SPOILER ALERT: NOT VERY WELL. Thirty Years On, How Well Do Global Warming Predictions Stand Up?

The 30th anniversary of Mr. Hansen’s predictions affords an opportunity to see how well his forecasts have done—and to reconsider environmental policy accordingly.

Mr. Hansen’s testimony described three possible scenarios for the future of carbon dioxide emissions. He called Scenario A “business as usual,” as it maintained the accelerating emissions growth typical of the 1970s and ’80s. This scenario predicted the earth would warm 1 degree Celsius by 2018. Scenario B set emissions lower, rising at the same rate today as in 1988. Mr. Hansen called this outcome the “most plausible,” and predicted it would lead to about 0.7 degree of warming by this year. He added a final projection, Scenario C, which he deemed highly unlikely: constant emissions beginning in 2000. In that forecast, temperatures would rise a few tenths of a degree before flatlining after 2000.

Thirty years of data have been collected since Mr. Hansen outlined his scenarios—enough to determine which was closest to reality. And the winner is Scenario C. Global surface temperature has not increased significantly since 2000, discounting the larger-than-usual El Niño of 2015-16. Assessed by Mr. Hansen’s model, surface temperatures are behaving as if we had capped 18 years ago the carbon-dioxide emissions responsible for the enhanced greenhouse effect. But we didn’t. And it isn’t just Mr. Hansen who got it wrong. Models devised by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have, on average, predicted about twice as much warming as has been observed since global satellite temperature monitoring began 40 years ago.

Read the whole thing.

LIONEL CHETWYND: My Early Days with Charles Krauthammer.

BUT THE NARRATIVE! Crying Honduran Child Who Became The Face Of Border Family Separation Was Never Separated From Family.

DEBRA HEINE: Peter Fonda Apologizes to President and Family for Vulgar Tweet. “No apologies yet to DHS Sec. Kristjen Nielsen or White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.”

Fonda’s deleted tweet about Nielsen read, “Kristjen Nielsen is a lying gash that should be put in a cage and poked at by passersby. The gash should be pilloried in Lafayette Square naked and whipped by passersby while being filmed for posterity.”

Which I guess is supposed to be acceptable.

PROFESSIONALS STUDY LOGISTICS: The Biggest U.S. Oil Patch Is Near Its Limit.

The worsening bottleneck in the Permian region that straddles west Texas and New Mexico offers an unexpected fillip to OPEC and other oil producers outside the U.S., who’ve seen rampant production from America’s shale producers grab market share.

“We will reach capacity in the next 3 to 4 months,” Scott Sheffield, the chairman of Pioneer Natural Resources Co. said in an interview at an OPEC conference in Vienna. “Some companies will have to shut in production, some companies will move rigs away, and some companies will be able to continue growing because they have firm transportation.”

His comments are the strongest indication yet that the growth in the red-hot shale region is about to slow down soon due to a lack of pipeline capacity.

This is no time for US producers to be hitting logistical bottlenecks, but the story notes that the situation likely won’t improve until next year.

OOPS: Russia’s Tank Drone Performed Poorly in Syria. “The Uran-9 lost contact with its controllers, maneuvered badly on broken terrain.”

Remotely controlling drones over rough terrain isn’t easy. Then again, our civilian space agency has been doing it for years. On Mars. Which on average is about 150 million miles away.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Big Deadline Today, Jacket-Gate and Much, Much More. “I don’t care about this manufactured crisis anymore so I have nothing to say.”

NO. Democrat Congressman Wants ‘Taxpayer-Funded Dorms.’ “Legislation would subsidize living expenses for House members.”

Rep. Bennie Thompson (D., Miss.) introduced a bill that would ban members of Congress from sleeping in their offices and would change the tax code to allow House members to deduct their spending on housing in D.C. up to $3,000. The deduction would not apply to senators.

Thompson has also proposed turning a vacant building near Capitol Hill into apartments for House members at the expensive of taxpayers, which critics have dubbed a “Congressional Animal House.”

The taxpayer-watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste criticized Thompson’s legislation and his proposed “taxpayer-funded dorms.”

“On May 16, 2018, Rep. Thompson introduced H.R. 5845, the ‘No Couches for Congress Act,’ which would ban members of Congress from sleeping in their offices,” the group said. “He also proposed converting vacant residence halls near the Capitol into ‘affordable‘ housing for members of Congress, who make $174,000 per year. He claimed that it would be available for members who found housing costs to be ‘prohibitive.'”

Washington is too expensive because Washington is too expansive. Reduce the latter and the former will take care of itself.

COLD WAR II: Laser Attacks Against U.S. Forces Spread to the Pacific. “The laser strikes follow reported incidents in Djibouti by Chinese military personnel.”

China has been accused of developing and marketing anti-eye lasers, weapons whose use in wartime would constitute a violation of international law. These weapons include the BBQ-905 Laser Dazzler Weapon, the WJG-2002 Laser Gun, the PY132A Blinding Laser Weapon, and the PY131A Blinding Laser Weapon.

The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command confirmed to AvWeek that the laser strikes are taking place both from shore and fishing vessels. It’s not clear where the shore attacks are taking place, but China trains and offers subsidies to fishing boat crews to act as what observers call China’s “maritime militia.” Fleets of fishing boats often sail into territory claimed by China as a precursor to China’s claiming the region for itself, to hassle other fishermen and local coast guards, and to act as the eyes and ears of the Chinese military.

Pointing lasers at low-flying American planes would fall in line with the maritime militia’s duties, allowing the Chinese government to demonstrate that U.S. forces aren’t welcome in an area without using official Chinese military or coast guard forces.

The increasing sophistication of these lasers implies Chinese state support for the laser attacks.

Ya think?

LESS TALK, MORE TECH, TIM: Apple’s Tim Cook drops to 96th place on list of CEOs most popular with workers.

PRIVACY: Google to Fix Location Data Leak in Google Home, Chromecast.

Craig Young, a researcher with security firm Tripwire, said he discovered an authentication weakness that leaks incredibly accurate location information about users of both the smart speaker and home assistant Google Home, and Chromecast, a small electronic device that makes it simple to stream TV shows, movies and games to a digital television or monitor.

Young said the attack works by asking the Google device for a list of nearby wireless networks and then sending that list to Google’s geolocation lookup services.

“An attacker can be completely remote as long as they can get the victim to open a link while connected to the same Wi-Fi or wired network as a Google Chromecast or Home device,” Young told KrebsOnSecurity. “The only real limitation is that the link needs to remain open for about a minute before the attacker has a location. The attack content could be contained within malicious advertisements or even a tweet.”

Tech blogger John Gruber notes that “This is the common sense fear of this whole Internet of Things movement: that these devices we’re putting on our networks aren’t secure, even the ones from big companies like Google.”

PRIMARY SEASON: Arizona GOP Senate Primary Candidates Run Right While Deciding How Far Is Too Right. “Rep. Martha McSally (R) — seen as the moderate in the GOP primary field — pulled back her support for carving a DREAMers’ path to citizenship.”

BUT WHAT WILL THEY TASTE LIKE? Scientists Expect to Genetically Engineer Chickens into Dinosaurs Within 5 Years.

RASMUSSEN: Voters Blame Parents, Not Feds, For Border Children Crisis.

DAVID SOLWAY: Why Socialism Is Doomed To Fail. “Disproportion is intrinsic to human life.”

Socialism doesn’t alleviate disproportion; it enshrines it in legalized lawlessness.

IT’S WHAT THEY DO: Left Coast Lawlessness. “Progressivism is wrecking cities in the Pacific Northwest.”

Seattle’s predicament is emblematic of the broader crises faced by many progressive West Coast cities, where local leaders have forced law enforcement to take a hands-off approach to policing unsanctioned tent cities and vagrancy at the expense of public safety and health. San Francisco, long considered a model of progressive urban policy, is plagued by filth, chaos, and public-safety hazards. Local leaders plan to spend an incredible $305 million on combatting homelessness for the current fiscal year alone, but disorder spreads as the city fails to enforce the rule of law and basic sanitary measures. Block-by-block surveillance reveals the deterioration of downtown San Francisco. Of 153 city blocks surveyed, 41 contained used drug needles and 96 had human feces present. Tourists are dismayed to leave their downtown hotels, to be confronted by mentally ill and aggressive homeless people who are taking control of the streets. University of California Berkeley professor Lee Riley, an expert on infectious disease, observes that some of San Francisco’s streets are dirtier than Third World slums.

Portland, Oregon, has continued to experience rapid urban decay in recent years, and the consequences for businesses and residents have been dramatic. In 2016, Columbia Sportswear, a major retailer, relocated a considerable number of its staff to downtown Portland. A little over a year later, in a scathing opinion piece in the Oregonian, the company’s CEO voiced his regret over the decision. Employees reported repeated criminal offenses, “daily defecation” in the store’s front lobby, and fears of physical violence. One female employee ran into moving traffic to escape a transient individual, screaming that he was going to kill her.

Conditions for other Portland companies have deteriorated as well. Anne Bocci, who owns a premier jewelry and clothing store that prides itself on “not being a big corporate business,” was robbed and had her life threatened twice. “The police came and then [the thief] came back four minutes later after they left,” she noted during an interview.

I had a love-hate relationship with the Pacific Northwest during the years that I lived there, but now it’s just sad.

MATTHEW CONTINETTI: GOP Focusing Immigration Debate on Families Would Put Dems on the Defensive.

“Trump found himself on the wrong end of a 70-30 issue. But now the problem is for the Democrats because separating families may be unpopular; zero tolerance, however, is relatively popular,” Trump said. “If the Democrats find themselves attacking a zero-tolerance policy while Republicans are doing their best to unify the families and keep them in detention together, I think the Democrats come up short.”

In response to clips of senators making statements about immigration, Continetti said Republicans haven’t lost leverage if they pass narrow legislation addressing families at the border. He pointed to Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin (W.Va.) and Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.) as examples of those in red states who could vote with Republicans to solve the problem of families being separated.

“There would be many red-state Democrats that are going to look at the polls in their own states and say, ‘if the issue is just the families, we should be addressing this through legislation,'” Continetti said.

All Democrats have to do is not act crazy, and they can’t even manage that.

MAY? Rubio Warns DeVos: Tech Partnerships May Open Door to China Espionage.

The whole point of Beijing requiring American businesses to work with Chinese “partners” is to gain the tech and know-how they couldn’t develop on their own, or develop as quickly as they’d like.

BECAUSE MONEY: Why OPEC Isn’t Going To Give Up On High Oil Prices That Easily.

UNEXPECTED HEADLINES: Cocaine in the Water Is Hurting River Eels.

GET WOKE, GO BROKE: Microsoft Employees Demand Cancelation of $19.4M ICE Contract over Trump Border Policy.

WHY NOT? WE INVENTED THIS STUFF. Defense Chiefs: U.S. Cannot Win Global Cyber Wars.

BILL GERTZ: IG Report Highlights FBI Counterspy Failings. “Counterintelligence division under fire for mishandling Clinton email probe.”

Critics have said U.S. counterintelligence was weakened during the Obama administration. One example was the mishandling of the arrest of 10 Russian illegal spies in New York in 2010.

Instead of charging the deep cover “illegal” spies with espionage – they did not enjoy the usual diplomatic immunity afforded to legal spies – the 10 Russians posing as Americans were sent back to Moscow without being fully interrogated.

As a result, valuable intelligence on Russian spying operations was lost.

The Obama administration at the time was seeking to curry favor with Russia as part of the failed reset policy toward Moscow.

The administration also failed to take action against Russian intelligence during its operations to interfere with the 2016 election. After the election, a group of Russian intelligence officers was expelled.

In contrast, during the Cold War, FBI counterspies achieved a major intelligence coup by recruiting as an informant the No. 2 official in the Communist Party USA, Morris Childs, who provided Kremlin and other valuable secrets between 1958 and 1982.

Michael Waller, an intelligence expert with the Center for Security Policy, said the IG report lays bare what some have been saying for decades: “The United States is the No. 1 target of every hostile intelligence service on earth.”

“With few exceptions, the FBI has very little to show that it has the strategy and leadership to cut off much more than the low-hanging fruit,” Waller said.”

Damning.

BEN CARSON: ‘Real Compassion’ Is Tackling ‘Perverse Incentives’ That Continue Cycle of Poverty.

SINGLE PAYER, SINGLE DECIDER: Unneeded Drugs Killed Hundreds at U.K. Hospital, Inquiry Finds.

From 1989 to 2000, doctors at Gosport War Memorial Hospital — and one doctor in particular — routinely prescribed heroin, also called diamorphine, and other opioids for patients who were not in any pain, and for others whose pain should have been handled with much milder drugs, in blatant violation of accepted medical practice, the panel found.

“There was an institutionalized practice of the shortening of lives through prescribing and administering opioids without medical justification,” John S. Jones, an Anglican former bishop of Liverpool who headed the government-commissioned investigation, told reporters.

Perhaps most disturbing was that while many of the patients were elderly, most were not seriously ill.

But they had become burdens to the State.