Boehner Slams Obamacare Website “Scheduled Maintenance”

By William Teach October 5, 2013 – 8:06 am

No website is perfect. Things happen. My host, Dreamhost, has certainly had their share of issues over the years, from minor annoyances to huge outages. Of course, they, like all sorts of giant individual websites, like CNN, Fox News, Youtube, etc, rarely go down, especially for “planned maintenance”. Obamacare?

(The Hill) Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) blasted plans to partially disable ObamaCare’s enrollment site for maintenance during non-peak hours this weekend as a sign of major flaws with the law.

“The news that [the] enrollment system is already going offline confirms that the launch of the president’s healthcare law has been an unmitigated disaster,” Boehner said in a statement Friday.

The comment followed tweets by several Republican leadership staffers mocking the decision from federal health officials and suggesting that it masks serious problems with healthcare.gov.

Boehner also criticized the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for refusing to ay how many people have successfully enrolled in coverage so far.

“This announcement is more proof that we need to delay the law and provide basic fairness, just as Republicans have called for. How can this administration tax individuals for not purchasing a product from a website that doesn’t even work?” Boehner said. Even the Washington Post has noticed that Exchange websites are mostly a disaster, especially Maryland, which was supposed to be a poster child. And

A few state exchanges are performing well. Connecticut officials threw themselves a party after a successful second day. Kentucky officials had a yellow sheet cake with “100,000” in white icing to mark the number of people who had completed the pre-screening process Wednesday.

Let me get this straight: Kentucky was celebrating people completing a process, not people actually signing up for insurance? Personally, I love how healthcare.gov says “Plus, see if you qualify for lower costs.”

They are supposedly going to take it off-line during off-peak hours to add “enhancements”. Because it’s not like they had 3 years and oodles of taxpayer money (wasn’t this supposed to be revenue neutral?) to get it right at launch.

Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.

Read: Boehner Slams Obamacare Website “Scheduled Maintenance” »

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Students Really Psyched For This Divestment Movement

By William Teach October 4, 2013 – 3:25 pm

However, not so much about giving up their own fossil fuels or energy usage

(USA Today) If energy consumption continues to grow at its current rate, that’s when the level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will cause permanent climate change, according to a new U.N. report.

That year stuck out to Daniel Sherrell, a senior at Brown University. He will be 49 then.

“Before then, members of Congress and the international community will have to swallow their hubris and make difficult decisions,” says Sherrell, a leader of the Brown Divest Coal Campaign, which advocates that Brown stop investing in the coal industry.

Strange, Sherrell and his group want Brown to give up a major revenue stream, but no mention of giving up their own cars. I wonder if all these folks would be willing to give up all their electricity sucking tech?

Ophir Bruck, a senior at the University of California-Berkeley and Fossil Free Campaign coordinator, hopes students can get the University of California system to commit to divestment by the end of the year.

However, he sees the Fossil Free campaign’s goals extending beyond divestment.

“A huge part of the campaign is to educate students and to just spread awareness among students, faculty, staff, alumni of climate change and the urgency with which we need to act,” Bruck says.

Here’s where it gets good, since Bruck, like so many other Leftists, is going to Power Shift 2013. In Pittsburgh. How will he and the roughly 10k other climahypocrites get there?

Also, notice the “spreading awareness” idiocy. Warmists still refuse to practice what they preach.

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Posted in AGW Idiocy, Climahypocrites, Energy, Liberal World | 8 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach October 4, 2013 – 1:00 pm

…is a wonderful bad weather preventing bicycle with a reusable water bottle, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Jo Nova, with a post by Bob Tisdale noting 6 questions the media should be asking the IPCC on AR5.

Read: If All You See… »

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Bummer: Over 93% Of EPA Staff Considered “Non-Essential”

By William Teach October 4, 2013 – 10:28 am

Kinda tells you how far they’ve gone from the core mission, eh? (via Junk Science)

(Reuters) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will take one of the biggest hits of any federal agency if the government shuts down this week, operating with under 7 percent of its employees, according to guidance issued by the agency.

Among those furloughed would be most workers at the Office of Air and Radiation, which is in charge of writing and implementing most of the EPA’s major air pollution rules. The clock would also stop, for now, on the EPA’s eagerly-awaited proposal on renewable fuel volume standards for 2014.

I’m not sure businesses are eagerly-awaiting those standard. Unless “eagerly” is a substitute for trepidation. Those standards are going to cause more and more problems and increase costs. Either way, when less than 7% of your employees are deemed essential, then the agency is out of control and mostly worthless.

Read: Bummer: Over 93% Of EPA Staff Considered “Non-Essential” »

Posted in Current Affairs, Energy, Environment | 1 Comment | Trackback URL

Arizona Gov’t, Businesses Fight To Re-open Grand Canyon

By William Teach October 4, 2013 – 8:04 am

However, Obama’s Department Of Making Americans Feel The Pain have said “nope”

(Fox News) With the partial suspension of U.S. government services showing no signs of ending, tourists will continue to be turned away from the Grand Canyon, despite a push by Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer and local businesses to reopen the state’s signature national park.

Brewer wants the iconic park reopened and has offered to pay for it with state money, but her proposal was rejected Thursday by a park official who said that as long as the federal government remains shut down, such a plan isn’t an option.

“I appreciate the support and I thanked them for the offer, but it’s not an offer we can accept,” said park superintendent Dave Uberuaga.

Private businesses have also offered to chip in to keep the park open. Denied

In other news, yes, Obama’s hysterics have actually closed the Grand Canyon. Seriously. The Grand Canyon. A massive hole in the ground 277 miles long, up to 18 miles wide, and reaching a depth of over a mile. Closed. No hiking. Because, apparently, we need the Helping Hand of Government to understand how to hike

Read: Arizona Gov’t, Businesses Fight To Re-open Grand Canyon »

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Washington Post: Republicans Owe Capitol Police A Paycheck And Apology After Shooting

By William Teach October 4, 2013 – 7:12 am

Apparently this will become a meme (at least for me) as the sorta-shutdown continues, with the Washington Post Editorial Board sipping the sweet sweet kool-aid of demagoguery. Remember, they aren’t “rabid partisans“, same as Senator Dianne Feinstein. This one gets even more non-rabidly partisan

In shooting near Capitol, government workers rush into danger

(Two paragraphs describing Capitol Hill shooting yesterday)

What seems beyond doubt is that Secret Service personnel, Capitol Police and probably many others rushed toward, not away from, danger — as they are trained to do and as Americans expect them to do. Inside Congress, aides took cover, traded anxious text messages and then went on with their work.

Like hundreds of thousands of other federal employees, these are men and women whose contributions have been demeaned by the federal shutdown, who are being asked to work without, at least for the moment, being paid — and who are doing their jobs with considerably more dignity than the House of Representatives has mustered.

“We all owe the Capitol Police a debt of gratitude for their work every day; no finer examples of professionalism & bravery,” tweeted House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio). That’s true. But Mr. Boehner owes them, and the rest of the federal workforce, more than a 140-character message of thanks. He owes them a paycheck; he owes them a budget; he owes them an apology.

Good thing the WP Editorial Board took their time to get their facts straight. They might have done something like search and read on ye olde Internet.

The U.S. Capitol Police will be exempt from the furloughs, and House cafeterias are not likely to see closures because they are run by private contractors, though they could scale back their services if the customer volume decreases.

The WPEB isn’t alone in the meme without research that the Capitol Police aren’t being paid. You can find all sorts of media, blogs, and tweets playing this game.

PS: When’s the last time you saw hard-core Progressives enthusiastic over someone using a gun for its intended purpose?

Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.

Read: Washington Post: Republicans Owe Capitol Police A Paycheck And Apology After Shooting »

Posted in Journalistic Malpractice, Unhinged Tools | 1 Comment | Trackback URL

According To Obama, NC Teachers Should Be Fired If They Walk Off

By William Teach October 3, 2013 – 7:20 pm

North Carolina teachers want more money from taxpayers for doing the jobs they voluntarily applied for and tool

(Raleigh N&O) A proposed statewide teacher walk-out to protest pay and working conditions is getting a mixed response from the people it is supposed to benefit.

Some think skipping school en masse could give teachers leverage in budgeting decisions, while others see the proposed disruption as a set-back to their relationships with parents, administrators and students.

Word of the proposed Nov. 4 protest first spread via a pseudonymous web posting and now has a Wake County teacher as a central advocate. The plan calls for teachers to not show up for school that day to press for “a fair balance between workload, expectations and compensation for our teachers,” according to a rallying cry on Facebook and at ncteacherwalkout.weebly.com.

According to Obama

(National Review) During his speech today, the president said something rather strange. “If a worker shut down a manufacturing plant until they got what they wanted, they’d be fired,” Obama shouted.

So, teachers walk out, they should be immediately fired. Thanks for setting the standard, Mr. Obama!

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Posted in Barry Obama, NC News | 4 Comments | Trackback URL

Oceans Are Doomed From Trace Amounts Of Gas Necessary For Life

By William Teach October 3, 2013 – 2:55 pm

Today’s scary, or, is that, unhinged? story made possible because you drove a fossil fueled vehicle to work today, and might have actually used hair spray

(Reuters) The world’s oceans are under greater threat than previously believed from a “deadly trio” of global warming, declining oxygen levels and acidification, an international study said on Thursday.

The oceans have continued to warm, pushing many commercial fish stocks towards the poles and raising the risk of extinction for some marine species, despite a slower pace of temperature rises in the atmosphere this century, it said.

“Risks to the ocean and the ecosystems it supports have been significantly underestimated,” according to the International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO), a non-governmental group of leading scientists.

Corals might cease to grow if temperatures rose by 2 degrees Celsius (3.6F) and start to dissolve at 3 degrees (5.4F), the study said.

“If”. Funny thing is, corals and most life in the sea and on land developed during periods where CO2 was much, much higher as were temperatures. And so was the sea level. How else do they think so many of these coral based islands came into being?

Read: Oceans Are Doomed From Trace Amounts Of Gas Necessary For Life »

Posted in AGW Scaremongering, Global Warming | 20 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach October 3, 2013 – 1:00 pm

…are wonderful hills that would be perfect for wind turbine farm, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Scared Monkeys, with a post about the overestimation for the California Obamacare exchange.

Read: If All You See… »

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

New Zealand To Hold Hearing On Kiribati “Climate Refugee”

By William Teach October 3, 2013 – 11:11 am

The results of the court case could have far-ranging implications

(Vancouver Sun) A man from one of the lowest-lying countries on Earth is trying to convince New Zealand judges that he’s a refugee – suffering not from persecution, but from climate change.

The 37-year-old and his wife left his remote atoll in the Pacific country of Kiribati six years ago for higher ground and better prospects in New Zealand, where their three children were born. Immigration authorities have twice rejected his argument that rising sea levels make it too dangerous for him and his family to return to Kiribati.

So on Oct. 16, the man’s lawyer, Michael Kidd, plans to argue the case before New Zealand’s High Court. Kidd, who specializes in human rights cases, told The Associated Press he will appeal the case all the way to the country’s Supreme Court if necessary.

Legal experts consider the man’s case a long shot, but it will nevertheless be closely watched, and might have implications for tens of millions of residents in low-lying islands around the world.

Warmists, including high level ones at the UN IPCC, have created this fantasy about “climate refugees”, because people never moved to a more preferable climate before SUVs.

I’ve mentioned this same guy before, and noted

In other words, he didn’t want to go back to the poo infested waters of Kiribati so he decided to apply using the silly “climate refugee” crap. Pun intended.

The waters around Kiribati are not rising. In fact, the islands themselves are growing. Even if the waters were rising, how the heck do these flat earth Warmists think they came into being anyhow? The islands are coral based, hence, the seas had to be higher in the past to allow the coral to build what would become islands when the sea level went down.

Here’s the sea level data for Kiribati, the last measurement by the Aussie government, which ran the monitoring station

Here’s more data, via Eyes On Brown

Read More »

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