Global-Warming Update

Environmentalism & Animal Rights, Pseudoscience

For the second time in fewer than four weeks, the Pacific Northwest has experienced a severe storm, with temperatures plummeting well below the freezing point. This time, the region was buried beneath 13 inches of snow, in some places. It even snowed on the Oregon coast —a first, if I am to believe the reports.

As for the rest of the country, MSNBC’s headline blared: “Freezing weather grips nation’s midsection … The storm was expected to continue through the weekend, laying down a coat of ice and snow from Texas to Illinois, where an ice storm warning was in effect through Monday morning.”

CNN reports that “frigid arctic air reached as far south as southern and central California.” And, “More rain, freezing rain and snow was expected from northwest Oklahoma all the way to Wisconsin on Sunday.”

So far, we’ve not experienced power outages, the kind that enveloped Oregon and Washington States in December 2006. Those plunged us into primitive conditions never before experienced by this writer, who’s lived in Israel, South-Africa, and Europe. (However, I am told that since democracy arrived in SA, and jobs were taken from some —the qualified —and given to others —the politically qualified —14-hour rolling blackouts are a permanent feature of beautiful Cape-Town.)

The power companies now confirm what I had theorized well before the audit was in: 90% of the damage to power lines and grid was caused by trees. This is a tree hugging region. People won’t hear of cutting them away from the source of electricity. Not even if a few lives are sacrificed. We have to keep the Goddess Gaia happy, you know!

During the outage last month, I listened with disbelief as radio hosts fielded calls from women who told of leaving their unheated homes to go to local shelters to get warm. Is that reason enough to go lounge about with strangers and use public showers and toilets? Shelters are for those at risk, the homeless come to mind, not those who couldn’t be bothered to pull on a pullover. What’s wrong with a few layers of clothing? We managed okay in temperatures of 45 degrees in the house, although I’m happy to report that I now own a generator. Self-sufficiency cannot be overemphasized since civilization’s enemies, the Reds, seized control.

Other idiotic calls treated with great sympathy by radio hosts were requests from dog owners for “generous” strangers to “rescue” their mutts from dark, cold homes (the owners had already fled to the shelters). “My dog is going to freeze in the house,” one moron moaned. If a dog freezes indoors he should be put down. But let me steer clear from further comment about this dog-deranged society. Some people even kiss the creatures on their filthy traps.

Given the Big Freeze enveloping the country, comments about global warming are nowhere to be found. But, as I keep repeating, the “watermelons” —green on the outside, red on the inside —will invariably tell you that “every permutation in weather patterns —warm or cold —is a consequence of that warming or proof of it.”

And those of you who read this space will reply a la Mercer (channeling Karl Popper): “Yours is a theory not refutable by any conceivable event, which is why global warming is junk science.”

'Oprah's Excellent Elitism'

South-Africa, The Zeitgeist

“Oprah can protest all she wants, but, like Jefferson, her actions bespeak a belief in ‘a natural aristocracy among men,’ which Jefferson considered ‘the most precious gift of nature.’ In an 1813 letter to John Adams, he described this natural aristocracy as distinguished by ‘virtue and talents,’ and disavowed ‘an artificial aristocracy … without either virtue or talents.’ Jefferson would have thus approved of the way Oprah separated the wheat from the chaff for her school, selecting each girl for her grades and grit. The 152 girls were chosen for qualities rare everywhere (and certainly among American school kids).”

The excerpt is from “Oprah’s Excellent Elitism,” my new WND column, which also leads the Commentary Page today.

Some bonus material that didn’t make its way into the column:

Rapper Jay-Z, who recently acquainted himself with conditions in Africa, said he would no longer be referring to the relatively poor neighborhood in which he grew up as the “hood.” “Struck by the sight of children playing near open sewers in an African slum,” he said, “this is the hood.”

In other words, Jay-Z thinks African-Americans have no idea what the “hood” really is.

‘Oprah’s Excellent Elitism’

South-Africa, The Zeitgeist

“Oprah can protest all she wants, but, like Jefferson, her actions bespeak a belief in ‘a natural aristocracy among men,’ which Jefferson considered ‘the most precious gift of nature.’ In an 1813 letter to John Adams, he described this natural aristocracy as distinguished by ‘virtue and talents,’ and disavowed ‘an artificial aristocracy … without either virtue or talents.’ Jefferson would have thus approved of the way Oprah separated the wheat from the chaff for her school, selecting each girl for her grades and grit. The 152 girls were chosen for qualities rare everywhere (and certainly among American school kids).”

The excerpt is from “Oprah’s Excellent Elitism,” my new WND column, which also leads the Commentary Page today.

Some bonus material that didn’t make its way into the column:

Rapper Jay-Z, who recently acquainted himself with conditions in Africa, said he would no longer be referring to the relatively poor neighborhood in which he grew up as the “hood.” “Struck by the sight of children playing near open sewers in an African slum,” he said, “this is the hood.”

In other words, Jay-Z thinks African-Americans have no idea what the “hood” really is.

Bush Babbles About Government Job Creation

Bush, Economy, Government

From last Night:

The Iraqi government will spend $10 billion of its own money on reconstruction and infrastructure projects that will create new jobs.

Question: The Iraqi government has its own money? $10 billion of it?

In any event, government job creation schemes are predicated on government taxing, borrowing or inflating the money supply. Such programs are politically popular because they are visible. However, for every job “created” by government, an unidentifiable job will, tit-for-tat, be destroyed in the private sector.

Fox News, keen to hype this good-news story, may broadcast images of earnest Iraqi men and women put to work by Nuri Kamal al-Maliki (read the American taxpayer). Invisible will be those thrown out of work because private economic activity has been crowded out by taxing or borrowing to finance these job programs. Government borrowing (and Iraq is all about borrowing: American borrowing) serves to reduce capital available to the private sector (Iraqi, American—your choice, whoever you believe is really funding this latest scheme). A further diminution of assets occurs when government expands the money supply and causes inflation in order to finance job creation schemes.

Creating good, long-lasting employment lies in producing goods or services for which there is a legitimate consumer demand. A rise in consumer demand for a product, reflected in relative higher prices, galvanizes business to hire more workers and produce more of the commodity. Hence jobs in the private sector are real jobs because they are sustained by consumer preferences. Unsustainable government make-work schemes merely usurp the wishes and needs of consumers, and substitute them with the fancies of bureaucrats, who, in turn, are beholden to their political masters.

Sustainable jobs in Iraq will be created by the private sector. For that, ordinary Iraqis require peace and the rule of law. These preconditions are unlikely in the chaos of a civil war, created by Bush’s adventure in the region.

Bush remains oblivious to an immutable principle, once understood by conservatives: Top-down central planning—economic or political—is doomed to fail.