Sargent: The GOP Is Now Officially The Party Of “Get The Hell Out” Or Something

If only Greg Sargent was right on this

The GOP is now officially the party of ‘get the hell out’

Exactly one year after the Senate passed an immigration reform bill that built a compromise on an exchange of increased enforcement for legalization for the 11 million, Republicans have now officially abandoned any pretense of a willingness to participate in solving the immigration crisis. Instead, they have committed the party to a course premised on two intertwined notions: There are no apparent circumstances under which they can accept legalization of the 11 million; and as a result, the only broad response to the crisis they can countenance is maximum deportations.

I’m sorry, I fail to see the problem with, you know, following federal law regarding people who have entered the nation illegally as well as overstayed visas. I wish the GOP Establishment really was saying “get the hell out”. Realistically, they do not trust Obama and the Dems to actually secure the border prior to any legalization. But, what is this really about? Paragraph 2

This means it’s now all in Obama’s hands to decide what he can do unilaterally to ease the pace of deportations and address the current unaccompanied migrant crisis.

In other words, Lefties are trying to build the nominal case for Obama acting like a potentate and decreeing “solutions” to the illegal alien problem.

Read: Sargent: The GOP Is Now Officially The Party Of “Get The Hell Out” Or Something »

Know What Is Destabilizing Iraq? Climate Change, Of Course!

It’s so simple!

(Slate) Could there be a connection between climate change and the emerging conflict in Iraq?

The short answer is a qualified yes, according to Frank Femia of the Center for Climate and Security, a Washington-based policy institute advised by senior retired military and national security leaders. He explained in a phone interview:

It’s far too early, considering this is happening in real time, to figure out what is motivating ISIS and its members. Certainly, the natural resource stresses in the region make things worse. Terrorist organizations can try to control those resources and gain significant influence and power. You can’t say climate change is causing ISIS to do what it’s doing, but it [climate change] certainly has a role to play in the region.

Increasing temperatures may also be playing a role in the recent uptick in violence. A study published last year in the journal Science showed a strong connection between high temperatures and political instability, like civil wars, riots, and ethnic violence, though the cause is not well known. A previous study has linked dehydration with decreased cognitive performance and increased levels of anxiety.

Obviuosly, it couldn’t be due to radical Islamist, nope, not a chance. (btw, the Center For Climate and Security is part of the Sustainable Markets Foundation, a radical, far left organization with all sorts of links to other radical Leftist organizations, such as 350.org and the NRDC)

This year’s major drought has coincided with the rise of ISIS, which has already used dams as a weapon of war, threatening downstream agriculture and electricity production during its march to gain control of vast swaths of territory in Syria and northern Iraq.

You have two things going on here. First, it’s a continuation of the cult, where everything is blamed on “climate change” for political purposes. Second, a complete denial of the root cause, namely, radical Islam, something Progressives are great at doing. Progressives have this aversion to seeing the reality of radical Islam. Maybe it’s their whole multiculturalism thing, maybe their hatred of America, maybe their hatred of President George W. Bush. Regardless, it’s dangerous. Even Liberal Richard Dawkins has called Progressives out on this.

Read: Know What Is Destabilizing Iraq? Climate Change, Of Course! »

If All You See…

…is a sea that is rising up to cover the land that has been turned into desert, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Coyote Blog, with a post on the fabricated data kerfuffle.

Read: If All You See… »

Know What We Need To Fight Hotcoldwetdry? Better Communication!

No, seriously, you guys, because they haven’t been attempting to communicate for over 25 years on the subject

Improved communication between experts and the public key in winning battle to curb climate change, claims expert

Scientists need to become more humble and to completely re-think the way they communicate if the battle to curb climate change is to be won, one of the world’s leading climate experts has warned.

Lamenting what he calls a “mismatch” between the state of climate science and the needs of society, Professor Chris Rapley called on his colleagues across the world to throw off the shackles of tradition and engage in a radically different approach to their discipline.

Climate scientists need to be more critical about their own research, more open to the work and views of other people and to communicate much more clearly with the public, said Professor Rapley, of the University College London.

Wait, wait, that didn’t go quite the way I thought, via the headline. Professor Rapley is correct in that regard. Of course, Warmist scientists and “scientists” won’t listen.

At the same time, they need to defend their work more robustly against climate sceptics and, in a recommendation many may find surprising, rely less on scientific fact and more on narrative techniques such as personal anecdotes, emotion and rhetoric to make their points, he added. (snip)

The report (by Rapley’s group), entitled Time for Change, concluded that to communicate much more “powerfully” with the public, scientists need to personalise their story, drawing on emotions and expressing their opinions – an approach it concedes is “contrary to long-standing tradition” but which, with mainstream audiences, is more effective than piling on ever-more facts to make a point.

Now that is more what I expected. Science be damned, we have a narrative! We can preach it, baby!

Best comment

This is either a very condescending report (the general public are too thick to understand what we say), or its a very nice way of saying the science behind climate change has failed so now we have to put spin on it to keep the gravy train a rollin’.

However Marsinah, or Kependeal, or whatever the hell she’s calling herself these days likes to dress it up, if a researcher says they have to ‘rely less on scientific facts’ to put their argument across, then they are asking for faith in an idea. Which is more commonly known as a religion. You’ll forgive me for not bending my knee before this particular altar.

All of the above.

Read: Know What We Need To Fight Hotcoldwetdry? Better Communication! »

Lois Lerner Was Super Concerned Over Lost Private Documents

Her official emails? Not so much

(Fox News) Computer experts and Republican lawmakers are poking holes in IRS claims that the agency did all it could to retrieve embattled ex-official Lois Lerner’s allegedly “lost” emails, which the agency blames on a 2011 hard-drive crash. (snip)

But Lerner’s communications with the agency’s IT team referred to her desire to retrieve “lost personal files” — not lost emails.

And that detail is “very suspicious,” according to David Kennedy, chief executive of information security firm TrustedSec. Kennedy said that when government computers crash, email recovery should be a priority. But in Lerner’s communication with the IT team, “There is no talk about the recovery of the emails,” Kennedy said, adding, “It didn’t seem like they really wanted to recover the data.”

It’s possible that the emails shared with lawmakers and attached to a June 13, 2014, letter to leaders of the Senate Finance Committee are just a snapshot of Lerner’s communications with the IT team. But they indicate Lerner’s acute level of concern for what she referred to as her personal files.

The first email, from June 13, 2011, is a brief notification from one of Lerner’s colleagues in the Exempt Organizations division to other IRS staff that Lerner’s hard drive had crashed, with information on how to reach her. The next set of emails starts on July 19, 2011, and shows Lerner reaching out to IT staffers for their help in retrieving “lost personal files.”

“There were some documents in the files that are irreplaceable,” she wrote.

One has to wonder why she was storing such irreplaceable personal documents on a Government computer, apparently not backing them up to her own personal computer. Then, lots of people do stupid things with the computer supplied by their employer. I know of a person who had the title of Vice President for a big, big corporation who was terminated from a job in which he/she was making at least a couple hundred grand yearly because he/she was accessing pornography sites with the company provided laptop. Not through the corporate servers when logged in, mind you, but, it is company property, and accessing certain materials using the property at any time was a fireable offense. You would think he/she could have afforded a personal laptop.

Anyhow, one has to wonder if Ms. Lerner was using the computer for personal benefit in accordance with IRS policy. Regardless, she didn’t seem particularly concerned with her official documents and correspondence. But, then, she was yet another Obama official who was using non-government email for official correspondence.

Meanwhile

Two Texas Republicans are proposing a $1 million reward to anyone who recover former IRS employee Lois Lerner’s lost emails.

Reps. Bill Flores and Louie Gohmert proposed the Identify and Recover Sent Emails Act, or the IRS Act. In addition to the big $1 million bounty, the bill would offer $500,000 to anyone with information that can be used to prosecute officials involved in destroying the emails.

Even better, the reward money would come out of the IRS budget.

Read: Lois Lerner Was Super Concerned Over Lost Private Documents »

Good News: Obama Kicks Of Summer Road Show

Because he cares about average Americans and is totally in touch with what you care about, or something

(Politico) President Barack Obama headed out of Washington on Thursday to offer assurance to Americans that he hasn’t lost touch with the issues that guide their daily lives — or their complaints about the political system.

“Are there programs that the government does that are a waste of money, or aren’t working as well as they should be? Of course,” Obama said at a town hall in Minneapolis, on the first of several day-in-the-life trips the White House has planned for this summer that are aimed at getting him out of town, and out of his latest slump.

“But I tell ya, if you work in any big company in America, you’ll find some things that aren’t that efficient, either. Are there some federal workers who do some boneheaded things? Absolutely,” he said.

Of course, when Bad Things happen in a Big Company, they immediately work to fix the problem. People are held accountable. If a Big Company was responsible for a hundred deaths (ala Veterans Affairs), The Government would be all over them investigating, probably arresting and prosecuting those responsible. If a Big Company was illegally giving private company information to another company, they’d be getting the same treatment (ala IRS). The CEO and other high ranking officers might get called to testify in front of Congress.

Obama’s job, he said, is to work with Congress “to make sure taxpayer dollars are spent wisely and efficiently” and “we shouldn’t be wasting a dime.” Where there are problems, as in the Veterans Affairs administration treatment queuing process, “we’ve gotta crack down and we’ve got to reform it.” But plenty of others at the VA — and across the federal and local governments — are doing good work.

Since when has Obama done anything regarding waste of taxpayer money? One of his first acts was to sign the Stimulus, which essentially pissed away over a trillion dollars, once interest is factored in. He had a conniption of the Shutdown, even deploying Barrycades. Heck, he’s pissing away taxpayers dollars on this summer road show, since official events are being used to allow him to travel to fundraisers and partisan events without having to reimburse The People  for use of Air Force 1.

The news that’s reported on TV is often important, he said, but there are plenty of stories that are “just Washington fights.” They’re “phony scandals,” preparing politicians for the “next election or ginning up a base.”

All that, he said, “is not on the level.”

What is on the level, Obama said, are his intentions. “You’re who I’m thinking about every single day. Just because it’s not reported in the news doesn’t mean I’m not thinking of you,” he said.

Essentially, he’s saying he’s thinking of you, but then tells you that serious issues that concern citizens are phony, ginned up. Yet, nothing that he does or says actually fix the problems. The economy is still a mess, despite his boondoggle of a stimulus. He’s yammering about “climate change”. He’s refusing to engage in serious issues like the VA, IRS, Benghazi, and his utterly failed foreign policy. Scrolling through White House Dossier, we see that he is attending fundraisers, often with big wig 1% donors after most official events, as well as making partisan speeches.

At it’s most basic core, this is Obama’s version of governance and leadership: make a speech, which often always includes attacking political opponents, ie, other American citizens, but refusing to actually speak to the very lawmakers he needs to get things done. He barely speaks to lawmakers in his own Party, much less Republicans. For Obama, the speech is the important part, because, in his world, everyone is supposed to simply jump when he says the word. Doing the hard work to make it happen is beyond him.

What we can expect is several months of whining from Obama as he travels around, and lots of fundraisers. Oh, and golf. Can’t forget that.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

Read: Good News: Obama Kicks Of Summer Road Show »

Can Residential Solar Be Competitive Next Year?

One CEO thinks so

(Green Car Reports) Solar power for your home has been around a long time, but for many homeowners, it’s required subsidies, special financing arrangements, and still delivered long payback periods.

That’s changing fast, according to the CEO of a major Texas electric utility.

David Crane, who runs NRG Energy, says that in fully half the states of the union, electricity from residential solar panels will be cost-competitive with that delivered by local electric utilities by next year.

Crane was quoted two weeks ago in a blog post by Navigant Research, which focused on his company’s aggressive efforts to migrate to solar power for a growing portion of its portfolio.

That would be quite exciting if it could be competitive. Long time readers know that one of the things I’ve advocated for a long time is alternatives like solar and wind on a small scale, particularly for small buildings, like homes. There are multiple reasons, such as the ability to store captured energy in batteries within the domicile. I am not a fan of putting panels on homes which feed back into the grid. Quite frankly, I think it is a rip off, with the consumer getting hosed, and little in return. But, to have affordable panels feeding power into buildings, even without storage capacity, would be a boon, particularly if time of cost return is short, would be excellent.

Just to be clear, my support has nothing to do with “climate change”, but saving on natural resources and saving personal money. Eventually, things like this could a) reduce our reliance on coal and fossil fuels, and b) help out with reducing the load and issues around the power grid.

Read: Can Residential Solar Be Competitive Next Year? »

Paper Blames “Pause” On Natural Variability

And says it’s “not so unusual”

(The Hockey Schtick) Shaun Lovejoy has published a new paper which cites his prior claim of 99.9% confidence that one of the two temperature graphs below is your fault, and the other due to natural variability. (snip-check the graphs at the link)

In Lovejoy’s new paper, he acknowledges a ‘pause’ in global warming since 1998, says it’s “not so unusual” and concludes “the pause is no more than natural variability.” Indeed, the pause is due to natural variability that has not been accounted for by climate models, and thus invalidates attribution claims that the past 50 years of temperature variations are necessarily due to man-made CO2. Furthermore, prior work by NOAA and others has found ‘pauses’ of 15 or more years are indeed unusual and would suggest the climate models are overly sensitive to CO2. According to RSS satellite data, the ‘pause’ has lasted almost 18 years.

An approach complementary to General Circulation Models (GCM’s), using the anthropogenic CO2 radiative forcing as a linear surrogate for all anthropogenic forcings [Lovejoy, 2014], was recently developed for quantifying human impacts. Using pre-industrial multiproxy series and scaling arguments, the probabilities of natural fluctuations at time lags up to 125 years were determined. The hypothesis that the industrial epoch warming was a giant natural fluctuation was rejected with 99.9% confidence. In this paper, this method is extended to the determination of event return times. Over the period 1880-2013, the largest 32 year event is expected to be 0.47 K, effectively explaining the postwar cooling (amplitude 0.42 – 0.47 K). Similarly, the “pause” since 1998 (0.28 – 0.37 K) has a return period of 20-50 years (not so unusual). It is nearly cancelled by the pre-pause warming event (1992-1998, return period 30-40 years); the pause is no more than natural variability.

Now, is this excuse #14, or simply an extension of the overall Excuse-making in order to keep the cult of warming going?

Read: Paper Blames “Pause” On Natural Variability »

If All You See…

…is a kitchen that could contain an evil refrigerator, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Jammie Wearing Fools, with a post on Obama’s economic delusions.

Read: If All You See… »

Bummer: Cows, Not Coal, Is The Real “Climate Change” Danger

So this whole anti-coal campaign has been a waste of time?

Cows — Not Coal — Are the Real Climate Change Culprits

President Obama recently likened denying climate change to believing the moon is made of cheese. As it turns out, ignoring this particular food’s role in climate change is just as irresponsible. Getting serious about climate change would mean finally addressing the gorilla – or, more appropriately, the cow — in the room. If you really care about the environment, you’d leave the cheese — and all meat and dairy products for that matter — off your plate.

By some estimates, the meat and dairy industry is responsible for up to half of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions — contributing more to climate change than even coal-fired power plants. Trying to regulate climate change without touching the meat industry is like trying to curb the obesity crisis without confronting, well, the meat industry.

Interesting. Have I not noted many, many, many times that agriculture is one of Man’s biggest contributions to the release of greenhouse gases, mostly due to methane? It can also cause land use issues. The methane would be global, land use localized.

So as weather patterns become more and more chaotic, blame the burgers, steaks, ribs, sausage, and other products of the massively overpopulated cows across the globe. Sure, cracking down on coal may be part of the fix. But there is a long-term solution to climate change that everyone can do right now: get the animals off our plates.

So, doom, eh?  Dr. Neal Barnard must have a solution, right?

So, that’s the bad news. The good news is that when people eat grains, beans, and other plant foods directly, instead of feeding them to animals, we need much less acreage and less energy, and we end up with a dramatically cleaner–and cooler–environment. Instead of turning corn and beans into chickens, pigs, and cows, we can make corn into corn bread, tortillas, stews, soups, or polenta and turn beans into chili, burritos, veggie burgers, or soymilk. We can turn grains, vegetables, fruits, and legumes into a spaghetti dinner, an Asian stir-fry, or ten thousand other meals. And we can toast our environmental stewardship, as the Earth breathes easier.

But, he won’t come right out and say “kill all the cows (and other farm animals), do not raise any more”. He just dips around the edges. Nor will I say that, because, at the end of the day, agriculture is just a small addition when it comes to global warming, most of which is natural, rather than due to the works of Mankind.

Read: Bummer: Cows, Not Coal, Is The Real “Climate Change” Danger »

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