Tag: government

“This nation of sheep is indeed begetting a government of wolves, and as a result we are all witnessing the death of liberty.”

9:15 am

“This nation of sheep is indeed begetting a government of wolves, and as a result we are all witnessing the death of liberty.”

And then there’s this: “Why does evil make liberals stupid?” Key quote:

This piece in The Atlantic is a good exemplar of the mushy liberal commentary that has proliferated in recent days. Authored by one Megan Garber, it is titled: “The Boston Bombers Were Muslim: So?” Before taking a close look at Ms. Garber’s article, let’s advise The Atlantic not to put away that headline. It could come in handy so often. “The Cole Bombers Were Muslim: So?” “The Embassy Bombers Were Muslim: So?” “The First World Trade Center Bombers Were Muslim: So?” “The September 11 Bombers Were Muslim: So?” “The Madrid Bombers Were Muslim: So?” “The London Bombers Were Muslim: So?” “The Shoebomber Was Muslim: So?” The Underwear Bomber Was Muslim: So?” “The Fort Hood Shooter Was Muslim: So?” “The Beslan Child-Murderers Were Muslim: So?” “The Times Square Bomber Was Muslim: So?”

We could keep this up for a very long time, but let’s move on to Ms. Garber’s soulful meanderings.

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Senator Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said Wednesday he fears a “train wreck” as the Obama administration implements Obamacare

11:30 am

Idiot: Senator Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said Wednesday he fears a “train wreck” as the Obama administration implements Obamacare.

Baucus was one of the key architects of Obamacare and voted for it, along with every other Democrat in Congress. That he is only now discovering what a bad law it is is just further proof that he should fired.

The real question is whether the voters will fire him. After the last election I have my doubts.

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A union is calling for the repeal of Obamacare.

3:18 pm

The house of cards begins to fall: A union is calling for the repeal of Obamacare.

Our Union and its members have supported President Obama and his Administration for both of his terms in office.

But regrettably, our concerns over certain provisions in the ACA have not been addressed, or in some instances, totally ignored. In the rush to achieve its passage, many of the Act’s provisions were not fully conceived, resulting in unintended consequences that are inconsistent with the promise that those who were satisfied with their employer sponsored coverage could keep it.

These provisions jeopardize our multi-employer health plans, have the potential to cause a loss of work for our members, create an unfair bidding advantage for those contractors who do not provide health coverage to their workers, and in the worst case, may cause our members and their families to lose the benefits they currently enjoy as participants in multi-employer health plans.

But don’t worry, come the next election this same union will continue to support the same Democratic politicians that gave us Obamacare, because party partisanship is far more important than common sense and rational leadership.

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A decorated war veteran on a Boy Scout hike with his 15-year-old son was arrested by police in Texas because he was “rudely displaying” a firearm.

9:39 am

Does this make you feel safer? A decorated war veteran on a Boy Scout hike with his 15-year-old son was arrested by police in Texas because he was “rudely displaying” a firearm.

Army Master Sgt. C.J. Grisham told Fox News he was illegally disarmed by members of the Temple Police Dept. – even though he held the proper permits to carry his weapons. Grisham and his son were on a 10-mile hike in a rural area populated by wild boars and cougars. He was carrying an AR-15 rifle and a .45 caliber pistol. He was charged with resisting arrest – even though video his son filmed of the incident clearly showed that Grisham did not resist arrest. Police later reduced the charges to interfering with a peace officer while performing a duty – a class B misdemeanor.

Update: several commenters have pointed out facts about Grisham, including this very detailed report from Michael Yon, that raise serious questions about the reliability of this story. Worth reading.

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A private company tells the IAU to bug off!

8:53 am

A private company tells the IAU to bug off about who has the power to name things in space!

Uwingu affirms the IAU’s right to create naming systems for astronomers But we know that the IAU has no purview—informal or official—to control popular naming of bodies in the sky or features on them, just as geographers have no purview to control people’s naming of features along hiking trails. People clearly enjoy connecting to the sky and having an input to common-use naming. We will continue to stand up for the public’s rights in this regard, and look forward to raising more grant funds for space researchers and educators this way.

The company also pointed out that even astronomers name things without the IAU’s approval.

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The International Astronomical Union has issued a press release condemning the commercial efforts of private companies to issue names for exoplanets.

11:51 am

Turf war! The International Astronomical Union has issued a press release condemning the commercial efforts of private companies to issue names for exoplanets.

Recently, an organisation has invited the public to purchase both nomination proposals for exoplanets, and rights to vote for the suggested names. In return, the purchaser receives a certificate commemorating the validity and credibility of the nomination. Such certificates are misleading, as these campaigns have no bearing on the official naming process — they will not lead to an officially-recognised exoplanet name, despite the price paid or the number of votes accrued.
… [snip]
To make this possible, the IAU acts as a single arbiter of the naming process, and is advised and supported by astronomers within different fields. As an international scientific organisation, it dissociates itself entirely from the commercial practice of selling names of planets, stars or or even “real estate” on other planets or moons. These practices will not be recognised by the IAU and their alternative naming schemes cannot be adopted.

Well la-dee-da, how dare anyone else name anything ever in space!

The truth is, the IAU was originally given this function by astronomers to coordinate the naming of obscure astronomical objects, not to provide the official names for every object and feature that will ever be discovered in space. And though the IAU does tend to favor the choices of discoverers, it has in the past also ignored their wishes. (See for example my book Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, where the IAU rejected the names chosen by the Apollo 8 astronauts, even though those astronauts were the first to actually go and see these features.)

In the end, the names of important features in space will be chosen by those who live there.

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Since 2010 total government spending per household has exceeded what each household earns per year.

12:55 pm

The day of reckoning looms: Since 2010 total government spending per household has exceeded what each household earns per year.

In other words, even if the federal, state, and city governments took 100 percent of your income in taxes, they still wouldn’t get enough money to pay their expenses. And since government spending has continued to rise since 2010 amid a stagnant economy, this situation has worsened, not improved. Worse, in 2012 the public voted in favor of accelerating this situation by voting for more Democrats in the Senate, while keeping a spendthrift Democratic President in power.

We are going bankrupt. It is only a matter of time.

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The Fantasy of Extreme Weather

10:06 am

This week there were three stories describing new research proving that global warming is going to cause an increase in the number and violence of extreme weather events. Each was published in one of the world’s three most important scientific journals.

Sounds gloomy, doesn’t it? Not only will extreme heatwaves, cold waves, and droughts tear apart the very fabric of society, you will not be able to drink your soda in peace on your next airplane ride!

However, one little detail, buried in one of these stories as a single sentence, literally makes hogwash out of everything else said in these three articles.
» Read more

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Global warming: time to rein back on doom and gloom?

1:57 pm

From a global warming advocate: Global warming: time to rein back on doom and gloom?

Prediction, as they say, is tough, especially when it’s about the future – and that’s especially true when it comes to the climate, whose complexity we only partially understand. It is, as we all know, naturally immensely variable. And the effect of human intervention is subject to long timelags: it will be decades, even centuries, before the full consequences of today’s emissions of carbon dioxide become clear.

As a result, scientists and policymakers draw on the past to predict the future. Until now, they have therefore placed much weight on the rapid temperature increases in the Eighties and Nineties. But for at least a decade, these have dramatically slowed, even as carbon dioxide emissions have continued to increase. [emphasis mine]

Or as I like to say, every climate model proposed by every global warming scientist has been proven wrong. They all predicted the climate would warm in lockstep with the increase in CO2. It hasn’t.

This is not to say the climate hasn’t warmed in the past five centuries (though some of the data used in for the past 150 years is sadly suspect). What isn’t clear is why. It might be the rise in carbon dioxide. It might also simply be the lingering warming the Earth is experiencing as the last ice age ends. Or it might be because of the Sun.

The field of climate science is very complex, confusing, and in its infancy. We just don’t know yet, and anyone who says they do is not a good scientist.

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Doctors driven to bankruptcy

11:28 am

Doctors driven to bankruptcy.

What is amazing about this article about the recent spike in doctors filing for bankruptcy is how it somehow never mentions Obamacare at all. The closest the author comes is a mention of “changing regulations.” How informative!

If the author was a good journalist, which he isn’t, it should have been self evident that the advent and effects of Obamacare has to be included in this story, if only to give it the proper context.

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The coming Obamacare chaos

10:13 am

The coming Obamacare chaos.

The article is a very detailed summary of the many problems caused by Obamacare, from increased unemployment to loss of healthcare insurance to higher premiums to higher debt. Everyone should read it. However, the most important question is laid out in the very first paragraph:

The biggest political problem faced by so-called “liberals” and so-called “progressives” in President Obama’s second term is how to prevent voters from holding them politically responsible as the public comes to realize how badly they were lied to during the first Obama term to win passage of Obamacare.

It is going to be the number one priority of all Democratic politicians and their allies in the mainstream press to somehow find a way to blame Republicans for Obamacare. The question will be whether they will succeed.

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The scientists who attempted to re-invent Michael Mann’s hockey stick global warming graph and were caught fudging their data have admitted their data is worthless

12:17 am

The scientists who attempted to re-invent Michael Mann’s hockey stick global warming graph and were caught fudging their data have essentially admitted that their data is worthless.

This is what they say in a FAQ they have added to their paper:

Q: What do paleotemperature reconstructions show about the temperature of the last 100 years?

A: Our global paleotemperature reconstruction includes a so-called “uptick” in temperatures during the 20th century. However, in the paper we make the point that this particular feature is of shorter duration than the inherent smoothing in our statistical averaging procedure, and that it is based on only a few available paleo-reconstructions of the type we used. Thus, the 20th century portion of our paleotemperature stack is not statistically robust, cannot be considered representative of global temperature changes, and therefore is not the basis of any of our conclusions. [emphasis mine]

They are basically admitting that the data used to create the temperature rise of their hockey stick during the past 100 years is unreliable and therefore useless for scientific purposes. Which raises the question: Why did they publish it in the first place? See especially this analysis of this paper and the press’s reaction to it by climate scientists Roger Pielke.

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North Korea says it has authorized plans for nuclear strikes against the United States.

2:59 pm

Bad: North Korea says it has authorized plans for a nuclear strike against the United States.

But, while Pyongyang has successfully carried out test nuclear detonations, most experts think it is not yet capable of mounting a device on a ballistic missile capable of striking US bases or territory. Mounting tension in the region could however trigger incidents on the tense and heavily-militarised border between North and South Korea. There was no immediate American reaction to the North’s latest statement, but US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Pyongyang represented a “real and clear danger” to the United States and to its allies South Korea and Japan. [emphasis mine]

Right now North Korea almost certainly cannot hit the U.S. with an ICBM. However, South Korea and Japan are very very very exposed.

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“The SLS program should be canceled now to free up approximately $10 billion programmed for this decade.”

9:38 am

“The SLS program should be canceled now to free up approximately $10 billion programmed for this decade.”

I’m both glad and not surprised that some heavy hitters are beginning to say this. As I noted last year, as the commercial space program begins to show success the politics will increasingly favor it over the very expensive and not very productive NASA-built Space Launch System.

Be prepared for SLS to steadily lose political support in the coming years.

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An audit of California’s fiscal state has found it to be $127 billion in the red.

9:54 am

The day of reckoning looms: An audit of California’s fiscal state has found it to be $127 billion in the red.

Were California’s state government a business, it would be a candidate for insolvency with a negative net worth of $127.2 billion, according to an annual financial report issued by State Auditor Elaine Howle and the Bureau of State Audits. The report, which covers the fiscal year ending June 30, 2012, says that the state’s negative status — all of its assets minus all of its liabilities — increased that year, largely because it spent more than it received in revenue. [emphasis mine]

None of this is a surprise. California voters chose Jerry Brown and the Democrats to lead them into more debt.

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The collapse of household income since 2009.

3:03 pm

The collapse of household income since 2009.

A comparison of the graph in the article above with the changing federal debt (both graphs below the fold) is quite revealing. The steep drop in household income in 2009 lines up precisely with the steep rise in federal deficits beginning in 2009. I wonder if they have anything to do with each other? The article also notes the possible negative impact of Obamacare. How could they think such a thing?
» Read more

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“We’re just not interested in continuing to support bureaucracies and talkfests.”

2:14 pm

Canada to the UN environmental movement: “We’re just not interested in continuing to support bureaucracies and talkfests.”

The country has pulled out of a UN program supposedly aimed at “combating desertification,” noting that

only 18% of the roughly CAD$350,000 per year that Canada contributed to the U.N. initiative is “actually spent on programming,” [Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper] told Parliament this week during question period. “The rest goes to various bureaucratic measures. … It’s not an effective way to spend taxpayers’ money.”

As is their normal approach to debate, there is a lot of wailing, gnashing of teeth, and name-calling among the environmentalists, but no substantive response to counter Harper’s point above.

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