Read it.

Hey, it’s free.

NASA Announces New Role of Senior Climate Advisor  Why does NASA need a ‘climate advisor’? Who knows?

Politico: California Gov. Newsom Recall Now ‘Unavoidable’  Perhaps other states ought to have the robust recall mechanism that California has.

Victor Davis Hanson.

The corruption of the Renaissance Church prompted the Reformation, which in turn sparked a Counter-Reformation of reformist, and more zealous, Catholics.

The cultural excesses and economic recklessness of the Roaring ’20s were followed by the bleak, dour and impoverished years of the Great Depression.

The 1960s counterculture led to Richard Nixon’s landslide victory in 1972, as “carefree hippies” turned into careerist “yuppies.”

So social, cultural, economic and political extremism prompt reactions — and sometimes counterreactions.

The Bush-Clinton-Obama continuum of 24 years cemented the bipartisan fusion administrative state. Trump and his “Make America Great Again” agenda were its pushback.

The counterreaction to the populism of the Trump reset — or Trump himself — is as of yet unsure.

Read it.

Certain parts of academia seem to wish to turn the study of classics away from a historical, language- and evidence-based discipline whose focus is understanding the ancient world on its own terms, in favor of preaching to students about the evils of ancient imperialism, slavery, racism, sexism, privilege, all keenly advocated by anyone who has ever taught it. There should be added to that list of shame the ancients’ hopelessly misguided views about what it meant to be ‘liberal’.

Latin lîber meant ‘free’, and lîberalis meant ‘relating to the free, worthy of the free’; also ‘gentlemanly, ladylike’, by extension ‘magnanimous, obliging’ and so ‘munificent, generous’. Another crucial mark of the lîberalis was education, especially the wide-ranging knowledge and understanding arising from the study of history and the rich examples it provided of admirable and disgraceful human behavior. The associated noun was lîberalitas (‘liberality’), and in his dialogue On Duties the statesman Cicero linked lîberalitas with justice. His reasoning was that ‘we are not born for ourselves alone… but as humans we are born for the sake of humans, to contribute to the general good by common acts of kindness, and by our skill, industry and talents to cement human society more closely together’.

Two words: Kindle App.

Sea Levels Are Rising Faster Than Most Pessimistic Forecasts  At least, according to Bloomberg.

The New Pause lengthens from 5 years 4 months to 5 years 6 months

The Shocking Climate Graph @climateofgavin Doesn’t Want You To See

US Cities Are Vastly Undercounting Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Researchers Find  ‘Greenhouse gas emissions’ sounds like something that would afflict Uncle Fred.

Read it.

“We will categorically not allow any local government to lock people down. We will not let any local government kick anybody out of their job,” DeSantis told reporters when asked about local officials’ requests for more control over coronavirus mitigation measures. “We will not let any local government fine individual Floridians. We will not let any local government shut down schools. And we’re not going to let any local governments do those things.”

This gets around the fact that most metro areas are ruled by fascist Democrats. Texas could profit from their example.

I’d move to Florida if it weren’t for the hurricanes.

Severian teaches a little history.

A brief summary of our story so far: back at the dawn of the Age of Aquarius, the US Surgeon General finally let the cat out of the bag. Turns out that sucking the fumes of burning weeds straight into your lungs isn’t optimal for your pulmonary wellbeing. That being the case, huckster politicians saw a chance to plug a few budget holes by pretending to care about public health. They decided to tax smoking out of existence.

As they should’ve learned from Prohibition, but didn’t, politicians soon discovered that lifestyle crimes are basically unenforceable.* The new taxes created a vast black market economy for smokes. Which had three knock-on effects, in ascending order of importance:

1. massive budget shortfalls, as idiot state governments, being governments, had already spent the anticipated tax revenue several years in advance;
2. an increased disrespect for the law, as unenforced laws are worse than no laws; and
3. turning what was a harmless(-ish) private vice into a public statement of minor rebelliousness — total per capita smoking remained roughly the same from 1960 – 1990, while total cigarette consumption actually went way up (though the ever-increasing importation of Third Worlders, all of whom smoke like chimneys, probably had a lot to do with that).

Read it.

I have three college-age daughters who all view the underlying resentments and jealousies required to produce leftism as a sign of immaturity. The idea that a leftist Utopia could fix everyone’s problems if we just take enough money from rich people strikes them as the lazy thinking of the unimaginative. Besides their interest in world affairs, they also share an interest in boys. Specifically, boys who would not be wasting their time. They hope for a conservative boyfriend, or at least one who appears somewhat mature and open-minded.

Which is tricky, because no conservative college kid is out of the closet. Universities are such incredibly hostile territories for free-thinkers that they would never consider admitting what they think about anything. So my daughters engage in frequent discussions with one another, trying to figure out if a boy they like might be a closet conservative. And it’s fascinating to listen to them. The cues they pick up on are not necessarily what you might expect.

Look, people elect who they want to Congress. That’s the way the system is set up. There is no IQ test – would that there were! – and no education requirement – would that there were! – and, tellingly, no requirement that a doctor certify that they are sane. You get the votes, and if they can’t PROVE you broke the law, you’re in. So all this talk about policing our own or not suitable for public service is a bunch of self-righteous hand-waving. Votes count; sputtering chattering class members do not. That’s the way it works.

Democrats have been electing crooks (Alcee Hastings) and nut-cases (Sheila Jackson Lee) to Congress for decades, not to mention people who deliberately incite violence (Maxine Waters) and people who don’t openly advocate it but who are okay with it when it happens (Kamala Harris and every other member of the Congressional Black Caucus, not to mention The Squad). For them to get all up in arms about Greene is a case of the pot calling the non-stick pan black.

Unless the system changes, the results aren’t going to be any different. A look at who is now in Congress is the greatest argument against democracy as a form of government that I can imagine. The only problem is to demonstrate that some other form of government wouldn’t be as bad or worse. As Bill Buckley famously said, I’d rather be governed by the first 2000 names in the Boston telephone directory than by the 2000 member of the faculty of Harvard University, and I don’t just say that because I’m a Yale man; Yale these days is just as bad.

We have to work with what we’ve got. Dogs bark, but the caravan moves on.

Read it.

Most non-stick pans are so only for a limited time. Still, they’re more non-stick than non-non-stick (sorry) pans, so you’ve got that going for you. And since most people are Too Fargin Lazy to learn how to cook properly in a plain metal pan, I suppose it’s all for the best.

I use non-stick pans because I’m bone-lazy. So there it is. (Two words: Swiss Diamond.)

Steve Sailer.

The reviewer doesn’t want to come out and flat out say that biographers of the Vice President should simply cover up the fact that her fabulous political career was launched in Willie Brown’s bed, but she wants to imply it.

Read it.

In case you need another job skill on your résumé during COVID Panic times.

Read it.

You can lead a union member to the workplace but you can’t make her work.

Greenland is careening toward a critical tipping point for ice loss

Claim: Atmospheric river storms can drive costly flooding – and climate change is making them stronger

At New York City’s biggest power plant, a switch to clean energy will help a neighborhood breathe easier  (Popular ‘Science’)

Those Most Likely to Get Covid Are Last in Line for Vaccines  We’re from the government, and we’re here to screw things up.

Climate Model Failure

Read it.

If Republicans in Alaska and Utah would show some of that backbone, perhaps we could fix the RINO problem.

Read it.

House Democrats prosecuting former President Donald Trump released a memorandum Tuesday laying out key points against Trump, the first president to face an impeachment trial in the Senate after leaving office.

A temper tantrum at taxpayer expense.

UPDATE: Trump Lawyers Counter Democrats With These 4 Impeachment Arguments

Severian applies some history.

Let’s take a closer look at yesterday’s example of “butt smuggling,” the now-hilarious contemporary term for the Mob’s cigarette racket in the late Sixties / early Seventies. This is exactly the kind of un-glamorous scam that will never make it into the movies, but which keeps Organized Crime afloat, and to which the Feds will soon be forcing us at an ever-increasing pace.

In the late Sixties, you’ll recall, a combination of cash-strapped state governments (places like Illinois were already feeling the pinch of a few decades’ worth of total Democratic control) and Health Nazis slapped egregious taxes on smokes. It turns out that the tax stamps are easy to forge, cigarette trucks are easy to hijack, and when all else fails, smuggling is pretty easy, too. It’s a low-margin, high-volume sort of racket, but it’s profitable — sure, you don’t make $10K per kilo (or whatever) like you do selling coke, but you don’t run coke’s ludicrous risks, either, since while some squarejohn citizen type might well rat you off to the fuzz for selling drugs, he’s much likelier to ask you for a pack when he finds you’re smuggling cigarettes…

Read it.

A climate scientist spent years trying to get people to pay attention to the disaster ahead. His wife is exhausted. His older son thinks there’s no future. And nobody but him will use the outdoor toilet he built to shrink his carbon footprint.

Read it.

The Daily Caller News Foundation and Judicial Watch filed a notice of appeal to the Supreme Court of Delaware on Monday asking for a reversal of a lower court opinion that blocked a Freedom of Information Act request for access to records from President Joe Biden’s Senate career.

The motion seeks a reversal of a ruling by the Superior Court of Delaware in early January that the 1,850 boxes and 415 gigabytes of digital records from Biden’s 36-year Senate career that he donated to the University of Delaware in 2012 are not subject to release because no public funds have been used to support the Biden library.

The lower court rejected the DCNF and Judicial Watch’s argument that some of the university’s approximately $120 million annual taxpayer appropriation could have been used to indirectly support the Biden library by funding archival space and staff salaries. The court said a statement from the university that claimed, without evidence, that no state funds supported the library was sufficient to rule against releasing the documents.

Read it. I wasn’t able to get the video to play but the concept is still entertaining.

Don’t ever say we don’t have useful stuff here.

Read it.

Yes, I would consider getting an Apple car, if it ever sees the light of day. (Not an electric but maybe a hybrid.)

Read it.

In November, the previously unknown Marjorie Taylor Greene was elected to Georgia’s open 14th Congressional District seat in a landslide. Now, after being in office less than a month, she is the object of a hate campaign by the Democrats, who are demanding that she be stripped of all committee assignments, and preferably kicked out of the House. It is reported that the Democrats’ press arm is trying to make Greene the face of the Republican Party.

What exactly has she done? Greene’s Facebook page apparently is a disaster. Even before the election, Politico investigated Greene on behalf of the Democratic Party and found Facebook videos that expressed “racist, Islamophobic and anti-Semitic views.” That was Kevin McCarthy’s characterization, not Nancy Pelosi’s, and Greene was denounced last June by the Republicans’ House leadership. But Georgia’s voters apparently were unimpressed.

Obviously Emmanuel Goldstein got to her at some point.

Why Phoenix may be uninhabitable by the end of this century (Salon) I’d guess because of Democrats moving in from California.

Who Will Tell the Greens There Is No Battery Fairy?

Claim: Important climate change mystery solved by scientists

Claim: Marine heatwaves becoming more intense, more frequent

One year later: The path to carbon negative – a report on our climate ‘moonshot’  Think of a polar bear showing you his butt.

How Will Climate Regulations Impact The Economy? Experts Are Divided  But normal people are not: ‘negatively’.

Unexpected ice

The So-Called Climate “Health Emergency”

New York Times Reviews Book Advocating Blowing Up Pipelines to Combat Climate Change

Read it.

They still make you look like a refugee from an LGBTQRSTUVWZYZ convention.

I’ll do anything for comfort, but I won’t do that.

Read it.

President Joe Biden’s latest climate-focused executive order promises a bustling clean energy sector backed by “good-paying union jobs.” That sector’s supply chain, however, is largely dominated by China.

Issued on Wednesday, Biden’s order calls on the federal government to purchase union-built, American electric vehicles. But both Chevrolet and Nissan’s top electric offerings fall well below the federal government’s domestic “component test” to determine American-made status, and Ford’s latest electric SUV, the Mustang Mach-E, will be built in China and Mexico. China also controls much of the world’s lithium battery supply, including 77 percent of global cell capacity and 60 percent of global component manufacturing, a September BloombergNEF report shows.

Read it.

Democrats don’t have this problem because Democrats never forget which side they’re on. Plus the ‘activists’ in the Democrat party would run any candidate out of town who was insufficiently Woke; there are no Republican activists to speak of, except the Trumpists, and you can see how they are treated.

Read it.

Nominated by Alan Dershowitz. All of them are Jews so it will go into the Memory Hole in modern Culturally-Enriched Norway, along with Trump’s two nominations.

The dark side of ‘green energy’ and its threat to the environment

Scientists solve a major climate mystery, confirming Earth is hotter than it’s been in at least 120 centuries

Guardian: “The Trump years may well have been the death rattle of influential [climate] denialism”

Increasing Hurricane Intensity Study Fatally Flawed

Read it.

Every time I read another excitable media article about New Zealand’s prime minister Jacinda Ardern, I am reminded of an old quip: ‘Viewed from a distance, everything is beautiful.’ That was Publius Cornelius Tacitus (AD 58-120). Were this Roman intellectual and historian alive today, he would make a great New York Times columnist. His tactic was to spin political and historical analogies so they could influence public affairs back home.

Tacitus’s Germania, for example, was about framing the Germanic tribes as a noble culture so that his Roman compatriots would recognize their own society as corrupt and decadent in contrast. The only problem was that Tacitus had never crossed the Rhine. That did not matter much: most Romans had not traveled far north either.

That is happening again, except this time New Zealanders are the noble savages being lovingly invented by global columnists. Hardly any of these writers actually live in New Zealand or understand it. Their op-eds reveal more about them than the country they purport to write about. In normal circumstances, this would not be a problem. But over the past few years, Jacinda Ardern has risen to international stardom. Her rise was based on remote reporting by a progressive world media thirsting for a noble alternative to strongmen leaders.

New Zealand is not Middle Earth. New Zealand is the Shire under Saruman.

Read it.

The Alphabet Workers Union (AWU) is in turmoil following the announcement of an international alliance on Monday. The alliance, Alpha Global, was billed as a worker-led initiative, but union members in the US say they didn’t know about it until The Verge published an exclusive. That piece included a press release quote from AWU executive council member Parul Koul, which she says she didn’t write.

The news was an unwelcome surprise to union members who expect the Alphabet Workers Union to run democratically. Now, multiple sources tell The Verge that some AWU organizers are considering pushing the group to disaffiliate from the Communications Workers of America (CWA), a national union representing workers in telecommunications and media. AWU has also set up a committee to investigate CWA’s role in the announcement.

They’re learning the basic lesson of a trade union: Eventually it evolves into a scam where the leadership uses it as a vehicle for power and wealth and the actual interests of the workers wind up in the trash. (You never hear of the Mafia trying to take over a local Chamber of Commerce, do you?)

Read it.

Makes you wonder what they know that you do not.

Read it.

If you have a number of children, as I do, you might be familiar with something like the following scene: A child is caught red-handed doing something he shouldn’t, say, stealing a cookie from the cookie jar. When confronted, he immediately begins to deny guilt and deflect blame.

“My sister ate the cookie! I was just reaching my hand in to make sure it was gone so I could tell you,” the child might exclaim, while dusting cookie crumbs off of his shirt. If pressed about his obvious guilt, he might become angry and lash out.

This is just the sort of behavior we are witnessing from the election-rigging Democrats over the past several weeks. They scream “insurrection” and “coup” at 74.2 million Trump supporters who supposedly bear collective guilt for the actions of a few hundred rioting LARPers at the Capitol, who were immediately denounced by virtually everyone on the Right (in sharp contrast to leftist rioters over the summer, who were coddled and encouraged by the Democrats).

Meanwhile, these same election riggers have launched a “domestic terrorism” witch hunt against Trump supporters, in a clear and obvious attempt to suppress political opposition to the new regime.

Like the child with his hand in the cookie jar, the more guilty the Democrats are of “winning” a blatantly rigged election versus Donald Trump, the louder they must scream about their noble crusade to save “democracy” from “fascism.”

As commentator Glenn Greenwald recently told Tucker Carlson, “They’re trying to harness corporate and monopoly power to silence everyone who disagrees with them, the very hallmark, the epitome of the fascism they claim to be fighting, but which in reality they embody.”

Read it.

That rustling sound you hear is a thousand progressive panties forming into a wad.

Gizmodo: US Should Demilitarise and Withdraw to Reduce CO2 Emissions

Could Recent U.S. Warming Trends be Largely Spurious?

Read it.

orecasting when a species might go extinct is hard because whatever is causing a species to die off rarely progresses at the same rate. It can speed up in the blink of an eye in ways that surprise people.

Two researchers wrote a paper a few years ago explaining why.

Say an elephant is being hunted for its tusk. The rate of hunting often massively speeds up over time, cascading into a frenzy that pushes a mildly at-risk species into quick extinction.

Bison in America, 1883.

Ismist: A person who sees the world in terms of ‘-ism’ — e.g. racism, sexism, white supermacism, etc.

Phobiaphobe: A person with an irrational fear of phobias — e.g. transphobia, homophobia, islamophobia, etc.

Steve Sailer.

Assuming that in lieu of your test scores you submit a Jared Kushner-sized donation to the Harvard Development Office. Do you really think that if you don’t submit your test scores that Harvard will automatically assume you would have gotten perfect 800s? Harvard hasn’t been on top of the American college game since 1636 by being stupid.

PBS Goes RADICAL: Amanpour Pushes Climate Alarmism with Michael Mann

Friday Funny: Another last chance to save the world from Climate Change

John Kerry’s Straw Man Arguments For Wasting Money On Climate Change

Mitchell Wails: U.S. Must Restore Climate ‘Credibility’ With Russia & China!

Pentagon declares climate change a ‘national security issue’ (The Hill)

“You Can’t Fix Stupid”… Biden Pauses New Oil & Gas Leasing on Federal Lands and Waters

Joy Reid Suggests That Ignoring Climate Change Might Provoke An Alien Attack

The Climate Crisis Is Worse Than You Can Imagine. Here’s What Happens If You Try

Earth used to be cooler than we thought, which changes our math on global warming

Are EVs Good For The Environment? …Mostly Not

NYT Climate Action Book Review: “How to Blow Up a Pipeline”

Endangered Cloud Forests, Clouds and Climate Change