Even If...

Climate change realist Christopher Monckton (circa 2008) --

Even if temperature had risen above natural variability, the recent solar Grand Maximum may have been chiefly responsible. Even if the sun were not chiefly to blame for the past half-century’s warming, the IPCC has not demonstrated that, since CO₂ occupies only one-ten-thousandth part more of the atmosphere that it did in 1750, it has contributed more than a small fraction of the warming. Even if carbon dioxide were chiefly responsible for the warming that ceased in 1998 and may not resume until 2015, the distinctive, projected fingerprint of anthropogenic “greenhouse-gas” warming is entirely absent from the observed record. Even if the fingerprint were present, computer models are long proven to be inherently incapable of providing projections of the future state of the climate that are sound enough for policymaking. Even if it were possible that the models could ever become reliable, the present paper demonstrates that it is not at all likely that the world will warm as much as the IPCC imagines. Even if the world were to warm that much, the overwhelming majority of the scientific, peer-reviewed literature does not predict that catastrophe would ensue. Even if catastrophe might ensue, even the most drastic proposals to mitigate future climate change by reducing emissions of carbon dioxide would make very little difference to the climate. Even if mitigation were likely to be effective, it would do more harm than good: already millions face starvation as the dash for biofuels takes agricultural land out of essential food production: a warning that taking precautions, “just in case”, can do untold harm unless there is a sound, scientific basis for them. Finally, even if mitigation might do more good than harm, adaptation as (and if) necessary would be far more cost-effective and less likely to be harmful.

In short, we must get the science right, or we shall get the policy wrong. If the concluding equation in this analysis (Eqn. 30) is correct, the IPCC’s estimates of climate sensitivity must have been very much exaggerated. There may, therefore, be a good reason why, contrary to the projections of the models on which the IPCC relies, temperatures have not risen for a decade and have been falling since the phase-transition in global temperature trends that occurred in late 2001. Perhaps real-world climate sensitivity is very much below the IPCC’s estimates. Perhaps, therefore, there is no “climate crisis” at all. At present, then, in policy terms there is no case for doing anything. The correct policy approach to a non-problem is to have the courage to do nothing.

https://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/200807/monckton.cfm

Weather Channel founder John Coleman --

Perspective is key.  Earth has vacillated between ice ages and interglacial periods for ever. Warming and cooling is natural, not man-made.

Charles C. W. Cooke observes that the left is looking to embrace conservative principles - federalism, separation of powers, decentralization - in countering Trump.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-cooke-left-embraces-conservatism-20161213-story,amp.html

This is very funny. Sonny Bunch explains how James Comey cost Hillary Clinton the election --

http://freebeacon.com/blog/clinton-campaign-blames-james-comey-for-losing/

Signs of degradation. First, getting it right. A NY Times editorial from 1987, arguing for a minimum wage of $0.00. --

The idea of using a minimum wage to overcome poverty is old, honorable - and fundamentally flawed. It's time to put this hoary debate behind us, and find a better way to improve the lives of people who work very hard for very little.

http://www.nytimes.com/1987/01/14/opinion/the-right-minimum-wage-0.00.html

And then from 2012, mocking Mitt Romney (as Barack Obama did), for Romney's spot-on assessment of Russia as our number one geopolitical foe --

Two decades after the end of the cold war, Mitt Romney still considers Russia to be America’s “No. 1 geopolitical foe.” His comments display either a shocking lack of knowledge about international affairs or just craven politics. Either way, they are reckless and unworthy of a major presidential contender.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/29/opinion/the-never-ending-cold-war.html

Democratic consultant and former Clinton advisor Paul Begala --

When President Obama mocked Romney in 2012 for saying Russia was top threat, I cheered. Obama was wrong. I was wrong. Mitt was right.

Sean Davis --

Iran is using enriched uranium it bought from Russia which obtained it from the U.S. in a deal that lined a Clinton Foundation donor's pockets.

David French --

I've been in the military and I've taught in the Ivy League. The military is far, far more ideologically diverse than the "elite" academy.

Mark Steyn on John Glenn --

John Glenn was a man of boundless courage and determination: he strapped himself in and stared not just death in the face but death in hideous and unknown ways. Yet he was also an ordinary man, who was called upon to do extraordinary things and rose to the challenge. Today we are unmanned in more than merely the sense of that Luna 2 expedition.

...John Glenn must surely have wondered, as all the astronauts weathered into geezers, how a great nation grew so impoverished in spirit.

Our heroes are old and stooped and wizened, but they are the only giants we have. Today, when we talk about Americans boldly going where no man has gone before, we mean the ladies' bathroom. Progress.

http://www.steynonline.com/7627/the-abandoned-frontier

I can't get enough of these. A woman writes (in the Washington Post!) that her romantic life has been ruined by Donald Trump's election. It takes a heart of stone not to laugh at what, amazingly, is not a parody.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/soloish/wp/2016/12/05/trumps-election-stole-my-desire-to-look-for-a-partner/?utm_term=.f237a5a8ba4c

Jonah Goldberg's response to the preceding piece  --

This kind of thing is why the conservative/libertarian view of politics as just one part of life is healthier.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers --

Betsy DeVos actually said, "gay marriage is wrong because “children need a mother and a father to love and care for them”

Regarding Weingarten's comment, David French responded --

When truth is treated like an outrage.

And here is Hillary Clinton in 2004, agreeing with DeVos' view of marriage --

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6I1-r1YgK9I&feature=youtu.be

From George Will - France tries to mitigate the potential for guilty feelings among those who aborted children by censoring expressions of love and support for those with Down Syndrome. 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-right-to-be-spared-from-guilt/2016/12/02/2d5adc2c-b7ed-11e6-959c-172c82123976_story.html?tid=hybrid_experimentrandom_2_na&utm_term=.aa145d8a8e52

A Muslim tells how he was taught to hate Jews. This video was initially banned by You Tube, because...reasons, but it's since been reinstated. --

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCQEmeGfFmY

Kevin Williamson --

Conservatism -- the belief that the state of your life may not be your fault, but it is your problem -- was never going to be popular.

Added 12/15 -- Andrew McCarthy scoffs at the "Russia Hacks Election" narrative.

Here’s the reality: Everyone knows the Russians meddle in our elections, just as they nefariously meddle in much else. That is why it was so reckless of Clinton to keep our nation’s most closely guarded defense secrets on a private, non-secure e-mail system. Up until November 8, Democrats told us there was no reason to be alarmed about such vulnerabilities in the face of likely Russian hacking. Now, hacking is suddenly a crisis — not because the Russians are doing anything different, but because Hillary lost.

Even if the Russians did want Trump to win, what difference, at this point, does it make? The United States is the world’s most consequential nation, so lots of countries figure they have a stake in the outcome of our elections — and some, if they have the requisite capabilities, try in various ways to influence the outcome . . . just as the Obama administration has tried to influence the outcome of Israeli elections, the Brexit referendum, and other foreign contests.

The fact that they think one side or the other would be better for them does not make it so. More to the point, unless there is evidence that the meddlers have fiddled with the vote count, who cares? Under our law, it is permissible to sway the outcome of an election based on false information — just ask Harry Reid. What’s the Democrat-media complaint? That there was too much true information?

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/443034/russia-election-hacking-charge-vladimir-putin-influence-american-elections

And Kevin Williamson laughs at the Left's obsession with Ayn Rand --

Bring up your undying love of Atlas Shrugged at the typical conservative gathering and people will smile at you and try very hard not to roll their eyes. Some people think of her novels as a kind of guilty adolescent enthusiasm now grown out-of-date, an intellectual mullet, a stage one goes through between the ages of 14 and 20. Some people use Atlas Shrugged as a totem — it had a moment at the cresting of the Tea Party phenomenon. But it is rare to meet actual adult human beings who organize their politics views (or, for pity’s sake, their lives) around Ayn Rand and her views. I don’t think National Review has a single Randian in the house; I’d be surprised if the Weekly Standard did, and if one showed up at Commentary then John Podhoretz would simply mock him out of existence.

Strangely, our progressive friends insist that the Right is entirely in thrall to the ideas of Ayn Rand. Left-leaning writers in places such as New York and Washington tend to be culturally insular — parochial, even — and many of them do not know very many conservatives. I cannot tell you how many times I have met some well-meaning lefty who tells me (thinking it is a compliment!) that I do not seem like one of those people. A young woman once insisted that, as a conservative, I simply must hate homosexuals. At the time, I was living in TriBeCa and working as a theater critic, which is not a very good gay-evasion strategy. People know what they know.

...Strange that a Randian cabal would take Donald Trump as its mascot. Trump, an incompetent casino operator and hotelier who boasted of buying political favors, is practically a Rand villain. He even has the name for it.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/443033/progressive-ayn-rand-obsession-misguided