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.
Why Does Religious Freedom Matter?
Religious liberty and a thriving religious culture are defining attributes of the United States, characterizing the American order as much as its political system and market economy.[1] From the earliest settlements of the 17th century to the great social reform causes led by religious congregations in the late 19th century and again in the 20th century, religion has been a dominant theme of American life.
“The Road To Serfdom”-
F.A. Hayek
Finally, here is an edition of Road to Serfdom that does justice to its monumental status in the history of liberty. It contains a foreword by the editor of the Hayek Collected Works, Bruce Caldwell. Caldwell has added helpful explanatory notes and citation corrections, among other improvements. For this reason, the publisher decided to call this “the definitive edition.” It truly is.
Upton flips a switch on CFL bulbs
Three years after he led the charge to require consumers to ditch their comfortable old incandescent lights in favor of those twisty CFL bulbs, Rep. Fred Upton now wants to be the man to help undo that law as the next chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
That about-face is not unique among lawmakers looking to atone for stances they’ve taken over the past decade as they seek to gain top posts in a decidedly more conservative Republican Congress, but his reversal underscores how intent the GOP is on proving it has broken with past practices.
The Castle Coalition-Citizens Fighting Eminent Domain Abuse
The Castle Coalition is the Institute for Justice’s nationwide grassroots property rights activism project. Founded in 2002, the Castle Coalition teaches home and small business owners how to protect themselves and stand up to the greedy governments and developers who seek to use eminent domain to take private property for their own gain. And thanks to the gracious generosity of our donors, we’re able to do this for free.
With our Eminent Domain Abuse Survival Guide, we provide activists around the country with the tools and strategies necessary to successfully stop the abuse of eminent domain in their towns. We travel the nation to meet with and educate concerned citizens about government-backed land grabs and also host training sessions for affected neighborhoods that are threatened by eminent domain abuse. Through our membership network, we give support to those communities most endangered by the alliance of tax-hungry governments and land-hungry developers.