Dwarf Planet “Biden” Discovered At Fringes Of Solar System

By William Teach March 27, 2014 – 11:06 am

There’s a political joke in there, but, let’s keep this to the realm of coolness

(Mercury News) Peering into the far reaches of the solar system, astronomers have spied a pink frozen world 7½ billion miles from the sun.

It’s the second such object to be discovered in a region of space beyond Pluto long considered a celestial wasteland. Until now, the lone known resident in this part of the solar system was an oddball dwarf planet spotted in 2003 named Sedna after the mythological Inuit goddess who created the sea creatures of the Arctic.

The latest discovery shows “Sedna is not a freak. We can have confidence that there is a new population to explore,” Yale University senior research scientist David Rabinowitz said in an email. He was one of Sedna’s founders, but had no role in the new find detailed in Thursday’s issue of the journal Nature. (snip)

Like Sedna, 2012 VP113 is also a dwarf planet. It’s jokingly nicknamed “Biden” after Vice President Joe Biden because of the object’s initials. It measures about 280 miles across, or half the diameter of Sedna. It’s bone-chilling cold with a temperature of around minus 430 degrees Fahrenheit.

Unlike red and shiny Sedna, the newfound object is more pink and much fainter, which made it hard to detect.

By contrast, Earth is about 7,900 miles across and located 93 million miles from the sun.

Call me a geek, but I find this kind of stuff to be awesome.

Photo via Nature, from Scott S. Shepard at the Carnegie Institution of Science. The three dots show movement over several hours in November 5th, 2012.

Read: Dwarf Planet “Biden” Discovered At Fringes Of Solar System »

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Climate Scientist Demands IPCC Remove His Name From Report

By William Teach March 27, 2014 – 9:12 am

Why? Because it is extremely alarmist

(Daily Mail) A climate scientist has accused the United Nations of being too alarmist over global warming – and demanded his name be removed from a crucial new report.

Professor Richard Tol, an economist at the University of Sussex, said fellow UN academics were exaggerating climate change and comparing it to the ‘apocalypse’.

His comments are a blow to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which on Monday will publish its first update in seven years on the impacts of climate change.

Scientists are taking long fossil fueled flights to Japan this week to agree on the final version of the scaremongering document.

Professor Tol is most definitely not a skeptic, he’s a big believer that “climate change” is mostly/solely caused by Mankind, but he also believes that the IPCC report will be overly-alarmist, but, then, that is the point of the reports, to scare the bejesus out policy makers in order to get them to Do Something

‘This has completely disappeared from the draft now, which is all about the impacts of climate change and the four horsemen of the apocalypse. This is a missed opportunity.’

Alas, Richard, highlighting doom and gloom is exactly what the IPCC and Warmists want

Last September the first report summarised the physical science of climate change, concluding that scientists are 95 per cent certain that humans are the ‘dominant cause’ of global warming. (and their prognostications have been 95% false)

The second part will set out the impact a warming world will have on people, economies, animals and natural ecosystems. (in other words, it should be made into a bad horror movie on SciFi)

The third part, to be finalised next month, will summarise possible mitigation – what we can do to reduce the problem. (taxation, more Big Government control of people and the private sector, more power to the UN)

And these same IPCC members still haven’t changed their own lives to match their apocalyptic rhetoric.

Read: Climate Scientist Demands IPCC Remove His Name From Report »

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

Oops: California Dem Busted For Gun Trafficking Authored Gun Control Legislation

By William Teach March 27, 2014 – 8:15 am

When I first read the story about a California state representative busted by the FBI, I wondered if he had anything to do with California gun control legislation. Then the Real World intruded for a while, so I never got around to researching. Fortunately, Jason Howerton at The Blaze was able to do a cruise through the Internet

A California state senator who authored gun control legislation asked for campaign donations in exchange for introducing an undercover FBI agent to an arms trafficker, according to court documents unsealed Wednesday.

The allegations against State Sen. Leland Yee were outlined in an FBI affidavit in support of a criminal complaint. The affidavit accuses Yee of conspiracy to deal firearms without a license and to illegally import firearms. He was arrested Wednesday.

Yee is also accused of accepting tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions and cash payments to provide introductions, help a client get a contract and influence legislation. He or members of his campaign staff accepted at least $42,800 in cash or campaign contributions from undercover FBI agents in exchange for carrying out the agents’ specific requests, the court documents allege.

Yee discussed helping the agent get weapons worth $500,000 to $2.5 million, including shoulder fired automatic weapons and missiles, and took him through the entire process of acquiring them from a Muslim separatist group in the Philippines to bringing them to the United States, according to the affidavit by FBI Special Agent Emmanuel V. Pascua.

So, a typical Democrat

A man was charged last year for threatening Yee over legislation that he proposed to limit rapid reloading of assault weapons. The bill would have prohibited the use of devices that allow users to swiftly reload military-style assault weapons. Lee also authored legislation that that would have required the state to study safe storage of firearms.

From CBS San Fransisco

Before he was arrested and indicted on numerous federal charges Wednesday, including allegations of gun running, State Sen. Leland Yee was a major advocate for gun control and pushed to ban a device called a “bullet button.”

In 2012, KPIX 5 reported on what gun control advocates called a huge loophole in California’s ban on assault weapons. The reports focused on the bullet button, a device that gun manufacturers designed in order to legally sell guns such as the AR-15 in California.

The bullet button enables the magazine of a semi-automatic rifle to be removed quickly, with the tip of a bullet. Removable magazines in combination with other features like a pistol grip and telescoping stock are banned under California law. But the bullet button is legal because it doesn’t work with one’s finger, so the magazine is considered “fixed.”

Bob Owens notes that Yee has been heavily involved in the anti-2nd Amendment/gun banning/gun restriction movement, and has authored many pieces of legislation, as well as voting for the gun grabbing legislation, in California.

Charlotte Mayor Patrick Cannon, Democrat, was also busted by the FBI on corruption charges, ie, taking lots of bribes and theft. He resigned from office. NC Democrats think that this won’t affect the prospects for upcoming elections. We’ll see.

Read: Oops: California Dem Busted For Gun Trafficking Authored Gun Control Legislation »

Posted in 2nd Amendment, Current Affairs, Democrats | 4 Comments | Trackback URL

Delicious Irony: Fast Food Union Disallows Any Form Of Protest Against Union

By William Teach March 27, 2014 – 7:48 am

Hypocrisy in Liberal World? Who woulda thunk it?

(FloridaWatchdog.org) Workers and organized labor groups took to protesting fast food companies last week in a multi-state effort to build public support for a $15 an hour minimum wage hike.

But a peek into one group’s own labor contract reveals a delicious irony.

They’ve been protesting for months, backing the destruction of their own jobs.

The Restaurant Opportunities Center United, which claims the support of 13,000 restaurant workers and with at least 11 affiliates across the country, forbids its own workers from protesting against management.

“It is mutually agreed that there shall be no strikes, lock-outs, sit downs, sit ins, slowdowns, sympathy strikes,­ picketing, stoppage or interruption of work, or direct or indirect interference or interruption of the operations of the Employer during the term of this Agreement,” states a two-year collective-bargaining agreement dated Jan. 4, 2013.

Well, well, well, what’s good for the goose is not good for the gander. Furthermore, the ROC is affiliated with, at least, the Newspaper Guild of Greater Philadelphia, linked to the AFL-CIO, which represents employees of 7 area news organizations, so you have collusion in coverage of the protests.

Furthermore, the ROC is a typical hardcore liberal union group. One of the points against it

ROC was sued by its own members for, among other things: expelling members who voiced views that “differed from those of the leadership and staff of ROC-NY,” “engaging in a campaign of intimidation and expulsion of members,” and “intentionally failing to pay plaintiffs a minimum wage”;

ROC Exposed goes on to note

The Restaurant Opportunities Center is a labor union front group disguised as a restaurant industry employment center and watchdog. ROC regularly issues factually flawed reports, files ridiculous lawsuits, and leads protests that harm many of the restaurant employees they claim to represent, all in an effort to attack and harass non-unionized restaurants. ROC’s tactics have been compared to mob-style shakedowns, often employing intimidation and outright extortion in an effort to force restaurants into submission.

And the will not allow any sort of protests against itself. Surprise?

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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Poll: Public Support For State “Climate Change” Policies Declines

By William Teach March 26, 2014 – 2:52 pm

This comes from the University Of Michigan’s Center For Local, State, and Urban Policy

The first decade of the 2000s was a period of active and largely unanticipated state engagement in the development of policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This triggered substantial social science literature that explored the drivers behind climate policy adoption. These included state reactions to more localized early effects of a changing climate, anticipated co-benefits from either improving energy efficiency or developing locally-generated renewable sources, and positioning themselves for favored status in any subsequent federal policy regime. But this pattern of policy adoption and diffusion has slowed and, in some respects, reversed in recent years. Despite the absence of far-reaching federal legislation, a number of federal initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in recent years have tended to marginalize state policy initiative and expansion.

This report tracks the evolution of public opinion on the question of state government involvement in climate change over a five-year period, from Fall 2008 to Fall 2013. It concludes that there has been some significant decline in public support for at least some of the policies that have been asked about by National Surveys on Energy and Environment (NSEE) during this period. The drop-off has been most noticeable since the Fall 2008 survey, which has also surfaced as a high-water mark for public concern about climate change. Our findings note a significant drop in public concern right after that period, at least in cases where we asked the identical question in subsequent surveys, including a further trend downward in surveys conducted during the spring and fall of 2013. Declining public concern may be a contributing factor to the stalled pace of policy development at the state level, though it also indicates variation depending upon question wording and the policy instrument under consideration. Subsequent reports will examine these issues in greater detail and will also provide insight into whether geographic regions differ from one another, or whether citizens differ on the basis of whether they live in states that have (or have not) adopted particular policies.

When we look move past the abstract and into the poll itself, there are 7 key findings

  1. Americans have generally become more divided in their views on the proper role of state governments in addressing global warming during the past five years.
  2. One-half (50%) of Americans now believe that it is their state’s job to address global warming if the federal government fails to do so, down from 70% maintaining this view in 2008. Strong agreement with this proposition declined to 19% in Fall 2013 from 41% in Fall 2008.
  3. Opinion has moderated on whether Americans believe that their respective states should not adopt climate mitigation policies unless neighboring states adopt similar policies. Strong expressions of agreement and disagreement have both declined significantly since Fall 2008, alongside growth in more moderate positions.
  4. Opposition to states increasing fossil fuel taxes as a means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions increased by 14 percentage points between Fall 2008 and Fall 2013. Seventy-one percent of Americans oppose this option overall in Fall 2013, with 55% of these respondents strongly opposing it, and only 5% of overall respondents strongly supporting it.
  5. Overall support for states increasing gasoline taxes as a means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions has dropped from an already low level of 23% in 2008 to 17% in 2013, with only 6% expressing strong support for this approach in Fall 2013.
  6. Only one-third (32%) of Americans support state development of a cap-and-trade system to reduce greenhouse gases in Fall 2013, down from 55% five years earlier. This approach is now opposed at the state level by a 45-to-32% margin.
  7. A large majority of Americans continue to support requirements for a portion of electricity in a state to be produced by renewable energy sources, with 79% overall in favor of this option in Fall 2013. However, there has been some decline in the strength of this support from Fall 2008, when 59% of respondents expressed strong support, compared to 46% in Fall 2013

Overall, most support is down, particularly when it comes to “carbon” permits and gas taxes. The only bright spot is support for “renewables”, but even that is down when it comes to strength of support.

Read: Poll: Public Support For State “Climate Change” Policies Declines »

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If All You See…

By William Teach March 26, 2014 – 1:00 pm

…is an evil baby sucking up Gaia’s resources, causing the oceans to boil, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is All American Blogger, with a post on another very civil Democrat.

Read: If All You See… »

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“Climate Change” Will Make UK Dryer. And Wetter. And Hot. And Cold

By William Teach March 26, 2014 – 11:31 am

In other words, it’s an un-science cult

(Guardian) The UK’s weather will become both too wet and too dry – and also too cold and too hot – as climate change increases the frequency of extreme events, the Met Office has warned in a new report.

Its scientists concluded that on average the UK will see wetter, milder winters and hotter, drier summers in the long term due to global warming. But the natural year-to-year variability of weather will also mean occasional very cold winters, like that of 2010-11, and very wet summers, like that of 2012.

The article goes on for a long time in a hysterical manner (and I mean both types), but that is really all you need to know. Here’s how someone in the comments puts it

That’s all bases covered?

And

Hedging the old bets I see.

Lots of splinters in the bumbum.

Yup. Cult.

waginn: And its going to be darker at night and lighter in the daytime.

RobKindon: But will it be more frequently extremely dark and more frequently extremely light?

JackSavage: It may be darkly extreme and lightly frequent.

It might be darker at night, because Warmists policies not only make energy more expensive, but decrease the availability of energy.

Read: “Climate Change” Will Make UK Dryer. And Wetter. And Hot. And Cold »

Posted in AGW Idiocy, AGW Scaremongering, Global Warming | 1 Comment | Trackback URL

Study: No Increase In Southern Indian Ocean Tropical Storms

By William Teach March 26, 2014 – 9:01 am

One of the big talking points from Warmists, including the IPCC, was that “climate change” would cause more tropical storms, especially landfalling ones, and that they would also be stronger. So far, none of that has come to fruition, especially in the Northern Atlantic. Especially since much of the notion of more storms comes simply from better ways to see them. Prior to the satellite era, and, really, only in the last 20-30 years, the way people knew a tropical storm had formed was because it was approaching/hitting land, or a ship saw it out at sea. A notion mentioned in this study

(Red Orbit) A new study from South African researchers has debunked the notion that there are more tropical cyclones taking place due to global warming – at least in the Southern Indian Ocean.

Jennifer Fitchett, a PhD student at Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg, said better meteorology has probably fueled the idea of climate change developing more and more storms.

“From 1940, there was a huge increase in observations because of aerial reconnaissance and satellite imagery,” she said.

According to the report, co-authored by Fitchett and published in the International Journal of Climatology, tropical storms hitting the southeastern coast of Africa may not be increasing in number – but they are shifting south due to increasingly warmer temperatures on the surface of the sea.

For the study, the researchers used data from three storm track records that spanned periods between 66 and 161 years and discovered that there has been no rise in the amount of tropical cyclones. However, when the study team looked at where storms have been taking place, they found that the 80-degree surface temperatures needed for a cyclone to occur have been moving southward toward the pole. This phenomenon has coincided with storms shifting farther to the south.

OK, so no increase in tropical storms. As far as the shifting goes, it’s been happening at the rate of .6 degrees per decade since 1850, per the study. Which, as Ms. Fitchett stated, neither was expected. Of course, the shifting cannot be proven to be due to man-induced “climate change”, simply something that would happen during a typical Holocene warm period. Another nail in the coffin of AGW/”climate change”.

Read: Study: No Increase In Southern Indian Ocean Tropical Storms »

Posted in Collapsing Science, Global Warming | 7 Comments | Trackback URL

Progressives Really Worried About “Slippery Slopes” For Contraception Case

By William Teach March 26, 2014 – 8:34 am

Even a few Leftist Supreme Court justices were worried about “slippery slopes” during the oral arguments Tuesday at the Court. The lawyers should have told them “hey, that’s an interesting point, however, we are concerned with the government forcing our client to provide free abortifacients in the insurance they partially pay for, not some nebulous hypothetical”. Chiding a judge who has certainly made up her mind prior to oral arguments isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Here’s the latest from Ruth Marcus

Slippery Slopes Before The Court

In the context of talking about limits on free speech, it’s common to say that your freedom to swing your fist ends where my nose begins. That seems like a sensible way to think about the freedom of religion case just argued before the Supreme Court: whether employers can be required to pay for contraceptive methods that would violate their religious convictions.

Most disputes about religious freedom are bilateral — with the government on one side and the individual claiming infringement of religious liberty on the other.

But Tuesday’s cases, involving Oklahoma crafts store Hobby Lobby and Pennsylvania cabinetmaker Conestoga Wood, implicate a third party — the companies’ employees, and their rights under the Affordable Care Act to no-added-cost contraception. Respecting the religious claims of Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood threatens to diminish the rights of their workers.

Ruth goes on to whine about Citizens United, as a Good Progressive should, whining about companies not being people. But, companies are made up of people, and those companies have certain beliefs. Consider Chik-fil-A: they are closed on Sunday’s, even in malls. Not every employee cares, some are probably not even Christians. In Liberal World, they are being punished for the beliefs of the company. They don’t get to work on Sundays.

Ruth’s central point is that denying abortifacients, which is the primary cause of the Hobby Lobby case, to employees diminishes their rights. Well, no one is stopping the employees to express their right to work somewhere else.

But where to draw the line on corporate personhood is just one of the slippery slopes these cases pose. The other involves what religious claims to respect and how to balance competing needs.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor pressed this issue a mere 42 words into Clement’s argument: What about employers religiously opposed to vaccines? Or blood transfusions?

What about them? Here’s an interesting point: they can bring up their own lawsuits. Furthermore, those are a wee bit more important than whether someone can get free condoms and birth control pills, as well as sterilization and abortifacients. Especially free. Especially when the PPACA does not actually include a mandate for to provide those, nor provide any of those for free. The entire “mandate” was created by Team Obama. Are there any employers actually trying to deny those? Any examples? There does come a point where there is a “compelling case” for the government to mandate coverage. And, are they free? In most cases, no.

If things like these are so darned important, why are all life saving drugs and procedures not free? In fact, most drugs are not free under Ocare. People must first meet the deductible, of which the average Ocare deductible is a shade over $5,000. At that point, people will then pay copays to get the drugs. You can get all sorts of free preventative screenings per Ocare (which simply raises the price of insurance), along with a few drugs. What about cancer drugs? HIV drugs? Insulin? How about smoking cessation drugs? I take OTC allergy pills, and, since one of those allergies is dust mites, I take one at least 4 days a week. Why are they not free? I need them for quality of life, certainly more than someone needs a $2 condom.

Progressives proclaim that this is all anti-woman Yet, they did not include free mastectomies or other things necessary for women. How about free mini-pads and tampons? Pills to help with heavy flow days and water retention? Hysterectomies?

Why contraception, sterilization, and abortifacients? Because this was a political decision designed to patronize the Democrat voter base. Period. Barbara Boxer complains that this is a slippery slope to denying AIDS medicine. Yet, those medicines aren’t provided free per either the ACA nor an HHS rule. Strange. HIV/AIDS patients have to first meet their deductibles, then have copays.

Not offering contraceptives, sterilization procedures, nor abortifactients, whether free or at all, has no bearing on the “rights of workers”. Those workers can pay for them themselves. Or find another job. It really is that simple, once you get beyond the unhinged rhetoric of Democrats.

Read: Progressives Really Worried About “Slippery Slopes” For Contraception Case »

Posted in Democrats, Healthcare, Unhinged Tools | 1 Comment | Trackback URL

Surprise: Obama To Allow Delay In Signing Up For Ocare

By William Teach March 26, 2014 – 7:39 am

It’s a small change, but another change to It’s. The. Law.

(Washington Post) The Obama administration has decided to give extra time to Americans who say that they are unable to enroll in health plans through the federal insurance marketplace by the March 31 deadline.

Federal officials confirmed Tuesday evening that all consumers who have begun to apply for coverage on HealthCare.gov, but who do not finish by Monday, will have until about mid-April to ask for an extension.

Under the new rules, people will be able to qualify for an extension by checking a blue box on HealthCare.gov to indicate that they tried to enroll before the deadline. This method will rely on an honor system; the government will not try to determine whether the person is telling the truth.

Interesting: if it’s so difficult to enroll through healthcare.gov that one cannot get it done in six months (remember, it was launched October 1st), and need another half month or so, perhaps the website was a disaster and people should be fired, like, say, HHS head Kathleen Sebelius.

The rules, which will apply to the federal exchanges operating in three dozen states, will essentially create a large loophole even as White House officials have repeatedly said that the March 31 deadline was firm. The extra time will not technically alter the deadline but will create a broad new category of people eligible for what’s known as a special enrollment period.

Semantics. It’s yet another lawless change to the ACA. Team Obama states that this is needed to deal with the “surge” of people flocking to the website at the last minute. Sure thing, Sparky, sure thing. Didn’t Kathleen Sebelius testify to Congress that there would be no more delays to the law? Yes, she did. This was just two weeks ago.

I’m not sure why Obama was so upset about the government shutdown over Ocare: he’s delaying everything himself.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

Read: Surprise: Obama To Allow Delay In Signing Up For Ocare »

Posted in Barry Obama, Healthcare | 5 Comments | Trackback URL
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