Wednesday, June 21, 2017

Climate Change

See if you can follow my reasoning here. If I am wrong, I would like concrete reasons as to why I am wrong. Let's say that the predictions are correct, and the atmospheric CO2 levels by the year 2100 are 800 PPM, double of what we have now. I have no reason to doubt this. Based on the temperature record of the last 137 years, where the CO2 level has gone up roughly 72%, the likely atmospheric temperature increase would be about 1.2 degrees celsius, and there are a number of people who believe this. (However, during the Cretaceous period, a doubling of CO2 only resulted in an increase of 0.6 degrees Celsius, and there are some skeptics who think that this is what would happen again.) This is not enough to melt the polar ice caps, which is the doomsday scenario some have predicted. However, the IPCC predicts a different temperature increase, giving a range anywhere from 1.5 to 4.5 degrees, with the average being about 3 degrees. Again, not sufficient enough to melt the polar ice caps. However, if we take the upper figure to be true, then we are indeed in danger of melting the polar ice caps, but I have read from multiple sources that it would take thousands of years for the polar ice caps to melt. This would give us plenty of time to remedy the situation, and we do have remedies. It is almost certain that we will have nuclear fusion by the mid 21st century, and therefor we could phase out fossil fuels as much as we need to. There is also this thing called Iron Fertilization that would allow us to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Therefor I see no reason to panic, nor any reason to impose onerous energy taxes that would make energy unaffordable to many, nor any reason to impose any other kind of government mandate. At least not in the short term.

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Tuesday, June 20, 2017

Fwd: The growing divide

One of the frequent blind spots for economic libertarians, speaking as one who has personally dealt with this log in the eye, is a tendency to allow principles of how economies work and the beauty of trade to make us ignore perceived threats animating people who value more than just the power to buy and sell. The gigantism encouraged by our modern globalist system has many perks across many industries. But it has also given rise to a global corporate elite. This elite tribe of globalists share certain values: they are more tolerant of regulation, insomuch as it drives out competition; they are more welcoming of government expenditure, insomuch as it buys their products, builds their needed infrastructure, and subsidizes their hospital systems; and they care little about the subjugation of rights to speech and religion, so much as it makes their ability to sell in certain markets inconvenient.

If you want a video representation of this mindset, I could do no better than to offer this footage from a recent conversation with the leaders of Google dealing with an uncomfortable question last month about the monolithic nature of their engagement with politics.

Note the response from Eric Schmidt, who rejects the idea that anyone disagreeing with him politically could be operating from a position of "science-based thinking". The level of diversity and inclusiveness welcomed by Google is precisely as much as is needed to achieve their corporate aims. "You'll also find that all of the other companies in our field agree with us" – yes, we know.

In an economy that is increasingly driven by the global elite, will the values that have been central to our nation's history exist in a meaningful sense? Or will they be discarded as inconvenient bugs, virulent viruses passed on from our ignorant forefathers that must be cured? Can free speech and religious liberty survive in an environment when our corporate leaders see honor in stamping out fake news and non-science based thinking?

And this leads us back to the question of why we hate each other. The New York Times looked into rising contempt across partisan lines: "Democrats and Republicans truly think worse of each other, a trend that isn't really about policy preferences. Members of the two parties are more likely today to describe each other unfavorably, as selfish, as threats to the nation, even as unsuitable marriage material.

"Surveys over time have used a 100-point thermometer scale to rate how voters feel toward each other, from cold to warm. Democrats and Republicans have been giving lower and lower scores — more cold shoulder — to the opposite party. By 2008, the average rating for members of the other party was barely above 30.

By 2016, that average dropped by about five more percentage points, dragged down in part by a new phenomenon: For the first time, the most common answer given was zero, the worst possible option. In other words, voters on the left and right now feel downright frigid toward each other."

Today, the centralized power among the leaders of the global tech industry – who have little use for free speech and religion, and are thoroughly onboard with the Messianic aims of the environmental movement are steadily prodding governments to seal up the valves and the hatches. In a world where all the companies agree, what use are they after all?

The implicit motto of the global elites today is "no escape" – no escape valve from a permanently politicized life, where the only legitimate perspective is their monopolistic, secularized, authoritarian-friendly 

When we do not view each other as legitimate – particularly when decisions are not coming from the people or properly elected officials, but from some other force – it leads to resentment, escalation, and eventually something much worse.

http://thefederalist.com/2017/06/19/globalism-and-why-we-hate-each-other/#



Friday, June 9, 2017

trumps-climate-withdrawal-is-an-impeachable-offense

Garrison Final Show

Garrison Final Show

Since moving back to Indiana 25 months ago, I have had some fun listening to conservative talk show host, Greg Garrison, on WIBC radio.  He is very good.  The former host of this show was, now Vice President, Mike Pence.  Prior to doing radio, Garrison was the lead prosecutor on the Mike Tyson rape case.