Check out this editorial in the Washington Blade by editor Chris Crain. It’s smart, fair and convincing. It simply says that those gay activists who predicted a Kulturkampf under George W. Bush were over-playing their hand. Bush compares relatively well with Clinton on gay rights issues – and certainly better than Chicken Little Democrats were predicting two years ago. I hope the Bushies see that the center of the gay community – not its loony left – is amenable to persuasion by Republicans. If the president signs the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, he’ll be close to a dramatic realignment in this voting bloc. Someone please tell Karl.
THE TIMES’ ALASKA NUMBERS: I’ve done a quick perusal of the report cited by the New York Times in defense of a thirty year alleged annual mean temperature rise in Alaska of 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit. I can’t find the number anywhere. The best I can do is the report’s claim that “warming has been up to 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit per decade over the last three decades in the annual mean, with the largest warming occurring in the interior and arctic regions… Some Alaskan records show that a very large warming, of about 3 degrees Fahrenheit occurred suddenly around 1977 and has persisted since then.” Alaska is enormous and the “up to” phrase refers to maximum variations in different regions – not average annual temperature for the whole region, as the Times slyly implies. But even taking the biggest number in the report – which is still not the average annual temperature – the maximum annual mean temperature increase in any region would still be 4.5 degrees – not 5.4. Did the Times get a case of dyslexia? The report is also quite clear that factors other than global warming are probably responsible for large amounts of the variation, whereas the Times has implied that all of the variation is due to global warming. The only temperature chart I can find in the report shows permafrost warming since 1970 to be at most 1 degree Fahrenheit (although the mean annual permafrost temperature in 1950 is the same as today, and was followed by a severe drop in temperatures in the 1950s as a whole). Then look at these far clearer numbers and you can see the obvious conclusion: the New York Times is still lying about climate change in Alaska. They can’t even get their correction right. (If any of you want to take a closer look at the report – I have to travel again today – and see anything else worth noting or anything I might have missed, please let me know).
THE BRIGHT SIDE OF THE MARKET COLLAPSE: Michael Lewis gets it right. The system is working! This point strikes me as particularly pertinent:
In the future, a healthy new suspicion shall arise whenever any CEO pays himself tens of millions of dollars. The old rule of CEO pay was: the more you pay yourself, the more valuable you must be to the company. The new rule of CEO pay is: the more you pay yourself, the more you will be watched. After all, any CEO who is actually worth $25 million a year should be responsible enough, and decent enough, not to take it.
Amen. And buy.
DON’T FORGET: The gay debate will be broadcast on C-SPAN this weekend Saturday, July 13th at 3:50 P.M. and Sunday, July 14th at 1:35 A.M.
WHAT BUSH ISN’T: Buchananism is attempting a new bi-weekly magazine, called The American Conservative, due out this fall. Someone should sue him for expropriating a perfectly decent political tradition for his nativist, reactionary myopia. But Frankie Foer gets to the deeper point, which is that Buchanan’s agenda only highlights how far George W. Bush has taken his own party – especially since 9/11, when a nativist, isolationist spirit might have taken hold. The money quote, again:
[O]ver time it has become clear that on this side of the Atlantic, 9/11 hasn’t boosted the isolationist right; it has extinguished it. Instead of America Firstism, September 11 has produced a war on terrorism that has virtually ended conservative qualms about expending blood and treasure abroad. And as a corollary, it has produced an unprecedented eruption of conservative and evangelical support for Israel. The conservative establishment has co-opted post-9/11 fears of Muslim immigration, and Bush has covered his protectionist flank on trade. In short, Buchanan and his rich friends couldn’t have chosen a worse time to start a journal of the isolationist right.
It’s usually good form to express hope that any new publication succeeds. Sorry. No can do.
THE ECONOMIST’S DEFENSE: Here’s their self-defense in the Jerusalem Post. I’m not convinced. But make your own mind up.
The Dish 