If All You See…

By William Teach November 10, 2018 – 1:00 pm

…is a world constantly flooding from carbon pollution, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Geller Report, with a post on Brazil planning to move their embassy to Jerusalem.

Read: If All You See… »

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Trump Signs Order Limiting Asylum Claims At Mexican Border

By William Teach November 10, 2018 – 10:30 am

This will make the pro-illegal alien crowd rather upset

President Donald Trump on Friday effectively suspended the granting of asylum to migrants who cross the U.S.-Mexico border illegally, seeking fresh ways to block thousands of Central Americans traveling in caravans from entering the United States.

The order, which goes into effect on Saturday, means that migrants will have to present themselves at U.S. ports of entry to qualify for asylum. U.S. immigrant advocates rushed to court to try to block the policy.

“I just signed the proclamation on asylum – very important,” Trump told reporters on Friday before leaving for Paris. “People can come in but they have to come in through the points of entry.” (snip)

The order will be in effect for 90 days or until the United States reaches an agreement with Mexico allowing it to turn back asylum-seekers who had traveled through Mexico, whichever comes first.

Hilariously, the same people who had zero problem with Obama’s illegal and un-Constitutional DACA have a problem with this

Three civil rights groups sued on Friday in San Francisco federal court, seeking an injunction against Trump’s order.

The lawsuit said the order violated the Immigration and Nationality Act, which allows anyone present in the United States to seek asylum regardless of where they entered the country.

“President Trump’s new asylum ban is illegal. Neither the president nor his cabinet secretaries can override the clear commands of U.S. law, but that’s exactly what they’re trying to do,” Omar Jadwat of the American Civil Liberties Union said in a statement.

The lawsuit was brought by ACLU, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and Center for Constitutional Rights.

In fact, federal states that anyone not crossing properly at a designated port of entry is considered an illegal alien, for which the penalty for the first offense is a small fine and deportation. These illegal aliens are taking advantage of asylum laws to claim it when they do not really qualify. They are then released until their court date and most never appear. It’s beyond time to put an end to this.

Read: Trump Signs Order Limiting Asylum Claims At Mexican Border »

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NY Times: California Wildfires Mostly Not Due To ‘Climate Change’

By William Teach November 10, 2018 – 7:45 am

California is a state long known for wildfires. But, why? The NY Times’ Kendra Pierre-louis gives it a whirl in explaining the four key ingredients

Why Does California Have So Many Wildfires?

A pregnant woman went into labor while being evacuated. Videos showed dozens of harrowing drives through fiery landscapes. Pleas appeared on social media seeking the whereabouts of loved ones. Survivors of a mass shooting were forced to flee approaching flames.

This has been California since the Camp Fire broke out early Thursday morning, burning 80 acres per minute and devastating the northern town of Paradise. Later in the day, the Woolsey Fire broke out to the south in Ventura and Los Angeles Counties, prompting the evacuation of all of Malibu.

What is it about California that makes wildfires so catastrophic? There are four key ingredients.

Of course, she has to go with climate change

The first is California’s climate.

“Fire, in some ways, is a very simple thing,” said Park Williams, a bioclimatologist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. “As long as stuff is dry enough and there’s a spark, then that stuff will burn.”

California, like much of the West, gets most of its moisture in the fall and winter. Its vegetation then spends much of the summer slowly drying out because of a lack of rainfall and warmer temperatures. That vegetation then serves as kindling for fires.

But while California’s climate has always been fire prone, the link between climate change and bigger fires is inextricable. “Behind the scenes of all of this, you’ve got temperatures that are about two to three degrees Fahrenheit warmer now than they would’ve been without global warming,” Dr. Williams said. That dries out vegetation even more, making it more likely to burn.

She makes no determination whether this is mostly/solely anthropogenic or mostly/solely natural. And it sure seems that she’s over-estimated the actual temperature change in California by at least half a degree F. Regardless, the world warms and cools. This is what has happened during the time since the end of the last glacial period. No need to make it all about witchcraft.

California is a state that is historically dry. A slightly warmer world might make it easier to start a fire, but, someone has to actually start it

People
Even if the conditions are right for a wildfire, you still need something or someone to ignite it. Sometimes the trigger is nature, like a lightning strike, but more often than not humans are responsible.

“Many of these large fires that you’re seeing in Southern California and impacting the areas where people are living are human-caused,” said Nina S. Oakley, an assistant research professor of atmospheric science at the Desert Research Institute.

Deadly fires in and around Sonoma County last year were started by downed power lines. This year’s Carr Fire, the state’s sixth-largest on record, started when a truck blew out its tire and its rim scraped the pavement, sending out sparks.

That’s right, it has to start somehow, and it’s usually a person or something like a downed power line or something that causes it. ‘Climate change’ isn’t making it happen.

Fire suppression
It’s counterintuitive, but the United States’ history of suppressing wildfires has actually made present-day wildfires worse.

“For the last century we fought fire, and we did pretty well at it across all of the Western United States,” Dr. Williams said. “And every time we fought a fire successfully, that means that a bunch of stuff that would have burned didn’t burn. And so over the last hundred years we’ve had an accumulation of plants in a lot of areas.

Forgotten in this are the enviro laws that stop the clearing of brush that is basically like leaving large drums of lighter fluid sitting around. Remember the scene in the first Saw movie where the guy was covered in a flammable coating and had to carry a candle around to see the codes for the safe? Yeah, that’s large swaths of California.

The Santa Ana winds
Each fall, strong gusts known as the Santa Ana winds bring dry air from the Great Basin area of the West into Southern California, said Fengpeng Sun, an assistant professor in the department of geosciences at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

Dr. Sun is a co-author of a 2015 study that suggests that California has two distinct fire seasons. One, which runs from June through September and is driven by a combination of warmer and drier weather, is the Western fire season that most people think of. Those wildfires tend to be more inland, in higher-elevation forests.

But Dr. Sun and his co-authors also identified a second fire season that runs from October through April and is driven by the Santa Ana winds. Those fires tend to spread three times faster and burn closer to urban areas, and they were responsible for 80 percent of the economic losses over two decades beginning in 1990.

So, dry state with lots of winds. What does a hand-dryer do? And now you’re putting lots and lots of homes and other buildings in areas that are prone to being rather dry, where a tiny spark can start a massive conflagration. There’s really not much reason to assign ‘climate change’ more than a minor cause rating. But, they are out there running lots of stories and sending lots of tweets blaming it all on ‘climate change.’ Because that’s what members of a cult do.

Read: NY Times: California Wildfires Mostly Not Due To ‘Climate Change’ »

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Surprise: California Has A Gun Control Law That Wasn’t Used That Could Have Stopped Thousand Oaks Shooting

By William Teach November 10, 2018 – 7:24 am

In the wake of the Thousand Oaks shooting, the gun grabbers were out there calling for more gun control. California is, of course, one of the most restrictive states for private ownership of firearms. They literally have everything that Democrats have been calling for, and more. Yet, even the hyper-left Huffington Post noticed something

California Has A Law That Might’ve Prevented The Thousand Oaks Shooting. It Wasn’t Used.

Few might have been able to predict that Ian David Long would walk into a bar in Thousand Oaks, California, late Wednesday night, and open fire on patrons, killing 12 and wounding dozens more before turning the gun on himself.

But it would be inaccurate to say there weren’t warning signs. In fact, Long appears to have had the very sort of red flags in his past that might have been used to keep him away from firearms under a 2014 California law. Authorities haven’t released the full details of Long’s prior involvement with law enforcement, so we don’t yet know why the law wasn’t used. It’s only clear that it wasn’t.

(many paragraphs on Long’s history of conflict and mental health issues, which is relevant towards this)

While Long was determined not to qualify for a 5150, there was another option to get guns away from him. Because 5150s are used only in the most extreme cases, California passed another law in 2014, following a deadly shooting spree in Isla Vista, intended to temporarily remove guns from people who pose a danger to themselves or others. California is now one of more than a dozen states with these so-called “red flag” laws on the books. (snip)

Just weeks before the Isla Vista shooter went on his rampage, his family called police to check in on him. After finding him “courteous and polite,” officers decided it wouldn’t be appropriate to issue a 5150 hold, even though he’d posted videos online expressing a desire to commit violence against women. Advocates of the red flag law fought successfully for the creation of another tool to get guns away from potentially dangerous people, even if their behavior might not technically be the result of a mental health crisis.

Under California’s red flag law, family members, roommates and law enforcement officers can petition the court to remove firearms from individuals who have displayed violent behavior. A judge will then hold a hearing to review evidence and decide whether to order the gun owner to surrender their firearms and stay away from all guns. Those restraining orders can last up to a year, and can be extended further based on additional evidence.

When you add everything up, this was exactly the reason red flag laws were passed. Many who 2nd Amendment supporters worry about over-reach with the passage of the laws, but, this is what they’re for. Exactly this. Someone who is having issues, especially mental ones, and threatening violence.

Authorities haven’t said why such a restraining order wasn’t obtained. But Wilcox suggested a few possibilities. Deputies with the sheriff’s office may not have understood how this process works, or perhaps weren’t aware of the law, which has only been in effect since 2016. Alternatively, they might have known about it but determined that petitioning for a restraining order wouldn’t have been appropriate given what they knew about Long. It’s even possible that officers did file a petition for a gun violence restraining order, only to have it rejected by a judge. (snip)

“What we are seeing in the state is there is a large problem of agencies not being well-informed or well-trained on this law,” said Allison Anderman, managing attorney of the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

None of that says anything good about passing lots of laws that may or may not be enforced. But, hey, let’s pass even more laws. What are they? What else can be passed in California? Will they next restrict the caliber to, say, .22LR only? Or just do away with guns with magazines? Revolvers only? Or just ban firearms altogether?

Read: Surprise: California Has A Gun Control Law That Wasn’t Used That Could Have Stopped Thousand Oaks Shooting »

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Newsweek Continues Meme About Senate Popular Vote

By William Teach November 9, 2018 – 3:28 pm

One would think that after a couple of scorching hot takes on the subject, someone in the editorial pool at major media outlets would go “OK, hold on, this is beyond stupid.” Alas, not (via Twitchy)

You know this won’t stop, right? Because being a Democrat means never having to understand Civics 101. It’s easier to just throw a hissy fit with the knowledge of a 3 year old.

Read: Newsweek Continues Meme About Senate Popular Vote »

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If All You See…

By William Teach November 9, 2018 – 1:00 pm

…is a horrible fossil fueled vehicle causing everything bad, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Political Clown Parade, with a post on Cocaine Mitch sending his regards.

Read: If All You See… »

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Obama Appointed Judge Halts Work On Keystone XL Over Obama’s Feelings

By William Teach November 9, 2018 – 11:35 am

Once again we learn that the New Legal System has done away with the notion that elections have consequences and that things from the previous administration cannot be discarded

Judge tosses Trump’s Keystone XL approval over climate change

A federal judge ordered both the Trump administration and TransCanada to stop any work on the controversial Keystone XL pipeline on Thursday, saying President Donald Trump’s approval of the project last year violated several key environmental and administrative laws by ignoring facts about climate change.

Judge Brian Morris of the U.S. District Court for Montana ruled that the Trump administration almost completely ignored climate change in its analysis supporting the pipeline’s construction, a shift that unlawfully reversed the Obama administration’s 2015 decision rejecting the pipeline’s cross-border permit.

Morris, an Obama appointee, directed the Trump administration in his ruling to prepare a new environmental study before the pipeline can resume construction, leaving the door open to a renewed approval in the future.

“The [State] Department did not merely make a policy shift in its stance on the United States’ role on climate change. It simultaneously ignored” a critical part of the Obama administration’s stance on climate change and foreign relations, Morris concluded. Such a change would require a “reasoned explanation.”

Obama’s not president anymore. The O administration stance on Hotcoldwetdry is immaterial when it comes to law. In fact, the State Department under Mr. Obama found no environmental nor ‘climate change’ issues with Keystone XL.

“The Department instead simply discarded prior factual findings related to climate change to support its course reversal,” Morris added.

Those “findings” were political, not baked into law. So, they can be discarded. But, apparently, feelings are now considered “law.”

Judges want to be very careful with these types of reasoning’s, which we’ve also see with DACA and a few other Obama pet causes, because they can set a precedent whereby if a Democrat succeeds Trump, judges can say “you can’t reverse that, you can’t do that, because President Trump did something different, so, it’s settled.”

BTW, there are a bunch of other pipelines in construction right now: why are Warmists not worried about them?

Read: Obama Appointed Judge Halts Work On Keystone XL Over Obama’s Feelings »

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Apparently, If You Don’t Live In Urban And Suburban Areas You Aren’t Part Of Real America

By William Teach November 9, 2018 – 6:53 am

According to Excitable Paul Krugman, you’re just part of Senate America

Real America Versus Senate America

Everyone is delivering post-mortems on Tuesday’s elections, so for what it’s worth, here’s mine: Despite some bitter disappointments and lost ground in the Senate, Democrats won a huge victory. They broke the Republican monopoly on federal power, and that’s a very big deal for an administration that has engaged in blatant corruption and abuse of power, in the belief that an impenetrable red wall would always protect it from accountability. They also made major gains at the state level, which will have a big impact on future elections.

But given this overall success, how do we explain those Senate losses? Many people have pointed out that this year’s Senate map was unusually bad for Democrats, consisting disproportionately of states Donald Trump won in 2016. But there was actually a deeper problem, one that will pose long-term problems, not just for Democrats, but for the legitimacy of our whole political system. For economic and demographic trends have interacted with political change to make the Senate deeply unrepresentative of American reality. (snip)

Obviously not everyone lives — or wants to live — in these growth centers of the new economy. But we are increasingly a nation of urbanites and suburbanites. Almost 60 percent of us live in metropolitan areas with more than a million people, more than 70 percent in areas with more than 500,000 residents. Conservative politicians may extol the virtues of a “real America” of rural areas and small towns, but the real real America in which we live, while it contains small towns, is mostly metropolitan.

You can see where this is going, right? The same old whines about those people in Flyover states daring to have representation equal to big states like New York. Say, why do Vermont, Delaware Rhode Island, and New Hampshire (#’s 50, 45, 44, and 41 on list of most populous states, which includes D.C.) have the same representation as Texas, North Carolina, and Georgia?

The hot take gets more hot

I find it helpful to contrast the real America, the place we actually live, with what I think of as “Senate America,” the hypothetical nation implied by a simple average across states, which is what the Senate in effect represents.

As I said, real America is mainly metropolitan; Senate America is still largely rural.

Real America is racially and culturally diverse; Senate America is still very white.

Real America includes large numbers of highly educated adults; Senate America, which underweights the dynamic metropolitan areas that attract highly educated workers, has a higher proportion of non-college people, and especially non-college whites.

None of this is meant to denigrate rural, non-college, white voters. We’re all Americans, and we all deserve an equal voice in shaping our national destiny. But as it is, some of us are more equal than others. And that poses a big problem in an era of deep partisan division.

Right, right, he doesn’t mean to denigrate those damned rubes, guys. Who you can bet understand the Constitution and the entire point of giving each state two Senators. I know you know, so, I won’t hold forth on this.

We may, then, be looking at a growing crisis of legitimacy for the U.S. political system — even if we get through the constitutional crisis that seems to be looming over the next few months.

It’s only in Liberal World that a “crisis of legitimacy” could occur, because they whine when they lose that things just are fair. Stomps foot.

You know, some of these hot takes are so scorching that you have to wonder if they are done on purpose just to get clicks. Because this is weapons grade stupidity.

Read: Apparently, If You Don’t Live In Urban And Suburban Areas You Aren’t Part Of Real America »

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NY Times: Say, Trump Has Said He Wants Tougher Gun Control, Just Like In California

By William Teach November 9, 2018 – 6:32 am

The bodies in Thousand Oaks, California weren’t even at room temperature and the NY Times Editorial Board was already calling for gun control

Trump Said He Wants Tougher Gun Laws. Can a New Congress Help Get Them?

This is what it’s come to — there are now Americans who have lived through two gun massacres. Many of the people who were able to flee a California bar where a man shot dozens of people late Wednesday night had also survived an attack last year in which a gunman in a Las Vegas hotel fired down on a music festival, killing 58 people. But at least one of the Las Vegas survivors was among the dead at the bar.

The gunman on Wednesday opened fire in a crowded country-music bar, a popular hangout for local college students. He shot a security guard first and killed at least 12 people, including a sheriff’s deputy who responded to the attack. More than 20 were believed to have been wounded. (snip)

If Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Trump are sincere about coming together to fix problems the public cares about, there seems hardly a more pressing place to start than reducing gun violence.

This would not require much of a shift for Democrats. Ms. Pelosi had already planned an early push to tighten background checks for gun purchases — a move favored by a vast majority of Americans, including most National Rifle Association members. Other popular measures previously introduced in Congress, like raising the minimum purchase age to 21 from 18 or banning bump stocks, which convert guns to automatic weapons, could be revisited as well. (snip)

For his part, Mr. Trump has been erratic on the subject of gun safety. In February, post-Parkland, he held a memorable meeting with lawmakers at which he voiced support for a “comprehensive” package that included “powerful” background checks. He called for raising the minimum age for purchasing rifles, seemed open to a Democratic plan to ban assault weapons, and slammed Republican lawmakers for being “afraid of the N.R.A.” (snip to the ending)

But Mr. Trump is the ideal president to tackle the issue. He enjoys the adoration of his party’s culturally conservative base to a degree few politicians even approach. If inclined, he could burn just a small fraction of that capital on promoting some of the common-sense gun measures desired by a majority of the electorate.

Better still, since Mr. Trump has a taste for combat and prides himself on shaking things up, what could be more disruptive than pressuring lawmakers to grow a spine and attack gun violence?

As legacies go, Mr. Trump — and Ms. Pelosi and her colleagues — could do far worse.

Pray tell, what new laws would have stopped the shooter, who apparently had mental issues following deployment to Afghanistan? He was over 21. He passed a federal backgrounds check. He did not use an  “assault rifle.” Depending on which you read, California is the most gun restrictive state in the nation. They have everything that Democrats have been calling for. The only thing they’re missing is just simply banning possession of firearms by private citizens.

They have red flag laws in California, as well. The Washington Post Editorial Board is likewise pimping gun control. What would have stopped this?

Read: NY Times: Say, Trump Has Said He Wants Tougher Gun Control, Just Like In California »

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Surprise: Threat Of ‘Climate Change’ Requires We Change The Way We Live

By William Teach November 8, 2018 – 4:01 pm

Funny how it always comes down to this, as pushed by people who refuse to do the same in their own lives

Threat of climate change requires ‘revolution in how we live’, says Bruton

If Ireland is to respond adequately to the threat of climate change it will require “a revolution in how we live”, according to the new Minister for Climate Action and Environment Richard Bruton.

In his first statement on climate change, Mr Bruton said he was determined to make Ireland a leader in climate action, and announced he is to lead in the development of an “all of Government” plan which set out what actions every department must take in response to climate change. (snip)

Being a leader meant “acting now, stretching ourselves and seizing the enterprise opportunities in a low carbon economy, including the new circular and bioeconomies. Being a follower means the final costs of adjustment are much higher and opportunities much lower or completely lost”.

He added: “It will require a revolution in how we live. Every person, every community, every business, every home and every school will have to make changes in the way we live and work and learn. Nothing less will do if we are to make the changes that are needed to create a sustainable future for everyone.” (snip)

The central ambition of “the all of Government plan” would be to make Ireland a leader in responding to climate change. He would seek to work with colleagues in government to develop new initiatives across electricity, transport, heat, as well as a range of other sectors.

To beat the same theme as I always do, elites, some in government, some not, getting government to control the way citizens live their lives. What is it you call that type of government?

Read: Surprise: Threat Of ‘Climate Change’ Requires We Change The Way We Live »

Posted in AGW Socialism, Global Warming | 1 Comment | Trackback URL
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