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         In an opinion piece, published by the Huffington Post, Professor Alex Glashausser attacked the position that banning so-called ‘assault weapons’ would infringe the 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms. The professor points out that while “Prisoners have a right to food… the menu options… are meager,” so as to illustrate how “it is not unusual… for a right to be confined.” The Professor goes on to assert that “a citizen has no greater claim to a machete than a prisoner has to spaghetti.”

The problem with this analogy, of course, is that law-abiding citizens are not prisoners.

The professor then accuses the pro-gun lobby of defacing the Constitution in order to claim an unfettered right to keep and bear any kind of weapon they please, asking “Do ‘Arms’ include AR-15s? ICBMs? How about grenades…?” Glashausser finally asserts that the 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms would remain in tact “as long as people are permitted some weapons — say, simple pistols, or maybe even stun guns.” Stun guns? Really?

Look, no one is saying that citizens should be allowed to walk the streets with a nuclear trigger in hand – that would be crazy. Gun owners simply want the freedom to own firearms that are within the scope of reason.

No, our first Amendment rights do not extend to the protection of slanderous statements, because slanderous statements can cause serious, sometimes irreparable injury. So the question becomes: What injury to innocent persons justifies the ban of an entire class of firearms from the homes and hands of law-abiding citizens? Now, before readers start screaming about mass shootings, let me point out that in 2011 (the most recent statistics available), rifles in general were only used in 323 of the 8,583 firearm homicides. That’s .03%. In fact, more than double that number (728) were punched and kicked to death in that same year. American citizens rightfully have a hard time believing that the motivations of gun control advocates are anything other than scoring political points, and gaining control over another aspect of civilian life. If loss of innocent life were truly the motivation of gun control advocates, they’d go after handguns, seeing as how they are used in the overwhelming majority of firearm homicides. But, that would be unconstitutional.  In fact, the Supreme Court indicated in the Heller case that weapons “in common use” for the purposes of self, and home-defense may very well be outside the scope of what Congress can prohibit. The fact is that the likelihood an innocent person will be injured or killed with a so-called ‘assault weapon’ is slim by any standard – let alone the standard that should be met before interfering with the freedoms of American citizens. Given the numbers, it would be quite hard to see how an ‘assault weapons’ ban could have a significant impact on gun crime and homicides. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) reported in 2002 that its task force on Community Preventive Services found “insufficient evidence to determine the effectiveness of any of the firearms laws (including the 1994 assault weapons ban) or combinations of laws reviewed on violent outcomes.”

There’s no denying that gun violence is a problem. But an ‘assault weapons’ ban won’t fix it. More aggressive prosecution and mandatory minimum sentences, however, would certainly be a step in the right direction.

Just about every type of extreme weather event is becoming less frequent and less severe in recent years as our planet continues its modest warming in the wake of the Little Ice Age. While global warming activists attempt to spin a narrative of ever-worsening weather, the objective facts tell a completely different story.

New Records for Lack of Tornadoes

New data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show the past 12 months set a record for the fewest tornadoes in recorded history. Not only did Mother Nature just set a record for lack of tornado activity, she absolutely shattered the previous record for fewest tornadoes in a 12-month period. During the past 12 months, merely 197 tornadoes struck the United States. Prior to this past year, the fewest tornadoes striking the United States during a 12-month period occurred from June 1991 through July 1992, when 247 tornadoes occurred.

The new tornado record is particularly noteworthy because of recent advances in tornado detection technology. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is able to detect more tornadoes in recent years than in prior decades due to technological advances. Even with such enhanced tornado detection capability, the past 12 months shattered all prior records for recorded tornadoes.

NOAA posted a list of the five “lowest non-overlapping 12 month counts on record from 1954-present.” Notably, each of these low-tornado periods occur since 1986, precisely during the time period global warming alarmists claim global warming is causing more extreme weather events such as tornadoes. According to NOAA, the lowest non-overlapping 12 month counts on record from 1954-present, with the starting month, are:

197 tornadoes – starting in May 2012

247 tornadoes – starting in June 1991

270 tornadoes – starting in November 1986

289 tornadoes – starting in December 2001

298 tornadoes – starting in June 2000

On a related note, a new record for the longest stretch of consecutive days without a tornado death occurred during 2012 and 2013.

New Records for Lack of Hurricanes

Hurricane inactivity is also setting all-time records. The United States is undergoing its longest stretch in recorded history without a major hurricane strike, with each passing day extending the unprecedented lack of severe hurricanes, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data.

It has been more than 2,750 days since a major hurricane struck the United States. This easily smashes the prior record of less than 2,300 days between major hurricane strikes.

Although global warming activists and their media allies often claim global warming is making extreme weather events more frequent and severe, virtually all extreme weather events are becoming less frequent and less severe as our planet gradually warms.

Droughts, Wildfires, Etc.

Pretty much all other extreme weather events are becoming less frequent and less severe, also. Soil moisture is in long-term improvement at nearly all sites in the Global Soil Moisture Data Bank. Droughts are less frequent and less severe than in prior, colder centuries. The number of wildfires is in long-term decline despite a recent change in wildfire policy that no longer actively suppresses wildfires. Just about any way you measure it, extreme weather events are becoming quite rare.

Anecdotes vs. Objective Data

Despite all this good news, a growing number of people believe global warming is causing an increase in extreme weather events. This is no accident. Fully aware of the objective facts, global warming activists are doing everything they can to distract people from the truth. Although extreme weather events are becoming less frequent, the Earth is a big place with a dynamic climate. There will always be some extreme weather events, even as they become less frequent and less severe. Global warming activists can always highlight some extreme weather event occurring somewhere on the planet and paint a false narrative that global warming must be to blame, even though extreme weather events are becoming rarer as the planet gradually warms and returns to pre-Little Ice Age norms.

Major hurricanes struck the U.S. Northeast on a fairly regular basis during the first half of the 20th century when temperatures were cooler. Now, as our planet warms, hurricanes of any sort almost never strike the U.S. Northeast. As a result, when even a minor hurricane like Sandy strikes the Northeast, it is a seemingly unheard of weather event. We can thank global warming for the fact that even a small hurricane like Sandy is a rare event in the U.S. Northeast. The same applies for tornadoes, droughts, etc.

Thank goodness science is conducted according to objective facts rather than activist propaganda!

[First published at Forbes]

Consider these words:

“Constitutions are checks upon the hasty action of the majority. They are the self-imposed restraints of a whole people upon a majority of them to secure sober action and a respect for the rights of the minority, and of the individual.”

William Howard Taft wrote that in 1911 to impress upon the people of Arizona that their constitution should reflect the undeniable fact that “the unabridged expression of the majority… converted hastily into law or action would sometimes make a government tyrannical and cruel.”

How many times, after the Senate’s recent gun control vote, did you hear politicians and commentators regurgitate the statistic that ‘90% of the American People’ supported an expansion of background checks or some other gun control measure? Gun control advocates from the President on down to Piers Morgan were incensed by the fact that they couldn’t turn 90% into 60 votes. The Left went on and on about how the Senate, and, by implication, the political process had failed the 90%. They wanted, no – they demanded an explanation. Well, here it is: The Constitution!

What too many people seem to have forgotten is that the Constitution was supposed to keep majorities at bay. It was designed to protect a minority of voters from having to live under the thumb of a political majority. In what is perhaps the heyday of government overreach, the Constitution is still fighting for us, serving one of its most important purposes – protecting the liberty of the few against the tyranny of the many.

Here’s the deal: The government gets its power from the people. But, the majority is its biggest enabler. The Founders knew this, and dedicated their brilliance to designing a government that would counteract the evils of majoritarian rule. In Federalist No. 10, James Madison said this:

“Complaints are everywhere heard… that the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties, and that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority.”

Why shouldn’t the majority always get what they want? Well, there are a ton of reasons; but, in the interest of brevity, we’ll stick with two. First, the minority matters. Remember in high school when all the “cool” kids sat at that long table in the center of the lunchroom, and the “nerds” were over at the small table in the corner? If the lunchroom was a polity, how often do you think the “cool” table would ever vote with the interests of the “nerd” table in mind? Exactly. Second, what may sound like a good idea in the heat of the moment may not actually be one after you’ve cooled off. In fact, shortly after the Senate’s gun control vote, polls showed that public support for a new gun control bill had dropped to 49%. In other words, the public’s post-Sandy Hook outrage dissipated, and by the time the Senate got around to voting, that 90% that everyone kept talking about was no longer.

The point is that our Constitution was built to protect individual rights from whatever democratic majority may come about at a given time. The fact that 90% of the public may support a particular piece of legislation at a given point in time doesn’t mean that it’s a good idea, or that the 10% should be forced to yield the wishes of the greater number.

Some people on the left called the Republican filibuster of the gun control bills “shameful.” For me, it was a welcome reminder that the most beautiful document sitting in the National Archives – our Constitution – still works.

[The following is a letter to the editor I submitted the other day to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. They will certainly not publish it, so I publish it here. — Edmund Contoski.]

Your paper states atmospheric carbon dioxide  has reached 400 parts per million, a level that “has not been this high for at least 3 million years.” But 90,000 (!) measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide were made between the years 1812 and 1961 and published in 175 technical papers. These measurements were made by top scientists, including two Nobel Prize winners, using techniques that are standard textbook procedures.

Ernst Georg Beck made a monumental compilation of these carbon dioxide measurements and graphed five-year averages, which smooth irregularities and show trends rather than an individual year that might be an anomaly.  His work shows an average of 440 ppm carbon dioxide for the years 1820 and 1940.

Furthermore, ice cores show over 400 ppm in 1700 A.D. and 200 A.D., as well as 10,000 years ago. Samples from Camp Century (Greenland) and Byrd Camp (Antarctica) range from 250 to nearly 500 ppm over the last 10,000 years.

There is abundant other evidence that global warming alarmism is false, but you won’t print:

The above is based on sediments from the Sargasso Sea. It shows the earth was much warmer 500 and 900 years ago and that there were even warmer times 500 BC and 1000 BC. All of these times had no factories or automobiles. They also had far smaller human populations, who devoted much less land to agriculture and cut far fewer trees. Note, too, that now we have barely reached the average temperature for the last 3,000 years. The chart also shows the current warming trend began more than 250 years ago, before the Industrial Revolution. It was a natural recovery from the Little Ice Age.

This puts “global warming” (the slight upturn in the lower right) in perspective with the last 4,000 years of temperature in Greenland.

This intriguing chart by J. Oerlemans shows records of 169 glaciers. It shows they have been receding since 1750, with the trend accelerating after about 1820. The electric light bulb and the telephone hadn’t been invented yet. (Thomas Edison wasn’t even born.) The first commercial electric power plant was not built until 1881-82. Henry Ford began assembly line production in 1913, but by then half of the glacier loss from 1800 to 2000 had already occurred. And 70 percent of the glacier shortening occurred before 1940.

Siberia’s Lake Baikal is the world’s deepest lake. It contains more water than all five of North America’s Great Lakes combined. Fed by over 300 rivers and far from the moderating effects of any ocean, it offers a pristine, uninterrupted sedimentary record that permits a highly accurate reconstruction of temperatures over a broad area.

Anson MacKay, author of the study, says: (1) “Warming in the Lake Baikal region commenced before rapid increases in greenhouse gases;” he dates the warming from around 1750 A.D.,, long before industrial development led to the increase of greenhouse gases. (2) The warming trend began from one of the coldest periods in the last 800,000 years. (3) These coldest periods in the past were always followed by sharp, large temperature increases that couldn’t possibly have been caused by human activity. (4) The latest warming is puny compared to the many much warmer periods in the past.

You newspaper never prints any of these scientific facts—but has plenty of room for the latest propaganda about global warming and carbon dioxide.

[First published at American Liberty.]

Heartland Institute Science Director Jay Lehr was interviewed by the “Today Show” on NBC on this morning to talk about the “milestone” of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere hitting 400 parts-per-million (ppm). Dr. Lehr was the “skeptical” voice in what was mostly a story of panic.

As is typical in a story such as this, the non-alarmist side got 9 seconds of air time in a 3-minute segment. Better than nothing, I suppose. Heartland, actually, is flattered that when one of the most important morning news programs in the country needs to find a “skeptic,” it reaches out to us first.

Watch the video below.

The Chronicle of Higher Education tells us the median salary of public university presidents rose 4.7 percent in 2011-12 to more than $440,000 a year. This increase vastly outpaced the rate of inflation, as well as the earnings of the typical worker in the U.S. economy. Perhaps, most relevant for this community, it also surpassed the compensation growth for university professors.

Moreover, the median statistic masks that several presidents earned more than double that amount. Pennsylvania State University’s Graham Spanier, best known for presiding over the worst athletic scandal in collegiate history, topped the list, earning $2,906,721 in total compensation. (He was forced to resign in November 2011 and was indicted in November 2012 on charges related to the Jerry Sandusky sex-abuse scandal.)

Spanier’s package will get the attention. But the outrage should be spread around. University presidents are becoming ever more plutocratic even as the students find it harder and harder to pay for their studies. University leaders claim institutional poverty as they enrich themselves. A perennial leader of the highest-paid list, Gordon Gee of Ohio State University (more than $1.8 million last year), paid $532 for a shower curtain for the presidential mansion.

There appears to be neither rhyme nor reason for vast differences in presidential pay. David R. Hopkins, the president of Wright State University — an unremarkable commuter school ranked rather poorly in major-magazine rankings — makes far more than the presidents of the much larger, and vastly more prestigious, University of California at Berkeley, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, or the University of Wisconsin.

The four-year graduation rate at Wright State is 18 percent, whereas at Berkeley it is 71 percent. The president of my college (Ohio University), Roderick McDavis, has seen the school’s US News & World Report ranking fall considerably in his tenure of almost nine years. But he made more in 2011-12 than Berkeley’s Robert J. Birgeneau, who stepped down in 2012 after nine years as chancellor of the school ranked first in the US News list of public universities.

My associate Daniel Garrett analyzed the relationship between presidential compensation and academic performance for 145 schools, using the Forbes magazine rankings of best colleges. (Full disclosure: My Center for College Affordability and Productivity compiles those rankings for Forbes.) Adjusting for enrollment differences, no statistically significant relationship was observed between academic quality and presidential pay.

I informally asked five college-educated friends: What criteria should be used in determining college presidential-salary increases? I got five different answers. One said that those most successful in fundraising should be rewarded the most (the argument often used to justify Gordon Gee’s lavish pay and perks). Another friend stressed the postgraduate performance of students. A third’s answer was that it is all about reputation – - if you improve in the U.S. Newsor Forbes rankings, you should get a nice salary increase. Still another friend stressed retention and graduation rates.

In short, there is no consensus. Among competitive free-enterprise companies, profits, share price and competitor chief-executive-officer pay are considered the metrics upon which compensation decisions should be largely determined. But what is the bottom line in higher education? Did the University of Virginia have a good year in 2012? How would you know?

We know little about some fundamental questions. Are the students at the University of Colorado learning more than those at the University of Kansas? Are they learning more now than five or 10 years ago? These and other schools are either clueless as to the answer, or if somewhat knowledgeable, they typically keep the findings a secret. Public comparison with peer schools is considered bad form by the university presidents I know. Trustees are usually part-time cheerleaders for the institution, not hard-nosed representatives of the public demanding accountability, efficiency and transparency.

University enrollments fell in the closing academic year nationally for the first time in more than a decade. More and more individuals are questioning the value of American higher education as it now exists — the benefits seem to be stagnating, while the costs are rising.

Some new university leaders get this, and believe higher education needs to be leaner, more adaptive to change and include performance-based rewards for achievement. The best example is Mitch Daniels, the president of Purdue University. While still governor of Indiana, Daniels chatted with me about how to devise a presidential contract that tied compensation to achievement of goals. The Purdue board adopted such a system, cutting Daniels’s pay compared with his predecessor’s, yet including provisions allowing the president to earn significant performance bonuses. Daniels has already frozen tuition fees for two years — and also has frozen salaries for most administrators.

Universities are nonprofit institutions that get special privileges, such as government subsidies and tax exemptions, based on the assumption that they are good stewards of the public trust. Big corporations pay their leaders more, but those institutions pay taxes that partially benefit universities. They have a bottom line as well as stockholders and corporate boards that often fire leaders who perform poorly.

University presidents aren’t corporate executives. If higher education wishes to maintain its privileged position in American society, it needs to contain its spending. A good place to start is at the top.

[First Published by Bloomberg  L.P.]

The Chronicle of Higher Education tells us the median salary of public university presidents rose 4.7 percent in 2011-12 to more than $440,000 a year. This increase vastly outpaced the rate of inflation, as well as the earnings of the typical worker in the U.S. economy. Perhaps, most relevant for this community, it also surpassed the compensation growth for university professors.

Moreover, the median statistic masks that several presidents earned more than double that amount. Pennsylvania State University’s Graham Spanier, best known for presiding over the worst athletic scandal in collegiate history, topped the list, earning $2,906,721 in total compensation. (He was forced to resign in November 2011 and was indicted in November 2012 on charges related to the Jerry Sandusky sex-abuse scandal.)

Spanier’s package will get the attention. But the outrage should be spread around. University presidents are becoming ever more plutocratic even as the students find it harder and harder to pay for their studies. University leaders claim institutional poverty as they enrich themselves. A perennial leader of the highest-paid list, Gordon Gee of Ohio State University (more than $1.8 million last year), paid $532 for a shower curtain for the presidential mansion.

There appears to be neither rhyme nor reason for vast differences in presidential pay. David R. Hopkins, the president of Wright State University — an unremarkable commuter school ranked rather poorly in major-magazine rankings — makes far more than the presidents of the much larger, and vastly more prestigious, University of California at Berkeley, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, or the University of Wisconsin.

The four-year graduation rate at Wright State is 18 percent, whereas at Berkeley it is 71 percent. The president of my college (Ohio University), Roderick McDavis, has seen the school’s US News & World Report ranking fall considerably in his tenure of almost nine years. But he made more in 2011-12 than Berkeley’s Robert J. Birgeneau, who stepped down in 2012 after nine years as chancellor of the school ranked first in the US News list of public universities.

My associate Daniel Garrett analyzed the relationship between presidential compensation and academic performance for 145 schools, using the Forbes magazine rankings of best colleges. (Full disclosure: My Center for College Affordability and Productivity compiles those rankings for Forbes.) Adjusting for enrollment differences, no statistically significant relationship was observed between academic quality and presidential pay.

I informally asked five college-educated friends: What criteria should be used in determining college presidential-salary increases? I got five different answers. One said that those most successful in fundraising should be rewarded the most (the argument often used to justify Gordon Gee’s lavish pay and perks). Another friend stressed the postgraduate performance of students. A third’s answer was that it is all about reputation – - if you improve in the U.S. Newsor Forbes rankings, you should get a nice salary increase. Still another friend stressed retention and graduation rates.

In short, there is no consensus. Among competitive free-enterprise companies, profits, share price and competitor chief-executive-officer pay are considered the metrics upon which compensation decisions should be largely determined. But what is the bottom line in higher education? Did the University of Virginia have a good year in 2012? How would you know?

We know little about some fundamental questions. Are the students at the University of Colorado learning more than those at the University of Kansas? Are they learning more now than five or 10 years ago? These and other schools are either clueless as to the answer, or if somewhat knowledgeable, they typically keep the findings a secret. Public comparison with peer schools is considered bad form by the university presidents I know. Trustees are usually part-time cheerleaders for the institution, not hard-nosed representatives of the public demanding accountability, efficiency and transparency.

University enrollments fell in the closing academic year nationally for the first time in more than a decade. More and more individuals are questioning the value of American higher education as it now exists — the benefits seem to be stagnating, while the costs are rising.

Some new university leaders get this, and believe higher education needs to be leaner, more adaptive to change and include performance-based rewards for achievement. The best example is Mitch Daniels, the president of Purdue University. While still governor of Indiana, Daniels chatted with me about how to devise a presidential contract that tied compensation to achievement of goals. The Purdue board adopted such a system, cutting Daniels’s pay compared with his predecessor’s, yet including provisions allowing the president to earn significant performance bonuses. Daniels has already frozen tuition fees for two years — and also has frozen salaries for most administrators.

Universities are nonprofit institutions that get special privileges, such as government subsidies and tax exemptions, based on the assumption that they are good stewards of the public trust. Big corporations pay their leaders more, but those institutions pay taxes that partially benefit universities. They have a bottom line as well as stockholders and corporate boards that often fire leaders who perform poorly.

University presidents aren’t corporate executives. If higher education wishes to maintain its privileged position in American society, it needs to contain its spending. A good place to start is at the top.

[First Published by Bloomberg  L.P.]