If All You See…

By William Teach October 9, 2014 – 1:00 pm

…is a super awesome tree sucking carbon pollution from the air, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Don Surber, with a post on the life expectancy ranking under Ocare.

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As World Deals With Ebola And ISIS, John Kerry To Focus On More Important Stuff

By William Teach October 9, 2014 – 11:52 am

Can you guess what’s more important? I’m sure you can, since I blog about climate change multiple times a day

Secretary of State John Kerry to talk global warming in Boston

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry plans to discuss the “global threat of climate change and the importance of investing in a clean energy future” at a wind turbine testing facility in Charlestown on Thursday morning.

The former U.S. senator from Massachusetts will be joined by United Kingdom Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond and Gov. Deval Patrick, and Boston Mayor Marty Walsh has been invited.

That’s interesting, since John Kerry worked hard to block the Cape Wind Project for years.

The meeting is scheduled for 915am today. Perhaps Kerry could jump in his fossil fueled airplane afterwards and head to Mexico to help Sgt Andrew Tahmooressi, an American citizen stuck in the Mexican legal system.

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Posted in AGW Idiocy, Global Warming | 3 Comments | Trackback URL

10 Easy Ways You Warmists Can Practice What You Preach

By William Teach October 9, 2014 – 10:00 am

I’m impressed by this article at the UK Independent. It’s rare that Warmist actually recommend Warmists get off their duffs and do something within their own lives

  1. Make meat a treat (go without meat a few days a week. Actually, you should give it all up, because it’s evil for climate change)
  2. Drive with smooth style (drive slower and use less AC. Actually, you should just stop driving altogether)
  3. Don’t over-boil the kettle (only use the water you need, a decent real environmental idea, subsumed under the banner of Hotcoldwetdry)
  4. Turn off appliances at night (a smart idea for everyone, again, subsumed under the banner of HCWD)
  5. Adjust your computer power (see previous)
  6. Walk more (stop using fossil fuels)
  7. Eat seasonably and locally (reduce your “carbon footprint”. Seriously, this is England. Do you actually want to eat local foods?)
  8. Take short, sharp showers (another good environmental idea ruined by Warmists)
  9. Receive less junk mail (apparently, one can request to be left off mailer lists in the UK, and by doing so, you’re saving Gaia from a fever!)
  10. Encourage others to do the same (boom, I love that. Warmists walking the talk and telling other Warmists to do the same.)

There are lots of other things Warmists can do. But, they mostly won’t. Because this is really about pushing hardcore Leftist policies, not science.

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EPA “Loses” Text Messages Sought In Records Request

By William Teach October 9, 2014 – 7:01 am

That’s right, another issue of transparency regarding Team Obama, this time at the EPA

(Fox News) The EPA is being accused of pulling “an IRS” for reportedly planning to inform the National Archives it has lost text messages being sought in an open-records request.

The Washington Times reported Wednesday that lawyers from the Department of Justice informed a federal court of the EPA’s plans to tell the National Archives it cannot produce the text messages because they have been deleted.

The open-records request in question came from the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which is seeking text messages from the devices of EPA administrator Gina McCarthy.

Christopher Horner, a senior fellow for the institute, told FoxNews.com in a statement it is clear the EPA has not learned from the IRS’ mistakes. The tax agency came under fire earlier this year after it announced it could not locate an untold number of emails sought in congressional probes into the agency’s targeting of conservative groups.

“Here we see EPA agreeing to the court to ‘do an IRS’, which is to say: notify the National Archivist of the loss of every one of Gina McCarthy’s thousands of text messages we have discovered she destroyed, just as the IRS finally agreed to notify (the National Archives) about the emails lost from (former IRS official) Lois Lerner’s destroyed hard drive,” he said. “The IRS’s insincere efforts at following through on Federal Records Act obligations drew the court’s ire – the same court now hearing the EPA case. Taxpayers should rightly expect EPA to have learned the proper lesson from the IRS’s experience and hope for better.”

On one hand, the EPA is saying “no biggie” because the texts are personal messages. On the other, they’re informing the National Archivist that official messages have been lost (now that they’ve been caught). Over to that Washington Times article

Unlike other agencies surveyed by The Times, the EPA says it has had a policy since 2005 instructing employees to save any text messages that would qualify for preservation, and it has no evidence that employees are failing to do that.

The EPA also says that even if text messages were being destroyed in violation with its guidance, that’s not against the law because they believe text messages are “transitory records … which may be deleted when no longer needed,” Ms. Purchia said.

Go that? It’s against EPA policy to delete the messages, but, hey, no biggie if they are. Try this with your own company and see what happens. The metadata shows that many messages were, in fact, sent to phone numbers owned by the EPA.

I think we can agree that not all the messages were EPA business. The judge in the case acknowledged that. But, McCarthy has a history of playing fast and loose with the rules of record retention, and she surely deleted messages that were government business.

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Surprise: White House Lied Regarding Knowledge Of Secret Service Prositute Parties

By William Teach October 9, 2014 – 6:46 am

Here’s your most transparent administration ever, and a weird headline from the Washington Post

Aides knew of possible White House link to Cartagena, Colombia, prostitution scandal

Rather makes little sense in terms of the article

As nearly two dozen Secret Service agents and members of the military were punished or fired following a 2012 prostitution scandal in Colombia, Obama administration officials repeatedly denied that anyone from the White House was involved.

But new details drawn from government documents and interviews show that senior White House aides were given information at the time suggesting that a prostitute was an overnight guest in the hotel room of a presidential advance-team member — yet that information was never thoroughly investigated or publicly acknowledged.

The information that the Secret Service shared with the White House included hotel records and firsthand accounts — the same types of evidence the agency and military relied on to determine who in their ranks was involved.

The Secret Service shared its findings twice in the weeks after the scandal with top White House officials, including then-White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler. Each time, she and other presidential aides conducted an interview with the advance-team member and concluded that he had done nothing wrong.

So, the White House knew about the prostitutes, and decided to lie to the American public about it.

“We were directed at the time . . . to delay the report of the investigation until after the 2012 election,” David Nieland, the lead investigator on the Colombia case for the DHS inspector general’s office, told Senate staffers, according to three people with knowledge of his statement.

Nieland added that his superiors told him “to withhold and alter certain information in the report of investigation because it was potentially embarrassing to the administration.”

Not only did the White House lie about their knowledge of the scandal, someone surely pressured the investigators to withhold information for political purposes. As to the headline, that goes to

Whether the White House volunteer, Jonathan Dach, was involved in wrongdoing in Cartagena, Colombia, remains unclear. Dach, then a 25-year-old Yale University law student, declined to be interviewed, but through his attorney he denied hiring a prostitute or bringing anyone to his hotel room. Dach has long made the same denials to White House officials.

The White House’s big investigation was to simply ash Dach, twice, if he was involved. He said no, they said “move on.” Yet, the post does the investigation, and finds that Dach had an “extra guest”, a woman, registered to his room. Yes, prostitution is legal in Cartegena, however, if that’s why the White House found no wrong doing, then why discipline Secret Service agents?

Obfuscate, lie, misdirect, lean on people, especially loyalists, stonewall, never admit doing wrong, finally, years later, state that this is old news and it’s time to move on. Typical Obama administration.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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Surprise! More Say Obamacare Has Hurt Than Helped

By William Teach October 8, 2014 – 2:21 pm

If this is what Obama and his minions mean when they say Ocare “is working“, I’d hate to see the results if it was failing!

(Gallup) Although more provisions of the Affordable Care Act have taken effect over the past year, more Americans still say the law has hurt rather than helped them. Compared with early 2014, fewer Americans say it has had no effect, although this group is still in the majority, at 54%.

Americans overall are both more positive and more negative about the law’s effect on themselves and their families. Since the start of this year, the percentage saying the law has helped them has increased from 10% to 16%, while the percentage saying it has hurt them has also gone up, and by a similar amount, from 19% to 27%.

At the same time, overall attitudes about the law have stayed constant over the past year. Currently, 41% of Americans approve of the Affordable Care Act, commonly referred to as “Obamacare,” while 53% disapprove.

Broken down into partisan lines, obviously more Dems think it is helping, 27% yes – 15% no. Interestingly, 56% say it has had no effect. Good think we’ve heavily changed the health care and health insurance systems and spent gobs of money, along with giving Government even more control of our lives, eh?

For Republicans, 4% say helped, 40% hurt, 55% no effect.

What’s dangerous for Dems is Independents, of which 27% say hurt, 16% helped, and 53% no effect.

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If All You See…

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

…are wonderful wonderful trees sucking up all the carbon pollution from Other People’s Evil fossil fueled vehicles, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The Lonely Conservative, with a post noting an anti-Obama film maker under audit by IRS.

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Anybody Watch “The Strain”?

By William Teach October 8, 2014 – 10:30 am

Hey, a non-political post. The Strain, based on the books by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan, just made it through the first season, and, if memory serves, the first book of the trilogy. It’s been quite some time since I read the novels. I must say I loved this show.

Was it a bit plodding? Slightly, but it truly captured the essence and flavor of the book. I’m kind of a purist: I like movies/TV shows based on books to be close to the book. I understand that there often have to be changes to make it screen worthy. Some things do not translate as well, though one can be closer for TV than movies. In this case, it translated wonderfully, with few changes to the story arc. It truly seemed like the book, and even the characters were like those in the books. Well done.

If you watched it, what did you think?

Also, are you a purist, or a whatever goes? I read a lot. Seriously. A lot. If there’s a book associated with a movie or series, I’ve probably read it. Though I refused to read Revenge of the Sith prior to seeing the movie.

I can deal with some changed. When it came to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, there were serious substantive changes made,  plus missing scenes that were Important. I still love all three, and have watched them countless times. Especially the first half hour or so of each disk (6 in total) while going to sleep.

But, others, no way. I suffered thru the first season of Under The Dome, and the changes were beyond what I’ll suffer through further. Seriously, a large number of inner city ruffians just happen to be hanging out in this Maine town in the middle of nowhere, and now have some black market and fight club going on? Strains credibility. I did not watch season 2.

I could deal with the changes in the first episode of The Hobbit. I almost walked out of the theater for the 2nd. It was no better on DVD, and I did not purchase. The extra Gandalf stuff, fine. The things with the elves, what happens Dale, leaving dwarves behind, the silly love stuff, and what happens in the Lonely Mountain with Smaug, hell no. It missed the point as to the growth of Bilbo Baggins. The book is about HIM! Too damned much for me to take. I often have good natured arguments with a coworker about book to movie purism.

They did a great job with Stephen King’s The Stand. I loved the Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy movie. A lot of people didn’t, thinking it diverged too far from the book. It did, to a degree. Don’t forget, Douglass Adams was involved in writing the screenplay, so he was obviously happy with the end result.

Dune. Hmm. The original movie was very good, but took lots of liberties. I guess it helps that I read the book after seeing it. The SciFi mini-series based on the first couple books were fantastic.

Logan’s Run. Wow. Great movie, but not ever really close to the book. The John Carter Barsoom movie a few years ago? Terrible.

What are your thoughts on book to movie purism? Yes? No? It depends?

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Poll: Majority Disapprove Of Obama’s Handling Of ISIS

By William Teach October 8, 2014 – 8:40 am

It’s no wonder Senator Kay Hagan (D-NC) stated after her debate with Thom Tillis Tuesday night that Tillis should stop linking the election to Obama because “The president is not on the ballot. This race is about who’s going to represent North Carolina in the U.S. Senate.” Democrats really, really, really want to pretend that Obama doesn’t exist

(The Hill) A majority of Americans are unhappy with how President Obama is handling the U.S. fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), according to a new poll released.

Some 51 percent of respondents in the CBS News poll released Wednesday said they disapprove of the job the president is doing with the radical jihadist group, while just four in 10 approved. Those numbers are slightly worse than a month ago, when 48 percent disapproved of how Obama was approaching the situation.

I certainly approve of his air strikes on ISIS, though they do not seem to be making a difference, except in terms of dead jihadis. I would hope that he is using special ops groups to fight on the ground against ISIS/ISIL, something he will hopefully not state out loud or allow to be leaked. However, his constantly telling ISIS that we will not use boots on the ground, as well as releasing his so-called plan to fight them, is disturbing and smacks more of politics than a real concern for protecting America and her citizens and property.

The survey also found that voters gave Republicans a substantial advantage on the issue of terrorism, with 53 percent saying the GOP does a better job on the issue. By contest, fewer than a third — 32 percent — favored Democrats on the subject.

And 54 percent said a terror attack against the U.S. homeland is somewhat or very likely — similar to last month, but up 10 points from March of this year.

It really doesn’t help when Obama seems to go golfing and fundraising whenever we see the Islamic State do something, like behead someone or take over a town.

Meanwhile

(NY Times) When he soared to victory by almost 10 million votes in 2008, President Obama won in states like Virginia that Democratic candidates had not captured since 1964. He was trumpeted as a transformational leader who remade American politics by creating a new electoral map and a diverse voter coalition to shape the Democratic Party for the 21st century.

But for now he has been reduced to something else: an isolated political figure who is viewed as a liability to Democrats in the very states where voters by the thousands had once stood to cheer him.

As November nears, Mr. Obama and his loyalists are being forced to reconcile that it is not only Democrats in conservative-leaning states, like Senator Mark Pryor of Arkansas, who are avoiding him. The president who became the first Democrat since Franklin D. Roosevelt to twice win a majority of the vote is flying in politically restricted airspace.

Democratic senators in Colorado, North Carolina and Virginia — states that were pivotal to his success and whose demographics reflect his winning coalition of young, minority and female voters — do not want him. Nor does his party’s Senate nominee in Iowa, where Mr. Obama won twice and whose youth-filled 2008 Democratic caucuses vaulted him toward the nomination.

Even Senator Chuck Schumer says it’s better for Obama to be absent, and

Yet even the slightest injection of the Obama brand into this election seems perilous for Democrats.

Democrats are just not that into Obama anymore, and understand that his policies are, for the most part, worthless, failed, disasters, and Obama doesn’t care much about doing the hard work the job requires.

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Somehow, Florida’s Record Setting Hurricane Drought Is A Bad Thing

By William Teach October 8, 2014 – 8:14 am

The Washington Post Capital Weather Gang is known for it’s Big Warmist positions, including James Samenow. Only a Warmist would be this concerned

Why Florida’s record-setting hurricane drought portends danger

Florida has gone 3,270 days without a hurricane – nearly nine years and, by far, the longest stretch on record (the next longest streak is 5 seasons from 1980-1984, in records dating back to 1851). Meanwhile, the Sunshine state’s population and development have boomed.

Florida is long overdue for a destructive hurricane and has never had so many people and so much property in the way. This dangerous state of affairs is compounded by the potential for complacency and lack of recent experience. When hurricanes don’t strike over such a long period of time, some people may be lulled into a false sense of security and/or forget how horrible hurricanes can be.

In other words, they’re Very Concerned that their prognostications for big hurricane seasons being the new normal have crashed and burned, and they really, really, really want so fantastic hurricanes to strike Florida. Remember, the original prognostication was that the normal would look like the 2005 season, which was very active, and included lots of major hurricanes, with lots of storms making landfall. That prognostication immediately died on the vine as hurricane activity, particularly for landfalling storms, dropped precipitously. So, the next palm reading stated that hurricane activity would be normal or lower, but the storms would be worse. Nope. Didn’t happen.

And then there are newcomer Floridians who haven’t ever had to endure a hurricane. Weather.com notes that more than 1 million people have moved to Florida since Wilma in 2005, the last hurricane to hit the state. “That’s potentially 1 million people who are inexperienced with the impacts of hurricanes and tropical storms and lack the experience boarding up a home, cleaning out a flooded home or battling mandatory evacuation traffic,” Weather.com writes.

Wilma was the last major hurricane to strike the United States, and, if there are no major hurricane landfalls by November 23rd, that will be the new records for the longest period without a landfalling major hurricane, 3316 days, the previous record having been during the Civil War era.

It’s not a matter of if but when an active cycle of hurricanes returns to Florida. In 2004 and 2005 alone, seven hurricanes hit (Charley, Frances, Jeanne, and Ivan in 2004; Dennis, Katrina, and Wilma in 2005.).

That is true. At some point, a hurricane is going to strike Florida. And the minute one does, it will be blamed on “climate change”, much like with Superstorm Sandy (which was made worse by interaction with a big cold front).

There are some good points, getting beyond all the doomy talk, about the danger of people becoming complacent, as well as there being so many more people and so many more properties, many with much higher values. That said, this is what is referred to as “wish casting” by Delaware Jack in the comments, who notes that many news outlets portend doom and gloom for every storm that occurs. I’d contend that wish casting has moved from hoping for ratings over normal storm doom to wish casting to blame every rain drop, dry period, snow storm, etc, on “climate change”.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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