"So much drama over a nothing burger."

Ace of Spades ridicules the Democrats' drummed up controversy over Jeff Sessions here and here.

Scientists discover major source of greenhouse gas in the Pacific!

Ace of Spades links to this article, which tells about scientists who

have discovered a major source of an important greenhouse gas in the Tropical Pacific Ocean for the first time.

Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, and a major contributor to increasing global temperatures. The largest pool of marine methane on Earth spans from the coast of Central America to Hawaii in the Tropical Pacific Ocean.

Ace writes,

How much more powerful is methane than carbon dioxide in terms of greenhouse impact? Try thirty times more powerful, Jack.

The Warming Mongers have occasionally sort of owned up to this Inconvenient Truth. When they talk about cattle farming as being a Danger to Our Very Earth, they're talking about the methane produced by cows' digestion of grass and feed. Their farts, I mean. More cows, more methane, more greenhouse effect.

But of course their central preoccupation is carbon dioxide, which I have a habit of mocking as The Invisible Killer. In fact, it's not so much a killer as a minor bother.

Now scientists have probed the tropical Pacific floor, and have found a great big swath of microbes pumping out a gas that actually has a greenhouse impact beyond the trivial.

...Hack Scientists Who Didn't Really Major in a Real Science: "The science is settled."

Actual Science: "Yes, lads, you've fathomed all of my mysteries in the thirty years since you've created and then 'pefected' this infant grab-bag science of yours. You've got me all figured out, and there's nothing left to learn. Well done, boys. Very well done. By the way, I'm being very sarcastic. Like Spock with an arched eyebrow. That's how Science rolls."

Read more here.

Something green!

Mama feed her brand new calf in the sunshine!

"Please go away! I don't want to get pregnant again!"

"The only unwelcome guest is reality!"

"Sitting back and letting it happen, as if we've been hypnotized. The latest trend in Sweden is live streaming gang rapes on the internet for everyone's entertainment! Spectators at an approaching tsunami!"

Unvetted "refugees"

Bookworm quotes from Trump's SOTU speech.

It is not compassionate, but reckless, to allow uncontrolled entry from places where proper vetting cannot occur. Those given the high honor of admission to the United States should support this country and love its people and its values.

We cannot allow a beachhead of terrorism to form inside America — we cannot allow our Nation to become a sanctuary for extremists.

She then links to Daniel Greenfield, who compiled several recent examples of what happens when "refugees" are not properly vetted.

"The future is not lost. It is waiting for us."

Daniel Greenfield writes,

After eight years of an administration whose vision of progress was rigidly ideological, President Trump offered optimism grounded in the conviction that we can make the country better by making things happen. “Everything that is broken in our country can be fixed. Every problem can be solved,” he said.

That sense of optimism is uniquely American. It stands in sharp contrast to the dreadful years of Obama malaise that made economic and national progress dependent on social progress. Under Obama, national progress depended on atoning for our social sins through diversity and our environmental sins through alternative energy. We didn’t deserve success or happiness if we didn’t do these things.

...The future is not lost. It is waiting for us.

Read the whole thing here.

"I'm a phobia phobe!"

Sundance brings us news that Mark Steyn is no longer on Mark Levin's Conservative Review t.v. show. Steyn is suing. No further details are yet available. Steyn promises something is coming from his side on Monday.

Here is Steyn's last show. He gives a warm tribute to Alan Colmes, who "understood that politics is persuasion."

It's odd that the left is so unforgiving of him for engaging with the right.

Then he gives a tribute to Nigel Farage, who almost single-handedly persuaded British voters to Brexit.

When all you do is label someone, you make debate impossible. Labels are fine if you are in kindergarten on the playground, but by grade three, you should be learning how to debate!

"It's a shakedown, pure and simple!"

Melissa Jacobs reports at Fox News,

The Obama administration funneled billions of dollars to activist organizations through a Department of Justice slush fund scheme, according to congressional investigators.

“It’s clear partisan politics played a role in the illicit actions that were made,” Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, told Fox News. “The DOJ is the last place this should have occurred.”

Findings spearheaded by the House Judiciary Committee point to a process shrouded in secrecy whereby monies were distributed to a labyrinth of nonprofit organizations involved with grass-roots activism.

“Advocates for big government and progressive power are using the Justice Department to extort money from corporations,” Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton told Fox News. “It’s a shakedown. It’s corrupt, pure and simple.”

When big banks are sued by the government for discrimination or mortgage abuse, they can settle the cases by donating to third-party non-victims. The settlements do not specify how these third-party groups could use the windfall.

So far, investigators have accounted for $3 billion paid to “non-victim entities.”

...Lankford has introduced the Stop Settlement Slush Fund Act of 2017 while House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., submitted similar legislation in the House.

“Congress must permanently end the abuses Obama’s Justice Department exploited to use settlements to funnel money to their liberal friends,” Goodlatte said in a statement.

Read more here.

CNN and Hollywood Reactions to Trump speecn

At Bookworm Room guest blogger John Novick reports on the reaction to last night's Trump speech before Congress by sources you might not have checked: CNN and Hollywood. Read the whole thing here.

Protecting bad-apple teachers in New York

In the New York Post Julia Marsh reports,

Why heroin and classroom sex aren’t enough to get teachers fired anymore!

The city’s bad-apple teachers have a surprising new ally these days — Manhattan judges.

The jurists are increasingly refusing to side with city education bigs to punish rogue educators fired for drug- and sex-related offenses, according to a review of recent cases by The Post.

Read more here.

hat tip Instapundit

Warbots

At Real Clear Defense, Brian M. Michelson writes about The Coming Warbot Revolution.

In May 1940, the Allied and German Armies squared off in what was expected to be an extended campaign for the conquest of France. Six weeks later, the victorious German Army marched down the Champs-Elysees in Paris. How was it that the Germans, with fewer tanks, fewer trucks, fewer troops, less artillery and access to roughly equivalent technologies, managed to accomplish such a remarkable feat? While leadership, luck, and a host of other factors were at play, the decisive factor was the remarkable way in which a few German inter-war military thinkers envisioned and developed a new way of warfare, known to the Allies as the blitzkrieg. German doctrine successfully integrated current technologies in aircraft, radios, and tanks into a coherent and integrated way of fighting and then applied it to great effect.The result was amplified because the Germans fought an enemy that in many cases failed to account for the possibilities enabled by the new combination of these technologies.

We are now on the cusp of a similar revolution in warfare with the opportunity to integrate several current and near term technologies into our concept of how we will conduct military operations in the not-to-distant future. The winner of the next conflict will not likely be determined primarily by the state of their technologies, but by how well a nation’s military thinkers conceptualize future warfare in an integrated manner and then apply robotic systems, or warbots, appropriately to our way of fighting. For purposes of this discussion, warbots can be defined as robotic combat systems that can detect, identify, and apply lethal force to enemy combatants within prescribed parameters and without immediate human intervention. Using the historical lens of the blitzkrieg, we will examine two key trends that can help inform our concept of future warfare and our ability to wage it. They include: the rise of lethal warbots as primary combatants and adapting current leadership methods to a future era of manned-unmanned, or Centaur, teaming.

Read more here.

"America needs a Space Corps!"

M.V. “Coyote” Smith writes at War is Boring,

America Needs a Space Corps
It’s time for the Pentagon to create an independent orbital military service!

[S]pace is an area where we have methodically, almost with genius, allowed bureaucracy to avoid success. The combination of the Air Force’s parochialism and NASA’s bureaucracy, we are now at least 25 years behind where we should be.
— Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House, 2016

[The Russian and Chinese] space threat has developed with alarming speed. And yet, during the same time period, the Department of Defense [the Air Force] has significantly reduced research and development dedicated to space systems [by 80 percent].
— Sen. John McCain, Chairman of the SASC, 2017

This article recommends the creation of a U.S. Space Corps in the Department of the Air Force as an initial step to set American space power on a path to reach its full potential.
Ultimately, America’s national security interests in space will best be served when Congress creates an independent Space Corps, just as it created independent services for land, sea and air, uniting them under the Department of Defense.

Read the whole thing here.

hat tip Glenn Reynolds

"Four years is a lot of time for a Master Persuader."

Scott Adams writes,

if Trump maintains a constructive engagement with the black community, and continues to talk about unity, while his critics call him “dark,” who wins the persuasion? Trump’s critics might accidentally turn him into the third black president. (Counting Bill Clinton as first.) That’s obviously a big stretch, but you didn’t think he would get elected president either. Four years is a lot of time for a Master Persuader.

Read more here.

Pro-marijuana groups worried

At the Washington Examiner, Kelly Cohen reports,

Attorney General Jeff Sessions created a wave of worry among pro-marijuana groups this week when he said he doesn't think the United States is a better place with "more people smoking pot."

"I am definitely not a fan of expanded use of marijuana," Sessions said Monday. "But states, they can pass the laws they choose. I would just say, it does remain a violation of federal law to distribute marijuana throughout any place in the United States, whether a state legalizes it or not."

Sessions' comments paralleled those of White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, who said last week that states with legalized recreational marijuana use will see "greater enforcement" of federal laws.

Read more and watch an interview here.

U.S. oil exports are blowing past expectations

Gerald Herbert reports at AP
"U.S. crude oil exports have exceeded 1.2 million barrels a day, per the Financial Times. That follows the lifting of a 40-year-old ban on crude oil exports in 2015, and far exceeds baseline projections. As the FT points out, the strong exports are a result of:

The oil glut in the world market has made U.S. oil a relative bargain compared with other grades.
A rebound in oil prices last year has encouraged U.S. companies to increase drilling. The EIA estimates domestic production is above 9 million barrels a day for the first time in 10 months.

U.S. refineries, unlike OPEC, haven't done much to "mop up" the glut.

Rates for leasing supertankers have declined, making its cheaper to transfer oil to foreign countries.

Why this matters: The situation poses a threat to Saudi Arabia and other key OPEC members, which have historically had control over the oil industry and the power to gauge pricing. But following the group's November agreement to curtail oil output, concerns about tighter oil supplies have led foreign countries to look elsewhere — such as to the U.S. — for their supply.

hat tip Glenn Reynolds

Nancy Pelosi refuses to clap for new American jobs.

hat tip Stephen Green

None are greater

Thank you!

hat tip Last Refuge commenter getfitnow