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Mark Steyn: Feed your Prius, starve a peasant
OC Register ^ | 4.26.08 | The one and only Mark Steyn

Posted on 04/26/2008 7:02:37 AM PDT by knews_hound

Last week, Time magazine featured on its cover the iconic photograph of U.S. Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima. But with one difference: The flag has been replaced by a tree. The managing editor of Time, Rick Stengel, was very pleased with the lads in graphics for cooking up this cute image and was all over the TV sofas, talking up this ingenious visual shorthand for what he regards as the greatest challenge facing mankind: "How To Win The War On Global Warming."

Where to begin? For the past 10 years, we all have, in fact, been not warming but slightly cooling, which is why the ecowarriors have adopted the all-purpose bogeyman of "climate change." But let's take it that the editors of Time are referring not to the century we live in but the previous one, when there was a measurable rise of temperature of approximately 1 degree. That's the "war": 1 degree.

If the tree-raising is Iwo Jima, a 1-degree increase isn't exactly Pearl Harbor. But Gen. Stengel wants us to engage in pre-emptive war. The editors of Time would be the first to deplore such saber-rattling applied to, say, Iran's nuclear program, but it has become the habit of progressive opinion to appropriate the language of war for everything but actual war.

(Excerpt) Read more at ocregister.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Editorial; Government; News/Current Events; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: climatechange; economy; environmentalism; ethanol; globalwarming; globalwarminghoax; hungercrisis; iojimaposeur; marksteyn; steyn; timemagazine
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To: knews_hound

Another great article from Steyn...LOL

Didn’t I read somewhere this week that some UN officials or scientists are encouraging the west to grow bugs for third world countries to eat or some such nonsense?

‘LET THEM EAT BUGS’.....say the liberals, meanwhile, we will be buying carbon credits and recycling our latte cups to save the planet!


21 posted on 04/26/2008 7:30:49 AM PDT by penelopesire ("The only CHANGE you will get with the Democrats is the CHANGE left in your pocket")
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To: Leisler

Socialists [and fascists] require emergencies and disasters to justify further bureaucracy, regulation, and power accretion to themselves. All for the little fellow’s good, of course.


22 posted on 04/26/2008 7:33:13 AM PDT by PzLdr ("The Emperor is not as forgiving as I am" - Darth Vader)
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To: knews_hound; All
"poseur environmentalism"

Indeed.

Just consider what is involved in producing 52 issues of Time every year.

Cutting down trees in Canada, converting wood to paper, shipping paper to the printer, printing the magazine, shipping the magazine to readers ... all of that seems carbon-rich and energy-wasteful especially since there's an alternative ... it's called the web ... that consumes much less energy (per edition) and uses much less carbon.

23 posted on 04/26/2008 7:35:26 AM PDT by aculeus
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To: knews_hound

It April 26th, 2008. It snowing in Minneapolis Minnesota. If planting a tree causes Global Cooling, Time should go cut some down.


24 posted on 04/26/2008 7:36:04 AM PDT by MNJohnnie (http://www.iraqvetsforcongress.com ---- Get involved, make a difference.)
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To: knews_hound
It's all these Third World types monkeying around with their rain forests who decline to share the sophisticated Euro-American reverence for the tree. In the Time iconography, the tree is Old Glory, and it's a flag of eco-colonialism.

In other words, liberal racism in sheep's clothing. "White Man's Burden" and all that.

25 posted on 04/26/2008 7:37:19 AM PDT by P.O.E. (Thank God for every morning.)
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To: uncbob
You really think things can keep up at the rate we are going for 10-20 years without some human catastrophe --plague--famine--war etc etc

Quite easily. Because contrary to the hysteric rantings of the drama queen media, things are going quite well right now for the human race compared to the rest of it's history. It's future will only be better. The current crop of Chicken Littles in the Western Media obviously know nothing of history, nothing on how most the world work, in fact, it pretty obvious they know nothing at all. They certainly do not know their own jobs, that is obvious by watching them n action. Perhaps the Chicken Little's might go read all the fake prophets going back thru history who have ran around screaming doom and gloom. Most of them have lived in the last 50 years. NOT ONE of them has been even 5% correct in his/her pronouncements. These current screamers are more of the same charlatans

26 posted on 04/26/2008 7:40:27 AM PDT by MNJohnnie (http://www.iraqvetsforcongress.com ---- Get involved, make a difference.)
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To: SauronOfMordor
Only 15000?

Dang it.

I was hoping to see if life is destroyed when the solar system cycles again to the top of the galactic plane, in another 12M years or so, iirc.

27 posted on 04/26/2008 7:41:12 AM PDT by Calvin Locke
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To: PzLdr

In the past many economists have argued that the way to rein in “market failures” such as monopolies is to introduce government action. But public choice economists point out that there also is such a thing as “government failure.” That is, there are reasons why government intervention does not achieve the desired effect. For example, the Justice Department has responsibility for reducing monopoly power in noncompetitive industries. But a 1973 study by William F. Long, Richard Schramm, and Robert Tollison concluded that actual anti-competitive behavior played only a minor role in decisions by the Justice Department to bring antimonopoly suits. Instead, they found, the larger the industry, the more likely were firms in it to be sued. Similarly, Congress has frequently passed laws that are supposed to protect people against environmental pollution. But Robert Crandall has shown that congressional representatives from northern industrial states used the 1977 Clean Air Act amendments to reduce competition by curbing economic growth in the Sunbelt. The amendments required tighter emissions standards in undeveloped areas than in the more developed and more polluted areas, which tend to be in the East and Midwest.

One of the chief underpinnings of public choice theory is the lack of incentives for voters to monitor government effectively. Anthony Downs, in one of the earliest public choice books, An Economic Theory of Democracy, pointed out that the voter is largely ignorant of political issues and that this ignorance is rational. Even though the result of an election may be very important, an individual’s vote rarely decides an election. Thus, the direct impact of casting a well-informed vote is almost nil; the voter has virtually no chance to determine the outcome of the election. So spending time following the issues is not personally worthwhile for the voter. Evidence for this claim is found in the fact that public opinion polls consistently find that less than half of all voting-age Americans can name their own congressional representative.

Public choice economists point out that this incentive to be ignorant is rare in the private sector. Someone who buys a car typically wants to be well informed about the car he or she selects. That is because the car buyer’s choice is decisive—he or she pays only for the one chosen. If the choice is wise, the buyer will benefit; if it is unwise, the buyer will suffer directly. Voting lacks that kind of direct result. Therefore, most voters are largely ignorant about the positions of the people for whom they vote. Except for a few highly publicized issues, they do not pay a lot of attention to what legislative bodies do, and even when they do pay attention, they have little incentive to gain the background knowledge and analytic skill needed to understand the issues.

Public choice economists also examine the actions of legislators. Although legislators are expected to pursue the “public interest,” they make decisions on how to use other people’s resources, not their own. Furthermore, these resources must be provided by taxpayers and by those hurt by regulations whether they want to provide them or not. Politicians may intend to spend taxpayer money wisely. Efficient decisions, however, will neither save their own money nor give them any proportion of the wealth they save for citizens. There is no direct reward for fighting powerful interest groups in order to confer benefits on a public that is not even aware of the benefits or of who conferred them. Thus, the incentives for good management in the public interest are weak. In contrast, interest groups are organized by people with very strong gains to be made from governmental action. They provide politicians with campaign funds and campaign workers. In return they receive at least the “ear” of the politician and often gain support for their goals.

In other words, because legislators have the power to tax and to extract resources in other coercive ways, and because voters monitor their behavior poorly, legislators behave in ways that are costly to citizens. One technique analyzed by public choice is log rolling, or vote trading. An urban legislator votes to subsidize a rural water project in order to win another legislator’s vote for a city housing subsidy. The two projects may be part of a single spending bill. Through such log rolling both legislators get what they want. And even though neither project uses resources efficiently, local voters know that their representative got something for them. They may not know that they are paying a pro-rata share of a bundle of inefficient projects! And the total expenditures may well be more than individual taxpayers would be willing to authorize if they were fully aware of what is going on.

In addition to voters and politicians, public choice analyzes the role of bureaucrats in government. Their incentives explain why many regulatory agencies appear to be “captured” by special interests. (The “capture” theory was introduced by the late George Stigler, a Nobel Laureate who did not work mainly in the public choice field.) Capture occurs because bureaucrats do not have a profit goal to guide their behavior. Instead, they usually are in government because they have a goal or mission. They rely on Congress for their budgets, and often the people who will benefit from their mission can influence Congress to provide more funds. Thus interest groups—who may be as diverse as lobbyists for regulated industries or leaders of environmental groups—become important to them. Such interrelationships can lead to bureaucrats being captured by interest groups.


28 posted on 04/26/2008 7:41:54 AM PDT by Leisler
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To: Leisler
The left didn't care about 10 million dead in the Ukraine under Stalin, another 10 in Soviet Russia, 60 million under Mao, one out of three dead in Cambodia under French educated Pol Pot, Racial Carlson with the DDT ban and 20 million dead in third world, exalted love of drug use and 10’s of millions ruined and ditto homosexuals. What's a few million dead for Global Warming/Climate Change/whatever? Small potatoes for their Gods.

And then the Left has celebrated how many million of abortions just here in the USA since 1968? 23 million? 30 million? It would be small potatoes for their god indeed.

29 posted on 04/26/2008 7:43:05 AM PDT by MNJohnnie (http://www.iraqvetsforcongress.com ---- Get involved, make a difference.)
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To: Leisler
And the possibility of corruption. Just how many millions of dollars of Arab Oil money do you suppose has been slipped under the table to “Green” political pressure groups in the West to buy political influence and prevent the West from weaning itself from it's addiction to Arab oil?
30 posted on 04/26/2008 7:45:17 AM PDT by MNJohnnie (http://www.iraqvetsforcongress.com ---- Get involved, make a difference.)
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To: MNJohnnie
If planting a tree causes Global Cooling...

Bush's fault. No, really. He planted that tree down in NOLA for a photo-op.

31 posted on 04/26/2008 7:45:29 AM PDT by Calvin Locke
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To: P.O.E.

That’s ok..the UN says they can ‘farm’ bugs to eat.

(Found one of the articles)

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1975601/posts


32 posted on 04/26/2008 7:47:42 AM PDT by penelopesire ("The only CHANGE you will get with the Democrats is the CHANGE left in your pocket")
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To: uncbob
No way it can keep up at the present rate --technologically or demographically --something has to blow

Factually incorrect on both counts.

33 posted on 04/26/2008 7:47:52 AM PDT by MNJohnnie (http://www.iraqvetsforcongress.com ---- Get involved, make a difference.)
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To: uncbob
So why be surprised that totalitarian solutions to mythical problems wind up causing real devastation? As for Time's tree, by all means put it up: It helps block out the view of starving peasants on the far horizon.

Unarmed peasants cannot fight back. The primal reason the Dems want to gut the 2nd Amendment; they do not fear an unarmed, albeit ticked off, citizenry.

34 posted on 04/26/2008 7:48:39 AM PDT by Thommas (The snout of the camel is in the tent..)
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To: Leisler

Which is why politicians have perfected the “bait-and-switch” They (rightly) reckon most people will either forget or not care.


35 posted on 04/26/2008 7:51:59 AM PDT by P.O.E. (Thank God for every morning.)
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To: knews_hound
In the Time iconography, the tree is Old Glory, and it's a flag of eco-colonialism.

Oow! That's gonna leave a mark.

Speaking of which, Mark Steyn For Global Dictator!

36 posted on 04/26/2008 7:51:59 AM PDT by Tax-chick (When my mothership lands, you're all toast.)
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To: uncbob

I just hope this country can withstand it. This whole mess is a perfect example of too much too soon. With tensions simmering in China over Tibet, I wonder how long it’ll be until the Chinese leadership cracks and mobilizes. I’m not sure how off topic this is, but I don’t think the Chinese leadership appreciate having a bunch of westerners tell them what to do.

They’ve been colonized before and aren’t about to let otther governments bully them into doing something they don’t want to do. I wish these brainless hippies would let go of Tibet. I’m not a fan of the Chinese government, far from it, but I’m not sure if needling the dragon is something that is a good idea. I don’t think people understand that.

Either way the world has gotten itself into an all around bad situation.


37 posted on 04/26/2008 7:52:05 AM PDT by Niuhuru (Don't burn a bra, burn a feminist!)
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If TIME went out of business it would be a big benefit to the environment.


38 posted on 04/26/2008 7:54:40 AM PDT by clintonh8r (An Obamanation would be an abomination...."A typical white person.")
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To: MNJohnnie
“things are going quite well right now for the human race compared to the rest of it's history. It's future will only be better.”

I've always been under the impression that a lot of the people in the media are people with serious personality problems. They create problems that don't exist, exaggerate them where they do, and turn every crisis into a drama and very drama into a full blown tragedy. They forget that they aren't supposed to be part of the story, it's their job to report on it.

39 posted on 04/26/2008 7:55:54 AM PDT by Niuhuru (Don't burn a bra, burn a feminist!)
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To: knews_hound
The following terms all appear in the article

Do you think he's trying to tell us something?

40 posted on 04/26/2008 7:59:18 AM PDT by irv
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