What to do… what to do…
The Shape of Losers to Come
Lots of, er, us types:
The End of the Win-Win World
Why China’s rise really is bad for America — and other dark forces at work…
A few months ago, I found myself sitting next to a senior EU official who turned out to have read my book. “My job is to prove your zero-sum thesis wrong,” he told me. I replied that, as an author I hoped to be proved right — but as a European and a human being I was hoping to be proved wrong. My lunch companion laughed and said, “That is too dialectical for me.”
It is one of the nice things about the best EU officials that they are happy to talk to their critics, and comfortable using words like “dialectical.” However, I fear that cultured technocrats will not do terribly well in the new era. A zero-sum world may summon up rather darker forces.
The Sound Of Settled Science
Via Powerline;
The climate system may be less sensitive to greenhouse-gas warming than many models have predicted.
Nathan Gillett and his co-workers at Environment Canada in Victoria, British Columbia, analysed how well the latest Canadian Earth System Model tracked temperature changes attributable to volcanoes, man-made aerosols and rising greenhouse-gas emissions. They adjusted the model using temperature records from 1851 to 2010 — 60 years of data more than most previous analyses. The model predicted a short-term increase of 1.3–1.8 °C for a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, which is low in the range of estimates from previous forecasts.
Say it isn’t so.
Do All American 20 Something Girls Major in “Elementary Education?”
WARNING:
It’s absolutely painful to read.
Is There Nothing That Obama Can’t Do?
Be Prepared
More on new members at Girl Guides.
Not Waiting For The Asteroid
[A]pparently the Reuters reporters failed to fact check the Democratic talking points they were given before running them as a news story: So far, Reuters has published five separate corrections to the story (all noted at the bottom), in each case dealing with a factual assertion in the original that was blatantly false. An hour ago, there had only been three corrections published, so we should probably stay tuned for yet more.
It’s Probably Nothing
Reader Tips
In June of 2010, Canada accepted it’s first delivery of Lockheed Martin’s tactical airlift plane, the C-130J Super Hercules. “Prized for its versatility and flexibility“, the Super Hercules gets rave reviews from pilots and commanders, including Lt. Col. Jeff Blalock of the U.S. 48th Airlift Squadron who says, “From a pilot’s perspective, this aircraft is just phenomenal. The engines and props give you tremendous power and capability…It climbs like a rocket on takeoff.”
Take a look at the C-130J Super Hercules in action at the 2011 Paris Air Show.
h/t Michael M.
The comments are open, as always, for your Reader Tips.
The Nannystate and Your Dog
If you’re walking your dog in Vancouver and want to quickly buy some groceries or get a coffee, be aware that you’re breaking the law if you tie up Fido to a pole and leave him unattended.
In the interest of curiosity, does this same bylaw exist in your community too?
We Don’t Need No Stinking Sparky Cars
Now is the time at SDA when we juxtapose!
State Of The Union, Jan 24, 2012;
“In three years, our partnership with the private sector has already positioned America to be the world’s leading manufacturer of high-tech batteries.”
State Of The Battery, Jan 26, 2012;
Obama-backed electric car battery-maker files for bankruptcy
h/t Ed S.
Free Saskatchewan!
There have been layoffs at the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission, CBC News has confirmed.
Best part?
MORE TO COME
h/t Marc
More Pavilions At Folkfest
Related: 
h/t Maz2
Be Prepared
Girl Guides of Canada is considering transgender members…
The historic Girl Guides of Canada is wrestling with a very modern question: Whether to allow transgender girls – children who were born male but identify as girls – into their troops.
No big deal. The “Girl Guides” as we knew them are essentially dead, anyway.
More – “Until recently, I had no idea the organization was helping dismantle what’s left of the West.”
O, Sweet Saint Of San Andreas
Hear my prayer. (h/t Jason)
Peter Nygard’s Lawsuit Against the CBC to Proceed
The Earth must have entered into the Twilight Zone. How else to explain that our always professional, always objective, always unbiased state broadcaster could have possibly breached a whole host of ethics in their attempt to destroy a businessman.
h/t Maz2
Sheila Leggett’s Never-ending Make-work Project
h/t Wally J.
Reader Tips
January 26 is Australia Day, a mid-summer statutory holiday during which the men, full as a coog, walk around in budgie smugglers having a Captain Cook at the white pointers while the women go looking for their men — at least, that’s what an expatriate New Zealander told me. In honour of our upside-down Anglospheric friends, then, here’s a stirring rendition of their national anthem Advance Australia Fair. Cheers!
The comments are open, as always, for your Reader Tips.
Where we live
“In Amsterdam, 22 jihadis stormed my book launch, ordered my execution and threatened to break my neck.….”
“Even when they had a chance to run from the room, nobody at my Amsterdam launch fled. Some of my guests created a human shield around me and my host. It’s yet more proof that ‘ordinary people’ are capable of moral courage. As I write in Allah, Liberty & Love, ‘Some things are more important than fear.’“
Lo and Behold, The Changes in Wisconsin are Working
A most interesting article has just been published in City Journal. It describes in detail, with example after example, how Governor Scott Walker’s changes are making things better, not worse. Quite a contrast from the dire predictions made by the public sector unions and their sympathizers.
The unions’ battle against Walker’s reforms has rested on the argument that the changes would damage public services beyond repair. The truth, however, is that the reforms not only are saving money already; they’re doing so with little disruption to services.
At the outset of the public-union standoff, educators had made dire predictions that Walker’s reforms would force schools to fire teachers. In February, to take one example, Madison School District Superintendent Dan Nerad predicted that 289 teachers in his district would be laid off. Walker insisted that his reforms were actually a job-retention program: by accepting small concessions in health and pension benefits, he argued, school districts would be able to spare hundreds of teachers’ jobs. The argument proved sound. So far, Nerad’s district has laid off no teachers at all, a pattern that has held in many of the state’s other large school districts. No teachers were laid off in Beloit and LaCrosse; Eau Claire saw a reduction of two teachers, while Racine and Wausau each laid off one. The Wauwatosa School District, which faced a $6.5 million shortfall, anticipated slashing 100 jobs—yet the new pension and health contributions saved them all.