I like Bob Dole

Bob Dole got fired up when he read about Scott McClellan’s tell-all book about the Bush White House and he Scott McClellan an email expressing his displeasure:

“There are miserable creatures like you in every administration who don’t have the guts to speak up or quit if there are disagreements with the boss or colleagues,” Dole wrote in a message sent yesterday morning. “No, your type soaks up the benefits of power, revels in the limelight for years, then quits and, spurred on by greed, cashes in with a scathing critique.”

“That would have taken integrity and courage but then you would have had credibility and your complaints could have been aired objectively,”

I have little doubt that McClellan’s book is generally correct. My complaint with McClellan is the same as Dole’s–if you have thse types of concerns, then stand up like a man, voice your concerns, and quit.

Can Compassionate Conservatism be Defended?

Michael Gerson, former speechwriter for President Bush wrote an interesting, and severely flawed, op-ed in the Washington Post defending “compassionate conservatism.” Most amusingly he cites scriptures to make his point, without apparently bothering to read them. Here’s what Gerson writes:

Now comes another charge — that compassionate conservatism is actually opposed by the Bible. “Common sense and the Scriptures,” argues Sen. Tom Coburn, “show that true giving and compassion require sacrifice by the giver. This is why Jesus told the rich young ruler to sell his possessions, not his neighbor’s possessions. Spending other people’s money is not compassionate.”

It is not my purpose to pick on the senator from Oklahoma (once again); he is a man of principle. And he is merely restating a fairly common view: that compassion is a private virtue, not a public one, and that religious conscience concerns the former and not the latter.

But this is a theological assertion, not a political one. And as theology, it is flawed.

It is true that Jesus was not a political activist; he joined no party and issued no Contract With the Roman Empire. But it is a stretch to interpret his personal challenge to the rich young ruler as a biblical foundation for libertarianism.

The Jewish tradition in which Jesus lived and taught demanded that just rulers make a minimal provision for the poor, including no-interest loans and the distribution of agricultural commodities. (Look it up: Exodus 22:25-27 and Deuteronomy 24:19-21.)

Okay, let’s look up Exodus 22:25-27 in the King James version of the Bible:

25 ¶ If thou lend money to any of my people that is poor by thee, thou shalt not be to him as an usurer, neither shalt thou lay upon him usury.

26 If thou at all take thy neighbour’s raiment to pledge, thou shalt deliver it unto him by that the sun goeth down:

27 For that is his covering only, it is his raiment for his skin: wherein shall he sleep? and it shall come to pass, when he crieth unto me, that I will hear; for I am gracious.

This only supports Sen. Coburn’s correct assertion of God stressing individual charity. There is nothing here that talks about what “just rulers” should do. So let’s check Deuteronomy:

19 ¶ When thou cuttest down thine harvest in thy field, and hast forgot a sheaf in the field, thou shalt not go again to fetch it: it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow: that the Lord thy God may bless thee in all the work of thine hands.

20 When thou beatest thine olive tree, thou shalt not go over the boughs again: it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow.

21 When thou gatherest the grapes of thy vineyard, thou shalt not glean it afterward: it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow.

Again, this only speaks to individual charity. There is nothing here describing what “just rulers” should do.

Instead of defending “compassionate conservatism,” Gerson further condemns it by showing that it has no Biblical moorings. He had the entire Bible to choose from and he chose two passages that do not support his point.

I suppose he had to cite something and hope people didn’t check because, despite his assertions, God is a libertarian.

Mary Chocolatier

One of my wife’s friends from work recently was in Brussels and brough her back chocolate from Mary Chocolatier. If you have taste buds and if you are in Brussels, you owe it to yourself to go to Mary’s. The chocolate was the best I’ve ever had.

By the way, if you want to order a box of chocolate online, it will only cost you 100 Euros.

George R.R. Martin is Infuriating

George R.R. Martin is infuriating. He really is. I love the series he is currently writing, but I’m growing very doubtful he will finish the series before he passes away. He’s not ill or anything but he writes very, very slowly. Worse, he has a ton of side projects. For example, a couple days ago he wrote a post about a couple anthologies he editing.

I couldn’t care less for his other projects. And I know I’m not alone. A couple weeks ago I sat next to a guy on a plane who, unprompted, told me he has the same complaint about Martin. And he wasn’t the old person who told me that. I chatted with a guy on the Metro who was reading one of Martin’s book and he had the same complaint.

Martin is a great writer and his series, A Song of Ice and Fire, may be my favorite fantasy series of all time. But it has taken him over 2 ½ years to write the second half of book 5 in his series. If it takes 3 years (at least) to finish ½ of a book, how long will it take him to finish the last 2 books? Who knows, but I’m becoming more and more discouraged that he will ever finish.

How sad is the state of creativity in Hollywood?

How sad is the state of creativity in Hollywood? For the past few years almost all of the big summer movies have been sequels or remakes. Now Paramount is working on Beverly Hills Cop 4. What’s next? Lethal Weapon 5?

History will not be kind to President Bush

It is looking more an more like history will not be kind of President Bush. One more piece of evidence is former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan’s new book about the Bush White House. Here’s an interesting article about the book.

When reading McClellan’s complaints about the Bush White House I wonder–why did you stay for so long? If you thought they were playing fast and loose with the facts, then why did you stay to continue to be their puppet and be the face associated with their propaganda? I don’t know, it doesn’t make a ton of sense to me.

Billions Wasted on Carbon Credits

The Environmental Editor of the Guardian in the UK reports:

Billions of pounds are being wasted in paying industries in developing countries to reduce climate change emissions, according to two analyses of the UN’s carbon offsetting programme.

Leading academics and watchdog groups allege that the UN’s main offset fund is being routinely abused by chemical, wind, gas and hydro companies who are claiming emission reduction credits for projects that should not qualify. The result is that no genuine pollution cuts are being made, undermining assurances by the UK government and others that carbon markets are dramatically reducing greenhouse gases, the researchers say.

The criticism centres on the UN’s clean development mechanism (CDM), an international system established by the Kyoto process that allows rich countries to meet emissions targets by funding clean energy projects in developing nations.

Credits from the project are being bought by European companies and governments who are unable to meet their carbon reduction targets.

The market for CDM credits is growing fast. At present it is worth nearly $20bn a year, but this is expected to grow to over $100bn within four years. More than 1,000 projects have so far been approved, and 2,000 more are making their way through the process.

A working paper from two senior Stanford University academics examined more than 3,000 projects applying for or already granted up to $10bn of credits from the UN’s CDM funds over the next four years, and concluded that the majority should not be considered for assistance. “They would be built anyway,” says David Victor, law professor at the Californian university. “It looks like between one and two thirds of all the total CDM offsets do not represent actual emission cuts.”

Governments consider that CDM is vital to reducing global emissions under the terms of the Kyoto treaty. To earn credits under the mechanism, emission reductions must be in addition to those that would have taken place without the project. But critics argue this “additionality” is impossible to prove and open to abuse. The Stanford paper, by Victor and his colleague Michael Wara, found that nearly every new hydro, wind and natural gas-fired plant expected to be built in China in the next four years is applying for CDM credits, even though it is Chinese policy to encourage these industries.

Why Don’t Environmentalists Have the Strength of Their Convictions?

The San Francisco Bay Area Air Quality Management District is set to charge a carbon tax for carbon dioxide emissions from business in the Bay Area.

The modest fee — 4.4 cents per ton of carbon dioxide — probably won’t be enough to force companies to reduce their emissions, but backers say it sets an important precedent in combating climate change and could serve as a model for regional air districts nationwide.

“It doesn’t solve global warming, but it gets us thinking in the right terms,” said Daniel Kammen, a renewable energy expert at the University of California, Berkeley. “It’s not enough of a cost to change behavior, but it tells us where things are headed. You have to think not just in financial terms, but in carbon terms.”

This type of policy is typical of environmentalist thinking. Results do not matter. What matters is addressing the problem, not actual results. If results mattered and they wanted to actually reduce emission, then they would charge a tax high enough to change behavior.

Because this tax isn’t designed to charge behavior, the entire point is to raise revenue. I wish people like Daniel Kammen were honest about that. The point is to create a fund to pay for pet projects. The story reports that “If approved, the fees are expected to generate $1.1 million in its first year to help pay for programs to measure the region’s emissions and develop ways to reduce them.”

If the Bay Area Air Quality Management District wanted to reduce emissions, they wouldn’t need a $1.1 million fund to pay their favorite consultants or to do pet projects. They would just increase the tax. If they increase it high enough then emissions will fall. Easy enough.

If the environmentalists that control the Bay Area Air Quality Management District truly believed in the their actions and the dangers of increasing carbon dioxide levels, they would levy a high enough tax to create behavior. Obviously this isn’t about changing behavior. It is about making a statement. Don’t these guys care about the environment?

Secondhand Smoke is Not Dangerous

Or so writes Joe Bast:

Smoking bans are usually justified by concern over the health effects of exposure to secondhand smoke. In 2006, U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona said, “the debate is over. The science is clear: Secondhand smoke is not a mere annoyance, but a serious health hazard.” He released a massive report — 709 pages — that said “secondhand smoke is a major cause of disease, including lung cancer and coronary heart disease, in healthy nonsmokers.”

But here’s the problem: None of the claims in the Surgeon General’s report would pass muster in a court of law because the studies it relies on have sample sizes that are too small, or the time periods they cover are too brief, or the effects they show on human health are too small to be reliable.

Most of the research cited in this report was rejected by a federal judge in 1993, when EPA first tried to classify secondhand smoke as a human carcinogen. The judge said EPA cherry-picked studies to support its position, misrepresented the findings of the most important studies, and failed to honor scientific standards.

The largest and most credible study ever conducted of spouses of smokers, by James Enstrom and Geoffrey Kabat, was published in the May 12, 2003 issue of the British Medical Journal. They found “the results do not support a causal relationship between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco-related mortality. The association between tobacco smoke and coronary heart disease and lung cancer may be considerably weaker than generally believed.”

The study is mentioned just once in the Surgeon General’s report, on page 673, in an appendix listing studies that were too recent to be included in the report. But it was published three years before the Surgeon General’s report, and the report quotes other more recent studies.

Why Do the Democrats and many Repubilicans Only Grandstand about Energy?

This news story is both funny and sad. The Housevoted 324-84 to allow the Justice Department to sue OPEC over limited oil supplies:

“This bill guarantees that oil prices will reflect supply and demand economic rules, instead of wildly speculative and perhaps illegal activities,” said Democratic Rep. Steve Kagen of Wisconsin, who sponsored the legislation.

The lawmaker said Americans “are at the mercy” of OPEC for how much they pay for gasoline, which this week hit a record average of $3.79 a gallon.

No, actually Americans are at the mercy of the federal government for how much they pay for gasoline. For years we have tried to open ANWR in Alaska for oil production and Democrats along with some Republicans stopped the plan. President Clinton vetoed a bill that would have opened ANWR to oil production. That was 10 years ago. It should would be nice to have that oil now.

Let’s get serious about the price of oil and open up all of American’s outer continential shelf for oil exploration along with ANWR and allow for the extration of oil shale in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. Unless of course, you aren’t actually serious about the high price of oil…