St. John's comments on Executive Order on Immigration

Quote from: Foad on February 14, 2017, 08:47:33 PM

Quote from: Poison on February 14, 2017, 07:54:37 PM

Quote from: Foad on February 14, 2017, 07:48:51 PM

Quote from: Poison on February 14, 2017, 06:47:36 PM

Quote from: Foad on February 14, 2017, 06:15:51 PM

Quote from: Poison on February 14, 2017, 05:30:37 PM

I don't care that they died, either. I would have let them die, too.

Do you care that Hillary's good friend Ambassador Stevens was tortured, sodomized and murdered on the anniversary of 9-11? If so, what upsets you more, that or when that sissy Nurideen Lindsey transferred. 

I don't care about either anymore.

Yes I know, you're too busy weeping over those poor Syrian refugees to shed another tear, you might dehydrate otherwise.

Hey, Steve Jobs is a Syrian refugee. Imagine we chose some meth addicted lever puller over him? Maybe the next Syrian refugee will think of a way to save all of those useless white people who are probably thinking to themselves any day now, any day now the new factories will open.

Whatever point you think you're making is lost on me, because I don't have a cell phone. What isn't lost on me is that you don't care that people who protected your right to act like a douche on the internet died protecting your freedom to act like a douche on the internet, and I suspect its  not lost on anyone reading this either.

I'll get my violin

Forget your violin. Go home and get your shine box.

[

Environmentalism is a fraud, perpetrated by statists as a pretense for fascism - as an excuse for greater government control of human activity and as a mechanism for the diminution of human liberty and dignity and wrapped up in a bow of moral superiority. The fact is that we are beneficiaries of the warming of the earth, because without it we all would never have existed, not even Tariq Owens, and he's a hell of a shot blocker.

This is the exact view of the archlibertarian oligarchs with significant interests in the energy industry; they are responsible for nearly all conservative political financing, which led to the rise of the current fascist regime.  If you don't personally stand to benefit from deregulation of the energy industry, I struggle to see how this view is defensible.  Are you actually suggesting that we are all better off with a rapidly changing climate?  Are the current environmental protection laws restricting your "liberty and dignity" ? 

Quote from: Foad on February 14, 2017, 08:43:05 PM

[

Environmentalism is a fraud, perpetrated by statists as a pretense for fascism - as an excuse for greater government control of human activity and as a mechanism for the diminution of human liberty and dignity and wrapped up in a bow of moral superiority. The fact is that we are beneficiaries of the warming of the earth, because without it we all would never have existed, not even Tariq Owens, and he's a hell of a shot blocker.

This is the exact view of the archlibertarian oligarchs with significant interests in the energy industry; they are responsible for nearly all conservative political financing, which led to the rise of the current fascist regime.  If you don't personally stand to benefit from deregulation of the energy industry, I struggle to see how this view is defensible.  Are you actually suggesting that we are all better off with a rapidly changing climate?  Are the current environmental protection laws restricting your "liberty and dignity" ? 

In the first place, I don't believe the climate is changing rapidly. To the extent that global temperatures rose after 1900 they rose because the Little Ice Age ended. That's what happens when you emerge from an ice age: it gets warmer, because it was colder. Neither do I believe that human analysis of measurements of temperature in the several hundred years since the invention of the thermometer produce any actionable insight into vast epochal climate shifts that have everything to do with the earth as a rock hurtling in orbit around a giant ball of fiery gas, as opposed to air conditioning and cow flatulence.

I find it passing strange that progressives - the alleged party of science - thinks that the earth should exist as it does today, frozen in time: temperatures should neither rise nor fall; no species that exists today should go extinct, except possibly republicans; lands that are undeveloped should remain so. That seems to me to be the opposite of evolution. What it is really is creationism, where man is substituted for god. Humans create the world they live in and every change to it that occurs in caused by them: hurricanes, blizzards, earthquakes, drought, once force majeure - acts of god - are now caused by the sins of man against Gaia.

In the second place, Trump isn't a fascist, he's a game show host. When he names Bob Barker head of the Gestapo and puts Chuck Woolery in charge of the Luftwaffe, then you can call him a fascist.

In the third place, there certainly are environmental regulations that affect my liberty: CAFE standards for automobiles, for example make cars more expensive and less safe; regulation of coal mining and nuclear plants and drilling for oil make energy more expensive, which in turn makes everything else more expensive and the economy less robust. There's a long list of anti-democratic regulations that affect everyone's lives every day. Consider: I have a stream in my backyard. It flows into another stream that empties into a creek that eventually makes its way to the Hudson River. My stream is now under federal jurisdiction based on regulations enacted by the EPA under the Clean Water Act. That deprives me of my property rights and thereby inhibits my liberty. All of which is pretty frivolous when you consider that the people who international climate regulation really hurts are in those who live in poverty in the third world. Because they're never going to have a stream or electricity for that matter.

Quote from: Gray Chudney on February 15, 2017, 10:29:58 AM

Quote from: Foad on February 14, 2017, 08:43:05 PM

[

Environmentalism is a fraud, perpetrated by statists as a pretense for fascism - as an excuse for greater government control of human activity and as a mechanism for the diminution of human liberty and dignity and wrapped up in a bow of moral superiority. The fact is that we are beneficiaries of the warming of the earth, because without it we all would never have existed, not even Tariq Owens, and he's a hell of a shot blocker.

This is the exact view of the archlibertarian oligarchs with significant interests in the energy industry; they are responsible for nearly all conservative political financing, which led to the rise of the current fascist regime.  If you don't personally stand to benefit from deregulation of the energy industry, I struggle to see how this view is defensible.  Are you actually suggesting that we are all better off with a rapidly changing climate?  Are the current environmental protection laws restricting your "liberty and dignity" ? 

In the first place, I don't believe the climate is changing rapidly. To the extent that global temperatures rose after 1900 they rose because the Little Ice Age ended. That's what happens when you emerge from an ice age: it gets warmer, because it was colder. Neither do I believe that human analysis of measurements of temperature in the several hundred years since the invention of the thermometer produce any actionable insight into vast epochal climate shifts that have everything to do with the earth as a rock hurtling in orbit around a giant ball of fiery gas, as opposed to air conditioning and cow flatulence.

I find it passing strange that progressives - the alleged party of science - thinks that the earth should exist as it does today, frozen in time: temperatures should neither rise nor fall; no species that exists today should go extinct, except possibly republicans; lands that are undeveloped should remain so. That seems to me to be the opposite of evolution. What it is really is creationism, where man is substituted for god. Humans create the world they live in and every change to it that occurs in caused by them: hurricanes, blizzards, earthquakes, drought, once force majeure - acts of god - are now caused by the sins of man against Gaia.

In the second place, Trump isn't a fascist, he's a game show host. When he names Bob Barker head of the Gestapo and puts Chuck Woolery in charge of the Luftwaffe, then you can call him a fascist.

In the third place, there certainly are environmental regulations that affect my liberty: CAFE standards for automobiles, for example make cars more expensive and less safe; regulation of coal mining and nuclear plants and drilling for oil make energy more expensive, which in turn makes everything else more expensive and the economy less robust. There's a long list of anti-democratic regulations that affect everyone's lives every day. Consider: I have a stream in my backyard. It flows into another stream that empties into a creek that eventually makes its way to the Hudson River. My stream is now under federal jurisdiction based on regulations enacted by the EPA under the Clean Water Act. That deprives me of my property rights and thereby inhibits my liberty. All of which is pretty frivolous when you consider that the people who international climate regulation really hurts are in those who live in poverty in the third world. Because they're never going to have a stream or electricity for that matter.

F'n nonsense.

If you're angry about tax dollars being spent on something you don't like while there are homeless vets on the street, you may want to read this. It's not fake news. The trips are real and easily documented.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/trump-familys-elaborate-lifestyle-a-logistical-nightmare--at-taxpayer-expense/2017/02/16/763cce8e-f2ce-11e6-a9b0-ecee7ce475fc_story.html?hpid=hp_rhp-banner-main_trumptravel-530pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.a0b73e5fdb19

Quote from: Gray Chudney on February 15, 2017, 10:29:58 AM

Quote from: Foad on February 14, 2017, 08:43:05 PM

[

Environmentalism is a fraud, perpetrated by statists as a pretense for fascism - as an excuse for greater government control of human activity and as a mechanism for the diminution of human liberty and dignity and wrapped up in a bow of moral superiority. The fact is that we are beneficiaries of the warming of the earth, because without it we all would never have existed, not even Tariq Owens, and he's a hell of a shot blocker.

This is the exact view of the archlibertarian oligarchs with significant interests in the energy industry; they are responsible for nearly all conservative political financing, which led to the rise of the current fascist regime.  If you don't personally stand to benefit from deregulation of the energy industry, I struggle to see how this view is defensible.  Are you actually suggesting that we are all better off with a rapidly changing climate?  Are the current environmental protection laws restricting your "liberty and dignity" ? 

In the first place, I don't believe the climate is changing rapidly. To the extent that global temperatures rose after 1900 they rose because the Little Ice Age ended. That's what happens when you emerge from an ice age: it gets warmer, because it was colder. Neither do I believe that human analysis of measurements of temperature in the several hundred years since the invention of the thermometer produce any actionable insight into vast epochal climate shifts that have everything to do with the earth as a rock hurtling in orbit around a giant ball of fiery gas, as opposed to air conditioning and cow flatulence.

I find it passing strange that progressives - the alleged party of science - thinks that the earth should exist as it does today, frozen in time: temperatures should neither rise nor fall; no species that exists today should go extinct, except possibly republicans; lands that are undeveloped should remain so. That seems to me to be the opposite of evolution. What it is really is creationism, where man is substituted for god. Humans create the world they live in and every change to it that occurs in caused by them: hurricanes, blizzards, earthquakes, drought, once force majeure - acts of god - are now caused by the sins of man against Gaia.

In the second place, Trump isn't a fascist, he's a game show host. When he names Bob Barker head of the Gestapo and puts Chuck Woolery in charge of the Luftwaffe, then you can call him a fascist.

In the third place, there certainly are environmental regulations that affect my liberty: CAFE standards for automobiles, for example make cars more expensive and less safe; regulation of coal mining and nuclear plants and drilling for oil make energy more expensive, which in turn makes everything else more expensive and the economy less robust. There's a long list of anti-democratic regulations that affect everyone's lives every day. Consider: I have a stream in my backyard. It flows into another stream that empties into a creek that eventually makes its way to the Hudson River. My stream is now under federal jurisdiction based on regulations enacted by the EPA under the Clean Water Act. That deprives me of my property rights and thereby inhibits my liberty. All of which is pretty frivolous when you consider that the people who international climate regulation really hurts are in those who live in poverty in the third world. Because they're never going to have a stream or electricity for that matter.

Just to add to this dialogue - but please do not inform my organization about it - environmentalism is a fraud or rather a politically charged crisis narrative meant initially to have the state control the population of the poor. Espoused initially by Malthus, the theory was that agriculture production would rise linearly while population growth would grow exponentially, soon arriving at a time where population would outstrip production leading to massive famines and starvation. It then becomes undoubtedly the role of the state to intervene to set things right (NOT). The theory ignored that human ingenuity, markets, technologies are dynamic, and that is precisely what happened. To give a more recent example, in the 1970s an ecologist (Paul Ehrlich) and an economist (Paul Samuelson) made a bet for $1 in which Ehrlich claimed that by the year 2000 the world would run out of oil and some select minerals. The reality post-facto is the deposits and supply of oil have never been higher (emphasis on supply). The ecologist just does not understand what human agency and market dynamics mean. Malthus has had a pernicious influence in the 1960s and 1970s on the poor on two levels - the vieled sterlization programmes and depriving the poor of the main asset (besides their labor) by criminalizing them as agents of environmental degradation.

Second, agreed with Fun, that the climate is not rapidly changing. The climate is always changing is a better characterization, and the change is always non-linear around a trend. Hence Al Gore's propaganda about global warming (generally a linear representation of rising temps) is just that. For the propaganda to work, the science needs to fit the narrative of the crisis - we are going to die if we dont put a hell lot of money trying to avert disasters that carbon emissions are inflicting upon us, and demonstrate that there is a causal relationship between carbon dioxide and a steady rise in temperatures over time. As Fun says, depending on the time frame one selects it is easy to show warming trends (which get dismissed ir the time frame is expanded over to 200, 500, 1000 or more years).

Why this is important is that in September of 2015, as part of the ring I belong to the Sustainable Development Goals were adopted by the states of the global community to fix the planet for the people. Close to $400 billion dollars were committed for clean energy (read energy companies and look especially into what Al owns in that field) and $20 billion were allocated for poor countries to adapt - shame if there is going to be hell on earth you think for immediate action $20 billion is near enough, while reversing emissions - even if you believe the carbon-temp link - is a longer-term endeavour and the investments can await.

So if you are looking at liberty at the national, local, household and individual levels when specific technology is imposed on you, and then you pay for it through carbon taxes ... it is sort of a double-dividend of getting f****d. Hope this makes sense.

And to seal the deal, listen to the depth of his ideas rather than his comedy per se: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjmtSkl53h4   

Climate

Quote from: Gray Chudney on February 15, 2017, 10:29:58 AM

Quote from: Foad on February 14, 2017, 08:43:05 PM

[

Environmentalism is a fraud, perpetrated by statists as a pretense for fascism - as an excuse for greater government control of human activity and as a mechanism for the diminution of human liberty and dignity and wrapped up in a bow of moral superiority. The fact is that we are beneficiaries of the warming of the earth, because without it we all would never have existed, not even Tariq Owens, and he's a hell of a shot blocker.

This is the exact view of the archlibertarian oligarchs with significant interests in the energy industry; they are responsible for nearly all conservative political financing, which led to the rise of the current fascist regime.  If you don't personally stand to benefit from deregulation of the energy industry, I struggle to see how this view is defensible.  Are you actually suggesting that we are all better off with a rapidly changing climate?  Are the current environmental protection laws restricting your "liberty and dignity" ? 

In the first place, I don't believe the climate is changing rapidly. To the extent that global temperatures rose after 1900 they rose because the Little Ice Age ended. That's what happens when you emerge from an ice age: it gets warmer, because it was colder. Neither do I believe that human analysis of measurements of temperature in the several hundred years since the invention of the thermometer produce any actionable insight into vast epochal climate shifts that have everything to do with the earth as a rock hurtling in orbit around a giant ball of fiery gas, as opposed to air conditioning and cow flatulence.

I find it passing strange that progressives - the alleged party of science - thinks that the earth should exist as it does today, frozen in time: temperatures should neither rise nor fall; no species that exists today should go extinct, except possibly republicans; lands that are undeveloped should remain so. That seems to me to be the opposite of evolution. What it is really is creationism, where man is substituted for god. Humans create the world they live in and every change to it that occurs in caused by them: hurricanes, blizzards, earthquakes, drought, once force majeure - acts of god - are now caused by the sins of man against Gaia.

In the second place, Trump isn't a fascist, he's a game show host. When he names Bob Barker head of the Gestapo and puts Chuck Woolery in charge of the Luftwaffe, then you can call him a fascist.

In the third place, there certainly are environmental regulations that affect my liberty: CAFE standards for automobiles, for example make cars more expensive and less safe; regulation of coal mining and nuclear plants and drilling for oil make energy more expensive, which in turn makes everything else more expensive and the economy less robust. There's a long list of anti-democratic regulations that affect everyone's lives every day. Consider: I have a stream in my backyard. It flows into another stream that empties into a creek that eventually makes its way to the Hudson River. My stream is now under federal jurisdiction based on regulations enacted by the EPA under the Clean Water Act. That deprives me of my property rights and thereby inhibits my liberty. All of which is pretty frivolous when you consider that the people who international climate regulation really hurts are in those who live in poverty in the third world. Because they're never going to have a stream or electricity for that matter.

You just regurgitated billionaire archlibertarian talking points on the subject. You really should read Dark Money. I highly recommend it.

How exactly has the clean water act affected your life despite federal regulation of a stream running through your property? Have you been adversely affected, or is this an abstract infringement?

Automobile inflation is lower than core CPI, so cars are not more expensive than they were when America was great.  Oil prices have been less than 50% of peak levels for over a year; I doubt your life is impacted by elasticity of prices at the pump. Coal is a declining industry even without regulation. And yes, the climate is changing rapidly. the last two calendar years were the warmest ever recorded and the regression line at which Ez_Uzi hinted has a steepening upward slope.

I just don't see enough downside risk to avoid building a regulatory apparatus that seeks to mitigate the effects of climate change.

Enjoy Pruitt. Seems like a man of science with no ethical conflicts.

You just regurgitated billionaire archlibertarian talking points on the subject.

And you're just a stooge of one world government enviro-fascist apparatchiks. I'm not impressed by ad hominems but if you want to have at it we can. I have to warn you though, I work in swearing like Modigliani worked in limestone.

You really should read Dark Money. I highly recommend it.

And you should read the Road to Serfdom, but I wouldn't recommend it because I'm not pretentious enough to go around telling people what books to read. I don't give a shit about Dark Money and am no more scared of the Koch brothers and Richard Sciafe than I am of the left's patron saint George Soros, and he collaborated with the Nazis.

How exactly has the clean water act affected your life despite federal regulation of a stream running through your property? Have you been adversely affected, or is this an abstract infringement?

You can call the taking of my property by the government through fiat an abstraction. But I call it fascism.

Automobile inflation is lower than core CPI, so cars are not more expensive than they were when America was great.  Oil prices have been less than 50% of peak levels for over a year; I doubt your life is impacted by elasticity of prices at the pump. Coal is a declining industry even without regulation.

I don't care how much cars cost compared to inflation: the fact is that cars are more expensive than they would be otherwise and are less safe than they would be otherwise. Oil is cheap because of lowered demand - because the economy sucks, which I'm quite sure is how the central planners want it, because reduced consumption is better for Gaia - and advances in extraction techniques, including fracking, which you undoubtedly oppose. As for coal, let me quote the the guy who slowed the rise of the oceans and otherwise healed the planet: "If somebody wants to build a coal-fired power plant, they can. It’s just that it will bankrupt them." That doesn't sound like a natural death to me, it sounds like premeditated murder. And as for energy prices, "Under my plan … electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket,” which you're right, these things don't affect me particularly, and maybe not even you, but then I'm a white and upper middle class. It does affect the poor though, about whom the left is always bleating its concern.
 

And yes, the climate is changing rapidly. the last two calendar years were the warmest ever recorded and the regression line at which Ez_Uzi hinted has a steepening upward slope.

Good grief. In the first place, even using the IPCC's cooked data global temperatures have risen 1.5 degrees since 1880. That's .01 degrees per year for 150 years, which that might be something, but its not "rapid." In the second place, man started recording temperatures in the late 19th century, as an ice age was ending. Of course the temperatures rose, that's how the ice age ends, it gets warmer. If you start taking the temperature in your back year in January and it rises 40 degrees by March if you assume a constant rate of change and extrapolate temperatures from that and its going to be 200 degrees in your backyard by November. Do you see the subtle flaw in that methodology? 

I just don't see enough downside risk to avoid building a regulatory apparatus that seeks to mitigate the effects of climate change.

Fifty years ago the same scientists who are terrified of global warming were terrified of the coming ice age. The Nixon administration discussed with the Soviet Union building a giant dam across the Bering Sea to keep the cold water out of the Pacific. Russian scientists proposed inundating the polar ice caps with soot to absorb the heat from the sun. These are the dopes who you don't see a downside in allowing to build a regulatory apparatus to mitigate the alleged effects of something that may or may not be happening for reasons no one understands. I on the other hand see a huge downside, because most people are nice persons and most new ideas are bad ideas. That's the problem with central planning: It codifies the stupidity of zealous imbeciles.

Enjoy Pruitt. Seems like a man of science with no ethical conflicts.

Right, ethical, like Al Gore and RK Pachauri who made millions selling carbon offsets to ameliorate the hysteria they created and got Nobel Prizes for their troubles.

Just two points and one question.

1. Data can be massaged to show almost any corelation. It depends on how data is normalized, the type of regression (linear, log, log linear), what variables are included and whats left out, particularly the complexities of modeling climate system. In the end, its an abstraction. One approach is to revisit the predictions from models and what actually happened ... here the hockey stick looks even more ridiculous.

2. I dont think the debate is simply regulations or no regulations. Some env problems the market is better at handling. See $1 bet above again.

3. So my question is what criteria would you use to select the ideal regulations?

Quote from: Gray Chudney on February 18, 2017, 08:28:44 AM

You just regurgitated billionaire archlibertarian talking points on the subject.

And you're just a stooge of one world government enviro-fascist apparatchiks. I'm not impressed by ad hominems but if you want to have at it we can. I have to warn you though, I work in swearing like Modigliani worked in limestone.

Quote

You really should read Dark Money. I highly recommend it.

And you should read the Road to Serfdom, but I wouldn't recommend it because I'm not pretentious enough to go around telling people what books to read. I don't give a shit about Dark Money and am no more scared of the Koch brothers and Richard Sciafe than I am of the left's patron saint George Soros, and he collaborated with the Nazis.

Quote

How exactly has the clean water act affected your life despite federal regulation of a stream running through your property? Have you been adversely affected, or is this an abstract infringement?

You can call the taking of my property by the government through fiat an abstraction. But I call it fascism.

Quote

Automobile inflation is lower than core CPI, so cars are not more expensive than they were when America was great.  Oil prices have been less than 50% of peak levels for over a year; I doubt your life is impacted by elasticity of prices at the pump. Coal is a declining industry even without regulation.

I don't care how much cars cost compared to inflation: the fact is that cars are more expensive than they would be otherwise and are less safe than they would be otherwise. Oil is cheap because of lowered demand - because the economy sucks, which I'm quite sure is how the central planners want it, because reduced consumption is better for Gaia - and advances in extraction techniques, including fracking, which you undoubtedly oppose. As for coal, let me quote the the guy who slowed the rise of the oceans and otherwise healed the planet: "If somebody wants to build a coal-fired power plant, they can. It’s just that it will bankrupt them." That doesn't sound like a natural death to me, it sounds like premeditated murder. And as for energy prices, "Under my plan … electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket,” which you're right, these things don't affect me particularly, and maybe not even you, but then I'm a white and upper middle class. It does affect the poor though, about whom the left is always bleating its concern.
 

Quote

And yes, the climate is changing rapidly. the last two calendar years were the warmest ever recorded and the regression line at which Ez_Uzi hinted has a steepening upward slope.

Good grief. In the first place, even using the IPCC's cooked data global temperatures have risen 1.5 degrees since 1880. That's .01 degrees per year for 150 years, which that might be something, but its not "rapid." In the second place, man started recording temperatures in the late 19th century, as an ice age was ending. Of course the temperatures rose, that's how the ice age ends, it gets warmer. If you start taking the temperature in your back year in January and it rises 40 degrees by March if you assume a constant rate of change and extrapolate temperatures from that and its going to be 200 degrees in your backyard by November. Do you see the subtle flaw in that methodology? 

Quote

I just don't see enough downside risk to avoid building a regulatory apparatus that seeks to mitigate the effects of climate change.

Fifty years ago the same scientists who are terrified of global warming were terrified of the coming ice age. The Nixon administration discussed with the Soviet Union building a giant dam across the Bering Sea to keep the cold water out of the Pacific. Russian scientists proposed inundating the polar ice caps with soot to absorb the heat from the sun. These are the dopes who you don't see a downside in allowing to build a regulatory apparatus to mitigate the alleged effects of something that may or may not be happening for reasons no one understands. I on the other hand see a huge downside, because most people are nice persons and most new ideas are bad ideas. That's the problem with central planning: It codifies the stupidity of zealous imbeciles.

Quote

Enjoy Pruitt. Seems like a man of science with no ethical conflicts.

Right, ethical, like Al Gore and RK Pachauri who made millions selling carbon offsets to ameliorate the hysteria they created and got Nobel Prizes for their troubles.

You are a fascinating person.  Maybe we can meet a game someday.

Just to add to this dialogue - but please do not inform my organization about it - environmentalism is a fraud or rather a politically charged crisis narrative meant initially to have the state control the population of the poor.
[...]
The ecologist just does not understand what human agency and market dynamics mean. Malthus has had a pernicious influence in the 1960s and 1970s on the poor on two levels - the vieled sterlization programmes and depriving the poor of the main asset (besides their labor) by criminalizing them as agents of environmental degradation.

To me the most annoying thing about the enviro-left (and the other left) is their sanctimony: they act like they're saving the planet from rapacious hordes of greedy capitalists. But as Carlin said, what they really want is just a nice place to live. They wish to maintain their creature comforts at the expense of those who will never come close to the lifestyle they take for granted. Because poor people - really poor people - don't have the leisure time to worry about it. Whereas airhead Leonardo DiCaprio flies around the world in a private plane making a documentary explaining why people in Somalia can get by without sewage systems and no doubt will get an Oscar for his humanitarianism.

Second, agreed with Fun, that the climate is not rapidly changing. The climate is always changing is a better characterization, and the change is always non-linear around a trend. Hence Al Gore's propaganda about global warming (generally a linear representation of rising temps) is just that. For the propaganda to work, the science needs to fit the narrative of the crisis - we are going to die if we dont put a hell lot of money trying to avert disasters that carbon emissions are inflicting upon us, and demonstrate that there is a causal relationship between carbon dioxide and a steady rise in temperatures over time. As Fun says, depending on the time frame one selects it is easy to show warming trends (which get dismissed ir the time frame is expanded over to 200, 500, 1000 or more years).

Of course the climate always changing and of course man has an effect on his environment. Aboriginal people destroyed the great american forest with fire and created the Great Plains - certainly that had an effect on the climate and the environment. But so did the Chicxulub impactor. So did the eruption of Mount Tambora. So do solar cycles. Compared to those things cow farts and SUVS are trivialities. It goes to the left's cornerstone idea: that man is perfectible and that perfection is only achievable through the machinations of government. That's what Hitler thought, and Stalin, and Mao, and Pol Pot, and even Barack Obama. One machination might be more benign than the others but the impulse is the same: the limitation of human choice and activity for what the actor perceives to be the greater good. I reject the greater good: I don't think it's identifiable and I don't think the central planners would know how to achieve it even if it were.

Im not very good at the quote function or its some UN infliction Ive contracted.

Mr. Chudney I interact with a number of colleagues that are experts in the climate field, and surmise it to say or that inevitably they are the left, and any debate that remotely questions the methodology (data collection, data preparation, data analysis) is met with a resounding climate denier or big oil cohort retort. The entire idea of science to me is that it is never settled. Otherwise why bother going beyond Newtons laws, theres 99.9% consensus. That in itself is a direct attack on the first amendment or say a liberty. Guess another infliction is that im south asian and highly prolific on quantative side, so hard to pull data manipulation on me. To try to dupe someone feels like an attack on liberty.

There is much more to say but the criteria to select env regulations shouldnt be purely env if i stand to lose human welfare and choice. For example, is it possible to jointly improve env, generate jobs, other social benefits snd growth if it does it better than green energy? And is the decision devolved to the local level to choose between options that achieve the same env impact but at much lower costs? Or should a central, aloof EPA (im not even going to bring up regulatory capture a la solyndra solar scandal) roll out blanket regulations.

These are the narrow confines that i operate in to influence things.

Im not very good at the quote function or its some UN infliction Ive contracted.

Mr. Chudney I interact with a number of colleagues that are experts in the climate field, and surmise it to say or that inevitably they are the left, and any debate that remotely questions the methodology (data collection, data preparation, data analysis) is met with a resounding climate denier or big oil cohort retort. The entire idea of science to me is that it is never settled. Otherwise why bother going beyond Newtons laws, theres 99.9% consensus. That in itself is a direct attack on the first amendment or say a liberty. Guess another infliction is that im south asian and highly prolific on quantative side, so hard to pull data manipulation on me. To try to dupe someone feels like an attack on liberty.

There is much more to say but the criteria to select env regulations shouldnt be purely env if i stand to lose human welfare and choice. For example, is it possible to jointly improve env, generate jobs, other social benefits snd growth if it does it better than green energy? And is the decision devolved to the local level to choose between options that achieve the same env impact but at much lower costs? Or should a central, aloof EPA (im not even going to bring up regulatory capture a la solyndra solar scandal) roll out blanket regulations.

These are the narrow confines that i operate in to influence things.

I appreciate your insights and recognize the policy challenges associated with politicization of science.  People are quick to call one another ideologues these days; I can assure you that I was not taking that approach despite putting a quarter in the Fun merry-go-round.

Question: do you think Scott Pruitt is a good choice for EPA head?

In the spirit of your answer, from the policy point of view, the political economy of regulatory capture under previous admin in a centralized setting, the conceptual wisdom and empirical evidence on devolving env decision-making (power), and finally bringing in economic and social criterion to decide which, if any in some cases, regulations make sense, and the implementation of the rule of law ... id say a resounding yes.

To give another related case, the dept of education was established in 1977/8... when inequality in education and income were lowest in the century, and now chart the data to current. Ive not done this study but my hypoyhesis to test is that centralization of edu policy and investments messed things up.

In the spirit of your answer, from the policy point of view, the political economy of regulatory capture under previous admin in a centralized setting, the conceptual wisdom and empirical evidence on devolving env decision-making (power), and finally bringing in economic and social criterion to decide which, if any in some cases, regulations make sense, and the implementation of the rule of law ... id say a resounding yes.

To give another related case, the dept of education was established in 1977/8... when inequality in education and income were lowest in the century, and now chart the data to current. Ive not done this study but my hypoyhesis to test is that centralization of edu policy and investments messed things up.

Yes, because every government agency should be headed by someone skeptical of the government's powers and right and ability to implement and effect change. The head of the EPA should be wary of the federal government's role in the protection of the environment and the head of education should be skeptical of the public schools ability to educate children and the head of the VA should be skeptical of the government's ability to care for veterans. It's the same reason you wouldn't want John McCain as secretary of state - because he is not skeptical of the expansion of the military industrial complex and the use of force and in fact the opposite. It's the same reason you don't give a drunk the key to liquor cabinet.

Quote from: Ez_Uzi on February 18, 2017, 01:35:39 PM

In the spirit of your answer, from the policy point of view, the political economy of regulatory capture under previous admin in a centralized setting, the conceptual wisdom and empirical evidence on devolving env decision-making (power), and finally bringing in economic and social criterion to decide which, if any in some cases, regulations make sense, and the implementation of the rule of law ... id say a resounding yes.

To give another related case, the dept of education was established in 1977/8... when inequality in education and income were lowest in the century, and now chart the data to current. Ive not done this study but my hypoyhesis to test is that centralization of edu policy and investments messed things up.

Yes, because every government agency should be headed by someone skeptical of the government's powers and right and ability to implement and effect change. The head of the EPA should be wary of the federal government's role in the protection of the environment and the head of education should be skeptical of the public schools ability to educate children and the head of the VA should be skeptical of the government's ability to care for veterans. It's the same reason you wouldn't want John McCain as secretary of state - because he is not skeptical of the expansion of the military industrial complex and the use of force and in fact the opposite. It's the same reason you don't give a drunk the key to liquor cabinet.

classically hilarious ... If your objective is the conservation of (the top-shelf ... naah any) whiskey in your liquor cabinet, you certainly do not want me in charge. Newsflash: The confirmation of Mr. Uzi for the Head of Alcohol, Tobacco and Narcotics division is unanimously denied by the Senate - citing serious conflict of interest ...

In my work the emphasis I've tried to promote on environmental governance is that the role at the centre should be on coordinating a smart macro enabling framework but that decisions and action should ideally be devolved to the point of empowering communities to make such decisions and enact the protection and improvement of the natural resources that should be under their command. The role of the centre then becomes of coordinating all states to play the same protection game by enacting national laws and policies to enable local levels to move along through their choices. This emphasis is based on the empirical evidence of what happens (in all countries) when regulatory capture runs amok in a centralized setting. It is also based on the conceptual wisdom and further empirical evidence on devolving environmental decision-making and action where it can be tailored to the needs of the context (not all states have the same ecosystem types or environmental priorities, aspirations of communities, local capacities, systems and agencies, and differing costs), and finally that empowering local communities is fundamental for increasing their liberty.

Quote from: Ez_Uzi on February 18, 2017, 01:35:39 PM

In the spirit of your answer, from the policy point of view, the political economy of regulatory capture under previous admin in a centralized setting, the conceptual wisdom and empirical evidence on devolving env decision-making (power), and finally bringing in economic and social criterion to decide which, if any in some cases, regulations make sense, and the implementation of the rule of law ... id say a resounding yes.

To give another related case, the dept of education was established in 1977/8... when inequality in education and income were lowest in the century, and now chart the data to current. Ive not done this study but my hypoyhesis to test is that centralization of edu policy and investments messed things up.

Yes, because every government agency should be headed by someone skeptical of the government's powers and right and ability to implement and effect change. The head of the EPA should be wary of the federal government's role in the protection of the environment and the head of education should be skeptical of the public schools ability to educate children and the head of the VA should be skeptical of the government's ability to care for veterans. It's the same reason you wouldn't want John McCain as secretary of state - because he is not skeptical of the expansion of the military industrial complex and the use of force and in fact the opposite. It's the same reason you don't give a drunk the key to liquor cabinet.

We shouldn't give a drunk the key to the liquor cabinet. Instead vote him into Oval Office, because you know, emails and Benghazi and shit smart guy. Keep talking if you enjoy it.

Perhaps you are right. Perhaps Fun's characterization of DJT as a vapid narcissistic chucklehead game show host is somewhat unfair. For me he is a masterful game show host - Steve Lavin's narcissism couldn't hold a candle to his. He was 5 steps ahead when he played CNN (who thought they were playing DJT), where CNN et al ironically had no clue that they were creating a Frankenstein. Where CNN et al and DNC collusion worked was dispatching the mainstream republicans, which they did as they fell like dominoes. Where the collusion headed to failure was in the belief that the erecting of a supposed straw-man named Trump, he would be ripe for defeat.

But lo and behold WikiLeaks exposed not only the DNC (Wasserman fled with her tail between her legs) but also completely discredited major liberal news media (among the electorate that mattered) .. i mean passing on debate questions to HRC??? (and that was just one of the exposés). The bigger pic was and is, is that 90% and 70% of republicans and independents respectively had/have lost faith in mainstream media, so their colluding propaganda machine attempt to dismantle Frankenstein failed because the democratic party in cahoots with a host of dysfunctional government institutions (DOJ, IRS, EPA, DoE, Media, etc etc) failed 8 years following the policies of ... guess who? Those that had/have lost faith are a significant amount of population to easily win the electoral college, and existed outside the bubble that viewed mainstream media.

In turn, the reeling mainstream media now concocts, shamelessly, smear after smear after smear .. yes at one point many may have felt all that BS love for us Muslims. Whereas following the water-gate scandal, and under the leadership of Ronald Reagan, the republican party rejuvenated itself, sadly the democratic party and its loyalists remain deluded, have lost any sense of humor, civility, reasoned analysis and any grasp of the policy debate let alone reality. The same thing applies to the mainstream media and the time maybe ripe for having a good look in the mirror and do some serious soul searching ... because a vibrant democracy needs a rejuvenated democratic party and an independent media, which is not a mouth piece for the left.

Where I do not know Fun's stance but to me Trump is just a face, he is largely the titular head of the emergent Tea Party, and this rise represents the rise of third party politics in the US (even though they cleverly ran under the guise of republicans rather than as independents). To me, this is a positive trend for politics in the US. They have arisen because of both dysfunctional democratic and mainstream republican parties.

Finally at the latest press conference by DJT, while there was all the hoopla about his hysteria and ranting and raving, his objective was to mostly dispatch Clinton News Network over the deep square boundary for a six, and guess what ... he did. That is what a masterful game show host does - he, as in riling of emotions a la Total Recall - controlled exactly what he wanted out of the conference, and the reaction you should have. In conclusion, do not for a second think he does not have exceptional strategists behind the scenes that not only won him the elections but may have saved the country for what I call the completion of the liberal/left project that would have happened over 8 years of HRC rule, which would have meant my life as Winston Smith just got more interesting.

Quote from: Foad on February 18, 2017, 02:38:23 PM

Quote from: Ez_Uzi on February 18, 2017, 01:35:39 PM

In the spirit of your answer, from the policy point of view, the political economy of regulatory capture under previous admin in a centralized setting, the conceptual wisdom and empirical evidence on devolving env decision-making (power), and finally bringing in economic and social criterion to decide which, if any in some cases, regulations make sense, and the implementation of the rule of law ... id say a resounding yes.

To give another related case, the dept of education was established in 1977/8... when inequality in education and income were lowest in the century, and now chart the data to current. Ive not done this study but my hypoyhesis to test is that centralization of edu policy and investments messed things up.

Yes, because every government agency should be headed by someone skeptical of the government's powers and right and ability to implement and effect change. The head of the EPA should be wary of the federal government's role in the protection of the environment and the head of education should be skeptical of the public schools ability to educate children and the head of the VA should be skeptical of the government's ability to care for veterans. It's the same reason you wouldn't want John McCain as secretary of state - because he is not skeptical of the expansion of the military industrial complex and the use of force and in fact the opposite. It's the same reason you don't give a drunk the key to liquor cabinet.

We shouldn't give a drunk the key to the liquor cabinet. Instead vote him into Oval Office, because you know, emails and Benghazi and shit smart guy. Keep talking if you enjoy it.

I enjoy your tears, they're delicious.

to me Trump is just a face, he is largely the titular head of the emergent Tea Party, and this rise represents the rise of third party politics in the US (even though they cleverly ran under the guise of republicans rather than as independents). To me, this is a positive trend for politics in the US. They have arisen because of both dysfunctional democratic and mainstream republican parties.

Certainly the same discontent that animated the tea party played a role in Clinton's defeat - and that's really what the last election was, it wasn't an exhultation of Trump, it was a repudiation of HRC and everything she stood for - but it was more than anger at the fiscal irresponsibility of big government: it was a reaction to the hubris and condescension of the media-government complex, to the ossification of the agenda of people who think they know better than you what's better for you and that you should bend over and take it for your own good.

And if you don't take it - if you veer from the left's agenda in slightest most benign manner - you will be shamed and slandered and boycotted and destroyed. If you don't want to bake a cake, you're a homophobe. If you think Iranians should be vetted before being given US citizenship, you're a xenophobe. If you wonder why black lives matter more than white lives, you're a racist. If you own a gun you're a domestic terrorist. In short, if you don't believe what I believe you're a deplorable and oh by the way please vote for me. I'm Hillary Rodham Clinton and I approve this message. 

Whereas Trump told the deplorables that that what they thought was important wasn't stupid, that they were getting a raw deal socially and economically, and that they're alleged moral superiors were merely sanctimonious bullies who deserved a punch in the nose, which he gave them, which is why they love him.