Steve Jobs personified capitalism and free markets in as pure and beautiful a way as the world has seen in the modern generation of industrial giants. His pursuit of excellence — his passion to make Apple the best and most profitable company it could be — enriched the lives of untold millions.

Jobs set a new standard for how a personal computer should work — i.e., it should be as easy to use as nearly any other home appliance. The industry was forced to follow Jobs’ lead. His leadership in developing the iPhone completely changed the game — forcing competitors to quickly evolve beyond a device that flipped open to one that brought the entire digital world to one’s fingertips. Jobs not only put the word ‘apps’ into our shared lexicon, but — against betting odds — made app-interface the present and future of digital media consumption.

And, under Jobs’ leadership, Apple developed the iPad — the industry standard for the modern tablet. Not long ago, people sneered and snickered at the name, iPad — and boldly predicted the failure of Apple’s big gamble. What fool would dare to try to establish a middle ground between a smart phone and laptop when none yet existed? Steve Jobs dared. He created a new market, out of thin air, and welcomed tens of millions of happy customers to Apple for his efforts.

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Al Gore is using his considerable media muscle to express his frustration that people and governments the world over – but especially here in the United States – have increasingly rejected the notion humans are destroying the planet. He’s broadcasting on his cable channel, Current TV, and online something he calls “24 Hours of Reality,” beginning at 7 p.m. CDT, Wednesday, September 14.

Gore will show a new multimedia presentation attempting to “connect the dots between recent weather events” and man-caused global warming. He has promised that 95 percent of the slides are new and different from those he showed in his Oscar-winning film, An Inconvenient Truth – which is a good thing, considering that film has since been exposed as fraudulent in many respects.

But the truth is, Gore can’t handle the reality that thousands of reputable scientists across the globe have rejected his dogmatic view of climate catastrophe. Those scientists have done the kind of hard scientific work that The Heartland Institute has presented in six conferences, dozens of papers and books, podcasts, videos, and in Environment & Climate News.

Big Journalism’s Larry O’Connor yesterday highlighted New York Times columnist Paul Krugman’s unhinged screed that marked the 10th anniversary of 9/11 — an attack on common decency for which Krugman (conveniently) refused to allow any comments. But in his mean-spirited and wholly inappropriate post, Krugman revealed more than he realized about the state of liberal/leftist thought in America today — and the frustration leftists foster about the current state of our politics.

To quickly recap, Krugman wrote:

What happened after 9/11 — and I think even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not — was deeply shameful. Te [sic] atrocity should have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue. Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror. And then the attack was used to justify an unrelated war the neocons wanted to fight, for all the wrong reasons.

Such a passage makes me wonder if liberals of Krugman’s ilk even hear themselves? I know Krugman thinks Bush is a “fake hero,” because he hates him with a blinding passion. But he wedges W in there as almost an afterthought among his parade of “fake heroes” — ” … and even George W. Bush.” Before that, Krugman calls Rudy Giuliani a “fake hero.”

Now, Giuliani would be the first to reject the “hero” label, because he knows who the REAL heros are. He saw many of their dismembered bodies in the rubble of the WTC. He went to funerals for months on end. But what Giuliani did was of enormous value to the city of New York and the nation: He stayed calm in the face of enormous chaos and fear. And he acted as a leader — as did Bush.

Giuliani suffers in the measure of Krugman (as did Bush) for the same reasons. Both men were non-liberals (non-Democrats) who earned the admiration of the people. Krugman thought he’d be able to belittle Bush for the entirety of what he thought would be one quick term as a “pretender” who “stole” the election from Gore. Only now, of all days (but without comment), does Krugman feel the urge to scratch that long-neglected itch.

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Al Gore’s timing is perfect. We here at The Heartland Institute are just now finishing off the last preparations for our Sixth International Conference on Climate Change in Washington, DC, June 30 and July 1. (It’s still not too late to register, and you can also check out the live-stream).

And, wouldn’t you know it! Al Gore emerges from his palatial, energy-sucking estate for a media blitz (here, here, and here) in which he peddles his usual hokum: ”If you don’t do what I say … we’re all doomed. DOOMED, I say!!! Why won’t you LISTEN TO ME!!! YOU FOOOOOOLS!!!!” (Blah, blah, blah … and paraphrasing)

We couldn’t ask for a more timely example of why we put on these conferences. Thanks, Al. By the way, the invitation for you to speak and/or debate at our climate conference still stands — if you’re up for it. And the offer is real.

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That was some press conference by Obama Thursday. The president once again showed that the thrill is gone when he’s off the prompter — which is why this was Obama’s first press conference since July 2009 when he shoved his loafers into his mouth by saying the cops “acted stupidly” in arresting his obnoxious, race-baiting, disturbing-the-peace friend, Skip Gates.

It’s hard picking the best (or worst) “off the prompter” moment from Thursday. It was pretty bad that minutes after saying of the Gulf oil spill (in so many words): “I’m all over it … I think about it first thing in the morning and last thing at night … I’ve been taking control of the situation from the beginning …” that he admitted that he didn’t know for sure if the bureaucrat in charge of oil and mineral rights in the Interior Department had been fired this morning or resigned. You see, Obama had “a whole bunch of other stuff going on,” such as greeting the Duke men’s basketball team at the White House.

I wouldn’t make too much of this if not for Obama’s defensive posture, insisting he’s all over the situation — and claiming some responsibility for the federal government’s less than ideal response — while simultaneously pushing most of the blame on the Bush administration and BP. Either he’s too busy with “other stuff” to have all the details down, or he’s taking a “big picture” approach and delegating the details to others. He can’t really have it both ways, as that question from The New York Times reporter revealed. If I’m in his press shop, and am looking at the president’s performance with a critical and not sycophantic eye, I cringe.

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A federal appeals court — second only to the U.S. Supreme Court in its legal influence — looks to have put a stop to the desire of the Federal Communications Commission to exert its control over the Internet via the Trojan horse of net neutrality rules.

As reported by Big Government’s Capitol Confidential, and also at InfoTech & Telecom News, the United States Circuit Court for the District of Columbia ruled Tuesday that the FCC does not have the inherent authority to regulate the Internet, but must seek such power from Congress. That was the clear message of the court as it sided with Comcast in its long-running dispute with the FCC over the company’s network management practices. From ITTN:

The decision made it clear that the FCC has no authority to force Comcast to stop managing its broadband network as it sees fit—in this case by throttling back the speed of a relative handful of “bandwidth hogs” who use bitTorrent programs to share enormous files. Comcast said it throttled the “hogs” to ensure speedy service for the majority of its customers in 2007, but no longer does so. …

Commonly referred to as Comcast v. FCC, the ruling stated that the FCC’s “ancillary authority” over the broadcast and cable industries “is not the equivalent of untrammeled freedom to regulate activities” on the Internet, too. …

“Instead, the court begins and ends by dismantling the brief of the FCC, rejecting every effort to tie the Commission’s ‘ancillary jurisdiction’ to something—anything!—in the Communications Act that could justify the sanctions.”

Larry Downes, a fellow with the Stanford Law School Center for Internet & Society, notes that the decision can only be seen as a thorough knock-down of the FCC’s position, because “there is not a single reference to any arguments made by Comcast.”

Downes is right. It’s hard to read this decision as anything less than a complete repudiation of the FCC’s attempted power-grab over the Internet. Lefty groups who have been urging strict regulation of the Internet, such as Public Knowledge and Free Press, are quite despondent today — with the latter outfit plainly urging the FCC to ignore the ruling and “re-establish [its] legal authority.” As Capitol Confidential notes, that would entail the FCC reclassifying Internet service providers (ISPs), currently considered a lightly regulated “information service,” under the commission’s much-stricter “Title II” authority. But such a move would also be subject to the legal argument Comcast won here: The FCC would need explicit Congressional authority to do that.

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As Capitol Confidential noted the other day, net neutrality is an issue that that is dear to the left, but has flown under the radar of most Americans. It’s a rather technical and arcane subject, but can be summed up rather simply: Net neutrality rules enforced by the Federal Communications Commission would allow government bureaucrats to micromanage the Internet — thus sucking out the lifeblood of the digital economy and threatening the dynamism and freedom we’ve come to take for granted online.

Proponents of net neutrality claim that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) abuse their position as “gatekeepers” to the Web, and the public needs government to establish strict “rules of the road” to protect us from their scheming. Trouble is, the evidence of abusive practices by ISPs is anecdotal and thinner than an iPod mini. The digital economy is currently so dynamic and cutthroat that free-market forces work quickly to correct any undesirable hiccups that arise — all without any micro-managing of the tech industry by government.

Net neutrality advocates insist we need government to preserve an “open” and “free” Internet and claim the market has failed. But they cannot point to any market failures that make the Internet less open or free. In short, the Internet isn’t broken. And it doesn’t need a government fix. No matter. The left presses ahead, because the facts are irrelevant. The goal is to put government in charge of digital policy, taking away your freedom as a consumer to shape the Internet with your own choices.

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And that’s the point, I guess. Watch this ad for a “clean diesel” car by Audi, and good luck getting this slightly modified version of the Cheap Trick classic “Dream Police” out of your head. I couldn’t get it out with a lobotomy. It’s been playing off and on in my brain since it first aired during the Super Bowl.

But beyond the diddy, I also can’t get the vision of a fascist “green” future out of my head — even if it’s portrayed with a heavy dollop of of “Reno: 911“-style cop-show parody. Good comedy has to have a grain of truth in it to work, and this spot has plenty. It’s not just a peek at a ridiculous future, but a look at our “be green or else” present. An overreaction? Tell that to the chief of America’s Green Police, San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom, who Tweeted:

“Ok .. That ‘green police’ Audi commercial hits home..”

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The 13th Annual Energy & Environment Conference, held in Phoenix Feb. 1-3, isn’t the sort of place where global warming “deniers” are exactly welcome. In fact, by my observations, the skeptical caucus at the event consisted entirely of: James M. Taylor, a senior fellow for environment policy at The Heartland Institute; Keith Lockitch, a fellow of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights; and me. All the other attendees spent their time discussing how the U.S. government — or, even better, a “global government” — needs to compel us all to live “greener” lives through schemes like cap-and-trade. Environmentalists are a bossy and power-hungry lot.

Lockitch gave a presentation arguing free-market economies are better positioned than socialist societies to deal with any severe weather events caused by climate change — and was called a “denier” and compared to a shill for “Big Tobacco” for his trouble. Taylor got off a little easier, receiving only scoffs and curious-to-annoyed glances for asking inconvenient questions.

But that’s not to say we were the only people to question the assumptions of the attendees who believe the “science is settled” on global warming. Perhaps the greatest challenge came from one of their own — renowned climate scientist William Sprigg — who urged his colleagues to stop treating the ClimateGate scandal as irrelevant noise promoted by “deniers.” In an amazingly telling moment, green energy consultant Andy Van Horn, who introduced Sprigg, admitted he’d never heard of ClimateGate until Sprigg suggested it a few weeks ago as a topic worthy of discussion. (Who are the real “deniers” again?)

Sprigg, adjunct research professor in the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the University of Arizona, believes the planet is on a potentially dangerous warming path and atmospheric carbon dioxide is to blame. He also led the technical review of the first global warming report issued by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1990. Clealry, Sprigg is no “outlier” or “rebel,” but one of the most respected and “mainstream” scientists in the field of climatology. So it came to a bit of shock to the audience when Sprigg expressed concerns about how contrarian scientists are treated with contempt by many of his colleagues.

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