Greenland

Patrick Michaels deflates our Senators on Greenland:

On page 820 of [the IPCC]’s spanking-new compendium on climate change, it projects that the melting of Greenland will cause a rise in sea levels of between half an inch and 4.5 inches by 2100. If there were any acceleration of ice loss under a Gore-like scenario, the IPCC says there could be an additional sea-level rise of 8 inches.

I would also add that if these senators really believed in catastrophic global warming, they would not be burning up tons of fossil fuels on a damn junket.

This is the problem with the global warming supporters — their stampede to embrace disaster scenarios. Christ, isn’t a potential 8 inch rise in sea levels enough? Why do they always have to get so hysterical?

No Genius Allowed Ahead

Via Boortz, a stunning article about how our “make sure all the dumb kids pass” school system is failing to cultivate genius.

Odd though it seems for a law written and enacted during a Republican Administration, the social impulse behind No Child Left Behind is radically egalitarian. It has forced schools to deeply subsidize the education of the least gifted, and gifted programs have suffered. The year after the President signed the law in 2002, Illinois cut $16 million from gifted education; Michigan cut funding from $5 million to $500,000. Federal spending declined from $11.3 million in 2002 to $7.6 million this year.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: if I were a liberal, i’d love this President. He’s given them everything they want while thoroughly discrediting conservatism.

Cuber

Barrack Obama wants to lift sanction on Cuba?. Turns out not so much. He just want to lets Cubans visit their families.

I hate the Cuba embargo. We’ve had it in place for 40+ years and it has done absolutely nothing to weaken Castro’s evil regime. Actually, if anything, it has empowered him. It has helped starve and deprive his people while doing nothing to keep him from becoming a billionaire.

Lift the embargo. Give Cubans a taste of freedom and prosperity. And like the people of Eastern Europe, they will throw off communism fast than you can say, “Che”.

No one will advocate this, of course, because it would mean writing off Florida’s electoral votes. The Cuban-Americans are not reasonable about this. And, to be honest, I can’t say I’d be reasonable either if I lived seventy miles from a murderous psychopath who had oppressed and killed my relatives while being embraced and lauded by Hollywood dimwits.

Gouging

With hurricane season in force, Boortz dust off his anti-anti-gouging diatribe.

I agree with him 100%. People forget that gouging is part of the free market as well. And while it sounds good to say, “We’re going to keep people from taking advantage of the situation”, it is, in fact, extremely bad policy that creates artificial shortages of nearly everything.

Politicians never seem to learn this. Anti-gouging measures created the energy crisis of the 1970’s, price controls are creating massive delays and shortages in socialized medical systems and anti-gouging measures make bottled water, generators and hotel rooms impossible to come by during hurricane season.

But it’s for people’s own good. And we luuuuuv the peepul.

A Judge Demurs

Actually, I think the credit really goes to the girls involved. They demonstrated a lot of maturity in keeping the two butt slappers and breast pokers off the sex offender registry. The guys acted liked twerps and deserve to be punished. What they did was stupid, wrong and mean. But I’m glad they won’t be going to jail or ruining their lives forever by being on a registry.

(The registry being an issue for another time.)

Porks Away!

The DHS budget has more pork than a honeymoon suite.

In 2006, Florida received more homeland security grants than any other state, $79.6 billion, followed by Texas with $34.5 billion, and Louisiana with a total of $20.1 billion, according to OMB Watch. New York — arguably the most at-risk state — ranked ninth at $4.5 billion.

I would argue that the entire DHS budget is just a massive pork barrel. The way to solve this abuse is to kill the DHS grant programs — every single one. The federal government is not responsible for making Texas safe from terrorism — the residents of Texas are. DHS should focus on broader security issues, intelligence and disaster response. So that the next time we have a disaster, they don’t go all Katrina on us . . . again.

Vick Redux

Well, he’s plead out. But I still think Easterbrook was right. It was frightening how quickly and nastily people turned on Michael Vick. Steve Hummer writes a great epitaph here.

I’m reading through Pro Football Prospectus right now and one of the things they’ve found is that QBs who come out early are more likely to flop. Actually, they don’t say it quite that way. They say that the two indicators of how well a QB will do in the professional ranks are how many games he started in college and his completion percentages. These measure, respectively, experience and intelligence.

Guys like Mike Vick and Ryan Leaf tend to come out of college early after having a magical season. They’ve never faced adversity or dealt with fame or learned how to be a real quarterback. They’ve been athletically gifted their entire lives, had instant success in college and gone straight into fame and fortune. The only difference was that Vick’s athletic prowress eclipsed that of Leaf — so it took a little longer for him to implode.

Counting All . . . Well, You Know

Our Helen Lovejoy government know wants to register all porn stars. Ostensibly this it to stop underage porn. I guess since Traci Lords happened once, she could happen again.

Garbage. I oppose registering guns because it wastes government resources and inconveniences the law-abiding while doing nothing to stop criminals. And I oppose registering penises and vaginas because it wastes government resources and inconveniences the law abiding while doing nothing to stop criminals.

And the thing is, the Bushies know this. They know that created a federal database will do nothing to stop the exploitation of children. But this has nothing to do with kids; this is about going after perfectly legal adult pornography. And the disturbing thing is that the fundies will know little about this. This almost looks like a genuine pathology.

Haven’t they got anything better to do?

Bono

You know, I do indeed believe that Bono is full of shit.

Andrew Mwenda, a Ugandan journalist and social worker, now a fellow at Stanford, made the case most strongly. He argued convincingly that 30 years of Western aid to Africa has achieved nothing at all. More, he said that the persistence of African poverty could be explained, in part, by aid. He explained that aid had convinced the brightest Africans to work for corrupt governments rather than as entrepreneurs, and it had “distorted the incentive structure.”

“What man or nation,” Mwenda asked, “has ever become rich by holding out a begging bowl?”

Far better, he said, is finding Westerners to invest in African entrepreneurs or businesses, which would create wealth. Mwenda, like other speakers, described at length the investment opportunities in Africa.

This line of argument enraged Bono, however, who began heckling Mwenda.

“Bollocks!” he shouted. “That’s bullshit.”

Bono is a strong supporter of intelligently managed aid. When it came his turn to speak, he said that Ireland’s current prosperity is explained by government investment in its people, particularly education. He said that listening to Mwenda was like listening to an African Margaret Thatcher.

An African Margaret Thatcher sounds fantastic to me. The whole world could use another Iron Lady. Unless, of course, your primary interest is in world revolution.

(Bono’s wrong on his own country, incidentally. The powerful Irish economy is a result of a low flat corporate tax rate.)

Jesus, why do we even listen to celebutwits? Why do Bono’s opinions on anything other than music matter more than the opinions of say, Paris Hilton? In fact, I’d say Paris has probably done more for Africa. At least she gives them someone to look down on . . . or to look at on their cheap laptops.