The NYT must have evolved on the issue....
"BACK IN JANUARY, THE NEW YORK TIMES AGREED WITH PRESIDENT TRUMP THAT CALIFORNIA NEEDED TO IMPROVE ITS FORESTRY MANAGEMENT--Editorial by Kevin Ryan
"...But the media firestorm continues over President Trump’s assertion that poor forest management contributed to the disaster.
After Trump tweeted that better forest management could have prevented, or at least mitigated, the damage caused by the devastating wildfires, the media and California politicians said his assertion was false.
A spokesman for California Governor Jerry Brown said that the president's assertion was “inane” and “uninformed.”
The New York Times wrote a piece entitled “Trump’s Misleading Claims About California’s Fire ‘Mismanagement’”
Yet just a few months back, both Governor Brown and The New York Times said basically the same thing as Trump..." Read all!
Caravan migrant who disdained donated Mexican food as fit 'for pigs' expects free U.S. health care:
But for us in the U.S., the apology revealed even more undesirable things. She apologized because she said she was coming to the U.S. to get health care for her daughter, who had some expensive medical conditions? That's a rationale for ingratitude? Because it's important to make gringo pay instead? She wasn't looking to escape violence, she was coming for the free stuff.
Why China Can't Winby Ed Duffy "I’ve never bought into the hype that China would soon become the worlds global economic super power. They don’t innovate, they steal. They inflate their numbers by building highways nobody drives on to cities nobody lives in. It’s a sham designed to promote buy-in for statism. It’s a lie that western fans of big government are happy to repeat and promote. However, reality is not on their side. Free markets work better than central control, every time. China (also N. Korea and Venezuela) have announced that they’ll soon begin using a new social credit system. Every citizen will be issued a card, or perhaps in the future an implanted chip or tattoo, that is linked to their profile. They will be rewarded for activities and choices the state likes and punished for those the state does not. Of course the state has a lot more punishment than it has reward, so i expect it will be a lot of stick and very little carrot. ...This is a great experiment. China says they’ll have their system completely up and running by the end of 2020. One of two things will happen. China’s economy and individual quality of life will plummet faster than it is now, or I’m completely wrong and they’ll build the perfect society for the future that we’ll all happily adopt. I hope the western press pays attention and honestly reports on what’s going on in China over the next several years. ...Pundits tell you what people think they think. Cash flow shows you what they’re actually doing. Follow the money." Read on.
Editor's Note: Detroit lawmaker ditches her constituents:
"If you or I decided to skip work repeatedly and without excuse, there’s little doubt what would happen.
We wouldn’t have a paycheck anymore.
But Michigan lawmakers get to play by different rules.
...Rep. Bettie Cook Scott...lost in the August primary for state Senate, she’s reportedly not been in Lansing doing her job at all.
...this summer, when she went around to primary polling locations, telling voters not to support the “ching chong” -- a racial slur in reference to her opponent Rep. Stephanie Chang, also of Detroit. Chang, who is Asian American, handily beat Cook Scott.
...Even before Cook Scott stopped coming to work, she wasn’t doing a stellar job. The Mackinac Center for Public Policy tracks the votes of all lawmakers, and found that over her three terms in the House, Cook Scott missed 584 votes -- and 197 votes this session alone.
This is another reason voters must choose their elected leaders carefully..." Read all!
Sen-Elect Rick Scott Coming to Washington With 10-Point Plan to Reform Congress:
"I've got a very specific plan, a 10-point plan, starts with term limits, raising the -- make it a super-majority to raise taxes, you shouldn't be getting paid if you don't pass a budget. Simple things like that to make sure this starts working for Florida citizens, and America's citizens," Scott told "Fox & Friends" on Monday.
Scott said he learned a lot as governor, including how to "get a return on every dollar spent."
Here's a summary of the 10-point plan, which Scott announced during his campaign:
Chuck Schumer's Facebook ties came donations and a job for his daughter
"What does it take to friend a U.S. senator?
If you’re Facebook, all you need is about $50,000 in donations – and a cushy job for the politician’s daughter. Facebook employees, including some at the top of its corporate pyramid, have helped fill Schumer’s campaign coffers – and he’s returned the favor by carrying water for the social media giant in Congress, according to a recent report.
And Alison Schumer, the senator’s youngest of two daughters, works as a Facebook product marketing manager – which pays an average of $160,000, according to Glassdoor.com.
“It sure looks hinky,” political strategist Susan Del Percio told The Post.
“This is an industry that’s been trying for years to fend off heavy government regulation by actively cultivating relationships with senators and House members.”
Last week, it emerged that Schumer has been a strong advocate of Facebook on Capitol Hill. He pressured Sen. Mark Warner (D- Virginia), one of Facebook’s most aggressive challengers in Congress, to back off from investigating the company, according to The New York Times..." Read on.
Trump: ‘I don’t believe it’ - Video - Ice Age Now "Stick to your guns, President Trump. Right now, today, we are living through one of the coldest periods in geologic history. Refusing to let the wool be pulled over his eyes, U.S President Donald Trump rejected the conclusion of a government climate report compiled by 13 federal agencies.
The study concluded – very mistakenly, I believe – that climate change was man-made, and would have devastating effects on the world’s economy unless addressed soon.
The study says “Earth’s climate is now changing faster than at any point in the history of modern civilization, primarily as a result of human activities.” (Italics added)
“At any point in the history of modern civilization.” What does that mean?
It means we’re supposed to ignore all of the rest of the millions upon millions of years of climate history.
It means we’re supposed to ignore the fact the the earth has been much warmer than today throughout the great preponderance of those millions of years, all without any help from humans.
But now, based on a report that covers only a minuscule window of time, we’re supposed to destroy civilization in order to “save” it?
The fact is that it is colder right now than throughout almost all of history.
Look at this chart. The blue line shows temperatures for the past 600 million years.
Look at the far right side of the chart (today), and you’ll see that blue line plunge to its lowest point in almost 250 million years.
There have been only two periods in the past 600 million years when it has been colder than today.
Right now, today, we are living through one of the coldest periods in geologic history. The last few year’s minor rise in temperature is too minuscule to even show up on the chart.
Anyone who says we’re enduring “unprecedented global warming” is either lying or woefully misinformed.
Pentagon Caught in a Perfect Political StormThe American Spectator
"The Democrat takeover of the House means ever further setbacks U.S. defense readiness.
...On the day before the election I warned that if the Democrats took control of either house of Congress, they’d immediately return to their old ways of slashing the Pentagon’s budget.
That prediction is hardly profound: it’s merely a recognition of the Democrats’ ideology and their actions over the last sixty years.
Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) is slated to become chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. ...He’s said that he wants to fundamentally reset our policy on nuclear weapons and that the recapitalization of the nuke forces was too expensive and unnecessary.
Smith, like former president Obama and his first secretary of defense, Robert Gates, wants to cut military spending for the cuts’ own sake.
...In 2017, Congress created and funded a commission to study Trump’s then-new National Defense Strategy.
The bipartisan commission was co-chaired by Amb. Eric Edelman and retired admiral Gary Roughead.
Its report, “Providing for the Common Defense,” came out last week.
...The commission’s report reached the unnerving conclusion that, “The U.S. military could suffer unacceptably high casualties and loss of major capital assets in its next conflict. It might struggle to win, or perhaps lose, a war against China or Russia.”
The report went on to say that, “We are concerned that the NDS too often rests on questionable assumptions and weak analysis, and it leaves unanswered critical questions regarding how the United States will meet the challenges of a more dangerous world.”
The commission recommended that the DoD budget needs to grow in real terms (regardless of inflation) by about 3-5% annually..." Read all.
A French court acquitted a refugee from Bangladesh for the rape of a high-school girl after the defense argued the immigrant had “different cultural norms” that may have caused him to misinterpret his contact with the girl.
What’s really surprising about these wind turbines being decommissioned after 20 years is the fact that people were surprised by it. You’d be astonished at how many people I talk to have no idea that wind turbines only last for 20 years, maybe 25. In fact, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory says the useful life of a wind turbine is only 20 years.
This is the point: the federal government produces figures on the “levelized cost of energy,” comparing coal, natural gas, nuclear, wind, solar and so on.
Most people naively assume that the government’s numbers are authoritative.
In fact, as usual when it comes to energy, the government’s thumb is firmly on the scale in favor of crony energy that funds politicians:
The short usable lifespan of a wind turbine is one of the most important, but least-talked about subjects in energy policy.
In contrast to wind, coal, natural gas, and nuclear plants can run for a very long time. Coal and natural gas plants can easily run for 50 years, and nuclear plants can be updated and retrofitted to run for 60 years. This has profound implications for the cost of electricity on a per megawatt hour basis that seemingly no one is talking about.
When the federal government puts out their cost projections for energy, the numbers they produce are called the Levelized Cost of Energy, or LCOE. These numbers are supposed to act as a measuring stick that allows policymakers to determine which energy sources will best serve their needs, but these numbers are wrong because they assume all power plants, whether they are wind, coal, natural gas, or nuclear will have a 30-year payback period.
This does two things. It
artificially reduces the cost of wind power by allowing them to spread their costs over 30 years, when 20 would be much more appropriate, and it
artificially inflates the cost of coal, natural gas, and nuclear by not calculating the cost over the entirety of their reasonable lifetimes.
When it comes to energy, you cannot get reliable information from “mainstream” sources or from the government.
“Green” energy investors like Tom Steyer have gamed the system, and whoever pays electric bills–i.e., everyone else–is the sucker in their game.
History for November 27 - On-This-Day.com Mona Washbourne 1903, James Agee 1909, "Buffalo" Bob Smith 1917 Bruce Lee 1940, Eddie Rabbit 1941, Jimi Hendrix 1942 - Musician 1889 - Curtis P. Brady was issued the first permit to drive an automobile through Central Park in New York City. 1973 - The U.S. Senate voted to confirm Gerald R. Ford as vice president after the resignation of Spiro T. Agnew.
In the old days, when a publication or outlet was caught lying, that would spell disaster. It would be blackballed by not only the public, but by other media entities, who would begin to look down on their competitor for being unethical. Now groupthink is proving difficult to break as the media share a certain camaraderie about their anti-conservative bias.
Proof of the establishment media's refusal to break this cycle is the way they treated the Jim Acosta-W.H. intern tug-of-war for the microphone at President Trump's post-midterm election press conference.
Beijing to Judge Every Resident Based on Behavior by End of 2020 - Bloomberg "China’s plan to judge each of its 1.3 billion people based on their social behavior is moving a step closer to reality, with Beijing set to adopt a lifelong points program by 2021 that assigns personalized ratings for each resident.
The capital city will pool data from several departments to reward and punish some 22 million citizens based on their actions and reputations by the end of 2020, according to a plan posted on the Beijing municipal government’s website on Monday.
Those with better so-called social credit will get “green channel” benefits while those who violate laws will find life more difficult.
The Beijing project will improve blacklist systems so that those deemed untrustworthy will be “unable to move even a single step,” according to the government’s plan..." Read on.
"Private eye Chris Charow has seen hundreds of instances of exaggerated injuries, faked injuries and outright fraud that contribute to Michigan's highest-in-the-nation auto insurance rates.
He photographs people who pretend to slowly limp across parking lots on their way to medical exams for no-fault insurance benefits.
Hours later, Charow, 47, will spy these same individuals appearing healthy and injury-free as they stroll supermarkets or move around their driveway at home. And the visual props that they pulled out for the doctor's office — walkers, canes, cervical collars — have disappeared...
...Caught at the amusement park
...In one case, a 34-year-old Sterling Heights woman claimed that she needed eight hours a day of insurance-paid attendant care, provided by her out-of-work brother-in-law, for devastating injuries from her car accident. The brother-in-law supposedly helped her get dressed, get in and out of the shower and even with the toilet, according to court documents.
The woman claimed that she couldn't walk more than 20 or 25 minutes without pain, and for enjoyment could only sit in her backyard and drink coffee or stay inside and watch TV.
Yet only weeks before her August 2015 deposition, an undercover investigator with Lexington-based Quest Research Group caught the woman traveling with a group to the Michigan's Adventure theme park in Muskegon.
She was photographed walking around the park for nine hours without any assistance and at times pushed a stroller. The investigator took video of her on the park's log ride, waving a hand in the air and bracing for the final plunge, court documents say.
She also went on the Sea Dragon ride and the Corkscrew roller coaster, infamous for its "dizzying speeds and endless loops that will turn you inside out," according to description on the park's website.
The undercover video was devastating to the woman's lawsuit, which had sought more than $25,000 in no-fault benefits from Safeco Insurance Co.
“It is impossible to believe that (she) was able to walk about an amusement park and ride roller coasters for nine hours, but just days later she was so injured that she needed help getting in and out of the shower and with toileting and getting dressed,” Michael Martinico, an attorney representing Safeco, wrote in court documents.
The woman later signed an affidavit saying that she never lied and that the surveillance video couldn't show whether or not she was in pain.
Her lawsuit against the insurance company was ultimately settled for $6,709, with Safeco paying some medical bills but not the brother-in-law's attendant care services, court records show.
...Time to get aggressive?
Charow, the private investigator, said he believes that more aggressive prosecution of insurance fraudsters could have a strong deterrent effect.
Right now, many individuals who are caught in schemes go unpunished. The worst that generally happens to them is their insurance benefits get cut off and they have to take settlements, he said.
"What happens when you catch somebody? They get a big settlement check and there are no criminal charges filed," Charow said. "Start putting some penalties on this and the fraud will slow down. That's how we're going to get it to be an affordable, honest system."...
Looking at the 2018 election results in detail, you will find some surprises including an important and subtle surprise Trump House victory. Contrary to some analyst opinions, Trump did not lose the House. In fact, Trump was not the cause of the loss of the House from Republican control to Democratic control.
Similarly, there’s no reason for the Democrats to celebrate for too long because it is highly likely they will lose control of the House in 2020.
The natural cycle adds and removes CO2 to keep a balance; humans add extra CO2without removing any.
What the science says...
Climate Myth...
Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions “The oceans contain 37,400 billion tons (GT) of suspended carbon, land biomass has 2000-3000 GT. The atpmosphere contains 720 billion tons of CO2 and humans contribute only 6 GT additional load on this balance. The oceans, land and atpmosphere exchange CO2 continuously so the additional load by humans is incredibly small. A small shift in the balance between oceans and air would cause a CO2 much more severe rise than anything we could produce.” (Jeff Id)
Before the industrial revolution, the CO2 content in the air remained quite steady for thousands of years. Natural CO2 is not static, however. It is generated by natural processes, and absorbed by others.
As you can see in Figure 1, natural land and ocean carbon remains roughly in balance and have done so for a long time – and we know this because we can measure historic levels of CO2 in the atmosphere both directly (in ice cores) and indirectly (through proxies).
Figure 1: Global carbon cycle. Numbers represent flux of carbon dioxide in gigatons (Source: Figure 7.3, IPCCAR4).
But consider what happens when moreCO2 is released from outside of the natural carbon cycle – by burning fossil fuels. Although our output of 29 gigatons of CO2 is tiny compared to the 750 gigatons moving through the carbon cycle each year, it adds up because the land and ocean cannot absorb all of the extra CO2. About 40% of this additional CO2 is absorbed. The rest remains in the atmosphere, and as a consequence, atmospheric CO2 is at its highest level in 15 to 20 million years (Tripati 2009). (A natural change of 100ppm normally takes 5,000 to 20,000 years. The recent increase of 100ppm has taken just 120 years).
Human CO2 emissions upset the natural balance of the carbon cycle. Man-made CO2 in the atmosphere has increased by a third since the pre-industrial era, creating an artificial forcing of global temperatures which is warming the planet. While fossil-fuel derived CO2 is a very small component of the global carbon cycle, the extra CO2 is cumulative because the natural carbon exchange cannot absorb all the additional CO2.
The level of atmospheric CO2 is building up, the additional CO2 is being produced by burning fossil fuels, and that build up is accelerating.
"It is fun to make light of AOC and her comic flights of political fancy - but we should understand that while the Bolshevik Bronx Barbie is somewhat ignorant about most things, she is representative of the ignorance on which progressivism feeds. Progressivism is growing - and we would be fools not to see that it is - and that it is out in the open now. I once said that a openly socialist politician from Vermont could never be nominated for president by a major party, nor could he win.
Of that, I am no longer confident. It is no longer a political death sentence to be a collectivist. The kiddies now think socialism is cool...and they have academia and the media on their side.
Democrat Senators Spartacus Booker and Willie Brown's Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Harris have offered up a UBI (Universal Basic Income) program that is not universal or income. It's a massive wealth transfer via tax credit scheme targeted to the Free Sh*t Army Democrat base.
Democrat Congressman Robert Francis (Beta) O'Rourke, the Great White Irish Hispanic, captured 49% of the vote in economically booming Texas (yes, kids - in TEXAS) while running a soft socialist, anti-oil industry campaign.
Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Crazie Mazie Hirono's partner in the Senate said a progressive would be nominated as the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee in 2020
...At the close of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, Ben Franklin was asked what form of government was established - Dr. Franklin said: “A Republic, if you can keep it.” In the face of growing progressive movement, whether we can keep it is the relevant question of our times.
We are closer to losing it today than at any other time in American history..."
Basic
Intermediate
Climate Myth...