UVA Decides Not To Reinstate Greek System Quite Yet

By William Teach December 9, 2014 – 10:14 am

Despite knowing exactly which fraternity was accused in the Rolling Stone rape allegation, the University Of Virginia decided to suspend all Greek system activities. No evidence, no due process. So, now that so much of the story has fallen apart, you didn’t really think that the administration would do the right thing, did you? Well, the right thing in Reality Land, in Due Process Land, in Law Land, no, they went with Leftie Land

(AP) The University of Virginia refused to reinstate Greek activities that were suspended after a Rolling Stone article alleged a woman was gang raped at a fraternity house, despite the magazine acknowledging mistakes in its reporting, but officials said Monday that the story and debate has led it to create a group to explore its policies and campus culture.

Last month’s article and revelations late last week about Rolling Stone missteps that casted doubt on the story prompted an “intense, ongoing period of introspection,” the university said in a news release. It led to the creation of a group of faculty and students that will review policies, practices, organization structure and resources to “support the ultimate goal of providing an outstanding education while ensuring the safety and well-being of students,” the release said.

But, of course. This is a continuation of the “fake but accurate” narrative, blaming everyone and putting the burden on those who had nothing to do with the issue.

The group’s work will focus on: culture, including student behavior, Greek life, alcohol and other drug use and student self-governance; prevention, including bystander training, peer education and physical safety such as lighting, camera systems and policing; and response, including survivor support, training for students and faculty, and its policies for handling incidents.

And, along the way, perhaps a recognition of 4th Amendment rights and abuse of power by the university.

While (university President Teresa A.) Sullivan remains sensitive to concerns about broadly indicting the entire Greek system, the school said the purpose of the suspension was to give officials and fraternity and sorority leaders time to “pause to identify solutions that would best ensure the well-being and safety of students.”

In other words, everyone is guilty till proven innocent, and there is no method in which to allow anyone to be proven innocent.

It is strange that there is such an issue with sexual assault on liberal college campuses, eh?

BTW, why has the media focused on UVA while ignoring several other high profile rape cases?

Read: UVA Decides Not To Reinstate Greek System Quite Yet »

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#COP20Lima: Climate Aid Isn’t Charity, But Reparations

By William Teach December 9, 2014 – 8:44 am

But, don’t you dare say that “climate change” has nothing to do with Leftist politics

At Lima Talks, Nations Worst Hit by Global Warming Say Climate Aid Isn’t Charity, But Reparations

….

AMY GOODMAN: There are many in the United States, particularly Republicans in Congress, saying, “I mean, we just can’t afford this.” Would you call it altruism, U.S. helping poorer countries deal with climate change?

SALEEMUL HUQ: This is nothing to do with altruism. This is to do with reparations from polluters. The United States has risen as an economic power based on emissions over the last 150 years that have caused the damage that we are now seeing. They recognize that, and they have taken on the obligation to help the poorer victims of the impacts of climate change that is caused by human-induced pollution. This is a pollution treaty, and it’s about polluters and victims of pollution.

Say, how did Ms. Goodman and Mr. Huq get to Lima? Goodman is from the U.S., and Huq is from Bangladesh. They surely didn’t swim, did they? Or row a boat.

This is all about leftist politics. Shifting money from one to the other for no work.

SALEEMUL HUQ: We expect the negotiators and the governments who are here to come up with a good package that, on the one hand, is adequate to solve the problem. An inadequate package is simply not going to be acceptable. On the other hand, they should also galvanize and build on the momentum that is happening around the world in taking actions. So, we’re not sitting and waiting for the Lima negotiators to come to a deal. People all over the world are actually doing things on the ground. And we need that to be supported and enhanced.

Labeling the money as reparations (for some countries succeeding while others fail because they’re failures) rather than charity allows these “developing countries”, which never seem to take steps forward, to dictate the terms of how much money they will demand.

Read: #COP20Lima: Climate Aid Isn’t Charity, But Reparations »

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Salon: American Exceptionalism Is Dead Or Something

By William Teach December 9, 2014 – 8:23 am

You might be asking why? It’s because rarely does ever anything come from demonstrations by far left nutjobs who enjoy burning, looting, violence, rapes, murder, and other crime. Of course, author David Dayen forgets to mention that part, but he does remember the upside down and tattered American flag

American exceptionalism is dead: Why the nation rediscovered its protest roots

I have been out of the country twice this year. The first time, I was in Mexico when protests broke out in Ferguson, Missouri, over the shooting death of Michael Brown; more recently, my two weeks in Argentina coincided with nationwide demonstrations against the lack of grand jury indictments in the cases of Brown and Eric Garner, the Staten Island police chokehold victim.

Witnessing a nascent anti-police brutality movement from a distance has given me a different perspective on it, because the novelty of getting out in the streets in America and demanding justice stands in stark contrast to the utter ubiquity of such actions in other parts of the world.

Dayen is very happy to tell us all about street action in Mexico and Argentina (where they revere psychotic murderer Che Guevara, much like Liberals here in the U.S.), going into deep detail, before moving on to

We used to have this same belief in America, that street action mattered and needed to be nurtured. From the Boston Tea Party to the civil rights movement, from the Bonus Marchers to the Pullman strikers and many more, America has a rich tradition of uprising against a seemingly immovable political and social apparatus. The right to peaceably assemble is enshrined in the Constitution, even if it largely seems theoretical today.

See, there’s that word “peaceably”. That’s typically not something we see from Leftist protests. We sure haven’t seen it with the Ferguson and Eric Garner protests. How many death threats did George Zimmerman accumulate from unhinged Leftists? Remember, Occupy Wall Street actually had to erect a tent that was a Rape Free Zone in Zuccotti Park. There were no Conservatives involved. They were the ones who pooped on police cars and door steps. They’ve had members arrested for plotting violence, including blowing up bridges.

Let’s also not forget that Leftists typically leave protest areas in worse condition than beforehand, ranging from massive amounts of trash to burned buildings.

But sometime between 1776 and now, mass engagement became separated from American political DNA. Like solar panel manufacturing, the United States invented the political protest and then let it wither away while other countries kept it alive. Modern-day demonstrations have evolved into media-friendly one-off events rather than a continuing struggle, a way for people to simply register their dissent without having to sustain it. We hear about the need for a national conversation on race, injustice, violence or economic suffering, but we actually need a daily conversation, an evolving and energizing force of public opposition that those in power cannot easily dismiss.

On this, he has a point. Why does the media keep ignoring the demonstrations and outcry from Conservatives over what happened in Benghazi and with the IRS scandal? The Leftist media tends to ignore, downplay, and/or dismiss Conservative demonstrations. And, if we attempt to have an actually conversation, Liberals will trot out their typical invective. They do not want a conversation, they want a soliloquy.

But, yes, our Political Class does tend to ignore The People. Republicans are dismissive of their base. Democrats are afraid of theirs. Both loathe their bases. I’m not sure how all of this means American exceptionalism is dead, though.

I believe this revival of the culture of protest comes out of a belated realization, one that Latin America and other countries had already internalized. They understand that their vote can only go so far, that the entrenched interests who control the social and political infrastructure will only respond to a massive disruption to their smoothly functioning machine. We had a delusion in America that we were somehow exceptional, that we wouldn’t succumb to oligarchy or the control of an ossified elite. We preferred to look the other way when confronted with institutional racism or the rigidities of class. “We’ve gotten better,” we’d tell ourselves. And we gave up the struggle instead of redoubling efforts.

Ah. There it is. It really has nothing to do with the actual notion of American exceptionalism, but, hey, any storm in a port, right?

Maybe it took the financial crisis and its sluggish aftermath. Maybe it took a black kid getting shot by the cops to recognize the illegitimacy of the justice system. But there has been some small awakening that we’re not all that exceptional, that our democracy is prone to the same capture we see all around the world, and that we don’t have many options to fix that outside of getting in the street and shouting.

In Buenos Aires, I took a picture of some street graffiti, which read, “Cuando la tirania es ley, la revolucion es orden”: when tyranny is law, revolution is in order. We’re discovering in America the existence of the former, and finally easing up on our dismissal of the latter.

Here’s the thing: Liberals got exactly what they wanted. They’ve pushed for 100 years for bigger and bigger Government. They’ve pushed to invest more and more power in Government. To shift that power from The People to The Government. They’ve been pushing to move power from State, county, and local governments to the Federal Government. They get domineering laws, rules, and regulations passed. What they hell did they think was going to happen? If American exceptionalism has died because of Government, it’s on them. They should look in the mirror.

I’d tell Leftists to join Conservatives in pushing for term limits for Congress and repealing the 17th Amendment (direct election of Senators), but, then, at the end of the day liberals are way to invested in Government and governmental power.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

Read: Salon: American Exceptionalism Is Dead Or Something »

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Surprise: U.N. Wants Lots More Money For Climate Change

By William Teach December 8, 2014 – 6:38 pm

Supposedly to help developing nations

(SMH) Developing countries may need as much as $US250-$US500 billion ($270-$A40 billion) per year by mid-century to deal with the fallout from climate change, a UN report has warned.

The projected amount was as much as five times higher than previous estimates and significantly more than today’s spending on climate adaptation, said the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), which warned of a “significant funding gap after 2020”.

“The impacts of climate change are already beginning to be factored into the budgets of national and local authorities,” UNEP executive director Achim Steiner said in a statement on Friday.

It’s a big slush fund for redistributing money. Again,  another Progressive goal. Notice that they do not like to donate their own money, just Other People’s” money.

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If All You See…

By William Teach December 8, 2014 – 1:00 pm

…is an awesome bike offsetting the carbon pollution form an evil SUV, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Reaganite Republican, with a post on Lame Duck Season.

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Did You Know That COP20 Was Happening?

By William Teach December 8, 2014 – 10:20 am

Yes, it’s that time of the year again, where 10,000 fossil fuels haters take fossil fueled flights and vehicles to a UN IPCC meeting, called the Conference on the Parties, to tell Everyone Else that fossil fuels are bad and must be restricted. This year, the 20th edition of yammering and a nice taxpayer funded working vacation, is in Lima, Peru. Fortunately for the Warmists, the Gore Effect doesn’t appear to be in play, at least for the next 5 days, where the daily temperatures will be within the area of normal averages. The UK Telegraph provides a helpful explanation for dummies, which is good, because Warmists are truly non-thinking fools

What’s happening in Lima?

Delegates from 190 countries are meeting for the annual United Nations talks on tackling climate change, and this year’s host city is the Peruvian capital Lima. The two-week meeting, which began Dec 1, is intended to draft a global deal on cutting carbon emissions in order to prevent dangerous extremes of global warming.

Were you even aware that this was going on? It’s barely been mentioned in the news.

Who’s there?

More than 12,500 people have now registered to attend, although not all of them are expected to actually turn up. Nearly 7,000 are from Governments, including an estimated 40 officials from the UK. Energy and climate change secretary Ed Davey and minister Amber Rudd were both due to attend the second week of negotiations, but it emerged on Sunday that Ms Rudd would no longer do so after apparently being barred by chief whip Michael Gove. More than 3,500 NGO delegates have also registered, plus about 1,000 journalists and 1,000 representatives from various UN, intergovernmental and other agencies.

How much “carbon pollution” did they release to show up?

Will Lima result in a deal?

No. A deal isn’t due to actually be signed until next year’s summit, in Paris. There’s no guarantee of a deal then either – in Copenhagen in 2009 a summit ended without satisfactory agreement. And even if there is a deal in Paris, few people think it will be drastic enough to keep the world to within 2C warming.

So, this is essentially yammer?

So what’s the point of Lima?

The Lima meeting is intended to try to make sure Paris isn’t a repeat of Copenhagen by doing a lot of the groundwork, in particular agreeing key parameters over the shape of a deal. The idea is that countries will all make individual pledges early next year setting out what action they will take, so they they can be improved upon and finalised in Paris. Lima is supposed to define the kinds of information those pledges entail to ensure they are meaningful and comparable.

And that right there, my friends, is a big reason to make sure that Republicans keep the Senate for the 2016 election cycle. Getting the White House is damned important, but the Senate is the only body that can approve a treaty, and that is what this will be.

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Surprise? Ocare Has A Doctor Shortage

By William Teach December 8, 2014 – 7:09 am

So, you’ve (supposedly) paid your Obamacare premium. You are now ready to see a doctor. Too bad they don’t want to see you, and there aren’t enough

(AP) When Olivia Papa signed up for a new health plan last year, her insurance company assigned her to a primary care doctor. The relatively healthy 61-year-old didn’t try to see the doctor until last month, when she and her husband both needed authorization to see separate specialists.

She called the doctor’s office several times without luck.

“They told me that they were not on the plan, they were never on the plan and they’d been trying to get their name off the plan all year,” said Papa, who recently bought a plan from a different insurance company.

It was no better with the next doctor she was assigned. The Naples, Florida, resident said she left a message to make an appointment, “and they never called back.”

This is almost like clockwork, where some news outlet trots out a story highlighting the problems those with insurance through Ocare have in finding doctors. Many doctors and medical facilities want nothing to do with the problems associated with taking Ocare insurance, including the massive paperwork and low payouts.

One purpose of the new health law was connecting patients, many of whom never had insurance before, with primary care doctors to prevent them from landing in the emergency room when they are sicker and their care is more expensive. Yet nearly 1 in 5 Americans lives in a region designated as having a shortage of primary care physicians, and the number of doctors entering the field isn’t expected to keep pace with demand.

Not really, it was about forcing people to have health insurance in order to Do Something while letting the chips land where they may. The fact that they can’t afford the deductibles and that the networks are restricted was barely discussed during the time when the majority of the country was saying “hell no!” to passing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Oh, now, wait, those who were against Ocare actually did mention these problems. Huh.

Of course, this is not the case for everyone. Some are actually able to quickly use their government sponsored insurance. It has to be admitted that it is not all doom and gloom. But, there sure are enough negative stories.

Insurance agent Anthony Halby heard similar complaints from his clients in Grass Valley, California, a Sierra foothill community about an hour east of Sacramento. He said half a dozen consumers wanted him to switch their health plans as soon as the second round of open enrollment started earlier this month. They told him the plan they chose last year made it extremely difficult to find primary care doctors.

Coverage does not equal access,” said Halby, who instead recommends his clients choose a plan outside the exchange that has a much broader provider network but also will not come with the government premium subsidies given to most of those who buy insurance through the exchange. “I tell people this up front: The premiums are going to be higher because there’s no subsidy. However, I’m going to guarantee you can keep your doctor.”

In order to reduce costs networks are kept intentionally small. Medical facilities can only see so many people. Nothing is free. The purpose was to give government even more power over the economy and people’s lives. It’s what Progressives do. It’s what they want. Of course, they get very upset when the consequences affect themselves individually. They always think the negative consequences will hit Other People, never themselves.

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Salon: Being A Nice White Person Means You’re A Racist Or Something

By William Teach December 8, 2014 – 6:46 am

Living in Liberal World means never having to admit you’re bat guano insane

What Chris Rock got wrong: “Nice” white people perpetuate white supremacy

This past week, Chris Rock noted in an interview that although racism remained a real and persistent problem, he was glad to see that America is now producing the nicest white people in its history.

Perhaps. But if so, this only suggests the pitiable limits of niceness and its utter irrelevance for the production of something approaching justice, or for that matter even insight. And if so, it may merely signify how far we had to come out of the pit of whatever one takes the opposite of nice to be: mean, nasty, cruel, selfish, and so on. In short, it’s pretty thin gruel in the pantheon of praise, however sincerely Rock may have meant it.

One can be perfectly nice, after all, and still fail to see that which is right before you, staring at you from the computer screen as you watch Eric Garner killed on the streets of Staten Island with an illegal chokehold. The officer who applied that pressure to Garner’s neck might himself be “nice” in the sense that he is kind to old people, babies and animals. Likewise, the grand jury that decided yesterday not to indict him for any crime might well have been filled with nice people, who send get-well cards to sick friends and relatives, participate in Secret Santa at work and volunteer at the local food bank. And what of it? Their niceness did not, clearly, provide them with the gift of comprehension, as they managed to watch an officer kill a man who posed no threat to him whatsoever—no reaching for his gun, even in some paranoid fever dream, no charging him like a bull, or as Darren Wilson put it to justify his killing of Mike Brown, like “a demon.” Their niceness came laced with nothing so helpful as empathy as they watched a man choked to death, gasping for air, all because he had been selling loose cigarettes on the street and dared to tell the officers to leave him alone when they decided to harass him for that most serious of crimes.

Of course, not one thing in that paragraph denotes any sort of racism, any type of white supremacism, just people who wanted to follow The Law rather than their feelings. And, in Liberal World, feelings are apparently king. Just to be clear, I think that the Grand Jury failed in their duty, and should have forwarded charges to a jury trial. But, then, I wasn’t in the GJ room. Nor were other people.

Nor do the mentioned issues of John Crawford nor Tamir Rice show racism, just bad decisions.

In fact, I’m starting to wonder if nice might actually be the problem.

Nice is like a set of noise canceling headphones, which disallows those possessed of it from hearing the cries of others suffering under the weight of injustice. Nice is precious, nice is content, and nice does not want to hear of pain. Niceness cannot brook anguish because anguish disturbs the sleep of the just.

Nice is like one of those aromatherapy masks you can get at a day spa. It slips right over the eyes and lulls you into a state of relaxation with the pleasant aroma of lavender. Nice is a soothing massage, a warm cup of tea, or Enya.

But…

Nice is the enemy of justice because to raise one’s voice against oppression is to be instantly pegged as not nice, as disruptive, as unruly, as dangerous. To block traffic, or interfere with the all-important Christmas tree lighting in Rockefeller Center is not nice. To interrupt the symphony orchestra in St. Louis, or the drunken revelry of nice white baseball fans at a Cardinals game is not nice. To signify sympathy for a murdered young man in Ferguson, with even a gesture as simple as raising one’s hands as you come out of the tunnel before the football game is not nice. It is, to some—who would rather just watch black men entertain them with a few nice interceptions—worthy of punishment, or professional discipline. How dare they, say the nice white people who paid good money to see black men play gladiator for the glory of the hometown team.

So, um, er, if you act like a jerk, putting other people’s lives in danger (remember the freakout of the lane closures blamed on Chris Christie, and how it was falsely claimed that a woman died because an ambulance was delayed? How many emergency service vehicles were blocked by these protesters?), damage property, etc, then you are part of the solution, you are simpatico with Justice, so, you can’t be a white supremacist.

In short, and though I know it won’t strike you as, well, nice: fuck nice. And if you’re more disturbed about my language here than the death of black men at the hands of police, then know that you are the problem, and you’ve made it clear what side you’re on. It will not be forgotten.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

Read: Salon: Being A Nice White Person Means You’re A Racist Or Something »

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Mann’s Hockey Schtick, Er, Stick, Collapses With Modern Tree Rings

By William Teach December 7, 2014 – 3:06 pm

I have to wonder when Warmists switch to a narrative of “fake but accurate” when it comes to “climate change”

(Jo Nova) You’ll be shocked that after decades of studying 800 year old tree rings, someone has finally found some trees living as long ago as 2005. These rarest-of-rare tree rings have been difficult to find, compared to the rings circa Richard III. The US government may have spent $30 billion on climate research, but that apparently wasn’t enough to find trees on SheepMountain living between the vast treeless years of 1980 to now.

I’ve always thought it spoke volumes that many tree ring proxies ended in 1980, as if we’d cut down the last tree to launch the satellites in 1979. We all know that if modern tree rings showed that 1998 was warmer than 1278, the papers would have sprung forth from Nature, been copied in double page full-fear features in New Scientist, and probably the IPCC logo too. (snip)

Steve McIntyre has been asking for an update since 2005. He has the details of the new paper by Salzer, and produces this devastating graph below. The black line is MBH98 – the Michael Mann curve of Hockeystick fantasy. The red line is HadCRU (the Hadley best guess of surface temperatures, from surface thermometers and computers). The droopy green line is the Graybill chronology to 1987, while the blue lines are the updates to the SheepMountain series of tree ring “temperatures”. Oops.

As Ms. Nova points out, Mann’s hockey schtick, er, stick, depends on not using tree rings after 1980. Warmists often accuse Skeptics of “cherry picking data”, either because Warmists are dishonest or just deluded, depending on the situation. What are we to make of their inability to grasp that working backwards from current time in order to show that there has now been an 18 year 2 month pause is not cherry picking. If we were only looking at, say, data between 1980 and 1996 (which is when a spike in global temps occurred), that would be cherry picking. Is it cherry picking that we look at all the computer models and see that 95% have failed?

Make sure to read the rest at Jo Nova’s site, but, let me make it clear, this doesn’t invalidate that the Earth is currently in a warm period. Skeptics do not deny that. The debate is not over warming, but causation. We say it is mostly natural, just like it has always been. And, no, do not ask me for what those natural forces are, Mr/Ms Warmists, because we have told you time and time again. Don’t blame us if you have the memory retention of a constant stoner. Warmists say it is mostly/solely caused by Mankind. Yet, they won’t practice what they preach, they “modify” data, they invent data, and say that computer models are more important that actual measurements. Did I mention they fail to change their own behavior?

Read: Mann’s Hockey Schtick, Er, Stick, Collapses With Modern Tree Rings »

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If All You See…

By William Teach December 7, 2014 – 1:00 pm

…is an awesome carbon friendly bike which slows the rise of the seas, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Raised On Hoecakes, which reminds us today is Pearl Harbor Day.

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