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December 2010:
Weather forecasters in Britain are speculating this December will be the coldest since 1910. Several inches of snow have blanketed Britain all the while stranding travelers and delighting children. Their cousins on the other side of the pond have been dealing with a spectrum of weather related issues from roof caving snow storms to torrential flooding.
Flashback to March 2000:
Headlines like this were commonplace – Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past. Global warming ideology was just getting warmed up and the global warming ’scientists’ at CRU were parsing out bits of nonsense to news reporters such as:
According to Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia,within a few years winter snowfall will become “a very rare and exciting event”.
The author of this article, Charles Onians, went so far as to state (without sourcing supporting data) that average temperatures in Britain will increase by 0.2C every decade over the next century. Ahem…it has been a decade since the article came out. Has there been a 0.2C increase in temperature as predicted? As we all should know weather does not actually equal climate, yet data does suggest we may be entering a Dalton Minimum – otherwise known as a cooling phase.
Further reading on this subject:
Don’t Look! Just hide the decline!
PS: The above photo was taken in Philadelphia earlier this year. I would have liked to post a relevant London photo, however, I don’t favor visiting London during winter – as delightful as this city can be, it’s too cold for comfort during the winter months.
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In case you missed it, on December 13th, “No Labels” - a new non-partisan political action group was launched in the mecca of non partisan-ness, the Roone Arledge Auditorium at Columbia University’s Alfred Lerner Hall in New York City. The fledgling group describe themselves as:
We are not labels – we are people.
We care deeply about our country.
We are frustrated and concerned about the tone of politics.
We are passionate about addressing America’s challenges.
We are Democrats, Republicans and Independents.
Most importantly, we are Americans.
Can ‘American’ be construed as a label in this context? Perhaps thought is best left for another discussion.
After reading this anthem, then checking out what the members are really saying via forum posts; I agree with Bryon York’s assessment that there is a distinctive left wing lean to this movement.
Perusing the forums on the website, I found a familiar mantra; Human beings are the sole problem of mankind, therefore reducing our population by oh say..half we can solve all the world’s problems. No, seriously, Benjamin really means it when asked what is his most pressing issue:
Of course no non-partisan, no-label, all-inclusive political action group would be complete without the bonding ritual of Don’t Hate Me Because I’m Beautiful – Palin Bashing:
One wonders what Margot had to say when Jerry Brown labeled (am I allowed to use the term?) Meg Whitman a whore? Probably not much, I suspect, as the term ‘whore’ is just a label and that is not what this fledgling movement is all about.
Tania’s Law: A non partisan political action group cannot be legitimate without representation from the ‘progressive party’. It seems No Labels has certainly covered all the bases in its inaugural run:
What about that return to civility in politics? Sure! But not before taking a swipe at Rush, Beck and Fox News:
Civility in politics aside, the real problem facing America is the fact that stupid people vote; and sadly, they are too profoundly stupid to realize their own stupidity:
Oh, yes, I could go on with several more examples, but I believe I’ve made my point. This group is nothing more than attempt by disenfranchised O voters and moderate republicans to find some relevancy in the wake of last November’s election. With the Coffee Party’s inability to perk, No Labels is the latest life raft for these bitter clingers.
I raise my cup of tea and wish them luck 
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Smart power.
If you thought the gaffes in Diane Sawyer’s interview with our counterterror brain trust couldn’t get worse than “364 days a year,” skip ahead to 3:35 and brace yourself. It’s so bizarre that I’m actually searching for ways to rationalize it. Napolitano claimed yesterday that there was no evidence thus far to think the plot [...]
America’s shared prosperity is under threat. Even as the Great Recession devastates the American middle class, the wealthy continue to prosper.The website calculates your 'savings' as follows:
The tax cut deal, while perhaps the best the President could get, will not end this crisis of American democracy. It does too little to help the middle class. And it expects too little support from those who can afford to give the most. Ordinary citizens can, by acting together to create a shadow fiscal policy, correct this failure of government and set the country moving toward a just prosperity. Here’s how.
Americans who have the means should collectively give back our Bush tax cuts by making donations to organizations that promote fairness, economic growth, and a vibrant middle class. Such joint action, by all visitors to this site, will begin to replicate good government policy, outside the government and free from the grip of obstructionists within it. Because contributions to all of the selected charities are tax deductible, donations made through this site draft the government as a partner in funding the projects that they support.
We can, in this way, begin to redeem candidate Obama’s promise that “we are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”
Our tax cut calculations are estimates only. We base them on the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center Microsimulation Model (www.taxpolicycenter.org). We follow the Tax Policy Center and base our calculations on a comparison of the Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization and Job Creation Act of 2010, as considered by the Senate, and the law as it would have been had no new statute been enacted. We interpolate within the ranges in the tax policy center’s data. More importantly, our calculations of the tax cut do not include the 2% reduction in the payroll (OASDI) tax rate on employees. That reduction represents the kind of fair and stimulative fiscal policy that we hope to mimic and encourage.I like the idea. I've always felt that those who want higher taxes should pay higher taxes.
House lawmakers on Tuesday approved a last-minute measure
extending current levels of government funding through March 4.
Most Americans like the new tax cut law that President Barack Obama signed into law on Friday, according to a new national poll.Not mentioned are the scores of Democrats that blamed the lower Bush tax rates for every problem under the Sun for the better part of the last decade including the lackeys at CNN. And now it's a good thing and Obama is a hero? Good grief.
And a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Monday also indicates that while the tax cut compromise the president struck with congressional Republicans didn’t spark Obama’s overall approval rating, it may have given him a boost as “Triangulator in Chief.”
Forty-eight percent of people questioned in the poll say they approve of the job Obama’s doing in the White House, with an equal amount saying they disapprove of how he’s handling his duties.
“The president’s approval rating is exactly where it was in mid-November before he brokered the tax cut compromise that angered some liberals and conservatives alike,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. “But while he has lost some ground with liberals, he has gained support among moderates. That’s important if Obama plans to borrow a page from former President Bill Clinton’s playbook and try to win re-election by ‘triangulating’ between the leaders of both parties on the Hill.”
What the h*ll is Colmes talking about?
This was totally insane.
Alan Colmes:
“The issue is that more of these plots have been hatched by non-Muslims… It’s not just one group. 72 Americans. Angry white Americans. People who are angry at the country who fly planes at the IRS building. People like Tim McVeigh. Angry white Americans.”
Monica Crowley corrected Alan Colmes pointing out that of there have been 126 terror-related arrests in the United States in the last two years… And all of the terror suspects were Muslim.
Crazy Alan Colmes must have missed this:
(Religion of Peace)
Health insurance increases greater than 10 percent will be scrutinized by the states and feds under a proposed HHS rule.
"“Piers Corbyn not only predicted the current weather, but he believes things are going to get much worse, says Boris Johnson, London’s mayor
Back in November, when the Met Office was still doing its “mild winter” schtick, Corbyn said it would be the coldest for 100 years. Indeed, it was back in May that he first predicted a snowy December, and he put his own money on a white Christmas about a month before the Met Office made any such forecast. He said that the Met Office would be wrong about last year’s mythical “barbecue summer”, and he was vindicated. He was closer to the truth about last winter, too.
He seems to get it right about 85 per cent of the time and serious business people – notably in farming – are starting to invest in his forecasts.”
And the real kicker of this mostly right weatherman who predicts better than the British government meteorologists? A coming ice age.
“Piers Corbyn believes that the last three winters could be the harbinger of a mini ice age that could be upon us by 2035, and that it could start to be colder than at any time in the last 200 years. He goes on to speculate that a genuine ice age might then settle in, since an ice age is now cyclically overdue.”
1975 Newsweek article about coming ice age
Who’s ‘In Climate Denial, Again’? The New York Times
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