Ricochet Conversations Feed

Diane Ellis, Ed. : Solzhenitsyn on Mortality

Diane Ellis, Ed. — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 02:04:37 +0000

I'm leaving tonight's debate live chat early to make it down to my church's evening Ash Wednesday service where the pastor will remind all in attendance that "for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return" as we receive the ashes. The Ash Wednesday service is one of the most meaningful of the entire church calendar for me because I, despite a great hope in eternity, continually struggle with the acceptance of death.

A passage in Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's 1993 speech "We have ceased to see the purpose" (of which we discussed a portion here) captured my attention recently, and I think it aptly speaks to why our culture is so uncomfortable with death.

And nothing so bespeaks the current helplessness of our spirit, our intellectual disarray, as the loss of a clear and calm attitude towards death. The greater his well-being, the deeper the chilling fear of death cuts into the soul of modern man. This mass fear, a fear the ancients did not know, was born of our insatiable, loud, and bustling life. Man has lost the sense of himself as a limited point in the universe, albeit one possessed of free will. He began to deem himself the center of his surroundings, adapting not himself to the world but the world to himself. And then, of course, the thought of death becomes unbearable: it is the extinction of the entire universe at a stroke.
Having refused to recognize the unchanging Higher Power above us, we have filled that space with personal imperatives, and suddenly life has become a harrowing prospect indeed.

tabula rasa : Help. Why Do Critics Love Lolita?

tabula rasa — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 00:11:58 +0000

This is a literary question that has baffled me for decades: why do literary critics love Nabokov's Lolita? I read it (or most of it) a long time ago (college in the 1970s) and it creeped me out then. To put it crudely, it's the story of a middle-aged pedophile who has a sexual relationship with his 12 or 13-year-old stepdaughter. Yet, Lolita is included on Time's Best 100 English-language novels since 1923, Modern Library's 100 best 20th century novels, and World Library's 100 Best Books of all time. D.G. Myers, a literary critic who contributes regularly to Commentary (and who seems to have a keen sense for good literature), ranks it no. 1.

My question is, given it's subject matter, why? Does it explore universal themes that help us understand the human condition? Does it uplift the reader? Is its prose sublime? Am I completely missing the point of the book because it's an allegory about bigger themes? I honestly don't get it. Help please.

Why not Marilynne Robinson's Gilead or Willa Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop or My Antonia (all books that go to the heart of the challenges of life and which portray truly good characters in a beautiful, ennobling way)?

Emily Esfahani Smith : Pop culture versus the great American novel

Emily Esfahani Smith — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 22:43:56 +0000

In an essay in the Weekly Standard, Roger Kimball writes about why there will never be another "great American novel." Kimball argues that the fall of the novel as an art form is, in part, the result of the rise of a culture that values pure entertainment above all--the rise, in other words, of what we today call the pop culture. During the heyday of the novel in this country--when Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Faulkner were writing deeply meaningful stories---the culture still viewed art as a source of spiritual meaning. As Kimball points out:

Wallace Stevens . . . suggested that in the modern age, â€œan age of disbelief,â€ art takes the place of religion as â€œlifeâ€™s redemption.â€ In such an age, Stevens wrote, â€œit is for the poet to supply the satisfactions of belief.â€

Today, the best art (defined broadly) does not speak to these transcendent facets of the human conditions. Rather, it tends to beat us into submission by shocking us with its perversions. This is true of both high art and low art. I wrote about this syndrome as it plays out in the high culture earlier this week. In the low culture, there are also plenty of examples. The one that immediately comes to mind for me is Rihanna's hit song S&M.

So, is our culture doomed?

Kimball writes:

Perhaps Hegel was right when he said that â€œart in its highest expression is and remains for us a thing of the past.â€ Hegelâ€™s thought was that if, traditionally, art had been tied to the truth, our cultureâ€™s commitment to scientific rationality had in an important sense led to the replacement of art by reason. Art would not disappear, Hegel thought; it would simply degenerate to a form of entertainment, a vacation from rather than a revelation of reality.
Of course, Hegel was wrong about a great many things. And perhaps he is wrong about this, too. If our tendency to tie truth to reasonâ€”to look, when we are really in earnest, to the scientist rather than the artist for truthâ€”describes an important aspect of our culture, there is another aspect summed up (for example) by Wallace Stevens when he suggested that in the modern age, â€œan age of disbelief,â€ art takes the place of religion as â€œlifeâ€™s redemption.â€ In such an age, Stevens wrote, â€œit is for the poet to supply the satisfactions of belief.â€

I bring up the Wallace Stevens quote again because it makes me think that there is hope yet for our culture. Redemption is a religious concept, and as we all know, there is little room for religion in today's pop or high culture. But that concept did manage to sneak its way into the secular culture not too long ago. I'm thinking here of the massively popular show 24, which is about the heroic and spiritually adrift national security agent Jack Bauer, who gives up everything in order to serve his country. In between seasons 6 and 7 of 24, when Bauer hits a moral trough, the producers released a special two-hour show about Bauer's condition and they called it. . . . Redemption.

In fact, if you watch 24, it's amazing to see how much of its lessons--we can even call them moral lessons--fly in the face of the standard pop culture narrative that celebrates deviancy. 24 is about heroism, ideals, doing the right thing, and talking responsibility for your actions. There is clearly a market for its messages because when it was running, 24 was one of the most popular shows on television.The novel's days may be over, and that may, in general, be a negative indictment of our culture--but there are some gems of goodness there, too. We just have to look harder to uncover them.

Troy Senik, Ed. : Previewing Tonight's Debate

Troy Senik, Ed. — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 22:26:45 +0000

Think back to a month ago today. Newt Gingrich had won the South Carolina primary the night before by a commanding margin and the question on everybody's mind was whether he was going to be able to send Mitt Romney to the ropes in Florida. Go back another month and you find yourself in the holiday run-up to the Iowa Caucuses, a time when Rick Santorum was still regarded as little more than an asterisk and Romney and Gingrich were running roughly even in national polling. Oh, how things have changed.

Here we are, less than a week before the Michigan and Arizona primaries, and this race looks to be a dead heat between Romney and Santorum in the Wolverine State and an increasingly tight contest between the same duo in the Grand Canyon State (CNN/Time, PPP, and Rasmussen all have had Romney down to a single-digit lead in the last week, while the most recent NBC poll still shows the former governor with a blowout margin). Newt Gingrich teeters on the brink of irrelevance.

As the candidates take to the stage in Mesa, Arizona tonight for the first debate in nearly a month, the stakes for each of them (with the single exception of Ron Paul, whose candidacy is flamboyantly immune to considerations of electability) are high.

For Romney, the task is (as it has been) not to convince conservatives that he is worthy of their love (no turnaround artist is that good), but that he is tolerable enough to earn their submission.

For Santorum, the goal has to be to define himself in the mainstream of the Republican Party, defusing the growing media meme that his candidacy is the logical conclusion of the work that John Lithgow's character began in "Footloose."

For Gingrich, the objective is simple: get noticed. The most remarkable fact about the last month of this campaign is that the most outsized personality in the race has garnered the least attention. Part of that owed to his last few debate performances, where the former speaker's demeanor made it seem like he had been chasing Xanax with cough syrup. Tonight, the fiery, energetic Newt of debates past has to reemerge. The viability of his campaign likely depends upon it.

This looks to be one of the last debates of this primary cycle (it could even be the last). It also promises to be one of the most significant. As such, we hope our members will join us here on the site for our live chat tonight at 8 PM Eastern/5 PM Pacific.

Maura Pennington : Feeding Swans: A Parable

Maura Pennington — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 20:40:15 +0000

Perhaps wasted on an already enlightened crowd, this tale is for those preoccupied with subsidizing special interests. People have to start with children's books before they can read novels...

Every day you walk by the pond in the park and every day the swans attract your attention. Not the ducks or geese paddling about, but the swans. They are special birds, yet no one else in the park seems to be acknowledging them. So you take it upon yourself to give them a treat of bread crumbs, which you had leftover anyway. They deserve it for being so extraordinary. They enjoy snatching them up and you enjoy feeding them. Taking care of those special creatures feels right and important and it gives you something to do. Itâ€™s more satisfying to engage with the swans than sit on a bench and simply watch them.

After this becomes your refreshing morning ritual, you begin to notice that there is one particular swan who never seems to get any breadcrumbs. You start throwing them in his direction, trying at first to throw some to the others to keep them off on their own. Yet every time, he misses out. He just canâ€™t seem to get to them. Again and again, you try to single him out, all the while convinced that, though the swans are identical, this particular swan is the same one being overlooked. Soon though, when your morning feeding becomes enough of a pattern that even the least special of birds would notice, the geese and ducks begin to swarm. Now you must not only attempt to feed exclusively the helpless swan, but in general all the swans while warding off the objectionable geese. Itâ€™s maddening, yet you are resolved to be their benefactor regardless because everyone else is passing obliviously through the park without a care. What would the swans do if you didn't care?

The leftover breadcrumbs are now not enough for the unique and needy swan, not enough for all the swans, and certainly not enough for the geese and ducks. You buy a whole loaf of bread for the express purpose of feeding them, even though this adds to your grocery expenses. What started as a spontaneous morning activity now requires thought, preparation, and execution. How will you get that one swan his own morsels? How can you punish the geese for involving themselves in what was only meant for swans? Never do you consider that you can stop feeding them. What will they eat for breakfast if not the breadcrumbs you provide! They canâ€™t survive in the pond without it! They can't survive without you!

And then one day a park ranger comes over to you. Having watched you incredulously morning after morning, he finally points angrily at a clearly marked sign at the edge of the pond.

Do Not Feed The Swans.

Dave Carter : Is Mitt Conceding the Premise Again?

Dave Carter — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 19:51:17 +0000

In Chandler, Arizona today, Governor Romney announced an initiative to lower individual rates on every American by 20 percent. Contrasting his approach with President Obama's, Romney said, "Raising taxes will kill jobs. My plan will create jobs. That's the difference between the two of us." Excellent contrast.

Just in the event we become too enthusiastic, Romney tempered his initiative by saying he would limit allowable deductions and exemptions for high income earners, "â€¦so that we make sure the top 1% keeps paying the current share they're paying or more." Thus does the premise of the left become the foundation for this Republican yet again. And in case you didn't understand that he prefers to divide fairness according to class, he added, "We want middle-income Americans to be the place we focus our help, because it's middle-income Americans that have been hurt by this Obama economy."

Why the division? Why the picking and choosing which class gets more relief? Why buy into the premise of the progressive thereby giving it, and by extension Obama, undeserved legitimacy? Why set yourself up to have your words thrown back at you in the general when you will hear Obama say, "Governor, you yourself agreed with me that the top 1% percent needs to pay 'â€¦the current share or more.'" Why does this gentleman insist on this kind of thing?

As I've said before, if he's the nominee, I'll vote for him, but I may need a Tylenol subsidy before it's all said and done. In the meantime, can someone get this guy a few Milton Friedman videos?

Peter Robinson : Gary Carter Showed Drew Klavan How to Play the Game

Peter Robinson — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 19:27:36 +0000

In the Wall Street Journal today, a moving, exquisite tribute to baseball Hall of Famer Gary Carter, who last week died of brain cancer at 57. The author, Ricochet's

own Andrew Klavan:

I can't really say how serious I was when I began to contemplate suicide. But I remember one night, sitting alone in my room in darkness, smoking cigarette after cigarette as I considered the ways in which I might put an end to myself.
The radio was on, playing a Mets game. I'd been trying to listen before the dark thoughts took over. By the time the ninth inning came around, I wasn't paying attention at all.
One sentence ran through my mind again and again: "I don't know how I can live."
Before I knew it, the game had ended and Carterâ€”who apparently had beaten out a grounder to reach first baseâ€”was giving a postgame interview. The interviewer asked him how he managed to outrun the throw when his knees were so bad from years of playing catcher, squatting behind home plate.
Carter was a devout Christian with just the bright, inspiring Tim Tebow sort of personality our media can't stand. He was forever thanking Jesus Christ in postgame interviews. He once remarked that he could see the smiles curdle on the faces of unbelieving journalists when he did it, but he felt he had to tell the truth.
I was not a Christian thenâ€”not yetâ€”and if Carter had preached religion at that moment, it would have gone right past me. But he didn't. He said something else, something much simpler but also true. I don't remember the words exactly but a fair translation would be this: "Sometimes you just have to play in pain."
Carter's words somehow broke through my self-pitying despair. "Play in pain?" I thought. "Hell, I can do that. That's one thing I actually know how to do."
I had been looking for answers but I didn't know the answers. I had been looking for solutions, but solutions were for another day. It hadn't occurred to me that maybe, for now at least, the only way to go on living was to do like the great athletes do and just tough it out....
No one can demand that celebrities live well, but I don't think it's too much to ask them to behave well and be a little bit careful about what they say and represent. They are role models whether they like it or not. And someone might be listening to them in the dark.
So goodbye, Kid. And thanks. You did it the way it ought to be done.

Adam Freedman : An Opportunity to End State-Sponsored Racism

Adam Freedman — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 19:25:23 +0000

The Supreme Court yesterday agreed to answer a question that ought to answer itself: Can the State deny educational opportunities to its citizens based on race? The answer, of course, should be "no," but unfortunately, the Court said "yes" in its 2003 decision in Grutter v. Bollinger which upheld racial preferences in public university admissions. Speculation abounds that the Justices will overturn Grutter (with Alito's vote replacing O'Connor's, and with Kagan recused). Let's hope they do.

The new case involves the racial admissions test used at the University of Texas, Austin. At UT, each applicant to the freshman class is assigned a "Personal Achievement Index," in which race is used as a factor. Moreover, the applicant's race is listed on page one of the application and "reviewers are aware of it throughout the evaluation," according to one UT official. The Fifth Circuit upheld the UT policy as a faithful application of Grutter. All the more reason to overturn Grutter.

The Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment states that no State shall "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." Here you have a State using its power over public universities to favor certain races over others. In Grutter, the Court pretended to analyze such policies under "strict scrutiny" finding that "racial diversity" in the classroom is a "compelling state interest." But of course it is not. A university's mission is to educate qualified students. Racial diversity is utterly irrelevant to that mission. Intellectual diversity, yes, and some supporters of affirmative action argue that race is a good proxy for intellectual point of view -- an argument that speaks volumes about the "identity politics" philosophy of the left.

If the Court really employed "strict scrutiny," affirmative action programs would be toast. In fact, such programs should not survive even the most lenient form of review -- rational basis -- for what is the "rational basis" for accepting, or rejecting, a university applicant based on the color of his skin?

Peter Robinson : Rob Long, Mitt Man

Peter Robinson — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 18:45:04 +0000

It happened this morning, about 55 minutes into the podcast. Rob--so busy supervising casting and screenwriting for his new show just now that it may take him another day or two to appear here to explain himself--Rob finally came right out and said it:

"I'm for Romney."

James Delingpole : Why Do Climate Scientists Lie, Cheat and Steal? Because They Can

James Delingpole — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 18:41:11 +0000

Gleickgate: I do hope you've been enjoying it as much as Mollie and I have been. As I'm sure you'll be aware, Gleickgate - or Fakegate as it used to be known till the identity of the chief perp Peter Gleick was revealed - was the attempt by the climate alarmist "community" to engineer their own version of Climategate. Instead it blew up in their faces when it was revealed that the most damning document they had unearthed had in fact been faked.

What interests me most about the story is not the story itself (loser guy makes loser attempt to stitch up Heartland Institute: FAILS) as the way the liberal-left media has tried to spin it. In the Guardian, for example, the ineffable George Monbiot used it as an opportunity to demand that evil, right-wing, probably Koch- and Big-Oil-funded climate denier James Delingpole now reveal the sources of his enormous wealth. And instead of distancing themselves from the embarrassing, heavily compromised, and integrity-free Gleick, the usual greenie suspects have instead rallied round him and either hailed him as a hero or at the very least excused his appalling behavior on the grounds that Evil Climate Deniers are much worse.

Here, for example, is the Union of Concerned Scientists. (Don't be misled by the title: they're an environmental science - i.e. anti-real-science - advocacy group).

Dr. Gleick is among many climate scientists who have been targeted by ideological groups that are eager to attack the messengers of scientific findings. And he is a strong advocate for the important role science plays in society. Itâ€™s unfortunate that the bitter, personal attacks on his colleagues and their work contributed to what he called a lapse of his own personal judgment and ethics.

And here - you really couldn't make it up: but then, you don't need to - is the Daily Kos.

Hero scientist, Peter Gleick, a water and climate analyst is the one responsible for exposing the Heartland agenda to spread misinformation and lies and subvert any real action for the climate change crisis. He did so at considerable risk to his career and personal reputation.

This is bizarre. Beyond bizarre. Can you imagine what would have happened if the roles had been reversed, if it emerged, say, that one of the Climategate emails had been faked by skeptics to make the warmists look even more scuzzy and corrupt and utterly reprehensible than are already (tricky, I would agree)? It would have dominated the MSM for the whole of this year and would probably have run well into next year too.

For a proper sense of perspective I recommend this article by Megan McArdle in the Atlantic:

When skeptics complain that global warming activists are apparently willing to go to any lengths--including lying--to advance their worldview, I'd say one of the movement's top priorities should be not proving them right. And if one rogue member of the community does something crazy that provides such proof, I'd say it is crucial that the other members of the community say "Oh, how horrible, this is so far beyond the pale that I cannot imagine how this ever could have happened!" and not, "Well, he's apologized and I really think it's pretty crude and opportunistic to make a fuss about something that's so unimportant in the grand scheme of things." After you have convinced people that you fervently believe your cause to be more important than telling the truth, you've lost the power to convince them of anything else.

Willis Eschenbach makes a similar point with characteristic wit, verve and gusto at Watts Up With That?

Folks are fed up with climate scientists who lie, cheat, and steal to attack their scientific opponents, and who then walk away without the slightest action being taken by other scientists. As long as there are no repercussions from the scientific community for the kind of things Dr. Gleick has done, mainstream climate scientists will continue to do them. Indeed, Dr. Gleickâ€™s own actions were no doubt greatly encouraged by the fact that you noble scientists were so full of bul â€¦ of scientific integrity that you all let the Climategate un-indicted co-conspirators walk away scot-free, without even asking them the important questions, much less getting answers to those major issues.

It's on occasions like this, I must confess, that I wish God had made me a liberal. If I were a liberal I wouldn't need to base my arguments on facts or logic or any of that tedious, effort-demanding stuff. I could lie and cheat and besmirch and demean and appeal to authority as much as I pleased, secure in the knowledge that a) all my bad behavior would be justified by the purity and nobility of my ends and b) all my ideological soulmates would leap to my defense.Can someone remind me, please, what the advantage of being a conservative is? Other than being always right, I mean....

James Poulos : Haley Barbour: GOP May Go For Broke...red

James Poulos — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 18:35:27 +0000

Ricochet, start your engines:

Barbour is aware of the clamor in certain circles for his friend Indiana governor Mitch Daniels to enter the fray. Once again, â€œIt is highly unlikely but it could happen,â€ he says. â€œIt is certainly more of a possibility than ever in the past. However, in the past, the possibility was zero, so to say the odds are higher than zero is not something that, I think, youâ€™re going to want to bet on.â€

But this presumes there's something else that I do want to bet on.

Blue Yeti : Ricochet Podcast #107: The Devil and Pat Buchanan

Blue Yeti — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 18:31:02 +0000

Author, commentator, veteran Presidential advisor, provocateur, and MSNBC survivor Pat Buchanan joins for a vibrant conversation about culture, immigration, religion, and his new book Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive To 2025? Then, a lively discussion of Rick Santorum's rise in the polls, followed by a Ricochet Podcast watershed moment: Rob declares "I'm for Romney." Call us Mitt, we'll give you his number.

Music from this week's episode:

This Is Why We Fight by The Decemberists
Sympathy For The Devil by The Rolling Stones

Here's the direct link to this week's episode (but use our new audio player below!), however the best way to hear the podcast is to subscribe! Visit our Feedburner page for a number of other subscription options. Or better yet, use Stitcher.

The Ricochet Podcast is proudly sponsored by Encounter Books. This week's featured title is Why the West is Best: A Muslim Apostate's Defense of Liberal Democracy by Ibn Warraq. Available at EncounterBooks.com and Amazon.com.

Adam Freedman : Ninth Circuit Celebrates Itself

Adam Freedman — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 18:14:39 +0000

The Ninth Circuit's official website (paid for by you and me) now hosts a 10-photo slideshow of a pro-same-sex marriage rally held outside the courthouse, under the proud banner: "Gay Marriage Ruling Prompts Rally." And this is a good use of a .gov domain because... any decision that "prompts" a rally must be in the public interest?

Could it be a coincidence that the Ninth Circuit staffers assigned the Prop. 8 case to a panel that includes two of the most liberal members of the federal bench? Is it possible that they (brace yourselves) were trying to achieve a particular result? (ht: Ed Whelan at NRO Bench Memos)

Diane Ellis, Ed. : Exploring Liberty: Simple Rules for a Complex World

Diane Ellis, Ed. — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 17:18:48 +0000

Ricochet's own Richard Epstein recently gave a short, fascinating lecture on his seminal book, Simple Rules for a Complex World.

Professor Epstein discusses six conditions that form the institutional framework for a civilized society: 1) Individual autonomy whereby everyone owns his or her own body ; 2) First possession which grants ownership of property to whomever first claims the property; 3) Contracts which facilitate human cooperation that make all parties of a voluntary transaction better off (and even create positive externalities); 4) Tort rules, which act as punitive measures for anyone who violates the bounds of the first three conditions; 5) Taxation to fund society (here Richard makes the case for a flat tax); and 6) Eminent domain which allows government to acquire the essential resources for infrastructure while providing just compensation to the property holder. Following his six simple rules, Prof. Epstein addresses the issue of income inequality.

Mollie Hemingway, Ed. : An Ash Wednesday Debate?

Mollie Hemingway, Ed. — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 14:37:54 +0000

I just returned home from Ash Wednesday matins at my Lutheran congregation. The children of our day school were also in attendance. We read from Jonah about how the people of Ninevah repented, fasted for 40 days, put on sackcloth and sat in ashes. God saw their repentance and how they turned away from evil and showed the city mercy.

During the sermon, our pastor told us that the ashes that are imposed on our foreheads this day are not a mark of piety so much as our mortality. They are a call to repent and, as they are imposed in the shape of a cross, also a hopeful reminder of our salvation.

As I sat there, I was thinking of tonight's debate and what I would do if I were to be asked to do something public on Ash Wednesday, an important Christian day that includes such an ugly, if hopeful, marking on my forehead.

The only thing that ever came close was that the American Enterprise Institute once held its annual formal dinner on Ash Wednesday. I went wearing a ball gown and ashes. It seemed inappropriate but I wasn't sure which part of it was inappropriate.

In any case, I'm curious what you all think. If you were to be asked to do something public on a day when your sinfulness, mortality and faith were on such shocking display, what would you do? Would you wash it off? Would you keep it on? Would you worry about how it comes off?

And while I'm sure that many people are curious whether Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich will show up with ashes, or one or the other, I'm also curious if we'll see any media so arrayed.

At the very least, I wonder if the media thought through whether a debate should be held on this day.

James Lileks : Is there a "global culture"?

James Lileks — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 04:22:56 +0000

No. There! That was easy. But hey, not so fast. The Atlantic website today posted a piece by a Polish writer about the thoughts and needs of the generation that grew up on the Internet. An excerpt:

Participating in cultural life is not something out of ordinary to us: global culture is the fundamental building block of our identity, more important for defining ourselves than traditions, historical narratives, social status, ancestry, or even the language that we use.

This strikes me as nonsense, but you may disagree. Read the whole piece for context, and what he really wants. (Cheaper downloadable movies. Also, Democracy.) I'd post my reply here, but it's long, and you can find it here, if you wish, under the pictures of failed Times Square skyscraper plans.

Dave Carter : Dinner Without Politics

Dave Carter — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 03:32:10 +0000

"Anyone a-settin' here?" he asked. "No sir, it's waiting on you," I answered. The counter at a truck stop about an hour west of Chicago was filling up. I normally sit at a quiet booth and read news, Ricochet, and email, but after a fairly hard day behind the wheel from Kentucky north through Cincinnati, Indianapolis and Chicago, the idea of commiserating with other truckers wasn't so bad.

"You know how long I been at this?" he asked. Before I could say no, he answered, "fitty-seb'n years." I looked up and beheld the quintessential old time trucker. Deep lines crisscrossed his face like a roadmap, his bright blue eyes set ablaze against skin that looked like dark, tanned leather toughened by years of exposure to the elements. How many millions of miles of highway had those eyes navigated?

Most of his teeth were gone so that when he closed his mouth it looked like his chin might bump up against the bottom of his nose. He had a laugh like Walter Brennan, and a wry sense of humor. "I'm 75 years old, and I retired twice already." "Government work?" I asked. "Oh no," he said. "I ran my own trucking company for awhile,â€¦had a few trucks. Then I bought some nightclubs too." "Nightclubs and trucks?" I asked. "Yep, it was dumb. That was Mickey Gilley's doin' too. Never shoulda listened to him. Sold the trucks and the nightclubs and retired a young man," he continued. What happened? "Blew it all away, got back on the road for a few years, then got into cattle," he said.

"Cattle?" asked another voice. Another trucker sat down to my right and announced that he still owned some cattle. So I sat between these two cowboys, looking from one to the other as if at a tennis match, enjoying the exchange. "Say, do you have one o'them 'lectic fences?" asked the old timer. "Yep," said the other one, adding, "but I don't even have to keep it running now. The cows won't go near it. Hell, I even took down part of the fence and just left the posts up and they STILL won't go beyond the posts. They don't even know the fence ain't there."

"Well," said Old Timer, "I got one of them 'lectric fences years ago, and you wanna know what happened?" Pushing his black baseball cap back for effect, he continued, "I had one o'them whatchamacallits,â€¦.the big ones on my pantsâ€¦" "Belt buckle?" I asked. "Yeah that's itâ€¦looked like a satellite dish but I was young n' stupid. Well sir, I got a mite too close to that dad burned 'lectric fence, and it arched over to that belt buckle and lit my world all up!" Even the waitress who had been hovering nearby listening joined the laughter.

"You was in the military?" he asked while looking over my hat. "Yes sir," I answered. "I caught what they call a 'hop' when I came back from Korea," he said, "but it weren't in no cargo plane. They put me in a little jet. The pilot liked flying upside down a lot, ...made me sicker n' a dog."

I asked him why he was back on the road this time. "Gets in your blood I suppose," he answered, adding, "my daughter keeps fussing at me and saying I need to sell my motor home because I'm never gonna use it." Then he asked about the weather up around Appleton, Wisconsin because he has to be there at sunrise tomorrow. The driver to my right had just come from that area, so he gave him the latest reports while I pulled up the exact mileage and best route on my smartphone for him. "They got me runnin' those damned 'lectronic logs now. I cain't figure the [expletive] things out. Do you know those idiots in the office I work for couldn't even find my truck for two weeks with their little gadgets?"

Just before he left, I asked him what he missed most about being retired. "The kids," he answered. He explained that he used to take groups of children, some of whom were disabled to an extent, and teach them to ride horses. Then with that priceless hoot of a laugh, he bid us a good evening, paid his bill and went on his way.

Not once did any of us mention anything in the news. No politics, no primaries, no twisting or spinning events, no mental gymnastics in support of, or in opposition to a candidate or a cause. Just three truckers, from different walks of life, with different stories, but with a common purpose, â€¦to deliver the freight and share a few laughs. It was a hard day,..but a stellar evening.

Blue Yeti : Radio Free Delingpole #9: The Great Drug Debate

Blue Yeti — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 02:17:34 +0000

The Founding Fathers were all about personal freedom. But did they intend those choices to extend to what we eat, drink, and smoke? That's the question James Delingpole and Paul Rahe took up over the weekend and debate in this podcast. It's a fascinating and friendly conversation amongst two men who have vastly different viewpoints and experiences with the topic at hand. Well worth a listen!

Ricochet members, subscribe here (you'll also find the direct link there). Everyone else, listen in below.

Our thanks to EJHill for his depiction of the Framers sampling some colonial homegrown.

Diane Ellis, Ed. : Romney: Spending Cuts Will Kill the Economy

Diane Ellis, Ed. — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 02:04:31 +0000

If you've read one Paul Krugman column, you've read them all. Alongside his unabating clarion call for ever more stimulus spending, Krugman decries spending cuts of all sizes, shapes and colors, and despises the idea of a balanced budget. This clip just about sums up his entire body of work since 2007, and encapsulates the Obama administration's approach to the economy for the duration of his term in office.

Leading the charge to slash spending, on the other hand, Paul Ryan has repeatedly made the case that we face a crushing burden of debt which must be addressed right away lest we hit the point of no return.

And where does Candidate Romney fit into the mix? Speaking today in Shelby Township, Michigan, Gov. Romney situated himself in the Krugman school of economics. "If you just cut, if all you're thinking about doing is cutting spending, as you cut spending you'll slow down the economy," Gov. Romney stated. "So you have to, at the same time, create pro-growth tax policies."

Though Krugman and Romney agree that spending cuts would worsen the economy, there is, to be sure, a major distinction between the conclusions each man draws. According to Krugman, spending cuts are bad; therefore, we must increase spending. Romney has stated that spending cuts, if not coupled with pro-growth tax policies (which he plans to outline this week, incidentally), would be lethal.

But is the underlying assumption here that spending cuts on their own would slow down the economic recovery a correct one? If Krugman, Obama, and Romney are correct on this, then Paul Ryan and his emphasis on spending cuts have been folly.

John Yoo : Berkeley's Lethal Liberalism

John Yoo — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 23:48:55 +0000

Berkeley over the weekend experienced a tragic murder of a 67 year old chemical engineer by a 23 year old youth. Twenty-three year old Daniel DeWitt, apparently mentally unstable and not on antipsychotic medication, was in the front yard of Peter Cukor's home when he and his wife came home last Saturday. Cukor asked DeWitt to leave, went inside and called the police, then went across the street to a fire station to seek help. When Cukor returned, DeWitt beat and killed him with a potted plant.

I happen to live nearby, but don't know the victim or the suspect. But beyond the tragedy of the death, I cannot help but think that the murder is unfortunately the result of the left-wing that runs riot here in the Bay Area. First, police did not respond to the first phone call because their resources were devoted to handling an Occupy Oakland protest that attempted to take over â€” of all things â€” International House, a Berkeley campus building that houses foreign students and visitors. Deb Saunders at the SF Chronicle has blogged that the more that Occupy Oakland and similar movements consume the limited policing budgets of cities hit by recession, the less resources are available to fight crime (Oakland, a medium sized city, had 103 murders last year, but has had to spend $3 million a year on the occupy protests). This terrible murder focuses the mind on the trade-off between protecting the community from crime and coddling anarchist protesters (as the mayor of Oakland has been) in a way that abstract figures do not.

Second, the fact that DeWitt was on the street to begin with might be the result of the de-institutionalization agenda favored by the Left. In hindsight, it seems clear that DeWitt should never have been on the streets, especially since he was refusing to take his medication. DeWitt's mother blamed "the system" for not providing enough mental health resources for her son, who apparently was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. Some argue that Republicans â€” particularly President Reagan â€” cut funding for these institutions. But no matter what resources are available, because of "progressive" court challenges, it is extremely difficult to keep someone in a mental institution against their will, with the result that more unfortunates like DeWitt are released from hospitals and potentially dangerous to innocents around them.

Tristan Abbey : Santorum Talks Satan

Tristan Abbey — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 22:30:52 +0000

Rick Santorum is a good man, but that doesn't mean he'd be a good candidate, much less a good president -- or even a member in good standing here at Ricochet.

Consider the following quotes from Drudge and the Spectator, pasted after relevant clauses from the Code of Conduct:

1. Anything that makes the Ricochet Community look like a bunch of radical fruitcakes: "Satan has his sights on the United States of America!"

2. Personal attacks on an individual, group, or class: "We look at the shape of mainline Protestantism in this country and it is in shambles, it is gone from the world of Christianity as I see it."

3. Imagine you're a guest at a dinner party with a group of seemingly nice people you don't know... how would you handle yourself?: "If you were Satan, who would you attack in this day and age. There is no one else to go after other than the United States..."

The nominee of the Republican Party?

Bill McGurn : The Envy of Peter Robinson

Bill McGurn — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 20:17:41 +0000

I am well aware that envy is one of the deadly sins. I am also aware that those who reside in the land of my birth -- California -- pay a heckuva price for it in terms of insane regulation and even more insane politics. There my sympathies end. In New Jerseystan, where I live, we have more or less the same problems California does scaled down for our population, and of course we have a better governor.

Here's one difference. On Sunday night I had dinner with the Robinsons at their home on the Stanford campus. The beautiful Mrs. Robinson asked me if I should like lemon with my sparkling water. When I answered in the affirmative, she sent her son out to their garden in the back to pick one from their tree.

Generally I am not a man who covets my neighbor's anything. That lemon tree, however, really did it.

Yes, it's just an anecdote. You wonder, tho: all this talk about California's collapse, how bad can it really be? It doesn't look bad, and I've been driving all over the state the last few days. Granted I do not see the difficulty a business has in dealing with some crazy environmental restriction, and I've been mostly along the coast, the more prosperous parts. And I don't want to be George Bernard Shaw in the Ukraine, suggesting there could be no famine because he was certainly well fed.

Still, there's nothing about what you see that suggests a place facing truly dire straits, unlike, say, Michigan or even New York which can look very run down, especially in its infrastructure. How can this be -- the huge gap between what the numbers tell us and with the very pleasant appearance?

Troy Senik, Ed. : Obama, the Beleagured Pitcher

Troy Senik, Ed. — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 18:24:44 +0000

In a staff editorial published on Friday, the good folks over at Investor's Business Daily did a bang up job of putting this "economic recovery" in context. To wit:

Sure, the jobless rate is falling. But according to the Congressional Budget Office, we are going through the longest stretch of high unemployment since the Depression. The rate has been higher than 8% since February 2009, the month after Obama took office.
And, says the CBO, it is expected to stay above 8% through 2014.
Even worse for an administration straining to make the case that it deserves to be around for another four years is the real unemployment rate. It's not 8.3%, but closer to 15%, a figure that reflects those who "would like to work but have not searched for a job in the past four weeks as well as those who are working part time but would prefer full-time work," says the CBO.
Another White House problem comes from this in the CBO report: "The share of unemployed people looking for work for more than six months â€” referred to as the long-term unemployed â€” topped 40% in December 2009 for the first time since 1948, when such data began to be collected; it has remained above that level ever since."

This, it seems to me, is the broader case that the Republican nominee -- particularly if it's Mitt Romney, who has staked his entire candidacy on his economic competence -- needs to be making come the fall. The American people should not accept a reduction in their economic expectations so dramatic that they're willing to consider the president a master chef just for pushing a few table scraps their way.

With the final days of the election coinciding with Major League Baseball's playoff season, may I suggest that the Republican nominee employ a baseball analogy? With Obama on the mound, we've been getting blown out. He's given up eight runs and left us deep in the hole. Now he thinks he should stay in the game just because he got one lucky strikeout? The GOP's standard-bearer ought to suggest that there's only one rational thing to do under such circumstances: look to the bullpen while there's still enough time to win the game.

Adam Freedman : Can the Federal Government Arrest You For Lying About Your Military Record?

Adam Freedman — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 17:02:58 +0000

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear arguments on United States v. Alvarez, a case that challenges the Stolen Valor Act. I posted about this case back in October -- the Stolen Valor Act is a federal law that makes it a crime to falsely claim to have won military honors.

The case involves a minor politician in California who publicly claimed to have been a retired Marine, a wounded veteran, and the recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor. But he was none of those things. The Ninth Circuit held that the Act violates the First Amendmentâ€™s protections of free speech. Although the Obama administration couldn't bring itself to defend the Defense of Marriage Act, it is going all out to get the Supreme Court to reverse, and uphold the Stolen Valor Act.

There's an excellent summary of the arguments pro and con over at SCOTUSblog. In a nutshell, the government is trying to convince SCOTUS to evaluate the law under "intermediate scutiny," which requires only that the government produce an "important" interest to abridge free speech, rather than a "compelling" interest.

Well, hey, I have nothing but contempt for anyone who falsely claims to be a decorated veteran, but balancing tests like "intermediate scutiny" are pure judicial inventions. The plain text of the First Amendment says that Congress shall make "no law" -- none whatsoever -- abriding free speech. The framers did not say that Congress can abridge free speech so long as it has a really "important" reason. This same kind of balancing test has been used repeatedly to uphold laws that forbid abortion protests in the vicinity of clinics. The framers accepted laws against libel, fraud, and perjury -- because all of those types of statements produce concrete harm.

No doubt, falsely claiming a military honor is an insult to all those who earned such honors. But is there any harm? The Administration argues that false claims undermine "morale, mission accomplishments, and esprit de corps within the military.â€ I'd like to hear if readers with military experience can opine on that argument -- I can't. But I do note that the same arguments, when made in the context of "don't ask, don't tell," were given short shrift by the Administration.

Paul A. Rahe : In Which I Defend Mitt Romney Against His Admirers

Paul A. Rahe — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 16:32:47 +0000

I am inclined to agree with much of what Duane Oyen says in his post below in defense of Mitt Romney's candidacy. I fear -- but am not certain, especially in the case of Rick Santorum -- that the other candidates really are impossible. I am also impressed by Governor Romney's demonstrated managerial capacity, and I worry that he lacks a quality that statesmen have always been in need of -- persuasiveness.

There is one point that Duane makes that I think needs further discussion. Here is what Duane says:

â€œRomneyCareâ€ was the best available alternative to the single payer program that was inevitable had Governor Romney not been able to use persuasion and coalition-building to block it with the most free-market program possible under the circumstances, designed by the most free-market recognized conservative health care experts - Prof. Mark Pauly of Penn and AEI and Edmund Haislmaier of Heritage, all fighting against a legislature 85% controlled by the Democrats who were advised by ObamaCareâ€™s designer Jonathan Gruber of MIT.

This claim may or may not be true. Some times it is better to go down fighting while making one's argument -- to lose temporarily in order to return later to win when things do not work out as well as the proponents of a measure predict. Politics is far less less about management than about persuasion, and what Duane describes in this passage is a compromise in which the fundamental principle that we are responsible for taking care of ourselves is sacrificed in the pursuit of a utopian end embraced by the left: universal healthcare.

But this is not the worst of it -- for when Romneycare passed its author touted it to all and sundry as "a model for the states" and even, on one occasion, as "a model for the nation." He did not say that he had made the best of a bad situation. He represented Romneycare's passage as a great victory (as you can see in the photograph above) -- which is to say, he engaged in salesmanship, and what he was selling was, by Duane's own admission, a lemon. And, if the story Duane tells is true, Romney knew perfectly well what he was then doing -- which means that he is a scoundrel.

I myself doubt that this Mitt Romney is anything of the kind. He is a Mormon and, by all accounts, the real deal -- which is to say, he is a man of high moral principles. He gives the impression of being an earnest man. Friends who know him tell me that he really is an earnest man. I cannot believe that he would be willing to promote in states other than Massachusetts a program that he was not, in fact, proud of -- a program that he regarded as a compromise measure that he supported only because the alternatives, given the character of the Massachusetts legislature, were far, far worse.

In short, I believe that Mitt Romney is what he once said he was -- "a progressive" in his "views" -- a man badly mistaken (and not apt to change his mind) but not immoral.

This may be what we have to settle for this year. But, if we do, we should do so with our eyes open. Otherwise, in the aftermath, in our enthusiasm for the man, we may well drift into defending what is indefensible.

Andrew Klavan : Social Conservatism is Good When It's a Lie

Andrew Klavan — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 15:35:44 +0000

Oh McGurn, you've done it again! The increasingly terrific Bill McGurn hits nail on head in this morning's Wall Street Journal. How come it's no big deal to the press when President Obama says he believes marriage is between a man and a woman â€” but when Rick Santorum says it, the media goes ballistic?

There's no mystery why. Mr. Santorum is attacked because everyone understands that he means what he says.
President Obama, by contrast, gets a pass because everyone understandsâ€”nudge nudge, wink winkâ€”that he's not telling the truth. The press understands that this is just one of those things a Democratic candidate has to say so he doesn't rile up the great unwashed.
It's arguably the most glaring double standard in American life today.

Well, exactly. The same media that goes nuts when a conservative Republican cheats on his wife because, oh, the hypocrisy, loooves hypocrisy when a leftist does it in order to beguile the idiot people.

I'm not a social conservative, for the most part. More on the libertarian side of the divide. But the arguments of my socially conservative friends are anything but "hateful," or "bigoted," and they deserve a hearing. In some cases â€” abortion, for instance â€” they've convinced me they're in the right.

So the fact that the news media only wallops social conservatism when it's honest is almost enough to make me feel we have a corrupt, hypocritical, biased, low and even insidious group of people delivering our information in this country.

Nah. Couldn't be.

Anyway, read the whole column. It's great.

Tommy De Seno : Armor Chinks, Niggardly Sums and Retarded Growth…Political Correctness Controls The Dictionary

Tommy De Seno — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 15:08:49 +0000

The English language grew harder to learn, speak and understand this weekend. ESPN editor Anthony Federico was fired for penning a headline about New York Knicksâ€™ phenom Jeremy Lin (who is American) having a high rate of turnovers, noting that his lack of ball control may be a â€œchink in his armor.â€

As if US - Chinese relations werenâ€™t strained enough, Rep. Judy Chu (D, Calif.) claimed the use of what she called â€œthe C wordâ€ (apparently now taking its righteously indignant place among initialized words along side the N word) was a racist slur.

The etymology of the phrase â€œchink in the armorâ€ goes back to The Middle Ages when men fought in suits of armor. One would look for a chink, as in a hole (chink actually means hole), in the armor of the opponent and attack that weak point, hoping to break through his protection to deliver a kill shot. This action is the same as todayâ€™s boxing pugilists who â€œwork the cutâ€ when one develops over an opponent's eye. All of it has absolutely nothing to do with race. Finding a â€œchink in the armorâ€ of an opponent is a common sports euphemism used by Federico a hundred times in the past, by his own account. Not one Asian congresswoman ever complained about it.

Certainly the word â€œchinkâ€ was later bastardized (my apologies to the children of unmarried couples) into a slur referencing the shape of Asian eyes. That, of course, still has nothing to do with the medieval concept of attacking an opponentâ€™s weak point.

Unfortunately, in todayâ€™s America, actual instances of racism are so rare that false allegations of racism are the new racism. We are left with bizarre new English language rules with perplexing vagaries on usage: May I use â€œchink in the armorâ€ when referring to the weakness in the game of non-Asian basketball players, or has the very meaning of a non-racist phrase been so consumed by the slurred meaning of one of its words that we must never again speak, even with historical accuracy, of the practice developed by the men in armor?

First Amendment be damned â€“ political correctness is forming a list of words we canâ€™t say. Sometimes, the new rules hold that certain people can say words, but others cannot.

Controversy recently surrounded the word â€œniggardly.â€ It is a word of Nordic etymology that means a small sum, having nothing to do with race. The N-word* is a slur of Latin etymology (Latin for the color black is niger) that has nothing to do with sums. They arenâ€™t even homonyms as they are spelled differently (note the â€œerâ€ vs the â€œarâ€ difference). At best, they share an inexact phonetic sound, making the two words about as related as Jeremy Lin and Loretta Lynn.

Back in 1999, David Howard was a white aid to black DC mayor Anthony Williams. Howard referred to that yearâ€™s budget as â€œniggardly,â€ noting of course its size, not its color. Swift came the allegations of racism and Howard tendered his resignation and the Mayor accepted it. What happened next confounds those of us trying to navigate the new language rules. Howard is gay. The gay community lobbied for his reinstatement, and the Mayor offered to re-hire him. Iâ€™m not sure if that means gays canâ€™t be racist, blacks canâ€™t fire gays, niggardly is not the N-word for thee but is for me, or something else.

â€˜Ownedâ€ words are now becoming fashionable. For instance, black people are claiming dominion over he N-word.* Recently on â€œThe View,â€ Sherry Shepard took the position that it is OK for black actress Whoopi Goldberg to pronounce the N-word* in full but not OK for white host Barbara Walters to do it. According to this new English language rule we must not judge oneâ€™s speech on the content of their word characters but on the color of their skin.

The owned word rule really took shape when white radio and TV personality Don Imus was fired by MSNBC for joking that the Rutgers girls basketball team, in comparison to their opponents, looked like â€œnappy headed hos.â€ The use of the word â€œhoâ€ in particular was seen as a horrible affront to black women. The issue was so important that NJ Governor Jon Corzine was critically injured in a high-speed car accident as he raced to get to a meeting between Imus and a black pastor to fashion Imusâ€™ public apology.

The same year Imus was fired, the song that won the Oscar was â€œItâ€™s Hard Out Here For A Pimp.â€ While lamenting the difficulties of mastering prostitutes, the song, now enshrined in pop culture with such beautiful music as "Over the Rainbow," also referred to black women as â€œbitchesâ€ â€œniggasâ€ and â€œhos.â€ Not one college basketball team complained about it.

Jesse Jackson not too long ago used the N-word* (referring to black people while criticizing President Obama) without a public backlash large enough for him to be fired from whatever it is he does. Jesse apparently owns the N-word* to white exclusion as well.

One very dangerous form of politically correct wordsmithing pits scientists against comedians.

Modern pop culture has a certain affinity for insults, ranging from Americaâ€™s love for Don Rickles to MTVâ€™s insult contest show â€œYo Momma.â€

Compare Rahm Emanuelâ€™s use of the word â€œretardedâ€ to describe Democrats which, according to Sarah Palin, is not OK because he meant it as an insult, and Rush Limbaughâ€™s use of the word â€œretardedâ€ to describe Democrats, which Sarah finds OK because he used it as satire.

Letâ€™s look at a definition from The American Heritage Medical Dictionary for context:

mental retardation â€“ Subnormal intellectual development or functioning that is the result of congenital causes, brain injury, or disease and is characterized by any of various deficiencies, ranging from impaired learning ability to social and vocational inadequacy.

There is a cycle that repeats itself in the world of insults, having to do with adopting scientific medical terms and using them as insults. The weird rules that apply to â€œsocially acceptableâ€ insults eventually catches up to the medical dictionary usurpers and the PC police try to shut them down. Some insults, it seems, are just too insulting.

But the usurpers have traditionally won the battle, and the medical terms are removed from the medical books, to live out eternity in the land of misfit words.

For instance, the words idiot, imbecile and moron all started out as medical terminology, not insults. So much a part of the acceptable lexicon were they that the constitutions of Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Ohio and New Mexico were written to say an â€œidiotâ€ canâ€™t vote. New Jerseyâ€™s constitution says you canâ€™t vote if you are an â€œidiotâ€ (before Chris Christie was elected it appeared this provision of the New Jersey Constitution was being fully ignored).

Some words, like midget, are still in medical dictionaries, but with a disclaimer against usage as it is now a pejorative term.

Odd as it seems, America allows the purveyors of insults to trump the purveyors of science in deciding which words are acceptable. Imagine a doctor telling parents of a child, â€œIâ€™m sorry, your son is an imbecile, idiot and retarded moron, destined to live out his life on public assistance or as chairman of the Democratic National Committee.â€

The doctor would have used nothing but scientific terms, but all would agree his bedside manner is atrocious and his civility beneath that of a treating physician. The medical terms are now insults. Don Rickles wins.

It makes you wonder what the world would come to if insult comics were to decide to wreck havoc on our language and eternally chase doctors around the thesaurus.

What if, and this is scary so sit down, but just what if insult comics began abusing the word â€œchallenged?â€ For instance, â€œHow do you become an American president? Be the most challenged man from Kenya!â€

Where, or to what word, will the doctors run next?

Will any of us be left to speak if words that are not racist are used as proof that we are racists?

* Note that I use "N-word" without spelling out the word. I once wrote for a newspaper where spelling out the word was allowable so long as it was being used as an historical reference or to note its usage, so long as it was not written out in insult. I don't know Ricochet's policy on this. Perhaps the editorial board can clarify. For those of you that say it is quite cowardly to force the editors into that sticky wicket and not go there myself, I say, "You're right."

Mollie Hemingway, Ed. : Just When ClimateGate Had Died Down

Mollie Hemingway, Ed. — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 14:27:39 +0000

Peter Gleick, an Oakland, Calif., climate scientist and activists confirmed late last night that, as suspected, he was the source of documents purporting to reveal the budget and strategy of the Heartland Institute, a conservative and libertarian public policy think tank. A few weeks ago, Glieck had anonymously sent to reporters some budget documents he'd obtained under false pretenses from the Chicago-based group along with a doctored document that someone else had created purporting to show the group's strategy. The latter was an obvious fake, having been written almost as a parody of those who critique climate alarmism (and personally going after people whose work didn't support Glieck's activism). But many media outlets reported on these documents. Andrew Revkin of the New York Times now writes:

Peter H. Gleick, a water and climate analyst who has been studying aspects of global warming for more than two decades, in recent years became an aggressive critic of organizations and individuals casting doubt on the seriousness of greenhouse-driven climate change. He used blogs, congressional testimony, group letters and other means to make his case.
Now, Gleick has admitted to an act that leaves his reputation in ruins and threatens to undercut the cause he spent so much time pursuing. ...
One way or the other, Gleickâ€™s use of deception in pursuit of his cause after years of calling out climate deception has destroyed his credibility and harmed others. (Some of the released documents contain information about Heartland employees that has no bearing on the climate fight.) That is his personal tragedy and shame (and Iâ€™m sure devastating for his colleagues, friends and family).
The broader tragedy is that his decision to go to such extremes in his fight with Heartland has greatly set back any prospects of the country having the â€œrational public debateâ€ that he wrote â€” correctly â€” is so desperately needed.

Coming just a few years after the leak of the East Anglia Cimate Research Unit emails, which showed climate scientists discussing how to manipulate information to the benefit of their activism, this is not a good thing for climate alarmists.

Now that Glieck has admitted at least part of his role in this deception and fabrication controversy, he won't be able to speak on the topic in the future. It's a good reminder of the temptation to lie on behalf of what you perceive is a good cause, as well as why you shouldn't succumb to that temptation.

For more, check out Politico, Judith Curry and Ross Kaminsky.

Richard Epstein : The Oil Market Panic

Richard Epstein — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 11:55:23 +0000

The high price of oil is once again a front page story in The New York Times. Part one of its story asks why the prices are high now. Part two of that story asks what, if anything, should be done in response to those price increases. The short answer to the first question is that the increase in prices is due to contractions in the supply of oil driven by the instability in the Middle East. The short answer to the second question---which I take up in my weekly column for Defining Ideas---is that we should do nothing at all.

The greatest casualty of the current debate over the price of oil is to turn sensible market responses to its scarcity into grist for a political mill in an election year. The blame game between the political parties is likely to lead to flawed reform proposals that offer no short-term relief, but do impair the long-term efficiency of oil markets.

The â€œhands offâ€ motto of laissez-faire capitalism has never been more pertinent than in this oil crisis. But both Democrats and Republicans are proposing policies that will meddle with the oil market. The imposition of any system of government subsidies or price controls will disrupt the marketâ€™s vital process of continuous adaptation; it will also cost a fortune to put into place.

Start with the Republicans, who are now salivating at the prospect of using the rising price of oil against President Obama. But just what does House Speaker John Boehner hope to accomplish when he tells his fellow Republicans to seize on the gas-pump anger, bemoaning the $4.00-plus prices at the pump? He canâ€™t responsibly say that he wants these prices to be lower if they rose in response to scarcity. Nor can he lay the blame for the current dislocation at the foot of Obama, whatever else the president may have to answer for.

The only way in which to lower oil prices is to subsidize its consumption in some form, which is where Boehnerâ€™s thinking necessarily leads. Those subsidies have to come from somewhere, which means new or higher taxes. Another problem with subsidies is that they lead to the relative overproduction of the subsidized product and the relative underproduction of its close rivals. The president himself has called for greater subsidies for solar energy, whose entrepreneurs should be left to sink or swim on their own. Boehner is making the same mistake for oil. He needs to not panic in response to bad news.

Senator Rick Santorum must also tone down his rhetoric when he bashes the Democrats: â€œThey want higher energy prices. They want to push their radical agenda on the public. We need a president who is on the side of affordable energy.â€ Not so. In this environment, higher prices are the best response to contracting supplies. There is, therefore, nothing radical in President Obamaâ€™s decision to stay on the sidelines on this matter. But there is a great deal of freighted meaning when Santorum mentions â€œaffordable energy,â€ for it calls to mind a policy of state subsidies that distort relative prices across the board.

The political ignorance on the Republican side of the aisle is, alas, fully reciprocated by the unwise pronouncements that come from the Democratic side, as I explain in my over at Defining Ideas.

Ben Domenech : A Few Thoughts on Washington

Ben Domenech — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 03:19:43 +0000

On May 1, 1789, on the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street in New York City, George Washington took the oath of office to become the first elected President of the United States.

Our first and last unanimously elected leader, he had six years earlier resigned as Commander in Chief of the Continental Army - keeping his promise to the American people that he would be no monarch. When told by painter Benjamin West of Washington's impending resignation, King George III was said to have exclaimed in shock: "If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world."

I have always found it remarkable - there are so many remarkable things about Washington, they make him seem impossible to relate to - did not make note of his election as president in his diary. The journal he kept - unlike so many of his peers, who were most loquacious when their topic was themselves - was a simple and brief account of, as he referred to it, "Where & How my Time is Spent." But before departing on the ten day journey from Virginia to New York for his inauguration, Washington wrote:

"About ten o'clock, I bade adieu to Mount Vernon, to private life, and to domestic felicity; and with a mind oppressed with more anxious and painful sensations than I have words to express, set out for New York in company with Mr. Thomson, and colonel [David] Humphries, with the best dispositions to render service to my country in obedience to its call, but with less hope of answering its expectations."

The man was greeted by constant celebration - the praise and honor due the national hero. But he did not relish it. Upon arriving in the city on April 23rd, he wrote:

"The display of boats which attended and joined us on this occasion, some with vocal and some with instrumental music on board; the decorations of the ships, the roar of cannon, and the loud acclamations of the people which rent the skies, as I passed along the wharves, filled my mind with sensations as painful (considering the reverse of this scene, which may be the case after all my labors to do good) as they are pleasing."

He understood the risks of this new government, and was fearful of his ability to deliver a nation worthy of its people. The hopes and dreams of so many were tied up in him. But he would do his best.

Whatever you are doing today, pause for a moment to be thankful for this man - with whose leadership the Almighty saw fit to grace us, and without whom America would not be. I have the luxury of living near Mount Vernon, on what once was Washington's own farmland; so today I count my blessings that I live a free man, and that he - and so many patriots - made it so.