Quick Roundup 489

Unilateral Economic Disarmament

Roger Simon questions the conventional wisdom (HT: Glenn Reynolds) on why Barack Obama rescheduled his trip to to the Copenhagen "climate" conference.

Lately we have heard he switched his itinerary to be there at the end of the two weeks in order to give his blessing and impetus to the decision itself. That's the conventional wisdom anyway, but I am growing suspicious. Things are falling apart with amazing rapidity for the man-made global warming movement, not just because UN’s own climate chief is getting cold feet.

I question Simon's optimism, starting with his assessment of the temperature of Yvo de Boer's feet:

The U.N.'s top climate official on Sunday conceded that hacked e-mails from climate scientists had damaged the image of global warming research but said evidence of a warming Earth is solid. [bold added]

The current political proposals premised on global warming are collectivism excused and promoted on altruistic grounds, just like unilateral nuclear disarmament was in the West back in the days of the Cold War. Barack Obama will show up even if Hell freezes over and pull out all the stops to enact some form of economic controls over the U.S. economy regardless of how grim ClimateGate might look to his political allies. If I'm right and he shows up, it will be his attempt at a salvage operation.

Does nobody recall that despite a near-majority of adults now opposing Obama's physician slavery proposal, Congress still seems bent on getting some version of that ready for the President's signature? Does anyone doubt that Obama will sign it if it reaches his desk? What part of "quite comfortable" with one term are people failing to understand about Obama?

Barack Obama sees the struggling remnants of capitalism in America in the same light as his ideological predecessors saw America's nuclear arsenal: as an evil that needs to be exterminated at all costs. "Climate change" legislation is a way for him to achieve the unilateral economic disarmament of America. He will not abandon it.

Key to both crusades is the failure of their opponents to champion America as a good nation. America's nuclear arsenal defended her against tyranny and protected the freedom of her citizens to pursue their own happiness. America's economic freedom is, likewise, an important means for her citizens to achieve their own happiness. These are good things, but Barack Obama does not see it this way, as hard as that might be to believe.

Winter is Here!

This time last year, I was experiencing an unusual snowfall and a heat outage in Houston -- which apparently has had measurable snow for two years in a row for the first time. This year, I had a lot more snow and indoor warmth when Old Man Winter arrived. I was too busy to snap pictures, but LB has a very nice picture up at 3 Ring Binder.

I'm not sure we got even that much where we are, but I plan to go out and get pictures whenever we get a bunch. I want to be able to remember how nice it looks at first after it gets ugly and nasty from staying on the ground for days at a time!

Head to the Houston Chronicle's web site for more snow pictures. (Around picture 21 or so looks a lot like my old neighborhood.) Snow, far from a constant winter plague down there, is a rare treat, so people have a blast when they do get it.

Objectivist Roundup

In case you went by there earlier to find a truncated version, stop by Rule of Reason again to see all of last week's Objectivist Roundup. (That wasn't why I didn't mention it earlier. I just forgot.)

Sometimes being late has its advantages!

Being Able to Name a Problem Helps

Interested in seeing whether I might like soca music, I went to YouTube recently and looked around, only to be somewhat intrigued by the rhythms, but completely repelled by some of the "vocals." Wondering what was going on, I Googled a few things like "annoying voice effect" and eventually learned a new word: That effect is generated by something called a vocoder and it's as bad or worse to my ear even than excessive melisma.

If the term "vocoder" has you scratching your head, go here, scoot to about 0:10, and be prepared to stop quickly. Average Bro has a pretty good brief history of the phenomenon, if you're interested in that sort of thing. But don't worry: Nobody here will get, "as sick of hearing me moan and complain about vocoders as I am of hearing songs that feature them."

That's because I'll avoid them as much as I can!

It's Over.

Usually, when I play fantasy football, I pad my odds of having a successful season by joining two leagues, but time constratints kept me down to one this year -- the league of grad school friends I've played in every year for over a decade now. We're all "auto drafters" over there, but I like to set some sort of draft order so I don't get stuck with four quarterbacks or something ridiculous like that. I forgot the meaning of "12:00 a.m." this year and ended up not setting a draft order in time.

That looked like a stroke of luck at first: Sure, I had no big-name wide receivers, but I did end up with Adrian Peterson, Brian Westbrook, Cedric Benson, and Antonio Gates. All have been injured or otherwise having sub-par years, and Peterson seems to be suffering, in a fantasy football sense, from having Brett Favre as his quarterback. (I got five points out of him yesterday.) With meager playoff hopes on the line, I got to play the guy with Brett Favre on his roster. It all came down to whether Minnesota would go with Favre's arm or Peterson's legs for their last touchdown.

Can't let that happen again!

-- CAV