…is a wonderful Gaia friendly bike, which helps stave off the rising of the seas that will cover the entire east coast, you might just be a Warmist
The blog of the day is one of my favorite liberals, Alan Colmes, with a post on a court reporter have a bit of a freak out in his transcripts.
Read: If All You See… »
Happy Sunday! Another gorgeous spring (finally) day in the Once And Future Nation Of America. This pinup is by Edward D’Ancona, with a wee bit of help.
What is happening in Ye Olde Blogosphere? The Fine 15
As always, the full set of pinups can be seen in the Patriotic Pinup category, or over at my Gallery page. While we are on pinups, since it is that time of year, have you gotten your “Pinups for Vets†calendar yet? And don’t forget to check out what I declare to be our War on Women Rule 5 and linky luv posts and things that interest me
Anyone else have a link or hotty-fest going on? Let me know so I can add you to the list. (BTW, since someone asked, the reason I leave links for the previous week up (or you might see a *) is because they are place holders for later in the day or for next weeks. Easier than rewriting all the time. Also, the listing order has to do with how they are added over time, not how good a post is. I just copy and paste from the previous week, then edit. If you see one of the *’s, go ahead and check out the blog anyhow, see if there is an update. I cannot update with my Android during the day.
Read: Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup »
Restoring citizens rights
(AP) Kansas legislators gave final approval Saturday to a bill that would nullify city and county gun restrictions and ensure that it’s legal across the state to openly carry firearms, a measure the National Rifle Association sees as a nationwide model for stripping local officials of their gun-regulating power.
The House approved the legislation, 102-19, a day after the Senate passed it, 37-2. The measure goes next to Republican Gov. Sam Brownback. He hasn’t said whether he’ll sign it, but he’s a strong supporter of gun rights and has signed other measures backed by the NRA and the Kansas State Rifle Association.
Kansas law doesn’t expressly forbid the open carrying of firearms, and the attorney general’s office has in the past told local officials that some restrictions are allowed. The Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kan., has prohibited the practice, but the bill would sweep any such ban away, except to allow cities and counties to prevent openly carried weapons inside public buildings.
The measure also would prevent cities and counties from enacting restrictions on the sale of firearms and ammunition, or imposing rules on how guns must be stored and transported. Existing ordinances would be void, and local governments could not use tax dollars for gun buy-back programs.
What this certainly does is remove the “patchwork” of law that makes it difficult for law-abiding citizens to express their 2nd Amendment Right to carry. One the things the gun grabbers do is pass this tiny restriction, that tiny restriction, making it extremely difficult to carry a weapon legally. It gets to a point where law abiding citizens just say “to heck with it”, exactly what the gun grabbers want to happen (of course, criminals do not care, putting law abiding citizens in danger). Even with this new Kansas law, if Governor Brownback chooses to sign it, it can still be difficult. We have something similar in North Carolina, and it can still be difficult, because there are still restrictions. You have to know where you are in terms of government property and federal law.
Here’s where it gets humorous, with Dems/gun brabbers making funny statements
“We don’t want the feds imposing their will on us. We shouldn’t be doing that to the local jurisdictions,” said Rep. Carolyn Bridges, a Wichita Democrat and opponent of the bill.
Ms. Bridges is a big supporter of Obamacare, Medicare expansion, and a host of other federally driven laws. Like most Democrats.
But Jonathan Lowry, director of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence’s efforts to defend gun control policies in court and oppose the lessening of existing regulations, called the Kansas measure “undemocratic.”
“The gun lobby likes to prevent people who believe in sensible gun laws from having a say in protecting their own communities,” Lowry said. “It’s cynical, and it’s dangerous public policy.”
The Brady Center likes to push lots of top down gun restrictions. Common sense means “easy to understand”, not a raft of drips and drabs making it impossible to understand where it is and isn’t legal.
Perhaps these Dems should spend more time dealing with those who carry and use guns illegally, rather than restricting those of us who are law abiding citizens.
Crossed at Right Wing News.
Read: Kansas Legislature Passes Sweeping Pro-2nd Amendment Law »
OK, I made up the climate change part, it’s really for some charity
It was kind a good or bad shot, depending on your POV, if you know what I mean 
Read: Just A Girl In A Bikini Getting Tasered For Climate Change »
…is extreme storm quickly forming because Someone Else installed a pool, you might just be a Warmist
The blog of the day is Bookworm Room, with a post on refusing to do business with fascists.
Read: If All You See… »
The first piece of advice I’d give The Week’s Ryan Cooper would be to act like an adult and leave the insults out of the mix
How to talk to a climate change contrarian (if you must)
Climate trolls make the link between climate change and extreme weather seem highly complicated. It isn’t.
No, it isn’t complicated, because it doesn’t exist except in the talking points of Warmists. Starting out with “troll”, ie, people who don’t adhere to the same religion as Warmists is probably a Bad Idea.
Nate Silver’s hiring of noted stats whiz Roger Pielke Jr. to write for FiveThirtyEight sparked a minor internet scrape last month over climate change, extreme weather, and how those issues are covered in the press. Pielke made his career repeatedly accusing climate scientists of scientific malfeasance for exaggerating the link between climate change and extreme weather (see here for dozens more). His latest effort was another entry in the canon, arguing that the rising economic costs of extreme weather had little to do with climate change.
Now the Breakthrough Institute, which is about as troll-y as they come with regards to climate change, is out with a true-to-form defense of Pielke, claiming that a new, devastating report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change entirely vindicates his approach to weather disasters. (I know, I know, I’ve called on the universe not to feed the trolls, but sometimes I’ll take requests.)
As is typical for Breakthrough, Pielke, and other climate change contrarians, the debate they’re trying to have is almost totally pointless. It’s long past time to kill forever the idea that quibbling over the current costs of weather disasters matters either for climate policy or politics. When it comes to climate change and extreme weather, one simple fact takes care of the vast majority of what’s really important. You ready? Here it is, drum roll…
More global warming means more extreme weather.
Mr. Cooper actually forgets to explain how one should talk to a “climate contrarian”, instead focusing on the discredited notion of extreme weather. Thing is, there has been no statistically significant warming in 17 years and 8 months. No US landfalling major hurricanes since October 2005. Only one barely-a-hurricane since October 2008. We’re seeing very low fire and tornado seasons. Then he kind blows his own argument out of the water that we’re doomed from extreme weather
The Pielke post that kicked off this whole mess is about an ancillary question: is the economic damage from past natural disasters the result of climate change? Right away we’re in trouble, because extreme weather events are by definition rare and random, and there have been only a few decades on record that have been much hotter than average. As this post explains in detail, with the exception of heat records, we simply don’t have very much data yet on the question, and it will take a while for the statistics to shake out.
OK, we don’t have much data, but we’re supposed to change our entire society for the prognostications of what may possibly happen in the future? In fact, we have lots of data from news reports about “extreme weather” occurring well before CO2 hit 350ppm. And we know what humans went through during the Little Ice Age. We know that humans do much better during warm periods than cool periods. We also know that Warmists are so utterly concerned about CO2 that they change their own lives to match their rhetoric.
Read: Hooray! How To Talk To A Climate Contrarian (If You Must) »
Obviously, people, primarily liberals/Democrats, had a conniption fit over the recent Supreme Court decision over campaign finance. Here’s Michael Kinsley
On Thursday, the day after the Supreme Court’s decision in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, The Post and the New York Times between them carried eight separate print articles about the ruling. McCutcheon is the latest in a string of decisions in which the court has held that various limits on campaign contributions violate the First Amendment free speech rights of rich people and corporations. The articles ranged from fairly balanced news reports through only slightly slanted sidebars to open frothing and foaming on the Times editorial page.
Nevertheless, this was all too much for a group of Republican House members who introduced H.R. 2532, the so-called “Freedom From the Press Act,†which would place strict limits on how much a corporation or individual could spend putting out a newspaper or any other medium in which political opinions are expressed. “For too long,†said a news release issued with the text of the bill, “wealthy media companies have been able to dominate the political debate, drowning the voices of ordinary citizens who may not agree with these companies’ elitist views on subjects such as campaign contributions by wealthy corporations. Some of these ordinary citizens are veterans, who have fought for freedom in Afghanistan or Iraq, only to come home and find that their own voices are drowned out by the blowhards on ‘Morning Joe’ or the mandarins at the New York Times. Media corporations dominate the political debate, not just because of money but because they control the established channels of communication. This bill will be one step toward a level playing field.â€
Sadly, this was not a real bill
There is, in fact, no such bill as the Freedom From the Press Act, limiting anyone’s right to publish a newspaper or broadcast a talk show. But if there were, is it possible that the media might find this bill just a tad unconstitutional? Might they not invoke every cliche of First Amendment jurisprudence, such as “the solution to speech is more speech†(i.e., if you disagree with me, write your own op-ed piece but don’t try to stop mine) or all that stuff about disagreeing with what you say but defending to the death your right to say it? And wouldn’t they be right?
It would have been great if it had been real, for exactly the notions Kinsley writes about. The media is spending their own money to propagate their own political point of view while demonizing Other People, primarily those on the political right, who do the same. Have you ever seen the NY Times or Washington Post or MSNBC rail against the money spent by George Soros and other big pocketed Liberals? Or how about the money Obama spent to win the presidency? As far as his idea about money in politics goes
The power of money in politics, in other words, is only as large as we allow it to be. What we need are a few more campaigns where the amount an opponent is spending becomes an issue itself. We need a political culture where a politician will have to make a calculation before accepting a contribution from Rich Plutocrats for America: Will the number of votes I gain by having more money to spend on obnoxious TV commercials be bigger or smaller than the number I will lose because people are offended by Rich Plutocrats for America (and those obnoxious TV commercials)?
He wants people to speak up. That’s a great idea.
However, I will note that the moneyed class, and the media, have much more influence than the average citizen. Did they listen when we said “Hell No!” to Obamacare? Or many other laws and regulations? Sure, the Government, particularly elected officials, ie, public servants, listen now and then, but money and access is huge. While I don’t like someone people being able to essentially buy elections, power, and access, the 1st Amendment is the 1st. We have to deal with it. I wrote a post somewhere in the archives, having trouble finding it, that they key is not to put regulations on citizens, including the moneyed class, but on the elected officials. How about restricting lawmakers from offering legislation that helps any individual, company, or industry that has donated to them above a certain monetary level? Or hurts a competitor of the entity that donated? Restricting lawmakers from voting in the same manner? Clamping down heavily on “pay for play”?
There are lots of ideas, but they should mostly be aimed at the lawmakers, not the citizens, in order to reduce the influence of money in politics. There has always been a problem with money in politics. The biggest problem is not trying to elect, or defeat, officials and legislation, but in trying to essentially bribe politicians to pass legislation that helps the donor and/or hurts rivals. Is giving boatloads of money to a politician part of “asking for redress of grievance”? That’s the big question.
More mission creep, more highhanded government causing problems for citizens
(Fox News) A federal proposal requiring more efficiency from wood-burning stoves has ignited a debate between the Obama administration and lawmakers who oppose the new regulations, arguing the rules impose an unfair burden on people in remote areas.
The Environmental Protection Agency proposed a rule changes in January that would dramatically tighten emissions requirements on new wood-powered heaters, though does not impact ones already in homes.
The EPA estimates that as much as 13 percent of all soot pollution in the U.S. is a result of inefficient wood-fired stoves and boilers.
Is soot a problem from a purely environmental viewpoint? Yes. Just like it has been since Man discovered fire. Of course, these wankers are looking at it from a “climate change” point of view, rather than simply a clean air and water view. I wonder if they plan on implementing regulations against Mother Nature for when she starts fires from lightening strikes?
Among those opposed to new rules are South Dakota Republicans Sen. John Thune and Rep. Kristi Noem, who say the new requirements will have a big impact on South Dakotans who rely on wood stoves during the long winter.
“Leave it to the EPA to impose more regulations on an affordable and renewable fuel source after one of the coldest winters on record and a costly propane shortage,” Noem said.
Hey, the EPA saw a sector that was booming, and someone said “hey, let’s use our Power to Do Something”, and that do something is to require an 80% decrease in “emissions” within 5 years.
It would apply to wood heaters, including outdoor and indoor wood-fired boilers, known as hydronic heaters. The changes would only apply to new stoves and rules would not impact outdoor fireplaces, fire pits or other types of outdoor fire containers.
Those are used in typically non-urban areas to provide heat. Can’t have people being warm, now, can we? At least not with a large increase in cost.
In October, seven states primarily located in the urban northeast — New York, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, Oregon, Rhode Island and Vermont — sued the EPA asking the agency to update their emission policy to include wood-fired boilers.
So, instead of simply dealing with this in their own states, these Progressive (nice fascist) states want to foist and force their beliefs on Everyone Else. This probably won’t go down too well for people in upstate NY nor Vermont, where they would be more prone to using the stoves.
Crossed at Right Wing News.
Whew! Our long national nightmare is over
It’s About Time Someone On TV News Covered Climate Change Like This
Geez, TV news– it’s about time!
In a one-hour documentary on Sunday, Ann Curry will be reporting on an angle of climate change that is scarcely found on TV news: that “there is virtually no debate among climate scientists”–climate change is real and “largely caused by human activity.” Curry will travel to areas high and low in the world, from the Arctic to the Florida seas, and speak to eyewitnesses of the devastating consequences of climate change, NBC News announced Thursday.
Hooray, Ann will take lots of fossil fueled around the world to tell us that fossil fuels are Really Bad. Aren’t you excited?
(Broadway World) The report features ordinary people who say their experiences convince them – they are eyewitnesses to climate change, including the Inuit in Greenland, and the victims of Hurricane Sandy. We also hear from some of the world’s top climate scientists who explain whether there is a link between climate change and extreme storms, like the deep freeze this past winter in places like Atlanta. They also tell us how to get ready for what some call the new normal.
If that’s the new normal, wouldn’t that mean we’re heading into a cooler climate?
Ann Curry Travels the World in Search of Climate Change
Curry’s report will air across all of NBC News’ platforms, including the Today Show, Nightly News, Meet the Press and NBCNews.com. Plus, nbcnews.com/anncurry will feature original digital reports from Italy, Washington state, Florida and Washington, DC and will highlight select viewer social media posts.
Wow, that’s sure going to use quite a bit of energy, which creates “carbon pollution”, eh? Anyhow, let’s see the real consensus
Again, this does not disprove that the earth is currently in a warm period. What it does do is put yet another nail in the coffin that the warming is a result of mostly/solely anthropogenic causes.
Read: Hooray! Someone Is Finally Going To Cover “Climate Change” On TV »
…is a horrid world killing dog, which will cause the world to boil and the seas to rise, you might just be a Warmist
The blog of the day is The Lonely Conservative, with a post on Bobby Jindal’s healthcare plan.
Read: If All You See… »
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