NY Times Visualizes Statue Of Liberty Covered By The Seas From Hotcoldwetdry

By William Teach November 25, 2012 – 8:07 am

I was really hoping this piece of science fiction, er, opinion piece was offered by the whole editorial board, alas, it’s by some guy named James Atlas, who’s crazy op-ed piece is part of a raft of crazy pieces at the times, such as Rising Seas, Vanishing Coastlines, What Could Disappear, Paying for Future Catastrophes, and

Is This the End?

No, but it might make for some side splitting reading.

WE’D seen it before: the Piazza San Marco in Venice submerged by the acqua alta; New Orleans underwater in the aftermath of Katrina; the wreckage-strewn beaches of Indonesia left behind by the tsunami of 2004. We just hadn’t seen it here. (Last summer’s Hurricane Irene did a lot of damage on the East Coast, but New York City was spared the worst.) “Fear death by water,” T. S. Eliot intoned in “The Waste Land.” We do now.

Venice is located in a swampy, waterlogged area of many islands, which has been subsiding for a long, long time. Those parts of New Orleans were already below sea level. The Indonesian tsunami had nothing to do with globull warming.

There had been warnings. In 2009, the New York City Panel on Climate Change issued a prophetic report. “In the coming decades, our coastal city will most likely face more rapidly rising sea levels and warmer temperatures, as well as potentially more droughts and floods, which will all have impacts on New York City’s critical infrastructure,” said William Solecki, a geographer at Hunter College and a member of the panel. But what good are warnings? Intelligence agents received advance word that terrorists were hoping to hijack commercial jets. Who listened? (Not George W. Bush.) If we can’t imagine our own deaths, as Freud insisted, how can we be expected to imagine the death of a city?

Ugh, another Truther. Who would have been livid had George Bush put troops in the airports for months, if not years. There had been warnings for years that Bin Laden was determined to strike the US with commercial planes…..oh, moving on from utter left wing rantings of moonbattery…

YET we return home from our travels intoxicated by beauty, not truth. It doesn’t occur to us that we, too, will one day be described in a guidebook (Fodor’s North America 2212?) as metropolitans who resided in 60-story towers and traveled beneath the waves in metal-sheathed trains.

I told you this was funny. I think I read that book a few months ago. It was called Shadows Live Under Seashells by Allan J Ashinoff, which included those trains traveling around a floating city.

It’s this willed ignorance, I suspect, that explains why it’s difficult to process the implications of climate change for New York, even in the face of explicit warnings from politicians, not the most future-oriented people.

To quote Instapundit: “As I said before, I’ll believe it’s a crisis when the people who keep telling me it’s a crisis start acting like it’s a crisis.” You Climate Terrorists, er, Warmists, have been spreading awareness for well over 20 years, yet you rarely act on your beliefs within your own lives.

Here’s the kicker

The statue of liberty is 305 feet, 1 inch from the base of the pedestal to the torch. Add a couple feet of height for the island itself. And the rising of the seas is well within the historical norm for the last 7,000 years (when the massive sea height increase from the end of the last glacial period slowed). But, hey, don’t let reality get in the way. Let’s scare people!

Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.

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Posted in AGW Scaremongering, Collapsing Science, Global Warming, Unhinged Tools | 5 Comments | Trackback URL

Elephants

By William Teach November 24, 2012 – 5:24 pm

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Posted in GOP, Uncategorized | 1 Comment | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach November 24, 2012 – 1:00 pm

…is heavy rain that never happened before someone else drove their fossil fueled vehicle, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The Daley Gator, with a post on a women getting busted for shaving

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10 Commandments For A Good Life

By William Teach November 24, 2012 – 12:28 pm

From Mark and Angel Hack Life, via Ned Hardy:

  1. I am not perfect and I will not try to be.
  2. I cannot, and will not try, to please everyone.
  3. I will take part in something I believe in.
  4. I will prioritize my obligations and do important things first.
  5. I will choose my friends wisely.
  6. I will help others when I am able.
  7. I will focus on the positive.
  8. I can only be me.
  9. I will be here now.
  10. Life never gets any better, only my perception of it does.

Head on over to either link for the full details (linking an entire article is against Blogosphere rules). I really like #9, which is one I always try to abide by:

Life is happening right now.  Instead of dwelling on the past or worrying about the future, practice being and living in the present moment.

Remember, right now is the only moment guaranteed to you.  Right now is life.  Don’t miss it.

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Surprise! NY Times Pushes Obama On Gun Control

By William Teach November 24, 2012 – 8:46 am

This is what the NY Times editorial board runs with the day after Thanksgiving, cause it’s a super duper most important issue, unlike America being broke, facing the fiscal cliff, a stagnant economy, Iran, post-Sandy cleanup, housing still in the dumps, etc

President Obama’s fleeting mention of the need for stronger gun controls at a presidential debate last month was hardly the kind of forceful political statement needed to address the scourge of gun violence in this country. Even his tepid remark was considered by the nation’s gun owners as a threat to take away their firearms. In what amounts to a buyers’ panic, they are again ramping up gun and ammunition sales as they did four years ago, convinced that Mr. Obama intends a gun-control crackdown.

Mr. Obama talked about starting “a broader conversation” about reducing gun violence. The best place to start is in Congress, which has been grossly negligent toward constituent safety for the past 20 years as it bows to the demands of the gun lobby.

Yeah, because violating that pesky Bill Of Rights is no big deal in NY Times World. And it’s rather strange that the majority of gun violence tends to occur in Democrat held areas, eh?

Mr. Obama is free of the pressures of campaigning — and free to lead the nation toward sensible laws that can help reduce the flood of guns and related homicides.

Funny stuff, they actually linked Obama to leading. That would be a first.

The need for strong leadership on this issue is growing as statehouse politicians cave to ever more lethal demands from the gun lobby. State laws allowing students to go armed to class in Colorado, freeing owners in Oklahoma to wear holstered weapons in public, and letting people “stand your ground” in Florida and a score of other states have already damaged public safety immeasurably.

In Times World, citizens should not be free to shield themselves from criminals who carry guns obtained illegally. All of those measures mentioned allow law abiding citizens to protect themselves and their families from people who would do them harm. I wonder if the NY Times editorial board would be willing to give up the armed guards in the lobby at the NY Times building.

The Times worries about the “30,000 lives lost to gun violence every year.” What they don’t tell you is that around half of those are suicides. Of the remaining, in 2010 (the latest year for data), 8775 were from crime, the rest accidental. That’s with over 270 million privately owned guns. I wonder how many crimes were prevented because someone owns a gun? Hmm, an estimated 2.5 million? And women are the most likely to be saved by owning a gun? And most shootings involved criminals killing other criminals? Oh, and women are the biggest recipients of being able to show a gun to someone who is looking to harm them?

Perhaps the Times should be concerned with the 1 million plus abortions this year.

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Posted in 2nd Amendment, Wonky Media | 2 Comments | Trackback URL

Black Friday Wal Mart Protests Pretty Much A Big Fail Burger

By William Teach November 24, 2012 – 8:05 am

Someone asked me to explain that Tweet yesterday. Well, much like the Mohammed video “protesters” the WalMart protesters were not who you thought they were, it was not spontaneous, and they had all sorts of premade apparel and signs. In the case of the Mohammed vid protesters, they weren’t average people, they were Islamists, many with ties to the Taliban and al Qaeda, this was planned for a while, and they were carry al Qaeda and Taliban style signs and wearing similar headbands. For WalMart, they planned it for months, they had professionally made signs and shirts, and mostly weren’t WalMart employees

(The Blaze) For weeks now, we’ve heard a lot about OUR Walmart’s plans to disrupt the big box retailer’s Black Friday sales. Media outlets breathlessly reported that the union-backed protests and employee walkouts might cause the company severe financial damage. Heck, even Wal-mart was reportedly worried about the union’s Black Friday plans.

So how did it turn out?

Well, to quote Megan McArdle writing in the Daily Beast, “the planned protests were mostly a fizzle.”

WalMart’s sales were incredible, and the mostly non-employee protesters failed to disrupt the business. Many managed to get themselves arrested.

Funny thing though: Of the people who participated in today’s nationwide demonstrations, very few of them were actual Wal-Mart employees, meaning today’s action was a whole lot like the Service Employees International Union’s Wednesday protest of the Los Angeles International Airport.

“No Walmart workers in attendance at Mobile Walmart picketing,” reads one Alabama newspaper headline.

On my way to work Friday around 11am, there were no protesters that I could see at the New Bern Ave. nor the Glenwood Ave. stores.

(WRAL) At a Walmart in Durham, more than 100 protesters gathered in the parking lot outside the store, chanting slogans and passing out fliers to draw attention to their cause. They were not employees but shoppers and neighbors sympathetic to minimum-wage workers. Groups from Durham Mennonite Church, Triangle Jobs with Justice, Corporate Action Network and the Raging Nannies participated.

The nannies communicated their concern in song. “Walmart stores are ruining our town,” they sang.

Essentially, this protest was held by the typical left wing agitators who loath WalMart, and are really upset that WalMart offers good at a low cost or something. And aren’t unionized.

According to that link, ” roughly the same number of associates missed their scheduled shift as last year…” So, SEIU and other left wing agitators, perhaps you could protest things that matter, like growing federal powers, too much spending, TSA groping people, etc.

Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.

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Posted in Barking Moonbats, Current Affairs | 1 Comment | Trackback URL

Warmist Thinks $1600 A Year Per Person To Pay For HotColdWetDry Is No Big Deal

By William Teach November 23, 2012 – 2:38 pm

But, all you climate terrorists Warmists should run right out and purchase carbon credits

(Forbes) As above, this is a very common misunderstanding of the very point of a carbon tax: it is not, not at all, in order to stop climate change. It is to enable us to have the right amount of climate change.

Now that’s funny! Tim Worstall thinks that Mankind can control the weather by (supposedly) planting a few trees through purchasing a few carbon offsets.

It’s also worth pointing something else out. $80 a tonne CO2 is something like 40 cents a gallon on gas. And that’s it, we’re done, problem solved, human utility maximised over time. OK, we’ve now got to add the tax to coal and natural gas and so on but the real point about the carbon tax is how trivially small the solution to climate change is. I myself just don’t understand why everyone makes such a fuss about it. get on with it and we’re done, sorted. In fact, in my native UK, the numbers are such that the correct carbon tax would lower the price of gas.

As Tom Nelson points out through a bit of research, the US per capita CO2 out put is 19.78 tons per inhabitant a year. That’s a price tag of $1,582.40 per American per year.

Ok, Warmists, pony up! Do your part….what? You can’t afford that? That would mean no fossil fueled trip for a vacation? Goodness!

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Posted in AGW Idiocy, Carbon Credits, Global Warming | 6 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach November 23, 2012 – 1:00 pm

…is an evil oven contributing to obesity and huge carbon footprints along with an evil fridge, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The Other McCain, with a post on more Obamacare fallout.

And, because there is another oven and fridge photo (involving a thong, and I generally don’t put thongs on the front page in this manner) below the fold, the second blog of the day is The First Street Journal, with a post on Twinkies.

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Egyptians Not Happy With Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohammed Morsi

By William Teach November 23, 2012 – 10:50 am

Yes, the same Morsi who is the president of Egypt

(Telegraph) Demonstators burned down a headquarters block of the Brotherhood’s political front, the Freedom and Justice Party, in Alexandria.

And there were also heavy clashes in cities with a record of protest against the former regime of ex-President Hosni Mubarak like Suez and Port Said.

In Cairo, the biggest demonstrations for months filled Tahrir Square, reviving the spirit and chants of last year’s revolution.

An array of liberal and secular groups, including activists at the forefront of the protest movement that forced Hosni Mubarak from power marched on the Square to demonstrate against what they were calling Morsi becoming the “new pharaoh”.

What’s happening is that Morsi ended judicial independence so that his decrees would be unchallengeable by law. So, the upshot is that a “dictator”, Mubarek, who kept the peace, tried to protect Coptic Christians in Egypt and work with Israel, was deposed and replace with….the makings of a dictatorship based along Muslim Brotherhood and theocratic lines. Gee, if only someone had been concerned that something like this could happen /sic

The Islamist president assumed sweeping powers on Thursday in a decree read out by his spokesman Yasser Ali on state television.

“The president can issue any decision or measure to protect the revolution,” it said.

“The constitutional declarations, decisions and laws issued by the president are final and not subject to appeal.”

And once he starts issuing “declarations, decisions, and laws” based on Sharia Law and the Koran, I wonder how those who were saying Mubarek had to go will feel? Will there be concern over the treatment of women and gays? Or will we get the same idiocy of multiculturalism and tolerance?

Ed Morrissey: So we went from having a US-friendly dictator who managed to keep a lid on the Muslim Brotherhood and enforced the peace treaty with Israel, to having a dictator from the Muslim Brotherhood in charge of the Suez Canal.  And the only people who couldn’t apparently predict this very outcome were the people in the White House proclaiming their foreign policy as “smart power.”

The NY Times and Associate Press seem a bit shell shocked that this could happen.

More at Memeorandum: Rubin Reports, Hugh Hewitt’s TownHall Blog, americanthinker.com, NewsBusters.org, Israpundit, Algemeiner.com, Questions and Observations, Jihad Watch, Outside the Beltway, Ricochet Conversations Feed, Israel Matzav and Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion

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Posted in Current Affairs, Islamification, RoP | 2 Comments | Trackback URL

Brokeifornia’s First Cap And Trade Auction Complete Failure

By William Teach November 23, 2012 – 9:06 am

Surprise! Well, not really, considering who cap and tax, er, trade programs have worked in countries around the world, with the costs of carbon essentially equating to junk bond status

(Sacramento Bee) State environmental leaders this week hailed California’s first auction of carbon emissions credits a huge success.

But budget writers are hardly thrilled.

A low price for credits and minimal demand for future offsets suggest California will see a mere fraction of the $1 billion that Gov. Jerry Brown and lawmakers estimated the state would receive this fiscal year.

The nation’s brokeyest broke state was depending on the money from the auctions to fix their fiscal house have more money to waste on foolish projects, reelection promises, free stuff, and supporting illegal immigrants who make up one third of their prison population. They pegged their hopes on something that had yet to occur, and were Facebooked

As California sells credits, it stands to benefit financially. Brown and lawmakers assumed California would take in $1 billion total this year, spending $500 million on state budget relief and $500 million on curbing greenhouse gas emissions.

The California Air Resources Board sold $289 million in credits this month, but most of the money is dedicated for utilities and their ratepayers. That leaves $55.8 million for the state.

$289 million is not chump change, of course. But, again, they were pining for $1 billion. That’s what was built in to the budget for spending.

State leaders erred on another market prediction when they assumed Facebook shares would trade at $35 this fall. The stock has traded below $25 since August, and the analyst estimates that California will see $626 million less than expected as a result.

The LAO said last week the state faces a lingering $1.9 billion deficit, partly because of less Facebook and cap-and-trade money.

So, they pinned their financial hopes on, well, hope, rather than actual economic conditions. Is it any surprise they have a $1.9 billion deficit?

Even David Roberts, one of Grist’s super climate terrorists Believers, thinks that carbon taxes are silly. One thing to note is that if done properly, the costs for CO2 goes down.

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Posted in Carbon Credits, Collapsing Science, Global Warming | 1 Comment | Trackback URL
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