Bummer: Gun Control Not What Young People Care About Anymore

By William Teach June 2, 2018 – 7:24 am

Remember how this younger generation was going to go to the polls and vote to wipe out guns in America? Never mind

(Daily Caller) Six percent of Americans aged 15 to 34 consider gun control the top issue facing the country, according to a new Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and MTV poll reported on Wednesday.

That number is down from a high of 21 percent who considered it the top issue in March, according to the poll.

Four in 10 surveyed still gave the government an “F” grade on handling gun control issues.

These numbers come in as March For Our Lives organizers like David Hogg remain in the news, most recently for pressuring Publix to end contributions to Florida Republican gubernatorial candidate Adam Putnam over his support for the National Rifle Association.

The poll was taken between April 23 and May 9, and surveyed 939 youths, a rather long time to take a poll. Must not have been getting the results they wanted. Regardless, you have to wonder where that number has dipped to now. Of course, how would they make an informed decisions when 52% “say they rarely or never read or watch news about the midterm elections”?

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Bummer: Too Many Of London’s Cyclists Are White Males

By William Teach June 1, 2018 – 3:03 pm

And this is a big, big problem

5 reasons why you should care about the lack of BME cyclists in London

Earlier this week, Will Norman, London’s walking and cycling commissioner, said something that shouldn’t be at all controversial – and that, in truth, isn’t even very original.

According to Norman, London’s cyclists are too white, male and middle-aged. This is backed up by evidence. While 41 per cent of London’s population is black or from an ethnic minority, only 15 per cent of cyclists are, according to Transport for London figures. Moreover, only 27 per cent of London’s cyclists are women.

Norman went on to say that for cycling to be considered a success in the capital, it must be taken up by a more diverse population, which, coincidentally, I also said last month in the New Statesman. 

BME is “Black and minority ethnic”.

To the online mob, this is just another case of the liberal elite seeing racism in everything (WT-it is). Cyclist critics of Norman have argued that if more money is spent on cycling infrastructure, it will lead to a more diverse population of cyclists. Others acknowledge the problem, but say it is low on the priority list.

Here’s why they are wrong:

You’re welcome to read it, but, really, what are they going to do: force BME’s to ride bikes? Restrict white, middle age males (WMAM) from doing so? OK, so one of their plans is to spend more public money through the Walking And Cycling Commission (think on paying people for this job) on letting BMEs know about the bikes. As if they don’t already. Has it occorred to any of these Liberal World weenies that perhaps they don’t want to bike? What then? Will they force compliance? Again, tell the WMAM’s that only some may use the bikes?

And, yes, they are seeing raaaaacism where it doesn’t exist. Were the BME’s complain? Or just eh White Liberal Elites who would not dare use a bike?

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If All You See…

By William Teach June 1, 2018 – 1:00 pm

…is an evil fossil fueled vehicle causing horrible carbon pollution clouds, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is 357 Magnum, with a post noting that insurance doesn’t mean you have health care.

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Hotcoldwetdry Won’t Heat The Planet Equally Or Something

By William Teach June 1, 2018 – 11:03 am

But, this isn’t about what you’re thinking, nor what I though when I first saw the headline. It’s not about creating a Narrative where you can still blame ‘climate change’ when the temperatures do not comply with prognostications. Oh, no

Climate change won’t heat the planet equally

You’ve probably heard what happens when there’s a snow flurry in Texas. Things get weird. The roads aren’t built for it. Highways close, kids stay home from school, people panic.

In places closer to the equator that usually see only slight variations in temperature, the consequences of global warming are likely to be far more extreme. The outsize vulnerability of the world’s poorest people to damaging effects of climate change like droughts and floods is well established. It’s harder for people to overcome disasters in regions without the resources and infrastructure that are plentiful in wealthier parts of the world.

Now, a new study published in Geophysical Research Letters adds insult to injury. By mapping economic and social development to climate models’ “signal-to-noise ratio”—which compares normal local temperature fluctuation (noise) to overall increases to average local temperatures (signal)—the authors determined that the poorest populations on the planet will experience more perceptible climate change than the richest. In other words, in places with already fragile social and ecological systems, climate change won’t just be harder to deal with, it will actually be more noticeable, and worse.

Wait, what? How’d we get from what we’re told is Totally Science, You Guys, to “mapping economic and social development” to climastrology computer models to “poor people are hosed because Al Gore flies a private jet”?

So, by “won’t heat the planet equally”, this screed from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which is supposed about science, became all about Left wing identity politics.

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The Difference In Media Responses To Barr And Bee Is A Perfect Example Of The Bias

By William Teach June 1, 2018 – 7:18 am

I don’t support Rosanne Barr. I did not watch her show when it first aired, and didn’t watch it now. First, I do not find her funny, I find her schtick annoying. Second, I generally did not care for most sitcoms. Third, I also do not care for most shows (and books) that are highly political, even if they support my views. Moving on, what Barr wrote on Twitter was extremely rude, and unnecessary.

Then there’s Samantha Bee. I do not watch her show, either. First, I know she’s an uber-liberal foreigner who should mind her own business. Second, just the title of the show, Full Frontal. It’s a non-funny way of using sex. Third, the show is unhinged. But, consider that what she said, calling Ivanka Trump a “feckless c*nt”, was scripted, practiced, performed, filmed, and broadcast. No one even considered “hey, this could be a really bad idea.” Rosanne’s was off the cuff.

Yet, Rosanne’s show is cancelled, and Bee’s wasn’t. Both apologized. And Bee received an award. Bee has lost a few sponsors, and should be losing others. Well, really, if Left and Right were treated the same, her show would be cancelled.

This is part of the bias. Let’s look at the other. The Washington Post features zero articles on Bee this morning. But, they do have two separate ones on Barr, one of which, an opinion piece, says Barr should blame Trump. On the opinion page, zero Bee, multiple Barr. At the NY Times we get

Samantha Bee and TBS Apologize for Ivanka Trump Slur

While the one on Barr was

After Racist Tweet, Roseanne Barr’s Show Is Canceled by ABC

Treated rather differently, eh? The Times had even attempted to defend Bee with

Then the USA Today

This whole thing perfectly shows the media bias, in an industry that is roughly 90% Democrat.

Listen, politics is a dirty, nasty business covered with a veneer of civility. When someone says “My esteemed colleague from X”, what they usually mean is “the asshole from X”, if they’re talking about the other party. We’ve seen fights on legislative floors around the world. In the British Parliament, they will hiss and boo. In the U.S., we’ve had duels. With pistols. Sure, it’s been awhile, but, the game of politics is hardcore. And politicians are not always the best of people.

Most who get involved understand all this. You better have some thick skin. But, what we constantly see is that a Republican/Conservative does something or says something, and then the media clutches their pearls in manufactured apoplexy. It’ll be all over the news constantly, and the opinion pages will be blaming all Republicans. But, then, a Democrat does/says something horrendous, and, when it’s not crickets, we tend to see things like defenses of the Democrats, circling the wagons, and even putting the blame on Republicans, with headlines like “Republicans pounce..” Our pearl clutching is in a mock manner, because we know the business of politics is dirty. We’re just exposing that the business that was giving a specific mention in the 1st Amendment is essentially an arm of one political party.

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Post Santa Fe Shooting, Not Much Has Changed On Texan’s Opinions On Gun Control

By William Teach June 1, 2018 – 6:49 am

And by “not much has changed”, it means support has gone down, as the Dallas Morning News gives a little spin

Santa Fe shooting likely didn’t change Texans’ views on gun control, polling shows

The shooting at Santa Fe High School does not appear to have changed the minds of Texans who support or oppose stricter gun laws, a new Quinnipiac University poll released Thursday shows.

According to the poll, which was conducted the week after the shooting, 49 percent of Texans support stricter gun laws in the U.S., while 45 percent oppose it. In an April poll asking Texans about gun laws, 55 percent supported stricter regulations while 41 percent opposed it.

“The tragedy at the Santa Fe school south of Houston changed few opinions among Texas voters about gun control,” Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac Poll, said in a news release. “Support for gun control in general is down slightly, while support for background checks for all gun buyers is virtually unchanged.”

A six point change down supporting stricter gun laws and a 4 point swing up shows that views did, in fact, change. Fernando Ramirez at the Houston Chronicle gets it right in showing that support for more gun control has dipped.

More than 90 percent of Texans — gun owners or not — support universal background checks for gun buyers.

The vast majority of us do support them. We’re just concerned what the gun grabbers will do with their version of universal background checks, mostly in how they might make it much, much harder for law abiding citizens to engage in their 2nd Amendment Right, especially through new restrictions. And how the gun grabbers will see UBCs as just a step along the road to what they really want.

Texans also seem to favor more armed personnel at schools, Brown said.

“While 51 percent of Texas voters want to arm teachers and other school officials, 87 percent of voters want armed security officers in the schools,” he said.

Even the liberal Texans seem to realize that we should protect the schools. Here are some of the other details of the poll

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Shark Jumping: Scientists Tell Us They Know How Aliens Solve ‘Climate Change’

By William Teach May 31, 2018 – 6:56 pm

There’s shark jumping, which the Cult of Climastrology does daily, then there’s Shark Jumping

One would really think this was a parody site, but, no. Seriously, just look at the headline and subhead in that tweet

(The Atlantic) The universe does many things. It makes galaxies, comets, black holes, neutron stars, and a whole mess more. We’ve lately discovered that it makes a great deal of planets, but it’s not clear whether it regularly makes energy-hungry civilizations, nor is it clear whether such civilizations inevitably drive their planets into climate change. There’s lots of hope riding on our talk about building a sustainable civilization on Earth. But how do we know that’s even possible? Does anyone across the cosmos ever make it?

Remarkably, science has now advanced to point where we can take a first step at answering this question. I know this because my colleagues and I have just published a first study mapping out possible histories of alien planets, the civilizations they grow, and the climate change that follows. Our team was made up of astronomers, an earth scientist, and an urban ecologist. (big snip, which I recommend reading)

So, what did the model tell us? We saw three distinct kinds of civilizational histories. The first—and, alarmingly, most common—was what we called “the die-off.” As the civilization used energy, its numbers grew rapidly, but the use of the resource also pushed the planet away from the conditions the civilization grew up with. As the evolution of the civilization and planet continued, the population skyrocketed, blowing past the planet’s limits. The population, in other words, overshot the planet’s carrying capacity. Then came a big reduction in the civilization’s population until both the planet and the civilization reached a steady state. After that the population and the planet stopped changing. A sustainable planetary civilization was achieved, but at a high cost. In many of the models, we saw as much as 70 percent of the population perish before a steady state was reached. In reality, it’s not clear that a complex technological civilization like ours could survive such a catastrophe.

These people

As I explore in my new book, Light of the Stars: Alien Worlds and the Fate of the Earth, our dawning realization that we are profoundly shaping Earth’s future provides us with the impetus to stop acting like cosmic teenagers with power but little wisdom. From that perspective the true narrative of climate change isn’t some small, local drama of Democrats vs. Republications or business interests vs. environmentalists. Instead, it’s a cosmic test, one that gives us a chance to join those who successfully crossed this burning frontier—or the chance to be consigned to the scrap heap of civilizations too shortsighted to take care of their own planet.

Read: Shark Jumping: Scientists Tell Us They Know How Aliens Solve ‘Climate Change’ »

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If All You See…

By William Teach May 31, 2018 – 1:00 pm

…is an evil gun firing evil lead bullets which are bad for climate change, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The First Street Journal, with a post on identity politics.

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Bombshell Or Something: Carbon Pollution Is Reducing Kids’ Test Scores! Everybody Panic!

By William Teach May 31, 2018 – 10:51 am

Well, this seems like a new one, and comes from the always Excitable Joe Romm

Bombshell, baby, bombshell!

(Think Progress) A stunning new study of U.S. high school students finds that heat waves lower their test scores, the effect is greater for minorities, and global warming is going to make things worse in the coming years.

Led by researchers from Harvard and the College Board, this National Bureau of Economic Research study, “Heat and Learning,” provides “the first evidence that cumulative heat exposure inhibits cognitive skill development and that school air conditioning can mitigate this effect.”

The study looked at almost 10 million students who took the PSAT twice (or more) from 2001 to 2014 and compared their scores with daily temperature data recorded by thousands of NOAA weather stations around the country.

Researchers found “hotter school days in the year prior to the test reduce learning, with extreme heat being particularly damaging.” Of course, global warming has already started making temperatures higher: As NASA reported in January, the five hottest years on Earth have all occurred since 2010.

Or, it could be that kids are more interested in going outside when it’s a nice, warm day. And that the Leftist education system sucks. Or that someone is just taking some data and putting it together in a way to support their Cult of Climastrology beliefs. Because even if this is true, there’s no Scientific proof that this warm period is mostly/solely caused by Mankind.

Again, under Trump’s policies of undermining domestic and global climate action, we face simply off-the-charts heat waves in the coming decades.

Some TDS. Trump hasn’t stopped anything world wide. Nor has he stopped cities, states, counties, nor individuals from taking action.

The authors also conclude that “heat effects account for up to 13 percent of the U.S. racial achievement gap,” in part because “black and Hispanic students live in hotter places than white students” and in part because their schools tend to have less air conditioning.

And we have to have some raaaaacism thrown in.

But we live during a time when the majority party has no appetite for infrastructure spending, and a time when most teachers are buying some school supplies with their own money. We apparently will have to wait for wiser politicians to address both our climate and education problems.

Good grief. Teachers have been buying their own supplies for forever. I remember friends of mine who became teachers do this. But, if we’re Blaming Trump, then the conditions for this must have been set during the previous administration, since Trump hasn’t even been in office for a year and a half yet. We could go down this discussion hole for hours, but, what this really shows is that Warmists will link their unhinged, anti-science beliefs to everything.

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Gun Control Today: Women Should Be At Forefront, And Gun Grabbers Have A Friend In Iran

By William Teach May 31, 2018 – 7:52 am

Two articles of interest on the issue of gun grabbing. Let’s start with this one, where the gun grabbers have earned the backing of a high ranking Islamist and terrorist enabler

Ayatollah Khamenei Calls for Gun Control—in the U.S.

Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, has released a statement calling on the United Nations to “seriously” pursue seven “human rights” cases in the United States. One of these is what Khamenei perceives as the need for gun control.

“Another case which the UN should definitely pursue is the freedom of selling guns in the US with which so many crimes are being committed,” Khamenei said in a statement published today.

“You hear and witness that every day in schools, in universities, in markets, and on the street that a teenager, a man, or a woman fires a volley of bullets at some people because of some problem they have–they are extremely angry, or they are mad and have some personal problems,” Khamenei said.

“They kill eight, ten, twenty–more or less–people, and families mourn the loss of their dear ones,” Khamenei continued. “Why do they not stop this? The reason is that gun companies prevent this, and the US administrations are under the influence of these companies. This is a very important issue which should be addressed and pursued by the UN.”

This is who you have on your side now, gun grabbers, much like you had Osama Bin Laden joining your Cult of Climastrology. Will you embrace him?

On to women

Women Should Be at Vanguard of the Gun-Control Movement

The mass shooting at a school in Texas on May 18 brought renewed calls for stricter gun-control laws. This focus should  include another, less-visible, aspect of the crisis: The killing by firearms of hundreds of women each year by their intimate partners.

It’s clear that gun control is a women’s issue. Of the 39,000 gun deaths in America In 2016, 456 were from mass shootings. But, on average, more than 561 women are killed by these weapons each year by their husbands, ex-husbands, common-law husbands or boyfriends, according to the Associated Press. (snip)

That’s why they should be at the forefront of the campaign intensified by the recent spate of mass killings. A new movement could further empower successful groups such as Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, a grassroots organization founded after the shootings at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012, that is active in 50 states and has representatives in every state capitol. (Moms Demand also gained the support of Bloomberg LP founder Michael Bloomberg.)

In other words, women, who are often more at risk, should advocate for their 2nd Amendment Right to be stripped away, leaving them defenseless.

Male (and female) politicians who don’t support and advocate for gun reform should be similarly publicly shamed. One of the most effective ways to change behavior is to make it socially unacceptable. In “The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen,” Kwame Anthony Appiah credits shaming with helping end other odious practices against women around the world, like foot-binding in China and honor killings in Pakistan.

But, honor killings still happen in Pakistan, and throughout the world by Islamists. Anyhow, lawmakers are supposed to be shamed for….upholding their oaths to support and defend the Constitution, and women are supposed to be at the forefront of making sure they themselves cannot get a firearm to protect themselves from the criminals who do not follow the law.

Read: Gun Control Today: Women Should Be At Forefront, And Gun Grabbers Have A Friend In Iran »

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