http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4616025&cid=45831381
Hat tip to fustakrakich, who recalled that it is Troll Tuesday.
Happy New Year to all, and special smooches to damn_registrars. Hopefully the water between us can be less caustic in 2014.

Global warming scientists forced to admit defeat... because of too much ice: Stranded Antarctic ship's crew will be rescued by helicopter

Also completely NSFW, but this parody of The Raven is a hoot. damn_registrars, don't click: you tender sensibilities shan't survive.

The good news is that, as non-whites themselves, their categorization of people by pigment cannot be considered prima facie racism. Less snarkily, there will be no improvement until we "redistribute power, not wealth", fustakrakich's cynical denials of the possibility be damned.

http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2013/benghazi/#/?chapt=0
Of course #OccupyResoluteDesk isn't even slightly culpable. He was beavering away on Healthcare.gov at the time.

A&E is now cancelling "Duck Dynasty" and replacing it with a new show about life in the White House. It will be called "Duck Responsibility".

The most widely cited sign of progress toward a healthy economy has been the declining unemployment rate; however, the fall in the unemployment rate has largely been due to a shrinking labor-force participation rate rather than strong job growth. When you look at a broader range of labor market data, as in this weekâ(TM)s chart, the slow rate of progress toward recovery becomes apparent.

After we've tried every lie, maybe we can get around to some honest analysis: DC is not God, cannot be God, and there will be no improvement until this false God is whisked off to that symbolic Benghazi.

That the climate changes is a no-brainer. Of course it does. I admire the Left's rhetorical trick of silencing opposition at work here, akin to asserting that the Earth rotates, such that anyone daring to fall short of total agreement is claiming a static planet. Bravo. And, also, apparently, the sun doesn't have anything to do with altering the Earth's climate. None. A scientist hath issued a bull. Apparently word of Ace's famous line reached Scotland:

"If only there were some... natural mechanism by which to explain variations in global temperature. It would have to be massive, though. On the scale of our own Sun.

The AGW crowd had to try to beat back the sarcasm, I guess:

Until now, the influence of the sun on past climate has been poorly understood. We hope that our new discoveries will help improve our understanding of how temperatures have changed over the past few centuries, and improve predictions for how they might develop in future. Links between the sun and anomalously cold winters in the UK are still being explored.

Dr Andrew Schurer

School of GeoSciences

Sounds like some great weasel-wording to me, Andy! Quick, let's mount up the EPA posse and commence to crucify our economy while those "anomalously cold winters" are being further "explored".

I care about climate and the environment. Conservation is conservative after all, and totally common-sense. Conservation is as common sense as heterosexuality and life beginning when a person's information is complete, i.e. conception. I truly get conservation. Phil Robertson gets conservation; he needs plenty of great outdoors to give rant-free, non-homophobic interviews like his recent GQ offering, for example.

The pseudo-scientific joke afoot these days is like that of a feedback loop, having all the appeal of a microphone in front of a loudspeaker. This metaphorical Telefunken U47 is set up when public money is given to any group, e.g. the DoD, who are rewarded for Chicken Little-ism. I get it. We're talking about a business model here. "The Commies are coming! Our precious bodily fluids are threatened!" Appeals to fear work great! What, just because I'm a veteran means I'm verklemmt, and can't call it like I see it? Any group placing itself beyond criticism is suspect.

"I'll believe it's a crisis when the people telling me it's a crisis start acting like it's a crisis," spake the Instapundit.

Two points for the AGW crowd:

(1) Your butt looks big.

(2) You're going to have to make some personal sacrifices to put some urgency in all this. Do something like head up a project to start doing reverse-osmosis water production, to reclaim desert. If you did that in the Sinai, you might even ease some of the political tensions there.

Maybe I should be more trusting of academics. I guess if they hadn't spent the last decade cying havok and loosing the hounds of Alinsky, I might take them more at face value, instead of farce value.
Bonus: Rush transcript from August. He's certainly as authoritative as these AGW rodeo clowns.

https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_banners/2228247882/1387560985/web
My bad.

Sorry, statist sycophants, the worst is yet to come:

If anyone has a heart for reform, the answer is going to come from http://conventionofstates.com/. We can pretty much write off anyone inside the beltway. Even if they retain some candle of integrity burning somewhere within, the fourth branch of government, the federal bureaucracy, isn't going to permit reform.
There really isn't any need to cling bitterly to the sinking ship of Progress, with its myriad of logical inversions. What matters is individual women, individual men, distinct families, and personal growth into mature humanity. Rule of law, balanced books, equality of opportunity, not condition. A rejection of the fascist Political Correctness that has claimed to bring unity, while sowing division.
I'll be working for the better next year, and I forgive those who've argued dishonestly with me, and ask forgiveness where others have thought me dishonest with them. I haven't been, but this is a medium that can breed confusion.
Cheers,
Chris

My good buddy, again:

Before paraphrasing 1 Corinthians 6, and summarizing that he thought homosexuality "illogical", Robertson had offered this:

Yep, that sure sounds like a man with a ZZ Top beard revving up the lynch mod, all right.
However, given the anti-Christian fervor of our day, it's been way too easy for the Usual Suspects to foam at the mouth.
I recall the same thing done with Jeremiah Wright. Now, I'm not in agreement with Black Liberation Theology, but the whole business of cherry-picking "God damn America" without offering analysis of the full sermon, if not Wright's career, seems dubious.
What's fascinating is that our purportedly superior academic overlords set such a terrible example in this regard.

damn_registrars accused Phil Roberson of delivering a "homophobic rant".
I asked him to be specific regarding the portion of Phil Robertson's remarks in GQ, where PR found homosexuality "illogical", that expressed fear, or was a indeed a rant.
damn_registrars seems to be falling short of delivering the goods.
Rational readers may draw their own conclusion.

Upon the repeal of the individual mandate:

On another plane, Ambassador Stevens is all: "Tell me about it."

I guess the punchline would be to wait for the Priests of Cthulhu to come around for damn_registrars, and suddenly decide that all of his "President Lawnchair" remarks are beyond the pale, and watch him get led up to the altar of Political Correctness, to met the Ultimately Correct One.
Because there is nothing funnier than seeing one who has been a useful tool of the Priests find themselves on the receiving end. When all those days and weeks of trying to turn Phil Robertson's genuine, reasoned disagreement with and lack of understanding of homosexuality into something "homophobic" and a "rant" come home for him. As though by repeatedly characterizing things as hateful in a repeated way, irrespective of the baselessness of the claim, it can become true.
Lord have mercy on you and heal you, damn_registrars, and give you courage to pursue something proper while still here under the sun.

While the point about A&E being private property is well-taken, I'd like to challenge d_r, who referred to Phil's remarks as a "homophobic rant" in his JE, to look at what was actually said and justify either adjective:

To call these remarks either homophobic OR a rant is to be either lobotomized or just an abject, lying fool. I fail to grasp how any sober, mature, honest person, even if not in agreement, can characterize the fauxtrage of d_r and ilk as anything other than "Utterly fascist and utterly Stalinist:

All I can say, d_r, is: you GO, girl!