place in today’s House Committee on Science and Technology.
“Luther would not be out of place in today’s House Committee on Science and Technology.”
He’d be a FAR better fit for the UNIPCC.
And the spiffs? Fuggeddaboudit!
No one to answer to, a pandering lickspittle press, unquestioning adoration from the lock-steppin’ glassy eyin’ unquestionin’ hoards, 1st class travel, world class noshments & accomodations, and a gargantuan “carbon footprint” nothing more than a mere afterthought.
But them’s small spuds. The biggie? No “Conflict of Interest” provision.
The real swag in Global Warming INC isn’t in the research, though the 10’$ of billion$ (or is it into the hundred$ of billion$ by now?) studying a “science” we’ve been repeatedly told is ”settled” is more than lunch money.
It’s in the $olution$, and the Climate Criminals are free to recommend those which directly benefit them-n-theirs.
What could possibly go wrong?
Wait a minute. Didn’t the media make a big deal out of the fact that Irma was purportedly the most powerful ATLANTIC hurricane on record? It certainly formed way out in the Atlantic. So, it’s an Atlantic hurricane, unless you want it to be a Caribbean one. Got it.
Except that the argument that a storm has been “strengthened” is completely speculative and confirmation bias. As you must know. My wife is certain that our son is shorter than he would have been if he didn’t sleep with the lights on so often.
Hurricanes that go over warm water are strengthened.
That’s not speculative, that’s very, very basic meteorology.
Like saying that clouds are composed of water vapour.
I didn’t expect this to controversial so soon. Live and learn, I guess.
Don’t be a snot, Sue. From NOAA, which knows its stuff, presumably
“It is premature to conclude that human activities — and particularly greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming — have already had a detectable impact on Atlantic hurricane or global tropical cyclone activity.”
Since I’m not a meteorologist or a climate scientist, and unlike left-wing enviro-fascists I don’t pretend to be, and have no preference regarding what the facts are, but only that people like you would stop hyping them, I try to reach conclusions based on honest authorities who strive for objectivity.
Using a factoid like “warmer oceans make hurricanes stronger” to blame the destruction of a hurricane on climate change is like arguing that the Great Depression was worse than it might have been because policy-makers then didn’t have mothers who used modern pre-natal nutrition and pumped Mozart into their bellies, and thus weren’t as smart as they could have been.
That same NOAA article does say we can expect an increase in hurricanes over the next few decades based exactly on the principles Sue has laid out, though.
Since you’ve identified them as an objective source that “knows its stuff,” I take it you’ll accept their word on this?
“That same NOAA article does say we can expect an increase in hurricanes over the next few decades”
How long has the NOAA, et al, been saying that?
NOAA said that every year for the past dozen… why would you believe them now, when they have a agenda?
Since we have had historically light storm activity for years, of course we should expect more hurricanes. That has nothing to do with climate change. Just like we should have expected the Dodgers to start losing more games after they went 56-11. And they DID!
uhmmm, at the risk of being banned: shouldn’t statistics have predicted more Red Sox titles than they have had…? 🙂
After 86 years of no WS championships, the Sox have won three this century, or 1 every 5.33 years. Regression to the mean, plus moral luck. Completely predictable.
Whatever gets you through the night.
I, on the other hand, grew up with a father who followed the Texas Aggies… during the 70s. Stats did nothing for us.
Aggies have an old tradition (everything at Texas A&M is a tradition… if it happens twice) that when the team scores, you score: you get to kiss your date.
In the 1970s Aggies kissed on first downs
Withdrawing from the Paris accord won’t have any affect, ever. No nation was bound by the accord, and the biggest polluters weren’t going to follow their “promises” anyway.
Why do Leftists amuse themselves with so much impotent virtue signalling?
Probably because leftists are utopians and worship feelings. Facts to leftists are like kryponite is to Superman. Hence, disagreeable ones are quickly discarded or invalidated immediately.
I can’t find the post right now, but you’ve mentioned several times about traffic on your site declining significantly. I thought of that when reading this Powerline Article. Perhaps there’s another reason for your declining traffic. http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2017/09/almost-blacklisted-by-google.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+powerlineblog%2Flivefeed+%28Power+Line%29
Google admits to doing this, and they are in the tank for progressives by their own admission and actions.
Adding to the list of places pushing the “hurricanes are the fault of those who stand in the way of carbon caps”: Schools.
My high school daughter came home after getting that line from two of her teachers.
Yep, we’ve long known schools are where the Left pushes its religion.
I wonder what would be the reaction would have been if his daughter suggested nuking Gaza to trigger a nuclear winter and thus cool the oceans.
Would the teacher even be aware of what nuclear winter is?
Not to go too far off thread, already seven days gone when I got there — and what a spirited discussion that was! — but I was thinking about Catholics and American politics just before the subject of Professor Barrett came up because I’d just remembered something (shhh! I’m thinking …) Now, what was that way back when? Those words floating in the air everywhere around about 1927 or so. Wasn’t that Al Smith – the one that didn’t get to Washington – saying he would build a wa— no, it was a tunnel, yeah, a tunnel under the ocean (they’d already laid a transatlantic cable two and a half miles down 70 years before, so why not a tunnel?), one that would connect the White House and the Vatican. Boy, did he lose! No need for the sheets to come off the beds and go on the heads: everyone knew a Catholic was never going to be president. Then, not right away, some 30 years later, came the Karisma Kid with a direct link, instantaneous communication, over the ocean and through the woods, to the King of the Kremlin we go. Passed right over where the Pope lived, never gave him a thought. The wires hummed. Who’d a thunk? Catholic vs Godless Communist, a shoe-banger to boot. A foregone conclusion. “So”, said the old Jewish lady around the corner who knitted cozies to order, to disguise any little thing of any shape, “so now I have seen everything.”
She died the day JFK was assassinated. (Since she lived alone, nobody was sure if it was before or after the fact.) She was 93. It never occurred to her that someone would want to knit a pink cozy over a WWII tank or that the dinosaurs would return after the climate changed.