October 04, 2026

On The Criteria For Falsifying A Scientific Hypothesis

October 04, 2026/ Francis Menton

My September 29 post asked whether we could deem as “definitively falsified” the hypothesis that human-caused global warming was leading to “more and more severe” hurricanes.
The cited basis for the question was that, despite the endlessly repeated prediction of “more and more severe” hurricanes, as of that date not a single hurricane had yet formed this season in the North Atlantic basin. This represented a record-low rate of hurricane formation in this region since the satellite era, and comprehensive hurricane data, began in 1966.
In response to that post, I received a comment from a reader that I thought deserved a serious response. The comment came as an email, rather than as a comment on the blog. The commenter gave his name, but since he did not post the comment on the blog I am keeping his name confidential as a courtesy. Here is the text of the comment: . . .

October 03, 2026

How To Think Like A New York Progressive

October 03, 2026/ Francis Menton

To judge from many of the comments on this site, a substantial number of readers have difficulty understanding the sophisticated modes of thinking of the New York progressive. Looking at New York’s official progressive orthodoxy in action, these readers often see illogic and inconsistencies that seem to make no sense at all.
And yet, despite the apparent internal contradictions, the New York progressives themselves generally achieve near or even complete unanimity as to many of the important policies that they seek to implement. How does this work?
We need to take a deeper look. So I thought for today it would be useful to examine some recent policies touted by the progressive crowd, to see what insights we can glean about exactly how they think about the world.

September 29, 2026

September 29, 2026/ Francis Menton

You know the mantra: Human caused climate change, driven by burning fossil fuels and adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, causes an increase in the frequency and severity of major storms, like hurricanes.
When major hurricanes come along, as they regularly do, the promoters of this mantra immediately claim an ability to “attribute” the storm and/or its intensity to the ongoing human-caused warming.
For example, last October we had Hurricane Melissa, a Category 5 storm that struck Jamaica and other Caribbean islands. As soon as Melissa had passed, an organization calling itself World Weather Attribution promptly came out with an analysis blaming the storm and its intensity on “climate change.” From the AP, November 6, 2025:
Melissa was one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes to make landfall and brought destructive weather to Jamaica, Haiti, Dominican Republic and Cuba, causing dozens of deaths across the Caribbean. . . . The rapid analysis by World Weather Attribution found that climate change increased Melissa’s maximum wind speeds by 7% and made the rainfall near the center of the storm 16% more intense. The scientists also wrote that the temperature and humidity in which the storm intensified were made six times more likely due to climate change compared to a pre-industrial world.
Perhaps that seemed plausible at the time. But this year the mantra that human-induced climate change is the main cause of destructive hurricanes has run into a small problem.

September 27, 2026

September 27, 2026/ Francis Menton

New York City has one of the most expensive housing markets in the country among large cities, and maybe even the most expensive by some measures. By contrast to most other parts of the country, the majority of housing units here are rented rather than owner-occupied.
Latest data from Zillow.com gives a city-wide average rent (across all apartment sizes and types) of $3650. In Manhattan, according to this New York Post piece from August 12 (citing data from the Corcoran brokerage firm) the average rent has hit $6,655 per month.
According to the politicians in power, the reason for these high rents is that greedy landlords are taking advantage of the tenants. To deal with these greedy landlords, we have had rent regulations in place in various forms since World War II; but after some reforms in the 1990s, by the 2010s those were gradually diminishing in significance. By 2019 a slight majority of the rental apartments, about 1.1 million, were outside the regulation system, with just under 1 million apartments rent-regulated.
Then, in 2019, the State Legislature came under full control of the Democrats (after decades of partial Republican control), and the new majorities immediately set out to put the greedy landlords in their place.

September 25, 2026

September 25, 2026/ Francis Menton

Here in New York, our very-light-weight Governor Kathy Hochul is running for re-election. To her slight credit, she has noticed that New York is a high cost state, not the least for cost of energy, and that New Yorkers are upset about that.
New Yorkers are right to be upset about the cost of energy. According to this chart from the federal EIA containing most recent data for July 2026, the average price of electricity to the ultimate consumer in New York for that month was 29.9¢/kWh, compared to a national average of 18.31¢/kWh; and New York’s cost had increased more than 14% from 26.22¢/kWh in July 2025, versus a 4.9% increase in the national average over last year’s 17.45¢/kWh. New Yorkers are also right to be upset because the premium they pay for electricity is mostly to entirely the consequence of intentional government policies that drive up the cost.
What’s crazy is that Governor Hochul has decided to make “energy affordability” a theme of her campaign. The reason that is crazy is that at the same time that Hochul claims she favors more “affordability,” she also brags about maintaining and expanding the very policies that have caused the excess costs.

September 22, 2026

September 22, 2026/ Francis Menton

The 50th anniversary of the death of Mao Zedong has just passed. (He died on September 9, 1976.).
I did not see large amounts of commentary about Mao on the occasion of the anniversary, but everything that I did see was either neutral or positive, with the majority being praise. And as I looked around for any commentary I could find from around the date of the anniversary, most of what I found is again praise.
How could that be? This man was a monster.
Certainly, the death toll for which Mao was responsible was a large multiple of anything ever attributed to Hitler, and also a multiple (although a smaller one) of the carnage committed by Stalin. Does any self-respecting person give effusive praise of either of those two? And if not to them, then why to Mao?