Haters of West

Failing to have convinced the public of the coming apocalypse created by global warming, our friendly local Shrubs have sought a more appreciative audience: the courts.

Yesterday in Australia, a court decided that the Environmental Protection Agency needs to consider the effects that proposed coal mines would have have on global warming:

A COURT decision not to allow the development of a new coal mine near Newcastle was today labelled dangerous and disastrous by federal Environment Minister Ian Campbell.

The NSW Land and Environment Court yesterday ruled Centennial Coal had failed to adequately consider the impact of greenhouse gas emissions from its proposed Anvil Hill coal mine in the Upper Hunter.

This despite the, at best, murky links between global warming/climate change and industrial activity.

Well now the foreign Shrubbery and lefty US States seems to have gained heart in the US:

The Bush administration is defending its refusal to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from new motor vehicles in the first case about global warming to reach the Supreme Court...Twelve states, mainly along the nation's Atlantic and Pacific coasts, three cities, a U.S. territory and 13 environmental groups are arguing that the EPA ignored the clear language of the Clean Air Act. Under the 1970 law, carbon dioxide is an air pollutant that threatens public health and the EPA must regulate it, they said.

Lefties blame Elbridge Gerry, RIP

Over at the New Republic, the Editors have published a statement to the effect that Elbridge Gerry, the chap who developed the Congressional Redistricting Plan, is to blame for their predicted lacklustre performance at the US polls.

First they claim that the much vaunted 30 to 50 seat sweep of the House by the Democrats will not emerge:

Democrats have run up double-digit advantages on major issues from Iraq to the economy. When voters are presented with a generic congressional ballot, Democrats win 53-39. But there's simply no way that this will translate.

Then instead of looking at the facts, they elucidate a conspiracy, a right-wing conspiracy. And who is to blame? Elbridge Gerry (RIP) of course, a dead Republican (but not really). You see, Gerry developed the Congressional redistricting scheme:

When voters are presented with a generic congressional ballot, Democrats win 53-39. But there's simply no way that this will translate. Virginia, Missouri, and Tennessee, for instance, are hosting three of the nation's tightest Senate races. But travel a step down the ballot, and you will find only one close contest in those states' combined 29 house races. The entire state of California has only two somewhat tight contests--and it wouldn't even have those, except for a pair of GOP incumbents' associations with Jack Abramoff.

All this is the legacy of our least favorite Founding Father, Elbridge Gerry, and the formula for rigging congressional elections that bears his name. Not that it's all Gerry's fault. The redistricting plan he signed in 1812--and the hundreds that have followed--merely exploited a massive flaw in our electoral system.

Yesterday, I claimed that the TNR is one of the few sane lefty collectives out there. This performance should lead us all to start doubting that.

Also interesting what one finds when trawling the feverswamp. Date stamped 4 November 2006:

So, at best (for the pukes), the polls are actually ACCURATE. At worst, they're underestimating our intensity...In summary, Hugh Hewitt is a f**king moron.

Deeerr. Got that?

For the nutters, my prediction from last night still holds: GOP narrowly lose House, retain Senate with slimmer margin. This prediction based on facts, not wishful thinking.

Chesterton: Uncandid Candid Friends

G.K. Chesterton in his book "Orthodoxy" (1908) on uncandid candid friends:

I venture to say that what is bad in the candid friend is simply that he is not candid. He is keeping something back - his own gloomy pleasure in saying unpleasant things. He has a secret desire to hurt, not merely to help. This is certainly...what makes a certain sort of anti-patriot irritating to healthy citizens...A man who says that no patriot should attack the Boer War until it is over is not worth answering intelligently; he is saying that no good son should warn his mother off a cliff until she has fallen over it. But there is an anti-patriot who honestly angers honest men, and the explanation of him is...what I have suggested: he is an uncandid candid friend; the man who says, "I am sorry to say we are ruined," and is not sorry at all. And he may be said, without rhetoric, to be a traitor, for he is using that ugly knowledge which was allowed him to strengthen the army, to discourage people from joining it...

The personification of the uncandid candid friend changes over time, as do the characters traiterous to their own nation. Yet, their forked tongues and fake sympathy do not.

The global Left (with a few notable exceptions) are the uncandid candid friends of today. They pronounce our defeat in Iraq and wanting a retreat, not because of their care and concern for the soldiers on the ground, but because of their joy in seeing the US and its allies defeated.

Everytime I read Chesterton, I hang on his profound paradoxical statements, his ability to pierce complexity with his sharp tongue and the enduring lessons he teaches.

Haters of West

Failing to have convinced the public of the coming apocalypse created by global warming, our friendly local Shrubs have sought a more appreciative audience: the courts.

Yesterday in Australia, a court decided that the Environmental Protection Agency needs to consider the effects that proposed coal mines would have have on global warming:

A COURT decision not to allow the development of a new coal mine near Newcastle was today labelled dangerous and disastrous by federal Environment Minister Ian Campbell.

The NSW Land and Environment Court yesterday ruled Centennial Coal had failed to adequately consider the impact of greenhouse gas emissions from its proposed Anvil Hill coal mine in the Upper Hunter.

This despite the, at best, murky links between global warming/climate change and industrial activity.

Well now the foreign Shrubbery and lefty US States seems to have gained heart in the US:

The Bush administration is defending its refusal to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from new motor vehicles in the first case about global warming to reach the Supreme Court...Twelve states, mainly along the nation's Atlantic and Pacific coasts, three cities, a U.S. territory and 13 environmental groups are arguing that the EPA ignored the clear language of the Clean Air Act. Under the 1970 law, carbon dioxide is an air pollutant that threatens public health and the EPA must regulate it, they said.

Lefties blame Elbridge Gerry, RIP

Over at the New Republic, the Editors have published a statement to the effect that Elbridge Gerry, the chap who developed the Congressional Redistricting Plan, is to blame for their predicted lacklustre performance at the US polls.

First they claim that the much vaunted 30 to 50 seat sweep of the House by the Democrats will not emerge:

Democrats have run up double-digit advantages on major issues from Iraq to the economy. When voters are presented with a generic congressional ballot, Democrats win 53-39. But there's simply no way that this will translate.

Then instead of looking at the facts, they elucidate a conspiracy, a right-wing conspiracy. And who is to blame? Elbridge Gerry (RIP) of course, a dead Republican (but not really). You see, Gerry developed the Congressional redistricting scheme:

When voters are presented with a generic congressional ballot, Democrats win 53-39. But there's simply no way that this will translate. Virginia, Missouri, and Tennessee, for instance, are hosting three of the nation's tightest Senate races. But travel a step down the ballot, and you will find only one close contest in those states' combined 29 house races. The entire state of California has only two somewhat tight contests--and it wouldn't even have those, except for a pair of GOP incumbents' associations with Jack Abramoff.

All this is the legacy of our least favorite Founding Father, Elbridge Gerry, and the formula for rigging congressional elections that bears his name. Not that it's all Gerry's fault. The redistricting plan he signed in 1812--and the hundreds that have followed--merely exploited a massive flaw in our electoral system.

Yesterday, I claimed that the TNR is one of the few sane lefty collectives out there. This performance should lead us all to start doubting that.

Also interesting what one finds when trawling the feverswamp. Date stamped 4 November 2006:

So, at best (for the pukes), the polls are actually ACCURATE. At worst, they're underestimating our intensity...In summary, Hugh Hewitt is a f**king moron.

Deeerr. Got that?

For the nutters, my prediction from last night still holds: GOP narrowly lose House, retain Senate with slimmer margin. This prediction based on facts, not wishful thinking.

Chesterton: Uncandid Candid Friends

G.K. Chesterton in his book "Orthodoxy" (1908) on uncandid candid friends:

I venture to say that what is bad in the candid friend is simply that he is not candid. He is keeping something back - his own gloomy pleasure in saying unpleasant things. He has a secret desire to hurt, not merely to help. This is certainly...what makes a certain sort of anti-patriot irritating to healthy citizens...A man who says that no patriot should attack the Boer War until it is over is not worth answering intelligently; he is saying that no good son should warn his mother off a cliff until she has fallen over it. But there is an anti-patriot who honestly angers honest men, and the explanation of him is...what I have suggested: he is an uncandid candid friend; the man who says, "I am sorry to say we are ruined," and is not sorry at all. And he may be said, without rhetoric, to be a traitor, for he is using that ugly knowledge which was allowed him to strengthen the army, to discourage people from joining it...

The personification of the uncandid candid friend changes over time, as do the characters traiterous to their own nation. Yet, their forked tongues and fake sympathy do not.

The global Left (with a few notable exceptions) are the uncandid candid friends of today. They pronounce our defeat in Iraq and wanting a retreat, not because of their care and concern for the soldiers on the ground, but because of their joy in seeing the US and its allies defeated.

Everytime I read Chesterton, I hang on his profound paradoxical statements, his ability to pierce complexity with his sharp tongue and the enduring lessons he teaches.