Tag Archives: national-review

Britain Will Spend the Next Decade Doing Nothing But Negotiating a Pointless Exit From the EU

by StewartOZX Posted on February 10, 2017

Mother Jones

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For a brief moment, let’s turn our attention away from Donald Trump and focus on another country’s woes. The folks over at National Review are no fans of the EU and have generally been pretty happy about the passage of Brexit. Today, however, Andrew Stuttaford—relying on Brexit expert Christopher Booker—is pretty scathing about prime minister Theresa May’s handling of the whole thing. First, here’s Booker explaining what he’s learned over the past 25 years about exiting the EU:

As I came to appreciate just how enmeshed we were becoming with that system of government, was that extricating ourselves from it would be far more fiendishly complicated than most people realised…Also, as I listened and talked to politicians, was how astonishingly little they seemed really to know about how it worked. Having outsourced ever more of our lawmaking and policy to a higher power, it was as if our political class had switched off from ever really trying to understand it.

That sounds sort of familiar, doesn’t it? Continuing:

On leaving the EU the UK becomes what the EU terms a “third country”, faced with all the labyrinth of technical barriers to trade behind which the EU has shut itself off from the outside world. Last week I read a series of expert papers explaining some of the mindbending regulatory hurdles we would then have to overcome in trying to maintain access to what is still by far our largest single overseas market.

Take, for instance, our chemicals and pharmaceutical industries, which currently account for a quarter of all our exports to the EU, which currently account for a quarter of all our £230 billion a year exports to the EU. By dropping out of the EU, these would lose all the “authorisations” which give them what Mrs May calls “frictionless” entry to its market, and the process of negotiating replacements for them would be so complex that it could take years.

And now Stuttaford:

Booker observes that these aspects of Britain’s divorce from the EU “could have been achieved infinitely more easily if Mrs May had not slammed the door on our continued membership of the EEA the European Economic Area, which would guarantee us much the same “frictionless” access we enjoy now”.

That would be the ‘Norway option’ that you may have read about a few times in this very Corner, an option rejected by May for reasons so unclear that I cannot keep thinking the (doubtless unfair) thought that she has very little idea of what it actually is.

And then, Booker frets, there is May’s “terrifying” threat “that, if she is not given what she wants, she will simply “walk away”.” He’s right to worry. May has said that “no deal for Britain is better than a bad deal for Britain”, an elegant but false dichotomy: “No deal” for Britain would be a “bad deal”, a very bad deal indeed.

This has all the signs of becoming an unbelievable cockup. By a slim 52-48 vote, Britain has doomed itself to many, many tortuous years of negotiating dozens or hundreds of separate agreements with the EU. Switzerland has done the same, and it’s taken them the better part of 20 years.

If there were any real advantage to this, it might be worth it. But just to keep Polish immigrants out? This might be one of the dumbest things any country has ever voluntarily subjected itself to.

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Britain Will Spend the Next Decade Doing Nothing But Negotiating a Pointless Exit From the EU

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Is Reaching Out Beyond White Men an Example of "Politicizing" Science?

by XMSEfrenxt Posted on February 3, 2017

Mother Jones

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This coming Earth Day is the March for Science. “On April 22, 2017, we walk out of the lab and into the streets,” say the organizers in a charming effort to sound like hellions. It doesn’t really work, though, thanks to a Twitter feed full of stuff like this:

There are also a zillion Star Trek jokes, pictures of Albert Einstein, nerdy hats, and everything else you’d expect from scientists. However, early on in the planning some people suggested that the organizers should try to ensure that the whole thing wasn’t just a bunch of white men. This led to a statement on diversity, and eventually to this single tweet among the gazillions of others:

Maybe this is a little over the top. YMMV. However, as I read it, the organizers aren’t saying that these issues can be reduced to data and solved as scientific problems. They are saying that these things affect scientists, just as they affect us all.

Nonetheless, the good folks at National Review are upset. A scientist named Alex Berezow says he won’t be attending the march because, among other things, “It’s curious that a website that seeks to include everybody conspicuously left men, whites, and Christians off the diversity list.” Wesley Smith agrees:

Berezow is exactly right: For example, science can tell us the biological nature of a fetus. It cannot tell us whether it is right or wrong to have an abortion. That question sounds in morality, ethics, religion, and politics.

If science properly understood ever becomes conflated in the public mind with left wingism, it will profoundly harm that crucial sector and thence, the human future.

Science is already too politicized with policy or ethical debates wrongly called questions about whether one side or the other is “anti-science.”

I suspect that if we dig deep enough, we would find George Soros money paying for all of this. Be that as it may, no reputable scientist should march in the March for Science.

Yeah. George Soros is everywhere. And making an effort to highlight the fact that women and people of color are scientists too isn’t a good thing, it’s “politicizing” science. That sure is a funny definition of politicizing.

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Is Reaching Out Beyond White Men an Example of "Politicizing" Science?

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Now Even Conservatives Are Calling Them "Tax Cuts For the Rich"

by SteffenWheen Posted on December 17, 2016

Mother Jones

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National Review editor Rich Lowry thinks that although Donald Trump’s fans love his populist blather, they might start to lose patience with some of the big programs that Congress tries to pass. For example:

Obamacare “repeal” without a replacement, a deficit-increasing traditional Republican “tax cut for the rich,” and even — although this is much less likely — Medicare reform. Trump may find his political capital depleting rapidly in the cause of passing conventional Republican legislation that isn’t as important to him as his populist calling cards.

I don’t want to make too much of this, but when was the last time you heard a conservative, let alone the editor of NR, refer to tax reform as a “traditional Republican” “tax cut for the rich”? That’s the way liberals jeer at supply-side voodoo. Conservatives insist that tax cuts like Trump’s (or Paul Ryan’s) are “broad based,” “capital deepening,” and “job creating.” They are most definitely not “tax cuts for the rich.”

But now they are. What does this mean?

Originally posted here – 

Now Even Conservatives Are Calling Them "Tax Cuts For the Rich"

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Let’s Cool It On the “Fake News” Irony

by Warner89Dov Posted on December 10, 2016

Mother Jones

Over at National Review, James Sherk has a complaint:

President-elect Trump has picked Andy Puzder, the CEO of CKE Restaurants (i.e. Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s) for labor secretary. Amusingly, the media coverage of his nomination has been dominated by . . . fake news. Several outlets have reported that Puzder opposes increasing the minimum wage. That’s not exactly true.

Forget the Puzder stuff. His view on the minimum wage is a little hard to pin down. My objection is to the overuse of “fake news.” There are two things that can qualify:

Stuff that’s literally made up and passed off as real. The most famous example is here.

Wild conspiracy theories passed around on Facebook pages and crank websites.

“Fake news” is a useful concept, but not if we start using it to refer to anything we think is wrong or biased or not fully reported. We already have good words for this kind of stuff, ranging from “not the whole story” to “outright lie.” We don’t need to ruin a perfectly good phrase by using it where it really doesn’t fit.

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Let’s Cool It On the “Fake News” Irony

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Pissed Off About Something You See on the Web? Call Out the Person, Not the Organization.

by RusselEuler Posted on December 3, 2016

Mother Jones

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Over at National Review, David French writes:

For a ‘Peaceful’ Group, Black Lives Matter Sure Does Love Cop Killers and Murderous Dictators

I don’t know how I missed it, but this sickening essay from Black Lives Matter has to be read to believed. Entitled “Lessons from Fidel: Black Lives Matter and the Transition of El Comandante,” it begins….

I’m not especially trying to pick on French here, but this gives me an excuse to gripe about something that I see too often these days.

Let’s stipulate that the essay in question is horrible. I don’t care one way or the other. What I do care about is that French attributes it to “Black Lives Matter.” But that’s not the case. It was written by a specific person, not by BLM as some kind of official position statement. It represents them no more than I represent Mother Jones.

Still, at least MoJo employs me and has some responsibility for what I write. You can’t even say that much about the author of the Castro piece. To the extent that there’s an “official” BLM organization, it’s here. This is the organization founded by Patrisse Cullors, Opal Tometi, and Alicia Garza. But pretty much anyone can set up shop under the BLM name, and the essay French links to comes from a Medium site called @BlackLivesMatterNetwork. It has posted a grand total of three pieces in the last two months. I have no idea who wrote them or who the site is associated with.

Condemn the piece all you want. But it’s not fair to use it to tar “Black Lives Matter.” They aren’t responsible for everything that’s tossed onto the web under the BLM banner.

UPDATE: It turns out that the official BLM site shared the Castro essay on its Facebook page. So it’s fair to call them out for promoting it.

My general complaint stands, however. If I write something, it means “Kevin Drum says,” not “Mother Jones says.” If David French writes something, it means “David French says,” not “National Review says.” Needless to say, this rule is for personal opinion/analysis pieces. News organizations are corporately responsible for editorial opinions and straight news.

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Pissed Off About Something You See on the Web? Call Out the Person, Not the Organization.

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Why Is the Abortion Rate Down Since 2008?

by DeneseLamble Posted on June 17, 2014

Mother Jones

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National Review‘s Michael New is unhappy with Guttmacher’s latest report on the abortion rate:

Last week, the Guttmacher Institute released an analysis of the recent decline in the incidence of abortion. Overall, the abortion rate declined by an impressive 13 percent between 2008 and 2011 and reached its lowest level since 1973. This Guttmacher analysis joins a chorus of pundits — including Andrew Sullivan — who were quick to credit contraception for this decline in the abortion rate. And like most Guttmacher studies, this analysis is quick to downplay pro-life laws and other pro-life efforts.

…There is less than meets the eye here, however. The author finds that fewer women under 30 at risk for an unintended pregnancy were forgoing contraception. Yet the decline was slight — only three percentage points.

…The author makes a fair point that the abortion decline was fairly consistent throughout the country….However, the study presents a false dichotomy between either crediting legislation or crediting contraceptives for the falling abortion numbers….The link between abortion attitudes and abortion incidence is not well documented. That said, the shift in public opinion is still worth considering.

Well, look: the abortion rate in America has been steadily declining since 1973. Trying to figure out why it dropped specifically between 2008 and 2011 is a mug’s game. There’s just nothing unusual going on that even requires an explanation. It’s true that the post-1973 decline continued at a rate that was slightly higher than before—but so slightly that it’s just as likely to be statistical noise as anything else.

Both sides should probably stand down in the face of the long-term evidence. Most likely, neither contraceptives nor state laws nor public opinion played a substantial role that was any different from the role they’ve played since 1973. Over the long term, there’s less teen pregnancy, more use of contraceptives, and, as near as I can tell, barely any change in public opinion at all. Beyond that, who knows?

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Why Is the Abortion Rate Down Since 2008?

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Judge rules climatologist can sue skeptics who compared him to Jerry Sandusky

by jatadamod8 Posted on January 27, 2014

Judge rules climatologist can sue skeptics who compared him to Jerry Sandusky

By

Greg Rico / Penn StateMichael Mann

In 2012, the National Review and the conservative think tank Competitive Enterprise Institute compared climate scientist Michael Mann to convicted child molester and football Jerry Sandusky (in addition to calling Mann a scientific fraud). The article managed to trivialize both pedophilia and the climate crisis on the slim grounds that both Mann and football coach Sandusky were products of a corrupt Penn State. 

Understandably, Mann (who helped coin the term “hockey stick” to describe the sudden rise of temperatures) did not appreciate the connection, and he sued for libel. He argues that doing so would help protect the environmental movement from similar such nonsense. And last week, a D.C. Superior Court judge ruled that the lawsuit can move forward, denying a motion to dismiss. Here’s Al Jazeera with the details:

Mann sued the parties for defamation in 2012, after CEI published, and the National Review republished, statements accusing Mann of academic fraud and comparing him to convicted child molester and former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky except that “instead of molesting children, he has molested and tortured data in the service of politicized science that could have dire economic consequences for the nation and planet.”

Judge Frederick H. Weisberg found that while “opinions and rhetorical hyperbole” are protected speech under the First Amendment, statements that call into question a scientist’s work could be understood as factual assertions that go to the “heart of scientific integrity.”

“To state as a fact that a scientist dishonestly molests or tortures data to serve a political agenda would have a strong likelihood of damaging his reputation within his profession, which is the very essence of defamation,” he said.

And here is more from Mother Jones:

Weisberg’s order is just the latest in a string of setbacks that have left the climate change skeptics’ case in disarray. Earlier this month, Steptoe & Johnson, the law firm representing National Review and its writer, Mark Steyn, withdrew as Steyn’s counsel. According to two sources with inside knowledge, it also plans to drop National Review as a client.

The lawyers’ withdrawal came shortly after Steyn — a prominent conservative pundit who regularly fills in as host of Rush Limbaugh’s radio show — publicly attacked the former judge in the case, Natalia Combs Greene, accusing her of “stupidity” and “staggering” incompetence. Mann’s attorney, John B. Williams, suspects this is no coincidence. “Any lawyer would be taken aback if their client said such things about the judge,” he says. “That may well be why Steptoe withdrew.”

Defending scientific consensus in climate findings against baseless denier attacks devolved into a dirty game long ago. But skeptics could learn that trying to bruise the reputation of a climate scientist when you can’t upend his findings is a losing strategy.


Source
Climatologist suing for libel to protect ‘entire environmental movement’, Al Jazeera
A Win for the Climate Scientist Who Skeptics Compared to Jerry Sandusky, Mother Jones

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Judge rules climatologist can sue skeptics who compared him to Jerry Sandusky

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National Review Lets Its Freak Flag Fly

by Laura Brown Posted on December 17, 2013

Mother Jones

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National Review is being sued by climate scientist Michael Mann for defamation. In a blog post at The Corner last year, Mark Steyn quoted Rand Simberg calling Mann the “Jerry Sandusky of climate science” (both are from Penn State); wrote that Mann was “the man behind the fraudulent climate-change ‘hockey-stick’ graph”; and concluded that “his ‘investigation’ by a deeply corrupt administration was a joke.” (The “investigation” cleared Mann of any wrongdoing.)

A judge recently ruled that Mann’s suit could go forward. I’m personally a little uneasy about this, since I’d normally think of Steyn’s post as hyperbolic and stupid, but still fair comment on a public figure. It’s a close call, though. I suspect Mann will lose his case, but that’s for a jury to decide now.

Today, though, I read this blog post over at NRO asking for money to help them with their defense:

One readers supports NRO with $50 and this note:

I have followed the catastrophic global warming argument since I retired in 2007. In a few years it will be seen as the greatest “scientific” scam of all time. Best wishes on your court case, and glad to help.

….And another reader, sends $200 in support and this:

Have tried in past to support, fully agree with your efforts here. As a chemical engineer, I have been looking at “global warming” for over a decade. Such nonsense.

Questioning climate science is one thing, and National Review has done plenty of that. But I’m still a little surprised that apparently they aren’t embarrassed at having readers who believe that global warming is “the greatest scientific scam of all time.” Or, as the chemical engineer puts it, “nonsense.” In fact, NR is so far from being embarrassed that they put these letters front and center on their website as a call to arms.

Wasn’t there a time when a serious publication would quietly bury correspondence like this? Sure, every magazine has some lunatic readers, but you generally want your public face to be a little more serious. The stuff you publish should at least have the veneer of respectability.

Either that’s hopelessly old-fashioned thinking, or else National Review really does believe that climate change is just flatly a scientific scam. I guess I don’t read them closely enough to know which. But I was still a little taken aback that they seem actively proud to trumpet stuff like this. Shouldn’t they be leaving this kind of thing in Glenn Beck’s capable hands?

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National Review Lets Its Freak Flag Fly

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