Bret Stephens has an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on the Global Warming fizzle. I know, I know… liberals don’t read the Wall Street Journal. If it’s not in the New York Times, Newsweek. Salon, or the Cannibal Huffington Post they can’t read it, but Stephens makes some great points. God forbid people read things outside their comfort zone.

Consider the case of global warming, another system of doomsaying prophecy and faith in things unseen.

As with religion, it is presided over by a caste of spectacularly unattractive people pretending to an obscure form of knowledge that promises to make the seas retreat and the winds abate. As with religion, it comes with an elaborate list of virtues, vices and indulgences. As with religion, its claims are often non-falsifiable, hence the convenience of the term “climate change” when thermometers don’t oblige the expected trend lines. As with religion, it is harsh toward skeptics, heretics and other “deniers.” And as with religion, it is susceptible to the earthly temptations of money, power, politics, arrogance and deceit.

The religion marches on even in the face of Climategate 2.0. After hurricane Katrina, Al Gore blamed the storm on global warming. Now the United States is in the longest period without a category 3 hurricane in over a century. No, that’s not alarming, so no one knows about it.

The computer models that predicted alarming temperature increases have all been wrong. The Earth has warmed gradually over the past century, but nothing about the change has been alarming or unprecedented. After 25 years of dire predictions and non-stop alarmism the issue is dead. The alarmists were wrong. They’re always wrong.

With the world facing a debt crisis that threatens economic prosperity, nations can no longer afford to fund these rabbit hole theories. Alarmists have wasted billions and billions of dollars on research and advocacy. Imagine how many lives could have been saved if the money was used to provide impoverished parts of the world with clean water, or to fights diseases like malaria.

Since we’re randomly lobbing missiles for “humanitarian” purposes, why stop at Libya? How about Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and the Ivory Coast? At least when we blow up missiles someone has to make more missiles, which is a lot more productive than supporting the fat-ass government bureaucracy that produces nothing but regulations and kids who can’t read.

Do you really want to help teachers? Do you love teachers? Then let’s get rid of make-work BS six-figure government jobs like Climate Change Program Manager, pay teachers based on merit, fire those that need to be fired and make schools compete. In the process, you’ll help the children as well.

When faced with a choice of having to pay a little more for their own pensions and health care, public employees in Wisconsin basically rioted. Instead of doing the right and rational thing they chose to force Governor Walker to institute layoffs to help bring a modicum of sanity to the state’s budgetary Armageddon.

So let’s get this straight… When asked to fly a little closer to the reality the rest of us live in, teachers and their unions said, “Hell no, we won’t go.” I’d love to have a sweetheart deal like that, one that guarantees I can’t get fired for incompetence or laziness (or just about anything else), that pays more than most other professionals earn (you can look it up), basically free health care and pension plans, and about a third of the year off for vacation. It once again begs the question posed by Ann Coulter above, that given that, “aren’t they too stupid to be teaching our kids?”

Unfortunately, I live in a reality called the private sector, a sector being abandoned by more and more people as they realize that the crime of big, corrupt and crony government surely does pay. I discussed this problem earlier after reading a job description on one of the job boards for a Climate Change Program Manager at the National Park Service. I won’t rehash the whole thing, but this pointless make-work job brings in anywhere from $103,000 to $155,000.

When progressives protest budget cuts and clamor for more and more government, they cite the saints of public service – teachers, fire fighters and cops (the only time they like cops). I’m actually well and good with paying all of the above handsomely, though I must add that it should be merit based and they should be able to be fired.

The problem is that you can’t pay those who are actually rendering a public service handsomely when some Schmoe is pulling in six figures at a BS National Park Service job. The bigger problem is that there are literally thousands of the Schmoes at all levels of government with BS jobs raking in the dough at the taxpayer’s, and teacher’s, expense.

The following excerpt from the Dec. 11, 2009 edition of USA Today bears repeating here:

Federal employees making salaries of $100,000 or more jumped from 14% to 19% of civil servants during the recession’s first 18 months — and that’s before overtime pay and bonuses are counted. Federal workers are enjoying an extraordinary boom time — in pay and hiring — during a recession that has cost 7.3 million jobs in the private sector… When the recession started, the Transportation Department had only one person earning a salary of $170,000 or more. Eighteen months later, 1,690 employees had salaries above $170,000.

These disgusting statistics are merely the tip of an iceberg, with state and local governments aboard a federal Titanic steaming full speed ahead that isn’t equipped with enough lifeboats. And yet, progressives fight any budget cuts and limits on government tooth and nail, despite the fact that doing both would benefit their beloved teachers, fire fighters and cops.

Progressives are notoriously ignorant of economics. I don’t think progressives are stupid, by and large, but willfully ignorant. They are generally economically illiterate because any cursory knowledge of economics would explode their entire ideology and they’d have to become conservatives, or at least libertarians.

Progressives fail to realize that government monopolies are, by their very nature, resistant to any type of positive reform or innovation. Thus they ossify, becoming inflexible and of no practical good to anyone but those who work for the system. Modern liberalism is, in fact, illiberal and has become the worst kind of conservatism you could possibly imagine.

People try to put us down… Yeah, that’s because you screwed future generations with your My Generation crap, dumbasses. And, by the way, you didn’t die before you got old like you were supposed to.

Reform education? Hell no! It’s all about “the children,” so we must not improve it or allow any of the unwashed masses a choice. Rather, we should pour more money into it, most of which goes to the adults and their precious paychecks, pensions and health care. Reform entitlements? Hell no! They’re headed for a massive implosion, but I’ll have mine for my retirement and I’ll be dead by then, so let them drive clown cars!

My children are quite thankful for these selfless adults. Still, they wonder why the Worthless Generation didn’t take Roger Daltrey’s advice in My Generation to heart.

One of the consequences of pouring more manpower and money into government work and jealously guarding government monopolies in certain areas, like education, is either a negative or flat return on investment. But start providing data and evidence and a liberal’s eyes will start glazing over because there’s no emotion in numbers or logic. Stephen Moore laid it out in a recent Wall Street Journal editorial:

The employment trends described here are explained in part by hugely beneficial productivity improvements in such traditional industries as farming, manufacturing, financial services and telecommunications. These produce far more output per worker than in the past. The typical farmer, for example, is today at least three times more productive than in 1950.

Where are the productivity gains in government? Consider a core function of state and local governments: schools. Over the period 1970-2005, school spending per pupil, adjusted for inflation, doubled, while standardized achievement test scores were flat. Over roughly that same time period, public-school employment doubled per student, according to a study by researchers at the University of Washington. That is what economists call negative productivity.

Not only will the shale discoveries prevent a cartel from forming, but the petro-states will lose lots of the muscle they now have in world affairs, as customers over time cut them loose and turn to cheap fuel produced closer to home.

The shale boom also is likely to upend the economics of renewable energy. It may be a lot harder to persuade people to adopt green power that needs heavy subsidies when there’s a cheap, plentiful fuel out there that’s a lot cleaner than coal, even if gas isn’t as politically popular as wind or solar.

It’s a good article and well worth reading. I have a small issue with her assertion about our trade deficit. There’s too much hand-wringing about that statistic, but in terms of energy sources it would be wise to produce much of our own natural gas.

First, the Akaka bill privileges what is in fact a race, not a tribe. The very act of transforming a racial group into a tribal group confers a privilege on one race and not others and is thus unconstitutional. Second, while the Constitution implicitly gives the federal government the power to recognize tribes with a long and continuous history of separate self-governance, it does not give the power to confer sovereignty on new tribes, or to reconstitute a tribe whose members have long since become part of the mainstream culture.

The ideas behind the bill could end up in a slippery slope where new tribes are declared all over the country. What’s to stop this from happening? People always follow the money. What I don’t understand is why the Democrats are supporting this bill.

Mr. Obama is trying to overhaul health care without being able to tap into widespread public unhappiness. Nearly nine out of 10 Americans say they have coverage–and large majorities of them are happy with it. Of the 46 million uninsured, 9.7 million are not U.S. citizens; 17.6 million have annual incomes of more than $50,000; and 14 million already qualify for Medicaid or other programs. That leaves less than five million people truly uncovered out of a population of 307 million. Americans don’t believe this problem–serious but correctable–justifies the radical shift Mr. Obama offers.

The left has done a great job exaggerating the problem. The current system needs work, but let’s not forgot how great it can be. Americans are scared of change because the government has a long track record of making things worse. The rich will always be able to afford quality health coverage. It’s important to make sure “well intentioned” politicians don’t wreck the system for the rest of us.

Joshua has been taking the bus to his local Whole Foods in New York City every five days for the past two years. This week, he said he’ll go elsewhere to fulfill his fresh vegetable and organic produce needs. “I will never shop there again,” vowed Joshua, a 45-year-old blogger, who asked that his last name not be published. Like many of his fellow health food fanatics, Joshua said he will no longer patronize the store after learning about Whole Foods Market Inc.’s CEO John Mackey’s views on health care reform, which were made public this week in an op-ed piece he wrote for The Wall Street Journal.

How awesome is this? Mackey’s op-ed isn’t even controversial. I guess simply being in favor of reform that doesn’t burden future generations with insurmountable debt is unforgivable. Then there’s this amazingly ignorant quote from Michael Lent.

“I’m boycotting [Whole Foods] because all Americans need health care,” said Lent, 33, who used to visit his local Whole Foods “several times a week.” “While Mackey is worried about health care and stimulus spending, he doesn’t seem too worried about expensive wars and tax breaks for the wealthy and big businesses such as his own that contribute to the deficit,” said Lent.

This is a typical ill-informed statement by an “all feeling” yet unknowing liberal. Lent doesn’t mention anything in Mackey’s op-ed, but somehow corporate subsidies and war are in the conversation. As astute political observers would know, U.S. corporate taxes are some of the highest in the industrialized world, hence the reason so many corporations receive subsidies. There’s nothing astute about Lent, however; he’s just another clueless Hipster Dufus.

Immigration Reform: Illegal immigrants are driving up costs with trips the emergency room and other health care access. I’ve written about immigration in the past. If a person is here illegally we should enforce the law. If people want to move here and become citizens we should create a legal process for citizenship. This seems simple to me. No blanket amnesty.

Tort Reform: High insurance costs are forcing small time doctors out of work. A majority of Americans are in favor of tort reform but unfortunately the Democrats will not stand up to the trial lawyer lobby of their party.

Whole Food’s CEO John Mackey had a great op-ed in the Wall Street Journal yesterday that touched on this subject. Mackey lists many more common sense ideas that would make health care more affordable.

• Repeal government mandates regarding what insurance companies must cover. These mandates have increased the cost of health insurance by billions of dollars. What is insured and what is not insured should be determined by individual customer preferences and not through special-interest lobbying.
• Enact tort reform to end the ruinous lawsuits that force doctors to pay insurance costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. These costs are passed back to us through much higher prices for health care.
• Make costs transparent so that consumers understand what health-care treatments cost. How many people know the total cost of their last doctor’s visit and how that total breaks down? What other goods or services do we buy without knowing how much they will cost us?
• Enact Medicare reform. We need to face up to the actuarial fact that Medicare is heading towards bankruptcy and enact reforms that create greater patient empowerment, choice and responsibility.
• Finally, revise tax forms to make it easier for individuals to make a voluntary, tax-deductible donation to help the millions of people who have no insurance and aren’t covered by Medicare, Medicaid or the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.

These reforms are not difficult and are less complex than anything Congress is debating. The only problem is that the Democratic Party lacks any interest in a solution that doesn’t ultimately end in a universal single payer system. They may not admit it openly, but a huge health care entitlement would be good for their party.

Jim Geraghty wrote an article titled “Eyes on the Real Prize” today for the National Review that speculates about what the Democrats will do on health care reform. Geraghty thinks that the Demcocrats might just pass this monstrostity no matter what the polls say or despite the predictable politlcal fallout in 2010. This might be their last chance for a decade to push this through Congress.

Come September, it’s quite possible we’ll see quite a few Democrats who got an earful and a half at their town meetings coming out and offering a dramatic justification: “I know this is controversial, I know my constituents have serious worries, but this is the right thing to do and I’ll be willing to accept the consequences.”
There may be other members of Congress who will proudly disregard opinion in their districts. Lawmakers who call their constituents “un-American” and “political terrorists” and compare them to the Klan and Timothy McVeigh almost express pride in disregarding the distant mewling of the unwashed masses foolish enough to elect them. Between the two approaches, enough Democrats could find their cover and the bill could very well pass along heavily partisan lines.

For a nation on the brink of bankruptcy it’s difficult to believe that a change in leadership has meant going from bad to worse. What the Democrats are doing isn’t surprising; however, their motivation to commit political suicide in favor of a health care entitlement is shocking.

A Pew poll last month found that Americans’ opinions of Mrs Palin were evenly balanced. A hefty 44% took a dim view of her, while 45% took a rosy one. Among Republicans, she scored a whopping 73% approval rating, far outpacing any other plausible contender for the party’s presidential nomination in 2012.

The Economist article beats up on Palin but are her poll numbers really indicative of a troubled politician? Keep in mind the current president has received two years of rosy press coverage and can only manage an approval rating of 51%. Palin shouldn’t be concerned that only 45% of Americans like her.
In the end Palin was defined by her relative inexperience, which is odd because historically that hasn’t been an issue for vice-presidential candidates. For example, Richard Nixon was 39 when he became vice-president under Eisenhower. Lest we forget, President Obama was given the ultimate free pass for his inexperience and he ran for president. When Obama gave an illogical and ignorant answer to a question about the capital gains tax posed by Charlie Gibson during a Democrat primary debate, it surely wasn’t national news. However, when Palin struggled with questions from the same Charlie Gibson she was labeled a moron and a shallow thinker. But at least Obama can pretentiously pronounce Pakistan Pockeestahn!
Politics, much like life isn’t fair and is unpredictable; no one knows what will happen in the future. In 2002, who could have predicted that a member of the Illinois Senate would be the next president? Palin is still very young and has a promising future as a political personality.

Last summer, Rep. Brian Baird (D., Wash.) took a four-day trip to the Galápagos Islands with his wife, four other lawmakers and their family members. The lawmakers spent $22,000 on meals and hotels, records show. Mr. Baird, a member of the House Science Committee, said the trip was to learn about global warming.
On the first day, lawmakers toured a breeding center for giant tortoise and land iguanas before dining with scientists, according to an itinerary for the trip. The next morning, lawmakers headed to the Galápagos National Park while their family members had the option of hiking, swimming or shopping. That afternoon, the group boarded a boat to visit a sea-lion colony and search for white-tip sharks.

I know I beat this drum a lot but here’s a Democrat representative using the tired “good intention” defense. Apparently we’re not supposed to question this trip because it was for global warming research. I wonder why he had to travel to the Galapagos Islands, burn up tons of fuel, and throw toxic C02 (at least to some at the EPA) into the atmosphere to supposedly study a “global phenomenon.” Aren’t there examples of global warming in the state of Washington? I certainly wish there was; I’m going to Priest Lake, Idaho in August and for the second straight year I’m going to freeze every time I jump in the lake.

Every summer is different at Priest Lake. Some might say it’s caused by natural weather variations, other might say it’s climate change. I need to visit the Galápagos Islands make a decision.
Also, If global warming is accepted science why does Rep. Baird need to research this issue? This seems crazy to me, but I guess I shouldn’t question Baird who holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology. I should note he is the chairman of the Energy and Environment sub-committee. That aside, Baird shouldn’t’ be taking exotic vacation trips at taxpayer expense to tour giant tortoises and land iguanas.

The $533 billion deficit in 2013 would include anticipated costs for his plan to offer near-universal health care. It also would include revenue from a planned greenhouse-gas-reduction effort in which businesses would have to purchase permits from the government to emit carbon dioxide and other emissions contributing to global warming. Subsidies for Medicare-managed care plans, known as Medicare Advantage, would be eliminated. Hedge-fund and private-equity managers would see their fees taxed as income, at 35% next year, not at the 15% capital-gains rate.

Right after Obama does all this a he’ll perform the simple task of resurrecting the dead and bringing peace to the middle east. The president might as well invent cold fusion while he’s at it. During the 90s the federal government was able to run at a fiscal surplus due to the fact that the military and intelligence agencies budgets were reduced. Plus thanks to gridlock in Washington a lot of pork was reduced. It’s no accident that 9/11 happened and that our intelligence gathering agencies are in pitiful shape. It’s also no accident that the United States hasn’t been attacked in over seven years.

When Republicans look at eliminating government programs the press reports it as “irresponsible.” When Democrats do it they’re making the “wise and difficult choices.” When Republicans reduce the rate of increased spending on programs it’s called a “cut.” When Democrats do the same thing it’s called “streamlining.” The nation is going bankrupt. The Democrat answer is higher taxes and more social programs. You don’t have to have a doctorate in economics to know that this will not work in the long-run.