CATASTROPHE AND THE “CLIMATE CHANGE” CULPRIT:

California Governor Jerry Brown seized the opportunity last month to blame Climate Change for the “new normal” of rampant wildfires. With neighborhoods burning down and the fire inching closer to homes, Government and Science declared that a bogeyman of myopic mass humanity was at fault.

* * * * * * * * *

Fire experts have long encouraged “prescribed burning” to minimize vegetation growth and, in the long run, reduce smoke pollution otherwise caused by out-of-control wildfires. Not surprisingly, however, environmental policies treat prescribed burn smoke as an “avoidable nuisance” subject to heavy regulation. The Endangered Species Act, the Clean Air Act, and other regulations impose onerous limits on our ability to prevent massive wildfires.

Even as we celebrate our valiant firemen, it is also legitimate to question whether our firefighting resources are effectively coordinated and whether triage decisions are made appropriately. Over the last month, a few friends sheepishly whispered in private, wondering why insufficient air resources were deployed over some fires while others received repeated rounds of tankers. They asked why the Skirball Fire (adjacent to swanky Bel-Air) somehow was quelled immediately in difficult terrain while the Thomas Fire (begun in rustic Ojai) became unstoppable in all directions. With Climate Change as the predetermined culprit, the media and an intimidated public pursue none of these questions.

Read the whole thing. In 2011, Victor Davis Hanson warned of “The Bloomberg Syndrome:” “Quite simply, the next time your elected local or state official holds a press conference about global warming, the Middle East, or the national political climate, expect to experience poor county law enforcement, bad municipal services, or regional insolvency.”

When it comes to California, embrace the healing power of “and.”

NEW YORK & CO. ARE PAYING THE PRICE FOR BEING DEEP BLUE:

The cold wasn’t the only thing that hammered the Northeast in the final fortnight of 2017 — and we can thank our extreme political polarization for the traumas we New Yorkers and New Jerseyans are about to suffer.

On the last night of the year, the Trump administration informed New York and New Jersey that there was no longer a deal with the federal government to help fund the desperately needed new rail tunnel between the two states — a $13 billion hit.

Before that came the signing of the tax bill, whose limitations on the mortgage-interest and state- and local-tax deductions (SALT) are going to hammer upper-middle-class residents in these states and send real-estate values into a downward spiral.

We can argue about the merits of these decisions. Does the unquestionable NY-NJ commuter crisis have a national component obliging the federal government to take an active role? There are strong arguments on both sides.

Read the whole thing.

Related: “California Democrats are toying with a brash scheme to skirt a new federal cap on state and local tax deductions: Instead of paying taxes to the Golden State, Californians would be allowed to donate the money to the state’s coffers — and deduct the entire sum from their federal taxes.”

NEWS YOU CAN USE: How to Get Your iPhone’s Battery Replaced at Apple Store or Apple Authorized Service Provider.

THE BEST DEFENSE IS A GOOD OFFENSE: “President Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, took the unusual step on Wednesday of suing the special counsel and asking a federal court to narrow his authority.”

THANK GOD ERDOGAN DIDN’T TWEET ABOUT THEM! THAT WOULD BE CRUEL AND INHUMAN! “On Christmas Day, 17 journalists and executives from Turkey’s oldest newspaper, Cumhuriyet, went on trial, accused of supporting terrorist organizations.”

Note Newsweek’s um, interesting, photo selection. Nothing proves Trump Derangement Syndrome like adding his picture to a story in which his name is never mentioned once.

IT’S OVER: Text of President Donald Trump’s statement on Steve Bannon.

Steve Bannon has nothing to do with me or my Presidency. When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind. Steve was a staffer who worked for me after I had already won the nomination by defeating seventeen candidates, often described as the most talented field ever assembled in the Republican party.

Now that he is on his own, Steve is learning that winning isn’t as easy as I make it look. Steve had very little to do with our historic victory, which was delivered by the forgotten men and women of this country. Yet Steve had everything to do with the loss of a Senate seat in Alabama held for more than thirty years by Republicans. Steve doesn’t represent my base—he’s only in it for himself.

Steve pretends to be at war with the media, which he calls the opposition party, yet he spent his time at the White House leaking false information to the media to make himself seem far more important than he was. It is the only thing he does well. Steve was rarely in a one-on-one meeting with me and only pretends to have had influence to fool a few people with no access and no clue, whom he helped write phony books.

We have many great Republican members of Congress and candidates who are very supportive of the Make America Great Again agenda. Like me, they love the United States of America and are helping to finally take our country back and build it up, rather than simply seeking to burn it all down.

Ouch.

LET THE CONSPIRACY THEORIES BEGIN! Fire reported at Clintons’ house in Chappaqua. Scanner reports “said it was a bedroom fire and has been extinguished.”

SPRINTING AHEAD: What to Expect from Mercedes’ Next-Generation Full-Size Van. “The last time Mercedes-Benz rolled out an all-new Sprinter, George W. Bush was in the White House and Saddam Hussein was still alive. The space shuttle was flying, a diesel had just won the 24 Hours of Le Mans for the first time, and a solvent General Motors was churning out Pontiacs, Saturns, and Hummers. In other words, the arrival of a new Sprinter is hardly what you might call a common event.”

One of my former students had triplets in LA, and moved back to Knoxville shortly after they were born. They didn’t want them on a plane exposed to germs, so they rented a fancy custom Sprinter van and drove it more or less nonstop (with help from in-laws) to Knoxville in 3 days. She said to her surprise she came away loving that van instead of hating it.

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DC MCALLISTER: The Time’s Up Now Campaign Is Mostly Repackaged Feminist Garbage.

UH-OH: More Bad News Expected for Tesla.

In October, Tesla reported that it produced 220 Model 3 vehicles in the third quarter. CEO Elon Musk had previously said the company would produce more than 1,600 Model 3s by September.

Munster isn’t the only analyst to doubt Tesla’s fourth-quarter Model 3 production. KeyBanc analyst Brad Erickson reduced his fourth-quarter Model 3 production target by two-thirds, cutting it from 15,000 to only 5,000.

According to Munster, Tesla investors may need to wait several more quarters for the Model 3 story to play out. “We predict a breakout year for the Model 3 in 2019 which means, until then, other elements like solid Model S and X production numbers, increasing energy deployments like the South Australia installation, and future vehicles (Roadster, Semi, Model Y, and pickup truck) will stoke investor optimism,” he says.

As Instapundit readers have long known, Elon Musk promised Tesla would produce 500,000 Model 3 sedans in 2018 — and has accepted refundable $1,000 deposits on nearly that many. At current production rates, it will be years before pre-orders are filled.

The Model 3’s good will and good reviews won’t matter much if Tesla can’t ramp up production, which even bulls like Munster believes is running at least a year late.

NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: Nanomedicine inhibits progression of pancreatic cancer in mice. “The scientists performed RNA profiling and analysis of samples taken from pancreatic cancer patients. The molecular profiling revealed the same genomic pattern found earlier in mouse models of pancreatic cancer. The scientists then devised a novel nanoparticle that selectively delivers genetic material to a tumor and prevents side effects in surrounding healthy tissues.”

SWAMP DRAINING 101: CFPB whistleblower Ron Rubin on how Donald Trump evicted Elizabeth Warren from the Bureau. Related: another whistleblower alleges that her bosses at the CFPB urged her to falsify a report relating to a financial service center business.

NO, RESPONDING TO IT IN KIND IS: Under Trump, nuclear brinkmanship is the new normal.

We’ve tried Mr. Nice Guy, and all we got for it is a nuclear-armed North Korea.

COLLUSION: Lawsuit: Duke, UNC agreed to not hire each other’s doctors.. “The anti-trust complaint by a former Duke radiologist accuses the schools just 10 miles (16 kilometers) apart of secretly conspiring to avoid poaching each other’s professors. If her lawyers succeed in persuading a judge to make it a class action, thousands of faculty, physicians, nurses and other professionals could be affected.”

I remember my Antitrust professor, Ralph Winter, saying that universities are always assuming the law doesn’t apply to them, and outraged to discover that it does.

IT’S ON: Bannon vs Drudge.

ORDER COZY WOOL SOCKS TODAY, have them before the Polar Vortex strikes!

WHY NOT? TWITTER SUSPENDS CONSERVATIVES FOR ANY OR NO REASON AT ALL: Hillary’s Spokesman Calls For Trump To Be Banned From Twitter Over Nuke Tweet.

FASTER, PLEASE: ‘Clear promise’: Diabetes drug reversed memory loss in mice with Alzheimer’s, researchers find.

CHANGE MORE OF THE SAME: ‘Dirty, bloody and lots of sex’: how Denis Villeneuve’s Cleopatra will rip up Hollywood’s rule book.

Actually, HBO already did that with Cleopatra as a supporting character in its Rome miniseries from more than a decade ago.

Even Hollywood’s new ideas are old.

HMM: Migraine surgery offers ‘dramatic improvement’ in small study.

LEON PANETTA TURNS: Former Obama Official Calls Obama unAmerican on Iran Protests.

WORKING FOR THE CLAMPDOWN: Newsweek: How can Trump scold Iran for blocking social media sites when he blocks people on Twitter?

The current infantile clickbait state of Newsweek is really making me long for the hard-hitting gimlet-eyed objective reporting of the “We Are All Socialists Now”-era Newsweek of 2009.