How To Talk To People About Hotcoldwetdry

By William Teach May 2, 2014 – 11:30 am

I’ve published multiple posts within the last few months along this same line, as Warmists trot out their latest spreading awareness campaign, namely, how to talk to those pesky non-believers. Hey, it’s easier than giving up fossil fuels and most trappings of a modern lifestyle, right?

(Alternatives Journal) The climate is changing, and more quickly than expected. What was once only in computer models is now before us: rising temperatures, melting Arctic ice, migrating species, Hurricane Sandy and other storms. Disruption is the new normal.

Because The Weather was always stable and predictable, the Arctic never melted, and species never moved before.

But what should scientists (and other concerned people) actually say? Here are three ideas.

1. Explain what scientists know, especially the fact that they have reached consensus. With the media always aiming to present “balanced” views, that fact that reality is unbalanced – 97% of scientists are convinced climate change is happening – can get lost. There’s also evidence that awareness of this scientific consensus can be a powerful motivator. It clears away debate, enabling a serious conversation about what to do next.

If you’re bringing up consensus, it’s not science.

2. Listen. Facts are not enough. They can even be unhelpful: gloomy predictions of catastrophe may only paralyze. Instead, climate communicators need to practice listening. As Katherine Hayhoe and others have argued, climate conversations must be informed by how people know and care about the world. Seeing climate change with one’s own eyes is a powerful motivator, and so are explanations that connect with how people believe the world works. Whether, say, actions by government, business, or individuals are considered effective influences how people respond to climate information. So those who talk about climate need to know how their audience sees society and the world. That means hearing what they have to say.

This one is really important, because it goes to the heart of what Warmists are pushing. They want people to see the weather, and, really, everything that happens, as being linked to “climate change”. If they know what you care about, they can trot out scary stories and hopefully create a convert to the cult.

3. Remember the So What. People need viable solutions more than warnings, and ideally, solutions that are not just about climate change. These might be local – say, finding an alternative to highway expansions that hardwire a city’s car dependency. Nationally, this could mean making the case for an energy efficiency revolution. The point is: solving the climate conundrum only starts with the science.

Interesting: none of the solutions revolve around personal responsibility, practicing what one preaches.

Read: How To Talk To People About Hotcoldwetdry »

Posted in AGW Idiocy, Global Warming | 6 Comments | Trackback URL

Failed State Obamacare Exchanges Becoming Money Pits

By William Teach May 2, 2014 – 7:08 am

But, it’s working!

(WSJ) Yesterday we noted the ABC/Washington Post poll showing Mr. Obama with the lowest marks of his presidency, just two weeks after he claimed success in rolling out insurance policies under the Affordable Care Act. “This thing is working,” President Obama said of the law on April 17.

Now the latest edition of the WSJ/NBC poll suggests just how few Americans agree with that statement. A mere 8% of respondents in the new survey say that the Affordable Care Act “is working well the way it is.“

That’s right, 8% say it’s working. I’m not sure what gives them that idea

(Fox News) As the Obama administration touts its latest enrollment numbers for the ObamaCare exchanges, some state networks are grappling with major changes ahead of the next sign-up period – meaning more cost to taxpayers.

The biggest overhaul came out of Oregon, which last week decided to junk its broken health care exchange and turn to the federal government for help.

“Their health exchange has been a disaster,” said Michael Cannon, of the Cato Institute.

“They’re the only state in the country that built their own exchange and couldn’t get it to a level of functionality to sign a single person up,” said Jim Capretta, of the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

But Oregon isn’t the only state still struggling, months after the major problems with HealthCare.gov were addressed.

Systems in Vermont, Massachusetts, Nevada and Maryland continue to have problems.

“The federal government spent about a billion dollars on those five state exchanges, and none of them are very likely to work well ever,” Capretta said. “So that’s a lot of wasted taxpayer money.”

Maryland is expected to spend another $40-50 million dollars transitioning to the same system used in Connecticut. Guess who gets to pay for it? Other states are going to have to spend tens of millions to get their systems working correctly, after spending tens to hundreds of millions initially. All to sign up citizens who mostly lost their insurance thanks to Obamacare in the first place.

Read: Failed State Obamacare Exchanges Becoming Money Pits »

Posted in Healthcare | Comments Off on Failed State Obamacare Exchanges Becoming Money Pits | Trackback URL

Jay Carney Oops: Hey, Obama’s Libya Adventure Was A Failure

By William Teach May 2, 2014 – 6:48 am

This is what happens when someone is parsing their words so much in order to avoid telling the truth: they inadvertently let something through

(Daily Caller) White House spokesman Jay Carney let President Barack Obama’s Benghazi cat out of the bag today, when he acknowledged that the president’s unilateral intervention in the 2011 Libyan civil war hasn’t led to a stable government in the Islamic and tribal country.

“There’s a difficult dynamic in place there, which is the result — the positive result in the sense that [Libyan dictator Moammar] Gadhafi is gone — but you know you have a situation in these countries where a dictator held together a nation through intimidation and force,” Carney said today.

The admission of chaos in Libya came as he was questioned about a newly revealed email which describes the administration’s effort to blame a YouTube video for the deadly Benghazi attack in 2012, instead of “broader failure of policy.”

This is what happens when one performs the duties of POTUS off the cuff, with no pre-planning, no forethought, and no idea how to deal with the aftermath. No to mention simply blowing off the Libya post bombing campaign, leaving it to its own devices. Libya is essentially a failed state overrun with Islamic extremists. More on that in a moment.

Carney also tried to defend Obama’s policy in Libya by describing it as a campaign to stop the civil war, rather than to create a stable replacement government.

Obama intervened in 2011 “to save many, many [Libyans’] lives, and to advance through that, U.S. national security interests,” Carney told reporters at the midday press conference.

“The president believes that to this day,“ he insisted.

Many people also believe in Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster. And don’t get me started on mermaids. At least they haven’t seen their beliefs proven wrong.

(CNS News) The State Department’s latest report on global terrorism, released Wednesday, lists Libya as a terrorist safe-haven for the second year in a row.

“With a weak government possessing very few tools to exert control throughout its territory, Libya has become a terrorist safe haven and its transit routes are used by various terrorist groups, notably in the southwest and northeast,” says the 2013 Country Reports on Terrorism, released on Wednesday, April 30.

It was no listed in the 2011 assessment. In 2012 it was, as well as the 2013 assessment. Great job, Obama!

Crossed at Right Wing News.

Read: Jay Carney Oops: Hey, Obama’s Libya Adventure Was A Failure »

Posted in Barry Obama, Dems in Charge: Now What?, War On Terrorism | 1 Comment | Trackback URL

Former NASA Scientist Calls “Climate Change” Nonsense

By William Teach May 1, 2014 – 3:58 pm

More and more, scientists are escaping from the climate change compound, and are speaking truth to power

(Delhi Daily News) In a surprising development, a former NASA scientist on Monday described global warming as “nonsense” saying that it is “absolutely stupid” to blame human activity for the recent floods in the UK.

“It’s absolutely stupid to blame floods on climate change, as I read the Prime Minister did recently. I don’t blame the politicians in this case, however, I blame his so-called scientific advisors,” Professor Leslie Woodcock said.

“Events can happen with frequencies on all time scales in the physics of a chaotic system such as the weather. Any point on lowland can flood up to a certain level on all time scales from one month to millions of years and it’s completely unpredictable beyond around five days,” he added.

Professor Les Woodcock also said there is “no reproducible evidence” to prove that carbon dioxide levels have increased over the past century and slammed the green movement for misleading the people and inflicting economic damage on ordinary people.

“The theory is that the CO2 emitted by burning fossil fuel is the ‘greenhouse gas’ causes ‘global warming’ – in fact, water is a much more powerful greenhouse gas and there is 20 time more of it in our atmosphere (around one per cent of the atmosphere) whereas CO2 is only 0.04 per cent, Professor Woodcock told the Yorkshire Evening Post, adding “Even the term ‘global warming’ does not mean anything unless you give it a time scale. The temperature of the earth has been going up and down for millions of years, if there are extremes, it’s nothing to do with carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, it’s not permanent and it’s not caused by us.”

Obviously, rather than rebutting Professor Woodcock, Emeritus Professor of Chemical Thermodynamics at the University of Manchester, with facts, Warmists will attack him personally, surely stating that he is in the pay of Big Oil and Big Coal, yammering on about denial and disinformation.

Read: Former NASA Scientist Calls “Climate Change” Nonsense »

Posted in Collapsing Science, Global Warming | 6 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

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

…is an evil greenhouse gas spewing refrigerator, which should be restricted in developing nations, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Pam Geller, with a post on Subway removing ham and bacon from their U.K. stores, thanks to Islamists.

Read: If All You See… »

Posted in If All You See | 3 Comments | Trackback URL

Warmist Sir David King: Climate Change Is Biggest Challenge Of All Time!!!!!!!

By William Teach May 1, 2014 – 11:44 am

All time!!!!!!!

(Business Green) “Climate change is not, in the Foreign Secretary’s words, the biggest challenge of our time, it’s the biggest challenge of all time.”

Those were the words last night of Sir David King, erstwhile chief scientist and current Foreign Office adviser on climate change. He was speaking at the annual Chairman’s Dinner for the Carbon Trust (a rather delicious vegetarian meal, since you ask, in consideration of the planet and waistlines), where King responded to a question I asked about arguably his most famous intervention in the climate change debate, namely his 2004 assertion that climate change was a bigger threat than terrorism.

Read: Warmist Sir David King: Climate Change Is Biggest Challenge Of All Time!!!!!!! »

Posted in AGW Idiocy, Global Warming | Comments Off on Warmist Sir David King: Climate Change Is Biggest Challenge Of All Time!!!!!!! | Trackback URL

Surprise: Another Warmist Wants To Shut Down Debate

By William Teach May 1, 2014 – 9:19 am

But don’t say that Progressives hate free speech, because they’ll tell you to shut up

(Moscow-Pullman Daily News) You printed a letter to the editor titled “Not all the facts are in on climate change” (April 26). At the least, that headline should have read, “Reader still doubts evidence on climate change.” Better yet, climate change denial letters could be refused altogether. Then you could help move the conversation quickly to solutions in the face of overwhelming (international, national and local) evidence and scientific consensus climate change is happening now and will get much worse quickly without immediate action.

As a science and environment writer for almost 20 years, I’ve also confronted climate change denial. A related letter I wrote, in response to another climate change denial letter, was recently printed by the Lewiston Tribune. My letter concluded with a reminder that “leading newspapers now refuse to print letters of climate change denial and misinformation or, at the very least, have a clear editorial policy for how to deal with such letters and views.” See the Los Angeles Times decision to refuse letters from deniers (http://goo.gl/I9sfnq). Even Popular Science now refuses online comments – in part because people’s ill-informed comments dangerously skew conversations about scientific certainty into shadows of nonexistent doubt (http://goo.gl/dr4oS1). CBSNews further explains these crucial editorial decisions at this shortened link: http://goo.gl/QJ5VV0.

The rest is buried behind a paywall, but, I think we get the drift. No dissent is allowed.

(Note: the paper is from Washington State)

Read: Surprise: Another Warmist Wants To Shut Down Debate »

Posted in Global Warming, New Climate Deniers, Unhinged Tools | 4 Comments | Trackback URL

Rush: Progressive Truth Squad’s Next Target Is Orlando Magic Owner

By William Teach May 1, 2014 – 8:06 am

Regardless of what your opinion of Rush Limbaugh is, when he makes pronouncements, he tends to be way more often than not. When he says “don’t doubt me on this”, he tends to be right. And said pronouncements aren’t usually the easy. common sense, “well, sure, of course” type ones. Here’s another

(The Blaze) Following the ouster of Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling, Rush Limbaugh speculated on Wednesday that Rich DeVos, the owner of the Orlando Magic, could be the next person targeted by the NBA because of his views on gay marriage.

Limbaugh cited a CNN report by Rachel Nichols in which she discusses some of the “very unpopular statements” DeVos has made on the issue of gay marriage.

“There are a lot of people in this country who think that that is a problem, and I think that there is gonna be more and more attention paid to what these owners think,” Nichols said in the report. “It’s not just the players in the spotlight now, it’s not just management. They’re accountable, too.”

Limbaugh argued that Nichols was “basically saying that the next target that they’re gonna try to take out is Rich DeVos.”

“So Rich DeVos, Mr. Amway — he happens to be one of the greatest patriots this country has ever seen. Rich DeVos happens to have donated and supported some of the greatest causes in this country, but it doesn’t matter ’cause he doesn’t have his mind right on gay marriage,” he added.

Audio available at The Blaze.

Is Rush right? Time will tell. Let’s remember what Mavericks owner Mark Cuban said a few days ago

“I think you’ve got to be very, very careful when you start making blanket statements about what people say and think, as opposed to what they do. It’s a very, very slippery slope.”

“If it’s about racism and we’re ready to kick people out of the league, OK? Then what about homophobia? What about somebody who doesn’t like a particular religion? What about somebody who’s anti-Semitic? What about a xenophobe?”

“In this country, people are allowed to be morons.”

“But regardless of your background, regardless of the history they have, if we’re taking something somebody said in their home and we’re trying to turn it into something that leads to you being forced to divest property in any way, shape or form, that’s not the United States of America. I don’t want to be part of that.”

It is a very dangerous, slippery slope. Cuban was right that Sterling’s comments where “abhorrent”. I think we can all agree with that (unless you are a racist). And, IMO, Sterling’s comments were racist, being based on hate, rather than just stupidity (like Cliven Bundy). But, are we going to ban people, take their businesses away, possibly jail them? How about “hunting them down”?

(Newsday) The Nassau County district attorney and Hempstead Town officials are investigating what they called a racial incident at a town facility in Levittown that may be considered a hate crime.

A picture of a monkey was displayed on a bulletin board at the town highway facility on Market Lane on Monday, apparently making reference to an African-American employee, officials said.

“We will not rest . . . until the perpetrator is found. We will move to terminate that employee,” Town Supervisor Kate Murray said at a news conference, adding the town will require diversity training for the 25 employees at the facility. “There is absolutely no tolerance for any kind of racial hatred, any kind of intolerance.”

There are many examples of this same thing. I ran across a story on Yahoo News Wednesday where a nice old Black lady, beloved within a diverse community, who had lived there for like 60 years, received a nasty racist letter. This was being investigated as a hate crime. NY City actually has a “Hate Crime Unit”. Thought and speech is being codified and restricted. Violent crime is often being prosecuted more on hate crime than on the actual violence. There are cases where the hate crime penalties are tougher than the actual crime. Democrats want the Justice Department to scour the Internet for “hate speech”.

People who support this should think really hard about that support, because they could be next. You never know when a casual thought and phrase could get you in trouble. People should be allowed to be morons.

Granted, the NBA is a private organization, and can enforce their own rules. The 1st Amendment is about Government not retaliating against speech, protest, or petitioning for redress of grievance (among others). In the private domain, hey, people can respond. And do. But, shutting it down certainly violates the spirit of the 1st.

Read: Rush: Progressive Truth Squad’s Next Target Is Orlando Magic Owner »

Posted in 1st Amendment, Current Affairs | 5 Comments | Trackback URL

Democrats Have A Love/Hate Relationship With Citizens United Ruling

By William Teach May 1, 2014 – 7:33 am

In the US Senate, Democrats are planning a push for a Constitutional amendment to overrule the Citizens United case (via Hot Air)

(The Hill) Senate Democrats will schedule a vote this year on a constitutional amendment to reform campaign finance as they face tens of millions of dollars worth of attack ads from conservative groups.

The Senate will vote on an amendment sponsored by Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) that would overturn two recent court cases that have given corporations, labor unions and wealthy individuals free rein to spend freely on federal races.

“The Supreme Court is trying to take this country back to the days of the robber barons, allowing dark money to flood our elections. That needs to stop, and it needs to stop now,” said Senate Rules Committee Chairman Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), who announced the plan.

“The only way to undo the damage the court has done is to pass Senator Udall’s amendment to the Constitution, and Senate Democrats are going to try to do that,” he said.

Schumer said the vote would take place by year’s end and called on Republican colleagues to join Democrats to ensure “the wealthy can’t drown out middle-class voices in our Democracy.”

Who wants to be that the vote comes right before the mid-term voting begins, in order to create a distraction issue? The whole thing is hilarious, the notion that rich Democrats who obtain huge amounts of funding from other rich Democrats have a problem with deep pocketed Democrats donating. What they have a problem with is Republicans receiving monetary backing from groups. Democrats will surely create a way for all the unions, trade groups, guilds, and other Dem leaning groups and corporations to fund Democrats.

This amendment would also violate the 1st Amendment, which begins “Congress shall pass no law…”, in regards to not just free speech, but protesting peaceably and redress of grievance. And possibly the religion and press portions, as well. I know, people are thinking “it’s not a law”. The Framers meant that Congress shall not pass anything, in either the Senate nor House.

Anyhow, while Dems are planning on pulling the above stunt

(Politico) A Democratic group with ties to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has been quietly working to enforce the controversial Citizens United decision at the state level.

General Majority PAC, created last year by longtime Reid Senate chief of staff Susan McCue, has won legal challenges in New Jersey and Pennsylvania over the past year to enforce the Supreme Court ruling permitting unlimited corporate and union spending.

The successful lawsuits essentially have created the equivalent of super PACs at the state level and are part of a larger transformation of election law in the past few years as the dizzying changes at the federal level eventually creep down into state election law.

So, while Dems state that they hate Citizens United, and Harry Reid rails against the Kock Brothers on a seemingly daily basis, they’re working hard to implement Citizens United at the State level.

Really, Democrats, despite the caterwauling, have fully embraced Citizens United and are doing all they can to get the sweet, sweet money, and get outside groups to attack Republicans. Obama whines about it, yet his own supposedly separate Organizing For Action group is exactly what Obama rails against. No one should be surprised in the least by Democrat hypocrisy.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

Read: Democrats Have A Love/Hate Relationship With Citizens United Ruling »

Posted in Democrats | 8 Comments | Trackback URL

Syrian Islamists Now Crucifying Enemies

By William Teach April 30, 2014 – 3:44 pm

But if you mention the brutality of islamists, you’re an Islamiphobe

(Daily Beast) Public crucifixions are mostly ceremonial these days, staged rituals that some Christian communities enact as part of their Easter observance. But the real thing may be returning to Syria. Two men were reportedly crucified in Raqqa on Tuesday, their bloody corpses displayed in the center of a town controlled by the most severe of Syria’s Islamist factions.

Among the forms of slaughter that have become commonplace in Syria’s civil war, crucifixion may be no more brutal than barrel bombs or sarin gas attacks. But the revival of an ancient form of torture is one sign of what life is like under the rule of one of Syria’s powerful Islamist factions. And it’s an indication that, despite years of public hand-wringing in the West over Syria’s bloody and rapid decline, the country is continuing to plummet into new depths of the abyss.

Below the photo of a crucified body, the message on a jihadist Twitter account reads,  “One of 7 people executed by ISIS in Raqqa today on charges of planting IEDs,” or improvised explosive devices. The person behind the account, which is not being linked here to prevent driving traffic to a jihadist site, claims to be a member of the Islamic State in Iraq and the ash-Sham (ISIS), an Islamist group that was repudiated by al Qaeda in early 2014, in part for being so extremist that they became a “liability to the al-Qaeda brand,”  according to Aaron Zelin, a jihadi-watcher at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Photo available at the link.

Read: Syrian Islamists Now Crucifying Enemies »

Posted in RoP | 4 Comments | Trackback URL
Pirate's Cove