What do you say when someone throws the “But abortion is legal” mantra at you? Let me begin by telling you a little about a piece from the L.A. Times last Friday, February 17. It’s entitled “War Against a Woman’s Right.” Obviously, it is about abortion because women’s rights now pretty much focus on the issue of abortion. This is an editorial piece that reflects on some recent fires at abortion clinics. It makes a couple of comments.
1st Amendment Protects ‘Hurtful’ Speech, Court Says
The First Amendment protects free speech even if it is as hurtful as signs at a Marine funeral proclaiming “Thank God for Dead Soldiers,” the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday in a decision that was one of the court’s most significant on freedom of expression in recent years.
The Westboro Baptist Church celebrated the death of Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder in Iraq with signs such as “God Hates You,” along with antigay messages at his funeral in Maryland in 2006. The late Marine’s father sought damages for emotional distress, but the court ruled that he had no case.
“Atlas Shrugged”-Ayn Rand
Who is John Galt? When he says that he will stop the motor of the world, is he a destroyer or a liberator? Why does he have to fight his battles not against his enemies but against those who need him most? Why does he fight his hardest battle against the woman he loves?
Climate change: A new religion complete with evangelists, tithes, indulgences and superstitions
Last night BBC Four aired a documentary which took a look at climate change sceptics and in particular one of the movement’s most prominent poster boys, Lord Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount of Brenchley.The programme, like climate science itself, attracted controversy before it even came on air. James Delingpole, a vocal climate change sceptic who appears in the documentary, yesterday called the programme “another hatchet job” on his Telegraph blog.
How to Get Rich from Liberal Delusions
The secret to instant wealth is to spot a mass delusion and bet against it. The Tulip Craze. Florida swamp land.
Getting the timing right is tricky, but we are blessed with an overload of mass delusions. You can pick your own favorite. Delusional bubbles have to pop at some point, because the people who are paying for them eventually figure out that they’ve been had.
Warmists: ‘We can’t win the game, so let’s change the rules’
Willis Eschenbach’s recent guest post at Watts Up With That? on the current state of ‘Climate science’ should be made compulsory reading in every classroom, every university science department, every eco-charity, every environmental NGO and in every branch of government. They won’t like it up ‘em, that’s for sure.
What Eschenbach says is so pure and simple and obvious you’d need to be as dumb as Chris Huhne not to get it:
A Banner Day For Junk Science
Corruption: A study debunking vaccines by a scientist in the pay of trial lawyers was found to be “an elaborate fraud.” Meanwhile, the “Great Garbage Patch” turned out to be a sea myth. Science has some explaining to do.
Scientific inquiry, once perceived a noble redoubt of objective truth-seeking and enlightenment, is doing a bang-up job of dragging itself down to P.T. Barnum-style snake oil-elixir hype, given the amount of fraud being exposed almost daily.
Light-bulb banning begins
The cost of illuminating your home is about to go up significantly. Most Americans take for granted that when they flip a switch, darkness immediately gives way to a warm, natural light. That’s no longer possible in California, where a regulation that took effect Jan. 1 only allows the sale of harsh, cold compact fluorescents above a certain wattage. Unless the new Congress takes action, the same rules will apply to the rest of the country, beginning next year.
The prohibition on buying real light bulbs follows from the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, signed into law by then-President George W. Bush. The measure gave bureaucratic zealots in the Golden State permission to embark on their confiscatory policy a year early. Of course, in true Orwellian fashion, the California Energy Commission strongly denies it’s doing anything to prohibit consumers from buying the type of bulbs they prefer. “You can still buy any type of light bulb you like, the only difference is that the new bulbs will use less energy and cost less money to operate,” the commission’s website explains. Left unsaid is that it’s a crime to sell newly manufactured cheap bulbs that produce a pleasing, natural light of 100 watts or more.
Milton Friedman-Free To Choose
The legendary PBS TV series “Free to Choose” (1980) by Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman is now available on Google Video for free (by courtesy of the Palmer R. Chitester Fund).