The New York Times Thinks That American Taxpayers Are Obligated To Solve The Personal Problems Of Everyone In The World

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  • I often make fun of the liberal mindset that prescribes that all the personal problems of people in our society can and must be solved by government taxing and spending and the creation of more and more “programs” of one sort and another. As I write on my “About” page:

  • The central tenet of [the Manhattan] orthodoxy is that all personal problems of the people in society can be solved by government taxing and spending.  The obvious corollary is that since all problems can be solved by taxing and spending, therefore they must be solved by taxing and spending, and anyone who stands in the way of those solutions is immoral.

  • The fundamental difficulty here, as Margaret Thatcher famously quipped, is that pretty soon you “run out of other people’s money.” And that’s when you are only trying to create perfect fairness and justice within your own country. More recently the progressive orthodoxy has morphed to a point where the American taxpayers are now seen as obligated to solve the personal problems of everyone in the world.

  • Do you think I am exaggerating? Consider if you will the most extreme of possible examples: Afghanistan.

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Don't Forget To RSVP To The February 19 "Net Zero And Freedom" Event

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  • Word on the street is that tomorrow is the big day when the federal government’s phony-baloney greenhouse gas “Endangerment Finding” will finally get rescinded by EPA. It has now been more than 16 years since this idiotic and massive government power grab got foisted on the American people by the Obama EPA in December 2009.

  • I don’t have any good insight into what the rescission documentation will look like. If the people writing it do what is really appropriate, they will heap mounds of scorn, derision and ridicule upon the Finding itself, and upon the legions fools, dopes and grifters who continue to try to support it.

  • While we all hold our breaths for this big moment, I am shamelessly shilling for the February 19 Net Zero Watch in-person event in New York, “Net Zero and Freedom.”

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Federal Reference Manual On Scientific Evidence, Climate Science Chapter -- Withdrawn!

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Federal Reference Manual On Scientific Evidence, Climate Science Chapter -- Withdrawn!

  • Here at Manhattan Contrarian, we get results. After my last three posts harshly critiquing the Federal Judicial Center’s newly revised Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence, and particularly its chapter on Climate Science, suddenly on Friday the Center’s Director sent a letter stating that the Center has now “omitted” that chapter!

  • Well OK, I was not the only one objecting. On January 29, a coalition of state Attorneys General from red states, led by the AG of West Virginia (JB McCuskey), had sent a letter to Judge Robin Rosenberg, the Director of the Center, asking for immediate withdrawal of the offending chapter. Here is a link to the AGs’ letter. McCuskey had rounded up signatures of AGs of some 26 other states in support of the demand for withdrawal.

  • Judge Rosenberg addressed her letter disclosing the withdrawal to McCuskey.

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Would You Trust The National Academies Of Science To Tell You How Science Works?

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  • My last two posts have been about the new Federal Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence, just out (December 31) from the Federal Justice Center. The Chair of that Center is U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts. The latest version of the Manual is the Fourth Edition. The prior version in 2011 was the Third Edition; and there were also two prior Editions from 2000 and 1994.

  • In those previous two posts, I principally criticized a newly-added chapter in the Fourth Edition titled “Reference Guide on Climate Science.” Today, I want to take a look at another chapter titled “How Science Works.”

  • There was no such chapter in the First Edition, but a chapter by that title, written by a guy named David Goodstein (an Emeritus Professor at Caltech), was added in the Second Edition. In the Third Edition, Goodstein’s chapter was somewhat modified and slightly expanded (from 16 pages to 18). Goodstein died in 2024, and in the Fourth Edition he has been replaced by Michael Weisberg and Anastasia Thanukos, who have now produced a chapter with the same title, but now running to some 61 pages.

  • In my January 31 post, my comment on the Weisberg/Thanukos work product was that it was “not too terrible,” but that it was “way longer than it needs to be” and “the most important points are buried.” Further comparing this chapter to the chapter on (so-called) “climate science” (which is entirely hoakum) I continue the view that there are some good points here. However, there are also some serious flaws, and I don’t want to move on without pointing some of those out.

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More On The Federal Judicial Center And The Attribution Scam

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  • As discussed in the previous post, the Federal Judicial Center’s recently-updated Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence contains a new chapter on Climate Science. That chapter focuses on the promoting the hocus pocus of “attribution” studies that seek to blame every latest hurricane or flood or drought on human emissions of CO2, and thus on fossil fuel producers in particular.

  • In my post, I characterized the authors’ write-up of the methodology of these attribution studies as relying on “logical fallacy,” and as “double-talk and bafflegab.” But I think that I inadequately articulated the nature of the fallacy. So I will try to correct that here.

  • The heart of the problem is that science is all about hypotheses being subject to empirical test against real world evidence.

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The New Federal Reference Manual On Scientific Evidence: All The Smartest People Get Hoodwinked By The Climate Charlatans

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The New Federal Reference Manual On Scientific Evidence: All The Smartest People Get Hoodwinked By The Climate Charlatans

  • It is truly remarkable how easy it is to fool the smartest people. And especially when you tell them they are helping to save the world.

  • So something called the Federal Judicial Center has just come out with a new edition, the 4th, of something called the Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence. The publication date appears to be December 31, 2025.

  • The idea that the federal government, and in particular the judiciary, needs a reference manual on scientific evidence seems to date from the 1990s. The courts, then as now, were facing an increasing volume of cases involving complex scientific evidence; and meanwhile almost none of the judges are trained in science. Best to provide them with a good grounding in the basics. Fortunately, back in the 60s Congress had established something called the Federal Judicial Center as a “research and education agency” of the judicial branch. Here was the perfect opportunity for that bureaucracy to expand their mission and budget.

  • In this latest version of the Reference Manual, the FJC has totally lost its way. Somehow, it got captured by a clique of climate charlatans who have inserted a lengthy section that is anti-science and based on logical fallacy. And many dozens of seemingly smart people who were supposedly reviewing this have gotten hoodwinked.

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