Tag Archives: ethics

The Climate King

Posted on by
Reply

King Charles III, who ascended the British throne in the aftermath of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II’s, unfortunate death, is a zealous climate activist.

He said less than a year ago in a speech in front of the UN COP26,

The scale and scope of the threat we face call for a global systems level solution based on radically transforming our current fossil fuel based economy to one that is genuinely renewable and sustainable[.]

Global systems level.

I have a couple questions.

When was the last time Prince Charles traveled to India or to the People’s Republic of China to…encourage…them to join this global system of his?

What was Prince Charles’ plan for helping the Third World to transition to this genuinely renewable and sustainable energy-based economy? Besides throwing other nation’s money at them, I mean.

What’s the schedule for King Charles’ trips to India and to the People’s Republic of China to encourage them to join this global system of his?

What is King Charles’ plan for helping the Third World to transition to this genuinely renewable and sustainable energy-based economy? Besides throwing other nation’s money at them, I mean.

And: is the scale and scope of the threat we face sufficiently dire that he will break with British royal tradition of being studiously apolitical and continue to espouse his climate activism?

This against the backdrop of the day-to-day, seasonal, and weather-driven extreme variability of the availability of solar- and wind-based energy, especially compared with the steady-state availability of fossil-fuel-based energy as new oil and natural gas wells come on line to replace depleting wells (which take years to deplete) and as new coal mines come on line to replace playing out mines (which take years to play out).

Never mind the larger backdrop of why we should care about atmospheric CO2, given the several epochs in our planetary history when temperatures were much higher than today, and life was lush, and the several epochs in our planetary history when atmospheric CO2 was much higher than today, and life was lush, and the fact that those two sets of epochs do not at all correlate with each other.

Never mind, either, that today, 11,000+ years after the last Ice Age, we’re still cooler than the geologic trend line of planetary warming, a trend driven by the fact that the sun is warming, and has been since it first fired up.

Surveillance State, Part 2

Posted on by
Reply

Another one from New York. It seems that US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley’s Stand for America PAC, a 501(c)(4) organization with a legally protected list of donors has had that list released by the NY AG’s Charities Bureau to Politico, which then proceeded to publish that list.

The Charities Bureau is an arm of New York Attorney General Letitia James’ (the same one who “consulted” with then-FBI Director James Comey to suppress any hint of investigation of Hillary Clinton’s classified email handling ‘way back in 2016) Attorney General office.

Never mind that the leak was illegal. Never mind that the Supreme Court in Prosperity Foundation v Bonta—just a year ago—had ruled that the California AG’s blanket demand that all charities disclose donor information was unconstitutional.

Letitia James, a Progressive-Democrat through and through, cares not a fig for any law that’s inconvenient to her. She’s going to collect non-Progressive-Democrat data and release it whenever she takes a notion to.

Anathema

Posted on by
Reply

In response to President Joe Biden’s (D) constant accusations of half of Americans being “semi-fascists” and “threats to our democracy,” Fox News‘ Mark Meredith asked Biden’s Press Secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre what percentage of the 74 million people who voted for Trump in the 2020 election the White House regarded as extremists. Jean-Pierre’s answer (keeping in mind that a Press Secretary speaks the President’s words, not her own):

I’m talking about specifically MAGA office holders. That’s what we’re talking about. We’re talking about MAGA office holders who have put forth an agenda that is extreme.

Because wanting to Make America Great Again is extreme. This is what Biden and his Progressive-Democrat Party are so angry, so threatening about. A strong America is anathema to them.

Surveillance States

Posted on by
Reply

That’s what New York and California are becoming, only instead of using cameras, they want to use our banking institutions.

Visa Inc, Mastercard Inc, and American Express Co should begin tracking gun sales and flagging suspicious purchases to law enforcement, similar to how financial institutions look out for money laundering, the attorneys general of New York and California said.

And

The three leading credit-card companies should take a front-line role in trying to prevent mass shootings and reduce the risk of gun trafficking, California Attorney General Rob Bonta and New York Attorney General Letitia James, both Democrats, said Friday in a letter sent to the companies.

Because honest Americans buying firearms are similar to money launderers: buying guns is inherently suspicious, claim these Progressive-Democrat AGs and their States’ governments.

On the other hand, in pressing for this government-mandated financial institution surveillance, California and New York Attorneys General Rob Bonta and Letitia James (both Progressive-Democrats) wrote,

If tracking MCCs could stop just one mass shooting or derail one gun trafficker aiming to flood the streets with guns, the change would be justified.

Do they mean, for instance, then-US Attorney General Eric Holder’s Operation Fast and Furious, which ran guns to Mexican drug cartels?

Special Master

Posted on by
Reply

The Federal judge, Aileen Cannon—an actual Article III judge, not the magistrate judge who issued the suspect search warrant—overseeing the outcome of the FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago has granted the Trump team’s request that Special Master be appointed to sort through the seized documents and determine which should be returned to former President Donald Trump’s possession, and which can be retained by the DoJ.

I have questions.

What deadline was set for DoJ to deliver all of the documents (subject to DoJ’s inevitable appeals, which will only further the slowdown in DoJ’s “investigation,” a slowdown that DoJ claimed would result just from the Special Master’s appointment) following the appointment?

What sanction will be applied when DoJ misses that deadline?

What proof is being required of DoJ that all of the documents its FBI confiscated have been turned over to the Special Master?

What proof is being required of DoJ that it has retained no copies at all of the documents it confiscated?

Cannon also ordered DoJ to stop reviewing and using the seized documents as part of its criminal investigation until the special master can complete a review. What proof is being required of DoJ that it has stopped reviewing and using? Will the documents have to be (provably) held by a third party pending completion of the Special Master’s review?

It also would be illuminating to force DoJ to release its own “filter team” sorting outcome so the rest of us could compare that outcome with the actually unbiased Special Master’s outcome.