Why "Climate Change" Seems To Have Faded From The News

/
Why "Climate Change" Seems To Have Faded From The News

In a post a few days ago, I noted that "the whole climate issue seems to have mostly disappeared from the news lately."  Commenter niceguyeddie responded by giving me a link to the Washington Post (eddie called it "the 'other' Pravda"), and an article of July 5 by a guy named Jason Samenow headlined "Red-hot planet: All-time heat records have been set all over the world during the past week."   In the intervening week since this article, a few people on the internet have been busy making mincemeat of Samenow's rather pitiful effort.  For MC readers who don't go out searching the internet regularly for real information on climate to combat the propaganda from the various Pravdas out there, I thought I would do the public service of presenting some of this real information here.

First, some basic background is needed to develop appropriate bullshit radar on this subject.  If you follow climate or weather information even a little, you will already know that on any given day, somewhere in the world, some weather station, or more likely multiple stations, is recording an "all time high" temperature for the particular day in question, while some other weather station, or maybe multiple stations, is recording an "all time low."  It follows that the fact that multiple "all time high" records were set during the course of a week tells you nothing about climate change.  There could have been even more all time lows, and the overall average could have gone down, no matter how many "all time highs" were recorded.  Any reader of any intelligence whatsoever will immediately be asking, don't just tell me about "all time highs," but tell me what is the overall picture?  How many all time lows were there?  What is happening with the "average" temperature?  You will not be surprised to learn that Samenow does not provide the answers to those questions.  In other words, his article is not intended to provide useful information to the intelligent reader, but rather to propagandize those lacking in either basic background information or critical thinking ability or both.

There is an obvious source for the answer to the last question as to what is happening with the "average," and that is the easily-available UAH global lower troposphere record, derived from satellite sensors.  That record exists from 1979 to present.

Read More

Brett Kavanaugh And The Administrative State

/

Last night's announcement that D.C. Circuit Judge Brett Kavanaugh will be the Supreme Court nominee has brought forth much frenzy and gnashing of teeth among the progressive left.  The main focus of the frenzy has been the alleged threat to continued viability of Roe v. Wade.  (From House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's statement:  "Judge Kavanaugh’s long history of opposition to the full, fundamental right of every woman to make her own decisions about her body, family and health care poses a grave threat to women’s rights."  I don't know what "long history of opposition" Pelosi is talking about there, but maybe we'll find out soon.) 

Anyway, I doubt that Kavanaugh poses much threat to Roe.  Meanwhile, I'd like to focus on a different subject on which he actually has some record that is important.  That subject is the Administrative State.

First, some background.

Read More

In The Climate Wars, Two Steps Forward For Every One Back

/

The Climate Wars continue to rage.  In Washington, EPA Director Scott Pruitt has been driven from office, supposedly over a series of ethical issues.  All of them seemed exceedingly debatable and insignificant to me.  On the other hand, Pruitt must have known that the full force of the environmental left was gunning for him, so there was no excuse for errors, however minor.   Pruitt will be succeeded by Andrew Wheeler, another professed climate change skeptic.

Perhaps this is a good time to take stock of where things are going on the "climate change" front.  Have you noticed that the whole climate issue seems to have mostly disappeared from the news lately?  That could only mean one thing:  the latest information does not fit the preferred narrative.  Let's look at the news that you won't be finding in the New York Times or on CNN.

Read More

From The Official Manhattan Contrarian Foreign Correspondent

/

The Official Manhattan Contrarian Foreign Correspondent -- otherwise known as my long-time friend from the East Bronx -- writes with some thoughts on the victory of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the recent congressional primary in his district:

I have lived in the area now included in the 14th [Congressional District] since 1975. . . .  [My part of t]he district [in the East Bronx] is a mix of 3, 2, and 1 family owner-occupied housing and apartments many of which are condos or co-ops.  Originally mostly Italian, Irish, and Greek, [the area is] now much more ethnically diverse and somewhat gentrified with Hispanic Americans being the largest group.  I can echo Mr Dooley in stating that the reason that Ms. Ocasio-Cortez was elected was that few voters knew who she was or even that there was a Primary.  There are virtually no socialist vote[rs] except possibly among the gentrified millenials.  

Read More

In Late Stage Socialism, It Just Keeps Getting Worse

/

The Socialist Death Spiral:  At first it proceeds so slowly that nobody even notices the deterioration and decline going on all around them.  With the government controlling the economic statistics, most likely the official numbers show economic improvement that is entirely fake, but can deceive people for a while.  But as the spiral continues, it goes faster and faster.

For the New York City Housing Authority, you could have known there was a problem for a long time just by looking at the buildings.  But the growing problem was well concealed.  It was only in 2015, early in the de Blasio administration, that they suddenly came out with a report, NextGeneration NYCHA, that revealed a backlog of "urgently needed" capital repairs of some $17 billion.  Wow -- that was close to $100,000 for each of the 170,000+ NYCHA apartments.  But that was only the start.  On February 6 this year, the Wall Street Journal then reported that the amount had just jumped to $25 billion:

City officials also said for the first time Tuesday that the housing agency’s infrastructure needs total about $25 billion, up from $17 billion several years ago.

And, this past week, the $25 billion took another jump to $31.8 billion.

Read More

Now You Tell Us -- "Curbs On Unions Likely To Starve Activist Groups"

/

"Curbs On Unions Likely To Starve Activist Groups" -- that's the lead headline (top right of page A1) in today's print edition of the New York Times.  In the online edition, it's "Supreme Court Labor Decision Wasn't Just a Loss for Unions."  The gist of the article is that this right-wing Supreme Court is now going after our friends to de-fund them.  To Pravda, that seems to be a big problem.  To me, it seems like there's a rather gigantic scandal going on here that has nothing to do with what Pravda thinks is the scandal.  

The Times's article discusses the effects of the Supreme Court's decision last week in the case called Janus v. AFSCME.  That's the case that invalidated so-called "fair share" payments, which are the payments that many state and local governments have required their employees to make to labor unions, even if a given employee declines to join the union.  Henceforth, under the majority opinion in Janus by Justice Alito, if a government employee does not want to join a labor union, he does not have to pay the union anything as a condition of keeping his job.

OK, but how exactly is this going to "starve activist groups"?  After all, prior to this decision, didn't non-members of the union already have the right to decline to contribute to the union's political activities, and to limit their payments to the portion of union dues that supports collective bargaining activities? 

Read More