APOCALYPSE NOT: The idea that the Maya or Easter Island experienced eco-apocalypse is just bad archeology, says Guy Middleton of Newcastle University. Those of us who followed the work of Benny Peiser a decade ago already knew about Easter Island. Benny is, appropriately enough, now running the Global Warming Policy Foundation.

IN MEMORIAM, BRUNO LEONI: It may seem odd that one of the greatest champions and defenders of Anglosphere common law tradition was an Italian academic, but that was the case with Bruno Leoni, who passed away 50 years ago today. My colleague Jim Harper remembers him, with an appropriate link to the work of Scalia Law School professor Todd Zywicki.

ERRR…: Senator Ben Cardin says a Carbon Tax might pass the Senate in a secret vote. That’s exactly why we don’t have secret votes, Senator.

Update: Incorrect link replaced. There is a paywall, but the point in in the headline.

END OF AN ERA: Richard Cordray, Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the last unbreached stronghold of leftist bureaucracy in DC, is to resign at the end of the month. The President should really have fired him months ago, although it looks like Cordray might have bamboozled some senior White House staffers into letting him stay on. Whomever the President  nominates to take over has a big job to do to reform this rogue agency, as I explain in The Case Against the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

ONE YEAR ON: British conservative polling guru Lord Ashcroft asks what people think of President trump a year later. The results show his voters are very happy with him (less so with the Congress), which is not the usual narrative.

NO EXCUSE FOR NO EXCUSE?: Clark Neily asks a simple question – why do we still cling to the ancient maxim, “ignorance of the law is no excuse?” The sheer weight of criminal law alone makes it difficult to justify:

There have been multiple attempts to count the number of federal crimes, including by the Department of Justice, and no one has yet succeeded. Title 18 of the United States Code, which governs crimes and criminal procedure, has over 6,000 sections, and it is estimated that there are more than 4,500 federal crimes and over 300,000 agency regulations containing criminal penalties. And of course, this does not include the dizzying array of state and local criminal codes, ignorance of which is practically assured but still not excused.

As Clark asks, “If the government cannot even count all of the criminal laws it has enacted, how on earth can citizens be expected to obey them?”

THE PAST IS A DIFFERENT COUNTRY: Scott Alexander of Slate Star Codex reviews the public draft of David Friedman’s forthcoming Legal Systems Very Different From Ours. Fascinating stuff.

I’M SORRY DAVE – I’M AFRAID I CAN’T DO THAT: Without Humans, Artificial Intelligence Is Still Pretty Stupid (may be a WSJ paywall). On the general question, Garry Kasparov has some good insights on how AI + human is the likely future.

FOR THE FALLEN: In the UK, November 11 serves the same purpose as Memorial Day does here. The Royal British Legion has compiled a website, Everyone Remembered, for people to have the chance to post a tribute or remembrance to those who fell in British service in the First World War. As Daniel Hannan says,

This is a truly humbling initiative. Try typing in your surname – or, if you’re male, your full name – count the matches, and feel the tragedy grab you in the stomach. https://t.co/uEfc4sCRDx

— Daniel Hannan (@DanielJHannan) November 10, 2017

Even if you had no British relatives, please consider remembering someone.

I’M ALL RIGHT, JACK: In August, Montgomery County, Maryland, received an official report that concluded that the county would lose 47,000 jobs by 2022 if it raised its minimum wage to $15 an hour.

They just passed that increase unanimously.

DUE PROCESS IS IMPORTANT: Welsh Labour politician under shadow of unspecified allegations about harassment of women takes his own life.

THE PEOPLE’S FLAG IS DEEPEST RED: It is the Centenary of the October Revolution today (owing to Russia using the old Julian Calendar then). Here’s David Satter in the Wall Street Journal:

The Bolshevik coup had two consequences. In countries where communism came to hold sway, it hollowed out society’s moral core, degrading the individual and turning him into a cog in the machinery of the state. Communists committed murder on such a scale as to all but eliminate the value of life and to destroy the individual conscience in survivors.

But the Bolsheviks’ influence was not limited to these countries. In the West, communism inverted society’s understanding of the source of its values, creating political confusion that persists to this day.

RTWT. It is probably because of the lasting effect of that second consequence that we see that more Millennials would prefer to live in a socialist country than a capitalist one. As the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation notes,

It seems that the majority of America’s largest generation would prefer to live in a socialist or communism society than in a free enterprise system that respects the rule of law, private property, and limited government. This is even more disconcerting when coupled with the fact that, despite Millennials’ enthusiasm for socialism and communism, they do not, in fact, know what those terms mean.

We have a lot to do.

WAYNE CREWS: The Internet of Things wants to know where its 5G is. The reason we don’t have 5G yet is, surprise surprise, federal regulation.

NULLIUS IN VERBA: Debunked scientist sues National Academy of Sciences for debunking him. As Alex Berezow of the American Council on Science and Health (a great group, by the way) says:

To say that this is unusual would be an understatement. The lawsuit is completely obscene.

Let’s set aside the scientific arguments in this debate, which revolve around the feasibility of 100% renewable energy. Smart people can disagree about whether that is a technologically and economically achievable goal. The way smart (and mature) people handle their disagreements is in the pages of a peer-reviewed scientific journal. But, apparently, that’s no longer how things operate in our litigious society.

There may have been a court decision that helped him along the way.

SO JUST WHAT IS THIS BLOCKCHAIN THING, ANYWAY?: Jeff Tucker explains how Blockchain Technology could be the answer to a problem that has bedeviled property rights since antiquity – a problem that is the source of the cynical expression, “possession is nine tenths of the law.”

If that intrigues you, here’s Chris Berg, Jason Potts, and Sinclair Davidson with a beginner’s guide to the Blockchain Economy.

MILLENNIALS DITCHING RELIGION FOR ASTROLOGY: The “psychic services” industry is now worth $2 billion. I’m not sure whether Chesterton (“The first effect of not believing in God is to believe in anything“) or Barnum (“There’s a sucker born every minute“) is more appropriate here.

CLEARING THE AIR OVER EPA SCIENCE ADVICE: EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is expected to announce today that the agency’s “independent” science advisors will no longer be allowed to receive agency grants. The vicious cycle incentivized by funding should be obvious. Here’s my colleague Will Yeatman with more on why this is so important.

TIMEO PROFESSORES DONA FERENTES: U of Illiniois Professor claims teaching the Pythagorean Theorem and Pi promotes white privilege. Doesn’t she know the Ancient Greeks were Afroasiatic? Send her a copy of Black Athena, stat.

ACADEMIC, RESEARCH THYSELF: 82 percent of academic papers are never cited by anyone else. Moreover, half of the papers are never read by anyone other than the authors, editors, or peer reviewers.

WE DON’T NEED NO STEENKING CONSTITUTION: Robert Hanrahan shows how the federal government’s reliance on contractors is both inefficient and unlawful.

I HAVE BEEN HERE BEFORE: Rupert Darwall writes in the WSJ (paywalled, sadly) about the parallels between the acid rain scare of the 80s and global warming alarmism today. Here’s his conclusion:

To this day, the zombie science of acid rain lives on at the EPA’s website, which falsely states that acidification of soil, streams and lakes is caused by emissions from power stations. The EPA reckons the annual cost of anti-acid-rain measures in the U.S. will reach $65 billion in 2020, but it no longer claims that the money will prevent ecosystem damage. Now it just claims to be improving public health.

In its approach to the science of global warming, the EPA under current Administrator Scott Pruitt couldn’t offer a greater contrast with the acid-rain coverup perpetrated by the EPA during the late ’80s and early ’90s. Instead of attacking dissident scientists, Mr. Pruitt’s proposal to hold red-team/blue-team appraisals would put dissenters on the same footing as consensus-supporting scientists. This will enable proper debate between both camps to reveal the strengths and weaknesses of the scientific consensus on global warming.

Open debate is as crucial to science as it is to democracy. Capping sulfur-dioxide emissions is an economic pinprick compared with the multitrillion-dollar cost of cutting emissions of carbon dioxide. If people’s way of life is to be forcibly changed in an expensive attempt to decarbonize society, at the very least it should be done with their informed consent.

At the very least.

FOOTBALL CRAZY: In an early experiment in crowdfunding/sourcing, a minor league football (soccer) club in England was turned over to fans worldwide to fund and run. It wasn’t a disaster, but it wasn’t exactly a rip-roaring success, either.

LENORE SKENAZY GOES INTERNATIONAL: In her new Spectator article, she points out that in 1971, 80% of British 8-year-olds walked to school by themselves. In 2005 it’s just 12% of 7-to-10-year-olds. At ten, I was taking a train and a bus to school in a different city. Things have certainly changed over there, and it surely explains a lot.

Update: Closely related, here’s Lenore and Jonathan Haidt in the new Reason, explaining that lot.

PENCE BREAKS TIE: Trial lawyers everywhere are crying into their copies of the New York Times today because, last night, the Senate voted 51-50, with the Veep casting the deciding vote, to disapprove of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Arbitration Rule. Dressed up as “protection” for the average joe, the rule was actually a disguised wealth transfer from average joes to those trial lawyers, who make millions from class action lawsuits where the class victim gets a few dollars or a worthless coupon. More on this, including my statement, here.

For the record, the GOP Senators defecting were Senator Kennedy of Louisiana and…well, I think you can guess the other one.

LALALA, I CAN’T HEAR YOU: In a story that may be related to the Andrew Sullivan piece Glenn posted yesterday, DC leftist think tankers have gone on “listening tours” of Trump country – and reported that what voters really want is exactly what the think tanks recommended in the first place.