The Chinese don't care as much as you think they do, Tommy.

I'm sure Thomas Friedman thinks he's a really smart guy...

While secrets from WikiLeaks were splashed all over the American newspapers, I couldn't help but wonder: What if China had a WikiLeaker and we could see what its embassy in Washington was reporting about America? I suspect the cable would read like this:
...
Most of the Republicans just elected to Congress do not believe what their scientists tell them about man-made climate change. America's politicians are mostly lawyers - not engineers or scientists like ours - so they'll just say crazy things about science and nobody calls them on it. It's good. It means they will not support any bill to spur clean energy innovation, which is central to our next five-year plan. And this ensures that our efforts to dominate the wind, solar, nuclear and electric car industries will not be challenged by America.

Now, Friedman might sound like he knows what he's talking about, but consider this from Eric Berger, the science writer for the Houston Chronicle:

Is there any hope that China will take the game-changing first step by adopting a carbon tax? Why would they do so? Why would this be the harbinger of a global framework?

I believe that China has powerful reasons to place a rising fee on carbon: (1) China will suffer more than most nations from changing climate and rising sea level, (2) China has horrific air and water pollution from fossil fuels, (3) China wants to avoid the enormous costs and burdens that accompany fossil fuel addiction, (4) there is great economic advantage in having the leading low-carbon technologies.

Hansen is quite correct in asserting that China would have an easier time of instituting such a carbon fee simply because it could ignore politics -- "At the same time China has the capacity to implement policy decisions rapidly," he writes -- and simply impose a fee.

I'm not sure espousing the virtues of authoritarianism is the best way to win converts to your cause, but whatever. What really strikes me is that I have seen very little evidence that China would actually ever impose such a fee.

Consider the following comments from Huang Huikang, the Chinese Foreign Ministry's special representative for climate change talks, on the eve of the Cancun climate talks that began Monday.

"China's overriding priority will be to develop its economy, eliminate poverty and raise people's welfare, and our energy consumption and (greenhouse gas) emissions will experience reasonable growth for some time," he said.

That's pretty unequivocal for a diplomat communicating in public, as opposed to private cables, of course.

Now, we already know about Friedman's love affair with China's authoritarianism, so we'll leave that alone for now. What you wanna keep in mind is what the Chinese diplomat said -- namely, that his country's No. 1 priority was developing its economy, and that greenhouse gas emissions were going to be increasing for some time. Now, you'll note he said nothing about raising taxes on fossil fuels and such, which would seem to imply that he knows that said taxes would hamper that goal -- at least that's how it sounds the way Berger put it, but either way it doesn't seem so farfetched. So yeah, the Chinese do come off as pretty smart if Huang Huikang's comments are representative of their mindset -- just not smart in the way Thomas Friedman would like you to think they are. Apparently Friedman thinks those who read his columns are going to take his word as gospel as opposed to using their own critical thinking skills and seeking out alternative sources of information with differing and potentially more valid viewpoints. Somehow that doesn't surprise me, but being the visionary he thinks he is, you'd think he'd try harder.

There's a lesson here..

...if only our elected officials will learn it:

AP IMPACT: Cartel arrests did not curb drug trade

On a sleepy boulevard of motels and fast-food joints near the Mexican border, police stopped a car with a broken tail light. In the trunk, he found a trash bag containing 48 pounds of narcotics, and in the driver's pocket, scraps of paper scrawled with phone numbers.
Almost four years later, a grave Eric Holder called his first news conference as attorney general and announced where those phone numbers had led — to a sweeping investigation called Operation Xcellerator, which produced the largest-ever federal crackdown on Mexico's Sinaloa drug cartel, with 761 people arrested and 23 tons of narcotics seized.
Standing with Holder that day in 2009 was acting Drug Enforcement Administration chief Michele Leonhart, who declared: "Today we have dealt the Sinaloa drug cartel a crushing blow."
But just how crushing was it? An Associated Press investigation casts doubt on whether the crackdown caused any significant setback for the cartel.

Now, as you know, a lot of those on the left contend terrorists should be fought in the courts and on the streets with police and lawyers as opposed to on the battlefield with soldiers. One could say that the drug cartels are every bit as powerful as international terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda. If the law-enforcement approach works so dismally with the drug cartels, what makes liberals think it's going to work with terrorism?

Hey, sanity!

On at least one Texas college campus, anyway:

Texas State University’s student government has become the first in Texas to endorse carrying concealed handguns on campus.
...

Two weeks ago, Texas State’s newspaper, the University Star, became the first student newspaper in Texas to publicly endorse the bill.

That editorial is here. As you'll see if you read said editorial, the Star had run editorials opposing concealed carry on campus, but as the editorial board's membership changed, so did the board's opinion. I can only imagine what the board had said before, but this is a nice reversal:

Students with licenses permitting them to carry should not be forced to unarm themselves before they set foot on campus. The idea of a university being a “safe haven” where guns are not allowed is the status quo, but why? This campus is not a high school full of minors. It is a place where adults come to learn and prepare themselves for reality — and guns and gun-enthusiasts are real.

I surely never thought I would see something like that appear in a college newspaper, even in the heart of Texas. That last line reminds me of an exchange I saw somewhere...

Anti-gunner: "I don't believe in guns."
Pro-gunner: "Ma'am, I assure you, they exist."

Sure is nice to see at least one campus newspaper acknowledging reality as opposed to going into full-bore hysterics as so many media outlets do.