California

Mythologies and Pathologies of the California Drought

by Victor Davis Hanson // PJMedia The third year of California drought has exposed all sorts of water fantasies. If in wet years they were implicit, now without rain or snow for nearly three years, they are all too explicit. Add them up. Take the Bay Area, Ground Zero of water environmentalism. From Mill Valley […]

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California’s Hydromania

by Victor Davis Hanson // PJ Media Two events now characterize the California agrarian heartland, the richest and most productive farm belt in the world. One, of course, is the third year of drought. I refer here to nature’s lack of rain and snow. But also factor in the state’s additional man-made drought, through diversions

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Elites’ Sacrificial Victims

When your goal is to save the planet, you can’t worry about who may get hurt. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online  Why do our well-meaning elites so often worry about humanity in the abstract rather than the real effects of their cosmic ideologies on the majority? The dream of universal health coverage trumped

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Why Aren’t We No. 1?

by Victor Davis Hanson // PJ Media  There is a pastime among liberal pundits — the latest is Nicholas Kristof — to quote a new center left global ranking (with unbiased titles such as “The Social Progress Imperative”) and then to decry that the United States is behind its major industrial competitors in things like “Internet Access” and

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One California for me, another for thee

by Victor Davis Hanson // Tribune Content Agency  No place on the planet is as beautiful and as naturally rich as California. And few places have become as absurd. Currently, three California state senators are either under felony indictment or already have been convicted. State Sen. Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) made a political career out of demanding harsher state gun-control laws.

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Fish Instead of People, Ideologies without Consequences

by Victor Davis Hanson // PJ Media  If only people had to live in the world that they dreamed of for others. Endangered species everywhere are supposed to be at risk — except birds of prey shredded by wind turbine farms, or reptilian habitats harmed by massive solar farms. High-speed rail is great for utopian visionaries — except don’t

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The Anti-Empirical Left

Science is ignored when it doesn’t support politically correct policy. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online President Obama entered office promising to restore the sanctity of science. Instead, a fresh war against science, statistics, and reason is being waged on behalf of politically correct politics. After the Sandy Hook tragedy, the president attempted to convert

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Obama’s Pseudo-Scientism

Too hot? Too cold? Regardless, it must be global warming. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online  President Obama came to California. He saw a drought. He announced the cause to be global warming and left. How accurate was the president’s diagnosis of harmful, man-made climate change in stopping rain and snow? First, a

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Meet the Richerals

by Victor Davis Hanson // PJ Media The new millennium has also given us a new American profile — the hip richeral. Richerals are, of course, well off. But they are even more cool and liberal. The two facts are not so much incompatible, as complementary. For some, big money allows three things: wealth’s cocoon enables

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Let’s Save California Now!

by Victor Davis Hanson // PJ Media  Just a handful of legislative acts might still save California. Here are 12 brief examples: 1. The Hetch Hetchy Smelt and Salmon Act This so-called “Skip a Shower, Save a Smelt Act” would transfer control of the Hetch Hetchy reservoir releases from the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission to the California Department

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