Category Archives: Blogosphere

Crimea river

Just can’t get excited about Russia’s pending annexation of Crimea. Do wish Lurch wasn’t so free with the billions of our tax money, handing it over to Kiev where the political corruption makes Chicago’s look juvenile. Not to mention the anti-Semitism.

Even Spengler can’t get outraged: “There isn’t going to be a war over Ukraine. There isn’t even going to be a crisis over Ukraine. We will perform our ritual war-dance and excoriate the Evil Emperor, and the result would be the same if we had sung ‘100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall’ on a road trip to Kalamazoo. Worry about something really scary, like Iran.”

Did Lurch get congressional approval for the dispensation, or was that another of Wormtongue’s executive decrees? Who gave him that big of a kitty?

Nor can I get worked up about Wormtongue’s alleged lack of ‘nads on the subject. Bush Jr. didn’t call out the 82nd AD over Georgia in ’08, either. In fact, the ongoing downsizing of the American military is going to make such adventurism harder and harder.

Thankfully, maybe. Unless Monsieur Putin decides to annex Poland, it’s probably for the best. The world policeman gig is old and no longer very appealing to right or left hereabouts.

Via Simply Jews & Mouth of the Brazos.

White House attacks science

It’s the wrong kind of science, see, the kind that contradicts Wormtongue and his cronies and makes them look downright dumb:

“Evidently, if there is one thing the Obama Administration dislikes more than conservatives pointing out the numerous weaknesses in the case for catastrophic global warming it is a Democrat doing the same thing…

“Combining this with Secretary of State Kerry’s recent factually incorrect statements about global warming, it seems the Obama Administration both seeks to unfairly suppress dissenting views and is increasingly anti-science.”

Has to be to back up the boss. Who said, we must not forget, in his SOTU that AGW “is a fact.” Like this congenital liar would know fact from fancy.

Even his AGW acolytes are getting desperate. Dr. Jeff Masters of Weather Underground jumped the shark when he turned to the Voice of Russia to back up his claim that this deadly winter is the spawn of C02 rather than natural variability.

It really could be, as has been said before by others, that everything Wormtongue touches turns to poop.

Via Meteorological Musings & Watts Up With That.

UPDATE: Some are beginning to wonder if global warming science really is science: “Real science does not fear those who challenge it, does not work to have challengers’ articles banned from science journals, and does not compare skeptics to Holocaust deniers or, as Mr. Kerry did in Jakarta, members of the ‘Flat Earth Society.'”

Ours most divided era ever?

American history says no, not by a long shot. Even Wormtongue’s constant, tasteless bashing of the “rich” in favor of the “poor” is nothing new. Although I expect when he says rich he really means the upper-middle class which he’d like to tax into oblivion and not the Democrat’s billionaire pal George Soros.

“The clash of rich and poor has been a constant theme of American history since the Revolution, and was integral to the framing of the Constitution. For the Founders, the ‘haves and have-nots’ were the two most important ‘factions’ that in the Constitutional order would check and balance one another so that neither could threaten the freedom of the other…

“Rather than fret over partisan rhetoric, we should focus on restoring the Constitutional vision of limited government so we can slow the growth of the federal Leviathan whose ruinous costs and encroaching power are the real danger.”

From the comments: “What is unique is the near-monopoly which one party has on the traditional news media of the day. That is what is unprecedented in US history—and infinitely more dangerous than any arguments about ideas and principles.”

Two viewpoints you really can’t emphasize too often these days.

Via Instapundit.

More Looney-Tunes science

The American Physical Society (physicists) will talk this month about building 1,000-foot high walls in Texas, North Dakota and Oklahoma to reduce tornadoes.

Why is it a bad idea if it could save lives and property? Simply, the law of unintended consequences. If walls almost 1000 feet in height are placed in the Central U.S., not only would tornadic activity be disrupted, but precipitation patterns would be, too. Vast areas on the lee side of the walls would see significant decreases in rainfall and areas on the windward side of the walls would see increases…”

Not to mention how dreadful it would be living in the shadow of one of these mothas. So maybe we won’t be seeing them. Or…

Shoot, if the feds can’t build a fence between Mexico and the U.S., how could they build something like this?

Looney-Tunes science

The climate-change, wind turbine boys will do absolutely anything to promote their ridiculous, inefficient, high-maintenance product. Comes the latest laugher:

“Offshore wind turbines could weaken hurricanes, reduce storm surge.”

Ten thousand of them, to be exact. Not in the Gulf, please. We don’t need thousands of giant turbine blades flying this far inland after a Cat 5 rips into the windmills.

Via Instapundit.

UPDATE:  Now that fracking has slain the peak-oil dragon, windmills are facing decreasing government subsidies across the USA and Europe so the prospect of ten thousand “to weaken hurricanes, reduce storm surge” is nil.

Go get ’em, Ted

“…it’s misleading to accuse Cruz of ignoring Obama and only going after Republicans.  He’s going after Republicans who have failed to fight Obama.

“When I read some of the attacks on Cruz, I wonder if at least some of the anger is the result of his tenacity.  I remember being told, when he was in the midst of his filibuster against Obamacare, that it was going to be damaging to the country and deadly to himself.  He would lose, and that would pretty much end his role as a potential party or national leader.

“He’s still standing, and he was proven right to go all out to try to stop Obamacare.”   —-Michael Ledeen at PJMedia.

Illusion versus physics

A tragedy in Tennessee Monday reminds me how close I came to being crippled or killed back in 2006 when I took on gravity and my 3,000 pound Jeep. Guess who won.

I  interposed myself between the Jeep and a Suburban it was slowly rolling towards to save myself (and my insurance record) some extra expense. I was pushing really hard on the Jeep but it wasn’t stopping. Either I thought I was Superman or I was conditioned by the ordinary illusion of effortlessly handling a heavy machine in everyday use. Physics wasn’t impressed.

Instead of being crippled with a crushed leg, I was saved by a passerby who opened the driver’s door, reached in and set the parking brake. I was doubly fortunate in having forgotten to lock the door. That part of my stupidity worked out really well.

I only hobbled around for a few weeks. I still wonder what I was thinking to even try it, and I thank G-d for my good fortune. This poor woman died in her vain attempt to stop her rolling Toyota.

Via Instapundit.