This is the chap who was Hunter Biden’s business partner in China. It is virtually impossible to get any of the major media organisations to discuss almost any of it. And then there’s this.
This exchange between Trump and Lesley Stahl is insane. She repeatedly insists the Biden laptops “can’t be verified” so reporters shouldn’t talk about it.
Even in retelling the story Baron Cohen tells only lies. The actual version and his version are a prefiguring of Leslie Stahl at 60 Minutes. These people are relentless liars.
For me, climate skepticism is only part of the way towards where we need to get. Until there is actual evidence that the climate is warming because of how we heat our homes and generate electricity, I will remain as I am, completely unconvinced that the whole of this green new deal enterprise is anything other than a scam and a hoax. Bjorn Lomborg signed up early as the “rational” sceptic, but from everything he has ever written and said, his pretending to be on the fence is one hundred percent a pose. No one should pay attention to a word he says. So there he was in The Oz today with this: Throwing trillions at climate policies is sheer folly. I am more into believing that throwing ten cents at climate policies, as in climate change policies, is the folly. This is what Lomborg actually believes:
During the Paris climate summit in 2015, former US president Barack Obama and many other global leaders promised to double global green R&D spending by 2020. Unfortunately, actual spending has barely budged. But Biden’s plan could change all that. He laudably suggests spending $US75bn a year on green R&D, which would increase fourfold what the rich world is spending each year. While waste and mismanagement from such a drastic ramp-up are possibilities, Biden’s direction is precisely right.
What a repulsive scoundrel. He’s probably not quite as wealthy as Al Gore, but he has no doubt made his own little pile taking the line he does which allows him to pose as an undecided to gather in those fools who are only half way there under the pretence that they are being properly sceptical.
And let me add in my own two cents worth on The Amazing Randi who really was amazing. His thing was Uri Geller and I learned much from Randi as he exposed Geller for the charlatan he was. What was especially important to me was to find out that there is big money in deceiving the gullible. This is the essence of scepticism, and Randi was the real thing.
If you want to see another climate fraud, let me introduce you to Michael Shermer.
Michael Brant Shermer (born September 8, 1954) is an American science writer, historian of science, founder of The Skeptics Society, and editor-in-chief of its magazine Skeptic, which is largely devoted to investigating pseudoscientific and supernatural claims. The Skeptics Society currently has over 55,000 members. Shermer engages in debates on topics pertaining to pseudoscience and religion in which he emphasizes scientific skepticism.
Shermer, as it says, is the founding editor of Skeptic to which I once subscribed and the very first issue I received was devoted to explaining Climate Change is a genuine problem that needs to be dealt with. I, of course, cancelled my sub on the spot and have never paid the slightest attention to him ever since although he is everywhere. This is what he believes: Why Climate Skeptics Are Wrong.
Is there a consensus on AGW? There is. The tens of thousands of scientists who belong to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Chemical Society, the American Geophysical Union, the American Medical Association, the American Meteorological Society, the American Physical Society, the Geological Society of America, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and, most notably, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change all concur that AGW is in fact real. Why? … There is a convergence of evidence from multiple lines of inquiry—pollen, tree rings, ice cores, corals, glacial and polar ice-cap melt, sea-level rise, ecological shifts, carbon dioxide increases, the unprecedented rate of temperature increase—that all converge to a singular conclusion. AGW doubters point to the occasional anomaly in a particular data set, as if one incongruity gainsays all the other lines of evidence. But that is not how consilience science works. For AGW skeptics to overturn the consensus, they would need to find flaws with all the lines of supportive evidence and show a consistent convergence of evidence toward a different theory that explains the data.
Some sceptic! That Randi, who like Houdini was a magician and able to see through the tricks that Geller and other magicians had devised to fool the public, was not able to see through all this is just how it goes. You can learn a great deal about fraud from his writings. As Randi said, you need a magician to expose a magician.
As for climate change fraud, you need a climate scientist who is willing to take these villains on. Such people are very rare. There is hardly a dollar in it. My only advice, which I learned from Randi and others like him, is to make it your aim in any controversy to investigate the other side. Don’t just read one climate scientist and then read another on the same side. Seek out, as a matter of principle, those who disagree and read carefully what they write. If you don’t do that, they will pick your pocket. With climate change, they will raise the cost of heating and lighting your homes, and while they will become rich building windmills and solar panels, you will become poor. You need not only be sceptical, but to know how to be sceptical.
It’s only when you have read the text above should you then look at the video below: “Michael Shermer with Bjorn Lomborg — How Climate Change Panic Costs Trillions, Fails to Fix Planet”. Both start from the premise there is a problem to be fixed. Once you’ve seen through that, only when you have seen through that, will you be at beginning of being able to think through these issues. You may never be able to do a thing about it, but at least you will understand the world in which you live.
As he says at the end, “where is the best place to send my money?” (1:19:25). That is just exactly what it’s all about.
Guess who that is? And guess what it’s about. The first two minutes should make you sick. Do not watch too much more since it will be bad for your health. Much more dangerous than CV-1984.
So this is where we are with Mr Stupid: Andrews threatens border closures over Kiwi arrivals. There has never been a government with such a high approval-to-incompetence ratio. Bumbling fools comes nowhere near covering it. Twenty-one years of almost continuous Labor Party management have brought community expectations for their governments to the lowest level in history.
Mr Andrews said he had previously told the federal government Victoria was not part of the travel bubble and blamed federal authorities for the arrivals, saying he did not know they were coming and they should have been stopped before they boarded flights to Melbourne. NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian made it clear her government would not prevent passengers travelling to Victoria, with a spokeswoman saying the issue was a matter for the southern state. Victoria’s borders are not closed to NSW…. Victorian authorities spent much of yesterday trying to track down the travellers, with Mr Andrews conceding the state’s health department had no power to stop passengers, detain them or force them into quarantine if they had arrived from interstate, rather than overseas.
They arrive from places where there are no cases of the Corona Virus, so what’s the problem? And if you want more evidence just how incompetent these people are, try this although there is much much more:
A spokeswoman for the federal Department of Health confirmed Victoria’s chief health officer Brett Sutton was present at a meeting on October 12 when the matter of onwards travel of New Zealanders from Sydney to Melbourne was discussed. Mr Tudge also tweeted that Professor Sutton “did not raise any concerns” in the discussions. It also emerged Mr Andrews’ own department had given one of the arrivals from NZ the green light two weeks ago to travel onward to Victoria although the advice, from the Department of Premier and Cabinet, was issued before Mr Andrews had officially declared his state was not joining the travel bubble. The Age has also seen an email from the Premier’s Department, sent on October 12 in response to a query about travel from NZ via Sydney, that clearly advised that Victoria’s borders were open and that the traveller was free to arrive in the southern state.
I can only think Dan is still there because the rest of his cabinet has joined Michael O’Brien (the unknown leader of the Liberal Party) in not wanting to become Premier until the present Victorian mess is limited to the level of “Ongoing Catastrophe” from its present level of “Major Calamity”.
It was not as if in writing this I had gone through the comments at the Oz, found one I liked, copied it into the post and then closed up shop. I read them all through, many that came after yours, and still only really like the one you wrote. And what I liked and what is missing in so much of the pro-Trump things I read, are policy details. It is what I complain about in the Biden stuff as you know. Why should one vote for Joe? No one else seems to think policy detail matters. Actually everyone does but very few seem to think it’s worth discussing. It’s perfectly clear that the Dems are all in for green new deal; “free” healthcare; unlimited rights to abortion right through to the ninth (tenth) month; open borders; ending of our European cultural and political tradition; the confiscation of guns; and socialism. But other than in narrow and infrequent moments of clarity, none of this is ever said just like that since it kills off votes, since to be for any one or two of these will alert people who are against any of the others. And vice versa from our side.
We are, in contrast, in favour of:
a comprehensive public health care system in which costs nevertheless constrain access (as it must always do but which is kept as a secret)
legislated rights to abortion with the limitations specified
limits to welfare with an emphasis on earning one’s own way in the world
climate change scepticism but with full-on over genuine conservation (we are conservatives)
border protection
Western civic tradition as our guide to political legitimacy;
a defence of Israel and Taiwan, plus a few others (which hopefully includes Australia)
the second amendment right to bear arms, and
capitalism and the free market.
Other than the first two, the ending of the rest must over time put an end to our way of life. But this list, which is shared between us, is many steps too far to many others who might accept some but not all. It’s depressing.
If Hitler hadn’t started the war and if he had merely expelled the Jews, the Nazis would still be there, and an inspiration to many others in the West most of whom now vote for the Dems.
In the middle of this there is an old guy with his head in his hands. That old guy is us.
I have just received a note from a journal that my article will not be included in a forthcoming overview of one of the world’s great economists (now sadly deceased).
I am sorry to inform you that your proposal has not been selected for inclusion in the special issue. There were many excellent proposals, including some with significant overlap with yours. We have decided to go with a few more historically oriented pieces by young scholars.
The probability that someone else will be writing on Say’s Law approaches nil, but I suspect this is a form-letter sent out to everyone whose proposals were rejected. Nothing new here for me. I mention it really only to draw attention to the above chart. Economics is in the blue columns on the right, but they’re all more or less the same no matter what the discipline (although economics is a bit better than the others). These are the social sciences where you would expect this kind of outcome, but I wonder how different it would look for physics and chemistry.
The chart is from THE GEEK IN PICTURES at Powerline which has a number of equally interesting charts about the world we inhabit.
I have just finished Woody Allen’s autobiography, Apropos of Nothing. There have been a number of constants in my life and so far, a love for his movies and his comedy generally has been one of the foremost.
He identifies with the left, but he is a conservative at heart. Everything about his films is representative of the core morality of Western Civilisation. His humour is founded on our Biblical morality. You cannot find anything funny in what he says or writes unless you begin from a solid basis in Biblical morality and the ethics of the West.
Confession: it is easy to laugh when on the other side of the world, I suppose, but Donald Trump has been a source of great amusement for many years. However, as the mind-boggling events unfolded this week, the smile was wiped from my dial.
Telling people not to be afraid of COVID-19, which he has contracted — although when and where remains a secret — the President checked out of hospital and returned to the White House.
A day or so later, as the US death toll reached 211,532, reports on television claimed Trump was symptom free and had declared his infection a “blessing in disguise”.
This is her central point:
If the leader of any country has only one job, it is to keep their citizens out of harm’s way. Despite any other previous policy triumphs, if a leader doesn’t do everything to keep their people alive in the face of avoidable death, they won’t be appreciated.
I don’t want to get into just how inane I think this is. If you don’t see it yourself, I can do nothing to help you. But it was the sentence that followed that makes it clear just how much, in Jane Fonda’s words, “Covid is God’s gift to the Left”. Here we have, in The Oz:
Polls often are wrong but they have Trump on track to lose the election. If he does, it will be because of his COVID-19 response.
And it will be just because of this safety-first inanity from people of the left such as herself. Save me, she begs, save me. No one is any longer dying, there are other issues that also matter, and many that are much more important. But so far as she is concerned, that is the first priority with everything else a long way distant behind. Here are the first five comments under “Best Liked” and then a few others after that.
“Voters expect politicians to do everything to keep them safe”. No, we expect them to provide information so we can decide for ourselves how “safe” we want to be. It’s time we recaptured the notion of individual responsibility. The thought of big government nursing me from cradle to grave has me more worried than the virus.
Used to like reading your columns Katrina now they are better suited to the Guardian.
Keeping the population safe includes the responsibility of not destroying the economy.
KGK over the last couple of her articles, has shown herself to be a Dan lover and Trump/right hater/disliker. It’s always good to know the perspective from which the authors come. One thing though for KGK, as a person who will relentlessly defend Dan Andrews and his draconian lockdowns, can she please explain how my child in France was in the very same class with another child who was confirmed to have Covid. The Covid positive child stayed away from school for a few weeks and the rest of the class went on as normal with no one else (nor the teacher) getting Covid (and their classrooms is really, really small and packed with students). Compare this with Victoria where there are very very few diagnosed cases (certainly in comparison to France) but no kids going to school for 6 entire months. KGK, can you see why some people may see that there has been a bit of an over reaction by your man Dan? I think KGK ought to check her bias.
A very simple response Katrina. You’re so very, very wrong in your thinking.
“Telling people not to be afraid of COVID-19, which he has contracted.” Am I the only person in the world who understood his words to be along the lines of not letting yourself become too afraid to live and to still find joy in the world despite the times we are living in; but to take care and be responsible. The man has his faults but for just once could anyone report on his utterances with just a small degree of objectivity?
It is the perpetually terrified who have urged politicians to bring us to our knees. Governments cannot keep us safe. In the ultimate scenario it is they that send troops to die to achieve economic and moral objectives. Safety is am illusion. Live under the doona for as long as you like Katrina but the rest of us want to live life.
This is what gets my back up. People who are so quick to blame Trump for the deaths from corona but yet give a free pass to Dan Andrews. Seriously?? The same bloke who let 10000 BLM protesters run amuck thru Melbourne because apparently they couldn’t be policed but yet dragged a pregnant mother out of her home for supporting a Fb post about a protest. What a joke.
Sorry, but most of this is a string of nonsense cliches.
We can’t hide under the bed forever. I think it is eminently sensible advice to say ‘don’t let this virus rule our lives, we must learn to live with it’.
I swear people still peddling this fear campaign must live under a rock.
The buffoon in the White House just brokered two Middle East Peace Accords, something that 71 years of political intervention and endless war failed to produce.
The buffoon in the White House is the first president that has not engaged us in a foreign war since Eisenhower.
The buffoon in the White House has had the greatest impact on the economy, bringing jobs and lowering unemployment to the Black and Latino population of ANY other president. Ever.
The buffoon in the White House has exposed the deep, widespread, and long-standing corruption in the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, and the Republican and Democratic parties.
The buffoon in the White House turned NATO around and had them start paying their dues.
The buffoon in the White House neutralized the North Koreans, stopped them from developing a further nuclear capability, sending missiles toward Japan, and threatening the West Coast of the US.
The Buffoon in the White House turned our relationship to the Chinese around, brought hundreds of business back to the US and revived the economy. Hello.
The buffoon in the White House has accomplished the appointing of two Supreme Court Justices and close to 300 Federal Judges.
The buffoon in the White House lowered your taxes and caused your stock market to move to record levels over 100 times, positively impacting the retirements of tens of millions of citizens.
The buffoon in the White House fast-tracked the development of a COVID Vaccine – it will be available within weeks – we still don’t have a vaccine for SARS, Bird Flu, Ebola, or a host of diseases that arose during previous administrations.
The buffoon in the White House rebuilt our military which the Obama administration had crippled and had fired 214 key generals and admirals in his first year of office.
The buffoon in the White House uncovered widespread pedophilia in the government and in Hollywood. The buffoon in the White House is exposing worldwide sex trafficking of minors and bringing children home to their families.
The buffoon in the White House. Works for free and has lost well over 2 billion dollars of his own money in serving – and does all of this and much more in the face of relentless undermining and opposition from people who are threatened because they know they are going to be exposed as the criminals that they are if he is re-elected.
I got it, you don’t like him. How special of you. He is serving you and ALL the American people. What are you doing besides calling him names?”
For us, however, the future looks pretty grim but that’s only because it is different from the world in which we grew up. A note to a friend just sent:
We have lived in the best of times, but those who come in the future will think so too about themselves. All of the innovations we have become used to will still be around, plus a few more. But freedom and self-directed lives are not for everyone so when they largely disappear hardly anyone will notice. We are heading into a modern mediaeval feudal structure with the popular will as irrelevant as it is possible to be. The people I deal with who are grateful to Dan Andrews astound me, but they are happy with the lockdown and wonder who wants to go out after 7:30 at night, since there is nowhere to go. And the slow deterioration of our living standards, to the point where things like world travel are only for the elites, will just become part of life. We will live in genuinely fascist societies, the kind of national socialist communities set up by Mussolini. My best paper as an undergraduate was titled, “Fascist Criticism of Liberalism”. I wrote it from a liberal perspective while recognising millions of others agreed with the Fascists. You have to be a philosopher to believe that free speech and free thought are positive features of society. All that is coming to an end, and may not be resurrected for a thousand years, if ever. The future will think of us as an aberration, something in the way we now think about ancient Athens. Just saw this as a comment on a blogsite:
“Estimates peg the population of the city of Rome in the 4th century around 1.7MM. It was the greatest city the world of that time had ever seen. Two hundred years later less than 100k lived there. Sic Gloria Transit.”
The best book I may have ever read is The Swerve by Stephen Greenblatt. It overlaps historically Rome in biblical times, Rome in Mediaeval times and Rome today. Cannot recommend any book more highly. What it does is underscore the way the future is never determined, that societies break down and that the world as it will be is for all practical purposes unrelated to how it now is. One of the great lessons I learned in studying the History of Economics was that living standards in Europe reached their peak in 180 AD with the death of Marcus Aurelius and then fell for the next 1000 years only returning to their previous Roman heights in around 1600. When Europeans first reached China in numbers around 1700, the Chinese found nothing we had to offer of any interest to them. You just have to enjoy the world as you find it and then get on with life. Sad, but could be worse. I guarantee your daughter won’t find things as pessimistic as we do, but when (and if) she does, she’ll just have to go with the flow.
Every one of the bits of tech in the vid were the latest thing as I was growing up. Many of them no one born in the last thirty years would even know what they are.
The heading is from Jane Fonda and she is referring to the Chinese flu.
You could tell just exactly where the moderator in the VPs debate was starting from when she began with the Democrat’s only issue, the China Virus. It then came back again when Kamala Harris focused on the mega-downturn that followed the lockdown that was introduced to deal with the Virus as if that had in any way been a failure of government policy. The virus was not introduced deliberately, but once it arose, it became their opportunity to tear everything down that has been built over the past century and a half.
The Democrats have nothing. The left offer nothing. These are nut-case socialists. There is not a single reason to vote for them since no policy of theirs will improve the life of a single person other than their leaders. Only if people obliterate completely from their minds how well the economy was going prior to the forecasts of potentially millions of deaths that were sprouted everywhere back in March would anyone even contemplate for a moment turning to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as an answer to existing problems.
I know I am not supposed to say it or even think it, but I cannot help believing that the virus was amplified to the fullest extent by the left and the media to provide momentum to an absolutely dead Democrat policy platform in the face of Donald Trump’s extraordinary successes that exist at every turn, both in foreign policy and domestically.
Fonda gives the game away. Covid plus its economic consequences is all the left has, but if they parley all this into a win next month, it will come with the destruction of the American economy and more widely, even perhaps the destruction of Western civilisation as we know it. The application of the same approach to the Green New Deal based on massive public spending all directed towards massive increases in unproductive forms of investment, will leave America and the West looking like Venezuela today.
It may take upwards of a decade, but if that is the road we travel, the end will be inevitable. This is the only vulnerability the Republicans have, but it may yet be large enough to turn the election in the left’s direction.
It is Jane Fonda’s “gift to the left” and even Kamala was able to make a feature case out of a problem for which the left can provide no new answers at all.
Law of Markets 