December 10, 2012
Capitalism and Socialism Tie For Word of the Year
-By Warner Todd Huston
Merriam-Webster has announced its most looked-up words for 2012 reporting that “capitalism” and “socialism” tied for the top query.
Obviously we can thank Barack Obama for this pairing of most looked-up words as people flocked to the Merriam-Webster site to try and figure out exactly what the heck everyone was talking about when the two words came up in the national debate.
“They’re words that sort of encapsulate the zeitgeist. They’re words that are in the national conversation,” said Merriam-Webster’s editor at large, Peter Sokolowski.
One has to wonder how bad our education system has gotten when so many millions of people have to turn to an online dictionary to learn what capitalism and socialism mean.
Democracy, globalization, marriage and bigot also made the dictionary giant’s top ten.
Joe Biden also gave the website a spike of queries on October 11. You’ll recall during the debate with GOP vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan when Biden said that something Ryan said was “malarkey.” That caused low information searchers to look the word up.
Look-ups of malarkey represented the largest spike of a single word on the website by percentage, at 3,000 percent, in a single 24-hour period this year. The company won’t release the number of page views per word but said the site gets about 1.2 billion overall each year.
Other words in the top ten were meme, touche, schadenfreude, and professionalism.
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Posted by Warner Todd Huston at 12:22 pm | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)
» Filed Under Anti-Capitalism, Communism, Education, Homeschooling, Internet, News, Socialism
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Hooray! Warmists Trot Out Uneven Atmospheric Heating As New Excuse
The great thing about Warmists is that they never let things like science stand in the way of defending their cult. They keep coming up with great new ways to push their dogma (except for practicing what they preach). We hear things about missing heat, that the oceans are soaking it up, that Gaia is punishing some “carbon polluting” nations, that hot is causing more snow and cold. And, right on time to witness yet another year where it is super duper cold in Alaska, Europe, and Asia with lots of snow and the Antarctic has seen record growth, we get
Uneven climate change due to atmospheric heat capacity
Much of the unevenness in warming due to climate change is a result of a variation in the atmosphere’s heat capacity. The claim, made by researchers in Norway, is likely to be seen as ammunition against climate sceptics who have questioned why some parts of the world are apparently not warming.
Most scientists agree that the world is getting warmer due to anthropogenic carbon emissions. Some areas, such as the Arctic, appear to be warming faster than others. The phenomenon is temporal as well as geographical: in general, night-time temperatures have increased more than daytime temperatures. (snip)
In the atmosphere, heat capacity is dependent on the depth of the planetary boundary layer, which can be between 50 and 2,000 metres thick. Davy’s group hypothesized that the observed asymmetry in global warming could be at least partially accounted for by variations in the boundary layer: regions with a shallow boundary layer would have a relatively low heat capacity, and would warm faster, while regions with a deep boundary layer would have a relatively high capacity, and warm more slowly.
Yet, while parts of America bake, big parts of Europe freeze, and have the same planetary boundary layer. Or will Warmists claim that CO2 output has changed the PBL in certain areas? Which would be dangerously close to the reality of the urban heat island effect. Because much of the depth of the PBL is due to wind speed, which can be changed due to land use, as well as what the land temperature is, which can be much higher in urban areas than in the surrounding countryside.
But, really, the whole point in this exercise is for believers in AGW to find yet another way to explain away why their predictions of planetary doom keep failing.
Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.
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» Filed Under AGW hyposterics, Agenda based science, Collapsing Science, Global Warming, Hypocrisy/Situational Ethics, News, Science/pseudo-science, liberalism
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Is There A Constitutional Right To Gay Marriage?
That’s the question the Associated Press asks, as reposted at The Blaze
Gay marriage supporters see 41 reasons to fret over the Supreme Court’s decision to take up the case of California’s ban on same-sex unions.
While nine states allow same-sex partners to marry, or will soon, 41 states do not. Of those, 30 have written gay marriage bans into their state constitutions.
That fact is worrisome to those who firmly believe there is a constitutional right to marry, regardless of sexual orientation, but who also know that the Supreme Court does not often get too far ahead of the country on hot-button social issues.
But, gay marriage advocates are positioning the coming SCOTUS review of the California marriage proposition and DOMA as one which will challenge and outlaw discrimination, much in the way that their decisions on sodomy, interracial marriage, and segregation laws did
The forces that mounted the legal challenge to Proposition 8 have said all along that the right to marry is so fundamental that it should not depend on success at the ballot box or the votes of state legislatures. Washington lawyer Theodore Olson, representing gay Californians who wish to marry, said he will argue that there is a “fundamental constitutional right to marry for all citizens.”
Is there a constitutional right to marry? Much like the “separation of church and state”, this appears nowhere within any portion of the Constitution. There is no specific right for gay or straight people to marry.
But, one has to wonder about another part of the Constitution, equal protection under the law, which would also be known as equal treatment under the law. Yet, there are many cases where people are not treated equally under the law. People are taxed at different rates. Certain people who become political appointees are not prosecuted for tax evasion, while other citizens have their bank accounts seized and may do jail time. Women are mostly banned from combat positions in the military. The government ignores some laws at will. It institutes some laws affording certain pressure groups more protections under the law than others (hate crime legislation, for one). Should gays be treated the same under the law as straights who get married? Should gays be denied the same treatment as straights who are afforded the legal protections when it comes to things like visitation rights and property rights?
The problem is is that marriage should be left in the hands of the churches to decide. Yet, government has become involved in the process, requiring a license in order to be married in the eyes of the state. If we are a nation of law, not of men, should the government be required to give a marriage license to all citizens regardless of sexual orientation, but leave it up to the church to decide if it wants to perform a legal marriage ceremony? I’d have to say yes, regardless of any moral opposition I may have (note: I’ve always thought that the government should perform civil ceremonies, due to the equal protection under the law clause).
Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.
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» Filed Under 10th Amendment, Church And State, Constitution, Homosexual Agenda, Marriage, Moral Relativism, News, Political Correctness, Revisionism, Social Engineering, States Rights, Traditional values, U.S. Constitution
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December 9, 2012
Obama Secretly Meets With His Old Media Propagandists
-By Warner Todd Huston
There was a secret, off-record meeting between President Obama and a passel full of extreme-left, so-called media folks last week. No, this isn’t black helicopters stuff. It really happened as the Washington Post admits.
None of these Old Media leftists are reporting what happened at the meeting, but none that have been outed, so-to-speak, for having been at the meeting are denying that they were there. They are just giving a “no comment” about what went on.
In attendance was the entirety of the MSNBC line-up. Matthews, Schultz, Maddow, the whole crew. Now, granted, these MSNBC people aren’t in any way journalists. They are pure propagandists that entertain with left-wing spin, not facts and truth. Ditto for Ariana Huffington and extremist activist Markos Moulitsas, both have admitted to being at the meeting. But many of the other participants are supposed to be real journalists.
Two of the so-called “real” journalists were Greg Sargent and Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post. There were others but Whemple doesn’t list them by name in his Washington Post piece.
So, that raises many questions: What was said in that meeting? What was done? What assignments did the President hand out to his propagandists?
Well, it is sure that the so-called journalists genuflected and took their direction from The Won. He certainly told them what to be “reporting” on and how to report it. It isn’t likely he allowed them to say much — well, aside from the occasional, slobbering “we love you” — because, after all, we are talking about Obama here. His only interest is himself. I am sure while he was talking to them he was admiring his brilliance in a hand mirror during the meeting.
Anyway, this was just a programming session. Just another propaganda planning meeting between the Obammessiah and his very own crew of Joey Goebbelses.
What is most amusing is that this president has given the least amount of open press conferences than any other recent president. Those that criticize this claim point to the fact that he’s actually given more interviews to the press than any recent president. But this is misleading. (As Whemple notes: 568, compared to 190 for George W. Bush, 187 for Bill Clinton, 294 for George H.W. Bush and 224 for Reagan over a comparable period).
Why is it misleading? It is misleading because the largest bulk of those “interviews” were not free and open exchanges. These were “interviews” that were pre-programmed by the White House where “interviewers” were told what they were allowed to ask and told what is off the table for discussion.
In other words, few if any of those 568 “interviews” were real interviews. They were instead fully programmed pieces of Obama propaganda. Obama doesn’t work without a net. He programs all media coverage.
In truth, this president rarely gives the press an open chance to ask him anything they want. This has been the most closed, secretive presidency in decades.
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Posted by Warner Todd Huston at 11:50 pm | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)
» Filed Under 1st Amendment, Activist Journalism, Anti-free speech, Barack Obama, Hypocrisy/Situational Ethics, Journalistic Malpractice, Journalistic Prostitution, Liberal Media/Bias, MSM Censorship, MSNBC, Marxism, Media Bias, News, Propaganda, WashingtonPost, government media, liberalism, transparency/accountability
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WaPost: Next Struggling Paper Planning Paywall
-By Warner Todd Huston
The Washington Post is poised to initiate a paywall in 2013. The Post is one of the last major American papers to look into putting some parts of its publication behind a subscriber only Internet screen.
The Wall Street Journal reports that The Washington Post is preparing a “metered paywall” for its Internet site. A metered paywall allows readers to see a few articles per month before blocking any more access and informing the visitor that he must pay to read further.
But ahead of this new attempt to improve revenue, ThePost has been seeing a steep decrease in earnings.
The Post is dealing with a steep decline in its core business of print advertising. Its newspaper division reported an operating loss of $56.3 million for the first nine months of the year, reflecting a 14% decline in revenue to $160.7 million. The company lost its chief revenue officer in the spring, and the search for a replacement continues.
The Post has seen quite a lot of trouble recently with a shake up in leadership as publisher Katherine Weymouth canned executive editor Marcus Brauchi and replaced him with the former editor of the Boston Globe, Marty Baron.
The abrupt shake up caused The New York Times to launch a scathing take down of Weymouth’s leadership saying she was “overseeing the decline of one of journalism’s crown jewels.”
Thus far few of these paywalls have seen great financial success. The Minneapolis Star Tribune, for instance, has experienced a new online subscriber rate that only measures up to 5.7% of its print subscriber base, New York’s Newsday has seen a paltry 1,000 subscribers sign up and this week The Daily announced that it is shutting its iPad service down entirely despite that it was once touted as the best way to save the news industry.
The New York Times tried it once, dumped the idea, and is now trying it a second time. Though The Times’ latest attempt at walling off some content from free access, however, has thus far been considered a successful venture.
But ad revenues have fallen by half since 2005 and the newspaper industry has been bleeding cash and laying off staffers in every corner of the country. Finances have gotten so bad that many long-established, legacy newspapers have been forced to sell off their showplace headquarters buildings and move into cheaper digs.
Of course, most of these papers share a similar liberal point of view. As the Old Media establishment fades each day with revenues in freefall, one wonders why none of them have tried to just report the news honestly and see if that might help reverse their downward spiral?
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Posted by Warner Todd Huston at 11:39 pm | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)
» Filed Under Liberal Media/Bias, New York Times, News, WashingtonPost
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COP18 Hotcoldwetdry Talks Pretty Much End In Failure
Except for those who enjoyed their government funded working vacation, of course. They had a great time…..well, eating, since no alcohol is allowed in the Muslim nation of Qatar. As for the talks themselves, really, when you hold them in the world’s 3rd highest “Carbon polluting” nation, it’s no wonder they failed. (Reuters) gives it the old college try in trying to rescue the outcome
Almost 200 nations extended a weakened United Nations plan for combating global warming until 2020 on Saturday with a modest set of measures that would do nothing to halt rising world greenhouse gas emissions.
Many countries and environmentalists said the deal at the end of marathon two-week U.N. talks in OPEC-member Qatar would fail to slow rising temperatures or avert more floods, droughts, heatwaves and rising sea levels. (hey, look, hotcoldwetdry!)
Environment ministers extended until 2020 the Kyoto Protocol, which obliges about 35 industrialised nations to cut their greenhouse gas emissions until the end of 2012. That keeps the pact alive as the sole legally binding climate plan.
Problem is, only 37 countries of 194 actually signed on to the extension of Kyoto. Many others offer a non-binding “declaration of intent.” Canada, New Zealand, Russia, and even Japan, the nation for which the original protocol was conceived, opted out. For those who committed, that only covers 15% of mankind’s CO2 output.
They did agree to steal raise around $100 billion dollars in aid for developing nations, but there is no framework nor is there any binding commitment to do so.
Britain was a big force in pushing the extension and binding themselves to hosing their economy even more with “green” targets and spending billions. Um, yeah
More snow is expected to fall in the south east (of Britain) from Monday as bitterly cold north-easterly winds continue to bring temperatures as low as 14F (-10C), icy roads and freezing fog.
My bad, I forgot that now cold weather is caused by heat trapping gases.
Fortunately for climate partiers, this means that there will be more United Nations meetings in luxuries vacations spots in future years, where they can talk to their hearts content about reducing Other People’s carbon footprints before jumping back in their fossil fueled airplanes. For COP19, it will be in an Eastern Europe nation, to be decided by whomever provides the best party atmosphere, and which will be amusing as hell, since Eastern Europe has had 4 straight miserable winters, with very cold temps and lots of winter weather.
Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.
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» Filed Under Agenda 21, Agenda based science, Anti-Capitalism, Collapsing Science, Global Warming, Hypocrisy/Situational Ethics, IPCC, News, Science/pseudo-science, Taxes, UN, anti-Liberty/Freedom
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December 8, 2012
The Hill: No GOP Opposition to Speaker Boehner’s Turnabout on Tax Hikes
-By Warner Todd Huston
In a myopic report on the GOP’s half of the Fiscal Cliff debate, The Hill claimed there was no opposition to Republican House Speaker John Boehner’s sudden caving in to President Obama’s demand that tax hikes accompany any solutions to the budget mess.
The Hill reported on December 4 that the GOP was “moving reluctantly toward a debt deal that would increase revenues” and that Speaker Boehner had offered some $800 billion in new taxes in his most recent fiscal cliff proposal.
How could Boehner achieve this flip flopping away from the Party’s until-now stated principles? The Hill says it’s because there aren’t any Republicans opposing the tax hikes.
The lack of immediate backlash within the conference is a key early sign for Boehner, who has made intraparty unity a priority as he seeks the strongest possible hand in negotiations over the “fiscal cliff” with President Obama.
Of course, there could be a reason for this that The Hill doesn’t mention. Boehner is purging all conservatives from his power structure.
Over at Roll Call reporter Jonathan Strong discovered that the Speaker is eliminating as many conservatives from leadership positions as he can.
Speaker John A. Boehner initiated today a small purge of rebellious Republicans — mostly conservatives — from prominent committees; it’s the latest instance of the Ohio Republican’s clamping down on his fractious conference.
Well, perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that Boehner isn’t hearing any contrary voices in his own party since he’s shutting down any such opposition!
An odd aspect to the Hill’s claim that there weren’t any dissenting voices to Boehner’s back pedaling is that only a few paragraphs after saying there wasn’t any, several dissenting voices were reported.
Still, it shouldn’t be surprising that weak-willed Republicans are afraid to pronounce any conservative ideals when Party leadership is making moves to silence conservatism in the Party.
But, even as Boehner is starting to bend over backwards for the President and obviating what he claimed were his previously stated conservative principles, Obama is showing he understands exactly how to force Boehner to abandon all his positions. Saying Boehner’s offer is “still out of balance,” the President is showing that he won’t compromise at all and expects the GOP to come all the way over to his side on the budget talks.
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Posted by Warner Todd Huston at 3:25 pm | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0)
» Filed Under Barack Obama, Congress, Conservatives, Democrats, Economy, Fiscal Responsibility, GOP, Government incompetence, Government malfeasance/misfeasance, House, John Boehner, Journalistic incompetence, Liberal Media/Bias, Media Bias, News, Political chameleons, Political prostitution, Politics As Usual, RINOS, Republicans, Socialism, Stupidity, Taxes, entitlements, government media, government waste, liberalism, political suicide, pork spending
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Norquist: Obama’s Failed Fiscal Cliff Ideas Like a ‘Seinfeld Episode Where No Learning Takes Place’
-By Warner Todd Huston
Grover Norquist worries that Obama is like a bad episode of Seinfeld and might prove unable to learn from his past mistakes pushing us over the fiscal cliff whether we like it or not.
This is what Norquist, chief of Americans for Tax Reform — evangelist for the no-tax pledge that so many Republicans have signed — said in an intimate conversation today during which he laid out some ideas on how to push this debate back in our direction.
In a call with only a few conservative bloggers, Norquist laid out the problems we are facing and then went into some of the specifics, the ins and outs of negotiations, and laid out one idea that could help better inform Americans on just what the heck is going on in this debate.
The first thing of interest the ATR chief said was that we should avoid a grand budget bargain that settles everything at once. Instead, Norquist argued to continue the process of having repeated continuing resolutions. Over the last several years, instead of having a full budget passed by Congress, the House has been making do with short-term budgets called continuing resolutions (CR). These CRs fund the government for months or even weeks instead of a full fiscal year.
For his part, Norquist felt that we’ve gotten far better deals and advanced the spending cut/tax cut ball much further with the CRs than we ever could with a single, year-long budget. He also noted that the GOP had a huge amount of power by having control over the debt ceiling and would be stupid to allow the president to take that from them as he’s proposed doing.
The Republicans have leverage in that they have (power over) the debt ceiling and that’s one of the things we saw the Obama people the other day said, “Why don’t we have an infinite debt ceiling? Why do we not have, allow the Republicans have a leverage point here.” That’s something obviously that the Republican leadership will never give away. It’s the one thing that they can force Obama to the table — they can give him a debt ceiling, here’s a month, here’s two months, here’s six months, here’s something really cool, here’s a year. And the other short leash that they had up on them (the Democrats) two years ago was the continuing resolution. They would give him (Obama) money for a continuing resolution for two weeks that would save four billion dollars in four weeks you’d be saving eight billion dollars which was on track to force him down to a budget level that Republicans had previously argued for.
So, I think that is going to be as big a piece of leverage, continuing resolution extensions, as the debt ceiling. We say we need four billion reduction in spending, or we don’t give you the CR, or here’s the CR with those savings in it. And for Obama to announce I’m shutting the government down over something that small, that becomes more difficult.
Norquist also lightly scolded 2010’s Tea Party freshmen for coming in without enough experience to understand why the CRs were a good deal in the long run. Norquist noted that the Tea Party freshmen couldn’t understand why there was no talk of the “big cuts” but only CR plans with incremental cuts. They needled Boehner and the GOP leadership to go big, but, Norquist feels, that was a mistake.
But, he also felt these same Tea Party Republicans are now seasoned veterans of the debate and now better understand the process, or at least understand the game better.
So, I think it’s actually somewhat better leverage, easier leverage to use regularly than the debt ceiling which the left considers something close to sudden death. So, that’s where we are. We’re working on keeping any tax increase out of this deal, getting the largest amount of spending restraint while recognizing this is not the fight for the next four years. This is “a” fight. A good showing in this fight will help us demand better terms for the next five times we have an argument. So, it’s not unimportant as the first fight but we should never think that if we win it, we’ve won everything, or we get pushed back a little bit, that we’re finished. We have a lot of leverage and a lot of different ways to make Obama’s life unpleasant and to rein in spending and to defend lower taxes.
Norquist next went into a description of ATR’s idea that the fiscal cliff negotiations should be broadcast on CSPAN for everyone to see. He felt that this would help Americans better understand that the GOP really is working hard to avoid falling off the fiscal cliff. He thought such a broadcasting would put a dent in the Old Media establishment’s control of the narrative that says the GOP is only the party of no and that Obama is the only one trying to fix this mess.
When talking to establishment press people they want to say, “well, the president’s being reasonable and Republicans aren’t,” “why do you think that,” “Well, because that’s what Jay Carney said, or that’s what Geithner said.” And, my argument is, look, let’s have CSPAN cameras in the actual negotiations.
Norquist was flabbergasted that there are no talks going on and, worse, there aren’t even any scheduled, but the media doesn’t report this and the American people don’t know this. Regularly scheduled and public meetings, Norquist said, would help us get our message to the public.
It seems to me that if we had meetings with some regularity with Boehner sitting across the table from the President and we could ask the President things like, “So, this budget savings of 800 billion that you have in your budget for not occupying Iraq for the next ten years, why don’t we save more money and not continue the Korean War!”
Norquist also faulted Boehner and the Republicans for a failure to win the PR war. Beohner has sensibly argued for comprehensive tax reform, Norquist said, but by offering “revenue” he fell into the left’s trap of seeming to be accepting of tax hikes on “the rich.”
Beohner, Norquist said, was not arguing for higher taxes but for greater government receipts by closing loopholes and reforming the tax code so that the tax base was made larger. But the left and a compliant media purposefully misreported Boehner’s idea as if Boehner found tax hikes acceptable. Instead of going for tax hikes, Boehner was arguing that we’d get more tax dollars into the coffers by growing the economy and fixing the tax code, not raising taxes.
Today President Obama scoffed at the GOP’s idea that closing loopholes could grow tax receipts.
“It’s very difficult to see how you make up that trillion dollars — if we’re serious about deficit reduction — just by closing loopholes and deductions,” the president said. “You know, the math tends not to work.”
But, this blather from the President proves just how disingenuous he is in this debate. Why? Because here is what he said only a year ago:
What we said was give us $1.2 trillion in additional revenues, which could be accomplished without hiking tax rates. It could simply be accomplished by eliminating loopholes, eliminating some deductions and engaging in a tax reform process that could lower rates generally while broadening the base.
Just last year the President was 100% on the same page as Boehner is right now, yet suddenly today the President says Boehner is wrong.
So, how is the Old Media establishment reporting the fact that Boehner is talking about tax reform and loophole cutting, but not tax hikes? Check out CNN’s headline, “The rich will pay more taxes, Boehner says.”
See what Grover was talking about? Despite facts, the Old Media will side with Obama. This is why he thinks the CSPAN broadcasts of the negotiations will help further the GOP narrative mostly because the GOP is incapable of doing this on its own.
Norquist said that any thought of raising taxes is the wrong solution no matter what and we won on this issue in the debt ceiling debate as well as the many CR debates. We need to make sure that people understand that this is all in Obama’s court, that he is the one pushing us to default, not us.
Norquist also said he didn’t think that Obama wanted to be so stiff necked that his foot dragging would hurt the 20 vulnerable Democrat Senators that will come up for election in two year’s time.
Now he’s got to worry about the Senate getting re-elected and I think that limits what damage he’s really willing to do. I think he’s in much weaker position than his team pretends he is because he cannot afford to push his 20 senators, 20 vulnerable Democratic senators over that fiscal cliff. And Republicans are likely to pick up House seats as well in the off-year election.
This isn’t a bad point. After all, recently The Hill reported that moderate Democrats are “lying low” during this fiscal cliff debate because they are afraid of a backlash in 2014.
But, Obama has repeatedly proven that he doesn’t care much about how his policies affect others, even those in his own party. I noted that he has spent the last four years not learning any lessons from the voters. He didn’t learn anything by going from 70 percent approval ratings to less than 50 percent, he didn’t learn anything when Republican Scott Walker got elected during the fight over Obamacare, and most certainly didn’t learn anything from the Republican wave that came in as a result of the 2010 election. He continued right on as if he had the largest mandate in history and paid no mind at all to the electoral lessons he should have learned.
In reply, Norquist was rueful.
You just outlined exactly why he may push us over the cliff because he’s learned nothing, he thinks he’s been made king, four years ago he thought that we’d put him in charge of everything and he blew it all apart with his stimulus spending and went from 70 percent support down to 50 percent support and it appears like he’s doing it again. And he just might and in that case the only thing that wakes him up is actually going over the cliff. I hope we don’t do that, I’d much rather have him wake up and not steer us into the bridge abutment but it is quite true that he has lived his presidency as a Seinfeld episode where no learning takes place.
Indeed, no learning has taken place. President Obama doesn’t much care to work with anyone. It’s his way or the highway on everything. Period. Despite that the media pretends that Obama is the only one trying to compromise, the truth is that he has never and will never compromise with anyone.
It’s about time to get this truth out to the American people.
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Posted by Warner Todd Huston at 2:27 pm | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0)
» Filed Under Anti-Capitalism, Barack Obama, Congress, Conservatives, Debt ceiling, Democrats, Economy, Elections, Fiscal Responsibility, GOP, Government incompetence, Government malfeasance/misfeasance, House, Journalistic Malpractice, Journalistic Prostitution, Liberal Media/Bias, Media Bias, News, Politics As Usual, President, Republicans, Senate, Taxes, economic stimulus, entitlements, government media, government waste, liberalism, pork spending, transparency/accountability
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Bummer: New Science Shows Greenland Ice Loss Much Less Than Warmists Computer Models Show
One of the foundation talking points from Disciples of Gore is that Greenland’s ice will melt and all of mankind will die (which is an interesting talking point of hysteria since Warmists also want the human population of Earth to be vastly reduced). Warmists always refuse to remember and talk about Vikings having settled Greenland and become an agrarian society during the warm period that preceded the Little Ice Age. But, you know, science
(The Register) A new analysis of data from dedicated satellites shows that one of the main factors predicted to drive rising sea levels in future has been seriously overestimated, with major implications for climate talks currently underway in Doha.
Using that new method, the Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment (GRACE), we find
According to a Princeton statement highlighting the new research:
While overall ice loss on Greenland consistently increased between 2003 and 2010, Harig and Simons found that it was in fact very patchy from region to region.
In addition, the enhanced detail of where and how much ice melted allowed the researchers to estimate that the annual acceleration in ice loss is much lower than previous research has suggested, roughly increasing by 8 billion tons every year. Previous estimates were as high as 30 billion tons more per year.
Wait, Warmists were exaggerating? They’d never do that, right? Or was it that they were just making it up as they went along?
In other words the possible acceleration in ice losses is barely perceptible: it may not really be happening at all. Similar results were seen not long ago in GRACE data for central Asian mountain glaciers, another suggested source for sea-level rises.
But, just in case it is happening, Warmists really need to make their lives “carbon neutral”. Act like it’s a crisis. More from the study
At current melt rates, the Greenland ice sheet would take about 13,000 years to melt completely, which would result in a global sea-level rise of more than 21 feet (6.5 meters).
Everybody pani……oh. Anyhow, Warmists should immediately cut their fossil fuel usage in half. Bike to work. Walk. No, I don’t care if it’s 30 miles. We’re talking about saving Gaia.
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» Filed Under AGW hyposterics, Agenda based science, Collapsing Science, Global Warming, News, Science/pseudo-science
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Liberals Really Upset That Obama’s Considering *GULP* Enforcing Federal Drug Laws
As I’ve written multiple times, I really couldn’t care less one way or the other about marijuana: I don’t smoke it, have no plans to smoke it, and, really, it is a much less dangerous drug than alcohol. I’d prefer they not smoke it in public, a contact high is not in my daily plans. But, it is a federally controlled Schedule I drug, meaning it is illegal to use, possess, and or sell, and has no medical benefits. Alas, liberals are really put out that Obama is considering actually enforcing pesky federal law. Here’s Excitable Andrew Sullivan
What he’s thinking about doing is going after those who use pot in Washington and Colorado, which made the drug legal per a referendum this November, as well as suing those states.
Well, since they’re asking: if they decide to treat the law-abiding citizens of Colorado and Washington as dangerous felons; if they decide to allocate their precious law enforcement powers to persecuting and arresting people for following a state law that they have themselves just passed by clear majorities; if they decide that opposing a near majority of Americans in continuing to prosecute the drug war on marijuana, even when the core of their own supporters want an end to Prohibition, and even when that Prohibition makes no sense … then we will give them hell.
Except, under federal law, they aren’t law abiding citizens. And Obama and his DOJ stooges take an oath to uphold the laws of this land (not that they haven’t already broken that covenant multiple times). It’s funny, though, what really gets liberals upset. Not adding $7 trillion to the debt in under 4 years. Not rampant high unemployment and record numbers of people dropping out of the jobs market in despair. Not record numbers of people stuck on food stamps. No, they’re enraged by enforcing federal law on drug use.
But the main reason the president should instruct the Justice Department that this is not an area for discretionary prosecution is that choosing to focus on pot-prohibition in states that have legalized it defies reason. One of my core arguments for Obama has long been his adoption of what I consider pretty reasonable, if always debatable, policies. He is not an extremist, proposing laws and regulations that are designed to make a cultural point or wage a cultural war; he’s a pragmatist, trying to fix existing problems.
It defies reason because……it defies reason. Has Andy been smoking? It’s not discretionary prosecution: it’s following the law as laid out.
The Plum Lines’ Greg Sargent is on board with Sully (he does realize that the Washington Post drug tests, right?)
Now, on the one hand, it’s admittedly hard for liberals to argue that the federal government doesn’t have the legal authority to do this. But on the merits, there’s an argument to be made that pursuing this course of action would undermine one of Obama’s own long-held moral positions.
See, there’s a bit of a problem: The Law trumps Obama’s “long held moral positions”. But, then, our nation has already moved past that “we’re a nation of laws not a nation of men” notion long ago.
This last suggestion ain’t happening any time soon, but Sullivan is speaking for a lot of angry people here. If the administration can agree not to make enforcement of other bad laws—like the Defense of Marriage Act—a prosecutorial priority, it can do exactly the same thing with pot.
Isn’t kind of hard to get angry when stoned? Hungry, yes. Lethargic, yes. Angry? Dude, pass the bong.
Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.
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Posted by William Teach at 8:24 am | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0)
» Filed Under 10th Amendment, Barack Obama, Delusional Dupes and DUmmies, DoJ, Hypocrisy/Situational Ethics, Liberal World, News, State Government, States Rights, liberalism
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December 7, 2012
New York Post Criticized for Cover Photo of Man Seconds Before Death by Train
-By Warner Todd Huston
The New York Post came under heavy criticism on Tuesday for publishing a full page photo of a man on its December 4 front page taken only seconds before he was killed by a Midtown Manhattan subway train. The photo’s headline luridly read, “Doomed” and a subhead screamed, “Pushed on the subway track, this man is about to die.”
The photo showed Queens, New York resident Ki Suk Han, 58, after he was pushed onto subway tracks just as a train was pulling into the station. Mr. Han was clearly trying to climb out of the deep-set tracks, but the paper informs readers that he wasn’t able to do so and was killed by the oncoming train.
Naeem Davis, 30, confessed to the murder and is in police custody.
The paper was criticized for its “if it bleeds, it leads” style of news reporting, with one Twitter user accusing the paper of dealing in “snuff.”
Regular Twitter users weren’t the only ones attacking the Post for its editorial decision. Journalists also attacked the Post on Twitter for using the shocking photo, especially as a front page image. Jeff Sonderman of Poynter republished the tweets of several journalists making the complaint.
Sonderman not only criticized the Post but also scolded every other news outlet for republishing the photo while dealing in faux outrage over the Post’s initial decision to publish the photo itself.
If you conclude it’s wrong to publish the photo, then is it also wrong for other media to republish the photo as they cover the Post’s initial decision? That’s the question New York City news blog Gothamist asks about The New York Times’ City Room blog post…
The man who took the photo also came in for criticism. For The Atlantic, Alexander Abad-Santos wondered why freelance photographer R. Umar Abbasi stood there taking pictures instead of helping the poor man to safety.
If there’s enough time to capture a dying man’s last moments before getting hit by an oncoming train that’s that worthy of a tabloid cover, couldn’t the photographer have lent a hand?
In his own defense, the photog — described as a “Post freelance photographer” –said that he was trying to use his camera flash to alert the driver of the oncoming train.
“I just started running, running, hoping that the driver could see my flash,” Abbasi explained in the Post’s original story.
Ryu Spaeth of The Week blames some of this on the “rapacious” Internet but also notes that no one scolds photogs in war torn areas for not helping people.
Of course, this controversy is just the latest installment in “a never-ending debate about photojournalism,” says John Del Signore at Gothamist. While it’s easy to blast the Post and Abbasi for their lack of ethics, or blame a smartphone-happy culture in which every subway fight is filmed and rapaciously consumed on the internet, no one is taking photographers to task for, say, failing to help wounded rebels in Syria and publishing photos of their suffering.
It is certainly hard not to wince at the photo and brings to the debate the seminal question of just what responsibilities journalists have to the people they are covering.
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Posted by Warner Todd Huston at 4:53 pm | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)
» Filed Under Bloggers, Hypocrisy/Situational Ethics, Internet, Journalistic Malpractice, Media Bias, New Media, News, Twitter, social media
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NYTimes Cutting Staff Again
-By Warner Todd Huston
Workers at The New York Times are facing more lost jobs as the paper of record initiates a new round of staff cuts in a cost savings move.
In a pair of leaked memos written by The Times’ executive editor, Jill Abramson, management informs employees of the goal of eliminating thirty more newsroom staffers.
“The economic environment has grown more difficult in the second half of the year and I must reduce costs in the newsroom,” Abramson told employees.
I hope the needed savings can be achieved through voluntary buyouts but if not, I will be forced to go to layoffs among the excluded staff. I expect that I will have to reduce the excluded staff by about 30 positions.
The New York Times already cut 100 positions in 2009 and initiated 20 contract buyouts in 2011.
Adweek reports that even as The Times has had continued success with its newest online paywall, its ad revenue is still in free fall.
This isn’t just a New York Times problem, of course. The whole newspaper industry is on the verge of collapse.
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Posted by Warner Todd Huston at 4:36 pm | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)
» Filed Under Economy, Jobs, Liberal Media/Bias, New York Times, News
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Crazy Liberals Force Cancellation Of School Charity Christmas Concert
Remember, there is no war on Christmas. It doesn’t exist. Liberals keep telling us this. It’s supposed to be a fiction created by Fox, excuse me, Faux News
(Daily Caller) The Hawaii Department of Education canceled a beloved annual Christmas concert by the Moanalua High School orchestra only four days before the event, following legal complaints by an First Amendment advocacy organization.
Mitch Kahle, founder of the Hawaii Citizens for the Separation of State and Church, wrote a letter to the Department threatening a lawsuit because of New Hope Church’s involvement in the concert, according to Hawaii News Now.
New Hope Church manages ticket sales and sells tickets to the concert at its services, sending all proceeds to charitable causes.
Over the years, the concert has raised over $200,000 through ticket sales at it’s church and other avenues over the past 6 years, which went for aid to poor people in Africa. The church has sold over 600 tickets for this year’s concert, which would have raised $30,000 for aid. I guess liberal “separation of church and state” weenies hate black people. Along with hating people being able to freely practice their religion voluntarily.
The stories state that they are trying to obtain a new venue for the concert, but with 4 days left, that is unlikely. Unfortunately, they aren’t, per commenter at the Hawaii News Now article
“The issue here is an entanglement between a public school and a Christian church,” said Kahle, according to Hawaii News Now. “And one of the things about the Constitution is that it prohibits the involvement of public schools and churches.”
A complete fiction, as that appears nowhere in the Constitution. But, we can’t expect liberals talking about the Constitution to have actually read it, now, can we?
Let’s flip over to that Hawaii News Now article (which also has video), and check out this comment
100% of all funds collected (ticket sales and donations) from Moanalua’s Gift of Hope Charity Concert has gone to various charities. New Hope has not benefitted financially from any of these concerts. In fact, many expenses for the concert, including snacks and meals for the students, has been incurred by volunteers, who, yes, attend New Hope.
In the past the concert has supported local charities, though the last few years the beneficiary has been Mercy Ships, a non-profit humanitarian aid organization that provides free medical care to those that need it most, regardless of age, gender, religion, etc. (snip)
Contrary to the false accusations that were made, tickets did not need to be purchased at New Hope’s church service. They could have been purchased at Moanalua’s Winter Concert, through the music department, at the door the night of the concert, as well as at New Hope or by calling New Hope and placing a phone order. I have been giving this information out to those that have called or emailed me.
The goal was to raise $30,000 (which would have then been matched, dollar for dollar – making it $60,000) through this charity concert. I believe that goal would have been met, based on past experience. It is with that past experience, not unfounded suspicions, that I can attest that these statements are true.
That is from Chad Brownstein, the video director at the New Hope Christian Fellowship. And because of some liberals who have an agenda based on a fantasy reading of the constitution other people suffer.
Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.
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Posted by William Teach at 9:03 am | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)
» Filed Under 1st Amendment, ACLU, Anti-free speech, Bigotry, Christmas, Church And State, Constitution, Education, Fraud/misrepresentation, Government hostility towards religion, Homeschooling, Liberal World, News, Revisionism, Secular Humanism, State Government, anti-Liberty/Freedom, liberalism
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Surprise! Team Obama Doesn’t Want Senate Voting On Obama Fiscal Cliff “Plan”
First we had Harry Reid, Democrat Majority Leader in the US Senate, refusing to allow any vote on Obama’s fiscal cliff tax ‘n spend plan, calling it a “stunt”. Following that we get
(National Journal) The White House on Thursday dismissed as political mischief Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s offer to bring President Obama’s fiscal cliff plan to a vote on the floor, conceding the proposal would not receive the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster.
“We don’t have 60 votes in the Senate,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said, adding the White House was “very confident” that Democrats support the principles outlined in Obama’s plan, which has met with derision among Republicans.
Carney called McConnell’s Wednesday challenge “the kind of political games that aren’t serious.”
Interesting. The only people who would filibuster Obama’s “plan” would be …… Democrats!
The GOP wants a vote on the “plan” in order to force Democrats to go on the record as to their support for said “plan”. Both Reid and Obama understand that it would be very embarrassing for Obama’s “plan” to receive few, if any, votes from Democrats, which would expose (NMP) Obama’s position as being extreme and economically foolish. And the plan is foolish. It fails to address the underlying issue of the US government spending too darned much while simply scapegoating upper middle class people and higher. And adding more spending.
Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.
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Posted by William Teach at 8:41 am | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)
» Filed Under Anti-Capitalism, Barack Obama, Congress, Debt ceiling, Democrats, Economy, Fiscal Responsibility, Government malfeasance/misfeasance, House, National Debt, News, President, Senate, Socialism, Taxes, class warfare, entitlements, government waste, liberalism, pork spending
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December 6, 2012
Surprise! Obama Admin Approved Weapons Transfers End Up In Jihadi Hands In Libya
Now that the election is long over, the NY Times decides to do a little real reporting
The Obama administration secretly gave its blessing to arms shipments to Libyan rebels from Qatar last year, but American officials later grew alarmed as evidence grew that Qatar was turning some of the weapons over to Islamic militants, according to United States officials and foreign diplomats.
Gee, who would have thought this would happen, what with all the hardcore Islamists streaming into Libya as the civil war raged, something that was well known even before the US/British/French airstrikes occurred? Back on November 28th, the Washington Post reported on how Qatar (where the UN IPCC is being held this year, BTW) is using vast amounts of its oil revenue to fund Islamist groups.
No evidence has emerged linking the weapons provided by the Qataris during the uprising against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi to the attack that killed four Americans at the United States diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, in September.
But, that could be a rationale as to why Team Obama spun their web of lies and deceit about it being a spontaneous film review that got out of hand.
But in the months before, the Obama administration clearly was worried about the consequences of its hidden hand in helping arm Libyan militants, concerns that have not previously been reported. The weapons and money from Qatar strengthened militant groups in Libya, allowing them to become a destabilizing force since the fall of the Qaddafi government.
The Obama administration did not initially raise objections when Qatar began shipping arms to opposition groups in Syria, even if it did not offer encouragement, according to current and former administration officials. But they said the United States has growing concerns that, just as in Libya, the Qataris are equipping some of the wrong militants.
The transitional government of Libya has complained to the Obama administration regarding these arms transfers, saying it is concerned that they are ending up in the hands of “the wrong militants”, which would mean groups linked to al Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood, etc. It gets better
The administration has never determined where all of the weapons, paid for by Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, went inside Libya, officials said. Qatar is believed to have shipped by air and sea small arms, including machine guns, automatic rifles, and ammunition, for which it has demanded reimbursement from Libya’s new government. Some of the arms since have been moved from Libya to militants with ties to Al Qaeda in Mali, where radical jihadi factions have imposed Shariah law in the northern part of the country, the former Defense Department official said. Others have gone to Syria, according to several American and foreign officials and arms traders.
Smart Power!
Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.
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Posted by William Teach at 7:25 am | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0)
» Filed Under Barack Obama, Foreign Policy, News, terrorism
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