Deregulating climate change policy and the war on cars

The New Neo Posted on by

Trump deregulates climate change policy:

This last week, the Trump administration reversed a 2009, Obama-era finding that climate change endangers human health and the environment, thus effectively ending the federal government’s legal authority to control the pollution that, so the New York Times says, “is dangerously heating the planet.” …

… [T]he post-2009 regulations are not just about those ethereal “greenhouse gases,” a sprawling phrase that’s vague for a reason. Probably the parts of the regulations most perversely effective and annoying deal with what kind of car you can buy and how it runs.

That includes something called the “start/stop” feature, which turns the engine off at red lights and the like.

The article continues:

I’m not a scientist, but I don’t need to be to know that anyone’s estimate of what’s going to happen worldwide over the next 30 years is just so much baloney, and that this would be true even if the prediction were coming from a neutral source rather than a bitterly anti-Trump, scare-mongering advocacy group.

And at Instapundit today, more about the left’s war on cars. Coming to a state near you?:


Here in the U.S., blue states are pivoting toward mileage caps, which would establish maximum “vehicle miles traveled” (“VMT”) allowed for an entire state, with regulators then creating “incentives” to reduce individual driving so as to achieve the VMT objective. From News Nation: “Massachusetts bill aims to reduce driving to meet climate goals”:

A bill in Massachusetts aims to reduce how much driving occurs as part of the state’s climate strategy. The legislation, spearheaded by Democratic State Senator Cynthia Stone Creem, would require transportation officials to set goals for “reducing the number of statewide driving miles.”

Because this is such an unpopular idea, Democrat politicians in Massachusetts are trying to hoodwink their voters by naming this legislation the “Freedom to Move Act.” There is just an amazing level of duplicity in the name of that legislation, since the specific intent is to limit individuals’ freedom to move about as they choose.

As Lauren Fix correctly notes about The Freedom to Move Act, “When reducing driving becomes a formal state objective, personal mobility inevitably becomes something to be managed.”

The freedom to drive isn’t in the Constitution, but most Americans believe it’s one of our most cherished liberties. More and more, the left uses “science” to rob us proles of our freedoms, from the implementation of COVID lockdowns to regulations that supposedly deal with climate change – while they feel free to defy the rules they’ve made.

Consorting with Epstein

The New Neo Posted on by

Commenter “Niketas Choniates” makes a valid point:

… [T]he Epstein correspondence has shown that our “elites” are morally bankrupt clowns who exploit their connections. They don’t have to be in a pedo ring to be unfit for what they are trusted with. After Epstein was convicted in 2008 they were still sucking up to him, asking him for favors, wanting to party with him, asking for help with money or connections.

What they are showing us is that it doesn’t matter much what you do, when you’re in the big club (which we ain’t in) you’re in it forever, and they may pretend that they care about the morals of those they associate with but they really don’t.

[He then offers five examples] …

A lot of these people sucking up to Epstein were huffing and puffing about Trump’s low character.

Of course, we already knew that many people – and I’ll even amend that to most people – will make excuses for those on their side, and/or those of whom they’re fond or close, and/or those it might be advantageous to know. There are also many people who believe in forgiveness and believe that only those without sin should cast the first stone. I think most of those asking Epstein for favors, post-2008, were probably in one of those first groups rather than the latter. But I don’t think they’re unusual, nor do I think this is some special characteristic of elites – except for the fact that elites have access to other elites, and therefore are in this position more often.

Maybe I’ve become too cynical.

I also think that, rightly or wrongly, people differentiate sex with older teenagers from sex with pubescent children or children prior to puberty. It’s all offensive and it’s all a crime – and rightly so – but don’t most people consider the latter somehow worse than the former? And Epstein traded on that fact during and after his 2008 plea deal. From coverage in 2008 [my emphasis]:

One of America’s richest men, who holidayed with Prince Andrew and lent his private jet to Bill Clinton, has begun serving an 18-month jail term after pleading guilty to soliciting sex from girls as young as 14. …

Florida authorities began tracking Epstein in 2005, when a young girl told of being recruited for massages and sexual encounters with the financier. The FBI got involved soon afterwards, reportedly digging through Epstein’s rubbish and monitoring his lavish mansion to track how many girls were going in and out.

Although Epstein pleaded guilty on Monday to soliciting prostitution, he has maintained that he thought the girls were over 18.

That last part gave people on out to consider him not so very awful. Because it was a plea deal with fairly lenient punishment – plus an agreement not to pursue federal charges against him – it was possible they really did believe him. It certainly was in their interests to believe him.

Am I making excuses for them? No. I’m simply explaining what I think may have happened with many of them. In general, people tend to believe what they want to believe, and interpret facts in ways that allow them to make excuses for people about whom they wish to make excuses. The world of the rich, famous, and influential runs on knowing others who are rich, famous, and influential, and the old “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” principle. To give up their relationships with Epstein was too costly, and if there was a way to rationalize keeping the status quo, most people probably took it.

NOTE: Trump actually did sever any ties with Epstein, which is laudable.

On trying to understand higher-level science

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve long tried to understand the upper reaches of scientific thought, often to no avail. Even as a very young child, I tried reading books about cosmology or higher-level physics, and although every now and then I managed to absorb something, most of the time the ideas went tantalizingly over my head. But I kept trying.

At the age of eight or nine I was fascinated by George Gamow’s One, Two, Three … Infinity. I don’t know how it came into my hands – I certainly didn’t buy it because I wasn’t buying much of anything back then except the occasional comic book or candy bar. But I tried and tried to understand it, and although much of it was opaque to me, I got the general idea for other parts of it.

I was especially fascinated by the four color theorem, which at the time had not yet been proven (a proof came in 1976):

In mathematics, the four color theorem, or the four color map theorem, states that no more than four colors are required to color the regions of any map so that no two adjacent regions have the same color. Adjacent means that two regions share a common boundary of non-zero length (i.e., not merely a corner where three or more regions meet).

I can’t find my decrepit copy of the book right now, although I’m pretty sure I still have it. But my recollection is that Gamow wrote that, if anyone could offer a proof or could design a map that used more than four colors, that person would achieve fame. I didn’t even know what a proof was, but I tried to design such a map. That, I could understand.

I didn’t quite comprehend the assignment, because after much trial and error I thought I had it. But my map had some countries which resembled pie pieces – a no-no, although I don’t recall if that limitation was made clear in the text of the book. Somehow – how, I don’t recall – I managed to write a letter to Gamow at the university where he taught, and boldly offered my map. It must have been clear that the letter came from a young child of eight or nine; I didn’t even have the ability to type it.

But wonder of wonders, I got a response. I still have that response, which was a standard note sent to the many people who wrote to Gamow with this or that idea. The letter said he just didn’t have time for a reply. But someone – almost certainly not Gamow himself, but someone – was being very kind, and there was a handwritten part in red that explained the error I’d made.

Here is that part:

In case you can’t read that, it says:

P.S. The countries must meet on a line, not at a point. Your map needs only two colors.

Many years have passed since then, and I haven’t stopped trying to understand advanced science. But these days it’s mostly through YouTube videos. I listen when I’m exercising, or doing the dishes, or just vegging out in a chair. This was the latest, and although I think I got the basic idea (everything spins due to initial asymmetry, and continues to spin because there’s nothing to stop it), I simply don’t get the details. But here it is:

However, I’ve also read that the Webb has discovered that the majority of galaxies spin in the same direction, which was not predicted:

About two-thirds of the 263 galaxies studied in a paper published February 17 in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society rotate clockwise, while the other one-third rotate counterclockwise.

“The analysis of the galaxies was done by quantitative analysis of their shapes, but the difference is so obvious that any person looking at the image can see it,” Lior Shamir, a computer scientist from Kansas State University and sole author of the study, says in a statement. …

The problem is that astronomers have long posited that galaxies should be evenly split between rotating in one direction or the other, astronomer Dan Weisz from the University of California, Berkeley, who was not involved with the study, wrote for Astronomy back in 2017. “This stems from the idea that we live in an ‘isotropic’ universe, which means that the universe looks roughly the same in every direction. By extension, galaxies shouldn’t have a preferred direction of spin from our perspective,” he added. According to Shamir, there are two strong potential explanations for this discrepancy.

One explanation is that the universe came into existence while in rotation. This theory would support what’s known as black hole cosmology: the hypothesis that our universe exists within a black hole that exists within another parent universe. In other words, black holes create universes within themselves, meaning that the black holes in our own universe also lead to other baby universes. …

Another possible explanation involves the Milky Way’s rotation. Due to an effect called the Doppler shift, astronomers expect galaxies rotating opposite to the Milky Way’s motion to appear brighter, which could explain their overrepresentation in telescopic surveys.

“If that is indeed the case, we will need to re-calibrate our distance measurements for the deep universe,” Shamir explains in the statement.

I’m not going to try to tackle that one.

Voters now prefer Biden??

The New Neo Posted on by

I don’t want to be a downer – especially on Valentine’s Day – but what on earth is this about?:

Harvard CAPS/Harris (Jan. 28–29): Mark Penn’s polling firm found that 51% of registered voters say Trump is doing a worse job than Biden, compared with 49% who say he’s doing better.

Rasmussen Reports (Feb. 2–4): The Trump-friendly pollster is fending off MAGA criticism after finding that 48% of likely voters say Biden did a better job as president, compared with 40% who chose Trump. Another 8% said the two presidents have performed “about the same.”

YouGov/Economist (Feb. 6–9): This survey found that 46% of U.S. adults say Trump is doing a worse job than Biden, compared with 40% who say he’s doing better. Another 7% said “about the same.”

I would ignore the polls except for the inclusion of Rasmussen, usually quite accurate and also usually quite fair to the right.

More:

That first result represents an 18-point swing since the same poll was taken last February and 58 percent said Trump was doing a better job than Biden, versus 40 percent who said Biden was better.

It’s one thing to hate Trump, but that sort of swing doesn’t represent NeverTrumpers, who tend to be a stable Trump-hating group. What it does represent I’m not sure. The comments to the article are not especially helpful on that score either – I read quite a few and then gave up because they were the usual reflexive ha-ha-ha MAGA-bashing junk.

What do I think this is about? My guess is that those who prefer Biden are a combination of the following: Democrats who’ve always hated Trump and always will, plus Independents who’ve been swayed by all the negative coverage (especially of ICE), some Tucker-type Republicans who think Trump doesn’t hate Jews enough and isn’t isolationist enough, plus independents and people on the right who are angry that Trump hasn’t just snapped his fingers and made the economy well-nigh perfect overnight. In addition, I think many people have very short memories.

It’s depressing, though. And yes, I think at least some of it is real. That doesn’t mean it’s set in stone, but it’s worrisome.

Update on the SAVE Act in the Senate

The New Neo Posted on by

Susan Collins of Maine says she supports the bill with its voting security safeguards, bringing the total probable Senate votes up to 50, with Vance able to act as a tie-breaking vote for the act if – and it’s quite an “if” – there’s enough GOP support for the so-called nuclear option to pass it.

And Collins doesn’t support the nuclear option. Catch-22.

Nor is she the only GOP member who doesn’t support the nuclear option (something similar happened to the Democrats at the hands of Manchin and Sinema during the Biden administration, when they tried to pass a national voting act that reduced voting security and the two senators wouldn’t support the nuclear option to pass it).

Is there a work-around to save SAVE? Maybe:

Lee and other conservatives believe that if they turn to the standing filibuster, rather than the “zombie filibuster,” they can barrel through Democratic resistance.

But some fear that turning to that tool could paralyze the Senate floor for weeks or even months, depending on Senate Democrats’ resolve.

Because most people think the Democrats will win control of at least the House in 2026, time is of the essence.

Friday the 13th roundup

The New Neo Posted on by

(1) It’s Friday the 13th. Make of that what you will.

(2) The US ice dancing skaters were probably robbed of a gold by a French judge showing favoritism to the French ice dancing pair:

Still, it doesn’t seem like they have much of a chance at a reversal, despite the outcry regarding the questionable scoring by a French judge, Jezabel Dabouis, who favored the winning pair from France by a wide margin, while the other judges gave the two pairs much closer scores.

So, what else is new? Isn’t this sort of thing an old old story in a sport like ice dancing or ice skating in general?

(3) California’s a beautiful state. But not that beautiful; Mark Zuckerberg is planning a move to Miami to avoid the “billionaire tax.” See this:

With Zuck’s move to Florida, California’s total taxable wealth from billionaires has plummeted to well under $1T from over $2T just a few weeks ago. The loss of this tax revenue was totally avoidable but is now forever. All because Gavin Newsom stood motionless as this stupidly written bill, from a fringe union and a handful of socialist academics with an axe to grind, meandered its way into the public conversation without any action from him and freaked everyone out. These were all people that were paying 13%+ in state income tax every year WITH NO COMPLAINTS UNTIL A FEW WEEKS AGO.

(4) Virginia’s extreme pro-Democrat gerrymandering moves forward:

Republicans had argued that the referendum should be paused following a lower court ruling that found Democrats had “failed to follow their own rules for adding the redistricting amendment to a special session; failed to approve the amendment before the public began voting in last year’s general election; and failed to publish the amendment three months before the election, as required by law.”

Nevertheless, Virginia’s Supreme Court is letting it go forward, and says they may rule on it after the referendum is voted on.

(5) In no surprise whatsoever, US talks with Iran have stalled:

… President Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, had a series of talks with Iranians in Oman. The talks failed to end the deadlock, with the Iranian top negotiator and Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, threatening to attack U.S. military bases in the Middle East shortly after the meeting.

So now Trump’s sending another carrier to the area. Bluff, or not?

It is worth noting that during Operation Midnight Hammer last June, when the U.S. struck key Iranian nuclear weapons facilities, two aircraft carriers were deployed in the region.

What’s going on in the New Mexico Senate race?

The New Neo Posted on by

In the last decade or two, New Mexico has become a blue state. Thus, one might imagine that potential GOP candidates there don’t have a lot of enthusiasm about running for office. But usually the party has managed to field candidates. However, now they won’t have one in the 2026 Senate race; here’s the story:

If he rebuffs a primary chal­lenge, U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján is set to avoid a Repub­lican oppon­ent in his bid for a second term, after a poten­tial GOP oppon­ent was dis­qual­i­fied Tues­day for fail­ing to meet bal­lot require­ments.

The dis­qual­i­fic­a­tion of Repub­lican can­did­ate Chris­topher Vanden Heuvel of Rio Ran­cho means that for the first time in mod­ern state his­tory the state’s gen­eral elec­tion bal­lot for a U.S. Sen­ate race will have only one major party can­did­ate.

In all, Sec­ret­ary of State Mag­gie Toulouse Oliver ruled four can­did­ates did not turn in enough qual­i­fied voter sig­na­tures to appear on the June primary elec­tion bal­lot.

In addi­tion to Vanden Heuvel, other dis­qual­i­fied can­did­ates include Repub­lican Carlton Pen­ning­ton of Mori­arty in the 1st Con­gres­sional Dis­trict race and Repub­lican gubernat­orial hope­ful Belinda Robertson of Las Cruces.

In addi­tion, U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez, D-N.M., will avoid a primary elec­tion chal­lenge from fel­low Demo­crat Thomas Wakely of Colum­bus after Wakely was dis­qual­i­fied from the bal­lot. Vasquez would face the win­ner of a GOP primary con­test between Gregory Cun­ning­ham of Las Cruces and Jose Orozco of Albuquerque in the Novem­ber gen­eral elec­tion.

So, the fourth disqualification was of a Democrat, but that Democrat was opposing an incumbent Democrat member of the House of Representatives, who will be facing the winner of the GOP primary. The other three candidates who were disqualified seem to include every single Republican who was running for the Senate.

I noticed in some comments on sites on the right that there’s a lot of railing against the stupidity and loser-mentality of the GOP. But, although I read quite a few articles on what happened, I have yet to learn answers to the following relevant questions:

(1) Did the GOP candidates for the Senate simply fail to get enough signatures, period?
(2) Or did they get enough but some signatures were disqualified, enough to bump them off the ballot? And if so, how many?
(3) On what were the disqualifications based? Valid or not?

I could find no numbers or details on what happened and no answers to these questions. But where the blame should fall depends on those answers, I think.

The last Republican to win a statewide office in New Mexico was a judge, in 2016.

The present Republican candidate for governor is also facing a court challenge about residency. And the Secretary of State is, of course, a Democrat.

If you have more details that might answer my questions, please let us know in the comments.

[NOTE: And yes, disqualifying the opposition on the basis of signature flaws was a favorite ploy of Obama in his early years. See this.]

The Senate GOP and the SAVE Act

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve seen a lot of posts and comments around the internet expressing frustration with the GOP in the Senate for not yet passing the SAVE Act. It’s so important, according to just about everyone. It would codify as a federal matter many voting safeguards, such as IDs/proof of citizenship.

I agree that it’s important, and it would be wonderful if it were passed – although as soon as Democrats came to power they’d probably pass HR1, its mirror-image opposite.

And is it worthwhile to nuke the filibuster to pass the SAVE Act? Probably, many say. Plus, there’s little doubt the Democrats would end the filibuster – and will do it if they control the Senate – in order to finally pass HR1 after so many tries.

So, what’s the problem? Why not do it? Isn’t it just the usual stupidity, cowardice, and mendacity of the Republicans in the Senate (including of course McConnell and Murkowski), holding it back?

The Ruthless guys beg to differ. They’re very smart cookies, so it’s worth a listen. The clip is about 20 minutes long, but very informative and different from what you’ll hear elsewhere: