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 »

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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

If All You See…

By William Teach January 14, 2015 – 1:00 pm

…is a wonderful carbon sucking tree, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is American Clarion, with a post on Bible cookies.

Read: If All You See… »

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NY Times: What We Really Need Is A Giant Muslims Against Muslim Terrorism March

By William Teach January 14, 2015 – 8:23 am

It’s a surprisingly cogent idea that emanates from the mind of Thomas Friedman, on of the Times’ Typical Hardcore Leftists. I’m sure it’s probably Islamophobic

We Need Another Giant Protest

President Obama was criticized for failing to attend, or send a proper surrogate to, the giant antiterrorism march in Paris on Sunday. That criticism was right. But it is typical of American politics today that we focus on this and not what would have really made the world feel the jihadist threat was finally being seriously confronted. And that would not be a march that our president helps to lead, but one in which he’s not involved at all. That would be a million-person march against the jihadists across the Arab-Muslim world, organized by Arabs and Muslims for Arabs and Muslims, without anyone in the West asking for it — not just because of what happened in Paris but because of the scores of Muslims recently murdered by jihadists in Pakistan, Yemen, Iraq, Libya, Nigeria and Syria.

Abdul Rahman al-Rashed, one of the most respected Arab journalists, wrote Monday in his column in Al-Sharq Al-Awsat: “Protests against the recent terrorist attacks in France should have been held in Muslim capitals, rather than Paris, because, in this case, it is Muslims who are involved in this crisis and stand accused. … The story of extremism begins in Muslim societies, and it is with their support and silence that extremism has grown into terrorism that is harming people. It is of no value that the French people, who are the victims here, take to the streets. … What is required here is for Muslim communities to disown the Paris crime and Islamic extremism in general.” (Translation by Memri.org.)

The problem is, these demonstrations virtually never appear, because if the so-called moderate Muslims attempt it they will be attacked. The typical demonstration within the Arab-Muslim world is to celebrate terrorist attacks against the West. More Muslims are actually killed by the Islamists (hardcore terrorist Muslims) than non-Muslims, yet, so far, few have risen up against the spread of hardcore Islam, both the violent type and the softer, Sharia pushing type.

The truth is there is a huge amount of ambivalence toward this whole jihadist phenomenon — more than any of us would like to believe — in the Arab-Muslim world, Europe and America. This ambivalence starts in the Muslim community, where there is a deep cleavage over what constitutes authentic Islam today. We fool ourselves when we tell Muslims what “real Islam” is.

A 2013 survey, taken through 38000 real world interviews, revealed that, in most Muslim countries, they wanted Sharia law to be the law of the land.

“Muslims need to ‘upgrade their software,’ which is programmed mainly by our schools, television and mosques — especially small mosques that trade in what is forbidden,” Egyptian intellectual Mamoun Fandy wrote in Al-Sharq Al-Awsat. (Also translated by Memri.org.) “There is no choice but to dismantle this system and rebuild it in a way that is compatible with human culture and values.”

This, in itself, is a serious problem, because, as Friedman points out there is no central authority figure like the Pope within the Muslim community, which means Islamic learning comes from all sorts of figures, like Ayatollahs, clerics, and school teachers, among others. The more hardcore version of Islam is taught within the madrassas (Islamic schools) and mosques, it is pushed by the religious leaders, and let’s not forget that Islam isn’t just religion, but politics.

In short, jihadist zeal is easy to condemn, but will require multiple revolutions to stem — revolutions that will require a lot of people in the Arab-Muslim world and West to shed their ambivalence and stop playing double games.

If I didn’t know better, I would think Friedman was a conservative with this kind of dialogue. In the 60’s, it took Whites to say “no more!” to institutionalized segregation and racism to enact the Civil Rights legislation, to say that lynchings should not be performed in the name of Whites, no turning water cannons on Blacks, sicking dogs on them, beating them simply because they were Black. In a similar vein, the moderate Muslims need to decide whether they will put up with the radicalized version of their religion. However, one Times commenter notes

I’m wondering if you could find one million Muslims with enough passion about freedom of speech that they’d put aside the dictates of their community and march for it. Anywhere in the world. Honestly.

You might find them scattered around the world. Many get involved in marches, such as the Paris march. But 1 million to do it together? Doubtful. And since there are supposed to be anywhere from 1 billion to 1.6 billion, would 1 million make a difference?

Read: NY Times: What We Really Need Is A Giant Muslims Against Muslim Terrorism March »

Posted in War On Terrorism | 11 Comments | Trackback URL

McConnell Will Allow A Vote On Bernie Sanders’ Nutty Climate Change Amendment

By William Teach January 14, 2015 – 7:46 am

Doomed to fail, but, hey, nothing like people who take fossil fueled trips from all over the country complaining about the use of fossil fuels, eh?

(The Hill) Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Tuesday he will allow the Senate to vote on an amendment asking if they agree that climate change is impacting the planet.

At his weekly press briefing, McConnell said “nobody is blocking any amendments” to legislation that would approve construction of the Keystone XL pipeline.

But a measure proposed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) had raised questions about whether he would stick to that commitment.

The Sanders measure asks whether lawmakers agree with the overwhelming consensus of scientists who say climate change is impacting the planet and is worsened by human-caused greenhouse gas emissions.

The actual text of the amendment is here, and, in part, reads

SEC. lll. SENSE OF CONGRESS REGARDING CLIMATE CHANGE.
It is the sense of Congress that Congress is in agree-ment with the opinion of virtually the entire worldwide scientific community that—
(1) climate change is real;
(2) climate change is caused by human activities;
(3) climate change has already caused devastating problems in the United States and around the world;
(4) a brief window of opportunity exists before the United States and the entire planet suffer irreparable harm; and
(5) it is imperative that the United States transform its energy system away from fossil fuels and toward energy efficiency and sustainable energy as rapidly as possible.

On his government website we learn from Bernie

“The American people need to know whether Congress is listening to the overwhelming majority of scientists when it comes to climate change,” Sanders said. “On this issue, the scientists have been virtually unanimous in saying that climate change is real, it is caused by human action, it is already causing devastating problems which will only get worse in the future and that we need to transform our energy system away from fossil fuel. Do members of Congress believe the scientists or not?” the senator asked.

Sanders has argued against construction of the pipeline because it would promote greater exploitation of some of the dirtiest oil on the planet and increase greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming.

So, can we depend on Bernie to give up his own fossil fuels addiction, and walk or bike to work? No fossil fueled flights from Vermont?

Would Bernie support the construction of nuclear power plants and hydroelectric dams in the U.S.? His home state of Vermont gets 70% of its power from nuclear, and 20% from hydroelectric (despite all the government “investment” into solar, wind, and biomass), both of which Democrats/liberals do all they can to block. Seriously, solar is great for Vermont, what with their average 157 days of sun a year.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

Read: McConnell Will Allow A Vote On Bernie Sanders’ Nutty Climate Change Amendment »

Posted in AGW Idiocy, Democrats, Global Warming | 15 Comments | Trackback URL

Say, Why Is There So Little Action On Hotcoldwetdry?

By William Teach January 13, 2015 – 3:23 pm

I have my own ideas, which I am sure you can figure out (cough Climahypocrisy cough)

Why is there so little action on climate change?

Are there new ways to engage the public in mass action to reduce global warming, or should we focus on adapting to the inevitable?

Yeah. Warmists should act like they are scared by practicing what….well, you know. Anyhow, blah blah blah in the article, till

Nevertheless, both protagonists agree that the current trajectory of carbon dioxide emissions makes it impossible to stop climate change from taking humanity into uncharted territory. So what’s to be done?

For Marshall, the key is “to create as large a public base of awareness and engagement as possible. First off, people have to accept that the issue exists at all.” Foster responded by saying that global warming itself is the only thing that will do this: “the agent of getting a widely held social belief in climate change… will be climate change”.

Not really. The argument is not about warming, but causation. Since Warmists think that it is caused mostly by “carbon pollution”, they should give up fossil fuels and ….. well, you know.

Foster has a different view. “Rather than climate change,” he offered, “maybe we need to look at this as peak hubris. A lot of what is happening is the unraveling of the hubristic human ambition to manage and control everything. You can see it in terms not just of climate and peak oil, but supra-national states and organizations that are too big for humans to handle, and financial systems that are too big to fail but fail nonetheless.”

He’s a proponent of what he calls “human re-wilding.” “This is not about trying to reinvent ourselves as indigenous people, but finding a way of unlocking ourselves from our futile, escapist and destructive progressivism.”

Ever notice that Warmists so often take a position of destroying everything that Mankind has achieved, knocking humanity back thousands of years? Well, for Other People, of course. They never give up their own big carbon…well, you know. Of course, it is easy for Warmists, mostly 1st Worlders with nothing better to do, who live in nice homes, have comfortable jobs, can run down to the store for food, turn a faucet for water, flip a switch for electricity, etc.

None of the ideas offered within the article, especially by Marshall, move beyond the typical “spreading awareness” and brainwashing.

Read: Say, Why Is There So Little Action On Hotcoldwetdry? »

Posted in AGW Idiocy, Global Warming | 2 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach January 13, 2015 – 1:00 pm

…is a very bright world from too much carbon pollution, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The Other McCain, with a post on feminism and sex.

Read: If All You See… »

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