When the Supreme Court decided the Heller case last year striking down the District of Columbia’s handgun ban, it recognized that the Second Amendment confers an individual right to bear arms. However, because the case arose out of Washington, which is a federal district under our Constitution, the Court did not address whether the Second Amendment restricts the states (and local governments) from infringing this right. While the Bill of Rights originally applied only against the federal government, the Supreme Court has long applied or “incorporated” the fundamental rights (i.e., …
Dr. Roy Spencer, a meteorologist at the University of Alabama and someone who works frequently with NASA’s science team, is the keynote speaker at lunch. He blogs here and explains very well why the IPCC model predicts too much warming; in fact, his latest post “A Layman’s Explanation of Why Global Warming Predictions by Climate Models are Wrong” is worth taking a look. His talk discusses why we cannot trust the IPCC climate models for global warming predictions. But he notes first that global warming skeptics have many different theories. …
Earlier this year Secretary of Defense Robert Gates released a defense budget request that cut missile defense by $1.4 billion. But that was before Iran launched a two-stage ballistic missile and North Korea detonated a nuclear device. These facts seem to have changed some thinking in Washington, including Secretary Gates’. The AP reports: Gates said the missile tests by North Korea over the past week appear to have attracted more support on Capitol Hill for missile interceptors. … He said he’s requested nearly $1 billion in the 2010 fiscal budget …
Government control of General Motors is likely to throw the company into reverse gear rather than forward. By rewarding bad behavior with $50-billion, President Obama has created powerful incentives for even worse performance. In his New York Times column today, David Brooks lays out six reasons why the latest bailout will backfire: GM has been cut off from innovative thinking. Because Obama wiped out existing bondholders in favor of unions, no outsiders will be willing to bring fresh capital and ideas to GM. Insiders who sank the company remain in …
The first panel at the Heartland Institute today brings together four of the world’s best scientists when it comes to climate change study. The first speaker is Anthony Watts, creator of the website SufaceStations.org, “created in response to the realization that very little physical site survey data exists for the entire United States Historical Climatological Network (USHCN) and Global Historical Climatological Network (GHCN) surface station records worldwide.” SufaceStations.org is a project that monitors the quality of data at America’s 1,221 weather stations. Once a believer that manmade carbon dioxide had …
Last week the Global Humanitarian Forum, led by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan released a report claiming that global warming is already killing 300,000 people a year. The study was even reviewed by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Chair Rajendra Pachauri. How accurate is this study though? The Times reports: The research was carried out by Dalberg Global Advisers, a consultancy firm, who collated all existing statistics on the human impacts of climate change. The report acknowledges a “significant margin of error” in its estimates. Mr Annan said the report …
Yesterday, after President Barack Obama again insisted he did not want to run General Motors, we questioned just how reluctant a shareholder the Obama administration will be. Thanks to the Wall Street Journal, we’re beginning to get our answer: The President is so busy not running GM that he had time the night before to call and reassure Detroit Mayor Dave Bing about the new GM’s future location. GM is being courted to move its headquarters to nearby Warren, Michigan. And Mr. Bing told the Detroit News that he had …
And how much do they think we should spend? Heritage takes to the streets of DC to find out: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihsDfa-LUO4[/youtube] Find the facts, here.
Do you remember Miguel Estrada? Back in 2001, Miguel Estrada was a nominee for the United Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit. Unfortunately, Miguel Estrada never became a judge. His crime? He was a Latino Republican who liberals believed was on the fast-track for the Supreme Court. Despite graduating Magna Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa with a bachelor’s degree from Columbia University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School and serving as the Assistant U.S. Attorney and Deputy Chief of the Appellate Section at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, …
The Chicago-based Heartland Institute is hosting its Third International Conference on Climate Change and its second this year. The event, taking place in Washington DC, has a lot of the same players as the second conference but all of them are worth hearing again. It’s a group of climatologists, scientists, economists and a few politicians. Kicking off the event is Dr. Richard Lindzen, professor of atmospheric sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He argues there are three reasons why purported climate science typically supports global warming alarmism. The first …
