URLs du Jour

2020-12-23

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  • At National Review, Andrew Stuttaford warns us of (Another) Climate Warrior Aiming to Bypass Democracy.

    Whether it’s through their attempts of “legislation” by regulation, litigation, or the pressure of Wall Street’s corporatists, the climate warriors have long shown an interest in bypassing the usual democratic procedures in order to get their agenda through, and there is no doubt that some of the coercive measures that have been put in place to combat the pandemic will have given them additional ideas. That’s not a good thing.

    Andrew's example is Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley (Guess the party), who wrorte a WaPo op-ed urging Führer-elect Joseph Robinette Biden to "act boldly" climatewise, invoking (with no additional legislative authority) the National Emergencies Act and/or the Defense Production Act to (for example) mandate that private industry "ramp up manufacturing of clean energy technologies."

    The WaPo adopted the "Democracy Dies in Darkness" motto a few years back. They should add: "And Sometimes in Broad Daylight Too. Check out our editorial page."


  • I used to joke about this: who cares if private companies are leaking your personal data, the government knows that stuff anyway. Well (as Andrea O'Sullivan at Reason points out) The Massive SolarWinds Hack Won’t Stop the Feds from Wanting All Your Data.

    Governments often tell their subjects that they must submit to surveillance programs to stay safe. Whether the boogeyman is terrorism, hate, or even health, government snooping on private data often violates our rights to privacy.

    But surveillance programs are unsafe on their own. Securing major sets of sensitive personal data is a tall order that few can fulfill. What do you know: Government agencies that want more access to your data all too often get hacked and risk exposing your private information to the world.

    I recall the University Near Here bought at least one SolarWinds product for network monitoring. (I wasn't involved.) Geez, I hope they dodged this particular bullet. I hope they can figure out whether they dodged the bullet or not. I gather from news articles that a lot of compromised government sites are having difficulty even doing damage assessment.


  • Andrew Stuttaford (yes, again, sue me) writes the "Capital Note" at National Review. His take on the latest legislative monstrosity: Well, That’s a Relief.

    So, a “stimulus” package has finally been passed, although it is better understood (and justified) as a relief package, even if it contains some extras typical of what comes slouching into view every time Washington is handing out large slugs of money.

    To quote Robert VerBruggen:

    More than $25 million for the Kennedy Performing Arts Center! More than $100 million to Sudan, and $25 million to gender and democracy programs in Pakistan!

    Such spending is insulting as well as infuriating, but, under the circumstances, it was, rightly, not enough to derail the overall package.

    Andrew's a lot more copacetic about the bill than I am, but it's an interesting take.


  • At Quillette, Rav Arora pushes back on woke narrative: we live in A Peculiar Kind of Racist Patriarchy.

    We are frequently told by commentators and theorists on the progressive and liberal Left that we live in a systemically racist and patriarchal society. The belief that Western societies privilege white men and oppress people of color, women, and LGBT citizens is especially popular within academic institutions, legacy media, the entertainment industry, and even sports. However, newly released statistics from the US Department of Labor for the third quarter of 2020 undermine this narrative. Asian women have now surpassed white men in weekly earnings. That trend has been consistent throughout this past year—an unprecedented outcome. Full-time working Asian women earned $1,224 in median weekly earnings in the third quarter of this year compared to $1,122 earned by their white male counterparts. Furthermore, the income gap between both black and Latino men and Asian women is wider than it has ever been. The income gap between white and black women, meanwhile, is much narrower than the gap between their male counterparts.

    Arora includes this Carpe Diem table from Mark J. Perry:

    [peculiar]

    Peculiar indeed!


  • As the Who sang: Meet the new boss, same as the old boss." Hot Air's Allahpundit notes the latest from Joe Biden: Yes, I still think the stories about Hunter were Russian disinformation. Contained in this tweet:

    OK, I like the "one-horse pony thing."

    But given the MSM relentlessly, aggressively (and often accurately) labelling various Trump claims "false" and "without evidence", I can't wait to see whether Biden gets the same treatment. Certainly he's provided zero evidence that Russia had anything to do with exposing Hunter.


Last Modified 2024-02-02 4:51 AM EDT