Tag: government

James Hansen, activist global warming scientist, teams up with leftwing Occupy Wall Street.

9:10 am

Birds of a feather: James Hansen, activist global warming scientist, teams up with leftwing Occupy Wall Street.

Hansen gave a lecture this morning to OWS, detailing “the harsh realities of the climate emergency and what needs to be done to address it.” I would love to see some footage, as I expect what he advocated was harsh government regulation, to great applause.

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A new study has found that five Gulf Coast states have so many vague environmental laws that anyone who does anything outdoors can be found guilty of something.The rise of facism: A new study has found that five Gulf Coast states have so many vague environmental laws that anyone who does anything outdoors can be found guilty of something.

11:20 pm

The rise of fascism: A new study has found that five Gulf Coast states have so many vague environmental laws that anyone who does anything outdoors can be found guilty of something.

And it has happened. Read the article.

Then there’s this good news: “Any federal regulation enacted by Congress or executive order…offending the constitutional rights of my citizens will not be enforced by me or my deputies.”

Update: A second Oregon sheriff has joined the first in declaring he will not enforce any federal regulation that violates the Constitution.

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A (new) Mexican standoff at the old spaceport.

9:11 am

A (new) Mexican standoff at the old spaceport.

Messier not only provides a detailed analysis of the negotiations on-going between Virgin Galactic and Spaceport America over liability issues, he also provides context, much of which is not encouraging. For example,

SpaceShipTwo is set to begin its first powered test flights later this year using a “starter motor” that will be smaller than the full-scale hybrid engine that will be used for flights into space. The motor will allow pilots to test the space plane in the transonic flight region, which would be a major step forward.

Whether the full-scale RocketMotorTwo engine, powered by nitrous oxide and rubber, will be ready to fly this year is an interesting question. There have been stories for years – persistent, consistent and never really denied – that the motor just doesn’t work very well. Hybrid motors can function effectively for smaller vehicles, such as the smaller SpaceShipOne vehicle that flew in 2004, but are difficult to scale up. SpaceShipTwo is three times larger than its predecessor.

Meanwhile, there are the liability questions which might force Virgin Galactic, and all other private space companies, to flee New Mexico. The analysis suggests that the taxpayers of New Mexico might have paid for a very expensive spaceport that might never pay for itself.

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Pretend gun control!

10:09 am

Now this is a great idea: Pretend gun control!

What we can do is pass a law banning a bunch of made-up things that sound scary, and many gun control proponents already have great ideas along this line. For instance, I read a column in which Howard Kurtz mentioned a ban on high-magazine clips — we can certainly do without something that nonsensical. And I’ve heard the press before mention armor-piercing hollow points and plastic guns (actually, I think we already banned that made-up weapon in the ’80s). And as long as the NRA and Wayne LaPierre go apoplectic about it (“This ban on sorcerer-enchanted guns is just a slippery slope toward eliminating all witch-hexed weaponry!”), gun control proponents won’t know the difference between this and actual gun control.

Considering the level of ignorance about guns exhibited by every one of the gun control advocates, both politicians and media pundits, I almost think we could get away with this.

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David Gregory will not be prosecuted.

4:19 pm

The law is for little people: David Gregory will not be prosecuted.

This despite the fact that the D.C. Attorney General even admits that Gregory clearly broke the law.

This travesty more than anything demonstrates how pointless these laws are. Gregory waved a high capacity magazine on camera to illustrate the need to ban such items, even though he was doing so in a place, Washington, D.C., where such magazines were already banned. Not only did Gregory prove the law was stupid, the decision not to prosecute him proves that the law exists merely for political reasons. It is used only when it benefits the powers in control. Gregory is on the side of gun control, so of course he gets a pass. Innocent gun owners and supporters of gun rights who happen to be caught traveling in DC with such a banned item, however, can expect jail time.

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Our government’s modern scientific method:
Proving others are wrong is not allowed!

10:39 am

An Interior Department official has been accused of trying to disband a fish research division specifically because its research is politically incorrect.

The research division, the Fisheries Resources Branch, had repeatedly found good evidence that the salmon of the Klamath River in the northwest were not suffering significantly from the presence of the dams on that river, contradicting the accepted wisdom that the dams had to be removed in order for these species to survive. The Interior official, Jason Phillips, along with the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), did not like these results, and decided that scientific work that “proved others wrong” was unacceptable and had to be squelched. From the actual complaint [pdf]:
» Read more

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Alan Grayson returns to Congress and immediately calls Republicans terrorists.

7:22 pm

Leftwing civility: Democrat Alan Grayson returns to Congress and immediately calls Republicans terrorists.

That Democratic voters were willing to re-elect this vicious hateful guy back into Congress is proof to me that these voters really have no good will, are eager to demonize the opposition, and would possibly even approve violence against that opposition to achieve their ends. (Among Grayson’s many offensive acts, he once appeared uninvited at an opponent’s rally and refused to shut up, closing the entire event down. I just can’t find the link at this moment.)

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The federal government has reached its debt limit today.

7:58 pm

The day of reckoning looms: The federal government has reached its debt limit today.

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner told Congress that the U.S. hit its statutory debt limit, necessitating emergency steps announced last week as a way to keep funding the government and avoid default. Geithner said he had issued a “debt issuance suspension period” for the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund, effective today and to last until Feb. 28, 2013. The letter said the Treasury was taking similar action for the Postal Service Retiree Health Benefits Fund.

This is only a temporary solution that solves nothing. And the fake negotiations over the fake “fiscal cliff” are doing even less than nothing to deal with the debt situation. We are bankrupt and worse, we are continuing to refuse to face that reality.

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Thank You, David Gregory

12:48 pm

“Thank you, David Gregory.”

Then there’s this: Laws are for little people.

To Howard Kurtz & Co., it’s “obvious” that Gregory didn’t intend to commit a crime. But, in a land choked with laws, “obviousness” is one of the first casualties — and “obviously” innocent citizens have their “obviously” well-intentioned actions criminalized every minute of the day. Not far away from David Gregory, across the Virginia border, eleven-year-old Skylar Capo made the mistake of rescuing a woodpecker from the jaws of a cat and nursing him back to health for a couple of days. For her pains, a federal Fish & Wildlife gauleiter accompanied by state troopers descended on her house, charged her with illegal transportation of a protected species, issued her a $535 fine, and made her cry. Why is it so “obvious” that David Gregory deserves to be treated more leniently than a sixth grader? Because he’s got a TV show and she hasn’t?

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Hobby Lobby appears willing to face fines rather than bow to the Obamacare contraceptive mandate.

11:12 pm

Hobby Lobby has decided to face millions in fines rather than bow to the Obamacare contraceptive mandate.

They will continue to provide their employees healthcare, but will refuse to include any payments for contraceptives as now required by Obamacare. For standing by their beliefs and doing this, it is very possible this company could end up going bankrupt, thereby putting 13,000 employees out of work. Not only will they lose the healthcare plans that Obama promised they could keep, they won’t even have jobs!

Thank you Obama for giving us Obamacare. And thank you the American voters who have decided to allow this disaster of a law to go forward. Sadly, the worst is yet to come.

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The federal government will hit the debt ceiling on December 31.

4:27 pm

The day of reckoning looms: The federal government will hit the debt ceiling on December 31.

The treasury will do things to stall the inevitable crash, but in the end, our elected leaders – backed by the voters — are doing nothing to solve this debt problem. (On this note, consider the absolute refusal of this Democrat to consider any spending cuts in negotiations with the Republicans.) The crash is coming.

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Complaints about compliance with Freedom of Information requests jumped 28 percent during the Obama adminstration’s first term.

9:31 am

Transparency: Complaints about compliance with Freedom of Information requests jumped 28 percent during the Obama adminstration’s first term.

This is not to say that the Bush administration was transparent. They were not, as they, like all governments, didn’t want the public to poke into their operations. The issue here is the absurd claim by Obama that his administration would be different. Poppycock. If anything, the Obama administration has been more abusive, draping itself in a veil of purity that they do not deserve in order to hide their illegal behavior.

Sadly, their partisan Democratic supporters — including the press — have blindly accepted these claims of purity and allowed the illegal behavior to be ignored.

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A zoning board and the LAPD have shut down a thirty-year-old successful burger stand, apparently because they think it attracts crime.

10:05 pm

We’re here to help you: A zoning board and the LAPD have shut down a thirty-year-old successful burger stand, apparently because they think it attracts crime.

Watch the video at the link. The result of this brain-dead action will be an abandoned building in an abandoned neighborhood. Good going, California!

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The state where this past weekend’s mass murder occurred is considered to have the fifth strongest gun laws in the nation.

9:56 am

The state where this past weekend’s mass murder occurred is considered to have the fifth strongest gun laws in the nation.

They say they want an “assault weapons ban” yet Connecticut already has one (and good luck getting them to define “assault weapon”). They say they want “waiting periods” yet Connecticut already has those, too. They say they want to ban high-capacity magazines, even though the low-capacity ones take only seconds to change. Background checks? We already have those nationwide.

How effective is gun control? Not very effective it appears. Which of course means we must impose these laws on everyone. Now! Immediately! Just because! Regardless of whether it makes sense!

And then there’s this: “It’s a nasty combination of supreme self-righteousness and reflexive demonization.”

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Climate experts are now calling for an end to the regularly scheduled mega-climate summits.

11:31 am

Good news: Climate experts are now calling for an end to the regularly scheduled mega-climate summits.

That these summits haven’t accomplished anything but allow climate bureaucrats to burn tons of airplane fossil fuel to gather in some of the world’s nicest warm weather cities during the winter — thereby making them all look like hypocrites — is not the reason these experts want to cancel the summits. They want to cancel the summits because the summits aren’t getting them the results they want: strict regulation on the lives of everyone else.

Nowhere does the article address the simple fact that in the past three years, since the release of the climategate emails, the creditability of the entire climate change field has gone to zero. The public doesn’t buy their sales pitch anymore, and thus neither do politicians, which is why no one is willing to make a deal at these summits. No one believes anything these climate experts are saying, especially since they have refused to clean up the corruption within their field.

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