Phoenix Falling

Joaquin Phoenix is a sanctimonious ingrate.

“We’re talking,” said Joaquin Phoenix as he accepted his Best Actor award for “Joker,” “about the fight against the belief, one nation, one race, one gender or one species has the right to dominate, control and use and exploit another with impunity. I think that we’ve become very disconnected from the natural world and many of us, what we’re guilty of is an egocentric worldview, the belief that we’re the center of the universe.”

We may be talking, but not coherently.

What’s with the conflation of nations, beliefs, races, genders and species, aside from the fact they’re all nouns? And, I’m not sure where “impunity” figures into it.

For simplicity, let’s just examine “species.” For millions of years every species has been ready to kill every other species. We’re the only species to have done anything about that, and not just for our own. In fact, we’re the only species who can muster any angst about other species.

You can argue that we can do a better job (as we continually have) of maintaining a pleasant and safe environment – but we can do that precisely because we’ve exploited the natural world. We have not done so with impunity. We have suffered immensely.

Mr. Phoenix’ disdain for humanity is exceeded only by the natural world’s indifference to humanity. His worldview might profit from reviewing the history of, oh, subsistence farming – an occupation to which the envirostatists and eliminationists would have us return. Call it equality of outcome for all species.

Contra Mr. Phoenix, we should celebrate our success in moderating the natural world. That’s actually what the Oscars are about. His very profession is unimaginable without the wealth we wrested from nature. He wouldn’t be collecting an award for his existentially trivial efforts in the universe he proposes. He’d have been eaten, died of malaria, or starved to death.

The universe is apathetic toward us, but we are still close enough to its center to electronically transmit, into the comfortable homes of millions of people with nothing better to do; a ceremony staged by an industry that wouldn’t exist without the immense labor and intelligence of millions of human creators and consumers. A ceremony, moreover, to hand out trinkets celebrating expertise in make-believe; in a bright, climate controlled theater filled with healthy, wealthy humans; in a city unimaginable a century ago; in a world where environmental improvements go hand in hand with accumulation of wealth; and where poverty and hunger are well on the way to elimination.

Mr. Phoenix stood on the shoulders of billions of human creators in order to tell us we aren’t doing it perfectly. Have him get back to me when he’s got coronaviruses singing Kumbaya.

There is a balanced disturbance in The Farce

STUDY BLAMES GLOBAL WARMING FOR 75 PERCENT OF VERY HOT DAYS

But, fear not, this is balanced by the studies telling us the dreaded POLAR VORTEX is also caused by Global Warming.

Since we have not experienced any catastrophic anthropogenic global warming in almost 2 decades, it’s working out.

The AGW Grant Industry’s inner workings

This has been percolating for a day, and it definitely appears as if the AGW grant industry is suffering another embarrassment at their own hands: Climategate 2.0 emails – They’re real and they’re spectacular!

If you’d like a nice cross section of the flummery and deceit, go here: http://foia2011.org/

You don’t even have to use the search feature, there are many examples already extracted for your reading disdain.

An don’t miss this one: John L. Daly’s message to Mike Mann and The Team

Global Gauss Change

Severe weather events may be associated with the recent movement of Earth’s magnetic poles. This is an unsurprising outcome if magnetic north is actually moving. However, associating man’s activities with such movement may be a challenge for proponents of anthropogenic climate change. TOC is here to help.

The magnetic north pole is moving because of the massive amount of iron in those SUVs we drive. The pole has been pulled toward us.

It is obvious that if we did not have so much gasoline we would not drive SUVs, incidentally spitting tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. As Al Gore has told us, the internal combustion engine is evil. We now have even more reason to return to a 19th century agrarian existence.

Unfortunately, former Vice President Gore’s insistence that the “science is settled” hints at an additional, even darker, anthropogenic cause for accelerating magnetic pole shift. It is well known that Mr. Gore’s multiple mansions consume enough electricity to power a medium sized town. What if he is using the power to run immensely strong magnets?

It is suspicious, don’t you think, that the phrase “regaussing galore” is an anagram for “algore guessing,” plus the letters “ra.” As we all know, Ra is the Egyptian god of the sun. Guessing about climate is how Al Gore made his fortune.

Questions that need to be answered: Is Gore purchasing the type of cryogenic materials needed for supercooled electromagnets? Does his reading list include Carl Pestano’s How To Become A Speaker With A Magnetic Personality – Learn The Secret Art Of Public Speaking And Draw In Large Crowds? Is his solar power subsidy support entirely secular? Is he planning another movie titled Inconvenient Fatal Attraction?

Pure as Ceasar’s wife. Not.

Obama issues global warming rules in January, gives GE an exemption in February

On January 21st, president Obama appointed Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of General Electric, to head the Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.

It’s worth noting that GE has been whoring after “green”backs for years. The last company that should benefit from an environmental regulation suspension, in the last state that should be allowed one.

Public/Private Partnership carried to its logical conclusion

Anyone with the least ethical sensitivity would steer well clear of the nearly invisible line between “public/private partnership” and “corporatist whoredom.”

That line proved too faint for Barack Obama and Jeffrey Immelt. Immelt will continue to serve as CEO of General Electric while simultaneously shaping the competitive environment for his competitors the nation. The President’s appointment of Mr. Immelt to head the Council on Jobs and Competitiveness can be distinguished from similar actions in Mussolini’s Italy primarily because of the good intentions of the participants. I’m not sure which set of participants.

The CFLs (Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs) will run on time. Important, since GE recently closed the last US factory making incandescent light bulbs – because of a Congressional mandate to ban incandescent light bulbs for which GE lobbied. (CFLs are made almost entirely overseas, mostly in China. GE’s CFLs come mostly from Asian factories.)

There is more on Immelt’s appointment to be found at these links:
He melt for Obama
What’s Good for Jeffrey Immelt Is Good for America
Obama Teams Up With G.E.

When Democrats said President Obama was “pro-business,” we didn’t know they meant one business in particular…

It is unclear how the administration plans to deal with the ethics challenges created by having a CEO whose income is determined by stock performance leading a panel designed to recommend government policies. G.E. (2009 revenue: $157 billion) is a huge government contractor and is always in the market for new subsidies and incentives.

Putting such decisions in the hands of bureaucrats is a sure recipe for corruption. They can practice it openly, and even be praised for it. It’s to create jobs; It’s for the environment; It’s for national security; It’s for the children.

That’s actually the most evil part, far worse than the actual dollars being wasted. It habituates taxpayers to… well Tocqueville said it best:

After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.

Administrative despotism – EPA, HHS, TSA, FCC, FRS, FDA, FERC and most certainly Immelt’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness – is a greater threat to liberty than merely seizing our treasure and wasting it. Administrative despotism blames its failures on the supposed greed, parsimony and lack of compassion of capitalism and the free market, providing a ready list of red herrings and straw men for our Presidents, Governors, Senators, et. al..

It is often argued that with the right, and upright, people in charge these hazards can be avoided. Even if we accept that, and I do not, those “upright people” are complicit in preserving a legacy of corruption and misuse of power. That legacy is not as old as you might think it is, as this Heritage paper points out.

Other TOC commentary on corporatism can be found been here.

Update: 4:45PM
He Certainly Knows How to Cut Jobs…

GE finished 2009 with 18,000 fewer US workers than it had at the end of 2008, and US headcount is down 31,000 since Immelt’s first full year in 2002. During his [Immelt’s] tenure, GE workers based in the US as a percentage of total employees has fallen to 44% from 52%.

Green yobs

Solar Economics: Would You Pull A Lever to Get $12,000 if Somewhere in Massachusetts a Person Lost $58,000?
Well, as long as it was Massachusetts.

Presidential Math: Cash for Clunkers Spent $3 Billion to Save $375 Million
And, of course, the polar bears.

Shortly, the President will be explaining how he wants to do the same for health care.