To put it bluntly, climate change and its likely impact are proving slower and less harmful than we feared, while decarbonization of the economy is proving more painful and costly than we hoped. The mood in Paris will be one of furious pessimism among the well-funded NGOs that will attend the summit in large numbers: Decarbonization, on which they have set their hearts, is not happening, and they dare not mention the reassuring news from science lest it threaten their budgets.
Casting around for somebody to blame, they have fastened on foot-dragging fossil-fuel companies and those who make skeptical observations, however well-founded, about the likelihood of dangerous climate change. Scientific skeptics are now routinely censored, or threatened with prosecution. One recent survey by Rasmussen Reports shows that 27% of Democrats in the U.S. are in favor of prosecuting climate skeptics. This is the mentality of religious fanaticism, not scientific debate. …
So what will emerge from Paris, when thousands of government officials gather from Nov. 30 to Dec. 11 to agree on a new U.N. climate deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2020? Expect an agreement that is sufficiently vague and noncommittal for all countries to sign and claim victory. …
The next 10-15 years will show whether the global-warming slowdown continues or whether a strong warming trend terminates the current pause for good. …
______________________________
Yesterday we were wondering where the victims in the Colorado PP shooting were when they were shot. We know the officer was outside, & that one man was shot at outside, & now it turns out that another fatality was shot outside.
Anyone else have any new news?
Also, I’ve seen this attack referred to as a “terror attack”. That strikes me as a bit overblown, but does prompt this question: What does constitute a terror attack?
Story from the NY Times had some interesting bits of information on the suspect — so far, this seems to fit the category of mentally ill gunman as opposed to a politically-motivated (and connected to larger other groups or at least other individuals) attack.
________________________________________________
The official said that Mr. Dear “said a lot of things” during his interview, making it difficult for the authorities to pinpoint a specific motivation. …
The younger Mr. Dear was raised as a Baptist, Ms. Ross said in an interview in Goose Creek, S.C., where she now lives. He was religious but not a regular churchgoer, a believer but not one to harp on religion. “He believed wholeheartedly in the Bible,” she said. “That’s what he always said; he read it cover to cover to cover.” But he was not fixated on it, she added.
He was generally conservative, but not obsessed with politics. He kept guns around the house for personal protection and hunting, and he taught their son to hunt doves, as many Southern fathers do. He believed that abortion was wrong, but it was not something that he spoke about much. “It was never really a topic of discussion,” she said.
“It never, ever, ever, ever crossed my mind,” she said, that he would be capable of such a thing. “My heart just fell to my stomach.” ….
He seemed to have a separate life online. An online personals ad seeking women in North Carolina interested in bondage and sadomasochistic sex showed a picture that appeared to be Mr. Dear and used an online pseudonym associated with him. The same user also appeared to have turned to online message boards to seek companions in the Asheville area with whom he could smoke marijuana.
On Cannabis.com, the writer said in December 2005: “AIDS, hurricanes, we are in the end times. Accept the LORD JESUS while you can.” …
_________________________________________________
Applying the “terrorist” term to some of these mass shootings seems to be important to the left, but I’m not sure exactly why. I don’t feel that strongly about it either way. But to me, terrorism is something that is linked to a larger, very focused cause and definitely to a larger group somehow, not a lone individual with no “marching orders” but those in his own deranged head at the time.
If Dear were a member of a group that advocated violence against abortion clinics — and he acted in connection and with the knowledge (and blessing, as it were, taking credit for the action) of that kind of group where plans were to commit these attacks elsewhere, then it definitely would qualify as a domestic terrorism act.
Instead — at least with the information we have so far — this seems to fall more in line with a guy who went off the deep end for some reason known only to him.
I see that Huckabee has called him a terrorist. Again, I don’t have a feeling one way or the other about the term particularly. But it is important to the left for whatever reason.
Mainly, I would suppose, to drive home their frequently-pushed point that white American men are evil? 🙂 Kidding. Sort of.
And, perhaps, that “extremist” Christians are no different than “extremist” Muslims. ?
But of course that is a fallacy.
Our pastor posed on that point yesterday:
__________________________________________________
In light of the Colorado PP shootings, the dialogue in my previous post took an odd turn. There was a comparison made between Muslim extremists and Christian extremists (a new term for me). Here is where it went:
C: You can’t blame all Muslims for what the Muslim extremists do anymore than you can blame all Christians for what the Christian extremists do.
M: I think there are satanic extremists posing as Christians. A Christian extremist would be someone who is extremely loving, selfless and sacrificial. I would love to be or meet a Christian extremist. When it gets right down to it, I think there was only one.
C: Paul, why do you consider an extreme Christian to be good, but an extreme Muslim to be bad?
M: Because I consider the loving, merciful, selfless sacrifice of Christ to be the heart of the Christian faith. I don’t recall mentioning extreme Muslims at all. I am not one to argue for religion in general. The devil is religious. I think any system where man is elevated to the pinnacle of our hope or any religion where hope is dependent upon the efforts of men (as is the case with all religions save the Christian one) are to be avoided.
____________________________________________________
And as one commenter put it (with regard to “terrorism”):
There is a false dichotomy drawn between Robert Lewis Dear (Colorado shooter) and Muslim extremism that is pretty easy to spot past all the media rhetoric. Namely, individual madness is a pretty big difference from organized, deliberate terror campaigns.
But then you have friends like mine who announce their Christmas giving is easy this year: everything to the “unfairly targeted” Planned Parenthood.
I don’t care who or what he is and what his opinions are. He’s a cold blooded murderer. That’s enough for me. Throw the book at him, silence him and send him far, far away.
Applying the “terrorist” term to some of these mass shootings seems to be important to the left, but I’m not sure exactly why.
I believe it is so they can use these incidents as a weapon against conservatives who want a stronger reaction to Islamic terrorism or to just prove their point that conservatives are more evil.
This is an exchanged between myself and someone named Donna on a Buzzffed article on tweets by “pro-lifers” celebrating the PP shooting.
Me- Both sides have their scum. If you don’t believe me, go to any Huff Po article on a red state natural disaster, read the comments and watch the celebration. According to quite a few bleeding heart liberals you deserve to lose everything you own and maybe even death just for having a Republican governor.
Donna · University of Maryland
I do agree that it’s s%^* when liberals gloat over disasters in Red states. But you know what’s worse than that? Actually voting for that Republican Governor.
Dr. Everett Piper, university president of Oklahoma Wesleyan University, wrote a blog post to students that concludes like this:
“At OKWU, we teach you to be selfless rather than self-centered. We are more interested in you practicing personal forgiveness than political revenge. We want you to model interpersonal reconciliation rather than foment personal conflict. We believe the content of your character is more important than the color of your skin. We don’t believe that you have been victimized every time you feel guilty and we don’t issue “trigger warnings” before altar calls.
Oklahoma Wesleyan is not a “safe place”, but rather, a place to learn: to learn that life isn’t about you, but about others; that the bad feeling you have while listening to a sermon is called guilt; that the way to address it is to repent of everything that’s wrong with you rather than blame others for everything that’s wrong with them. This is a place where you will quickly learn that you need to grow up!
Posted this on FB, still pretty taken aback. US Military authorities in Europe have put FRANCE, Brussels and Turkey off limits to all military personnel who are not attached to the embassy there:
Wandering Views 
Do you believe your president would lie to you?
Really?
I think the really believes that we are causing the sea level to rise.
I know that the sea level at the Battery in Charleston is the same as in 1940.
LikeLike
Good editorial piece in the WSJ (they have a strict paywall but you can get around that by just googling “Your complete guide to the climate debate”)
http://www.wsj.com/articles/your-complete-guide-to-the-climate-debate-1448656890
___________________________
To put it bluntly, climate change and its likely impact are proving slower and less harmful than we feared, while decarbonization of the economy is proving more painful and costly than we hoped. The mood in Paris will be one of furious pessimism among the well-funded NGOs that will attend the summit in large numbers: Decarbonization, on which they have set their hearts, is not happening, and they dare not mention the reassuring news from science lest it threaten their budgets.
Casting around for somebody to blame, they have fastened on foot-dragging fossil-fuel companies and those who make skeptical observations, however well-founded, about the likelihood of dangerous climate change. Scientific skeptics are now routinely censored, or threatened with prosecution. One recent survey by Rasmussen Reports shows that 27% of Democrats in the U.S. are in favor of prosecuting climate skeptics. This is the mentality of religious fanaticism, not scientific debate. …
So what will emerge from Paris, when thousands of government officials gather from Nov. 30 to Dec. 11 to agree on a new U.N. climate deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2020? Expect an agreement that is sufficiently vague and noncommittal for all countries to sign and claim victory. …
The next 10-15 years will show whether the global-warming slowdown continues or whether a strong warming trend terminates the current pause for good. …
______________________________
LikeLike
Yesterday we were wondering where the victims in the Colorado PP shooting were when they were shot. We know the officer was outside, & that one man was shot at outside, & now it turns out that another fatality was shot outside.
Anyone else have any new news?
Also, I’ve seen this attack referred to as a “terror attack”. That strikes me as a bit overblown, but does prompt this question: What does constitute a terror attack?
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/planned-parenthood-victim-kearre-stewart-tried-save-others-n471126
LikeLike
Story from the NY Times had some interesting bits of information on the suspect — so far, this seems to fit the category of mentally ill gunman as opposed to a politically-motivated (and connected to larger other groups or at least other individuals) attack.
________________________________________________
The official said that Mr. Dear “said a lot of things” during his interview, making it difficult for the authorities to pinpoint a specific motivation. …
The younger Mr. Dear was raised as a Baptist, Ms. Ross said in an interview in Goose Creek, S.C., where she now lives. He was religious but not a regular churchgoer, a believer but not one to harp on religion. “He believed wholeheartedly in the Bible,” she said. “That’s what he always said; he read it cover to cover to cover.” But he was not fixated on it, she added.
He was generally conservative, but not obsessed with politics. He kept guns around the house for personal protection and hunting, and he taught their son to hunt doves, as many Southern fathers do. He believed that abortion was wrong, but it was not something that he spoke about much. “It was never really a topic of discussion,” she said.
“It never, ever, ever, ever crossed my mind,” she said, that he would be capable of such a thing. “My heart just fell to my stomach.” ….
He seemed to have a separate life online. An online personals ad seeking women in North Carolina interested in bondage and sadomasochistic sex showed a picture that appeared to be Mr. Dear and used an online pseudonym associated with him. The same user also appeared to have turned to online message boards to seek companions in the Asheville area with whom he could smoke marijuana.
On Cannabis.com, the writer said in December 2005: “AIDS, hurricanes, we are in the end times. Accept the LORD JESUS while you can.” …
_________________________________________________
LikeLike
Applying the “terrorist” term to some of these mass shootings seems to be important to the left, but I’m not sure exactly why. I don’t feel that strongly about it either way. But to me, terrorism is something that is linked to a larger, very focused cause and definitely to a larger group somehow, not a lone individual with no “marching orders” but those in his own deranged head at the time.
If Dear were a member of a group that advocated violence against abortion clinics — and he acted in connection and with the knowledge (and blessing, as it were, taking credit for the action) of that kind of group where plans were to commit these attacks elsewhere, then it definitely would qualify as a domestic terrorism act.
Instead — at least with the information we have so far — this seems to fall more in line with a guy who went off the deep end for some reason known only to him.
I see that Huckabee has called him a terrorist. Again, I don’t have a feeling one way or the other about the term particularly. But it is important to the left for whatever reason.
Mainly, I would suppose, to drive home their frequently-pushed point that white American men are evil? 🙂 Kidding. Sort of.
LikeLiked by 1 person
And, perhaps, that “extremist” Christians are no different than “extremist” Muslims. ?
But of course that is a fallacy.
Our pastor posed on that point yesterday:
__________________________________________________
In light of the Colorado PP shootings, the dialogue in my previous post took an odd turn. There was a comparison made between Muslim extremists and Christian extremists (a new term for me). Here is where it went:
C: You can’t blame all Muslims for what the Muslim extremists do anymore than you can blame all Christians for what the Christian extremists do.
M: I think there are satanic extremists posing as Christians. A Christian extremist would be someone who is extremely loving, selfless and sacrificial. I would love to be or meet a Christian extremist. When it gets right down to it, I think there was only one.
C: Paul, why do you consider an extreme Christian to be good, but an extreme Muslim to be bad?
M: Because I consider the loving, merciful, selfless sacrifice of Christ to be the heart of the Christian faith. I don’t recall mentioning extreme Muslims at all. I am not one to argue for religion in general. The devil is religious. I think any system where man is elevated to the pinnacle of our hope or any religion where hope is dependent upon the efforts of men (as is the case with all religions save the Christian one) are to be avoided.
____________________________________________________
LikeLike
And as one commenter put it (with regard to “terrorism”):
There is a false dichotomy drawn between Robert Lewis Dear (Colorado shooter) and Muslim extremism that is pretty easy to spot past all the media rhetoric. Namely, individual madness is a pretty big difference from organized, deliberate terror campaigns.
LikeLiked by 1 person
But then you have friends like mine who announce their Christmas giving is easy this year: everything to the “unfairly targeted” Planned Parenthood.
I don’t care who or what he is and what his opinions are. He’s a cold blooded murderer. That’s enough for me. Throw the book at him, silence him and send him far, far away.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Applying the “terrorist” term to some of these mass shootings seems to be important to the left, but I’m not sure exactly why.
I believe it is so they can use these incidents as a weapon against conservatives who want a stronger reaction to Islamic terrorism or to just prove their point that conservatives are more evil.
LikeLike
This is an exchanged between myself and someone named Donna on a Buzzffed article on tweets by “pro-lifers” celebrating the PP shooting.
Me- Both sides have their scum. If you don’t believe me, go to any Huff Po article on a red state natural disaster, read the comments and watch the celebration. According to quite a few bleeding heart liberals you deserve to lose everything you own and maybe even death just for having a Republican governor.
Donna · University of Maryland
I do agree that it’s s%^* when liberals gloat over disasters in Red states. But you know what’s worse than that? Actually voting for that Republican Governor.
LikeLike
A university president with true fortitude…
http://www.okwu.edu/blog/2015/11/this-is-not-a-day-care-its-a-university/
Dr. Everett Piper, university president of Oklahoma Wesleyan University, wrote a blog post to students that concludes like this:
“At OKWU, we teach you to be selfless rather than self-centered. We are more interested in you practicing personal forgiveness than political revenge. We want you to model interpersonal reconciliation rather than foment personal conflict. We believe the content of your character is more important than the color of your skin. We don’t believe that you have been victimized every time you feel guilty and we don’t issue “trigger warnings” before altar calls.
Oklahoma Wesleyan is not a “safe place”, but rather, a place to learn: to learn that life isn’t about you, but about others; that the bad feeling you have while listening to a sermon is called guilt; that the way to address it is to repent of everything that’s wrong with you rather than blame others for everything that’s wrong with them. This is a place where you will quickly learn that you need to grow up!
This is not a day care. This is a university!”
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kbells, good point (about red state comments). The Internet magnifies the ugliness on both sides.
Honestly, if there are conservatives ‘celebrating’ this shooting, I haven’t seen or heard them. At all.
But maybe I’m not looking in the “right” places. 😉
I’m with deleted, the act itself is evil, whatever his motives, prosecute him to the full extent of the law.
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Tychicus, I agree. Great letter. (And that was linked in the article I linked to on the daily thread at 2:22 pm today.) 😉
(6 arrows)
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Posted this on FB, still pretty taken aback. US Military authorities in Europe have put FRANCE, Brussels and Turkey off limits to all military personnel who are not attached to the embassy there:
http://www.military.com/military-report/travel-restrictions-to-france-implemented.html?ESRC=mr1130.nl
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