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Kevin Williamson with an interesting take on the annual Davos gathering.
Convening to ring the alarm about global warming, our putative betters and would-be rulers gathered in Davos, Switzerland, filling the local general-aviation hangars with some 1,700 private jets. Taking an international commercial flight is one of the most carbon-intensive things the typical person does in his life, but if you’re comparing carbon footprints between your average traveler squeezed into coach on American and Davos Man quaffing Pol Roger in his cashmere-carpeted intercontinental air limousine, you’re talking Smurfette vs. Sasquatch. The Bombardier’s Global 6000 may be a technical marvel, but it still runs on antique plankton juice. The emissions from heating all those sprawling hotel suites in the Alps in winter surely makes baby polar bears weep bitter and copious baby-polar-bear tears.
The stories add up: Jeff Greene brings multiple nannies on his private jet to Davos, and the rest of the guys gathered to talk past each other about the plight of the working man scarf down couture hot-dogs that cost forty bucks. Bill Clinton makes the case for wealth-redistribution while sporting a $60,000 platinum Rolex. …
… These ridiculous hypocrites deserve every syllable of abuse that comes their way. I instinctively write off all denunciations of the wicked 1 percent coming from anybody unwilling to live at or below the median U.S. household income, which amounts to less than Clinton’s Rolex is worth. But there is something worse at work here than hypocrisy: stupidity. And stupidity is, like private-jet travel, shockingly expensive.
Our governments and our business and political elites are not mainly made up of stupid people. One of the shocking things about getting to know people in government, whether in elected office or in the bureaucracies, is that they are mostly bright, well-intentioned, and honest. Together they represent a sterling example of one of the most important and least understood of modern social paradoxes: None of us is as dumb as all of us. …
Davos hypocrisy gets a post from Jonathan Tobin.
Glenn Reynolds, of Instapundit fame, is fond of saying that he’ll believe there’s a climate change crisis when the people who say there’s a climate change crisis start acting like there’s a climate change crisis.
They haven’t started yet. The annual World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland, for instance, is on right now and its attendees arrived in an estimated 1,700 private jets. Among the attendees are Al Gore and Pharrell Williams. …
Daniel Hannan posts on Davos too.
This will be the last time anti-globalisers protest at the World Economic Forum in Davos. From 2016, the ministers, chief executives, columnists and assorted quangocrats who gather at the Swiss resort won’t see so much as a stray dreadlock: eco-protesters say the meeting is no longer worth picketing.
You can see why they might feel conflicted. Davos is a place where powerful people pick up consultancies and directorships and international posts. Left-wingers rightly resent this. What they see, in Marxist terms, is a gang of rentiers coming together to devise new means to live off the sweat of the workers. Against a background of dazzling, empty slopes – there are no skiers, because every chalet has been hired by an NGO or a multi-national – the few hatch schemes against the many.
Yet, when it comes to free markets, Davos Man is often on the same side as the Lefties. He derives most of his income, directly or indirectly, from state patronage. If he is in the private sector – and he is more likely to be a lobbyist, politician or bureaucrat than a businessman – he’ll be an instinctive monopolist, keen to persuade ministers and officials to raise barriers against his potential rivals. …
Speaking of people who are full of themselves, ESPN has a story on the flameout of Johnny Manziel.
The name on the card that night in May seemed to draw as much anxiety as it did excitement; Johnny Manziel, Quarterback, Texas A&M.
The former Heisman Trophy winner had been passed over 21 times, prompting a text from Manziel to then-Browns quarterbacks coach Dowell Loggains that he wanted to “wreck this league” in Cleveland. The words were actually more R-rated, but the implication was clear.
Twitter erupted at the selection. A Cleveland radio host cheered and screamed openly on air. Manziel gave his “money” sign as he walked onstage to greet Roger Goodell.
By season’s end, cheering had turned to frustration and anger as Manziel struggled mightily in almost six quarters as a starter, then was fined for being AWOL the final Saturday of the season. Offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan resigned with two years left on his contract. Loggains was fired. The Browns openly discussed Manziel’s viability as the franchise’s quarterback at a wide-ranging postseason staff meeting about the roster. And at least a couple of Manziel’s teammates were joking his text should have read “wreck this team.”
Now the Browns point to 2015 with a talented but misguided quarterback who must repair the wreckage done in his own locker room. …
… Opinions on Manziel are so varied — one league insider says “think Steve Young,” while ESPN analyst Merril Hoge says think “sixth-round talent” — that making judgments on his long-term value is still difficult.
Manziel still has support in the building, particularly on the business side because of the attention he commands in stadiums and merchandise lanes. Though the team said football decisions were made without influence or pressure, some coaches and many players had the clear perception the business and marketing end of the team favored the guy whose jerseys would sell.
Manziel led the NFL in jersey sales in July, before taking a training camp snap. His off-field star power is uncommon for most rookies: His super-friends include Drake and LeBron and Bieber.
“What Johnny has to understand is [if] he has another year like he just had, he’s not going to be famous anymore,” one NFL team exec said. “LeBron James is going to lose his number.”
Because Drudge has a sense of humor they linked to a one year old NY Times piece suggesting the possibility of the end of snow. We have a little bit of a long piece. Follow the link if you want more. If we read to much of the Times, you will loose IQ points.
OVER the next two weeks, hundreds of millions of people will watch Americans like Ted Ligety and Mikaela Shiffrin ski for gold on the downhill alpine course. Television crews will pan across epic vistas of the rugged Caucasus Mountains, draped with brilliant white ski slopes. What viewers might not see is the 16 million cubic feet of snow that was stored under insulated blankets last year to make sure those slopes remained white, or the hundreds of snow-making guns that have been running around the clock to keep them that way.
Officials canceled two Olympic test events last February in Sochi after several days of temperatures above 60 degrees Fahrenheit and a lack of snowfall had left ski trails bare and brown in spots. That situation led the climatologist Daniel Scott, a professor of global change and tourism at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, to analyze potential venues for future Winter Games. His thought was that with a rise in the average global temperature of more than 7 degrees Fahrenheit possible by 2100, there might not be that many snowy regions left in which to hold the Games. He concluded that of the 19 cities that have hosted the Winter Olympics, as few as 10 might be cold enough midcentury to host them again. By 2100, that number shrinks to 6. …
The pope is at it again. He wants people to put down their iPhones and start talking. Is there any cliche the man can resist? Telegraph, UK has the story.
Pope Francis is urging families to put aside their iPhones and Twitter feeds and learn to talk to one another again.
In his annual message for the church’s World Day of Communications, released Friday, the Pope said media can both help or hinder family communication – helping far-flung members stay in touch but also enabling others to avoid one another.
“The great challenge facing us today is to learn once again how