Mar
14
2024

Funny Because True

Also of note:

  • Just another stop on the Road to Serfdom. Bjørn Lomborg in the WSJ claims that ‘Follow the Science’ Leads to Ruin.

    More than one million people die in traffic accidents globally each year. Overnight, governments could solve this entirely man-made problem by reducing speed limits everywhere to 3 miles an hour, but we’d laugh any politician who suggested it out of office. It would be absurd to focus solely on lives saved if the cost would be economic and societal destruction. Yet politicians widely employ the same one-sided reasoning in the name of fighting climate change. It’s simply a matter, they say, of “following the science.”

    That assertion lets politicians obscure—and avoid responsibility for—lopsided climate-policy trade-offs. Lawmakers contend that because climate change is real and man-made, it is only scientifically logical that the world end fossil-fuel use. Any downsides are a mathematical inevitability rather than something politicians chose to inflict on constituents.

    Sobering factoid: "Add the billions of people dependent on fossil-fuel heating in the winter, along with our dependence on fossil fuels for steel, cement, plastics and transportation, and it is no wonder that one recent estimate by economist Neil Record showed an abrupt end to fossil fuel use would cause six billion deaths in less than a year."

  • "Follow the science" Part II. Ronald Bailery looks at Official Government Figures, and finds: CDC Vastly Overestimated U.S. Maternal Death Rates, Says New Study.

    "U.S. maternal deaths keep rising," reported NPR last year. PBS similarly observed, "U.S. maternal deaths more than doubled over 20 years." CNN also reported, "US maternal death rate rose sharply in 2021, [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)] data shows, and experts worry the problem is getting worse."

    The increase in maternal deaths is a statistical illusion argues a new study just published in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology. "Our study, which identified maternal deaths using a definition-based methodology, shows stable rates of maternal mortality in the United States between the 1999–2002 and 2018–2021 periods," conclude the authors. That's wonderful news but what accounts for the headlines that cited a steep rise in maternal deaths?

    It was just this one weird little check box, it turns out. Click over for the details.

  • Another bit of bad advice: trust Wikipedia. Bryan Caplan looks at a clear instance of Wikibias: The Noble Truth of the Model Minority.

    I recently stumbled upon Wikipedia’s article on the “Model minority myth.” Which instantly raises the question: “What precisely is mythical about this ‘myth’?”

    The article’s bias is so astounding that I shall critique it line-by-line.

    The model minority myth is a sociological phenomenon that refers to the stereotype of certain minority groups, particularly Asian Americans, as successful, and well-adjusted, as demonstrating that there is little or no need for social or economic assistance for the same or different minority groups.

    “Demonstrating” is too strong. How about “raising strong doubts about the need for social or economic assistance”?

    The model minority stereotype emerged in the United States during the Cold War in the 1950s and was first explicitly used as a term in the 1960s during the Civil Rights Movement as an antithesis to African American claims of racial oppression and has perpetuated notions that other minority groups can achieve the same success through hard work…

    Why shouldn’t the existence of successful minorities “perpetuate notions that other minority groups can achieve the same success through hard work”? It’s a timeless truth, so shouldn’t it be “perpetuated”?

    Clicking around seems to show that the article was "editied" (created) by a single student at Rice University as part of a "Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment."

  • Following the orders of the teachers union? Mitchell Scacchi takes a look at some Granite State legislative mischief: House takes up two bills that would yank Education Freedom Accounts from kids.

    This week, two bills that would take Education Freedom Accounts (EFAs) away from children enrolled in the program will be considered in the state House of Representatives.

    We previously summarized a group of bills that would heavily regulate the EFA program to the point that its functionality and growth would be severely curtailed. The House will vote on two of those bills on Thursday. They are House Bills 1512 and 1594.

    HB 1512 would limit funding for the EFA program from the Education Trust Fund to so-called budgeted amounts. Specifically, the bill states that Education Trust Fund payments for EFAs “shall not exceed $19,800,000 for fiscal year 2024, and in subsequent fiscal years shall not exceed the amounts appropriated for such purpose in the biennial state operating budget.”

    Good news: HB 1512 appears to have been "indefinitely postponed", which I think means "killed". It was a squeaker, though, 187-185. HB1594, which would have required families to financially qualify every year for an EFA was also narrowly killed.

  • But how about getting rid of this old-style anti-Catholic bigotry? At City Journal, Tim Rosenberger and Nicole Stelle Garnett write about New Hampshire’s Religious Freedom Revival.

    In the aftermath of the Civil War, some voters and elected officials feared that rising Catholic immigration would transform American Catholicism from a small minority faith, with adherents largely confined to Maryland and Louisiana, into a nationwide political force. Nativists, seeking to “Americanize” Catholics, tried to amend the U.S. Constitution to mandate nationwide free public schools and ban public funding of faith-based schools. Supporters of the amendment sought to undermine Catholic, or what they called “sectarian,” schools. The amendment, proposed in a speech by President Ulysses S. Grant and championed by Congressman James Blaine, quickly passed the House before failing narrowly in the Senate.

    The amendment’s supporters then turned their sights away from Washington and toward the states. They began a concerted campaign to ensure that Catholic institutions, particularly nascent Catholic schools, would never receive public funding, describing these institutions (and, to a lesser extent, those associated with other non-Protestant religions) as “sectarian.” Their efforts culminated in several state laws that explicitly disfavored faith-based organizations, including schools, because of those institutions’ “sectarian” nature. Some states included a prohibition on the funding of “sectarian” schools and other institutions as a condition of entering the union; many others did so voluntarily. All told, 38 states adopted a Blaine Amendment in their constitutions, and enacted other religious-institution funding bans in the same spirit.

    A recent series of Supreme Court rulings have deemed Blaine Amendments, and states’ efforts to penalize faith-based organizations, unconstitutional. Yet many of these historic anti-Catholic laws remain on the books. Too few states have taken appropriate action to ensure that their laws and public programs eliminate the vestiges of our nation’s history of anti-Catholicism and conform to the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Free Exercise Clause.

    One state, however, has proved an exception: New Hampshire. The Granite State’s legislature recently enacted legislation that removed the words “sectarian” and “nonsectarian” from its lawbooks and, in so doing, largely eliminated laws that unconstitutionally discriminate against religious organizations. By removing the requirement that services provided in public programs be “nonsectarian,” New Hampshire has broadened the opportunities for the state to cooperate with faith-based organizations and brought its law in line with current First Amendment doctrine. These efforts signal the state’s desire to honor the Free Exercise Clause and ensure that its laws conform to constitutional principles.

    Well, good for us. And bad for President Grant. That speech, linked above, is a pretty nasty bit of bigotry wrapped up in patriotic rhetoric.

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