Happy Sunday! Another fine day in Returned America. The sun is shining, the Devils are winning, and the bots and spiders are being blocked to an extent. Less load on the server on a constant basis. Which is weird, because I am still blocked in China. Not sure what they would get hitting my small blog. Anyhow, this pinup is by Stephano Riboli, with a wee bit of help.
What is happening in Ye Olde Blogosphere? The Fine 15
Blazing Cat Fur: Germany: 1 out of every 2 people convicted in Bavaria were foreigners last year
Climate Depot: Sleep well tonight — Earth has been saved! Calif. Gov. Gavin Newsom endorses global fossil fuel phaseout at UN climate summit
Cold Fury: Shapely reasons (nice setup on the bridge, BTW)
Common Cents Blog: Bill Maher EVISCERATES Lawn Sign Liberals – Video
Flopping Aces: The real democrat agenda- everything but affordability
Geller Report: Terror Group CAIR’s Capitol Pipeline: Training Muslim Youth to Turn Islamic Values Into Political Power, Pushing for 5,000 Muslim Candidates Nationwide
Jihad Watch: Muslim Caucus Reserves Legislative Internship for Muslims
Moonbattery: Austin Applies DEI to Police Recruitment
And last, but, not least, The Right Scoop has “AWESOME: Gov Ron DeSantis drops a TRUTH BOMB on why the Electoral College is absolutely necessary”
As always, the full set of pinups can be seen in the Patriotic Pinup category, or over at my Gallery page (nope, that’s gone, the newest Apache killed access, and the program hasn’t been upgraded since 2014, so, most are hosted internally). While we are on pinups, since it is that time of year, have you gotten your Pinups for Vets calendar yet? And don’t forget to check out what I declare to be our War on Women Rule 5 and linky luv posts and things that interest me. I’ve also mostly alphabetized them, makes it easier scrolling the feedreader
And wrapping up with Woodsterman, who has some Rule 5, and plenty more during the week.
Don’t forget to check out all the other great material all the linked blogs have!
Anyone else have a link or hotty-fest going on? Let me know so I can add you to the list. And do you have a favorite blog you can recommend be added to the feedreader?
As a sidebar, it’s wild how man blogs I’ve seen die over the years for different reasons.
You may be hearing phrases like “climate crisis,” “climate emergency” and “climate justice” a lot as the 2026 United Nations climate summit is underway. Political leaders, including U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, are using them to try to get across the urgent risks and consequences of climate change. The danger is real, but is using this language actually persuasive?
They like throwing these phrases around after taking long fossil fueled trips
It turns out that Americans are more familiar with – and more concerned about – climate change and global warming than they are about climate crisis, climate emergency or climate justice, according to a survey we conducted with a nationally representative sample of 5,137 Americans.
Moreover, we found no evidence that the alternative terms increased people’s sense of urgency, willingness to support climate-friendly policies or willingness to act.
The familiar terms – climate change and global warming – did at least as well, and sometimes better, than climate crisis and climate emergency in eliciting concern, perceived urgency and willingness to act. The phrase climate justice consistently tended to do worse, likely in part because it was the least familiar. These response patterns were similar among Republicans, Democrats and independents.
It’s wild that the doomsday cult is having to run this stuff 35+ years on
Right now, the terms climate crisis, climate emergency or climate justice are less familiar and elicit less concern than climate change or global warming.
Or is it that fewer and fewer people care in practice?
Our advice: Don’t make the mistake of using overheated language. Just stick with familiar terms that people understand – use global warming when referring to rising temperatures and climate change for overall changes in the climate.
How about using terms to explain what all you Warmists have done in your own lives to conform to cult dogma.
COP31 climate summit in Turkey: An annual jamboree of virtue signalling hypocrisy where 93 private jets touched down so billionaires, technocrats, politicians and celebrity climate high priests sternly lecturing the rest of us plebs to freeze in the dark this winter while they… pic.twitter.com/N8oalObCEA
My family was already in the air flying from Puerto Rico to Orlando, en route back to our home in Albany, New York, when we found out about the ground stop. I had a work conference there, so I decided to bring my wife and three kids, twin 3-year-olds and an 8-year-old, with me.
Maybe don’t bring the whole family to a WORK conference?
Luckily, we were able to land, but the pilot told us all connections had been canceled. Now it’s going to take us three additional days to get home, and it’s going to cost us thousands of dollars.
When we landed in Orlando at 7 p.m., everything was chaotic, with long lines of people trying to get help. My wife and I got our kids settled at one of the gates, and then I waited in line for about an hour. The customer service agent told me our connecting flight would depart at 1 a.m., so we decided to stay at the airport
Our kids were definitely troopers, but were exhausted. We were able to get one of the little ones to fall asleep in their stroller, but the other two didn’t fall asleep until about 10 p.m., way past their bedtime. The whole time we were there, the airline didn’t offer us anything, not even a snack or a blanket. The kids were definitely uncomfortable on the floor and cold.
One of our kids goes to bed every night with a warm cup of milk, but all of the vendors were closed, so she couldn’t have it, which led to some big tears. We were able to get everyone dinner before things closed, though.
Sniffle. AITA for not giving a shit about this tale of woe, or any of the others? Yeah, I’d be annoyed, I’ve had to set around at the airport for extra hours due to the weather, but, this is all so First World. I’m sorry you had a bad experience, but, you’ll be OK. You weren’t in danger, just inconvenienced. There is no need to write a bit Woe Is Me piece, nor others to do the same.
Last year, chronic flight delays and cancellations at Newark Liberty International Airport revealed a litany of problems with antiquated air traffic control systems. Today, those problems persist and are even more illuminated thanks to the FAA’s nationwide ground stop on Friday.
Even Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy admitted last year that some of the decades-old computer equipment air traffic controllers use looks like it came off the set of Apollo 13, and compared it to a 1967 Volkswagen Beetle.
Delta CEO Ed Bastian also revealed last year that, due to aging air traffic control systems, it actually takes longer today to fly from Atlanta to LaGuardia than it did in the 1950s when the airline opened that route.
“That’s the air traffic control system. It’s very slow. It’s congested,” he told TODAY in May 2025. “If you modernize the skies, you can kind of bring greater efficiency.”
This has been an issue since the late 1980s, but, everything seems to be a patch on top of a patch, rather than an overhaul of the system. It’s way past time for that entirely new system. You want to blame someone? Blame every president since Reagan, and everyone who has worked in Congress. Blame bureaucrats.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) has “been with the Republicans” since Congress returned, after the Michigan Democrat endorsed former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) in the midterms.
“She’s been with the Republicans ever since she’s come back. So she’s been on the Republican side of the aisle,” Ocasio-Cortez said during an appearance on “The Don Lemon Show” that aired Thursday.
“This is just the epitome of a certain kind of transactional politics,” she added. “And it’s really sad.”
Oh, Lord, buzz phrase alert. Seriously, isn’t all politics transactional?
Stevens’s last-minute endorsement of the Republican candidate in Michigan’s competitive Senate race came after her feud with Sen.-elect Abdul El-Sayed (D-Mich.). The feud, in the preceding days of the midterm elections, stemmed from a political advertisement tying Israel to high grocery prices in the U.S. Stevens released a statement saying incoming Michigan senator did not condemn the ad forcefully enough.
It was a bit more than that, like El-Sayed saying Stevens was not welcome in his campaign, and his connections to Islamic extremism, and that ad featured previous Republican and seriously broken nutjob Tucker Carlson. Democrats came after her, and then she backed Rogers.
Stevens, who has defended her decision multiple times, tripled down on it following the midterm results, saying that her beliefs were “never measured by who would win at the ballot box.”
“I recognize that my decision has consequences. All important decisions do. I don’t regret it, but I am truly sorry that it upset some of my colleagues and people I care about personally,” she said.
Yeah, you do not want to upset the Democratic Machine, because independent thought is not allowed. Look how they come after John Fetterman, despite him voting with Democrats the vast majority of the time.
Ocasio-Cortez, in her recent interview, said this “isn’t just about endorsing the Republican … this is about a betrayal.”
“It showed that people were right in advocating for Abdul El-Sayed’s candidacy in the primary over someone like Haley Stevens,” the New York Democrat added.
Say what you will about AOC, she is no longer an outsider, she is part of the Machine, and this kind of talk riles up the base and her fellow Democrats. It’s a cult as hardcore as Scientology, which will boot people for being Suppressive Persons. Shun them. Then does Disconnection, cutting all ties with a Suppressive Person. There is no such thing as reasonable discussion, reasonable opposition.
But, she’s only returning to Congress till the end of the session, as she lost to El-Sayed for the Senate seat, and didn’t run for the House. Will she vote with Republicans till then? Remember, she was also thrown out of the Michigan Dem party, because Dems are tuber-tolerant. Look at the comments
Thank God Pelosi is out of there. What a disgrace and a shameful way to end her career. Haley Stevens would have been horrible for this country. But that’s what Schumer wanted. Another AIPC servant putting America last. Good riddance to both women. (Dems love them some Jew Hatred)
The big issue is if she votes with the republicans during this lame duck session. If she actively harms the party she ran for then there should be consequences. Hopefully nobody will hire her for any consulting jobs if she should do that…I’d be okay with blackballing her from anything higher than a “do you want fries with that?” job.
The world must immediately and drastically cut fossil fuel emissions to avert the most catastrophic effects of climate change, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said Friday at his final climate summit, urging the world to “follow the science” and face hard facts.
“You cannot build peace on a burning planet,” Guterres told reporters, stressing that climate change is central to the U.N.’s work because it contributes to geopolitical instability by driving hunger and displacement, pushing countries into debt and fueling competition for land and water.
A 1.6F increase in global temperatures is “burning”. Really, the previous Holocene warm periods saw higher rises
“You cannot eradicate poverty when climate disasters keep throwing people back into it,” he added. “You cannot promise young people a better future while destroying the natural systems on which that future depends. And you cannot speak seriously about justice when those who did least to cause this crisis suffer first and worst.”
World leaders meeting in Turkey for the annual U.N. climate talks are trying to reach consensus on concrete actions to address climate change — which is fueling more intense and deadly heat waves, droughts, floods and other disasters — and help countries at greatest risk, including island nations that also are losing land to rising seas.
They hyperbole is amazing. Though, not unexpected. It’s usual from the cult. But, here’s where it gets really fun. You know how I’ve been writing that there are 50K+ at the Turkey climate (scam) conference? Yeah, that + is a wee bit bigger
I was extremely impressed to see more than 90,000 people at #COP31 in Antalya.
I could feel their energy & determination to push for urgent #ClimateAction.
Only the @UN can bring so many people from around the world together in defense of our planet & our common future. pic.twitter.com/xySRKsKnRL
A new school in Chicago is taking a different approach to education, using what they call AI-powered software to teach core subjects like math, science, and reading.
Students at Alpha Chicago in the Lakeshore East neighborhood spend two hours each morning learning core subjects on a computer – like math, science, and reading – using a software program called “2 Hour Learning.”
“At first, I thought it would feel like going on my iPad, but it feels so much more different, like I’m actually learning,” Alpha Chicago student Owen said.
The rest of their day is spent developing real-world skills like sewing, cooking, and navigating public transportation.
It should include stuff like cursive, how loans work, basic economics, stuff like that. Overall, sounds like an interesting idea
Most guides don’t have a background in education. A February analysis from the University of Colorado’s National Education Policy Center, a nonpartisan think tank, reported that only about one-third of Alpha guides have education training or degrees.
Carrington Haas is the lead guide of Alpha Chicago.
“AI is a component of it, but I think truly the impressive and the magic part of Alpha is the way that we are able to teach the life skills,” she said.
The life skills include public speaking, financial literacy, teamwork, and leadership.
Interesting concept. The teacher’s unions must utterly loathe this.
Alpha Schools has 1,500 students at 50 campuses across the country. Around 50 students are enrolled in Chicago, but the space can hold up to 500.
The school has a hefty price tag. Tuition for one student costs nearly $55,000.
But what about families who can’t afford tuition or who live farther away?
“We want to be able to expand this and make it so that it’s not just an exclusive education, because this is a model that we believe can work for everybody,” Howell said.
I’m actually surprised Democrats haven’t tried to shut it down.
The U.N.’s COP31 climate alarmism summit in Antalya, Turkey, is proving to be a fractious affair, as energy-producing nations insist on their right to sell the fossil fuel products that drive their economies. On Thursday, Venezuela became the latest nation to declare that it will not stop pumping oil.
“We reaffirm our sovereign right to ?strengthen our energy and oil industry as a driver of our national development,” Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodriguez, said after hearing the latest U.N. demand to phase out fossil fuels.
“We believe there is no inevitable contradiction between energy development and environmental protection, because a just transition does not shut down economies – it transforms them,” she argued.
Rodriguez and her team actually used the COP31 conference as a venue to drum up more investment in Venezuela’s oil industry, including pitch meetings with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Turkish Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar.
She missed a big opportunity, like most politicians, to call out the hypocrisy of 50K+ taking fossil fueled flights to a climate conference and decry Other People using fossil fuels. I don’t know why they don’t get this, it would be the easiest thing.
Rodriguez offered her own version of this strategy by rolling out “Plan Venezuela Vive” at COP31 on Thursday. She argued that Venezuela is a “net carbon sink” despite selling prodigious amounts of oil, and pledged to sink even more carbon with a national program of forest and ocean conservation.
That would be what the Warmists would call “greenwashing”. And then they take a private fossil fueled jet.
PS: I used that old graphic of Sheldon, then wondered “hey, is he there?”
(Argus) While there is a “pretty solid foundation of work” that has been done on such a carbon boarder adjustment mechanism (CBAM) for the US, the loss of two Republican supporters will make it hard to get through Congress, even as Democrats are poised to hold sizeable majorities in both the Senate and US House of Representatives next year, US senator Sheldon Whitehose (D-Rhode Island) said on Friday.
“We’d need Republican champions to step up”, Whitehouse told reporters at the UN Cop 31 climate summit in Antalya, Turkey.
All posts here are my views. None represent my employer. If ye can prove me wrong, so be it. Ye can rant and rave at me, but be mostly polite to any other commentors. I will put up with quite a bit, but be mostly respectful to others.
NOTICE In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C., section 107, some material on this web site is provided without permission from the copyright owner, only for purposes of criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship and research under the "fair use" provisions of federal copyright laws. These materials may not be distributed further, except for "fair use" non-profit educational purposes, without permission of the copyright owner.
My family was already in the air flying from Puerto Rico to Orlando, en route back to our home in Albany, New York, when we found out about the ground stop. I had a work conference there, so I decided to bring my wife and three kids, twin 3-year-olds and an 8-year-old, with me.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) has “been with the Republicans” since Congress returned, after the Michigan Democrat endorsed former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) in the midterms.
A new school in Chicago is taking a different approach to education, using what they call AI-powered software to teach core subjects like math, science, and reading.
The U.N.’s COP31 climate alarmism summit in Antalya, Turkey, is proving to be a fractious affair, as energy-producing nations insist on their right to sell the fossil fuel products that drive their economies. On Thursday, Venezuela became the latest nation to declare that it will not stop pumping oil.
