We’re Having The Wrong Debate On Hotcoldwetdry Or Something

By William Teach April 3, 2014 – 11:43 am

I’m going to skip the whinyness and woe-is-us from Warmist Fiona Johnson, and skip to the fun part

I find it frustrating that the comments in social media and on forums degenerate in a fairly predictable way when it comes to so-called debates about human-induced climate change.

But we are having the wrong debate. For climate change, the evidence is clear that carbon dioxide and temperatures are increasing. Where is the interest in debating observations?

Data like this?

Alas, she doesn’t really want to discuss data, probably because the real world data is pesky and blows the models and talking points out of the water.

What is more interesting is when we have to make decisions that depend on the values that we hold as a community. Someone may value free markets, someone else may value the natural diversity of our coral reefs, whilst a third may value a large house on the beach. The debate that we need to have is how these values can co-exist or if they can’t then how to prioritise them. But the current level of vitriol doesn’t promote rational discussions.

So, we do not need to discuss science and data, but feelings. Cult, anyone?

Read: We’re Having The Wrong Debate On Hotcoldwetdry Or Something »

Posted in Collapsing Science, Global Warming | 3 Comments | Trackback URL

Chile’s Earthquake Means We Need To Take “Climate Change” Seriously Or Something

By William Teach April 3, 2014 – 8:07 am

You just knew that some Warmist somewhere was going to link the recent 8.2 Chile earthquake to “climate change”, right? Here we go

Chile’s Terrifying Earthquake Makes It Clear That We Need to Take Climate Change Seriously

An 8.2-magnitude earthquake struck the northern coast of Chile Tuesday night, triggering landslides, fires, a small tsunami, destruction of homes and power outages. Reports say six people have been killed, either from being crushed by debris or from suffering heart attacks. The scene was chaos as more than 900,000 people were evacuated, hundreds of prisoners escaped and aftershocks rocked the country. With power and road access cut off in many areas, people were waiting in the dark atop hills for help, CNN reported.

Tuesday’s enormous earthquake and its alarming repercussions may be part of a larger phenomenon less natural than we might think: climate change. (snip)

For many, this earthquake evokes the panic Chile suffered in the aftermath of its 2010 earthquake that, at 8.8 on the Richter scale, killed more than 500 people and actually knocked the Earth a few degrees off its axis. In 2004 the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami killed more than 200,000 people and also shifted the Earth off its axis. With each small degree change in the Earth’s axis, time as we know it changes. Our days literally shorten.

Marguerite Ward attempts to make a link to the glacial melt

Today, while we’re far from our more glacial past, we are experiencing warming and rising sea levels at an unprecedented rate. As glaciers melt, fault lines are able to move more easily, making earthquakes more possible and common.

Except, the earthquake was not an area with any melting glaciers. Nor was the one in the Indian Ocean. Nor the Japanese earthquake (though she doesn’t mention it, Warmists did go down that road)

The Incorporated Research Institute for Seismology runs a live interactive map of all recent earthquakes. Both large and small, there have been nearly 33,000 earthquakes this past year alone. Hundreds of earthquakes have shaken the Earth in the past seven days. Will earthquakes like the one that rocked Chile this week become more common as the Earth’s climate changes? It may be time to rethink what exactly climate change means.

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36,000 Potential Cases Of Voter Fraud In North Carolina In 2012

By William Teach April 3, 2014 – 7:49 am

Democrats will tell us that voter fraud is virtually non-existent….well, except when they lose an election (cough 2000, cough, 2004)

(WRAL) State elections officials said Wednesday that they’re investigating hundreds of cases of voters who appear to have voted in two states and several dozen who appear to have voted after their deaths.

State lawmakers last year mandated the State Board of Elections to enter into an “Interstate Crosscheck” – a compact of 28 states that agreed to check their voter registration records against those of other states. The program is run by a Kansas consortium, checking 101 million voter records. The largest states – CA, FL, NY, and TX – are not part of the consortium.

State Board of Elections Executive Director Kim Westbrook Strach delivered the report Wednesday to the legislative Elections Oversight committee.

Strach said North Carolina’s check found 765 registered North Carolina voters who appear to match registered voters in other states on their first names, last names, dates of birth and the final four digits of their Social Security numbers. Those voters appear to have voted in North Carolina in 2012 and also voted in another state in 2012.

There are also an additional 36,000 names which match people who voted in other states, but there is no Social Security number match, because most of the states are not providing the last 4 of the SS#. There are also 13,416 dead voters on the rolls. 81 voted, though it looks like 30 voted by absentee ballot.

“I think the big bombshell today is that you have documented voter fraud that has occurred,” said Rep. Tim Moore, R-Cleveland. “We have over 36,000 people who apparently voted in this state illegally and committed felonies.”

They are running a few ideas up the flagpole, and there would have to be coordination between the states. Of course, this has brought out the anti-voter ID whiners

Sen. Angela Bryant, D-Nash, pointed out that the current changes in voting laws and the requirement for voters to present photo identification at the polls will not stop anyone from voting in two states.

Voting rights advocate Bob Phillips with Common Cause NC said he, too, is concerned about the repoirt and wants to see the cases investigated. But he said it still doesn’t justify House Bill 589, the 2013 law that included voter ID and several other key changes.

“In my mind, it doesn’t justify cutting early voting. It doesn’t justify eliminating same-day voter registration. It has nothing to do with eliminating the pre-registration for 16- and 17-year-olds. A lot of what 589 did, that is not connected to this information,” Phillips said. “But I’m saying – as an advocate for good government, and an advocate for easy, accessible voting – sure, this needs to be looked at.”

Do they have a point? Of course. None of the 589 measures will stop this particular type of voting fraud, right? Ah, but it can. One must have a North Carolina ID to vote (or something else that shows you actually live here). It’s not a perfect system, but it can help reduce the double voting. Either way, this shows that fraud does occur.

And you can bet your bottom dollar (not hard to find in the Obamaeconomy) that Democrats will fight tooth and nail against any reforms.

Read: 36,000 Potential Cases Of Voter Fraud In North Carolina In 2012 »

Posted in Election Fraud, NC News | 10 Comments | Trackback URL

Affordable: Ocare Could Cost Large Employers Up To $5,900 Extra Per Employee

By William Teach April 3, 2014 – 6:58 am

Hooray, affordable reform!

(Washington Free Beacon) Obamacare will cost large companies between $4,800 and $5,900 more per employee and add hundreds of millions to their overhead, according to a new survey.

The American Health Policy Institute conducted a confidential survey of 100 large employers—those with 10,000 or more employees—asking what costs they expect to incur from Obamacare over the next decade.

Factoring in the health care law’s added mandates, fees, and regulatory burdens, employers anticipate cost hikes between $163 million and $200 million in 2016, a 4.3 percent increase. By 2023, employers will be paying 8.4 percent more than “what they would otherwise be spending” for their employees’ health care.

In the next 10 years, the total cost of Obamacare to all large American employers is estimated to be from $151 billion to $186 billion, according to the study.

Just to be clear, the cost per employee number is over 10 years. ACA supporters will say “hey, that’s just roughly $500 extra per year per employee! No biggie!” Of course, when it is their own company, and other things get cut, when raises are limited, when jobs are done away with, when hours are cut, hey, when they own the company and see their own earnings being reduced, they won’t like it. Fortunately, free contraception.

What could cause the increases?

  • Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute fee;
  • Temporary Reinsurance Fee;
  • General ACA implementation and administrative costs;
  • Excise tax on high cost plans;
  • Mandate to cover adult children up to age 26 as dependents; and
  • Other benefit mandates including covering 100 percent of preventive care services.

The indirect costs of the ACA include, but are not limited to:

  • New supply chain taxes passed onto employers (e.g., medical device tax);
  • Increased take up rates of employer offered coverage resulting from the individual mandate; and
  • Increased cost shifting from the expanded Medicaid coverage.

Might a large business be able to eat these costs? Perhaps, to some small degree. But, most likely, things will have to change, and the workers will be the one to suffer. Thanks, Obama and Democrats!

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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Do You Prefer Long Pork Over Going Vegan?

By William Teach April 2, 2014 – 3:58 pm

I mentioned on Monday that Warmists really, really, really want Everyone Else to go vegetarian (probably at the barrel of Government law/regulation) in order to save Gaia from getting a fever some time in the far future. Well, here’s something interesting, via my favorite crazies at Grist

Celebrity endorsements aside, converting to veganism remains a hard sell to most Americans. How hard? New research hints that more of us would rather munch on our neighbor Larry than give up meat and dairy.

According to a new poll from The Society for Progressive Meat (SPM), 10 percent of Americans would consider trying man meat, while a measly 3 percent could bear to part with all animal products. A poll and questionnaire on its website surveyed 2,500 respondents over a two-week period.

And, yes, these people are nuts

SPM President Len T. Illmore told Grist over the phone that consuming humans could solve countless environmental woes — everything from overpopulation to the horrors of factory farms to even the not-so-green funeral industry. And he has a point. With growing populations and industrial agriculture both operating as driving factors of climate change, progressive protein enthusiasts point out that humane cannibalism could both help curb our energy needs and satisfy the appetites of a populace not quite ready for a plant-based diet. All signs point to the fact that Americans are more prepared to swallow toe food than tofu.

Plus, Illmore says that while the humane meat movement sounds good on paper, “who can truly say that chicken actually had a good life? With humane human meat, we’d have prom pictures, tax returns, and even the occasional unpublished memoir to prove your meat led a mediocre to arguably happy life.”

This is what the Warmist/Environmental movement has devolved into.

Read: Do You Prefer Long Pork Over Going Vegan? »

Posted in Enviroweenies, Global Warming | 8 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach April 2, 2014 – 1:00 pm

…is hot water melting ice cause someone else drove a fossil fueled vehicle, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is A View From The Beach, with a post on compulsory lesbianism.

Read: If All You See… »

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Pelosi: Obamacare Not About Insuring The Uninsured

By William Teach April 2, 2014 – 11:12 am

No, seriously

(CNS News) House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) says Democrats passed their health insurance law, not to insure the uninsured, but to give people “quality” health care and “affordable” health care.

“Madam Leader, isn’t the real measure of success, not the raw number who signed up, but how many of those who signed up were not insured before?” a reporter asked Pelosi at a news conference on Tuesday.

“No, that’s not — the measure is twofold,” Pelosi responded. “The message is how many people have access to health care — quality, affordable health care and insurance.”

According to Pelosi, “The real reason to do the Affordable Care Act…was the cost of health care in our country was unsustainable — unsustainable to individuals, to small businesses, to corporate America, the competitive issue internationally, and also to state and local and certainly the federal budget.

Well, that’s news to this lady

Access to quality, affordable health care is critical to the well being of America, today and in the future. Central to this is addressing the needs of the 46 million uninsured Americans…

Hmm, that’s strange, isn’t it?

Of course, making sure the uninsured were forced to purchase costly insurance or be penalized provided with health insurance was not the only stated reason for the PPACA, but it was a consistent and primary talking point pre and post-passage. Now that tens of billions, if not more, was spent on Ocare so far in order to provide 3.4% of the uninsured with “private” insurance, the talking points have to change.

And anyone who complains will be smeared and receive death threats.

Read: Pelosi: Obamacare Not About Insuring The Uninsured »

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Bill McKibben: Climate Scientists Should Go On Strike Or Something

By William Teach April 2, 2014 – 8:16 am

Bill McKibben is a co-founder of the wacky 350.org, and a hardcore Warmist. Actually, he’s more in the uber-Alarmist category. He’s known for his overheated rhetoric (as is 350.org). He’s also a massive climahypocrite, traveling all over the US and the world via fossil fueled travel, complaining about fossil fuels. Heck, in just the next few months he’ll be in Texas, Hawaii, Pa, Arizona, and Washington state. Anyone think he’ll walk, ride a bike, take a sailing boat, to get to those places? Anyhow

Time for climate scientists to go on strike

Late last night Yokohama time, the world’s scientists did once more what they’ve done so many times in the past: issued a thumping big report demonstrating that climate change poses the greatest danger our civilization has ever faced. These regular analyses have been conducted since 1995 under the auspices of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – by now the papers, indexes, footnotes and drafts would fill the Superdome.

They’ve said it with graphs, they’ve said it with tables. They’ve offered color-coded guides to future decades. They’ve told us about basic science and, when that didn’t work, they’ve tried to explain it in terms anyone could understand. The latest summary, for instance, shows that most studies of food production in a warming world forecast dire trouble – some, by century’s end, show a 50% reduction in crop yields. Both drought and flood will keep on increasing, the number of refugees will climb sharply, and we risk “civil wars and intergroup violence.”

Did it include this graph?

If you can’t explain the pause, you can’t explain the cause.

But if science has worked, political science has failed. So far, the world’s political leaders have balked at ever doing anything about global warming, and each new warning produces declarations of meaningless resolve. Here’s John Kerry, the Secretary of State, reacting to the latest study: “Read this report and you can’t deny the reality: Unless we act dramatically and quickly, science tells us our climate and our way of life are literally in jeopardy.” True enough, and eloquent enough, except that his own State Department team last month recommended building the Keystone Pipeline through the American heartland, a project opposed by every prominent American climate scientist.

So at this point it’s absurd to keep asking the scientific community to churn out more reports. In fact, it might almost be more useful if they went on strike: until you pay attention to what we’ve already told you, we won’t be telling you more. Work with what you’ve got. We’re a quarter-century ahead – when you deal with the trouble we’ve already described then we’ll tell you what’s coming next.

I think this is a great idea, especially since most of them are not climate scientists. In fact, according to Warmist talking points, we shouldn’t listen to Bill, because he holds no degree in climate science. Honorary degrees do not count.

But, yes, they should all go on strike, including all the bureaucrats, that way we can avoid being inundated with idiotic scary prognostications from people who refuse to practice what they preach.

Because it’s perfectly clear by now that you can’t scare politicians with the news that the world is ending. It’s going to require convincing them that something they really care about might disappear: their jobs.

See? Scary stories.

Powerline also hopes they all go on strike, and discusses the notion of the “scientists” doing their work for free, which McKibben mentions in the article.

Anthony Watts also hopes they all go on strike, and mentions the poll in McKibbens article, which goes drastically wrong, and is titled “Do you see climate change as a threat to your life or well-being?” 77% answer “no”, just 21% say “yes”. Whoops!

Read: Bill McKibben: Climate Scientists Should Go On Strike Or Something »

Posted in AGW Scaremongering, Climahypocrites, Global Warming | 12 Comments | Trackback URL

Sargent: Why Does Mitch McConnel Want To Take Insurance Away From Kentuckians?

By William Teach April 2, 2014 – 7:52 am

This is all in the form of telling us that Obamacare is a disaster, but KeNect is super awesome

The office of Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear just announced that more than 370,000 people have now signed up for Obamacare on KyNect, the state exchange. More than one out of every dozen Kentuckians — 8.6 percent of the state population — now has obtained coverage through the exchange, Beshear’s office said, claiming that a preliminary analysis has established that three out of four enrollees has reported that they were uninsured before signing up.

But as recently as three days ago, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky was denouncing Obamacare as “disastrous,” lamenting the “catastrophic effects” the law has had on Kentucky families, and insisting that “the pain caused by this terrible law is easy to see.” He claims the law must be uprooted “root and branch.”

So the question is, Does there come a point at which Alison Lundergan Grimes can more directly target McConnell for wanting to take health coverage and security away from hundreds of thousands of people?

That meme about taking health coverage and security away is cute, and repeated multiple times. Yet, at least 280,000 Kentucky residents lost their health insurance plans directly because of Obamacare. So we can figure that around 75% of the signups were people that had health insurance and lost it. Why was Sargent not concerned about them when they were losing their plans and security? That 75% number seems to jibe well with what is happening in the federal and all the state exchanges, namely that 75%-85% of people who sign up previously had insurance.

And while the Kentucky exchange seems to be working well in terms of signing people up, they face the same problem: high deductibles, which range from $4000 on a base bronze plan to a high of $6350. There are only two companies offering plans: Kentucky Blue Cross Blue Shield and Kentucky Health Cooperative. The latter offers just one plan per level. BCBS offers several plans per level (none in platinum, though). How’s that for consumer choice? Plus, let’s consider that many are receiving government taxpayer money to help pay the premiums. Another entitlement.

The talking point about taking health coverage and security away is looking to become a new talking point for Ocare supporters. Despite over 6 million losing their plans.

Grimes appears to be adopting a strategy of deliberately avoiding engagement on Obamacare. There’s a plausible rationale for this. The campaign seems to have calculated that above all, she should avoid getting drawn into Washington arguments (such as the one over the health law). That’s because one of her chief strengths is that she never served in Washington (and didn’t vote for the law). If Grimes’ main assets are that she’s very much of the state and represents something new — making it easier to paint McConnell, with his low approval ratings, as part of the Washington problem – then avoiding association with Washington Democrats and controversial national legislation perhaps makes sense.

In other words, once you get beyond all the silliness from Sargent, Grimes is running like hell from defending Ocare, which her party rammed through and owns, because she knows it is a losing policy position.

As far as KyNect working correctly, well, some state had to work correctly, at least statistically. It’s surprising more haven’t worked correctly. One would have thought it wouldn’t be that hard to put together a website in this day and age.

(NPR) “This law is doing what it’s supposed to do,” Obama said at the Rose Garden. “It’s working. It’s helping people from coast to coast.”

Well, if it means that 75% of the signups are people who were unceremoniously thrown off their plans, well yeah. That’s working. What about the 30-45 million people without insurance? Wasn’t that the point? Are we really spending $2 trillion over ten years to add around a million new people with health insurance?

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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How Doomy Is The “New” IPCC Hotcoldwetdry Report?

By William Teach April 1, 2014 – 4:23 pm

About as doomy as one would expect professional doomsayers to prognosticate

(UK Register) The summary for policymakers alone is 44 pages and the full report contains 1,552, so it’s necessary to be rather brief in this initial report on the newly-released documents. Later analysis is the place to go deeper. Let’s start with the summary’s assessment of the “observed impacts, vulnerability and adaptation” to climate change.

The summary then presents the following eight “key risks” that the IPCC feels “are identified with high confidence, span sectors and regions.”

The risks are:

  1. Risk of death, injury, ill-health, or disrupted livelihoods in low-lying coastal zones and small island developing states and other small islands, due to storm surges, coastal flooding, and sea-level rise
  2. Risk of severe ill-health and disrupted livelihoods for large urban populations due to inland flooding in some regions.
  3. Systemic risks due to extreme weather events leading to breakdown of infrastructure networks and critical services such as electricity, water supply, and health and emergency services
  4. Risk of mortality and morbidity during periods of extreme heat, particularly for vulnerable urban populations and those working outdoors in urban or rural areas.
  5. Risk of food insecurity and the breakdown of food systems linked to warming, drought, flooding, and precipitation variability and extremes, particularly for poorer populations in urban and rural settings.
  6. Risk of loss of rural livelihoods and income due to insufficient access to drinking and irrigation water and reduced agricultural productivity, particularly for farmers and pastoralists with minimal capital in semi-arid regions.
  7. Risk of loss of marine and coastal ecosystems, biodiversity, and the ecosystem goods, functions, and services they provide for coastal livelihoods, especially for fishing communities in the tropics and the Arctic.
  8. Risk of loss of terrestrial and inland water ecosystems, biodiversity, and the ecosystem goods, functions, and services they provide for livelihoods.

The summary eventually considers “overlapping approaches” to “adaptation” that will help humanity to ameliorate climate change. Many types of adaptation are suggested, ranging from better land planning laws to the creation of “catastrophe bonds”.

So, doom everywhere. Funny thing is, they can’t prove that any changes are caused by global anthropogenic causes, and, their models continue to fail in a big way.

There is so much funky stuff in the report it’s hard to know where to begin. I am amused that they are now all sorts of worried about flooding in Australia, when they had recently been all sorts of worried about drought. Hey, different day, different complaint. Interestingly, none of the adaptation or other recommendations include Warmists practicing what they preach. Strange, eh?

They also are astounded that the world can actually change. Because that never happened during the previous 4.5 billion years. They also fail to note that 17+ year pause.

Read: How Doomy Is The “New” IPCC Hotcoldwetdry Report? »

Posted in AGW Scaremongering, Global Warming | 15 Comments | Trackback URL
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