Fighting Hotcoldwetdry Is Apparently A Moral Issue

By William Teach February 28, 2015 – 10:35 am

Here’s one poll the Warmists should really, really like, since the majority of polls tend to go against the Warmists

(Reuters) A significant majority of Americans say combating climate change is a moral issue that obligates them – and world leaders – to reduce carbon emissions, a Reuters/IPSOS poll has found.

The poll of 2,827 Americans was conducted in February to measure the impact of moral language, including interventions by Pope Francis, on the climate change debate. In recent months, the pope has warned about the moral consequences of failing to act on rising global temperatures, which are expected to disproportionately affect the lives of the world’s poor.

The result of the poll suggests that appeals based on ethics could be key to shifting the debate over climate change in the United States, where those demanding action to reduce carbon emissions and those who resist it are often at loggerheads.

Well, sure, why not? They’ve been “spreading awareness” for 25+ years, and haven’t really gotten beyond “spreading awareness”.

Here’s where it gets really fun (you didn’t think I would post this without a reason, did you?)

Two-thirds of respondents (66 percent) said that world leaders are morally obligated to take action to reduce CO2 emissions. And 72 percent said they were “personally morally obligated” to do what they can in their daily lives to reduce emissions.

Huh. “Personally morally obligated”. So, when will Warmists take action within their own lives? When will they give up their own use of fossil fuels? When will they stop using DVRs, ice makers, hair dryers, washers and dryers, turn their AC up to 80 and their heat down to 55? When will they only buy local, grow their own food, live in tiny homes, and make sure that every device that plugs into an outlet is unplugged when not in use? Obviously, those are all rhetorical, because Warmists talk a good game, but that is all it is in their own world: talk.

Of course, these are the same people who do not see it as morally wrong to demand that other people be taxed heavily with that money being redistributed. To themselves. Nor do they see anything morally wrong with abortion on demand.

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Posted in Climahypocrites, Global Warming | 31 Comments | Trackback URL

BCBS NC Posts First Loss In 15 Years, Blames Obamacare

By William Teach February 28, 2015 – 8:07 am

Well, that’s strange, don’t you think? Of course, don’t cry any tears for BCBS or any other insurance companies that willfully, enthusiastically, and wholeheartedly embraced the Affordable Care Act

(Raleigh N&O) Blue Cross and Blue Shield, the state’s largest health insurer, said Friday that it posted its first financial loss in 15 years as a result of insuring high numbers of older and sicker people under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

The Chapel Hill organization signed up 257,704 people under the federal health care law, which requires insurers to provide coverage regardless of a customer’s health condition.

New enrollees last year swelled Blue Cross’s covered membership to 3.91 million people, and boosted revenue by 25 percent to an all-time high of $8 billion.

But steep medical claims – for hip and knee replacements, heart procedures, specialty drugs and other costs – drove up medical claims from $5 billion in 2013 to $6.4 billion in 2014. Blue Cross also paid $156 million in ACA-related fees, a new cost for the company.

As a result, Blue Cross posted a loss of $50.6 million last year, compared to net income of $92.6 million in 2013. It’s the first annual loss for Blue Cross since 1999.

One thing BCBS notes is that the people they were signing up were older and sicker. The pool of new enrollees who were younger and healthier did not materialize, just like with most Exchanges.

The architects of the ACA foresaw a surge of sicker customers and created an insurance pool to cover losses for affected insurers. Blue Cross plans to seek $120 million from the pool this year and booked $60 million in pre-tax revenue it expects to collect in the coming three years.

I’ll admit, that’s the first time I’ve truly heard of this deep pool. Weren’t the younger and healthier supposed to cover that? Apparently, said architects knew that what they were actually telling the public was a load of mule fritters.

Of course, opponents of the ACA noted that with this “free” and “cheap” health insurance people would use it willy nilly, increasing costs, and shifting the costs to the American taxpayer even more.

Meanwhile, Politico runs an article by Abbe R. Gluck about King v Burwell, which complains that the suit is really about States Rights, which is a bad thing or something

King v. Burwell—the challenge to the Affordable Care Act that the Supreme Court will hear on March 4th—is about more than health care. Court watchers have finally begun to realize that the case is also all about states’ rights. And while the challengers have tried to submerge this issue—because it dramatically undermines their case—its centrality to King has become undeniable.

The challengers maintain that the case is simply about reading plain language. (I have detailed elsewhere why their hyper-literal reading of four words out of context is anything but plain and is not how the Supreme Court usually reads statutes.) But King is about a lot more than this. The case is about federalism—the role of states in our national democracy. The reason the challengers don’t want anyone to realize that is because the very text-oriented justices to whom they are appealing are the exact same justices who have consistently interpreted federal laws to protect states’ rights. And the challengers would read the ACA in the opposite way—as having devastating implications for the states.

Or, it could simply be about one of the most lopsidedly passed bills in U.S. history, which passed without one Republican vote, was not read by those who voted to pass it, and, furthermore, those “four words” being exactly in context of what the architects wanted, to force States to create their own exchanges.

If this was primarily about States Rights, they could file a suit which follows the 10th Amendment, which specifically would stop the ACA, since it is not a power delegated to the Federal Government. Leftists, though, do not like States Rights, because they love the notion of a Central Government dictating everything.

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FCC Commish Ajit Pai Destroys “Net Neutrality” In 3 Easy Points

By William Teach February 28, 2015 – 7:19 am

The idea of an open and free Internet is a wonderful thing. In fact, it is something that the United States has led the world in since the web’s inception. Of course, some folks like to create problems where none exist, and think that it is a Good Idea to give the government huge powers to regulate it, in a misguided belief that the companies who run web shouldn’t be allowed to ever throttle bandwith or even require more payment for bandwith hogs. Of course, at the end of the day, those who believe in net neutrality have shown their cards that this isn’t really about any of that, it’s a typical Progressive belief that the Central Government should have more and more power. And Government will use that power. Progressives will surely want that power used against political enemies. They haven’t really considered that the power could be used against themselves. Anyhow…

(Daily Caller) After casting a futile vote against the FCC’s plan to regulate the Internet as a public utility, Republican Commissioner Ajit Pai delivered a blistering attack on the new rules.

In his dissenting statement, Pai advanced three main objections to the Commission’s “Open Internet Order:”

1. The Internet has grown rapidly, creating untold economic benefits, largely because the government has refrained from interfering with it.

“For twenty years, there’s been a bipartisan consensus in favor of a free and open Internet … [and] the results speak for themselves. Dating back to the Clinton Administration, every FCC Chairman—Republican and Democrat—has let the Internet grow free from utility-style regulation.”

“But today, the FCC abandons those policies. It reclassifies broadband Internet access service as a Title II telecommunications service. It seizes unilateral authority to regulate Internet conduct, to direct where Internet service providers (ISPs) make their investments, and to determine what service plans will be available to the American public.”

Sure, there have been a few glitches and hiccups during that time, most of which were self correcting. This would give the power to Government, made of people with a political agenda, and following the lead of partisan political appointees, legislators, and Executive Office flacks, possibly including the President. Obviously, nothing could ever go wrong with that, right? The next point per the DC is written strangely

2. Title II regulations attempt to solve problems that don’t exist with enough consistency to address with federal government regulation.

“So the FCC is abandoning a 20-year-old, bipartisan framework for keeping the Internet free and open in favor of Great Depression-era legislation designed to regulate Ma Bell. But at least we’re getting something in return, right? Wrong. The Internet is not broken. There is no problem for the government to solve.”

“Nevertheless, the Order ominously claims that ‘[t]hreats to Internet openness remain today.’ It argues that broadband providers ‘hold all the tools necessary to deceive consumers, degrade content, or disfavor the content that they don’t like,’ and it asserts that the FCC continues ‘to hear concerns about other broadband provider practices involving blocking or degrading third-party applications.’”

“The evidence of these continuing threats? There is none; it’s all anecdote, hypothesis, and hysteria. A small ISP in North Carolina allegedly blocked VoIP calls a decade ago. Comcast capped BitTorrent traffic to ease upload congestion eight years ago. Apple introduced Facetime over Wi-Fi first, cellular networks later. Examples this picayune and stale aren’t enough to tell a coherent story about net neutrality. The bogeyman never had it so easy.”

And, as I mentioned once before, BitTorrent is a website that was abetting the distribution of music and movies illegally, per federal copyright law.

3. Title II regulations will lead to new taxes and slower broadband speeds for consumers.

“Literally nothing in this Order will promote competition among ISPs. To the contrary, reclassifying broadband will drive competitors out of business. Monopoly rules designed for the monopoly era will inevitably move us in the direction of a monopoly. If you liked the Ma Bell monopoly in the 20th century, you’ll love Pa Broadband in the 21st.”

“One avenue for higher bills is the new taxes and fees that will be applied to broadband. If you look at your phone bill, you’ll see a ‘Universal Service Fee,’ or something like it. These fees—what most Americans would call taxes—are paid by Americans on their telephone service.”

The FCC’s net neutrality is as much a head-fake as Obamacare. Remember, the original point of Ocare was to make sure that the 30-45 million without health insurance were able to obtain health insurance at a reasonable cost. When the bill was finally passed, it hugely embedded the Central Government in how not just health insurance works, but the health care industry as well.

Other excerpts from his dissenting letter

But if this Order manages to survive judicial review, these will be the consequences: higher broadband prices, slower speeds, less broadband deployment, less innovation, and fewer options for American consumers. To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, President Obama’s plan to regulate the Internet isn’t the solution to a problem. His plan is the problem.

In short, because this Order imposes intrusive government regulations that won’t work to solve a problem that doesn’t exist using legal authority the FCC doesn’t have. I dissent.

A solution in search of a problem that creates more odious problems

Although the Order plainly regulates rates, the plan takes pains to claim that it is not imposing further “ex ante rate regulation.” Of course, that concedes that the new regulatory regime will involve ex post rate regulation. But even the agency’s suggestion that it today “cannot . . . envision” ex ante rate regulations “in this context” says nothing of what a future Commission—perhaps this very Commission—could envision.

In other words, the FCC was saying “trust us”. Because mission creep never ever happens, right?

Commish Pai spends a lot of time discussing the higher taxes that will be coming to go along with the slower speeds and lack of competition. This is apparently what net neutrality believers feel is a “good idea”. Make sure to read the entire letter.

Oh, and we still do not know what is in the 317 pages, because the FCC hasn’t released it yet. They want the Internet transparent, yet not the orders giving the Central Government all this power.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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Obama’s Plan For The Internet Totally Forgets To Include Details

By William Teach February 27, 2015 – 3:35 pm

However, he seems totally psyched to have the Central Government out in place regulations and rules via unelected bureaucrats

(Kuntsevo Dacha) More than any other invention of our time, the Internet has unlocked possibilities we could just barely imagine a generation ago. And here’s a big reason we’ve seen such incredible growth and innovation: Most Internet providers have treated Internet traffic equally. That’s a principle known as “net neutrality” — and it says that an entrepreneur’s fledgling company should have the same chance to succeed as established corporations, and that access to a high school student’s blog shouldn’t be unfairly slowed down to make way for advertisers with more money.

Interestingly, all that was done without the heavy hand of Government,  especially without an un-seen and secretive plan which turns the Web into a 1930’s phone company.

Interestingly, as part of his 4 point sticky note “plan”, he discusses transparency, ironic after a this was all done without any transparency. Oh, and

If carefully designed, these rules should not create any undue burden for ISPs, and can have clear, monitored exceptions for reasonable network management and for specialized services such as dedicated, mission-critical networks serving a hospital. But combined, these rules mean everything for preserving the Internet’s openness.

So, “trust us”. Because government never is bad. You do have to like how there are “exemptions”. Uh huh. And carefully designed, from the same guy who had billions of dollars and still could get a website to work.

And to repeat: everything was fine beforehand. This is a solution in search of a problem.

BTW, to be clear, I’d appose any Republican that backed this obvious power grab.

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If All You See…

By William Teach February 27, 2015 – 1:00 pm

…is a horrible pool wasting precious water which can never be replaced, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is American Power, with a post on the science being settled.

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Bubonic Plague Is Like Totally Linked To “Climate Change”

By William Teach February 27, 2015 – 11:08 am

Warmists have been pushing the “climate change will make diseases oh so worse. Doom!” meme hard for the past couple of weeks. No surprise, this crops up almost every year, particularly during the winter. Science 2.0 reprints an article from The Conversation. See if you can guess whats’ missing

Bubonic Plague Linked To Climate Change In Asia

The Black Death struck Europe in 1347, killing 30-50% of the European population in six violent years. 

It wasn’t a one-off epidemic: it signaled the start of the second plague pandemic in Europe that lasted for hundreds of years and only slowly disappeared from the continent after the Great Plague of London in 1665-1666.

These outbreaks were traditionally thought to be caused by rodent reservoirs of infected rats lurking in Europe’s cities, or potentially by rodent reservoirs in the wilderness. But our research, published in the journal PNAS, suggests otherwise.

If the “reservoir” thesis were correct, we would expect plague outbreaks to be associated with local climate fluctuations, through changes in agricultural yields and primary productions in forests, affecting the number of urban and wildlife rodents, resulting in more plague. We found that Europe’s plague outbreaks were indeed associated with climate fluctuations – but in Asia.

The Black Death came to Europe from Asia. Historical records tentatively map it back to outbreaks in 1345 in Astrakhan and Sarai, two trade centers located on the Volga river near the Caspian Sea.

Now, go ahead and read through the rest of the article.

This is the narrative we aimed to substantiate through evidence, but which we ended up challenging. Using tree-ring based climate records from Europe and Asia, we showed that plague reintroductions into European harbors were associated with periods of wet conditions, followed by a drought, across large parts of Central Asia.

OK. Still missing something.

This followed a pattern that we associate with current-day plague outbreaks. What is the implication of such a finding? In terms of our understanding of the past plague pandemics, it provides a different perspective as to how the disease moved across Eurasia, driven by climate events that were and still are frequently occurring.

The implication, as has happened with so many articles about past climate doom, including ones about the Bubonic Plague, is that climate change is Bad and causes lots of problems and look at what is happening now! Doom! What’s not mentioned in most of these articles (such as about the fall of the Roman empire) is that these occurred during a time of cooling. The incredibly deadly Black Death outbreaks, including the one in Asia, occurred during the Little Ice Age, which started around 1300. What these “scientists” are attempting to do is create a link to the Modern Warm Period without providing context and factual data. This is simply scaremongering.

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Warmist: “We Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet” Regarding Cold And Snow

By William Teach February 27, 2015 – 7:52 am

Yet another cultist tells us that all this cold and snow is because you, dear reader, drove a fossil fueled vehicle. Here’s Ann McFeathers

Climate change is all around

Don’t read this if you are among the few who have not been affected by this winter’s wild and wicked weather. You wouldn’t understand.

I am in my kitchen surrounded by pots and pans collecting water from leaks from the relatively new roof I recently paid off. The water is a disgusting shade of brown, of course, and can’t even be used for any good purpose.

But I am extremely grateful the roof itself has not caved in as so many have done in the Northeast.

I can’t drive my car to the grocery store because after I painstakingly dug it out of the snow, the county snowplow finally showed up and pushed the snow from the entire street in front of my carport. AAA cheerfully agrees it may be May before I drive that baby again.

One would think that this might actually give a Warmist pause in thinking about what the causes of the current warm period are. Nope.

Once again, I am mystified by climate change deniers, most of whom are rich or are paid vast sums to serve in Congress or are running for president. Some of them are so incredibly dense they say such things as, duh, there can’t be global warming when it’s so cold outside. Thus they tout their complete ignorance that climate change means more extreme weather patterns and long-term changes that will devastate huge populations.

Interesting. I’m not rich, nor am I paid vast sums to serve in Congress or run for president. In fact, most Skeptics are simply average folks who refuse to buy the line that Mankind is mostly/solely responsible for the current warm period. Some skeptics even hold the view that Mankind is responsible for 51%+ of the current warming. However, they also do not think it reason for scream doom and gloom, pass restrictive laws, rules, and regulations which artificially raise our cost of living and give government more power over our lives. Many understand that a warm period is much better for human development than a cool one. Anyhow, here we go

Climate change doesn’t just mean we’re seeing record warm temperatures year after year. It also means breadbaskets will become arid deserts, coastal towns will flood, tornadoes and hurricanes and tsunamis will become more intense and dangerous.

Interesting. Tornadoes and hurricanes have neither become more intense, nor widespread. Tsunamis? Seriously? The weather mostly has nothing to do with tsunamis. And, of course, the obvious inference, based on the opening paragraphs, is that “climate change” is causing snow and cold

This ongoing winter has been brutal, but as we shovel, mop and repair, a nagging thought occurs: We ain’t seen nuthin yet.

Nothing says “cult!” like blaming brutal snow and cold on heat trapping gases.

BTW, here’s global warming

(CBS Boston) ..a photographer on Nantucket found something most of us have never seen – nearly frozen waves.

Jonathan Nimerfroh was walking along a beach on the island recently when he saw these waves rolling in like slush.

The waves were semi-frozen because there was so much ice inside them.

I blame you for using heat in your big McMansion.

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Leaving The Internet Unfettered Is Apparently A “Radical Decision”

By William Teach February 27, 2015 – 7:03 am

Liberals who cheer the partisan FCC ruling should remember the decision when their own service is affected

Net neutrality ruling: What it means for you

The Federal Communications Committee voted Thursday to regulate the Internet under Title II of the 1934 Communications Act, which currently applies to telephone service.

The ruling will enable the FCC to enact new rules that would prevent Internet service providers (ISPs) from manipulating how quickly or slowly sites are transmitted along their networks, a huge win for proponents of net neutrality.

Despite the headline, CBS kinda forgot to actually explain. Which is unsurprising, since the actual plan was and still is secret.

President Obama issued a statement praising the decision, which he said “will protect innovation and create a level playing field for the next generation of entrepreneurs.”

Anytime anyone yammers on about a “level playing field” you know there will be huge numbers of burdensome rules, regulations, and control.

“Why are some companies so against it?” Cherry asked. “I can tell you why, because I used to work for them. It was a real coup in 2002 and 2005 when they got classification as information services. The deregulation gave them the freedom to essentially choose to whom, when, where and what service they’re going to bother to provide.”

Goodness! You mean private companies which spent huge sums of their operating income on developing infrastructure, services, products, apps, etc, would actually be able to run their business? How outrageous!

“This led to and can lead to incentives for unreasonable forms of discrimination. They want to make money every which way they can. That’s why they’ve resisted so heavily getting this Title II classification back.”

Oh, noes, money!!!!!! Profit!!!!!!

It could also affect consumers’ wallets. If, say,Netflix has to pony up money to make sure its video streaming looks seamless on your computer or smart TV, there’s a good chance those surcharges could end up increasing your monthly bill.

Here’s the thing: if a consumer is using way, way, way more bandwidth, is it unreasonable that they should actually pay more for it? Apparently, in Liberal World, the answer is “yes. Gimme!”

“If you let [Internet providers] control this you’re going to destroy the Internet,” Thompson told CBS News. “You’re going to destroy startups. It’s going to be much harder to create an Internet company. This is what American innovation thrives on. This is the part of our economy that is doing really well and if you give the [telecommunications companies] this control it will cut that off.”

Interestingly, despite the Internet providers having all this power over the years, the ‘net has thrived and grown. Some of you young whippersnappers might not remember, but if you go back even to the late 1990’s dial-up was still the primary source of Internet, with a max transmission speed of 52kbs. Few had any sort of broadband. Want to watch a cat video which is supposed to be funny? Start downloading, run out and get dinner. The utter explosion of web activity, speed, and companies preceded without the heavy hand of Government. You can now access the web on your phone at speeds that blow dial-up away, in under 20 years of big development. That’s no easy feat.

Money quote

“The decision is not radical in the sense that to do this legally is radical,” Cherry opined. “It’s undoing a prior radical decision. It’s momentous in terms of politically what it took to get here and the fact that a decision is coming out that is truly in the public interest as opposed to being in the interest of a relatively small number of companies that have a lot of resources to bring to bear.”

Got that? Leaving the operating decisions in the hands of companies and consumers, with very light government regulations, is “radical”.

Those who advocate for this “net neutrality” plan, which is still secret, should be careful about what they wish for: they just might get it.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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If All You See…

By William Teach February 26, 2015 – 1:00 pm

…is a super-wonderful forest which should be replaced with a wind turbine farm, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The Lonely Conservative, with a post on amnesty recipients getting big tax benefits.

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Having All Their Arctic Ice Free Prognostications Fail, Warmists Try Another

By William Teach February 26, 2015 – 11:14 am

This one is a doozy

photo facepalm.gif

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Posted in AGW Idiocy, Collapsing Science, Global Warming | 7 Comments | Trackback URL
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