Tuesday, December 26, 2017

Double M, Nearly Guaranteed

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-12-15/consider-the-consequences-of-believeallwomen
In other words, it's not that simple.

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-12-18/the-current-sex-panic-harks-back-to-the-era-of-coddling-women
In other words, it's not that simple.

Except, she tells the story quite well.

Sunday, December 24, 2017

No Glory In War

"He also knew secrets of the war which would have ruined careers. 
I don't think Dwight Eisenhower would ever have been elected president if Patton had lived to say the things he wanted to say." Mr Wilcox added: "I think there's enough evidence here that if I were to go to a grand jury I could probably get an indictment, but perhaps not a conviction."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/3869117/General-George-S.-Patton-was-assassinated-to-silence-his-criticism-of-allied-war-leaders-claims-new-book.html

This is not to say that I know what happened, just that even in a world saving victory over the enemy, there was incredible ugliness.

Friday, November 24, 2017

Groping Allowance - Don't You Wish You Had One?

Members of both the House and Senate have copped to having harassed, abused, and assaulted junior federal employees. A slush fund of over $15 million was secretly created by Congress to paint over actions that ranged from disgusting to criminal. You and I paid for this fund with our not-so voluntary taxes, but none of the pervs, creeps or predators have been named, nor have the details of their lurid actions been revealed. Some of them are most likely still in Congress, strutting in the halls of marble we provide for them and being treated like princes among the paupers. Yet, who pays the piper for their misdeeds? They don’t pay a dime. They grope their victims and ask you to pay for it. It’s the equivalent of getting a speeding ticket and asking a pedestrian to pay for it.
http://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/361562-lets-give-lois-lerner-a-taxpayer-funded-home-where-shes-safe


Sunday, November 19, 2017

Disingenuous Heart Felt Confusion from the Misinformed

That's what we hear when people who don't know what assault rifles are, or how they differ from military weapons, try to tell us it's the right thing to do to add legislation that empowers government agents with guns to take guns from or restrict access to citizens with guns.

When people who appear to never do anything more noble than promote themselves and serve their own power start talking about what is right and what is wrong, how could anyone do anything but grimace in anger?

Do they even realize - stuck in their echo chambers of perceived significance - how buffoonish it sounds to a regular person?  Empty suit ambitious blowhards beholden to big money are all of a sudden getting a conscience ... why am I not impressed.

People that disingenuous and ambitious should have as little power as possible.

http://thefederalist.com/2017/10/02/politicize-shootings-make-harder-find-solutions/

Wednesday, August 30, 2017

Isn't This Obvious?

“Rainbow Gatherings, as a matter of principle, are free and non-commercial. Using money to buy or sell anything at Rainbow Gatherings is taboo.” Niman added, “The Rainbow Family, however, rejects all forms of money, including alternative currencies like time credits or barter notes.”
https://fee.org/articles/when-hippies-used-snickers-as-currency/?utm_source=FEE+Email+Subscriber+List&utm_campaign=79156f24b3-MC_FEE_DAILY_2017_08_18&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_84cc8d089b-79156f24b3-107299969

"Free but money is taboo". Right. Like black but white. Like right but wrong. Like good but bad. Free but money is taboo.  Buffoonery.

Tuesday, August 29, 2017

Let the Machines Do What They Can Do Better

Enter, Walmart Academy, where 1 million of the company's employees will eventually be taught fundamental retail skills that go beyond stocking shelves and customer service, such as which items turn a profit and why.
https://www.thestreet.com/story/14275053/1/walmart-s-store-of-the-future-may-look-eerily-humanless.html?puc=yahoo&cm_ven=YAHOO&yptr=yahoo

It's weird how we feel about change. First we got animals to do what we didn't want to do or couldn't do as well as they could. Then slaves. Then machines. Then computers. Now, we look at robots and think "oh no!". But doesn't this just mean we can free humans to do the stuff than robots can't? It would seem that adds value for all.

More Non-Kinetic Options for Norkons

http://nypost.com/2017/08/18/taming-north-korea-without-firing-a-shot/

A good read.

Where Was the Outrage?

Where was their anger when the ACLU described the situation as it unfolded? “Not sure who provoked first. Both sides were hitting each other at Justice Park before police arrived,” the ACLU of Virginia declared via Twitter on Saturday afternoon. The group identified both factions in a video of an open-air brawl on Charlottesville’s streets. “The guy on the ground is a Unite the Right protester. Those in black and red are #Antifa protesters,” referring to far-Left “anti-Fascist” thugs.

There was no angst when Reuters reported that “Many of the rally participants were seen carrying firearms, sticks and shields. Some also wore helmets. Counter-protesters likewise came equipped with sticks, helmets and shields.” Reuters correspondents Amanda Becker and Jeff Mason added, “The two sides clashed in scattered street brawls before a car plowed into the rally opponents, killing one woman and injuring 19 others.”

The fury was absent when NBC Nightly News’ Gabe Gutierrez explained that “witnesses say both sides came prepared for a fight.”

The Trumpophobes left their spleens unvented when the Associated Press published this headline atop one of its dispatches — “View from the street: Police stood by as adversaries fought.”

And there was no venom when Charlottesville Police Chief Al Thomas said: “We did have mutually combative individuals in the crowd.”

http://www.unionleader.com/column/Deroy-Murdock-Both-sides-were-to-blame-for-Charlottesville-violence-08182017

Easy answer - it wouldn't serve their political ends to be outraged at the chumps, only in opposing the Pres is the outrage useful. Same song, different pres.

Tuesday, August 15, 2017

Comey Didn't Botch, He Didn't Try Hard Enough to Call it Botched

He did the minimum necessary, and left the rest to fate. What a crazy election.

She deserved much worse than she got, there's no excuse for what she did.

http://nypost.com/2017/08/12/comey-botched-the-hillary-clinton-email-investigation/

Monday, August 14, 2017

Oh what a tangled web we weave ...

when we force immature technology on the market place through government coercion or taxation (taking at money at gunpoint from the productive and giving it to the unproductive). This tail of pointless waste is going to reach way into the future.

https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/aug/10/electric-cars-big-battery-waste-problem-lithium-recycling

Sunday, August 13, 2017

Testament to the Competence of Government

Shouldn't have been started.
The administration lied in selling the product and used questionable tactics in the legislative phase.
The rollout was bungled.
Events unfolded in ways unanticipated by government executive and politicians.
The technology was ineffective to meet the challenge and poorly implemented by government.
Costs were far higher than expected.
The supposed urgency that led to the action was apparently false in hindsight.

Obamacare or the Iraq War? Yes, both. But government is actually supposed to be dealing with national security, even though we know government is essentially incompetent, there's some excuse for incompetence when completing constitutionally assigned responsibilities.

WTF is government doing messing about in health care markets when over the last 60 years it has done nothing but make things worse?  Hubris - when the humans act as if they are gods.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/450095/obamacare-death-spiral-exchange-enrollment-down-29-percent

Friday, July 21, 2017

"...it put the gravel in your gut and the spit in your eye."

Angela Lee Duckworth has just returned from her 25th class reunion at Harvard. “People’s lives really do turn out differently,” she observes during an interview in a stylish boardroom. “And it certainly can’t be explained by how intelligent you remember them being when they were sitting next to you in organic chemistry class. Some of it is luck, some of it opportunity.” And some of it is “grit,” as Ms. Duckworth has told the world in articles, lectures and a 2016 bestselling book, “Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/is-there-anything-grit-cant-do-1498254238

What do you suppose teaches grit?

Wednesday, July 19, 2017

Winning the Off Year?

But if the GOP Congress can get things done, 2018’s unusual mix—25 Democrats up for re-election versus only nine Republicans—could make it one of the 20% of midterm elections in the past century in which the party holding the White House actually picks up seats.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/troubled-times-for-10-senate-democrats-1499899156

I have no particular love for the GOP senate, but either by incompetence (not a bad thing in a senate) or luck they tend to mess things up less badly than the demo.

Monday, July 17, 2017

Germany, Sweden, Kentucky

Last year, I posted an article titled "If Sweden and Germany Became US States, They Would be Among the Poorest States" which, produced a sizable and heated debate, including that found in the comments below this article at The Washington Post. The reason for the controversy, of course, is that it has nearly reached the point of dogma with many leftists that European countries enjoy higher standards of living thanks to more government regulation and more social benefits. What the data really suggests, however, is that even after social benefits are incorporated into the income data, the median American still has a higher income than most European countries. 
https://mises.org/blog/when-it-comes-household-income-sweden-and-germany-rank-kentucky

Sunday, July 16, 2017

Health Insurance Does Not Equal Longevity

"Speaking of studies, all of America has been participating in an experiment since 2010 to see if a federal effort to extend government-mandated insurance coverage to millions more people can improve our lives. Last year the Obama Administration bragged that 20 million adults had gained health insurance as a result of Mr. Obama’s so-called Affordable Care Act.

"Given the Sanders logic, one might have expected to see a corresponding improvement in public health. But so far evidence that ObamaCare made us healthier has proven elusive, to say the least."
https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-didnt-obamacare-make-us-healthier-1498508891

Friedman About Social Responsibility

I asked "have you read Friedman's famous article about the social responsibility of corporations?", the answer "no" might be disqualifying for comments about the role of government and businesses.

"Aside from the question of fact–I share Adam Smith's skepticism about the benefits that can be expected from "those who affected to trade for the public good"–this argument must be rejected on grounds of principle. What it amounts to is an assertion that those who favor the taxes and expenditures in question have failed to persuade a majority of their fellow citizens to be of like mind and that they are seeking to attain by undemocratic procedures what they cannot attain by democratic proce­dures. In a free society, it is hard for "evil" people to do "evil," especially since one man's good is another's evil."
http://www.colorado.edu/studentgroups/libertarians/issues/friedman-soc-resp-business.html

Doing business is about you agreeing to buy what someone else wants to sell.  No coercion, voluntary exchange. There is no higher form of human interaction.

Government is the opposite - it has only coercion or threat of same to wield.

Monday, July 3, 2017

Liberty in Health Care?

I read about healthcare quite a bit, rarely find something I have not seen before.


Like the task-force draft, a Republican bill could give new nonprofit or employer-sponsored alliances the explicit task of verifying that a health plan’s contractually specified rights and obligations are (1) “such as might reasonably be agreed to by an informed, value-conscious consumer” and (2) “adequately specified in the contract” by: (a) reference to responsibly developed “clinical practice guidelines;” or (b) “general language altering [conventional] legal and professional standards;” or (c) identifying a disinterested arbiter to deal with ambiguous situations. The task force also negotiated a final clause providing strong assurance that no patient could be denied any significant, verified benefit of medical science.
http://www.realclearpolicy.com/articles/2017/06/25/the_missing_key_to_market-based_health_reform_110281.html

Sunday, July 2, 2017

Why Obamacare Didn't Make Us Healthier

Part of why obamacare didn't make us healthier is that we are killing ourselves, and the health care system can't do much about that.

Speaking of studies, all of America has been participating in an experiment since 2010 to see if a federal effort to extend government-mandated insurance coverage to millions more people can improve our lives. Last year the Obama Administration bragged that 20 million adults had gained health insurance as a result of Mr. Obama’s so-called Affordable Care Act.
Given the Sanders logic, one might have expected to see a corresponding improvement in public health. But so far evidence that ObamaCare made us healthier has proven elusive, to say the least. In December the New York Times was among the many news outlets that had to share the embarrassing news:
American life expectancy is in decline for the first time since 1993, when H.I.V.-related deaths were at their peak. But this time, researchers can’t identify a single problem driving the drop, and are instead pointing to a number of factors, from heart disease to suicides, that have caused a greater number of deaths.

A study on mortality rates released on Thursday by the National Center for Health Statistics showed that Americans could expect to live for 78.8 years in 2015, a decrease of 0.1 from the year before. The overall death rate increased 1.2 percent — that’s about 86,212 more deaths than those recorded in 2014.
http://thegrayarea.org/?p=126743

Insurance doesn't create health, it doesn't prevent us from killing ourselves. 78% of mortality is tied to what we eat and how we live. It's gauche these days to blame anyone for anything bad that happens to them.  We are often to blame, nonetheless.

Insurance or care and what's the diff?

Under a long-standing convention unexamined in today’s debates, health insurance is one thing and health care is something else, the former’s principal purpose being to enable patients to afford the latter. Although consumers can choose among financing plans, the content (and thus the costliness) of the care they expect to receive is not negotiable. Instead, all insured patients are essentially entitled, by common law or otherwise, to both provider services meeting a poorly specified “standard of care” and plan payment for all care deemed “medically necessary.” These near-universal terms of entitlement amount to an industry-friendly system of command-and-control regulation because applying them requires reference to medical experts. The professional paradigm of medical care these experts bring with them essentially holds that patients should receive, at whatever cost, any service with some chance of yielding a medical benefit.
https://qz.com/1010259/the-100-billion-per-year-back-pain-industry-is-mostly-a-hoax/

Friday, June 23, 2017

Free Speech, Draw the Line

Anyone half-awake to American life in recent years knows there is a large effort under way to banish that bedrock principle of protection for words that offend. Free-speech traditions are under pressure on campuses, in high schools, in the media, in the streets and in sports.
That the court’s liberal justices— Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan —joined the majority suggests these four see what is going on, that letting the ability to speak one’s mind slip away under this silencing weight will damage all Americans.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/saving-chief-wahoo-1498084781

Hard to believe that anyone things the government should be involved in this stuff.  

Friday, June 2, 2017

Missed this one from 3 years ago ...

There are many, ahem, bombshells in this one.  I remember being there in 2006 and the guys I worked with said, "nope, we were looking for nukes and their precursors, didn't find any."
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/390517/bush-didnt-lie-deroy-murdock

Saturday, April 29, 2017

Nye's Ill Logic

In 1798, Thomas Malthus wrote that "the power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man." At that point, there were maybe a billion humans on Earth, so we might forgive him for worrying. In 1800, the life expectancy of the average British citizen -- Britain then being the leading light of the world -- was 39 years. Most humans lived in pitiless poverty that is increasingly rare in most parts of the contemporary world.
Now, had Nye been around in the early 19th century, he'd almost surely have been smearing anyone skeptical of the miasma theory of disease. The problem is he lacks imagination; he's unable to understand that science is here to help humanity adapt and overcome, not constrict it. Anyway, 7-plus billion people later, extreme poverty was projected to fall below 10 percent for the first time ever in 2015. Most of those gains have been made in the midst of the world's largest population explosion.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2017/04/28/bill_nyes_view_of_humanity_is_repulsive_133738.html

There's a lot of bad science out there - people like to imply that everyone doing science is doing it well, and that is just not so.  People also like to pretend that science provides answers on complex questions that cannot be subjected to randomized trials, and that is also not so.

It is easy to believe that we're constructing a food system that delivers so much bad food with such a complex system of production and delivery that we have to run out one day.  Perhaps we will.  Killing people to prevent that ... ridiculous.

Pretending that our socialized nations could survive population decline is also ridiculous, and when the enlightened ones quit having kids they'll find that like the Shakers, their values rapidly decline in significance. Good luck with that meek idea to "not have a kid so you can save the world" idea.  The fertile will inherit the earth.

Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Converting to Freedom?

To switch from music to economics might sound like moving from the sublime to the dismal. Yet as paradoxical as it seems, economics is what enabled me finally to deliver something like Bach’s answer about my own work. As a Catholic dedicated to the welfare of those at the periphery of society, I am an expert witness to the fact that there has never been a better system than free enterprise for empowering real people to pull themselves out of poverty. There has never been a better system to allow people to unlock the unique sense of dignity that comes with earning their own way, deploying their talents to serve their community, colleagues or customers, and taking home justifiable pride in—and rewards for—their efforts. And there is no reason, if we are serious about our Christian apostolate, that free enterprise should become an idol in itself, impoverish anyone or capture our souls.
http://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2017/02/06/confessions-catholic-convert-capitalism

It's a Big Old Crazy Entitlement Spending World

From 1975 to 2015, social spending by federal and state governments quadrupled in constant dollars, to more than $1 trillion. America now spends enough to give every person in poverty more than $20,000 per year. And yet lamentations for a collapsing safety net are rising in both volume and pitch.

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/439796/medicaid-spending-problems-abound-reform-vehemently-resisted?target=topic&tid=2430

Some perspective: We’re spending more than seven times as much on improper, illegal federal payments as we do on NASA. We’re spending nearly 20 times as much on improper, illegal federal payments as we do on the National Science Foundation. We could build 13 Ford-class aircraft carriers every year for what we are spending on improper and illegal payments driven by Obamacare. We’re spending twice as much on improper and illegal payments as it would cost to pay all the tuition costs of every American college student. (Not that having Uncle Stupid do that is a good idea.) If improper and illegal federal payments were an economy of their own, that economy would be bigger than Hungary’s and and more than twice the size of Guatemala’s.

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/439919/medicaid-fraud-staggering-cost-140-billion

Tuesday, February 21, 2017

Good for the Obama Goose?

But more to the point, it was McCain up to his old tricks: Ingratiating himself to the anti-Trump press by playing its champion, in a bid to be the media's darling.

What stands out here is the hypocrisy of his claims. He's suddenly concerned about press freedoms and dictators?

Where was McCain when President Obama was systematically violating press freedoms every which way to Tuesday?

Seven examples of Obama's attacks on a free press spring to mind and not one of them drew any significant criticism from McCain.

Where was McCain when Fox News correspondent James Rosen was illegally followed around by Obama's Department of Justice in 2013 over a story he published on North Korean activities? It was a clear-cut example of reporters just doing their jobs, even as someone in government was leaking the story, but Team Obama went after Rosen with the Espionage Act.



Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/02/where_was_mccain_when_obama_attacked_the_free_press.html#ixzz4ZM8VaIr0
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Sunday, February 12, 2017

Thoughts on AGW

The planet is getting warmer, human activity is a main factor, and the consequences will be catastrophic. It is here that the claims cease being mostly scientific in nature and begin to become political and economic questions. Unsurprisingly, it is here that the emotional tenor of the debate starts to become shrill, with visions of maritime nations lost, New York City under water, and the like. In truth, the IPPC predicts a warming, over the next century, of 13.5 degrees Celsius. Much of that warming, IPPC concludes, will take place at the poles; it will not be evenly distributed around the globe, and the organization writes that “on regional scales, confidence in future climate projections remains low. . . . The degree to which regional climate variability will change also remains uncertain.”

In economic terms, which Jim Manzi has 
considered extensively, the damage is equivalent to 12 percent of global GDP — a century from now. Yale economist Robert Mendelsohn concludes that the damage is more like 0.08–0.24 percent of global GDP — again, 100 years from now, when global GDP is expected to be many times larger than it is now. Real damage, to be sure, but something less than Armageddon. 

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/228756/what-think-about-global-warming-kevin-d-williamson

This is an old piece, but still sums up the situation.  They can't prove, but they have a strongly held belief that, human action is a cause of warming.  The warming of late is so small it is within the rather large margin of error in measurements.  There are several issues with the accuracy of the data - adjustments and assumptions made by the government keepers of the data sets often seeming like these are intentionally hidden.

The killer of any real AGW action though is - why bother?  How do we know what would happen if things warmed?  Who would it hurt, who would it help?  Never mind the matter who what would or could be done to mitigate human contributions to warming, who would enforce it, and why on earth would non-wealthy nations support these efforts?

Calm down, be ready if warming happens, be rich enough to adapt, focus on economic growth around the world to have options to help humankind in the event AGW real, causes big problems, and needs a world leader to intervention.

Obamacare Options

A better Republican strategy would be designed around Ryan’s stated goal. It would begin with the understanding that Obamacare’s worst features are its overregulation of health insurance and its centralization of regulation in Washington, D.C. The way Obamacare regulates insurers’ treatment of people with preexisting conditions, the benefits they have to offer, and the difference between what they can charge the young and the old have raised premiums and deductibles, resulted in insurance policies that are not attractive to the young and healthy, and so made the exchanges shaky at best in much of the country even with the help of the individual mandate.
Republicans already have a set of legislative ideas (if not yet actual legislation) that builds on that insight. The main Republican alternative to Obamacare — advanced in different forms by Senators Bill Cassidy, Orrin Hatch, Richard Burr, and Marco Rubio, by the House Republicans, and by Tom Price, Trump’s nominee to be secretary of health and human services — is to create a much less regulated market.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/444564/obamacare-republicans-repeal-replace-strategy-congress-paul-ryan

Opposed to Obamacare, Divided About Obamacare

The main problem is that Republicans are a diverse bunch who opposed Obamacare for a variety of reasons. Those most focused on shrinking the size and reach of the federal government thought Washington was already too involved in health care and should pull back, not expand its role or raise taxes to pay for new health spending. Those preoccupied with personal freedom balked at being required to buy health insurance. Others thought the widespread use of insurance to fund health care was already driving health spending too high and objected to further expanding health insurance. Still, others thought broadening health coverage was a desirable goal, but that the subsidies and regulations that Obamacare used to accomplish this goal were poorly designed and transferred too much power from the states to Washington. All of these Republicans could agree on trashing Obamacare, but they did not have a common intellectual basis for designing a replacement and they still don’t. 
http://www.realclearhealth.com/articles/2017/02/09/why_is_it_so_hard_for_republicans_to_replace_obamacare_110432.html

Sunday, February 5, 2017

Gorsuch Is A Home Run

If Democrats are looking for a point of vulnerability in either Gorsuch’s integrity or impartiality, they won’t find it. He is basically a Boy Scout. He’s a faithful husband, a good father, a caring neighbor, a generous friend, a man of probity who holds himself to the highest ethical standards. Oh, and he will bring religious diversity to a Court that is entirely Catholic and Jewish: He’s an Episcopalian.
Gorsuch will be a hard man to depict as a ferocious partisan or an ideological judge, which isn’t to say he won’t be described this way by ideologically partisan critics for whom the prospect of a conservative intellectual giant on the Supreme Court is anything but welcome. As Gorsuch himself has frequently observed, including in a widely noted tribute to Scalia, good judges sometimes have to vote or rule in ways they do not like — because that is what the law requires.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/02/01/ignore-the-attacks-on-neil-gorsuch-hes-an-intellectual-giant-and-a-good-man/?utm_term=.882f42809c67

Sunday, January 22, 2017

Obamacare Be Gone

They will also deal with the difficult political task of reforming a massive expansion of Medicaid (the vast majority of Obamacare’s “newly insured” are actually new welfare recipients). They will have to answer Kristof’s claims that “millions of Americans will lose insurance, and thousands more will die unnecessarily each year because of lack of care.” Republicans will have to convince voters that opening up affordable and competitive markets without coercion is preferable to preserving unsustainable state-run programs that grow in perpetuity.
http://thefederalist.com/2017/01/06/gop-does-have-a-plan-to-replace-obamacare-thats-what-scares-democrats/

Monday, January 16, 2017

300 Hacked Emails, That Will Leave a Mark

Then, last Sunday evening, during the NFL playoff game between the New York Giants and the Green Bay Packers, the FBI posted on its website more than 300 emails that Clinton had sent to an unnamed colleague not in the government -- no doubt her adviser Sid Blumenthal -- that had fallen into the hands of foreign powers. It turns out -- and the Sunday night release proves this -- that Blumenthal was hacked by intelligence agents from at least three foreign governments and that they obtained the emails Clinton had sent to him that contained state secrets. Sources believe that the hostile hackers were the Russians and the Chinese and the friendly hackers were the Israelis.
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/01/12/andrew-napolitano-why-criminal-investigation-hillary-clinton-is-back-to-front-and-center.html?intcmp=ob_article_sidebar_video&intcmp=obnetwork

Friday, January 6, 2017

Precision in Language

Everyone knows that correlation doesn’t equal causation, but somehow people seem to forget. Endogeneity is a word that can help you remember. Something is endogenous when you don’t know whether it’s a cause or an effect (or both). For example, lots of people note that people who go to college tend to make more money. But how much of this is because college boosts earning power, and how much is because smarter, harder-working, better-connected people tend to go to college in the first place? It’s endogenous. The media is full of stories about how which kind of people stay married, or what diet is associated with better health. Whenever you see these stories, you should ask “What about endogeneity?”
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-01-05/5-economics-terms-we-all-should-use

If things are getting hotter and carbon levels in the atmosphere are rising, does that mean carbon is causing the temperature changes?  Or are warmer oceans off gassing more carbon dioxide?  Hmmm....