Year: 2015

In an article at the FFF site, Jacob Hornberger comments.

“The thousands of U.S. soldiers who died in Ramadi and the rest of Iraq died for nothing, just like those 58,000 plus U.S. soldiers who died in the Vietnam War. They all died for nothing too.”
ABOUT THOSE U.S. TROOPS WHO DIED IN RAMADI

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maxBordersEarthDay2015

Excerpt:

First, let’s zoom out a few orders of magnitude to look at the Climate Orthodoxy as a series of dots that must be connected, or better, a series of premises that must be accepted in their totality.

• The earth is warming.
• The earth is warming primarily due to the influence of human beings engaged in production and energy use.
• Scientists are able to limn most of the important phenomena associated with a warming climate, disentangling the human from the natural influence, extending backward well into the past.
• Scientists are able then to simulate most of the phenomena associated with a warming earth and make reasonable predictions, within the range of a degree or two, into the future about 100 years.
• Other kinds of scientists are able to repackage this information and make certain kinds of global predictions about the dangers a couple of degrees will make over that hundred years.
• Economists are able to repackage those predictionsand make yet further predictions about the economic costs and benefits that accompany those global predictions.
• Other economists then make further predictions based on what the world might be like if the first set of economists is right in its predictions (which were based on the other scientists’ predictions, and so on) — and thenthey propose what the world might look like if certain policies were implemented.
• Policymakers are able to take those economists’ predictions and set policies that will ensure what is best for the people and the planet on net.
• Those policies are implemented in such a way that they work. They have global unanimity, no defections, no corruption, and a lessoning of carbon-dioxide output that has a real effect on the rate of climate change — enough to pull the world out of danger.
• Those policies are worth the costs they will impose on the peoples of the world, especially the poorest.

That is a lot to swallow. And yet, it appears that the Climate Orthodoxy requires we accept all of it. Otherwise, why would the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) publish a document called “Summary for Policymakers”?

 

For a copy of the book click here.
“Government is like a cancer. Less government is better than more government, just as less cancer is better than more cancer, but as long as it exists, it’s a threat. As long as society accepts the idea that force is the way to solve problems, the only limit on violence is what enforcers cannot be convinced to do. ”

April 22, 2015
Historian Ralph Raico discusses Winston Churchill click here for full article

Drew was on public radio in LA. They interviewed him about his documentary that is being shown at the Newport Beach Film Festival

click here to view

My brother forwarded an article from the New York Times
Middle Class or So They Say

From my perspective,
thinking of aggregates of individuals as members of an economic class is unfortunate, and provides no benefits for making public policy decisions.

The discussion I was having with myself got me thinking about promoting a culture that guards others from the effects of your own dangerous activities.

If people believe it is bad to feel insecure, then they should not have children without buying an insurance policy that will keep their children from becoming economically insecure, and a burden on others. If they cannot afford such insurance, then they should not have children.

It should be part of our culture, that just as parents should vaccinate their kids to prevent illness, parents should have insurance to prevent economic catastrophes. If they are not willing or able to have their kids vaccinated or have insurance, then they should not have children.

Children can hurt people and property, and thus parents should either be self-insured or buy insurance to compensate other people who get harmed by children. If it is dangerous for children not to be vaccinated, the cost of insurance will be high. If it is not dangerous than the market will provide such liability insurance for next to nothing.

At http://fff.org/2015/04/01/constitution-bill-rights-failed-experiment/
Jacob Hornberger argues that the Constitution has done what it was designed to do. It is the vast majority of the American People that have failed by supporting the welfare/warefare state.

Excerpt:

So, why didn’t the Constitution and the Bill of Rights protect us from the getting a welfare-warfare state?

Consider a sea wall, one that is designed to protect a community from extremely high tides. It works for 100 years, keeping extremely large tides, including those caused by hurricanes, from reaching the community, which remains high and dry for a century.

But one day, a tsunami hits. The wave is so enormous that it easily overcomes the sea wall and inundates the community, destroying property and killing dozens of people.

Can we say that the sea wall failed? No, because the sea wall was never designed to withstand a tsunami. It was designed only to keep out high tides, which it succeeded in doing for 100 years.