I don’t know if it is serendipity or what, but during the last week several articles have popped up on my computer with similar theme: How liberals are increasingly shedding their humanist pretentions and showing (their true) misanthropic nature. The Scientific American brings us a story, “The Left’s War on Science,” in which Michael Shermer [...]
Back in 2003, Michael Lewis wrote “Money Ball,” a book about how an Oakland, CA baseball team under head coach Billy Beane used player statistics to hire team members that gave them the greatest chance of a championship season at the lowest cost. So by 2009 it was pretty clear what was coming when President [...]
An article by Dan Neil in The Wall Street Journal takes the issue of driverless cars a bit further and concludes that it would make the nation more productive economically. The one brilliant part of the U.S. economic profile is productivity. It turns out, Americans are a little nutty when it comes to work. If autonomy [...]
The EPA continues its terrible record in the federal courts this year. On March 27, I noted a series of setbacks that the EPA suffered in the courts — instances where EPA zealotry led to insupportable overreach on the agency’s part. For the EPA the hits keep on coming. In August alone two more appeals [...]
Presidential Administrations come and go, and one thing they all have in common, even the most parsimonious of them, is that they enact thousands of pages of costly regulations that do little or nothing to protect the public’s health or enhance its welfare. The Obama administration, however, has put this trait in hyperdrive: pushing enormously [...]
This week, the Wall Street Journal is hosting its ECO:nomics conference, discussing the state of green business. One panel featured an exchange between Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey McClendon and Paul Gallay of Riverkeepers. Gallay calls McClendon’s support of natural gas fracking “snake oil.” One particular claim stood out at me. He first argues that the [...]
Tomorrow, the motion picture version of Dr. Seuss’s book “The Lorax” will hit the big screen and the reviews indicate it sticks to the original 1971 storyline. In “The Lorax,” a businessman, the “Once-ler,” moves into town, cuts down all the trees and destroys the forest, air and water in the process. A furry creature, [...]
Traffic congestion is a growing problem in many metropolitan areas. Congestion increases travel time, air pollution, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and fuel use because cars cannot run efficiently. Based on wasted time and fuel, the Texas Transportation Institute estimates that congestion in 439 urban areas cost the nation about $87.2 billion in 2007. The costs [...]
On the campaign trail in 2008, then-Senator Barack Obama announced a plan to create five million new “green collar” jobs. Since becoming president, he has repeatedly touted his support for green jobs; for instance, in his 2010 State of the Union address and Earth Day remarks on April 22, 2010. In addition, recent stimulus legislation [...]
The use of nuclear power to generate electricity is growing worldwide. More than 100 nuclear power plants are under construction or in various stages of planning, and many existing plants are expanding. President Obama recently announced an $8.33 billion federal loan guarantee for the construction of a pair of nuclear reactors in Georgia. The president [...]