…is horrible heat snow caused by ‘climate change’ amplification, you might just be a Warmist
The blog of the day is Bookworm Room, with a post on the importance of the Battle of Trenton, December 26, 1776.
It’s snow week! And, good grief, it’s still snowing in the Buffalo and Watertown, NY, areas.
Read: If All You See… »
Who could have possibly seen this coming?
A national weed glut is causing prices to plummet and imperiling businesses
Michigan has way too much weed.
The number of cannabis grow operations serving the state’s recreational market has almost doubled in the past year. The number of active marijuana plants now exceeds 1.2 million, roughly six times the volume seen in 2020.
By one estimate, Michigan has enough cultivation capacity to supply three times as much weed as the state’s consumers are buying — and that doesn’t include the huge illegal market that by all accounts commands a large share of sales.
Michigan is emblematic of what’s been happening across the country all year — and why the industry’s been in a funk even as legalization spreads: Ill-fated hopes that a Democratic-controlled Washington might loosen decades-old restrictions on the drug have given way to a market glut and plummeting prices that have put scores of businesses at risk of collapse.
In Colorado, prices have dropped by 51 percent over the last two years, according to BDSA, a cannabis analytics firm. The price of a pound of weed has plunged by 36 percent in Massachusetts and 46 percent in Missouri in just the last year, according to LeafLink, which tracks wholesale transactions.
The price drop is even more extreme in Michigan. Over the last two years, the price of weed in the recreational market has plummeted about 75 percent — from nearly $400 an ounce to less than $100.
Wait, how much? Now, I haven’t bought any in decades, but, even accounting for inflation, $400 an ounce sounds rather extreme. I could be wrong, like I said, it’s been a while. Anyhow, what did they think would happen when they just license a ton of people to grow, and there’s a whole bunch of “illegal” growers who skip the whole government regulated system and then sell it? Seriously, how many people did the government expect would be smoking it, having brownies, gummies, or whatever way? Again, I’m not against legalization. I’m not planning on having any, I don’t enjoy it anymore. But, they’re learning that the market does what the market does.
The slump is messy enough in Michigan that some industry officials are calling for a moratorium on cultivation licenses three years after the state launched a recreational market.
“With the glut of supply, and with so many licenses, it’s setting up businesses for failure,” said Beau Whitney, an economist who focuses on the cannabis industry, speaking of the Michigan market. “Nationally, very few people are making a profit in this industry.”
Those growing illegally are. It just goes to show that no one really thought about what would happen once it was made legal.
Companies face sky-high taxes because they’re treated like illegal narcotics traffickers. And the failure of a bipartisan effort in Congress this month to make it easier for marijuana businesses to access basic banking services means they’ll continue to face exorbitant rates to raise cash to run their operations. As Republicans retake the House, that dynamic is unlikely to change anytime soon.
Oops.
But by all accounts, the state (Michigan) has also struggled to crack down on the still-vibrant illicit market. Just 30 percent of cannabis sales came through licensed retail establishments — whether medical or recreational — in 2020, according to a study by Anderson Economic Group that was commissioned by the Michigan Cannabis Manufacturers Association. The rest of the transactions were either conducted through illicit channels or the state’s “caregiver” market that developed to serve medical patients prior to recreational legalization.
Heck, if it’s legal, why not grow your own for personal use? A little greenhouse would do the trick. And then you need to pay high taxes. Michigan’s system is vastly over-regulated, hence, illegal growers, and illegal importation from other states, will proliferate. Why pay $400 when you can get for a whole lot less? Law of supply and demand mixed with too much government.
Read: Unexpected: Nationwide Marijuana Glut Dropping Prices, Harming Businesses »
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They’ll never let this go
Paradox between warming climate and intense snowstorms, say scientists
There is a complex, counterintuitive relationship between rising global temperatures and the likelihood of increasingly intense snowstorms across Canada.
Winters are becoming on average milder and warmer than they used to be, but there has also been a noted rise across the country in extreme weather events, such as intense snowstorms, said John Clague, a professor of geosciences at Simon Fraser University, in Burnaby, B.C.
People might think it illogical that parts of the country are seeing more snowstorms as the climate warms, he said. “What climate modelers are finding is that climate change involves more frequent extremes.”
“That means during summer, you can have extreme high temperatures, kind of life-threatening high temperatures, such as they’ve experienced in India and Pakistan in recent years. And you also can have, during winter, these extreme cold conditions.”
Yeah, yeah, polar vortex, blah blah blah. Does this mean that winters aren’t as snowy during cold periods? No matter what, the Cult of Climastrology will blame it on mankind’s release of greenhouse gases.
Feltmate said the symphony of winter storms from Vancouver to Toronto and the Maritimes can be attributed to climate change. He used a baseball analogy to illustrate the link between climate change and recent severe weather events — the heat dome, atmospheric rivers, post-tropical storm Fiona, and “mammoth” snowstorms.
“It’s a little bit like saying you have a baseball player who’s gone on steroids. And all of a sudden that baseball player starts to hit five times as many home runs,” Feltmate said.
“You can’t say that any single home run is due to the steroids. But if he or she is hitting five times as many home runs, then you can pretty much say cause and effect is going on between taking the steroids and hitting home runs. With climate change, we have extreme weather on steroids — and the steroids are here to stay.”
Read: There’s A Paradox Between Climate Apocalypse And Massive Snowstorms »
In Liberal World, everything that thwarts Democrats is A Threat To Democracy. Anything other than one party rule and dominant government is a threat to democracy
The Electoral College is hazardous to democracy, Raskin says
Rep. Jamie Raskin said Sunday the Electoral College “has become a danger” to American democracy.
Speaking on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” the Maryland Democrat said: “I think that the Electoral College now, which has given us five popular vote losers as president in our history — twice in this century alone — has become a danger.”
Raskin said it is about time that Americans elect presidents the same way they elect other public officials, through the popular vote.
“It was a danger on January 6th,” said Raskin, who served on the House select committee that investigated the Jan. 6 Capitol riots, “There are so many curving by-ways and nooks and crannies in the Electoral College that there are opportunities for a lot of strategic mischief.”
Good grief. Will Dems be whining about J6 decades from now, like the do Bush winning, or, as they say, stealing, the 2000 election?
The Electoral College was created by the Founding Fathers in the U.S. Constitution; the Electoral Count Act of 1887 has guided practical aspects of how it functions for well over a century. Proponents of the existing system argue that it gives individual states an important role in national elections.
Yes, the Framers did include it, so, apparently they are A Threat To Democracy, right? Except, as anyone who’s not a lunatic Democrat knows, we are not a democracy. The system was designed to stop large states from running roughshod over small states. They all have a say. But, Democrats think it’s unfair that they can lose per the rules of the game.
Raskin said the Electoral College is one aspect of the American system that has little appeal internationally.
“We spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year exporting American democracy to other countries,” he said to host Margaret Brennan, “and the one thing they never come back to us with is the idea that, oh, that Electoral College thing you have that’s so great. We think we’ll adopt that, too.”
Name one country of our size that was set up as our Constitution did, with 13 states…that’s another word for nation, because each of the former colonies had their own needs and wants and governance, and were supposed to run on their own, with the federal government only given certain duties, like raising a military and controlling the monetary system….joining together. It was a beautiful system established, and would work better if the 17th Amendment was repealed, which would have Senators represent the wishes of the state general assemblies, rather than special interests on the other side of the country.
The system is set up to make it very, very hard to do anything big, and getting rid of the electoral college would require a Constitutional convention. It won’t happen. And Democrats will keep whining.
Read: Hot Take: The Electoral College Is A Threat To Democracy »
Happy Sunday! Another gorgeous day in the Once And Future Nation Of America. The Sun is shining, the birds are singing, and it is Christmas. This pinup is by Ted Withers, with a wee bit of help.
What’s Happening in Ye Olde Blogosphere? Not really sure today. It’s Christmas, so, perhaps I’ll do a full linking post later, if time permits. Otherwise, Merry Christmas to all!
Every Christmas, once everyone is up, Christmas greetings were made, hugs were exchanged, the presents were opened, and breakfast was being made, I would read this first in the paper (ye olde parental units get an actual paper, and they live in NJ). It is a Christmas classic that has always touched my soul. While some people outside of the Tri-State area have heard of it, rarely do papers outside of the NY-NJ-Conn area see it in print, and I always direct them to read it online. Especially since we keep getting news pieces as to whether or not we should be telling kids the truth about Santa (we shouldn’t. Let them be kids). I humbly bring it to you, and hope it touches you as much as it touches me:
Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus
Editorial Page, New York Sun, 1897
We take pleasure in answering thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of The Sun:
I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, If you see it in The Sun, it’s so. Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?
Virginia O’Hanlon
Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a sceptical age. They do not believe except what they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.
He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The external light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.
Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies. You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if you did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.
You tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.
No Santa Claus? Thank God he lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!!
And a Merry Christmas from deep down in my heart to all my friends and visitors out there.
If you would like to know the background on the letter, you can go to the 2004 posting of this.
Merry Christmas, Everyone!
Hilariously, Youtube took down the version I uploaded in 2006, with 4.8 million views. I’m surprised the above has lasted 7 years
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…is a waterfall drying up from carbon pollution, you might just be a Warmist
The blog of the day is Not A Lot Of People Know That, with a post on the eco-dictatorship coming your way.
Another babe below the fold, so, check out Blazing Cat Fur, with a post on parents traumatizing their own kids with a Grinch style Christmas prank
Read: If All You See… »
See, she has Reasons
Ocasio-Cortez only Democrat to vote ‘no’ on spending package
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) was the only House Democrat to vote against a $1.7 trillion omnibus spending package on Friday, voting “no” on the measure because of increased funding for defense and federal agencies that oversee immigration.
In a statement Friday afternoon, Ocasio-Cortez said she was concerned about funding in the bill for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in addition to the $858 billion in defense spending.
“I campaigned on a promise to my constituents: to oppose additional expansion and funding for ICE and DHS — particularly in the absence of long-overdue immigration reform. For that reason, as well as the dramatic increase in defense spending which exceeds even President Biden’s request, I voted no on today’s omnibus bill,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
The appropriations bill passed by Congress includes $8.42 billion for ICE, which is $161.1 million more than what was enacted in 2022 and $319.4 million more than what the president requested.
DHS received $86.5 billion in discretionary resources.
Ocasio-Cortez said the “dramatic increase” in spending for those two agencies “cut[s] against the promises our party has made to immigrant communities across the country,” adding that it is the case “especially in light of the lack of progress on DACA [Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals], TPS [Temporary Protected Status], and expanding paths to citizenship.”
She’s complaining about what’s considered chump change in terms of Washington spending for ICE, which is something, ie, dealing with invasion, that’s actually mentioned in the Constitution. So is Defense, though, I’ll agree, that funding is bloated.
It’s also easy to Take A Stand when your no vote means absolutely nothing, because the bill was (sadly) going to pass no matter what. If she had any influence and wanted to do the actual job, she would have attempted to rally other House members to vote no. I mean, she couldn’t even work on the other Squad members?
The congresswoman touted provisions included in the omnibus that she helped craft — including an increase in the National Labor Relations Board and funding for community projects in her district — but said she could not vote for them because of her overarching concerns with the bill.
“These victories and many more – such as the inclusion of PUMP [Providing Urgent Maternal Protections] and PWFA [Pregnant Workers Fairness] Acts – are hard-fought wins that we proudly support and would proudly vote for. But tying these provisions to dramatic increases in surveillance, border patrol forces, and militarized spending after years of deeply disturbing misconduct and lack of any meaningful accountability is decision we find deeply objectionable,” she said.
In other words, she was present for the crafting of that stuff, but, come on, you know she was the person in the meeting adding nothing and asking if there are any more pastries. But, she did help stuff other things into the bill she voted against
(Fox News) The Democratic congresswoman then touted the spending provisions she added to the bill via earmarks that she ultimately voted against.
In the bill for the departments of labor, health and human services, education and related agencies, Ocasio-Cortez set aside $500,000 for “new immigrant community empowerment” in Jackson Heights, New York; $3 million for “clean energy workforce development and supportive services;” and $400,000 to progressive immigration nonprofit Make the Road New York, among other spending.
In the Department of Transportation bill, Ocasio-Cortez backed even more spending, including $1 million to Westchester Square Plaza for highway infrastructure, $1 million to the New York City Department of Transportation for “Astoria Boulevard safety improvements,” and $1 million to the New York Botanical Garden for a “worker’s operation center.”
Ocasio-Cortez also earmarked $2.4 million to the nonprofit Neighborhood Housing Services of Queens for “Casa Neighborhood Housing Services of Queens.”
There is no website for Casa (which means house) Neighborhood Housing…, but, there is one without the Casa that is run by the state of NY and one without Casa that is privately run. Where’s that money going? $900k for illegal aliens. Really, though, she sure didn’t get a lot of pork like so many other Representatives, eh? And not much for her own constituents. Anyhow, it’s a nice bit of performance, so she can later say “I voted against ICE and the military” while also knowing her vote had zero meaning.
Read: Excitable AOC Only Democrat To Vote Against Massive Omnibus »
Apparently, cold weather is happening so often in Florida due to ‘climate change’ from you refusing to keep your heat at 62, that they are adapting
Look out for falling iguanas as temperatures drop
Watch out for falling iguanas in South Florida this Christmas. Seriously.
This week, a massive storm system is forecast to bring blizzard conditions, wind chills and Arctic cold to the Lower 48. Nearly 70 million people are under winter storm watches or warnings in the Midwest, Great Lakes and Appalachians, while 90 million are under wind chill alerts.
The frigid air is also expected to immobilize coldblooded animals. Iguanas sleeping in trees may lose their grip and drop to the ground. Sea turtles may stun and blow ashore from Texas to New England.
“You change the environment, and the organisms that are going to feel it first and hardest are the ectotherms [coldblooded animals] because their entire fitness is thermally dependent,” said Martha Muñoz, an evolutionary biologist at Yale University.
What Martha means is that you should have moved into a tiny apartment in a Democratic Party run city, only taking the train, bus, and bikes.
But researchers and animal experts say the cold spells don’t seem to incapacitate the iguanas like they used to, suggesting that animals are adapting to the chilly weather. People may still see iguanas dropping during the upcoming cold blast, but not as many as two to three decades ago, said Zoo Miami’s Ron Magill.
“With each year when we get a cold streak, I see less and less of those iguanas falling out of trees and being cold-stunned … and it’s not because there are less and less iguanas,” Magill said. “It’s just indicative that these animals are, in fact, adapting. Less and less of them are succumbing to this type of temperature differential.”
So, the ones that survive the cold snaps are passing those genes on because it’s happening so often. Shouldn’t heat trapping gases make it warmer? Oh, right, heat trapping gases cause massive cold snaps.
Speaking of iguanas in Florida
(Daily Beast) After a brutal hurricane season, people across Florida have grown freshly accustomed to power outages. But at least four times in the last two months, Lake Worth Beach residents have been plunged into darkness thanks to a very different kind of culprit: iguanas.
“Some answer has to be devised to thwart these scaly chompers!” Susannah Amygdalitsis, one of the approximately 1,400 residents affected by an iguana-tripped power outage earlier this month, told The Daily Beast.
She noted it was the second time she dealt with a reptile-related blackout.
They’re getting into structures, including power boxes and substations.
This year alone, residents have been subjected to at least 16 outages triggered by the reptile—which is considered an invasive species in the state of Florida—according to city spokesperson Ben Kerr. That number actually represents a downtick from the recent past: in 2020, the city saw 28 outages caused by lizards. In 2021, Lake Worth saw 20 iguana-triggered blackouts.
Still, interviews with residents suggest the city is littered with the massive green reptiles, which grow up to six feet long with a row of spikes on their neck, back, and tail. And experts say climate change could help explain the surge–with disturbing implications for the fate of infrastructure in Florida and beyond.
Seriously, a piece on iguanas messing with the power supply, and by the 6th paragraph they have to jump to ‘climate change’.
Read: Bummer: Florida Iguanas Are Adapting To Cold Weather »
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