Bummer: Even Democrats Believe “Climate Change” Will Be Minor 2016 Issue

By William Teach July 18, 2015 – 10:35 am

Sad news for all the Cult of Climastrology members, via a National Journal poll, which asked specific Democrat and Republican insiders what they thought

25+ years of spreading awareness…ok, whining… and this is the best they can do.

Amongst the Republican insiders asked, only 4% thought major, 66% minor, 30% no role.

There are many quotes from both sides, generally in a political manner (why else? This is a political issue, not a scientific issue), and the best comes from a Republican

“Voters don’t care.”

No, they really don’t. Climate change tends to be last or next to last in every issues poll. In yet another United Nations international poll, climate change is last overall, yet again. As Anthony Watts notes, the only places where “climate change” ranks higher are a places that have high HDI, human development index

Note that in these countries (medium to dark blue), people already have the things in place that come in lower than the climate change, so they tend to take them for granted. Countries that have a high HDI have reliable energy, Internet access, political freedoms, and social programs, so it is no wonder these sorts of things come in as lower concerns in medium to high HDI countries. These countries also tend to have a population that has people economically free enough to worry about things like climate change, whereas in some countries, you can’t get electricity or get on the Internet to read the latest doom and gloom being spewed by MSM outlets like the Guardian.

First World Problems.

Read: Bummer: Even Democrats Believe “Climate Change” Will Be Minor 2016 Issue »

Posted in Collapsing Science, Global Warming | 2 Comments | Trackback URL

Latest Gun Control Idea: Using The Purchasing Power Of The Central Government To Force Change

By William Teach July 18, 2015 – 7:33 am

Obviously, just like almost every other idea the anti-gunnites propose, this will primarily effect law abiding citizens, rather than those who intend to use a gun for nefarious purposes. Here’s what Rev. David K. Brawley, the Rev. Otis Moss III, the Rev. David Benke and Rabbi Joel Mosbacher have to say

Here’s a Way to Control Guns

…..

For more than a year, we and fellow religious leaders across the nation have worked to persuade President Obama to use what we believe is the most powerful tool government has in this area: its purchasing power. The federal government is the nation’s top gun buyer. It purchases more than a quarter of the guns and ammunition sold legally in the United States. State and local law enforcement agencies also purchase a large share. Major gun manufacturers depend on these taxpayer-funded purchases. For the government to keep buying guns from these companies — purchases meant to ensure public safety — without making demands for change is to squander its leverage.

Perhaps they should worry more about the use of illegal guns in their own areas of St. Paul, Chicago (especially Chicago), Brooklyn, and Mahwah, NJ.

Some of the leading brands of handguns purchased by the government — Glock, Smith & Wesson, Sig Sauer, Beretta, Colt, Sturm, Ruger & Company — are also leading brands used in crimes. Among the brands of handguns recovered by the Chicago Police Department at crime scenes between January 2012 and October 2013, all six of these companies ranked in the top 11. When police officers carrying Glocks are recovering Glocks at crime scenes on a regular basis, shouldn’t this prompt questions about whether the police department could use its influence to reduce the number of guns that end up in the hands of criminals? When Smith & Wessons turn up frequently in the hands of criminals, shouldn’t questions be asked when Smith & Wesson seeks a contract with the federal government?

None of the companies are responsible for the theft of guns, nor the use of them illegally. Do police question when people are killed by a Chevy, Dodge, or GM vehicle, both of which are purchased in mass quantity by government of all levels? Do they blame the cars, or the people driving them?

What could gun manufacturers do to protect the public?

They could distribute their guns exclusively through dealers that sell guns responsibly, and end their relationships with the small percentage of bad-apple dealers that sell a disproportionate number of the guns used in crimes. They could produce “smart guns” that can be fired only by authorized users, and that therefore are far less likely to be used in accidental or intentional shootings. These measures, over time, would prevent many thousands of deaths.

Seems reasonable, right? Except, most legal gun owners are against so-called “smart guns”.

But companies will innovate in these areas only if their major customers ask them to.

The president can push companies to compete in the area of safer guns and more responsible distribution. Here’s how to start.

First, use federal purchasing power to begin a substantive conversation with gun manufacturers. The Pentagon is in the process of selecting the provider of handguns for the United States Army. It should require all bidders to provide detailed information about their gun safety technologies and distribution practices in the civilian market. No response, no contract.

So, coercion, blackmail even, by the Central Government. They then provide a few more ideas, ending with

Let’s give gun manufacturers an incentive to make more smart guns and to allow fewer guns into the hands of criminals.

At best, this would only effect the illegal use of guns a tiny, tiny bit.

Instead of punishing those who manufacture firearms (do we punish companies that make motor vehicles and alcohol for poor use of their products?), we should be punishing those who use firearms illegally harshly. And we should be dealing with those in the areas which have the most illegal use of firearms harshly. Punishment always seems to be a low priority, and these same people are always against the “broken windows” version of law enforcement. These religious leaders could work to stop the criminal activity in their own areas. Of course, they are constantly holding “take back the streets” marches and demonstrations, preaching, midnight basketball, etc, yet, their neighborhoods, and the people in them, continue to be criminal. I guess if you can’t fix your own people, you fix those who aren’t the bad guys.

Read: Latest Gun Control Idea: Using The Purchasing Power Of The Central Government To Force Change »

Posted in 2nd Amendment, Liberal World | 3 Comments | Trackback URL

NY Times Unintentionally Exposes How Bad Team Obama Blew The Iran Negotiations

By William Teach July 18, 2015 – 7:07 am

Breitbart’s John Hayward focuses on all the yelling from Iranian negotiators and others at Obama’s hapless negotiators

IRAN ‘NEGOTIATIONS’ INVOLVED A LOT OF IRAN SHOUTING AT HAPLESS U.S. TEAM

The New York Times published an embarrassing look at what went on behind the scenes during the long, long months of “nuclear negotiations” with Iran. Apparently, it involved a good deal of Iran shouting at the hapless U.S. team and declaring its demands non-negotiable, while Team Obama threw in one towel after another. (snip for an excerpt from the Times)

We are also still discovering details about this alleged mutual capitulation, too. For example, we just learned American nuclear inspectors are banned from Iran under the deal. We have to help them provide security for their nuclear operations, but we can’t inspect them.

Right after telling its liberal readership that fairy tale, the Times dishes a bit more about what was really going on:

Privately, Mr. Kerry told his team that any lifting of the ban was bound to inflame many in Congress, where fears of empowering Iran would mix with presidential politics. But shortly before midnight on Monday he called President Obama, and together they agreed that it was not worth losing what they saw as the best chance to roll back Iran’s nuclear program simply because there was a risk that sometime in the future Iran would be able to acquire far less dangerous weapons.

Over the 17 long days here in Vienna, the standoffs, trade-offs, shouts and confrontations — some real, some staged for negotiating advantage — sometimes obscured the fact that the two countries were negotiating with entirely different agendas.

As Mr. Obama made clear again Wednesday, the alternative he saw to the deal was a steady slide toward another war — perhaps, aides thought, in just a year or two as Iran’s nuclear abilities accelerated. Throughout the talks, he had one goal: to diminish the prospect that Iran could develop an atomic bomb — or could race for one before the United States and its allies could react — and buy time to try to restructure the relationship.

For the president, everything else — Iran’s support for terrorism, its imprisonment of dissidents and even some Americans, its meddling in Iraq and Syria, its arms trade — was secondary.

None of that is news to anyone, least of all the Iranians. They understood all along that their bargaining position was superior, because Obama needed a deal at any cost — as his critics have said all along, he would take a bad deal over no deal, especially as he got deeper into the process, and it became more obvious that both Obama’s ego and political needs made backing away from the table unthinkable. Obama and Kerry doubled down with every losing hand, until the Iranians cleaned them out.

Right there is the major problem: Obama wanted a deal no matter what. He sees things in black and white, which is why he trots out the “if you have a better idea, let’s hear it” line. He seems to believe that there is a choice between either war or a deal, no matter how bad. Hence, we end up with a deal that gives Iran most of everything they want, and only limits Iran’s nuclear aspirations for about a decade. Provided they don’t cheat. And rogue nations like Iran would never cheat, right? The problem itself has been kicked down the road for another president to deal with, while the US provides security, can’t inspect, drops sanctions, and sees billions put into Iranian coffers. All while ignoring every other issue, as mentioned in that last paragraph in the NY Times excerpt above.

This deal wasn’t about making the U.S. safer, nor the Middle East or even Europe: it was about stroking Obama’s ego. And the Iranian’s knew it, and took advantage of it.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

Read: NY Times Unintentionally Exposes How Bad Team Obama Blew The Iran Negotiations »

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It’s Like Totally Time To Get Our Sh*t Together On Climate Change Or Something

By William Teach July 17, 2015 – 4:56 pm

No, really, so says Ethan Sheehy at Cardiff University

It’s really time to get our shit together on climate change!

‘Tipping point’, ‘urgent’, ‘alarming rates’, you’ve all heard these phrases before and I suspect many of you are bored by the flood of forewarning and beseeching language when it comes to climate change.

I’m afraid I’m about to restate these facts and warnings to you once again. There’s a reason there has been such persistence with these matters, because they are extremely important.

Climate change is now a battle of which we are all a part, whether we acknowledge it or not, and is a battle for the survival of our species and for the planet on which it dwells.

We must all force our authorities in government to move to a place of satisfactory commitment and effort in this battle and this can be executed in December’s pivotal United Nations summit in Paris.

Force! How about if Warmists like Ethan move to a place of satisfactory commitment in their own lives?

If we, however, adopt the approach offered by the fatuous oil companies or the unbelievable climate change deniers and do nothing and carry on as we are, and the diminishment does happen (which it obviously will), we will have just provided ourselves with the rope that will choke us.

That’s a microaggression. I might have to file a complaint with Cardiff U for being “triggered”. Yeah, you know I won’t, because I’m not a hyper-Offended lefty whiner.

Climate change is one of, if not the, vital global, collective issues we are facing and it’s about time we did what is needed to rid ourselves of it.

Good luck with that, Bub. Climate has always changed.

Read: It’s Like Totally Time To Get Our Sh*t Together On Climate Change Or Something »

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

If All You See…

By William Teach July 17, 2015 – 1:00 pm

…is a horrible concrete bench, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Flopping Aces, with a post on how bad the Iran deal really is.

Read: If All You See… »

Posted in If All You See | 3 Comments | Trackback URL

Planned Parent And Chattanooga Open Thread

By William Teach July 17, 2015 – 9:53 am

I’ve had a couple people ask why there are no posts on the Planned Parenthood selling fetuses fiasco, nor on the Islamist Chattanooga terror attack. Quite frankly, the answer is simple: the stories occurred at a time I couldn’t blog about them, and I get so behind that I feel there isn’t much I could add to an already deep discussion, nor take the time to properly discuss.

For instance, I was down near the coast playing golf Thursday, and the terror attack wasn’t something I could blog on my phone, nor have the time to cover. I will say this: it’s interesting that there is so little outrage from liberals, as well as covering for the hardcore Islamists.

Planned Parenthood? It’s disgraceful the way abortion supporters are spinning this.

Consider this an open thread for discussing these issues.

Read: Planned Parent And Chattanooga Open Thread »

Posted in Current Affairs | 8 Comments | Trackback URL

Ahead Of Paris Talks, NOAA Proclaims 2014 Totally Like The Warmest Ever!

By William Teach July 17, 2015 – 7:43 am

Of course, this doesn’t prove any anthropogenic causation (except in the way NOAA adjusts their data)

International report confirms: 2014 was Earth’s warmest year on record

In 2014, the most essential indicators of Earth’s changing climate continued to reflect trends of a warming planet, with several markers such as rising land and ocean temperature, sea levels and greenhouse gases ─ setting new records. These key findings and others can be found in the State of the Climate in 2014 report released online today by the American Meteorological Society (AMS).

One of their findings is

Record temperatures observed near the Earth’s surface: Four independent global datasets showed that 2014 was the warmest year on record. The warmth was widespread across land areas. Europe experienced its warmest year on record, with more than 20 countries exceeding their previous records. Africa had above-average temperatures across most of the continent throughout 2014, Australia saw its third warmest year on record, Mexico had its warmest year on record, and Argentina and Uruguay each had their second warmest year on record. Eastern North America was the only major region to experience below-average annual temperatures.

Huh. Near the surface, but not at the surface? Of course, many of the actual data sets, such as RSS, dispute the findings. And, then there is this from the Met Office

The HadCRUT4 dataset (compiled by the Met Office and the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit) shows last year was 0.56C (±0.1C*) above the long-term (1961-1990) average.

Nominally this ranks 2014 as the joint warmest year in the record, tied with 2010, but the uncertainty ranges mean it’s not possible to definitively say which of several recent years was the warmest.

Colin Morice, a climate monitoring scientist at the Met Office, said: “Uncertainties in the estimates of global temperature are larger than the differences between the warmest years. This limits what we can say about rankings of individual years.

Using an average that includes data which had a slight cooling effect through 2/3rds of the period (1960-1979) is rather disingenuous, wouldn’t you think? Love all the uncertainties.

(Watts Up With That) As many readers know, NOAA/NCDC (NCEI) is the SOLE SOURCE of data the global surface temperature dataset. They are the source for GHCN surface temperature record, and for the ERSST v4 sea surface temperature dataset. Both are highly adjusted, the adjustments are in one direction, a warmer trend, and both datasets are entirely under the control of NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center. The other agencies and their “independent” datasets use the source GHCN and ERSST data from NOAA/NCDC to make their own datasets, applying their own set of adjustments.

Even if the data offered by NOAA was 100% rock solid, it still wouldn’t provide proof that the warming since 1850 is mostly/solely caused by Mankind, or even that it is 50% caused. And that is what the debate is about: causation. There has been warming, there could still be more warming, just like has happened throughout the Holocene, particularly since many of the previous warm periods have been warmer and seen more sea rise than the current one.

But, if Warmists are so concerned, perhaps they should give up their own use of fossil fuels and go carbon neutral.

Read: Ahead Of Paris Talks, NOAA Proclaims 2014 Totally Like The Warmest Ever! »

Posted in Global Warming, New Climate Deniers | 1 Comment | Trackback URL

Dems Offer Legislation On “Unfair” Work Schedules

By William Teach July 17, 2015 – 6:57 am

Another bit of populist pandering to low wage workers from people who have rarely ever worked a real job

(Daily Caller) In the name of fairness, congressional Democrats introduced a bill Wednesday that would put significant restrictions on how employers schedule their employees.

“This bill is about basic fairness,” Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren said in a statement. “A single mom should know if her hours are being canceled before she arranges for daycare and drives halfway across town to show up at work.”

What about a single dad, or any male? Sounds rather sexist.

Nearly 80 lawmakers out of the House and Senate introduced the measure. The Schedules That Work Act will add restrictions on how employers can schedule their employees. If passed, it would ban employers from putting their employees on call, splitting their shifts, sending workers home with no pay, or punishing them for requesting schedule changes.

It’s already illegal to send workers home with no pay, per FLSA, at least for the time worked. Splitting shifts and on-call? People knew about it when they took the job (and, yes, those things do suck). Schedule changes? If you own a business with 15 or more employees

“Employers would be required to consider and respond to all schedule requests, and, when a worker’s request is made because of a health condition, child or elder care, a second job, continued education, or job training, the employer would be required to grant the request unless a legitimate business reason precludes it.”

Got that? If your employee wants to run off to a second job, you must grant their request. Unless you have a legitimate reason. You, as the business owner, will surely lose if brought up to some government board if you refuse to grant.

For the others, the legislation requires additional pay.

“This bill is extraordinarily intrusive in how it would direct employers to run their operations,” Marc Freedman, an executive director at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said according to law firm Seyfarth Shaw’s Employment Law Lookout.

“It will not create new jobs, open up opportunities, nor spur economic growth,” he continued. “In fact, one potential consequence is that employers will cut back on the number of part time and other non-full time employees they carry.”

Democrats do not care. They have a pandering agenda.

Are some workers treated unfairly? Of course. Welcome to Lifeâ„¢. Are these things a big problem? No. Should we have the Central Government dictating and micro-managing the way businesses run? Hey, requiring that schedules be provided two weeks in advance is a good idea, but, this should not be part of the federal code.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

Read: Dems Offer Legislation On “Unfair” Work Schedules »

Posted in Democrats, Economy | 1 Comment | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach July 16, 2015 – 1:00 pm

…is an ocean that will rise hundreds of feet in the future, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The Last Refuge, with a post on judge shopping in Baltimore.

Read: If All You See… »

Posted in If All You See | 1 Comment | Trackback URL

Mayors To Take Long Fossil Fueled Flights To Compain About Climate Change At Vatican

By William Teach July 16, 2015 – 10:01 am

As Glenn Reynolds constantly writes “I’ll believe it’s a crisis when the people who say it’s a crisis start acting like it’s a crisis”

(Wall Street Journal) New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio will go to Rome on Monday, where he will meet with Pope Francis and give a speech on climate change at the Vatican, the mayor’s aides said Wednesday.

The mayor will join 65 other mayors from around the U.S. and the world at the Vatican-sponsored conference Modern Slavery and Climate Change: the Commitment of the Cities. The mayors of Boston, Seattle, New Orleans, San Francisco and Portland, Ore., are expected to attend.

This is the second trip to Italy for Mr. de Blasio since he took office 18 months ago. The mayor, who is partially of Italian descent, went there with his family last summer for a vacation.

That’s slightly over 1 metric ton per person for a round trip from NYC to Rome. The carbon footprint obviously is higher for those coming from further away. The trip is being paid for by the people of NYC. Will they also be paying for the carbon offsets? Because Warmists would rather pay a penalty rather than giving up their own big carbon ways.

This time, Mr. de Blasio will deliver a speech on the city’s climate-change plan, called OneNYC, and the role the mayor says it will play in addressing income inequality.

Funny how Warmism also seems to jibe perfectly with Progressive goals and talking points.

And always includes metric tons of hypocrisy.

Read: Mayors To Take Long Fossil Fueled Flights To Compain About Climate Change At Vatican »

Posted in Climahypocrites, Democrats, Global Warming | 2 Comments | Trackback URL
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