Read it.

Rich and famous used to flock to beautiful beaches, Malibu, Hollywood, and Los Angeles. Now, they are getting out, citing homelessness, overcrowding, violence, drug abuse, safety, and untenable politics.

Among the next might be Tesla and SpaceX billionaire Elon Musk, who has already announced a $1 billion Tesla factory in Texas and sold his four-home compound in Bel Air for $62 million.

Read it.

Tech industry millionaires are moving the Democratic Party to the left on almost every issue except government regulation. Unions beware.

Read it.

The Chicago police arrested 43 people who participated in the looting spree along the city’s Mag Mile earlier this week. Who were these looters?

According to the Chicago Tribune, they were “an odd mix of peer-pressured college students, out-of-work parents, and convicted felons.” It would be interesting to know how much time the convicted felons had served, and for what crimes. Their looting could be another product of America’s under-incarceration problem.

Ostensibly, the looting was a response to a police shooting in the Englewood neighborhood. Yet, according to the Tribune, none of arrested looters was from Englewood.

In fact, no one who made a statement in court upon being arraigned even mentioned the incident. Not only was the police shooting a pretext for the looting, it was so far from the looters’ consciousness that they forgot to mention it.

The prevailing motive of this “odd mix” wasn’t “police brutality,” it was the desire to snatch free stuff and, at least some cases, to smash things. In other words, envy and resentment, not “social justice.”

Reliance on Wind and Solar Will Lead to Blackouts

Trump EPA Rescinds Burdensome Obama Climate Change Methane Leak Regulations

Greenland Ice Sheet has melted to the point of no return  Women and minorities no doubt hardest hit.

Read it.

Everyone knows that rural America has gone deep red. That trend came last to the Upper Midwest, but it has arrived in Minnesota with a vengeance. Minnesota’s 8th Congressional District, home to the state’s mining industry, is heavily unionized and was long a Democratic Party bastion. No longer: the 8th, along with the rest of Greater Minnesota, is now Trump country. It is represented by Republican Pete Stauber, a former police officer and union member, who has been endorsed for re-election by every private sector union. Today it would take a miracle for a Democrat to win that seat.

Read it.

“Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them.

In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.”
– Michael Crichton (1942-2008)

This is why you ought not to believe anything you read in print unless you can somehow verify it.

For examples, listen to Scott Adams.

I’m with Jeremy on this one.

Read it.

The non-scientific mind has the most ridiculous ideas of the precision of laboratory work, and would be much surprised to learn that, excepting electrical measurements, the bulk of it does not exceed the precision of an upholsterer who comes to measure a window for a pair of curtains.

—Charles S. Peirce (1908)

Read it.

Actually, I’m prepared to believe it. Certainly they resemble Romney Republicans.

Aussie Government Asks the UN to Dismiss an Indigenous Climate Case

Trump lifts Obama-era regulations on methane, a potent climate-warming gas

Climate change spelled doom for woolly rhinos 14,000 years ago, study says

Claim: Warming Greenland ice sheet passes point of no return

Angela Eaton, Environmental Urbanist

Read it.

It’s always bizarre when Hollywood decides to produce media versions of well-known Republicans or conservatives. These are people they can’t possibly relate to. But that doesn’t prevent liberals from continuing to make movies or television programs that showcase evil Republicans.

The latest example of this concept is an upcoming film tentatively entitled College Republicans, a “fact-inspired” movie about young versions of such “political titans” as Lee Atwater and Karl Rove as they were decades ago, when America witnessed the “dirtiest election in its history.”

ZMan’s weekly podcast.

I read a study once that claimed that people who enjoyed the suffering of their enemies were healthier and happier. Things like schadenfreude and revenge fantasies are not only normal, but part of a healthy lifestyle. Seeing bad people suffer, even slightly, reinforces our sense of justice, which in turns gives us confidence that the world does operate by a fixed set of rules. The suffering of the wicked confirms those ordinary modes of thoughtJohn Derbyshire described.

Fishing around for material this week, I stumbled upon some stories that brought a smile, because they featured the unhappiness of bad people. Naturally, I thought a whole show on the suffering of the wicked was a good idea. It is easy to succumb to self-pity and despair, so it is important to look at the bright side of life on occasion in order to avoid those temptations. Given what faces us this fall, there will be plenty of time for weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Read it.

The village of Sileby, in Leicestershire, began the small market in the parking lot of The Free Trade Inn earlier this summer. Every Tuesday stalls would be set up so that local businesses could sell foods and flowers. However, they have now been ordered to stop by Charnwood Borough Council, which represents the nearby town of Loughborough.

The council states that the pop-up market breaches a Royal Charter signed by King Henry III in 1227, which gave Loughborough the right to hold a market two days a week. Furthermore, the charter prohibits any other market ‘within six and two-thirds miles’ of this town. Sileby lies just within that boundary.

Only in Britain….

Audacious Epigone runs the numbers.

The inverse correlation between favoring stricter gun laws and Donald Trump’s share of the 2016 presidential vote is a remarkable .95. That is a staggeringly strong relationship for the social sciences. Indeed, it is effectively a perfect correlation after sampling noise is accounted for. More than abortion, immigration, taxation, race relations, war, or any other cultural or political issue, a person’s approach to gun rights is a better predictor of how he’ll vote than anything else is.

Steve Sailer.

Tiny is a 6’6? Samoan.

But obviously a White Samoan. (Although I have to say, just from his picture, that he’s less White than Jambalaya Harris….)

Kamala Harris’ Record: Lawfare Against Climate Skeptics, “A Level of Indifference” to the Violation of Constitutional Rights

Baghdad heat is world’s climate change future  Washington Post.

Air pollution is much worse than we thought. Climate change is far from the only problem with fossil fuels.  Vox. Women and minorities hardest hit.

McIntyre on Kaufman et al 2020

More Solar Cyclomania

Read it.

Steven Donziger, the attorney with connections to the Obama and Cuomo administrations who was at the center of a massive effort to extort billions of dollars out of Chevron, has been disbarred for “corruption of a court expert and ghostwriting his report, obstruction of justice, witness tampering, and judicial coercion and bribery.”

Read it.

America has witnessed months of civil unrest in cities around America following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Many of the protesters decry income and net worth “inequality.”

But the most serious “inequality” is the unequal percentage of fathers in black households, a phenomenon that has been encouraged by government policies that normalize and reward out-of-wedlock births.

In 1965, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who was assistant secretary of labor to President Lyndon B. Johnson, published “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action.” At that time, 25% of blacks were born outside of wedlock, a number that this former adviser to President John F. Kennedy, future adviser to President Richard Nixon, future U.S. ambassador, and future Democratic senator from New York, said was catastrophic to the black community.

Moynihan wrote: “A community that allows a large number of young men to grow up in broken homes, dominated by women, never acquiring any stable relationship to male authority, never acquiring any rational expectations about the future—that community asks for and gets chaos. Crime, violence, unrest, unrestrained lashing out at the whole social structure—that is not only to be expected, it is very near to inevitable.”

Bethany Mandel.

On social media these days I’ve noticed a funny phenomenon: People will post pictures and videos and make claims that we know on their face are bonkers. Like “we’re enjoying this socially distanced hangout!” and the folks in the picture are inches from each other.

…

But here’s what’s annoying about these bald-faced lies: They always come from folks who spend all of their free time shaming everyone under the sun for the same kind of behavior.

Like the poor, the hypocrites we have always with us.

ZMan looks down the road.

For most people who plan to vote in the upcoming election, the choice is clear and they don’t have to think about it very much. They know their guy is the right choice and the other guy represents the end of the world as we know it. There is nothing anyone could say to them to change their mind. In fact, the number of persuadable people probably rounds to zero. The issue in this election, like most elections, is which side is able to get their partisans to vote, either in person or by mail.

Or by fraud (*cough* Democrats *cough).

Read it.

And the trickle becomes, if not a flood, at least a gush.

The news of Icahn’s relocation comes as New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has pleaded with wealthy New Yorkers to return to New York City following their exodus during the outbreak of the novel coronavirus.

“A single percent of New York’s population pays half of the state’s taxes,” Cuomo said, “and they’re the most mobile people on the globe.”

Heh.

The world’s growing concrete coasts

The Climate Left Attacks Nobel Laureate William D. Nordhaus

Exact climate data from the past

Insect apocalypse? Not so fast, at least in North America

The Oceans Won’t Suffocate!

Scott Adams has a new theory.

The first puppet is Biden; everybody thinks that Harris is the stronger candidate for President.

The second puppet is Harris; who, in Scott’s phrase, ‘has their hand up her back’.

ZMan looks at the Jambalaya option.

The curious thing about the Biden choice is it does not fit the popular theories for running mate selection. The most popular reason for selecting a running mate is they help in their home state. We know the old Rust Belt states will be where the election is decided, so picking a brown senator from California does not help there. Harris also has a strong hate-whitey vibe to her, which tends not to go over well with the white working-class types in these states.

Then there is the fact that Harris as the charm of a DMV clerk. In fact, she reminds people of every trip to get their license renewed. She is sour and unpleasant, even when she is professional and efficient. There is a reason she could not draw flies during the primaries. She was so obnoxious in the debates she was forced to drop out before the Iowa caucus. If it were possible for people to cast negative votes, she would have been the first to poll less than zero percent.

Read it.

I’ve been tempted to tweak my liberal friends with the mischievous thought that COVID-19 is actually a Trump five-dimensional chess plot to destroy universities, unionized K-12 public education, and Hollywood (since TV and movie production is largely shut down too).

Colleges and universities were already facing mounting financial pressure because enrollment is steadily declining and certain to get much worse in the coming decade (the result of falling birthrates back at the time of the housing crash in 2008-09). Add to this the financial hit they are taking right now because of the virus, on top of the huge loss this year of foreign students who typically pay full tuition rates and subsidize other students, and a large number of colleges and universities face a serious risk of insolvency. (There are many colleges for whom a large foreign student enrollment—especially Chinese students—is a key part of their business model.) This week it is reported that 20 percent of Harvard freshmen are deferring a year; at other colleges, the rate of students saying they aren’t returning runs as high as 40 percent. At places further down the food chain than Harvard, how many students will decide not to go to college at all a year from now?

Victor Davis Hanson.

Nine months ago, New York was a thriving, though poorly governed, metropolis. It was coasting on the more or less good governance of its prior two mayors and on its ancestral role as the global nexus of finance and capital.

The city is now something out of a postmodern apocalyptic movie, reeling from the effects of a neutron bomb. Ditto in varying degrees Minneapolis, Portland, Seattle, and San Francisco — the anti-broken-windows metropolises of America. Walking in San Francisco today reminds me of visiting Old Cairo in 1973, although the latter lacked the needles and feces of the former.

Cascading fallacies in climate risk assessment

The dirty secrets of ‘clean’ electric vehicles

Claim: Past evidence supports complete loss of Arctic sea-ice by 2035

WashPost Owner Bezos ‘Quietly’ Starts Company, Offers Clue to $10B Climate Change Push

Environmentalists: Border Wall Water Use Threatening Endangered Species

Chevron Is Trying to Crush a Prominent Climate Lawyer

Read it.

Scott Adams called it six months ago.

The Trump campaign was primed for Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., being named Joe Biden’s running mate, having attacks ready for her as a “phony” and pointing out her challenging Biden in the Democratic primary for segregationist busing support.

“Not long ago, Kamala Harris called Joe Biden a racist and asked for an apology she never received,” Trump campaign senior adviser Katrina Pierson released in a statement. “Clearly, Phony Kamala will abandon her own morals, as well as try to bury her record as a prosecutor, in order to appease the anti-police extremists controlling the Democrat Party.”

Notably, Pierson, an African American woman who promotes the website youaintblack.com, called Harris a “political living will” for Biden, 77, a shot at his age and the possibility Harris might take over the presidency before Biden could finish his term.

Scott Johnson at PowerLine reviews Minnesota.

In Minnesota the media are flogging an alleged increase in new cases and the Sturgis apocalypse to sustain the epidemic of hysteria. See, for example, Jeremy Olson’s Star Tribune story “625 new Minnesota COVID-19 cases contribute to weekend surge.” Subhead: “COVID-19 deaths have not increased amid rise in infections, but health officials worry that this trend could emerge next.” Or skip to the Star Tribune editorial “‘Utter disaster.’ Allowing Sturgis rally to go on puts nation at risk.” Subhead: “Failure of leadership at multiple levels allows event to go on during pandemic.” Coming soon: World to end tomorrow: Women, minorities hardest hit.

While we wait for the end of the world as we know it, we note that deaths attributed by the authorities continue at a low, low level, contrary to their projections and warnings. Yesterday, to take the example closest to hand, we had three new deaths. One decedent was in his 90’s, one in his 80’s, and one in his 60’s.

Read it.

The problem, Gesell believed, was that money served two roles that often came into conflict: It was a way for people to store wealth, and it was the thing everybody needed to conduct business. The fact that money could store wealth meant its holders had a reason to cling to it, especially in crises like the one he saw in Argentina, when opportunities to safely put that money elsewhere looked grim. It was a typical story. When people got scared, they hoarded cash and brought business to a standstill. It led, Gesell said, to a situation of “poverty amid plenty.”

Gesell wanted to create a new kind of money — a money that would “rot like potatoes” and “rust like iron” so no one would want to hoard it, a money that was “an instrument of exchange and nothing else.” And the crazy part is that he did create it. Through a series of pamphlets, articles and books, Gesell inspired a worldwide movement that introduced a completely new form of money. It’s one of the most fascinating, and largely forgotten, stories in economic history.

Read it.

There are several immediate problems with Fauci’s arguments, including the fact that COVID cases are showing clear signs of a summer resurgence in the same European countries that allegedly tamed the virus through harsh lockdowns in the spring. The American news media however has seized on Fauci’s narrative, and used it to call for renewed lockdowns. The New York Times and the Washington Post both editorialized in favor of a second stricter wave of nationwide lockdowns lasting until October – this despite there being no clear evidence that lockdowns actually work at taming the virus.

So how does the evidence behind this narrative stand up under empirical scrutiny? Let’s consider the claims.

ZMan takes a look at the election.

President Trump may be facing one of the most unusual re-election campaigns in the history of the country. Unlike most incumbents, his own party will be working hard to elect his opponent. The fact is, America is a one-party country. The two parties are just the two faces of the same crowd. Both faces hate Trump. The voters for his party, on the other hand, largely get this. Despite their best efforts, the Republican party is the home of populist white people.

The other problem for Trump is he can’t actually campaign. Both parties have conspired to lock most of the country down to the point where it is impossible to hold rallies, meet and greet voters and whip up support in person. The uniparty candidate is a drooling vegetable locked in his basement, so the uniparty is fine with it. The less people see of Dementia Joe the better. Trump on the other hand really needs the social proof that comes from holding rallies and campaign events.

Read it.

I apologize for linking to a site that has white text on a black background. Unfortunately, there are far too many people who can’t be bothered to understand that the purpose of a web site is to be legible rather than just be a monument to Cool and Edgy.

Those of us who use Safari have available a feature called “Use Reader when available’ that convert such masturbatory exercises into actual readable text. I heartily endorse it.

Steve continues in business.

Today two wonderful things happened. I got over the local-pizza-ingredient hump, and I put a new scope on my Thompson Center Venture rifle.

I need to start making my own bread again.

Read it.

And who could blame them?

Read it.

Ilhan Omar’s father was the late Nur Said Elmi. Omar has vehemently denied that Nur Said Elmi was his name because the name reflects the fraternal relationship of Ahmed Nur Said Elmi to her — Ahmed Nur Said Elmi being the younger brother she married for fraudulent purposes in 2009. Even though the marriage had long since served its fraudulent purpose(s), Omar didn’t get around to dissolving the marriage to Elmi until 2017, just in time to marry and divorce the father of her three children before marrying her consultant and fundraiser earlier this year. It’s quite a story for someone who has repeatedly invoked her “faith tradition” as both a shield and a sword.

Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #419

Why climate change is about to make your bad commute worse  Washington Post

Cod and monkfish could disappear from British menus due to climate change, warns study

Polar Bears Defy SCIENCE! by Refusing to Die.

How Climate Alarmism Hijacked Environmentalism

Read it.

Heh.

ZMan is keeping track.

For months now, the more cynical have suggested the lock downs will continue into the fall, as the hysteria has become something of a religion. The facts on the ground are useful to the panic party in so far as they can be used to support the idea that this plague is a curse sent from nature because of Trump. They hope the self-inflicted suffering will purge the lands of orange come November. Word now comes that they plan to cancel college football this week.

There’s no public health reason for cancelling college sports this fall or for keeping the kids of campus, which many colleges are doing. Many colleges will be on-line only this fall, meaning it will be a full year of virtual learning for their students. It was not that long ago when these very same colleges said on-line learning was terrible. Students needed personal interaction with their teachers and fellow students. Like so much that comes from the Left, that was true only while it was useful.

…

There is a general assumption that the Covid stuff comes to an end with either the defeat of Trump in November or one final tantrum in January if he wins. At that point, the practical reality of life will force this charade to come to an end. That’s true, most likely, for this phase of the process. Economic necessity will force the people in charge to relent or civil unrest will force it. Unless this is really a simulation and the base code has been altered, this cannot continue much longer.

Check it out.

The Roman roads diagram project is a series of maps driven by an unconventional idea: what if we represented Ancient Rome’s famed road network in the style of a modern transit map?

Read it.

Look at the cost increases in higher education, healthcare and childcare and ask yourself if the quality of those services have risen in lockstep with price increases.

…

The capital and managerial expertise required to launch and grow a legal enterprise is significant, which is at least partly why a nation of self-employed farmers, shopkeepers, artisans and traders is now a nation of employees of government and large corporations.

False Alarm by Bjorn Lomborg; Apocalypse Never by Michael Shellenberger – review  The Guardian.

Undeniable Truths

Read it.

Well. There it is.

Read it.

Let that be a lesson to us all.