Tag: regulation

Communism fails again, and the Western intellectual elite puts blinders on so they don’t have to see it.

11:35 am

Communism fails again, and the Western intellectual elite puts blinders on so they don’t have to see it.

Communism and top-down state control of human activity has always failed in the past, continues to fail in the present, and will always fail in the future — no matter how good or sincere the intentions might be. If you want to make life better for people, give them freedom and then try to persuade them to do the right thing. Applying force simply does not work.

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NOAA’s official prediction for this winter was worse than monkeys working on typewriters.

9:58 am

The uncertainty of science: NOAA’s official prediction for this winter was as bad as monkeys working on typewriters.

“Not one of our better forecasts,” admits Mike Halpert, the Climate Prediction Center’s acting director. The center grades itself on what it calls the Heidke skill score, which ranges from 100 (perfection) to -50 (monkeys throwing darts would have done better). October’s forecast for the three-month period of November through January came in at -22. Truth be told, the September prediction for October-December was slightly worse, at -23. The main cause in both cases was the same: Underestimating the mammoth December cold wave, which brought snow to Dallas and chilled partiers in Times Square on New Year’s Eve.

But don’t worry. These guys know exactly what’s going to happen to the climate in a hundred years.

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A Boston hospital kidnaps a man’s daughter and then slaps a gag order on him to try to prevent him from talking about it.

4:35 pm

A Boston hospital kidnaps a family’s daughter and then slaps a gag order on them to try to prevent them from talking about it.

The Boston hospital, to which the girl was transferred on the advice of her original doctors in Connecticut, disagreed with the treatment and then forced their decisions on the family to the point of denying them access to their daughter. The father is now going public because he fears if she doesn’t get the right treatment “she is going to die.”

Though the story makes no mention of it, we must remember that Massachusetts is the land of Romneycare, where the government has stepped in to run the medical world. Somehow, I strongly suspect that fact plays a part in this story, if only as a cultural factor.

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“Indeed we are not purists. We just want people who fundamentally represent our values.”

9:28 am

The real tea party platform: “We are not purists. We just want people who fundamentally represent our values.”

Indeed, despite the allegations that we seek purity within the party, it is clear that what we want is a bold party of contrast – whether in the majority or minority. We want a party that will offer a bold stance on immigration and the debt ceiling, for example, and fight for it with equal and opposing force. We want loyal conservatives that share and fight for our conservative values the same way elected liberals fight for the Democrat party platform. Instead we are given a pale pastel version of Republicans who placate conservatives during election years, and then enact the liberal Democrat talking points through clandestine political efforts.

We know who is with us and who is with the political class. Everybody takes bad votes once and a while. Even Ted Cruz recently voted for a bad flood insurance bill. None of us are demanding purity from him because we know that on almost every issue he is not just a vote but a courageous and effective voice for the millions of us who are disenfranchised by the ruling class oligarchy. He fights every day in Washington for us.

The article also looks in detail at the recent debt ceiling vote and notes how it clearly revealed the loyalties of the Republican leadership. As the author states, “The leaders in the House and Senate, along with their boot lickers, are fundamentally against us. Many of us have known and observed this privately for years, but the debt ceiling vote – both in the House and Senate – brought their devious subterfuge out in the open.”

Read it all. Its goal is not to make you give up, but to recognize the difference between the Republicans who matter and the Republicans who are quislings.

More details here about the growing leadership fight in the Republican Party. Based on what I read, the present leadership, especially in the House, is on very thin ice.

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Governments spent $359 billion in 2012, about the same as 2011, on their effort to stop global warming.

1:31 pm

Where the big money really is in climate science: Governments spent $359 billion in 2012, about the same as 2011, on their effort to stop global warming.

Global investment in climate change plateaued at USD $359 billion in 2012, roughly the same as the previous year, according to a new Climate Policy Initiative (CPI) study, “The Global Landscape of Climate Finance 2013.” Once again the figure falls far short of what’s needed. The International Energy Agency projects that an additional investment of USD 5 trillion is required by 2020 for clean energy alone, to limit warming to two degrees Celsius. However, the gap is likely wider: The World Bank projects we are on a path to four degree Celsius warming, suggesting that efforts to scale up finance are falling further and further behind.

I include the quote above to make it clear that the source is very much a supporter of the human-caused global warming scenario. And while the article also details the large amounts of money invested in fossil fuels, it is important to recognize the difference. The money for stopping global warming is almost entirely used for fake research or public relations propaganda efforts or to support government regulatory agencies. The money for fossil fuels is money used to invest in actual energy production.

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Ben Carson and his family and friends have been targets of IRS harassment since he criticized Obama in 2013.

10:19 am

Working for the Democratic Party: Ben Carson and his family and friends have become targets of IRS harassment since he criticized Obama in 2013.

Carson said audits and other harassment began in May or June of 2013 and gradually expanded to include family members, associates, and his charitable endeavors.

“I’ve been quite I would say astonished at the level of hostility that I have encountered,” Carson said in an exclusive interview with host John Bachman on “America’s Forum” on Newsmax TV.

“The IRS has investigated me. They said, ‘I want to look at your real estate holdings.’ There was nothing there. ‘Well, let’s expand to an entire [year], everything.’ There was nothing there. ‘Let’s do another year.’ Finally, after a few months, they went away. But they’ve come after my family, they’ve come after my friends, they’ve come after associates.”

This harassment apparently occurred after the IRS scandal broke in the spring of 2013, which means that instead of ending the harassment that supposedly outraged him, Obama accelerated it by aiming it directly at his electoral opponents.

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It appears that a large majority of Connecticut gun-owners are refusing to register their semi-automatic rifles, as required by that state’s new gun control law.

9:45 am

Pushback: It appears that a large majority of Connecticut gun-owners are refusing to register their semi-automatic rifles, as required by that state’s new gun control law.

Due to the new gun control bill passed in April, likely at least 20,000 individual people — possibly as many as 100,000 — are now in direct violation of the law for refusing to register their guns. As we noted above, that act is now a Class D Felony.

Mike Lawlor, “the state’s top official in criminal justice,” suggested maybe the firearms unit in Connecticut could “send them a letter.” However, he said an aggressive push to prosecute gun owners in the state is not going to happen at this point.

When the law has contempt for freedom, then the only answer is contempt for the law.

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95% of all climate models agree: The observations must be wrong.

9:53 am

“95% of all climate models agree: The observations must be wrong.”

I’m seeing a lot of wrangling over the recent (15+ year) pause in global average warming…when did it start, is it a full pause, shouldn’t we be taking the longer view, etc. These are all interesting exercises, but they miss the most important point: the climate models that governments base policy decisions on have failed miserably.

I’ve updated our comparison of 90 climate models versus observations for global average surface temperatures through 2013, and we still see that >95% of the models have over-forecast the warming trend since 1979, whether we use their own surface temperature dataset (HadCRUT4), or our satellite dataset of lower tropospheric temperatures (UAH).

When 90 different climate model predictions are compared with the actual data, all but two vastly overestimate the amount of heating that has occurred since 1979. In other words, these models are wrong, they are undependable, and they shouldn’t be used to decide policy by any politician.

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The Obama administration unilaterally delayed the employer mandate for medium sized businesses today.

10:38 pm

The law is such an inconvenient thing: The Obama administration unilaterally delayed the employer mandate for medium sized businesses today.

The government will now exempt companies employing between 50 and 100 full-time workers from complying with the mandate that they offer employees affordable health insurance by another year, until 2016. Companies that have 100 or more full-time workers, defined as employees who work more than 30 hours per week, still will have to begin complying with the mandate to offer such coverage in 2015 or face financial penalties of up to $3,000 per worker.

Gee, didn’t the Democrats and Obama shut the government down only three months ago, calling the Republicans terrorists for suggesting Obamacare be delayed and screaming that it was “the law of the land!”?

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