How Many Body Armored Police Does It Take To Check For Dirty Water?

By William Teach September 5, 2013 – 7:51 am

The answer would be eight (via Climate Depot

(Alaska Dispatch) When agents with the Alaska Environmental Crimes Task Force surged out of the wilderness around the remote community of Chicken wearing body armor and jackets emblazoned with POLICE in big, bold letters, local placer miners didn’t quite know what to think.

Did it really take eight armed men and a squad-size display of paramilitary force to check for dirty water? Some of the miners, who run small businesses, say they felt intimidated.

Others wonder if the actions of the agents put everyone at risk. When your family business involves collecting gold far from nowhere, unusual behavior can be taken as a sign someone might be trying to stage a robbery. How is a remote placer miner to know the people in the jackets saying POLICE really are police?

Miners suggest it might have been better all around if officials had just shown up at the door — as they used to do — and said they wanted to check the water.

In case you were wondering, the Environmental Protection Agency was involved

The EPA has refused to publicly explain why it used armed officers as part of what it called a “multi-jurisdictional” investigation of possible Clean Water Act violations in the area.

A conference call was held last week to address the investigation. On the line were members of the Alaska Congressional delegation, their staff, state officers, and the EPA. According to one Senate staffer, the federal agency said it decided to send in the task force armed and wearing body armor because of information it received from the Alaska State Troopers about “rampant drug and human trafficking going on in the area.”

There was apparently some concern over drug smuggling and human trafficking, which absolutely no-one is buying. And only one person was a compliance officer meant to check the water quality.

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Oh My: NY Times Notes The Brutality From Syrian Rebels

By William Teach September 5, 2013 – 7:05 am

One issue of concern regarding any vote to authorize it’s-not-really-war-but-an-action (a Senate panel voted in a split decision to authorize the not a war Wednesday) is the state of the Syrian opposition. And, shockingly, the NY Times actually discusses the state of the rebels and their brutality

The Syrian rebels posed casually, standing over their prisoners with firearms pointed down at the shirtless and terrified men.

The prisoners, seven in all, were captured Syrian soldiers. Five were trussed, their backs marked with red welts. They kept their faces pressed to the dirt as the rebels’ commander recited a bitter revolutionary verse.

“For fifty years, they are companions to corruption,” he said. “We swear to the Lord of the Throne, that this is our oath: We will take revenge.”

And then they shot the prisoners. Remember when a Syrian rebel leader cut out the heart of a prisoner and ate it? On camera? While his companions yelled that special jihadist slogan “Allahu Akbar”?

As the United States debates whether to support the Obama administration’s proposal that Syrian forces should be attacked for using chemical weapons against civilians, this video, shot in April, joins a growing body of evidence of an increasingly criminal environment populated by gangs of highwaymen, kidnappers and killers.

And Islamic extremists, who were able to infiltrate the anti-Assad forces and offer aid since Obama and other world leaders refused to offer aid and comfort previously.

The video also offers a reminder of the foreign policy puzzle the United States faces in finding rebel allies as some members of Congress, including Senator John McCain, press for more robust military support for the opposition.

Much of the concern among American officials has focused on two groups that acknowledge ties to Al Qaeda. These groups — the Nusra Front and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria — have attracted foreign jihadis, used terrorist tactics and vowed to create a society in Syria ruled by their severe interpretation of Islamic law.

So, if the Senate and House vote to authorize it’s-not-really-war against Assad and Obama finally decides to launch some airstrikes against, well, targets of little consequence with some forceful finger wagging, that’s who we’d be helping.

Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.

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Posted in Current Affairs, Islamification, RoP | 3 Comments | Trackback URL

Say, Remember When We Bombed Libya To Protect Oil For France And Britain?

By William Teach September 4, 2013 – 2:49 pm

How’s that working out? (via Ed Morrissey)

(UK Independent) Libya has almost entirely stopped producing oil as the government loses control of much of the country to militia fighters.

Mutinying security men have taken over oil ports on the Mediterranean and are seeking to sell crude oil on the black market. Ali Zeidan, Libya’s Prime Minister, has threatened to “bomb from the air and the sea” any oil tanker trying to pick up the illicit oil from the oil terminal guards, who are mostly former rebels who overthrew Muammar Gaddafi and have been on strike over low pay and alleged government corruption since July. (snip)

In an escalating crisis little regarded hitherto outside the oil markets, output of Libya’s prized high-quality crude oil has plunged from 1.4 million barrels a day earlier this year to just 160,000 barrels a day now. Despite threats to use military force to retake the oil ports, the government in Tripoli has been unable to move effectively against striking guards and mutinous military units that are linked to secessionist forces in the east of the country.

Despite all the yammering about protecting civilians during the Libyan civil war, this was really about protecting the flow of oil to France and Britain. Not working out so well, eh? No that much else is working out very well in Libya. Except for Jihadists.

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

If All You See…

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

…are evil meat filled sandwiches and a CO2 infused beer, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Director Blue, with a post on Obama’s checklist for Syria.

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Hooray! Obama Says His Red Line Is World’s Red Line

By William Teach September 4, 2013 – 10:36 am

I’m not sure if the word “shameless” is strong enough. SCOAMF might work

(CNN) President Barack Obama said Wednesday that the red line he outlined last year regarding Syria’s use of chemical weapons came from international treaties and past congressional action, and now it is time for the international community to make good on its opposition to the banned armaments.

“I didn’t set a red line. The world set a red line,” Obama told reporters on the first day of a four-day trip to Sweden and Russia to attend a G-20 summit in St. Petersburg.

Like most, I was flabbergasted when I heard this live.

More on this at Twitchy. Obama also said that it wasn’t his credibility on the line, in response to a direct question

“My credibility is not on the line, the international community’s credibility is on the line,” he responds.

He also said Congress’ credibility is on the line. Interestingly, Sweden hasn’t rushed out to go bomb Syria. Or even noted that they’re interested. Nor have any other nations.

I was also disappointed that Obama slouched and leaned on the podium virtually the entire time. Rather embarrassing.

More: The Weekly Standard has the video.

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Posted in Barking Moonbats, Barry Obama | 5 Comments | Trackback URL

Warmists Now Claim “Climate Change” Will Steer Big Hurricanes Away From East Coast

By William Teach September 4, 2013 – 9:10 am

In terms of landfalling hurricanes, this seems to be what’s happening. It’s been over 7 years and 10 months since a major hurricane (category 3+) hit the United States. There has only been one barely a hurricane strike since 2008. Superstorm Sandy was not a hurricane at time of landfall. Hurricanes and tropical systems seem to be staying out at sea more often. Could it be a result of a climate that is in the midst of a mostly natural warm period? Sure. But, I suspect this “report” is simply a CYA one designed to protect the Climatologists religion

(Guardian) A recurrence of Superstorm Sandy – which barrelled head-on into the Atlantic coast, swamping New York City and large parts of New Jersey – is less likely under climate change, new research suggests.

Scientists expect stronger hurricanes under climate change, and possibly even more frequent storms – especially those at category 3 and higher. But New York City and much of the seaboard will be at lower risk of taking a direct hit, the study published on Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences said.

Instead, climate change will make it even less likely future storms will follow Sandy’s devastating track. The killer storm made a sharp left turn to slam straight into the Atlantic coast. The odds of a storm like Sandy were already extremely remote – a once in 700 year event – when it hit in October 2012. But it was that trajectory that made Sandy so devastating.

Essentially, what they’re saying is “we don’t know why the humongous 2005 storm year hasn’t become the new norm, why tropical systems are hitting the east coast with less frequency, and why there aren’t more major storms, but, we need the money train to keep a rollin’, so here’s a study”.

The researchers used climate models, based on a tripling of greenhouse gas emissions by 2100, to study whether future atmospheric conditions be more or less likely to blow a storm like Sandy westwards into the Atlantic coast.

Ah. computer models. Which, as you remember, dear reader, fail to even predict what happened in the past. As it stands, hurricane predictions cannot even predict what will happen just a few days out with certainty. But, don’t worry, they know what will happen 90 years from now. When CO2 levels are 1200ppm.  Right. Sure thing. But, if true, doesn’t this mean “climate change” is a good thing? Having lived through many tropical systems here in North Carolina, I’d say so.

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

Thinking Out Loud, John Kerry Won’t Rule Out Ground Troops

By William Teach September 4, 2013 – 8:46 am

Remember the days when John Kerry said that Iraq was the wrong war in the wrong place in the wrong time? When he and other Democrats, including President McBombypants, were constantly assaulting Operation Iraqi Freedom, which freed 50 million people from a brutal, murderous, torturous, rapist, limb cutting off, chemical weapons using regime which saw, according to a statistical study done by a Jordanian doctor, 50 thousand children die every year because they were denied food and medicine? How about when Saddam continued to violate 17 UN resolutions? Supported multiple Middle East terrorist groups? Paid families $25K to send their kids off on suicide bombing missions in Israel? How things change

(Mediate) Secretary of State John Kerry refused to absolutely rule out the possibility of U.S. troops on the ground in Syria on Tuesday.

During a hearing on Syria in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, committee chairman Sen. Bob Menendez asked Kerry whether there would be any possibility of ground troops eventually entering Syria at some point.

The administration has “no desire” to do that, Kerry said.

But, “In the event Syria imploded for instance or in the event there was a threat of a chemical weapons cache falling into the hands of al-Nusra or someone else and it was clearly in the interest of our allies — all of us, the British, the French, and others,” Kerry said, “I don’t want to take off the table an option that might or might not be available to the president of the United States to secure our country.”

Kerry quickly walked it back, saying, “The bottom line is, the president has no intention and will not, and we do not want to, put American troops on the ground to fight this, or be involved in the fighting of this civil war, period.”

What could possibly go wrong with limited air strikes on a client state of Russia and Iran which isn’t really targeting the actual chemical weapons caches? Surely, all those jihadist groups fighting against Assad wouldn’t try and do something like get their hands on them, right? And could we possibly have any sense that Obama would listen to the American people and not put any troops on the ground, considering he doesn’t listen to Americans in the first place, and cares not a whit for the Constitution?

Pressed on this point later by Sen.Bob Corker, Kerry said, “All I did was raise a hypothetical question about some possibility — and I’m thinking out loud — about how to protect America’s interests.”

And there’s one of the problems: what are America’s interests in the Syrian civil war, matching a brutal regime against Islamic terror groups? So far, I have yet to hear anything to confirm any American interests. How about you?

Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.

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How To Destroy The Morals And Mores Of A Country

By William Teach September 3, 2013 – 3:38 pm

In discussing the uber-left book Christan Nation, I mentioned

I generally avoid the heavily political fiction books (I don’t mind a bit of politics, but, keep it simple), but there are two I’ve read in the last year or so, An Act Of Self Defense by Erne Lewis and In Due Time by J.K. Jones, that are spectacular. The first is about the need for term limits in a State that is increasingly tyrannical. The latter is actually a time travel book that mixes in what would happen if the US becomes super Progressive. The difference here is that both those books understand the cardinal rule: Entertainment First. I’ve started a few that did not understand this, and put them away.

I’ve had a book on my Kindle for a few weeks, entitled Thy Kingdom Fall by Austin Dragon. I was a bit hesitant about reading it, like with most heavily political books, especially since it was supposed to be very much about religion. There are two things I’m very private about, and those are sex and religion. Both are my business. I was never one to discuss any adventures with a lady, and I’m uncomfortable in religious conversations. Yet, Mr. Dragon understands that One Must Entertain. He does a great job at it, especially since it is really about religion, but it hasn’t made me uncomfortable. It has provoked many pauses as to what he just wrote as I’m reading it, and I hope he will forgive me for noting this long passage which is about how to change the opinion of a large/majority portion of a population. This starts on page 96/location 1740

Pick the new/alternative behavior or viewpoint you wish to condition the society to adopt as the norm. We shall name it X.

  1. Talk about X as often as possible and thereby make X look normal and commonplace
  2. Talk about the religious institutions that support X as often as possible and thereby suggest endorsement of X by notable entities
  3. Portray religious institutions that don’t support X as bigoted, hateful, backwards, and religious institutions that do support X as champions, noble, righteous
  4. Portray members or practitioners of X as victims needing government protection and support-the greater the portrayed victimhood of X the greater their moral claim on the larger society
  5. Portray individuals or groups opposed to X as aggressors needing public condemnation, and ultimately enact laws against them
  6. Make members of X always look good (use positive historic figures or celebrities if available) and hide any negative portrayals
  7. Portray individuals or groups opposed to X always as bad, crazy, bigoted, dangers, and out of the mainstream, and hide any good portrayals
  8. To attract those undecided, show that support of X is not necessarily support of X itself but support for anti-discrimination and tolerance
  9. Make government elite reinforce the campaign to support X vocally and often
  10. Raise and use the needed money to support the campaign to make X the norm

Sound familiar?

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Posted in Books, Musings | 3 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

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

…is the name of an evil fossil fuels company which should be banned, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Nice Deb, with a post on Obama’s war footing.

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Posted in If All You See | 1 Comment | Trackback URL

The “97% Consensus” Breaks Down

By William Teach September 3, 2013 – 12:11 pm

I’ve already, like many others, beaten up on the recent paper claiming there is a 97% consensus of Hotcoldwetdry doom. Here’s Lord Christopher Monckton on the further destruction of the meme, doing a guest post at William W. Briggs (via Tom Nelson)

A major peer-reviewed paper by four senior researchers has exposed grave errors in an earlier paper in a new and unknown journal that had claimed a 97.1% scientific consensus that Man had caused at least half the 0.7 Co global warming since 1950. (Snip)

The new paper by the leading climatologist Dr David Legates and his colleagues, published in the respected Science and Education journal, now in its 21st year of publication, reveals that Cook had not considered whether scientists and their published papers had said climate change was “dangerous”.

The consensus Cook considered was the standard definition: that Man had caused most post-1950 warming. Even on this weaker definition the true consensus among published scientific papers is now demonstrated to be not 97.1%, as Cook had claimed, but only 0.3%.

Only 41 out of the 11,944 published climate papers Cook examined explicitly stated that Man caused most of the warming since 1950. Cook himself had flagged just 64 papers as explicitly supporting that consensus, but 23 of the 64 had not in fact supported it.

What the original Cook paper was attempting to do was find a way to link consensus, which is not science, to papers that were supposedly scientific, and say “see? Consensus is science!”

Make sure to read the whole thing.

Read: The “97% Consensus” Breaks Down »

Posted in Collapsing Science, Global Warming | 4 Comments | Trackback URL
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