As always, please go to the links for the full articles/ op eds.
The $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (the
Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal) passed late Friday, and the President
and much of his Cabinet will be out in the country over the coming weeks
touting it. If you're curious how your state will benefit from the
act, go here.
As the COP26 climate summit meeting in Glasgow winds down, the Washington Post is reporting that some of the country-level climate data that's been provided so far is "flawed":
Across the world, many countries underreport their greenhouse gas emissions in their reports to the United Nations, a Washington Post investigation has found. An examination of 196 country reports reveals a giant gap between what nations declare their emissions to be versus the greenhouse gases they are sending into the atmosphere. The gap ranges from at least 8.5 billion to as high as 13.3 billion tons a year of underreported emissions — big enough to move the needle on how much the Earth will warm.
The plan to save the world from the worst of climate change is built on data. But the data the world is relying on is inaccurate.
“If we don’t know the state of emissions today, we don’t know whether we’re cutting emissions meaningfully and substantially,” said Rob Jackson, a professor at Stanford University and chair of the Global Carbon Project, a collaboration of hundreds of researchers. “The atmosphere ultimately is the truth. The atmosphere is what we care about. The concentration of methane and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is what’s affecting climate.”
So, as if the problem wasn't imminent and existential enough, the data that's been relied on is (pardon the expression) cooked. The Post's report is a long but essential read.
Will Bunch says Democrats have to fight the culture war Republicans engage in every election cycle, but one based on our values:
I know it’s Political Punditry 101 to decry the tribalism in modern American politics, but that feels ridiculous when the Republican tribe has made it clear it will never disarm. It’s much better for the Democrats to proclaim that they, too, are a tribe — and that its tribal values of expanding democracy and citizenship rights, valuing objective learning and knowledge, and addressing problems with actual governing are the truest American values. [snip]
These voters will turn out to fight for their culture — if they are called upon — because we’ve seen it happen before. Young folks and Black and brown voters turned out for Biden in 2020 less because his platform called for expanding child care and more because he pledged to fight for “the soul of America” against Trumpism. Democrats can bring these voters back next year by reminding decent, democracy-loving Americans that their party is the thin blue line between them and book burning, a culture of ignorance, and the end of free and fair elections. That would mean an end to watching the culture war from the sidelines. It means actually fighting to win — and to kill all the bastardization of real American values.
NFL Hall of Famers unloaded on conspiracy- curious crank Aaron Rodgers in their Fox pre- game broadcast Sunday:
“I’ll give Aaron Rodgers some advice,” [Terry] Bradshaw said. “It would have been nice if he had just come to the Naval Academy and learned how to be honest. Learned not to lie. Because that’s what you did, Aaron. You lied to everyone. I understand ‘immunized.’ What you were doing was taking stuff that would keep you from getting COVID-19. You got COVID-19. Ivermectin is a cattle dewormer. Sorry, folks, that’s what it is. We are a divided nation politically. We are a divided nation on the COVID-19, whether or not to take the vaccine. And unfortunately, we’ve got players that pretty much think only about themselves. And I’m extremely disappointed in the actions of Aaron Rodgers.”
(Bradshaw, by the way, stars in a new State Farm commericial that is scheduled to debut today. Rodgers and State Farm have a longstanding partnership.)
Michael Strahan, whose Fox platform is supplemented by a weekday seat at the Good Morning America table, chastised Rodgers for his verbal “workaround” by using the term “immunized.”
“In the grand scheme of things, it’s deceptive and it’s wrong,” Strahan said. “And the presentation that he did did not help.”
Strahan also pointed out that this was not an appropriate occasion to quote Martin Luther King, Jr., something Rodgers did on Friday to justify his refusal to comply with the mask rules for unvaccinated players.
[Jimmie] Johnson said that he’s “disappointed” by the play on words, and by Rodgers’s “selfish actions.” Long focused on the public health risks that Rodgers created, along with jeopardizing the team’s chance to secure the No. 1 seed in the NFC playoff field.
ICYMI, here are some of Rodgers' greatest hits.
Finally, a trip over to Infidel 753's link round-up is always recommended for the best collection of links to posts from around the Internet. Also, check out his essay "Enemy Economics," where he dissects a "conventional view of how economics is supposed to work" as presented by CNN. Nailed it.
