Peggy Noonan returns to her roots.

Here’s a generalization based on a lifetime of experience and observation. The working-class people who are pushing back have had harder lives than those now determining their fate. They haven’t had familial or economic ease. No one sent them to Yale. They often come from considerable family dysfunction. This has left them tougher or harder, you choose the word.

They’re more fatalistic about life because life has taught them to be fatalistic. And they look at these scientists and reporters making their warnings about how tough it’s going to be if we lift shutdowns and they don’t think, “Oh what informed, caring observers.” They think, “You have no idea what tough is. You don’t know what painful is.” And if you don’t know, why should you have so much say?

The overclass says, “Wait three months before we’re safe.” They reply, “There’s no such thing as safe.”

Preach it, sister.

Read it.

One of the disadvantages of generous benefits is that it discourages work. Proglodytes like that because it increases dependence on the government and hence willingness to vote for the Free Stuff Party.

Plastic pollution threatens marine life, humans and ecosystems. Enter FRED, a future vacuum of the ocean.

Climate Change Experts Explain to Insurers They Don’t Understand Risk

“Elon Is An Arrogant Ass”: Green Energy Blog Unloads On Tesla CEO In Stunning Diatribe

UN vs UN: “COVID-19 is disrupting a food industry already thrown into turmoil by climate change”

Climate Scientists Try to Rescue Renewable Energies from ‘Planet of the Humans’

Ocasio-Cortez Hits Critic For Not Reading Green New Deal Bill, Says It ‘Costs $0 If Passed’  And if you believe that one, she’ll tell you another one.

Read it.

… which he undoubtedly is.

Read it.

It’s remarkable how often the Prestige Press manages to find somebody to sanctify who is a real dodgy character. Alternatively, how often do they find somebody who is even an okay guy?

@CNN hits peak stupid, taps @GretaThunberg for #COVID19 panel

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Serve on Joe Biden’s Climate Policy Team

CNN Mocked for Inviting Greta Thunberg to Coronavirus Town Hall

Read it.

Women and minorities hardest hit.

Racism suspected.

Kevin Williamson examines a favored clerisy phrase.

The “Republicans pounce!” cliche is bad enough, but, if you’re going to write a “Republicans pounce!” story, shouldn’t you give one of them the opportunity to, you know, pounce?

Latest Estimates on Sea Level Rise by 2100 Are Worse Than We Thought  Perhaps because nobody is believing existing ‘estimates’.

As sea levels rise, are we ready to live behind giant walls?  Except that there is no actual evidence that sea levels actually are rising, just ‘estimates’.

Read it.

Now that’s comedy.

John C. Wright does an amazing classic piece of literary criticism.

The Planet Is Probably in Worse Shape Than We Can Even Predict  Women and minorities hardest hit.

No climate alarmists, rolling back draconian EPA air standards to reasonable levels won’t make COVID-19 worse.

“Gasland” vs “The Planet of the Humans”… Too fracking funny!

Babylon Bee.

Still, it’s a really good idea….

Jim Goad.

According to a letter from the Waycross, GA District Attorney’s office:

The video made by William Bryan clearly shows the shooting in realtime. From said video it appears Ahmaud Arbery was running along the right side of the McMichael truck then abruptly turns 90 degrees to the left and attacks Travis McMichael who was standing at the front left corner of the truck. A brief skirmish ensues in which it appear [sic] Arbery strikes McMichael and appears to grab the shotgun and pull it from McMichael. The shot is through Arbery’s right hand palm which is consistent with him grabbing and pulling the shotgun at the barrel tip, the 2nd and 3rd wounds are consistent with the struggle for the shotgun as depicted in the video, the angle of the 2nd shot with the rear of the buttstock being pushed away and down from the fight are also consistent with the upward angle of blood plume shown in the video and that McMichael was attempting to push the gun away from Arbery while Arbery was pulling it toward himself.
The 3rd shot too appears to be in a struggle over the gun. The angle of the shots and the video show this was from the beginning or almost immediately became– a fight over the shotgun.

Read it.

The Washington Post’s editors argue that Sullivan should not dismiss the case against Flynn. Their editorial does not address or acknowledge the legal standard for denying the DOJ’s motion. Instead, it argues the merits of the case against Flynn.

The Post does so in a one-sided and less than fully honest way. The title of the editorial (paper edition) is “A blow to impartial justice.” Yet, the Post doesn’t mention the evidence of prosecutorial misconduct, described in detail in the DOJ’s motion, that underlies the Department’s decision. That evidence shows that Flynn did not receive “impartial justice” from the FBI. In my view, the FBI’s misconduct was so egregious and so plainly motivated by political considerations as to justify dismissing this case in the interest of justice.

The Targeting of Willie Soon

Cold Air Rises – How Wrong Are Our Global Climate Models?

Read it.

A few days ago, the House Intelligence Committee finally released transcripts of 53 interviews it conducted in 2017-18 regarding Russian interference in the 2016 election. Though the Committee had voted in November 2018 to release the transcripts after national security reviews for classified information were completed, new chairman Adam Schiff refused to do so until now because he had repeatedly lied to the media and public about what was said in those interviews and releasing the transcripts would show he was lying.

Under pressure from Acting DNI Richard Grenell, who publicly announced release was fine from a national security perspective and threatened to release the transcripts himself, Schiff finally relented.

I’ve now read 19 of the 53 interviews and will write at more length when finished but wanted to pass along some fascinating quotes. And, by the way, it’ll come as no surprise there is absolutely no evidence, direct or indirect, in what I’ve read so far of any collusion between the Trump campaign or Trump personally with the Russians.

Walter Lippmann in 1919.

From our recent experience [WWI and Woodrow Wilson] it is clear that the traditional liberties of speech and opinion rest on no solid foundation. At a time when the world needs above all other things the activity of generous imaginations and the creative leadership of planning and inventive minds, our thinking is shriveled with panic. Time and energy that should go to building and restoring are instead consumed in warding off the pin-pricks of prejudice and fighting a guerilla war against misunderstanding and intolerance. For suppression is felt, not simply by the scattered individuals who are actually suppressed. It reaches back into the steadiest minds, creating tension everywhere; and the tension of fear produces sterility. Men cease to say what they think; and when they cease to say it, they soon cease to think it. They think in reference to their critics and not in reference to the facts. For when thought becomes socially hazardous, men spend more time wondering about the hazard than they do in developing their thought. Yet nothing is more certain than that mere bold resistance will not permanently liberate men’s minds. The problem is not only greater than that, but different, and the time is ripe for reconsideration. We have learned that many of the hard-won rights of man are utterly insecure. It may be that we cannot make them secure simply by imitating the earlier champions of liberty.

Read it.

Immigration restriction comes to mind. When someone tells me that I hold my positions because of racism, despite my having laid out my actual reasons, then my heart and my mind closes. There is no conversation anymore, there is no compromise, there is only strife. War. Pick your issue — abortion, same-sex marriage, gun control, whatever. When my interlocutor insists that I want to impose racism, control women’s wombs, or see people die, I stop caring what they say because they obviously don’t care what I’m saying. I stop listening to them because they’re obviously not listening to me. When that happens, there is no way we can have any sort of exchange or even come away with a mutually agreeable plan. On the other hand, people can and do change minds when we’re actually talking about the same things and not mischaracterizing others. At least we understand each other and can continue with love and trust.

Exactly so. This, I think, points up the difference between Left and Right. The Right think that the Left are wrong. The Left think that the Right are evil. You can argue with someone you think is wrong, but there is no arguing with evil.

Greenwashing Is Real—Here’s How to Avoid It  Architectural Digest does some virtue-signaling.

Potentially fatal bouts of heat and humidity on the rise, study finds  The Guardian. It’s a study, so it must be right. Science!

An Ancient Type of El Niño Could Awaken Because of Climate Change  It could! It could!

Mexico’s President Is Betting Big AGAINST Renewables

Prediction tool shows how forest thinning may increase Sierra Nevada snowpack

NY Times Whines: GOP Science ‘Denialists’ ‘Seized’ on Wacky Green New Deal

The emergence of heat and humidity too severe for human tolerance

Is Online Grocery Shopping Better for the Planet?  Wired ‘Science’ (Only if you don’t use Amazon because Jeff Bezos is a child of Satan or Trump, whichever is worse)

9 of the World’s Most Unique Eco-Friendly Buildings

Hundreds of non-recyclable fiberglass wind turbine blades are pictured piling up in landfill

Green hydrogen’s time has come, say advocates eying post-pandemic world

“Predictive models” rarely are predictive  They just pretend to be.

Shocker: Thick ice in Hudson Bay portends a good year for Polar Bears

Read it.

My, what a surprise. Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

Read it.

Over the last few weeks, we have been keeping a close eye on the growing glut of automobile inventory, exacerbated by demand falling off a cliff, plunging used car prices and rental car companies suffering from an unprecedented collapse in business (or, like Hertz, simply going bankrupt). To wit, just hours ago, we documented how declining fleet sales was having a profoundly negative impact on automakers. Previously, we pointed out how a crash in used car prices could be putting significant pressure on the rental car industry. And most notably, several days ago we also wrote that automakers were having so much trouble finding space for their unsellable inventory that ships bearing auto cargo from overseas were denied entry at US ports and sent back out into the ocean.

Victor Davis Hanson.

Science without humility is a parlor game that can turn lethal.

Read it.

Just in case you were wondering. I know I was.

With thanks to Debby Witt, a kindred soul.

Tithing.

Sing along.

Read it.

The New York Times’ 1619 Project has been hammered so effectively by scholars that to keep attacking it may seem like piling on. However, the Times has just been awarded a Pulitzer Prize for its drive-by attack on America. Thus, I think another wave of criticism is justified.

The Pulitzer, like the Nobel Prize, has degenerated into just another pat on the back that one set of Crustian proglodytes give to another of the same class.

Read it.

Moral: Don’t try to tell your riders what to do unless it’s related to the performance of the bus.

The Lamestream Media delight in these stories, which they think display poor behavior on the part of ordinary citizens. What they actually display is the sort of petty tyranny in which bottom-tier government employees often indulge themselves when they conceive themselves to be in a position of authority, however shallow or temporary. Americans are happy to suck it up and cooperate in the face of an actual emergency; what they aren’t good at is allowing themselves to be hectored by functionaries who are just being bossy for the sake of being bossy.

Read it.

I’ll bet you didn’t know that there were 15 flavors of Spam.

I certainly didn’t.

Cold Air Rises – How Wrong Are Our Global Climate Models?

Not Only Does New Solar Chimney Design Cut Energy Costs By 50%, It Can Also Save Lives During a Fire

Read it.

There are examples of systems with incredible organizational complexity in nature. Birds in flocks, fishes in schools, ants in swarms all seem to just chug away, each doing their little part, and yet together they produce these incredibly complex systems we marvel about.

They scale really well too. There are some ant super-colonies that have billions of members, like for example the super-colony in Southern Europe, which stretches for 6000km.

And some are extremely sophisticated. Like leaf-cutter ants, who are practicing agriculture and antibiotics for more than 50 million years now, long before humans figured it out. The silly little things purposefully grow fungus! Not an easy task, as you may know if you ever tried to get your own sourdough starter.

The answer to all the morons who think that the economy needs some sort of central planning.

Read it.

New guidelines issued by the Department of Defense would ‘permanently disqualify’ anyone who previously had COVID-19 from joining the military, according to a new memo first reported by Military Times and confirmed as authentic by McClatchy’s Tara Copp.

All those nursing home patients will be devastated to lose their chance to be an Airborne Ranger.

Read it.

Lloyd Blankfein clearly doesn’t realize how toxic his name truly is. For example, the mere fact that the ‘evil billionaire former CEO of the ‘Vampire Squid’ Goldman Sachs’ believes reopening the economy before too long might be prudent can be used as ammunition by the rose-emoji crowd to bash reopening.

Remember, identity politics logic focuses not on the merits of the argument being made, but on the merits of the individual making the argument.

I’m quite happy to listen to what any billionaire has to say, not that I’ll necessarily believe it.

With thanks to Bluebird of Bitterness, who is invariably funnier than I am.

Study: Global warming to place billions in “near-unliveable” heat

Is There Enough Wood in the World to Meet the Sustainability Demand?

New satellite maps show dire state of ice melt in Antarctica and Greenland  Still waiting for New York to be under water — they keep promising and promising, but it never happens.

New Paper: Body condition of Barents Sea polar bears increased since 2004 despite sea ice loss

Read it.

Asked to name any of his favorite tomes on China, Trump reportedly listed the following 20 books right off the top of his head.

1. “The Party” by Richard McGregor
2. “On China” by Henry Kissinger
3. “Mao: The Untold Story” by Jung Chang
4. “Tide Players” by Jianying Zha
5. “One Billion Customers” by James McGregor
6. “The Coming China Wars” by Peter W. Navarro
7. “The Beijing Consensus” by Stefan Halper
8. “China CEO” by Juan Antonio Fernandez and Laurie Underwood
9. “Poorly Made in China” by Paul Midler
10. “CHINA: Portrait of a People” by Tom Carter
11. “The Man Who Loved China” by Simon Winchester
12. “China Shakes the World” by James Kynge
13. “Mr. China” by Tim Clissold
14. “Country Driving” by Peter Hessler
15. “The Dragon’s Gift” by Deborah Brautigam
16. “Factory Girls” by Leslie T. Chang
17. “The Heavenly Man” by Brother Yun
18. “1421” by Gavin Menzies
19. “Seven Years in Tibet” by Heinrich Harrer
20. “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother” by Amy Chua

And not a comic book in the lot. Has the press been lying to us all this time?

Anything with Bogart or Cary Grant in it.

Read it.

Talking out of turn. Destroying classroom materials. Disrespecting teachers. Blurting out answers during tests. Students pushing, kicking, hitting one another and even rolling on the ground. This is what happens in my school every single day.

You may think I’m joking, but I swear I’m not…during my three years of middle school, these sorts of disruptions occurred repeatedly in any given 42-minute class period.

That’s why I’m in favor of the distance learning the New York City school system instituted when the coronavirus pandemic hit.

Apparently online education is a way around many of the behavioral problems that make modern public schools crap.

Climate Claim: By 2070 Average Temperatures be “Unsuitable for Human Life to Flourish”

White House’s Montana Oil and Gas Leases Blocked by Federal Court

California Promotes Architectural Innovation Through Mass Timber Competition

A Timber-Based Building Method Draws Praise, and Skeptics

Global warming to push billions outside climate range that has sustained society for 6,000 years, study finds  Washington Post.

Unsuitable for ‘human life to flourish’: Up to 3B will live in extreme heat by 2070, study warns  USA Today.

First results from NASA’s ICESat-2 mission map 16 years of melting ice sheets

One billion people will live in insufferable heat within 50 years – study  The Guardian.

Climate goalpost migration: if you can’t prove more hurricanes, say it’s making them relocate

Michael vs Michael: Mann attacks Moore as Russian Stooge.

WashPost Gets Pulitzer for Series on — Wait for It — Climate Change

Read it.

Have you ever noticed that when a news article talks about college students, they always use a picture from Yale?  This particular spot is the plaza over Cross Campus Library (which is underground) looking east toward part of Berkeley College, with the steps up to York Street and Sterling Memorial Library off-stage to the left.

DUH!

The Antiplanner points out some inconvenient truth.

A growing body of research shows that mass transit is the major reason why the coronavirus has been so deadly in New York City. The New York urban area (roughly New York City plus Nassau, Suffolk, and Westchester counties in New York plus Bergen, Essex, Hudson, Middlesex, Monmouth, and Union counties in New Jersey) provides 45 percent of all transit trips in the United States and, not coincidentally, has seen about 45 percent of COVID-19 deaths in the United States.