Damon Linker writes at THE WEEK:
Is National Review doomed?
The conservative movement’s leading magazine faces a lawsuit that could bring it to its knees.
This part made me laugh:
The ideological descendants of the Birchers have since taken their revenge. Today they are the conservative movement’s most passionate supporters and foot soldiers. But they demand a steady diet of red meat, and National Review now exists in part to provide it.
Really? John Birchers?
Here’s a somewhat less volatile point of his argument, but still equally funny:
‘In July, Judge Natalia Combs Greene rejected a motion to dismiss the suit. The defendants appealed, and last week D.C. Superior Court Judge Frederick Weisberg rejected the motion again, opening the door for the discovery phase of the lawsuit to begin’
I guess he didn’t do much research into that fiasco and judge Natalia Combs Greene to see the whole story of how she reversed the plaintiff and the defendant in her ruling, which was later nullified by a competent judge.
Let’s say for the sake of entertainment purposes that Mann does win the lawsuit, how will he prove damages? Given Mann’s own propensity for self promotion, vitriol, and foot-in-mouth moments, IMHO Mann does more damage to his own reputation than anyone else. If Mann winning that lawsuit that were to happen, it would probably be a symbolic damages award, like $1. If the judge really wanted to send a message about frivolous lawsuits from climate scientists, he could make it 97 cents.
Read it all here: http://theweek.com//article/index/255756/is-national-review-doomed
But, the funniest part of it all, is the writer himself, Damon Linker, who could be a every-Mann climate scientist clone.
“Mark and two Cats, it’s not the Bircher’s causes that make them nuts, it’s their beliefs. They claim that “The Conspiracy” (and you can hear the capital letters when they say it!) is secretly running the whole world, that the world’s apparent governments are actually puppets controlled by a gigantic shadowy world government led by the Rockefellers, the Bilderbergers, the CFR, and the Trilateral Commission.”
Dave maybe you should get your head out of the clouds…..so to speak….and study markets and finance…….then you may learn that what the Birchers have always been claiming….is a fact….and it is NOT a conspiracy it is just politics as usual…..there membership lists have never been secret and every US administration going back decades has been over run by members of these three groups
Where is Lyndon LaRouche when we need him?
This is wishful thinking by the left. A lot of what Mark Steyn does is humor. Calling Michael
Mann the “Jerry Sandusky of climate science” is not going to hurt NR or Mark Steyn.
They are going to lose this case as surely as they would if they sued Ann Coulter, who’s
shtick is sarcasm. You cannot touch people like this any more than you could have
gone after Jay Leno for a political gag.
I have dealt with too many addicted people to have any empathy for drug dealers or laws that assist them to deal.
Prohibition assists them more than regulation would. Kids have been reporting that illegal drugs are easier to get than beer for 30+ years. Dealers don’t card. Businesses do.
It has always amused me that the “for the children” people most favor a system that does the most to enable children to get the “stuff”. Blinded by words I call it. They think “prohibited” means “unavailable”. When it actually means “distributed by criminals”.
But it goes to the point that very few people are generally rational. Emotion almost always clouds something. We can see that in the CAGW people. We rarely see it in ourselves.
Bzzzzt! Confusion reigning supreme at Doug’s place?
” The Republican Party, for good or bad, happens to be the home of conservatism right now ”
https://www.google.com/url?
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2008/02/07/it_s_up_to_the_candidates_to_lead
“Now, I don’t know anybody who thinks the Democratic Party is going to be the future home of conservatism. The Republican Party traditionally has been.”
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2006/10/18/disaster_does_loom_if_democrats_win_and_will_lead_to_nomination_of_mccain4
Let confusion reign no more at Doug’s …
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JUST as the link to your cited source shows – no, wait …
And if Buckley wasn’t conservative, just who was? BTW, assertions w/o cites are, well, a little lame …
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The big debacle in legalizing ALL forms of Marijuana, sorry, THC ingestion awaits; legalizing the manufacture and sale of BHO (Butane Hash Oil) was just insane … doobies, that’s one thing …
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Can you detail what existed in 1914 for the average person and what kind of skills were required of people, versus what exists today in 2014 and what is required of people to function for themselves and for the benefit of society?
I think that something akin to anachronistic fallacy begins to enter the picture given comparisons with 1914.
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@M Simon –
Not sure what your purpose was, in mentioning me in connection with a discussion of legalizing marijuana.
I will say this, however – I want nothing whatever to do with marijuana, for any purpose. I am frankly skeptical of ALL claims that it is medically beneficial. I think that is just an excuse for getting high, based on my own observation of people who say they used it to relieve chemo side effects, but used a lot of it before and after their illnesses. I believe that if it were genuinely medical it would be taken as pills like other medicines, not smoked.
People can fry their brains and reduce their math skills and impair their cognitive functions all they want with this shit, for all I care, which is what happens to heavy users – well documented. The sad part is, haven’t they anything better to do than get high? And keep it the hell away from me.
I know there are those who will disagree sharply with me, but I am unmoved.
_Jim says:
January 31, 2014 at 5:25 pm
Well here is that link you asked for. http://opengov.ideascale.com/a/dtd/David-Rockefeller-s-book-Memoirs-admits-secretly-conspiring-for-a-NWO/4007-4049
David Rockefeller’s book ‘Memoirs’ admits secretly conspiring for a NWO
David Rockefeller’s book ‘Memoirs’ admits secretly conspiring for a NWO
In David Rockefeller’s book ‘Memoirs’ he admits he is part of a secret cabal working to destroy the United States and create a new world order.Here is the direct quote from his book, pg 405:
Some even believe we [Rockefeller family] are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as ‘internationalists’ and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure – One World, if you will.If that’s the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it
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I hope that helps.
_Jim says:
January 31, 2014 at 5:33 pm
Well you know with legalization that sort of thing – Butane Hash Oil – will be done in proper manufacturing facilities. Accidents will be far less common.
Chad Wozniak says:
January 31, 2014 at 8:24 pm
@M Simon –
Not sure what your purpose was, in mentioning me in connection with a discussion of legalizing marijuana.
I will say this, however – I want nothing whatever to do with marijuana, for any purpose. I am frankly skeptical of ALL claims that it is medically beneficial.
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You have leukemia. Cannabis (high THC high CBD) cures leukemia. If you don’t want to be helped by it I don’t believe any one will force you.
As to medical claims. You might like these NIH links:
http://search.nih.gov/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&affiliate=nih&query=endocannabinoids
http://search.nih.gov/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&sc=0&query=endocannabinoids+leukemia&m=&affiliate=nih&commit=Search
You might want to get up to speed on the body’s endocannabinoid system. There are more receptors for that system in your body than any other receptor type.
Anyway lots of papers at the links. I hope you will start in debunking them at once. Because sound opposition is a very good thing. You might like to start with “ceramide cancer THC” and get that out of the way first. Lots of references to that on the general ‘net. Try Google or your favorite search engine.
Sound scepticism is the best thing science has going for it. I look forward to you providing some.
Chad,
Here is a paper for you: http://www.jci.org/articles/view/37948
Abstract: Autophagy can promote cell survival or cell death, but the molecular basis underlying its dual role in cancer remains obscure. Here we demonstrate that Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the main active component of marijuana, induces human glioma cell death through stimulation of autophagy. Our data indicate that THC induced ceramide accumulation and eukaryotic translation initiation factor 2α (eIF2α) phosphorylation and thereby activated an ER stress response that promoted autophagy via tribbles homolog 3–dependent (TRB3-dependent) inhibition of the Akt/mammalian target of rapamycin complex 1 (mTORC1) axis. We also showed that autophagy is upstream of apoptosis in cannabinoid-induced human and mouse cancer cell death and that activation of this pathway was necessary for the antitumor action of cannabinoids in vivo. These findings describe a mechanism by which THC can promote the autophagic death of human and mouse cancer cells and provide evidence that cannabinoid administration may be an effective therapeutic strategy for targeting human cancers.
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Now of course that is only mouse studies. And it may have nothing to do with humans.
Biochemist Dennis hill did the experiment on himself and explains the results (he had stage 4 prostrate cancer – stage 4 means it spread through his body) here: http://classicalvalues.com/2014/01/how-cannabis-cures-cancer/
He goes into THC and ceramide in more layman’s language than the above paper.
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The wider psychological implications are evident. People well aware of the manipulations they are being fed on AGW have no trouble buying in to the manipulations supporting Prohibition. A good starting point is to assume everything you know is wrong and recheck everything. Arduous? Yes. Worthwhile? Extremely. Difficult? One of the hardest things you will ever do because after age 25 when the body’s endocannabinoid production declines the brain/mind loses plasticity. For most people. But there are, like in any statistical distribution, outliers. I like to think I’m one of those. I’m 69. A very good year.
But how do they think a lawsuit can “bring National Review to its knees” when everyone knows that the vast right wing conspiracy is funded by deep pocket special interests? Even if NR lost the case, the billionaire Koch Brothers (cue dramatic organ music) could just step in and write the journal a check to cover any conceivable award. Does Linker imagine that Mann is going to win a ten or eleven-figure judgment against NR because one of their independent freelance contributors used hyperbole in describing Mann?
Of course maybe the Left doesn’t believe everything they say about the VRWC and in fact Linker believes even a $100,000 libel judgment would put a serious crimp in NR‘s ability to operate. In which case he should probably lead with that.
Not knowing whether “bearg” was a typo or a new term for some form of facial hair that I was not familiar with, I googled the term.
It’s interesting that the only definition I could find was “a castrated boar”
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bearg
I wouldn’t laugh at a dollar award by a sympathetic jury as some sort of booby prize; in federal court that dollar award means the petitioner’s lawyers get all their attorney fees paid by the National Review.