The Spokesman-Review reports that the “It takes a village” crowd is plotting a new local property tax to finance early childhood education programs:

“Volunteers will gather signatures starting Tuesday to put a levy before voters in August to establish a Children’s Investment Fund. The money would be used to support early childhood learning, abuse and neglect prevention and treatment programs, mentoring programs and before- and after-school activities.”

Collectivized child-rearing, a la Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, has, of course, always been a priority goal of the Left. After all, one can’t properly program the kids for their assigned roles in Utopia if their upbringing is under the control of unreformed, individualistic, obstructionist parents, most of whom are political heathens.

To be sure, there will be a fair number of parents receptive to this plan. Anything to get those annoying rug rats out of their hair a couple years earlier. One does not turn down a free lunch.

“Four to six hours a day of free childcare? Heck yeah – sign me up. Thanks, taxpayers.”

But responsible voters will peruse the latest study of Head Start — the now-ubiquitous federal “early education” boondoggle created in the 60’s as part of Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty — before financing this new experiment in leftist social engineering.

One series of emails from the “Climategate” CRU email release which has drawn some attention is this one between Phil Jones of CRU et al and Swedish climate researcher Wibjorn Karlen. It concerns the temperature trends in the Nordic countries shown in IPCC AR4. Karlen asks Jones and Trenberth for the data upon which the IPCC graph is based, since the data from the official NORDKLIM climate data network shows no such trend.

That discrepancy has prompted a flurry of mini-investigations by bloggers and their commenters around the world into similar discrepancies involving temperatures in their local areas — which they are finding all over the place.

Sometime yesterday a hacker, or possibly an inside whistle-blower, obtained access to the UK’s Hadley Climate Research Unit computers, downloaded over 1000 emails with attachments, bundled them into a ZIP file, and placed them on a public server in Russia. Links to the ZIP file were then posted on several AGW skeptics’ blogs. The purloined files have already been downloaded by thousands of snoops around the world.

The Hadley Center is one of the world’s foremost climate research centers (it produces the HADCRUT temperature database, used by all climate researchers) and is one of the loudest Chicken Littles of climate catastrophism.

While it will be days before the significance of these files can be established, they are certain to embarass, if not discredit, their authors — if they prove to be authentic, which has not yet been established. In some exchanges Hadley researchers discuss ways to prevent critics of AGW from being published; in others they appear to discuss methods of altering data to better fit their theories.

While not yet vetted, what has been published so far has the ring of authenticity. Moreover, the very volume of the material argues against a scam — few con artists would have the knowledge, time or patience to hoke up 135 MB of phony correspondence and papers.

An early look at the contents can be found here.

In a debate on another blog (the Spokesman-Review’s “Matter of Opinion” blog), one commenter wrote,

“No amount of Libertarian Ayn Randian rhetoric about the long defeated concept of “enumerated powers” as why this country can’t have universal health care is going to convince any intelligent citizens.”

I asked how the doctrine of enumerated powers had been “defeated,” to which he responded,

“By SCOTUS ruling. Step into the current century, Luddite.”

Well, it’s not terribly clear what “defeating” a constitutional provision requires, or whether the Supreme Court has a power to “defeat” any of them, given that word is not mentioned in the Constitution. But per common understanding, to “defeat” someone or something implies rendering that thing or person inoperative or impotent.  The US Constitution does provide a means for achieving that result with respect to its various provisions — the amendment process. Of course, there has been no amendment repealing the enumerated powers doctrine. But this poster clearly thinks the Supreme Court is empowered to repeal it on its own.

So I asked him which other provisions of the Constitution he believed the Court possessed a power to “defeat.” I posed the following fictional ruling for his (and your) consideration. Comments are welcome.

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The petitioners in the present case are charged with violations of the Defense of Democracy and Orderly Debate Act of 2012 (DDODA), by distributing leaflets, posting essays and comments on various Internet sites, and organizing rallies in opposition to the Human Rights Enforcement Act (HREA) then under deliberation in Congress. Defendants moved the trial court to dismiss the charges on grounds that the First Amendment protects their right to free speech and peaceable assembly. That court denied the motion; the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the denial.

The Defense of Democracy and Orderly Debate Act attempts to ensure that public debate of enacted or proposed legislation proceeds in an orderly, civil manner, and does not thwart or hamper the ability of the government to enact or enforce legislation which it has reason to believe reflects the will of the public. The government contends that the actions of the petitioners complained of in the indictment provoked public opposition to the HREA and to the government generally, interfered with Congressional consideration of the bill and delayed action thereon, and has inspired widespread defiance of several of the Act’s provisions since its passage. As authorized by the DDODA, the government issued cease-and-desist orders to the defendants herein and to several other persons, ordering them to halt distribution of the the objectionable leaflets, remove specific postings from various Internet servers, and barred them from gathering in groups larger than two persons “for the purpose of inciting public sentiment hostile to the bills herein referenced.” The orders also advised the recipients that continued violations of DDODA would result in fines of $5000, or imprisonment for 5 years, or both, for each specific count in violation. While many of the enjoinees complied with those orders, the petitioners publicly refused, and per their own admission not only continued but “redoubled” their violations of the order.

Noted climate scientist Roy Spencer today writes on his blog,

“I contend that the belief in human-caused global warming as a dangerous event, either now or in the future, has most of the characteristics of an urban legend. Like other urban legends, it is based upon an element of truth. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas whose concentration in the atmosphere is increasing, and since greenhouse gases warm the lower atmosphere, more CO2 can be expected, at least theoretically, to result in some level of warming.

Next, politicians seized upon the SP, further simplifying and extrapolating its claims to the level of a “climate crisis”. Other politicians embellished the tale even more by claiming they “saw” global warming in Greenland as if it was a sighting of Sasquatch, or that they felt it when they fly in airplanes.”

Entire essay here.

Although I’m not one to whine about “media bias” — newspapers and other media being private enterprises entitled by the First Amendment to express the “bias” of their choice — it is dismaying when they do so by distorting, omitting, or manufacturing the underlying facts of the story, or by allowing a source or informant to do so. When they do so deliberately, it reveals a lack of professional integrity. When they do so by inadvertence, it reveals a lack of professional competence.

In other words, slant the story any way you please, but do try to get the facts right.

I suspect inadvertence, or perhaps just editorial laziness — was responsible for the Spokesman-Review’s October 21 story entitled, “Report says cost of living higher in state’s poor neighborhoods.”

“Poor people may feel like they never get a break, but it’s worse than that, according to a study of low-income families in Washington. They are getting gouged,” wrote reporter Kevin Graman.

The story is laced with such phrases as “the findings,” “the state study . . . revealed price disparities,” “the report . . . details how the poor pay more for goods and services,” and so on — language intended to convey an impression that a rigorous scientific investigation had unearthed some damning new evidence of injustices which demand immediate remedies.

The “study” in question was, of course, nothing of the kind. It is, instead, a classic example of a pseudo-study, manufactured to create pseudo-news which advances its authors’ political agenda.

Some greenie true believers in New Zealand have proposed a new method of reducing your “carbon footprint” — eat your dog.

And your cat, too.

They calculate that feeding your spaniel requires 0.84 hectares (about 2 acres) of land annually. By comparison, sufficient biofuel to build and drive your Land Cruiser 6200 miles could be produced on only 0.41 hectare.  Your cat’s carbon footprint is about the same as a Volkswagen Golf’s.

“Professor Vale says the title of the book is meant to shock, but the couple, who do not have a cat or dog, believe the reintroduction of non-carnivorous pets into urban areas would help slow down global warming.”

Full story here.

Hmm. If I ate Grandma, could I maybe keep my Winnebago?

An interesting exchange here between Spokesman-Review reporter Jonathan Brunt and City Council candidate Jon Snyder regarding the “big box” development on the South Hill approved by the Council last year. Snyder had stated that he would not have approved the zoning change which will allow the development. (Exchange begins ~ 37 minutes).

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Brunt: How do you judge when to keep a business out and when to allow a business in?

Snyder: I want to reframe that question . . . the question is, How do we plan or create development that is good for everyone . . .? There are some really great examples in other parts of the Northwest of creating an urban village that is walkable, bikeable, doesn’t involve the maximum amount of square footage, that integrates a mixed-use approach, that allows people to live near where they’re going to be walking to . . . that is the question — how do we create that up there? In order to do that is why we need leadership on the City Council. The City Council should not wait until a developer comes to them and says, “We want this . . . how do we change the Comprehensive Plan to get it?” The City needs to be out front, working with the neighborhoods and developers trying to come up with a planned solution that makes sense for everybody.

Brunt: Is there a place say, south of I-90, that would be OK for a Home Depot, or a Walmart?

Snyder: I don’t see any place that would be great for a Walmart. We have plenty of Walmarts in this town. We don’t need any more.

Brunt: What about a Target or a Home Depot?

Snyder: I’m not interested in advocating for any one of those particular national chains. I mean, people may have their favorites and what not, but what I look at is, I see a Manito Center and a South Perry district. Those places really need some support. You know, Manito went through this whole planning process a couple of years ago, which really didn’t go anywhere . . . That needs to be started up again . . . But unfortunately we have a situation where a lot of retail energy is going to be sucked away from Manito because of the Southgate development.
——

Well, that’s about as clear an example of what Hayek called the “Fatal Conceit” — not to mention bureaucratic arrogance — as you’re likely to find anywhere.

Most of the considerable opposition which has emerged to date to Proposition 4, the so-called “Community Bill of Rights” which will appear on the November general election ballot, has focused on the measure’s fiscal implications for the City and its implications for the local economy. These are certainly serious concerns. Indeed, the measure is likely to have adverse impacts even if it fails, unless it is defeated overwhelmingly. A narrow defeat will still discourage investment (and encourage disinvestment) in the city of Spokane, because investors and entrepreneurs will worry that Prop 4’s leftist backers will soon try again. It will stigmatize Spokane as a risky place to do business.

But an even more compelling reason for rejecting it is the moral one.

This “Bill of Frights” (a “fright” being a fiat right) declares that persons have “rights” to “affordable” health care, housing, energy, to be paid a certain wage, and various other goodies on every leftist’s wish list. The trouble here, of course, is that all these goodies must be provided by other persons — health care workers, builders, energy producers, employers, et al. So a claim to a “right” to such things entails a claim to the services of other people — to their time, talents, energy, and the fruits of their labor.

Some new additions to the Encyclopedia of Political Nonsense. After a few more I’ll give the Encyclopedia its own page.

Greed. The standard leftist term of disparagement for the drive, common to all living organisms, to thrive, i.e., to survive, increase its security, reduce its discomforts and risks, and provide for its offspring. For humans, thriving means securing as many of the things they value as possible. Leftists hold the term in contempt because they labor under one or both of two common fallacies, the Organic Fallacy or the Fallacy of Value.