Michael Mancini was fined for blowing his nose while driving in London. Authorities claim he violated a law requiring him to be in control of his vehicle at all times. Sometimes legislating common sense doesn’t work as well as planned.
UK
Sometimes, when two regulations love each other very much, they get together and have little baby regulations. This is happening right now in Britain.
Full body scans are coming into use at many UK airport security checkpoints. Since screeners essentially see all passengers naked, the scans run afoul of child protection laws for passengers under 18.
The thought of pedophiles using the body scan images for their own sick ends is decidedly creepy. So the British government is taking steps to keep that from happening. Those steps include:
-Exempting everyone under 18 from being scanned. This defeats the security purpose of the scanners.
-Moving the scanner operators out of sight of passengers. That keeps the scanner images anonymous. But it doesn’t prevent perverts from seeing things they shouldn’t.
There is an easier way: don’t do full body scans. They do more to make people feel safe than to actually make them safe.
Reinforced cockpit doors, proactive passengers, and checked baggage screening are much more effective. And they’re already in place. Besides, terrorist attacks are rare. Full-body scans are an over-reaction. The resources spent on them have other, better uses.
During the G20 summit something like 40,000 plus protesters slated to descend upon London. Of that number, there is a small but growing and prodigiously brave group of idealists planning to throw their message and bodies into the breach. They are not there to demand government action against climate change, stricter business regulations, nor are they requesting money for the poor, hungry, or infirm. Their message is simple, but profound: Get out of our way.
This small band, comprised mostly of university students and recent graduates wants only to communicate the message to the world that capitalism is not to blame for the current economic crisis. In fact, they want people to know that interventionist policies are what got us into the mess in the first place and increased state intervention is unacceptable.
“The point must be made, essentially, that we do not live in a Capitalist system and certainly not a Laissez-Faire Capitalist system. The sectors of the economy that failed were the most regulated sectors of a ‘mixed-economy’,” said Rory Hodgson, University of York student and protest organizer.
Perhaps because those still in university and recent graduates have the most to lose that they are willing to risk physical harm in order to oppose the ever-tightening choke-hold the government has on the economy. But we should all be as worried about the future and willing to fight the increasing anti-capitalist sentiment and the vulnerability of individual liberty.
Your hosts Richard Morrison and Cord Blomquist welcome back special guest co-host Michelle Minton for Episode 35 of the LibertyWeek podcast. We begin with a celebration of human achievement and a peek into the realm of secret government documents. We then investigate how the White House is going to waste another $1 trillion of your money and how the British beer tax has managed to kill off 20,000 jobs. Finally we focus on the history of the scandal-addled Sen. Dodd of Connecticut and the future of U.S. Olympic glory.
BONUS BOOK FEATURE: We congratulate our good friend Steve Milloy on the publication of his new book, Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Ruin Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them. The book is a one-of-a-kind, comprehensive takedown of the entire environmental movement that will open your eyes to a looming threat to our economy, our civil liberties, and the entire American way of life.
A different take on possible effects of lawmakers’ rabble-rousing on TARP bonuses. Jeffrey Goldfarb at breakingviews.com says that driving out talented financial executives in the U.S. may be a boon for foreign-owned banks in the U.S. in getting new talent, but most especially for London and its global financial powerhouse, the City. Sarbanes-Oxley already caused financial institutions to flee New York for London. The 90 percent tax rate on TARP bonuses might provide a new impetus for savvy executives to relocate.
Still, with London house prices down, and no “Keep Out” signs for foreigners – think TARP-related Visa restrictions in the U.S. – many of those who can choose their continents may soon be thinking the City is something of a safe haven with better job opportunities, as long as the UK doesn’t wind up succumbing to mob rule too.
Maybe London could adapt the Statue of Liberty’s quotation to: “Give me your tired, your rich, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
“A Matter of Fact,” a new report from the Center for American Progress Action Fund, challenges the Washington Post to correct George F. Will’s “Dark Green Doomsayers” column, published February 15th. The report, by CAP’s Brad Johnson, asserts that George Will made three factual errors:
- Current “global sea ice levels” equals those of 1979
- There hasn’t been warming in “more than a decade”
- “Global cooling” joins a list of well publicized “planetary calamities that did not happen.”
Will’s column is not perfect, and Johnson raises some valid questions. For the sake of intellectual honesty, however, Johnson should broaden his fact-checking scope to incorporate misstatements on both sides of the global warming debate—including his own fudging of the truth.
But first, let’s address CAP’s critique of Will’s column.
Error 1. It seems that Will is guilty of delay. On the one hand, the University of Illinois Arctic Climate Research Center, the source of his assertion that global sea ice levels haven’t changed in 30 years, publically disavowed Will’s claims. On the other, ACRC reported on January 1, 2009 that global sea ice levels were “near or slightly lower than those observed in late 1979.” Will’s column appeared 45 days later, during which the discrepancy between current levels and 1979 levels grew by 8%. If anything, this demonstrates the perils of reporting on an ever-changing global climate.
Error 2. CAP and George Will have it wrong. Will wrote that it hasn’t warmed in “more than a decade,” while Brad Johnson claims that “global warming is continuing.” According to data from the University of Alabama in Huntsville, compiled by NASA’s Dr. Roy Spenser, there has been no statistical warming of lower atmosphere temperatures over the past seven years, despite the fact that global greenhouse gas emissions have increased.
Error 3. Will is right and CAP is wrong. Johnson notes that there was never a “scientific consensus” on global cooling, but that’s not what Will claimed. He only wrote that some scientists and media outlets warned of global cooling, which is true.
I am an unabashed global warming “denier,” but I nonetheless applaud Brad Johnson’s efforts. On the topic of global warming, misrepresentations of the science abound, and we in the energy/global warming policy community should root them out and expose them with vigilance.
With that in mind, I have a “Matter of Fact” list of my own:
Fiction: Al Gore claims in his documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, that “there is one relationship that is more powerful than all the others and it is this. When there is more carbon dioxide, the temperature gets warmer ….”
Fact: It hasn’t warmed in 7 years, despite a steady increase in global greenhouse gas emissions. Where’s the Warming, Al?
Fiction: Dr. James Hansen, ultra-alarmist, has suggested that a 2-3 degree warming would cause sea levels to rise by 80 feet. Hansen then lowered his estimation to 20 feet. His most recent estimate is “at least” 3.2 to 6.4 feet.
Fact: The preeminent body of climate scientists, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, suggests that a 2-3 degree warming would cause sea levels to rise 7 to 23 inches.
Fiction: In 1986, Dr. John P Holdren, President Barack Obama’s choice to become White House Science Adviser, is quoted as having said that global warming could cause the deaths of 1 billion human beings by 2020. During his confirmation hearing two weeks ago, Holdren was questioned about this claim, and said that “it is still possible.”
Fact: To fulfill Holdren’s alarmist warning, climate change would have to kill twice as many people as died in World War Two, each year, for the next ten years.
Fiction: The Center for American Progress’s Brad Johnson last summer reported that the death of two Boy Scouts in Iowa was “evidence” of “the consequences” of global warming.
Fact: As recently noted on Roger Pielke Jr’s Prometheus, the Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters cautions that “justifying the upward trend in hydro-meteorological disaster occurrence and impacts essentially through climate change would be misleading.”
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