Steve Sailer.

As we’ve been instructed for decades, the key to Republicans doing better among immigrant voters is to let in more immigrants. Thus, Donald Trump in 2020, while he may have done better among whites because of their innate xenophobic racism, was swept away by the righteous wrath of immigrants.

Except … the opposite happened.

Californians Can Now Pay A Premium To Power Their Homes With Manure

Sea-Surface Temperature Anomalies

Biden’s Energy Plans Are Expensive—and Dangerous

Forbes Climate Crisis: “Lock in lifestyle changes brought about by COVID-19”

NYT: “What happened to Global Warming?”

Read it.

Someone at a social media site, who I will not dignify with a link, wrote, “I think we need to find a way to stop the working class from voting altogether.”

This individual, who is in the UK and is obviously a furious anti-Brexiter, also wrote: “Idiots and racists shouldn’t be able to ruin the lives of people who do well in life by voting for things they don’t understand. The problem in this country boils down to low information morons having the ability to vote.”

Actually, I think the country would be better off if everybody who had a college degree was barred from voting. The available evidence suggests that they are a major contingent of the ‘low information morons’ demographic, and include quite a number of idiots and racists (although not in the sense that the commenter intended).

Read it.

Perhaps you have had the experience of hiking in the woods, or navigating at sea or in a complex network of swamps and streams. It’s not good to have a map with you if you do not know how to use the map, and how to use a compass. And neither the map nor the compass will be of any use if you cannot determine where you even are on that map, or to gauge if you have the right map in the first place. And you had better know where you should be heading too or it’s all a hopeless endeavor. If someone has given you a false map and bad directions, and pointed you towards a swamp instead of the welcoming lodge that is your real goal, are you wise or experienced enough to avoid the deceptions?

Venkatesh Rao does a deep dive.

The Office is not a random series of cynical gags aimed at momentarily alleviating the existential despair of low-level grunts. It is a fully realized theory of management that falsifies 83.8% of the business section of the bookstore.  The theory begins with Hugh MacLeod’s well-known cartoon, Company Hierarchy (below), and its cornerstone is something I will call The Gervais Principle, which supersedes both the Peter Principle and its successor, The Dilbert Principle. Outside of the comic aisle, the only major and significant works consistent with the Gervais Principle are The Organization Man and Images of Organization.

Battery Basics for Climate Warriors

Will Rising Temperatures Make Superweeds Even Stronger?

Wildfire smoke is loaded with microbes

Chemicals in Plastic Waste Are Killing Us

President-Elect Biden Introduces Climate Team, EPA Nominee Promises To Combat ‘Environmental Justice’

Claim: Climate Change is Causing Skin Disease in Dolphins

Biden Introduces Climate Team, Calls Climate Change An ‘Existential Threat’  I don’t feel threatened. Do you feel threatened? (Maybe by the government….)

Wrong Again: 2020’s Failed Climate Doomsaying

Read it.

Ian Harris, a Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, wrote a book titled Surgery, The Ultimate Placebo. I haven’t read the book, but I watched his excellent YouTube video lecture on the subject. It is an eye-opening evaluation of commonly performed surgical operations that have been tested and shown to be no more effective (and arguably worse) than placebo, or that have never even been tested. He covers the history of sham surgery studies, talks about placebo effects, and explains why so many surgeons ignore the evidence and continue to do ineffective operations. In the process, he provides a valuable education in critical thinking.

Read it.

It’s hard to say the word “innovation” and not think of California. Technology has paced the state’s growth in everything from agriculture and oil to housing, entertainment, and aerospace. California has always been the harbinger of the American future, the promise of ever-greater economic and social progress.

Yet increasingly, many of today’s innovators are fleeing the state. This past week, one half of the company arguably most symbolic of tech development in the state—Hewlett Packard Enterprises—one part of the now broken-up old Hewlett Packard and focused on lucrative areas like cloud computing and IT infrastructure—decided to leave for Houston. Within a week Elon Musk, the latest in the line of truly transformative California tech entrepreneurs, also announced that he would move to Texas, along with Oracle, a Fortune 100 company and global leader in database management. Other recent departures also include more traditional firms as Charles Schwab, McKesson, Bechtel, Parsons Engineering, and CB Richard Ellis.

Read it.

For me, the single most interesting finding in Righteous Mind was his account of this particular test. Subjects were given a questionnaire to ascertain where they were located on the political spectrum. Then they were then given the same questionnaire and asked to answer as if somebody with the other point of view was filling it out. Conservatives were asked to answer as a liberal would and liberals as a conservative. Conservatives correctly mimicked the likely pattern of liberals but liberals had an absurdly wrong view of likely conservative answers, erring heavily on the side of bad motives and lack of compassion, empathy, etc.

If you get the impression that the left has a caricatured view of conservatives as hate-filled, bigoted, and uncaring you aren’t wrong. There is empirical evidence that they really do think that way. They almost have to.

I want one.

Greta Thunberg Slams New Zealand’s Unambitious Climate Emergency

Modern Iceland’s Climate Is Colder With More Ice Than Any Other Time In The Last 8000 Years Except The 1800s

Severian does some oversharing.

Fantasies of Competence: I want to say it was reader WOPR (please correct me if I’m wrong) who noted a while back that most 1990s entertainment would be impossible to “reboot” now, simply because so much of it presumes a baseline level of social and especially governmental competence. Take The X- Files, for instance. The “hot take” on the show back then was that it reflected our widespread social unease with an all-powerful government. The truth is out there!

Thirty years on, we can only dream of a government competent enough to cover up contact with extraterrestrials. As someone remarked at Z Man’s the other day, our government is now so retarded, Eric Swalwell — a high-ranking member of the House intelligence committee and putative presidential candidate — couldn’t successfully bone a hooker. Sorry, gang, the aliens won’t be stopping by; they only want to make contact with intelligent life.

I remember watching tons of secret-agent movies in which the CIA had all sorts of cutting-edge tech gear and rolling my eyes because I knew from six years of military service that government gear is always about twenty years behind what you can buy on the open market.

ZMan casts an eye backward.

Move backward through popular politics in America and you see one holy crusade after another driving the political debate. Today it is driven by Covidians. Before that it was driven by white liberals thinking Obama was Jesus. Before that it was driven by the war on terrorism. When the Baby Boomers had kids in school the crusade was to fix the schools so everyone could be educated. Go back further and we had a war on drugs and, of course, the great crusade against the evils of communism.

American history has been one crusade after another. The great battle between good whites and bad whites exists because it fills that need for a purpose. In the albescence of some external foe, the good whites keep their crusading skills sharp by going to war with the bad whites over some moral cause. This not only gives purpose to their lives, but it also reinforces those shared beliefs about who they are and why they exist. The reaction from the bad whites serves much the same purpose.

Steven Hayward at PowerLine.

I’m really thinking I should rename this series “Biden Agonistes,” because no sooner do the progressive identitarians take down Mary Nichols to be head of the EPA than Black Lives Matter comes along and oppose Mayor Pete to be Secretary of Transportation.

Read it.

“He was a little bit unusual because he kept many of his promises,” the cardinal continued. “He brought some of the troops home, he didn’t enter into any wars, the economy kept rolling along.”

You’re Paying for This! PBS’s Amanpour SLIMES U.S. as ‘AWOL’ on Climate Deal

Sea-Surface Temperatures: Hadley Centre v. NOAA

Read it.

The incoming First Lady has been noted for years for her penchant for wanting to be called “Dr. Biden” outside the professional context. She has an Ed.D., a doctorate of Education, from the University of Delaware, which she earned in 2007. As the Vice President’s wife (I refuse to use the term “Second Lady”), she went by “Dr. Biden” all the time, and the White House press releases used this as well. But her predecessor, Lynne Cheney, went by and was always referred to as “Mrs. Cheney,” although she earned a Ph.D. in English.

This difference was occasionally remarked upon over the years, but there was nothing like the uproar after the Wall Street Journal published an op-ed by Joseph Epstein in which he called on Mrs. Biden to drop the “Dr.” as she takes on the role of First Lady. In response, there were howls from academics, many of whom added “Dr.” before their Twitter names in solidarity.

The only people who insist on being called ‘Doctor’ are people who don’t deserve the respect they are trying to grab.

Read it.

Cue outrage from the woke. Hope they have an unlisted phone number.

ZMan looks at Brexit.

It is hard to believe, but the British government is now into the fifth year of negotiations with the EU over withdrawing from the union. The Brexit referendum passed in June of 2016 and since then there have been two new Prime Ministers and one national election, all driven by the issue. Of course, there have been lots of promises to get the deal done, but it has been one delay after another. They have just announced another delay in order to keep negotiating a deal that will never come.

To provide some perspective on all of this, consider the Peace of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years War. The war was one of the most devastating and complex events in European history. After all sides were exhausted from war, a conference was arranged for the belligerents to hash out their differences. A total of 109 delegations arrived and it took two years. In other words, one of the most complex treaties in history took less time that these Brexit negotiations.

The Other McCain notices what the Corporate Media doesn’t admit.

If you’re smart enough to understand all the statistical stuff in this lengthy report, perhaps you can explain it in the comments. Quickly skimming it, I understood that what they are saying is that, compared to expected results — based on previous elections, voter demographics, etc. — the reported results are significantly anomalous in five states that Joe Biden allegedly won. “[T]he model’s predictions match the reported results in all other states, i.e. states where no fraud has been alleged, but predicts Trump won majorities in five disputed states (AZ, GA, NV, PA and WI) and 49.68% of the vote in the sixth (MI).”

Steven Hayward at PowerLine.

Some day I believe honest historians (both of them) will conclude that Trump’s administration was the most consequential and effective one-term presidency in American history, whose legacy will last for a long time. The best comparison would be Lincoln, who never got to serve his second term. Most one-term incumbents who are defeated lose because they have been abject failures, which Trump most assuredly wasn’t (which is why, unlike all past defeated incumbents who lost votes, Trump got 10 million more than his initial election).

Trump may or may not purposely dominate the political scene in the background as Teddy Roosevelt did from 1909 – 1912 and then run again in 2024, but I argue that Trumpism will dominate the scene for a long time to come, and that any successful GOP presidential nominee will need to be a Trumpist. I go further, in fact, and believe the shuffling of the issue map and the realignment of voting coalitions are as substantial as FDR and the New Deal—and it took FDR four terms to effect that change.

NIMBY’s are making more noise than wind turbines

All the Stuff Humans Make Now Outweighs Earth’s Organisms  (Wired ‘Science’)

Claim: Arctic Ocean–climate change is flooding the remote north with light – and new species

Climate Activist Aussie Politicians Leap to Rescue Vital Coal Power Plants

Read it.

With the COVID-19 pandemic, protests, riots and then the most rabid anti-gun platform ever introduced being pushed by the Democratic party, it’s no wonder that people have increased their demand for guns and ammunition. When a candidate for national office—even a poorly performing one—utters, “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15,” what did you think was going to happen?

This is not even attributable to supply-chain problems, with the exception of the Remington ammunition plant in Arkansas. That plant was sidelined by the sale of the company by an Alabama bankruptcy court. Talk about a series of unfortunate events. One of the largest plants in the country couldn’t make ammo at full capacity because of the financial problems of its parent company. The good news is that Vista Outdoor picked up that facility, and the Vista team is very good indeed at making ammunition. I am told after the first of the year, ammunition will be flowing out of that plant, and many of its workers will be rehired.

We have been through conditions similar to this before, but nothing like this. It’s to the point that waterfowlers looking for ammo are having a hard time because people looking for defensive loads have decided that steel BBs are better than nothing.

Zman explains it all to you.

Dissidents tend to think of politics as the driver of social change. Elections have consequences, as the winners get to shape public policy, which guides the cultural evolution of society. There is some truth to it, but in reality, politics, as in elections and campaigns, are the product of social change. The real action is upstream where attitudes are formed and morality is structured. Convince people that something is morally wrong and this belief will turn up at the ballot box.

This is why the ruling class maintains a death grip on mass media. This is their primary vehicle for shaping public attitudes. Convince 70% of the public that wearing a rag over their face is a good idea and suddenly they are open to a wide range of claims by the politicians in the next election. They will support the side pushing for more restrictions and mandatory vaccines. It is the art of the nudge, which is the primary weapon in a modern liberal democracy. It’s rule by suggestion.

Read it.

“Don’t ask for advice on your coronary artery disease, because she’s not actually a physician, she’s a doctor of education which means basically nothing,” Carlson said during a Monday night “Tucker Carlson Tonight” segment after playing a clip of “The View” co-host Whoopi Goldberg in March calling for Mrs. Biden to become Surgeon General before realizing she wasn’t a medical doctor.

King Tide on San Francisco Embarcadero Illustrates Climate Change Risk

CNN’s Tapper Declares World Needs Biden to Push Climate Agenda

UN Climate Ambition Summit Falls Flat

The moon controls the release of methane in Arctic Ocean  I’ll bet you didn’t know that.

Stealth Green New Deal language being slipped into take-it-or-leave-it House spending package

Read it.

This reality has been forgotten: the price that can be fetched for a barrel of oil depends on the demand for all the products, not just a few of the products.

Those demanding an all-electric auto-truck fleet as a “green” alternative will re-create the dilemma of what to do with the “waste” gasoline. The world will still want fuel for all those container ships bringing all the goodies of a consumerist society, all those cruise ships visiting ports of call, jet fuel for all those exotic vacations enabled by 550 mile-per-hour aircraft, and oil-based lubricants, plastics and petro-chemicals, and so oil will still be pumped and refined, and almost half of it will be gasoline.

Read it.

There is no longer a Southern gentry with values and lifestyles and dialect that are distinct from those of the old Northeastern patrician elite. The former regional oligarchies have fused into a single homogeneous national overclass, mostly hereditary but partly meritocratic. Its geographically mobile, careerist members attend the same selective private and public universities, speak the same homogenized non-regional elite dialect, read the same newspapers and ‘zines, watch the same TV shows and movies, follow the same fashions and have the same diets.

There are no red and blue states. The most accurate maps of voting are county maps, not state maps. And the county maps show that the major partisan division, in every region of the U.S., is between urban cores and everywhere else. Outside of densely populated metro areas, California is red. Most metro areas in Texas are blue. Because cities and counties are mere creations of state governments, the moment that politicians representing a slight majority of statewide voters capture power in state government they can use that power to overrule local governments everywhere in the state. This means that, once a majority of voters in a few large metropolitan areas capture a state legislature and governor’s office, there may be no way for their exurban and small-town rivals to fight back.

Did Climate Change Cause World Heritage Listed Fraser Island to Burn?

Where is the Outrage Over Climate and Energy Policy?

Climate change: Have countries kept their promises?

If you Thought Climate Grief was Strange, Meet the Climate Grief Therapists  This sounds like the sort of profitable scam I’d like to get in on.

Read it. 

Who doesn’t know that?

Read it.

On Fox & Friends Saturday, the show devoted a segment to the liberal media ignoring Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden’s, questionable business dealings that are currently under federal investigation.

After a succession of clips of various media personalities from October denying that there was a Biden scandal, New York Post columnist Sohrab Ahmari was allowed on as a guest to call out the fact that liberal journalists ignored his reporting and instead covered for their preferred presidential candidate.

Read it.

Some authors append “Ph.D.” to their name in their tagline and sometimes even in their byline. Editors routinely delete it. Likewise with “Dr. Jones” in running text. It’s Ms. Jones, if the publication is old school. If not, Firstname Jones on first mention and just Jones after that. Granted, some publications are generous with the honorific “Dr.” and “Professor.” They’re not the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times.

Some people think that calling someone who has a doctorate “Doctor” is gauche. Others think that not to call the person “Doctor” is disrespectful. I’m with the former group. I always felt that “Dr. Kissinger,” for example, was somewhat cringey. How often have you read or heard “Dr. Daniel Patrick Moynihan”? Once, just now?

That, more or less, was Joseph Epstein’s argument in this opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal. Or so I thought. To judge from the tsunami of reaction against it, most people disagree with his position.

Read it.

There are many companies that bring us knife steel, from steel manufacturers to a whole array of suppliers to individual custom knife makers. So I have written a bit about how the supply chain works and some information on individual steel suppliers.

Do you know the difference  between 440A stainless and 440C stainless?

Read it.

The pandemic hasn’t just brought with it economic turmoil; it has also highlighted a trend of people fleeing U.S. cities in favor of the suburbs. The exodus has been helped along by liberal politicians embracing a “defund the police” message in the cities where policing is needed the most – like Chicago, which we have documented – making the decision to leave cities much easier for many people.

But surprisingly, the wheels were already in motion for this trend prior to the pandemic, a new report from Bloomberg notes.

500 Years of Global SST Variations from a 1D Forcing-Feedback Model

Finding: Mass Extinctions of Land-Dwelling Animals Occur in 27-Million-Year Cycle

Canada’s Trudeau Promises $170 / Ton Carbon Tax by 2030

‘Uighur Alarms’ Just The Latest In Long List Of China’s Worst Human Rights Abuses

Read it.

My current favorite conspiracy theory is that, now that it appears Biden will actually be inaugurated, the Swamp will use Hunter’s messes to get rid of him and install Jambalaya as President.

UPDATE: The Media’s Hidin’ of Hunter Biden: Self Sabotage or Cover-Up?

Australia Not Invited to a Big International Climate Summit

MSNBC’s Ali Velshi Channels UN’s ‘Apocalyptic Climate Report’ of ‘Horrifying Records’

NPR Reverts to State-Run Radio with Socialist Softballs for Climate Czar John Kerry

Claim: The greening of the earth is approaching its limit

Electric vehicle shock treatment

Read it.

(Otherwise known as ‘California on the Colorado.)

Time to leave.

UPDATE: Oracle Moves To Texas As Silicon Valley Exodus Accelerates

UPDATE: Oracle will move headquarters to Texas from California

Read it.

A host of Democratic politicians said the execution of a man convicted of burning two youth ministers in 1999 was an injustice in Friday social media posts.

Brandon Bernard, 40, was killed by lethal injection following a two-decade old conviction lighting a vehicle on fire after an accomplice robbed, shot and dumped two youth ministers in the trunk in 1999, according to CBS News. Bernard, who became the ninth federal inmate to be executed in 2020, was the subject of pleas to commute his sentence from numerous celebrities and advocates, CBS reported.

Sounds like justice to me.

Read it.

In the world of Democrat politics, there are no coincidences. With that principle in mind, it’s possible to understand why Democrat media outlets are suddenly reporting about Hunter Biden’s corruption, a story that spills over onto his father. The first is to get ahead of potential breaking news about Hunter’s imminent arrest. The second theory is the one Monica Showalter advanced: The leftists used Biden to attain the White House (or so they believe) and are now ready to get rid of him. Having a criminal son may be just what the Obama/Harris camp needs to make that happen. And if there’s any doubt about this theory, an article in The New York Times seems to lay it to rest.

I love the smell of conspiracy in the morning.