[NYT] In Chicago, officials warned about the risk of almost instant frostbite on what could be the city’s coldest day ever. Warming centers opened around the Midwest. And schools and universities closed throughout the region as rare polar winds streamed down from the Arctic.
At the same time, on the other side of the planet, wildfires raged in Australia’s record-breaking heat. Soaring air-conditioner use overloaded electrical grids and caused widespread power failures. The authorities slowed and canceled trams to save power. Labor leaders called for laws that would require businesses to close when temperatures reached hazardous levels: nearly 116 degrees Fahrenheit, or 47 Celsius, as was the case last week in Adelaide, the capital of South Australia.
This is weather in the age of extremes. It comes on top of multiple extremes, all kinds, in all kinds of places.
"When something happens ‐ whether it’s a cold snap, a wildfire, a hurricane, any of those things ‐ we need to think beyond what we have seen in the past and assume there’s a high probability that it will be worse than anything we’ve ever seen," said Crystal A. Kolden, an associate professor at the University of Idaho, who specializes in wildfires and who is currently working in Tasmania during one of the state’s worst fire seasons.
Consider these recent examples: Heat records were toppled from Norway to Algeria last year. In parts of Australia, a drought has gone on so long that a child in kindergarten will hardly have seen rain in her lifetime. And California saw its most ruinous wildfires ever in 2018, triggering a bankruptcy filing this week by the state’s largest utility, Pacific Gas and Electric.
#2
A hemisphere, an equator, an ecliptic, and a little tilt to an axis. None of which is covered in Journalism school (or most of the 'scientific' community it seems).
#4
Circa 2059 - "The geoengineering project to equalize the Earth's seasons by eliminating the tilt of the planets axis was hailed a major success just a few short years ago. But now that the Earth is orbiting closer to the Sun each year, scientists are re-evaluating..."
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
02/03/2019 8:49 Comments ||
Top||
#5
could be the city’s coldest day ever.
But it wasn't. The coldest day ever, and I was there, was reported (at the time) as -29 with a wind chill of minus seventy-five. Late January, 1985, well before the birth of most 'journalists'.
The train was two minutes late, so I got to work at 8:02. I did pay $0.45 for the bus, instead of walking from the train station to the office. But we didn't have man-made global climate change then.
Posted by: Bobby ||
02/03/2019 11:41 Comments ||
Top||
The Economist leans left and has had some awful stuff over the past two decades. The actual title of the article was, "The Battle for Venezuela's Future". However, somewhat surprising to me, they did have the following paragraph in the article,
Polls suggest that 80% of them are sick of him. Other countries are also hurt by Venezuela's failure. The region is struggling with the exodus of over 3m of its people fleeing hunger, repression and the socialist dystopia created by the late Hugo Chávez.
Posted by: lord garth ||
02/03/2019 11:57 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[10 views]
Top|| File under:
[ELUNIVERSAL] In mid-2013, beginning the previous presidential period, predictions and jokes were popularized, which concurred in anticipating that Nicolás Maduro's term as President would be brief. By then, even at the recommendation of members of the Cabinet, the need to introduce changes and adopt policies that showed their clear relevance, such as moving towards a market economy with pre-eminence of the performance of individuals, had become evident. to put an end to pretended social programs that are resolved in a feast -corrupted and corrupt- of money distribution. Associated or not with his tenure in office, the fact is that those changes were not made: the bureaucracy of the government - that multiplies and produces absolutely irrelevant procedures and rites - has grown enormously; the economy was not liberated or privatized; and the distribution of money and material goods has been multiplied exponentially without any consideration or, in any case, with a very nominal and insignificant one. None of the primary and essential services that the State is called to provide (security, health and education) work; and in the period half of the economy we had was lost and we reached hyperinflation. None of the primary and essential services that the State is called to provide (security, health and education) work; and in the period half of the economy we had was lost and we reached hyperinflation. None of the primary and essential services that the State is called to provide (security, health and education) work; and in the period half of the economy we had was lost and we reached hyperinflation.
The government bears an inefficient bureaucratic burden, all the state companies are in ruins and in economic bankruptcy, including the state oil company, PDVSA; and an already large portion of the population has become totally unproductive, even going so far as to have the sole activity of queuing or fulfilling the rites that legitimize it to receive payments and official gifts. That is the current country, in crisis, socially and economically unviable - that's why people are leaving us; and that crisis has led to the political crisis we are experiencing.
President Maduro offers rectifications, but - unfortunately, if you will - it is no longer about that, it is not he who can preside over them, that opportunity precluded him in the last presidential exercise. He has the responsibility, as Head of State, to recognize the entity and demands of the political crisis and to process it by negotiating a constitutional solution for the interruption of the period and the convocation of elections.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/03/2019 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under: Commies
[AmericanThinker] China caved to President Trump’s Trade War demands as state-media published plans that foreign investors will no longer be subject to compulsory technology transfers.
As China’s Vice Premier Liu He was holding a televised meeting with President Trump in the Oval Office to announce big increases for U.S. agricultural exports to China, its Xinhua News Agency announced that China’s President Xi Jinping hopes to meet with Trump just before a March 5 vote by China’s National People’s Congress to ratify elimination of rules for foreign investment mandatory foreign technology transfers. Funny Place, USA. The president can defeat a superpower like China but can't stop harassment of his own People by a bunch of Race/Gender/Sexual Orientation psychopaths
#5
China is not even a country. it's just a vast area.
China has no military, or government that would make China "China".
Instead what is there is a political power that owns everything, the Communist Party of China, which is ruled by a Unitary Marxist-Leninist one-party socialist republic[ called "Communist Party of China (CPC)" which is also function as the De-fasco government of China.
All the military members and politicians have to swear Allegiance to the Communist Party of China, not to the nation of China. Which means in case of a civil war in China, well it would be interesting.
[Washington Examiner] Senate Banking Committee chairman Mike Crapo released a proposal Friday to reform the bailed-out mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, proposing to eventually release them back into the private sector with diminished roles and subject to competition.
The Idaho Republican’s plan, a three-page paper, does not address several of the trickiest issues that have held up legislation to overhaul the two government-sponsored enterprises since they were taken into government custody in 2008. Nevertheless, it presents a starting point for negotiations between the two parties and the White House to try to resolve Fannie and Freddie’s unusual status as wards of the government.
"We must expeditiously fix our flawed housing finance system," Crapo said in a press release. "My priorities are to establish stronger levels of taxpayer protection, preserve the 30-year fixed rate mortgage, increase competition among mortgage guarantors, and promote access to affordable housing. I invite my Senate and House colleagues, the Administration and all interested stakeholders to work together to enact this critically needed reform."
Crapo proposes to retain a government guarantee for mortgage-backed securities, a feature that the housing and banking industries argue is necessary in order to facilitate the existence of 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages, but one that many congressional conservatives oppose.
Ginnie Mae, the government corporation that today guarantees mortgage-backed securities offered by the Federal Housing Administration, would be responsible for guaranteeing securities issued by private guarantors, including reprivatized versions of Fannie and Freddie as well as competitors.
#4
How about getting rid of the 30 year mortgage, esp 0% down. If you can't put down 10% and finance a 10-20 year loan, then you have borrowed too much house for your income.
#5
How about getting rid of the 30 year mortgage, esp 0% down. If you can't put down 10% and finance a 10-20 year loan, then you have borrowed too much house for your income.
But, but, but it appraised at 30% over asking price. I can still get a 'second' for that new BMW, before I walk away from all of it !
#6
"We must expeditiously fix our flawed housing finance system,"
Gee, just replace housing with healthcare and you could talk about the other big problem. Wonder what happened to the system? Oh right, the government got involved trying to buy votes of the pols.
#7
Just go back to Fannie's underwriting criteria circa 1965. Problem solved.
Posted by: Tom ||
02/03/2019 14:56 Comments ||
Top||
#8
It's no fix at all unless they take taxpayers off the hook for all those flaky mortgages. No more bailouts. If real bankers had to back those "instruments" with their banks' money that'd put a stop to all this nonsense really quickly.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
02/03/2019 15:01 Comments ||
Top||
[HotAir] It’s inevitable that immigration "negotiations" in Congress will deadlock and Trump will end up declaring an emergency on the 15th, if not sooner, to save face and try to get the wall built. We’ve been chattering for weeks about the court battle that would follow that but we should start paying attention to the congressional battle that will follow it too. POTUS is likely to find himself in a position similar to the one he found himself in the day before the shutdown ended, when Schumer’s bill to reopen the government got more votes in a Republican Senate than Trump’s compromise offer on immigration did. Namely, a critical mass of his own party in the Senate will turn against him. Call me crazy, but is Paul Ryan still giving out DS BJ's?
#2
You build that damn wall where the Professionals like the Border Patrol tell you to. And build to spec. And do not worry about the cots. Democrats Never care about what anything costs.
#2
Fascinating to read this in The Hill, which isn’t one of the so-called far-right alternative media news outlets that will be blocked as fake news by the Microsoft’s new NewsGuard browser extension, but along with the Washington Post is read by Deep State insiders. Are they preparing their readers for a soft landing on this thing? The piece winds up as follows:
The last two years often seem like a concerted effort to disprove “Occam’s Razor,” the theory that the simplest explanation is usually the right one. As long hoped for links fell through, more complex theories filled the void of collusion. Yet, the simplest explanation still remains most likely, that the Trump campaign, like virtually every reporter and political operative in Washington, wanted to see the WikiLeaks material and any dirt on the Clintons, just as the Clinton campaign paid for any dirt on Trump. The Russian efforts to influence our elections also is neither novel nor new.
Indeed, the United States has engaged in hacking not just our enemies but our allies, as well as intervening in the elections of other countries, just as many of those same countries attempt against us. There is nothing “tantalizing” or “mysterious” in such an explanation, because it is more factual than aspirational. The boring truth here is that criminal collusion theories are weaker today than they were a year ago. While Mueller has found ample basis to charge people with false statements, the record of these filings shows more confusion than collusion in the Trump campaign.
[Babylon Bee] WASHINGTON, D.C.‐The Senate advanced a measure this week to rebuke President Trump for withdrawing troops from Syria and Afghanistan in a bipartisan effort to defend the only thing the left and the right still agree on: endless foreign wars.
While the left and the right barely ever manage to eke out a bipartisan bill anymore, their response to the slightest deescalation in an occupied foreign country was swift from both sides of the aisle.
"It's a beautiful thing when Republicans and Democrats can find common ground, like remaining in the Middle East indefinitely with only vague plans for withdrawal at some ever-shifting date in the future," said Senator Mitch McConnell. "There are still some traditions that this nation holds sacred, and we can't allow President Trump to divide us on this."
"This is America, after all. How are our troops going to defend our freedoms if they're not all the way on the other side of the globe forever?" McConnell added, drawing applause from both Democrats and Republicans.
Democratic senators also reminded the nation that Trump is a pawn of Putin, as that's the only possible reason he wouldn't want to start World War III over a Middle Eastern country.
[Victory Girls] Nancy Pelosi sure seems to have trouble with speaking off script. She fumbles with words, rephrases her statements, and oftentimes presents facial tics that seem a bit off. And when that happens, web surfers love to call on the expertise of Dr. Internet, who is more than happy to diagnose Pelosi with dementia or other health issues.
For example, here’s a headline recently posted at a conservative website:
"Pelosi botches words, suffers face spasms, confuses Dems, GOP while vowing no border wall funding."
It continues:
"What’s wrong with Nancy Pelosi?"
"The House Speaker spoke to reporters today for only about 21 minutes, but there were plenty of strange moments as she botched words, suffered face spasms and brain freezes . . ."
#2
BLUF: Howwould any of us fare if we were famous and Dr. Internet spotted us using our tongue to dislodge a popcorn hull from our back molars?
However, there’s one thing that could help with aging congress critters: term limits. Nancy Pelosi is now 78 years old, and has represented her San Francisco district for over 30 years. This should be the time Pelosi realizes that her shelf life is up, but “she isn’t going anywhere,” according to TIME. Nor does she care what anyone thinks of her.
She's got the POWERRRR!!!
Posted by: Bobby ||
02/03/2019 11:35 Comments ||
Top||
#3
"Hey, Bob! Call those bumblers down at Disney Animatronics. PelosiBot is acting up again."
"I'm on it, boss. She's been squirrelly since that last upgrade."
[American Thinker] A significant number of journalists and other Democrats are jumping on the wealth tax bandwagon because they say the rich don't pay their fair share and that the tax code is not progressive enough.
The top 20% of earners paid 87% of income taxes even though they only earned 52% of the nations' income. How much more progressive would you want it to be? It appears that journalists, along with most Democrats, want the richest counties in the United States (which are around DC where they produce nothing) to get richer while holding down the opportunities for those throughout the rest of the country, especially the poor and middle class (who you pretend to care about).
Most of the richest 20% today did move up the economic ladder. They did not inherit the money but somehow, even if they did, Democrats think they are entitled to a greater and greater share of what other people earn.
To Democrats, the problem is the government never has enough revenue even though it collects a record amount. There is always something new to tax, and today, it is wealth or marijuana or gambling or just raising rates on the "rich" without acknowledging that taking more money out of the private sector slows growth. They never seem to suggest that government can live with less.
In FY 2009 the government collected $2.1 Trillion. In FY 2017 it collected $3.32 Trillion and it continues to grow. That is up around 60% in eight years. Have individuals received a 60% raise in eight years. I don't think so, but Democrats want more for the government.
#2
Social Security was always a ponzi scheme but it went into self destruct mode when the Donks threw out the books and looted the revenue stream for social programs like the Great Society. Just Venezuela in slow motion.
#3
You want money? Reduce trusts funds to covering offsprings who are mentally or physically handicapped. Hammer the rest. So many are Donk money banks for the party and its members, not likely. Remember, use other peoples money (till you run out of it).
#5
I read an article the other day complaining that there are an awful lot of unfilled management level jobs in the executive branch these days — positioning it as a failure in the part of President Trump and the congressional Republicans to propose and confirm necessary personnel. I wonder how much of that is deliberate... and how much money has been saved by not paying those salaries and benefits for two years.
[AmericanGreatness] It was a mistake to disband the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in 1945, just months after we had won World War II.
Within just two years, President Truman realized he had to have a permanent intelligence capability and so in 1947 he signed the National Security Act, which, in addition to creating the National Security Council as the highest national security policymaking body in the U.S. government, created the Central Intelligence Agency out of the ashes of the OSS.
Since 1947, the U.S. Intelligence Community has grown and grown. Originally it was given the task of collecting intelligence on our Cold War adversaries. After the September 11 attacks, it was expanded and reorganized to include today’s 17 agencies.
But whether it was just the OSS during the war, or the 17 federal agencies we have today, the mission of the American intelligence was always the same: to provide its sole client with raw intelligence and analysis so that he can make his decisions on how best to secure America and her citizens. That end-user, of course, is the incumbent president.
This week’s "Fake News" swirling around the Director of National Intelligence’s (DNI) testimony before Congress on his annual "National Worldwide Threat Assessment" isn’t simply dishonest. It is dangerous.
While Capitol Hill has the mandate to exercise its oversight function‐and should use it‐over the executive branch, the IC does not work for Congress. In fact, it exists solely to support the national security policies and decision-making requirements of the commander-in-chief. As such, the reports that the testimony of DNI Dan Coates, CIA Director Gina Haspel, and FBI Director Chris Wray contradicted or undermined the president are not simply wrong-footed, they are reckless in the extreme.
In America, we do not have independent intelligence agencies functioning as fiefdoms unto themselves, with their own political agendas. The idea that a federal agency designed to serve the legitimate head of state can and should openly undermine the executive may be par for the course in Latin America, Africa, or parts of Asia, but it is counter both to our Constitution and the traditions upon which America is founded and how it is secured from external attack and internal subversion.
CIA and DIA veteran Fred Fleitz, who served most recently as chief-of-staff to National Security Advisor John Bolton, put it succinctly in his response to the media frenzy: "America’s intelligence agencies were not created to publicly criticize or offer rebuttals to the president’s foreign-policy initiatives. They are not supposed to be a ’check’ on presidential decision-making‐that is Congress’s role."
I do not believe that Coates or Haspel were, in fact, attempting to undermine the president. But I do know they did not write their own testimony and that both the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the CIA have yet to fully recover from the Obama years.
Remember, John Brennan, an avowed Communist who voted for the Communist Party USA’s presidential candidate in 1976, before he joined the CIA, was elevated to the director of that agency by Barack Obama. Brennan used his power to press then-FBI Director James Comey to launch a politically motivated investigation of the Trump campaign based solely upon Russian-sourced opposition research paid for by Hillary Clinton’s lawyers and the Democratic National Committee. Obama’s director of national intelligence, General James Clapper, likewise left a trail of politically motivated malfeasance, not least of which was his committing perjury in front of Congress over whether or not the NSA illegally spies on American citizens.
Although Haspel and Coates are both honorable public servants who, by all evidence and appearance, share none of the vices of Brennan and Clapper, the two years of the Trump Administration have been too short a time to rid our mammoth intelligence community structure of those who believe that their alleged expertise gives them an extra-constitutional right to subvert an elected president with whom they have policy disagreements. In the meantime, President Trump remains our 45th commander-in-chief, elected by the sovereign people of the United States according to their Constitution. The intelligence community still works him, and he should remain extremely wary of it.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Babylon Bee] WASHINGTON, D.C.‐The Senate advanced a measure this week to rebuke President Trump for withdrawing troops from Syria and Afghanistan in a bipartisan effort to defend the only thing the left and the right still agree on: endless foreign wars.
"There are still some traditions that this nation holds sacred, and we can't allow President Trump to divide us on this."
[Victory Girls] Nancy Pelosi sure seems to have trouble with speaking off script. She fumbles with words, rephrases her statements, and oftentimes presents facial tics that seem a bit off. And when that happens, web surfers love to call on the expertise of Dr. Internet, who is more than happy to diagnose Pelosi with dementia or other health issues.
