Political Gain and Economic Self-interest

Power Line’s John Hinderaker shares some scientific findings on the issue of climate change.

We use the Epica-Vostok Ice core dataset, a single proxy dataset for temperature data sampled every century for the last 800,000 years or so and ask the question “Is a 1.1°C temperature rise in a century unusual in this dataset?”

Usually, the Earth is caught in a deep freeze. Happily, we are living in an inter-glacial warm period. In fact, the Earth has been warmer than it is today the overwhelming majority of the time since the end of the last Ice Age 20,000 years ago.

The overwhelming weight of scientific evidence refutes the global warming catastrophism that is relentlessly propagated for reasons of political gain and economic self-interest.

It would appear another Ice Age is the greater risk. Charts and citations in the original.

Travel Blogging V

Today is what on an ocean cruise is called a “sea day,” that is a day spent cruising from place to place. One not spent in tied up alongside in port. We are sailing upriver on the Columbia, and as I write this have just passed through the locks at John Day dam. We shared the lock with a pleasure craft - a cabin cruiser of maybe 30’.

Locks are a feature of river cruising, we’ll pass through eight on our way upstream to the Lewiston/Clarkston area - four each on the Columbia and Snake rivers. The most locks I’ve ever seen on one crossing is on the Rhine-Main Canal linking the Rhine and Danube rivers, we’ve passed through those on several trips from Amsterdam to Vienna.

We are having a lazy day, I slept in. The scenery continues to be excellent. Right now we are sailing beside a quite large mountain that is a mile or so north of the river. There are wind turbines atop it, as usual not turning. We will look back and marvel at how dumb those were.

I believe our next stop is near Pendleton. We see much evidence of long-ago vulcanism, outcrops of basaltic rock. This region continues to be a place where volcanoes lie hopefully dormant, but some clearly are not so quiet - Mt. St. Helens, for example. 

The weather continues with overcast skies, the norm in this region. Atypically no rain so far, I expect some and will be surprised if the cruise ends having experienced no rain. Californians drive up here in summer and marvel at how green it is, compared to CA. Many don’t realize it has to rain a lot for that to occur.

Research: Leaving CA Pays Off

Hot Air reports research findings that show people who leave California for elsewhere end up being better off financially - more likely to become homeowners - than those who stayed behind. This is no surprise but also no small thing.

I don’t remember sharing our personal example of moving our residence-of-record from CA to WY. We saved enough in state income and sales taxes to pay for a nice overseas trip every year.

WY has NO state income tax and the sales tax is 4-5% instead of 8-10% in CA. The big savings is not paying state income tax.

The DrsC can afford to live in CA but we are better off financially living elsewhere. Plus government policy in WY more closely aligns with our conservative values. If WY isn’t the most Republican state it is certainly among those few in contention for that honor.

Alberta to Vote on Independence?

Gambling site Polymarket has the odds of a referendum for independence in Alberta this year at 60%. Stephen Green posting at Instapundit has the story. 

Things could get spicy in the oil patch up north!

Travel Blogging IV

Greetings from The Dalles, OR. Weather overcast and cool but no rain. Town is tired and past its prime. It reminds me of a lot of towns which the Twenty-first Century has passed by, Oroville in particular. 

Both towns experienced a boom while their dam was built, and then languished when the high-wage construction workers moved on to the next site. Too many residents live in far-from-new mobile homes.

The town name means rapids which once existed on the Columbia River at this location, before dams and navigation became prevalent. The terrain hereabouts features large blocks of basalt and fairly could be called semi-harsh.

We’ve left most of the coastal conifer forest behind. Locals call this a semi-desert as it only gets a CA amount of rainfall, on the order of 14” a year.  Still, like CA at this time of year, it is green as anything and the fruit trees are blooming.

We’re eating too much and taking it easy, the crew is spoiling us rotten. The scenery on this river cruise is a lot better than on the Mississippi, not so flat. On Old Man River mostly all you see is a wall of trees on both banks and the terrain behind the trees rarely raises high enough to be visible.

Escape from LA

Yet another milestone in the ‘decline and fall’ of California, this time reported on X by long-time Los Angeles independent TV station KTLA, Channel 5. 

LEAVING LOS ANGELES: L.A. County saw the largest decline of any county in the United States in 2025, according to new census data.

It’s no record to be ‘proud’ of. Snake Plissken was unavailable for comment. 

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I watched the Spade Cooley and Ina Ray Hutton shows on Ch. 5 in the 1950s. It was one of only three channels we could get some 50+ miles NW of LA. 

Like much live TV of the era, in retrospect it was embarrassingly poor stuff in snowy B&W but we watched it anyway. The Ch. 5 broadcasts of the New Years Day Rose Parade were better than the networks’ offerings.

Travel Blogging III

Good morning from Kalama, Washington. It is a river-port town almost half way from Astoria ton Portland, heading upriver. Weather sunny after rain was predicted. Rain now said to arrive tonight, we’ll see.  

From here most pax will visit Mt. St. Helens volcano by bus, and will be gone most of the afternoon. From ship to buses was a long walk but we’ve old legs and found the prospect daunting so we’ll stay aboard. We often do this, and have the ship to ourselves while most pax are ashore.

The passengers (pax) of this ship are like the residents of our winter 55+ village in NV, looking at them you’d imagine nearly all oldsters are long married, at least somewhat happily. I doubt the statistics show that to be the case for the population at large. Both 55+ developments and cruises tend to be favored by the long married, quite possibly because such folk are more financially able to afford them.

You have to wonder what the older divorced and never married do for entertainment and where they choose to live in retirement. I’d guess they may not live as long - on average - as the married. Those of our friends who divorced and remarried tend to have less money to live on than those long together. Two can truly live more cheaply than one on a per capita basis, and with any luck they have two retirements coming in.

Travel Blogging II

Good morning from chilly, overcast Astoria, on the cool, damp north Pacific Coast. Something West Coast natives seldom admit: coastal skies are often overcast, or even foggy, in the morning. It often, but not always, “burns off” by noon or one pm.

When I lived in the Bay Area for several years, I would joke that every weather forecast would include the following. “Night and morning low clouds clearing locally inland in the afternoon, highs in the 50-60s, lows in the 40s.” That was the forecast something like 300 days a year.

It is a damp cold. A well-dressed gentleman in post-war San Francisco wore a topcoat over his suit and tie, and wasn’t too warm. Mark Twain joked the coldest day he ever experienced was a breezy summer (!) day in SF.

Astoria is at the mouth of the Columbia River, on the coast. Ocean-going ships sail upriver as far as Portland, which is a fair distance.

We’ve sailed down here and beginning tonight will commence sailing upstream to the juncture with the Snake River, which we will then take upstream to the neighboring cities of Lewiston ID and Clarkston WA, named for the famous explorers. We will follow their route home as far as Lewiston before disembarking and heading for our home.

Later … We took a bus tour of Astoria in the late morning, learned this area was settled by Scandinavians of all sorts, with emphasis on Finns. The guide joked who but Scandinavians would find a cloudy, cold place with million of conifers and lots of fish so entirely homelike. They looked around and said we know how to make this place work for us and stayed. Nordics predominate down this coast until nearly SF. From SF south the ethnicity of watermen switches to an Italian and Portuguese mix. 

When as a grad student I lived for 3 years in Eugene OR, I shared a house with a couple of other  B-school grad students. One of these - Olson from MN - thought the lack of snow was lovely; from CA, I hated the incessant drizzle. Same northwest weather - seen from two perspectives - reaching opposite conclusions. Life is like that.

Travel Blogging I

Greetings from Portland, Oregon. Weather here is atypically beautiful, flight here from St. George UT uneventful. TSA in St. George fully operational w/o aid of ICE, essentially zero wait time.

We overnight in an Embassy Suites and head out tomorrow a.m. early. We will begin with a visit to Multnomah Falls, followed by boarding our river boat, arriving in time for lunch. If we can post pix, they will appear at the other DrC’s blog.

Tomorrow afternoon we cruise west toward the coast, destination Astoria. That is a stretch of the Columbia I have not seen. Anticipation for an enjoyable week aboard is widely shared by pax we met at tonight’s cocktail party.

Update

We go traveling tomorrow and will be away from the desktop for over a week. Thus, the usual Friday Snark and Saturday Snark will be missing this weekend. With luck they may return next weekend. 

In the meantime - via the IPad - expect some “travel blogging” of our river cruise up the Columbia and Snake rivers. We’ve traveled with American Cruise Line before, on the Mississippi, and enjoyed that very much. We expect no less from the next week or so. We have fingers crossed about TSA delays on tomorrow’s flight to Portland.

Review: Young Sherlock

The DrsC recently semi-binge watched the first season of Young Sherlock on Amazon Prime Video streaming. Endeavoring to avoid spoilers for this fresh approach to the classic Conan Doyle character, let me say upfront we liked it and look forward to a second season.

The characters are interesting, multidimensional, and at least three hark back to the Doyle original. The Brits do this sort of historical stuff so well, it’s a joy to just take in the period costuming and scenery. In this telling, Holmes has a different sister, not Enola, but Beatrice. Both his parents have major roles in this first season. It isn’t perfect, but very nice nonetheless. 

Full disclosure: I am a lifelong Sherlockian, one of the first adult books I owned (and still have) is a well-thumbed, doorstop-sized Complete Works of Sherlock Holmes, by Arthur Conan Doyle. Jeremy Brett did my favorite TV version of the famously quirky adult Holmes.

More Good News

The International Olympic Committee has banned biological males from competing in women’s events in the Olympics. The ruling is effective with the 2028 summer games in Los Angeles. Politico has the story.

Score it as another battle won in the war against woke; this one on the international level no less.

Why Homelessness

At COTTonLINE we don’t often raise the topic of homelessness, because we are fortunate to live far from where it mostly occurs - in cities. Unlike urban folk, we don’t live with the squalor and hassle day in and day out.

Writing at City Journal, Heather Mac Donald gets quite specific about who is homeless, who makes a living off of ‘helping’ them, and what false ‘facts’ our society has to believe to let it persist. If the issue is relevant to you, her column debunks current programs, clarifies where we are, and condemns it.

Preserving public safety, keeping streets clean and passable, building and maintaining transportation infrastructure, safeguarding property—those functions are embarrassingly bourgeois and repressive in the eyes of every nonconservative politician and bureaucrat. Today, progressive governance prioritizes the antisocial, the deviant, and the alienated over the law-abiding majority, which is increasingly cast in the role of a revenue source rather than a constituency to be served.

As long as the “woke” control city governments and persist in protecting the right to public insanity and addiction, your only practical option is to avoid cities as much as possible.  

I did learn one useful acronym from Mac Donald’s column, it is MICAs,  a label for Mentally Ill, Chemical Abusers. Most of the homeless are exactly that and should be receiving involuntary inpatient treatment and housing, out of the public eye.

Madam Minister

If you had asked me 20 years ago if I would live to see the day an Arab nation had a woman as Minister of State, the equivalent of our SecState, my answer would have been an unequivocal "NO." I expect most educated Westerners would have said the same. We'd have been wrong, too.

The United Arab Emirates now has a woman as Minister of State, one Lana Nusseibeh. Fox News' Bret Baier interviewed her earlier this afternoon for his Special Report, which the DrsC were fortunate to watch. Red State also has a column about her visit with Baier.

Minister Nusseibeh was beyond impressive, she is well-informed, has excellent English, and is a forceful spokeswoman who speaks with authority and abundant good sense. Fox has YouTube video of her segment here. A web search reveals she is by birth a Palestinian, educated in the U.K. 

Obama Kicked the Can ...

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air has read Peter Baker’s NYT column so you don’t have to fight their paywall. He relays Baker’s reporting of an interaction between President Obama and his director of national intelligence, Dennis Blair. Morrissey quotes Baker as follows.

“When it came my turn to speak at this meeting,” Mr. Blair recalled, “I said, ‘Mr. President, you really just have one decision to make. It’s really important, but it’s only a single one. Are you going to tolerate Iran having a nuclear weapon or not?’” If no, he said, then that would prompt certain espionage and military options. If yes, then it would require ways to contain and deter a nuclear-armed Iran.

Obama hated this contribution, and chewed out Blair. He later excluded Blair from subsequent meetings, and eventually fired him. 

Spineless Obama had a third way to deal with Iran which resulted in his JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action) in which Iran agreed to delay the development of nukes. It was "kick the can down the road," stall for time and leave the by-then-much-worse problem for a later president to solve. Trump is that "later president" and now is the time.

I've seen the claim Obama was our worst president, I am inclined to think that is a bit too negative. He might be among the worst five, which would also include Carter and Biden.

Detention Required Pending Deportation

Federal judges especially in Minnesota have been granting bail to persons picked up for deportation as illegal aliens. Politico reports the Eighth Circuit court just ruled against this loophole.

The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 Wednesday that the administration had properly determined that federal law doesn’t only allow — but requires — ICE to detain the vast majority of people it is seeking to deport.

This is an excellent finding, one unlikely to be overturned, or even heard, by SCOTUS. This is a win for American citizens and legal immigrants.

It is vital that we undo much of the vileness Biden open borders created. Unlike administrative decisions which can be undone by the next president, legal precedents like this one tend to be long-lived. 

Also, people in detention are much more likely to accept voluntary deportation as a “get out of jail free card.” Every illegal alien we can send home is a message to others in that country that making the trip isn’t worth it. 

PopSci Goes There

A quick web search shows I’ve been writing about the problematic future of Artificial Intelligence for at least 10 years. Instapundit links to a Popular Science article tying AI to the "Butlerian jihad." 

That is a term from Frank Herbert’s doorstop novel Dune. In that future history, at some point in our not-too-distant future we concluded that thinking machines were a threat to human existence and banned them entirely, the jihad referring to the Luddite rebellion this required.

If intelligence is what makes people special, and we develop machines with intelligence, how do they not have human rights? Does turning off the power become 'murder' or merely 'anesthesia?' And do they have a say in whether or not power can be turned off? 

We are wading out into an unexplored swamp and we have no idea if we can survive the AI experience, or even profit from it. 

Spring Has Sprung

I allowed the Spring Equinox to pass yesterday without notice, my apologies. Spring is officially here. A couple of days ago I switched the HVAC system from heat to cool, where it will remain until early November. 

Of course on the Mojave we've been in shirtsleeve weather for some weeks, while 500+ miles north at our Wyoming home it won't be really spring for another month. A lot of places have had a tough winter, our NV place is truly a haven from all that. 

Days are noticeably longer now, I can fire up the BBQ grill w/o turning on outside lights. We've seen outdoor temps in the low 90s already, very comfortable with no humidity.

Choosing “Poorly”

I am twice a graduate of San Jose State University (B.S., M.S.), both milestones passed many decades ago. I enjoyed my years there, I do not like seeing it get this kind of negative publicity. 

Apparently its current leadership has decided the risible “men in women’s athletics” issue is the hill they’ve elected to die on. In the fabled words of the ancient Templar, they “chose poorly” (classical reference) 

Sadly they won’t get the instantaneous comeuppance he witnessed in “the Valley of the Crescent Moon,” more’s the pity. I do like SecEd McMahon’s funding threat, and I will not contribute to the alumni fund.

Back to Nomadic Herding

Yesterday afternoon President Trump posted the following on X. As Ukraine discovered, power plants are in known locations and hard to defend.

If Iran doesn't FULLY OPEN, WITHOUT THREAT, the Strait of Hormuz, within 48 HOURS from this exact point in time, the United States of America will hit and obliterate their various POWER PLANTS, STARTING WITH THE BIGGEST ONE FIRST! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP

Iran probably has backup generators for hospitals and key government buildings, if fuel can be provided. 

Without electric power civilization disappears and society reverts to prior norms. Water and sewage don't move, refrigeration ends, heat comes from fire, or sunlight, most homes become little more than artificial caves. Gas stations can't pump fuel, traffic lights don't work, etc. Phones and tablets can't be charged.

Imagine digging a pit privy in your yard, if you have a yard. Carrying water from God-knows-where, cooking over an open fire, and scrounging for light after sunset. Apartment dwellers can't even do this much.

Interestingly, the rural poor will probably be more able to cope than more fortunate urbanites. They are accustomed to living around dung piles and have animals to kill and eat.