Filed under: Cool Site of the Day, Democrat Corruption, Environment, Global Warming, History, Junk Science, Science/Technology, The United States, YouTube | Tags: Facts are those True Things, Look at the Facts, The Hottest July On Record
When President Trump complained about “Fake News” the media, en masse, had a hissy-fit. How Dare He!! In the interest of the “Climate Crisis” the media has been touting “The Hottest July on Record.” File that one along with the Amazon Rainforest burning up.
When climate happens to you, it seems like the worst one ever. If you sweltered in New York this July, I’m sure it felt like the hottest ever, but the statistics don’t support your feelings. There’s some pretty impressive graph work here. And graphs are another one of those things that seem to get too complicated for us poor mortals. You have to spend a little time to really absorb what they are saying. The hottest was way back in 1936. 2019 wasn’t even in the running. Fake news indeed!
Filed under: Europe, Global Warming, News of the Weird, Pop Culture, Science/Technology, YouTube | Tags: Cloudburst, Investigating Words, You Tube
We had a brief cloudburst a little while ago, and now the sun is back out. I started wondering about the word “cloudburst,” wondering if it was an ordinary term or a localism. It is indeed an ordinary term, and I found this brief time-lapse video of a cloudburst over a lake in Austria, taken by a well prepared photographer who captured the moment. “Cloudburst” is also a choral work by Eric Whittaker, a movie – apparently about two elderly lesbians, and large numbers of outdoor equipment pieces ranging from jackets and wearing apparel to tents and backpacks. Who knew? If you have a little time to spare, wondering can lead you down all sorts of interesting side roads.
I have experienced many cloudbursts, but the timelapse video is a marvel. Experiencing a cloudburst will never be the same.
Filed under: Domestic Policy, Environment, Humor, News, YouTube | Tags: Doesn't Take Much Snow, Snow in Seattle, The City of Seven Hills
Here in the Seattle area, we are recovering from a winter snowfall. It made the national news in USA today. Had a snarky message from an old friend in St. Louis, who had just talked to another friend from home in Idaho who said they had about four feet of snow on the level. Seattle made the national news on the basis of 2 to 3 inches! Fact! Seattle is a city famously built on seven hills. They plowed down some, and nobody counts anyway, but the problem is that there are slopes in every direction, and even small amounts immediately turn to ice. Lots of car crashes in every direction.
However, just across the mountains to the east the same winter storm produced a blizzard west of the Tri-Cities, and 1,600 dairy cows died in the blizzard. Hit the dairy farmers hard. They were not expecting such conditions. They prepared for the snow, but it just wasn’t enough. Cows normally do fine out-of-doors. Snoqualmie Pass was closed all day by avalanche and snow danger.
Filed under: Entertainment, Humor, YouTube | Tags: Idiosyncrasies, Simon's Cat, The Feline Species
This was a post from 2010 that I ran across in the archives, and laughed so much I thought I’d post it once again. Enjoy
Simon Tofield is a British animator who obviously has a cat. Or perhaps cats, plural. In any case, he appreciates the idiosyncrasies of the species.
We, at American Elephants, have two cats, who sleep next to the keyboard. We do not believe in the dog/cat argument which is nonsense. Sensible dogs and cats get along just fine. We love dogs too, and horses, and bunnies and birds. We even enjoy watching the raccoons through the window, but not close up. They hiss when they don’t like you.
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Capitalism, Domestic Policy, Education, Energy, Entertainment, Environment, Global Warming, History, Junk Science, Law, Politics, Progressivism, The United States, YouTube | Tags: Leftist Propaganda, True Believers, Tucker Carlson
Tucker Carlson just said that this young woman was a candidate for Congress from the State of California. It is fascinating proof that those on the Left believe their own propaganda. They don’t investigate, they don’t attempt to study up and understand the mindset of the opposition. They know—because Leftist propaganda is, to them, infallible.
They do not question their beliefs, and what is “conventional wisdom” is as permanent and infallible for them as any history book or any scientific authority. She truly doesn’t know what Carlson is talking about, and having called Trump ‘Hitler’, his appointee a stooge, among other things, Steve Bannon a white supremacist and an anti-Semite, and accused Trump of hate speech—she doesn’t understand what Carlson means about irony.
This young woman demonstrates complete and utter idiocy. Her beliefs are provably nonsense, and thank heavens that she was not elected to anything. Obama’s legacy of demonizing anyone who disagreed with Democrats as racist, homophobic, sexist, racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, racist, transphobic and spouting racist hate speech.
Perhaps that is why, when a Democrat wins the election, Republicans hunker down a little and study up to see where they went wrong, but I can’t ever remember or imagine a conservative response such as we have seen from the Democrats. If there was ever a demonstration, I missed it completely.
Hillary lost because she was a lousy candidate. She has wanted to be the first woman president, but never felt it necessary to build up a record of knowledge and accomplishment that qualified her for office. Her compulsive lying and record of graft in office were more than most could take, but to the left she would be the “first woman president,” and that was enough.
Obama remains personally popular. Nice looking, nice family. But he was an ideologue. For eight years he has encouraged those who demonize Republicans. He had the opportunity as the first black president, to improve race relations in America, instead, he suggested that anyone who disagreed with his policies was racist. He welcomed Black Lives Matter to the White House and urged them on, which has resulted in a horrendous death toll among American police officers.
The outcry among Leftists has been a constant shriek of “Racist, Sexist, Homophobe, Misogynist, Xenophobe, Fascist, Anti-Semite,” and of course the constant “Racist” over and over. It does get a little tiresome. But it is used in the absence of argument. That’s all they have—name-calling. They understand as little of the underlying issues as the unfortunate young woman in the video above.
She has no idea that simply stating “pollution” is not an argument. She called Trump “Hitler,” his appointee for EPA head as a stooge, a “puppet” of the evil oil industry, with no understanding that our civilization relies on the oil industry to provide the power that allows it to operate. Scott Pruitt was the attorney representing 28 states who were suing the federal government and the EPA for unlawful and illegitimate regulations. She had no understanding whatsoever that what she was engaging in was “hate speech” based only on emotion—no facts. There are no such things as “Climate Deniers,” only scientists whose work proves that the climate has been changing for millions of years, there is nothing that man can do to keep it from changing, and we just have to adapt. It is the need for panic that is denied. She has no idea that her proud degree in “Social and Cultural Analysis” left her a little short in the knowledge department.
It’s both a funny and a sad video. Will Democrats catch on and refuse to appear on Tucker Carlson’s show? Or is the chance to appear on national television just too enticing?
Filed under: Blogging, Bureaucracy, News the Media Doesn't Want You to Hear, Politics, Regulation, YouTube | Tags: Government Overreach, Low Skilled Unemployment Program, Unintended Cpnsequences
Here in Washington State, the minimum wage is on the ballot. They’re trying to ease it up over time, so we won’t notice. The minimum wage is an unemployment program for the lowest skilled workers. They already had big protests and demands to raise the minimum wage in the city of SeaTac, which is the area around the airport. Lots of fast food and regular restaurants and lots of hotels and motels. So the city passed a raise to $15 an hour. What happened? Fewer workers, some suddenly found they were charged for parking, which had previously been free. Restaurant workers found they had to pay for their own meals. Lots of other actions by businesses to try to cope with a government ordered increase in the cost of doing business.
Then the City of Seattle decided to raise the minimum wage. Some small restaurants closed, some let workers go. Some businesses moved to the suburbs. Now it’s on the statewide ballot. Most politicians have no experience in the private sector, and see no reason why they can’t just order businesses to do as they demand. And as usual, Democrats just don’t get the unintended consequences. Business is now having to cope with Obama administration orders to expand the numbers of employees who get overtime pay. That too will have unintended consequences.
If you enjoy these Prager University short videos, You Tube has decided that some of them are just too dangerous for you to see, and put them on the restricted list, You can help out by signing the petition to tell YouTube to Stop censoring PragerU videos. You’ll find a big red link at the above link.
Filed under: Capitalism, Domestic Policy, Economics, Economy, Entertainment, Free Markets, Freedom, Humor, YouTube | Tags: Dr. Madsen Pirie, Economics can be fun, The Adam Smith Institute
Dr. Madsen Pirie, President of the Adam Smith Institute is explaining how basic economics is based on fundamental understanding of human nature. I posted this back in 2012, and found it in the archives when one visitor called it to my attention. This clearly demonstrates why Donald Trump doesn’t understand Trade at all, and is up the river without a paddle for his canoe. Ditto Hillary and Bernie.
Economics often seems too complicated for us everyday mortals, but it’s just based on understanding the real world. The workings of the market, the everyday buying and selling, profit and loss, tell us, if we choose to pay attention, how money, trade and markets really work.
Never fear, these are all really, really short, and worth your time.
Economics can be fun, and here’s another lesson: Economics is fun, Part 2. All about Price. How do products get priced, and what is the right price?
Part 3 is about Specialization. This is not about those puzzling charts and graphs, and how Money, Trade and Markets really work.
Part 4 is about Trade and how countries become rich.
Part 5 is about Time and Investment.
Part 6 of Economics is fun is about Money:
There are more, but so far you have invested around ten minutes. If you want more, go to You Tube and enter “Economics is fun” and start with lesson 7. You are better armored against the remarkable statements of our politicians on the stump. A little knowledge, as they say, is a dangerous thing. You might try them out on your kids if they are the right age.
Filed under: Music, Pop Culture, Russia, YouTube | Tags: An Octave below bass, basso profundo singers, Examples from Russia
I had never heard the term “Octavist”, nor heard one sing. Amazing! The term “oktavist” describes a basso profundo singer with an extremely deep range. You’ll notice that the singers showcased in this video all sound unbelievably deep, with some making you question whether or not it’s humanly possible to produce such low notes. Their voices can go as deep as an octave below the bass staff.”
http://www.wimp.com/russian-oktavists/ Do watch the whole thing.
The octavists in this video are all Russian, but they exist all over the world.
Filed under: Democrat Corruption, Domestic Policy, Law, Progressivism, Regulation, Taxes, YouTube | Tags: Center for Medical Progress, Taxpayer Support, Twelve Videos in Total
When you are running for the office of President of the United States, you get asked questions. Hillary has attempted to avoid answering any questions whatsoever, but that will just last so long, even with a partisan press. She was asked this week about Planned Parenthood, and her response was cautious:
“I have seen pictures from them and I obviously find them disturbing,” Mrs. Clinton said in an interview with the New Hampshire Union Leader. She followed that with a cloud of verbiage:
“Planned Parenthood is answering questions and will continue to answer questions. I think there are two points to make,” Clinton said. “One, Planned Parenthood for more than a century has done a lot of really good work for women: cancer screenings, family planning, all kinds of health services. And this raises not questions about Planned Parenthood so much as it raises questions about the whole process, that is, not just involving Planned Parenthood, but many institutions in our country.”
“And if there’s going to be any kind of congressional inquiry, it should look at everything and not just one part of it,” she said.
The idea that Planned Parenthood is a “women’s health organization” is clearly bunk. They do abortions. They are the highest-volume practitioner of abortions. They do not do cancer screenings, they do not do mammograms, they send people to clinics where they can get a mammogram, and where they can get help to pay for it. They don’t have the necessary equipment to do mammograms. It’s very expensive.
The claim that harvesting aborted fetal tissue for medical research is a good thing is immoral. There was a time when researchers thought that fetal stem cells would overcome the any problems of rejection in patients. That has proven not to be true, and new techniques of using one’s own stem cells have been successful.
There is much more to be revealed. We are told there are nine videos. The Planned Parenthood claims of “heavily edited video” that distorts the position of the person who is speaking is nonsense, as the entire videos were released at the same time as those edited for release
But then, Hillary has long been a great admirer of Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, a fashionable position for Democrats, but she was also big on population control, controlling birth rates, that couples should have to get a license to have a child, that no one should be allowed more than one birth, and that large families were immoral. She also wanted to get rid of the unfit or defectives.
“The president certainly will not support another effort by Republicans to try to defund an organization that offers important and needed health-care services to women across the country,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said, echoing the Planned Parenthood publicity.
(Not “needed health-care services” All they do is abortions)
Filed under: Entertainment, Health Care, Humor, Pop Culture, YouTube | Tags: Got Coeliac Disease?, Grocery Store Illnesses, The Ultra Spiritual Life
From the Ultra Spiritual Life, with JP Sears, A chuckle for today.
Filed under: Entertainment, Humor, Music, YouTube | Tags: Celtic Music, Ireland, The Clancy Brothers
And a very happy St. Patrick’s Day to you all.
Do little kids still pinch anyone who isn’t wearing green?
Filed under: Energy, Science/Technology, YouTube | Tags: Icelandic Volcanos, Spying on Mother Nature, The Usefulness of Drones
We wrote about a month ago about the Bardarbunga volcano in Iceland that was erupting beneath the 1300 foot deep ice, and wondering how long it would take for the lava to break through.
This video demonstrates that a guy with a quadcopter managed to get very, very close to an erupting Icelandic volcano — close enough to melt the face of the camera that shot the video. Eric Cheng, director of aerial imaging for drone maker DJI joined photographer Ragnar Th Sigurdsson to send a drone over the eruption. It took proper permits and connections with the local authorities to get close enough to send a drone, and Sigurdsson had the permits and connections.
“Iceland is the only place on the globe where a mid-ocean ridge — the seams in the Earth’s crust that pull apart, bringing molten magma to the surface to produce more crust — rises onto dry land. It’s an incredible view of one of the most important and impressive geologic processes on the planet.”
And how exciting to be able to sit with your computer and be able to watch that geologic process — safely at home, thanks to Wired. Here’s the drone:
American Elephants 