Here’s what a global warming “denier” said recently in the Wall Street Journal:

“The idea that ‘climate science is settled’ runs through today’s popular and policy discussions. Unfortunately, that claim is misguided. It has not only distorted our public and policy debates on issues related to energy, greenhouse-gas emissions and the environment. But it also has inhibited the scientific and policy discussions that we need to have about our climate future.”

Except he isn’t a “denier.” He’s President Obama’s former undersecretary for science, Steve Koonin. He’s also a former professor of theoretical physics and a provost at Cal Tech, and holds a Ph.D. from MIT. His piece is titled “Climate Science is Not Settled,” published Sept. 19 on the Wall Street Journal’s website.

Koonin explained that global warming exists, or doesn’t, depending entirely on the time period you’re referencing. Dinosaurs thrived on an Earth that was much hotter than it is now. (In fact, there were no polar ice caps at all for the great majority of Earth’s history.) Mammoths romped on a colder Earth. Romans ruled one a little warmer. Columbus sailed in one a little cooler. President Bill Clinton held office in one that was slightly warmer than it is now.

So next time people ask if you “believe in” global warming, answer yes — and no.

Notwithstanding Continue reading →

It’s the time of year when we ring in the New Year, wring out the old one and wipe up the dirty squeezings with a newspaper column.

Fit for what?

Aspen Skiing Co. conducted employee “fitness tests.” Employees are required to do (drum roll) 15 pushups. Resting between each pushup is allowed, and knees (but not the belly) can be on the floor.

Most employees passed. A spokeswoman announced, “I have definitely noticed the apprehension level dropping.”

Whew, what a relief. Now everyone hydrate! But some failed. That’s OK, it turns out. The “penalty” for failure is they get what Skico calls “an accommodation.”

It’s like modern schools, you see. The test is so easy that everyone passes, including the ones who somehow manage to fail.

The bosses of the bus go cut, cut, cut

Citing money shortages, the bus bosses Continue reading →

Antarctica is the latest adventure-travel hotspot, says a brochure in the mail.

You put on skis and walk 700 miles up, down and across the frozen wasteland, dragging a 200-pound sled. You’d better like frozen food.

You do this for 60 days. The price is $65,000, or about $1,100 a day.

Who would want to do that?

Here’s who: Some moneyed people have it all, except one thing. The one thing missing from their lives, they think, is authenticity. Stated another way, they think their lives are great, but not “real.”

Aspen, I’m talking to you.

These people were taught Continue reading →

Comedian and commentator Bill Maher donated $1 million to the Obama campaign in 2012. He made that kind of money in the art of mockery.

He’s good at his job. The more sacred the subject, the more biting is his mockery. He reserves some of his best for religion. In that, his liberal fans delight (as do I, occasionally).

So you might think he’d be welcomed by the liberals at Berkeley, where he has been invited to give the commencement address next spring. You’d think wrong.

Berkeley liberals are demanding that he be uninvited because, you see, the target of Maher’s most recent religion-mocking routine was Islam.

The judgment of the Berkeley liberals (who are not Muslims but claim to speak for them) is that Muslims are offended. And so Maher’s commencement invitation must be revoked. He must be silenced. He must be “shut up.”

In the old days Continue reading →

When I was 16, I got in an ugly shouting match with my father and he punched me in the face.

He stood in front of me, fists raised, awaiting my counterpunch. But his good fathering of me over the previous 16 years overcame the bad moment between us. I didn’t punch back. I instead squared my still-narrow shoulders to him, looked him in the eye and said quietly, “Don’t ever hit me again.”

And he never did.

My father was a good man, whom I loved until and after he died 15 years ago, who’d done a bad thing that day. I called him on it, as he’d taught me to, and we both became better people for it. I too have done bad things with those I love, they too have called me on it, and we too have become better people for it.

Such is the nature of humans and power. Power does not make a person bad, but it enables them to do bad things if they aren’t called out for it. The Quakers had an expression for this: “Speak truth to power.”

America was born because wise and courageous people spoke truth to power, and America survived because they established a system to ensure that people could always speak truth to power.

People spoke truth to power in demanding Continue reading →

Nearly a third of Democrats believe in astrology. This and other evidence presented in my recent column suggest that they are anti-science.

Maybe they’ve also become anti-intelligence.

Remember when Democrats derided George W. Bush as a man too stupid to perform his job? To prove it, Dems obtained his college records and military IQ tests.

Those documents disappointed them. Bush had so-so grades but at excellent schools (Yale and an MBA from Harvard) and an IQ that was in the 92nd percentile.

In short, the Dems’ self-congratulatory hypothesis, that anyone with whom they disagree must be stupid, didn’t pan out.

Dems still had a comforting corollary hypothesis that anyone with whom they agree is real smart. The guy with whom they agreed back then was Dem presidential candidate John Kerry.

But Kerry disappointed them. His college records and military IQ tests showed that he had worse grades and a lower IQ than Bush.

Kerry got partial credit, however. He was clever enough to Continue reading →

The Matterhorn was first summitted in 1865 by a team of seven climbers tied together on a single rope. Only three came back alive.

During their descent, the story goes, one fell off the 3,500-foot north face. His weight on the rope dragged others off the face with him. Four dangled in the abyss while three clung to the rock. Then the rope snapped between the dangling four and the clinging three.

We’ll never know what really happened. In those days, their hemp ropes sometimes did snap. And sometimes they were cut.

Since then, the mountain has claimed another 500 lives. It kills a dozen a year. During the short climbing season, it kills more than one a week. On any given day, there’s a fair chance that a climber on your route will fall to his death. It’s the deadliest mountain on the planet. In Zermatt, 9,500 feet below the peak, the church cemetery is crowded with crosses reading, “Died on the Matterhorn.”

Eleven years ago, I set out to climb it. Continue reading →

Let’s approach the question scientifically. Let’s look at some evidence.

Exhibit A is astrology. The non-partisan and highly respected Pew Research Center reports that nearly a third of Dems believe in astrology. That’s more than double the number of Republicans who do.

Exhibit B is vaccines. Diseases that formerly killed or disabled millions have nearly been extinguished in America by vaccines.

Enter Robert F. Kennedy of the Democrat political clan. He’s a non-scientist lawyer campaigning to end vaccinations on the grounds that they cause autism.

That’s right. In the battle between vaccine and polio, he’s taken the side of polio.

Scientists at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention and elsewhere say he wrong. And they say that the quixotic campaign to end vaccinations causes illness and death.

But because he’s a Kennedy, Continue reading →

Don’t ever watch a European eat.

I’m no Europhobe. I like Europeans and their food, wine, cities, money, women, towns, museums, money, architecture, castles and women. I especially like their money and women a la carte, as when they bring them to Aspen and leave them here.

But I discovered in Europe recently that these civilized people eat like barbarians. Let’s just call them barbarians at the ate.

It goes something like this:

“Poulet, si’l vous plait,” requests a restaurant patron. And in due course, chicken appears.

“Bon appetit,” advises the chicken-bringer to the chicken-eater.

That didn’t need to be said. The chicken-eater already has a very bon appetit, believe me. He nibbles, tastes, savors, licks, squeezes, admires and fondles the chicken. He inserts it into his mouth to scrape and scour it with his tongue, teeth, lips, sinuses, esophagus, tonsils and the upper part of his stomach. Then he pulls the remaining chicken bone from his mouth.

He does this over and over, till Continue reading →