If All You See…

…are wonderful environmentally friendly bikes, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The Last Tradition, with a post on Rand Paul proposing a pathway to citizenship.

Read: If All You See… »

Warmists Wonder If Hotcoldwetdry Causes Sinkholes

I was wondering when some climate astrologer would go down this road after the sinkhole in Florida that swallowed that man (via Quark Soup)

(Discover) Increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere leads to rainwater containing higher levels of carbon dioxide, otherwise known as acid rain. When carbon dioxide in water is given a carbonate ion, it prefers to make bicarbonate ions rather than staying happily in the water minding its own business. Any rock or shell made of carbonate then becomes more at risk of dissolution as the ocean and rainwater become more acidic, much like tooth enamel dissolves away when soaked in a glass of soda pop.

Once the bedrock starts to dissolve and erode away, the type of surface sediment makes the difference as to whether the sinkhole will be catastrophic or not.

Good grief.

Now, the Quark Soup link adds info from the USGS, which discusses land use which can cause sinkholes. AGW? Mule fritters!

Read: Warmists Wonder If Hotcoldwetdry Causes Sinkholes »

Hacker To Distribute Confidential Hillary Clinton Emails On Benghazi

What’s in them? We don’t know yet. Will they be big? That remains to be seen, but why bother if they are tepid and meaningless?

(The Smoking Gun) Armed with confidential memos to Hillary Clinton that were stolen from the e-mail account of a former White House aide, a hacker has distributed some of the documents to a wide array of congressional aides, political figures, and journalists worldwide.

In a series of weekend e-mail blasts, the hacker known as “Guccifer” disseminated four recent memos to Clinton from Sidney Blumenthal, a longtime confidant of the former Secretary of State. (snip)

Most of the e-mail recipients were sent four separate memos that were e-mailed to Clinton by Blumenthal during the past five months. Each memo dealt with assorted developments in Libya, including the September 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi. One memo marked “Confidential” was sent to Clinton on September 12.

Now, according to this these are emails sent to Clinton, no mention of responses. And if they’re from the time period after the attack, what could they show? Perhaps the willingness to stonewall and obfuscate. Color me a bit skeptical. But, then, why bother if they are meaningless?

Of course, Liberals will say this is no big deal, because having our consulate attacked, burned, have Islamist flags raised above it, and 4 Americans killed, including our Ambassador, is much ado over nothing to them.

Read: Hacker To Distribute Confidential Hillary Clinton Emails On Benghazi »

Harry Reid Drops Scary Looking Gun Ban From Anti-Gun Legislation

You could almost see this coming. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D) is a fan of guns, and also knows that legislation like an assault weapons ban could seriously damage the Dems chances for the 2014 mid-terms for Senate races. And, really, how often did you hear him discuss the ban? Beuller?

(Politico) Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said on Monday that a controversial assault weapons ban will not be part of a Democratic gun bill that was expected to reach the Senate floor next month.

After a meeting with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Monday, a frustrated Feinstein said she learned that the bill she sponsored — which bans 157 different models of assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines — wouldn’t be part of a Democratic gun bill to be offered on the Senate floor. Instead, it can be offered as an amendment. But its exclusion from the package makes what was already an uphill battle an almost certain defeat.

The ban is supported by more than a dozen Senate Democrats and the White House, as well as gun-control groups.

In fact, S.150 is supported by only 21 other Senate Democrats, none of them named Harry Reid, which is a pretty low number considering how quickly Democrats attempted to use the Sandy Hook tragedy to assault 2nd Amendment Rights. Reid also knows that the Some Scary Looking Guns bill will most likely not make it past a filibuster.

Aside from the ban, three other major pieces of gun legislation have been approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee: a gun trafficking bill, a Democrats-only background checks measure and a proposal to increase school safety.

The gun trafficking bill should pass. The background check measure will most likely not be part of the bill brought to the floor, since it is will probably receive no support from Republicans, as it goes very, very far, particularly in retaining people’s information. And there’s a big danger in making the mental health information of citizens readily available to The Government.

Anyhow, we’ll see if DiFi brings her big and complicated scary guns legislation to the floor. It goes after not just the guns you expect, but bolt action and single shot rifles, competition rifles, and lots of shotguns.

Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.

Read: Harry Reid Drops Scary Looking Gun Ban From Anti-Gun Legislation »

Memeorandum: Obama Apparently Looks Like Teenage Girls In Bikinis

There’s apparently this big kerfuffle about Satan in the History Channel’s show The Bible. Here it is

I love when Memeorandum puts some random photo next to a story that is totally irrelevant. Here’s the photo

Yeah, that’s from the upcoming movie “Spring Breakers”, an R rated bit of silliness which one source termed “The Movie About Selena Gomez & Vanessa Hudgens in Bikinis”.

Then again, Obama does like to spend lots of time on vacation, and has his own partially taxpayer funded spring break coming up.

And, yeah, I guess Satan does look a bit like Obama, when you stop and look at the still shot. Didn’t notice it myself while watching the show last night.

Read: Memeorandum: Obama Apparently Looks Like Teenage Girls In Bikinis »

If All You See…

…is the flag of the world’s worst carbon polluter which will cause the seas to rise up and cover all the land (especially your posh beach side manor), you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is This ain’t Hell… with a post on the Iraq war.

Read: If All You See… »

White House Lowers Expectations For Obama Israel Trip

Expectations were lowered from “throwing Israel under the bus and supporting Islamists” to “mostly throwing Israel under the bus and supporting most Islamits”

(Fox News) As President Obama heads to the Middle East this week, including his first visit to Israel since becoming commander in chief, the White House is downplaying expectations, saying the president hopes only to help leaders come together to bring peace and democracy to the region.

Will Obama leave the drones at home?

The White House’s apparent strategy is to lower expectations to create breathing room for frank peace talks between both sides that hopefully will include discussions about what it will take to get back to the negotiating table.

Yet, the administration is still whining about Israel expanding settlements. Obama has never moved off his 1967 borders talk. Me, I’m expecting a big gaffe from O on this trip, which the media will dutifully excuse and cover up.

Read: White House Lowers Expectations For Obama Israel Trip »

Global Temperatures Not Matching Warmist Prognostication

Climate doom? Yeah, not happening

(UK Daily Mail) The Mail on Sunday today presents irrefutable evidence that official predictions of global climate warming have been catastrophically flawed.

The graph on this page blows apart the ‘scientific basis’ for Britain reshaping its entire economy and spending billions in taxes and subsidies in order to cut emissions of greenhouse gases. These moves have already added £100 a year to household energy bills.

Let’s see that chart

The graph confirms there has been no statistically significant increase in the world’s average temperature since January 1997 – as this newspaper first disclosed last year.

And now the climate astrologers will attack the Daily Mail and probably talk about “cherry picked data”, Big Oil, etc and so on. Alas

Its source is impeccable. The line showing world temperatures comes from the Met Office ‘HadCRUT4’ database, which contains readings from more than 30,000 measuring posts. This was added to the 75 and 95 per cent certainty bands to produce the graph by a group that amalgamates the work of 20 climate model centres working for the IPCC. (snip)

The awkward fact is that the earth has warmed just 0.5 degrees over the past 50 years. And Met Office records show that for the past 16 years temperatures have plateaued and, if anything, are going down.

None of this proves that the Earth is not in a warm period. It is. The temp increases could kick back on, or they might dip, like during the time period from the 40’s to the 70’s. What this does show is that all the Warmist models, usually obtained using computers with little real world data but with notions that the only thing that can cause increased temperatures during this period are due to Mankind, are flawed. And hysterical. Over-the-top. Prognostications from carnival palm readers. And that CO2 (and other GHG) output from Mankind is not the main driver of the global climate.

The works of Mankind surely have an effect on the local climate. This is known as the Urban Heat Island Effect. Globally? Not so much. Someone needs to create a 12 step process to ween Warmists off their narrow dogma.

Read: Global Temperatures Not Matching Warmist Prognostication »

GOP Growth And Opportunity Plan Looks To Be Mostly Squishy

Perhaps there will be more in it once it is released than media outlets are reporting, but, probably not. The entrenched GOP leadership doesn’t seem to have a clue

(Daily Caller) Why did Republicans fail to stop Barack Obama from winning another four years in the White House and what can they do to get back on the path to victory?

Those are the topics tackled inside the 100-page report being released by the Republican National Committee’s Growth and Opportunity Project on Monday.

“The GOP today is a tale of two parties,” the report states. “One of them, the gubernatorial wing, is growing and successful. The other, the federal wing, is increasingly marginalizing itself, and unless changes are made, it will be increasingly difficult for Republicans to win another presidential election in the near future.”

That’s because the State level Republicans have caught a clue and are sticking with Conservatism, and have been willing to go on the offensive along with standing for Conservative principles. At the federal level, we often nominate non-conservatives. Look, I liked Mitt Romney, he would have been the right guy at the right time for this dismal economy, but much of his past agenda was slightly liberal. He was more JFK than Reagan. His campaign was also too nice, refusing to get down in the mud.

One way to attract younger votes, the report states, is having Republican leaders spend more time going on “The Daily Show,” “The Colbert Report” and MTV, and giving interviews to publications like People and Us Weekly.

Sadly, in today’s Inside Hollywood type politics, this is necessary, and seems the only way to reach the low information voters.

And citing how outside Democratic groups successfully dug up dirt on Republican candidates in 2012, the committee suggests that well-funded conservative groups improve their opposition research on Democrats in order “to define our opponents as early as possible in the process.”

In case the GOP missed it, the groups do. But the GOP mostly refuses to use the research. Nor their own. They want to play nice with the bullies on the left. Here’s where we start getting really squishy

“If Hispanic Americans hear that the GOP doesn’t want them in the United States, they won’t pay attention to our next sentence,” the report states. “It doesn’t matter what we say about education, jobs or the economy.”

Does that sound like they’re getting squishy on illegal immigration? Let’s flip to the Washington Post

To broaden its appeal, the party must reach out to minority voters and others, according to one recommendation in the report obtained by The Associated Press before its release: “We must embrace and champion comprehensive immigration reform. If we do not, our party’s appeal will continue to shrink,” it said.

And

The RNC will also push for a tone of “tolerance and respect” in the immigration debate….

That theme seems to be infused throughout the report and in many stories about it. In other words, the GOP just needs to become Democrats in everything but name. To give up conservative principles. To approve of legalizing people who are in the US illegally.

The report does offer some smarter ideas, like long term outreach to minorities and younger voters, a better ground game, better infrastructure and modern technology programs (seriously, how many bloggers, from big to small, were ever engaged by anyone in the GOP?)

In his Monday speech, Preibus will say that the perception of the GOP as the “party of the rich” continues to grow, and that focus groups described Republicans as “narrow minded,” “out of touch,” and “stuffy old men.”

“The Republican Party needs to stop talking to itself,” the report says. “We have become expert in how to provide ideological reinforcement to like-minded people, but devastatingly we have lost the ability to be persuasive with, or welcoming to, those who do not agree with us on every issue.”

One cannot be persuasive when one doesn’t stridently defend one’s ideas. Too many of the GOP insiders fail to make their case strongly, often pushing their ideas softly with the idea that the Media and Democrats will attack them. Clue for the GOP: they’ll get attacked regardless by the 90% liberal media, so attack as well as forcefully defend your own ideas.

Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.

Read: GOP Growth And Opportunity Plan Looks To Be Mostly Squishy »

Congrats To The Lonely Conservative For Winning An Award At CPAC!

Was scrolling back through the feedreader (all this attempting to find a replacement for Google Reader messed up links), and noticed that Karen at The Lonely Conservative won for

Best Kept Secret

at CPAC. She gets a plaque from Right Wing News and theTeaParty.net, and a pirate dance and grog from me!

.

Read: Congrats To The Lonely Conservative For Winning An Award At CPAC! »

Pirate's Cove