…is a bridge that will have to be raised to deal with massive sea rise, you might just be a Warmist
The blog of the day is The Other McCain, with a post wondering why liberal judges have suddenly become 2nd Amendment absolutists.
Read: If All You See… »
What’s interesting is that hyper Warmist Coral Davenport failed to ask Biden and those passing these rules if they’re driving EVs themselves
What to Know About the Clean Auto Rule: It’s Not a Ban on Gas Cars
The Biden administration’s new regulation limiting tailpipe emissions from cars and light trucks would transform the U.S. automobile market, charting a course away from the internal combustion engine and toward a future of electric cars and hybrids.
Here’s what to know about the measure.
It’s a big deal in the fight against climate change
It’s a big deal in fighting a scam, as pushed by Elitists who won’t practice what they force on everyone else
In terms of lowering the emissions that are heating the planet, this regulation does more than any other climate rule issued by the federal government and more than any measure planned in the remainder of President Joe Biden’s first term.
It’s also weird that Coral forgets to give the actual details of the rule
The rule is not a ban on gasoline-powered vehicles
The rule does not mandate sales of electric vehicles, and consumers can still buy and drive gas-powered cars. Rather, it requires carmakers to meet tough new average emissions limits across their entire product lines; it’s up to manufacturers to decide how to meet those limits.
Under the Clean Air Act, the Environmental Protection Agency can limit the pollution generated by the total number of cars each year. EPA officials said that, as long as automakers comply with the emissions rules, they can sell a mix of gasoline-burning cars, hybrids, EVs or other types of vehicles, such as cars powered by hydrogen.
But, the rules themselves will force auto makers to do away with most of their fossil fueled vehicle lines, even standard hybrids, and push EVs. So, it is, in fact, a stealth mandate to make EVs. And the carmakers will, in fact, pass the costs on to consumers
It penalizes carmakers, not consumers, for noncompliance
Starting in model year 2027, when the rule takes effect, car companies will report to the EPA the average emissions associated with all the passenger vehicles they sell. The emissions limits will start modestly and ramp up slowly in the early years of the program, rising sharply after 2030. Companies that don’t meet the emissions limits would have to pay fines that could reach into the billions of dollars.
Which means all vehicles will get more expensive. All while Joe travels in a massive, low MPG limo, surrounded by dozens of fossil fueled chase vehicles.
Whether U.S. roadways fill with nonpolluting vehicles hinges on a central question: Will motorists buy them? Early adopters flocked to EVs, but sales have cooled and carmakers are concerned they need more time to develop the market. That’s one reason the EPA pushed back the most stringent emissions requirements for auto sales until after 2030, so that manufacturers could improve designs and develop more affordable models, and for charging infrastructure to be built.
And what if consumers do not want this? Is there any consideration of We The People? Or, are the bureaucrats in Washington simply Fascists?
Read: NY Times: Biden’s Defacto Ban On Gas Cars Is Not Actually A Ban »
The road to being put out of a job is paved with good government intentions
Uber and Lyft claim they will cease operating in the Minneapolis area in protest of a minimum pay ordinance that the city council voted to approve last week.
The bill, to go into effect on 1 May, would establish a minimum pay of $1.40 per mile and $0.51 cents per minute for rideshare drivers, with a $5 per ride minimum. The city council voted to override the mayor’s veto of the ordinance, prompting Uber and Lyft to threaten to leave the region in response.
Minneapolis would be the only city in the US without Uber and Lyft services if the rideshare companies uphold their threat to cease operations on 1 May.
The legislation was backed by groups of rideshare drivers over low pay and high costs amid reports their pay has been declining.
Well, I do feel for the drivers: the cost of gas is much higher now under Biden than under Trump. Auto insurance is higher thanks to the Chinese coronavirus, as well as stupid Democrat policies. Food prices higher. Etc and so on. But, obviously, the government mandate costs for the socialist government won’t work for Lyft and Uber, so, all those driving can kiss those gig-economy jobs goodbye. They wanted change and they got it. Just not the change they thought.
Ali said if Uber and Lyft ultimately leave, they would only be taking software with them and claimed other startups, companies and taxi cab companies have already expressed interest in trying to replace them.
“The drivers are here. Their cars are here. They’re not leaving,” said Ali. “Why I think they’re doing this is if they let the drivers here get what they want in this small market, it will have a bigger effect on their bigger, more lucrative markets. So they have to stop this. That is what their fight is based on. It’s not about the minimum wage, I believe it’s about how it will impact their bigger markets.”
But, will the prices be competitive? Where are those companies? Why are they not pushing to enter the market now? You cannot just force extra expenses on a business and expect the owners/shareholders to simply concede. The market sets the salary/wages for these people: don’t pay enough and you won’t have any drivers, pay too much and you’ll be flooded with people who want to be a driver. You can ask for more, but sometimes the answer will simply be no. Maybe they deserve a bit more, but, hey, maybe those drivers can start their own rideshare/delivery business, see how that goes.
Read: Forced Wage Increases For Lyft And Uber Drivers May Drive Them Out Of Minneapolis »
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The average daily high in Paris for both July and August is 78. Of course, once you are inside it might get a bit toasty with all those other people and the lights. If they really cared they would restrict people from coming to Paris on fossil fueled airplanes and in FF vehicles
2024 Paris Summer Olympics Cancel Air Conditioning Due to Climate Concerns
The athletes competing at the Paris Summer Games will have plenty of condoms, but they will not have air conditioning.
“We designed these buildings so that they would be comfortable places to live in in the summer, in 2024 and later on, and we don’t need air conditioning in these buildings because we oriented the facades so that they wouldn’t get too much sun during the summer, and the facades, the insulation is really efficient,” said Yann Krysinski, who is directing the service of infrastructure for the Games.
So, they will be Gawdawful stifling
The buildings housing the athletes will apparently have some sort of cooling system, however. According to Reuters, cooled water will be circulated in the floors of the rooms to generate coolness.
The decision to forego traditional air conditioning is borne of the organizing committee’s desire to make the 2024 Paris Games record-breaking in terms of reducing the event’s carbon footprint.
It’s expected that around 300K will be in attendance, and that doesn’t include the athletes and trainers and such. How will they be traveling? Unless they are restricted from using fossil fuels, it matters little. Will they refuse to serve meat?
Of course, it’s easy for the NY Times to say, since Sanctuary State NY is not a border state
Fight Over Texas Law Underscores a Battle of America vs. Its States
The face-off between Texas and the federal government over whether the state can enforce its own immigration policy reflects a broader and recurring feature of American politics: a number of hot-button issues have become proxy battles over who gets to decide.
During the Trump administration, Democratic-run states like California and blue cities like New York waged legal fights over their right to pass sanctuary laws to protect migrants. Now, the conflict over whether Texas can arrest and deport migrants is just one part of a larger campaign that red states have directed at the Biden administration. (snip)
The balance of power between the national government and states has been a source of tensions in the United States since its founding, leading to the Civil War. But in the 21st century, as partisan polarization has intensified, it has morphed into a new dynamic, with states controlled by the party opposed to the president regularly testing the boundaries.
Two points. First, there would be no need for Texas to do anything if the federal government was performing their job as designated by the US Constitution, repel invasion (Article I, Section 8, paragraph 15). They also are given the power to determine Naturalization laws. However, however, other than “repel invasion”, the Constitution does not specially delegate all powers exclusively to the federal government. It’s more like power sharing with the States at that point. And each state has the authority under the 10th Amendment to protect its borders and its citizens. If the Congress wants to pass a law restricting States, well, they can try. It might not last.
Sanctuary jurisdictions do violate federal law in as they look to protect those unlawfully present in the U.S. Many laws are violated.
Second, states should test the power of the federal government, since Los Federales have assumed way too much power, power they do not have the authorization to take. Look, if California wants to ban fossil fueled vehicles and do single payer healthcare, have at it. That’s their right under the 10th Amendment. And if citizens do not like that, they can move to another state and still be in America.
The political issues run the gamut — and include topics like abortion, gun control, same-sex marriage and even marijuana legalization — but the larger pattern is clear: Whenever one party wins control of the central government, the other party uses its control of various states to try to resist national policies.
“We’re seeing stuff we’ve never seen in the modern era,” said Heather K. Gerken, the dean of Yale Law School who has written about contemporary federalism. “It’s really stunning what kind of proxy war is taking place. It’s all because the vicious partisanship that has long been a feature of Washington has now filtered down to the states.”
States should be doing this all the time. The feds have too much power, too much dominance, too much interference. They take too much in taxation, and spend too much. They are often failing at their core duties as laid out in Article I, Section 8. If the proper power shifted back to the states and The People (remember, the 10th says ““The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”“) a lot of the issues would trend much lower, since people would be paying attention more to their state government, rather than the feds. And then state officials would have their feet held to the fire much more.
A clause in the Constitution says that federal statutes are supreme, and the traditional understanding is that where federal and state law conflict, federal law prevails. At the same time, the Constitution only grants certain powers to the federal government and reserves the rest to states. In practice, the powers of both levels often overlap.
I’m shocked the NY Times noted this reality. So, let’s repeal the 17th Amendment so that Senators are appointed by the state legislatures, and would then vote the way those legislatures want, rather than beholden to their nation parties and rich folks/companies in other states. They would represent the will of their states. Term limits for the House (4 terms, cannot run in any other district or state again). Restrict campaign donations to no more than 2% from outside of a district, that 2% is based on how much was spent the previous election cycle. That would be for starters.
Read: NY Times Seems Upset That States Have A Say, Especially Over Illegal Immigration »
…is a lack frozen over from carbon pollution fueled bad weather, you might just be a Warmist
The blog of the day is The Political Hat, with a post on communism and polyamory.
Had to rush out this morning, forgot to set the post up. Sorry!
Read: If All You See… »
Just another reminder that the climate cult is pretty much based on hardcore Big Government principles. That this is not about science
Capitalism Can’t Solve Climate Change
Amidst the gathering gloom about climate change and continuing growth in global greenhouse-gas emissions, the one bright spot appears to be clean energy development. 2023 saw another, much-trumpeted record for renewables installations worldwide, with an estimated 507 GW of new generating capacity being nearly 50 percent higher than 2022’s figure.
The positivity is misplaced. Even on the transition from dirty to clean power, the world is still failing. The International Energy Agency (IEA) has estimated that both electricity generation from coal and gas, and total power-sector CO2 emissions, continued to grow in 2023, to all-time highs of 17,252 TWh and 13,575 Mt CO2, respectively. In other words, even as renewables are growing fast, they are not yet growing fast enough to displace dirty power generation, which remains the single largest source of greenhouse-gas emissions.
Worse still, the world is failing on the energy transition for reasons that strike at the heart of capitalist economies, and which will therefore be very difficult to surmount. The core issue here is easy to state. Most countries are relying predominantly on the private sector to drive faster renewables investment; private firms invest on the basis of expected profits; but profitability in renewables is rarely attractive.
Stick with an approach to climate change mitigation in which the private sector continues to be seen as the savior, and we are setting ourselves up to continue to fail.
Is there any need to continue on? These people hate capitalism, and want Government in charge of everything
Veiled by discussion of headline global trends in new renewables capacity investment is the fact that almost all the incremental progress is currently being made in one country: China. Trumpeting 2023’s 50 percent growth in annual global capacity installations as a global achievement is wrongheaded, given that China by itself delivered nearly 80 percent of the increment. (snip)
The main answer is that in China, such development is capitalist in only a very limited sense. Certainly, the entities centrally involved in building out new solar and wind farms in China are companies. But almost all are state-owned. Take wind. Nine of the country’s top 10 wind developers are owned by the government, and such state-owned players control in excess of 95 percent of the market.
Moreover, the state is far from being a passive shareholder in these companies. The companies are best seen as instruments wielded by the state in the service of achieving its industrial, geopolitical, and – increasingly – environmental objectives.
They love them some authoritarianism. I wonder if the climate cultists at Time can explain how well this authoritarianism is working out for the people of China?
Read: Capitalism Can’t Solve Climate Crisis (scam) Or Something »
Let’s be honest: parents with firearms do need to store them in a manner that keeps them away from children. They have to balance being able to easily grab the gun in case of home invasion versus their child finding it and playing around with it, and something potentially bad happening. However, is it the job of a school board to nag parents? How often will they nag?
Wake school board approves new safe gun storage initiative
Information on how to safely store guns will soon come to Wake County school families.
The Wake school board approved a resolution Tuesday supporting safe gun storage. It includes a commitment to regularly send information to families and staff about how to safely store firearms. (snip)
The plan that would provide families with information and resources about the importance of secure gun storage several times a school year and the legal consequences for not doing so. That could be in newsletters or by other methods. The system also has a new webpage devoted to resources.
So, apparently, the answer to how often will they nag is “all the time.” Will the teachers be asking the kiddies if mom and dad have firearms at home? You can bet they will. And then there will be preaching to the kids which will then make it back to the parents.
In the past year, at least three adults have been charged after a student brought a gun into a Wake County school.
What is not said, and what never shows up in the news, is if the parent was legally allowed to possess a firearm. And, if the minor had stolen the gun from elsewhere. We usually do not know the age of the minor.
Meanwhile
Colorado bill to ban purchase, sale of assault weapons passes first vote
After 12-plus hours of testimony and debate, Colorado Democrats advanced a bill early Wednesday morning to ban the sale or purchase of assault weapons.
The measure, HB24-1292, cleared its initial hurdle in the House Judiciary Committee and now heads directly to the House floor, after a late amendment removed financial penalties, which would’ve routed the bill to another committee, and replaced them with a petty offense charge. The measure still needs two votes in the House before restarting the process in the Senate.
They cannot be made or imported either, so, people cannot go to a surrounding state and purchase one. Obviously, the government is exempt from any of this. Realistically, any law that applies to the People should apply to the government. Then there’s that whole pesky first Amendment thingy, along with Article II section 13 of the Colorado constitution, which really only gives lawmakers the authority to regulate concealed carry.
Undocumented Immigrants Have Right to Own Guns, Judge Rules
A judge this month dropped gun charges against an illegal migrant in Illinois, sparking further debate about the rights associated with the Second Amendment.
U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Coleman of the Northern District of Illinois referenced lower court rulings in dismissing firearm possession charges against Heriberto Carbajal-Flores, who was illegally or unlawfully in the United States when he possessed a handgun in the Little Village neighborhood of Chicago on June 1, 2020.
“The Court finds that Carbajal-Flores’ criminal record, containing no improper use of a weapon, as well as the non-violent circumstances of his arrest do not support a finding that he poses a risk to public safety such that he cannot be trusted to use a weapon responsibly and should be deprived of his Second Amendment right to bear arms in self-defense,” Coleman, who was appointed under President Barack Obama, wrote in her eight-page ruling filed March 8.
Carbajal-Flores was charged under Title 18 of U.S. Criminal Code, which legally disallows undocumented individuals to possess firearms and ammunition “or to receive any firearm or ammunition which has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce.”
Well, that’s a hell of a thing. The 2nd applies to lawful citizens, not foreign citizens. In almost all cases, federal law and state law bar foreign nationals from purchasing and/or possessing firearms. Carbajal-Flores may be trustworthy, but, just like in the case of most minors, is barred from purchase/possession. How can a federal background check even be run on him? I’m not usually on blocking people from having firearms in a responsible manner, but, they have to be citizens.
Read: Wake School Board Votes To Nag Parents Over Safe Storage »
It really is just so exhausting at times, reading articles from miserable climate cultists being miserable
Loving this early spring weather? YOU SHOULDN'T BE.
Writes @mudede: "We should be horrified by this weather, not enjoying it."https://t.co/HRyGO8xCRG
— The Stranger ???? (@TheStranger) March 18, 2024
From the unhinged doomsday cultist piece. It starts out with some weird stuff about social engineering, particularly in socialist societies, like the old USSR, moving to
With that in mind, let’s turn to this weekend’s unusually warm weather. How did Seattle feel about it?
St. Patrick’s Day usually brings a soul-crushing 42-degree rain.
Not this year. This weather is perfection!
— Seattle Weather Blog (@KSeattleWeather) March 17, 2024
As much as I admire Seattle Weather Blog, the last line in their March 17 tweet is alarming, if not horrifying, and certainly bad social engineering. To make matters worse, the weekend’s feel-good directive was universally expressed by the local news and social media. Even today, March 18, which is warm and breezy, KIRO 7 encouraged its audience to just “enjoy the sunshine.” But how on earth is this possible when the brightness of the sun and the warmth of the air are freaks of nature? It should be cool and dark during this time of the year. Instead, we are breaking records all over the place.
Cultists just can’t enjoy anything. There will be nice, warm days during Holocene warm periods (some not so nice: more died of heatstroke during the Battle of Monmouth than actual wounds, despite being deep in the Little Ice Ace). There will be ugly, cold days during a Holocene warm period. Monday and Tuesday weren’t exactly warm, and there was lots of snow. It will be a little nicer, at least here, on Wednesday. And here we go
We should be horrified by this weather, not enjoying it, not in the least bit. But what you found all around Greenlake, or going up and down Lake Washington Boulevard, or basking on Alki Beach, or filling the platforms of Pike Place Market were lots of people enjoying what is in fact a living nightmare. But this serious disconnection between reality (anthropogenic global warming and its year-by-year destruction of the world, brief as it was, we only know) is a failure of empowering social engineering. We only know how to enjoy sunny days, no matter what caused them. And unless social engineering intervenes (which is not likely at this point), we will be biking, hiking, and wearing tight shorts or no shirts when “perfect” arrives early in 2025. It’s only going to get worse. This is just fact.
I think I need to head to one of my favorite fun sites, like Izismile, now. This is exhausting.
Read: Warmist Super Bummed Over Gorgeous Weather For St. Patrick’s Day »
So, we already know that credit card debt is skyrocketing (though CNN thinks this is OK because Biden is president), credit card delinquencies are rising fast, and non-mortgage interest rates are crushing Americans. So why not hit up the retirement accounts?
Inflation Is Forcing Americans To Drain Their Retirement Accounts Just To Stay Afloat
The share of people who withdrew from their 401(k) for financial emergencies surged to a record high in 2023 as Americans looked to counteract rising prices and shrinking paychecks, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Around 3.6% of 401(k) participants at investment manager Vanguard Group pulled money from their account, compared to 2.8% in 2022 and above the pre-COVID-19 pandemic average of about 2%, according to data from the company given to the WSJ. Americans have been increasingly stressed by high inflation, which has increased prices by 18% overall since President Joe Biden first took office in January 2021.
Of those who withdrew cash from their 401(k) for hardship purposes in 2023, nearly 40% did so to prevent foreclosure on their property, up from 36% in 2022, according to the WSJ. Around 75% of Americans who pulled out of their accounts for hardships pulled out $5,000 or less.
It might not be that huge of a number, but, you combine it with everything else, and it’s no wonder that consumer confidence has plunged. That, while the numbers are slightly, slightly better, people are not thrilled by the economy. And 79% of Americans are dissatisfied with the way things are going. And it seems, per a Pew poll last month, that Americans are mostly seeing any positive economic news as being in spite of Biden, that it’s happening despite Biden.
Read: Bidenomics: People Draining Their Retirement Accounts To Survive »
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