September 12, 2020

Scientific American Goes Full Anti-Science

September 12, 2020/ Francis Menton

Back at the beginning of the Trump administration in January 2017, it was all the rage for media on the left to accuse Trump and his people of being “anti-science.” I compiled a collection of such accusations in a post on January 27 of that year, using the title “Who Again Is ‘Anti-Science’?”
Among those I cited as making the accusation was the venerable magazine Scientific American, which had published a piece on January 18, 2017 with the title “Trump’s 5 Most Anti-Science Moves.”
If you look at that 2017 Scientific American piece, or the other articles that I cited in my post, you will see that those commenters are conceiving of “science” not as a special methodology, but rather as something more like: “science is what people who call themselves scientists do.” The basic complaint of the commenters was that Trump was “anti-science” because he was listening to or appointing people who disagreed with — or worse, sought to de-fund — functionaries in the government who called themselves scientists.
I have a different definition of the term “science.” . . .

September 11, 2020

View From Greenwich Village, September 11

September 11, 2020/ Francis Menton

They had the memorial “Tower of Light” turned on tonight in honor of the nineteenth anniversary of the World Trade Center attack.
Here is the view from Greenwich Village, approximately Hudson St. and Perry St. The tower is a little more than a mile to the south. . . .

September 09, 2020

September 09, 2020/ Francis Menton

In any rational world, a candidate proposing the energy plan that Joe Biden has proposed for the United States would be laughed out of the race for President on that ground alone.
The word “unserious” does not remotely begin to describe the situation.
In essence Biden says he will cause a complete transformation of the U.S. energy economy within 30 years — or maybe it’s 15 — with no idea what technology might be able to accomplish that, how much it might cost, or how much poorer the effort might make the American people. We have moved from the real world into the realm of fantasy and gaslighting.
And yet, at least as of today, Biden continues to lead in most polls. . . .

September 06, 2020

September 06, 2020/ Francis Menton

It was on March 27 this year that the so-called “CARES” Act (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act) became law — a $2.2 trillion federal spending bill, designed to bail absolutely everyone out of any and all downside risk from the economic downturn brought about by government response to the pandemic.
There was virtually no opposition, with the bill passing unanimously in the Senate and by voice vote in the House. Since there was no new tax revenue associated with the bill, it represented approximately a 10% instant increase in the public debt incurred in the 231 years since the founding of the Republic.
Whew! Was there any possible negative consequence to taking on this enormous amount of new debt, mostly just to hand out checks to anybody and everybody, whether they needed the money or not? If so, that subject was barely discussed anywhere.
Hey, this was a “stimulus.” Everybody knows that when the economy is down, it needs a massive federal “stimulus” to get it going again.
Then, almost immediately after the CARES Act became law, the House started working on the next round of so-called “stimulus,” labelling the new effort with the equally idiotic acronym of the “HEROES” Act. . . .

September 03, 2020

September 03, 2020/ Francis Menton

I live in New York City. The City government in New York — and to a lesser extent, the government of New York State — are currently in severe financial distress as tax revenues have plunged in the aftermath of the coronavirus and of state-imposed economic lockdowns.
Both the City and State governments are loudly demanding bailouts from the federal government to cover all their financial shortfalls.
Do you think that, as a New York City resident, I would want the federal government to meet these demands and bail out the City and State?
Absolutely not! They shouldn’t get one additional dime of federal taxpayer money.

September 01, 2020

September 01, 2020/ Francis Menton

Do you think that Joe Biden has signed on to the Green New Deal?
Do you have the idea that Biden is fully committed if he becomes President to doing away with fossil fuel energy and replacing it with the wind and sun as quickly as possible?
Where could you possibly have gotten those ideas? More on that later in the post.
Certainly in the past couple of weeks you might have gotten exactly the opposite impression.