Bummer: Climate Is Totally Breaking Down, Hence, We Need Socialism

By William Teach October 13, 2018 – 10:30 am

This time of year always brings the most dire of ‘climate change’ doomsaying, kicking it up to 15/10, as a Big Report always comes out a month or two prior to the next UN IPCC climate change meeting a great vacation spot where 10,000+ take fossil fueled trips. And we get stuff like

Climate is not just changing – it is breaking down

Climate change or climate breakdown? Growth or wellbeing? Growth as development? Degrowth? Prosperity without growth? Climate capitalism or ecosocialism?

It matters hugely how this week’s news from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is framed in public debate. The most authoritative scientists tell us that unless global warming is limited to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial times, the world faces extreme weather events, food shortages, wildfires, dying coral reefs, droughts, floods and poverty for hundreds of millions.

To avoid this outcome, the world economy needs a transformation of unprecedented speed and scale, involving far-reaching changes in society. We have only 12 years, they say, to achieve it by making huge strides towards eliminating greenhouse gases arising from fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas. The report underlines the qualitative difference between the 1.5- and 2-degree reductions previously seen as less stark. The case for radical action is reinforced by its finding that on present trends we are heading for more than a 3-degree increase by 2100 – catastrophic territory.

Climate change is an anodyne and demobilising way to describe such urgent tasks and prospective disasters, according to the ecological writer and activist George Monbiot. That’s why he calls his online movement #climatebreakdown. He makes a powerful case for the more dramatic word, to get more people talking about it and media to take the threats much more seriously.

Monbiot is a lunatic, and 25+ years of fear-mongering sure hasn’t worked out so far.

Climate breakdown on this scale poses huge conceptual, ideological and political challenges alongside the physical and technical ones. Herman Daly, whose book on steady-state economics in the 1970s pioneered modern environmental economic analysis, explains in a recent interview that steady-state comes from the realisation that “the economy is a sub-system of a larger system, the ecosphere, which is finite, non-expanding, materially closed”. We now “convert too much of nature into ourselves and our stuff, and there’s not enough to provide the biophysical life-support services that we need”.

Interesting. Steady state economics preaches about keeping the economy and the population at one size. So, population control. Who controls? Government, of course. Economy? Government is solely in charge.

Another signatory of the letter is Peadar Kirby of the University of Limerick, the author of several books on these themes. His latest work poses the question of pathways beyond the optimism underlying climate capitalism, which claims it will be possible to make the low-carbon transition by technical-scientific means, including large-scale geoengineering. Not so, says Kirby, because capitalism’s commitment to indefinite growth cannot be reconciled with a sustainable future for humanity.

In that case, he argues, we should draw inspiration from the Austrian socialist economist Karl Polanyi who argued in the 1940s and 1950s that capitalism disrupts social relations so profoundly as to provoke periodic movements to counter and reconstruct market power. We are living through such a period, he suggests. Ecosocialism, combining local sustainable initiatives with worldwide analysis and action, is his preferred way forward.

Such alternative ideas are badly needed in these dangerous times.

Huh. So, socialism. Government in full control of the economy. Which means the lives of citizens, too. Strange how Warmists keep going to this same well.

Read: Bummer: Climate Is Totally Breaking Down, Hence, We Need Socialism »

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

Vox: Say, We Should Abolish The Supreme Court

By William Teach October 13, 2018 – 7:30 am

Oh, Vox Vox Vox. Back when Barack Obama was appointing hardcore Progressives Sonia Sotomayor and Elana Kagen to the Court everything was lollipops and unicorns. But now that Donald Trump has appointed Constitutional originalists Neal Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh to the court we have Leftists melting down

The case for abolishing the Supreme Court

When he was arguing for the ratification of the Constitution, Alexander Hamilton wrote that the judiciary “will always be the least dangerous branch to the political rights of the Constitution,” in part because he believed the federal courts would stand above the political fray and act as a bulwark against tyranny from all directions.

But it’s hard to defend the Supreme Court on these grounds today.

As my colleague Matthew Yglesias noted last week, the Court is now a blunt political instrument, used repeatedly to undermine outcomes of democratic governance — often on behalf of corporate interests. And the recent disaster that was the Brett Kavanaughconfirmation has further delegitimized the Court in the public’s mind.

So it’s perfectly reasonable to ask if we should abolish the Supreme Court, or at the very least strip the Court of its ability to overturn laws that it rules unconstitutional. If the Court is no longer a neutral arbiter of the law, if it’s gradually shape-shifting into a partisan weapon, then maybe it’s time to rethink its role in our constitutional system.

Got that? Since the court is there to make decisions based on the Constitution rather than how some people voted, abolish it! Which is an interesting notion, considering how often liberals use the Supreme Court, and many lower courts, to overturn the will of the voters. Think, not so long ago they took it to SCOTUS to overturn many voter referendums that made gay marriage illegal in several states. Without the Court, that doesn’t happen.

Anyway, writer Sean Illing goes on to discuss this all with Mark Tushnet, a law professor at Harvard, and there’s way too much to fisk. And, really, this is all about Democrats being sore losers. Who should remember that without judicial review, many of their pet initiatives would be killed. There would be no Roe V Wade. Gay marriage would be against the law in California. And so much more.

Stop being sore losers. Stop having kneejerk sore loser reactions to everything. They won’t.

Read: Vox: Say, We Should Abolish The Supreme Court »

Posted in Barking Moonbats, Liberal World | 9 Comments | Trackback URL

Trump Calls Confederate General Robert E. Lee Great General Or Something

By William Teach October 13, 2018 – 7:16 am

This has made the Washington Post’s Gabriel Pogrund Very Upset

Trump asked African Americans for their votes at a rally where he also praised Confederate icon Robert E. Lee

President Trump praised the Confederate general Robert E. Lee whilst asking African American voters to “honor us” by voting for him at an Ohio rally which included an unexpected and provocative monologue on America’s Civil War history.

Addressing an open-air rally of around 4,000 supporters, Trump appeared buoyant as he declared that Lee was a “true great fighter” and “great general.” He also said Abraham Lincoln once had a “phobia” of the Southern leader, whose support of slavery has made his legacy a heavily contested and divisive issue.

The comments came during an anecdote about Ohio-born president Ulysses S. Grant’s alleged drinking problems. “Robert E. Lee was winning battle after battle after battle. And Abraham Lincoln came home, he said, ‘I can’t beat Robert E. Lee’,” Trump said. “They said to Lincoln, ‘You can’t use him anymore, he’s an alcoholic.’ And Lincoln said, ‘I don’t care if he’s an alcoholic, frankly, give me six or seven more just like him.’ He started to win.”

Minutes earlier, Trump had hailed African American unemployment numbers and asked black voters to “honor us” by voting Republican in November. “Get away from the Democrats,” he told them. “Think of it: we have the best numbers in history … I think we’re going to get the African American vote. And it’s true.” He also celebrated hip-hop artist Kanye West’s visit to the Oval Office on Thursday, adding: “What he did was pretty amazing.”

Trump’s speech threatened to reignite a highly divisive debate over America’s racial history with just weeks to go until the midterms. Trump has previously defended statues commemorating Confederate leaders, tweeting last year: “Sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart with the removal of our beautiful statues and monuments.” Critics say such statues glorify historic advocates of slavery.

So, that third paragraph, where the actual context is supposed to reside, is rather tortured, is it not? The article goes on to mention that Ulysses S. Grant being a native born Ohioan, which was the point of the what Trump was saying. Twitchy has a post up about “you’re about to see libs attack Trump” over the Robert E. Lee quote, which includes

But

Cam provides a lot more context, worth reading his tweets over at the Twitchy post. And this is yet another example of why the Leftist news media is untrustworthy.

Lee was, in fact, a great fighter and a great general. His record before the Civil War as part of the U.S. military was spectacular, and he did pretty well during the Civil War, up to a point. Even though he was a part of the German military during WWII, we can say that Rommel was a hell of a general, can we not? Admiral Yamamoto was a hell of an admiral, right?

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Posted in Donald Trump, Wonky Media | 66 Comments | Trackback URL

Principal Who Made Student Take Off Patriotic Trump Jersey Was Replaced

By William Teach October 12, 2018 – 5:22 pm

Remember the story on a high school kid in Harnett County, NC, who was told to remove his patriotic Trump jersey or leave by the principle?

Well

(WRAL) Harnett Central High School is under new leadership following an incident involving a student at an October 5 football game, according to public information officer Natalie Ferrell.

(background information on the situation)

On Friday, a news release from Harnett County Schools announced leadership changes involving Gordon’s position.

According to the release, effective immediately, Ms. Catherine Jones, current principal at Harnett Primary, will serve as principal at Harnett Central High School.

Additional information about (Cindy) Gordon’s employment status was not made available.

If she was terminated, I would disagree. Yes, she made a big mistake in the way she handled this, which you can bet was as a Trump hater/Hillary supporter. Even in a very Republican leaning county, you can bet school employees are going to lean Democrat. Regardless, I believe it would have been better to treat this as a learning opportunity about people’s 1st Amendment Rights. Even reassigning might be too much, though, with more responsibility comes more penalties.

Read: Principal Who Made Student Take Off Patriotic Trump Jersey Was Replaced »

Posted in NC News | 9 Comments | Trackback URL

Vox Totally Knows The 10 Ways Fix Hotcoldwetdry

By William Teach October 12, 2018 – 3:00 pm

Can you guess what this all boils down to?

10 ways to accelerate progress against climate change

Climate scientists told us this week in a long-awaited United Nations report that limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius would require a gargantuan global effort — and that we have roughly 12 years to do it. But how?

One bright spot in the report is that we already have the tools we need.

Let’s make something clear, though: The emissions we need to focus on now are the ones at the industrial, corporate level, not at the individual level.

Voxinators Eliza Barcley and Umair Ifran even include this tweet which I’ve posted before

Can you see where they’re going? Here are their 10 ides

  1. Price carbon emissions (government)
  2. Subsidize clean energy, and end subsidies for dirty energy (government, and we don’t really subsidize fossil fuels)
  3. Close coal plants, and cut off the fossil fuel supply in other ways (government)
  4. Electrify everything and get more efficient (government)
  5. Invest in innovation (government. I actually approve of some govt investment, but, I’d rather see them enable, entice, and positively challenge the private sector to do this, rather than punish)
  6. End production and sales of cars, trucks, and buses that run on fossil fuels (government. And when will govt give up their own?)
  7. Require “zero deforestation” supply chains (government)
  8. Keep aging nuclear plants running (Good with this, and we should build next generation ones)
  9. Discourage meat and dairy consumption, encourage plant-based diets (government)
  10. Remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere (government, and there really are no existing methods)

Funny how this works, eh?

Read: Vox Totally Knows The 10 Ways Fix Hotcoldwetdry »

Posted in Global Warming | 2 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach October 12, 2018 – 1:00 pm

…is gravity changing due to too much carbon pollution*, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Climate Change Dispatch, with a post on Warmists wanting to call hurricanes “unnatural disasters.”

*Every once in a while I just have to drop a link to show that I’m not making things up in the leads.

Read: If All You See… »

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“First Man” Movie Raises Disturbing Reminder Of Racial Inequality Or Something

By William Teach October 12, 2018 – 10:30 am

It’s always something with these people. Always some sort of Grievance. Always putting people in boxes. Always finding ways to tear things down rather than build them up

“First Man” Raises Disturbing Reminder of Racial Inequality
Gil Scott-Heron’s “Whitey on the Moon” plays a pivotal role in the film.

Um, it was whitey on the moon. Funny how the people who complain about raaaaacism so often devolve into being racists (the line does refer to a song that is mentioned later in the screed)

Ryan Gosling grimaces and grinds his teeth and suffers mostly silently as heroic Neil Armstrong in Oscar winner Damien Chazelle’s First Man, out Friday. The title is short for first man on the moon for those who weren’t around in 1969 when the dude took “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Or, well, some of it. Fifty years later America doesn’t do such an out-of-this-world job when it comes to racial inclusivity. First Man is a reminder of such inequality.

The early reception for Chazelle’s space epic since its premiere at the Telluride Film Festival last month has been superlative. Under the National Review headline “First Man is the movie of the Year,” my friend and former New York Post colleague Kyle Smith joined with the majority who found the biopic 82 percent fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. He crowed: “First Man is why we go to the movies.”

To that I ask, “What do you mean we, white man?” as the punchline to the old Lone Ranger and Tonto joke goes.

Nothing like the last month in America shows the cracks in the American melting pot, and the impossibility of a cultural “we.” Most semi-woke individuals sometime during the 141-minute movie will notice the absence of people of color in speaking roles. Not there on the mammoth screen. Not there historically. Not in space. (And possibly absent from the audience.)

Well, most won’t get there now, because they’re teaching their kids to be rap stars, and Democrats are keeping them stupid on the inner city plantations, not giving one damn about the violence, drugs, poverty, babies born out of wedlock and with multiple male (absent) fathers, poor education, and squalor. As long as the vote Democrat through giving them a bit of government assistance is all Democrats care about

It’s the beat that stays with you long after you’ve left the theater. As then, so now, Scott-Heron articulates the disconnect between the space race and the underclass. We can send a man to the moon but we can’t care for our people on the street and in the ghetto. This track, to quote The Atlantic’s Alexis C. Madrigal, “changed the way I thought about the space race forever. It anchored the flight into the heavens, tethering it to the persistence of racial inequality, and pulling it out of the abstract, universal realm in which we like to place our technical achievements….To which America went the glory of the moon landing? And what did it cost our nation to put whitey on the moon?”

It cost out nation nothing. It bettered out country. It vastly increased our scientific and technical knowledge. We did something the Soviets didn’t (nor has any other country), and all these revisionists forget what was happening in that time period.

Over at The Mary Sue, the insightful critic Kate Gardner expresses that feeling that the film is out of touch with 2018: “[I]t feels as though there’s been a tonal misstep; someone didn’t read the room properly. We don’t need apolitical platitudes. We need stories that challenge us, that inspire us, and that tell us that there is a future rather than living in a moment in the past.”

Actually, what we need are just good movies, not SJW screeds.

Read: “First Man” Movie Raises Disturbing Reminder Of Racial Inequality Or Something »

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Strange: Few Paris Climate Agreement Signing Nations Are Meeting Their Goals

By William Teach October 12, 2018 – 7:09 am

The Paris Climate Agreement was so historic, so landmark, that most are more interested in appearances, and are finding it rather tough to force citizens and private entities to comply with reduced lifestyle and a higher cost of living to go with the higher taxes

Few countries are meeting the Paris climate goals. Here are the ones that are.

This week, a top scientific body studying climate change released a terrifying report. The world has just a decade to take “unprecedented” action to cut carbon emissions and hold global warming to a moderate — but still dangerous and disruptive — level. That would require a “rapid and far-reaching” transformation of the world’s economy, one of such scale and magnitude that it has no historical equivalent.

The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that nearly every country will need to significantly scale up the commitments made under the 2015 Paris climate accord if humans hope to avoid disaster. Under that agreement, 195 countries pledged to cut their greenhouse-gas emissions to try to keep global warming under two degrees Celsius.

But it’s hard to imagine that will happen, as almost no country is doing a good job meeting the relatively modest goals in place. (The United States was a signatory of the 2015 Paris agreement, but last year President Trump announced that Washington was pulling out of the pact.)

The Climate Action Tracker, a project run by a group of three climate-research organizations, has been monitoring the progress of 32 countries in meeting the Paris accord goals. Taken together, those 32 countries account for 80 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Most of the rest of the nations are 3rd world shitholes developing countries and/or tiny nations that matter little. So, how are these 32 doing?

As the graphic below shows, the group found that most major polluters are making few, if any, efforts to meet their goals. By Climate Action’s calculations, “critically insufficient countries” failed to even commit to cutting emissions significantly on paper. Only seven countries have made commitments or efforts that would achieve the goal of the Paris accord.

Here’s what it looks like

Hilariously, the U.S. is leading the world in CO2 emission reductions, despite killing off Obama’s Clean Power Plan, pulling out of Paris, and many other measures, many of which wipe out Obama’s “legacy.”

Read: Strange: Few Paris Climate Agreement Signing Nations Are Meeting Their Goals »

Posted in Collapsing Science, Global Warming | 16 Comments | Trackback URL

Someone Was Posting Anti-Illegal Alien Posters, NYC Councilman Lets His Fascism Shine Through

By William Teach October 12, 2018 – 6:55 am

It’s always interesting that Democrats want to give U.S. Rights (and money, housing, education, welfare, etc) to every single person who overstays their visa or crosses our borders illegally, but wants to shut down the actual rights of U.S. citizens

Flyers ‘meant to intimidate immigrants’ posted in Queens

The message stopped Jimmy Van Bramer dead in his tracks.

The New York City councilman says he was jogging around his Sunnyside, Queens, neighborhood last Sunday when he came upon a flyer urging American citizens to report undocumented immigrants to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“It sent chills through my body because it was ominous, it was dark and it was meant to intimidate immigrants,” Van Bramer said in an interview with CNN.

The flyer reads: “A notice to all citizens of the United States of America: It is your civic duty to report any and all illegal aliens to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They have broken the law.” At the bottom, it lists a contact number for ICE.

The councilman, who represents the district, says he immediately took action. In a video posted to social media, he is seen tearing down the poster which had been glued to an electrical box. Since then, several more have popped up at nearby locations.

He says the flyers have provoked fear and outrage in Queens, a richly diverse borough where nearly half of the population is foreign-born.

“What this is trying to do is turn citizens into vigilantes, encouraging them to report people to ICE without knowing whether they are documented or not,” Van Bramer said. “This is a borough of immigrants, a neighborhood of immigrants and I don’t want any of them, even those that are undocumented, to be afraid to walk through these streets.”

So, he sees the signs, and decides that he’s going to support those who are unlawfully present in the U.S., people who are violating our laws and sovereignty, by tearing the signs down, rescinding the 1st Amendment Rights (free speech, protest peaceably, petition for redress of grievance)  of citizens. He’s also advising others to tear them down. He further goes on to blame Vanguard America without proof

“Though we don’t know who posted these particular signs, let’s be clear. This is a racist white supremacist organization that has proudly claimed credit for creating this flyer,” said Van Bramer who warned that those responsible could be subject to hefty fines. It is illegal in New York to post ads on city property.

Of course, it’s not an ad. It’s free speech. When will Van Bramer go after these “ads”

The Instagram post of him tearing the flyer down is here.

Read: Someone Was Posting Anti-Illegal Alien Posters, NYC Councilman Lets His Fascism Shine Through »

Posted in Democrats, Illegal Immigration | 7 Comments | Trackback URL

Washington Post: Conservatives Used To Love Mobs Or Something

By William Teach October 11, 2018 – 3:21 pm

15/10 for dishonesty from Screeder Karen Tumulty

Republicans used to love the sound of an angry mob. What happened?

Not all mobs are equal, apparently.

There was a time, less than a decade ago, when the sound of red-faced protest was music to Republican ears.

That, of course, was when Barack Obama was president, and the tea party movement was hijacking congressional town hall meetings with shouts of “Tyranny!” There were plenty of shoving matches, and Democratic lawmakers were burned in effigy. The police were regularly called in to bring a semblance of order. (snip)

Now it is the Democrats who are making the noise, and the argument is playing in reverse.

“You don’t hand matches to an arsonist, and you don’t give power to an angry left-wing mob. Democrats have become too EXTREME and TOO DANGEROUS to govern. Republicans believe in the rule of law — not the rule of the mob,” President Trump tweeted Saturday about the demonstrations that erupted after the Senate voted to confirm his nomination of Brett M. Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.

Nowhere within this screed is it mentioned that the Tea Party was peaceful. We weren’t showing up wearing face masks, we weren’t bringing bats and padlocks in bags, we weren’t confronting police (who were only needed to keep the liberals who start the violence away), we weren’t burning things, we weren’t chasing down Democrat politicians, we weren’t harassing them in restaurants, we weren’t banging on the walls of the Supreme Court building. We weren’t taking over buildings, screaming, screeching, interrupting legislative proceedings. It wasn’t Tea Party members who were leaving feces all over General Assembly building in Wisconsin and trashing the place (Scott Walker protests). The Tea Party wasn’t leaving trash all over the D.C. Mall and other protest places.

Literally, we could turn on the TV and social media and stuff and witness the Leftist mobs. It’s there for all to see.

https://twitter.com/WyattEarpLA/status/1050120811082854401

We do not tolerate when people on our side get frisky. Democrats push for their side to do it. Have you heard any Democratic politician decry the actions of their constituents as of late?

Read: Washington Post: Conservatives Used To Love Mobs Or Something »

Posted in Barking Moonbats, Wonky Media | 22 Comments | Trackback URL
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