The Biden administration edition
1
University grads today stand for nothing
I have always admired the tag corruptio optima pessima: the corruption of the best is the worst. Take the Ivy League. These super-rich, super-prestigious institutions are so wealthy and so beguiling because, once upon a time, they represented and — more to the point — successfully transmitted to their students the prime civilizational values of our culture.
We’re told, and I have no reason to disbelieve it, that the light we see from distant stars is very old and, in some cases, is light from stars that were long ago extinguished. It is same with the Ivy League and their near competitors.
Today, they are utterly bankrupt — not financially, of course. No, in a good old greedy capitalist sense, they are filthy, stinking rich. It is only in an intellectual and moral sense that they are bankrupt. They are, all of them, totally in thrall to what we have come to call “woke” ideology, which has poisoned the well of their intellectual pretensions by subordinating the life of the mind to identity politics.
All the old liberal virtues — disinterested inquiry, due process, colorblind justice, advance according to merit, not some extraneous racial, ethnic, or sexual quota — all that has been rebranded as the invidious patent of reactionary and therefore impermissible vice. In sum, the educational establishment in its highest reaches is today a cesspool, contaminating the society it had been, at great expense, created to nurture.
from Roger Kimball
Only 6% get it
From Instapudit but my highlight.
Americans Want Their Old Fossil-Fuel Economy Back — I&I/TIPP Poll. “Just 32% of those answering the poll, which has a margin of error of +/-2.5 percentage points, said they support Biden’s climate change policy even if it means higher energy prices. But a far larger majority of 57% answered in the negative. They either said they disagreed with his policies and want more and cheaper energy (41%), or don’t think climate change should be a U.S. policy priority (10%), or don’t even believe that the climate is changing (6%).”
Are 94% idiots? Seems so.
Public service Covid edition
Not just “their” country but the whole of the West:
“Dr. Deborah Birx admitted in her new book that she falsified COVID data in order to advocate for lockdowns and other draconian measures. She destroyed our country from within.”
It was obvious to some from the start. These people are despicable and she writes it in her book!
Nothing is as common as a heat wave in summer
John Cleese on the Babylon Bee
Meanwhile it’s freezing in Melbourne
This is from Ace of Spades. I wrote on this months ago but it needs repeating.
“Every summer, there are heat waves somewhere on the globe, with “record heat” recorded in multiple locations. Along with these heat waves, the prophets of climate apocalypse warn that all these “extreme” new temperature records are proof of global warming.
“I apologize for throwing math at you this morning, but I can only take so much statistical ignorance without wanting to respond.
“First off, temperature records have been kept, depending on location, for about 100 to 140 years. Let’s split the difference and call it 120 years on average. Each weather station has a historical “record high” for each day of the year, and also a “record low” for each day of the year. Therefore, with 365 record high and 365 record low temperatures at each station over the past 120 years, an equal distribution (e.g. 365 divided by 120) would mean that each station records about 3 record highs and 3 record lows every year.
“How many times have you heard a fear-mongering journalist or politician hyping “an all-time record high for this date at the South Succotash weather station.” So what? Statistically, anything less than three record highs per year at South Succotash is below average.
“And how many weather stations are there in the US? NOAA’s domestic database is composed of almost 15,000 weather stations.
“So with 15,000 weather stations across the US, and with each expected to have on average 3 record highs per year, there should be approximately 45,000 record daily highs per year in the United States.
“Any MSM journalist reading this is probably already lost and unable to comprehend that “new record highs” doesn’t simply mean “hotter than it used to be,” but if they’re still with me, their follow-up question might be: “But what about meteorological stations that are suddenly recording an all-time record high temperature, ever?”
Different strokes for different blokes
Had a stroke. May be back but I’m out of hospital. However, not easy to type.
The BBC thinks Australia is becoming “unlivable”!
Saw this on Instapundit:
WELL, NO. IT MIGHT BE COMING. I MEAN, THEY WANT TO GO CARBON-FREE: Australia Becoming Unlivable–BBC.
Personally, seeing this mentioned by the Poms on an American website does make me laugh. I can only say I consider it my greatest good fortune that I ended up in Australia, not in Canada where I was born, nor in the UK where I spent two-plus lovely years in the 1970s, nor in the US which I lived next to growing up and visited many times.
It may not last the way things are going, but if one surveys the entire planet at the present moment, there is nowhere else better. This is a secret we should, of course, keep to ourselves since it is better to discourage others from overrunning the place.
Hopefully this is also a sign of things to come: Labor return Sri Lankan asylum seeker boat as Operation Sovereign Borders enforced.
As for climate change which is supposedly what will make Australia uninhabitable, this was a comment at Instapundit:
In 2015 – Australia absorbed between 37 and 45 million kilotons of CO2, according to peer reviewed science
https://acp.copernicus.org/…
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In the same year – Australians emitted an estimated 376 000 kilotons of CO2 total.
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(2015 was an El-Nino year (typically a year of low vegetative growth in OZ) with the only aspect at all unusual was 17% above average rainfall across the Top End – despite the impact of a positive Indian Ocean Dipole)
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If the Australia’s goal was to become ‘carbon neutral’ – this peer reviewed scientific study confirms that Australia has ALWAYS been carbon neutral.
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Job done, next…
Not that I think any of it actually matters, but for the crazies who take climate change seriously, we are certainly doing our bit.
PLUS: There is then this which I just picked up at The Spectator Online [for subscribers only].
According to Professor Ian Plimer, Australia doesn’t need to worry about the ‘Net Zero’ goals that caused the guilt-ridden, city-dwelling rich list to vote Green (well, Teal but same-same). Net Zero by 2030? 2050? No worries, ‘Australia sequesters some five times as much carbon dioxide as it emits. Australia’s net contribution to global atmospheric carbon dioxide is negative. We are already at Net Zero. This is validated by the net carbon dioxide flux estimates from the IBUKI.’
Did you know we have an “esafety commissioner”?
I came across this at The Gateway Pundit: Australian Politician at Davos Explains that We Need a “Recalibration” of Freedom of Speech. Really, I said, so I watched the video. This is the summary of what she said:
‘Australian eSafety commissioner Julie Inman Grant tells the World Economic Forum we need a “recalibration” of freedom of speech. Which only means eliminating their ideological competition.’
Or according to the link to the above post:
Australian politicians forced shutdowns and restrictions on citizens based on COVID. Their leaders have no regard for their citizens or their human rights.
This became clear today in Davos as Australian Commissioner Julie Inman Grant told the World Economic Forum that we need a “recalibration” of freedom of speech.
Who is this Julie Inman Grant speaking on behalf of us. This is who she is, and she really does apparently speak on all our behalfs: eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant reappointed for another five years.
Australia’s eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant has been reappointed for a further five years as new laws granting her new internet takedown powers come into effect.
Ms Inman Grant, a former Microsoft, Twitter and Adobe executive, has been eSaftey Commissioner since 2017. On Sunday, communications minister Paul Fletcher announced she will remain in the job until 2027 with another maximum appointment term.
The reappointment comes as the controversial Online Safety Act comes into force, giving Ms Inman Grant new powers to issue take-down notices to a range of online services in relation to online content deemed to be harmful.
“Today’s reappointment, and the simultaneous commencement of the Online Safety Act, will enhance Australia’s position as a world leader in online safety.”
Ms Inman Grant was appointed eSafety commissioner in 2017 when the government agency responsible for children’s online safety expanded its remit to all Australians’ online safety and was renamed to the eSafety Commissioner.
The Commissioner is an independent statutory office holder, supported by around 67 staff, contractors and the national media regulator, the Australian Communications and Media Authority. The office has an annual budget of around $25 million but will receive more this year to support its new powers.
We have a “national media regulator”? And they have been given new powers. Meanwhile the nincompoop Minister who was in charge may yet lose his seat to some Teal candidate.
JUST IN CASE YOU WOULD LIKE TO KNOW A LITTLE MORE: This his her profile from The World Economic Forum:
Julie Inman Grant is Australia’s eSafety Commissioner. In this role, Julie leads the world’s first government regulatory agency committed to keeping its citizens safer online. Julie has extensive experience in the non-profit and government sectors and spent two decades working in senior public policy and safety roles in the tech industry at Microsoft, Twitter and Adobe. The Commissioner’s career began in Washington DC, working in the US Congress and the non-profit sector before taking on a role at Microsoft. Julie’s experience at Microsoft spanned 17 years, serving as one of the company’s first and longest-standing government relations professionals, ultimately in the role of Global Director for Safety & Privacy Policy and Outreach. At Twitter, she set up and drove the company’s policy, safety & philanthropy programs across Australia, New Zealand & Southeast Asia. As Commissioner, Julie plays an important global role as Chair of the Child Dignity Alliance’s Technical Working Group and as a Board Member of the WePROTECT Global Alliance. She was recently named one of Australia’s most influential women by the Australian Financial Review and a leading Australian in Foreign Affairs by the Sydney Morning Herald. In 2020, the World Economic Forum and Apolitical appointed the Commissioner as one of the #Agile50, the world’s most influential leaders revolutionising government. In 2021, Julie oversaw significant increases in the eSafety office’s budget, increased staffing levels and launched the global Safety by Design initiative. As Commissioner, she has led work to stand up novel and world-first regulatory regimes under the new Online Safety Act 2021, with implementation of a sweeping new set of reforms beginning on 23 January 2022. Commissioner Inman Grant was reappointed for a further 5-year term by the Australian Government in January 2022.
I thought she had an American accent. Not that I hold it against her, but still she does seem like an import contaminated with every stupid notion found amongst the Washington bureaucracy. And do note, she is “one of the world’s most influential leaders revolutionising government”.
Law of Markets 