Today’s links to interesting news and analysis.
- Today’s links to interesting articles
- Best summary yet of the Copenhagen follies
- Afterword
Excerpts and details
(1) Excerpts
- “Some notes on Teddy Roosevelt“, The Edge of the American West, 22 December 2009
- “Rising Tide“, Mark Steyn, National Review, 22 November 2009 — Looking ahead to the fate of Europe, as new peoples arrive with strong ideas.
- “Ponzi scheme that works“, The Economist, 17 December 2009 “The greatest strength of America is that people want to live there”
- “The Myth of an Expert Consensus on the Constitutionality of an Individual Health Insurance Mandate“, Volokh Conspiracy, 23 December 2009
- Update, a must-read for Americans: “The NYT’s view of ‘journalistic objectivity’“, Glenn Greenwald, Salon, 23 December 2009 — More evidence about the death of American journalism.
(2) Best summary yet of the Copenhagen follies
“Very high up’ and really cool“, Mark Steyn, Washington Times, 21 December 2009 — Excerpt:
His Royal Highness also was in Copenhagen last week, telling delegates there were just seven years left to save the planet. Prince Charles is so famously concerned about the environment that he’s known as the Green Prince. Just for the record, his annual carbon footprint is 2,601 tons. The carbon footprint of an average Briton (i.e., all those wasteful, consumerist, environmentally unsustainable deadbeats) is 11 tons. To get him to Copenhagen to deliver his speech, he was flown in by one of the Royal Air Force’s fleet of VIP jets from the Royal Squadron. Total carbon emissions: 6.4 tons. In other words, the Green Prince used up seven months’ of an average Brit’s annual carbon footprint on one short flight to give one mediocre speech of alarmist boilerplate.
But relax, it’s all cool, because he offsets. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the prince will be investing in exciting new green initiatives. “Investing” as in “using your own money,” you mean? Not exactly. Apparently, it will be taxpayers’ money. So he’ll “offset” the cost of using up seven months of an average peasant’s carbon footprint on one flight by taking the peasant’s money and tossing it down some sinkhole.
No wonder he feels so virtuous. Oh, don’t worry, though. He does have to pay a personal penalty for the sin of flying by private jet: Seventy pounds, which is the cost of about six new trees, or rather less than the bill for parking at Heathrow would have been.
So just to recap: The Prince of Wales, a man who has never drawn his own curtains, ramps up a carbon footprint of 2,601 tons while telling us that Western capitalist excess is destroying the planet. Rajendra K. Pachauri, the railroad engineer who heads the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and has demanded that “hefty aviation taxes should be introduced to deter people from flying,” flew 443,226 miles on “IPCC business” in the 1 1/2 years before the Copenhagen summit. And former Vice President Al Gore is a carbon billionaire: He makes more money buying offsets from himself than his dad did from investing in Occidental Petroleum.
(3) Afterword
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Royalty, politicians and corporate executives answer to a higher calling and have a sense of entitlement that allows them to operate for a greater good as world leaders.
Do as we well say, and not as we do is a sham and a shame. The men who hold high places must be the ones who start. Not bloody likely.
“Among Al Jazeera’s viewers in the Arab world since the 9/11 attacks, perhaps nothing has damaged perceptions of America more than Guantánamo Bay.”
Gee, could it be, that those who ranted against torture were not bleeding hearts or enemy sympathizers? Maybe they were trying to warn us about a CRITICAL PROPAGANDA FAIL?
Can’t we at least send them some “I survived the Bush years” tee shirts?
“Unfortunately for al-Hajj, though, while many other countries have acknowledged wrongdoing, conducted criminal investigations, and compensated torture and detention victims of the “War on Terror,” the U.S. is a country that vigorously resists all such efforts at accountability or even disclosure, even for the most gruesome injustices perpetrated by our government.”
Let me stick up for Our Charlie . He pays £3 million income tax , which offsets more than half anything he gets from the taxpayer . When he goes on an expensive jaunt , there are trade / diplomatic interests with him .
However rich he is , he is supposed to be more gagged than the rest of us , which must be horrible .
Charlie has taken on board green issues , but more in the way the Alternative Copenhageners did : this is also about water, sustainable farming and lifestyles, water , jobs , people’s skills and rights , etc , not just about carbon trading .
We did try being a Republic , and that didnt work either .