Hooray! Obamacare Employer Mandate Takes Effect

By William Teach January 2, 2015 – 3:20 pm

What will the effects be? Time will tell (via The Right Scoop)

(Washington Times) Starting in 2015, companies with 100 or more workers have to provide affordable insurance to at least 70 percent of their employees or pay heavy fines under the “employer mandate,” which was supposed to take effect at the start of this year, alongside the health care law’s other key provisions.

Employers with 50-100 workers will have to comply starting in 2016, at which point all affected employers must insure at least 95 percent of their employees.

Employers with fewer than 50 workers are exempt from the mandate.

Most big companies provide health insurance. Of course, what might Team Obama/HHS deem “affordable”? Anyhow

But human resources departments will grapple with IRS reporting requirements from day one to document their compliance and avoid tax penalties, a task that can get Byzantine and expensive for companies with lots of part-time workers and seasonal workers, who add up to full-time “equivalents.”

Really, most moves by companies have probably been made already. We will see if any drop coverage, increase the number of part timers, or something else.

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If All You See…

By William Teach January 2, 2015 – 1:00 pm

…is snow created by too much warmth, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Legal Insurrection, with a post on liberals back to pushing gun control.

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Dissatisfaction With Government Tops List Of American Concerns

By William Teach January 2, 2015 – 8:39 am

I’m not going to make this post about “climate change”, but, can you guess what’s missing?

(Washington Times) Dissatisfaction with government topped the list for Americans of most important problems facing the country last year for the first time in Gallup records, also marking the first year since 2007 that the economy was not the top ranking issue.

Complaints about government leadership led the list at 18 percent, followed by the economy in general at 17 percent, unemployment or jobs at 15 percent, and healthcare at 10 percent, Gallup said.

This is based on the yearly readouts from Gallup polls. Gallup notes

The dispersion of public concern seen in 2014 may also have implications for the 2016 presidential election. Should it persist, the lack of a single defining public issue could make candidates’ task of honing a message for the election more complex.

Many typical left wing (manufactured) concerns polled low. Many typical Republican concerns also polled low. Of course, we have two years to go before the 2016 presidential election. But, the end of 2015 will see the start of the runup to the elections, with candidates declaring, debates happening, issues being run up the flagpole.

But, yeah, “climate change” not only isn’t next to last or last, it fails to even materialize on the list. Huh.

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NC Sea Rise Doom: A Lesson In A Warmist Narrative

By William Teach January 2, 2015 – 7:41 am

When Conservatives talk about media bias, we note that one of the methods is to simply leave relevant information out of articles. They attempt to create a narrative, and since people will often only read that article, they may fail to know about said relevant information. Here’s WRAL

Sea level report shows increasing pace of change along coast

A report released on Dec. 31 shows the climate is changing along the North Carolina coast, and the sea level is rising faster in some areas than in others. (snip)

If sea levels continue to rise at their current rate, scientists predict the ocean could be nearly 5 1/2 inches higher on the northern Outer Banks in 30 years, and 2 1/2 inches around Wilmington.

But the report endorses the theory that climate change will hasten the rates of rising sea levels. It predicts a boost of just over a foot at Duck, on the northern coast, and four inches at Southport, near Wilmington, by 2045.

So, there you have it, “climate change” is too blame, right? And will make it worse. Something seems to be missing. Here’s the Raleigh News and Observer

30-year sea-level rise will vary along NC coast, scientists say

A new scientific report warns that the sea is rising at widely varying rates along the North Carolina shore – ranging by 2045 from a possible low of 4 inches at Southport to as much as 12.1 inches on the northern Outer Banks. (snip)

North Carolina becomes the first state with a comprehensive forecast that shows the sea rising at different rates along its coast. Scientists have known for years about big differences – shaped by forces in the ocean and deep in the earth – between the northern Outer Banks and North Carolina’s southern shoreline.

Tide gauges show that the ocean has risen faster in recent decades at Duck, north of Nags Head (about 4.5 millimeters per year) than farther south at Wilmington and Southport (about 2 mm per year – close to the average annual global rate of 1.7 mm).

The northern Outer Banks are sinking slowly. This corner of the state lies in a part of the North American continent that is subsiding in response to geological forces dating from the last Ice Age, about 200 centuries ago.

In addition, oceanographers have spotted a link between fluctuations in the Gulf Stream – its strength and position offshore – and different rates of flooding and sea-level rise along the U.S. coast. This great ocean current is weakening and slowing down, and scientists say the change is pushing the seas higher along the mid-Atlantic coast north of Cape Hatteras.

The article itself, further down, still pushes the “climate change” narrative a bit, but at least it mentions natural geological forces, a major component of the report, which is completely missing from the WRAL article. Back to WRAL

“We have a history of change,” (Dr. Stan) Riggs said. “We better realize those piles of sand are moving.”

Why are the Outer Banks moving? That’s not mentioned, either. Barrier islands will always see lots of change from natural forces. The Outer Banks have gone through great changes. Inlets are created, moved, and destroyed by nature. Vegetation can do wild things to the land, particularly in limiting erosion and shifting (yes, some of the vegetation can be pointed at mankind’s intervention).

I won’t get into the whole debate about mostly/solely natural vs. mostly/solely anthropogenic causation, that’s a debate that we’ve had and will continue to have (though Warmists refuse to modify their own behavior to match their beliefs). What we have above is media bias and an attempt to create a narrative friendly to Leftist beliefs.

It should be noted that this is the draft report, so, lots more money will be spent putting it through peer review, revision, and public comment over the next year and a half, all to tell us that changes occur along the coastline.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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We’re Saved: Warmists Jump In Frigid Water To Save Us From “Climate Change”

By William Teach January 1, 2015 – 2:00 pm

And then they all go back in their fossil fueled vehicles and cranked the heat up to high, seeing as how the water temps are in the upper 30’s to lower 40’s

(WCSH) Some very brave souls ventured into the waters of Casco Bay this afternoon for the annual Polar Bear Dip and 5-k Race.

This is the 7th year for the event that raises money for the Natural Resources Council of Maine’s work on climate change and pollution.

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If All You See…

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

…is coffee which will be decimated by climate change, but, that’s OK, because alcohol will be decimated as well, meaning fewer hangovers and more time to spread awareness, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Dr. Roy Spencer, with a post on the top 10 climate discoveries of 2014.

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NY Times: To Heck With What The Law Says About Subsidies

By William Teach January 1, 2015 – 9:04 am

There’s an old saying about America being a Nation of Law, not of Men, which derives from John Adams’ 7th Letter To Novanglus, which came further from the ancient Greeks, in which he mentioned a “government of law, and not of men”. He goes on to mention that a Republic should be “bound by fixed laws which the people have a voice in making, and a right to defend.” Of course, in Liberal World, laws are flexible, and the written text should be ignored if it doesn’t help the narrative

Health Plan Enrollment Numbers Show Importance of Coming Supreme Court Case

A new report from the Obama administration highlights the very high stakes for a challenge to the Affordable Care Act before the Supreme Court. The subsidies that the court may eradicate are helping a large majority of HealthCare.gov customers pay for their health insurance.

The report is the first time that the Department of Health and Human Services has delivered some numbers on exactly who is signing up for health insurance for 2015, since the open enrollment period began in mid-November. (snip)

Over all, it found, customers who were using HealthCare.gov to pick insurance plans — some new customers, and some renewing customers — were overwhelmingly likely to qualify for federal subsidies to help them pay their premiums. On average, the report found that 87 percent of these customers were eligible for subsidies, with higher percentages in some states — up to a high of 95 percent in Mississippi.

But, see, there’s a sticky wicket, the actual text of Obamacare, namely that citizens are only eligible for subsidies in Exchanges run by states, not the federal government.

The plaintiffs in the Supreme Court case, called King v. Burwell, argue that the law does not allow the subsidies to help insurance customers in the states letting the federal government run individual insurance marketplaces. And if the court agrees, all those people would lose their subsidies, and many would be priced out of the market.

We’ve written before about the disruptions such a ruling would cause. But as more people sign up for health insurance — and more of them are relying on federal subsidies — the potential impact of the decision grows.

The situation is one made entirely by Democrats, who wrote the law and voted for the law without any regards to Republicans, none of whom voted for the bill, passed in the dead of night using parliamentary shenanigans. It was massive and few who voted in the affirmative for it actually read it or knew what was in it. And the intention of the phrasing was to entice States to run their own health insurance exchanges. If the plaintiffs win the case, the subsidies go away. Would that cause disruption? Yes. But the law must be obeyed. Words have meaning. Laws must be fixed, not flexible, otherwise they are no longer laws, but whims. Democrats could have changed it. They chose not to. Even after the loss of the House, Senate Democrats could have passed legislation changing the wording. They did not even attempt this.

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2015: Annual New Year’s Prediction Challenge For Climate Alarmists

By William Teach January 1, 2015 – 8:06 am

Happy New Year’s! Welcome to 2015, and the 5th year of my prediction challenge, which virtually no Warmists will take. And one year closer to End Of Life As We Know it. 2150 and 2200 are fast approaching, the primary dates that the climate alarmists always want to use to denote when Earth is going to burn, baby, burn in fire, dan dan daaaan, fire, dan dan daaaaan.

2014 saw historically low numbers for wildfires and tornadoes, just like 2013. There was just one landfalling U.S. hurricane, Arthur. There have still been no major hurricanes making landfall since 2005, the longest stretch since the Civil War era. There were only8 named Atlantic storms, with only six hurricanes (the average since 1980 is 12.1 storms and 6.4 hurricanes, with 2.7 major hurricanes). Arthur was the only storm to make landfall on the U.S. Thousands of cold temperature high temp records were set. There was barely a spring across the US and much of the northern hemisphere. In other words, the weather just didn’t cooperate with Warmist predictions. Hence, they have made a big effort, building on 2013, to change their predictions and fold all weather, including cold and snow, as being caused by “climate change”.

No child born over the last 18 years has seen statistically significant warming, and no child born this century has seen any warming.

Warmists attempted to say that 2014 was the hottest year evah!!!!!!! Alas, not really. And still wouldn’t prove anthropogenic causation

New Year’s is usually a time when we make resolutions which we abandon when we realize that chocolate, bacon, and beer are great (and bacon cooked in beer and covered with chocolate!) In the blogosphere, we often make predictions for the New Year. Instead, how about a challenge?

For a long time, the alarmists have been making predictions as to what the climate will do. They say in 10 years, 50, 100. Instead, why not, say, make predictions for……2015! What I want for them to do, from the biggest of big climahypocrites, such as Al Gore, James Hansen, Barack Obama, and Leonardo DiCaprio, to the smallest climate dupes, is tell us exactly what the climate will do this year. For some of these questions, I’m using the USA, but, alarmists from around the world can use their own country/region, if they like:

  • What will the average temperature of the Earth be for 2015? Most scientists place the average at 59 degrees F (15 C) (it depends on the range of dates used, cherry picking to use more of the cooling period during the 40’s through 70’s). How far above, or below, will it be?
  • What will the average temperature be for the USA?  The rough average for the USA is 53 F.
  • How many tropical systems will there be in the Atlantic? How many will hit the USA?
  • What will the four seasons do in 2015? Warmer, colder, hotter, wetter? Tell us
  • What will each month look like in the USA? How about in your home state?
  • Which months will be above average, and which ones below, temperature wise?
  • What states will have big floods, and during what months?
  • What will tornado season look like?
  • How many destructive thunderstorms will there be, and in which states?
  • How many “extreme” weather events will there be? Oh, wait, that’s right, Warmists now call all weather events “extreme” now
  • How much ice will the poles gain/lose?
  • Will the Arctic be ice free this summer? It failed to be ice free in 2013 and 2014, and has gained ice
  • What will the average precipitation be for your home city? Average temperature? Average low’s and highs?
  • How many earthquakes will there be (since, apparently, climate change/globull warming creates earthquakes)?
  • Pick an island, and tell us how much the sea will rise around it.

There are many, many, many more questions that can be asked, but, I know what the alarmists are thinking: “Teach, that is weather, not climate! I refuse to participate!” Ah, but, what, exactly, is climate? Let’s pull a couple good definitions

  • Climate encompasses the statistics of temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, rainfall, atmospheric particle count and numerous other meteorological elements in a given region over long periods of time
  • Climate is the average weather conditions at a particular place over a long period of time. Climate is the long-term predictable state of the atmosphere. It is affected by physical features such as mountains, rivers, positioning of the globe, plateaus, deserts, depressions and much more.
  • The general or typical atmospheric conditions for a place and/or period of time. Conditions include rainfall, temperature, thunderstorms, lightning, freezes, etc.

Notice, “long term predictable.” Weather and other natural forces create climate. And right now the alarmists are saying “but, Teach, one year is not considered to be a “long period of time!”” Well, you have plenty of data available for the long term, and, with all your vast knowledge of what the climate is doing, due to man’s release of greenhouse gases, surely you alarmists can make predictions for 2015 based on that long term data, and be mostly correct, right? Surely, you aren’t afraid to make predictions for this year, and tell us what the climate during 2015 will do, right? But, you have to make your predictions, and can’t go back and change them up as the year goes on, the way many organizations, like NOAA, the Met Office, and the IPCC do. And at the end of the year, we will see how well you have done.

And since you are now claiming that every weather event is a result of Hotcoldwetdry, er, climate change/climate disruption, you should be able to give us a few predictions. You’re somehow able to make those predictions for the long term, why not the short term?

Of course, if you use any of the models from Warmist groups, you’ll be bound to fail

There’s your real “97% consensus”, though we can substitute the squishy feelings based word “consensus” with that sciencey word “data”.

Any alarmist up for the challenge? And no cheating be reading the Farmer’s Almanac, which tends to be right way more than the Met, NASA, UN IPCC, and other alarmist groups are. Forget about your PR blitzes, “spreading awareness” campaigns, your advocacy, your stunts, and tell us what will happen. If you’re correct, for a change, maybe people will start to believe you again.

Oh, and a second challenge: live your life in 2015 in the manner you tell everyone else to live. Go “carbon neutral”. Give up your fossil fueled vehicles. No washing machines. No dryers. No refrigerator ice makers. No A/C. No gas heating and cooking. No pets. No kids. No hairspray. No new clothes. Turn all power off at home when not at home. Flip those circuit breakers. 2 minute showers. Move into a tiny home.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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If All You See…

By William Teach December 31, 2014 – 1:00 pm

…is champagne that will be decimated because Someone Else drove to a New Year’s Eve party, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The Lonely Conservative, with a post on New Yorkers fleeing high taxes and regulation.

Also, since I fell back to sleep with this flu (mostly gone now) and forgot to hit the button to publish yesterday’s IAYS, let’s add Nice Deb, who fact checks the fact checkers, and A View From The Beach, with a post on success through gridlock. And two more photos below the fold

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Grist Offers 10 New Year’s Resolutions Every Warmist Should (Mostly) Follow

By William Teach December 31, 2014 – 12:35 pm

I’ll blow by the lead in and go right to the 10 New Year’s resolutions for a guilt-free 2015 (note: bold and italic is from Grist)

  1. Go steerage. So what if there are no ships between NYC and San Fran. Hitch-hike. Walk. No flying for you!
  2. Quit your job: According to Daniel Kamman, distinguished professor of energy at the University of California, Berkeley, “the strongest correlate of high greenhouse gas emissions is income, because when you spend more, you consume more.” And this will remove you from making contact with people who just want to live their lives.
  3. Eat more roadkill. Because factory farming is Bad or something.
  4. Shit in a bucket. To quote our dear advice columnist Umbra: “Composting toilets greatly reduce your home water use. Thirty percent or more of the average household’s water gets flushed straight down the conventional toilet — and then there’s the water and energy required to treat the effluent at your local sewage plant. Hey, since you’re already unemployed….
  5. Breastfeed your kids until kindergarten. This helps save on food waste or something.
  6. Bathe with the ones you love. Shower with friends and loved ones to save water which can never ever be used again, you guys!
  7. Wear vintage. Everything. If you’re truly committed to being green in 2015, you need to either quit purchasing new clothes or quit wearing clothes altogether. Your choice.
  8. Move to a city. Be around other Warmists!
  9. Don’t get pregnant. I think this is a great idea for all Warmists, thereby reducing the spread of your insane cult.
  10. Make a billion dollars, fund a super PAC, and pour money into political candidates who will seriously address climate change. Don’t forget to make it while being involved with fossil fuels, like Al Gore and Tom Steyer!

The whole thing seems a little tongue in cheek, a bit overboard, but, really, this is the way Warmists think.

Read: Grist Offers 10 New Year’s Resolutions Every Warmist Should (Mostly) Follow »

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