Mar
12
Open Post 12th March
Filed Under Uncategorized | 1 Comment
Mar
10
Open Post
Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
Again apologies for me absence – things for me to deal with.
Mar
4
Open Post Thursday 4th March
Filed Under Uncategorized | 25 Comments
Hi all, Sorry I’ve been absent for a few days, just had a number of issues to deal with. Hopefully back for good now.
Feb
25
Open Post 25th February
Filed Under Uncategorized | 84 Comments
Feb
25
The left and the Democratic Party are a little miffed that the filibuster exists in the Senate to stop their legislation. Some want to act to get rid of it, Obama and Democratic leadership are proposing using reconciliation to pass their healthcare bill, but there are times when words come back to haunt you:
This isn’t a partisan point, Republicans fare no better here. After all, for Democrats to be angry about the use of the filibuster now whilst being for it previously just means that Republicans provide the opposing dynamic. They were once against it but are now for it.
And for those on the left who want to scrap the filibuster. Imagine you succeed and that in 2013 Sarah Palin is the President, Michele Bachmann is Speaker of the House, Jim DeMint is Senate Majority Leader and the Vice-President Dick Cheney represents the 51st vote in the Senate. Still want to sacrifice the filibuster?
Feb
23
Stealth (or Health) Taxes
Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
In Tracy, California the city council have hit on an interesting (?) idea to raise revenues. Tax 911 calls. I can see that working really well.
Feb
20
Weekend Open Post
Filed Under Uncategorized | 7 Comments
Feb
18
Open Post 18th feb
Filed Under Uncategorized | 11 Comments
Sorry. nothing else from me today.
Feb
16
Climate Change Realist
Filed Under Uncategorized | 7 Comments
Ace of Spades highlights an extract from an interview with John Christy of the University of Alabama-Huntsville. It speaks to where I am on climate change:
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: There’s also something else that’s out there. Phil Jones from the University of East Anglia, the climate research unit, the guy that was at the center of this recent e-mail controversy late last year, has said in an interview with the BBC that he has not seen any, quote, “statistically significant warming since 1995,” though he says he still believes that the earth’s temperature has warmed. And he also said that he might be missing some of the data that is responsible for his climate models.
Of course, skeptics are jumping all over this, saying the whole thing is a farce. Global warming doesn’t exist.
What do you think of the Professor Jones situation, the lack of statistically significant warming, and the fact that he may have misplaced some of the records?
JOHN CHRISTY, PROFESSOR, ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCE, UNIV. OF ALABAMA- HUNTSVILLE: Well, I think what Phil Jones is saying is that Mother Nature is perfectly capable of making the temperature rise and fall through the past several hundred years. And in terms of the data problems, well, we do have to be careful when we’re talking about public policy, that means trillions of dollars, and we haven’t had that very hard and critical situation where you take care of data and make it publicly available to everyone. And that needs to be done now.
Like Immigration, the debate about climate change is an either/or argument. Believe in climate change and opponents (including myself) call you an alarmist. Be sceptical of climate change and you are denialist.
Why can’t one be a realist? Is it true that the earth has warmed over the last 100 years? Yes but only slightly. Is it true that human activity has put extra CO2 into the atmosphere and that that has contributed to the warming? Very likely but not to the extent that other natural conditions also influence climate. Is global warming potentially catastrophic? Ah. Here’s the rub. There is little evidence that this is true, and when, as seen by the latest deceitful disclosures by the IPCC, catastrophic theories are put forward, they are more often than not discounted. Himalayan glaciers, the kilimanjaro glacier, polar bear numbers, a flooded Netherlands and now hurricanes have all failed the test of a second look.
But for climate change advocates to create a transformative economic and social agenda, the catastrophic element is required otherwise where is the importance of now. The climate change realist on the other hand, whilst accepting the possibility of anthropogenic climate change, does not accept the catastrophic nature of it and therefore does not accept the need for dramatic economic and social change.
And that’s where I am right now. In other words: “yeah! So what?”
Feb
16
Just A Note
Filed Under Uncategorized | 6 Comments
I’m currently being spammed something rotten (almost 300 spam comments an hour). My anti-spam software is picking them up so it’s not really a problem. However, from time to time some of your comments sometimes accidently get picked up by the anti-spam software (usually if there’s a lot of links in the comment). In the past, I’ve been able to go through the spammed messages, find yours and approve them. However, because there are so many spams right now, I don’t have the time to go through pages and pages to find a genuine comment. So if one of your comments disappears, let me know and I’ll do what I can to find it, but can’t guarantee I will.
Hopefully this spam blitz will end soon. Still if you want to know about where to find Kid friendly restaurants, daily free tarot and punch newspapers in Nigeria, fortunately I have some links for you.