Congress Passes Microbeads Ban In Bipartisan Fashion

By William Teach December 24, 2015 – 10:30 am

Here’s a win for real environmental concerns

(Grist) The bill, called the Microbead-Free Waters Act of 2015, was first introduced into the House back in March. It would ban companies from using microbeads — tiny bits of plastic often added to health and beauty products as an exfoliating agent — by July 2017 in order to prevent them from contaminating the oceans and water supply. The House passed the bill earlier this month, and one week later, the Senate passed it, too — in a unanimous vote.

The legislation was passed in the House on unanimous voice vote, as well. Now we’re just waiting for Obama to sign it, which he must do by the end of January 1st, otherwise it would constitute a “pocket veto”. I’m assuming he will sign it.

Why are microbeads bad?

Plastic microbeads are a source of plastic pollution in waterways. Manufacturers add tiny plastic beads to soaps, body washes, face washes and toothpaste, sometimes to increase exfoliation or for aesthetic reasons. But the tiny size of these beads makes them too small to be properly filtered out by municipal water treatment facilities, and the plastic inevitably ends up in rivers, lakes and the oceans.

They are an actual environmental hazard, getting into the food chain, and causing issues

A recent study found that zooplankton, a tiny ocean animal eaten by small predators like krill, shrimp, and fish, ingest microbeads. Ingested plastic could deprive animals of nutrients and get lodged in their stomachs, according to a 2013 study found in the Marine Pollution Bulletin. Moreover, these plastics can absorb polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, also known as PAHs, and polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, which have been associated with cancer in humans.

There’s a good video over at the Grist link on the subject, well worth the watch. The legislation also bans so-called biodegradable micro-beads,termed bioplastics. This legislation is not bad for business, and will not cause layoffs. Furthermore, the environmental benefits outway the use of microbeads. Many companies are already doing away with their usage or had planned to stop using them.

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Thanks To Obama’s Anti-Gun Push, Guns Are Big Presents For Christmas

By William Teach December 24, 2015 – 8:20 am

Seriously, this guy the gun salesman of the millennium, doing through the Law Of Unintended Consequences

(UK Guardian) This year, among the socks and sweaters, bottles of wine, a large number of Americans will find another present: guns.

Gun shop owners across the US have reported a marked increase in interest in their products over the holidays. In November, the FBI ran more than 2.2m gun background checks, a 24% increase from last year. Gun background checks hit a new record on Black Friday, when 185,345 were processed by the FBI.

FBI background checks, which are processed by the National Instant Criminal Background Check system, are not the most accurate indicator of actual gun sales. The checks are conducted for federally licensed gun purchases and for permits to carry guns. A background check does not mean that a gun was purchased. Shoppers can also purchase multiple guns with one sale, which requires just one background check. However, manufacturers rely on the background check statistics to measure how the industry is doing.

This holiday season, the industry seems to be booming.

Thank you, Obama and gun grabby Liberals! BTW, depending on the state, you cannot just purchase multiple firearms with one background check. Here in Wake County, you would need multiple permits, and pay for each one. Isn’t it great when gun grabbers have a Narrative and refuse to do research?

The sheriff’s office also encouraged everyone giving and receiving guns for Christmas to learn how to take caution with their newly purchased firearm.

“It’s not something you want to purchase, stick in a closet and never use,” explained Brewer. “You need to know how to break it down you need to know how to clean it, you need to know how to use it. Whether that’s going with a family member to practice shooting, we have multiple shooting ranges here.”

Yeah, there’s something I will agree on. I’ll actually go a step further, and possibly take some heat from some gun owners, as I did in a conversation: gun owners, at least first time gun owners, should have to attend a class on how to use one, how to properly handle one, what the laws are, how to shoot one, and just general safety. One of the reasons why Switzerland has so few gun issues is proper education, including the children. There are a few others, but, I’ll ignore the demographic issues.

Louis Cole was browsing the shelves at Adventure Outdoors in Smyrna, Georgia when he was approached by Gabe Gutierrez, a reporter with Today show. Cole already owns a gun. He was there, shopping for his wife.

“Like any good husband, I asked for the list of Christmas items that you’d like to have and one of the items was a firearm,’’ Cole said. “Above jewelry was a firearm.”

In fact, one of the fastest growing segments for firearm ownership is women. As noted at the Daily Beast

Bill Brassard, a spokesman for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, cited the growing influence of celebrities in the sports shooting world such as Eva Shockey, Julie Golob, and Jessie Duff, but most of those interviewed for this piece said more women are gravitating to firearms for the same reason most people have historically: to protect themselves. Cheri Jacobus, the Republican strategist, argued that as women establish more independence in every sphere of their lives, it is only natural that personal protection would be part of that evolution. Citing the heroism of some of the female teachers during Sandy Hook she said, “Gone are the days when women look to men to keep them safe.” She continued, “Female head of households and single professional women rely on themselves for economic security and now for physical security, as well.”

Yet, Obama and the other liberal gun grabbers would like to disarm women, replacing guns with rape whistles and peeing on themselves. Why do liberals want to put women in danger?

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EJ Dionne: You Should Totally Practice Religious Peace And Tolerance, Christians

By William Teach December 24, 2015 – 7:50 am

It’s cute that Leftists typically want to separate Church and State,and are upset by religions in public….well, the Christian religion. They are typically A-OK with Islamic stuff not only in public, but in government owned buildings. But, they seem to love to attempt to use Christianity for their own purposes, especially when they have a Narrative to push. Here’s the Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne, creating a subtext for, well, you’ll see

If you preach religious peace and tolerance, then practice them

….

This will not be the first or the last Christmas when the world mocks the day’s promise and when religion finds itself a source of violence, hatred and, among many not inclined toward either, a dangerous mutual incomprehension.

Killing in the name of God is not a new thing in history, and nothing does more to discredit faith. Believers regularly argue that religion is often invoked as a cover to justify violence carried out for reasons of politics, economics and power that have nothing to do with God. There is truth to this — and also to the idea that in the 20th century, secular forms of totalitarianism unleashed mass murder on an unprecedented scale.

This is meant both to subtly condemn Christianity and say that the violent Islamists aren’t really Islamic.

We are now focused on the thoroughly ungodly violence of the Islamic State, but Sacks is careful to document that wars of religion are not unique to Islam. He believes that to persuade religious people of the Abrahamic faiths — Judaism, Christianity and Islam — arguments against religious violence must be rooted in theology, not in secular ideas alone. These have to do with the nature of God. “When religion turns men into murderers,” he insists, “God weeps.”

Notice that first he states that ISIS is not religious, then equates what ISIS does with Judaism and Christianity. So, what to do?

Sacks argues for a separation of religion from power because religion and politics “are inherently different activities.” This is tricky, since many of the genuinely ethical norms that religious people bring to public life are rooted in their faith. Nonetheless, he is surely right that religion “is at its best when it relies on the strength of argument and example. It is at its worst when it seeks to impose truth by force.”

Dionne is using yet another hardcore Leftist to argue for removing religion from Public Spaces, because ISIS is evil, meaning Christianity must be punished.

And the strength of example must mean that those who preach religious peace and toleration should practice them. This is why the rank prejudice being shown against Muslims, usually for political reasons, is so destructive, as Cardinal Seán O’Malley, the archbishop of Boston, argued in a powerful column this month in his diocesan newspaper.

See? It’s all the fault of Christians. When will Islamists be exhorted to show peace and toleration? Oh, wait, can’t do that in Liberal World. Everything is the fault of the United States and Christians in their world.

And there is an important lesson in the Christmas story that, God willing, will be heard from many pulpits. “As we mull over the debate about refugees, let us remember the doors that were closed in the face of Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem,” O’Malley said. “We must ask our leaders to be vigilant and protect our citizens, but at the same time we cannot turn our back on so many innocent people who are hungry, homeless, and without a country.”

It’s cute how Dionne, a confirmed Christian religion hater, uses religious words to advocate for unfettered immigration.

Muslims are constantly called upon to condemn violence. One who has done so consistently is Eboo Patel, an American whose argument in his book “Acts of Faith” parallels the lessons from Rabbi Sacks and Cardinal O’Malley.

“To see the other side, to defend another people, not despite your tradition but because of it, is the heart of pluralism,” Patel writes. “We have to save each other. It’s the only way to save ourselves.”

In other words, what can Christians do to help out with the hardcore Islamists. We’re supposed to “see their side”. Considering how their side treats women and gays, one would think Leftists would be against radical Islam. Perhaps one of them can explain why women and gays are thrown in the trashheap when Islam comes up.

This idea is worthy of the good news in Luke where an angel tells us: “Do not be afraid.”

Huh. Liberals have conniption fits over the Biblical passage which includes those words and is included in A Charlie Brown Christmas. They do not want it shown on TV nor in school plays. They have fits over representations of the birth of the person those words refer to, constantly suing or threatening to sue manger scenes, especially if they are on government (ie, owned by The People) property.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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Democrats Are Working Hard To Ruin Christmas

By William Teach December 23, 2015 – 3:45 pm

Just like they try and ruin it for Everyone Else on other holidays by interjected their Social Justice Warrior brand of insanity politics

See, if you don’t believe in abortion on demand, massive new government control of your life to stop hundredths of a degree of temperature rise, confiscation and restrictions on guns, Obamacare, and so on, then Democrats feel the need to harangue their relatives. Then they went went with

And then they repeated the first one 5 hours ago. Because nothing says “I understand my deeply held beliefs and can discuss them like an adult” like having to rely on talking points to shriek at your relatives.

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If All You See…

By William Teach December 23, 2015 – 1:00 pm

…is a horrible piece of candy causing massive obesity which is only Bad for climate change, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Fire Andrea Mitchell, with a post on diseased Syrian refugees.

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Bummer: Your Holiday Meal Is Worse Than A Long Haul Flight

By William Teach December 23, 2015 – 8:10 am

If so, what does this say about the tens of thousands of Paris climate change meeting attendees who took tons of long haul flights and ate festive meals?

This is from hyper-Warmist George Monbiot

The figures were so astounding that I refused to believe them. I found themburied in a footnote, and assumed at first that they must have been a misprint. So I checked the source, wrote to the person who first published them, and followed the citations. To my amazement, they appear to stand up.

A kilogramme of beef protein reared on a British hill farm can generate the equivalent of 643kg of carbon dioxide. A kilogramme of lamb protein produced in the same place can generate 749kg. One kilo of protein from either source, in other words, causes more greenhouse gas emissions than a passenger flying from London to New York.

This is the worst case, and the figure comes from a farm whose soils have a high carbon content. But the numbers uncovered by a wider study are hardly reassuring: you could exchange your flight to New York for an average of 3kg of lamb protein from hill farms in England and Wales. You’d have to eat 300kg of soy protein to create the same impact.

Obviously, George is thinking of one holiday in particular

In choosing our Christmas dinner – or making any other choice – we appear to take informed and rational decisions. But what looks and feels right is sometimes anything but. In this case, the very features we have been led to see as virtuous (animals wandering freely across the mountains tended by horny-handed shepherds, no concrete and steel monstrosities or any of the other ugliness of modern intensive farming) generate astonishing impacts.

What does he recommend?

This, above all, means swapping most of the animal protein we eat for vegetable protein. It’s not painful, unless we make it so. Many British people used to eat dhal every day. They called it pease pudding, pease pottage or pea soup. As in South Asia, its ingredients varied from place to place and season to season. It’s just one component of a diet that offers plenty of variety – without trashing the great variety of life.

I’m not suggesting that you eat no meat or other animal products. I am suggesting that we should all eat far less. Save the splurge for Christmas. And even then, choose carefully.

Will members of the Cult of Climastrology comply? Is that a rhetorical question? Because we know that the majority of Warmists have no intention of walking the talk. Why would they? This is a political issue, not a scientific one, all designed to push for far left Progressive policies enacted by Government, with the intention to increase the size and scope of government over our lives, private entities, the energy sector, and economies.

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Typical: Washington Post Uber-Liberal Attacks Ted Cruz’s Children

By William Teach December 23, 2015 – 7:58 am

Leftists will do anything to uphold their dogma, and will rationalize it any way possible

(Breitbart) Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), a 2016 GOP presidential candidate who’s currently surging in polls six weeks ahead of the first primary contests, fired back at a Washington Post cartoonist for mocking his daughters Caroline and Catherine.

“Classy,” Cruz tweeted in response, obviously sarcastically.

Telnaes–who won the Pulitzer Prize drawing cartoons mocking Republicans during the 2000 presidential election recount controversy–wrote a lengthy diatribe attempting to explain why she abandoned journalistic norms to attack Caroline, 7, and Catherine, 5.

“There is an unspoken rule in editorial cartooning that a politician’s children are off-limits,” Telnaes admits. “People don’t get to choose their family members so obviously it’s unfair to ridicule kids for their parent’s behavior while in office or on the campaign trail- besides, they’re children. There are plenty of adults in the political world who act childish, so there is no need for an editorial cartoonist to target actual children.”

At that point, she tried explaining why she was breaking the rules. Her argument centers around the belief that Cruz–the senator and candidate–includes his daughters on the campaign trail and in some videos from his campaign.

You can see the cartoon at the Breitbart link, because, surprise!, the Washington Post has pulled it, and left in it’s place

Editor’s note from Fred Hiatt: It’s generally been the policy of our editorial section to leave children out of it. I failed to look at this cartoon before it was published. I understand why Ann thought an exception to the policy was warranted in this case, but I do not agree.

No apology, no “we’re sorry”. Typical. And Ann has deleted her tweet with the cartoon. But, she did tweet about Ted featuring his kids in political adds, one in which he’s reading to them. You know, like all candidates do, at least those who claim they are family oriented. Obviously, she thought this gave her license to draw them as monkeys, because Leftists have no moral filters. And, then, out of the blue, she decides to tweet about D.C. organ grinders

No worries: Leftists will find other inventive ways to play in the slime.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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Bummer: A Tiny Increase in CO2 Is Killing Off Trees Or Something

By William Teach December 22, 2015 – 4:28 pm

If only trees would figure out a way to take CO2 and use it for food. Anyhow, here’s the apocalyptic headline from an article by the Huffington Post’s Nadya Agrawai

Climate Change Killing Trees Off At Alarming Rates

Oh, noes, complete and utter doom…..hey. Wait a minute. What does the subhead say?

A study projects evergreen trees in the Southwest could almost disappear in the next century.

The subhead matches the original permalink, which would be close to what the original headline would have been, because that’s the way the software for publishing essentially works in these cases. If I hit publish with the above headline, then change it to “Bat Guano Insane Warmists Freaking Think Trees Will Disappear”, the permalink will stay the same, unless I manually go in to change it.

A recent study has determined that if global warming continues unchecked at its current projected pace, we could see nearly all needleleaf evergreen trees die in the Southwest U.S. within the next hundred years.

The University of Delaware published its study, a product of five years of field research, today in the journal Nature Climate Change. The study projects a “72 percent loss of needleleaf evergreens by 2050” and “almost 100 percent by 2100” due to climate change.

So, it’s not actually happening now, but, doom could mayby possibly sorta come in the future, if Everyone Else would just accept massive government control of their lives.

They used global warming simulation models, regional predictions and field results to reach their ultimate conclusion: Climate change is ushering in a mass tree die-off.

When I play Duke Nukem 3D, there are lots of mass die-offs. And, like this study, it’s not real.

Seriously, how did these trees survive during previous warm periods? Seriously, it’s hard to take these nutjobs seriously. Of course, while you shouldn’t take their science seriously in the least, you should take their intentions seriously, based on their need for Progressivism, ie, nice fascism.

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If All You See…

By William Teach December 22, 2015 – 1:00 pm

…is evil consumerism and energy use, which should be restricted for Other People, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The Daley Gator, with a post on snotty college Leftists.

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Virginia’s Democrat AG Decides To Make Women With Concealed Carry Permits Less Safe When Passing Through

By William Teach December 22, 2015 – 10:58 am

Gotta love when Democrats simply decide to change the law

(Daily Caller)  Virginia’s Democrat Attorney General announced Tuesday that the state will no longer honor reciprocity privileges for out-of-state concealed carry permit holders from 25 other states.

Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring made the announcement Tuesday after a months-long audit of reciprocating states that found the states’ concealed carry qualifications didn’t meet the minimum requirements in Virginia, the Richmond Times Dispatch reports.

The audit, conducted jointly by the attorney general’s office and the Virginia State Police, found that the requirements to acquire a concealed carry permit in 25 of the 30 states currently recognized by Virginia weren’t strong enough to keep a person from obtaining a permit who would be disqualified under Virginia law.

Those who would be disqualified in Virginia include people convicted of a felony, domestic abuse, or drunk driving. Mentally ill people and those dishonorably discharged from the military are also barred from carrying handguns in Virginia.

Most of those people aren’t eligible to own a handgun in the first place. But, what this will do is make it illegal for women who have concealed carry permits who are traveling through Virginia to carry their weapon, putting them in more danger. Why do Democrats want to stop women from defending themselves?

In a statement to The Washington Post, Herring said the move to block reciprocity with the states that don’t meet Virginia standards is a “common sense step” that will keep Virginians safer.

Really? Any evidence?

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