This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Reality Check

  • Well, Well, Well

    Remember “good old” Sen. Bernie Sanders,      Communist      Socialist       “Independent”-VT?  You know, the guy who  claims to be the champion of the “little guy” – just like most      Communists      Progressives do until they get into a position of power, and then turn elitist?

    Well, take a gander at this interesting article from Fox News.  It seems Bernie-boi and his wife are currently under investigation by the FBI concerning financial improprieties.  Specifically, there are questions concerning the accuracy of a loan application submitted by his wife while she was President of Burlington College so that the college could purchase 33 acres of land.  There are also questions regarding whether or not Bernie-boi’s office attempted to exert influence on the bank to approve the loan.  From the article:

    Jane Sanders purportedly distorted school donor levels in the loan application she filed to People’s United Bank, according to the January 2016 complaint. The liberal arts college closed that same year.

    Politico also reports that federal prosecutors could be looking into allegations that Sen. Sanders’ office tried inappropriately to get the bank to approve the loan.

    Bernie-boi has indicated that the allegations are “nonsense”.  But he’s nevertheless refusing further comments, saying that doing so would be “improper”.

    Oh, and did I mention that Bernie-boi and wifey have now “lawyered up”?  Well, yeah – they have.

    Hmm.  Sounds to me perhaps more like a case of someone thinking, “Rules are for little people, not Senators and their wives” to me – and getting caught.  But maybe that’s just me.

    I also find it . . . interesting how Bernie-boi and wifey seems to have started “feeling more heat” not long after a change in Presidential Administrations.  Couldn’t be that that Bernie-boi and wifey no longer have anyone willing to provide top cover over at DoJ, could it?

    I also have to wonder what a detailed investigation of Bernie-boi’s and wifey’s financial dealings prior to their recent purchase of their 3rd home – the one on the shore of Lake Champlain that he bought for $600k in mid-2016, a couple of months after Burlington College went under – would uncover.  I certainly would love to know where the money to buy that place came from.

    If you’re surprised about any of this, raise your hands.  Yeah, me neither.

    Freaking hypocrite.

  • Myth of the 97% Scientist Consensus on Global Warming

    In an argument, between those who believe climate change is natural, and those who support man-made global warming, someone is going to throw the “97% consensus among scientists on global warming” card or something similar. By “consensus”, the idea is that scientists consider this a “no-brainer”. The planet is warming up, we’re contributing to it, and 97% of the scientists agree.

    The reality? That consensus doesn’t exist. This is based on a study done on a selected number of peer reviewed studies. A look at the actual study does not support the 97% consensus claim. There’s not enough information in the paper to conclude, or infer, that there is a consensus in the scientific community regarding global warming.

    From the study’s abstract:

    We analyze the evolution of the scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming (AGW) in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, examining 11 944 climate abstracts from 1991–2011 matching the topics ‘global climate change’ or ‘global warming’. We find that 66.4% of abstracts expressed no position on AGW, 32.6% endorsed AGW, 0.7% rejected AGW and 0.3% were uncertain about the cause of global warming. Among abstracts expressing a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming.

    The study was done in phases. The first phase started with a keyword search of their database.

    The two keywords used were “global warming” and “global climate change”. Most of the people, who have done searches on the Internet, via keyword, would know that different combinations of keywords tend to provide different compositions of results. Why not use something like “average temperature change”, “climate cycles”, “space weather”, “climatic optimums”, “climatic minimums”, or other keywords that could also bring up climate related articles?

    By using “global warming” or “global climate change”, the researchers are attempting to get results that would point to a majority agreeing on man-made global warming. Out of the thousands of academic journal articles available, a researcher could drastically narrow down the results. The kind of results they get depends on the keywords used to search those articles.

    The timeline used for this search went from 1991 to 2011 excluding papers generated before 1991. Considering that it has been more than five years since the “newest” paper considered for the study, this time range is automatically out of date. Additional studies have been done since 2011, with an increasing amount of the studies pointing to the sun and other natural causes for climate change. The “universe” of results and studies have changed our understanding of the topic since then.

    Yet, people would like to throw the “But there’s a 97% consensus that the planet is warming and people are behind it” argument.

    Out of the results, the researchers pulled the abstracts out, and categorized them. These abstracts were sent to those who rated these abstracts on whether are not they supported man-made global warming. The results are shown in the abstract, with most of the papers reviewed, out of the 11,944 papers considered, not taking a position on global warming. That was a whopping 66.4%, with the balance going towards those that specified agreement or disagreement with man-made global warming. From this balance, 97.1% supported manmade global warming.

    From there, the researchers sent 8,547 invitations to the authors of the papers. They received 1,200 responses from these authors. After they narrowed that list down to 1,189, they invited these authors to self-rate their paper’s support for global warming.

    From the 1,189 scientists, reviewing 2,142 of their own papers, 97.2% endorsed man-made global warming.

    This is where the 97% shows up. This is the “97% consensus” that is used to argue that the majority of scientists “agree” to man-made global warming. If you’ve read this far, you could tell, by the numbers, that 97.2% of 1,189 scientists does not constitute a near consensus of all the scientists.

    Now, ready for the kicker? From the paper itself:

    Nevertheless, 11,944 papers is only a fraction of the climate literature…

    A fraction of those 11,944 papers doesn’t constitute a scientific consensus, within the scientific community, on manmade global warming. The so called “scientific consensus” supporting man-made good warming doesn’t exist.

    You could download the study itself from here:

    Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature

  • An Update on Everyone’s “Favorite” Berkeley Alumnus

    Now, don’t jump to conclusions – the “fine individual” I’m referring to doesn’t seem to comment here.  (smile)

    It looks like our “favorite” Frank Zappa/Leon Trotsky wannabe lookalike is getting the attention he apparently craves.  But as is often the case, perhaps he should have heeded the old proverb:  “Be careful what you wish, you just might get it.”

    Drexel professor and self-proclaimed      leftist idiot     “actual communist” George Ciccariello-Maher is in the news again.  In case anyone’s forgotten, this is the      moronic jerk     tool made famous by his “white genocide” and “want to vomit” Tweets over the past few months.  Jonn’s written about him before.

    Well, it seems as if Drexel University caught a bit of heat over the “fine professor’s” commentary – which apparently also includes a Tweet where he urges people to “off the pigs”.  At least two prominent Drexel donors have withheld promised donations to Drexel, apparently due to Ciccarielo-Maher’s commentary.  Numerous other prospective students have recently apparently told Drexel, “Um, thanks . . . but no thanks” as well due to the guy’s idiocy – and have elected to go to school elsewhere.

    Nonetheless, it also appears that Drexel’s leadership may be “getting the message”.  Cigarillo-Moron      Ciccariello-Maher reputedly received an email earlier this month (3 April) from Drexel’s Provost expressing concern regarding his “extremely damaging conduct.”  The email also advised him that “a special committee of inquiry” had been formed “to investigate your conduct and provide findings and recommendations.”

    Yeah, the professor had the right to speak his mind.  But unlike Ivory tower academia or some mythical Progressive Utopia, in the real world actions have consequences.  And Drexel is a private university – so they have the right to fire someone who’s costing them money without worrying about Free Speech or civil service issues.  I’d personally be overjoyed if the Drexel leadership decided to let this tool go ASAP.

    Yo, “professor”:  free speech doesn’t equate to “zero consequences for anything you say”, dipstick.  It only means the government can’t regulate what you have to say.  Employers outside the government can and often do take note of what you say – and sometimes take action when your public words hurt their reputation.

    A private employer can fire your stank-ass if what you say costs them mucho dinero or damages their reputation; I’m thinking you might be about to find that out fairly soon.  And even government agencies can discipline employees who violate internal policies relating to offensive speech.

    But I’ll say this about free speech:  as you’ve proven here, free speech certainly does make it easier for idiots to identify themselves to the rest of the world.  (smile)

     

    (Hat tip to TAH commenter Bobo for the original version of the last phrase.)

  • “Stopped Clock Principle” Proven Again

    Can’t say I think much of – or often agree with – Bill Maher.  But IMO he certainly hits the nail on the head here:

    Bill Maher: UC Berkeley is ‘the cradle for f—king babies’

    So, what did Berkeley do to get under Maher’s skin?  He was referring to the recent trend of UC-B (and other universities) caving and “uninviting” conservative speakers in response to student complaints.

    The short linked article has another gem or two in the way of quotes from Maher.  It’s definitely worth the two minutes to read for those alone.

    Well done, Mr. M.  You’re proof that at least a few liberals don’t always merit the title “libidiot”.

  • Norwegian Military Women in Special Forces Training

    They certainly do have nice hair.  Okay, enough snarking on my part, as I wholly support the efforts of women who volunteer for this kind of thing.

    Per the article, in this group of women there were over 300 who voluntarily applied the first year, but only 12 made it through to completion.  I believe there is a high rate of washout in this kind of preliminary training, anyway.

    At first I thought it was an April Fool’s joke, but it was not released on 4/1/17, so that eliminated that possibility.

    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39434655

    According to the narrative, the women in training carry their weight in a backpack (ruck, for you picky people), which means that if one of them weighs 120lb. (54.54 KG), this is what they carry. They hike 30 KM (18.9 miles) per day, they get a lot of cold weather training, they do a lot of shooting, and they do other physical training.

    Everything was fine, but the video showed them doing pushups. I couldn’t help giggling. They don’t look very well done to me, but maybe that’s just me. I don’t do regular pushups. I do wall pushups, which are easier on my aging back.

    Still, I’m not going to say it’s baloney, because we have our own ladies in Spec Ops training, don’t we? But it’s been a year, and no women have stepped up and volunteered for BUD/S since it was opened to Navy women.  http://taskandpurpose.com/year-seals-still-havent-seen-female-applicants/

    I think they should do something about the hair, like get it out of the way. Long hair, even in a pony tail or braid, is not your friend when you undergoing a strenuous program.  But they’re Norwegians, so their regs are probably different from ours.

     

  • When Accounts Come Due

    VENEZUELA-POLITICS/

    I marched and shouted in the streets

    I started fires and fed the heat

    Expecting I’d be queen of all

    Expecting I’d stand ten feet tall

    And no one told a fool like me

    That monsters like them just used me

    It wasn’t all it seemed

    I lost my dreams

    It appears that Venezuela’s government (Maduro) is scrapping elections, including the various gubernatorial elections, because he doesn’t want to find out how truly unpopular he is. The Chavismo party (Chavez) is cracking down on everything.  Elections are great when you’re popular; not so much when people want to see you dragged through the streets or something.

    Medicine is not just in short supply, it is nearly nonexistent. The bolivar is worthless. There is little to no food on store shelves, bakeries have been seized by Maduro’s government, including two owned by immigrants,  and OTC medicines are generally missing from drug store shelves. What do you do when you can’t get aspirin? Chew on willow bark?

    The real problem is that Maduro knows now that his popularity has crashed and doesn’t intend to hold the promised elections, period.  While there are people in several of the states in that country running for governor, the probability of an election actual appears to be nil for the foreseeable future.

    http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/venezuela-elections-suspended-1.4036425

    Even the Cuban doctors who went there voluntarily found chaos and were forced by Maduro to lie about the conditions they found there, and the pay they received, in order to provide the statistics he wanted. They went to the US embassy in Colombia back in October 2016 to get away from it and tell the truth.

    http://todayvenezuela.com/2017/03/24/cuban-doctors-sent-to-venezuela-say-they-were-deceived-forced-to-fabricate-statistics/

    Nothing to fear from las comunistas. eh? Bolivaristas, comunistas – it’s all the same thing, no matter what the moronic know-it-alls or any other poo-flinging SJW howler monkeys think or say.  The difference is that in this country, we’re awake, we see the reality of that crap, we grew up under that kind of threat, and we are not as easily subjugated or fooled as people who’ve grown up in serfdom or dictatorships.

  • Hypocrisy, Thy Name Is “Nancy”

    SanFranNan, March 2010:
    “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what’s in it.”

    SanFranNan, March 2017:
    “The American people and Members have a right to know the full impact of this legislation before any vote in Committee or in the whole House.”

    Along with monumental chutzpah, the abject hypocrisy and utter dishonesty shown by the combination of those two statements is simply sickening.

    But I’d expect nothing less from a committed     Socialist     “Progressive” like SanFranNan.  After all:  the Left’s modus operandi for years has been, “Fine for me – but not for thee.”

  • Mattis warns NATO allies to pay for their own defense

    Mattis warns NATO allies to pay for their own defense

    US Secretary of Defense James Mattis warned our fellow NATO members that they need to pay a more proportionate amount for their own defense, according to the Military Times;

    Echoing a demand made repeatedly by President Donald Trump, Mattis said NATO must adopt a plan this year that sets milestone dates for governments to meet a military funding goal of 2 percent of gross domestic product.

    The Pentagon chief called it a “fair demand” based on the “political reality” in Washington.

    “No longer can the American taxpayer carry a disproportionate share of the defense of Western values,” Mattis told the alliance’s 27 other defense ministers, according to a text of his remarks. “Americans cannot care more for your children’s future security than you do.”

    It’s a sentiment that is coming to the public decades late.