If All You See…

By William Teach December 31, 2021 – 1:00 pm

…is a calm sea because carbon pollution is shutting down ocean circulation, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is A View From The Beach, with a post on the possibility of Greater Idaho.

Read: If All You See… »

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Apparently, Florida Is So Bad That AOC Is There On Vacation

By William Teach December 31, 2021 – 10:30 am

AOC, like so many Democrats, has slammed Florida during COVID, complaining about the lack of masking and so much more. Whining at Gov DeSantis and the GOP led general assembly. So, of course

AOC in Miami Beach for ‘taste of freedom’ as New York sees record number of COVID cases: report

U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez appeared to get an early start on New Year’s weekend Thursday, according to a report.

The New York Democrat was seen, maskless and drink in hand, as she dined outside in Miami Beach, Florida, the National Review reported. The congresswoman and a companion were spotted at Doraku Sushi and Izakaya, the report said.

The sighting quickly drew snarky reactions on social media.

“You’re being played by @AOC dummies,” one writer claimed, referring to the Democrat’s supporters.

“Hey @AOC tell me you endorse @RonDeSantisFL without telling me you endorse @RonDeSantisFL,” another commenter wrote, referring to Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has been known for coronavirus policies that contrast from many of those in Democrat-run states.

And

She’s escaping the record number of cases in NYC, and a huge surge in D.C., by going to a nice, open, Red state. Doesn’t look like she’s masking up, eh? It’s like when COVID hit and the big city liberals blew out of town for better pastures, spreading it around. Photo from National Review.

Meanwhile

(Reuters) – COVID-19 deaths and hospitalizations are “comparatively” low as the highly infectious Omicron variant of the coronavirus spreads, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky said on Wednesday as cases in the United States reached a record high.

“In a few short weeks Omicron has rapidly increased across the country, and we expect will continue to circulate in the coming weeks. While cases have substantially increased from last week, hospitalizations and deaths remain comparatively low right now,” she said, referring to overall cases.

I wonder how many other Democrats will be seen in Red states?

Read: Apparently, Florida Is So Bad That AOC Is There On Vacation »

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Oops: GM Electric Vehicle Batteries Keep Exploding

By William Teach December 31, 2021 – 7:00 am

Just what you need with the really expensive car you didn’t want to buy but were forced into, eh?

GM heralded this plant as a model for its electric car future. Then its batteries started exploding.

Electric vehicleBefore General Motors recalled the entire fleet of its most popular electric car because of fire dangers, before her factory was stilled, assembly line worker Carol McConkey stood in the middle of a teeming factory floor and marveled at how seamlessly the Chevrolet Bolt is manufactured.

The nine-year GM employee ducked under a car frame on an orange vehicle carrier, swung a mechanical arm out and drove five bolts into a nearly 1,000-pound battery pack with roughly the footprint of a bathtub.

Little did she know that soon, the same section of the car she works on would garner worldwide attention for another reason: exploding lithium-ion batteries. She and hundreds of other workers were sent home to wait out an extended assembly line closure.

The crisis involving the Chevrolet Bolt was a painful reminder for the auto industry that despite treating the electric vehicle era as essentially inevitable – a technical fait accompli – significant obstacles to manufacturing the cars, and especially their batteries, continue to threaten that future.

Why is it essentially inevitable? Consumers aren’t clamoring for them. There’s not big demand. Demand for hybrids is up a bit, because they make economic sense, being not much more than the standard versions. And they sure don’t want the batteries to explode while driving the super expensive EVs.

It’s the kind of disruption GM can ill afford as it aims to scale up its production of electric vehicles to 1 million units per year by 2025. The company wants to have a global lineup of 30 EVs by that year. And it plans to shift production away from gasoline-powered cars entirely in the next decade and a half.

Are they expecting to actually sell one million? GM sold 7.72 million in 2019, which was about half a million down from 2019, and that was down about 1.3 million from 2017. EVs being one seventh of their yearly sales is ludicrous.

Today, electric cars – plug-in hybrids, battery-powered vehicles and hydrogen-fuel-cell vehicles – make up less than 5% of U.S. new vehicle sales. But policymakers and automakers hope that by 2030, EVs will make up at least 40% of U.S. new car sales. That would be a critical development in the nation’s strategy for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Funny that most of the same policy makers aren’t driving them themselves. What they’re doing is being authoritarian in trying to force citizens to comply with their climate cult demands.

Anyhow, it is a long, long piece on how bad things are for GM. Maybe they and the others should consider what the consumers want, not a bunch of fascist lawmakers.

Read: Oops: GM Electric Vehicle Batteries Keep Exploding »

Posted in Collapsing Science, Global Warming | 8 Comments | Trackback URL

Bummer: Omicron Puts A Damper On Brandon’s Vaccine Mandates

By William Teach December 31, 2021 – 6:45 am

It’s still a really good idea to get the vaccine. And, if it’s been 6 months since you had your last one, get a booster. Because, really, the vaccines aren’t like the vaccines which keep your from getting a disease. You get the smallpox vaccine, you will not get smallpox. You won’t carry it, you won’t transmit it. The COVID vaccines are more like flu shots: they can hopefully reduce the chance you get it, and, if you do, it will be light. I already know of multiple people in the workplace who have it in the past few days

(CNN) An unprecedented spike in Covid-19 cases fueled by the fast-moving Omicron variant is crushing hospitals across the United States, with doctors describing packed emergency rooms as health experts implore New Year’s Eve revelers to keep parties small and outdoors to help avert an even worse surge.

“It’s unlike anything we’ve ever seen, even at the peak of the prior surges of Covid,” Dr. James Phillips, who works in Washington, DC, said Wednesday, when the nation hit a new pandemic high of 300,886 average new daily cases over the prior week, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

Remember when Biden said he he’d shut down the virus, not the country? Interestingly, the national media is focusing on Florida breaking infection records. But, I can only find one lonely local story about New York shattering records. And surging heavily in California. Weren’t we told those states were the models? Also, Maryland, Virginia, and D.C. Poor Brandon

Omicron puts pinch on Biden vaccine mandate efforts

The rapidly spreading omicron variant poses a problem for the White House as officials try to convince a skeptical public that vaccine mandates are necessary.

Opponents of mandates are seizing on early evidence that shows vaccines are not as effective at stopping transmission of the new strain, which they say undermines the administration’s key arguments for championing them.

This week, airlines were forced to cancel thousands of flights as COVID-19 swept through its flight crews and other employees. (snip)

Administration officials have cast vaccine mandates for health workers, and mandate-or-test requirements for large employers, as essential tools to get more people vaccinated.

While vaccines don’t necessarily keep someone from getting COVID-19, they greatly reduce the chances of hospitalization or death. If the mandates result in more people getting vaccinated, it could also reduce stress on the nation’s healthcare system if waves of people do get infected.

Well, true. But, they don’t seem to be stopping it from hitting the vaccinated.

Lawrence Gostin, a professor of global health at Georgetown University, said there’s been too much fatalistic messaging from the administration. If people are under the impression that they’re going to get COVID-19 no matter what, that will make selling mandates much more politically difficult, he said.

Gostin acknowledged that vaccines don’t totally prevent transmission of the omicron variant, but he said that doesn’t reduce the ethical justification for requiring somebody to be vaccinated.

“But I still think vaccine mandates are warranted,” he said. “If you can do something for somebody that is safe and keeps them healthy, when they otherwise might get very sick or die, that’s a good thing. And it’s also justified by the fact that we need to preserve health system capacities.”

Again, I’d agree if it was like so many vaccines, where you don’t get it. Period. It is more like the flu shots. How many people get them and still get the flu? Raising my hand. But, the flu does tend to be lighter. I’d say position it like the flu shots, but, people blow those off, too. People are going to have to really get a booster like every 6 months. And we need to learn to live with it. And if people want to not get it, that’s on them. I don’t want to hear them complain. But, what most news outlets are refusing to publish

(Deseret News) The omicron variant is “not the same disease” compared to previous COVID-19 strains, according to John Bell, a professor of medicine at the University of Oxford.

Bell, the U.K. government’s life sciences adviser, told BBC Radio 4 Tuesday that the omicron variant has led to fewer hospitalizations and severe disease so far, which shows the vaccines are still working, according to Bloomberg.

“The incidence of severe disease and death from this disease (Covid-19) has basically not changed since we all got vaccinated and that’s really important to remember,” he told the BBC.

“The horrific scenes that we saw a year ago — intensive care units being full, lots of people dying prematurely — that is now history in my view and I think we should be reassured that that’s likely to continue.” (snip)

This aligns with some early data and research suggested that the omicron COVID-19 variant leads to less severe symptoms and hospitalizations, as I wrote for the Deseret News. So far, data from South Africa has shown fewer hospitalizations tied to the variant, even though it has shown the power to evade COVID-19 vaccines and antibodies.

Yes, the major media is still trying to scare The People by not telling us this. And it barely helps Biden’s case by requiring vaccination.

Read: Bummer: Omicron Puts A Damper On Brandon’s Vaccine Mandates »

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Climate Cult Still Upset That We Didn’t Apply COVID Restrictions To ‘Climate Change’

By William Teach December 30, 2021 – 3:00 pm

Remember back to beginning of the Chinese coronavirus, when Warmists wanted to apply all the restrictions being put in place to Doing Something about the Climate Emergency? Yeah, they still want that

Did We Just Blow Our Last, Best Chance to Tackle Climate Change?

In mid-2020, after the pandemic had settled in, I wrote in a TIME cover story that the stars had aligned to make 2020 and 2021 the “last, best chance” to keep the world from experiencing the worst impacts of climate change. Temperatures have risen more than 1.1°C since the Industrial Revolution, and the COVID-19 pandemic had unexpectedly opened up new pathways to rethink the global economy to help the world avoid the 1.5°C of temperature rise, long seen as a marker of when the planet will start to experience the catastrophic and irreversible effects of climate change.

Now, 18 months later, the world seems poised to blow it. Governments across the globe have failed to spend big on a green economic recovery. Political leaders from the world’s largest economies have made lofty promises to eliminate their carbon footprints but failed to offer concrete policies to get there. And President Joe Biden’s ambitions for bold climate legislation have been stymied in Congress.

“We’re sort of standing on the precipice,” says Rob Jackson, an earth system science professor at Stanford University and the chair of the Global Carbon Project. “I am loath to say it, but I’m deeply skeptical that we will reduce emissions fast enough to keep global temperatures from rising 1.5°.”

What happens if it doesn’t hit 1.5C? What if it takes another hundred years to go up another .5C? It took 170 years to go up 1C from 1850, the end of the Little Ice Age? Also, no one is stopping Warmists from doing stuff in their own lives. Why is it necessary for government to spend a ton of taxpayer money, which would include all the restrictions and control of people’s lives?

The most obvious—and perhaps easiest—opportunity to turn the COVID-19 pandemic into progress in the fight against climate change boiled down to dollars and cents. COVID-19 and the subsequent lockdowns shocked the economy, requiring governments to spend trillions to keep the wheels turning. Quickly hard-nosed analysts and idealistic activists alike said governments should focus that spending on initiatives that would foster clean energy and push polluting industries to transform.

This message caught on quickly, and a “green recovery” became a key talking point for heads of government from countries large and small. But, as the pandemic wore on, most of those policies failed to materialize….

They failed to materialize because people weren’t working, things were shut down, and people didn’t have the skills. And so many were being paid to not work.

The Biden Administration has described its strategy as an “all of government” approach, meaning every agency and official needs to consider how their work can help address the issue. But, despite a swathe of new rules and regulations targeting emissions, the Administration has hinged much of its agenda on a key piece of legislation dubbed Build Back Better.

And BBB is actually the point of this all. Here’s an idea: separate the climate crazy from the rest of the bill, put it up for a vote. Let’s see how that goes.

Without it, or something of equal scale, the target remains an empty promise. “It’s impossible to get from here to there without these investments,” says John Podesta, the former advisor to Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama who now works on climate issues, of the role Build Back Better bill plays in meeting Biden’s goal.

We heard that with the Stimulus, and how’d that work out? Solar panel makers taking a ton of money, starting up, then collapsing, like Solyndra, which also left a big environmental mess. How much was pissed away for “weatherization”? But, it’s not about money, it’s about central government control.

Read: Climate Cult Still Upset That We Didn’t Apply COVID Restrictions To ‘Climate Change’ »

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If All You See…

By William Teach December 30, 2021 – 1:00 pm

…is a horrible plastic water bottle being offset by a wonderful low carbon bicycle, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The O.K. Corral, with a post on how bad Brandon’s polling is.

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Democrats Still Banging The Drum Of Coming GOP Authoritarianism

By William Teach December 30, 2021 – 10:30 am

The actual agenda of the Democratic Party isn’t actually that popular in practice, so, sure, why not try and scare voters?

Two Kentucky historians agree the GOP is steering the US straight toward authoritarianism |Opinion

Two Kentucky historians agree it’s past time for Democrats to start warning voters — loudly, clearly and unceasingly — where Donald Trump and his truest true believers in the GOP are steering the country: Straight toward white supremacy and authoritarianism.

“This is real, this is serious and it’s frightening,” said Brian Clardy, a Murray State University history professor. “We must build a democratic resistance that amounts to a counter-fascist coup — In short, we must all become ‘antifa,’ or antifascists,” said John Hennen, a Morehead State University history professor emeritus.

Clardy said Trump largely won on a white backlash triggered by Barack Obama’s election. Clardy was in the crowd when our first African American president was inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2009.

ZOMG, a whole two historians! Who sure look to be Democratic voters.

“While we’re celebrating here in Washington, folks back home are seething,” he said to a woman standing near him. He meant white folks.

Hennen said Trumpism has deep roots. “The eruption of violent white nationalist authoritarianism in our country is the shocking manifestation of less noisy currents of fascist politics which have evolved for decades.”

Yup, they are, as they throw out Word Salad. The rest goes exactly as you expect, so, let’s flip to J. Peder Zane, who doesn’t seem to be much of a fan of Trump

The Democrats’ Problem With Democracy

Democrats have challenged the legitimacy of every presidential election they’ve lost this millennium: They blamed a corrupt Supreme Court for their defeat in 2000, crooked voting machines in 2004 and Russian interference in 2016 – sparking a years-long collusion hoax to knee-cap Trump’s presidency.

But now, as President Biden’s poll numbers tank, his legislative agenda falters and his party’s 2022 prospects look increasingly grim, they and their media allies are adding a new twist to the tactic: They’re challenging elections before they happen.

Prestigious news outlets including the New York Times, Washington Post, the Atlantic, NPR and the New York Review of Books warn that American democracy is under siege. With headlines ripped straight from Democratic Party talking points they argue that Republicans are planning a two-pronged coup to seize power in 2022 and beyond.

It’s a good piece, worth reading the whole, but, let’s skip to

From their 19th century roots as the party run by Southern planters and Northern political machines, to their embrace of technocratic progressivism during the 20th century, to their current status as the party of global elites, the Democratic Party has long been a hierarchical outfit where those at the top promised to act in the best interests of those below them. Especially in the South, this paternalism was fused with demagoguery, as leaders kept voters in line by playing on fears of the “Negro menace.”

In other words, they like to control the lives of all the peons

In fairness, Republicans have engaged in many of the tactics ascribed to them. But their historic embrace of limited governmental power has usually restrained their impulse to direct people’s lives. They have tended to demonize small groups (e.g. left-wing communists) rather than entire populations. The argument that Republicans hate African Americans is simply a Democrat falsehood belied by the GOP’s long support for racial justice and the fact that America is by every measure less racist than it has ever been.

But, see, in the eyes of the far left moonbats, pushing for limited government, making sure the people who are voting are, in fact, the person who should be voting and that they are eligible to vote and haven’t voted multiple times, that government is responsible to the People, and more, is authoritarianism, Fascism. Loony tunes leftists.

Read: Democrats Still Banging The Drum Of Coming GOP Authoritarianism »

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Hurricanes To Spread Into More Populated Regions

By William Teach December 30, 2021 – 7:00 am

Don’t they do that now? Considering how many people want to live near the ocean? Oh, right, this is meant to Scare people into Doing Something, namely, giving up their money, freedom, liberty, and choices

Climate change: Hurricanes to expand into more populated regions

Climate change will expand the range of tropical cyclones, making millions more people vulnerable to these devastating storms, a new study says.

At present, these cyclones – or hurricanes as they are also known – are mainly confined to the tropical regions north and south of the equator.

But researchers say that rising temperatures will allow these weather events to form in the mid-latitudes.

This area includes cities such as New York, Beijing, Boston and Tokyo.

The scientists involved say their work shows by the end of this century, cyclones will likely occur over a wider range than they have for three million years.

Oh, good, the end of the century, when no one can check up and see if this happened, and hold people accountable for scaremongering.

“What we’ve done is make explicit the links between the physics going on within storms themselves and the dynamics of the atmosphere at the planetary scale,” said Dr Studholme.

“This is a hard problem because this physics isn’t well simulated in numerical models run on modern computers.”

And, computer models again. So, pure BS.

Read: Hurricanes To Spread Into More Populated Regions »

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CDC Spins Away In Trying To Defend New Isolation Protocols

By William Teach December 30, 2021 – 6:45 am

We’re what, 21 months in to the Chinese coronavirus (well, really, over a year, it’s just February when we really started to hear about it), and they’re just figuring this stuff out now?

CDC director defends new COVID guidelines reducing isolation period

Amid criticism from public health officials, Centers for Disease Control Director Rochelle Walensky defended new guidelines released this week that halved the isolation period for people who test positive for COVID-19 but are asymptomatic or whose symptoms are ‘resolving.’

“This virus has proven its ability to adapt quickly and we must adapt with it,” Walensky said Wednesday during a briefing by the White House COVID-19 response team.

The CDC announced the changes Monday, saying they were “shortening the recommended time for isolation from 10 days for people with COVID-19 to five days, if asymptomatic, followed by five days of wearing a mask when around others.”

During Wednesday’s press briefing, Walensky said that “studies show that people are most infectious in the one-to-two days before symptoms develop, and in the two-to-three days after,” with an estimated 85-90 percent of transmission occurring in the first five days of infection with COVID-19.

“After five days, the risk of transmission substantially decreases,” she said.

We didn’t know this before? Why not? What was the CDC doing all this time?

“Basically, if you test negative or positive we want you to mask,” Walensky said, noting that the new CDC guidance recommends masking for five days after isolation.

“I want to emphasize the critical importance of masking, which we know decreases risk of transmission, and of staying home if you’re sick,” she said, adding, “These recommendations will only work if people follow them.”

Oh, would these be the masks required in areas like NYC which are seeing huge spikes in positive tests?

“It’s frankly reckless to proceed like this. Using a rapid test or some type of test to validate that the person isn’t infectious is vital,” Dr. Eric Topol, founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, told Reuters, adding, “There’s no evidence, no data to support this.”

Oh, it gets better, Doc

So the tests won’t really tell you? Oh, but, she gets so much better!

So, that’s science? What people can tolerate? No one seemed to have a problem forcing isolation a month ago? Nor are any other countries doing this. I bet kids really do not appreciate all those shots for, say, smallpox. Maybe we should only give them 3 instead of 5 if they can’t tolerate them? Yeah, 5 is necessary for full immunity to smallpox. What about masks? What if people cannot tolerate them? Like kids. Remember all those videos of 2 year olds freaking about wearing a mask on an airplane and the family being kicked off?

Read: CDC Spins Away In Trying To Defend New Isolation Protocols »

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West Coast Sees Record Snow, Climate Cult Does Their Normal Blame Game

By William Teach December 29, 2021 – 3:00 pm

This is a view

And, of course, there were plenty of tweets linking/blaming ‘climate change’ for heavy, record breaking snow. And now it’s in the Credentialed Media

24 States Under Extreme Weather Alerts: Weather Fueled By Climate Change Disrupts Life Across The U.S.

Twenty-four states were on alert for extreme winter weather Tuesday, as heavy snow caused power failures across the Northwest and blizzards dumped feet of snow in the Midwest, severe weather patterns that have been linked to climate change.

Winter storms shut down a 70-mile stretch of Interstate 80 in California as crews struggled to clear downed trees and snow from the highway, TV station ABC10 reported.

Some Southern California residents were evacuated and others were told to shelter in place as flash floods and debris flows threatened areas near streams, rivers and wildlife burn scars, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Meanwhile, Oregon has declared a state of emergency until January 3 in anticipation of heavy snow that Gov. Kate Brown said would cause “critical transportation failures and disruptions to power and communications infrastructure.”

You also have snow in Nevada and the midwest, and glazing ice in New England. And Forbes goes with the Normal Cult Excuse

Warming of the Arctic has caused an increase in extreme winter weather in some parts of the U.S., according to a study published by Science. So, although 2022 is predicted to be one of the hottest years on record, reaching temperatures 1.96 degrees over pre-industrial averages, intense winter weather may continue. As well as harming infrastructure and setting back businesses, extreme and variable weather directly impacts human health, increasing deaths through stroke and myocardial infarction, said heart and lung transplant surgeon Bill Frist.

I’d ask if you can believe this malarkey, but, you’ve seen it before. This is a cult, which blames winter weather on heat trapping gases. CBS Sacremento also links the snow to ‘climate change’, as does Axios. And WBRZ. And CBC links the current extreme cold to climate doom. And the Independent does this for Seattle’s coldest day in 73 years, along with snow. It is a cult.

Read: West Coast Sees Record Snow, Climate Cult Does Their Normal Blame Game »

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