ON CLIMATE CHANGE

Cap and Trade? Or Crap and Tax?

The new federal report on climate change gets a withering critique from Roger Pielke Jr., who says that it misrepresents his own research and that it wrongly concludes that climate change is already responsible for an increase in damages from natural disasters. Dr. Pielke is a professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado.

Here’s his overall conclusion about the dangers of hyping the link between natural disasters and climate change: “Until the climate science community cleans up its act on this subject it will continue to give legitimate opportunities for opponents to action to criticize the climate science community.”

But ... but the science is settled. Isn't it?

HISTORY LESSON

There are two kinds of voters … those who remember what it was like when Jimmy Carter was president … and those who are starting to learn.

I remember those days - Jimmy Carter was better.

From the comment thread of a Pajamas Media post.

OH, MY! PAYOLA

Now it's the Federal Trade Commission:

Savvy consumers often go online for independent consumer reviews of products and services, scouring through comments from everyday Joes and Janes to help them find a gem or shun a lemon.

What some fail to realize, though, is that such reviews can be tainted: Many bloggers have accepted perks such as free laptops, trips to Europe, $500 gift cards or even thousands of dollars for a 200-word post. Bloggers vary in how they disclose such freebies, if they do so at all.

Heaven forbid! Advertisements may be misleading? And the average American may be too dumb to recognize it? Oh, my. What is this world coming to?

Need more proof that the government is too damned big?

Via Hot Air.

PRESCRIPTION CHEERIOS?

In a letter to manufacturer General Mills, the Food and Drug Administration wrote "Based on claims made on your product's label, we have determined (Cheerios) is promoted for conditions that cause it to be a drug because the product is intended for use in the prevention, mitigation and treatment of disease."

Do we need more proof the federal government is too big?

A FARMER'S TALE

Victor Davis Hanson has some words of wisdom for Barack Obama: "A sojourn at an elite university, you see, can sometimes become a very dangerous thing indeed."

CARS MAY BE BETTER THAN YOU THINK

Um, let's see. Today's conventional (liberal) wisdom seems to be that living in a walkable (e.g., dense) urban environment complete with mass transit and a minimal number of tiny, underpowered urban vehicles is environmental utopia: cheaper; cleaner, and healthier.

- no more car payments, gasoline bills, insurance payments;
- no more noxious fumes, less greenhouse gas;
- more room to walk, run, bike, and play.

Well and good ... except:

It costs more money to live without a car.

[A] car-free existence is more expensive. I live in Manhattan, so I can tell you how expensive it is to live here. It costs a lot less money to live in some non-walkable place in the midwest and own a car or two.

For whatever the reason, packing in people so close together that car-free life is feasible also has the effect of raising the price of everything else, and thus we can only conclude that densely populated areas are economically inefficient.

And taking public transportation may not be as environmentally-friendly as you think:

Two University of California environmental engineers, Mikhail Chester and Arpad Horvath, say seat occupancy and the underlying carbon costs can skew our understanding of emissions.

They maintain that in some circumstances, it is better to drive into a city in an SUV rather than take a train. That's because a car that is fully occupied may be responsible for less greenhouse gas per-mile traveled per-person, than a train that is only a quarter full.

I rather suspect that free enterprise is a much better mechanism for allocating resources than is conventional wisdom.

Which may be why liberals hate it.

JOURNALISTS DESERVE LOW PAY

From the Christian Science Monitor:

Journalists like to think of their work in moral or even sacred terms. With each new layoff or paper closing, they tell themselves that no business model could adequately compensate the holy work of enriching democratic society, speaking truth to power, and comforting the afflicted.

Actually, journalists deserve low pay.

Wages are compensation for value creation. And journalists simply aren't creating much value these days.

While I agree with the premise, the CSM argument that follows in the link above is baloney (or bologna, if you prefer). Journalists are deserving of low pay exactly because they are "enriching democratic society, speaking truth to power, and comforting the afflicted."

They'd deserve high(er) pay if they'd simply report the facts. [Ed. Hmm ... didn't "journalists" used to be called reporters?]

IS THERE A ROLE FOR EMPATHY IN THE LAW?

Before selecting Sonia Sotomayor as his nominee for the Supreme Court, President Obama said "We need somebody who's got the heart to recognize -- the empathy to recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom, the empathy to understand what it's like to be poor or African-American or gay or disabled or old. And that's the criteria by which I'm going to be selecting my judges."

Liberals often make their case for empathy based on the perceived unfairness of outcomes such as differences in income, education and wealth. If the outcome isn't fair, then the rules should be 'bent' to assure a just outcome. Doubt about the fairness of a rule is sufficient to justify disregarding it. Walter Williams argues that fairness is a matter of process, not outcome: "Fairness ... must be settled by process questions such as: Were the rules unbiased and evenly applied? If so, [the] outcome is just and actions based on empathy would make it unjust."

Chief Justice John G. Roberts appeared to agree. In the opening remarks of his own confirmation hearings in 2005: ”Judges are like umpires. Umpires don’t make the rules; they apply them. The role of an umpire and a judge is critical. They make sure everybody plays by the rules. But it is a limited role.”

When Senator Jon Kyl asked Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor about the role of empathy in judging, she also appeared to agree: "I can only explain what I think judges should do, which is [that] judges can't rely on what's in their heart. They don't determine the law. Congress makes the laws. The job of a judge is to apply the law. And so it's not the heart that compels conclusions in cases. It's the law. The judge applies the law to the facts before that judge."

I wish I believed her.