John says the Senate Democrats Achieve a New Standard of Irresponsibility.

“The result was revealing: no Senate Democrat voted in favor of any budget. This is consistent, of course, with the fact that the Democrat-led Senate has refused to adopt a budget, in violation of federal law, for the last three years. Still, it is a little shocking to see that not a single Democrat was willing to vote in favor of any budget, even the most irresponsible.”

One budget was from the Executive branch and it was unanimously voted down. The other four were Republican with one being the House budget. There were no budget proposals or amendments to the proposed budgets offered from the Democrats.

The question is what do you do without a plan (a budget is a plan)? Why not have a plan? One result is the brewing fracas about yet another extension of the debt ceiling. Set the problem aside and hope it will go away and no one will notice until after the election. The Republicans, it seems, are hoping that people will notice and speak their views in November.

“So let’s be kind and say that the New England Historic Genealogical Society and Christopher Child made a ghastly professional error against all the training and traditions of a rather rigorous field. It may be unfortunate, but it happens. It will be up to its Board to address the consequences.”

Scot Johnson is quoting Thomas Libscomb in the matter of procedure and process abused. While climatology has been the field taking the most hits with this sort of egregious malpractice, the phenomena is not limited to that field or to science in general. In this example, it is genealogy that is taking the hit by distinguished members of the field using suspicious data that does not meet professional standards.

“He warned those at the Oslo Freedom Forum that many in the West now “surround taboo subjects with a bodyguard of politically correct humbug. This form of self-censorship has had a profound effect on liberalism.” He noted that “censorship is at its most effective when no one admits that it exists. ‘No one else is complaining, so move along now,’ becomes the mantra.””

John Fund describes the implication of the Naomi Riley firing from the Chronicle of Higher Education, the trade paper for faculty members and administrators in universities.

“James Kirchick, a contributing editor to The New Republic and a former writer-at-large for Radio Free Europe, told me of the Riley case, “This is precisely why I am no longer on the left. It is disturbing to see such bullying.””

What used to be the way to put down idiots in academia was by showing, through reason and logic and data, that their thesis was idiotic. No longer. These days, it is peer pressure, personal attacks, and hubris that are used as tools to do the job.

This is just one issue that causes some to worry about an education bubble that is about to burst. Another is college administrators who put the big corporate bosses to shame when it comes to payroll. A third is the student loan situation and new college graduates coming out of school with loans that are the equivalent to what they would have if they just bought their first house.

Another take-off on Julia: When Julia Tried To Start A Small Business. It is the story of taxes, licenses, and regulatory compliance from someone who has ‘been there, done that’ and it is enough to make you wonder how any business can survive.

“When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, we did not send the FBI to arrest the Japanese pilots (the Clinton Doctrine) nor did we try to engage Japan in constructive conversation about how to address their grievances (the Obama Doctrine). We recognized that Japan had declared war on us, and we retaliated with an offensive that brought Japan to its knees and won the war.”

There are three basic categories for people who commit violent acts. The criminal is in it for personal gain, the terrorist for social notoriety, and the soldier as a part of a formalized state campaign. Obfuscating these categories has been a tactic of the anti-war activists but David Meir-Levi suggests that some clarity may have surfaces in how the Yoo Ruling Upholds Definition of ‘Enemy Combatant’.

There is still a long ways to go – trying to come up with a reasonable definition of torture, for instance. The fundamental issue is trying to reconcile the natural and civil rights of those who seem to want to destroy them with society’s rights of self protection and the safety of its members.

“Everybody is not given these exemptions from paying the consequences of their own illegal acts. Only people who are currently in vogue with the elites of the left — in the media, in politics and in academia.”

Professor Sowell says that The Crumbling Of Our Moral Infrastructure Can Be Deadly.

“The unwillingness of authorities to put a stop to their organized disruptions of other people’s lives, their trespassing, vandalism and violence is a de facto suspension, if not repeal, of the 14th Amendment’s requirement that the government provide “equal protection of the laws” to all its citizens.”
…
“The moral infrastructure is one of the intangibles, without which the tangibles don’t work. Like the physical infrastructure, its neglect in the short run invites disaster in the long run.”

Some folks seem oblivious to the implications of their behavior … and they may get just what they say they want and drag the rest of us down with them.

The roads are getting safer but that doesn’t inhibit those who have a need, an obsession, to control other’s behavior. Rob Port describes the Feds Using Misleading Statistics To Make Case For National Ban On Cell Phone Use While Driving citing Walter Olson

“In other words, if someone dies in a car accident and they have a cell on them it could be counted as a cell-phone related traffic fatality even if the driver wasn’t using the phone at the time of the accident.”
…
“This isn’t the only area where the government pulls this sort of a stunt. A friend of mine whose father died in Montana said that on the death certificate he received from the state it was noted that his father’s death was related to tobacco use. Now, granted, his father was a smoker, but his death didn’t have anything to do with tobacco use. But the state associated his death with tobacco use, no doubt to make a stronger case for more tax dollars spent on campaigns against tobacco use.

“It’s like self-licking ice cream cones. The government creates a problem, and then advocates for accumulating to itself more funding and more power to solve the problem it created.”

A major part of psychological defense is trying to rationalize one’s misperceptions. This can be particularly dangerous when it comes to trying to rationalize laws and enforcement efforts. Traffic laws are particularly prone to this – consider that the highway patrol in many states is a part of the department of public safety.

“The common theme with these Cabinet secretaries is loud, uninformed rhetoric; a lack of practical experience; a certain utopian zealotry – and an expectation that there are rules for government grandees and quite different ones for the rest of us.”

Professor Hanson says it is a Cabinet gone wild and explains exactly why.

“We’ve had some unusual Cabinet secretaries in past administrations – Earl Butz, John Mitchell and James G. Watt come to mind – but never anything quite like the present bunch.”

A lot of little things can add up. Some of the incidents and events Hanson lists are little only in that they don’t get much exposure or pale in comparison to other items.

“The narrative launched in mid-March with nearly simultaneous articles by black journalists at major leftist media outlets: Ta-Nehisi Coates at the Atlantic, Charles M. Blow at the New York Times, and Trymaine Lee at the Huffington Post. These were classics of advocacy journalism — sensationalist propaganda with no attempt to be impartial, objective, or accurate.”

Scot Swett describes the structure and elements of a disinformation campaign using the Trayvon and Zimmerman case as an example.

“Social science research offers some useful insights into how people typically make decisions:

• Reasoning is only a small part of forming opinions or judgments
• Judgments are often based on inadequate information
• Early and negative information has a disproportionally heavy impact
• Anecdotal, easy-to-remember information is also overly weighted

“Therefore, disinformation campaigns use simple, powerful, negative, emotional arguments that tell a story. Since people resist changing their minds about emotionally loaded topics, the media campaign has to ramp up quickly, before the facts have a chance to catch up to the narrative.”

This episode is only one of a long string of racial disinformation campaigns based on false premises. One outcome of this one is the beating to near death of a score of people by black gangs claiming that there assault is a matter of justice. There are consequences to dishonesty and they are not pretty.

John Fund talks about the reality of voter fraud at NRO.

“Liberal groups ranging from the ACLU to the NAACP oppose voter-ID laws, claiming that voter fraud is almost nonexistent and that an ID requirement would amount to voter suppression.”
…
“Davis made it clear in his speech to True the Vote that much of the opposition to voter-ID and ballot-integrity laws is a sad attempt to inject racism into the discussion and intimidate supporters of anti-fraud laws.”

James O’Keefe has demonstrated just how easy voter fraud can be. Confidence in the vote has significant value. To claim that voter ID will disenfanchise some minority and rationalize that by claiming that there is no voter fraud is to minimize the value of a confidence in an election outcome whether or not the assertion of fraud is valid or not. Perceptions do matter and processes for integrity gain importance in that arena.

Cap’n Ed asks. Twitter eats itself?

“It turns out that detractors don’t like engagement … they just like to bully people. Instead of responding to Chris’ arguments, they began organizing an effort to force Twitter into suspending him by reporting his Twitter stream as spam.”

It is an ‘ends justifies the means’ approach where rights and privileges are strained by irresponsibility.

“a self-policing population only works when the population is mature enough to handle the responsibility. Using the spam-reporting mechanism built into Twitter and its after-market applications, liberal activists are succeeding in tricking the Twitter system into suspending the accounts of conservatives
…
“Now that the Left is abusing the spam mechanism, Twitter will almost certainly have to suspend its use, which means the only people who will win this game are the spammers, and we’ll have no way to deal with the flood of annoying marketing messages.”

Another indicative behavior is that the irresponsible parties are bragging about their efforts and successes. They seem impervious to the consequences of their behavior.

There is pushback and it is not ‘in kind’ – at the Twitchy blog:

“The progressives never expect pushback. But with the back-to-back suspensions of @freemarket_us and @chrisloesch, the conservative activist community online is banding together to Flag the Flag-Spammers for Twitter to see all in one place — no, not by abusing the flag-spam system, but by naming names and showing Twitter the extent of the problem.”

The issue is part and parcel of the Democracy vs Republic debate that the founders debated in creating the form of U.S. governance. The adage is that, once people find out they can vote themselves money, all bets on sanity are off. How do you deal with the fundamental nature of the individual human?

In this case, the irresponsibility expressed in the abuse of systems intended to maintain civility is correlated with the same individuals who have protests about wanting other people’s money, protests where trash and crime are the major evidence left behind. These people have the same approach towards others as those who write computer viruses, breach banking accounts for fun and profit, and find ways around mechanisms established to inhibit annoying solicitations. Laws are being proposed but they are difficult to word in such a way as to avoid unpleasant consequences. The fundamental issue is about people whose behavior is not in line with their ideology.

Cap’n Ed says Gawker’s mole at Fox News gets served with search warrant, under investigation for grand larceny. It’s another case of going after an ideological or political opponent and forgetting such niceties as ethics, morality, or, even, the law.

“Via Drudge and Twitchy, just a reminder that your parents were right: what starts in laughter often ends in tears, or in this case, hefty legal bills.  Gawker’s Joe Muto decided to become a “mole” at Fox News and leaked raw video clips to his real employer.  That might sound like a joke to some, but to others — say, prosecutors — it sounds a lot like corporate espionage and grand larceny.  Muto got served this morning with a search warrant on suspicion of the latter charge and watched as his laptop, iPhone, and notebooks got hauled off.”

The Peter Gleick case in which he assumed a false identity to steal governance documents and then came up with a forged document to support his attacks on the Heartland Institute is another example.

There is a comparison and contrast in the original climate researchers communications and methodology notes. Some equate them to assert that both sides do it. The more interesting insight is when you look at the differences.

In some circles, the proclivity is to see the best in people. That can create dissonance. You try to figure out how to fit what you see into a paradigm where many ‘bad’ motivations just don’t get much attention. Reality tends to disabuse such situations. Professor Hanson discovers: It Was the Power, Stupid!

“In my dumber days, between 2001-2008, I used to wonder why the Left relentlessly hammered the war on terror (e.g., renditions, tribunals, predators, preventative detention, Patriot Act, intercepts, wiretaps, Guantanamo Bay) when these measures had not only proven quite useful in preventing another 9/11-like attack, but had been sanctioned by both the Congress and the courts. In those ancient times, I was not as cynical as I am now. So I assumed that Harold Koh and MoveOn.org, though mistaken, were worried about civil liberties, or measures that they felt were both illegal and without utility.

“But, of course, the Obama (who attacked each and every element of the war on terror as a legislator and senator) Left never had any principled objection at all. Instead, whatever Bush was for, they were in Pavlovian fashion against. I can say that without a charge of cynicism, because after January 2009, Obama embraced or expanded every Bush-Cheney protocol that he inherited. In response, the anti-war Left simply kept silent, or indeed vanished, or went to work extending the anti-terrorism agenda. Guantanamo Bay, in other words, was a national sin until the mid-morning of January 20, 2009.”

Hanson looks at this phenomena and his own ‘enlightenment’ and concludes that the political campaign this year won’t be the usual. As has been seen in the many political attacks on the right, from Limbaugh’s war on women to Romney’s dog vacation to the Zimmerman defense, there will be a parry and it won’t be reserved.

“But at least 2012 won’t be a default campaign. In other words, to quote Obama, Romney will get in “their faces” and “bring a gun to a knife fight.” McCain more graciously and nobly lost by putting all sorts of concerns off the table. I would expect that should Obama keep harping about Romney’s tax returns, Romney will demand Obama’s transcripts and medical records at last to be released. If Obama’s surrogates keep writing about Mormonism, we will learn of new disclosures about Trinity Church. For every Mormon bishop who said something illiberal in 1976, we will hear of a Father Pfleger or Rev. Meeks trumping that in 2007. And so on.”

Social media may play a part. The continuing jokes about dogs show how an issue raised to impugn the Republican candidate are being confronted and how hoist with your own petard is gaining new meaning.

MURDOCK: Three years and no Senate budget. Industrious ancestors put to shame our do-nothing Democrats.

“While it has taken Majority “Leader” Harry Reid of Nevada and Senate Democrats 36 months to conceive zero budgets, House Republicans have delivered two – one for each year they governed.

“Nonetheless, Mr. Reid said on Feb. 3: “We do not need to bring a budget to the floor this year. It’s done. We don’t need to do it.”
…
“Floor votes would require Senate Democrats to borrow and spend, which annoys taxpayers, or cut outlays, which aggravates liberal lobbyists and porcine government-employee unions. So, Senate Democrats break the law and demand continuing resolutions, which spend on autopilot.

“Meanwhile, consider what focused, energetic humans have completed in less time than Senate Democrats have consumed to accomplish nothing on the budget.”

Examples of what “focused, energetic humans have completed” in less time are provided but the real issue is one of accountability. A budget is a commitment and a referent. Without making any commitments and without any referent for what is being spent, debt can run out of control and scandals and corruption take over. The Senate has been depending upon the idea that no one will hold them accountable as happened to the House in 2010. So perhaps it’s not “human sloth” but rather a carefully calculated risk presuming the worst in the electorate. Are they right?

Monckton takes on the The illogic of climate hysteria citing Aristotle. “The Greek philosopher Aristotle, 2300 years ago, listed the dozen commonest logical fallacies in human discourse in his book Sophistical Refutations.”

“A fallacy is a deceptive argument that appears to be logically valid but is in fact invalid. Its conclusion will be unreliable at best, downright false at worst.

“One should not make the mistake of thinking that Aristotle’s fallacies are irrelevant archaisms. They are as crucial today as when he first wrote them down. Arguments founded upon any of his fallacies are unsound and unreliable, and that is that.

“Startlingly, nearly all of the usual arguments for alarm about the climate are instances of Aristotle’s dozen fallacies of relevance or of presumption, not the least of which is the consensus fallacy.”

Such means of argument are how one convinces one’s self of what one wants to believe. When such arguments are presented to a critical listener, one who can recognize age-old logical fallacies, dissonance occurs. Matters of intellectual integrity have long roots but little has changed when it comes to how people misuse their ability to think and reason.

“Peter Kareiva, chief scientist for the Nature Conservancy, has an idea: “We love the horror story. We just love it. The environmental movement has loved it. That, I think, is … [a] strategy failure. And it’s actually not supported by science.”

Soon after “SilentSpring” was released, Carson was, in fact, accused of alarmism, ignoring the science of the day and overlooking the benefits of chemical pesticides. But those aspects of her work have been forgotten.
…
“Silent Spring at 50” offers a clear perspective on one of the most misguided books of the 20th century. However noble her intentions, “Carson provided the impetus for a half-century of environmental policies that have cost hundreds of millions of lives and elicited antagonism toward many products and technologies that could have benefited the planet and its inhabitants,” says Dr. Henry I. Miller of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.”

Huggins says ‘Silent Spring’ turns 50, and birds are still singing. Also singing are the FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) mongers. They’ve just chosen other targets. Instead of DDT, it’s carbon dioxide, for instance. The cost in following the pied pipers of doom is horrific.

There is a 70′s law that requires Congress to pass a budget every year for the U.S. Government. In the last three years, the Senate has blocked any efforts to even put a budget on the table much less debate its provisions or even pass one. The Washington Times reports that the Democrats punt on Senate budget bill for 3rd year

““It’s hard to negotiate with somebody who won’t tell you where they are,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions, the ranking Republican on the Budget Committee, who said Mr. Conrad was breaking a promise he made to debate and vote on a budget.

Hanging over the discussion is Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, who had steadfastly said he would not bring a budget to the floor this year — and who, Republicans said, pressured Mr. Conrad into complying.”

This is a case of the people who make the law flouting the law. The reason appears to be strictly political. Putting a budget on the table is putting a target up. It shows your values and principles and priorities. If those values and principles and priorities are such that they make you feel guilty or might cause your constituents to question your behavior, you certainly don’t want them visible.

The House, since the Republicans won a majority in the last election, has offered up a budget. The Republicans in the Senate have pushed for a budget. These efforts stopped at the desk of the Senate majority leader who will not schedule any time for a budget on the floor.

“I wanted instead to try to focus attention on a very particular issue, raised by a Tennessee superintendent who seems to simply not like the idea of charter schools being approved in his district: poaching.
 …
Essentially, he’s holding up a giant sign that says, “We don’t deserve to survive as an organization.”  Can you imagine the CEO of a private company making this sort of complaint in public?  He’d be laughed at by the public and removed the next day by the board.”

Michael Lopez puts up the issue as Charter poaching, competition, and dignity. He sees the charter schools debate as one of a defense of what cannot be defended.

“Fight about power. Fight about policy. But whining about how competition is going to hand you your hat, and using the assertion that your competitors are better than you are to argue that they shouldn’t be allowed to compete really betrays a lack of dignity.”

The reason why many charter schools are so popular, and many public school administrators so afraid, is about the approach towards meeting the needs of the market (parents). Public schools tend to be ‘top down’ and government driven. Charter schools are bottom up and market driven. When public schools were more local, communities smaller, and state and federal regulations and funding minimal, the top down and governance aspects were also more immediate and intimate. Charter schools, home schooling, and online schooling are a response to this trend to remove the education of children away from the family.

The Trayvon Martin shooting has provided a stimulus for two sets of ideologues. One is the race baiters and the other is the gun-ophobes. The race baiters have taken the lynch mob mentality and stimulate civil unrest and riot. The gun-ophobes are promoting defenseless citizenry by attacking “Stand Your Ground” and “Castle Doctrine” laws. NRO picks up on the gun-ophobe effort by noting that the laws are Not a ‘License to Murder’.

“these laws are reasonable protections for citizens who defend themselves, and in fact they are unlikely to determine the fate of Martin’s shooter, George Zimmerman.

States without these laws typically impose a “duty to retreat.” This means that when a person is attacked, he may not fight back unless he is unable to get away safely. A Castle Doctrine law removes this duty on one’s own property, and a Stand Your Ground law removes this duty in public places, allowing victims to meet force with force.”

The politically correct position right now is empathy for the ‘victim’ even if that victim was realizing risks taken as a perpetrator. This is especially the case of that victim is a member of a protected class. In the Martin case, the protected class is a race. The special prosecutor’s complaint against Zimmerman is of such a nature that it is reminding people of the Duke rape case where the prosecution was so political that it didn’t stand even cursory scrutiny and the ‘rapists’ were up for lynching just ’cause – as has been the case with Martin.

The emotional outbursts obfuscate the issue. Despite assertions by folks such as Bill Cosby, many people carry guns not to go after others and express an inherent racist blood lust, they carry guns out of fear of encountering a mugger or other criminal when there is no one to help them. This is why the Heller case at the SCOTUS cited self defense as a reason for the 2nd amendment. It appears, though, that many seem to want a defenseless citizenry as well as a defenseless nation.

Fracking as a technique to extract oil and gas has created economic boom times in North Dakota and other states where there is private land for oil exploration. This boom is traced back to Cheney’s Energy Success.

“The Cheney Energy Task Force (proper name: National Energy Policy Development Group) consisted of the vice president; the heads of the Office of Management and Budget, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency; the secretaries of state, the Treasury, the interior, agriculture, commerce, transportation, and energy; and others. Their mission was simply to develop “a national energy policy designed to help bring together business, government, local communities and citizens to promote dependable, affordable, and environmentally sound energy for the future.” After meeting with about 300 groups and individuals, including representatives from the energy industry and environmental activists, the Task Force published its 169-page National Energy Policy report in the spring of 2001.”

This effort was subject to legal attacks by the left as it was perceived to be a collusion of ‘big oil’ and a secret conspiracy about corruption. Those legal attacks went all the way to the SCOTUS but failed. As usual, failure in the courts did not dent the fantasies.

“On cue, Paul Krugman accused the administration of following “a doctrine that makes the United States a sort of elected dictatorship: a system in which the president, once in office, can do whatever he likes, and isn’t obliged to consult or inform either Congress or the public.””

One of the most important outcomes of the task force is that most regulation was kept at the state level and the EPA was curtailed in its influence on the development of the modern technologies in petrochemical extraction. Despite current administration claims for responsibility, it is private lands and private companies where the recent boom in production has occurred. Limitations on licensing and the regulation on government lands as well as restrictions on offshore drilling have caused a reduction in oil production in those areas.