Sea World, Trader Joes, Join The “Obamacare Is Bad For Business” Party

By William Teach September 12, 2013 – 8:00 am

The hit parade keeps playing on

(Orlando Sentinel) SeaWorld Entertainment Inc. is reducing hours for thousands of part-time workers, a move that would allow the Orlando-based theme-park owner to avoid offering those employees medical insurance under the federal government’s health-care overhaul.

SeaWorld confirmed the move Monday in a brief written statement to the Orlando Sentinel. The company operates 11 theme parks across the United States and has about 22,000 employees — nearly 18,000 of whom are part-time or seasonal workers. It has more than 4,000 part-time and seasonal workers in Central Florida.

Under a new corporate policy, SeaWorld will schedule part-time workers for no more than 28 hours a week, down from a previous limit of 32 hours a week. The new cap is expected to go into effect by November.

In fairness, Sea World would not state specifically that this move was done to avoid having to provide coverage under Obamacare, but rational thinking adults understand there is no other reason for the move. Then there’s Trader Joe’s

(HuffPo) After extending health care coverage to many of its part-time employees for years, Trader Joe’s has told workers who log fewer than 30 hours a week that they will need to find insurance on the Obamacare exchanges next year, according to a confidential memo from the grocer’s chief executive.

In the memo to staff dated Aug. 30, Trader Joe’s CEO Dan Bane said the company will cut part-timers a check for $500 in January and help guide them toward finding a new plan under the Affordable Care Act. The company will continue to offer health coverage to workers who carry 30 hours or more on average.

It sure seems as if Obamacare is “highly disruptive”. But don’t take my word for it

(Fox News) The AFL-CIO approved a resolution saying that President Obama’s health care overhaul will drive up the costs of union-sponsored health plans to the point that workers and employers are forced to abandon them.

In a strongly worded resolution released Wednesday, the federation said that labor unions still support the Affordable Care Act’s overall goals of reducing health costs and bringing coverage to all Americans, but added that the law is being implemented in a way that is “highly disruptive” to union health care plans.

Strange how no one saw the train wreck coming. The Lonely Conservative provides even more good new on ObamaCare jumping the tracks.

Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.

Read: Sea World, Trader Joes, Join The “Obamacare Is Bad For Business” Party »

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Oops: Time Notices That Warmist Hurricane Hysteria Has Failed

By William Teach September 11, 2013 – 3:40 pm

A surprisingly non-alarmist article from Bryan Walsh, Time’s resident Warmist

A Silent Hurricane Season Adds Fuel to a Debate Over Global Warming

It’s been quiet this hurricane season — too quiet. Back in May, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted a “very active” tropical-storm season, one with between seven and 11 hurricanes. The agency lowered that estimate in August to between six and nine hurricanes, but still predicted that three to five of them would become major storms, with winds above 111 m.p.h.

We’re now a day away from the exact midpoint of the Atlantic hurricane season, the period when storm activity is historically at its strongest — Sept. 10 — and so far we’ve experienced … nothing. While there have been a handful of tropical storms, we have yet to see a single hurricane — a tropical cyclone with sustained winds of at least 74 m.p.h. This is extremely unusual, and if the calm continues, 2013 could rival 2002, which didn’t experience its first hurricane until Sept. 11. What gives?

What gives is that natural variability happens. Just like the way the Modern Warm Period is mostly natural, Mother Nature creates periods where there is a dearth of tropical storms.

The truth is that scientists aren’t really sure why there hasn’t been a hurricane yet this season, nor do they know why an intense hurricane — Category 3, 4, 5 — hasn’t made landfall in the U.S. since Wilma all the way back in 2005. (Sandy, for all the damage it did, was barely a Category 1 storm by the time it made landfall along the East Coast.) And as Andrew Revkin reported in the New York Times, leaked drafts of the forthcoming Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) seem to reflect a reduced scientific certainty that global warming will make storms stronger and more frequent. In the 2007 report, the IPCC saidthat it was more likely than not — a greater than 50% certainty in the panel’s terminology — that human activity was contributing to an observed intensification of hurricane activity in some parts of the world. Now the IPCC — or at least the draft — says it has “low confidence” of that relationship, which means it believes that there is only a 2-out-of-10 chance of being correct. The estimated probability that the 21st century will see more intense hurricane activity has fallen as well.

First, it has been 7 years and almost 8 months since Wilma, the last major hurricane to make landfall in the U.S. Second, Sandy was actually just below hurricane strength when it made landfall (it was still destructive, like any tropical storm, especially when combined with a big cold front). Third, the IPCC and other Warmists first predicted that the 2005 season was the new normal. When that didn’t happen, they said there wouldn’t necessarily be more hurricanes, but the ones that formed would be stronger. That failed, so Warmists are now trying to say that the lack of landfalling tropical systems, particularly hurricanes, is also a sign of human induced “climate change”.

Of course, Bryan ends the article with standard Warmist hysteria, but, hey, they can’t help themselves, and Bryan did make the point that the New Climate Denier scientists are clueless.

Read: Oops: Time Notices That Warmist Hurricane Hysteria Has Failed »

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If All You See…

By William Teach September 11, 2013 – 1:00 pm

…is an ocean that is rising up and requires barriers to stop it, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Maggie’s Notebook, with a post on remember 9/11.

BTW, the background looks like it might be Manasquan, NJ, where I grew up and spent many a day surfing at this exact beach.

Read: If All You See… »

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Never Forget. Never Surrender (Will Remain At Top For The Day)

By William Teach September 11, 2013 – 9:16 am

Today marks the 12th anniversary of that dark day, when Islamic jihadis killed 2,996 of our friends, neighbors, and loved ones. Last year, the USA Today is wondered if 9/11 is becoming just another day, similar to Pearl Harbor Day. Based on the tiny coverage by major news outlets, which feature tiny stories on their front pages, if at all, it just might be. The NY Times’ article is about “taking stock” of the years of war, you know, after we were attacked. And spends little time discussing the attacks. The big editorial is about “The Race To Improve Global Health“. The Washington Post isn’t much better. Nor CBS and NBC. ABC does feature a big graphic at the top. Good for them. LA Times? Tiny.

Those blogging (from the feedreader at this time of the morning)

Why should we never forget? Things like this

Read More »

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Warmists Claim They Predicted There Would Be More Arctic Ice This Year

By William Teach September 11, 2013 – 8:12 am

The Arctic has been doing very well this year, thank you very much, with big growth, 60% in one year, and being the same thinkness as it was back in 1940. There’s been no warming for 8 years in the Arctic. But, hey, the Warmists predicted this, right? Right?

Arctic sea ice delusions strike the Mail on Sunday and Telegraph | Dana Nuccitelli | Environment | theguardian.com

Arctic sea ice delusions strike the Mail on Sunday and Telegraph

When it comes to climate science reporting, the Mail on Sunday and Telegraph are only reliable in the sense that you can rely on them to usually get the science wrong. This weekend’s Arctic sea ice articles from David Rose of the Mail and Hayley Dixon at the Telegraph unfortunately fit that pattern.

Both articles claimed that Arctic sea ice extent grew 60 percent in August 2013 as compared to August 2012. While this factoid is technically true, it’s also largely irrelevant. For one thing, the annual Arctic sea ice minimum occurs in September – we’re not there yet.

Does Super Warmist Nuccitelli think that the Arctic is going to all of a sudden melt-down? Here’s where it gets funny

And while this year’s minimum extent will certainly be higher than last year’s, that’s not the least bit surprising. As University of Reading climate scientist Ed Hawkins noted last year,

“Around 80% of the ~100 scientists at the Bjerknes [Arctic climate science] conference thought that there would be MORE Arctic sea-ice in 2013, compared to 2012.”

Which is strange, because most have been telling us that the Arctic would be ice free this year (see Steven Goddard for a list of these prognostications), and there are non-stop complaints that the melting Arctic will kill all the polar bears (who are also doing quite well) and raise sea levels quite a bit (which is idiotic since the Arctic ice is free floating, but, hey, it’s not like Warmists practice science in the first place).

The rest of the article attempts to position that this is completely in line with “climate change”, which is all your fault for driving a fossil fueled vehicle and using hair spray. And that Warmists are really, really unhappy that any news source would dare to print things that do not fit the Narrative Of Climate Change.

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Obama Makes Impassioned Plea For Doing Something In Syria Despite No Direct U.S. Security Threat

By William Teach September 11, 2013 – 7:51 am

I was eminently impressed that the speech actually started on time. I was unimpressed that he decided to make his plea from the same spot in which Joe Biden proclaimed that passing Obamacare was a “big f’ing deal“. Trotting down the red carpet to discuss potential military action and a serious international issue just doesn’t work. He started out well, though, making an impassioned plea to Do Something based on the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government

The situation profoundly changed, though, on August 21st, when Assad’s government gassed to death over a thousand people, including hundreds of children.

And the 110,000 killed by other methods apparently are meaningless.

Let me explain why. If we fail to act, the Assad regime will see no reason to stop using chemical weapons.

Why didn’t we act the first time they were used? Most of the early part of the speech was laying out how chemical weapons are Bad, something I think we can all agree with, and he’s worried that the war could spread and they could be used. Something that hasn’t happened. But, this was all a moral plea. Which wasn’t actually all that bad, and delivered in a more presidential tone than Obama usually uses. Then, we ran off the tracks

This is especially true after a decade that put more and more war-making power in the hands of the president, and more and more burdens on the shoulders of our troops, while sidelining the people’s representatives from the critical decisions about when we use force.

Seriously? Whining about President Bush? Last time I checked, he obtained Congressional and UN approval for both Afghanistan and Iraq. Last time I checked, 9/11 was launched from Afghanistan.

…and I know Americans want all of us in Washington, especially me, to concentrate on the task of building our nation here at home, putting people back to work, educating our kids, growing our middle class.

Adding campaign material in the speech was a Bad Idea. Especially since he’s been failing at the economy for over 4 years.

Even a limited strike will send a message to Assad that no other nation can deliver. I don’t think we should remove another dictator with force. We learned from Iraq that doing so makes us responsible for all that comes next. But a targeted strike can make Assad or any other dictator think twice before using chemical weapons.

Funny, Obama forgot to mention Libya and Egypt, the first being a completely failed state overrun in the eastern part by Islamists after using force. And Egypt moved towards an Islamist government after Obama pushed Mubarak out the door, forcing the military to knock the Muslim Brotherhood out and take over. Where was Mr. Obama and his “responsibility”?

Over the last two years my administration has tried diplomacy and sanctions, warnings and negotiations. But chemical weapons were still used by the Assad regime.

Strange, because we did that to Saddam for over a decade, with resolution after resolution passed in the UN and Bill Clinton signing the Iraqi Liberation Act. We gave him one last chance with Resolution 1441. Does this means Obama now supports, retroactively, the use of force against Saddam? He sure made the case retroactively. Let’s back up the speech for a second

But I’m also the president of the world’s oldest constitutional democracy. So even though I possessed the authority to order military strikes, I believed it was right, in the absence of a direct or imminent threat to our security, to take this debate to Congress.

Ignoring the fact that we’re a Republic, not a democracy, a distinction a good chunk of the electorate wouldn’t understand, he stated unequivocally that Syria has no other meaning at this time but a moral one. There are no threats to the U.S.

This was Obama’s time to shine, to lead, to make his case. Despite Republican ambivalence towards Obama, I think most on the Right want to support the elected president when it comes to foreign adventures and policy, even after the way Democrats treated George W. Bush for 8 years, never letting politics “stop at the waters edge”. Obama did not seem to move the needle, and I doubt that the polls will change much if at all.

Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.

Read: Obama Makes Impassioned Plea For Doing Something In Syria Despite No Direct U.S. Security Threat »

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Bummer: “Climate Change” Could Cause Crop Decline In Brazil

By William Teach September 10, 2013 – 4:30 pm

Alarmists being alarmist

(Climate Central) Higher temperatures, drastic changes in rainfall, lower productivity, more blight and disease − these are just some of the expected consequences of climate change in Brazil if the projections of 345 scientists who make up the Brazilian Panel on Climate Change (PBMC) prove true.

They predict that if present trends in greenhouse gas emissions continue, average temperatures in Brazil will be 3º-6ºC higher by 2100 than they were at the end of the 20th century.

Nice prognostication.

(BBC) A quarter of the (Brazil’s) foreign trade flows through Santos.

But in the past few weeks, this vital route has been clogged up as a result of the record amount of grain on its way to the port.

Soybean and corn harvests here have reached all-time highs this year and Brazil looks set to become the world’s top exporter of soybean.

(Agrimony) Brazil’s sugar exports are to soar above 29m tonnes, easily setting a record, US farm officials said, backing expectations of a bumper cane harvest despite poor conditions in the north east.

Well, that’s strange. Of course, the Warmists are going with their typical prognostications of happening in 2100, when no one will remember. This is not science.

Read: Bummer: “Climate Change” Could Cause Crop Decline In Brazil »

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If All You See…

By William Teach September 10, 2013 – 1:00 pm

…is an ocean that used to only come up to the top of the feet, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Political Clown Parade, with a post noting that Al Gore has a serious case of butthurt.

Read: If All You See… »

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Assad Said To Accept Russian Plan To Turn Over Chemical Weapons

By William Teach September 10, 2013 – 9:41 am

Alternate title: Vlad PWNS Barack. Somehow, I don’t think Vladimir Putin will be particularly please when Obama attempts to take credit for this plan. Which we know Obama will attempt, probably during his address tonight

(Fox News) Syria’s foreign minister said Tuesday his government has accepted a Russian proposal to turn over control of its chemical weapons, potentially opening the door to defusing a stand-off with the United States as President Obama indicates he’s willing to give the “diplomatic track” a try.

According to the Associated Press, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem said Tuesday after meeting with the Russian parliament speaker that his government quickly agreed to the Russian initiative to “derail the U.S. aggression.” (snip)

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Russia is now working with Syria to prepare a detailed plan of action, which will be presented shortly.

Certainly, Russia has vastly more influence over Syria than the United States, particularly with The Gang Who Can’t Shoot Straight in charge here in the US. That said, this will be a big embarrassment for Team Obama if Putin rides in to save Obama from the box Obama put himself in, and highlight just how inept and unprepared he and his team are.

The Memeorandum pull for this issue is from The Washington Post

“I think you have to take it with a grain of salt, initially,” Obama said in an interview with NBC that was among several he gave Monday in pursuit of public support for a military strike. “We’re going to make sure that we see how serious these proposals are.”

I get the feeling that neither Putin nor Assad could give a rat’s posterior what Obama thinks, though they’re probably happy that Obama’s standing, and to some degree the United States’, are reduced on the world stage.

Oh, and then Putin when and lassoed a T Rex, broke it, and is riding it around the streets of Moscow.

Quick update: Talking Points Memo notes that Team Obama is already taking credit. If you’ve followed TPM over the years, you can see the very skeptical note in the writing.

(photo of T-Rex originally came from bressane.com.)

Read: Assad Said To Accept Russian Plan To Turn Over Chemical Weapons »

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Man With Largest Carbon Footprint In World Signs On To Three Climate Pacts

By William Teach September 10, 2013 – 8:25 am

Has anyone noticed the Old Media making a big deal out of these pacts? No? That’s weird

(Grist) Barack Obama is walking the climate-change talk — all around the world. Or at least endorsing climate-change pacts.

More like that latter part, since no one has a larger “carbon footprint” than Mr. Obama. Heck, his footprint just going to play golf every year, what with all the vehicles in the motorcade, is probably larger than the average American’s “carbon footprint”.

A commitment that Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping made during private meetings in June to reduce climate-changing emissions of hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, evolved on Friday into a formal agreement between the two nations. From The Washington Post:

The United States and China announced Friday they would seek to eliminate some of the world’s most potent greenhouse gases through the 1987 Montreal Protocol, the landmark treaty that successfully phased out ozone-depleting substances decades ago.

Humorously, this was announced at the G20 in St. Petersburg, Russia, without noting all the “carbon pollution” from flying halfway around the world on fossil fueled planes, which brought all the fossil fueled vehicles for use by these “leaders”.

And in news that’s so closely related you could be forgiven for thinking it’s exactly the same story, all of the countries at the G20 summit, including the U.S., reached a broader agreement to curb emissions of HFCs. From Reuters:

The White House cited the agreement to cooperate on phasing down the use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), gases used in refrigerators, air conditioners and some industrial equipment, as one of the “most significant agreements” of the summit.

Do you know what this means? That’s right, your costs go up. And people in 3rd world nations will no longer be able to obtain the benefits from inexpensive refrigeration and air conditioning.

Meanwhile, half a world away from the G20 meeting in Russia, some encouraging news emerged from a summit of Pacific Ocean island states — some of which are at risk of sinking beneath rising seas. From Agence France-Presse:

A new Pacific regional pact calling for aggressive action to combat climate change has achieved a “major accomplishment” by gaining US support, officials said Sunday.

The Majuro Declaration, endorsed by the 15-nation Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) at their summit last week, contains specific pledges on cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

The US has offered $24 million over 5 years for projects in the islands, and has signed on to the Declaration, despite the sea rise being miniscule. Oh, and the Declaration calls for cutting out all CO2 output. So everyone needs to stop breathing.

Read: Man With Largest Carbon Footprint In World Signs On To Three Climate Pacts »

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