Lessons Learned In Life That Apply In Politics

On Tuesday, The American Thinker posted an article describing what you can learn about an employee by the way he spends his last few days before leaving your employ.

The article notes:

If you work in the business world long enough, you will notice that an employee reveals the most about his own personal work ethic, not when he starts out, not when he’s angling for a bonus or promotion, but at the end, when he gets a new job and gives his two weeks’ notice, or when he starts training his successor as he reaches retirement.

How hard does he work those final weeks? Does he still put the company first, or does he just phone it in? Or does he stuff his briefcase with office supplies, raid the petty cash drawer, and pilfer the prototype cabinet every evening before he goes home?

If he really gives it all he’s got, right up to the last day, then there’s a role model to remember with love.

The same goes for political leadership when it has had its walking papers served on Election Day, or even when that eventuality becomes evident, months in advance.

The polls now are in agreement: barring some earth-shaking shock this autumn, the Democrat party will be out of leadership in the United States House of Representatives and in some state legislatures as well, following the November elections.

Despite what I just quoted, my advice to Republicans is not to count their chickens just yet. There are three plus months for Democrats to pull every dirty trick they can to make sure they hang on to power. Expect anything.

However, the article makes some very good points about the actions of the past Democrat political leadership versus some recent Republican leadership:

As author Barbara Olson revealed in her shocking book, “The Final Days,” much of the Clinton team was so certain they would be carried forward in a Gore administration, many engaged in petty (and some not so petty) acts of sabotage across the executive branch, especially at the White House, between Election Day 2000 and Inauguration Day 2001. That crew spent their final months doing damage.

By contrast, think back on the end of Donald Trump’s first term, as the clock ticked off the final months in 2020-2021.

President Trump’s medical response team had been working on fast-tracking the development and approval of vaccines and treatment arrays for Covid-19 throughout 2020; they didn’t let up, they accelerated their work, right up to the final day, turning over a complete, impressive vaccine and treatment program to the incoming Biden regime.

The article concludes with the actions of the current Congressional leadership:

The Pelosi/Schumer team sees the end of their own gravy train approaching, and they’re gathering every last handful of perks, doling out every last favor to their friends, distributing the largesse that you and I fund to the non-profits and NGOs from whom they will likely seek lucrative jobs the very morning after the voters toss them out on their ungrateful ears in November.

And worst of all, even though this future is all but written in stone, we have to watch it unfold, predictably but unalterably, for another six long, painful months.

There are good reasons why, in the private sector, once you realize you have employees like this in your organization, you have them pack up their desks, and you direct Security to march them out immediately, without postponing the inevitable another day.

Hang on to your hats–unfortunately it’s not over yet.

Ruining The Environment Because You Want To Win

The Washington Examiner posted an article today about the Iowa Caucuses and the role that ethanol plays in them. In theory ethanol is a great idea. In practice it has not had the positive impact on the environment that was hoped for.

The article reports:

The summer before the Iowa caucuses is when politicians abandon whatever it is they believe in and instead pay homage to King Corn.

When Republicans are running, any belief in free enterprise is scuttled in favor the big government ethanol mandate.

Among Democrats, concern about smog and pollution evaporates in the heat of an Iowa summer.

The politicians who pledge to take on the special interests instead bow obediently before the ethanol lobby.

Al Gore, who admits federal support for ethanol was a mistake, explains his own advocacy of such policies thus: “I had a certain fondness for the farmers in the state of Iowa because I was about to run for president.”

It’s a dispiriting sight, but it’s as much a part of the Iowa caucus tradition as butter cows and fried Oreos.

The article explains some of the problems with ethanol:

Also, federally mandated use of ethanol wreaks havoc on the environment.

“Making corn into ethanol threatens surface and sub-surface waters in several ways,” the Freshwater Society states.

For starters, there are the spills, which occur every two days on average. Ethanol can’t be transported by pipeline, and so it rides trains and trucks from the heartland where it’s made to the coasts, where Uncle Sam forces refiners to buy it.

The added use of fertilizers in the extra corn-growing creates lots of runoff, which down the line deprives rivers of oxygen. Distilling ethanol requires four times as much water as does refining real gasoline — so the ethanol mandate depletes water supplies.

Ranchers pay the price as corn is shifted from feed to fuel. Drivers pay the price as they have to refuel more (ethanol has less energy per gallon than gasoline does). Bikers and boaters suffer more, as ethanol gunks up those smaller engines. Ethanol is also destroying your lawnmower this summer.

The article concludes:

Refiners, corn growers, and ethanol distillers all suffer from uncertainty and inconsistency. So, we’ve got a proposal for any 2020 Democrat who cares about taking on the special interests, protecting the air and the water, and moving beyond the inconstancy of the Trump administration.

Abolish the ethanol mandate altogether.

Maybe Cory Booker or Joe Biden can pick up the bill Ted Cruz pushed in 2015, which would wind the mandate down to zero gallons in five years. Cruz even won Iowa, in part because enough voters liked a man who stood on principle.

Do the Democrats have a man or a woman like that?

Stay tuned.

Do You Need Two Sides To Debate An Issue?

Do you need two sides to debate an issue? Evidently NBC News doesn’t think so. Yesterday The Washington Times posted an article about the debate on climate change.

The article reports:

NBC News has decided that climate change is no longer an issue that has two sides.

Sunday’s episode of “Meet the Press” with Chuck Todd featured an hourlong panel with lawmakers and scientists about the consequences of climate change. But at the start, Mr. Todd said his show is “not going to give time to climate deniers” and went on to inaccurately characterize the nature of the climate debate.

“Just as important as what we are going to do is what we’re not going to do,” he said. “We’re not going to debate climate change, the existence of it. The earth is getting hotter, and human activity is a major cause. Period.”

“We’re not going to give time to climate deniers,” Mr. Todd added. “The science is settled even if political opinion is not.”

Skeptics about some of the most alarmist climate-change scenarios drawn by former Vice President Al Gore and other Democratic and left-wing politicians bristle at the word “denier,” claiming it implies parallels to people who claim the Holocaust or the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks didn’t happen.

The article continues with the supposed justification for not allowing a second opinion:

Mr. Todd’s panel Sunday had non-scientists offering their opinions, including California Gov. Jerry Brown, Rep. Carlos Curbelo and potential Democratic presidential contender Michael Bloomberg.

“We need to stop covering the debate and start covering the story so that people see that this is real, and so that politicians take a more pragmatic approach and find solutions that are actually achievable,” Mr. Curbelo said about the one-sided discussion.

Other politicians applauded the well-parametered show, with Sen. Bernie Sanders who took to Twitter to offer “congratulations to Chuck Todd and Meet the Press for holding a serious discussion about climate change.”

“Will this be a breakthrough moment for mainstream TV?” the Vermont socialist asked.

How can it be a serious discussion if one side is censored?

Just for the record, below is an illustration of the Scientific Method as found at Science Buddies:

I don’t see anything on there that says don’t let anyone who disagrees with you speak!

Despite What The Mainstream Media Says…

Stephen Moore posted an article at Real Clear Politics today about global pollution. Remember all the hysteria when America didn’t sign the Kyoto Treat and didn’t institute a cap-and-trade carbon tax? Well, evidently Americans cared enough about keeping the air clean to reduce carbon dioxide emission on their own.

The article reports:

Yet the latest world climate report from the BP Statistical Review of World Energy finds that in 2017, America reduced its carbon emissions by 0.5 percent, the most of all major countries. That’s especially impressive given that our economy grew by nearly 3 percent — so we had more growth and less pollution — the best of all worlds. The major reason for the reduced pollution levels is the shale oil and gas revolution that is transitioning the world to cheap and clean natural gas for electric power generation.

Meanwhile, as our emissions fell, the pollution levels rose internationally and by a larger amount than in previous years. So much for the rest of the world going green.

The world’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide emissions is China. According to the invaluable Institute for Energy Research, “China produces 28 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions. India is the world’s third-largest emitter of carbon dioxide and had the second-largest increment (93 million metric tons) of carbon dioxide emissions in 2017, more than twice as much an increase as the U.S. reduction.” This means it doesn’t really matter how much America reduces its greenhouse gases because China and India cancel out any and all progress we make. Those who think they are helping save the planet by purchasing an electric car or putting a solar panel on their roof are barking up the wrong tree. There is no way to make progress on greenhouse gases without China and India on board — which they clearly are not.

It is basically ironic that China and India, both countries that signed the Kyoto Treaty, have increased their carbon dioxide to the point where they are cancelling out the gains made by America.

The article concludes:

So there you have it. The countries in the Paris climate accord have broken almost every promise they’ve made and the nation (the U.S.) that hasn’t signed the treaty is doing more than any other nation to reduce global warming. Yet, we are being lectured by the sanctimonious Europeans and Asians for not doing our fair share to save the planet. It’s another case study in how the left cares far more about good intentions than actual results. What matters is that you say that you will wash the dishes, not that you actually do it.

Unfortunately the war on carbon has never been about making the earth a cleaner place–it has always been about money. The Chicago Climate Exchange was set up in 2003 so that powerful Democrats could make a ton of money once cap-and-trade legislation was passed in America. It closed in 2010 when the legislation was not passed, and those Democrats lost their investment. Its two biggest investors were Al Gore’s Generation Investment Management and Goldman Sachs–and President Obama, who helped launch CCX with funding from the Joyce Foundation, where he and presidential advisor Valerie Jarrett once sat on the board of directors. Had cap and trade gotten through Congress, all of those people would have made a lot of money. That is one of many reasons why they supported the legislation–clean air was simply a side issue. (References here and here).

 

 

If You Truly Believed This, Would It Change Your Behavior?

Yesterday Investor’s Business Daily posted an article about the behavior of people who sincerely believe in climate change (or at least claim to).

The article reports:

We keep hearing how global warming is the biggest crisis facing mankind today. But a new yearlong study finds that those ringing the alarm bells the loudest are the least likely to change their own behavior. They just want everyone else to.

The study divided 600 adults who reported on their climate-change beliefs into three groups: “skeptical,” “cautiously worried” and “highly concerned.”

Then the researchers — from the University of Michigan and Cornell University — tracked how often they reported doing things like recycling, using public transportation, buying environmentally friendly consumer products, and reusing shopping bags. And they asked about support for government mandates like CO2 emission reduction, gasoline taxes and renewable energy subsidies. The Journal of Environmental Psychology published the findings.

The findings are not a surprise to many of us.

The article reports the results:

The researchers found that the “highly concerned” group was the least likely to take individual action, but they were the most insistent on government action. The “skeptical” group, in contrast, was the most likely to recycle, use public transportation and do other environmentally sound things all on their own. Skeptics were least likely to endorse costly government regulations and mandates.

“Belief in climate change,” the researchers explained, “predicted support for government policies, but did not generally translate to individual-level, self-reported pro-environmental behavior. ” (emphasis mine)

Two notable examples of spouting climate change rhetoric but creating an unbelievable carbon footprint are Al Gore and Leonardo DiCaprio. Both live in luxurious homes which use much more electricity than the average American, and both travel on private jets. I have no problem with this–they have earned what they have. However, if you are going to support government regulations that negatively impact people earning a fraction of what you make, you really should practice what you preach.

When Your Predictions Are Wrong, Just Change The Time Frame

Yesterday The Independent Journal Review posted an article about the global warming predictions that were supposed to be happening about now that are nowhere in sight.

The article reports:

The cult’s leader — Al Gore — said in 2009 that there was a 75 percent chance that the entire arctic polar ice cap would melt by 2014.

It’s still there.

The year before the North Pole was supposed to be gone, noted climate scientist Hans von Storch went against cult orthodoxy in an interview with Spiegel Online in 2013 and had some interesting things to say about the climate prediction models so revered by the alarmists.

After noting that “climate change seems to be taking a break,” von Storch had this to say about the models:

“If things continue as they have been, in five years, at the latest, we will need to acknowledge that something is fundamentally wrong with our climate models. A 20-year pause in global warming does not occur in a single modeled scenario. But even today, we are finding it very difficult to reconcile actual temperature trends with our expectations.”

I’m not a scientist, but it seems to me that if your predictions supposedly using the scientific method continually do not happen, there might be something wrong with your models or your calculations.

The article reports what the scientists are doing to modify their failed predictions:

Climate alarmist James Hansen’s prediction of Manhattan being underwater by 2018 seems to not be happening, so he’s moving his own goal posts and saying “50 to 150 years” now.

That’s the beauty of being one of the “we believe in science” people: there’s never any penalty for being wrong. Every prediction that doesn’t come true isn’t a cause for reflection about perhaps adjusting the conclusion; it’s merely an opportunity to pull a new prediction out of thin air.

Perhaps they are finally getting embarrassed, though. Tossing all of the predictions a century down the road at least saves them from having to be around when those are proved wrong.

The global warming movement has never been about science or the environment.

The following is from an article I posted in March 2016:

Then listen to the words of former United Nations climate official Ottmar Edenhofer:

“One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with the environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole,” said Edenhofer, who co-chaired the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change working group on Mitigation of Climate Change from 2008 to 2015.

So what is the goal of environmental policy?

“We redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy,” said Edenhofer.

For those who want to believe that maybe Edenhofer just misspoke and doesn’t really mean that, consider that a little more than five years ago he also said that “the next world climate summit in Cancun is actually an economy summit during which the distribution of the world’s resources will be negotiated.”

The earth’s climate is cyclical.  Scientists have found fossils in Greenland of animals from much more temperate climates. The Middle Ages experienced a period of global warming that had nothing to do with SUV’s.  The bottom line is that man is rather insignificant in the grand scheme of the earth’s climate. I believe that we have a responsibility to keep the earth as clean as possible, but we also have a responsibility to develop the earth’s resources to allow all people on the planet to experience freedom and the ability to earn enough to have food and shelter. Redistribution of wealth is not the solution to poverty–freedom is–and that is exactly what the global warming crowd is trying to limit.

I would like to note at this point that at least one generation of school children has been raised on this fake science as if it were fact. Combined with the fact that our children are no longer being taught critical thinking skills, this may be a major problem for the future of our country.

Is Anyone Reading The E-Mails?

On Thursday, wattsupwiththat posted a story one subject found in the emails that we haven’t heard a lot about. The subject is a carbon-tax (which Hillary supports). Just for the record, a carbon tax would be devastating to the American economy, but might make a few well-connected people in Washington very rich. In 2010, I posted an article about the closing of the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX).

I quoted the National Review:

“The CCX seemed to have a lock on success. Not only was a young Barack Obama a board member of the Joyce Foundation that funded the fledgling CCX, but over the years it attracted such big name climate investors as Goldman Sachs and Al Gore’s Generation Investment Management.”

“CCX’s panicked original investors bailed out this spring, unloading the dog and its across-the-pond cousin, the European Climate Exchange (ECX), for $600 million to the New York Stock Exchange-traded Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) – an electronic futures and derivatives platform based in Atlanta and London. (Luckier than the CCX, the ECX continues to exist thanks to the mandatory carbon caps of the Kyoto Protocol.)

“The ECX may soon follow the CCX into oblivion, however – the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. No new international treaty is anywhere in sight.”

Please follow the link to wattsupwiththat to read the recently released email dealing with Hillary Clinton’s stand on creating a carbon tax. It is very obvious that ‘climate change’ is strictly a political issue.

The article makes the following comment about the email:

In case you’ve been under a rock for the last few days, Wikileaks has been dumping emails from Hillary Clinton campaign manager John Podesta. Podesta is firmly in bed with the anti-American interests over at the antithetically named named “Center for American Progress”, home of climate flamer Joe Romm, an organization with yearly funding of over 30 million dollars at last count. I’ve been looking at a few of the emails that talk about climate, and I just had to share this one because it represents so clearly the differences between public and private pronouncements that’s been talked about lately.

This email and the others that have been released show a mainstream media that has truly deceived the American people. It is our choice whether or not we will continue to be deceived. It is time to clean house in Washington. We have reached a level of corruption that is a serious threat to our freedom.

 

 

The Political Left Has Finally Found A War It Wants To Fight–And Even Include A Draft

Yes, it has happened. The political left has finally found a war it is wholeheartedly willing to fight–no holds barred–they even want to draft Americans to fight it. So what is that war?

Investor’s Business Daily posted an article today about a war the political left wants to fight.

The article reports:

The political left is ready to go to war, but not against any real threat. It wants to fight global warming — and of course that will require Americans to make sacrifices that just happen to align with the left’s objectives.

Al Gore popularized the phrase “fighting global warming” to underscore what he thinks is the seriousness of the matter. Though profoundly childish, the expression caught on and apparently inspired a Seattle-based writer to lay out in the Atlantic a plan for war.

According to Venkatesh Rao, “solving global warming” is going to be “like mobilizing for war.” And of course, war requires us to give up some things in the name of the effort.

…Rao says that “for ordinary Americans, austerities might include an end to expansive suburban lifestyles and budget air travel, and an accelerated return to high-density urban living and train travel.”

At the same time, businesses might need to rethink “entire supply chains, as high-emissions sectors become unviable under new emissions regimes.”

In this wartime, Rao is also demanding trust in “academic and energy-sector public institutions” as well as in “the integrity and declared intentions of institutions” that understand “the intricacies” of climate science.

Nevermind the false data that has been used to show climate change, never mind the growing ice caps that contradict the panicked claims of global warming. We have become so arrogant that we believe that we can control the climate outside and inside. Wow.

I would like to point out at this point that I support efforts made to make air and water cleaner. I support efforts to maintain the earth and correct previous mistakes made that had a negative impact on the environment,. However, I also believe that crippling the free market system (or what is left of it) in the world will simply cause more poverty, more pollution, and more misery. That is something I simply cannot support.

The Most Accurate Weather Predictor

Oddly enough, the group of people who have most accurately predicted weather in recent years are the writers of the Farmer’s Almanac. There is a reason many American farmers rely on their advice on when to plant and when to harvest–they are generally right.

On Monday The Daily Caller posted an article about the successful prediction record of The Farmer’s Almanac vs. the global warming people.

The article reports:

Who cares what a folksy book of hocus pocus for farmers says about the weather? We know better. Al Gore, Barack Obama, and the supposed consensus of 97 percent of climate scientists all say global warming, climate change, is real. They base their reasoning on “solar cycles, climatology, and meteorology” which happens to be what the Old Farmer’s Almanac uses for its forecast too.

So who’s right? Last year the Almanac predicted, “Snowfall will be above normal in most of the Northeast.” Turns out Boston set a new record for the snowiest season. Eight years ago, “Al Gore predicted that the North Pole could be completely liquidated by 2014 due to the impending threat of global warming.” Instead the Arctic ice cap is growing.

It seems global warming only exists in the world of computer models. And how accurate are these predictions? When tropical storm Sandy became a hurricane, the forecast track was all over the map, literally. Most models had her heading to Bermuda and only a few tracks leading to the New York metro area. This was only five days before she made landfall in New Jersey.

It is ironic that the people who have been so often wrong are the ones guiding U.S. energy, economic, and foreign policy. It is also ironic that none of the computer models that have predicted global warming have proven to be accurate. The global warming debate has consistently been an area where politics has trumped science. That is unfortunate for all of us.

Just as a reminder in case you are new to this site, the best website on the Internet for information on global warming is wattsupwiththat.com. On occasion the site can be a bit overly technical, but it is a great source of information on climate change.

Satellite Data Versus Manipulated Data

On Friday The Daily Caller posted a story about global warming. It seems that the satellite temperature data tells a different story than the one we are hearing.

The article reports:

Since September 1994, University of Alabama in Huntsville’s satellite temperature data has shown no statistically significant global warming trend. For over 20 years there’s been no warming trend apparent in the satellite records and will soon be entering into year 22 with no warming trend apparent in satellite data — which examines the lowest few miles of the Earth’s atmosphere.

The article also includes the graph below:

SatelliteBasedTemperatureThe thing to consider here is how government grant money works. If you declare a crisis, it is easier to get a federal grant to study the crisis. Therefore, federal agencies and other entities looking for grant money have a vested interest in declaring a crisis–whether there actually is one or not.

The article explains that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently altered its temperature data in order to show that a hiatus in global warming is not really happening.

The article further reports:

“Newly corrected and updated global surface temperature data from NOAA’s [National Centers for Environmental Information] do not support the notion of a global warming ‘hiatus,’” wrote NOAA scientists in their study.

The study was highly criticized for inflating the temperature record since the late 1990s to show vastly more global warming than was shown in older data. The warming “hiatus” was eliminated and the warming trend over the period was more than doubled.

“There’s been so much criticism of NOAA’s alteration of the sea surface temperature that we are really just going to have to use the University of East Anglia data,” Pat Michaels, a climate scientist with the libertarian Cato Institute, told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

“I don’t think that’s going to stand the test of time,” Michaels said of NOAA’s recent adjustments.

Get out the popcorn and stay tuned.

 

Using The Government To Punish Those Who Don’t Agree With You

One of the side effects of having a petulant person in the White House is that anytime someone contradicts the wishes of the White House there is retribution of some sort. This has now extended to the matter of Climate Change.

On Thursday, The Weather Channel posted an article entitled, “FEMA Won’t Help States That Don’t Plan For Climate Change.” Thank about that for a moment. The federal government should be willing to help all states in case of emergency. Climate Change is not settled science, and no natural catastrophe has ever been linked to climate change. In fact, as climate change believers howl about increased damage from hurricanes, the amount of hurricanes since 2005 have gone down significantly. Also, the true numbers (rightwinggranny.com) show that the earth has not warmed for more than a decade.

The article at The Weather Channel reports:

States publish reports every five years or so detailing their vulnerability to natural disasters, such as floods, storms and wildfires, and how they plan to protect themselves and recover after them. Such plans are needed in order to qualify for a share of nearly $1 billion in Hazard Mitigation Assistance grants provided every year by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

But those plans rarely consider climate change impacts in detail — an omission that could see states become ineligible for the grants after new guidelines take effect early next year. Under FEMA’s updated guidelines, published last week, state disaster plans will only be approved if they adequately describe how the likelihood and intensity of natural hazards could be affected by growing levels of greenhouse gas pollution.

“The risk assessment must provide a summary of the probability of future hazard events,” the new guidelines state. “Probability must include considerations of changing future conditions, including the effects of long-term changes in weather patterns and climate.”

This is more of the government attempting to control the debate. Why does the government support global warming? If the earth is warming at a catastrophic rate, the government will have to take action (thus gaining more control over its citizens). It is interesting that study grants are more like to be given to groups that support global warming than groups that do not.

From a comment left at wattsupwiththat:

Sir Harry Flashman says;

If you can tell me where to line up for my AGW money I’d really appreciate cause I could use a few extra bucks right now.

Well you could try applying for a grant from The Rockefeller Brothers Fund:

From 2003 to present;

Bill McKibben’s;
Step it Up ($200,000)
1Sky.org ($2,100,000)
350.org ($875,000)

Total RBF grants to Mckibben = $3,175,000

Al Gore’s – Alliance for Climate Protection = $250,000
David Suzuki Foundation = $185,000

The Sierra Club = $1,665,000
Friends of the Earth = $777,500
Friends of the Earth International = $290,000
The Pacific Institute (President; Peter Gleick) = $670,000
Greenpeace Fund = $550,000
Center for Climate Strategies = $5,171,600
The Union of Concerned Scientists = $75,000
Media Matters for America = $375,000
Environmental Defense Fund = $550,000
Natural Resources Defense Council = $1,660,000
National Wildlife Federation = $1,025,000

Sceptic ‘think tanks’;
The Heartland Institute
The Cato Institute
The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF)
Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT)

= $0.00

That pretty much tells the story.

Is Washington Really Interested In Dealing With This Problem?

The Daily Caller reported today that President Obama has appointed Ron Klain, as White House Ebola response coordinator. I don’t question the need to put someone in charge of handling the spread of Ebola in America, but I do wonder about the appointment of Ron Klain.

Mr. Klain was one of the senior White House officials who advised that President Obama should visit solar power company Solyndra in 2011, despite an auditor raising red flags about the company’s finances. Mr. Klain has previously worked for Vice-President Al Gore as chief of staff and as Vice-President Joe Biden as chief of staff. Mr. Klain has no medical background.

It seems that in keeping with the pattern that has developed in handling Ebola in America, the President has chosen someone to handle to political angles rather than the medical angles. I suspect that this choice means that the government will continue to make decisions that are politically expedient but do nothing to protect the lives of Americans from this deadly virus.

Did You Really Believe It Was About Global Warming?

Dr. Roy Spencer (a real NASA scientist) posted an article on his website today about next Tuesday’s UN climate conference in NYC (called Climate Summit 2014). Dr. Spencer lists ten ways to tell that the Climate Summit is not actually about climate. Please follow the link above the read the entire article–he makes great comments.

This is his list:

1. There is no way with current technology to get beyond 15%-20% renewable energy in the next 20 years or so….and even that will be exceedingly expensive.

2. The UN doesn’t care that global warming stopped 17 years ago.

3. The UN’s own climate models have grossly over-forecast warming.

4. Scientists and politicians have had to resort to blaming severe weather events on climate change.

5. The UN Climate Summit participants’ “carbon footprints” far exceed those of normal people…and they don’t care.

6. Leonardo DiCaprio, UN’s Messenger of Peace. Al Gore, Nobel Peace Prize and crony capitalist.

7. The leaders of Australia, China, India, Canada, and Germany are opting out of Tuesday’s meeting.

8. A UN official admitted the climate goal was wealth redistribution. Naomi Klein has admitted what Obama, Kerry, and Clinton won’t admit: it’s about stopping Capitalism.

9. What they can’t admit is that global greening and increasing global crop productivity is the result of us putting some of that CO2 back where it was in the first place – in the atmosphere.

10. The UN’s climate reports exaggerate and misrepresent the science. For example, the warming of the deep oceans over the last 50 years is described in terms of gazillions of joules (which sounds impressive) rather than what was actually measured…hundredths of a degree (not so impressive).

On a radio show yesterday, I heard extreme environmentalists described as ‘watermelons’–green on the outside and red on the inside. Unfortunately, that makes sense.

The article concludes:

As I’ve said before, I really don’t care where our energy comes from, as long as it is abundant and inexpensive. But telling the poor they can only have concierge energy – if they can pony up enough money — will end up killing people. Lots of people.

And that’s what the U.N. should be concerned about…not having meetings in Bali and Cancun.

It’s time for America to stop funding the U.N. and kick all of its delegates and unpaid parking tickets out of New York City. I am sure we could find a better use for their rather large headquarters.

Texas Isn’t Turning Blue

Breitbart.com posted an article today about the Democrats plan to turn Texas blue by bringing in a large number of Hispanic voters. It doesn’t seem to be going the way they planned.

The article points out:

“The popular thinking is that the change in the American population portends bad news for a Republican Party that’s still heavily dependent on support from those older, whiter voters,” Bump states. “Our thinking: What better place to track how that evolution might occur than Texas.”

The report compares the 2000 and 2012 presidential election results and compares them to Hispanic population density in Texas. It concludes that while there was a close link between the density of a county’s Hispanic population and its support for Democrat candidates, the voting pattern for that county did not change as the county became less white and more Hispanic.

Most voters are aware of their immediate surroundings. Texas has experienced fantastic economic growth under Governor Rick Perry. Hispanics living in Texas have shared in that growth. The Hispanic population has not embraced Democrat principles–they are acting as intelligent voters.

The article concludes:

The Post (Washington Post) article states “On average, support for the Democratic candidate dropped 10 percent by county between Gore and Kerry. It increased 5 percent between Bush and Obama, and then dropped another 13 percent between 2008 and 2012. Between 2000 and 2012, cities and the border areas voted consistently more Democratic. But the central, emptier part of the state got a lot more red.”

The vague trends led the Post to conclude, “All we can do is look at how the state evolves over time. Over the past 10 years, the population shift was subtle and the voting change barely noticeable. In 2000, Al Gore won 24 of the state’s counties. In 2012, Obama did better. He won 25.”

The Obama-encouraged wave of Hispanic immigrants may not create a Democrat party majority for the foreseeable future. The people coming here may have other ideas.

Rewriting History As You Go Along

It has been thirteen years since the disputed 2000 election. Younger voters who voted in the 2008 and 2012 elections probably do not have a clear picture of exactly what happened in that election. Chris Matthews isn’t helping.

The Daily Caller posted a transcript of a Chris Matthews discussion with Joe Scarborough on Morning Joe on MSNBC.

Christ Matthews stated:

Obama “has had a very difficult opposition out there … who from the very beginning wanted to destroy this presidency,” he said. “And some of it is ethnic, and some is good old ideology. But they way they treated this guy is unusual in our history.”

“Al Gore accepted the fact, even though he won by 600,000 votes, that W. was president. And the Democrats accepted the legitimacy of George W. Bush 100 percent,” he added, when host Joe Scarborough tried to push back a bit.

On November 12, 2001, The New York Times stated:

A comprehensive review of the uncounted Florida ballots from last year’s presidential election reveals that George W. Bush would have won even if the United States Supreme Court had allowed the statewide manual recount of the votes that the Florida Supreme Court had ordered to go forward.

Contrary to what many partisans of former Vice President Al Gore have charged, the United States Supreme Court did not award an election to Mr. Bush that otherwise would have been won by Mr. Gore. A close examination of the ballots found that Mr. Bush would have retained a slender margin over Mr. Gore if the Florida court’s order to recount more than 43,000 ballots had not been reversed by the United States Supreme Court.

Even under the strategy that Mr. Gore pursued at the beginning of the Florida standoff — filing suit to force hand recounts in four predominantly Democratic counties — Mr. Bush would have kept his lead, according to the ballot review conducted for a consortium of news organizations.

The New York Times is certainly not a conservative newspaper. They were generally not kind to George W. Bush, but they got the facts about the recount right. Either Chris Matthews is badly misinformed or he is lying. Either way, I suspect many young voters or voters who have forgotten or were not paying attention believed him. Rewriting history is a true danger to our representative republic. It is the media’s job to tell the truth. It is a shame that they have forsaken their responsibility.

Just for the record, President Obama has not been treated badly by the opposition. There have been people questioning the amount of secrecy surrounding his past–his education, some of his activities in Chicago, some of his campaign tactics, etc. Those are legitimate questions that should be asked of any candidate. Unfortunately, an element of practicing personal destruction instead of debating political issues has crept into our politics in recent times. We saw that element in the 2012 presidential election. Policies took a back seat to scare tactics and claims that Mitt Romney was a rich man who had no compassion for the poor. As someone who lived in Massachusetts during the time Mitt Romney was governor, I can tell you that there is no truth in that statement. However, the press worked hard to present that image. Until the media ignores those people practicing the politics of personal destruction, all Presidents will be treated badly by some element of the opposition. The mainstream media however, will continue to be cheerleaders for the Democrats and complain when anyone says anything negative about their candidates or the policies of their candidates. Unfortunately, that is where we are.

Meanwhile, we need to guard against the rewriting of history and challenge it whenever possible.

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The “Gore Effect” Strikes Again

It seems that every time global warming believers try to get together for a rally or a government meeting it snows or we have record cold temperatures. This has become known as the “Gore effect.” Well, the Gore effect has struck again.

Politico is reporting today that the House Science, Space and Technology Committee announced that it’s postponing its environmental subcommittee’s scheduled 10 a.m. hearing on the state of the science behind climate change. As a reason, it cited “weather.” Washington is expecting as much as 11 inches of snow today and tonight.

The article reports:

The session was apparently designed to shore up the knowledge of subcommittee members ahead of expected new carbon regulations from President Barack Obama. As of Tuesday evening, a committee spokesman had insisted the show would go on.

From the start, the idea of holding a climate hearing during a paralyzing D.C. snowstorm seemed ripe for snarky comments.

Don’t buy into global warming science? Here’s your March snowstorm — call up Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) and his grandchildren for help with your Al Gore igloo project.

In case you are a new reader of this blog, one of the best websites explaining what is actually happening with the earth’s climate is Anthony Watts’ site, WattsUpWithThat. I highly recommend it as an antidote to the climate change hysteria on the political left.

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Al Gore’s Current TV Has Been Sold to Al Jazeera

There are three sources for this article–an article posted at the Daily Caller today, an article posted at The Blaze yesterday, and an article posted at the New York Times yesterday.

There are a few interesting aspects of this story. One is that Al Gore refused to sell Current TV to Glenn Beck, stating that “the legacy of who the network goes to is important to us and we are sensitive to networks not aligned with our point of view.” I am really sorry to hear that Al Jazeera is more in line with Current TV than Glenn Beck’s The Blaze.

The Daily Caller reported that Al Gore had hoped to sell the station before the end of the year to avoid the new 2013 tax rates, but was unable to complete the sale until Wednesday.

The New York Times reports:

Distributors can sometimes wiggle out of their carriage deals when channels change hands. Most consented to the sale, but Time Warner Cable did not, Mr. Hyatt told employees.

Time Warner Cable had previously warned that it might drop Current because of its low ratings. It took advantage of a change-in-ownership clause and said in a terse statement Wednesday night, “We are removing the service as quickly as possible.”

The New York Times also reports:

For Al Jazeera, which is financed by the government of Qatar, the acquisition is a coming of age moment. A decade ago, Al Jazeera’s flagship Arabic-language channel was reviled by American politicians for showing videotapes from Al Qaeda members and sympathizers. Now the news operation is buying an American channel, having convinced Mr. Gore and the other owners of Current that it has the journalistic muscle and the money to compete head-to-head with CNN and other news channels in the United States.

America and the media market in America allow free speech. However, I do not see the attempted mainstreaming of Al Jazeera as a good thing. However, people are free to watch what they choose, and they are responsible for the decisions they make. If Al Jazeera plans to function as an unbiased news source, it will do well. If it is used primarily to dispense propaganda, the pressure of the marketplace will remove it from the market.

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One Of The Reasons Our Students Are Not Doing Well

Yesterday’s Daily Caller posted an article called, “What my seventh-grade daughter learned during her school’s “sustainability day.” The students watched a video called “The Story of Stuff.” The basic premise of the video is that we are destroying the planet because of our consumerism. The article lists a few of the points made in the video and then explains how the basic facts (thus the conclusions) are wrong. Please follow the link to the article to see the details. The video is by Annie Leonard and is also on YouTube. This is all a part of the brainwashing needed to get America ready for UN Agenda 21. I have done articles on Agenda 21 in the past (rightwinggranny.com). We need to make sure our children hear the truth at home–they are not hearing it in the classroom.

It has always been interesting to me that those who are criticizing us average people for consumerism seem to have more stuff than the rest of us. There was a dust-up this week about a very exclusive Halloween party at the White House as the American economy was rapidly heading south. Al Gore talks about carbon footprints, but maintains a lifestyle that creates a larger carbon footprint in a day than most of us do in a year. Mucky-mucks travel to conferences on carbon emissions in private jets. I might be inclined to take some of this talk much more seriously if the people talking followed their own advice.

 

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Problems For The Global Warming People And For The Obama Administration

Aerial view of the Greenland village Qaarsut, ...

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One of the things that is supposed to make our government work is transparency. With the Freedom of Information Act, we the taxpayers can follow the path of a concept as it is discussed and eventually made into some sort of law. That transparency is supposed to be part of the system–except when it is purposely avoided.

Yesterday wattsupwiththat.com posted a story stating that the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) has learned of a UN plan recently put in place to hide official  correspondence on non-governmental accounts, which correspondence a federal inspector general has already confirmed are subject to FOIA. This ‘cloud’ serves as a dead-drop of sorts for discussions by U.S. government employees over the next report being produced by the scandal-plagued IPCC, which is funded with millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars.”

The article at wattsupwiththat states:

CEI reminds OSTP (Office of Science and Technology Policy) that this practice was described as “creat[ing] non-governmental accounts for official business”, “using the nongovernmental accounts specifically to avoid creating a record of the communications”, in a recent analogous situation involving lobbyist Jack Abramoff. CEI expects similar congressional and media outrage at this similar practice to evade the applicable record-keeping laws.

This effort has apparently been conducted with participation — thereby direct assistance and enabling — by the Obama White House which, shortly after taking office, seized for Holdren’s office the lead role on IPCC work from the Department of Commerce. The plan to secretly create a FOIA-free zone was then implemented.

Man-made global warming is a hoax perpetrated by the Obama Administration to pave the way for a government takeover of the energy sector. The government policies that would be enacted in the name of global warming will make all Americans poorer (except those invested in green energy). This is truly a ‘follow the money’ issue. Had the Cap and Trade bill been passed in Congress, the demand for solar panels made by Solyndra would have increased, Solyndra would have raised its prices, and many democrat contributors would have made a profit. Had Cap and Trade passed, the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX), which traded carbon credits would still be in business and investors such as Al Gore and many of our leading congressmen would have made a profit. If Cap and Trade can be implemented through federal agencies, it may not be too late to save the portfolios of some of the major Democrat contributors. It really is all about the money.

Please follow the link to wattsupwiththat.com to read the entire article. There is a lot of very good, but very technical information in the article that I did not fully understand. Hopefully it will make sense to you!

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About That Settled Science On Man-Made Global Warming

Mount Kilimanjaro, reached by German missionar...

Image via Wikipedia

The website WattsUpWithThat is doing an hour-by-hour summary (and cartoon) on the Al Gore Gore-a-thon on man-made global warming. I happened to come across the hour that mentioned that so far Mr. Gore has not included the meltdown of Mount Kilimanjaro in his program. There is one small problem with the meltdown–the latest scientific numbers show that it isn’t happening. The website reports:

Standing as the highest mountain in Africa, Mount Kilimanjaro is slowly regaining its snow after several years of drought in East Africa and the effects of climate change in African continent.

The snow is slowly mounting on the top point of the mountain, giving new hopes to Mount Kilimanjaro environmental watchdogs and tourists that the mountain may not lose its beautiful ice cap as scientists predicted.

…“Global warming” has nothing to do with this, it’s all about rainfall, deforestation, and evapotranspiration. I’m not ashamed to say: “We told you so”, several times…

The article then goes on to list the previous articles the site has posted about Mount Kilimanjaro.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch… Fox News reported yesterday that:

Dr. Ivar Giaever, a former professor with Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the 1973 winner of the Nobel Prize in physics, abruptly announced his resignation Tuesday, Sept. 13, from the premier physics society {American Physical Society (APS)} in disgust over its officially stated policy that “global warming is occurring.”

The article further reports:

Public perception of climate change has steadily fallen since late 2009. A Rasmussen Reports public opinion poll from August noted that 57 percent of adults believe there is significant disagreement within the scientific community on global warming, up five points from late 2009.

The same study showed that 69 percent of those polled believe it’s at least somewhat likely that some scientists have falsified research data in order to support their own theories and beliefs. Just just 6 percent felt confident enough to report that such falsification was “not at all likely.”

The bottom line here is that we don’t know as much as we think we do. The questions is, “Is it worth crippling the American economy based on scientific conclusions that may not be valid?” To me, the answer is no, but that is a question each voter has to answer in their own mind.

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