Monday, March 31, 2014

White House regulate cow flatulence climate agenda | The Daily Caller

White House regulate cow flatulence climate agenda | The Daily Caller:

"As part of its plan to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, the Obama administration is targeting the dairy industry to reduce methane emissions in their operations.

This comes despite falling methane emission levels across the economy since 1990.

The White House has proposed cutting methane emissions from the dairy industry by 25 percent by 2020. Although U.S. agriculture only accounts for about 9 percent of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, it makes up a sizeable portion of methane emissions — which is a very potent greenhouse gas."





GOT GAS?

Great moments in government gone wild: Bleacher edition

Great moments in government gone wild: Bleacher edition | AEIdeas:
"From Detroit’s WJBK Fox-TV:
A new set of seating is being torn down outside the Plymouth Wildcats varsity boys’ baseball field, not long before the season begins, because [federal regulations require that] the fields for boys’ and girls’ athletics must be equal.

A group of parents raised money for a raised seating deck by the field, because it was hard to see the games through a chain-link fence. 
The parents even did the installation themselves, and also paid for a new scoreboard.
But, after a complaint, the U.S Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights investigated the new addition and says it must be torn down.
It says the facility was no longer equal to the girls’ softball field next door, which has old bleachers and an old scoreboard.
The school agreed to take the seats down after receiving a citation.
The seating was also not handicapped accessible.
The superintendent says the seats and materials will be stored until they can form a plan that complies with the rules and is fair to everyone.
He adds the money is not available to build a similar seating deck at the girls’ field, but their field will be getting a new scoreboard."

Replica bullets, dud shell earn weapons conviction for former Washington man

Replica bullets, dud shell earn weapons conviction for former Washington man | Fox News
Replica bullets and a dud shotgun shell got a man convicted of weapons charges in the nation's capital, in a case gun rights activists say shows how overzealous authorities are trampling the Second Amendment.
....."This case is yet another example of D.C. run amok over citizens’ Constitutional rights," the National Association for Gun Rights said in a statement. "It’s no wonder anyone with the option and half a brain is fleeing D.C. for areas where self-defense is a virtue, and not criminalized."

Everything you need to know about the most under-mentioned issue of the decade: education

Everything you need to know about the most under-mentioned issue of the decade: education | Rare
The Common Core curriculum has been surreptitiously implemented in public schools over the last few years and the majority of states are working toward educational opportunity through a different avenue after finding failures in the federal program.
....“Standards were developed in 2009 by the National Governors Association (NGA) and Council of Chief State School Officers (CSSO), but immediately incentivized by the Obama administration with $4.35 billion in competitive Race to the Top grants and No Child Left Behind waivers,” said Brittany Corona, research assistant at the Heritage Foundation.

Schools increasingly check students for obesity | CNS News


Schools increasingly check students for obesity | CNS News:

"The Chula Vista school district not only measures the academic progress of Marina Beltran's second-grader, it also measures her son's body fat.

Every two years, Antonio Beltran, like his classmates, steps on a scale. Trained district personnel also measure his height and then use the two figures to calculate his body mass index, an indicator of body fat.

The calculation isn't reported to Beltran or her son, who cannot see the readout on the scale that has a remote display. Instead it's used by the district to collect local data on children's weight."




5 Dirt Cheap Unlimited Prepaid Mobile Plans Under $25

5 Dirt Cheap Unlimited Prepaid Mobile Plans Under $25:
"We talk a lot here about stuff that the big four – Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint – get up to.
But the thing is, even with T-Mobile’s un-carrier, anti-contract slant and the new installment payment plans for buying new devices, they can all end up being way past what your budget will allow.
Fortunately, there are no shortage of unsung heroes in the telecommunications industry, stocked with budget phones and budget plans.
And, hey, in the end, you’re still getting talk, text, and data on your smartphone, just like anyone else running with one of the big four.
At less than $25 per month, these plans make cutting-edge look downright overrated."

An Engineer's Eureka Moment With a GM Flaw

An Engineer's Eureka Moment With a GM Flaw - Slashdot:
theodp (442580) writes"Hired by the family of Brooke Melton in their wrongful-death lawsuit against GM, engineer Mark Hood was at a loss to explain why the engine in Melton's 2005 Chevy Cobalt had suddenly shut off, causing her fatal accident in 2010. Hood had photographed, X-rayed and disassembled the two-inch ignition switch, focusing on the tiny plastic and metal switch that controlled the ignition, but it wasn't until he bought a replacement for $30 from a local GM dealership that the mystery quickly unraveled. Eyeing the old and new parts, Hood quickly figured out a problem now linked to 13 deaths that GM had known about for a decadeEven though the new switch had the same identification number — 10392423 — Hood found big differences — a tiny metal plunger in the switch was longer in the replacement part, the switch's spring was more compressed, and most importantly, the force needed to turn the ignition on and off was greater. 'It's satisfying to me because I'm working on behalf of the Meltons,' Hood said. 'It won't bring their daughter back, but if it goes toward a better understanding of the problem, it might save someone else.' Next week, GM CEO Mary Barra will testify before Congress about events leading up to the wide-ranging recall of 2.6 million vehicles."

Carmakers’ Close Ties to Regulator Scrutinized

Carmakers’ Close Ties to Regulator Scrutinized - NYTimes.com:
"There was nothing unusual about a letter with Jacqueline S. Glassman’s name on it discussing life-threatening safety defects and requiring more information from a manufacturer; Ms. Glassman was once chief counsel of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, then deputy administrator, and, briefly, acting administrator.
But the letter this month was not from her, it was to her.
Ms. Glassman left the agency in 2006 to join a top law firm, and her clients include Graco Children’s Products, which is refusing to recall almost 1.8 million child restraints that the safety agency says pose a hazard to infants. 
The letter to Ms. Glassman was demanding information about that refusal.
Ms. Glassman is now a partner at Hogan Lovells, where her expertise is described as including counseling on “responding to government investigations.”
She is among many former top N.H.T.S.A. officials who now represent companies they were once responsible for regulating, part of a well-established migration from regulator to the regulated in Washington."

Obamacare signup extension planned

Obamacare signup extension planned - News - Hope Star - Hope, AR - Hope, AR:
"Those who've started an application, but weren't able to finish before the March 31 open enrollment deadline, would get a limited amount of time to sign up for coverage that would take effect May 1.

Additionally, people with 10 general categories of "special" circumstances would also get extra time to apply — up to 60 days. 

Categories include natural disasters, system errors related to immigration status, computer error messages due to technical difficulties, family situations involving domestic abuse, and other sorts of problems."

Report: Obama administration released 68,000 convicted criminal aliens last year

Report: Obama administration released 68,000 convicted criminal aliens last year | The Daily Caller:
"The Obama administration is threatening public safety by deliberately hampering immigration law and releasing aliens with criminal records, according to a new review of internal Immigration and Customs Enforcement data.
A Center for Immigration study to be released Monday and obtained in advance by The Daily Caller, found that last year ICE reported nearly 722,000 encounters with illegal or criminal immigrants.
But ICE officers filed immigration charges against less than 195,000 aliens."

Last day to sign up for ObamaCare!


Rep. Marsha Blackburn: Obama Administration is ‘Lying’ About Obamacare Numbers; Want Single-Payer


Rep. Marsha Blackburn: Obama Administration is ‘Lying’ About Obamacare Numbers; Want Single-Payer:
"When asked by Hemmer why Congresswoman Blackburn and others are skeptical about the Obama administration’s claim that more than six million have signed up for Obamacare, Blackburn responded:
A few simple reasons. We don’t know how many of the six million previously had insurance and just were forced into the Obamacare program. We don’t know how many have paid, as you said. We don’t know how many are the young and healthy that you have to have to make it actuarially work. We don’t know how many were Medicaid or how many got subsidies and those are the five questions that you have to have answers to before you can say how many new people came into the system. "




ALEX MACLEAN: AERIAL PERSPECTIVES

ALEX MACLEAN: AERIAL PERSPECTIVES | Beetles & Huxley:

GUILLOTINED B-52 BOMBERS AT THE 'BONE YARD', TUCSON, ARIZONA, USA, 1994

Sunday, March 30, 2014

Reporter detained by Capitol Hill police EPA chief

Reporter detained by Capitol Hill police EPA chief | The Daily Caller:
"A reporter has been detained by Capitol Hill police for trying to ask a question of Environmental Protection Agency administrator Gina McCarthy.
Bloomberg BNA energy reporter Ari Natter tweeted about being detained.

#transparency RT @AriNatter: I am being detained by Capital Police for trying to ask @EPAGina a question after her remarks. — nickjuliano (@nickjuliano) March 28, 2014"




Gawker’s Adam Weinstein Wants to Put You in Jail for Being a Climate Change ‘Denier’

The PJ Tatler » Gawker’s Adam Weinstein Wants to Put You in Jail for Being a Climate Change ‘Denier

Apparently, the only people who need go to jail are those who disagree with him.
In addition to being an authoritarian douchebag, Weinstein is a sneering elitist:

Those denialists should face jail. They should face fines. They should face lawsuits from the classes of people whose lives and livelihoods are most threatened by denialist tactics.
Let’s make a clear distinction here: I’m not talking about the man on the street who thinks Rush Limbaugh is right, and climate change is a socialist United Nations conspiracy foisted by a Muslim U.S. president on an unwitting public to erode its civil liberties.
You all know that man. That man is an idiot. He is too stupid to do anything other than choke the earth’s atmosphere a little more with his Mr. Pibb burps and his F-150′s gassy exhaust. Few of us believers in climate change can do much more—or less—than he can.
Nor am I talking about simple skeptics, particularly the scientists who must constantly hypo-test our existing assumptions about the world in order to check their accuracy. That is part and parcel of the important public policy discussion about what we do next.
But there is scientific skepticism… and there is a malicious, profiteering quietist agenda posturing as skepticism. There is uncertainty about whether man-made climate change can be stopped or reversed… and there is the body of purulent pundits, paid sponsors, and corporate grifters who exploit the smallest uncertainty at the edges of a settled science.
I’m talking about Rush and his multi-million-dollar ilk in the disinformation business. I’m talking about Americans for Prosperity and the businesses and billionaires who back its obfuscatory propaganda. I’m talking about public persons and organizations and corporations for whom denying a fundamental scientific fact is profitable, who encourage the acceleration of an anti-environment course of unregulated consumption and production that, frankly, will screw my son and your children and whatever progeny they manage to have.
Those malcontents must be punished and stopped
Why punished? Is Weinstein a sadist as well? Stopping them is a legitimate goal, but punishing people for disagreeing with you is positively Hitlerian.
The point is made in the article that “more deaths can already be attributed to climate change than the L’Aquila earthquake and we can be certain that deaths from climate change will continue to rise with global warming.” If you follow that link to the World Health Organization site, you will discover that the WHO makes no such radical and extravagant claims:

Introducing ObamaCow

Introducing ObamaCow :: SteynOnline: "For the moment, the ObamaCow regime sounds comparatively simple: a flat flatulence tax across the board and across the barn. Although the EPA's plan is more ambitious than EuroFart's (25 per cent flatulence reductions by 2020, rather than a mere ten per cent), the new regulations will not prove disruptive: If you like your cow, you can keep your cow. You will not be denied coverage if you have a pre-emitting condition. There will be no increases in your cow-pay.

No doubt Michael E Mann has got a graph showing that the flatulence was entirely flat for a millennium until the Koch Brothers lobbied for a massive feed program via the Cowstone Pipeline to benefit their secret baked-bean subsidiary in the Alberta fart sands. No doubt deniers on the take from Big Gas are already spreading disinformation. As I wrote in After America:

Go back to medieval times. The gnarled old peasant is in his hovel, and one day a fellow rides up in the full doublet and hose and says he's come from the palace to collect His Majesty's bovine flatulence tax. It's just three groats per cow, a footling sum of no consequence. Even the medieval simpleton rustic would say, "Aaargh, sire, I dunno. The King's flatulence tax? That don't sound right…""

Speed Reading Returns

Speed Reading Returns - WSJ.com:
"Reading these days is often a few minutes on the phone in the grocery-store line, not an hour curled up with a book on the couch. 
This quick-hit reading is sparking a renewed interest in the art of speed reading.
People read more than ever on mobile devices and usually in 10-minute bursts, according to research by e-reading subscription services. 
To tap into this, there's a revival in traditional speed-reading classes as well as new apps that promise to make reading on a small screen easier.
When Brett Kirby, age 33, reads the news in the morning, he doesn't grab a newspaper or browse a website. 
He picks up his phone and has his articles flashed to him, one word at a time, 650 words a minute.

Democrat Senator Leland Yee Tied to Muslim Terrorists

Democrat Senator Leland Yee Tied to Muslim Terrorists:

"California State Senator Leland Yee, a Democrat, was one of the top opponents to the Second Amendment in the state. In fact, he wrote stiff gun control regulations in an effort to, according to him, ‘make the area more safe’. But, it turns out that Yee was perhaps working to pass legislation to prevent law-abiding citizens from exercise their Second Amendment right to gun ownership in order to help pad his own personal pockets. He was arrested yesterday on charges of corruption charges including campaign fraud and gun running.

But, Lee wasn’t involved in just the illegal transport and exchange of any old guns. The man who said that people shouldn’t need automatic weapons was, according to local San Francisco station KROV, Channel 4, acting as a go between agent between Muslims in the Philippines, allegedly the terrorist group the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, and individuals in the U.S. to buy shoulder fired automatic weapons and missiles."




Are we ready to admit we have a problem?

Pushing Toward The Final Ware

Paul Craig Roberts: Pushing Toward The Final War | Zero Hedge:
"Does Obama realize that he is leading the US and its puppet states to war with Russia and China, or is Obama being manipulated into this disaster by his neoconservative speech writers and government officials?
World War 1 (and World War 2) was the result of the ambitions and mistakes of a very small number of people.
Only one head of state was actually involved–the President of France.
In The genesis Of The World War, Harry Elmer Barnes shows that World War 1 was the product of 4 or 5 people. 
Three stand out: Raymond Poincare`, President of France, Sergei Sazonov, Russian Foreign Minister, and Alexander Izvolski, Russian Ambassador to France. Poincare` wanted Alsace-Lorraine from Germany, and the Russians wanted Istanbul and the Bosphorus Strait, which connects the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. They realized that their ambitions required a general European war and worked to produce the desired war."

Best Friends - a kid, a dog and a puddle

Race equity summit to address widening wealth gap between races

Race equity summit to address widening wealth gap between races | Detroit Free Press | freep.com:
Saturday’s conference, supported by the NAACP and Fair Housing Center of Metro Detroit, is to feature talks by President Barack Obama’s former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright of Chicago, as well as Detroit activists Ron Scott and Grace Lee Boggs.
The conference is part of an ongoing effort by the Race2Equity Project, which is part of the Michigan Roundtable.

The Singularity Is Further Than It Appears

The Singularity Is Further Than It Appears:
"I've bolded that last quote because it's key.
Vinge envisions a situation where the first smarter-than-human intelligence can make an even smarter entity in less time than it took to create itself. 
And that this keeps continuing, at each stage, with each iteration growing shorter, until we're down to AIs that are so hyper-intelligent that they make even smarter versions of themselves in less than a second, or less than a millisecond, or less than a microsecond, or whatever tiny fraction of time you want.

This is the so-called 'hard takeoff' scenario, also called the FOOM model by some in the singularity world. It's the scenario where in a blink of an AI, a 'godlike' intelligence bootstraps into being, either by upgrading itself or by being created by successive generations of ancestor AIs."

WeMOG-Monday 1:30

"OUT LIKE A LAMB BIKE RIDE"

Monday, March 31
1:30
Bike The Back Roads of The North Muskegon Area

Meet at the home of Richard Vargo, 735 Mills Ave, North Muskegon, by 1:30.
(Take Ruddiman to Linderman, turn right, then one block to Mills, turn left.)

We will bike the quiet back roads, Ruddiman to Bear Lake Road, then out into the country returning by Peterson and Memorial Drive.  The route is flat, roads are dry, and traffic is light to none. The ride will be about 15 miles in length, with frequent breaks as needed on this our 2014 maiden cycling voyage.

Weather man is calling for 61 and sunny.

Coffee, libations, and goodies at Richard's, 735 Mills, following the ride.
    

Contact Sharon Clark with questions:
wemogsharon@gmail.com
231-670-3634




Lessons From the Little Ice Age

Lessons From the Little Ice Age - NYTimes.com:
"There are two ways to consider the impact of climate change. 

We can predict the future based on current trends or we can study a well-documented episode of the past."

You’ll Never Guess Who Obama is Discriminating Against Using Immigration Laws

You’ll Never Guess Who Obama is Discriminating Against Using Immigration Laws:

"In a shocking development, the Obama Regime is now enforcing border security.  They are checking to make sure people who are coming to this country plan to leave when their trips are over and their visas expire.
This is not a joke, nor is it satire, though it could be called a farce.
Who is the Obama Regime enforcing border security on?
Israelis. "



California to open facilities for ONLY illegal aliens’ driver’s licenses

California to open facilities for ONLY illegal aliens’ driver’s licenses - Tea Party:
As part of the driver’s license application process, immigrants will have to acknowledge that they are undocumented.
But AB 60 protects applicants from criminal prosecution.
The measure will provide an avenue for the state’s three to four million undocumented immigrants to obtain licenses, which advocates have said are necessary in order for the immigrants to get to and from work. 
The law is expected to allow up to 1.4 million undocumented immigrants to obtain licenses.
To accommodate that expected influx of new drivers, the state’s DMV is setting up five facilities throughout California. 
The facilities will be opened in the areas of San Jose, the South Central Coast, Los Angeles, Orange County, and San Diego, DMV spokewoman Jessica Gonzalez told The Daily Caller News Foundation.
“This is the stepping-stone to state level amnesty,” Jon Feere, legal policy analyst at the Center of Immigration Studies, told TheDCNF.
Feere noted that former governor Gray Davis was recalled in 2003 after signing into law a bill similar to AB 60.
“California is the state that gave us Ronald Reagan.
Now it gives us illegal alien lawyers with law licenses and illegal alien drivers with driver’s licenses,” Feere said.

Putin’s Intentions Aren’t What Matter

Putin’s Intentions Aren’t What Matter | National Review Online:
"What matters is the intent. And we don’t have a sense of that.”
That is what one of Washington’s legion of anonymous “senior government officials” told the Wall Street Journal about the Russian military forces now massing on Ukraine’s border — complemented, of course, by the tens of thousand more Russian troops stationed in what, until just a few days ago, used to be . . . Ukraine.
Clearly, our Beltway gurus have refined a bit of ancient wisdom: 
If you cannot remain silent and proceed to remove all doubt that you are a fool, at least remain anonymous."

History for March 30

History for March 30 - On-This-Day.com:
Root Canal Awareness Week begins (Mar 30-Apr 5). 8th annual.
Birth anniversaries of artists Francisco de Goya (1746-1828) and Vincent Van Gogh (1853-90).

Birth anniversary of Irish playwright Sean O’Casey (1880-1964).

Happy Birthday! John Astin, Eric Clapton, Celine Dion


1533 - Henry VIII divorced his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. 


1842 - Dr. Crawford W. Long performed the first operation while his patient was anesthetized by ether. 


1858 - Hyman L. Lipman of Philadelphia patented the pencil. 


1867 - The U.S. purchased Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million dollars. 


1870 - The 15th amendment, guaranteeing the right to vote regardless of race, was passed by the U.S. Congress. 


1909 - The Queensboro bridge in New York opened linking Manhattan and Queens. It was the first double decker bridge. 


1940 - The Japanese set up a puppet government called Manchuko in Nanking, China. 


1941 - The German Afrika Korps under General Erwin Rommel began its first offensive against British forces in Libya. 


1950 - The invention of the phototransistor was announced. 


1964 - "Jeopardy" debuted on NBC-TV. 


1981 - U.S. President Ronald Reagan was shot and wounded in Washington, DC, by John W. Hinckley Jr. Two police officers and Press Secretary James Brady were also wounded.