Climate change causes volcanoes

We all know that volcanoes can affect climate.  But now Time Magazine reports "in the stupidest article about climate ever" that climate change causes volcanoes "everywhere".

More on the science of  Catastrophic Anthropogenic Vulcanology.

The moral outrage of climate doomsters

Peter Foster:

Al Gore once suggested that since climate change is a “moral issue,” it is “beyond politics.” You must not question “settled” science or policy “consensus.”

Moral issues are ultimately about how we treat each other. Those such as Mr. Gore who espouse grim Biblical projections of droughts, floods and plagues of insects, all caused by the malign hand of industrial capitalist man ...

...  that still leaves the question of whether catastrophic projections are likely to be true, and the policies proposed likely to be effective.

... If anybody doubts that such questions lead to moral opprobrium, check out the online comments on my most recent column.  ... noted that the claim that 2014 was the “hottest year on record” was highly uncertain ... also refuted the notion that for 13 of the past 15 years to be “the hottest years on record” ... My reward for these observations was a tsunami of moral outrage. 

Naturally, Foster got his predicted second dose of moral opprobrium.

NASA/GISS scientist, Gavin Schmidt, refuses to debate global warming

Actually, Gavin Schmidt's field of expertise is climate modeling, which is more an art (and propaganda tool) than it is science.  Here he is back in 2013 on John Stossel's program refusing to debate renowned climatologist Roy Spencer:



I kind of expected Schmidt to say he wouldn't debate Prof. Spencer because "the debate is over, the science is settled".

More impending chaos in the Middle East?

Saudi King Abdullah is dead.

Yemen's government falls to Iranian backed rebels.  Anti-American rebels, no less.  So, now what happens to Obama's prize drone-strike program?

Fact checking the Pinocchio-in-Chief

During his SOTU address yesterday Obama boasted about US diplomacy success in negotiations with Iran saying:

"... for the first time in a decade we've halted the progress of its nuclear program and reduced its stockpile of nuclear material ..."

That might be nice, except that "he outright lied"!



More fact checking at Politico and the WaPo.  Of note (from the WaPo) was his global warmist claim:

“2014 was the planet’s warmest year on record. Now, one year doesn’t make a trend, but this does – 14 of the 15 warmest years on record have all fallen in the first 15 years of this century.”

That may not have been a "lie", technically, because he was just regurgitating the NASA-NOAA-NCDC alarmist bullcrap.
 

Was 2014 the warmest year on record? Not so fast!

The NOAA NCDC announcement yesterday, "2104 Earth's warmest year on record" spread quickly through news and social media channels, just as planned.  2014 was the warmest "on record", but
that record is based on historical land and sea surface thermometer measurements with missing readings filled in by statistical and other tricky methods.  See a full discussion of the (in)significance of the 2014 result here.

However, there's another record considered to be somewhat more reliable than surface thermometer readings - and that is the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) Satellite Based Temperature of the Global Lower Atmosphere.  That record shows "2014 was Third Warmest Year Since 1979, but Just Barely":

Update: Updates on all the global temp data sets: the three surface temp data sets (GSS, NCDC and HADCRUT) and the satellite data sets (UAH and RSS). 

Update: 2014: The Most Dishonest Year on Record

... What remains of the original description of this ‘warmest year on record’ news? Nothing but bluff, spin, and the uncritical press-release journalism that dominates mainstream reporting on the climate. ...

The great carbon tax grab and BC's bogus green claims

Terence Corcoran:

Just as consumers start getting used to the idea of lower gasoline prices, putting billions of dollars in their pockets for spending on other things, politicians are conspiring to grab it back ... a long list of economists and celebrity policy wonks eager to provide support... Preston “Don’t call it a tax” Manning, The Globe and Mail’s editorial board, assorted think tanks ... Obama advisor Lawrence Summers ... Glen Hodgson, chief economist at the Conference Board of Canada ...

... The carbon tax issue is no small policy shift. This is big statism in a green cloak, filled with policy inconsistencies, economic nonsense and out-of-control rationalizations.

... Carbon taxes are piled on green taxes piled on congestion taxes on top of regulations and other direct interventions. ... Worse, none of these taxes will do anything to improve the environment or curb carbon emissions...

Far left radical Saul Alinsky once wrote "never let a good crisis go to waste". Obama's far left fixer, Rahm Emanuel famously repeated it.   So, now, with a "crisis" in falling oil prices, opportunistic political weasels and wonks of all stripes are rationalizing a tax they hope can be imposed with minimal objection.  And once imposed it'll stay there after oil prices rise again. It's time for tax payers to show up en-mass on all their doorsteps carrying tar, feathers, torches and pitch-forks.

The B.C. carbon tax: Gordon Campbell's Liberals imposed a carbon tax in 2008 and have long held it up as a glowing success in  lowering BC's carbon footprint.  Terence Corcoran puts the lie to that load of junk economics:

... B.C. gasoline consumption is actually higher today than it was in 2008, both in absolute and per capita numbers. B.C. is therefore today producing more carbon emissions than it was the day the carbon tax was introduced.... Economics 101 is still the law, and the B.C. case for a carbon tax does not exist.

How multiculturalism fuels Western paralysis in dealing with radical Islam

Multicultural Suicide by Victor Davis Hanson:

... In terms of the challenge of radical Islam, multiculturalism manifests itself in the abstract with the notion that Islamists are simply the fundamentalist counterparts to any other religion. Islamic extremists are no different from Christian extremists ...

... In the end what is multiculturalism? A global neurosis. For its elite architects, it is a psychological tic, whose loud professions square the circle of enjoying guilt-free the material comfort that only the West can provide. For the rest, multiculturalism is a sort of fraud, a mechanism to blame something that one secretly desires in lieu of addressing the causes of personal or collective self-induced misery.

...

An excellent essay, well worth the read and saving for future reference.

And, for a good example of a multi-cult "useful idiot" that fits Mr. Hanson's decription here's "Harry Potter" billionairess, J.K. Rowling.

Does the Sun drive climate change?

Jo Nova:

The central mystery in climate science is the Sun.  ... Stephen Wilde has a theory:

In essence: The Sun affects the ozone layer through changes in UV or charged particles. When the Sun is more active there is more ozone above the equator and less over the poles, and vice versa. ... Thus the Sun’s UV and charged particles modulate the solar heating of the Earth. ...

 the Andersson “energetic electron” paper

The new paper by Andersson et al builds on the hypothesis that ozone is influential and a potential mechanism to amplify solar factors. It adds energetic electron precipitation (EEP) to spectral changes in UV, which is a significant step forward. ... Observations of climate changes across the last thousand years suggest that it must be so....

Western leaders still in denial about Islam

Not long after the perps of the Islamist terror attacks in Paris were put down, French President Francois Hollande delivered this "reassuring" bit of whitewash: ("... these fantatics had nothing to do with the Muslim religion")


And, we know how Obama thinks (".... ISIL is not Islamic ..."):


So, who should we believe? The above two lefties and their numerous ilk, or Muslim President Al-Sisi of Egypt ("...we must revolutionize our religion ...":

Media cowers out fear of DBM (Death by Muslim)

Greg Gutfeld:



[Via]

Charlie Hebdo: the truths that ought to be self-evident but still aren’t

Nick Cohen in The Spectator:

... I am just back from a ‘Je suis Charlie’ vigil in Trafalgar Square, and the solidarity was good to see. I fear it won’t last. I may be wrong. Perhaps tomorrow’s papers and news programmes will prove their commitment to freedom by republishing the Charlie Hebdo cartoons. ...

... I offer you 10 truths that ought to be self-evident. ...

• ...

• It is not ‘Islamophobic’ to satirise radical Islamists and their beliefs – the main targets of radical Islamists include other Muslims as well as Christians, Jews, Yazidis and secularists.

• Even if in your confused liberal mind you think that it is, no one has the right to stop satire or criticism because they are offended.

• ...

Cowardly media poseurs v. Ezra Levant

The news is saturated today with stories and opinion pieces about the Islamist terrorist murders at the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris yesterday.  Many made mention of the publication of the Danish Muhammed cartoons by Jyllands-Posten and the Canadian media's refusal to publish them in solidarity.  A sampling: 

Christie Blatchford:

"Every newspaper in the free world should today be reprinting one or another of the brilliant cartoons that may have provoked the wrath of the terrorists who attacked Charlie Hebdo on Wednesday, or the original offending cartoons of the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in 2005 which set the Muslim world to rioting and puking in 2006 and which every paper in the free world ought to have reprinted way back then, but mostly didn’t. "

Andrew Coyne:

"one of the few magazines in the world to publish, back in 2006, the so-called “Danish cartoons ... Whole features were written about the controversy that never once showed readers what exactly the fuss was about. And if we are honest, we will admit the reason we did not publish them was because we were scared to.”

Terry Mosher:

"And yet the Economist, the Globe and Mail and most other news organizations around the world, including Canwest, the precursor to the Postmedia Network, refused to reproduce those cartoons despite their newsworthiness. ... One of the only exceptions: Charlie Hebdo... "

None acknowledged the one journalist who actually had the journalistic integrity and balls to re-publish those Danish cartoons at the time - EZRA LEVANT!

A general search of the Vancouver Sun, the National Post and Post Media in general produced no columnist who mentioned Ezra in connection with this story.  It's one thing for these poseurs to be totally lacking in courage.  It's another to willfully ignore the one fellow journalist who is not.

The one exception to this general rule for Canadian media was Maclean's Magazine who carried an interview with Ezra. The final question and answer:

.... Q. You criticized journalists and media organizations six years ago for not printing the cartoons. Has the culture changed at all, in your opinion?

A: Oh my God, it’s absolutely worse! Do you think the Globe and Mail is going to show a Danish cartoon of Muhammad tomorrow? Do you think the CBC will? The Daily Telegraph is already pixelating pictures from Charlie Hebdo. Do you really think we are less cowardly today than nine years ago? All these people putting “Je Suis Charlie“ on their Twitter avatar; you cowards! That’s not defying anybody. Put the picture of the cartoon in your avatar. That’s courage. Not a lot of courage, but baby steps. “Je Suis Charlie”? No you’re not, actually, because Charlie Hebdo published the cartoons, and Charlie Hebdo got killed.

Update: Here's Rex Murphy's excellent column of Jan 10th, "We Are Not Charlie Hebdo".  Though, he too fails to note the one example, Ezra Levant, who is qualified to make that claim.

Islamist murder in Paris

Islamist terrorists today attacked equal opportunity satirical weekly paper "Charlie Hebdo", killing at least twelve in cold blood.

Charlie Hebdo's somewhat generous estimate of the Islamist sense of humour
["100 lashes if you are not dying of laughter!"]

















The killers were apparently well trained and well organized:

Masked and garbed in black, the AK-47 wielding assassins appeared to be executing a well-coordinated plan in the late-morning raid, methodically seeking out and executing those targeted for death, and making a clean getaway ...

... said retired Army Lt. Col. Ralph Peters ... “It was evident immediately that this was a carefully planned, sophisticated operation by well-trained, well-armed veterans of jihad, ... This was not a pick-up team. These butchers were methodical and efficient. They weren't just terrorists: They were terrorist commandos.”

Predictably:

Vile Islamists praised the attack, and

the Dhimmi-in-Chief hedged on the matter of terror and Islam.

CSR de-fanged?

Peter Foster: Conservatives de-fang Canada’s CSR policy

... The Harper government’s recent announcement of an “enhanced” CSR strategy for mining ... is designed to reduce irresponsible interference, not facilitate it.

...  it in fact represents a further turning away from the previous Liberal government’s attempt to accommodate and promote ENGO activism.

... The “enhanced” Conservative strategy ... much less of a potential corporate burden since radical ENGOs are not calling the shots. The Harper government has stopped funding anti-mining ENGOs such as Kairos, which had been front and centre in pushing the CSR Trojan Horse into the corporate boardroom. ...

It's good to see that something's being done to cut the legs out from under the ENGO (Extremist NGO) shakedown artists and put the hitherto bogus CSR concept to good use for once.

TransCanada fed up with Foot-Dragger-In-Chief's glib KXL fabrications

Claudia Cattaneo:

... Twice Tuesday, [TransCanada] issued statements on the US$8-billion pipeline, one correcting the White House’s economic reading, the other questioning the “well-established” process involved.

... The tone is similar to that struck in recent months, when TransCanada president Russ Girling accused President Obama of “pure fabrication” when describing KXL as an export pipeline, or called into question the President’s environmental movement-inspired views on the project.

... President Obama’s glib views on the Canadian project are leaving TransCanada with no choice but to crank up the pressure — or die trying.

... “The review process for Keystone XL has been  anything but a ‘well-established process’,” ...

Corcoran has more.

Friedrich Hayek's interview by James Buchanan

From "The Hayek Interviews", an interview by economist James M. Buchanan: Part I, Part II

On Marxism, a clip from Part II:

Buchanan: How do you explain the revival of Marxist notions in so much of Europe now and to some extent in this country?

Hayek: I don't know ... it's difficult to understand what makes people believe these things ... I can't see that it is intellectually respectable at all.