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…is Charles Johnson attacking those who don’t fall for this bunk.
Well tomorrow is another year and to my knowledge he still hasn’t changed sides on Israel so there is still a slight hope for him, but I wouldn’t want to make book on when that will change.
Nope this isn’t a post about my predictions for 2011 this is instead about predictions in the past that have become busts:
It is always entertaining to look at predictions from the past, and see how far off they were. In the 1920s, the assumption was that by the 1950s, we would all be getting around in flying cars. Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward describes how by the year 2001, capitalism would have completely disappeared (at the instigation of the capitalists, who would see the advantages of socialism), replaced with a democratic socialism where everyone ate in common mess halls, owned everything in common, and there was almost no violence anymore.
Clayton then links to this list of predictions of environmental catastrophes that weren’t and concludes thus:
When scientists make apocalyptic predictions based on claims of science, I expect them to hit their marks, or have a darn good explanation for why not.
The problem being these days that huge amounts of cash ride on these predictions and the right way of looking at things can be the difference between a well-funded grant keeping you in champagne for decades to teaching chemistry at a community college. More importantly with the amounts of money involved any challenge to the orthodoxy becomes not so much a scientific debate as a threat to a person’s standard of living requiring a strong and sometimes devastating counter.
The whole Global Warming bit has become basically a giant 21st century version of The Sting with the taxpayers of the western world as the mark. I predict that when it fails there will be a new version with a new prediction and a new urgency that will drive media coverage and funds for NGO to keep them in caviar for another decade or two.
The internet has many interesting side effects the most pronounced being that when you make a fool of yourself you are going to be called on it. And if you work for a major newspaper and say something breathtakingly stupid not only will it be preserved forever but if you don’t walk it back fast it will define you.
Journolist was something Ezra Klein managed to dodge because although there was plenty of text, there was no video, Places like the NYT have been able to avoid putting up the Climate Gate e-mails because there is no video of the people involved talking about the fudging involved.
But Ezra said what he said about the constitution live on MSNBC and although figures suggest that few people actually watch it all it takes is for the video to be out there for you to end up with stuff like this at the top of memeorandum on a slow news day.
Thus Klein’s mea culpa
I went back and watched the clip — or at least the part someone clipped and sent me, which is above — and thought I was clear enough. But when a lot of people misunderstand you at once, the fault is usually yours.
Ya think?
Update: Don Surber notices something I didn’t
Remember that old death panel debate that the MSM called a lie when Sarah Palin brought it up, but then was suddenly pulled from the legislation? Well guess what:
And now they’re able to accomplish through regulatory fiat what they couldn’t get through Congress, even with a playing field tilted steeply in their favor.
Now the author of a memo on the subject being a representative of the people elected in an open election decided to of course be totally open about this…or not
“While we are very happy with the result, we won’t be shouting it from the rooftops because we aren’t out of the woods yet,” Mr. Blumenauer’s office said in an e-mail in early November to people working with him on the issue. “This regulation could be modified or reversed, especially if Republican leaders try to use this small provision to perpetuate the ‘death panel’ myth.”
So according to Representative Blumenauer they shouldn’t talk about this “good thing” that they are doing because Republicans will know about. There’s open government for you.
Well now that the cat is out of the bad suddenly we hear a different tune from Representative Blumenauer
Blumenauer now says he regrets the letter’s secretive language, which has only bolstered conservatives’ claims that the Obama administration tried to sneak the provision in under the radar.
Yeah why would the idea that you said you didn’t want to let this be public make people think that you are doing something sneaky?
Weasel Zippers describes him best:
Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Shhhh)
yet these same democrats from the land of Shhhh are accusing Republicans of a “lack of transparency”
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