Archive for April, 2011
Ice, Arrogant Ignorance, and Global Warmism
By Chuck Roger • April 29th, 2011 12:00 am
Originally at American Thinker, April 25, 2011 By Chuck Rogér The latest global warming derangement? In order to stop “imperiling the planet,” turn off your refrigerator’s icemaker. To appreciate the depth of madness to which warmists are now routinely sinking, let’s identify the fallacies contained in a sentence lifted from a recent Time magazine post. [...]
Trump’s ‘Fair Trade’ Rhetoric Hurts Republicans’ White House Chances
By Chuck Roger • April 28th, 2011 12:00 am
Originally in American Thinker, April 25, 2011 By Chuck Rogér After a recent phone conversation with Donald Trump, syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer concluded that The Donald is “absolutely” serious about seeking the GOP Presidential nomination. That’s unfortunate. The illiberal media will have a field day with Mr. Trump’s flawed ideas on free trade. In January, [...]
How AARP Willfully Betrayed its Members
By Chuck Roger • April 26th, 2011 12:00 am
By Chuck Rogér In November 2010, I wrote about the shady conduct of the leadership of the American Association of Retired Persons. Here’s what I said back then. The organization is trying to paint for its members a portrait of an out-of-control pharmaceutical industry rife with obscene profits. In reality, seniors are paying less each [...]
Dissecting Progressive Arrogance, Part VII: ‘Climate Change’ Follies
By Chuck Roger • April 22nd, 2011 12:00 am
By Chuck Rogér More “Dissecting Progressive Arrogance” I, II, III, IV, V, VI Progressive Arrogance 101 Main Learning: The ability to role model ideological zealotry an utter disregard for fact and logic the gullibility to swallow other zealots’ twists of fact and logic ignorance of the scientific method self-righteous preachiness and a superior attitude in [...]
Obi-Wan Berwick Rears His Head Again
By Chuck Roger • April 20th, 2011 12:00 am
Originally in American Thinker, April 19, 2011 By Chuck Rogér “These are not the droids you’re looking for” With those words and a barely perceptible rippling of the fingers, in Star Wars: A New Hope, Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi convinces two Empire Stormtroopers to overlook the obvious. R2-D2 and C-3PO, the androids in question, sit [...]
Of Joseph Stiglitz, by Joseph Stiglitz, for Joseph Stiglitz
By Chuck Roger • April 19th, 2011 12:00 am
Originally titled “The Spreading of Economic Fallacy” in American Thinker, April 15, 2011 By Chuck Rogér The world of academia provides a comfy home to progressives. And when one of the critters writes in Vanity Fair magazine, gems of “thought” tend to emerge. In a new Vanity Fair article, “Of the 1%, by the 1%, [...]
Straw Man Environmental Alarmism 101, California Style
By Chuck Roger • April 15th, 2011 12:00 am
Originally in American Thinker, April 14, 2011 By Chuck Rogér Course Description: Learn to craft false statements that appear factual and to justify “fixes” for imaginary problems. The student learns how to apply said fixes to an agenda which addresses environmentalists’ most precious issue: human-caused global warming. Course Instructor: An associate transportation planner with the [...]
Why Don’t Republicans Want to Eliminate Farm Subsidies?
By Chuck Roger • April 14th, 2011 12:00 am
By Chuck Rogér Congressional Republicans claim that they want to cut spending. House Speaker John Boehner says, We’re listening to the people who sent us here to cut spending so we can grow our economy. As I’ve said from the beginning, our goal is to cut spending, not shut down the government. Senate Minority Leader [...]
New HHS Plan for Health Redistribution
By Chuck Roger • April 13th, 2011 12:00 am
Originally in American Thinker, April 12, 2011 By Chuck Rogér Can government make all people equally healthy? The U.S. Health and Human Services Department has announced a new plan aimed at doing precisely that. The HHS “action plan” will allegedly “reduce health disparities among racial and ethnic minorities.” A “health disparity” is defined as “a [...]
California Assembly Outlaws Economics 101
By Chuck Roger • April 12th, 2011 12:00 am
By Chuck Rogér The California Assembly has passed a bill, which if signed by Governor Brown, will legally compel power companies to generate a third of the state’s electricity from sources such as solar, wind, and geothermal energy by 2020, a 1000 percent increase in nine years. Peter Miller, a senior scientist at the NRDC [...]
American Indians Putting Faith in Government ‘Help’? (Follow Up)
By Chuck Roger • April 11th, 2011 12:00 am
By Chuck Rogér I previously called attention to a New Mexico state government measure aimed at reducing teen depression and suicide in Indian communities, pointing to two tragic aspects of the situation. First, the high suicide rate attests to social problems endemic in Indian communities. But the second tragedy is even worse, for it compounds the [...]
Democrats Ponder Kicking their ‘Atlas Shrugged’ Agenda into Overdrive
By Chuck Roger • April 8th, 2011 12:00 am
By Chuck Rogér Updated from post originally in American Thinker on April 7, 2011 The name for this post could have just as fittingly been “Economic Ignoramuses in Wonderland.” As you read, picture in your mind Ayn Rand’s mousey Atlas Shrugged character Wesley Mouch, the top dog at the novel’s Bureau of Economic Planning and National [...]
If it quacks like a liberal…
By Chuck Roger • April 7th, 2011 12:00 am
By Chuck Rogér Only about 20% of Americans see themselves as ideologically “liberal” (1, 2). In recent Rasmussen polls, surveys of likely voters found that: 22% think that tax cuts hurt the economy; 26% believe that less government spending hurts the economy; 23% claim that raising taxes helps the economy; 24% say that government spending helps the [...]
Zombie snails, parasites, and public sector unions… Oh my!
By Chuck Roger • April 6th, 2011 12:00 am
By Chuck Rogér In order to fully appreciate this post, view the video below (hat tip to a subscriber, Nigel) before reading past the sentence in red. As you watch and listen, keep in mind two groups of people: public sector unions (specifically teachers’ unions) and American taxpayers who reject the tenets of big-government liberalism. (CAUTION: If [...]
The Hollywood conservative, Andrew Klavan, nails public sector unions
By Chuck Roger • April 5th, 2011 12:00 am
By Chuck Rogér I have previously discussed an example of the work of Hollywood conservative Andrew Klavan. From that December 16, 2009 post: Andrew Klavan calls leftism a “religion” that forms “an elaborate system for hiding shame behind a cheap mask of virtue.” Liberals “demonize any opposition,” because we, that clear-thinking opposition, are “not just disagreeing [...]
Progressive Fallacy Number 667: Wealth Redistribution Creates Societal ‘Harmony’
By Chuck Roger • April 4th, 2011 12:00 am
Originally in American Thinker, March 30, 2011 By Chuck Rogér Is wealth envy a serious problem in a technologically advanced country like America? Economist Tyler Cowen observes that economic indignation is mostly felt toward: …the guy down the hall who got a bigger raise … [or toward] the husband of your wife’s sister, because the [...]
‘Alternative’ Health Care in the Land of Enchantment
By Chuck Roger • April 1st, 2011 12:00 am
Originally in American Thinker, March 31, 2011 By Chuck Rogér Want to have your “aura” read? You could have done just that had you attended last Saturday’s Health and Fitness Extravaganza and Open House in Santa Fe, New Mexico. What is an “aura?” Alternative medicine enthusiasts believe that each person emits a sort of halo [...]
