IRS Policy: Investigate Conservative Donors, Let Unions Run Wild

Twin revelations in the continuing IRS scandal:

IRS Obtained Donor Lists For ‘Secret Research Project’

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) improperly obtained donor lists from nonprofit groups as part of a “secret research project” being run by Lois Lerner and other officials.

IRS official David Fish revealed the “secret research project” in a June 27, 2012 email to Lerner’s direct subordinate Holly Paz, according to emails released Thursday by the nonprofit group Judicial Watch, which obtained the emails in a pending Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.
“Joseph Urban [IRS Technical Advisor, Tax Exempt and Government Entities] had actually started a secret research project on whether we could, consistent with 6104, argue that [REDACTED],” Fish wrote.

“Joe was quite agitated yesterday when I told him what we were doing. (He was involved when the initial question was raised, but we didn’t continue reading him in),” Fish continued. “At one point he started saying that this was a decision for Steve Miller–I told him we were already doing it, and that I didn’t know whether Lois had already talked to Nikole [Flax, former IRS Chief of Staff to IRS Commissioner Steve Miller] about this. Would not be surprised if he already started working on Lois.”

“Thanks for the heads up,” Paz replied. “The decision was made by Steve, based on advice from P and A. [Procedure and Administration].”

Lois Lerner and Nikole Flax, who were both part of the “secret research project,” both suffered computer crashes that allegedly wiped out their emails, according to the IRS.

Another email released Thursday showed that Lerner obtaining donor information from groups “was not needed across-the-board and not used in making the agency’s determination on exempt status,” according to an IRS deputy chief counsel.

It must make one feel warm and comfy when they are the subjects of a secret IRS research project.

And while being all wee-wee'd up about the possibility that conservatives might be getting a good deal electoral advantage by donating to the Tea Party groups, Lois showed far less concern that the unions, to which the administration is deeply indebted politically, were cheating on their reports of political activity to the IRS: Email Reveals Lois Lerner Ignored Political Expenditures By Unions

The official at the center of the Internal Revenue Service tea party scandal once dismissed complaints that labor unions were not reporting millions of dollars in political activities on their tax forms, according to an email obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation.

In 2007, Lerner responded directly to a complaint that some major labor unions reported completely different amounts of political expenditures when filing with the IRS and the Department of Labor.

At the time of the email, Lerner was the Director of Exempt Organizations at the IRS.
Lerner wrote, “We looked at the information you provided regarding organizations that report substantial amounts of political activity and lobbying expenditures on the DOL Form LM-2, but report little to no political expenditures on the Form 990 filed with the IRS.”

“We believe this difference in reporting does not necessarily indicate that the organization has incorrectly reported to either the DOL or the IRS,” Lerner concluded.

Don Todd, the deputy assistant secretary of the Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS) at the time the email was sent, confirmed seeing Lerner’s email and remembering similar complaints at the time. OLMS oversees labor union financial disclosures within the Department of Labor.

“The law’s never been enforced,” Todd told TheDCNF. “The IRS was telling us it would cost more to enforce the law then they would collect.”

And how would you know it would cost more than it nets if you haven't tried, and moreover, you don't bother to challenge the unions on their reporting.

But I'm like, uh, totally sure that DOJ investigation, headed up by Obama donor Barbara Bosserman , and employed a man, Andrew Strelka, who used to work for Lerner, will strive to bury shine the light on the facts.

To keep abreast of this scandal, you really need to see the Tax Prof, Paul Caron's daily update.

Saud Dakota

The US currently gets more of it's oil from North Dakota than Saudi Arabia, thanks to fracking.

U.S. oil imports hit a 28-year-low in June as Americans imported less than 4.7 million barrels per day, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Imports have not been this low since April 1986 when we imported 4.6 million barrels a day.

Imports amounted to 25% of the 18.833 million barrels of oil the United States used in June.

That 28-year low is a dramatic reversal of fortune. Just 8 years ago, in August 2006, the United States averaged imports of more than 13.4 million barrels per day. That was an all-time high.

We have cut those imports by two-thirds.

Even if the federal government mandated a doubling of gas mileage in our cars, we would not have seen such a rapid drop in imports.

Sean Hackbarth of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce credits hydraulic fracturing -- fracking -- for this reversal and he is absolutely right.

Production in Texas in June topped 3 million barrels per day.

And the Bakken fields in North Dakota produced 1.093 million barrels per day. That's 77,000 barrels per day more than the 1.016 million barrels per day we imported from Saudi Arabia.

To be fair, we don't get much of our foreign oil from Saudi Arabia. It's too far to haul it when there are neighbors much closer like Canada, Mexico and Venezuela producing more than they consume. But the trend is in the right direction. Hopefully, the democrats and environmentalists won't be able to completely derail it.

Found at Wombat-socho's "Live at Five: 09.05.14".

Your Friday Monkey Dacker Baseball Player

So there's a Korean movie about a Chinese gorilla who plays baseball...

Mystery Plant Indentified!

For the last two weeks, the best butterfly action in the area has been on an unidentified bush down at the beach.  I've seen as many as six different species of butterflies at one time, and many other moths, beetles, bees and wasps on it profuse feathery white blossoms. I've tried a number of ways to identify it and come up short. This morning we passed a desiccated twig of it with flowers off to a friend to have SERC's master gardener identify it.  The ID came back by e-mail a little while ago: Japanese Knotweed, a relative of common Pinkweed and Buckwheat. And wouldn't you know it, it turns out to be a dangerous invasive:

It is listed by the World Conservation Union as one of the world's worst invasive species. The invasive root system and strong growth can damage concrete foundations, buildings, flood defenses, roads, paving, retaining walls and architectural sites. It can also reduce the capacity of channels in flood defenses to carry water.

It is a frequent colonizer of temperate riparian ecosystems, roadsides and waste places. It forms thick, dense colonies that completely crowd out any other herbaceous species and is now considered one of the worst invasive exotics in parts of the eastern United States. The success of the species has been partially attributed to its tolerance of a very wide range of soil types, pH and salinity. Its rhizomes can survive temperatures of −35 °C (−31 °F) and can extend 7 metres (23 ft) horizontally and 3 metres (9.8 ft) deep, making removal by excavation extremely difficult.

The plant is also resilient to cutting, vigorously resprouting from the roots. The most effective method of control is by herbicide application close to the flowering stage in late summer or autumn. In some cases it is possible to eradicate Japanese knotweed in one growing season using only herbicides. Trials in the Queen Charlotte Islands (Haida Gwaii) of British Columbia using sea water sprayed on the foliage have demonstrated promising results, which may prove to be a viable option for eradication where concerns over herbicide application are too great.

So, I guess we won't be planting any in our butterfly garden, and I'll just have to monitor the ones I know about in the field (I know of at least two on the beach, and a few on the roadside. On our beach, it clearly lives within the reach of Kudzu, so I suppose the question now it who will win, the Japanese Knotweed, or the (Japanese) Kudzu. My money is on the Kudzu.

But the good news, as Euell Gibbons used to say is that "some parts are edible":

It grows widely throughout Japan and is foraged as a wild edible vegetable (sansai), though not in sufficient quantities to be included in statistics.They are called by such regional names as: tonkiba (Yamagata), itazuiko (Nagano, Mie), itazura (Gifu, Toyama, Nara, Wakayama, Kagawa),gonpachi (Shizuoka, Nara, Mie, Wakayama),sashi (Akita, Yamagata), jajappo (Shimane, Tottori, Okayama), sukanpo (many areas).

Young leaves and shoots, which look like asparagus, are used. They are extremely sour; the fibrous outer skin must be peeled, soaked in water for half a day raw or after parboiling, before being cooked.

Places in Shikoku such as central parts of Kagawa Prefecture pickle the peeled young shoots by weighting them down in salt mixed with 10% nigari (magnesium chloride). Kochi also rub these cleaned shoots with coarse salt-nigari blend. It is said (though no authority is cited) that the magnesium of the nigari binds with the oxalic acid thus mitigating its hazard.

Sounds like a lot of trouble to go through when you can buy bad tasting vegetables at the store.

Breaking the Obamacare Schadenfreude Logjam

It's been a few days since I did one of these, and I didn't realize how many logs were stuck in the pile.

If Obamacare Stays, Employer Based Insurance Will Go That's what they wanted.


Obamacare Is Dampening The Job Market In 3 Principal Ways

1. Obamacare is one of the largest tax increases in U.S. history - Over the next decade, Obamacare increases taxes by more than $1.2 trillion: one of the largest tax increases in U.S. history, and the largest in nominal dollars. . .

2. Obamacare increases the cost of employing workers - Obamacare increases the cost of labor in two ways. The first is the law’s notorious employer mandate, requiring all businesses with more than 50 full-time-equivalent employees to offer federally-certified health coverage, or pay steep fines. . .

3. Obamacare’s exchange subsidies encourage many workers to drop out - If you pay unemployed people more, it becomes less economically attractive for them to seek work. Casey Mulligan of the University of Chicago has done a considerable amount of research on Obamacare’s impact on the disincentive to work, calling it “startling.”

Guess who is paying the Obamacare tax hike?  You are, through state taxes!

When Congress passed the Affordable Care Act, it required health insurers, hospitals, device makers and pharmaceutical companies to share in the cost because they would get a windfall of new, paying customers.

But with an $8 billion tax on insurers due Sept. 30 -- the first time the new tax is being collected -- the industry is getting help from an unlikely source: taxpayers.

States and the federal government will spend at least $700 million this year to pay the tax for their Medicaid health plans. The three dozen states that use Medicaid managed care plans will give those insurers more money to cover the new expense. Many of those states – such as Florida, Louisiana and Tennessee – did not expand Medicaid as the law allows, and in the process turned down billions in new federal dollars.

Like the snake eating it's own tail..

Days Before Deadline, Almost 240,000 Still Haven’t Fixed Immigration Status For Obamacare

The Obama administration is days away from rescinding Obamacare coverage from hundreds of thousands of customers, as the vast majority of those with applications problems still haven’t cleared them up.

The Department of Health and Human Services said last month that it would send out notices to 310,000 HealthCare.gov customers notifying them that there’s an inconsistency with their citizenship or immigration status and that the federal government needs more documentation or they’ll be kicked off their plans. Customers need to upload their proof of legal residence to HealthCare.gov by Sept. 5, or the administration will kick them out of their health care plan at the end of the month.

As of Tuesday, HHS says that it’s still sending final notices out to 239,000 of the 300,000, meaning by far most customers with problems still haven’t been able to resolve them, The Associated Press reports.

I expect that somehow the administration will succeed in extending subsidized Obamacare plans to illegals.

H&R Block CEO says Obamacare to add 'significant complexity' to tax season

The top executive for H&R Block, the nation’s largest tax preparer, on Wednesday said he expected President Obama’s health care law to add “significant complexity” to next year’s tax season.

Speaking on H&R Block’s quarterly earnings conference call, CEO William Cobb said that the company was already taking steps to train its tax preparers based on the draft forms that the Internal Revenue Servicehas released to comply with Obamacare.

“As expected, the forms are very detailed and can present significant complexity, depending on a filer’s coverage status during the year, income level, and household composition,” Cobb said. “Depending on their situation, there are instances where filers may need to file multiple new tax forms and complete additional worksheets.”

Taken with an extra grain of salt, since it's clearly in H&R Block's interest to convince  people that filing their own taxes is too difficult. Our one interaction with  H&R Block convinced us to go back to Turbotax. However, it is entirely realistic to expect lots of tax returns with the Obamacare taxes wrong the first couple of times around.

Remember repeated warnings about the potential for hacking the Obamacare website?  Yep, it happened. Hacker breached HealthCare.gov insurance site

A hacker broke into part of the HealthCare.gov insurance enrollment website in July and uploaded malicious software, according to federal officials.

Investigators found no evidence that consumers’ personal data was taken in the breach, federal officials said. The hacker appears only to have accessed a server used to test code for HealthCare.gov. The Department of Health and Human Services discovered the attack last week.

An HHS official said the attack appears to mark the first successful intrusion into the website, where millions of Americans bought insurance starting last year under the Affordable Care Act. It raised concerns among federal officials because of how easily the intruder gained access and how much damage could have occurred.

And I'm sure they'd hurry to tell us if anything important was compromised. Not.

Kay Hagan: Look, I didn’t realize people would lose their health plans ’til a few months ago

Step one: Blame insurers, who were forced to cancel plans that failed to comply with Obamacare, the law for which Kay Hagan furnished the deciding vote. Step two: Claim that those millions of cancellation letters fell from the sky, as if no one had predicted them. Step three: Try to claim credit for a bill that never became law because Harry Reid wouldn’t even permit a vote on it. (Fun fact: Hagan has never been a primary sponsor on any piece of legislation that went on to become law). Instead, betrayed consumers had to rely on a frantic executive rule change that was rejected by a number of state insurance commissioners because the die had already been cast. But here is a short, devastating passage from an October 2013 CNN story that exposes Hagan’s ‘I didn’t realize’ deception:

Senate Democrats voted unanimously three years ago to support the Obamacare rule that is largely responsible for some of the health insurance cancellation letters that are going out. In September 2010, Senate Republicans brought a resolution to the floor to block implementation of the grandfather rule, warning that it would result in canceled policies and violate President Barack Obama’s promise that people could keep their insurance if they liked it…On a party line vote, Democrats killed the resolution, which could come back to haunt vulnerable Democrats up for re-election this year. Senate Democrats like Mary Landrieu, Jeanne Shaheen, Mark Pryor, Kay Hagan and Mark Begich – all of whom voted against stopping the rule from going into effect and have since supported delaying parts of Obamacare.

Obamacare is about to decide the midterms - again

When the supermajority of Democrats in the Senate passed the ironically named Affordable Care Act in 2009, one of the chief requirements of the bill was to force health insurers, pharmaceutical companies, hospitals and health care centers to share in the staggering $2 trillion cost over the next decade. But once made law, President Obama pushed off the cost until well, just later — certainly not before the 2012 election.

That later is now, or Sept. 30, to be precise. Remember when the president said the 10-year cost for his health care reform would be $850 billion and that no one would pay an additional penny in taxes? Ha. Insurers will have to pony up some $8 billion on the last day of September, and guess where they’re going to get the cash? Straight from your wallet, your purse.

Here are some numbers, straight from my own checkbook register. In October 2011, before the start of Obamacare, I was paying $386 a month. Yes, fairly reasonable, but less so when you factor in my $10,000 deductible (and two teenage children who keep falling off things). The following October, the premiums rose 23 percent to $474.

In October 2013, my monthly rate rose again, nearly 32 percent, to $623. Same exact coverage, just more money. Then, this year, come Sept. 30, my new premiums will be $1,097. That’s a 76 percent increase from the previous year, and, all told, my premiums have risen 184 percent in just three years.
. . .
Right about now, across the country, Americans are either getting their monthly bills for drastically higher premiums, or they’ve already got them and are beginning to shop for new insurance in preparation for the coming open-enrollment season this fall. But they’re no doubt finding that the new policies mandated by Obamacare are raising costs sky-high — there’s nothing cheaper.

The president’s approval rating Wednesday dropped to 15 points underwater — 39 percent approve, 54 percent disapprove, according to Gallup. Meanwhile, a Pew Research poll found that 54 percent of Americans say Mr. Obama is too weak on foreign policy, while just 36 percent think he is a strong leader in world affairs.

Could the Preznit's numerous foreign policy disasters be a deliberate ploy to distract from Obamacare? Hmmm. . .

Greg Sargent complains about Karl Rove still bashing Obamacare: Karl Rove recycles years-old attacks on Obamacare

When Arkansas Senator Mark Pryor made national news by rolling out a major ad campaign touting his vote for the health law, many Republicans — and some neutral analysts — rushed to declare that there’s no way the politics of Obamacare could be shifting even a little bit.

Now Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS is out to prove the point, rolling out a new $2.5 million ad campaign that kicks off with a new anti-Obamacare ad responding to the Pryor spot. The idea is to prove that attacks on Obamacare are every bit as potent as ever. But the ad’s script neatly illustrates the real story when it comes to the politics of the law:

On TV, Mark Pryor talks about the health care law he helped pass. What Pryor doesn’t say is that law was Obamacare. Or that it cuts over $700 billion from our Medicare and will cut benefits seniors rely on. Obamacare meant threatened insurance plans, higher premiums, and broken promises.

The ad relies heavily on old attacks on the law that have either been debunked completely or have been left behind by the forward march of Obamacare implementation and enrollment that is underway in the real world. The claim about Obamacare cutting Medicare goes back literally years and has been getting dismantled by fact-checkers for just as long.

It's true that there is no lack of good material with which to attack Obamacare, of which Rove should avail himself,  but it's also true that the legions of fact checker referred to are largely democrat activist with bylines.

Will Textualism Kill Obamacare?

The Affordable Care Act is heading for another near-death experience in the Supreme Court. In July, a divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued a ruling in Halbig v. Burwell that would greatly limit the number of people who are eligible for subsidized health insurance. The problem has to do with how people are connected with insurance providers, how they learn about subsidies, and how they sign up for plans. As Congress originally conceived it, the A.C.A. called for each state to set up its own exchange with a Web site, which most of the blue states and a few of the red ones did. But two dozen of them did not, so the Obama Administration established a federal counterpart, centered on the Web site healthcare.gov. According to the D.C. Circuit majority, one line in the text of the A.C.A. makes the federal exchange invalid. The law says that subsidies are to be available through exchanges that are “established by a State,” without an explicit authorization of federal exchanges. Thus, according to the judges in the majority, five million or so people who have used the federal exchange to buy health insurance must now lose it.

We should be so lucky. But when we lose, remember that if and when conservatives ever get back into power, the law as written doesn't matter, it's whatever you want it to mean. I'm sure we can find a way to work with that.

The 6 AM Wake Up - Great Moments in Advertising

Bjanka Murgel is also the girl in the Geico Money Man commercial

Linked at Pirate's Cove in the weekly "Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup." Wombat-socho is on time and within budget with this weeks giant "Rule 5 Sunday: Are You Ready For Some Football?" post.

Images removed at Bjanka Murgel's request.

Dad Was Right . . .

When he sang this song:

Though, apparently a few slip once in a while: Sharks nine times more likely to kill men than women, study says

Sharks are nine times more likely to kill men than women, new research from Australia shows.

Men are targeted in 84 per cent of all unprovoked shark attacks, and make up 89 per cent of all shark bite fatalities - which means that women are statistically more likely to survive a shark attack.

The numbers are from a study out of Bond University in Queensland to be published in the international journal Coastal Management this week.

Report author associate professor Daryl McPhee told the Telegraph the results were so surprising that he had to double-check them.

"Potentially men spend more time in the water, and are more risk-prone," he suggested.

Ya think?  My impression is that women do an enormous amount of lying on the beach, and fairly little swimming, surfing, scuba diving, and messing around where they're likely to encounter large sharks. Ya, I know, there are exceptions. And I presume they're the ones that get bit.

You know, it's almost criminal to report the results of a study like this without making some attempt to control for obvious co-variables.

Gratuitous Beach Report

Just another day in Paradise. 85 F, moderate humidity, and a stiff south breeze. Pretty much just us and the birds.

Georgia made the find of the day, this nice Mako Shark's tooth, which went up on the top shelf. Otherwise, a slow day for fossils, despite a dead low tide.

 But this guy (or gal) was probably as satisfied.

 Really? Another photo of little old me? Hrmph.

Liberal Astonished to Find Conservatives Make and Sell Stuff

Who does he think does it, elves? How Republican Is Whole Foods? I Used An App To Find Out

Not the author.

BuyPartisan is a new app that advertises itself as "like a nutritional label for your political values." Just scan the barcode of a food you like, wait for the melodious beep (*Bleep-bleep!*), and the app will spit out a pie-chart breakdown of how much money the company has donated to political causes over the past 10 years.

Curious about how BuyPartisan works, I decided to install the app and use it grocery shopping. As a Democrat, I was pretty sure that Dick Cheney and Jeb Bush probably sat on the board of Stop 'N' Shop. But surely Whole Foods, that gleaming pleasure dome of hyper-organic, eco-conscious foodstuffs that bleeding-heart bark chewers like myself love to visit when we're not congratulating ourselves for agreeing with John Oliver, would be different. Wouldn't it?

The essence of the business man is somebody willing to sell you the rope to hang yourself, if you really want to (they might try to talk you out of it first), and it shouldn't surprise anyone that conservative leaning businessmen are more than willing to  "organic" sounding food of dubious added value for a surcharge, provided that someone is happy to pay.

I started in the juice section, picking up a large bottle of Naked Juice.*Budddle-leep.* 94.5% Republican. Huh. Who knew? What about this bottle of Odwalla? *Boop-de-beedleee.* Okay, much better, although still, 37.5% of this bottle is Republican, making more than a third of this bottle of juice squeezed, not from mangos as it says on the label, but from the hearts of dead Iraqi orphans.

Very funny! But what is the aborted fetus content?

Checking my list, I noted the missus also wanted me to pick up some cereal. I grabbed a bag of Bob's Red Mill. *Gleeeble-fleep!* 49% Republican, 31% Democrat, 20% Other. Okay, how about Kashi?*Hooble-dee-zlorp!* That's better, I guess: 37.25% Republican to 33.5% Democrat, which means that the Kellogg's-owned Kashi brand bleeds bluer blood than that malevolently cackling, oatmeal-loving oligarch, Bob Moore. . .

"Uh, sir, can I help you finding anything?" a puzzled Whole Foods employee asked me as I sat cross-legged in the middle of an aisle, muttering to myself while scanning products with my iPhone and then hurling them in a dramatic arc behind me. But he couldn't, no matter how many times I shook him by the lapels, thrusting my iPhone in his face and screaming, "WHERE'S THE DEMOCRAT AISLE?" over and over again. I am pleased to report, however, that Whole Foods' crackerjack security team was very helpful in making sure that my front teeth met the curb outside. Nice chaps.

He probably made a mistake by doing his experiment at Whole Foods, instead of Walmart, where a majority of the products are likely to have come from Red China, which has in the past shown, shall we say, a certain interest in donating to the Democrats.

But overall, Republicans are the party of producers, and their employees who resent the attempts by government to regulate and direct their output, while Democrats are the party of the government employees who regulate business and their dependent food stamp class, with a few guilty minded plutocrats thrown in for good measure.

Wombat-socho is on time and within budget with this weeks giant "Rule 5 Sunday: Are You Ready For Some Football?" post.

Democrats to Flog Ferguson, Feminism into Fall Election

Justice Dept. to probe Ferguson police force

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. this week will launch a broad civil rights investigation into the Ferguson, Mo., Police Department, according to two federal law enforcement officials.

The investigation, which could be announced as early as Thursday afternoon, will be conducted by the Justice Department’s civil rights division and follow a process similar to that used to investigate complaints of profiling and the use of excessive force in other police departments across the country, the officials said.

The move follows the shooting last month of Michael Brown, an 18-year-old African American, by a white Ferguson police officer who claimed he acted in self-defense. Brown, who was unarmed, was shot at least six times on the afternoon of Aug. 9.

Holder’s decision will represent the Obama administration’s most aggressive step to address the Ferguson shooting, which set off days of often-violent clashes between police and demonstrators in the streets of the St. Louis suburb.

The federal officials said the probe will look not only at Ferguson but also at other police departments in St. Louis County. Some, like Ferguson, are predominantly white departments serving majority-African-American communities, and at least one department invited the Justice Department to look at its practices. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the pending inquiry.

In a rational world, the troubles in Ferguson would be good anti-Democrat fodder for the news; the city of Ferguson, like its parent St. Louis, are Democratic strongholds. The city governments and police are controlled by the democratic machine, and the unions. Inequities there should be laid directly at their feet. But that's not where Eric Holder is going to take this investigation, you can be sure. No doubt he'll target the banks and retailers who provide what services they can to the community.

The democrats are desperate to hold the Senate, and inflaming their notoriously mid-term apathetic Negro, Black, African-American base when Obama is not on the ballot is the only way they see to get their base to the polls this November.

The same pattern is becoming evident with women. Single women vote predominantly Democrat and less in midterms, married women vote Republican, and vote more in the midterms. Hence we get:

Debbie Wasserman Schultz says: "Scott Walker has given women the back of his hand" and "What Republican tea party extremists like Scott Walker are doing is they are grabbing us by the hair and pulling us back."

What does that even refer to? That's really shameless. The violent imagery is despicable, and disrespectful to victims of actual violence. Why bring in women'shair? It seems mental.

Yep, and expect even more.

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

Greenpeace embarrassed by leaders’ jet-setting carbon footprint

A great gig in the sky

For two years, Pascal Husting’s employer chartered a jet to shuttle him most weeks between his home in Luxembourg and his office in Amsterdam.

Such trips are common for executives at major international corporations in Western Europe.

But Mr. Husting isn’t working for a corporation. He is the international program director for Greenpeace, the nonprofit that is arguably the world’s most high-profile environmental advocacy organization.

Mr. Husting’s weekly commute prompted a chorus of derision from Greenpeace opponents after “Flygate” was revealed in Dutch media this summer.

It also aroused the anger of activists, staff members and donors who have long supported the 40-year-old group. Traveling 500 miles round trip in a carbon-emitting airliner was hard to square with Greenpeace’s aims, after all.

“Arrogance is a word that springs to mind,” Greenpeace donor Altwin de Moor wrote on his personal blog. “It seems as if those at the top of Greenpeace are more interested in watching each other’s backs than standing up for the right thing. I will be keeping an eye on developments and decide on the basis of what happens whether to cancel my donations.

It's pretty clear the environmentalists leaders don't really believe in the pap they are serving for others to gag on. Certainly the scientist environmentalists I know don't seem to balk at flying long distances for conferences that could be carried out by phone and internet.

And don't get me started on their electrical power uses.  The National Center for Atmospheric Reseach's (NCAR) climate modeling computer consumes 8-9 megawatts of electrical power, generated by burning coal. I think they should have to rely and wind and solar, and only run their computer when they are available.

Wombat-socho is on time and within budget with this weeks giant "Rule 5 Sunday: Are You Ready For Some Football?" post.

Offered in a Moment of Desperation

I forget how I got here. There's probably a reason for that.



Wombat-socho is on time and within budget with this weeks giant "Rule 5 Sunday: Are You Ready For Some Football?" post.

Beach Report, 9/3/14

The high clouds seem to have given us relief from the predicted high temperatures, even though we got down to the beach in the hottest hours, the clouds, a stiff breeze made it eminently tolerable despite a fair amount of humidity. Truly a summer for the record books, in a good way.

 A fair crowd at the beach for a school day.

But some beach goers don't care about the school, or the weather. This Great Blue Heron took the posing post for a while after we pushed it off the beach.

Only to give it up to a Belted Kingfisher.  Not a great shot, too close to end of the zoom lens and a little dark, with some motion blur.  But before I got closer, it took off, went out a little ways, dove and grabbed a fish. Not the most common bird to see here.

And the Ospreys are still out there packing on the calories in anticipation of the trip south. No Eagles in evidence to bother them. They're probably back at the nest rubbing their bellies by late afternoon.

"They Know So Much That Isn't So"

Part of a quote from Ronald Reagan regarding liberals in general . . .



. . .but which could be directed especially towards feminists: Feminist ‘Facts’ Aren’t True

Nothing is more tenacious than feminist mythology. . . Why? Because feminists never stop lying, as Christine Hoff Sommers observes:

Much of what we hear about the plight of American women is false. Some faux facts have been repeated so often they are almost beyond the reach of critical analysis. Though they are baseless, these canards have become the foundation of Congressional debates, the inspiration for new legislation and the focus of college programs.

She cites a widely known falsehood:

MYTH 5: Women earn 77 cents for every dollar a man earns—for doing the same work.

FACTS: No matter how many times this wage gap claim is decisively refuted by economists, it always comes back. The bottom line: the 23-cent gender pay gap is simply the difference between the average earnings of all men and women working full-time. It does not account for differences in occupations, positions, education, job tenure or hours worked per week. When such relevant factors are considered, the wage gap narrows to the point of vanishing.

In the same article  Stacy McCain quotes author and CFO Mallory Millett and sister of notorious feminist author Kate Millett who reported from an early feminist meeting:

It was 1969. Kate invited me to join her for a gathering at the home of her friend, Lila Karp. They called the assemblage a “consciousness-raising-group,” a typical communist exercise, something practiced in Maoist China. We gathered at a large table as the chairperson opened the meeting with a back-and-forth recitation, like a Litany, a type of prayer done in Catholic Church. But now it was Marxism, the Church of the Left, mimicking religious practice:

“Why are we here today?” she asked.
“To make revolution,” they answered.
“What kind of revolution?” she replied.
“The Cultural Revolution,” they chanted.
“And how do we make Cultural Revolution?” she demanded.
“By destroying the American family!” they answered.
“How do we destroy the family?” she came back.
“By destroying the American Patriarch,” they cried exuberantly.
“And how do we destroy the American Patriarch?” she replied.
“By taking away his power!”
“How do we do that?”
“By destroying monogamy!” they shouted.
“How can we destroy monogamy?”

Their answer left me dumbstruck, breathless, disbelieving my ears. Was I on planet earth? Who were these people?

“By promoting promiscuity, eroticism, prostitution and homosexuality!” they resounded.

Anything look familiar there?

Nude Selfies of J Law and Kate Upton . . .

Not available here, despite the temptation. So you'll have to settle for some commercial, non-nude,
non-selfies.

The news of course is brimming with the release of nude selfies from a variety of celebrities (as many as 99 more) by hackers who cracked Apple's ICloud, and released them to a back channel of the internet, apparently for the fun and challenge of it all. You can read all about it at the link in today's "Live at Five: 09.02.14":

Kate Upton found fame from posing in sexy photos -- but after being involved in a celebrity phone hack, there are new nude images the model does not want shared out there. Like Jennifer Lawrence, Upton’s phone was hacked and nude images have leaked, her attorney confirms to Us Weekly.

"This is obviously an outrageous violation of our client Kate Upton's privacy,” attorney Lawrence Shire tells Us in a statement. “We intend to pursue anyone disseminating or duplicating these illegally obtained images to the fullest extent possible."

Both the FBI and Apple are investigating the releases, and the alleged perp is reportedly on the run:

According to Buzzfeed, Upton and Lawrence are two of many A-listers who has been hacked. Others on the list include "Problem" singer Ariana Grande, Nickelodeon star Victoria Justice, and actress Kirsten Dunst.

On Sunday, Aug. 31, after nude selfies of the Hunger Games actress surfaced, Lawrence’s spokesperson told Us in a statement: “This is a flagrant violation of privacy. The authorities have been contacted and will prosecute anyone who posts the stolen photos of Jennifer Lawrence."

Well, that is one good reason not to post them, I suppose, but the incident has touched off a useful "national conversation" on the limits of privacy and the responsibility to maintain your own level of digital privacy.

For example, comedian (loosely) Ricky Gervais was lambasted by feminists for asserting that women should be a little more careful in how they store and disseminate nude selfies:



"Celebrities, make it harder for hackers to get nude pics of you from your computer by not putting nude pics of yourself on the computer."

Tweeted Ricky Gervais, after a big naked-celebrity security leak at iCloud.

He's getting reamed for saying that.

A smarter tweet from Lena Dunham: "Remember, when you look at these pictures you are violating these women again and again. It’s not okay. Seriously, do not forget that the person who stole these pictures and leaked them is not a hacker: they’re a sex offender."

The two aren't mutually exclusive.

Althouse has apparently taken the position that, unlike a mans sperm, which can be stolen by women to get pregnant and still hold the man ransom for payment,  women need not be responsible custodians of their nude selfies (see in the comments).

Another feminist lamented the lack of men in the leaks.

From Scarlett Johansson to Jennifer Lawrence, the victims of hack attacks are almost never men—part of a bigger problem with sexist internet culture.

My guess is that Anthony Wiener aside, even male celebrities find less interest in nude pics than the female stars. That's just the way humans are built.

My own feeling on the matter is that even though it is illegal to break into a house and steal the silver, it's still stupid not to lock the door. I realize the door here is a digital one, and many people (including me) don't really understand how the technology works, but if they aren't stored on the internet (or a device connected to the internet) they can't be stolen by hackers. It's pretty simple.

Besides, most selfies are badly composed, and taken with inferior cameras. (NSFW link!)

Linked by GOODSTUFF in his 154th Blogging Magazine. Wombat-socho is on time and within budget with this weeks giant "Rule 5 Sunday: Are You Ready For Some Football?" post.

Midnite Music - The Dogs Don't Care

Wombat-socho is on time and within budget with this weeks giant "Rule 5 Sunday: Are You Ready For Some Football?" post.

Beach Report 9/3/14

Summer has returned with a vengeance; temperatures soaring to 90, with humidity well up into the obnoxious range. No sign of relief on the horizon, or even in the tree line, as temps and humidity are supposed to stay high all week. After a big weekend, the beach is almost deserted.

 The flowers are near the end, and the number of insects visiting the mysterious "butterfly bush". However, I did get a good shot of this little skipper (Sachem?).

 And this Clouded Sulphur.

The Ospreys are still frantically fishing. Not too long before they have to have the kids fledged and feeding, and ready to move south.

A "red" or mahogany tide.  Interesting in that the water on the other side of the jetty was pretty clear. There's is talk that major algal blooms, and more hypoxia have been created late in the year as a result of the heavy rains we had a few weeks ago.  Could be, but this would not be that unusual.

Fairy Tale Creature in the Path of the Purple Line

Purple Line transit project opponents sue to protect tiny species they can’t even find

Kenk's Amphipod

American University professor David Culver spent a week in April hunting through damp spots in the forest floor in Montgomery County in hope of finding rare varieties of tiny, shrimp-like creatures called amphipods.

He didn’t find any. Not a one.

This might have been a major setback for the folks who hired the environmental scientist. They’re paying Culver thousands of dollars with the goal of blocking plans for the light-rail Purple Line in suburban Maryland on grounds that it threatens the critters with extinction.

Hay's Spring Amphipod

But they can’t make their case if the miniature crustaceans aren’t there to protect.

So, did Culver’s failure stop opponents from suing to thwart the project under the Endangered Species Act?

No way! They went right ahead and filed a federal civil complaint on Tuesday.

It’s all just a legal gimmick, of course.

Having failed to kill or reroute the Purple Line despite years of agitation, a small but resolute band of critics is exploiting a pair of amphipod species in what could be the final, serious bid to disrupt the transit project.

I have no specific love for the Hay's Spring or Kenk's Ampipod (who I blogged about in this regard back in December), or the Purple Line of the Metro, but I am amused that this fight sets two members of the environmental coalition at war. The BANANA (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything) crowd is opposed by the likes of the Sierra Club, who would rather see people confined in cattle cars on the Metro than running free on the Beltway:

“Any major project . . . is going to have some negatives,” David Sears, vice chairman of the Sierra Club in Montgomery County, said. “It’s our considered opinion that the net plus is considerable, and the Purple Line is the way we want to go.”

You'd think that after all the fuss they made over the Snail Darter, this might be a bit embarrassing.

As for the importance of the amphipods?

“I do not think that, say, in Rock Creek they’re important in the ecosystem,” said Culver, a leading expert on amphipod habitat.

There you have it.

Today's Juxtaposition

Seen at Hot Air:

Democratic congressional candidate: Republicans are worse than ISIS

ISIS releases new video of beheading another American journalist

Apparently, opposing democrats is worse than killing American journalists. Glad we got that straight.

Must Be a Super Walmart

Because I don't think they have them in the Prince Frederick regular Walmart: Cleveland Couple Collared For Theft Of Four "Sexual Pleasure Aids" From Walmart

According to cops, Walmart security guards detained Kia Porter, 23, and Geoffrey Greene, 20, after the Cleveland residents were spotted last week stashing the merchandise into Porter’s purse as they moved through the store in South Euclid, a Cleveland suburb.

When later confronted, Porter was “initially verbally combative,” and the pair refused to cooperate with security guards. But when cops arrived, Porter (seen at right) turned over her purse, which contained two Trojan Intense Pleasure vibrating rings and two LifeStyles a:muse “his and hers vibrating ring and massager.”

The devices were valued at a combined $30.52.

Funny, I never hear liberal blue-noses complain about how Walmart is putting the local sex shops out of business with cheap competition.

In Maryland, Publish and Perish

An eighth-grade teacher who writes fiction under a nom de plume is ordered to undergo an "emergency medical evaluation" for his novel about a school shooting.

A 23-year-old teacher at a Cambridge, Maryland, middle school has been placed on leave and—in the words of a local news report—"taken in for an emergency medical evaluation" for publishing, under a pseudonym, a novel about a school shooting. The novelist, Patrick McLaw, an eighth-grade language-arts teacher at the Mace's Lane Middle School, was placed on leave by the Dorchester County Board of Education, and is being investigated by the Dorchester County Sheriff's Office, according to news reports from Maryland's Eastern Shore. The novel, by the way, is set 900 years in the future.

Here is part of a breathless, law enforcement-friendly report from WBOC, which describes itself as "Delmarva's News Leader":

He's a man with many names, and the books he has written have raised the concerns of the Dorchester County Board of Education and the Dorchester County Sheriff's Office.
Early last week the school board was alerted that one of its eighth grade language arts teachers at Mace's Lane Middle School had several aliases. Police said that under those names, he wrote two fictional books about the largest school shooting in the country's history set in the future. Now, Patrick McLaw is placed on leave.
Dr. K.S. Voltaer is better known by some in Dorchester County as Patrick McLaw, or even Patrick Beale. Not only was he a teacher at Mace's Lane Middle School in Cambridge, but according to Dorchester Sheriff James Phillips, McLaw is also the author of two books: "The Insurrectionist" and its sequel, "Lillith's Heir."
Those books are what caught the attention of police and school board officials in Dorchester County. "The Insurrectionist" is about two school shootings set in the future, the largest in the country's history.
Phillips said McLaw was taken in for an emergency medical evaluation. The sheriff would not disclose where McLaw is now, but he did say that he is not on the Eastern Shore. The same day that McLaw was taken in for an evaluation, police swept Mace's Lane Middle School for bombs and guns, coming up empty.

Imagine that—a novelist who didn't store bombs and guns at the school at which he taught. How improbable! Especially considering that he uses an "alias," which is apparently the law-enforcement term for "nom de plume." (Here is the Amazon page for The Insurrectionist, by the way. Please note that the book was published in 2011, before McLaw was hired.)

According to an equally credulous and breathless report in the Star-Democrat, which is published in Easton, Maryland, the combined efforts of multiple law-enforcement agencies have made area children safe from fiction. Sheriff Phillips told the newspaper that, in addition to a K-9 sweep of the school (!), investigators also raided McLaw's home. "The residence of the teacher in Wicomico County was searched by personnel,” Phillips said, with no weapons found. “A further check of Maryland State Police databases also proved to be negative as to any weapons registered to him. McLaw was suspended by the Dorchester County Board of Education pending an investigation and is no longer in the area. He is currently at a location known to law enforcement and does not currently have the ability to travel anywhere.”

It's hard to even be cynical the stupidity of the anti-gun hysterics who are firmly in control of Maryland.  I hope Mr. McLaw is writing a non-fiction book about his abuse at the hands of the police and educational "professionals." I fear his teaching career is over.

I hope he sues and wins a bundle, but, being Maryland, I have my doubts.  If he can keep the suit on the Eastern Shore, though, there's some hope.

At $14.95, the Kindle Book seems over priced, but I just might buy it anyway out of solidarity to McLaw.

Obamacare Schadenfreude - Big Wheel Keep on Turnin'

Hot and steamy here today for the week that marks the unofficial end of summer. Supposedly the longest string of 90+ temperatures of the year.

Obamacare Schadenfreude just keeps on rollin . . .

Obamacare and Work

Over the next few years, CBO expects that the rate of labor force participation will decline about 1/2 percentage point further… the most important of those factors is the ongoing movement of the baby-boom generation into retirement, but federal tax and spending policies will also tend to lower the participation rate. In particular, certain aspects of the Affordable Care Act will tend to reduce labor force participation, with the largest effect stemming from the subsidies that reduce the cost of purchasing health insurance through the exchanges. Because the subsidies decline with rising income (and increase with falling income) and make some people financially better off, they reduce the incentive for some people to work as much as they would without the subsidies.

Much of the debate over the effect of Obamacare on work has concerned how we should think about the possibility of de-linking health insurance from employment. Some liberals have argued that it’s a good thing that Obamacare reduces labor force participation: People shouldn’t be “locked” into jobs they hate because it’s the only way they can get health insurance. But CBO has never said that reducing job lock is the main way Obamacare reduces employment. It has consistently pointed out that the structure of Obamacare’s subsidies acts as an implicit tax on work, and thus causes people to work less. It’s hard to see much to cheer in that.

It's working; or not, depending on whether you actually want people to work.

Death Panels, coming to a hospital near you. Coverage for End-of-Life Talks Gaining Ground

Medicare may begin covering end-of-life discussions next year if it approves a recent request from the American Medical Association, the country’s largest association of physicians and medical students. One of the A.M.A.’s roles is to create billing codes for medical services, codes used by doctors, hospitals and insurers. It recently created codes for end-of-life conversations and submitted them to Medicare.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which runs Medicare, would not discuss whether it will agree to cover end-of-life discussions; its decision is expected this fall. But the agency often adopts A.M.A. recommendations, which are developed in meetings attended by its representatives. And the political environment is less toxic than it was when the “death panel” label was coined; although there are still opponents, there are more proponents, including Republican politicians.

If Medicare adopts the change, its decision will also set the standard for private insurers, encouraging many more doctors to engage in these conversations.

Having conversations is great. Having government mandated conversations, is well, not so great. I can hardly wait until the Lois Lerner types start writing the regulations covering when "end-of-life conversations" need to be given, and what they should be:

"Dear Patient X; you're costing the government more money than you pay in taxes. Please die already."

We need some "end-of-life conversations" with politicians more.

The Republican Obamacare Battle Plan for 2015

If Republicans capture control of both houses of Congress in November, they will have a golden opportunity to lay the groundwork for a market-based health-care overhaul -- a goal that can only be achieved after the next presidential election.

Repeal of Obamacare, and replacement of it with a complete set of conservative reforms, should remain Republicans’ long-term aim. The danger is that they will squander the opportunity to make headway on useful changes to Obamacare in 2015, and instead spend the year consumed only with repealing the law, when such an outcome is impossible with Barack Obama as president for two more years.

Public opinion suggests people are more interested in “fixing” Obamacare than in completely scrapping it; and by 2015, almost 25 million Americans will be relying on it for health coverage. Those are reasons Republicans should aim to reform or replace portions of the Affordable Care Act: Realistic changes can generate momentum for bigger changes to come.

They would be wise, in particular, to focus on policies that shift the authority, responsibility and resources for health care to the states. Conservative health-policy analyst Avik Roy has made meaningful contributions toward that end with a plan that he argues will “transcend” Obamacare while restoring fiscal sanity to the health-care system. In brief, Roy’s plan does away with some of the federal regulation that drives up costs under Obamacare, disposes of the federal health-insurance exchange while promoting state-based exchanges, and proposes the first comprehensive overhaul of Medicaid since the program’s creation in the 1960s. . .

Repealing Obamacare guts, feathers and all, has great appeal to the Republican base. However, the facts on the ground are that once given, subsidies are painful to end, and as we have seen in the 20th and 21st century, a guerrilla war of attrition can succeed where a straight forward assault cannot.



Wombat-socho is on time and within budget with this weeks giant "Rule 5 Sunday: Are You Ready For Some Football?" post.

Talking Blue Jeans

Ah, the 80's. Simpler times:

Labor Day Weekend At the Beach, In Pictures

 

Happy Labor Day!

"Furnace" Dong Lianbao. I figure it's appropriate to use a Chinese illustration of industry, since they are carrying such a large share of our manufacturing burden.

Glenn Reynolds quips: HAPPY LABOR DAY! As one of my Facebook friends comments, it’s a day where the rest of America can identify with organized labor — by drinking beer and not working.

A Little Hair of the Dog?

Drunken wife makes "Grilled Cheeses" for dinner:



Wife's response video here.

Police Dash-cam video: Young Lady No Pants Does Field Sobriety Test



The lesson here is don't drive drunk wearing clothing you wouldn't want on YouTube. The cop should just ask her out.

Wombat-socho is on time and within budget with this weeks giant "Rule 5 Sunday: Are You Ready For Some Football?" post.