If All You See…

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

…is how we’ll all be living in a flooded world, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The Lonely Conservative, with a post on George Soros funding Ferguson inspired protests.

Read: If All You See… »

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Suddenly, The NY Times Is Concerned With Crackdowns On “Hate Speech”

By William Teach January 16, 2015 – 9:07 am

Does anyone think the NY Times would be upset if “hate speech” crackdowns and restrictions were enacted towards Conservatives, Tea Party members, or Christians? Anyhow, the Times was also not brave enough to show the total front cover of the latest Charlie Hebdo. This one is written by the editorial board

Wrong Responses to Charlie Hebdo

Leaders in Europe are justifiably trying to figure out what they should be doing to prevent terrorist attacks like the recent massacre at the satirical French newspaper Charlie Hebdo. Regrettably, some politicians are proposing the kind of Internet censorship and surveillance that would do little to protect their citizens but do a lot to infringe on civil liberties.

Interesting, because that is exactly what is happening here in America, as it emanates from Liberals for a variety of reasons, especially on college campuses.

In Paris, a dozen interior ministers from European Union countries including France, Britain and Germany issued a statement earlier this week calling on Internet service providers to identify and take down online content “that aims to incite hatred and terror.” The ministers also want the European Union to start monitoring and storing information about the itineraries of air travelers. And in Britain, Prime Minister David Cameron suggested the country should ban Internet services that did not give the government the ability to monitor all encrypted chats and calls.

Strange, Obama and many Democrats (and, let’s face it, a few Republicans) want the same thing here.

Even before the Charlie Hebdo attack, European leaders were proposing or enacting harsh measures. For example, the French Parliament passed a law in September that allows the authorities to temporarily seize the passports and identity cards of citizens who seem intent on joining foreign terrorist organizations. And this week, French officials said they had arrested 54 people for hate speech, including a controversial comedian.

I guess there’s a certain type of “hate speech” and a certain type of action that the NY Times doesn’t want to restrict. Weird, eh?

Appealing as these measures may sound in the aftermath of a tragedy, they are deeply flawed. Countries like France and Germany have long had stricter controls on speech than the United States. For example, their governments have in the past forced Internet firms like Yahoo and Twitter to take down Nazi propaganda. But those decisions are generally made by government officials or judges, not technology companies.

Notice there really wasn’t a condemnation of those restrictions against modern day Nazis.

Of course, governments can and should take steps to identify threats and prevent terrorist attacks through targeted intelligence gathering. But there is good reason to believe that widespread censorship and intrusive surveillance will only undermine personal freedoms and could even make us less secure.

I will wholly agree that restricting speech is dangerous. The government going after folks who speak out is dangerous. Why does the NY Times, though, typically agree with restrictions on Free Speech here in America that it doesn’t agree with? College campuses are hotbeds of free speech restrictions, particularly at government run/funded ones. I can’t remember the NY Times speaking out on that.

That said, does government have the ability and right to deal with speech that is threatening? As the saying goes, you can’t legally shout fire in a crowded movie theater (unless there is actually a fire). You can’t threaten to kill people. You can’t threaten to burn things. Etc and so on. Well, actually, you can, but there are Consequences for doing so.

Read: Suddenly, The NY Times Is Concerned With Crackdowns On “Hate Speech” »

Posted in Current Affairs, Wonky Media | 5 Comments | Trackback URL

Leftist Al Sharpton To Attack Leftist Hollywood Over “Selma” Snub

By William Teach January 16, 2015 – 8:47 am

Get your popcorn ready! Leftists are outraged by the Academy Award nominees

Yes. Yes it is

(Daily Caller) MSNBC host and civil rights activist Al Sharpton is calling for an emergency meeting of his eight-member diversity task force to discuss action against the Academy Awards after the movie “Selma” received only one Oscars nomination.

“The movie industry is like the Rocky Mountains, the higher you get, the whiter it gets,” Sharpton said with usual flair in a statement released Thursday after the announcement of Oscar nominations.

Many, including Sharpton, were outraged that none of the actors in “Selma,” a movie about the 1965 Voting Rights Act, were nominated for the golden statues.

“The lack of diversity in today’s Oscar nominations is appalling and while it is good that Selma was nominated for ‘Best Picture,’ it’s ironic that they nominated a story about the racial shutout around voting while there is a racial shutout around the Oscar nominations,” Sharpton continued in his statement.

“I have called an emergency meeting early next week in Hollywood with the task force to discuss possible action around the Academy Awards.”

Interesting. Leftist Hollywood snubbed “Selma”. Of course, there were plenty of snubs, just. Like. Every. Year. There have been plenty of notorious snubs. Just because Selma was snubbed doesn’t mean it was racism, or, raaaaacism. Selma is very well reviewed, at least by Rotten Tomatoes. A movie being well liked by the audience is never a reason one gets an Academy Award nomination. Nor do the box office receipts influence a nomination.

Does Selma deserve any nominations? I don’t know, I did not see it. I have no intention of watching it. Not because it is about Blacks, but because it is a drama, and I rarely watch dramas, preferring science fiction and horror. I won’t go see Paddington Bear, either. I might watch American Sniper and Unbroken when they come out on DVD. I might not.

This does set up and interesting fight between Leftist Al Sharpton and his mafia extortion tactics (which would get others thrown in jail) vs. Leftist Hollywood.

PS: I just saw that I managed to cut out a paragraph noting that the movie had been nominated for Best Picture and Best Song. The cries of racism come from the failure to nominate any of the actors, nor the director, or for anything else.

And, for reference, Breitbart offers up 225 huge Oscar snubs, both people and movies.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

Read: Leftist Al Sharpton To Attack Leftist Hollywood Over “Selma” Snub »

Posted in Film, Liberal World | 4 Comments | Trackback URL

Bummer: CNN Poll Finds 57% Don’t Find Hotcoldwetdry A Threat

By William Teach January 15, 2015 – 4:17 pm

Yesterday I noted that CNN gave a platform to a notorious 9/11 Truther to  yammer on about doooooooom!!!!!! from “climate change”.  Today we learn

(Daily Caller)  Is this the new climate consensus? More than half of Americans say global warming is not a threat to their way of life, according to a CNN poll. Furthermore, nearly half of Americans say global warming is caused by natural forces or isn’t a proven fact.

CNN’s poll reveals that a “majority of those polled, at 57 percent, say global warming will not pose a serious threat to their way of life,” and that only 43 percent “expect global warming to threaten them.”

Even with 50% taking the position that global warming is mostly caused by emissions from cars and industry, they can still only get to 43% who are concerned. 23% say primarily natural. 26% say it is a theory that has not been proven yet. Heck, only 69% of Democrats stated that they believe in AGW. And only 67% of Democrats feel that AGW is a threat.

Along with that poll, we find that 57% support building Keystone XL.

Read: Bummer: CNN Poll Finds 57% Don’t Find Hotcoldwetdry A Threat »

Posted in Collapsing Science, Global Warming | 6 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach January 15, 2015 – 1:00 pm

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

The blog of the day is The First Street Journal, with a post on Dems throwing away white people votes.

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Obama Looks To Crackdown On Methane

By William Teach January 15, 2015 – 10:44 am

I’m incensed by yet another Obama dictate regarding the fake issue of anthropogenic “climate change”….hey, wait, I actually kinda agree with this

(Mother Jones) This morning the White House announced a new plan to crack down on the oil and gas industry’s emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. The move is the last major piece of President Obama’s domestic climate agenda, following in the footsteps of tougher standards for vehicle emissions and a sweeping plan to curb carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.

Like the power plant plan, the methane standards will rely on the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate pollution under the Clean Air Act. The new rules will regulate the amount of methane that oil and gas producers are allow vent or leak from their wells, pipelines, and other equipment. Ultimately, according to the White House, the rules will slash methane emissions 40 to 45 percent by 2025. The proposal announced today is intended to be finalized before Obama leaves office, but it’s certain to take a battering along the way from congressional Republicans and fossil fuel interest groups.

Methane makes up a much smaller slice of America’s greenhouse gas footprint than carbon dioxide—the volume of methane released in a year is roughly 10 times smaller than the volume of CO2—so the proposal might seem like small potatoes. But it’s actually a pretty huge deal, for a few reasons.

One of those reasons is that methane is a considerably more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. Mother Jones notes it is roughly 20 times more potent. Other measures have it as high as 65 times more potent a greenhouse gas over 100 years. In the short term, it can trap 100 times the “heat” over CO2 over 5 years. Even though it has a shorter time span where it stays in the atmosphere, it still has a much greater power to influence the greenhouse effect. Nor does it seem to have the limitations of the doubling effect, as in the case of CO2.

Methane is one of the reasons I have never said that Mankind has no effect on the greenhouse effect (along with a few other issues), and put Mankind’s effect to around 15-20%. Methane is the reason early IPCC reports and others mentioned agriculture and landfills as two of the worst violators, without mentioning methane, of course.

Of course, this push to regulate methane will primarily effect fossil fuels, including the explosion of the use of natural gas. Surprise! Fossil fuels hatred by people who refuse to give up using them themselves.

That said, it would be worth it to consider reducing methane output where we can.

Read: Obama Looks To Crackdown On Methane »

Posted in Global Warming | 12 Comments | Trackback URL

Sally Kohn: Terrorism Doesn’t Justify Insulting Islam Or Something

By William Teach January 15, 2015 – 8:51 am

Sally Kohn recently wrote an article regarding free speech coming with responsibility, an article I mostly agreed with. Free speech, free expression, free actions, they all can have consequences. Those consequences can be good, bad, or none. If you say or do something and are attacked, verbally, in print, of physically, you do not bear the blame, but you might, and I stress might, bear responsibility. If you know that an areas is dangerous to travel in, and you are mugged, you aren’t to blame, but you do bear responsibility for your action. Of course, in Liberal World, limiting free expression is very important

Terrorism doesn’t justify insulting Islam

The latest Charlie Hebdo cartoon, produced after last week’s horrific attacks on the Paris magazine’s offices, literally adds insult to injury. Admittedly a portrait in mixed messages, the cover reads “All is forgiven” above a drawing of the Prophet Mohammed, who is holding a “Je suis Charlie” sign. Who, exactly, is supposed to be doing the forgiving and who must be forgiven is not clear.

Zineb El Rhazoui, a writer with Charlie Hebdo, said the cover means the magazine’s journalists were forgiving the extremists for the killings. But the cover could also be interpreted as Mohammed saying he forgives the cartoonists in a way the terrorists, obviously, did not.

Wait, did she just admit that Islamists are violent?

But the cartoons are somewhat irrelevant. As Middle East analyst Juan Cole has argued, they were just an excuse for Islamic zealots to further widen and exploit the perceived gulf between Islam and “the West.” Cole writes, “Al Qaeda wants to mentally colonize French Muslims, but faces a wall of disinterest. But if it can get non-Muslim French to be beastly to ethnic Muslims on the grounds that they are Muslims, it can start creating a common political identity around grievance against discrimination.” Enter the cartoons.

In other words, we’re damned if we do, damned if we don’t.

I unequivocally and unconditionally support the right to free speech. Unfettered free speech is essential to any democratic and pluralistic society. So I support the right of Charlie Hebdo to print the most outlandish, offensive cartoons it can come up with. And, to give another example, I support the free speech rights of French comedian Dieudonné M’bala M’bala — even though I personally find his anti-Semitic jokes even more offensive and sick than any of the Charlie Hebdo cartoons I’ve seen.

Except, she’s saying that the latest cartoon should not have been published, because that’s mean.

The fascist right-wing and fundamentalist Islamists want the same thing: to convince Muslims and “the West” that there is an inherent divide between the two. The question for the rest of us — the ones who have free speech — is whether we feed the apocalyptic narrative or fight it.

There is an inherent divide. Islamists do want to destroy the West and institute a world wide Caliphate. Period.

A few fanatical Islamists have horrifically and unimaginably offended the world.

That’s no excuse for anyone to go on offending all Muslims. To do so only helps advance the terrorists’ goal.

In other words, submit to the will of Allah. Exactly what the Islamists want. What this kind of sloppy thinking does is tell Islamists that if they attack, they can get morons like Kohn to tell people to shut it down. This is an invitation to attack.

Of course, for Islamists, everything is an invitation to attack.

(Vodka Pundit) What do you suppose Kohn would be urging if the black-clad gunmen carried Bibles and had a penchant for dead lesbians?

Would she complain that “the media and ‘the West’ are still fixated on the slaying,” like she did in today’s column? Would she boast that she ” unequivocally and unconditionally support the right to free speech,” before urging people not to insult Jesus? Would she say that we must hold our tongues about the God of Dead Lesbians over the question of “whether we feed the apocalyptic narrative or fight it?” Would she say that the slaughter was “no excuse for anyone to go on offending” Christians, or would she launch a one woman jihad against them?

Good point.

Read: Sally Kohn: Terrorism Doesn’t Justify Insulting Islam Or Something »

Posted in Liberal World, War On Terrorism | 4 Comments | Trackback URL

Obama To Push Paid Leave Schtick Again

By William Teach January 15, 2015 – 8:16 am

Even though he cannot run for his office again, he’s still trying to buy votes, much like with his recent community college schtick. Let’s face it, this is also really about attempting to gin up a fight with the GOP controlled Congress. Obama’s first inclination is always to create strife. It’s who he is. Let’s also face the fact that he has not said how he’ll pay for either program

(AP) Renewing a push for paid leave for workers, President Barack Obama on Thursday will call on Congress, states and cities to pass measures to allow millions of workers to earn up to a week of paid sick time a year, the White House said.

Personally, I approve of companies offering paid sick days. Some companies do, some don’t. I rarely get sick, and rarely take sick days. Never have. There are several good points towards offering them, including reducing turnover. It’s not cheap to hire and train an employee. Furthermore, offering paid sick days creates an incentive for sick employees to stay home, rather than coming to work and infecting coworkers and customers. Heck, there are times they still come in.

That said, it is not the government’s job to mandate that companies offer sick days. It is a wise policy, IMO, to offer at least a few days to protect your employees and customers, but not the government’s job.

He’ll also ask Congress for more than $2 billion in new spending to encourage states to create paid family and medical leave programs.

Hey, sure, why not, it’s not like with have a large deficit and $18 trillion in debt or something. How’s he going to pay for it?

Details on how Obama would raise the $2 billion to help states will be released in the president’s budget proposal next month, senior adviser Valerie Jarrett said Wednesday.

Anyone think the answer will be “raise taxes on The Rich”?

Obama wants Congress to pass legislation that has been sponsored since 2005 by Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., to allow workers to earn up to seven days, or 56 hours, of paid sick leave to care for themselves or a sick family member, obtain preventive care or deal with domestic violence. Under the Healthy Families Act, workers would earn an hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours they work. Employers that already provide paid sick time would not have to change their policies as long as the time earned can be used for the same purposes.

Couldn’t the Democrat controlled Congress have done that in 2009-2010?

Obama will also outline ways to broaden access to paid family and medical leave. Under the 1993 federal Family and Medical Leave Act, workers may take up to 12 weeks of unpaid time off without losing their job to care for a new child, recover from an illness or care for an ill family member. The White House says most families cannot afford such long stretches of time off without pay.

So, he wants companies to pay people when they aren’t actually working for long stretches? Shocking! Don’t expect him to actually care, this is just another attempt to create a wedge issue. It’s what he does.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

Read: Obama To Push Paid Leave Schtick Again »

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Ohio Muslim Arrested In U.S. Capital Plot

By William Teach January 14, 2015 – 7:50 pm

But, hey, he’s probably not a “real Muslim” or something

(Washington Times) An Ohio man plotted to attack the U.S. Capitol using pipe bombs and rifles, saying he wanted to conduct an attack in solidarity with the Islamic State terrorists the U.S. is fighting in the Middle East, the FBI charged in a criminal complaint Wednesday.

Christopher Cornell had saved money, researched government buildings in Washington, laid plans to travel to the capital to carry out his attack and on Wednesday bought two M-15 semiautomatic rifles and 600 rounds of ammunition, prompting police to move in and arrest him.

Mr. Cornell, 20, posted on a Twitter account by the name of Raheel Mahrus Ubaydah, drawing the attention of an FBI informant. Over the course of several months, Mr. Cornell and the informant met and discussed their plans to carry out the attack.

“I believe that we should just wage jihad under our own orders and plan attacks and everything,” he wrote in an instant message to the FBI’s informant, who was cooperating with authorities in order to get favorable consideration in his own criminal case.

Mr. Cornell said he’d “already got a thumbs-up” from other terrorist leaders, including Anwar al Awlaki, a U.S.-born imam who American authorities said helped plan terrorist attacks against the U.S. He was killed in a drone strike in Yemen in 2011.

But, we aren’t allowed to discuss Islamic terrorism, you know!

Nice to see that the Associate Press soft peddled the Islam connection.

Heavy provides 5 facts about Cornell, including his posted support for terror groups, mostly ISIS. They also have a copy of the criminal complaint from the FBI agent. Surprisingly, despite pages of the highlights of Cornell’s Islamic terrorism support and contacts, he is not charged with any terrorism related charges. Yet. Just “attempted killing of a U.S. government officer” and “possession of a firearm in furtherance of attempted crime of violence”. We also learn that he is totally white bread.

Read: Ohio Muslim Arrested In U.S. Capital Plot »

Posted in War On Terrorism | 12 Comments | Trackback URL

CNN: The Climate Is Like Totally Ruined Or Something

By William Teach January 14, 2015 – 1:14 pm

This comes from David Ray Griffin, in a Special for CNN. He’s an emeritus professor of philosophy of religion at Claremont School of Theology and Claremont Graduate University, and has also written a climahysteric book. Wait, I thought, according to Warmist doctrine, that we are only supposed to listen to “climate scientists”? You know, folks like Al Gore, Barack Obama, Joe Romm, Michael Mann, Bill McKibben…oh, right. Anyhow

The climate is ruined. So can civilization even survive?

Although most of us worry about other things, climate scientists have become increasingly worried about the survival of civilization. For example, Lonnie Thompson, who received the U.S. National Medal of Science in 2010, said that virtually all climatologists “are now convinced that global warming poses a clear and present danger to civilization.”

Informed journalists share this concern. The climate crisis “threatens the survival of our civilization,” said Pulitzer Prize-winner Ross Gelbspan. Mark Hertsgaard agrees, saying that the continuation of global warming “would create planetary conditions all but certain to end civilization as we know it.”

You know, I could probably do the whole snarky thing, because, quite frankly, it is typical Warmist insanity. And hypocrisy, since Griffin complains about fossil fuels but travels quite a bit himself, but, let’s see who Griffin is.

Did you know that his a virulent 9/11 Truther? A serious 9/11 Truther? He’s written books on the subject. Given numerous speeches on the subject. Has DVDs. Is a leader in the movement, and considered an expert.

Of course, it kinda makes sense. Both subjects are nutty beyond belief. He’s all yours, Warmists

Read: CNN: The Climate Is Like Totally Ruined Or Something »

Posted in AGW Idiocy, Global Warming | 10 Comments | Trackback URL
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