Bummer: Your Breakfast Is Under Assault From “Climate Change”

By William Teach May 22, 2014 – 10:33 am

Well, this stinks. I really like my Apple Cinnoman Cheerios in the morning (you know you’re getting older when you don’t find Captain Crunch Peanut Butter tasty anymore. Le Sigh)

(Time) Time to stock up on Corn Flakes. Oxfam says at least three of the most popular breakfast cereals are expected to increase in price thanks to the effects of climate change

Cereal lovers of the world may want to start stocking up now, because the far-reaching impacts of climate change could cause the price of their favorite breakfast food to climb sharply in the coming years.

Due largely to shifting weather patterns and extreme events like flood and drought, the prices of commodities like corn and rice are projected to double by 2030, according to a report out Tuesday from Oxfam. As a result, some classic breakfast cereals are likely to get more expensive over the next 15 years.

In the United States, Oxfam says, Frosted Flakes could be 20% more expensive by 2030 due to climate change, and 30% more expensive in the U.K. Kix could be up to 24% more expensive in the U.S. while Corn Flakes could be 30% pricier. British Corn Flakes lovers, meanwhile, would have to pay 44% more for a box of the cereal.

Does anyone even eat Kix anymore? Of course, since “climate change” causes everything, both drought and flood are Bad. I do enjoy the notion of the deeply scientific word “could”. So, crystal ball gazing. But, um

At the end of the Medieval Warm Period, ~1230 A.D., temperatures dropped ~4°C (~7° F) in ~20 years and the cold period that followed is known as the Little Ice Age. The colder climate that ensued for several centuries was devastating (see e.g., Grove, 1988, 2004; Singer and Avery, 2007; Fagan, 2000). Temperatures of the cold winters and cool, rainy summers were too low for growing of cereal crops, resulting in widespread famine and disease. When temperatures declined during the 30–year cool period from the late 1940’s to 1977, some climatologists and meteorologists predicted a return to a new Little Ice Age.

A cool period is much worse for agriculture. Remember, the Vikings in Greenland were wiped out thanks to their agrarian society being decimated by the much cooler average temperatures. The growing seasons were reduced by 15-20%. The LIA was a direct cause of the unrest in France. The famous line about “let them eat cake”? The wheat crops in France were decimated. Agriculture was so bad that the King of France tried to get people to eat the very hardy potato, which was considered a crappy food even by the lowest of low peasants.

Changes in climate,whether a Holocene style warm or cool period, and ice age, or a hot age (though it is highly doubtful Earth will experience a true hot age unless there is a major change in the Sun, prior to the time it starts dying billions of years from now), will always effect life on the planet. It seems that life does worse during the cool periods. Regardless, there is little anthropogenic about it.

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Palin Says Obama’s “Too Lazy” To Hold Anyone Accountable For VA Scandal

By William Teach May 22, 2014 – 8:18 am

As many of you know, I’m not a big fan of Sarah Palin anymore, but she does make a good, cogent point about the World Of Obama

(Mediaite) Sarah Palin joined Sean Hannity Wednesday night to take on everything from the VA to the war on women, but Palin was particularly fired up about slamming liberal double standards and how the left demonizes opponents to as to belittle their arguments….

As for the VA, Palin suggested that Obama is just too “lazy” and lacks the will and energy to hold anyone accountable for that scandal and others.

(The relevant portion starts around the 3:10 mark.)

Is it laziness or that Obama just doesn’t give a damn? It’s been noted that Obama likes to Be president, he doesn’t like to Do president. After 5+ years in office his leadership, management, and government skills have not gotten any better. In fact, they might have gotten worse. Most of his foreign and domestic policies are, at best, failures. He’s great at campaigning, one of the best ever, if not the best. Yet, that doesn’t translate into governance skills. It’s surprising that a person with no background involving leadership and management is unable to do the job, eh?

In a separate Mediaite article, MSNBC’s Ronan Farrow gets abused

The VA scandal is fast becoming the sum of all progressive fears.

On Wednesday, MSNBC viewers were confronted by the sober warnings of a regular and respected guest, the decorated retired Army Col. Jack Jacobs. Mercilessly, he shared with viewers an inconvenient truth: the VA scandal is a failure of progressive government in its most elemental form. The VA has failed America’s veterans not because of a lack of money, or vision, or indifference on the part of the public. It has failed because it was designed to fail. Moreover, the only solutions to the problems associated with a nonfunctional VA system may be found in the private sector.

In an interview with MSNBC’s Ronan Farrow, Jacobs preemptively attacked the findings of any investigation into the VA’s issues, saying that predictable assertions about an underfunded system in need of a larger bureaucracy will be misguided.

“The structure of the Veterans Administration health business is not organized in order to deliver health care,” he declared. “Unless until you break it down, and have a public/private partnership, you’re not going to be able to give health care to veterans who really need it.”

One of the (vast amount of) problems with government, and it’s backers, is that they think the answer to every question is “more money!!!!!!!” Sometimes, that might be true. Most of the time it’s the misuse of the money forcibly taken from American taxpayers. It could simply be the misallocation. Improper and inept leadership, training, etc. Mission creep causing problems with the original purpose. Too much bureaucracy. Doing less with more. The problems can grow and grow and grow until they finally explode.

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Group Offers $1 Million Bounty For IRS “Smoking Gun”

By William Teach May 22, 2014 – 7:56 am

In the recent past, it would have been intrepid members of the 5th estate, those who are paid to be reporters/journalists, who are specifically named in the 1st Amendment of the US Constitution’s Bill Of Rights. They would have been looking for The Big Story, The Big Scoop, a way to make their mark, to take down a politician, to get an award, preferably a Pulitzer. Now, the attitude amongst most of the news media is “meh”, hence

(The Blaze) A nonprofit group hopes to award a $1 million bounty to anyone who can provide “smoking gun” evidence to implicate IRS leadership or members of the Obama administration who purposefully targeted conservative and tea party-affiliated groups, TheBlaze has learned.

Gregg Phillips, the managing director for The Voters Trust, a political nonprofit 501 (c)(4) which was established to identify and mobilize Americans, told TheBlaze on Wednesday “that this is the people’s bounty to seek the truth.”

Catherine Engelbrecht, president of the nonprofit group True the Vote, will be officially announcing the bounty Wednesday night on Megyn Kelly’s Fox News show, “The Kelly File” at 9 p.m. ET.

To qualify for the bounty, the person needs to provide “relevant evidence including emails, eye-witness accounts, or testimony of political targeting of Americans by the IRS or the Obama administration that has not previously been reported,” according to an official press release from the group obtained by TheBlaze.

Phillips said the evidence must lead directly to the arrest and conviction those responsible and the information provided will remain anonymous and confidential.

That announcement did occur. Good idea? Bad idea? Either way, it is truly sad that citizens have to put up their own money, separate from that already forcibly taken by Government, to make sure that government is held accountable for their actions. Furthermore, it is sad that journalists/reporters aren’t doing their job. Media are more than happy to investigate businesses and private citizens for wrongdoing, and investigate them hard. Many local news stations solicit citizens to make complaints. But, investigate Democrats and government in general? Not under a Democrat president.

The website, IRS Bounty, is here.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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Sigh: Warmists Again Flogging Meme That National Landmarks Are Threatened By “Climate Change”

By William Teach May 21, 2014 – 5:25 pm

What picture does the USA Today use for its article? The freaking Statue Of Liberty

Climate change is putting historic and cultural landmarks around the USA at risk, according to a report released today by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), a non-profit science advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C.

“Sea-level rise, coastal erosion, increased flooding, heavy rains and more frequent large wildfires are damaging archaeological resources, historic buildings and cultural landscapes across the nation,” says the report, “National Landmarks at Risk.”

The report, which was not a peer-reviewed study, includes 30 at-risk locations, including places where the “first Americans” lived, the Spaniards ruled, English colonists landed, slavery rose and fell, and gold prospectors struck it rich.

Locations include the Statue of Liberty; Jamestown, Va.; the Cape Hatteras (N.C.) Lighthouse; and the Kennedy Space Center.

While sea rise is actually what one would expect during a Holocene warm period, it’s entirely within the average for the last 7000 years in Florida, which would encompass cool periods, which would have low to negative sea rise. The Statue Of Liberty, which sits on an island that has a seawall that sits around 10 feet above the high tide mark.

Sea levels already have risen 1-2 feet across portions of the East and Gulf Coast, USA TODAY reported last year, and global sea levels will rise about 1 foot to slightly more than 3 feet by 2100, according to this year’s Fifth Assessment Report by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

So, even if that occurs the Statue is in no danger. The Hatteras lighthouse has been moved multiple times due to shift sands on the Outer Banks, which are essentially sandbars, and have always shifted.

According to the UCS report, one historic site — Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in the Americas —will likely be underwater by the end of the century.

Have you ever been to Jamestown? It actually sits about 5-10 feet above the height of the James River. Colonial Beach, Va, is the closest measuring station, and, with limited data, is seeing a trend of 1.57 feet of sea rise per 100 years. The confidence interval is rather high, though, due to the limited data.

It continues on, but, of course, this is all about scaremongering, not reality.

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If All You See…

By William Teach May 21, 2014 – 1:00 pm

…is coffee that will be destroyed thanks to Hotcoldwetdry, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Maggie’s Farm, with few questions on cheating at golf.

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Warmists Psyched That North Korea Is Fighting “Climate Change”

By William Teach May 21, 2014 – 11:23 am

Obviously, we can forgive North Korea for being a repressive, lunatic, cult of personality, rogue nation if they’re fighting Hotcoldwetdry. Of course this has to come from the lunatic and super far left UK Guardian

North Korea: an unlikely champion in the fight against climate change

When we think of North Korea, we think of a nation determined to be an outsider in the international community. Whether it’s testing nuclear weapons or threatening London hairdressers, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is not usually associated with compliance.

But there is compelling evidence that the North Korean government is motivated by domestic power games to co-operate globally on climate change.

North Korea has a record of compliance with its obligations as a party to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The obvious question then is why the North Korean government would show such commitment to the international climate change regime, given its belligerent reputation in the strategic realm.

The most obvious link is between environmental degradation, the vulnerable agricultural system and the stability of governance in North Korea. The concept of climate change vulnerability is important there.

Climate change impacts – declining availability of food, water and energy, sea level rise, migration, and extreme weather events – pile more stress onto countries already at risk from internal instability and economic weakness.

Like many poor countries, North Korea, where such problems are endemic, is least able to cope with climate change impacts. These weaknesses include food insecurity, energy shortages, economic fragility and a rigid political system. So North Korea is using the UNFCCC as a vehicle for projects designed to increase agricultural output and build the resilience of the agricultural system to disasters.

This is so absurd it’s hard to fathom. NK doesn’t have a “food security” problem because of “climate change”: they have a food problem because of their insane government. This comes via Paul Homewood, who found the perfect comment prior to adding his own 3 cents

Ludicrous. Nowhere in the article do the words “communism”, “socialism” or “poverty” — three words that ought to be synonymous in the minds of anyone with a basic knowledge of 20th century history — appear, and the author goes on to ascribe North Korea’s food insecurity to climate change instead. The author simply cannot bring himself to go one step further and state the obvious: if the country were freer and more prosperous, not least by ending collectivist agriculture, it would be much more capable of dealing with the deleterious effects of climate change. North Korea’s ‘contribution’ to fighting climate change by keeping its people in penury while asking for handouts from the rest of the world is hardly a model of ‘progress’, no matter how cynical the author acknowledges its government’s motives to be. Beyond absurd.

Let’s not forget what Warmists want to make the world look like

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NC Really Concerned With Booger and Snot Graffiti

By William Teach May 21, 2014 – 10:01 am

Hey, they were asking for it

(Yahoo News) It will take more than tissues for police in a North Carolina town to take care of the mildly offending graffiti being spray-painted on businesses and signs.

Investigators say the words “snot” and “booger” have been painted on at least 20 different places this year in Cary.

Considering the state of education, I’m surprised they spelled them correctly. And, don’t blame me: I live completely on the other side of Raleigh from Cary.

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Hooray, President “I’m Madder Than Hell” Sends Political Aid To Investigate Phoenix VA

By William Teach May 21, 2014 – 7:07 am

If only Obama had some sort of law enforcement agency which is really, really good at investigating stuff at his beck and call

(Washington Post) One of President Obama’s top aides is being dispatched to Phoenix this week to investigate deaths allegedly connected to a Department of Veterans Affairs medical center there, part of the administration’s efforts to contain growing outrage over delays in treatment and accusations of rigged recordkeeping at veterans hospitals.

Rob Nabors, a White House deputy chief of staff, has been assigned to assist top VA officials in probing allegations of wrong­doing by staffers at the Phoenix facility and elsewhere, the White House said Tuesday. He will be meeting with Arizona hospital officials Thursday after gathering Wednesday with representatives from several veterans groups in Washington, officials said. (big snip)

Veterans Affairs’ inspector general is looking into allegations by a former Phoenix clinic director that up to 40 veterans died while waiting for treatment at a VA hospital while staffers disguised the wait times that patients faced. The inspector general told a Senate hearing last week that his initial probe has found no evidence that delays caused the deaths. Shinseki is conducting his own review with the help of Nabors.

So, we essentially have insiders and political employees investigating what may very well be criminal wrongdoing at the Phoenix VA. There are now (at least) nine VA clinics involved in this growing scandal. Destruction of evidence is a crime. Yet, we still haven’t heard directly from POTUS Obama. We’re told he’ll address it “soon”. For an administration whose campaign messaging was one of the best ever, how can their communications in office be so pitiful? Perhaps this goes back to the notion that Obama likes to Be president, not Do president. Citizens are outraged over this scandal, yet Obama is, as usual, mostly absent. Why not take forceful, meaningful action? This boggles the mind. Ron Christie wrote

What is most shocking to me about the VA tempest is that it repeats a pattern of conduct we’ve seen from the president and his administration. Obama ran for president and asked Americans to hire him for another term based on his leadership skills, temperament, and ability to produce results. Instead, we’ve seen the president and his team evade responsibility (and with a tiresome frequency) for areas in which they are directly responsible, parse words in an attempt to mislead, and otherwise duck long enough for the political storm of the moment to pass over for sunnier days ahead. (snip)

A real leader stands up, accepts responsibility, and moves swiftly to fix management problems. A coward blames others, fails to accept responsibility, and reveals himself as small and not up to the duty and obligation to those he was elected to serve. The American people will discover in short order whether the president steps up to lead our returning heroes in the military to ensure they receive the medical care they have earned or whether he cowers to serve his political ambitions rather than accept responsibility. If he does the former, he will be justly applauded—if he does the latter the American people will be madder than hell at him for failing our veterans when they needed him the most. If Obama’s past actions are any indication of what we can expect he’ll do to resolve the scandalous mismanagement at the VA, I believe his standing with the American people will continue to erode to due to his failure to lead decisively.

Even after watching the Obama admin, and Obama himself, over the past 5+ years, it’s hard to fathom what is going through his mind on this scandal. He could have easily gotten ahead of it, come out with a speech, announced a real investigation, gotten heavily involved, and resolved the issue. That would have earned him some serious brownie points and seen his approval ratings rise. Yet, virtually nothing. He sends a political appointee to investigate. His response, or, rather, lack thereof, just boggles the mind.

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FBI Considers Allowing Marijuana Use For Cyber-crime Recruits

By William Teach May 21, 2014 – 6:47 am

It’s not like the Federal Bureau of Investigation is the nations top law enforcement agency, charged with enforcing the law, and marijuana is considered a Schedule I drug, illegal per federal law. Heck, Los Federales have placed restrictions on people using federal waters to grow marijuana.

(WSJ) FBI Director James B. Comey said Monday that if the FBI hopes to continue to keep pace with cyber criminals, the organization may have to loosen up its no-tolerance policy for hiring those who like to smoke marijuana.

Congress has authorized the FBI to add 2,000 personnel to its rolls this year, and many of those new recruits will be assigned to tackle cyber crimes, a growing priority for the agency. And that’s a problem, Mr. Comey told the White Collar Crime Institute, an annual conference held at the New York City Bar Association in Manhattan. A lot of the nation’s top computer programmers and hacking gurus are also fond of marijuana.

“I have to hire a great work force to compete with those cyber criminals and some of those kids want to smoke weed on the way to the interview,” Mr. Comey said.

Mr. Comey said that the agency was “grappling with the question right now” of how to amend the agency’s marijuana policies, which excludes from consideration anyone who has smoked marijuana in the previous three years, according to the FBI’s Web site. One conference goer asked Mr. Comey about a friend who had shied away from applying because of the policy. “He should go ahead and apply,” despite the marijuana use, Mr. Comey said.

There’s no indication whether this would apply to allowing those who are users of marijuana to continue using while employed, or simply changing the policy which states that anyone who has used it within the last 3 years should not bother applying for a job. I suspect Mr. Comey means to allow the hackers to continue using while working. But, hey, in the era of Obama, one shouldn’t really expect federal agencies to follow the law, should they?

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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Surprise: Warmists Tend To Have Much Bigger “Carbon Footprints”

By William Teach May 20, 2014 – 4:16 pm

So claims the guy who created a web app to track your carbon footprint

(Grist) Ian Monroe wants you to beat your Facebook friends at a new game: Who has the lowest carbon footprint?

Monroe is the CEO of Oroeco, a recently launched web app that tracks a user’s personal impact on climate change. The app not only helps you quantify your own footprint — based on your spending habits, made possible through linking up with Mint.com — but by logging in with Facebook it’ll allow you to compare your carbon sins with those of your virtual community. Ultimately, Monroe wants to motivate users to emit a little (or a lot) less greenhouse gas. In other words, go ahead and feel green – with envy, that is.

Grist’s Samantha Larson interviewed Mr. Monroe, and here’s the very first excerpt

Something that comes as a shock to a lot of our users: The average person who says they care about climate change actually has a substantially worse than average footprint. Generally that’s because they tend to have a bit more money, and they tend to be people who like to think of themselves as multicultural and like to get out and see the world. Which means that they’re flying around a lot, and all that flying generally outweighs any other green lifestyle choices that they’ve made. You have a lot of people who are using reusable bags and water bottles, driving a Prius, maybe eating a bit more of a veggie friendly diet. But then they’re flying to Bali or South Africa or something once a year. They end up having a larger carbon footprint than a conservative guy who drives an SUV in the suburbs of Atlanta but doesn’t fly anywhere.

Color me shocked!

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