Nearly Teachers All Judged As "Effective" Or "Highly Effective"

Even the New York Times smells a rat. 

More than half the states now require new teacher evaluation systems and, thanks to a deal announced last week in Albany, New York City will soon have one, too. 

The changes, already under way in some cities and states, are intended to provide meaningful feedback and, critically, to weed out weak performers. And here are some of the early results:In Florida, 97 percent of teachers were deemed effective or highly effective in the most recent evaluations. In Tennessee, 98 percent of teachers were judged to be “at expectations.” 

In Michigan, 98 percent of teachers were rated effective or better. 

By the way, Detroit, with its 75% dropout rate, is in Michigan. 

Woman In Charge Of Obamacare Doesn't Understand How Insurance Works

Has it backwards. 

Kathleen Sebelius, the Secretary of HHS, thinks that catastrophic insurance isn't really insurance at all.  

At a White House briefing Tuesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said some of what passes for health insurance today is so skimpy it can't be compared to the comprehensive coverage available under the law. "Some of these folks have very high catastrophic plans that don't pay for anything unless you get hit by a bus," she said. "They're really mortgage protection, not health insurance."

She said this in response to a report from the American Society of Actuaries arguing that premiums are going to rise by 32% when Obamacare kicks in, as coverage gets more generous and more sick people join the insurance market.  Sebelius' response is apparently that catastrophic insurance isn't really insurance at all--which is exactly backwards. Catastrophic coverage is "true insurance".  Coverage of routine, predictable services is not insurance at all; it's a spectacularly inefficient prepayment plan.

According To Democrats, Woonsocket, Rhode Island Should Be Prosperous

While most of Christendom is looking forward to celebrating the resurrection of Our Savior tomorrow, the Rhode Island city of Woonsocket is looking a little further ahead to “Uncle Sam Day,” which will arrive a day later. Uncle Sam Day is awesome in Woonsocket. And one of the best things about Uncle Sam Day is that its celebrants don’t have to wait a whole year for it to come around again. Uncle Sam Day falls on the first of every month. Perhaps that’s why, around Woonsocket, it’s also known as “Check Day,” “Milk Day,” “Pay Day,” or even “Mother’s Day.” Diversity is cool!

For all intents and purposes, Christmas arrives in Woonsocket twelve times each year, or thirteen times annually if you include the more traditional Christmas that the rest of us celebrate on December 25th. And just as with that fuddy duddy Christmas that approximately coincides with the Winter Solstice, as each month draws near its end, Woonsocket’s stores build up their inventories and hire temporary extra help to handle the shopping season. And after Uncle Sam Day passes, the temporary employees are laid off until the end of the month arrives.

That’s because the first day of each month is when the federal government’s food stamps arrive.

And so, as you read this, the next round of welfare checks and food stamps are due to arrive in just two days and Woonsocket’s grocery stores are working feverishly getting ready for the bonanza. That’s because one third of Woonsocket’s population relies upon food stamps. When the food stamps arrive, it’s party time in Woonsocket.

I cannot imagine a better laboratory for testing Democratic Party economic theories than Woonsocket. After all, we’ve been assured by the Democratic Party’s brightest lights that food stamps are the finest economic stimulus imaginable. And so Woonsocket should be just about the most prosperous city in America.

In October of 2010, then Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi claimed that she knew of no better economic stimulus than food stamps. "It is the biggest bang for the buck when you do food stamps and unemployment insurance. The biggest bang for the buck," she said.

About a year later, Thomas Vilsack, Barack Obama’s Secretary of Agriculture, also tried to make the case that food stamps create jobs: “I should point out, when you talk about the SNAP program or the food stamp program, you have to recognize that it's also an economic stimulus. Every dollar of SNAP benefits generates $1.84 in the economy in terms of economic activity. If people are able to buy a little more in the grocery store, someone has to stock it, package it, shelve it, process it, ship it. All of those are jobs. It's the most direct stimulus you can get in the economy during these tough times.”

What is remarkable is how Thomas Vilsack’s explanation of how food stamps stimulate the economy almost perfectly predicts the Washington Post story about Woonsocket.

According to the Washington Post, the end of every month is when the store busily stock their shelves: “In the heart of downtown, Miguel Pichardo, 53, watched three trucks jockey for position at the loading dock of his family-run International Meat Market. For most of the month, his business operated as a humble milk-and-eggs corner store, but now 3,000 pounds of product were scheduled for delivery in the next few hours. He wiped the front counter and smoothed the edges of a sign posted near his register.”

 “Yes! We take Food Stamps, SNAP, EBT!”

“Today, we fill the store up with everything,” he said. “Tomorrow, we sell it all.”

Woonsocket’s grocery stores make twenty five percent of their profits on the first of each month.

Welcome to Obamaville. And as you might predict (unless your name is Nancy Pelosi or Thomas Vilsack), Woonsocket is not a hotbed of economic stimulation. In fact, the entire town’s economic rhythm has come to depend upon government welfare checks.

But Woonsocket is not unique. Something similar happens in Hale County, Alabama. There, one in four adults lives on permanent disability and the local economy ebbs and flows with the rhythm of their monthly paychecks. Since Obama took office, the number of people who have left the workforce and gone on permanent disability has doubled. In fact, more people have joined the disability rolls than have found work since Obama’s inauguration in 2009.

The data are in: Permanent welfare is not terribly stimulating.

Simple-Minded Soledad O'Brien Lectures CNN

Says that CNN needs "tough and honest conversations." I think that's probably why they fired her - to free up space for someone capable of honesty.

CNN host Soledad O'Brien signed off on Friday with a call for the network not to back away from "tough and honest conversations". 

O'Brien, who has built a reputation for hard-hitting interviews, said on the last edition of her morning show, Starting Point, that "facts matter".

The new CNN boss, Jeff Zucker, cancelled O'Brien's show, which has performed poorly in the ratings, and announced on Thursday that it will be replaced by a new show hosted by Chris Cuomo and Kate Bolduan.

In a short closing monologue on Friday, O'Brien said CNN had given her the chance to cover some of the biggest stories of our time and said she would continue to focus on "good journalism".

Actually, by getting rid of O'Brien provides CNN with the opportunity to practice good journalism.

Not So Free To Choose

Carbon Dioxide Now Cools The Planet

So much for that "settled science" bullshit.

A recent NASA report throws the space agency into conflict with it's climatologists after new NASA measurements prove that carbon dioxide acts as a coolant in Earth's atmosphere.

NASA's Langley Research Center has collated data proving that “greenhouse gases” actually block up to 95 percent of harmful solar rays from reaching our planet, thus reducing the heating impact of the sun. The data was collected by Sounding of the Atmosphere using Broadband Emission Radiometry, (or SABER). SABER monitors infrared emissions from Earth’s upper atmosphere, in particular from carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitric oxide (NO), two substances thought to be playing a key role in the energy balance of air above our planet’s surface.

NASA's Langley Research Center instruments show that the thermosphere not only received a whopping 26 billion kilowatt hours of energy from the sun during a recent burst of solar activity, but that in the upper atmospheric carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide molecules sent as much as 95% of that radiation straight back out into space.

The shock revelation starkly contradicts the core proposition of the so-called greenhouse gas theory which claims that more CO2 means more warming for our planet. However, this compelling new NASA data disproves that notion and is a huge embarrassment for NASA's chief climatologist, Dr James Hansen and his team over at NASA's GISS.

Already, the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been in full retreat after having to concede a 17-year stall in global warming despite levels of atmopheric CO2 rising almost 40 percent in recent decades. The new SABER data now forms part of a real world double whammy against climatologists' computer models that have always been programmed to show CO2 as a warming gas.

The SABER evidence also makes a mockery of the statement on the NASA GISS website (by Hansen underling Gavin Schmidt)  claiming, "the greenhouse effect keeps the planet much warmer than it would be otherwise." [1]

As NASA's SABER team at Langley admits: "This is a new frontier in the sun-Earth connection," says associate principal investigator  Martin Mlynczak, "and the data we’re collecting are unprecedented."

CNN Asks: Will Obamacare Raise The Cost Of Healthcare?

Why didn't they ask this about four years ago? Notice that they're still trying to cover for Obama. 

Meanwhile, Obama tries to kill the messenger.

Appeasing The Left Doesn't Work

Wal Mart learns the hard way, just as Neville Chamberlain did.

After suffering seven straight quarters of losses, today the merchandise giant Wal-Mart will announce that it is “going back to basics,” ending its era of high-end organic foods, going “green,” and the remainder of its appeal to the upscale market. Next month the company will launch an “It’s Back” campaign to woo the millions of customers who have fled the store. They will be bringing back “heritage” products, like inexpensive jeans and sweatpants.

Few may recognize it as such, but this episode should be seen as a cautionary tale about “progressives” and social engineering experiments on low-income Americans. This morning’s Wall Street Journal article is blunt:

That strategy failed, and the Bentonville, Ark., retail giant now is pursuing a back-to-basics strategy to reverse the company’s fortunes.

The failure, in large part, can be pinned to Leslie Dach: a well-known progressive and former senior aide to Vice President Al Gore. In July 2006, Dach was installed as the public relations chief for Wal-Mart. He drafted a number of other progressives into the company, seeking to change the company’s way of doing business: its culture, its politics, and most importantly its products.

Out went drab, inexpensive merchandise so dear to low-income Americans. In came upscale organic foods, “green” products, trendy jeans, and political correctness. In other words, Dach sought to expose poor working Americans to the “good life” of the wealthy, environmentally conscious Prius driver.

You can't say they weren't warned.

Does CNN's CEO Watch His Own Network?

Apparently not.

Five Questions for Kent:

1. When is the last time Dana Bash chased a Democrat down a long congressional hallway?

2. While your objective, unbiased, not-at-all liberal network was working overtime to tie Todd Akin to the tail of Mitt Romney, why were the legal troubles of Jesse Jackson Jr. only mentioned in passing?

3. How much coverage will CNN give the DC March for Marriage today, and will anyone interviewed be offered the same deference and lack of challenging questions the other side has enjoyed from CNN all week?

4. Why is CNN's idea of a "conservative" David Frum? On Wolf Blitzer's "Situation Room," Frum is frequently presented as the "conservative" side and just as frequently bashes conservatives. Who is your "liberal" who does the same to Democrats?

5. Why are legitimate stories such as these completely ignored in favor of poop ships, seedy sex murders or yet another segment on those who will benefit from same-sex marriage and gun control?

Actually, I have a few more questions…

6. Rob Portman breaks away on same-sex marriage and gets all kinds of CNN love. Where, then, is the CNN love and attention for "independent-minded" Democrats breaking away from Obama on Keystone, gun control, and the ObamaCare tax on medical devices?

7. Why would a not-at-all-liberal network allow a full primetime hour of that network to be devoted to attacking the Second Ammendment month after month?

Gun Store Says "No" To Mark Kelly's Gun Purchase

Gun store denies sale to Mark Kelly who promised to break the law.

Diamondback Police Supply owner Douglas MacKinlay has halted Mark Kelly's attempted purchase of an AR-15 over concerns that Kelly was not in fact buying the gun for himself, and therefore could not have passed question 11a of the NICS background check form 4473.

Greg Gutfeld's Spectacular Take Down Of Jim Carrey

Jim Carrey is a cowardly little shit who can dish it out, but can't take it.

World To End In Nine Months, Democrats Certain To Be Hardest Hit

Obamacare will kick in in just nine months. Everybody to suffer. Now we'll find out what's in it.

People in their 20s and 30s will be clobbered — their health-insurance premiums will double (or more), insurers report. Nineteen percent of the president’s 2012 voters came from this age group. The biggest problem: The Obama law forces insurers to charge young, healthy people more to cover the cost of insuring the middle-aged and those with pre-existing conditions. 

Middle-aged folks will benefit somewhat from overcharging the young, but the law’s mandatory benefits package and its billions in new taxes on insurers will drive up costs enough that overall premiums for a family of five will start at $20,000 (before subsidies, if any). Oh — and that doesn’t count the penalty for each smoker, roughly $3,000 a head.

(Subsidies may help some people cover sky-high premiums, though not the smoking penalty — but the letter of the law makes those subsidies unavailable in many states. The federal courts will eventually decide the issue.)

Many workers in industries such as retail, hospitality and home care will lose on-the-job health coverage, forecasts the ADP Research Institute — and many will also be demoted to part-time status because of ObamaCare.

I'm Gonna Celebrate Earth Hour Al Gore Style

By ignoring it.

I pulled up to Al’s house, located in the posh Belle Meade section of Nashville, at 8:48pm – right in the middle of Earth Hour. I found that the main spotlights that usually illuminate his 9,000 square foot mansion were dark, but several of the lights inside the house were on.

In fact, most of the windows were lit by the familiar blue-ish hue indicating that floor lamps and ceiling fixtures were off, but TV screens and computer monitors were hard at work. (In other words, his house looked the way most houses look about 1:45am when their inhabitants are distractedly watching “Cheaters” or “Chelsea Lately” reruns.)

The kicker, though, were the dozen or so floodlights grandly highlighting several trees and illuminating the driveway entrance of Gore’s mansion.

I [kid] you not, my friends, the savior of the environment couldn’t be bothered to turn off the gaudy lights that show off his goofy trees.

This Baby Didn't Look Anything Like Obama

So, it's no big deal.

The Georgia mother whose baby was shot and killed execution-style in his stroller said she will forever mourn the milestones she’ll never see.

“I’m always going to wonder what his first word would be,” said heartbroken mom Sherry West a day after the senseless shooting in Brunswick, Ga.

Her 13-month-old boy, Antonio Santiago, was murdered Thursday seconds after two teenage killers shot and wounded the terrified mom during a botched robbery.

When West saw the jail mug shot of 17-year-old De’Marquis Elkins, she identified him as the gunman.
“That’s definitely him,” she told law enforcement. “He killed my baby, and he shot me too.”

Patty's Murray's Failure As A "Parenting Teacher" Predicted Senatorial Failure

A joke that has circulated since Barack Obama first announced his candidacy in 2007 is based upon the fact that nowhere on his resume can one find the slightest hint that the man has the skills to run a lemonade stand. To be effective all jokes of this type must have their foundations raised upon a bedrock of truth. And this joke certainly satisfies that requirement.

But perhaps Barack Obama doesn’t deserve all the scorn. He has a lot of company. After all, as it turns out, the ironically misnamed “World’s Greatest Deliberative Body,” where he served his political apprenticeship, can’t even run a barbershop.

That’s right. For the last fifteen years, the Senate barbershop has required government bailouts averaging $350,000 annually. And if 100 of the self-anointed World’s Smartest People can’t even run a barbershop, how can we expect them to run a country?

For the last four years, they haven’t even tried. That’s how long it has been since the United States Senate has met its legal obligation to pass a federal budget. The first year that they neglected to pass a budget, 2010, it was pure political calculation. The Democrats feared that if there were an actual document that recorded their irresponsibility, the voters would never forgive them at the ballot box.

The Democrats got hammered in the midterm elections anyway, but they also learned a valuable lesson. The so-called fourth branch of government, otherwise known as the press, did not hold them accountable for abrogating their duty. Democrats learned that they could ignore their sworn obligations, without hearing a squeak of criticism from the press. 

As a consequence, they haven’t even made a gesture toward writing a budget until now.

After the previous Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, Kent Conrad, retired, Washington’s Patty Murray ascended to his position. Upon receiving the gavel, Murray was asked if she would break her party’s tradition and produce a budget. She refused to commit to it. It was clear that she had not sought the chair’s position because she felt any compunction to do the job. She simply viewed the mantel as a means to more efficiently reward her friends, if by friends you mean people who give her money.

Patty Murray has for years been one of the Senate’s most extravagant pork barrel spenders. And what better position to dispense pork to one’s pals than from the leadership of the Senate committee tasked with determining whose pockets the taxpayers’ money flows into.

Surprisingly, the GOPs shame campaign bore fruit and Patty Murray actually did a budget. But it’s such a shoddy piece of work that it even offended the Washington Post. In fact, the budget’s irresponsibility even provoked the scorn of the Washington Post’s most slavishly Democrat partisan pundit.

As the Post’s leftist wonk Ezra Klein points out, Patty Murray’s budget establishes massive federal deficits as a permanent part of the federal budget, something she describes as “sustainable.”

Klein complains that Murray treats every federal program as sacrosanct, and describes her budget as, “deeply, even excessively, respectful of existing institutions.”

The philosophical underpinnings of Patty Murray’s budget may be summarized as, “more of the same.”

The Post’s editorial board piled on a day later, criticizing Patty Murray for completely ignoring the elephant in the room, entitlements. Entitlements are those programs which are currently excluded from budget adjustments. These programs grow annually according to a mathematical formula that gives no consideration to the ability to pay the bill or if it even makes sense. It’s as though you decided twenty five years ago to attend one more professional football game annually.

The left wing Brookings Institution concluded that Murray’s budget put the US on a path that, under the most optimistic assumptions, would burden the US with a debt load double the historical average. That doesn’t sound especially sustainable to me.

The National Journal opined that Patty Murray’s star would rise or fall based upon her performance as Budget Committee chair. Based upon the early reviews, she has vindicated her dismissal from her job as a community college teacher, where she taught “parenting.”

How her degree in “recreation” prepared her for that job isn’t entirely clear, but it does provide fodder for an entire standup comedy routine.

Before Ms Murray tries to tackle something as grown up as authoring a federal budget, perhaps she should take a shot at setting the Senate barbershop on a sound footing.

Matt Yglesias Thinks Private Property Is A Myth

Unless it's his property.

Matt Yglesias last year: "

"The concept of “redistribution” falsely implies that the existence of property is prior to the existence of the state. #mythofownership"

Matt Yglesias this year, just six months later: 

Journalist and political blogger Matt Yglesias bought a three bedroom, three bath condo on Q street in Logan Circle for $1.2 million. In a converted Victorian row house, the unit has original exposed brick walls and a private  patio

Obama Requires That The Cross Be Covered, But Not Yassir Arafat's Portrait

That's right. In 2009, when Barack Obama delivered a speech at Catholic Georgetown University, he demanded that all Christian symbolism be covered. But when he spoke in Ramallah yesterday, he did so with an enormous photograph of venomous Jew-hater and terrorist Yasser Arafat.

No problem.

Recall that in April, 2009, deferring to White House "request," Georgetown University covered up religious symbols significant to Christians everywhere.  This so that the Oracle could harangue without those symbols "distracting" his audience. With thoughts of anything but him, of course.


Yet today, in a press conference in Ramallah, the peace-prize-winning One spoke before an overlarge banner of Yasser Arafat the Sordid.  And this somehow, it seems, without throwing his audience off even the least little bit.

If Barack Obama Is America's Best Gun Salesman

Then Dianne Feinstein is the NRA's best recruiter.

Months ago, it was clear that Feinstein's assault weapons ban had little chance of making it through the Democratic-run Senate, let alone the GOP House. Nonetheless, gun control enthusiasts pushed the measure in the dubious belief that the awful Newtown, Conn., shootings would make an assault weapons ban more palatable. But it is doomed. Meanwhile, these efforts have driven some law-abiding Americans into the loving arms of the NRA.

An NRA member would know better than to put his finger in the trigger guard.

There's a culture clash at play here between people who want to take control of their self-protection and those who want to leave it to the government. "We are our own first responders," NRA instructor Bill Hodges announced as he drilled participants on gun safety. Never put your finger on the trigger unless you're ready to fire. Then he brandished an old photo of Feinstein at a press event holding an AK-47 and ignoring that rule.

Free Speech Dies In Great Britain

Nancy Pelosi and Barack Hussein Obama must be very jealous.

We are in the middle of a liberal berserker, one of those demented moments when “progressives” run riot and smash the liberties they are meant to defend. Inspired by Lord Justice Leveson, they are prepared in Parliament tomorrow to sacrifice freedom of speech, freedom of the press and fair trials. They are prepared to allow every oppressive dictatorship on the planet to say: “We’re only following the British example” when outsiders and their own wretched citizens protest.

Sodomy For Allah

Butt boners okay if it kills infidels.

Oregon Teachers Seeing That Low Information Voters Stay That Way

There's something that the teachers union doesn't want you to know.

Oregon state law requires all ballot questions that could raise taxes to bear the following warning on the envelope: CONTAINS VOTE ON PROPOSED TAX INCREASE. The warning must be “boldly printed in red.” This stipulation was itself the product of a ballot measure, approved by voters in 1997.

But the Oregon Education Association wants the red ink provision jettisoned. A union spokesperson convinced the legislature to examine the issue, according to The Oregonian.

 If voters know that a bill contains language that would raise taxes, they are more likely to take action against it. The union’s hostility to the warning is therefore political, said conservative activist Bill Sizemore.

 “They do not want voters to know there is a tax vote on the ballot because they know if they open it up and look at it, they’re more likely to vote no,” he said in a statement.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2013/03/18/oregon-teachers-union-opposes-tax-hike-warning-label/#ixzz2NvYMDyDH

The Wages Of Smart Diplomacy

Only 10% of Israelis approve of Barack Hussein Obama. And now the Palestinians hate him too.

Palestinians have vandalized a banner bearing President Barack Obama’s image just days before his visit. 

The Palestinians tore down the banner, hurled shoes at it and spray painted it with swastikas. Associated Press TV video showed a taxi driving over the banner before it was set on fire in the West Bank town of Bethlehem on Monday.

Video broadcast on Israel’s Channel 10 also showed an official Palestinian Authority car driving over the banner.

Obama arrives in Israel on Wednesday. He heads to the West Bank Thursday.

Elizabeth Warren Thinks The Minimum Wage Should Be $22/hour?

Yeah, she really is that stupid.

In a hearing of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions last week on “indexing the minimum wage,” Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren inquired of University of Massachusetts professor economics Arindrajit Dube, “If we started in 1960, and we said that, as productivity goes up — that is, as workers are producing more — then the minimum wage is going to go up the same. And, if that were the case, the minimum wage today would be about $22 an hour. So, my question, Mr. Dube, is what happened to the other $14.75?”

A City Entirely Dependent On Food Stamps

Life in Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi's America.

Three years into an economic recovery, this is the lasting scar of collapse: a federal program that began as a last resort for a few million hungry people has grown into an economic lifeline for entire towns. Spending on SNAP has doubled in the past four years and tripled in the past decade, surpassing $78 billion last year. A record 47 million Americans receive the benefit — including 13,752 in Woonsocket, one-third of the town’s population, where the first of each month now reveals twin shortcomings of the U.S. economy:

So many people are forced to rely on government support.

The government is forced to support so many people.

The 1st is always circled on the office calendar at International Meat Market, where customers refer to the day in the familiar slang of a holiday. It is Check Day. Milk Day. Pay Day. Mother’s Day.

“Uncle Sam Day,” Pichardo said now, late on Feb. 28, as he watched new merchandise roll off the trucks. Out came 40 cases of Ramen Noodles. Out came 230 pounds of ground beef and 180 gallons of orange juice.

Global Warm Monger Busted For Faking Data - Again

When the data fails to match your expectations, adjust the data.

Steve McIntyre has made what I can only describe as a stunning discovery as to why there is a sharp uptick in the main Marcott et al graph being touted by the media from its publication in Science.

It seems the uptick in the 20th century is not real, being nothing more than an artifact of shoddy procedures where the dates on the proxy samples were changed for some strange reason.

McIntyre writes:
The Marcott-Shakun Dating Service
Marcott, Shakun, Clark and Mix did not use the published dates for ocean cores, instead substituting their own dates. The validity of Marcott-Shakun re-dating will be discussed below, but first, to show that the re-dating “matters” (TM-climate science), here is a graph showing reconstructions using alkenones (31 of 73 proxies) in Marcott style, comparing the results with published dates (red) to results with Marcott-Shakun dates (black). As you see, there is a persistent decline in the alkenone reconstruction in the 20th century using published dates, but a 20th century increase using Marcott-Shakun dates. (It is taking all my will power not to make an obvious comment at this point.)

Global Warming Predictions All Wrong

The Great Green Hoax.

Geology tells us that fossil fuels are predominantly carbon which was part of our atmosphere before being locked away in the earth millions of years ago. At that time, there were more than 4,000 carbon parts per million (ppm) in the atmosphere. Over time this has been as low as 270ppm and is now about 385ppm.

It is obvious the world can live with these fluctuations in the level of atmospheric carbon.

There is a correlation between temperature and CO2, but some of my colleagues have put the cart before the horse.

The evidence shows CO2 levels follow temperature, not the other way around.
Indeed, there may be many factors that determine our climate. Australian scientist David Archibald has shown  a remarkable correlation between the sun’s activity and our climate over the past 300 years. Climate scientists insist we must accept the ‘carbon’ orthodoxy or be cast into the wilderness.

But the scientists behind  the theory have a vested interest – it’s a great way to justify new taxes, get more money and guarantee themselves more work.

The reality is that man-made global warming is a myth: the global temperature is well within life’s limits and, indeed, the present day is cooler by comparison to much of Earth’s history. Perhaps this will be the moment that this fact becomes the new scientific orthodoxy.

Anthony Weiner Plots His Revenge Against - Nancy Pelosi

This should be fun - except for the Hillary Clinton as president part. 

Disgraced pol Anthony Weiner is potentially climbing back into politics after recently spending more than $100,000 on campaign consulting and polling — and sources tell Page Six that one person he’s looking to prove wrong about him is House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi,who urged him to resign in 2011. “Weiner is still fuming over his downfall, and he blames Nancy Pelosi,” said a source. After Weiner’s sexting scandal, he announced he was going to get psychological treatment and take a leave from the House, but Pelosi released a statement calling for him to resign after he’d informed her of his plan to deal with the situation. Our source further adds, “Weiner has recently been telling pals that ‘when Hillary is president,’ he will get his revenge.” Weiner’s wife, Huma Abedin, is a longtime Clinton aide.

One Sector Of The Economy Obama Can't Smother

Our economy isn’t entirely dead in the water. Sure, the last quarter for which we have data came in at essentially zero. But there are parts of the nation where the economy is clicking along and jobs are being created. But that economic activity is occurring not because of Barack Obama, but in spite of Barack Obama.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama promised to make energy from fossil fuels unaffordable so that we would all be forced to purchase ridiculously overpriced “green” energy from his best friends and most generous campaign contributors. He also promised to put five million electric cars on the road. It was all part of healing the planet and lowering sea levels.

That all flopped. The green energy companies that he subsidized have been failing at an alarming rate, assuming that you believe in unicorns and are easily alarmed. Electric car sales have been so sluggish that, even with $7500/car subsidies, Government Motors has had to shut down its assembly lines on at least two occasions.

That all worked out just as well as Obama’s economic stimulus program. By the way, according to Obama’s 2009 economic projections, the unemployment rate was supposed to be 5.2% today. The only reason that it’s as low as 7.7% is that so many people have given up on finding work. If the labor force today were the same size as it was when his stimulus passed, the unemployment rate would be 10.8%.

But, it’s not all gloom and doom out there. This economy does have a very bright spot. It’s called “fossil fuels.” Remember them?

While most of the nation remains mired in economic malaise, there exists a belt of states that are pretty much carrying the nation. These states are governed by Republicans and are prospering thanks to fossil fuel development policies that date back to Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush.

From the Great Plains and the Intermountain West, to the Gulf Coast and the newly industrialized Southeast, we do have an economic boom in progress. In fact, since 2001, these states’ economies have been growing at a rate of 7-8% annually. This compares with the rest of the nation which has averaged less than 1% during that same time. And it’s being fueled (literally) by fossil fuel development.

It’s instructive that, even as Democrats and organized labor continue to lament the loss of low-paying textile jobs in the southeast, those same states are reeling in high paying manufacturing jobs from East Asia and Europe. Unionized, unskilled, low wage workers toiling in sweat houses serve the Democratic Party’s interests more than the highly skilled, well paid non-union workers who have replaced them.

There must be a very good reason for European and Asian manufacturing to move their production lines to the United States. It’s not that our colleges’ are turning out Women’s Studies, Sociology and Ethnic Studies majors with the skill sets these companies require. It’s not because they want to deal with our sluggish and thuggish bureaucracies. It’s not because they want to pay the highest corporate income taxes in the civilized world.

It’s because natural gas prices in the United States are a fraction of what they are in the rest of the world. And hydraulic fracturing, and not the Chevy Volt, deserves the credit.

And this is a boom that could go on for decades. According to recent estimates, natural gas production is predicted to grow steadily until at least 2040. It could be better than that if traditionally Democratic states would join in. California has more than half of the entire nation’s shale gas reserves, but has so far not allowed its development. The Democratic Party’s deepest pockets in Hollywood and Silicon Valley oppose fracking, and so far, they have the party’s sympathies more than the millions of unemployed. New York also sits on large natural gas reserves, but has so far obstructed development.

Absolutely none of the credit goes to Barack Obama. Most of this development has occurred on private lands that are beyond his authority to stop. On federal lands, where he does have authority, energy exploration and development has declined.

And as for that global warming and sea level business, recent research says you shouldn’t worry. The latest and most comprehensive climate history reconstruction to date shows that carbon dioxide is forestalling a new Ice Age.

Don’t worry. Be happy. And frack, frack, frack.

Keith Olbermann Can't Find A Job

We've already chronicled Keith Olbermann's difficulties with the opposite sex. Now we can add unemployability to his list of failings.

Keith Olbermann has settled his $50 million lawsuit with Current TV, bringing an end to the almost year-long legal dispute over the outspoken host's dismissal from the liberal news network.

The terms of the settlement, which was reported earlier this week, were not released. But two sources familiar with the negotiations now tell POLITICO that during the mediation stage, Olbermann's legal representatives cited his inability to get a job at another network -- a move one source close to the negotiations interpreted as an effort to gain sympathy for Olbermann.

"One of the cards his people played was hardship," the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told POLITICO. "He spent last fall talking to all the major networks, and he couldn't get a job. The idea was, this could be the last money he ever earned."

He should be thankful that Current TV hired him in the first place. Everybody else already knew how useless and unbearable he was. 

Washington Democrats Try To Screw Woman Nursing Baby

If Republicans tried a stunt like this, it would be used to tar the entire party. Democrats escape with a wink.

During a mid-afternoon session, as the Senate was debating a routine series of bills, Holmquist Newbry left the floor to care for her four-month-old son Makaio, who had been brought to the women's lounge off the Senate floor. Sen. Jim Honeyford, R-Sunnyside, moved to excuse Holmquist Newbry from voting. That meant the majority coalition had 24 votes, not 25, and they were tied at least temporarily with the Senate Democratic Caucus. 

Sen. David Frockt, D-Seattle, took advantage of the moment. He rose to demand an immediate vote on a bill sponsored by a Democrat that did not appear on the afternoon schedule. 

The unusual motion quieted the chamber. Members rushed to their seats. Frockt demanded a roll-call vote. The assumption was that Lt. Gov. Brad Owen, a Democrat, would cast a tiebreaking vote to advance the bill to the floor. 

Members of the Senate Democratic Caucus voted yes as their names were called. Members of the Majority Coalition Caucus voted no. And just in time, Holmquist Newbry emerged from the lounge to cast her vote. The motion failed 25-24.

Obama To Allow Spy Agencies To Examine Everything About Your Life

It's a good thing that Obama's doing this. Otherwise, it would be scandalous. 

The Obama administration is drawing up plans to give all U.S. spy agencies full access to a massive database that contains financial data on American citizens and others who bank in the country, according to a Treasury Department document seen by Reuters.

The proposed plan represents a major step by U.S. intelligence agencies to spot and track down terrorist networks and crime syndicates by bringing together financial databanks, criminal records and military intelligence. The plan, which legal experts say is permissible under U.S. law, is nonetheless likely to trigger intense criticism from privacy advocates.

The Best Argument Yet In Favor Of Fracking

It pisses off all the right people.

Maybe Nicholas Cage Really Is A Vampire

Nicholas Cage today and in the 1860's

An Incan representation of Nicholas Cage

First came this Civil War era photograph of a Nicholas Cage look-alike. Now we have an ancient Incan artifact that also resembles Nicolas Cage.

Palestinian Baby Not Killed By Israelis After All

It's the narrative, not the facts. 

Not killed by Jooooos after all. Truth hardest hit.

Nearly four months after the image was circulated worldwide, a U.N. commission has concluded that Israel was not directly responsible for the child’s death. The baby apparently was killed by a Palestinian rocket that fell on his family’s house in Gaza, it said. The rocket, fired by militants in Gaza, was one of hundreds aimed at Israelis during the eight-day conflict.

The one-line conclusion by the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights about was a surprise twist in the photo’s emotion-laden history. The photo evoked such a strong reaction that it became a lightning rod for perceptions about the hostilities.

Many readers were outraged that the image was featured prominently in The Washington Post, which played it across four columns atop its front page on Nov. 15. Some asked why the paper didn’t treat similarly photos of Israelis huddled in shelters to escape Palestinian rocket fire.

The Post’s caption on the photo said the child died “after an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City,” which implied Israeli culpability. In light of the U.N. report, the paper said it would publish an editor’s note in Wednesday’s editions along with the photo that clarifies the circumstances surrounding it. The note reads, in part, that the U.N. report “has now cast doubt” on Israel’s involvement.

The Associated Press on Tuesday issued a correction for its caption for the photo. It wrote, “An errant Palestinian rocket, not an Israeli airstrike, likely killed the child during fighting in the Hamas-ruled territory last November, a U.N. report indicated, challenging the widely believed story behind the image which became a symbol of what Palestinians said was Israeli aggression.”

GOP Congressman Exposes Another Obama Lie

Obama claimed that the sequester would leave children unvaccinated. But Obama himself wanted to cut the program even more and claimed that his cuts would cause no harm.

[C]ommittee staff had looked into President Obama’s plans for the 317 program long before the sequester ever took effect.  And what they discovered was that the president, in his 2013 budget, had proposed to cut $58 million from the program.  The administration claimed that the money could be saved through greater efficiencies and would not involve any reductions in vaccinations.  (The proposed cuts never took place.)  What stunned Rep. Harris and others was that after claiming in the 2013 budget last year that $58 million could be cut without harming vaccinations, the CDC this year claimed that sequestration cuts to the same program, estimated at $30 million, would have devastating effects.

Obama's Losing Streak

Even when he claims to have won, he really lost.

At the time, Obama claimed victory, slapping new taxes on the rich while protecting George W. Bush’s cuts for everyone else. In retrospect, it looks more like a missed opportunity than a political or policy triumph.

Instead, it now seems likely that $600 billion in tax increases is all the new revenue Obama gets. That’s a far cry from the $1.6 trillion he wants, or even the $1 trillion-plus many Republicans were discussing in previous grand bargain talks.

Obama thought he would be able to stare down Republicans over the sequester, and get them to double the size of his tax increase to avoid heavy defense cuts. He was wrong. Once Republicans swallowed the $600 billion in hikes, they made plain they were done raising taxes for this Congress. And they really are done, Republicans say.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/03/behind-the-curtain-missed-chance-obamas-tax-problem-88788.html#ixzz2NQMOUh

Thomas Sowell: Intellectuals Peddle Racial Fallacies

Strangely, liberals don't seem troubled by all-Asian staffs at Chinese restaurants. They pick and choose their racialist outrages. (And excuse Barack Hussein Obama)

Both the Progressives at the beginning of the 20th century and the liberals at the end started from the same false premise - namely, that there is something unusual about different racial and ethnic groups having different achievements.

Yet some racial or ethnic minorities have owned or directed more than half of whole industries in many nations. These have included the Chinese in Malaysia, Lebanese in West Africa, Greeks in the Ottoman Empire, Britons in Argentina, Indians in Fiji, Jews in Poland, and Spaniards in Chile - among many others.

Not only different racial and ethnic groups, but whole nations and civilizations, have had very different achievements for centuries. China in the 15th century was more advanced than any country in Europe. Eventually Europeans overtook the Chinese - and there is no evidence of changes in the genes of either of them.

Among the many reasons for different levels of achievement is something as simple as age. The median age in Germany and Japan is over 40, while the median age in Afghanistan and Yemen is under 20. Even if the people in all four of these countries had the same mental potential, the same history, the same culture - and the countries themselves had the same geographic features - the fact that people in some countries have 20 years more experience than people in other countries would still be enough to make equal economic and other outcomes virtually impossible.

Obama's Cabinet Looks Nothing Like America

Lily white. But it does look an awful lot like his campaign staff. 

The chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus said she is concerned that President Obama has not yet appointed African-Americans to his second-term Cabinet.

Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio) said Obama's appointees do not reflect the nation's diverse population — at least, so far. 

“I am concerned that you have moved forward with new cabinet appointments and yet, to date, none of them have been African American,” her letter to Obama states. “You have publicly expressed your commitment to retaining diversity within your cabinet. However, the people you have chosen to appoint in this new term have hardly been reflective of this country’s diversity.”

Fudge?

America As Seen From DNC Headquarters

Democrats' Cannot Resist Their Totalitarian Excesses

Totalitarians know opportunity when they see it.  As Barack Obama’s first chief of staff phrased it, “You don’t ever want a crisis to go to waste; it’s an opportunity to do important things that you would otherwise avoid.”

And it would appear that assaulting the Fourth Amendment is the latest opportunity that Northwest Democrats wish to exploit using the Newtown, CT school massacre.

Democrats across the country have seized upon a nation’s grief to pursue one of their most treasured agendas, gun control. And predictably, they are overreaching.

Unfortunately for Washington’s Democrats, they’ll have to wait until the next tragedy before they can cross off the next goal on their wish list. Olympian gun grabbers, unsatisfied with simply attacking the Second Amendment also put the Fourth Amendment in their crosshairs.

If you own an auto-loading rifle with cosmetics that frighten Democrats and if you wish to keep it, their idea is  that you should have to submit to annual home inspections by the police to verify that the rifle is properly secured.

The bill’s sponsors, Seattle Democrats Ed Murray and Adam Kline, both insist that they were unaware of the offending paragraph, and have since deleted it. But the bill was only eight pages long. We’re supposed to believe that they couldn’t find the time to read eight pages?  Like Obamacare, we were only supposed to learn what was in the law after it passed.

Democrats would have us believe that this is an aberration. But we only need to go across the border to Baja Washington (Oregon) to find a bill with a very similar language. What are the chances that Democrats in two states would have similar provisions in a gun control law if that wasn’t on their wish list?

The justification for this unconstitutional intrusion is the often repeated phony statistic regarding the number of children killed accidentally in their homes by firearms. MSNBC’s Toure’ claimed on air that children are accidentally killed by the thousands by their parents’ guns.

Applying the euphemism of the year, Toure’ struggles with accuracy. Backyard swimming pools kill two and a half times as many children as firearms in this country. And when one considers that households with firearms are far more common than homes with swimming pools, one discovers that swimming pools are far more lethal than guns.

If Democrats are planning to send Big Brother to verify swimming pool security, I have not heard of it.

If Democrats want to send police into peoples’ homes to guarantee a safe environment for children, then they need to have them check for locked medicine chests and cleaning chemical storage cabinets, because poisoning is the leading killer of children in the home.

According to Consumer Reports, not only are firearms rarely the cause of accidental death, but the frequency of firearms accidents is declining. Ironically, this decline is occurring coincidentally with an era of record firearms sales.  In the four months since Obama’s reelection, the FBI has conducted roughly 10 million background checks required for the purchase of a firearm. This surge comes after four years of record firearms sales that followed Obama’s first election.  During Obama’s term in office, literally millions of homes were added to the roster of homes that contain at least one firearm. And yet, the number of firearms related accidents is declining.

I’m looking forward to how Democrats will justify quartering soldiers in my home. So far, the Third Amendment, which forbids the government from using my home as a barracks, remains one of few amendments in the Bill of Rights that Democrats have not assaulted.

Democrats are furiously trying to find ways to restrict Americans’ access to political debates. Democrats have long sought to make us a helpless, disarmed populace. Forcing gun owners to open their homes to police inspections violates the Fourth Amendment. The Fifth Amendment protections of private property have been swept away by environmental laws. Democrats ignore the Ninth Amendment and, if you bring up the Tenth Amendment, they’ll accuse you of racism (states’ rights).

The Sixth, Seventh  and Eighth Amendments are safe because they guarantee work for lawyers and help keep one of the Democrats’ most loyal voting constituencies, the criminal class, out of jail.

Mentioning the slippery slope will earn you the label as an extremist. But can anyone doubt the slippery slope’s existence when Democrats try to strip away our protections from unreasonable searches and seizures?

Daryl Hannah's Career Suffering Because Of Her Politics?

I thought it was because she was old, ugly and not especially talented. She blames her activism.

The Splash star, talking up her appearance in the new assault on climate change skeptics dubbed Greedy Lying Bastards, says being outspoken in Hollywood comes with a price.

CM: Do you think that your acting career has suffered in any way — or that you’ve lost any roles — because of your outspoken activism?

DH: I know that’s been the case in some instances, for sure. But that’s OK. The truth is, I’m a human being above all. I love life. And I’d love to see life go on on this planet, and thrive.

Hannah also says reporters no longer do investigative journalism for fear of losing their jobs, one reason why the public doesn't demand action on climate change.

 

North Korea Lemming Follow Kim Jong Un Into The Sea

A nation of lunatics.

Dianne Feinstein's Breathtaking Ignorance

Not only is she ignorant, but she uses grammar like a second grader. People take this woman seriously? Californians are stupid enough to elect her? Video at the link.

SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN: If I understand this, this adds an exemption of retired military. As I understand our bill, no issue has arose in this regard during the 10 years the expired ban was in effect and what we did in the other bill was exempt possession by the United States or a department or agency of the United States. So that included active military.
The problem with expanding this is that, you know, with the advent of PTSD, which I think is a new phenomenon as a product of the Iraq War, it’s not clear how the seller or transferrer of a firearm covered by this bill would verify that an individual was a member, or a veteran, and that there was no impairment of that individual with respect to having a weapon like this.
So, you know, I would be happy to sit down with you again and see if we could work something out but I think we have to-- if you’re going to do this, find a way that veterans who are incapacitated for one reason or another mentally don’t have access to this kind of weapon.

Obama Deserves No Credit For Energy Boom

He would prevent it if he could. But he can't. 

House Republicans said a Congressional Research Service (CRS) study made public Tuesday backs up claims that President Obama’s policies have handicapped oil-and-gas production on federal lands.

The study by the nonpartisan CRS concluded that while overall United States oil-and-gas production has increased since 2007, it has declined considerably on federal lands.

The findings play into GOP arguments that the domestic U.S. energy boom has occurred in spite of Obama. They have urged the White House to loosen restrictions on energy drilling in hopes of driving economic activity, generating federal revenues and creating jobs.

“Where the states have been in charge, we have seen energy development boom in a safe and responsible way, but under federal control we have seen a sharp decline in production. A web of red tape and a backlog of delayed permits are blocking important energy production opportunities on federal lands,” Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.), who chairs the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Power, said in a Tuesday statement.

Republicans have prodded Obama to emulate the activity on private and state lands, where a bulk of the nation’s drilling is occurring.

They say expanding energy development could yield more situations like North Dakota’s Bakken formation, where drilling has added thousands of jobs.

While Republicans have criticized Obama’s position on drilling, the president has often responded that oil-and-gas drilling has spiked under his watch. The White House, along with congressional Democrats, contends it has opened a majority of proven oil-and-gas reserves on federal lands to drilling. The administration has kept the rest, both offshore and onshore, closed off largely for environmental reasons.

80% Of New York City High School Grads Illiterate

They can't read the contents label, but at least they're safe from large fountain drinks.

Nearly 80 percent of New York City high school graduates need to relearn basic skills before they can enter the City University’s community college system.

The number of kids behind the 8-ball is the highest in years, CBS 2′s Marcia Kramer reported Thursday.
 
When they graduated from city high schools, students in a special remedial program at the Borough of Manhattan Community College couldn’t make the grade.

They had to re-learn basic skills — reading, writing and math — first before they could begin college courses.

Trayvon Martin's Girlfriend Lied

Obama, Jackson, Sharpton, MSNBC, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, New York Times, Washington Post, etc hardest hit. 

Trayvon Martin's girlfriend, the state's most important witness in the George Zimmerman murder case, was caught in a lie, it was revealed Tuesday.

It was not the first piece of misinformation tied to her, but it was the most damaging to date and left prosecutors in a very awkward position.

They had to publicly acknowledge that their star witness had lied under oath and had to answer questions about what they intend to do about it.

Reporters asked: Will you charge the 19-year-old Miami woman with perjury?

The state's lead prosecutor, Bernie de la Rionda, gave an ambiguous answer: "You can all read the law and make your own decision."

Harvard Students Don't Know Nothing About Finance

This explains a great deal. "Even Harvard students?" More like, because they are Harvard students.

A survey of Harvard students by the Harvard University Employees Credit Union found that only 10 percent had any formal financial education.

To bring students up to speed, the credit union and alumni helped designed a three-day crash course on ­financial management, investments, credit scores, and taxes. As part of the workshop, students collaborated on real-world exercises, such as budgeting to make the rent, and developed personal financial plans. Some students said they were just hoping to find out how credit cards worked.

“College students as a whole just aren’t financially sophisticated,” said Shahar Ziv, a Harvard Business School graduate who helped organize the workshop. “Harvard students are no different than other students. Succeeding academically does not necessarily translate into being financially literate.”

Give Menendez Underage Whores And He'll Make You Rich

Coincidence, DC style. 

Sen. Robert Menendez sponsored legislation with incentives for natural gas vehicle conversions that would benefit the biggest political donor to his re-election, the same eye doctor whose private jet Menendez used for two personal trips to the Dominican Republic, an Associated Press investigation found.

The disclosure reflects the latest intersection between the New Jersey Democrat who is the subject of an ethics inquiry on Capitol Hill and the Florida doctor involved in a federal criminal investigation.

Dr. Salomon Melgen invested in Gaseous Fuel Systems Corp. of Weston, Fla., and joined its board of directors in early 2010, according to the company's chief executive and a former company consultant. GFS, as the company is known, designs, manufactures and sells products to convert diesel-fuel fleets to natural gas. The amount of Melgen's investment is confidential under rules of the Securities and Exchange Commission, but a 2009 document filed with the SEC showed the company required a minimum individual investment at that time of $51,500.