Organizers have canceled today’s Winter Fest and Olympics in Sheboygan due to cold weather.

Obviously, this extreme cold weather has been caused by Glenn Reynolds using so much energy to write a blog.

Meanwhile at Tom Nelson: Children won’t know what barns look like.

(Chicago Tribune) Let’s face it, climate change is incredibly un-sexy. We don’t care how many nude protesters are involved. But it’s about to get worse. A new mini-report from the environmental group Climate Nexus points out that climate change is poised to wreck Valentine’s Day, or at least change it significantly, by threatening chocolate production.

That’s right. Global warming is very bad for chocolate.

Know what else would be bad for chocolate? Cold weather. Wind. Direct sunlight. Cloudy conditions. Cocoa is not easy to grow, and requires specific conditions. But, you know, we’re doomed because someone drove a car.

As reported by The Times, research from the International Center for Tropical Agriculture found last year that as temperatures rise, the principal growing regions for cocoa could shrink, especially in Ghana and Ivory Coast, the sources of half the world’s supply. Production could fall off dramatically by 2050, making cocoa less available and more expensive.

Ah, the magical 2050. Perhaps they could tell us what will happen next year for cocoa production.

Of course, new growing regions could develop, but moving an entire industry is never a sure thing, or cheap.

Yet, that is what happens in a dynamic world with a climate that is always changing. And then there’s this

With Valentine’s Day coming up next week, and climate scientists continuing to come under relentless attacks by climate skeptic groups, a new campaign has sprung up to show some love for the scientists. The brainchild of Climate Nexus, a climate change strategic communications organization, the “I Heart Climate Scientists” campaign has a Facebook page where people are submitting photos of themselves and/or their pets with signs supporting climate scientists. Supporters are also being urged to use the Twitter hashtag #iheartclimatescientists.

An email from Climate Nexus said: “Climate change deniers are sending hate mail and threats to dedicated climate scientists working to protect our families, finances and future. Show these hardworking experts some love — even digital hugs count this Valentine’s Day. Remind them their work is valuable, their opinions respected, and that they are not alone.”

Awwwwww, the poor wittle babies. They need a hug. Remind them to follow the scientific method, instead of the Madame Zelda Method.

BTW, Tom Nelson has two of the funniest headlines on this subject, perhaps a little bit of inside baseball vis a vis the no snow meme.

(Reuters) President Barack Obama will call for cutting the top 35 percent corporate tax rate as early as this month, according to two sources close to the administration.

The president is likely to propose a rate closer to an average of that seen in peer nations, the sources said.

That would put the rate at about 20%. But, why not announce it now? Because this isn’t about passing a corporate tax rate cut, but, about politics

Facing a potentially tough presidential re-election challenge this November, Obama will propose cutting the rate following the release of his 2013 budget plan on Monday, February 13, according to the sources, who were not authorized to speak on the record.

While he spent a big part of his January speech to Congress criticizing businesses for moving jobs overseas, Obama said that “companies that choose to stay in America get hit with one of the highest tax rates in the world.”

If he does announce a plan, the details will probably end up helping just a few companies, probably ones led by people who vote Democrat and donate to Democrats, much like with Obama’s Stimulus. And much like Obama’s vaunted bank settlement, which seems to help the big bank owners.

An overhaul of the corporate tax system is extremely unlikely in an election year, but the president’s proposal could be an olive branch to the business community to show that he agrees with them on one key aspect of tax reform.

And there you go, this is about campaign optics, not about actually Doing Something. He’ll probably offer up something which looks great on the outside, but has poison pills on the inside, which are objectionable to the GOP. The media will avoid mention of the poison pills, and make the GOP look bad. If the GOP has any brains, they should pass a clean corporate tax rate quickly, forcing Obama’s hand. They should do the same with the payroll tax cut, extending it for one year, get ahead of the curve. Obama whined about this in this week’s weakly address (yes, I meant to spell it that way). Obama plans to offer the cut in his budget. Now we know why Democrats wanted a 2 month extension: to attempt to make Obama look magnanimous by pushing a year long extension, which is what Republicans wanted in the first place.

Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.

Access To Birth Control Is A Fundamental Component Of Climate Survival

Any morally acceptable pathway to prevent catastrophic global warming includes broad access to affordable birth control for the world’s women. The conservative war on birth control is a war on women’s rights, and thus on the rights of us all. Manmade global warming is one of the most troubling symptoms of economic and social injustice around the planet, and the ”countries in the developing world least responsible for the growing emissions are likely to experience the heaviest impact of climate change, with women bearing the greatest toll.” Researchers have found that empowering women to reduce unplanned pregnancies is one of the most cost-effective ways to combat greenhouse pollution, as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson discussed at the Durban climate conference last December:

In addressing climate resilience, Robinson stressed the importance of focusing on health and burden impacts of climate change. One of the keys is access to reproductive health for women.

Good grief. Is there a class Lefties attend to learn to write like that, like Marxist Magniloquence 101? Anyhow, this goes back to one of the Warmist’s biggest issues: reducing the global population. And, interestingly, this ties into what Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger wanted, namely, reducing the number of minorities, which is what happens when birth control is spread around to much of the developing world, particularly places like the African continent. You want racism? That’s racism! Planning based on the doctrine of eugenics.

The more world leaders focus on giving women and girls the tools of empowerment — access to family planning, education, and the political and economic system — the better future all of us will have.

A world where women and girls have more power is a healthier world.

That’s interesting, since Liberals get the vapors when Conservatives talk about liberating women from being 2nd class citizens as they are in much of the Islamic world. But, really, this is all about spreading abortion on demand around the world. Cheaply. Which is where the asterisk in the headline comes in: liberals think contraceptives, sterilization (Sanger loved the thought of sterilizing Blacks and defectives a hoot), and abortions should be free, and, by free, I mean “someone else pays.” Liberals never seem to want to pay for anything themselves. That’s why they loved Obama’s insurance mandate, as Someone Else would pay for their condoms and birth control pills, and screw what the constitution says about religious freedom.

Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.

(Grist) My personal carbon offset plan has bogged down with a serious case of the Couldas.

For those of you just joining us, I’ve been on a personal quest to nullify the carbon dioxide emissions from a trip to Texas last October. All 1,858 pounds of it. Rather than buying a dubious carbon offset for the trip, I wanted to slice enough emissions from my own lifestyle to atone for my sins against the climate.

How’s that been working out, you ask? Coulda been better.

I could have cut back to once-weekly showers, saving gallon upon gallon of water. After all, it takes gobs of energy to gather, treat, and deliver fresh water on demand. I could have gone vegan, lifting resource-intensive and methane-spewing meat products from my conscience. I could have given up my apartment and my job in favor of a life spent illegally squatting in the woods and eating raccoon gristle. All that power I’ve been sucking to keep my food cold and my computer humming? Off my balance sheet.

Perhaps it won’t shock you to learn I didn’t do any of those things. That’s why, to date, I’ve managed to offset just 789.5 pounds of that mighty 1,858-pound total. Well, that’s the official tally. I’m hoping you’ll give me some credit for a side project I’ve undertaken. More on that in a minute.

It’s hard to be green weenie. Of course, she could simply have not taken that fossil fueled air trip, but, you know, life. So, what’s her solution?

But here’s where I’m looking at you, dear reader, to throw me a bone. Frustrated with my slow progress, I reached outside of myself and realized that, you know what? It takes a village to offset 1,858 pounds of CO2, and I’m going to get my neighbors involved in the effort, whether they like it or not. So I set out to start a compost program for my building.

That’s right, her answer is to force her cultish beliefs on others.

(ABC News) With the White House under fire for its new rule requiring employers including religious organizations to offer health insurance that fully covers birth control coverage, ABC News has learned that later today the White House —possibly President Obama himself —will likely announce an attempt to accommodate these religious groups.

The move, based on state models, will almost certainly not satisfy bishops and other religious leaders since it will preserve the goal of women employees having their birth control fully covered by health insurance.

My money’s on this being all smoke and mirrors, designed to deflect the controversy out of the limelight. ‘Cause the last thing Team Obama wants is to have to discuss his “signature legislation” during an election year.

Update: here we go, via WRAL

Women will still get guaranteed access to birth control without co-pays or premiums no matter where they work, a provision of Obama’s health care law that he insisted must remain. But religious universities and hospitals that see contraception as an unconscionable violation of their faith can refuse to cover it, and insurance companies will then have to step in to do so.

Seems to be more of semantics: religious organizations get to say they don’t cover objectionable issues, but, their insurance carriers still have to pay.

“No woman’s health should depend upon who she is or where she works or how much money she makes,” the president said in a statement to reporters at the White House. “Every woman should be in control of the decisions that affect her own health, period.”

If someone else is paying, they are no longer in control.

White House officials said Obama has the legal authority to order insurance companies to provide free contraception coverage directly to workers. He will demand it in a new rule.

And there’s one of the problems, government can tell any private entity how to run their business. It’s almost like ….socialism.

Anyhow, Champ had to retreat: the last thing he wants to do is have people think about his fantastically unpopular “signature legislation” during an election year.

(MSNBC) As libertarian Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul looks for a state he can win, some of his supporters have turned to a new theme: voting fraud.

A Super PAC supporting Paul has pledged to monitor the vote in all the remaining states, using an army of exit pollsters to fight what it calls results that are “outrageous, unacceptable and patently un-American.” The group, called Revolution PAC, has spent half a million dollars supporting Paul with videos, webcasts, online ads, direct mail, billboards and radio ads in primary and caucus states.

The leader of the group, its founder, chairman and treasurer, is Gary Franchi, a promoter of conspiracy theories and sophisticated social-media entrepreneur in the resurgent movement known as the Patriots.

Some of what MSNBC writes about is

Franchi has supported the 9/11 Truth Movement, which supports the idea that the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, werean inside job to create a pretext for a reduction in American liberty, or at least involved a cover-up, with the World Trade Center brought down by a planned U.S. demolition, instead of terrorist-controlled airplanes. Franchi founded the Lone Lantern Society (a reference to Paul Revere indicating that foreign enemies are on American soil). The group supports “the birth of freedom and the death of the New World Order,” a secretive elite that is supposedly trying to set up a world government. Lone Lantern has held street demonstrations on the 11th of every month in Chicago and elsewhere, demanding an investigation of 9/11. In New Hampshire in 2008, a video shows Franchi asking Tom Ridge, the former secretary of Homeland Security, who was campaigning for Sen. John McCain, whether Ridge would support an investigation of the “controlled demolition” of the World Trade Center. Ridge was having none of it, saying, “I just don’t buy into that. That’s a conspiracy theory that has no basis in fact. It’s almost out of the Twilight Zone.”

Obviously, Revolution PAC is an outside group which can support who they want. But, Paul could finally come out and say “I do not support the 9/11 Truth movement, they’re out of their minds. He won’t. He seems to enjoy hanging with Truthers/conspiracy nuts like Alex Jones, and going on their radio programs.

Like Ron Paul, Franchi has a few good ideas, then turns them up to Ludicrous Speed, perhaps even going plaid. Ron Paul has won none of the beauty contests, er, primaries/caucuses, and will, mostly likely, win none in the future. He has a great core group, but no broader appeal, especially when people find out about his background.

(Reuters) A U.S. Roman Catholic television network said on Thursday it has filed suit in federal court to block President Barack Obama’s new rule on contraceptives, while a Catholic Church leader and top Republicans stepped up their criticism of Obama.

The rule, implemented on January 20, requires religious-oriented groups such as charities, hospitals and universities, but not churches, to provide coverage for birth control as other health insurance providers must do. The Catholic Church opposes most methods of birth control.

EWTN Global Catholic Network said it filed its case in U.S. District Court in Birmingham, Alabama against the U.S. Department of Health Human Services and other government agencies seeking to stop the imposition of the rule. The case asks the court to find the rule unconstitutional, it said.

The rule itself is part of ObamaCare, and if one group is completely exempted, then ObamaCare is then in violation of equal protection under the law (14th Amendment, Preamble of the Constitution, and Declaration of Independence). But, if the rule applies to all, then ObamaCare is in violation of the 1st, which states that “Congress shall pass no law….prohibiting the free exercise thereof (of religion). I have to wonder if challenging simply the rule has anything to do with so many Catholic institutions supporting the health care reform fiasco. I can’t find anything that shows that EWTN supported it, but….

Anyhow

In another development, Archbishop of New York Timothy Dolan, who is the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, called on Obama to back off from the rule and said it contradicted assurances Obama gave him during a White House meeting in November.

Ah. So, like so many liberals, Archbishop Dolan figured he wouldn’t actually have to be a part of a restrictive, overbearing law he supported. He figured he would be exempt. Kinda like how Liberals love the thought of higher taxes and globull warming restrictions, but always for That Guy.

Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.