Category: media and media people

Categories
Accountability ideological culture media and media people nannyism national politics & policies property rights responsibility

The Climate Cassandra

Global warming, climate change, illustration

Thirty years ago, in June, 1986, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee met to consider the problems of ozone depletion, the greenhouse effect, and climate change.

Present at those hearings was today’s climate Cassandra, James Hansen, then of the Goddard Institute of Space Studies. And he was predicting that “global temperatures should be nearly 2 degrees higher in 20 years,” according to Associated Press reporting at that time.

There was some sloppiness either in Hansen’s account, or the AP’s, for in one part of his testimony Hansen claimed that his institute’s climate models projected, for “the region of the United States, the warming 30 years from now is about 1 1/​2 degrees C, which is about 3 F.”

Ronald Bailey, the science writer over at Reason, tries to make sense of this mess of numbers, models, and predictions.

Oh, and actual, tabulated results.

Hansen’s predictions went, as Bailey put it, “definitively off the rails when tracking the temperature trend for the contiguous U.S. between 2000 and 2016. Since 2000, according to the NOAA calculator, the average temperature trend has been downward at ‑0.06 F degree per decade.”

That’s not the whole picture, though: “global temperatures have increased by 0.51 C degree since 1986, so perhaps the man-​made global warming signal has finally emerged.”

No matter, though, as Bailey notes, “the United States and the Earth have warmed at considerably slower pace than Hansen predicted 30 years ago.”

Which suggests that Hansen’s models may be inspired more by wish, fear, and ideology than genuine science.

So, to those who wish to rush to “do something” (anything?) to combat “climate change,” take it slow. Follow the pace of the Earth itself.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Printable PDF

Global warming, climate change, illustration

 

Categories
ideological culture media and media people nannyism national politics & policies Regulating Protest too much government U.S. Constitution

The Long Road to Citizens United

Krist Novoselic, Citizens United, free speech, fairvote.org

Everybody is familiar with the standard theory regarding the Citizens United decision. Former comedian and current earnest socialist Sarah Silverman puts it this way: “Every politician takes money from Big Money, ever since it was made legal with Citizens United.”

Like most folks who talk this way, she doesn’t give a squeak of context. She barely even indicates that it was a Supreme Court case, 2010’s Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. She does not mention at all that the ruling overturned the FEC’s act of suppressing a political movie.

But there is a much wider context than such bare facts — and if you want a good synopsis, you could hardly do better than read my friend Krist Novoselic’s calm, reasoned “look at the history of attempts to regulate independent campaign expenditures.”

This “modern history” started with what the New York Times called Richard Nixon’s “revolution in political financing.” The Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 “required detailed disclosure of campaign contributions; set campaign contribution limits to candidates, parties and committees; set expenditure limits on campaigns, independent groups and individuals and created the first public financing of presidential campaigns and national conventions.”

And almost immediately the law began suppressing political speech and advertising. And led to a long series of court cases.

And decisions.

And revisions.

That define our times.

Krist (with whom I serve on the board of FairVote​.org) provides the context you need to see through what he aptly calls “the hype” about “Citizens United,” as well as how the decision correctly removed the license given to the FEC’s role as “state censorship board.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Printable PDF

Krist Novoselic, Citizens United, free speech, fairvote.org

 

Categories
media and media people national politics & policies political challengers

#NeverTrump Red Herring

Bill Kristol, National Review, President

Neoconservative writer Bill Kristol doesn’t like the prospect of Donald Trump running as the Republican presidential candidate this year. And Kristol’s not just going to talk about it. He’s trying to get something done.

But instead of doing the rational thing and lobbying each and every delegate to the Republican convention, pleading with them to vote their consciences, not their fictional primary “commitments,” he’s trying to recruit an independent candidate to run against Hillary and Donald. (Donald isn’t worried.)

At first he mentioned, in fleeting, Mitt Romney as the type of candidate “coming soon.” But in discussing his mission, he kept the candidate’s identity secret. He was trying to create a stir of interest.

Yesterday it was leaked that Kristol’s Great White Hope is … David French.

Writer for National Review.

And the American people say, together, Who?

No matter Mr. French’s many virtues, the truth is that he’s the darkest of dark horses.

I’m sure his principles align somehow with Kristol’s. But be realistic: the Libertarian Party ticket sports far more plausibility — two former two-​term governors, former Republicans of blue states.

It’s still possible that this newest story is just a leak to get us to a false sense of … well, whatever this is.

After all, Kristol is a neoconservative. He has secrets and strategies above us mere mortals. Conspiracy buffs might contend that throwing another “right-​wing” candidate into the mix is his way of splitting “the right,” allowing his real (if secret) favorite, Hillary Clinton, to squeak by. She is the one candidate he could count on to keep throwing money at the Pentagon — and dropping bombs overseas.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Printable PDF

Bill Kristol, National Review, President

 

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore on Flickr

 

Categories
education and schooling First Amendment rights ideological culture media and media people

The Controversialist

DePaul University, Black Lives Matter , Social Justice Warriors, Dangerous Faggot Tour, Milo Yiannopoulis , provocative,

“Feminism is cancer.”

Milo Yiannopoulis is provocative. Apparently of violence as well as of thought.

Until very recently, best known for his Twitter presence (@nero) and his work at Breitbart, Mr. Yiannopoulis, a gay British man in his mid-​30s, has undertaken what he calls his “Dangerous Faggot Tour,” — speaking to anti-​left audiences in hired halls at the heart of the modern university.

He outrageously decries the regnant “Social Justice Warriors” of anti-​capitalism and intersectional feminism, and defends free speech and the candidacy of Donald Trump.

But obviously he is egging on the student mobs. One stunt was to take a poll asking whether the subject would rather his or her daughter get cancer or become a feminist.

Cancer, Milo chortles, was the overwhelming result.

Most people hate modern feminism, he says. It’s only on campuses that the youngsters are unhinged enough to believe that

  • rich, pampered college students are “oppressed” just because they are women or gay or trans; that
  • white men are “systemically” their “oppressors” and thus “privileged”; and that
  • there exists an overarching Patriarchy in capitalist America, but not in the Mideast.

So he is shouted at and “protested” everywhere he goes. This week, Black Lives Matter protesters basically took over an event at DePaul University, with a young woman invading Milo’s personal space, apparently (you decide) hitting him in the face during a Q and A.

The university, which had charged organizers a huge fee for “extra security,” did nothing. Milo’s suing to get back that payment — for services plainly not rendered.

Some patriarchy. Some privilege.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Printable PDF

DePaul University, Black Lives Matter , Social Justice Warriors, Dangerous Faggot Tour, Milo Yiannopoulis , provocative,

 

Categories
Accountability folly general freedom media and media people moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies

The Senator Intrudes

Sen. John Thune, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook, fairness doctrine, censorship

We know that the media in general, and Silicon Valley, too, have strong anti-​conservative biases — even if, in another sense, the Fourth Estate serves as almost the embodiment of one understanding of the conservative impulse: relentlessly upholding established institutions, against all attacks. The American media strongly defends the modern state; every program, it seems, is sacrosanct: the only thing wrong with Big, Intrusive Government is that it is not as Big and Intrusive as it should be.

This week, several ex-​Facebook news curators alleged systemic “political bias” in how stories receive the top spot in Facebook’s Trending news section. So Sen. John Thune (R‑S.D.) intrudes. He wrote to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, in his official capacity on the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Communication. Thune says that if Facebook is, in effect, promoting stories by means of a hidden political agenda, this amounts to something like a public fraud, which lies within this committee’s purview.

I don’t see how. And I really would like such biases and pseudo-​frauds to be dealt with by consumer pressure rather than government whip. And that should be without regard to the partisan stripe of the bias — or the whip.

Anthony L. Fisher, over at Reason, notes that the senator has a logic problem: he rests his case for government oversight of Facebook rules and consumer relations on the infamous “fairness doctrine,” which is not operative at this time, and which Thune has previously and repeatedly opposed.

And for good reason: the doctrine produced government-​enforced muting of speech, not fairness.

But this all may mean almost nothing. I’d never even noticed Facebook’s Trending section.

Have you?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Printable PDF

Sen. John Thune, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook, fairness doctrine, censorship

 

Photo of Sen. John Thune credit: Gage Skidmore on Flickr

 

Categories
ideological culture media and media people national politics & policies

Negative, Positively

Negative space, positive space, election, Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump

In art class, students learn about “negative space,” how positively one can react to artistic representations and indications of absence, of the space between objects, “blank” space. This land of shadow and reified Absence can have a powerful impact on our perceptions.

Well, behold, the piece of work that is major-​party politics in America, 2016.

Usually we pretend that our elections are about what we approve of, about who and what we are for. But this year, with Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton the likely nominees of their respective parties (Ted Cruz having pulled out after being trounced, Tuesday, in the Hoosier State, and John Kasich, likewise, yesterday morning), the positive spin on negativity will ramp up to new levels. As Anthony L. Fisher observed primary night on reason​.com, Trump and Clinton are the most- and second-​most hated major party politicians ever, polling the negatives “even higher than 2004-​era George W. Bush.” (Who won.)

With the negatives of both candidates looming so large, is it too obvious to take note of the high likelihood of an extremely negative campaign coming up?

Maybe we should gamble on the terms of opprobrium that will be let loose:

Traitor, incompetent, corrupt crony-​pushing insider, harpy of modish feminism.…

Buffoon, racist, corrupt crony capitalist, chauvinist of the vulgar tongue.…

Into this negative space we can expect a rush of interest in minor-​party challengers, Libertarians and Greens. Protest votes could hit new heights. And they might make a difference.

But can anyone really profit from such negative space? Color me dubious.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Printable PDF

Negative space, positive space, election, Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump

 

Common Sense Needs Your Help!

Also, please consider showing your appreciation by dropping something in our tip jar  (this link will take you to the Citizens in Charge donation page… and your contribution will go to the support of the Common Sense website). Maintaining this site takes time and money.

Your help in spreading the message of common sense and liberty is very much appreciated!