January 12, 2017
American Media Creates a Potemkin Village with Trump "Dossier"
Timothy Birdnow
Here was the opening salvo of the phony soldier news about Trump being compromised by the Russians. That pain-in-the-foot David Corn posted this hit piece in Mother Jones back in October.
From the article:
"The Clinton campaign and others criticized Comey for intervening in a presidential campaign by breaking with Justice Department tradition and revealing information about an investigation—information that was vague and perhaps ultimately irrelevant—so close to Election Day. On Sunday, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid upped the ante. He sent Comey a fiery letter saying the FBI chief may have broken the law and pointed to a potentially greater controversy: "In my communications with you and other top officials in the national security community, it has become clear that you possess explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisors, and the Russian government…The public has a right to know this information."
End excerpt.
So there you have it; Harry Reid pushed this back in August to try to destroy Trump. He demanded the release of this fake news prior to the election, but there was nothing, nada, zip, the null set, to verify this nonsense. (I would like to point out that Donald Trump is a germophobe and wouldn't be at all interested in watching women urinate in his presence.)
Corn, a pure partisan hack masquerading as a journalist, did not include the "document" and he now claims he did not do so because it was unverified - but he was happy to report how "explosive" it was.
In fact, the source of this information was a Democrat operative. As Corn notes:
"In June, the former Western intelligence officer—who spent almost two decades on Russian intelligence matters and who now works with a US firm that gathers information on Russia for corporate clients—was assigned the task of researching Trump's dealings in Russia and elsewhere, according to the former spy and his associates in this American firm. This was for an opposition research project originally financed by a Republican client critical of the celebrity mogul. (Before the former spy was retained, the project's financing switched to a client allied with Democrats.)"
End excerpt.
Soooo,
The Republican Establishment started the ball rolling on this and then the Democrats picked up the baton - and the tab.
This is a monstrous lie concocted to destroy Donald Trump.
A few questions:
First, if the media succeeds at this they will put Mike Pence in office. I wonder if they have thought out the implications of this? Pence is not Gerald Ford, and he is not going to wind up as a place sitter until the "true" President can take his place. Apparently the Left thinks this is the way it will play out. They are wrong.
Second, has it occured to anyone that it could well be the Russians who are waging a disinformation campaign here? If the Russians brought Hillary down, as the left claims, then are they perhaps not trying to bring down Trump as well? This has the hallmark of a KGB black op.
Now, personally I don't believe that; far more likely OUR spooks are waging black op warfare, with the blessing and complicity of the Democrats and news media. Any way you slice it it is the fakest of fake news.
This is far too pat, too fitting to the meme the left has been pushing. And look how it has hit just before Trump is to be sworn in. See, they couldn't afford to drop this after Trump became President because this is, in their desperate hopes to stop Trump, a reason to suspend his swearing in.
Another question; why hire hookers to pee on a bed when Trump could just have done the deed himself - a more satisfying thing if you want to show your disrespect for the Obamas, which is what the whole incident is alleged to have been about. If I wanted to symbolically whiz on Mr. Obama (as the Muslims might say, pee be upon him!) I would far prefer to do it myself.
And those who are pushing this story knew they wouldn't have Trump's DNA, so they had to say it was the work of working girls.
Russian news source Pravda has this to say about things:
"Fake news came about the same time as Pizzagate, if you look at google trends fake news came, spiked and ended exactly when Pizzagate broke, peaked and ended. And, of course, everyone knows Pizzagate was the poster child of fake news. The big boys in the high places of power would never mess with children. Just like we all know Catholic priests and British school masters would never, ever mess with children....
And, so now we have the mothership of a CNN, Buzzfeed, breaking story. Russia, the place of all evil, is center stage. Where else would someone have prostitutes pee on a bed? Where else would the prostitute partakers and revelers with Mr. Trump be "silenced". Russia of course. The only thing missing in this story is Mr. Putin himself at the peefest orgies.
BuzzFeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith sent an email to his staff about the golden showers peegate release, and he said, there is "serious reason to doubt the allegations..." And, then he said, which is really heinous and indicative of the state of news in the USA "but publishing this dossier reflects how we see the job of reporters in 2017." In America, there is really no news source you can trust. It has come to that.
So now for the good part of the story.
Users on the subreddit r/The_Donald and 4chan's /pol/ forum claim they made up the story as a joke, a hoax. On Nov. 1, 2016, they wrote a post that says, "So they took what I told Rick Wilson and added a Russian spy angle to it. They still believe it. Guys, they're truly fucking desperate-there's no remaining Trump scandal that's credible," Rick Wilson was the dupe, an anti-Trump operative who wanted to run with the "story".
The only problem was the entire story was an elaborate hoax, like a cartoon Cold War spy story, with golden showers, prostitutes, Russian intrigue all thrown in for good measure. It was a joke for Pete's sake. It went from Rick Wilson who then fed to some one, who fed it to John McCain, and then to the intelligence agencies and then it was leaked to CNN and then Buzzfeed published it. "
End excerpt.
And in another article"Needless to say that no one has seen the video, but the story per se is definitely a bombshell.
Generally speaking, American policy makers have a serious obsession about natural bodily functions. Last year, for example, it was reported that an unidentified individual, presumably a Russian intelligence officer, defecated on the carpet in an apartment of an American diplomat. Of course, no evidence was presented whatsoever.
Interestingly, the "investigation" was conducted by another "independent expert", this time from the UK. Shortly before the publication of the British dossier on Trump, Britain's Foreign Minister Boris Johnson stated, visiting the United States, that one should stop demonizing Russia.
Let's get back to the report. Bloggers and social networkers wondered where the information about Donald Trump's leisure time in Moscow could come from. The story, as it appears, can be found on 4chan as high class fake news. The fake news was most likely launched on the net by Hillary Clinton's diehard supporters. Pravda says:"
End excerpt.
This story is so over the top and so obviously politically motivated that I suspect it is bombing with the American People, and I suspect further that flash polls show this, which is why the media is starting to tiptoe around it.
And they accuse Breitbart or Druge of fake news!
Here was the opening salvo of the phony soldier news about Trump being compromised by the Russians. That pain-in-the-foot David Corn posted this hit piece in Mother Jones back in October.
From the article:
"The Clinton campaign and others criticized Comey for intervening in a presidential campaign by breaking with Justice Department tradition and revealing information about an investigation—information that was vague and perhaps ultimately irrelevant—so close to Election Day. On Sunday, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid upped the ante. He sent Comey a fiery letter saying the FBI chief may have broken the law and pointed to a potentially greater controversy: "In my communications with you and other top officials in the national security community, it has become clear that you possess explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisors, and the Russian government…The public has a right to know this information."
End excerpt.
So there you have it; Harry Reid pushed this back in August to try to destroy Trump. He demanded the release of this fake news prior to the election, but there was nothing, nada, zip, the null set, to verify this nonsense. (I would like to point out that Donald Trump is a germophobe and wouldn't be at all interested in watching women urinate in his presence.)
Corn, a pure partisan hack masquerading as a journalist, did not include the "document" and he now claims he did not do so because it was unverified - but he was happy to report how "explosive" it was.
In fact, the source of this information was a Democrat operative. As Corn notes:
"In June, the former Western intelligence officer—who spent almost two decades on Russian intelligence matters and who now works with a US firm that gathers information on Russia for corporate clients—was assigned the task of researching Trump's dealings in Russia and elsewhere, according to the former spy and his associates in this American firm. This was for an opposition research project originally financed by a Republican client critical of the celebrity mogul. (Before the former spy was retained, the project's financing switched to a client allied with Democrats.)"
End excerpt.
Soooo,
The Republican Establishment started the ball rolling on this and then the Democrats picked up the baton - and the tab.
This is a monstrous lie concocted to destroy Donald Trump.
A few questions:
First, if the media succeeds at this they will put Mike Pence in office. I wonder if they have thought out the implications of this? Pence is not Gerald Ford, and he is not going to wind up as a place sitter until the "true" President can take his place. Apparently the Left thinks this is the way it will play out. They are wrong.
Second, has it occured to anyone that it could well be the Russians who are waging a disinformation campaign here? If the Russians brought Hillary down, as the left claims, then are they perhaps not trying to bring down Trump as well? This has the hallmark of a KGB black op.
Now, personally I don't believe that; far more likely OUR spooks are waging black op warfare, with the blessing and complicity of the Democrats and news media. Any way you slice it it is the fakest of fake news.
This is far too pat, too fitting to the meme the left has been pushing. And look how it has hit just before Trump is to be sworn in. See, they couldn't afford to drop this after Trump became President because this is, in their desperate hopes to stop Trump, a reason to suspend his swearing in.
Another question; why hire hookers to pee on a bed when Trump could just have done the deed himself - a more satisfying thing if you want to show your disrespect for the Obamas, which is what the whole incident is alleged to have been about. If I wanted to symbolically whiz on Mr. Obama (as the Muslims might say, pee be upon him!) I would far prefer to do it myself.
And those who are pushing this story knew they wouldn't have Trump's DNA, so they had to say it was the work of working girls.
Russian news source Pravda has this to say about things:
"Fake news came about the same time as Pizzagate, if you look at google trends fake news came, spiked and ended exactly when Pizzagate broke, peaked and ended. And, of course, everyone knows Pizzagate was the poster child of fake news. The big boys in the high places of power would never mess with children. Just like we all know Catholic priests and British school masters would never, ever mess with children....
And, so now we have the mothership of a CNN, Buzzfeed, breaking story. Russia, the place of all evil, is center stage. Where else would someone have prostitutes pee on a bed? Where else would the prostitute partakers and revelers with Mr. Trump be "silenced". Russia of course. The only thing missing in this story is Mr. Putin himself at the peefest orgies.
BuzzFeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith sent an email to his staff about the golden showers peegate release, and he said, there is "serious reason to doubt the allegations..." And, then he said, which is really heinous and indicative of the state of news in the USA "but publishing this dossier reflects how we see the job of reporters in 2017." In America, there is really no news source you can trust. It has come to that.
So now for the good part of the story.
Users on the subreddit r/The_Donald and 4chan's /pol/ forum claim they made up the story as a joke, a hoax. On Nov. 1, 2016, they wrote a post that says, "So they took what I told Rick Wilson and added a Russian spy angle to it. They still believe it. Guys, they're truly fucking desperate-there's no remaining Trump scandal that's credible," Rick Wilson was the dupe, an anti-Trump operative who wanted to run with the "story".
The only problem was the entire story was an elaborate hoax, like a cartoon Cold War spy story, with golden showers, prostitutes, Russian intrigue all thrown in for good measure. It was a joke for Pete's sake. It went from Rick Wilson who then fed to some one, who fed it to John McCain, and then to the intelligence agencies and then it was leaked to CNN and then Buzzfeed published it. "
End excerpt.
And in another article"Needless to say that no one has seen the video, but the story per se is definitely a bombshell.
Generally speaking, American policy makers have a serious obsession about natural bodily functions. Last year, for example, it was reported that an unidentified individual, presumably a Russian intelligence officer, defecated on the carpet in an apartment of an American diplomat. Of course, no evidence was presented whatsoever.
Interestingly, the "investigation" was conducted by another "independent expert", this time from the UK. Shortly before the publication of the British dossier on Trump, Britain's Foreign Minister Boris Johnson stated, visiting the United States, that one should stop demonizing Russia.
Let's get back to the report. Bloggers and social networkers wondered where the information about Donald Trump's leisure time in Moscow could come from. The story, as it appears, can be found on 4chan as high class fake news. The fake news was most likely launched on the net by Hillary Clinton's diehard supporters. Pravda says:"
End excerpt.
This story is so over the top and so obviously politically motivated that I suspect it is bombing with the American People, and I suspect further that flash polls show this, which is why the media is starting to tiptoe around it.
And they accuse Breitbart or Druge of fake news!
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
12:13 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 1312 words, total size 8 kb.
An Excellent Assessment of the campaign against ISIS
Wil Wirtanen
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/01/obamas_phony_war_on_isis.html
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/01/obamas_phony_war_on_isis.html
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
11:19 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 11 words, total size 1 kb.
Don't Help a Good Russkie Go Bad
This is my blogpost that appeared at American Thinker the other day. I have restored my original title.
Timothy Birdnow
At least five foreign actors hacked into Hillary's private e-mail server.
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/01/fbi-document-drop-hostile-foreign-actors-infiltrated-hillary-clintons-homebrew-email-server/
Somehow I doubt they were all Russian.
Shouldn't Hillary be at least partly culpable since she offered such an inviting target? Shouldn't John Podesta be blamed for using "password" as his secure password and clicking on a "larger penis" ad?
In the City of St. Louis there is a law saying you cannot warm your car up on winter days and not be in attendance. Why? They put that law in effect because people were starting their cars and leaving them unattended while they warmed, and ne'er-do-wells were stealing them. You can say it's blaming the victim and it is, but the logic cannot be argued, which is that crimes of opportunity are being committed. You have a duty to minimize such opportunities.
There used to be a slogan years ago "don't help a good boy go bad" which was dutifully promoted by liberals. The notion was that offering temptation through opportunities to commit crimes was a form of complicity with the crime. (I don't agree; crime is ultimately bad morality.) Hillary clearly did not practice this.
Or how about "loose lips sink ships"? Hill's lips were apt to sink the Titanic.
In point of fact the left has always excused criminality in an effort to promote their sense of social justice (just look at the hoops they have jumped through to ignore Trayvon Martin or Mike Brown or the gang who tortured the mentally disabled kid in Chicago) and yet now they declare Russia guilty, guilty GUILTY! because their ox has been gored. Well, Russia can be viewed as underprivileged if you use their standards, so why are they so uptight?197
And backed by sociological studies like the 1970's Crime as Opportunity http://www.articlesbase.com/criminal-articles/10-principles-of-crime-opportunity-theory-felson-and-clarke-1998-1304844.html or the 1998 Opportunity Makes the Thief papers the Left has systematically put the burden of crime prevention on the victim and not the criminal who is often seen as a victim of society.
It is the entirety of the gun control argument. Sociologist Arthure Clarke, one of the authors of these studies. argue:
https://crimesciencejournal.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/2193-7680-1-3
"Third, in the same publication we sought to explain why rates of homicide were eight times greater in the United States than in England and Wales during the mid-1980s, when rates for most other crimes differed little between the two countries. This difference was the result of a much higher rate of gun homicides in the United States, particularly handgun homicides, which in turn was due to much higher levels of gun ownership – a situational variable – in that country than in England and Wales."
So if guns kill people and not people and we must restrict gun ownership, why isn't Hillary blamed for leaving an unlocked firearm laying around in cyberspace?
Remember how the media excused the rioting in Ferguson? Well, the opportunity was there and who can blame them? That was largely the case made by the defenders of the rioters, and yet now we are not supposed to think that way. Rioting is understandable, hacking somehow is not, even when you leave a "rob me" sign on your digital doorstep.
In the end, hers was criminal carelessness. If you hit a pedestrian because you are texting you will be charged with a crime. Hillary plowed over the American voters with her Scooby Van while politically texting. Shouldn't there be some sort of culpability for that?
Hey, the Russians just took advantage of a golden opportunity, if indeed it even WAS the Russians.
Tim blogs at The Aviary www.tbirdnow.mee.nu
Timothy Birdnow
At least five foreign actors hacked into Hillary's private e-mail server.
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/01/fbi-document-drop-hostile-foreign-actors-infiltrated-hillary-clintons-homebrew-email-server/
Somehow I doubt they were all Russian.
Shouldn't Hillary be at least partly culpable since she offered such an inviting target? Shouldn't John Podesta be blamed for using "password" as his secure password and clicking on a "larger penis" ad?
In the City of St. Louis there is a law saying you cannot warm your car up on winter days and not be in attendance. Why? They put that law in effect because people were starting their cars and leaving them unattended while they warmed, and ne'er-do-wells were stealing them. You can say it's blaming the victim and it is, but the logic cannot be argued, which is that crimes of opportunity are being committed. You have a duty to minimize such opportunities.
There used to be a slogan years ago "don't help a good boy go bad" which was dutifully promoted by liberals. The notion was that offering temptation through opportunities to commit crimes was a form of complicity with the crime. (I don't agree; crime is ultimately bad morality.) Hillary clearly did not practice this.
Or how about "loose lips sink ships"? Hill's lips were apt to sink the Titanic.
In point of fact the left has always excused criminality in an effort to promote their sense of social justice (just look at the hoops they have jumped through to ignore Trayvon Martin or Mike Brown or the gang who tortured the mentally disabled kid in Chicago) and yet now they declare Russia guilty, guilty GUILTY! because their ox has been gored. Well, Russia can be viewed as underprivileged if you use their standards, so why are they so uptight?197
And backed by sociological studies like the 1970's Crime as Opportunity http://www.articlesbase.com/criminal-articles/10-principles-of-crime-opportunity-theory-felson-and-clarke-1998-1304844.html or the 1998 Opportunity Makes the Thief papers the Left has systematically put the burden of crime prevention on the victim and not the criminal who is often seen as a victim of society.
It is the entirety of the gun control argument. Sociologist Arthure Clarke, one of the authors of these studies. argue:
https://crimesciencejournal.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/2193-7680-1-3
"Third, in the same publication we sought to explain why rates of homicide were eight times greater in the United States than in England and Wales during the mid-1980s, when rates for most other crimes differed little between the two countries. This difference was the result of a much higher rate of gun homicides in the United States, particularly handgun homicides, which in turn was due to much higher levels of gun ownership – a situational variable – in that country than in England and Wales."
So if guns kill people and not people and we must restrict gun ownership, why isn't Hillary blamed for leaving an unlocked firearm laying around in cyberspace?
Remember how the media excused the rioting in Ferguson? Well, the opportunity was there and who can blame them? That was largely the case made by the defenders of the rioters, and yet now we are not supposed to think that way. Rioting is understandable, hacking somehow is not, even when you leave a "rob me" sign on your digital doorstep.
In the end, hers was criminal carelessness. If you hit a pedestrian because you are texting you will be charged with a crime. Hillary plowed over the American voters with her Scooby Van while politically texting. Shouldn't there be some sort of culpability for that?
Hey, the Russians just took advantage of a golden opportunity, if indeed it even WAS the Russians.
Tim blogs at The Aviary www.tbirdnow.mee.nu
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
10:22 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 620 words, total size 4 kb.
January 11, 2017
Cowzilla
Dana Mathewson
Veddy interestink! No comments yet from the dummies who want to eliminate cows due to the methane in their flatulance?
http://www.foxnews.com/science/2017/01/11/cows-as-big-as-elephants-may-soon-roam-europe.html
Standing nearly as tall as an elephant, the auroch grazed for 250,000 years until its extinction in 1627.
Dana Mathewson
Veddy interestink! No comments yet from the dummies who want to eliminate cows due to the methane in their flatulance?
http://www.foxnews.com/science/2017/01/11/cows-as-big-as-elephants-may-soon-roam-europe.html
Standing nearly as tall as an elephant, the auroch grazed for 250,000 years until its extinction in 1627.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
02:38 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 42 words, total size 1 kb.
Democrats Add Insult to Injury with Restoration of Insulting Racist Painting and the Threat of Charges
Dana Mthewson
Dems certainly in the process of committing suicide!
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/01/10/missouri-lawmaker-seeks-to-press-charges-against-rep-over-painting-removal.html
Democratic lawmakers put back on display on Capitol Hill a controversial painting that angered police with its depiction of officers as pigs -- after Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter personally took down the picture last week.
Dems certainly in the process of committing suicide!
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/01/10/missouri-lawmaker-seeks-to-press-charges-against-rep-over-painting-removal.html
Democratic lawmakers put back on display on Capitol Hill a controversial painting that angered police with its depiction of officers as pigs -- after Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter personally took down the picture last week.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
02:38 PM
| Comments (1)
| Add Comment
Post contains 62 words, total size 1 kb.
Streep verrsus Obama
Jack Kemp
\Meryl Streep got all upset about something Trump said about a reporter. But when Obama made fun of Special Olympics bowlers on the Tonight Show http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/5020442/Barack-Obama-makes-special-Olympics-gaffe-on-Jay-Lenos-The-Tonight-Show.html ; that didn't bother her. Look, the election itself is the best reply to Streep.
\Meryl Streep got all upset about something Trump said about a reporter. But when Obama made fun of Special Olympics bowlers on the Tonight Show http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/5020442/Barack-Obama-makes-special-Olympics-gaffe-on-Jay-Lenos-The-Tonight-Show.html ; that didn't bother her. Look, the election itself is the best reply to Streep.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
08:03 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 46 words, total size 1 kb.
Three Cheers for Piers; A Streep Smackdown
Jack Kemp
Here's the Piers Morgan quote:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4102026/PIERS-MORGAN-Sorry-Meryl-hypocritical-anti-Trump-rant-easily-worst-performance-career-apart-time-gave-child-rapist-standing-ovation.html#ixzz4VKGuqrNI
To highlight just one example of Streep’s shocking hypocrisy, what about the 2003 Oscars when she leaped to her feet and gave child rapist Roman Polanski a standing ovation after he was announced as winner of Best Director (at the Academy Awards) for The Pianist?
Here's the Piers Morgan quote:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4102026/PIERS-MORGAN-Sorry-Meryl-hypocritical-anti-Trump-rant-easily-worst-performance-career-apart-time-gave-child-rapist-standing-ovation.html#ixzz4VKGuqrNI
To highlight just one example of Streep’s shocking hypocrisy, what about the 2003 Oscars when she leaped to her feet and gave child rapist Roman Polanski a standing ovation after he was announced as winner of Best Director (at the Academy Awards) for The Pianist?
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
08:02 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 60 words, total size 1 kb.
Ft. Lauderdale Shooter Converted to Islam Long Ago
Jack Kemp forwards this:
http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2017/01/airport-shooter-converted-islam-identified-aashiq-hammad-years-joining-army/
Airport Shooter Converted to Islam, Identified as Aashiq Hammad Years Before Joining Army
JANUARY 10, 2017
The Ft. Lauderdale Airport shooter is a Muslim convert who years before joining the U.S. Army took on an Islamic name (Aashiq Hammad), downloaded terrorist propaganda and recorded Islamic religious music online, according to public records dug up by the investigative news site of an award-winning, California journalist. This is pertinent information that the Obama administration apparently wants to keep quiet, bringing up memories of the Benghazi cover up, in which the president and his cohorts knowingly lied to conceal that Islamic terrorists attacked the U.S. Special Mission in Libya.
Information is slowly trickling out that links the Ft. Lauderdale Airport shooter to radical Islam while the official story from authorities is that the gunman is a mentally ill, Hispanic Army veteran named Esteban Santiago that became unhinged after a tour in Iraq. Only one mainstream media outlet mentions the possibility of Santiago’s "jihadist identity,†burying it in a piece about New York possibly being his initial target. A paragraph deep in the story mentions that investigators recovered Santiago’s computer from a pawn shop and the FBI is examining it to determine whether he created a "jihadist identity for himself using the name Aashiq Hammad…†The reset of the traditional mainstream media coverage promotes the government rhetoric that omits any ties to terrorism even though early on a photo surfaced of Santiago making an ISIS salute while wearing a keffiyeh, a Palestinian Arab scarf.
http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2017/01/airport-shooter-converted-islam-identified-aashiq-hammad-years-joining-army/
Airport Shooter Converted to Islam, Identified as Aashiq Hammad Years Before Joining Army
JANUARY 10, 2017
The Ft. Lauderdale Airport shooter is a Muslim convert who years before joining the U.S. Army took on an Islamic name (Aashiq Hammad), downloaded terrorist propaganda and recorded Islamic religious music online, according to public records dug up by the investigative news site of an award-winning, California journalist. This is pertinent information that the Obama administration apparently wants to keep quiet, bringing up memories of the Benghazi cover up, in which the president and his cohorts knowingly lied to conceal that Islamic terrorists attacked the U.S. Special Mission in Libya.
Information is slowly trickling out that links the Ft. Lauderdale Airport shooter to radical Islam while the official story from authorities is that the gunman is a mentally ill, Hispanic Army veteran named Esteban Santiago that became unhinged after a tour in Iraq. Only one mainstream media outlet mentions the possibility of Santiago’s "jihadist identity,†burying it in a piece about New York possibly being his initial target. A paragraph deep in the story mentions that investigators recovered Santiago’s computer from a pawn shop and the FBI is examining it to determine whether he created a "jihadist identity for himself using the name Aashiq Hammad…†The reset of the traditional mainstream media coverage promotes the government rhetoric that omits any ties to terrorism even though early on a photo surfaced of Santiago making an ISIS salute while wearing a keffiyeh, a Palestinian Arab scarf.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
08:00 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 263 words, total size 2 kb.
Obama's Legacy Part III
William Been
It appears that the outgoing president is STILL struggling with the construction of his LEGACY and its relationship to his political platform consisting of Hope and Change. As a result, following is GROUP 3 of items that those of you receiving these emails have presented. (Groups 1 & 2 published previously are also repeated.)
I still believe he has more surprises for us to add to his LEGACY before he finally becomes the former president. Will welcome your additions to the list and will publish a complete list describing the complete Obama LEGACY when he finally leaves office as of January 20, 2017!!!!!
Please respond with your additions to this LEGACY starter list and will update in a couple of days and resend. Feel free to publish as you see fit.
GROUP 3
ï‚· Abandoning fledgling Iraq government without leaving adequate military support to assure the continued development of a free people including freedom of religion. (As an editorial note, this action by Obama personally may be the single greatest detrimental action by any President in history as it destabilized Iraq, empowered Iran, created ISIS and perpetuated the Syrian disaster essentially leaving the entire region in a state of crisis which, in turn, opens the door for the caliphate and global Islamic governance.)
ï‚· As a corollary to the destruction caused by the premature exit from Iraq, the migration of millions of Muslims into the populations of Europe and America and the future impact to liberty and freedom versus the Islamic caliphate must be a part of the Obama LEGACY
ï‚· Endorsed and campaigned for Lacy Clay, Missouri congressman, after Clay had hung a picture in the US Capitol depicting police officers as PIGS
ï‚· Campaigned as a political hack for Hillary Clinton and miserably failed even when begging for votes to support his "accomplishments" and LEGACY
ï‚· Demonstrated weakness in foresight and then weakness in government in the debacle involving the Obama Red Line in Syria leading to the death of thousands, and still counting, as Donald Trump inherits the entire Obama National Foreign Policy disaster.
ï‚· Multiplicity of Obama lies relative to Obamacare is truly a national disgrace to Americans who value honesty and integrity (Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness)
ï‚· Subtle but continuous attack on Judeo-Christian beliefs and values
ï‚· Refused to honestly present situations involving terrorism, and specifically Islamic terrorism, to the American people as is exemplified by the Obama declaration that the Fort Hood disaster was "Workplace Violence."
ï‚· "Fast and Furious" scandal designed to target the Second Amendment
ï‚· "IRS" scandal targeting conservative groups
ï‚· Benghazi scandal and cover-up that probably gave Obama his second term as he and his minions lied over and over again that it was caused by "the video" when it was actually caused by Obama policy and related tactics.
　
ï‚· HUD rule called Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH)-forcing affluent communities to build low cost HUD housing to accept crime and poverty prevalent in American cities where Democrat Party governments have dominated local politics
ï‚· Executive decision to unilaterally stop the missile shield established by Bush in Poland
ï‚· Bankrupted the top two coal producers being Arch and Peabody as he had promised
ï‚· Shut down US Space Program and now depend on Russia to transport and support the Space Station
GROUP 2
ï‚· Illegal Immigrants Surge Across the US Southern Border at Record Rate (Newsmax 11/23/16)
ï‚· Refugees flood Michigan cities with 1317 from 10/1/16 to 12/31/16 and 5481 scheduled for 2017 per Obama plan with most from dominant Muslim countries being resettled by several of the nine VOLAG groups including Christian, Jewish, and charities financed with federal funds. That this is a huge LEGACY item is validated by Church World Services receiving $44M or 64.4% of its annual revenue from the US government (securemichigan.org &CWS)
ï‚· Michele Obama who had never felt proud of the USA until 2008 now, in 2017, feels lack of hope after eight long years of Barack Obama
ï‚· Today (1/4/17), there are 4100 GOP State legislators (most in history), 34 GOP Governors, 52 GOP Senators and 239 GOP House members (Newt Gingrich)
ï‚· Democratic Party weaker today than any time since FDR created the New Deal in the 1930s. (Newt Gingrich)
ï‚· 64 police officers killed in 2016 as outgoing president meets and welcomes "hate speech" crowd from Black Lives Matter (CNN)
ï‚· Added $9 trillion in national debt (Treasury Dept)
GROUP 1
ï‚· 56 Iraqis killed in several bomb explosions on January 2nd per NY Times. (Obama pulled out knowing Iraq not ready without US presence)
ï‚· JV team claims the 39 killed in Istanbul night club. (Explain this is ISIS for the liberals)
ï‚· Have done nothing and basically said nothing while watching 762 murders in Chicago, his adopted home town. (Did he say gun control?)
ï‚· Defied US continuing commitment to Israel by allowing UN resolution to stop Israeli settlements in West bank. (High Crime?)
ï‚· Cuts sentences for federal drug crimes. (Wonder why heroin addicts are reported as dying at a very high rate, locally and nationally.)
ï‚· Moved to block ocean drilling to block Trump energy endeavors. (He prefers all of us in the dark-remember his solar accomplishments.)
　
ï‚· Release Guantanamo prisoners even though the worst of the bad are all that is left. (No words appropriate.)
ï‚· Government takeover of western land with multiple regulations--sounds like his contribution to Agenda 21. (He is preparing for his global job.)
ï‚· Trump tweet quoting Bill Clinton stating that Obamacare is "crazy." (My personal #1 in this first listing.)
ï‚· Russian sanctions for "hacking" computers to support Trump election against Hillary. (Truth and facts be damned, no light of day wanted.)
It appears that the outgoing president is STILL struggling with the construction of his LEGACY and its relationship to his political platform consisting of Hope and Change. As a result, following is GROUP 3 of items that those of you receiving these emails have presented. (Groups 1 & 2 published previously are also repeated.)
I still believe he has more surprises for us to add to his LEGACY before he finally becomes the former president. Will welcome your additions to the list and will publish a complete list describing the complete Obama LEGACY when he finally leaves office as of January 20, 2017!!!!!
Please respond with your additions to this LEGACY starter list and will update in a couple of days and resend. Feel free to publish as you see fit.
GROUP 3
ï‚· Abandoning fledgling Iraq government without leaving adequate military support to assure the continued development of a free people including freedom of religion. (As an editorial note, this action by Obama personally may be the single greatest detrimental action by any President in history as it destabilized Iraq, empowered Iran, created ISIS and perpetuated the Syrian disaster essentially leaving the entire region in a state of crisis which, in turn, opens the door for the caliphate and global Islamic governance.)
ï‚· As a corollary to the destruction caused by the premature exit from Iraq, the migration of millions of Muslims into the populations of Europe and America and the future impact to liberty and freedom versus the Islamic caliphate must be a part of the Obama LEGACY
ï‚· Endorsed and campaigned for Lacy Clay, Missouri congressman, after Clay had hung a picture in the US Capitol depicting police officers as PIGS
ï‚· Campaigned as a political hack for Hillary Clinton and miserably failed even when begging for votes to support his "accomplishments" and LEGACY
ï‚· Demonstrated weakness in foresight and then weakness in government in the debacle involving the Obama Red Line in Syria leading to the death of thousands, and still counting, as Donald Trump inherits the entire Obama National Foreign Policy disaster.
ï‚· Multiplicity of Obama lies relative to Obamacare is truly a national disgrace to Americans who value honesty and integrity (Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness)
ï‚· Subtle but continuous attack on Judeo-Christian beliefs and values
ï‚· Refused to honestly present situations involving terrorism, and specifically Islamic terrorism, to the American people as is exemplified by the Obama declaration that the Fort Hood disaster was "Workplace Violence."
ï‚· "Fast and Furious" scandal designed to target the Second Amendment
ï‚· "IRS" scandal targeting conservative groups
ï‚· Benghazi scandal and cover-up that probably gave Obama his second term as he and his minions lied over and over again that it was caused by "the video" when it was actually caused by Obama policy and related tactics.
　
ï‚· HUD rule called Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH)-forcing affluent communities to build low cost HUD housing to accept crime and poverty prevalent in American cities where Democrat Party governments have dominated local politics
ï‚· Executive decision to unilaterally stop the missile shield established by Bush in Poland
ï‚· Bankrupted the top two coal producers being Arch and Peabody as he had promised
ï‚· Shut down US Space Program and now depend on Russia to transport and support the Space Station
GROUP 2
ï‚· Illegal Immigrants Surge Across the US Southern Border at Record Rate (Newsmax 11/23/16)
ï‚· Refugees flood Michigan cities with 1317 from 10/1/16 to 12/31/16 and 5481 scheduled for 2017 per Obama plan with most from dominant Muslim countries being resettled by several of the nine VOLAG groups including Christian, Jewish, and charities financed with federal funds. That this is a huge LEGACY item is validated by Church World Services receiving $44M or 64.4% of its annual revenue from the US government (securemichigan.org &CWS)
ï‚· Michele Obama who had never felt proud of the USA until 2008 now, in 2017, feels lack of hope after eight long years of Barack Obama
ï‚· Today (1/4/17), there are 4100 GOP State legislators (most in history), 34 GOP Governors, 52 GOP Senators and 239 GOP House members (Newt Gingrich)
ï‚· Democratic Party weaker today than any time since FDR created the New Deal in the 1930s. (Newt Gingrich)
ï‚· 64 police officers killed in 2016 as outgoing president meets and welcomes "hate speech" crowd from Black Lives Matter (CNN)
ï‚· Added $9 trillion in national debt (Treasury Dept)
GROUP 1
ï‚· 56 Iraqis killed in several bomb explosions on January 2nd per NY Times. (Obama pulled out knowing Iraq not ready without US presence)
ï‚· JV team claims the 39 killed in Istanbul night club. (Explain this is ISIS for the liberals)
ï‚· Have done nothing and basically said nothing while watching 762 murders in Chicago, his adopted home town. (Did he say gun control?)
ï‚· Defied US continuing commitment to Israel by allowing UN resolution to stop Israeli settlements in West bank. (High Crime?)
ï‚· Cuts sentences for federal drug crimes. (Wonder why heroin addicts are reported as dying at a very high rate, locally and nationally.)
ï‚· Moved to block ocean drilling to block Trump energy endeavors. (He prefers all of us in the dark-remember his solar accomplishments.)
　
ï‚· Release Guantanamo prisoners even though the worst of the bad are all that is left. (No words appropriate.)
ï‚· Government takeover of western land with multiple regulations--sounds like his contribution to Agenda 21. (He is preparing for his global job.)
ï‚· Trump tweet quoting Bill Clinton stating that Obamacare is "crazy." (My personal #1 in this first listing.)
ï‚· Russian sanctions for "hacking" computers to support Trump election against Hillary. (Truth and facts be damned, no light of day wanted.)
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
07:28 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 960 words, total size 7 kb.
January 10, 2017
A Gift from MODOT
Timothy Birdnow
After a deep freeze gripped the lovely state of Missouri for a few weeks, our fair land enjoyed a respite with temperatures warming into the 40's last night and up to 60^ today. Now, I don't go to the Ozark Hilton on cold days, largely because the junkyard paradise is drafty and heated with a barrel on it's side, which makes it difficult to get warm on really cold days. But temperatures in the 30's and 40's are ideal, even with the poor, wet wood I accumulated in my wood pile (most of it comes from fallen dead wood on the property.) So I took advantage and headed down into the mountain country.
For new readers the Ozark Hilton is a cabin I built from old boards and debris I dragged out of alleys here in St. Louis. I own 20 acres of hardwood forest down in south central Missouri, not far from the beautiful Clearwater lake. My lovely cabin may be a bit rustic (ahem!) but it is a wonderful place; beautiful land on a sloping hillside that ends in a valley. It sits right off a highway, but a very quiet rural two lane state highway and not some bustling road. The Ozark Hilton (a local in a bar in town dubbed it that when I said we were camping in the hills) has no amenities, no hot tub, no central heat or air, no refrigerator. There are no utilities, no electric, no running water, no toilet. I light the place with kerosene lamps, heat it with a wood fire in a barrel with a stovepipe sticking out of the top, cool it with a battery operated fan. I used to read down there but my eyesight has gotten bad, so now I bring down a portable dvd player and a jumpstarter battery and watch movies. If you have to go to the bathroom you can use a bucket, if you have to do the other thing you better be able to hold it until morning!
Not that that's always been the case; I've had to schlepp out into the darkness with a lantern on more than one occasion. My toilet consists of two pairs of cinder blocks and a toilet seat. You really don't want to use the "facillities" in the dark, because there are animals prowling about. I have heard coyotes, opossums, even what I suspect was a wolf family once. Oh, and SOMETHING came to call when I brought my now deceased male cats - something that cooed until it roared, sounding like I expect a dinosaur must have sounded. I think it may have been a mountain lion, which do often show up in this very rural country. Oh, and on the other side of the valley there is a place called Bear Mountain. Not eager to find one of THOSE!
At any rate, I saw one of the most beautiful sights ever while using the fresh air toilet late one night. It was winter and an unnatural warmth had crept in, along with a heavy fog. The fog settled into both hollows on either side of my property, and the sky was clear, stars blazing. I seemed to be on an island in a sea of fog, as if the world had ended except for my modest cabin. It was an amazing sight!
At any rate, I had a problem; the Missouri Department of Transportation (MODOT) redid the road, eliminating the shoulder and raising it up considerably. Where once I could simply drive a car down to the property i suddenly found my access blocked, with a drop of at least 2.5 feet and a concrete lip. I contacted MODOT and they would fix it provided I got permission from the landowner who has the property that abuts the road (mine doesn't, but I have an easement, one that has been used for years with a logging trail.) I never could reach the landowner, who appears to be an elderly gentleman somewhere in the area, probably the owner of a logging company.
I took to parking on a county road nearby and hoofing it in. A couple of years of this ended abruptly when some idiot broke into my car, stealing maybe two bucks worth of change (and costing me a couple of hundred in repairs.) I had to do something. I needed a new vehicle anyway, so I bought a full size pickup truck. It got me down the hump, but I smacked bottom whenever I went down or up, a horrible, sickening sound. I solved my problem, though, by hauling down bags of dirt and bags of gravel and dumping them in the ditch to raise the access. It worked, and the last few times I went to the OH I barely scraped bottom!
Well, MODOT had a Christmas Gift waiting for me! Somebody poured a pad, a real honest-to-goodness access! I drove past it, not believing my eyes! I turned around and exited the highway from the west - something I never could do in the past. It was wonderful, the ease of access. I can now drive a car, not just a truck, to the cabin and I won't have to worry.
I wonder; when I visited in November deer hunters were camping on the other side of the hollow (not my property) and it rather frightened me. Maybe THEY requested this? Maybe THEY are the owners of the top portion, and perhaps they plan to do something? My wife thinks so, and is worried about it. Me, I don't think so. I have an easement and they have to give me ingress. What happened?
Well, Missouri has a new Republican governor coming in and MODOT may have had some money left, money they needed to spend to get next year's budget. And my access point was causing some erosion on the roadway, so they may have decided to just go ahead and pour me a drive.
I am not used to such pleasant surprises, and I am delighted to have this. I fear it is a bit visible, though, and I may wind up with unwanted guests at the lovely OH. Ah, well; all the locals knew it was there and many had checked it out anyway. I learned long ago not to lock it lest someone break in. I also don't leave anything valuable there. The locals have a rigid code of honor about this sort of thing, too, as they are all vulnerable as well. I suspect the thief who broke into my car was a tourist - it was the Fourth of July, and a lot of tourists were visiting the lake.
At any rate, we rarely get such fine gifts in this life. I was very pleasantly surprised.
Now if I can just get a flushing toilet...
After a deep freeze gripped the lovely state of Missouri for a few weeks, our fair land enjoyed a respite with temperatures warming into the 40's last night and up to 60^ today. Now, I don't go to the Ozark Hilton on cold days, largely because the junkyard paradise is drafty and heated with a barrel on it's side, which makes it difficult to get warm on really cold days. But temperatures in the 30's and 40's are ideal, even with the poor, wet wood I accumulated in my wood pile (most of it comes from fallen dead wood on the property.) So I took advantage and headed down into the mountain country.
For new readers the Ozark Hilton is a cabin I built from old boards and debris I dragged out of alleys here in St. Louis. I own 20 acres of hardwood forest down in south central Missouri, not far from the beautiful Clearwater lake. My lovely cabin may be a bit rustic (ahem!) but it is a wonderful place; beautiful land on a sloping hillside that ends in a valley. It sits right off a highway, but a very quiet rural two lane state highway and not some bustling road. The Ozark Hilton (a local in a bar in town dubbed it that when I said we were camping in the hills) has no amenities, no hot tub, no central heat or air, no refrigerator. There are no utilities, no electric, no running water, no toilet. I light the place with kerosene lamps, heat it with a wood fire in a barrel with a stovepipe sticking out of the top, cool it with a battery operated fan. I used to read down there but my eyesight has gotten bad, so now I bring down a portable dvd player and a jumpstarter battery and watch movies. If you have to go to the bathroom you can use a bucket, if you have to do the other thing you better be able to hold it until morning!
Not that that's always been the case; I've had to schlepp out into the darkness with a lantern on more than one occasion. My toilet consists of two pairs of cinder blocks and a toilet seat. You really don't want to use the "facillities" in the dark, because there are animals prowling about. I have heard coyotes, opossums, even what I suspect was a wolf family once. Oh, and SOMETHING came to call when I brought my now deceased male cats - something that cooed until it roared, sounding like I expect a dinosaur must have sounded. I think it may have been a mountain lion, which do often show up in this very rural country. Oh, and on the other side of the valley there is a place called Bear Mountain. Not eager to find one of THOSE!
At any rate, I saw one of the most beautiful sights ever while using the fresh air toilet late one night. It was winter and an unnatural warmth had crept in, along with a heavy fog. The fog settled into both hollows on either side of my property, and the sky was clear, stars blazing. I seemed to be on an island in a sea of fog, as if the world had ended except for my modest cabin. It was an amazing sight!
At any rate, I had a problem; the Missouri Department of Transportation (MODOT) redid the road, eliminating the shoulder and raising it up considerably. Where once I could simply drive a car down to the property i suddenly found my access blocked, with a drop of at least 2.5 feet and a concrete lip. I contacted MODOT and they would fix it provided I got permission from the landowner who has the property that abuts the road (mine doesn't, but I have an easement, one that has been used for years with a logging trail.) I never could reach the landowner, who appears to be an elderly gentleman somewhere in the area, probably the owner of a logging company.
I took to parking on a county road nearby and hoofing it in. A couple of years of this ended abruptly when some idiot broke into my car, stealing maybe two bucks worth of change (and costing me a couple of hundred in repairs.) I had to do something. I needed a new vehicle anyway, so I bought a full size pickup truck. It got me down the hump, but I smacked bottom whenever I went down or up, a horrible, sickening sound. I solved my problem, though, by hauling down bags of dirt and bags of gravel and dumping them in the ditch to raise the access. It worked, and the last few times I went to the OH I barely scraped bottom!
Well, MODOT had a Christmas Gift waiting for me! Somebody poured a pad, a real honest-to-goodness access! I drove past it, not believing my eyes! I turned around and exited the highway from the west - something I never could do in the past. It was wonderful, the ease of access. I can now drive a car, not just a truck, to the cabin and I won't have to worry.
I wonder; when I visited in November deer hunters were camping on the other side of the hollow (not my property) and it rather frightened me. Maybe THEY requested this? Maybe THEY are the owners of the top portion, and perhaps they plan to do something? My wife thinks so, and is worried about it. Me, I don't think so. I have an easement and they have to give me ingress. What happened?
Well, Missouri has a new Republican governor coming in and MODOT may have had some money left, money they needed to spend to get next year's budget. And my access point was causing some erosion on the roadway, so they may have decided to just go ahead and pour me a drive.
I am not used to such pleasant surprises, and I am delighted to have this. I fear it is a bit visible, though, and I may wind up with unwanted guests at the lovely OH. Ah, well; all the locals knew it was there and many had checked it out anyway. I learned long ago not to lock it lest someone break in. I also don't leave anything valuable there. The locals have a rigid code of honor about this sort of thing, too, as they are all vulnerable as well. I suspect the thief who broke into my car was a tourist - it was the Fourth of July, and a lot of tourists were visiting the lake.
At any rate, we rarely get such fine gifts in this life. I was very pleasantly surprised.
Now if I can just get a flushing toilet...
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
06:20 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 1149 words, total size 6 kb.
January 09, 2017
James Comey - the Karate Kid of Babylon
Timothy Birdnow
Every time somebody who ought to at lest be neutral betrays us, conservatives immediately jump to excuse them. We've seen this over and over, with ridiculously creative Rube Goldberg contraption like excuses being made to somehow turn a chamber pot dumping on our heads to a refreshing rain shower. They did it with John Roberts, a man I warned would betray us when Bush first announced him; all manner of creative excuses were made to defend Roberts' flipping on Obamacare. But Roberts did more than just say "you have to take the consequences of your actions" but went so far as to rewrite the Obamacare law to squeeze it through the narrow gate of Constitutionality. At that time many conservatives defvended Roberts, coming up with all sorts of creative reasons why he was a political genius, putting the Democrats on the spot.
The reality was Roberts has always been a man who could be bullied, and that is why the Democrats did not oppose his elevation to the Supreme Court. He hung around D.C. for decades and yet was well liked by the Democrats. That doesn't happen to a principled man.
At any rate, all manner of digital ink was spilled over how Roberts suckered the Donkeys, only to be forgotten when it became apparent Roberts was more Sandra Day O'Connor than Antonin Scalia.
Here is another exercise in Rube Goldberg defense by a conservative writer. This time we are hearing a rehashing of the defense of James Comey that we got immediately after his bizarre press conference wehre he laid out the case against Hillary Clinton and then said no prosecutor would prosecute her because intent - an unnecessary qualifier - could not be proven.
Immediately after this a sizable number of conservatives contorted into pretzels trying to defend this action by the supposed man of high honor at the F.B.I. And now Shawn Mitchell rehashes the defense.
From the article:
"What was Comey thinking? His behavior throughout is hard to decipher. For an accomplished man in a very tough spot, one who cares about his hard-earned reputation and his future, there are safer ways Comey could have played mostly the same hand he eventually did. Of course, he could have resigned rather than submit to DOJ restrictions. But that was a futile gesture. The FBI’s number two man, Andrew McCabe, was tainted by Clinton graft. His wife received $500,000 for a Virginia state senate campaign from Clinton moneyman Terry McAuliffe. McCabe would certainly salute, not fight. If Comey were to have fallen on his sword, the same political interference and corruption would have prevailed.
Events make it reasonable to speculate that Comey chose a high stakes, personally damaging strategy of comply-but-defy. If he meant only to capitulate, he could have kept his head down. He could have issued a bland statement citing a lack of intent. But he did more. What profit is there for an official publicly to present an elaborate and damning case that convicts Clinton in lay vocabulary, only to then acquit her in legalese? The explanation displeased the administration and certainly Clinton. The decision not to indict enraged Republicans.
Comey knew he was walking into an inferno. But he willingly fired it up and walked right in. What motive would he have, other than to expose as much of the truth as possible, to allow voters to make an informed judgment?
Similarly, upon discovery of the emails on Weiner’s computer, Comey was compelled to continue the investigation. Reportedly, AG Lynch instructed Comey not to inform Congress. But he felt duty bound to update Congress on an investigation he had declared closed. Still, he could have been quieter, perhaps giving a private briefing to leadership, without creating a document with the FBI seal and his signature.
Again, Comey lifted heavier than he had to, with explosive effect on the political discussion. It is troubling to think of a law enforcement professional calculating in this way. Questions of ethics and propriety abound."
End excerpt.
For reasons that are beyond baffling Mr. Mitchell can't see the forest for the trees. James Comey was clearly playing both sides, trying to keep his career at the FBI intact while hedging his bets with the opposition. IF he were serious about hsi role as law enforcer he would have laid out the case, made his recommendation, publicly spoken of pressures on him to close the matter, and then let the chips fall. A failure to indict would then have been grounds to resign. This would have put the pressure on the Department of Justice and on Hillary. As things worked out, Comey couldn't have handed a finer gift to the Democrats because he laid out the case (which was true and incontrovertible) and then said "oh, but nothing to see here" which was of course spun to mean "Hillary is not guilty of a crime" - a much better thing than "Hillary was careless."
The Clinton's have used to careless argument before; remember the Sandy Berger affair where Bill said they were all laughing because Berger was so sloppy and, Golly! that was just like him to stuff a document down his trousers and then hide it under a construction shack. Or When Bill lost "the football", the codes for launching our nuclear arsenal. Or his "forgetting" about his romantic liasons. The list goes on and on.
The Clintons know everyone is careless or sloppy at some point, and are apt to forgive. A crime is something else.
Comey was unwilling to be a mere tool of the Clinton crime syndicate, or of his boss, and he prided himself on his dignity and honor. He was desperate to find some middle path that would allow him to live with himself, not be guilty of dereliction of duty but still obey his masters. He was too cute by half, coming out with damning evidence then saying, "but there isn't anything illegal here". He is a liar; he knew damned well there was something illegal there.
He took a lot of heat for that, and realized his career could be lost over it. So when the Weiner e-mails surfaced Comey had to get on top of it in a hurry. He did so by sending a letter to Congress (and it was Congress and not Comey who leaked it to the media) saying he was re-opening the case. Then, after a ridiculously short time he did what we, or at least I, knew he would do - closed it again so Hillary could say "see, I am innocent!" It was a hiccup when it should have been a heart attack. Hillary went into the election having been "exonerated". And Comey gave the Democrats what they needed, the ability to call him a partisan hack.
Had he stuck to his guns in either instance that argument could not have been made. His wishy-washy approach gave the Democrats ammunition. Hillary would have lost worse had Comey simply done his job.
Why did Comey do it? I am convinced he did it to play both sides.
In the movie the Karate Kid Ralph Maccio is given a lesson by his new Sensei, Mr. Miyaggi who tells him:
"Daniel-san, must talk. Walk on road, hm? Walk left side, safe. Walk right side, safe. Walk middle, sooner or later, get squish just like grape. Here, karate, same thing. Either you karate do "yes", or karate do "no". You karate do "guess so", squish just like grape. Understand?"
Apparently James Comey missed that dialogue in the movie. He could have done his job, or not done his job. He chose to "guess so" do his job and got squished like grape.
Why are conservatives eager to excuse people like Comey? That is a tough one. But I would say it probably stems from the fact that we hold certain values dear, and among them are honesty and loyalty, and our minds balk at the notion that people really will sell us out for thirty pieces of silver. I suspect Mr. Mitchell is like that, unwilling to accept the reality that a man who supposedly values honor could so easily be turned. We expect that from the Left, a group who holds standards only for others but excuses themselves. But people on our side of the aisle are supposed to be made of better stuff. SAdly, that isn't true, because liberals are people too (I know; it's hard to believe) and the difference between our side and theirs is one of the choices we have made. We choose to accept reality and to make God an external locus rather than ourselves. But any of us would be a liberal if we were to compromise enough, and that happens over and over as we send people to Washington who are then coopted by the system. John Boehner, for example, was a lion and a rock-solid conservative until he ascended to power and began making compromises. He left D.C. in disgrace, a shell of what he had been. So many others, so many people (Pat Toomey comes to mind) have betrayed us. Why? They get into an environment where it is demanded the go along to get along. Eventually the boble dreams die and only the realpolitik and dealmaking remain. In the end, they are seduced, like a tender young lady sent to serve drinks on the docks in the old days. The sweet young girl who wanted to be a nun winds up selling her body for a couple of bucks. In the end she dies alone, sick and haggard.
James Comey sold his virginity for a couple of bucks and a place at the Washington table. He is learning that there is a price.
I wish the people on our side would understand that this is how it works. We cannot rely on anyone's virtue in that environment. Corruption is the water in which the political fish swim. The only way to hold them to a standard is to make it hotter to betray us than to suck up to the powers that be.
It is a big part of why Donald Trump was elected; he came from completely outside the corrupt system. But he bears watching too. Washington is truly Babylon, and America will never be blessed until she leaves that corrupt city.
Every time somebody who ought to at lest be neutral betrays us, conservatives immediately jump to excuse them. We've seen this over and over, with ridiculously creative Rube Goldberg contraption like excuses being made to somehow turn a chamber pot dumping on our heads to a refreshing rain shower. They did it with John Roberts, a man I warned would betray us when Bush first announced him; all manner of creative excuses were made to defend Roberts' flipping on Obamacare. But Roberts did more than just say "you have to take the consequences of your actions" but went so far as to rewrite the Obamacare law to squeeze it through the narrow gate of Constitutionality. At that time many conservatives defvended Roberts, coming up with all sorts of creative reasons why he was a political genius, putting the Democrats on the spot.
The reality was Roberts has always been a man who could be bullied, and that is why the Democrats did not oppose his elevation to the Supreme Court. He hung around D.C. for decades and yet was well liked by the Democrats. That doesn't happen to a principled man.
At any rate, all manner of digital ink was spilled over how Roberts suckered the Donkeys, only to be forgotten when it became apparent Roberts was more Sandra Day O'Connor than Antonin Scalia.
Here is another exercise in Rube Goldberg defense by a conservative writer. This time we are hearing a rehashing of the defense of James Comey that we got immediately after his bizarre press conference wehre he laid out the case against Hillary Clinton and then said no prosecutor would prosecute her because intent - an unnecessary qualifier - could not be proven.
Immediately after this a sizable number of conservatives contorted into pretzels trying to defend this action by the supposed man of high honor at the F.B.I. And now Shawn Mitchell rehashes the defense.
From the article:
"What was Comey thinking? His behavior throughout is hard to decipher. For an accomplished man in a very tough spot, one who cares about his hard-earned reputation and his future, there are safer ways Comey could have played mostly the same hand he eventually did. Of course, he could have resigned rather than submit to DOJ restrictions. But that was a futile gesture. The FBI’s number two man, Andrew McCabe, was tainted by Clinton graft. His wife received $500,000 for a Virginia state senate campaign from Clinton moneyman Terry McAuliffe. McCabe would certainly salute, not fight. If Comey were to have fallen on his sword, the same political interference and corruption would have prevailed.
Events make it reasonable to speculate that Comey chose a high stakes, personally damaging strategy of comply-but-defy. If he meant only to capitulate, he could have kept his head down. He could have issued a bland statement citing a lack of intent. But he did more. What profit is there for an official publicly to present an elaborate and damning case that convicts Clinton in lay vocabulary, only to then acquit her in legalese? The explanation displeased the administration and certainly Clinton. The decision not to indict enraged Republicans.
Comey knew he was walking into an inferno. But he willingly fired it up and walked right in. What motive would he have, other than to expose as much of the truth as possible, to allow voters to make an informed judgment?
Similarly, upon discovery of the emails on Weiner’s computer, Comey was compelled to continue the investigation. Reportedly, AG Lynch instructed Comey not to inform Congress. But he felt duty bound to update Congress on an investigation he had declared closed. Still, he could have been quieter, perhaps giving a private briefing to leadership, without creating a document with the FBI seal and his signature.
Again, Comey lifted heavier than he had to, with explosive effect on the political discussion. It is troubling to think of a law enforcement professional calculating in this way. Questions of ethics and propriety abound."
End excerpt.
For reasons that are beyond baffling Mr. Mitchell can't see the forest for the trees. James Comey was clearly playing both sides, trying to keep his career at the FBI intact while hedging his bets with the opposition. IF he were serious about hsi role as law enforcer he would have laid out the case, made his recommendation, publicly spoken of pressures on him to close the matter, and then let the chips fall. A failure to indict would then have been grounds to resign. This would have put the pressure on the Department of Justice and on Hillary. As things worked out, Comey couldn't have handed a finer gift to the Democrats because he laid out the case (which was true and incontrovertible) and then said "oh, but nothing to see here" which was of course spun to mean "Hillary is not guilty of a crime" - a much better thing than "Hillary was careless."
The Clinton's have used to careless argument before; remember the Sandy Berger affair where Bill said they were all laughing because Berger was so sloppy and, Golly! that was just like him to stuff a document down his trousers and then hide it under a construction shack. Or When Bill lost "the football", the codes for launching our nuclear arsenal. Or his "forgetting" about his romantic liasons. The list goes on and on.
The Clintons know everyone is careless or sloppy at some point, and are apt to forgive. A crime is something else.
Comey was unwilling to be a mere tool of the Clinton crime syndicate, or of his boss, and he prided himself on his dignity and honor. He was desperate to find some middle path that would allow him to live with himself, not be guilty of dereliction of duty but still obey his masters. He was too cute by half, coming out with damning evidence then saying, "but there isn't anything illegal here". He is a liar; he knew damned well there was something illegal there.
He took a lot of heat for that, and realized his career could be lost over it. So when the Weiner e-mails surfaced Comey had to get on top of it in a hurry. He did so by sending a letter to Congress (and it was Congress and not Comey who leaked it to the media) saying he was re-opening the case. Then, after a ridiculously short time he did what we, or at least I, knew he would do - closed it again so Hillary could say "see, I am innocent!" It was a hiccup when it should have been a heart attack. Hillary went into the election having been "exonerated". And Comey gave the Democrats what they needed, the ability to call him a partisan hack.
Had he stuck to his guns in either instance that argument could not have been made. His wishy-washy approach gave the Democrats ammunition. Hillary would have lost worse had Comey simply done his job.
Why did Comey do it? I am convinced he did it to play both sides.
In the movie the Karate Kid Ralph Maccio is given a lesson by his new Sensei, Mr. Miyaggi who tells him:
"Daniel-san, must talk. Walk on road, hm? Walk left side, safe. Walk right side, safe. Walk middle, sooner or later, get squish just like grape. Here, karate, same thing. Either you karate do "yes", or karate do "no". You karate do "guess so", squish just like grape. Understand?"
Apparently James Comey missed that dialogue in the movie. He could have done his job, or not done his job. He chose to "guess so" do his job and got squished like grape.
Why are conservatives eager to excuse people like Comey? That is a tough one. But I would say it probably stems from the fact that we hold certain values dear, and among them are honesty and loyalty, and our minds balk at the notion that people really will sell us out for thirty pieces of silver. I suspect Mr. Mitchell is like that, unwilling to accept the reality that a man who supposedly values honor could so easily be turned. We expect that from the Left, a group who holds standards only for others but excuses themselves. But people on our side of the aisle are supposed to be made of better stuff. SAdly, that isn't true, because liberals are people too (I know; it's hard to believe) and the difference between our side and theirs is one of the choices we have made. We choose to accept reality and to make God an external locus rather than ourselves. But any of us would be a liberal if we were to compromise enough, and that happens over and over as we send people to Washington who are then coopted by the system. John Boehner, for example, was a lion and a rock-solid conservative until he ascended to power and began making compromises. He left D.C. in disgrace, a shell of what he had been. So many others, so many people (Pat Toomey comes to mind) have betrayed us. Why? They get into an environment where it is demanded the go along to get along. Eventually the boble dreams die and only the realpolitik and dealmaking remain. In the end, they are seduced, like a tender young lady sent to serve drinks on the docks in the old days. The sweet young girl who wanted to be a nun winds up selling her body for a couple of bucks. In the end she dies alone, sick and haggard.
James Comey sold his virginity for a couple of bucks and a place at the Washington table. He is learning that there is a price.
I wish the people on our side would understand that this is how it works. We cannot rely on anyone's virtue in that environment. Corruption is the water in which the political fish swim. The only way to hold them to a standard is to make it hotter to betray us than to suck up to the powers that be.
It is a big part of why Donald Trump was elected; he came from completely outside the corrupt system. But he bears watching too. Washington is truly Babylon, and America will never be blessed until she leaves that corrupt city.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
10:17 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 1735 words, total size 10 kb.
China Turning Coal to Gold while Alustralia's Coal Ban Cause Electric Prices to Soar
Helen Dyer
Thanks Alan:
Significant coal-to-liquid project in production in Ningxia
The world's biggest single coal-to-liquid (CTL) project went into production Wednesday in northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.
The project, undertaken by a subsidiary of the state-owned Shenhua Group, consists of homegrown technology, equipment and materials, breaking the longtime foreign monopoly in CTL core technology. China has rich coal resources but lacks oil and gas. Currently more than 60 percent of its oil is imported.
The project drew an investment of about 55 billion yuan (7.9 billion U.S. dollars). It is able to turn more than 20 million tonnes of coal to 4 million tonnes of oil products annually, including 2.7 million tonnes of diesel, 980,000 tonnes of naphtha petroleum and 340,000 tonnes of liquefied gas, according to Yao Min, deputy general manager of Shenhua Ningxia Coal Industry Group Co. Ltd.
Read more: http://english.cri.cn/12394/2016/12/28/3441s948438.htm
Energy bills soar in shift from coal power stations
Electricity companies have begun hiking consumer prices around the country, blaming the closure of coal-fired generators and the increased cost of renewable energy for higher-than-predicted increases of more than $130 this year.
EnergyAustralia and AGL have increased electricity tariffs in Victoria by $135 and $132 on average for the year respectively — greatly exceeding state government modelling that concluded bills would rise by $27 to $100.
The Victorian price rises will flow from this week but the companies’ customers in other states, including South Australia and NSW, face a yet-to-be announced price rise in June.
Read more: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/energy-bills-soar-in-shift-from-coal-power-stations/news-story/f04ff69323c798fc05097e98defa858e
And some excellent comments too:
Australia has the resources, but apparently not the intelligence or the will to be amongst the lowest energy producers in the world.
Prime Minister Turnbull was reported recently as saying: "Energy prices are high enough already and we should not be doing anything that increases them in the future.†He did some ‘buck passing’ at the same time however by saying that electricity prices are largely within the responsibility of state governments.
The cost of electricity is so important to Australia’s economic well-being that the Federal Government must examine all possible means to minimise prices nationally including legislative measures, but for a start it should abandon its futile Renewable Energy Target and renounce the hair-brained Paris Climate Change Agreement.
Bob of Brisbane.
The particulate matter from power stations in Australia is already largely captured. The ‘carbon’ erroneously referred to is carbon dioxide, a colourless gas. It’s a cunning ploy to make the emissions from our power stations sound grubby. The ABC contributes to the deception by showing shots of water vapour coming from cooling towers when talking about ‘nasty’ emissions. The images are made to look dark and threatening by taking the photos looking into the sun.
Thanks Alan:
Significant coal-to-liquid project in production in Ningxia
The world's biggest single coal-to-liquid (CTL) project went into production Wednesday in northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.
The project, undertaken by a subsidiary of the state-owned Shenhua Group, consists of homegrown technology, equipment and materials, breaking the longtime foreign monopoly in CTL core technology. China has rich coal resources but lacks oil and gas. Currently more than 60 percent of its oil is imported.
The project drew an investment of about 55 billion yuan (7.9 billion U.S. dollars). It is able to turn more than 20 million tonnes of coal to 4 million tonnes of oil products annually, including 2.7 million tonnes of diesel, 980,000 tonnes of naphtha petroleum and 340,000 tonnes of liquefied gas, according to Yao Min, deputy general manager of Shenhua Ningxia Coal Industry Group Co. Ltd.
Read more: http://english.cri.cn/12394/2016/12/28/3441s948438.htm
Energy bills soar in shift from coal power stations
Electricity companies have begun hiking consumer prices around the country, blaming the closure of coal-fired generators and the increased cost of renewable energy for higher-than-predicted increases of more than $130 this year.
EnergyAustralia and AGL have increased electricity tariffs in Victoria by $135 and $132 on average for the year respectively — greatly exceeding state government modelling that concluded bills would rise by $27 to $100.
The Victorian price rises will flow from this week but the companies’ customers in other states, including South Australia and NSW, face a yet-to-be announced price rise in June.
Read more: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/energy-bills-soar-in-shift-from-coal-power-stations/news-story/f04ff69323c798fc05097e98defa858e
And some excellent comments too:
Australia has the resources, but apparently not the intelligence or the will to be amongst the lowest energy producers in the world.
Prime Minister Turnbull was reported recently as saying: "Energy prices are high enough already and we should not be doing anything that increases them in the future.†He did some ‘buck passing’ at the same time however by saying that electricity prices are largely within the responsibility of state governments.
The cost of electricity is so important to Australia’s economic well-being that the Federal Government must examine all possible means to minimise prices nationally including legislative measures, but for a start it should abandon its futile Renewable Energy Target and renounce the hair-brained Paris Climate Change Agreement.
Bob of Brisbane.
The particulate matter from power stations in Australia is already largely captured. The ‘carbon’ erroneously referred to is carbon dioxide, a colourless gas. It’s a cunning ploy to make the emissions from our power stations sound grubby. The ABC contributes to the deception by showing shots of water vapour coming from cooling towers when talking about ‘nasty’ emissions. The images are made to look dark and threatening by taking the photos looking into the sun.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
09:27 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 468 words, total size 4 kb.
Spray and Wash Solar Era Leading to Planetary Cooling
Helen forwards this:
http://blog.heartland.org/2016/12/the-sun-not-co2-determines-our-climate/
Sunspot Numbers In 1610, shortly after viewing the sun with his new telescope, Galileo Galilei (or was it Thomas Harriot?) made the first European observations of Sunspots. Continuous daily observations were started at the Zurich Observatory in 1849 and earlier observations have been used to extend the records back to 1610. The sunspot number is calculated by first counting the number of sunspot groups and then the number of individual sunspots. The "sunspot number" is then given by the sum of the number of individual sunspots and ten times the number of groups. Since most sunspot groups have, on average, about ten spots, this formula for counting sunspots gives reliable numbers even when the observing conditions are less than ideal and small spots are hard to see. Monthly averages (updated monthly) of the sunspot numbers (181 kb JPEG image), (307 kb pdf-file), (62 kb text file) show that the number of sunspots visible on the sun waxes
and wanes with an approximate 11-year cycle. Environmental Consultant Edmund Contoski, writing for the Heartland blog, says that The Sun, Not CO2, Determines our Climate. The chart [above] clearly shows a weakening trend of sunspots in solar cycles 22, 23 and 24. These are the latest in a sequence dating from 1755, when extensive recording of solar sunspot activity began. Note that the peak of solar cycle 24, which occurred in 2014, is only about half that of solar cycle 22, which peaked about 1989. This portends global cooling—not global warming. Sunspots are dwindling to lows not seen in 200 years. In 2008, during the solar minimum of cycle 23, there were 266 days with no sunspots. This is considered a very deep solar minimum. You can check out pictures of sunspots—or their absence—day after day for recent years at
http://tinyurl.com/6zck4x. (Source - bold added) After explaining Sunspot activity, Edmund Contoski continues After about 210 years, sunspot cycles "crash†or almost entirely die out, and the earth can cool dramatically. These unusually cold periods last several decades. Of greatest concern to us is the Maunder Minimum, which ran from 1645 to 1715. Below is a chart that shows the paucity of sunspots during this time. Some years had no sunspots at all. The astronomer Sporer reported only 50 sunspots during a 30-year period, compared to 40,000 to 50,000 typical for that length of time. Since the Maunder Minimum, a less extreme but still significantly below-average period of cooler temperatures occurred during the Dalton Minimum (1790 to 1830), also shown on the graph. At least as far back as 2007—before Cycle 23 had bottomed—a Russian solar physicist, predicted what we are seeing now. Professor Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of the Pulkovo Observatory in Russia, noting that solar irradiance had already begun to fall, said a slow decline in temperatures would begin as early as 2012-2015 and lead to a deep freeze in 2050-2060 that will last about fifty years.
http://blog.heartland.org/2016/12/the-sun-not-co2-determines-our-climate/
Sunspot Numbers In 1610, shortly after viewing the sun with his new telescope, Galileo Galilei (or was it Thomas Harriot?) made the first European observations of Sunspots. Continuous daily observations were started at the Zurich Observatory in 1849 and earlier observations have been used to extend the records back to 1610. The sunspot number is calculated by first counting the number of sunspot groups and then the number of individual sunspots. The "sunspot number" is then given by the sum of the number of individual sunspots and ten times the number of groups. Since most sunspot groups have, on average, about ten spots, this formula for counting sunspots gives reliable numbers even when the observing conditions are less than ideal and small spots are hard to see. Monthly averages (updated monthly) of the sunspot numbers (181 kb JPEG image), (307 kb pdf-file), (62 kb text file) show that the number of sunspots visible on the sun waxes
and wanes with an approximate 11-year cycle. Environmental Consultant Edmund Contoski, writing for the Heartland blog, says that The Sun, Not CO2, Determines our Climate. The chart [above] clearly shows a weakening trend of sunspots in solar cycles 22, 23 and 24. These are the latest in a sequence dating from 1755, when extensive recording of solar sunspot activity began. Note that the peak of solar cycle 24, which occurred in 2014, is only about half that of solar cycle 22, which peaked about 1989. This portends global cooling—not global warming. Sunspots are dwindling to lows not seen in 200 years. In 2008, during the solar minimum of cycle 23, there were 266 days with no sunspots. This is considered a very deep solar minimum. You can check out pictures of sunspots—or their absence—day after day for recent years at
http://tinyurl.com/6zck4x. (Source - bold added) After explaining Sunspot activity, Edmund Contoski continues After about 210 years, sunspot cycles "crash†or almost entirely die out, and the earth can cool dramatically. These unusually cold periods last several decades. Of greatest concern to us is the Maunder Minimum, which ran from 1645 to 1715. Below is a chart that shows the paucity of sunspots during this time. Some years had no sunspots at all. The astronomer Sporer reported only 50 sunspots during a 30-year period, compared to 40,000 to 50,000 typical for that length of time. Since the Maunder Minimum, a less extreme but still significantly below-average period of cooler temperatures occurred during the Dalton Minimum (1790 to 1830), also shown on the graph. At least as far back as 2007—before Cycle 23 had bottomed—a Russian solar physicist, predicted what we are seeing now. Professor Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of the Pulkovo Observatory in Russia, noting that solar irradiance had already begun to fall, said a slow decline in temperatures would begin as early as 2012-2015 and lead to a deep freeze in 2050-2060 that will last about fifty years.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
09:25 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 496 words, total size 3 kb.
January 08, 2017
Trump Appoints Boehner's Boy to do Hiring
Timothy Birdnow
In another disturbing sign that Donald Trump is growing a big gray horn off the tip of his nose we learn the unwelcome news that he has appointed John "Johnny†DeStefano as Director of White House Personnel.
According to Conservative HQ:
"Mr. DeStefano, 38, has no background in personnel or human resources. However, he is a longtime member of former Speaker of the House John Boehner’s inner circle and a former Republican National Congressional Committee staffer.
In 2006 DeStefano was on House Republican Conference Chairman Deborah Pryce’s staff and was sent to manage her campaign for re-election. His skill helped Pryce eke out a victory in what CNN called the most closely watched campaign in the country.
Subsequently, when Boehner wanted to enforce his will on the National Republican Congressional Committee he made DeStefano deputy executive director of the House GOP campaign committee.
After the GOP took back the House majority and Boehner became Speaker, DeStefano became Senior Advisor for Member Services & New Member Development where part of his job was to staff the newly elected Tea Party class of 2010 with Boehner loyalists who would not encourage their new Bosses to rock the boat.
While still in his twenties, DeStefano served as Boehner’s political director and became very close to Boehner’s former Chief of Staff Barry Jackson.
Jackson is one of the ultimate Washington insiders. After leaving the government when Boehner resigned as Speaker Jackson joined Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck as a strategic adviser and the Lindsey Group as a managing director.
At Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck Jackson intersected with serial loser Liz Maier, one of the most outspoken anti-Trump establishment Republican operatives, whose third-party group "Make America Awesome Super PAC†did the ad attacking Melania Trump that sparked the "war on the wives†between Ted Cruz and Donald Trump.
Barry Jackson was also a principal in an operation that funded attack ads against conservative members of the House Republican Conference, including Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas, Jim Bridenstine of Oklahoma, Jim Jordan of Ohio, Paul Gosar of Arizona and took credit for the GOP primary defeat of Tea Party favorite Rep. Tim Huelskamp of Kansas."
End excerpt.
You don't drain a swamp and refill it with stagnant water. Trump appears to be doing that.
As Daren Jonescu pointed out to me, his fear of Trump is that the man has always done business as an insider and he will inevitably return to his vomit. I had hoped not. Sadly, Trump is appointing some critical people in quiet but powerful positions from the Establishmemt. Too many come from Goldman Sachs, from the Council on Foreign Relations, from the permanent political class.
Look, I get it; Trump has to face certain realities, and the reality is that the political class runs Washington and he is going to at least have to toss them some bones. He'll definitelly do better than Hillary, although we as Conservatives are going to be in a pickle if Trump betrays us, because we are going to be stuck defending him. We went through this with George W. Bush, having to prop up an idiot who refused to defend himsellf and certainly made no move whatsoever to defend US. I think Trump will at least stand his ground. But "our guy" can do more damage than "their guy" to our future prospects. If Trump turns out to be a Trojan Horse we are going to be in one horrible position.
Daren and I had discussed the possibility that Trump was the Establishment's candidate before he became the nominee. It makes perfect sense; the RINO wing was in danger of losing the party to upstarts like Ted Cruz so they promoted a ridiculous charicature to split the conservative vote. When that failed they supported Trump by mounting an over-the-top campaign against him - something designed to get many on our side to circle the wagons in his defense. In essence they would run against their own candidate to give him "street cred".
When Jeb! couldn't break out of primary school numbers it became apparent to the Establishment they were losing control. So who rides in to the rescue? Not Cruz or another good conservative but a former Democrat.
I had hoped I was wrong and I may still be, but moves by Mr. Trump are disturbing me. We may have been played, folks.
Time will tell. We need to keep Mr. Trump's feet firmly ensconsed in the barbeque pit flames. That is our job; keep him to his word. I suspect he's a man to whom waffling comes as easily as it does to Huddle House. We must stop that.
In another disturbing sign that Donald Trump is growing a big gray horn off the tip of his nose we learn the unwelcome news that he has appointed John "Johnny†DeStefano as Director of White House Personnel.
According to Conservative HQ:
"Mr. DeStefano, 38, has no background in personnel or human resources. However, he is a longtime member of former Speaker of the House John Boehner’s inner circle and a former Republican National Congressional Committee staffer.
In 2006 DeStefano was on House Republican Conference Chairman Deborah Pryce’s staff and was sent to manage her campaign for re-election. His skill helped Pryce eke out a victory in what CNN called the most closely watched campaign in the country.
Subsequently, when Boehner wanted to enforce his will on the National Republican Congressional Committee he made DeStefano deputy executive director of the House GOP campaign committee.
After the GOP took back the House majority and Boehner became Speaker, DeStefano became Senior Advisor for Member Services & New Member Development where part of his job was to staff the newly elected Tea Party class of 2010 with Boehner loyalists who would not encourage their new Bosses to rock the boat.
While still in his twenties, DeStefano served as Boehner’s political director and became very close to Boehner’s former Chief of Staff Barry Jackson.
Jackson is one of the ultimate Washington insiders. After leaving the government when Boehner resigned as Speaker Jackson joined Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck as a strategic adviser and the Lindsey Group as a managing director.
At Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck Jackson intersected with serial loser Liz Maier, one of the most outspoken anti-Trump establishment Republican operatives, whose third-party group "Make America Awesome Super PAC†did the ad attacking Melania Trump that sparked the "war on the wives†between Ted Cruz and Donald Trump.
Barry Jackson was also a principal in an operation that funded attack ads against conservative members of the House Republican Conference, including Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas, Jim Bridenstine of Oklahoma, Jim Jordan of Ohio, Paul Gosar of Arizona and took credit for the GOP primary defeat of Tea Party favorite Rep. Tim Huelskamp of Kansas."
End excerpt.
You don't drain a swamp and refill it with stagnant water. Trump appears to be doing that.
As Daren Jonescu pointed out to me, his fear of Trump is that the man has always done business as an insider and he will inevitably return to his vomit. I had hoped not. Sadly, Trump is appointing some critical people in quiet but powerful positions from the Establishmemt. Too many come from Goldman Sachs, from the Council on Foreign Relations, from the permanent political class.
Look, I get it; Trump has to face certain realities, and the reality is that the political class runs Washington and he is going to at least have to toss them some bones. He'll definitelly do better than Hillary, although we as Conservatives are going to be in a pickle if Trump betrays us, because we are going to be stuck defending him. We went through this with George W. Bush, having to prop up an idiot who refused to defend himsellf and certainly made no move whatsoever to defend US. I think Trump will at least stand his ground. But "our guy" can do more damage than "their guy" to our future prospects. If Trump turns out to be a Trojan Horse we are going to be in one horrible position.
Daren and I had discussed the possibility that Trump was the Establishment's candidate before he became the nominee. It makes perfect sense; the RINO wing was in danger of losing the party to upstarts like Ted Cruz so they promoted a ridiculous charicature to split the conservative vote. When that failed they supported Trump by mounting an over-the-top campaign against him - something designed to get many on our side to circle the wagons in his defense. In essence they would run against their own candidate to give him "street cred".
When Jeb! couldn't break out of primary school numbers it became apparent to the Establishment they were losing control. So who rides in to the rescue? Not Cruz or another good conservative but a former Democrat.
I had hoped I was wrong and I may still be, but moves by Mr. Trump are disturbing me. We may have been played, folks.
Time will tell. We need to keep Mr. Trump's feet firmly ensconsed in the barbeque pit flames. That is our job; keep him to his word. I suspect he's a man to whom waffling comes as easily as it does to Huddle House. We must stop that.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
02:16 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 783 words, total size 5 kb.
Reality-based climate forecasting
Paul Driessen
Things are really heating up – especially on the inaugural and nomination protest fronts. The heated politics are particularly evident when it comes to the likelihood that President Trump and Congress will reduce climate research funding and green energy programs that are based on claims that humans are causing climate chaos.
However, as my article explains, climate research and models have long been mostly Garbage In – Garbage Out, driven by the politicized assumption that carbon dioxide from fossil fuels has now replaced the powerful natural forces that have driven climate fluctuations throughout earth and human history. Mr. Trump and Congress will soon have an unprecedented opportunity to revise the scope and nature of climate research, ensure that ALL natural and human factors are considered, and help researchers become better at forecasting whatever climate changes might come our way.
Reality-based climate forecasting
Continuing to focus on carbon dioxide as the driving force will just bring more bogus predictions
Paul Driessen
These days, even shipwreck museums showcase evidence of climate change.
After diving recently among Key West’s fabled ship-destroying barrier reefs, I immersed myself in exhibits from the Nuestra Senora de Atocha, the fabled Spanish galleon that foundered during a ferocious hurricane in 1622. The Mel Fisher Maritime Museum now houses many of the gold, silver, emeralds and artifacts that Mel and Deo Fisher’s archeological team recovered after finding the wreck in 1985.
Also featured prominently in the museum is the wreck of a British slave ship, the Henrietta Marie. It sank in a hurricane off Key West in 1700, after leaving 190 Africans in Jamaica, to be sold as slaves.
As Fisher divers excavated the Henrietta wreck, at 40 feet below the sea surface they found – not just leg shackles and other grim artifacts from that horrific era – but charred tree branches, pine cones and other remnants from a forest fire 8,400 years ago! The still resinous smelling fragments demonstrate that this area (like all other coastal regions worldwide) was well above sea level, before the last ice age ended and melting glaciers slowly raised oceans to their current level: 400 feet higher than during the frigid Pleistocene, when an enormous portion of Earth’s seawater was locked up in glaciers.
Climate change has clearly been "real†throughout earth and human history. The question is, exactly how and how much do today’s human activities affect local, regional or global climate and weather?
Unfortunately, politicized climate change researchers continue to advance claims that complex, powerful, interconnected natural forces have been replaced by manmade fossil fuel emissions, especially carbon dioxide; that any future changes will be catastrophic; and that humanity can control climate and weather by controlling its appetite for oil, gas, coal and modern living standards.
If you like your climate, you can keep it, they suggest. If you don’t, we can make you a better one.
Not surprisingly, climate chaos scientists who’ve relied on the multi-billion-dollar government gravy train are distraught over the prospect that President Donald Trump will slash their budgets or terminate their CO2-centric research. Desperate to survive, they are replacing the term "climate change†with "global change†or "weather†in grant proposals, and going on offense with op-ed articles and media interviews.
"This is what the coming attack on science could look like,†Penn State modeler and hockey stick creator Michael Mann lamented in a Washington Post column. "I fear what may happen under Trump. The fate of the planet hangs in the balance.†(Actually, it’s his million-dollar grants that hang in the balance.)
A "skeptic†scientist has warmed to the idea that a major Greenland ice shelf may be shrinking because of climate change, a front-page piece in the Post claimed. Perhaps so. But is it manmade warming? Does it portend planetary cataclysm, even as Greenland’s interior and Antarctica show record ice growth? Or are warm ocean currents weakening an ice shelf that is fragile because it rests on ocean water, not land?
The fundamental problem remains. If it was substandard science and modeling under Obama era terminology, it will be substandard under survivalist jargon. The notion that manmade carbon dioxide now drives climate and weather – and we can predict climate and weather by looking only at plant-fertilizing CO2 and other "greenhouse gases†– is just as absurd now as before.
Their predictions will be as invalid and unscientific as divining future Super Bowl winners by modeling who plays left guard for each team – or World Cup victors by looking at center backs.
As climate realists take the reins at EPA and other federal and state agencies, the Trump Administration should ensure that tax dollars are not squandered on more alarmist science that is employed to justify locking up more fossil fuels, expanding renewable energy and "carbon capture†schemes, reducing US living standards, and telling poor countries what living standards they will be "permitted†to have.
Reliable forecasts, as far in advance as possible, would clearly benefit humanity. For that to happen, however, research must examine all natural and manmade factors, and not merely toe the pretend-consensus line that carbon dioxide now governs climate change.
That means government grants must not go preferentially to researchers who seek to further CO2-centrism, but rather to those who are committed to a broader scope of solid, dispassionate research that examines both natural and manmade factors. Grant recipients must also agree to engage in robust discussion and debate, to post, explain and defend their data, methodologies, analyses and conclusions.
They must devote far more attention to improving our understanding of all the forces that drive climate fluctuations, the roles they play, and the complex interactions among them. Important factors include cyclical variations in the sun’s energy and cosmic ray output, winds high in Earth’s atmosphere, and decadal and century-scale circulation changes in the deep oceans, which are very difficult to measure and are not yet well enough understood to predict or be realistically included in climate models.
Another is the anomalous warm water areas that develop from time to time in the Pacific Ocean and then are driven by winds and currents northward into the Arctic, affecting US, Canadian, European and Asian temperatures and precipitation. The process of cloud formation is also important, because clouds help retain planetary warmth, reflect the sun’s heat, and provide cooling precipitation.
Many scientists have tried to inject these factors into climate discussions. However, the highly politicized nature of US, IPCC and global climate change funding, research, regulatory and treaty-making activities has caused CO2-focused factions to discount, dismiss or ignore the roles these natural forces play.
The political situation has also meant that most research and models have focused on carbon dioxide and other assumed human contributions to climate change. Politics, insufficient data and inadequate knowledge also cause models to reflect unrealistic physics theories, use overly simplified and inadequate numerical techniques, and fail to account adequately for deep-ocean circulation cycles and the enormity and complexity of natural forces and their constant, intricate interplay in driving climate fluctuations.
Speedier, more powerful computers simply make any "garbage in-garbage out†calculations, analyses and predictions occur much more quickly – facilitating faster faulty forecasts … and policy recommendations.
The desire to secure research funding from Obama grantor agencies also perpetuated a tendency to use El Niño warming spikes, and cherry-pick the end of cooling cycles as the starting point for trend lines that allegedly "prove†fossil fuels are causing "unprecedented†temperature spikes and planetary calamity.
Finally, the tens of billions of dollars given annually in recent years to "keep it in the ground†anti-fossil fuel campaigners, national and international regulators, and renewable energy companies have given these vested interests enormous incentives to support IPCC/EPA pseudo-science – and vilify and silence climate realists who do not accept "catastrophic manmade climate change†precepts.
The Trump Administration and 115th Congress have a unique opportunity to change these dynamics, and ensure that future research generates useful information, improved understanding of Earth’s complex climate system, and forecasts that are increasingly accurate. In addition to the above, they should:
* Reexamine and reduce (or even eliminate) the role that climate model "projections†(predictions) play in influencing federal policies, laws and regulations – until modeling capabilities are vastly and demonstrably improved, in line with the preceding observations.
* Revise the Clean Air Act to remove EPA’s authority to regulate carbon dioxide – or compel EPA to reexamine its "endangerment†finding, to reflect the previous bullet, information and commentary.
* Significantly reduce funding for climate research, the IPCC and EPA, and science in general. Funding should be more broadly based, not monopolistic, especially when the monopoly is inevitably politicized.
This is not an "attack on science.†It is a reaffirmation of what real science is supposed to be and do.
Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power - Black death and other books on environmental issues.
.
Things are really heating up – especially on the inaugural and nomination protest fronts. The heated politics are particularly evident when it comes to the likelihood that President Trump and Congress will reduce climate research funding and green energy programs that are based on claims that humans are causing climate chaos.
However, as my article explains, climate research and models have long been mostly Garbage In – Garbage Out, driven by the politicized assumption that carbon dioxide from fossil fuels has now replaced the powerful natural forces that have driven climate fluctuations throughout earth and human history. Mr. Trump and Congress will soon have an unprecedented opportunity to revise the scope and nature of climate research, ensure that ALL natural and human factors are considered, and help researchers become better at forecasting whatever climate changes might come our way.
Reality-based climate forecasting
Continuing to focus on carbon dioxide as the driving force will just bring more bogus predictions
Paul Driessen
These days, even shipwreck museums showcase evidence of climate change.
After diving recently among Key West’s fabled ship-destroying barrier reefs, I immersed myself in exhibits from the Nuestra Senora de Atocha, the fabled Spanish galleon that foundered during a ferocious hurricane in 1622. The Mel Fisher Maritime Museum now houses many of the gold, silver, emeralds and artifacts that Mel and Deo Fisher’s archeological team recovered after finding the wreck in 1985.
Also featured prominently in the museum is the wreck of a British slave ship, the Henrietta Marie. It sank in a hurricane off Key West in 1700, after leaving 190 Africans in Jamaica, to be sold as slaves.
As Fisher divers excavated the Henrietta wreck, at 40 feet below the sea surface they found – not just leg shackles and other grim artifacts from that horrific era – but charred tree branches, pine cones and other remnants from a forest fire 8,400 years ago! The still resinous smelling fragments demonstrate that this area (like all other coastal regions worldwide) was well above sea level, before the last ice age ended and melting glaciers slowly raised oceans to their current level: 400 feet higher than during the frigid Pleistocene, when an enormous portion of Earth’s seawater was locked up in glaciers.
Climate change has clearly been "real†throughout earth and human history. The question is, exactly how and how much do today’s human activities affect local, regional or global climate and weather?
Unfortunately, politicized climate change researchers continue to advance claims that complex, powerful, interconnected natural forces have been replaced by manmade fossil fuel emissions, especially carbon dioxide; that any future changes will be catastrophic; and that humanity can control climate and weather by controlling its appetite for oil, gas, coal and modern living standards.
If you like your climate, you can keep it, they suggest. If you don’t, we can make you a better one.
Not surprisingly, climate chaos scientists who’ve relied on the multi-billion-dollar government gravy train are distraught over the prospect that President Donald Trump will slash their budgets or terminate their CO2-centric research. Desperate to survive, they are replacing the term "climate change†with "global change†or "weather†in grant proposals, and going on offense with op-ed articles and media interviews.
"This is what the coming attack on science could look like,†Penn State modeler and hockey stick creator Michael Mann lamented in a Washington Post column. "I fear what may happen under Trump. The fate of the planet hangs in the balance.†(Actually, it’s his million-dollar grants that hang in the balance.)
A "skeptic†scientist has warmed to the idea that a major Greenland ice shelf may be shrinking because of climate change, a front-page piece in the Post claimed. Perhaps so. But is it manmade warming? Does it portend planetary cataclysm, even as Greenland’s interior and Antarctica show record ice growth? Or are warm ocean currents weakening an ice shelf that is fragile because it rests on ocean water, not land?
The fundamental problem remains. If it was substandard science and modeling under Obama era terminology, it will be substandard under survivalist jargon. The notion that manmade carbon dioxide now drives climate and weather – and we can predict climate and weather by looking only at plant-fertilizing CO2 and other "greenhouse gases†– is just as absurd now as before.
Their predictions will be as invalid and unscientific as divining future Super Bowl winners by modeling who plays left guard for each team – or World Cup victors by looking at center backs.
As climate realists take the reins at EPA and other federal and state agencies, the Trump Administration should ensure that tax dollars are not squandered on more alarmist science that is employed to justify locking up more fossil fuels, expanding renewable energy and "carbon capture†schemes, reducing US living standards, and telling poor countries what living standards they will be "permitted†to have.
Reliable forecasts, as far in advance as possible, would clearly benefit humanity. For that to happen, however, research must examine all natural and manmade factors, and not merely toe the pretend-consensus line that carbon dioxide now governs climate change.
That means government grants must not go preferentially to researchers who seek to further CO2-centrism, but rather to those who are committed to a broader scope of solid, dispassionate research that examines both natural and manmade factors. Grant recipients must also agree to engage in robust discussion and debate, to post, explain and defend their data, methodologies, analyses and conclusions.
They must devote far more attention to improving our understanding of all the forces that drive climate fluctuations, the roles they play, and the complex interactions among them. Important factors include cyclical variations in the sun’s energy and cosmic ray output, winds high in Earth’s atmosphere, and decadal and century-scale circulation changes in the deep oceans, which are very difficult to measure and are not yet well enough understood to predict or be realistically included in climate models.
Another is the anomalous warm water areas that develop from time to time in the Pacific Ocean and then are driven by winds and currents northward into the Arctic, affecting US, Canadian, European and Asian temperatures and precipitation. The process of cloud formation is also important, because clouds help retain planetary warmth, reflect the sun’s heat, and provide cooling precipitation.
Many scientists have tried to inject these factors into climate discussions. However, the highly politicized nature of US, IPCC and global climate change funding, research, regulatory and treaty-making activities has caused CO2-focused factions to discount, dismiss or ignore the roles these natural forces play.
The political situation has also meant that most research and models have focused on carbon dioxide and other assumed human contributions to climate change. Politics, insufficient data and inadequate knowledge also cause models to reflect unrealistic physics theories, use overly simplified and inadequate numerical techniques, and fail to account adequately for deep-ocean circulation cycles and the enormity and complexity of natural forces and their constant, intricate interplay in driving climate fluctuations.
Speedier, more powerful computers simply make any "garbage in-garbage out†calculations, analyses and predictions occur much more quickly – facilitating faster faulty forecasts … and policy recommendations.
The desire to secure research funding from Obama grantor agencies also perpetuated a tendency to use El Niño warming spikes, and cherry-pick the end of cooling cycles as the starting point for trend lines that allegedly "prove†fossil fuels are causing "unprecedented†temperature spikes and planetary calamity.
Finally, the tens of billions of dollars given annually in recent years to "keep it in the ground†anti-fossil fuel campaigners, national and international regulators, and renewable energy companies have given these vested interests enormous incentives to support IPCC/EPA pseudo-science – and vilify and silence climate realists who do not accept "catastrophic manmade climate change†precepts.
The Trump Administration and 115th Congress have a unique opportunity to change these dynamics, and ensure that future research generates useful information, improved understanding of Earth’s complex climate system, and forecasts that are increasingly accurate. In addition to the above, they should:
* Reexamine and reduce (or even eliminate) the role that climate model "projections†(predictions) play in influencing federal policies, laws and regulations – until modeling capabilities are vastly and demonstrably improved, in line with the preceding observations.
* Revise the Clean Air Act to remove EPA’s authority to regulate carbon dioxide – or compel EPA to reexamine its "endangerment†finding, to reflect the previous bullet, information and commentary.
* Significantly reduce funding for climate research, the IPCC and EPA, and science in general. Funding should be more broadly based, not monopolistic, especially when the monopoly is inevitably politicized.
This is not an "attack on science.†It is a reaffirmation of what real science is supposed to be and do.
Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power - Black death and other books on environmental issues.
.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
12:17 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 1491 words, total size 11 kb.
Project Iceworm and Habakkuk
Timothy Birdnow
Here is an interesting story; during the '60's the U.S. tried to build a vast nuclear launch base under the Greenlandic ice sheet.
According to the U.K. Daily Mail:
"he original plan was to build 2,500 miles of tunnels which would have covered an area of 52,000 square miles – which is bigger than the size of England
The camp was given the codename Project Iceworm and troops disguised themselves as polar researchers
The camp was given the codename Project Iceworm and troops disguised themselves as polar researchers
Camp Century was built in between 1959 and 60 in northwestern Greenland, officially to test sub-ice construction techniques.
The real plan was top secret - creating a hidden launch site for ballistic missiles that could reach the Soviet Union.
It was given the codename Project Iceworm and troops worked under the disguise of polar researchers under the ice, according to The Sun.
A narrator in the video footage says: 'Camp Century is buried below the surface of this ice cap.
'Beneath it, the ice descends for 6,000 feet.
'In this remote setting, less than 800 miles from the North Pole, Camp Century is a symbol of man’s unceasing goal to conquer his environment, to increase his ability to live and fight if necessary under polar conditions."
End excerpt.
The plan called for the U.S. to ultimately build over 2000 miles of tunnels:
"The original plan was to build 2,500 miles of tunnels which would have covered an area of 52,000 square miles – which is bigger than the size of England.
By the time it was abandoned in 1966 due to the ice cap starting to crush the camp, soldiers had already built two miles of tunnels and a facility that boasted a hospital, theatre, church and a shop for 200 of its inhabitants"
End excerpt.
The project was abandoned in 1966 because the ice - which is not simply static but moves - was crushing the camp.
Ice makes great building material; the Innuit people have often built structures out of ice, and they are quite warm compared to the outside air temperature. An igloo can be in the 40's or 50's when outside temperatures are -60* with just a candle or two to act as a heat source. An ice city would be quite comfortable provided it doesn't crush you.
This reminds me of Project Habakkuk during World War II. At the time the Allies were limited on the distance their aircraft could fly, and limited on the size of aircraft carriers they could deploy to get their aircraft close enough. The state of the art just wasn't adequate for what they needed to do. A rather screwball project was approved by Winston churchill to make aircraft carriers out of icebergs!
Icebergs float fine, and they take a long time to melt. But they do crack and they do melt in warm water, so a research program was started to develop a better class of ice. A gentleman named Geoffrey Pyke headed up a project that develped the material. (Actually Pycrete was invented by a fellow named Max Perutz.) They added sawdust and bark and other fibrous material to water and froze it, creating a very strong, long lasting ice material that they took to calling pycrete. The mixture was 15% pulp and 85% water. Lord Mountbatten, who had promoted the project, illustrated just how good this stuff was by firing a pistol at two blocks of ice. The first shattered like, well, ice. The bullet bounced off the second and nearly hit a young officer in attendance without so much as marking the pycrete block! It also melted far slower than regular ice, and as it melted its melting point increased as the balance between pulp and water changed.
Huge icebergs were now ready to be built. Caves formed in the underside would hold engines which would drive the behemoth, and the interior of the berg would be honeycombed with insulated tunnels and rooms to house men and equipment. Refrigeration units would keep it cold. It would be over two million tons; dwarfing the largest carriers of the day. With a fifty foot thick hull it would be unsinkable. It was a wonderul nutty idea.
A sixty foot long prototype was built and it worked beautifully. The project ran into innumerable cost overruns and the eventual success of the Normandy invasion ended this wondefully eccentric project.
Pyke, who was known for being an unpleasant, arrogant, rude and unkempt man, died in 1948 with his vision of a fleet of icebergs a failure.
I often wonder why they don't make Pycrete structures for Antarctic stations. I suppose since Antarctica is so dry it would be difficult, a waste of valuable resources. But it would make much more secure and warmer structures than we have now. Build it as a giant geodesic dome, like the St. Louis Climatron, and you could have a whole town inside.
I wonder if pycrete wouldn't make a good building material for a Mars settlement. You would have to worry about it sublimating away in warm weather, but that could be minimized. It would be possible to build a structure that would be well shielded from solar storms and cosmic rays with pycrete, and it would be easy to work with - just spray it out of a hose onto a frame and viola! Far easier than cutting stone blocks or scraping up vast quantitites of Martian dust.
The main problem, I suspect, is that people have a natural aversion to living in an ice dome. They think it would be cold. But ice never drops below 32* so it would be easily heated, and far warmer than the Martian air generally speaking. Bear in mind that water is a rock in most parts of the solar system, and lead is a liquid on the inner planets.
It's all a matter of perception.
Here is an interesting story; during the '60's the U.S. tried to build a vast nuclear launch base under the Greenlandic ice sheet.
According to the U.K. Daily Mail:
"he original plan was to build 2,500 miles of tunnels which would have covered an area of 52,000 square miles – which is bigger than the size of England
The camp was given the codename Project Iceworm and troops disguised themselves as polar researchers
The camp was given the codename Project Iceworm and troops disguised themselves as polar researchers
Camp Century was built in between 1959 and 60 in northwestern Greenland, officially to test sub-ice construction techniques.
The real plan was top secret - creating a hidden launch site for ballistic missiles that could reach the Soviet Union.
It was given the codename Project Iceworm and troops worked under the disguise of polar researchers under the ice, according to The Sun.
A narrator in the video footage says: 'Camp Century is buried below the surface of this ice cap.
'Beneath it, the ice descends for 6,000 feet.
'In this remote setting, less than 800 miles from the North Pole, Camp Century is a symbol of man’s unceasing goal to conquer his environment, to increase his ability to live and fight if necessary under polar conditions."
End excerpt.
The plan called for the U.S. to ultimately build over 2000 miles of tunnels:
"The original plan was to build 2,500 miles of tunnels which would have covered an area of 52,000 square miles – which is bigger than the size of England.
By the time it was abandoned in 1966 due to the ice cap starting to crush the camp, soldiers had already built two miles of tunnels and a facility that boasted a hospital, theatre, church and a shop for 200 of its inhabitants"
End excerpt.
The project was abandoned in 1966 because the ice - which is not simply static but moves - was crushing the camp.
Ice makes great building material; the Innuit people have often built structures out of ice, and they are quite warm compared to the outside air temperature. An igloo can be in the 40's or 50's when outside temperatures are -60* with just a candle or two to act as a heat source. An ice city would be quite comfortable provided it doesn't crush you.
This reminds me of Project Habakkuk during World War II. At the time the Allies were limited on the distance their aircraft could fly, and limited on the size of aircraft carriers they could deploy to get their aircraft close enough. The state of the art just wasn't adequate for what they needed to do. A rather screwball project was approved by Winston churchill to make aircraft carriers out of icebergs!
Icebergs float fine, and they take a long time to melt. But they do crack and they do melt in warm water, so a research program was started to develop a better class of ice. A gentleman named Geoffrey Pyke headed up a project that develped the material. (Actually Pycrete was invented by a fellow named Max Perutz.) They added sawdust and bark and other fibrous material to water and froze it, creating a very strong, long lasting ice material that they took to calling pycrete. The mixture was 15% pulp and 85% water. Lord Mountbatten, who had promoted the project, illustrated just how good this stuff was by firing a pistol at two blocks of ice. The first shattered like, well, ice. The bullet bounced off the second and nearly hit a young officer in attendance without so much as marking the pycrete block! It also melted far slower than regular ice, and as it melted its melting point increased as the balance between pulp and water changed.
Huge icebergs were now ready to be built. Caves formed in the underside would hold engines which would drive the behemoth, and the interior of the berg would be honeycombed with insulated tunnels and rooms to house men and equipment. Refrigeration units would keep it cold. It would be over two million tons; dwarfing the largest carriers of the day. With a fifty foot thick hull it would be unsinkable. It was a wonderul nutty idea.
A sixty foot long prototype was built and it worked beautifully. The project ran into innumerable cost overruns and the eventual success of the Normandy invasion ended this wondefully eccentric project.
Pyke, who was known for being an unpleasant, arrogant, rude and unkempt man, died in 1948 with his vision of a fleet of icebergs a failure.
I often wonder why they don't make Pycrete structures for Antarctic stations. I suppose since Antarctica is so dry it would be difficult, a waste of valuable resources. But it would make much more secure and warmer structures than we have now. Build it as a giant geodesic dome, like the St. Louis Climatron, and you could have a whole town inside.
I wonder if pycrete wouldn't make a good building material for a Mars settlement. You would have to worry about it sublimating away in warm weather, but that could be minimized. It would be possible to build a structure that would be well shielded from solar storms and cosmic rays with pycrete, and it would be easy to work with - just spray it out of a hose onto a frame and viola! Far easier than cutting stone blocks or scraping up vast quantitites of Martian dust.
The main problem, I suspect, is that people have a natural aversion to living in an ice dome. They think it would be cold. But ice never drops below 32* so it would be easily heated, and far warmer than the Martian air generally speaking. Bear in mind that water is a rock in most parts of the solar system, and lead is a liquid on the inner planets.
It's all a matter of perception.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
11:46 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 993 words, total size 6 kb.
Ice Growth in Greenland, Antarctica
Timothy Birdnow
Greenland isn't getting any greener. In fact, [link]ice growth is hitting a record pace this year as the supposed "melting ice sheet" keeps getting bigger.
So naturally the Gang Green and their media cohorts are saying Greenland is melting faster than Hillary Clinton's election prospects.
And even NASA has to admit the Antarctic ice sheet has grown. So to does Harvard University which does it's level best to spin this. Here is what they claim:
"The warmer, thus wetter, air provided the Antarctic with additional snowfall. This snowpack has been accumulating and compacting for thousands of years on the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, causing a build up of ice [1]. The West Antarctic ice loss trend is new, abrupt, and began after the Industrial Revolution. Its tie to human activity has been demonstrated through a large number of both observations and theoretical models [11]."
End excerpt.
East Antarctic ice is primarily over land while the West Antarctic Ice Sheet floats on top of the ocean. There are numerous reasons why there would be ice loss in the west, among them undersea volcanism and pressure from the East ice shelf (which peaks at the center of the continent) forcing this floating ice to break off, much like a lady loses a fingernail when it becomes too long.
One must ask why WAIS is losing ice when the sea ice extent has grown to record levels in Antarctica. It certainly isn't greenhouse gas effects, which would display as warmer air temperatures. The average air temperature in West Antarctica is -26*, hardly balmy enough to melt the UNDERSIDE of the WAIS.
Realclimate, arguing that there has been warming in West Antarctica (perhaps one degree) defeats their ultimate point. Here is a graph they supplied:
Common sense would tell us that a place that averages twenty five below zero cannot have ice melting from warm air. Ain't gonna happen, chum! The highest daily mean temperature is in December at a blistering +4.3*! Ice just doesn't melt under these conditions, at least not from warm air.
Ice CAN melt from high insolation aka warming from direct sunlight. Mars is a classic example of that, where the ice caps melt away in summer not so much because the temperature is high but because they are sucking up radiant energy through the lilliputian atmosphere. It helps that the polar ice is in large part frozen carbon dioxide (dry ice) which sublimates at a much lower temperature than water ice, but a good deal of water ice sublimates too. That may be what is happening to Antarctica, as decades of effort has been put into cleaning the atmosphere, thus reducing particulate matter that acts to reflect sunlight. But the question remains; why is sea ice growing so much when West Antarctica is losing ice?
Clearly this is a result of ice loss from the bottom up. That makes perfect sense if one thinks it is caused by undersea volcanism.
But maybe not. Perhaps the ocean water is getting warmer below the surface, and thus warming the floating ice of WAIS?
If that were the case then the sea ice should be struggling, but it isn't. Maybe the surface is cooling but the underside warming? Perhaps, but this warm water has to make it past the Circumpolar Current, which encircles Antarctica and helps to keep the continent at the bottom of the world so cold. That current goes almost 1000 feet deep and stretches over almost a thousand miles in width. It is sometimes refered to as the mightiest ocean current in the world. The idea that warming water below the surface is making it to Antarctica past this formidable barrier is hard to swallow, and it sure isn't skipping over the top.
So what does that leave us with? Something is warming the ice sheet from below, and yet we have no evidence of a warm current sneaking in under the ice pack. That means most likely volcanism is driving the ice sheet collapse, coupled with increased pressure from growing ice from the interior of the continent.
Interestingly enough, Greenland also is heated by under ice volcanism. Do you see a pattern emerging?
The Global Warming crowd is skating on thin ice with these. I almost feel sorry for them, because they are at a point where they just sound silly making unsupportable assertions. But then, they are dishonest, so I don't feel all that sorry for them.
Any honest assessment of Climate Change theory will lead a thoughtful person to realize what a farce this whole thing is. Sadly, too many young people accept it uncritically because they have been taught this all their lives and aren't exposed to the truth.
Greenland isn't getting any greener. In fact, [link]ice growth is hitting a record pace this year as the supposed "melting ice sheet" keeps getting bigger.
So naturally the Gang Green and their media cohorts are saying Greenland is melting faster than Hillary Clinton's election prospects.
And even NASA has to admit the Antarctic ice sheet has grown. So to does Harvard University which does it's level best to spin this. Here is what they claim:
"The warmer, thus wetter, air provided the Antarctic with additional snowfall. This snowpack has been accumulating and compacting for thousands of years on the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, causing a build up of ice [1]. The West Antarctic ice loss trend is new, abrupt, and began after the Industrial Revolution. Its tie to human activity has been demonstrated through a large number of both observations and theoretical models [11]."
End excerpt.
East Antarctic ice is primarily over land while the West Antarctic Ice Sheet floats on top of the ocean. There are numerous reasons why there would be ice loss in the west, among them undersea volcanism and pressure from the East ice shelf (which peaks at the center of the continent) forcing this floating ice to break off, much like a lady loses a fingernail when it becomes too long.
One must ask why WAIS is losing ice when the sea ice extent has grown to record levels in Antarctica. It certainly isn't greenhouse gas effects, which would display as warmer air temperatures. The average air temperature in West Antarctica is -26*, hardly balmy enough to melt the UNDERSIDE of the WAIS.
Realclimate, arguing that there has been warming in West Antarctica (perhaps one degree) defeats their ultimate point. Here is a graph they supplied:
Common sense would tell us that a place that averages twenty five below zero cannot have ice melting from warm air. Ain't gonna happen, chum! The highest daily mean temperature is in December at a blistering +4.3*! Ice just doesn't melt under these conditions, at least not from warm air.
Ice CAN melt from high insolation aka warming from direct sunlight. Mars is a classic example of that, where the ice caps melt away in summer not so much because the temperature is high but because they are sucking up radiant energy through the lilliputian atmosphere. It helps that the polar ice is in large part frozen carbon dioxide (dry ice) which sublimates at a much lower temperature than water ice, but a good deal of water ice sublimates too. That may be what is happening to Antarctica, as decades of effort has been put into cleaning the atmosphere, thus reducing particulate matter that acts to reflect sunlight. But the question remains; why is sea ice growing so much when West Antarctica is losing ice?
Clearly this is a result of ice loss from the bottom up. That makes perfect sense if one thinks it is caused by undersea volcanism.
But maybe not. Perhaps the ocean water is getting warmer below the surface, and thus warming the floating ice of WAIS?
If that were the case then the sea ice should be struggling, but it isn't. Maybe the surface is cooling but the underside warming? Perhaps, but this warm water has to make it past the Circumpolar Current, which encircles Antarctica and helps to keep the continent at the bottom of the world so cold. That current goes almost 1000 feet deep and stretches over almost a thousand miles in width. It is sometimes refered to as the mightiest ocean current in the world. The idea that warming water below the surface is making it to Antarctica past this formidable barrier is hard to swallow, and it sure isn't skipping over the top.
So what does that leave us with? Something is warming the ice sheet from below, and yet we have no evidence of a warm current sneaking in under the ice pack. That means most likely volcanism is driving the ice sheet collapse, coupled with increased pressure from growing ice from the interior of the continent.
Interestingly enough, Greenland also is heated by under ice volcanism. Do you see a pattern emerging?
The Global Warming crowd is skating on thin ice with these. I almost feel sorry for them, because they are at a point where they just sound silly making unsupportable assertions. But then, they are dishonest, so I don't feel all that sorry for them.
Any honest assessment of Climate Change theory will lead a thoughtful person to realize what a farce this whole thing is. Sadly, too many young people accept it uncritically because they have been taught this all their lives and aren't exposed to the truth.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
10:54 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 791 words, total size 6 kb.
New Paper Argues Against Greenhouse Effect
Timothy Birdnow
Here is an interesting paper arguing that the concept of the Greenhouse Effect in the atmosphere is wrong. While I tend to disagree, I do think we are overblowing the idea. Bear in mind that space can't really conduct heat, so there is no convection of heat out of the atmosphere. That's not to say we don't lose heat to space; we do all the time. It is to say that heat is lost through radiative processes and not through convection - what we normally think of as heat. Heat and cold are generally functions of convection, not energy gain and loss. But it is enough; without it we would have the big temperature swings we see on Mars. But is it the primary driver of planetary temperature? I tend to think it's that big energy wasting light bulb in the sky that is the culprit...
Here is the abstract:
Falsification Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics
By Gerhard Gerlich and Ralf D. Tscheuschner
Full paper, 114 pages, 1.54MB at http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0707/0707.1161v4.pdf
This approved non-technical summary by Hans Schreuder, 24 June 2008
"The authors express their hope that in schools around the world the fundamentals of physics will
be taught correctly, not by using shock-tactic 'Al Gore' movies and not misinforming physics
students by confusing absorption/emission with reflection, by confusing the tropopause with the
ionosphere and by confusing microwaves with shortwaves.â€
Abstract
The atmospheric greenhouse effect, an idea the authors trace back to the traditional works of
Fourier 1824, Tyndall 1861 and Arrhenius 1896, but which is still supported in global climatology,
essentially describes a fictitious mechanism by which a planetary atmosphere acts as a heat pump
driven by an environment that is radiatively interacting with but radiatively equilibrated to the
atmospheric system.
According to the second law of thermodynamics such a planetary machine can never exist.
Nevertheless, in almost all texts of global climatology and in widespread secondary literature it is
taken for granted that such a mechanism is real and stands on a firm scientific foundation. In this
paper the popular conjecture is analyzed and the underlying physical principles clarified.
By showing that
(a) there are no common physical laws between the warming phenomenon in glass houses and
the fictitious atmospheric greenhouse effects,
(b) there are no calculations to determine an average surface temperature of a planet,
(c) the frequently mentioned difference of 33 °C is a meaningless number calculated wrongly,
(d) the formulas of cavity radiation are used inappropriately,
(e) the assumption of a radiative balance is unphysical,
(f) thermal conductivity and friction must not be set to zero,
the atmospheric greenhouse conjecture is falsified.
Here is an interesting paper arguing that the concept of the Greenhouse Effect in the atmosphere is wrong. While I tend to disagree, I do think we are overblowing the idea. Bear in mind that space can't really conduct heat, so there is no convection of heat out of the atmosphere. That's not to say we don't lose heat to space; we do all the time. It is to say that heat is lost through radiative processes and not through convection - what we normally think of as heat. Heat and cold are generally functions of convection, not energy gain and loss. But it is enough; without it we would have the big temperature swings we see on Mars. But is it the primary driver of planetary temperature? I tend to think it's that big energy wasting light bulb in the sky that is the culprit...
Here is the abstract:
Falsification Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics
By Gerhard Gerlich and Ralf D. Tscheuschner
Full paper, 114 pages, 1.54MB at http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0707/0707.1161v4.pdf
This approved non-technical summary by Hans Schreuder, 24 June 2008
"The authors express their hope that in schools around the world the fundamentals of physics will
be taught correctly, not by using shock-tactic 'Al Gore' movies and not misinforming physics
students by confusing absorption/emission with reflection, by confusing the tropopause with the
ionosphere and by confusing microwaves with shortwaves.â€
Abstract
The atmospheric greenhouse effect, an idea the authors trace back to the traditional works of
Fourier 1824, Tyndall 1861 and Arrhenius 1896, but which is still supported in global climatology,
essentially describes a fictitious mechanism by which a planetary atmosphere acts as a heat pump
driven by an environment that is radiatively interacting with but radiatively equilibrated to the
atmospheric system.
According to the second law of thermodynamics such a planetary machine can never exist.
Nevertheless, in almost all texts of global climatology and in widespread secondary literature it is
taken for granted that such a mechanism is real and stands on a firm scientific foundation. In this
paper the popular conjecture is analyzed and the underlying physical principles clarified.
By showing that
(a) there are no common physical laws between the warming phenomenon in glass houses and
the fictitious atmospheric greenhouse effects,
(b) there are no calculations to determine an average surface temperature of a planet,
(c) the frequently mentioned difference of 33 °C is a meaningless number calculated wrongly,
(d) the formulas of cavity radiation are used inappropriately,
(e) the assumption of a radiative balance is unphysical,
(f) thermal conductivity and friction must not be set to zero,
the atmospheric greenhouse conjecture is falsified.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
09:15 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 450 words, total size 3 kb.
January 07, 2017
Istabbull Pucky Climate
Timothy Birdnow
Now Istanbul is frozen solid. https://www.yahoo.com/news/heavy-snowfall-paralyses-istanbul-093939787.html
This is the COLDEST thermogeddon I can imagine.
Now Istanbul is frozen solid. https://www.yahoo.com/news/heavy-snowfall-paralyses-istanbul-093939787.html
This is the COLDEST thermogeddon I can imagine.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
04:37 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 19 words, total size 1 kb.
Home Ownership at Lowest Levels Since Mid 20th Century, Media Says it's a Good Thing
Timothy Birdnow
Homeownership under Obama has dropped to it's lowest level since 1965.
According to Bloomberg:
"The share of Americans who own their homes was 62.9 percent in the second quarter, the lowest since 1965, according to a Census Bureau report Thursday. It was the second straight quarterly decrease, down from 63.5 percent in the previous three months."
End excerpt.
Why?
The article blames;
"The drop extends a years-long decline from the last housing boom, in part because of tight credit and a shift toward renting in the aftermath of the crash. First-time buyers have been struggling to find affordable properties as low mortgage rates and an improving job market spur competition for a tight supply of listings. Home prices rose 5.2 percent in May from a year earlier, according to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller index of values in 20 cities released this week.
"One of the biggest hurdles now is affordability,†Mark Vitner, a senior economist at Wells Fargo Securities LLC in Charlotte, North Carolina, said before the Census Bureau report was released"
End excerpt.
Huh??? If prices are rising because of increased competition for properties, doesn't that mean SOMEBODY is buying them? How can prices rise but DEMAND be down?
This is classic liberalspeak. The reality is young people aren't buying because they are NOT seeing an improvement in the job market but rather are stuck in dead-end jobs that cannot and do not provide them with adequate means to purchase property.
And there has been an air of expectation, in which people feared a renewed crisis. People are frightened, because they know the economy is on shaky ground and some capricious act by the Obama Administration could wipe them out.
So who is buying up these properties and tightening the market? Mr. Potter, that's who.
Those who remember It's a Wonderful Life will remember that Mr. Potter made a large amount of his money off real estate speculation. He bought up lots of property during the Great Depression for pennies on the dollar and then rented it back to the former owners, who could not make their payments during the crisis. Had George Bailey not saved the Building and Loan Potter would have owned the whole town, renaming it Pottersville. That is what is happening here.
The last 8 years have been a boom to real estate rentals.People just can't afford to buy - or are afraid to do so. The Left has tried to spin this as a new paradigm where the young don't WANT to own their own property, but that is an attempt to apply supermodel makeup on porcine faces.
There are other things to consider too. For example, taxes have shot up during the Obama era, and young people see they are going to struggle to pay real estate taxes. Electric prices, natural gas prices, most utilities have gotten more expensive under Obama. And of course there are the Obamacare mandates. Obamacare raised the price of health insurance or required a fine, which takes money out of the pockets of the young. Also, Obama's "cash for clunkers" program and EPA standards have driven the prices up on used cars, making car ownership more expensive. Homeowners generally need cars to get to work to pay their mortgages. Home ownership is just too expensive and risky under the current regime.
But Bloomberg jumps through hoopes to excuse Obama in this article;
"The decline may be the result of young people leaving parents’ homes and entering the rental market, which dilutes the number of owner-occupant households, said Ralph McLaughlin, chief economist for data provider Trulia. He said the change from a year earlier, when the rate was 63.4 percent, isn’t statistically significant because of the margin of error of 0.5 percentage points.
"The drop in the homeownership rate this quarter to historical lows isn’t necessarily a bad sign,†McLaughlin said in an e-mail. "This is because renter households are growing at a much faster rate than owner households, reflecting growing confidence of those who were most likely impacted by the foreclosure crisis. Still, low inventory and affordability plagues those who do want to buy a home.â€"
Emd excerpt.
Again, this misses the ppoint; these kids are finding more rental properties precisely because investors are buying them up. This dilution of households is a direct result of decreasing home ownership, which is being driven by a bad economy. And why, after eight years of alleged economic growth, are they just moving out of their parents homes now? There should have been a big exodus years ago as the economy supposedly improved. There is no good reason for them to be moving out now.
But perhaps there is? Maybe the Obamacare provision that says a young person can stay on his or her parents insurance until age 26 is keeping them at home? Again, this has nothing to do with a good economy and everything to do with a rotten government policy.
Liberals and the media may sway and dance, but in the end this is not good news at all. The attempt to spin this is utterly ridiculous.
Hat tip; The Gateway Pundit.
Timothy Birdnow
Homeownership under Obama has dropped to it's lowest level since 1965.
According to Bloomberg:
"The share of Americans who own their homes was 62.9 percent in the second quarter, the lowest since 1965, according to a Census Bureau report Thursday. It was the second straight quarterly decrease, down from 63.5 percent in the previous three months."
End excerpt.
Why?
The article blames;
"The drop extends a years-long decline from the last housing boom, in part because of tight credit and a shift toward renting in the aftermath of the crash. First-time buyers have been struggling to find affordable properties as low mortgage rates and an improving job market spur competition for a tight supply of listings. Home prices rose 5.2 percent in May from a year earlier, according to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller index of values in 20 cities released this week.
"One of the biggest hurdles now is affordability,†Mark Vitner, a senior economist at Wells Fargo Securities LLC in Charlotte, North Carolina, said before the Census Bureau report was released"
End excerpt.
Huh??? If prices are rising because of increased competition for properties, doesn't that mean SOMEBODY is buying them? How can prices rise but DEMAND be down?
This is classic liberalspeak. The reality is young people aren't buying because they are NOT seeing an improvement in the job market but rather are stuck in dead-end jobs that cannot and do not provide them with adequate means to purchase property.
And there has been an air of expectation, in which people feared a renewed crisis. People are frightened, because they know the economy is on shaky ground and some capricious act by the Obama Administration could wipe them out.
So who is buying up these properties and tightening the market? Mr. Potter, that's who.
Those who remember It's a Wonderful Life will remember that Mr. Potter made a large amount of his money off real estate speculation. He bought up lots of property during the Great Depression for pennies on the dollar and then rented it back to the former owners, who could not make their payments during the crisis. Had George Bailey not saved the Building and Loan Potter would have owned the whole town, renaming it Pottersville. That is what is happening here.
The last 8 years have been a boom to real estate rentals.People just can't afford to buy - or are afraid to do so. The Left has tried to spin this as a new paradigm where the young don't WANT to own their own property, but that is an attempt to apply supermodel makeup on porcine faces.
There are other things to consider too. For example, taxes have shot up during the Obama era, and young people see they are going to struggle to pay real estate taxes. Electric prices, natural gas prices, most utilities have gotten more expensive under Obama. And of course there are the Obamacare mandates. Obamacare raised the price of health insurance or required a fine, which takes money out of the pockets of the young. Also, Obama's "cash for clunkers" program and EPA standards have driven the prices up on used cars, making car ownership more expensive. Homeowners generally need cars to get to work to pay their mortgages. Home ownership is just too expensive and risky under the current regime.
But Bloomberg jumps through hoopes to excuse Obama in this article;
"The decline may be the result of young people leaving parents’ homes and entering the rental market, which dilutes the number of owner-occupant households, said Ralph McLaughlin, chief economist for data provider Trulia. He said the change from a year earlier, when the rate was 63.4 percent, isn’t statistically significant because of the margin of error of 0.5 percentage points.
"The drop in the homeownership rate this quarter to historical lows isn’t necessarily a bad sign,†McLaughlin said in an e-mail. "This is because renter households are growing at a much faster rate than owner households, reflecting growing confidence of those who were most likely impacted by the foreclosure crisis. Still, low inventory and affordability plagues those who do want to buy a home.â€"
Emd excerpt.
Again, this misses the ppoint; these kids are finding more rental properties precisely because investors are buying them up. This dilution of households is a direct result of decreasing home ownership, which is being driven by a bad economy. And why, after eight years of alleged economic growth, are they just moving out of their parents homes now? There should have been a big exodus years ago as the economy supposedly improved. There is no good reason for them to be moving out now.
But perhaps there is? Maybe the Obamacare provision that says a young person can stay on his or her parents insurance until age 26 is keeping them at home? Again, this has nothing to do with a good economy and everything to do with a rotten government policy.
Liberals and the media may sway and dance, but in the end this is not good news at all. The attempt to spin this is utterly ridiculous.
Hat tip; The Gateway Pundit.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
01:27 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 871 words, total size 6 kb.
117kb generated in CPU 0.0731, elapsed 0.5757 seconds.
34 queries taking 0.562 seconds, 193 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.
34 queries taking 0.562 seconds, 193 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.
