If it wasn't clear, my intent was to say that sequestration is a science-based approach, but demanding Western countries to hand over $100B/year to developing countries is just wealth redistribution. The former may or may not be feasible, but it at least attempts to mitigate the problem. How does the later "solve" AGW?
MUNJURUL HANNAN KHAN: I'm hopeful that at the end of the [U.N. climate talks in] Warsaw talk, we'll get outcome on legally binding agreement process, that we are hoping to develop a good text by 2015. The second thing, we're asking for $70 billion for three years. And by 2020, they will mobilize $100 billion for long-term financial support for the developing nations.
But I wonder if you meant "piece work". Shift work still requires employees to work a set schedule, but which may be a night shift, etc. Indeed, it's why I asked if Uber can start requiring their drivers to work scheduled shifts.
“2006: Expect Another Big Hurricane Year Says NOAA”—headline, MongaBay.com, May 22, 2006
“NOAA Predicts Above Normal 2007 Atlantic Hurricane Season”—headline, National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration press release, May 23, 2007
“NOAA Increases Expectancy for Above-Normal 2008 Atlantic Hurricane Season”—headline, gCaptain.com, Aug. 7, 2008
In fact, humanity is almost certain to not survive even a largish asteroid hit unscathed. Billions could die in the immediate aftermath and most of the rest probably die in the long-term due to starvation.
It's a real possibility that cannot be ignored.
We should be spending our trillions of dollars to prevent that from happening! The argument is the same "Bad things might happen--or will certainly happen if other things happen first--so we should *do* *something* *about* *it*".
Some of us agree with the notion that pollution is bad, that humans have negatively affected the environment, and that human activities are probably (or even almost certainly) affecting the climate with AGW.
But we're still branded as "deniers" becuase we take strong issue with is the proposed "solutions". Few of which are science-based and almost all of which are based not on environmentalism but communism--wealth redistribution and punishment of the West. The elites preach about reducing carbon footprints while they drive a fleet of SUVs 200 yards to get from their hotel to their film festival, after arriving there in their private jets dumping untold tons of carbon into the atmosphere, having left their mansions that consume more resources than 20 of normal citizens' homes. But the rest of us need to live in caves and eat dirt, while they spend trillions. They want the population of the earth to be 500,000 people, assuming that they and theirs constitute the chosen half-million and the rest of us need to be gone.
Most of AGW "solutions" is that they are not science based, e.g. seeking to pump CO2 into subsea sequestration, but simply socialist wealth redistribution efforts, as clearly evidenced by the public statements of any number of high-profile AGW climateers...
Ottmar Edenhofer: "One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with the environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole...We redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy...the next world climate summit in Cancun is actually an economy summit during which the distribution of the world’s resources will be negotiated."
Christiana Figueres: "This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution...This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model for the first time in human history.
Naomi Klein: "What if global warming isn’t only a crisis...What if it's the best chance we’re ever going to get to build a better world?"
In the John Waters-esque sector of northwest Baltimore — equal parts kitschy, sketchy, artsy and weird — Gerry Mak and Sarah Magida sauntered through a small ethnic market stocked with Japanese eggplant, mint chutney and fresh turmeric. After gathering ingredients for that evening’s dinner, they walked to the cash register and awaited their moments of truth.
“I have $80 bucks left!” Magida said. “I’m so happy!”
“I have $12,” Mak said with a frown.
The two friends weren’t tabulating the cash in their wallets but what remained of the monthly allotment on their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program debit cards, the official new term for what are still known colloquially as food stamps.
Magida, a 30-year-old art school graduate, had been installing museum exhibits for a living until the recession caused arts funding — and her usual gigs — to dry up. She applied for food stamps last summer, and since then she’s used her $150 in monthly benefits for things like fresh produce, raw honey and fresh-squeezed juices from markets near her house in the neighborhood of Hampden, and soy meat alternatives and gourmet ice cream from a Whole Foods a few miles away.
“I’m eating better than I ever have before,” she told me. “Even with food stamps, it’s not like I’m living large, but it helps.”
Mak, 31, grew up in Westchester, graduated from the University of Chicago and toiled in publishing in New York during his 20s before moving to Baltimore last year with a meager part-time blogging job and prospects for little else. About half of his friends in Baltimore have been getting food stamps since the economy toppled, so he decided to give it a try; to his delight, he qualified for $200 a month.
“I’m sort of a foodie, and I’m not going to do the ‘living off ramen’ thing,” he said, fondly remembering a recent meal he’d prepared of roasted rabbit with butter, tarragon and sweet potatoes.
I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth.
The Earth will keep right on zooming around the sun, new life forms will evolve and populate the planet. Or not. Pretty much the same as it has been for the last 2B years.
Sure, it's bad for humans and other flora and fauna that are contemporaneous with humans. The world kept on going after the Great Oxygenation Event caused the first mass extinction 2.3 billion years ago. It kept on going through 20 or so mass extinction events [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event]. It'll go on after humans.
“2006: Expect Another Big Hurricane Year Says NOAA”—headline, MongaBay.com, May 22, 2006 “NOAA Predicts Above Normal 2007 Atlantic Hurricane Season”—headline, National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration press release, May 23, 2007 “NOAA Increases Expectancy for Above-Normal 2008 Atlantic Hurricane Season”—headline, gCaptain.com, Aug. 7, 2008 “Forecasters: 2009 to Bring ‘Above Average’ Hurricane Season”—headline, CNN, Dec. 10, 2008 “NOAA: 2010 Hurricane Season May Set Records”—headline, Herald-Tribune (Sarasota, Fla.), May 28, 2010 “NOAA Predicts Increased Storm Activity in 2011 Hurricane Season”—headline, BDO Consulting press release, Aug. 18, 2011 “2012 Hurricane Forecast Update: More Storms Expected”—headline, LiveScience, Aug. 9, 2012 “NOAA Predicts Active 2013 Atlantic Hurricane Season”—headline, NOAApress release, May 23, 2013 “A Space-Based View of 2015’s ‘Hyperactive’ Hurricane Season”—headline, CityLab.com, June 19, 2015 “The 2016 Atlantic Hurricane Season Might Be the Strongest in Years”—headline, CBSNews, Aug. 11, 2016
“NOAA: U.S. Completes Record 11 Straight Years Without Major Hurricane Strike”—headline, CNSNews, Oct. 24, 2016
Thanks James Taranto's WSJ "Best of the Web" column...
Yeah, sure the original may not just be about US hurricanes, but the point is still the same.
To mix parables, crying wolf about the sky falling is a quick way to get people to ignore actual serious issues.
Even if subsection (a) does not contain a provision for reinstating formerly withdrawn lands for leasing...
1341. Reservation of lands and rights (a) Withdrawal of unleased lands by President: The President of the United States may, from time to time, withdraw from disposition any of the unleased lands of the outer Continental Shelf.
Obama is hanging his hat on the fact that there is no counterpart for reinstatement (i.e., it doesn't say "withdraw or reinstate").
However, subsection (d) provides a nice easy workaround:
(d) National defense areas; suspension of operations; extension of leases : The United States reserves and retains the right to designate by and through the Secretary of Defense, with the approval of the President, as areas restricted from exploration and operation that part of the outer Continental Shelf needed for national defense; and so long as such designation remains in effect no exploration or operations may be conducted on any part of the surface of such area except with the concurrence of the Secretary of Defense;
So SecDef and Trump could just designate the lands Obama withheld from disposition as "national defense area" then get the concurrence of the SecDef to allow operations.
For me, the main problem with the church of AGW is not that the science is questionable, although there is always a responsibility to be rationally skeptical of any claims, but that the solutions are not scientific. Rather, the "solutions" are always cached in socialist propaganda. It has stopped being about the environment, stopping pollution, providing clean energy, etc. It is generally far more of a watermelon (green on the outside, red on the inside)--control of money, punishing the wealthy, redistribution of wealth. Without a doubt there are many above-board climatologists and environmentalists for whom the science is key, and finding real solutions (e.g., fusion power) are the most important thing. But they have let their science be co-opted for political purposes.
Ottmar Edenhofer, a co-chair of the IPCC : “The climate summit in Cancun at the end of the month [back in 2010 actually] is not a climate conference, but one of the largest economic conferences since the Second World War. First of all, developed countries have basically expropriated the atmosphere of the world community. But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy. Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole.”
"I’m Camille Risler. I’m from France but I’m living in Thailand. I’m working for a feminist network that is called Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development and I’m working for the Climate Justice Program...So what we want to highlight here is that Climate Change is a clear symptom of an unequal and unjust world...So if we are to address the Climate crisis we need to challenge the structural causes of the crisis which lies on unequal distribution of wealth, of carbon, and of power. Whether it’s political power, economic power, or even military power."
Christiana Figueres, who serves as the Executive Secretary of the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change: “This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution.”
She managed to lose to the most loathsome, odious person to ever run for the office. What's that say about her?
Not much we didn't already know, she (along with Kerry, Biden...) was after all duped into voting for the Bush wars by an idiot President who couldn't walk and chew gum a the same time.
You can't even say that. The campaigns and elections were based on the rules of the Electoral College. Everyone planned their strategy for campaigning based on garnering EC votes. Voters in locked-in states made their Election Day decisions to perhaps stay home knowing their candidate had basically already won (or lost) their state.
Based on the final score of a football game played under the current rules you can't say who'd have won if 2 points were also awarded based on each first down gained, because team strategies would change based on the different rules in effect at the time of the game. If fouls in a basketball game resulted in 2 points being deducted from your team score rather than allowing the other team the chance to shoot 1+1 or 2 free throws, think the game would be played differently?
If we elected the President based on elections allocated by Congressional district one vote per district plus 2 statewide votes, think the campaigns and votes would be different? So the same is true of saying "popular vote". We don't have a "popular vote", so saying Clinton (or Gore) won the "popular vote" is not true.
It is true that when aggregating the votes across all states, that they had pluralities. But that's like saying Clinton had 658 yards of total offense (she had 68.5M votes) and Trump had 629 yards of total offense (62.9M votes), and saying she should have won. But the fact is, that despite moving the ball up and down the field somewhat better than Trump, she turned the ball over 5 times (lost 5 state that Obama carried twice) and failed to score points when it counted. Someone crying about total yards off offense is readily countered with "Scoreboard!".
If you want to play "what if" for ex post facto results, imagine "what if" we had had instant run-off, where the people who voted for Gary Johnson (4+M) and Jill Stein (1+M) and the 800k "other" voters had selected a 2nd-choice vote? How many Libertarians and Greens would have selected Trump and Clinton as their second choice? How many of those L and G votes were "protest" votes in "safe" states. Personally, I have voted Libertarian for years in Georgia confident that my L votes would never crack the Republican lock and accidentally elect a Democrat for Senate or President.
Electoral College magic trick...California passes legislation that allows the governor to simply appoint the state's electors. Perfectly Constitutional.
Had this been in effect this election, we can assume Jerry Brown would have appointed 55 Democrats for Sec. Clinton.
The EC remains unchanged, but the "popular vote" swings to Trump by about 1M. Without popular votes from California, Sec. Clinton would have 8.7M fewer popular votes and Mr. Trump would have 4.4M fewer popular votes. So the final tally would be Clinton with 57M and Trump with 58.5.
I notice that Democrats have no problems with Sec. Clinton winning 3/5ths of the California vote but getting all the 55 of the state's electoral votes...
As for "One person, one vote.", that's not how the US federal government is constructed. It is a federation of States, and the balance between population and individual states representation in that federal government are carefully balanced.
As a reference point, the EU Parliament and Presidency is balanced in much the same way as our Congress and Presidency. Each EU member gets a minimum of 6 MEPs, and there is a maximum of 751 MEPs. With 28 members, this means that 168 MEPs are obligatory, and the remaining 583 are apportioned (by treaty) based on population, with Germany having 96, France 74, Italy 73, and UK 73, while smaller members like Cyprus, Estonia, Luxembourg, and Malta having the minimum 6. This is similar to Congress, where each state, regardless of population has 2 Senators and one Representative, with the remaining 385 Representatives apportioned based on population.
The President of the EU is elected by MEPs who cast their ballots based on individual popular elections within their home countries and *not* through an EU-wide popular election. Again, much like the Electoral College.
And, like in the US, political parties cross borders, with e.g., 214 MEPs European People's Party Group members sitting as MEPs. Sometimes they put Party ahead of Country just like sometimes members of Congress puts Party ahead State.
The people in the EU do not want to be in an organization of states that would be dominated by the population of Germany and Italy, despite the positives that association with those states may bring, anymore than the people of the US want to be dominated by the population of California and New York.
Cobb County in Georgia is a strong conservative area (Tom Price represents in Congress) albeit with a decent Libertarian presence and also home of many Never-Trump voters, especially soccer-moms who would have voted for any other Republican from the primaries but could not vote for Trump.
I suspect that had Walker, Cruz, or Kasich had won the primaries, Clinton's Georgia results would look a lot more like they have in the past: very strong red state.
Same is true of California, well, not "most", except that in California they're not displaced New England snowbirds. One-in-four Californians are foreign-born (about 10M people), and about 1/4th of those is an illegal alien, i.e. every fifteenth "Californian" is an illegal alien.
Not that there's anything wrong with legal immigrants living in California or anywhere else they chose to live, but I do wish California would make a significant effort to prevent *illegal* aliens from voting in US elections. Yes, yes..."There's no proof illegal aliens voted..." but that's at least partly because asking anyone to prove they are entitled to vote (and I might add, a valid, legal resident of the district in which they are attempting to vote) is somehow racist.
California is home to more than 10 million immigrants—one in four of the foreign-born population nationwide. In 2011, 27% of California’s population was foreign-born, about twice the U.S. percentage. Foreign-born residents represented more than 30% of the population of seven California counties: Santa Clara, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Mateo, Imperial, Alameda, and Orange. And half of the children in California had at least one immigrant parent. Most immigrants in California are documented residents.
Almost half (47%) of California’s immigrants are naturalized U.S. citizens, and another 26% have some other legal status (including green cards and visas). According to the Department of Homeland Security, about 27% of immigrants in California are undocumented.
"I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth. This was the moment - this was the time - when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves, and our highest ideals."
Consequences of laws once meant to help the "little guy". Regulatory capture. Rent seeking. Corporate welfare.
Those dealership protection laws were put in place to protect the "little guy" from the "big evil corporations". And specifically, to protect dealers with franchise contracts from being put out of business by corporate stores. Even Ford, which is always pulled out as an example of "fairness" whenever "living wage" laws are discussed, was forcing dealers to accept inventory they could not move and other things.
"As this system evolved, though, those dealers who had made large investments became concerned that they would be at the mercy of their affiliated manufacturer, especially with few automobile manufacturers to turn to as alternatives. Dealers turned to policymakers about what they believed were abusive and coercive practices by manufacturers and the regulation of automobile distribution ensued. Over time, all fifty states passed laws regulating the relationship between auto manufacturers and dealers." [https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_statements/909813/ramirez_-_auto_distribution_workshop_opening_remarks_1-19-16.pdf]
Now the wheel has turned and the media darling big corporation is--currently (no pun intended)--not perceived as "evil" and should be allowed to bypass laws on the books.
It's simple enough. Tesla needs to lobby each state to change its laws to allow direct sales (just like the dealers lobbied for the laws 80 years ago). Or Tesla can enter the market like other car makers and use dealers within the existing framework of laws and regulations.
When women chose to drop out of the workforce to have children, whether it is 20 weeks or whatever, their non-childbearing cohorts--usually males--continue to accrue experience and visibility. They earn raises and promotions. The child-bearing women then sue because they were not given raises or promotions, or at least complain about the "gender gap" and push for laws that force employers to ignore the raw fact that the child-bearing women (and their partners who might also choose to sit out for weeks or months) are, in fact, now behind the experience curve. Repeat for second kid, and somehow it's discrimination because woman A and cohort B (probably a man) who were hired on the same day into the same job now are paid significantly differently due to woman A being 3 or 4 years behind the experience curve. And more lawsuits fly.
Years after the "crisis" is over and we're still spending about $0.5T more than we take in.
On the day Obama administration took office (with the various Congresses he oversaw), the total national debt was $10,626,877,048,913.08 ($10.6T). As of 11/30/2016 it stands at $19,948,064,697,245.75 ($19.9T).
Slashdot Mirror
If it wasn't clear, my intent was to say that sequestration is a science-based approach, but demanding Western countries to hand over $100B/year to developing countries is just wealth redistribution. The former may or may not be feasible, but it at least attempts to mitigate the problem. How does the later "solve" AGW?
MUNJURUL HANNAN KHAN: I'm hopeful that at the end of the [U.N. climate talks in] Warsaw talk, we'll get outcome on legally binding agreement process, that we are hoping to develop a good text by 2015. The second thing, we're asking for $70 billion for three years. And by 2020, they will mobilize $100 billion for long-term financial support for the developing nations.
But I wonder if you meant "piece work". Shift work still requires employees to work a set schedule, but which may be a night shift, etc. Indeed, it's why I asked if Uber can start requiring their drivers to work scheduled shifts.
If they are employees, certainly Uber can demand that they work specific hours or not be employees anymore?
I've never heard of "employees" who can work or not work at their own whim just by signing into or out of an app.
It'll keep right on orbiting the sun, and may eventually evolve different life forms long after we're gone.
Yeah, we might kill ourselves off and any number of our contemporary species with us, but the planet doesn't care and will not be put out at all.
The planet went along just fine when the cyanobacteria wiped out almost all other life on the planet by spewing toxic oxygen into the atmosphere.
The planet went along fine after the asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs.
The planet went along fine through multiple "snowball earth" cycles.
If you cry wolf enough times, you may eventually (finally) get it right once!
Hypothesis and Disproof
“2006: Expect Another Big Hurricane Year Says NOAA”—headline, MongaBay .com, May 22, 2006
“NOAA Predicts Above Normal 2007 Atlantic Hurricane Season”—headline, National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration press release, May 23, 2007
“NOAA Increases Expectancy for Above-Normal 2008 Atlantic Hurricane Season”—headline, gCaptain .com, Aug. 7, 2008
“Forecasters: 2009 to Bring ‘Above Average’ Hurricane Season”—headline, CNN, Dec. 10, 2008
“NOAA: 2010 Hurricane Season May Set Records”—headline, Herald-Tribune (Sarasota, Fla.), May 28, 2010
“NOAA Predicts Increased Storm Activity in 2011 Hurricane Season”—headline, BDO Consulting press release, Aug. 18, 2011
“2012 Hurricane Forecast Update: More Storms Expected”—headline, LiveScience, Aug. 9, 2012
“NOAA Predicts Active 2013 Atlantic Hurricane Season”—headline, NOAApress release, May 23, 2013
“A Space-Based View of 2015’s ‘Hyperactive’ Hurricane Season”—headline, CityLab .com, June 19, 2015
“The 2016 Atlantic Hurricane Season Might Be the Strongest in Years”—headline, CBSNews, Aug. 11, 2016
“NOAA: U.S. Completes Record 11 Straight Years Without Major Hurricane Strike”—headline, CNSNews, Oct. 24, 2016
Thanks James Taranto...
In fact, humanity is almost certain to not survive even a largish asteroid hit unscathed. Billions could die in the immediate aftermath and most of the rest probably die in the long-term due to starvation.
It's a real possibility that cannot be ignored.
We should be spending our trillions of dollars to prevent that from happening! The argument is the same "Bad things might happen--or will certainly happen if other things happen first--so we should *do* *something* *about* *it*".
Some of us agree with the notion that pollution is bad, that humans have negatively affected the environment, and that human activities are probably (or even almost certainly) affecting the climate with AGW.
But we're still branded as "deniers" becuase we take strong issue with is the proposed "solutions". Few of which are science-based and almost all of which are based not on environmentalism but communism--wealth redistribution and punishment of the West. The elites preach about reducing carbon footprints while they drive a fleet of SUVs 200 yards to get from their hotel to their film festival, after arriving there in their private jets dumping untold tons of carbon into the atmosphere, having left their mansions that consume more resources than 20 of normal citizens' homes. But the rest of us need to live in caves and eat dirt, while they spend trillions. They want the population of the earth to be 500,000 people, assuming that they and theirs constitute the chosen half-million and the rest of us need to be gone.
Most of AGW "solutions" is that they are not science based, e.g. seeking to pump CO2 into subsea sequestration, but simply socialist wealth redistribution efforts, as clearly evidenced by the public statements of any number of high-profile AGW climateers...
Ottmar Edenhofer: "One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with the environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole...We redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy...the next world climate summit in Cancun is actually an economy summit during which the distribution of the world’s resources will be negotiated."
Christiana Figueres: "This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution...This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model for the first time in human history.
Naomi Klein: "What if global warming isn’t only a crisis...What if it's the best chance we’re ever going to get to build a better world?"
http://www.salon.com/2010/03/1...
In the John Waters-esque sector of northwest Baltimore — equal parts kitschy, sketchy, artsy and weird — Gerry Mak and Sarah Magida sauntered through a small ethnic market stocked with Japanese eggplant, mint chutney and fresh turmeric. After gathering ingredients for that evening’s dinner, they walked to the cash register and awaited their moments of truth.
“I have $80 bucks left!” Magida said. “I’m so happy!”
“I have $12,” Mak said with a frown.
The two friends weren’t tabulating the cash in their wallets but what remained of the monthly allotment on their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program debit cards, the official new term for what are still known colloquially as food stamps.
Magida, a 30-year-old art school graduate, had been installing museum exhibits for a living until the recession caused arts funding — and her usual gigs — to dry up. She applied for food stamps last summer, and since then she’s used her $150 in monthly benefits for things like fresh produce, raw honey and fresh-squeezed juices from markets near her house in the neighborhood of Hampden, and soy meat alternatives and gourmet ice cream from a Whole Foods a few miles away.
“I’m eating better than I ever have before,” she told me. “Even with food stamps, it’s not like I’m living large, but it helps.”
Mak, 31, grew up in Westchester, graduated from the University of Chicago and toiled in publishing in New York during his 20s before moving to Baltimore last year with a meager part-time blogging job and prospects for little else. About half of his friends in Baltimore have been getting food stamps since the economy toppled, so he decided to give it a try; to his delight, he qualified for $200 a month.
“I’m sort of a foodie, and I’m not going to do the ‘living off ramen’ thing,” he said, fondly remembering a recent meal he’d prepared of roasted rabbit with butter, tarragon and sweet potatoes.
I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth.
Obama's first inauguration speech...messiah much?
The Earth will keep right on zooming around the sun, new life forms will evolve and populate the planet. Or not. Pretty much the same as it has been for the last 2B years.
Sure, it's bad for humans and other flora and fauna that are contemporaneous with humans. The world kept on going after the Great Oxygenation Event caused the first mass extinction 2.3 billion years ago. It kept on going through 20 or so mass extinction events [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event]. It'll go on after humans.
“2006: Expect Another Big Hurricane Year Says NOAA”—headline, MongaBay .com, May 22, 2006 .com, Aug. 7, 2008 .com, June 19, 2015
“NOAA Predicts Above Normal 2007 Atlantic Hurricane Season”—headline, National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration press release, May 23, 2007
“NOAA Increases Expectancy for Above-Normal 2008 Atlantic Hurricane Season”—headline, gCaptain
“Forecasters: 2009 to Bring ‘Above Average’ Hurricane Season”—headline, CNN, Dec. 10, 2008
“NOAA: 2010 Hurricane Season May Set Records”—headline, Herald-Tribune (Sarasota, Fla.), May 28, 2010
“NOAA Predicts Increased Storm Activity in 2011 Hurricane Season”—headline, BDO Consulting press release, Aug. 18, 2011
“2012 Hurricane Forecast Update: More Storms Expected”—headline, LiveScience, Aug. 9, 2012
“NOAA Predicts Active 2013 Atlantic Hurricane Season”—headline, NOAApress release, May 23, 2013
“A Space-Based View of 2015’s ‘Hyperactive’ Hurricane Season”—headline, CityLab
“The 2016 Atlantic Hurricane Season Might Be the Strongest in Years”—headline, CBSNews, Aug. 11, 2016
“NOAA: U.S. Completes Record 11 Straight Years Without Major Hurricane Strike”—headline, CNSNews, Oct. 24, 2016
Thanks James Taranto's WSJ "Best of the Web" column...
Yeah, sure the original may not just be about US hurricanes, but the point is still the same.
To mix parables, crying wolf about the sky falling is a quick way to get people to ignore actual serious issues.
Even if subsection (a) does not contain a provision for reinstating formerly withdrawn lands for leasing...
1341. Reservation of lands and rights
(a) Withdrawal of unleased lands by President: The President of the United States may, from time to
time, withdraw from disposition any of the unleased lands of the outer Continental Shelf.
Obama is hanging his hat on the fact that there is no counterpart for reinstatement (i.e., it doesn't say "withdraw or reinstate").
However, subsection (d) provides a nice easy workaround:
(d) National defense areas; suspension of operations; extension of leases : The United States
reserves and retains the right to designate by and through the Secretary of Defense, with the approval of the
President, as areas restricted from exploration and operation that part of the outer Continental Shelf needed
for national defense; and so long as such designation remains in effect no exploration or operations may be
conducted on any part of the surface of such area except with the concurrence of the Secretary of Defense;
So SecDef and Trump could just designate the lands Obama withheld from disposition as "national defense area" then get the concurrence of the SecDef to allow operations.
For me, the main problem with the church of AGW is not that the science is questionable, although there is always a responsibility to be rationally skeptical of any claims, but that the solutions are not scientific. Rather, the "solutions" are always cached in socialist propaganda. It has stopped being about the environment, stopping pollution, providing clean energy, etc. It is generally far more of a watermelon (green on the outside, red on the inside)--control of money, punishing the wealthy, redistribution of wealth. Without a doubt there are many above-board climatologists and environmentalists for whom the science is key, and finding real solutions (e.g., fusion power) are the most important thing. But they have let their science be co-opted for political purposes.
Ottmar Edenhofer, a co-chair of the IPCC : “The climate summit in Cancun at the end of the month [back in 2010 actually] is not a climate conference, but one of the largest economic conferences since the Second World War. First of all, developed countries have basically expropriated the atmosphere of the world community. But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy. Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole.”
"I’m Camille Risler. I’m from France but I’m living in Thailand. I’m working for a feminist network that is called Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development and I’m working for the Climate Justice Program...So what we want to highlight here is that Climate Change is a clear symptom of an unequal and unjust world...So if we are to address the Climate crisis we need to challenge the structural causes of the crisis which lies on unequal distribution of wealth, of carbon, and of power. Whether it’s political power, economic power, or even military power."
Christiana Figueres, who serves as the Executive Secretary of the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change: “This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution.”
How could she not manage to beat Trump? Trump!?
She managed to lose to the most loathsome, odious person to ever run for the office. What's that say about her?
Not much we didn't already know, she (along with Kerry, Biden...) was after all duped into voting for the Bush wars by an idiot President who couldn't walk and chew gum a the same time.
We should elect the President by having the members of Congress vote? I'll just point out the Republicans have a majority in both houses...
You can't even say that. The campaigns and elections were based on the rules of the Electoral College. Everyone planned their strategy for campaigning based on garnering EC votes. Voters in locked-in states made their Election Day decisions to perhaps stay home knowing their candidate had basically already won (or lost) their state.
Based on the final score of a football game played under the current rules you can't say who'd have won if 2 points were also awarded based on each first down gained, because team strategies would change based on the different rules in effect at the time of the game. If fouls in a basketball game resulted in 2 points being deducted from your team score rather than allowing the other team the chance to shoot 1+1 or 2 free throws, think the game would be played differently?
If we elected the President based on elections allocated by Congressional district one vote per district plus 2 statewide votes, think the campaigns and votes would be different? So the same is true of saying "popular vote". We don't have a "popular vote", so saying Clinton (or Gore) won the "popular vote" is not true.
It is true that when aggregating the votes across all states, that they had pluralities. But that's like saying Clinton had 658 yards of total offense (she had 68.5M votes) and Trump had 629 yards of total offense (62.9M votes), and saying she should have won. But the fact is, that despite moving the ball up and down the field somewhat better than Trump, she turned the ball over 5 times (lost 5 state that Obama carried twice) and failed to score points when it counted. Someone crying about total yards off offense is readily countered with "Scoreboard!".
If you want to play "what if" for ex post facto results, imagine "what if" we had had instant run-off, where the people who voted for Gary Johnson (4+M) and Jill Stein (1+M) and the 800k "other" voters had selected a 2nd-choice vote? How many Libertarians and Greens would have selected Trump and Clinton as their second choice? How many of those L and G votes were "protest" votes in "safe" states. Personally, I have voted Libertarian for years in Georgia confident that my L votes would never crack the Republican lock and accidentally elect a Democrat for Senate or President.
Electoral College magic trick...California passes legislation that allows the governor to simply appoint the state's electors. Perfectly Constitutional.
Had this been in effect this election, we can assume Jerry Brown would have appointed 55 Democrats for Sec. Clinton.
The EC remains unchanged, but the "popular vote" swings to Trump by about 1M. Without popular votes from California, Sec. Clinton would have 8.7M fewer popular votes and Mr. Trump would have 4.4M fewer popular votes. So the final tally would be Clinton with 57M and Trump with 58.5.
I notice that Democrats have no problems with Sec. Clinton winning 3/5ths of the California vote but getting all the 55 of the state's electoral votes...
As for "One person, one vote.", that's not how the US federal government is constructed. It is a federation of States, and the balance between population and individual states representation in that federal government are carefully balanced.
As a reference point, the EU Parliament and Presidency is balanced in much the same way as our Congress and Presidency. Each EU member gets a minimum of 6 MEPs, and there is a maximum of 751 MEPs. With 28 members, this means that 168 MEPs are obligatory, and the remaining 583 are apportioned (by treaty) based on population, with Germany having 96, France 74, Italy 73, and UK 73, while smaller members like Cyprus, Estonia, Luxembourg, and Malta having the minimum 6. This is similar to Congress, where each state, regardless of population has 2 Senators and one Representative, with the remaining 385 Representatives apportioned based on population.
The President of the EU is elected by MEPs who cast their ballots based on individual popular elections within their home countries and *not* through an EU-wide popular election. Again, much like the Electoral College.
And, like in the US, political parties cross borders, with e.g., 214 MEPs European People's Party Group members sitting as MEPs. Sometimes they put Party ahead of Country just like sometimes members of Congress puts Party ahead State.
The people in the EU do not want to be in an organization of states that would be dominated by the population of Germany and Italy, despite the positives that association with those states may bring, anymore than the people of the US want to be dominated by the population of California and New York.
Cobb County in Georgia is a strong conservative area (Tom Price represents in Congress) albeit with a decent Libertarian presence and also home of many Never-Trump voters, especially soccer-moms who would have voted for any other Republican from the primaries but could not vote for Trump.
I suspect that had Walker, Cruz, or Kasich had won the primaries, Clinton's Georgia results would look a lot more like they have in the past: very strong red state.
Same is true of California, well, not "most", except that in California they're not displaced New England snowbirds. One-in-four Californians are foreign-born (about 10M people), and about 1/4th of those is an illegal alien, i.e. every fifteenth "Californian" is an illegal alien.
Not that there's anything wrong with legal immigrants living in California or anywhere else they chose to live, but I do wish California would make a significant effort to prevent *illegal* aliens from voting in US elections. Yes, yes..."There's no proof illegal aliens voted..." but that's at least partly because asking anyone to prove they are entitled to vote (and I might add, a valid, legal resident of the district in which they are attempting to vote) is somehow racist.
http://www.ppic.org/main/publi...
California is home to more than 10 million immigrants—one in four of the foreign-born population nationwide. In 2011, 27% of California’s population was foreign-born, about twice the U.S. percentage. Foreign-born residents represented more than 30% of the population of seven California counties: Santa Clara, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Mateo, Imperial, Alameda, and Orange. And half of the children in California had at least one immigrant parent.
Most immigrants in California are documented residents.
Almost half (47%) of California’s immigrants are naturalized U.S. citizens, and another 26% have some other legal status (including green cards and visas). According to the Department of Homeland Security, about 27% of immigrants in California are undocumented.
Not afraid of that happening. Zuck is no Tony Stark.
"I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth. This was the moment - this was the time - when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves, and our highest ideals."
Consequences of laws once meant to help the "little guy". Regulatory capture. Rent seeking. Corporate welfare.
Those dealership protection laws were put in place to protect the "little guy" from the "big evil corporations". And specifically, to protect dealers with franchise contracts from being put out of business by corporate stores. Even Ford, which is always pulled out as an example of "fairness" whenever "living wage" laws are discussed, was forcing dealers to accept inventory they could not move and other things.
"As this system evolved, though, those dealers who had made large investments became
concerned that they would be at the mercy of their affiliated manufacturer, especially with few
automobile manufacturers to turn to as alternatives. Dealers turned to policymakers about what
they believed were abusive and coercive practices by manufacturers and the regulation of
automobile distribution ensued. Over time, all fifty states passed laws regulating the
relationship between auto manufacturers and dealers." [https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_statements/909813/ramirez_-_auto_distribution_workshop_opening_remarks_1-19-16.pdf]
Now the wheel has turned and the media darling big corporation is--currently (no pun intended)--not perceived as "evil" and should be allowed to bypass laws on the books.
It's simple enough. Tesla needs to lobby each state to change its laws to allow direct sales (just like the dealers lobbied for the laws 80 years ago). Or Tesla can enter the market like other car makers and use dealers within the existing framework of laws and regulations.
Trump didn't even make the list.
http://www.opensecrets.org/org...
Clinton, Hillary (D) Pres $316,977
Rubio, Marco (R-FL) Senate $218,975
Bush, Jeb (R) Pres $203,550
Portman, Rob (R-OH) Senate $87,600
Ayotte, Kelly (R-NH) Senate $74,400
McCarthy, Kevin (R-CA) House $72,800
Bennet, Michael F (D-CO) Senate $64,400
Cruz, Ted (R-TX) Senate $58,240
He may be appointing them, but there's nothing showing he's beholden to them. Certainly not anymore than Sec. Clinton might have been.
When women chose to drop out of the workforce to have children, whether it is 20 weeks or whatever, their non-childbearing cohorts--usually males--continue to accrue experience and visibility. They earn raises and promotions. The child-bearing women then sue because they were not given raises or promotions, or at least complain about the "gender gap" and push for laws that force employers to ignore the raw fact that the child-bearing women (and their partners who might also choose to sit out for weeks or months) are, in fact, now behind the experience curve. Repeat for second kid, and somehow it's discrimination because woman A and cohort B (probably a man) who were hired on the same day into the same job now are paid significantly differently due to woman A being 3 or 4 years behind the experience curve. And more lawsuits fly.
Congress and Obama administration managed to spend (in $ millions) more than $28.7T:
2009 3,517,677
2010 3,457,079
2011 3,603,056
2012 3,536,951
2013 3,454,647
2014 3,506,114
2015 3,688,292
2016 3,951,307 (estimated)
Or about $3.5T per year, while taking in about much less, leading to deficit spending of:
2009 -1,412,688
2010 -1,294,373
2011 -1,299,590
2012 -1,086,963
2013 -679,544
2014 -484,627
2015 -438,406
2016 -615,805
Years after the "crisis" is over and we're still spending about $0.5T more than we take in.
On the day Obama administration took office (with the various Congresses he oversaw), the total national debt was $10,626,877,048,913.08 ($10.6T). As of 11/30/2016 it stands at $19,948,064,697,245.75 ($19.9T).
http://treasurydirect.gov/NP/d...