PG&E: a novel new way to hurt customers

OPINION BY BZ

Let there be no mistake. BZ has had a house in the Sierra Nevada Mountains since 1993. I’m at about the 4,000-foot level just below Blue Canyon. It’s a gorgeous and scenic area with great local people. I moved there because, as a law enforcement officer, I wanted to get away from the insanity and chaos of my job. I’ll work in an urban rat cage because I’m paid; I just didn’t want to live in an urban rat cage any more.

I’m also a PG&E customer — Pacific Gas & Electric.

Of course, this being California, I have loads of choices for my utility companies, right? Uh, no. I have one. PG&E. I get my power from PG&E or I rely solely on solar or a generator. Solar is out because my house is obscured by trees. And, for example, a Generac generator is out because they’re very expensive. So I have neither.

Let’s just say that PG&E has a monopoly on my power and leave it at that. However, I’m not alone. A great deal of PG&E customers don’t have a choice of power companies either. PG&E is, well, pretty much “it” in certain areas of California. I’m suspecting that’s by design. But what do I know?

That’s why what happened is important and why more people need to listen up and wake up. Things in California aren’t going to get any better. They’re only going to get worse, if for no other reason than those who “lead” California are unmitigated Leftists who have no concept of so-called unforeseen consequences (which in California are always foreseeable if one’s eyes are actually open) and who live in their own bubbly, insular and purple-skied environments.

So what did happen to PG&E customers? From USAToday.com:

PG&E keeps nearly 60,000 Northern California customers in the dark to reduce wildfire risk

by Ashley May & Kristin Lam

A utility company purposefully shut off electricity to nearly 60,000 Northern California customers Sunday night, aiming to reduce wildfire risks from power lines during extreme winds. 

Pacific Gas and Electric planned to restore power to 70 percent of affected customers in the North Bay and Sierra Foothills late Monday night. As crews inspect lines for safety by helicopter, vehicles and on foot, the remainder will have power sometime Tuesday.

While it was the first time the company shut off power for public safety, PG&E announced its criteria and procedures for such an event in June, said spokesperson Paul Doherty. After wildfires devastated Northern California’s wine country last October, he added, PG&E developed its community wildfire safety program division to make power grids and communities more resilient.  

Translated: we got our arses sued off. So we’re compensating for our shareholders.

Didn’t hear about the suits, did you? Here are a few insights.

Cal Fire: PG&E equipment caused 12 Northern California fires during October firestorm

by Julie Johnson, Robert Digitale and JD Morris

Cal Fire investigators said Friday that equipment owned and operated by PG&E ignited 12 wildfires that raged in hot, dry weather and high winds across Northern California in October, charring hundreds of square miles in Sonoma County and beyond, destroying thousands of structures and killing 18 people.

The utility was in violation of state code on eight of those fires, failing to clear brush around its lines and properly maintain its power equipment, according to state fire investigators.

Cal Fire found violations in the Norrbom, Partrick, Pythian, Adobe and Pocket fires that burned in Sonoma and Napa counties; the Atlas fire in Napa County; the Sulphur fire in Lake County; and the Blue fire in Humboldt County. The agency forwarded its reports to district attorneys in those jurisdictions for review.

From NPR.org:

PG&E Power Lines Blamed For Northern California Wildfires

by Richard Gonzales

Downed power lines owned by utility giant Pacific Gas and Electric are being blamed for a dozen Northern California wildfires last fall. The findings by state officials could have a significant financial impact on PG&E.

The report by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection links electric power and distribution lines with 12 fires that killed 18 people. The trouble started when trees and branches came into contact with power lines and wind gusts of up to 70 mph pushed wildfires faster than firefighters could respond.

Here is the report’s summary of two of the deadliest fires that claimed 15 lives:

“The Redwood Fire, in Mendocino County, started the evening of Oct. 8 and burned a total of 36,523 acres, destroying 543 structures. There were nine civilian fatalities and no injuries to firefighters. CAL FIRE has determined the fire started in two locations and was caused by tree or parts of trees falling onto PG&E power lines. …

“The Atlas Fire, in Napa County, started the evening of Oct. 8 and burned a total of 51,624 acres, destroying 783 structures. There were six civilian fatalities. CAL FIRE investigators determined the fire started in two locations. At one location, it was determined a large limb broke from a tree and came into contact with a PG&E power line. At the second location, investigators determined a tree fell into the same line.”

State law says utility companies can be held liable for the costs of firefighting, even when they haven’t violated safety rules.

PG&E is facing more than 50 lawsuits filed by fire victims arguing that the utility is responsible for fires that scorched the wine country counties of Napa and Sonoma last year.

An earlier investigation found that PG&E’s failure to clear or trim trees near power lines caused three wildfires in Butte and Nevada counties in the fall.

PG&E, of course, wasn’t taking that liability crap laying down. They pressed for changes in the law. From Reuters.com:

California lawmakers pass bill on PG&E wildfire liability

by Jim Christie

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – California’s legislature passed a bill late on Friday that could help the utility Pacific Gas and Electric Corporation (PG&E) avoid potentially crippling liabilities for wildfires that ravaged northern parts of the San Francisco Bay Area last year.

The bill, passed 29 to 4 in the Senate and 45 to 10 in the Assembly, requires approval by Democrat Governor Jerry Brown.

Some fires in the north of the Bay area were caused by trees toppling into or making contact with PG&E power lines, a report released by state officials in June said. Analysts estimate PG&E, the state’s biggest utility, could face several billions of dollars in liability as a result.

Democrat State Senator Bill Dodd said the bill was needed to spare customers from big increases in energy costs. “Without it, ratepayers will be left holding the bag and communities will needlessly suffer,” he said.

You see what’s going on here, yes? PG&E is saying that you must let them off the hook or “your rates will rise.” Threats, anyone, table for 16 million ratepayers?

But here’s the scalding truth that PG&E doesn’t want you to know, from CapRadio.org:

California’s Wildfire Liability Law Won’t Change This Year, Dealing Setback To Utilities Like PG&E

by Ben Adler

Pacific Gas and Electric has spent millions of dollars in hopes of saving billions as it battles to change California’s wildfire liability law.

But PG&E and other investor-owned utilities in California appear to have lost the battle, at least for this year. The Legislature adjourns on August 31.

“I think it’s safe to say that ‘inverse condemnation’ is off the table,” Sen. Bill Dodd (D-Napa) told CapRadio Friday evening, referring to the state’s current liability law that the utilities have been fighting so hard to change. Dodd co-chairs the joint Senate-Assembly conference committee tasked with crafting wildfire preparedness and liability legislation.

Read this:

Inverse condemnation is based on the tenet that, because utilities are allowed to build and place equipment wherever they see fit — even if they need to seize property from a private landowner for public use through eminent domain — they must also take responsibility for damages.

If a utility is found to have been negligent, its shareholders must foot the bill. Otherwise, it can pass the costs on to its ratepayers.

Gov. Jerry Brown released a proposal last month that sided with the utilities. He wants to require a court to weigh in as to whether a utility’s actions were reasonable and to “to balance the public benefit of the electrical infrastructure with the harm caused to private property.”

It would also require the court to take into account a utility’s “proportionate fault” in causing a fire. Currently, because utilities must pay even if not at fault, they bear the entire liability burden whenever its equipment was involved in a fire’s cause.

PG&E said even that proposal — labeled by opponents as a “utility bailout” — did not go far enough.

Now you know why PG&E has reacted thusly. It is not yet protected, so it must make its customers suffer in the uncovered interim. Literally suffer.

This is a new and novel approach, utilized by PG&E, in order to make customers “pay” for their lawsuits — literally and figuratively. Their tactic appeals to Leftists because they’re convinced to their very souls that (once called Global Warming) “climate change” is killing the planet.

Note to Leftists: the climate always changes. And weather always cycles.

Score one for PG&E. Their tactic benefits them because, well, if PG&E had to feel some pain, the customers who instigated those lawsuits should have to feel their own pain as well.

After all, let’s realize the obvious: the bulk of PG&E customers constitute a captive audience. It’s not like they can unplug from PG&E. They can’t. Not if they like electricity.

It’s a win/win for PG&E. They shut down your power during “questionable times.” By doing this they may avoid some lawsuits. So in the name of “climate change” and “doing the right thing for the planet” PG&E gets to potentially avoid lawsuits — which is primary — and customer cash still gets sent to them. In the meantime your medical devices crash, you can’t cook meals, you lose all the food in your refrigerators or freezers, you lose your water supply, your communications, your electric way of life and — oh yeah — your means of transportation if you have an electric car. Everything these days depends upon a constant flow of electricity. Everything.

And trust me. This is going to be the new “normal” from now on in California. Once various utilities see this working — those utilities who may be in a like wildfire situation, no matter where they may be — the plan will be implemented. Southern California Edison already thinks it’s a stellar idea whose time has come.

This is how stupid California has become. It wants all electric vehicles by 2040. Gas vehicles would be banned by then.

Cal ISO in Folsom, California — the Independent Systems Operator having control of electricity in all of California — already can’t handle the load on certain hot days now. What makes anyone think the load will lessen? The electrical load will only increase at a rapid rate because of the illegals flooding into California in order to partake of its largesse. Infrastructure is taxed. That includes electricity. That includes PG&E.

Of course, in order to reach the lofty goal of all electric cars by 2040, California has now committed to building at least one new electric generation station per five years until then. Correct?

Hardly. California has already decreed that’s its last nuclear plant will close in 2025.

Pacific Gas and Electric’s (PG&E) decision to shutter its 2,200 MW Diablo Canyon nuclear facility by 2024 or 2025 leaves a gaping hole in capacity that needs to be filled. The utility proposed a $1.3 billion energy efficiency investment as part of a 2016 agreement with renewable energy advocates over shuttering the plant.

Of course, California has a massive host of alternative power plant construction plans lined up and shovel-ready. Right?

As an aside: Democrat Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wants the US to abandon fossil fuels entirely. Apparently she’s never heard of this thing called plastic. Amongst others.

Make no mistake. This is most definitely a proverbial “cautionary tale,” ladies and gentlemen. Let California be a continuing example of what not to do in this and many other situations. Learn from the stupidity, excess and vast-Leftist influence of those who control California.

In the meantime, the stupidity and the fleecing marches on.

PG&E, you’re just one example.

Screw the customer.

Enhance you.

I get it.

BZ

 

The fallacy of American recycling

There you go, like a diligent little prole, taking time to separate out your oil, your plastic, your rubber, your paper, your metal, your cans, your glass, placing them with care and love into the applicable bins in your recycling glee. You do the recycling dance. You wear recycled clothes. Hemp ain’t temp.

Like a puppy, you absolutely know it’s going to a good home.

Except that it really isn’t going anywhere. Not then. Not now.

From NPR.org:

Recycling Chaos In U.S. As China Bans ‘Foreign Waste’

by Cassandra Profita

Like many Portland residents, Satish and Arlene Palshikar are serious recyclers. Their house is coated with recycled bluish-white paint. They recycle their rainwater, compost their food waste and carefully separate the paper and plastic they toss out. But recently, after loading up their Prius and driving to a sorting facility, they got a shock.

Stop. You know me. You know I can’t resist. How typical is it that Leftists recycling in Oregon Leftist Central, Portlandia, have recycled paint on their house, recycled rainwater, possess a compost pile and thirty different recycling bins. They’re damned near a parody of themselves.

But when they all piled into their Toyota Prius — clearly one of the most damaging cars on the planet when it comes to toxic materials, danger posed to emergency responders and overall ground rape — I knew they were more (of course) naive little GOWPs.

A Prius damaging to the environment? From NCPA.org:

PRIUS OUTDOES HUMMER IN ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE

The Toyota Prius, the flagship car for the environmentally conscious, is the source of some of the worst pollution in North America, and takes more combined energy to produce than a Hummer, says the Recorder.

Consider:

  • The nickel contained in the Prius’ battery is mined and smelted at a plant in Ontario that has caused so much environmental damage to the surrounding environment that NASA has used the ‘dead zone’ around the plant to test moon rovers.
  • Dubbed the Superstack, the factory has spread sulfur dioxide across northern Ontario, becoming every environmentalist’s nightmare.
  • Acid rain around the area was so bad it destroyed all the plants and the soil slid down off the hillside, according to Canadian Greenpeace energy-coordinator David Martin.
  • After leaving the plant, the nickel travels to Europe, China, Japan and United States, a hardly environmentally sound round the world trip for a single battery.

But that isn’t even the worst part, says the Record. According to a study by CNW Marketing, the total combined energy to produce a Prius (consisting of electrical, fuel, transportation, materials and hundreds of other factors over the expected lifetime), is greater than what it takes to produce a Hummer:

  • The Prius costs an average of $3.25 per mile driven over a lifetime of 100,000 miles — the expected lifespan of the Hybrid.

  • The Hummer, on the other hand, costs a more fiscal $1.95 per mile to put on the road over an expected lifetime of 300,000 miles.

  • That means the Hummer will last three times longer than a Prius and use almost 50 percent less combined energy doing it.

From Wired.com:

Go Green — Buy a Used Car. It’s Better Than a Hybrid

Chuck Squatriglia

DITCHING YOUR GAS guzzler is a great way to reduce your carbon footprint, but if you really want to do something about global warming, get a used car. You’ll be putting less carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

As Matt Power notes in this month’s issue of Wired, hybrids get great gas mileage but it takes 113 million BTUs of energy to make a Toyota Prius. Because there are about 113,000 BTUs of energy in a gallon of gasoline, the Prius has consumed the equivalent of 1,000 gallons of gasoline before it reaches the showroom. Think of it as a carbon debt — one you won’t pay off until the Prius has turned over 46,000 miles or so.

There’s an easy way to avoid that debt — buy a used car. The debt has already been paid.

Earlier Prius models use NIMH batteries — nickel-metal hydride. You may choose now between NIMH and Lithium-Ion in 2017. Tesla is running off Lithium-Ion batteries.

Lithium-ion batteries just won’t store the amount of energy required to be as useful as Musk promises, says Milnes: “Personally I think the Tesla factory producing hundreds of thousands more lithium-ion batteries is really short sighted because those batteries are just never going to hold the amount of energy we need them to.”

But wait, there’s more.

But even as Tesla’s batteries promise to reduce tailpipe emissions, more direct environmental concerns surround the current boom in lithium-ion batteries. As hundreds of thousands more of these batteries hit the market, the problems that come with lithium mining, battery lifecycles and recycling loom large.

In a 2013 report, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Design for the Environment program concluded that batteries using nickel and cobalt, like lithium-ion batteries, have the “highest potential for environmental impacts”. It cited negative consequences like mining, global warming, environmental pollution and human health impacts.

You might want to consider this as well:

Effects of Mining Lithium

Even though you will not be individually mining the lithium used in your batteries, you should still be aware of the environmental concerns of this process. The U.S Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) conducted a study on the materials and production of a lithium-ion battery. The study concluded that mining these chemicals can cause the following:

  • resource depletion
  • global warming
  • ecological toxicity (Kaiser, 2013)

Some chemicals used in lithium-ion battery production are very rare and exist in tiny quantities. Rare metals are mined in China by passing bags of dirt through several acid baths, leaving behind the rare materials. “Those rare earths amounted to 0.2 percent of what gets pull out of the ground. The other 99.8 percent-now contaminated with toxic chemicals-is dumped back into the environment” (Wade, 2016).  Overall, almost every stage of the lithium mining process can lead to harmful environmental effects.

California says it wants to ban all but electric vehicles by 2040. One teensy-weensy problem: California doesn’t want to build any electric generation stations. Oopsie. And not everyone with an electric car can move to Texas.

Back to the desecration. How odd. GM stopped manufacturing the Hummer brand in 2009. The Prius and all other hybrids are still raping and plundering the environment. Leftists and dupes happily buy them.

Back to the original story.

“The fellow said we don’t take plastic anymore,” Satish says. “It should go in the trash.”

The facility had been shipping its plastic to China, but suddenly that was no longer possible.

Whoa whoa whoa. Hold up on that car wash. Did I just see that our recycling materials aren’t being taken locally — much less the United States — but are instead being shipped to China? Do you know how much more toxicity that one act adds to the environment? The cost of diesel? The cost of shipping? The cost of storage and transportation? The cost of additional ships?

And “trash”? All that must now go “in the trash”? I’m sure the Palshikar family envisions months of therapy in order to quell those horrific visions.

Check this:

The U.S. exports about one-third of its recycling, and nearly half goes to China.

For decades, China has used recyclables from around the world to supply its manufacturing boom. But this summer it declared that this “foreign waste” includes too many other nonrecyclable materials that are “dirty,” even “hazardous.”

That’s rich. After China having shipped dog food to the US “fortified” with, well, dog-killing melamine. But what the hell. Just good filler.

In a filing with the World Trade Organization the country listed 24 kinds of solid wastes it would ban “to protect China’s environmental interests and people’s health.”

Beijing, China, 2016. On a good day. This is an actual photograph.

Right. Because China is so terribly concerned with pollution.

The complete ban takes effect Jan. 1, but already some Chinese importers have not had their licenses renewed. That is leaving U.S. recycling companies scrambling to adapt.

“It has no value … It’s garbage.”

Wait wait wait wait wait wait. That cannot be. This is Utopia. How could possibly have been overlooked?

Rogue Waste Systems in southern Oregon collects recycling from curbside bins, and manager Scott Fowler says there are always nonrecyclables mixed in. As mounds of goods are compressed into 1-ton bales, he points out some: a roll of linoleum, gas cans, a briefcase, a surprising number of knitted sweaters. Plus, there are the frozen food cartons and plastic bags that many people think are recyclable but are not.

Right. Average stuff people throw away. Wait. Are you saying.  .  .

For decades, China has sorted through all this and used the recycled goods to propel its manufacturing boom. Now it no longer wants to, so the materials sits here with no place to go.

“It just keeps coming and coming and coming,” says Rogue employee Laura Leebrick. In the warehouse, she is dwarfed by stacks of orphaned recycling bales. Outside, employee parking spaces have been taken over by compressed cubes of sour cream containers, broken wine bottles and junk mail.

Are you saying that the American Recycling Utopia is a falsehood?

And what are recyclables with nowhere to go?

“Right now, by definition, that material out there is garbage,” she says. “It has no value. There is no demand for it in the marketplace. It’s garbage.”

For now, Rogue Waste says it has no choice but to take all of this recycling to the local landfill. More than a dozen Oregon companies have asked regulators whether they can send recyclable materials to landfills, and that number may grow if they can’t find someplace else that wants them.

Again I say: wait. This makes no sense. Weren’t and didn’t the Leftists all along tell us that recycling will save us? And by dint of that, as good little proles ourselves, didn’t we think it was going somewhere — other than the general trash heap?

Seems it isn’t it all.

Or: it went to China. China? You mean to say the Leftists weren’t in full control of the recycling chain in the first place, from collection bin to final recycled product? They certainly made us think so.

This made me wonder, of course: is recycling even viable? Does it even work? Or is simply another Leftist myth hammered into the skulls of those susceptible to this mush and/or bulled by local agencies to do so?

From TheFederalist.com:

Why Recycling Is A Waste of Time

by Bre Payton

“People who recycle should be ashamed of themselves for acting like scavengers when so much is possible to them under capitalism.”

The secret is out: recycling isn’t working, because it was never really supposed to.

The Washington Post reported that more recycling companies, including Waste Management, are turning away from recycling, as the enterprise has ‘become’ totally unprofitable. They place the blame on the (well-meaning) masses who acted like apes when they were given larger recycling bins.

The article explains:

By pushing to increase recycling rates with bigger and bigger bins — while demanding almost no sorting by consumers — the recycling stream has become increasingly polluted and less valuable, imperiling the economics of the whole system. . . Residents have also begun experimenting, perhaps with good intentions, tossing into recycling bins almost anything rubber, metal or plastic: garden hoses, clothes hangers, shopping bags, shoes, Christmas lights. That was exactly the case last year, when the District replaced residents’ 32-gallon bins with ones that are 50 percent larger.

While many are throwing shade at those big glue bins, the truth is, much of consumer recycling has been a waste of time all along. The article goes onto explain that glass probably shouldn’t have ever been recycled. It’s heavy and breaks easily, contaminating the rest of the materials in the pile. Most of it has no value, and often costs money to haul away. The stuff that is valuable is “trucked to landfills as daily cover to bury the smell and trap gases.”

There are numerous other articles on the subject. I was amazed that most of them said: “meh.”

The people above are part of what I term the Religious Left, an insular group taking all their environmental beliefs on faith, unwilling to budge or compromise on facts, trends and statistics, brooking no disagreement with their views and by which those in disagreement must be met with all remedies ranging from belittling to outright violence. Disbelief makes one an apostate and a heretic — not unlike the Borg or Islam.

Now you know where your trash is really going. To the dump.

Blue bins, here we come!

BZ

 

Tucker Carlson demolishes the unbalanced Bill Nye

First, the video.

Let us not forget, as was mentioned, that Bill Nye said skeptics of global warming suffer from delusions of cognitive dissonance. He also suggested the skeptics of global warming might be better served as being imprisoned not unlike war criminals.

“You’re using the language of politics. You’re not a scientist as you know, you’re a popularizer.”

As a reminder, from the WashingtonTimes.com:

Bill Nye, the science guy, is open to criminal charges and jail time for climate change dissenters

by Valerie Richardson

Bill Nye “the science guy” says in a video interview released Thursday that he is open to the idea of jailing those who deviate from the climate change consensus.

Asked about the heated rhetoric surrounding the climate change debate, such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s previous comments that some climate skeptics should be prosecuted as war criminals, Mr. Nye replied, “We’ll see what happens.”

“Was it appropriate to jail the guys from Enron?” Mr. Nye asked in a video interview with Climate Depot’s Marc Morano. “We’ll see what happens. Was it appropriate to jail people from the cigarette industry who insisted that this addictive product was not addictive, and so on?”

Of course. But here’s the money shot:

“In these cases, for me, as a taxpayer and voter, the introduction of this extreme doubt about climate change is affecting my quality of life as a public citizen,” Mr. Nye said. “So I can see where people are very concerned about this, and they’re pursuing criminal investigations as well as engaging in discussions like this.”

Already, under BBC protocols, one cannot disagree with GW/CC and find yourself employed by Auntie Beebe.

BBC staff ordered to stop giving equal air time to climate change deniers

by Jessica Chasmar

The BBC’s governing body has ordered staff to stop giving equal air time to climate change deniers and other scientific experts with a “marginal opinion.”

The BBC Trust published a progress report analyzing the corporation’s science coverage and found it remains prone to “over-rigid application of editorial guidelines on impartiality” that resulted in the BBC giving “undue attention to marginal opinion,” The Telegraph reported.

Note to so-called “scientists,” Bill Nye and the Religious Left (the Religious Left are those persons who believe in “global warming” — now transmutated to “climate change” because it’s so much more comprehensive — . NOAA lied about their global warming statistics, skewing them purposely. Why? Because cash money is attached to these studies and there is competition for this cash provided by GOWPs. From the WashingtonTimes.com:

Climate change whistleblower alleges NOAA manipulated data to hide global warming ‘pause’

by Valerie Richardson

Former federal climatologist John Bates blasts 2015 NOAA study as other scientists defend its conclusions

The climate change debate went nuclear Sunday over a whistleblower’s explosive allegation that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association manipulated data to advance a political agenda by hiding the global warming “pause.”

In an article on the Climate Etc. blog, John Bates, who retired last year as principal scientist of the National Climatic Data Center, accused the lead author of the 2015 NOAA “pausebuster” report of trying to “discredit” the hiatus through “flagrant manipulation of scientific integrity guidelines and scientific publication standards.”

In addition, Mr. Bates told the Daily [U.K.] Mail that the report’s author, former NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information director Thomas Karl, did so by “insisting on decisions and scientific choices that maximized warming and minimized documentation.”

“Gradually, in the months after [the report] came out, the evidence kept mounting that Tom Karl constantly had his ‘thumb on the scale’ — in the documentation, scientific choices, and release of datasets — in an effort to discredit the notion of a global warming hiatus and rush to time the publication of the paper to influence national and international deliberations on climate policy,” Mr. Bates said Saturday on Climate Etc.

Second note to Bill Nye and the Religious Left: climate does in fact change. I can look out my window and see it.

The weather in my area changes frequently; sometimes by the hour. In Fornicalia where I live, there has been a drought for the past seven years. Last winter in 2015/2016 the El Nino was supposed to even things out because, allegedly, El Ninos bring wet weather. It was a dud.

This winter, Fornicalia is now mostly out of the drought (definitely out of the drought in Northern Fornicalia where I live in the Sierra Nevada mountains) and the Sierra Nevada snowpack is 150% of normal. In the meantime, there is no snow in Chicago.

Climate does indeed change. And the record keeping on weather has documented only a minuscule amount of planetary history at best, to the point where I submit that computer models must be constantly updated due to new information and input. We cannot yet make adequate prognostications under the most ideal of conditions. You cannot convince me that much of what we see is in fact cyclical and natural.

I have, bottom line, yet to be convinced beyond the shadow of any doubt that “climate change” — which any rational human being realizes occurs — is obviously anthropogenic in nature. Because for any argument in favor, I can show you an argument against.

I submit that we as a species are not nearly as smart as we think we are, when it comes to Planet Earth. We make a rather elitist and arrogant assumption that we can truly know and predict actions of this third rock from the sun.

BZ

 

Obama’s last SOTU

Obama Selfie With Stick, AlaskaAnd it couldn’t have happened to a more traitorous man.  Or quickly enough.

The only thing worse than having to hear Obama’s voice, literally, EVERY day for the past seven years would be to hear Hillary’s piercing voice every day.  That is not, at this point, an impossible future.

Will Obama mention his traitorous Iranian deal?  Will he mention the Iranian missiles fired close to our newest aircraft carrier?  Will he mention the ten sailors captured by Iran?  As Charles Krauthammer said, Obama has already been serially humiliated by Iran.

Obama canceled sanctions for the missile launches.  Obama is kind to our enemies and brutal to our allies.

How long will the speech go?  How many times will he say “I” instead of we?

The transcript of his last SOTU is here.

And the lies commenced.

Mr Obama said we have emerged better now than before.  Yes ladies and gentlemen, he is delusional from the very beginning.

“We have reformed healthcare and reinvigorated our energy sector.”

“How do we lead the world without becoming its policeman?”

“The people who say our economy is in decline are peddling fiction.”

“We should recruit and support more great teachers for our kids.”

So here has what Leftist policies have yielded for teachers in our current “total lack of discipline” classroom environments.

That wasn’t a movie, a TV show or a bad SNL skit.  That’s classroom reality.

“Food Stamp recipients didn’t cause the financial crisis; recklessness on Wall Street did.”  Wall Street helped; but the givernment demanded that banks loan to people who couldn’t afford houses.

“Look, if anybody still wants to dispute the science around climate change, have at it. You’ll be pretty lonely, because you’ll be debating our military, most of America’s business leaders, the majority of the American people, almost the entire scientific community, and 200 nations around the world who agree it’s a problem and intend to solve it.”

Again, more lies.  More embracement of The Religious Left — those who so desperately want to believe in Global Warming.  It is a religion that demands faith and, like islam, brooks no dissenters.

“No nation dares to attack us or our allies because they know that’s the path to ruin.”

All of the highest-ranking military professionals in the room appeared as though they had had a steaming dog turd stuffed in their mouths when Obama said that.  I watched.

Obama SOTU 2016 Military“Surveys show our standing around the world is higher than when I was elected to this office.”

Another massive and total lie.

Even the Demorats in the audience who stood to clap did so with tepid vigor and passive and disinterested faces.

THE BIGGEST LIE OF THE EVENING:

“We don’t need to build them (ISIL) up to show that we’re serious, nor do we need to push away vital allies in this fight by echoing the lie that ISIL is representative of one of the world’s largest religions.”

THE BIGGEST OMISSION OF THE EVENING:

NOT ONE WORD about US debt and the massive deficits, CONTINUED and EXPANDED GOVERNMENT SPENDING that he and Demorats and Leftists demand.

“The future we want – opportunity and security for our families; a rising standard of living and a sustainable, peaceful planet for our kids – all that is within our reach. But it will only happen if we work together. It will only happen if we can have rational, constructive debates.”

And those debates, those discussions, are just what you and the Demorats and your fellow Leftists won’t brook in your cabinet meetings, in the public, on the internet, in books and magazines, on television and, mostly now, in our schools and universities.

“As frustration grows, there will be voices urging us to fall back into tribes, to scapegoat fellow citizens who don’t look like us, or pray like us, or vote like we do, or share the same background.”

How odd that you mention that in your very last state of the union speech, because you have been the greatest Divider In Chief.

Obama simultaneously disarms American citizens and arms Iran with the largest, most powerful and deadliest weapons systems on the planet.  Mr Obama disarms our citizens, removes equipment from our police forces — who are our First Responders to terrorist and critical incidents, not any single faction of the federal government, in any form.  Not the FBI, not the US Marshals, not FEMA.  Not any federal agency.  Your local law enforcement only.

He also ensures that our law enforcement agencies are diminished, demagogued, belittled.

Obama was the greatest Divider In Chief.  He will be proven as the least effective president in recent history, even worse than that of James Earl Carter.

His power depended precisely upon division, the diminishment of American power, greater regulatory and governmental power and money, with the

Just as with his entire administration and tenure, Obama’s final state of the union speech was entirely disconnected from reality.  He continues to be physically and mentally separated from the true reality in America and continues his denial of the way the country and the world operates.  His speech was disjointed and riddled with major droppings of his ego, arrogance and dismissal of those who would oppose him or his policies in any fashion.  He sets aside reality that is inconvenient to him.

Obama ZombiesNot one word about American hostages in Iran.  Not one word about the Iran sanctions or Monday’s ten hostage sailors.  He lectures us about civility but not one reference to the fact that Obama is almost singlehandedly responsible for the chaos in Syria via ISIS, his “J.V. team” and that, by extension, Obama will be responsible for the Islamization and decline of the bulk of Europe.

Obama chose to ignore the area where a president can have the most ready influence: foreign policy.  He chose to dictate the area foundationally covered by and under the aegis of Congress: domestic policy.

The speech, like Mr Obama, was sophomoric, belittling and pedantic.  And not based in any way upon reality.

“This was less about a state of the union than it was a state of denial.”
— Ted Cruz

BZ

Obama Will Be GONE

From the lips of Al Gore to God’s ears:

You’ll love this, from the DailyCaller.com:

Al Gore: Spend $90 Trillion To Ban Cars From Every Major City In The World

by Michael Bastasch

Former Vice President Al Gore and former Mexican President Felipe Calderon are pushing for $90 trillion in spending to ban cars from every major city in the world and make them more dense.

Gore and Calderon presented a report from the Global Commission on the Economy & Climate (GCEC) and argued that fighting global warming will require making cities more compact and wholly reliant on public transit. This is the only way to make sure urban areas don’t contribute to global warming, the two politicians argued.

What did I tell you?  Leftists want to shove you all like the good little herring you could be into massive high-rises with more little tin can apartments.

It’s already happening in New York, with the so-called “trendy” apartments of 450 square feet to 200 square feet.  You can swim in a public swimming pool, exercise in a public gym, piss in public restrooms, pack like straws into a public elevator, and acquire public diseases in a much lesser time.  How au courant!  How perfect for the Religious Left, who eschew energy facts in favor of mere belief.  I believe, Great Gaia, I believe!  Hallelujah, I believe, praise Gore!

GOWPs will go for it in a heartbeat, the guilty Millennials that they are.  What’s the downside?  Lord knows there’s no more space available in NYC.

Who needs cars when we can mandate that we eliminate cars wholesale and build more micro-apartments?

GCEC’s study says that “more compact, better-connected cities with strong mass transit systems will help policy-makers tackle these pressing challenges. Such cities are more productive, socially inclusive, resilient, cleaner, quieter and safer.”

Really?  What happens when your electricity dies in a blackout or runs out?  What happens when the water treatment system tanks?  What happens when sanitation workers or transit workers or public service workers go on strike?  What happens when your internet and satellite systems go down?

“Despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage.”

And rats you will all be.

You ignorant dupes.

“Go with Gore, my sons.”

BZ