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Plans for returning the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout (aka The Boat) to the lake are in progress. The winter storage cover has been removed and if the weather holds over the next week or so I'll be spending time cleaning the interior and getting everything set before it makes a trip to one of the local marine service shops for a tune up and a few other maintenance items I have neither the tools or expertise to perform.*************
I have been watching the self-inflicted implosion of the case for AGW as increasing scrutiny has been applied to the various studies, computer models, and 'scientists' who have been beating the Global-Warming-Is-All-The-Fault-Of-The-Evil-Humans drum for years.Between data massaging, faulty algorithms, fluid 'explanations', and sleight-of-hand with impressive graphics, none of the dire predictions made by the various AGW proponents have been coming true. Their computer models have been so faulty they couldn't even predict present climate conditions using over a century of climate data, so how can anyone possibly believe their projections 100 of 200 years into the future?
One of the more impressive sleights-of-hand were perpetrated by Mann and Marcott, the first being the creator of the famous 'hockey-stick' graph and the second recreating the same graph. The problem with both of these graphs is that towards the end of each the resolution of the temperature measurements changed, making the apparent shift in global temperatures more dramatic. When the resolution on any data changes from a long term average (over multiple decades) to a yearly or monthly average, the swings in temperature look greater and the long term averaging is ignored. That's not good science, that's fraud.
If I had turned in work as defective as many of these scientists I would have been fired years ago. At least if my prototypes fail to perform as calculated and designed, I can usually determine why and offer a rational explanation. Sometimes all it takes to set things right is to determine if there was a factor that was overlooked or whose effect was greater (or lesser) than originally calculated.
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Here we are, five years into the Obama Recovery from the Great Recession, and we're still flat-lining on jobs. As Glenn Reynolds asks, “What could’ve happened five years ago to disrupt the American economy’s traditional ability to create jobs?” Glenn also shows us that the only age group with higher unemployment than a year ago is the 20-somethings.So to quote the learned professor again, “How's that hopey-changey stuff workin' out for ya?”
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I find it ironic that the economies of Canada and Mexico, our closets neighbors, are in far better shape than our own. Then again, they don't have to deal with economically ignorant leaders or legislatures trying to push economic ideas long discredited and unwise.In Mexico's case they also don't allow illegal immigration. Heck, they don't often allow legal immigration.
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Somewhat related to the above, I guess the some of the brainwashed college campus fossil fuel divestment activists are finding out that being rude and confrontational during college orientation sessions isn't winning them any converts. Instead, parents of visiting high school students took matters into their own hands, telling the 'activists' to stop wasting the visitors' time because the forum wasn't the place for such discussions and to “shut the hell up.”Kudos to the parents who now have a better idea of what's happening on our college campuses. It might make them less likely to blindly allow their kids to attend the more radical schools.
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Oh, this is going to turn out well...New York's recent hike in the state minimum wage is going to be subsidized by taxpayers.
The "minimum wage reimbursement credit" is spelled out at the bottom of a revenue bill in the budget separate from the minimum wage measure. The credit would reimburse employers for part of the difference in wages from the current $7.25 minimum wage as it rises to $9 an hour by 2016.What this tells me is that the Democrats in New York really have no idea how economics works and that the 'win' they've managed is going to come back to hurt everyone, particularly those in minimum wage jobs. The state's taxpayers are also going to take it up the butt as well. It isn't up to taxpayers to subsidize private business wages, particularly when at the end of it all there will be a larger negative balance in the state's coffers once this takes full effect. If a job isn't worth more than $7.25 an hour before the subsidy, what makes them think it will be worth $9 an hour with it? It will also take more money out of the economy than it adds, meaning that for every dollar's worth of subsidy, the state will have to collect $1.25 in more revenue.
Once it reaches $9 an hour, employers would pay 40 cents and taxpayers $1.35 of the extra $1.75 an hour workers are paid.
The other downside? It gives state government even more control over businesses, large and small, by way of tax extortion.
(H/T Scary Yankee Chick)
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What's this? Obama wants to spend an additional $100 billion on pre-K schooling that we already know doesn't work?Unless of course it isn't go to be for actual schooling and more for pre-school leftist indoctrination, something I find to be much more likely.
(H/T Pirate's Cove)
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This is just stupid, but then again it comes from Brokeifornia which explains everything.*************
Why is it that nothing this man does surprises me anymore?Barack Obama wants to limit IRA's to “reasonable levels” for pensions. I guess he figures we should be limited to how much we're allowed to sock away for our own retirement because somehow it's not fair to those who failed to do so. After all, he's all for 'fairness'...as long as he's the one who will be defining fairness. It's not like he uses the definition one usually finds in a dictionary.
I figure it's just a matter of time before he turns his sights on everyone's 401(k)'s in an effort to loot...umm...err...make sure that no one has unfairly saved too much money for their retirement.