If All You See…

By William Teach February 12, 2014 – 1:00 pm

…is warmth created snow from too much use of central heating during fossil fuels created cold snaps, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Black & Right, with the Ewww of the day.

Read: If All You See… »

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Per Climate Models, The Observations Must Be Wrong

By William Teach February 12, 2014 – 11:36 am

A pithy post by Dr. Roy Spencer

95% of Climate Models Agree: The Observations Must be Wrong

I’m seeing a lot of wrangling over the recent (15+ year) pause in global average warming…when did it start, is it a full pause, shouldn’t we be taking the longer view, etc.

These are all interesting exercises, but they miss the most important point: the climate models that governments base policy decisions on have failed miserably.

I’ve updated our comparison of 90 climate models versus observations for global average surface temperatures through 2013, and we still see that >95% of the models have over-forecast the warming trend since 1979, whether we use their own surface temperature dataset (HadCRUT4), or our satellite dataset of lower tropospheric temperatures (UAH):

(I’m keeping the graphic outside the blockquote in order to make it a bit larger)

He goes on to note that whether or not humans are the cause or not, the observations show that the warming is not that bad, and not that dire of an issue, and should have minimal policy implications. Regardless of how much mankind causes (Warmists say most or all, Dr. Spencer is more in the 50% range, I’m in the 10-20% range), there really is no doom. Which, of course, is why Warmists have moved on to the 50-100 years doomsaying meme. But, a 0.1C increase over the long term isn’t really scary. Except to unhinged Warmists, who still won’t change their own behavior.

Read: Per Climate Models, The Observations Must Be Wrong »

Posted in Collapsing Science, Global Warming | 5 Comments | Trackback URL

Deranged Envirowackos Demonstrate At Oil Exec’s House

By William Teach February 12, 2014 – 7:54 am

How deranged? This deranged

(Washington Free Beacon) Masked protesters carrying torches and threatening organized violence protested outside the home of an executive at a major oil pipeline company last week.

Eight environmental activists gathered on the lawn of Mark Maki, a member of the Enbridge Energy Company’s board of directors and president of Enbridge Energy Management, to protest the arrests of three anti-pipeline activists last year.

The protesters, who brandished torches for a photo posted online, held a sign warning, “solidarity means attack” and “we will shut you down.”

This occurred in Houston, Texas

“Tell the rest of the [Enbridge] board they can expect visits,” one protester at Maki’s house said.

I’m not sure why the police weren’t called and these nuts arrested: this is threatening behavior with a threat of violence. Which seems normal for so many Leftists/enviros/Warmists.

Read: Deranged Envirowackos Demonstrate At Oil Exec’s House »

Posted in Enviroweenies, Liberal World, Unhinged Tools | 4 Comments | Trackback URL

House Passes Clean Debt Ceiling Hike

By William Teach February 12, 2014 – 7:36 am

Many conservatives/Republicans range from agitated to apoplectic. Liberals are crowing. The Washington Post’s uber-leftists (like the WP’s opinion pages aren’t chock full of them, has to be at least a 85-15% split) goes with this provocative headline

GOP debt limit extortion is dead

Because attempting to limit the insane debt increases is apparently a bad thing. Remember, the debt was $10.626 trillion on President Bush’s last day in office. The debt clock now stands at $17.325 trillion. It rose $4.899 trillion during the two terms of the Bush presidency. It’s risen almost $7 trillion during the Obama pResidency in slightly over 5 years.

Politico called it The GOP’s debt ceiling surrender. The New Republic claims the Tea Party is folding on the debt. Others went just as crazy. But what was this really about? A different Washington Post writer, Robert Costa, writes

Ahead of the midterm elections, Boehner argued that now is not the time to get drawn into weeks of dramatic headlines and fiscal battles with President Obama. “We’re not going to make ourselves the story,” he said. He spoke about the need for the party to not get mired in damaging endeavors.

Supposedly the room of Republicans were stunned. Perhaps there were a few who disagree with the tactic. But, since they are all politicians, I suspect most understood. If not, their staffs probably explained it to them. There is zero point in getting into another debt ceiling fight ahead of the mid-terms. No matter how it shakes out, Republicans will Be Blamed. We do not control the majority of the media, especially the national ones. We do not control the presidency nor the Senate. The idea is to retake the Senate this year while holding the House. Ace notes

I remarked last week or the one before that I’m personally not enraged by this. We’re getting beaten; we don’t have the cards.

There is a bit of “theater,” however, in the Republicans votes on this. As AllahPundit notes, the Republicans voting for the debt ceiling hike are either leadership, or blue-state Representatives who have to answer to blue-state constituents, or people who are, conveniently, about to retire.

And I guess I could be mad about that too, but that gets close to being angry to find some politics going on in politics.

He also notes that there are better things to fight about. Well, fighting the debt ceiling is important, but there is a time and place to do it politically. We could not win it. Pick the fights correctly. Do not do anything to ruin the chance of regaining full control of Congress.

The Lonely Conservative notes a dire prediction by the CBO regarding the debt. Unfortunately, the liberal media will not explain the danger of the skyrocketing debt, and Democrats do not care about it.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

Read: House Passes Clean Debt Ceiling Hike »

Posted in Economy, Politics | 16 Comments | Trackback URL

Obamacare: Long Waits And Restricted Doctors Networks

By William Teach February 11, 2014 – 3:23 pm

Obviously, we all know, and by “all” I mean people who aren’t suckling at Obama’s teet (you’re welcome for that visual), that Ocare will cause rationing, long waits, and limited medical facilities. We’ve heard these stories again and again and again since registration launched (or should that be “launched”?) on October 1st, 2013, particularly in regards to the limited numbers of doctors and medical facilities. Well, here comes more, per Fox News’ Jim Angle

Those who signed up for ObamaCare or were forced into it now are learning they’re going to face some nasty surprises when they seek care.

“Many consumers ended up purchasing a plan through the exchange, thinking it would cover their normal set of physicians, and hospitals,” says Jim Capretta of the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

“Now as they are using services, they are figuring out that they don’t.”

Yeah, but it’s affordable! Or should that be “affordable”? All the Ocare radio commercials here in North Carolina stress “quality” and barely mention affordability. The closest they come is “lower payments”, without mentioning that the deductibles are expensive.

For instance, one study shows that while a commercial plan would have about 40 cardiologists per 100,000 people, a typical ObamaCare plan would have an average of only 15.

Dr. Scott Gottlieb of the American Enterprise Institute, or AEI, found a similar situation in a county in Florida where there are “seven pediatricians for a county that serviced almost a quarter of a million children. We found plans in San Diego County that only gave you access to 10 dermatologists.”

We know that Ocare stresses cost reduction over care, and consumers get neither.

The end result is plans that employ a version of rationing — either by distance or long wait times to get an appointment.

“You’re promised a lot of benefits on paper, but when you go to try to schedule an appointment to actually get access to the services, you can’t get that appointment,” says Gottlieb.

Welcome to Ocare.

Read: Obamacare: Long Waits And Restricted Doctors Networks »

Posted in Healthcare | 2 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach February 11, 2014 – 1:00 pm

…is a frozen ground in the tropics caused by too much CO2, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is American Power, where Donald Douglas is not impressed with Glenn Greenwald’s new media venture.

Read: If All You See… »

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Hooray! Warmists Find Excuse #8 For Pause

By William Teach February 11, 2014 – 11:00 am

They can’t help themselves. Interestingly, the excuses include natural forces for the pause, but these same Warmists won’t acknowledge natural forces for the warming, except perhaps for a tiny, tiny bit

(The Hockey Schtick) A paper published today in Nature Climate Change adds the eighth excuse for the ‘pause’ in global warming: strengthened Pacific trade winds, which according to the authors, were “not captured [simulated] by climate models.” On the basis of those same highly-flawed climate models, the authors predict rapid global warming will resume in a decade or so when those trade winds abate.

Climate Depot Analysis: ‘There have been at least seven separate explanations for the standstill in global warming’ – 1) Low Solar Activity; 2) Oceans Ate Warming; 3) Chinese Coal Use; 4) Montreal Protocol; 5) Readjusted past temps to claim ‘pause’ never existed 6) Volcanoes 7) Decline in Water Vapor

Here’s that paper

Trade winds may be a significant cause of the so called global warming pause, according to new research.

An article published online today in Nature Climate Change investigates how strengthened Pacific trade winds can account for 0.1C- 0.2C of cooling through increased subsurface ocean heat uptake – this is enough to account for much of the temperature slowdown in the so called global warming pause.

Global average surface temperatures rose sharply during the second half of the 20th century before leveling off since the late 1990s despite a continuing increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations. Scientists have yet to fully explain the recent slowdown in the rise of air temperatures attributed to the so called global warming pause that, on at least one measure, has lasted for over 17 years.

Much of what they are positioning is that the warming was the fault of Mankind, but the pause was nature. And they say that warming, per all their flawed computer models, will soon come back in force. Cult.

Anthony Watts notes that we were told something completely different about the trade winds a few years ago.

Jo Nova has the trade winds issue in a nutshell (make sure to read the whole post)

1.  It is almost as if climate modelers finally discover the PDO cycle. Akasofu (and many many other skeptics) have been pointing out the obvious, and making predictions on it, for years.

2.  Perhaps the trade-winds are affecting the climate. But what drives the trade-winds? The models can’t predict the trade-winds until they understand what drives them. If it turns out to be cloud cover changes, or lunar orbits, or solar magnetic effects, cosmic ray effects, or all of the above… that means there is another whole factor or lots of them that the models did not include. Every warming factor added to the models reduces the power of CO2 as a driver.

3. Internal Variability means “we have no idea what is going on”.

But, the cult is uber-thrilled over the study. Warmist sites like Grist and Climate Progress have jumped all over it. They have no idea what is going on, but they’ll still make dire predictions for the far future. It’s all about keeping the money train and cult going. And the hardcore progressive politics.

Read: Hooray! Warmists Find Excuse #8 For Pause »

Posted in Collapsing Science, Global Warming, New Climate Deniers | 11 Comments | Trackback URL

Ted Cruz: Enviroweenies Should Love Keystone XL

By William Teach February 11, 2014 – 8:16 am

A nice bit of mental jujitsu, but Ted forgets that Keystone XL isn’t about environmentalism: it’s a cause celebre with the “climate change” cult, and they will not let go (especially as they drive their fossil fueled vehicles to the protests)

(ABC News) If you love the environment, Sen. Ted Cruz says you should love the Keystone XL pipeline too.

“If you’re a Birkenstock-wearing, tree-hugging Greenpeace activist, you should love the Keystone pipeline,” Cruz said at the Heritage Action’s Conservative Policy Summit on Monday.

Cruz, R-Texas, focused his remarks on a push to deregulate the controversial practice of hydraulic fracking and expanding offshore exploration, and in the process, appealed to any environmentalists listening in on his remarks.

“The Canadians are not going to leave the tar sands unmolested,” Cruz said. “They’ll send it to China to be refined there and it will be refined in a much, much dirtier way.

“If your concern is the environment, the last thing you want to do is send that oil to China to be refined there, which will be far more damage to the environment than refining it in the U.S., where it would generate good, high paying jobs,” he added.

Warmists do not care. They’ve found a physical item to protest (strange that they do not protest their own fossil fueled vehicles), and reality be damned. Much like their support of Doing Something about “climate change”. And by “Doing Something”, they mean laws, rules, and regulations that affect Other People, not themselves.

Cruz also suggested that by refusing to allow drilling on American Indian reservations and other untapped federal lands, the Obama administration has been crushing low-income workers.

“There are considerable natural resources on Indian lands, [yet] many Native Americans, tragically, live in crushing poverty … The resources are right there to improve their standard of living. And it is only the federal government that is keeping them in that condition of poverty,” Cruz said.

Excellent point. While Democrats have been worried about the “mean” name of the Washington Redskins, conditions on quite a few Indian reservations are pitiful. Allowing drilling would certainly help increase the standard of living. But that would harm the “climate change” narrative.

Read: Ted Cruz: Enviroweenies Should Love Keystone XL »

Posted in Energy, Environment, Global Warming, GOP | 1 Comment | Trackback URL

Krauthammer: Welcome To The Banana Republic

By William Teach February 11, 2014 – 7:52 am

Surely, Charles Krauthammer’s comments will be deemed raaaaacist, in order to change the subject

(Fox News) Syndicated columnist and Fox News contributor Charles Krauthammer took aim at the newest ObamaCare delay on “Special Report with Bret Baier” Monday, calling it “the stuff that you do in a banana republic.”

The Obama administration announced it was exempting mid-size businesses, or those with 50-99 employees, from the law until 2016 and are allowing large businesses, with more than 100 employees, to phase in health care coverage during the next two years. The large businesses would have to cover 70 percent of employees the first year and then 95 percent the following year and beyond.

“I mean this is stuff that that you do in a banana republic,” Krauthammer said. “It’s as if the law is simply a blackboard on which Obama writes any number he wants, any delay he wants, any provision. It’s changing a law in the way that you are not allowed to do.”

It’s not the first time he’s referred to the country as the President runs it as a banana republic. One of those was just a month ago, and this simply strengthens the notion.

The delay explicitly violates the “Affordable” Care Act, as the employer mandate was supposed to take effect on 1/1/2014. Period. It is in the text. Furthermore, the law deems any company with 50 or more full time employees (on average) as an “applicable large employer”. Obama has deemed those with 50-99 as “medium employers”.

Here’s John Boehner

“Once again, the president is giving a break to corporations while individuals and families are still stuck under the mandates of his health care law. And, once again, the president is rewriting law on a whim. If the administration doesn’t believe employers can manage the burden of the law, how can struggling families be expected to? This continued manipulation by the president breeds confusion and erodes Americans’ confidence in him and his health care law.  We need fairness for all, with relief from ObamaCare for every American.”

Quite a few people are getting bent out of shape over this

At 4:45 POTUS and president Hollande walked out from a portico and strolled in Front of your pool with Leslie Bowman, president of the Monticello Foundation. Looking at a terrace she said that Jefferson loved to admire the landscape from there. POTUS said that he’d like to take a look and seemed delighted to “break the protocol”.

“That’s the good thing as a President, I can do whatever I want” he quipped, walking to the terrace with his guest and Ms. Bowman. Pool now in the mansion as the leaders will come and visit Jefferson’s study.

That’s from the pool report, and many on the right are going a big overboard. In context, he’s simply discussing breaking protocol. However, doing “whatever I want” seems to be a theme of this president. Elected Republicans need to either drop it or going hard after Obama for his lawlessness. This middle ground soft-peddling method is useless. As Krauthammer notes regarding yesterday’s delay “It’s now reached a point where it is so endemic that nobody even notices or complains”. Certainly not if the complaints are simple slaps on the wrist.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

Read: Krauthammer: Welcome To The Banana Republic »

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

Obama Delays Portion Of Employer Mandate Till 2016

By William Teach February 10, 2014 – 5:02 pm

I can see through your webcam that there was no surprise in your eyes in the least. At most, you simply rolled your eyes that Obama has unilaterly changed It’s. The. Law. yet again

(Washington Post) The Obama administration announced Monday it would give medium-sized employers an extra year, until 2016, before they must offer health insurance to their full-time workers.

Firms with at least 100 employees will have to start offering this coverage in 2015.

By offering an unexpected grace period to businesses with between 50 and 99 employees, administration officials are hoping to defuse another potential controversy involving the 2010 health-care law, which has become central to Republicans’ campaign to make political gains in this year’s midterm election.

So, let’s see, Obama has changed a portion of the law for strictly political convenience with the mid-terms approaching, not too mention that he’s applying the law inconsistently while treating different sized companies differently (equal protection under the law, anyone?), oh, and he really has no statutory authority to do this, and the WP yawns. Imagine if a Republican president acted in a lawless manner.

Even the nation’s largest employers got a significant concession: They can avoid a fine by offering coverage to 70 percent of their full-time employees in 2015 and 95 percent starting in 2016. Under an earlier proposal, employers with at least 50 employees would have been required to offer insurance, beginning 2015, to 95 percent of those who work 30 hours or more a week, along with their dependents.

Remember, though

Except where King Obama wants to change it for political power and elections.

Read: Obama Delays Portion Of Employer Mandate Till 2016 »

Posted in Barry Obama, Healthcare | 22 Comments | Trackback URL
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