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OPINION
Climate change ice-capped

Sunday, September 22, 2013

OUR VIEW

It Can Wait: Texting and driving don't mix

Thanks to a decades long public awareness campaign, drunk or impaired driving remains a top-ofmind public safety concern. But distracted driving is proving to be just as dangerous, especially among our young people. Statistics released on U.S. driving accidents found that in 2011, 23 percent of all auto collisions that's 1.3 million crashes involved the use of a cell phone. Even more alarming, text massaging while driving makes a crash 23 times more likely to occur. A recent survey found that while 97 percent of teens say they know texting while driving is dangerous, 43 percent admit to doing so. 77 percent of those teens also said they've seen their parents text and drive and 75 percent say it is "common" among their friends. We obviously have a problem. But is also completely preventable. That is why the department of transportation, multiple mobile device and carrier companies, cities and schools joined forces this past week, Sept. 19, for the "Drive 4 Pledges Day" to drive focused and distraction-free. A ConnectSafely.org survey finds that individuals who speak up can have a profound impact, particularly on teens. That's why nearly 2,000 Drive 4 Pledges activities were held in communities across the nation, including more than 1,500 at high schools. Additionally, more than 200 proclamations were issued, including Bartlesville. AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon normally fierce competitors in the mobile device market pooled their considerable resources on a co-branded advertising on national TV and social media like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. Along with exercising good judgment, new applications are coming out to help curb the urge to text while driving. It's tie to get the message out: Texting and driving is not worth losing your life or taking someone else's.

here is a tradition in politics that is similar to one in the legal profession: When evidence supports your position, make your argument based on the evidence, but when it argues against your position, ignore the evidence and appeal to emotion. The evidence is piling up that "climate change," formerly known as "global warming," is losing evidentiary support, despite recent "preliminary findings" by a group of "experts" from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that a Washington Post editorial suggests may prove, "warming has boosted the chances, in some cases significantly, that certain unwelcome weather or weather-related disasters will occur." The Post and other "true believers" ignore or ridicule a growing body of evidence rebutting their beliefs. Most bad weather from hurricanes, which have been few this season, to tornadoes are unwelcome by those in their paths, but these weather phenomena have existed for centuries. Both sides seem to agree that CO2 levels are elevated, but they don't agree on whether that will cause dangerous

Cal Thomas
TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES

climate change, including rising temperatures and turbulent weather. The Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) argues, "The human effect is likely to be small relative to natural variability, and whatever small warming is likely to occur will produce benefits as well as costs." Yet the climate change cultists continue to focus on melting polar ice caps and "displaced" polar bears as part of their emotional appeal for government to "fix" the problem. Now comes a report in the UK Daily Mail that "eminent scientists" have observed a record return of the Arctic ice cap as it grows by 60 percent in a year, covering with ice almost 1 million more square miles of ocean than in 2012. In 2007, the BBC reported that by 2013, global warming would leave the Arctic "ice free." Oops!

Just how silly this is getting is an assertion by some activists that the current tensions in Syria might be linked to climate change. That's not as harebrained as a newspaper report in January 1933, which said, "Yo-Yo Banned in Syria, Blamed for Drought by Moslems." The Syrians of 1933 actually believed the up and down of a toy yo-yo affected the weather. If it went down and sprang right back up, rain. If it went down and didn't spring up, drought. Police reportedly patrolled the streets, confiscating the toy. Ridiculous? Not as ridiculous as some of the junk science coming out of climate research circles today. Last March, the Daily Mail reported that global temperatures are about to drop "below the level that the (computer) models forecast with '90 percent certainty. Marc Morano, a former staff member of the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (whose web page climatedepot.com offers numerous scientific articles debunking climate change) , emails me: "As a long observer of the global weather movement, I can say that the events of 2013 (have) been one of the

most devastating to the movement. Both poles have record expanding ice. Global temperatures have failed to rise for 15 plus years, sea level rise is failing to accelerate, tornadoes are at record lows, hurricanes are near record low activity ... 2013 may be the year in which man-made global warming fears enter the dustbin of history." I doubt it. Too many people have too much invested in perpetuating this fiction. Billions of dollars and other currencies have been diverted into "green" projects in a Chicken Little attempt to stop the sky from falling. The BBC reports it as fact in virtually every story it does on the environment. Ditto the American media. Most media ignore evidence that counters climate change proponents. Former Vice President Al Gore has made a personal fortune promoting the cult of global warming, a cult being partially defined as a belief system that ignores proof contrary to its beliefs. Perhaps the climate change counter-revolutionaries should adopt the yo-yo as their symbol and send Gore and his apostles a box of them.

EDITORIAL ROUNDUP
Las Vegas Review-Journal: ObamaCare will tighten doctor pools
President Barack Obama's 2009 guarantee was emphatic. "We will keep this promise to the American people: If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period. If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period." ObamaCare exchanges roll out in less than two weeks. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act or at least the portions of it the president deems politically expedient takes effect Jan. 1. And many people are about to learn the value of the president's word and get notice worthy of an exclamation-point tirade. Monday, straight from President Obama's home city, a Chicago Tribune editorial rightly blasted a system that's nowhere near ready. Less than two weeks from the rollout, Illinois residents have no idea how much insurance on the exchanges will cost, which companies will offer benefits or which doctors or hospitals will be included in the networks. Why wouldn't this information be readily available well ahead of implementation? Two words: Sticker shock. The Tribune editorial said rates for individual policies could rise by a whopping 30 to 40 percent in some states, depending on a person's age, income and residence. The awful truth: The rates have to go up. One of the key components in the legislation says older individuals can't be charged more than three times what a younger individual is charged. But a 65-year-old person generally has far more medical needs than, say, a 28-year-old. That leaves the 28-year-old on the hook for a massive increase so that ObamaCare can pencil out for seniors. ObamaCare's popularity was charted at 39 percent in a recent CNN poll. Merrill Matthews, writing for Forbes, reported an eye-popping 92.3 percent of federal workers and retirees say federal employees should keep their current insurance and not be forced into ObamaCare. Rest assured, the private sector feels the same way. The House of Representatives passed a resolution that would require income verification to obtain subsidies for coverage purchased through the exchanges. That's expected to go nowhere in Majority Leader Harry Reid's Senate, leaving the door wide open for fraud. Is there any good news? Beyond making coverage available to people with pre-existing conditions, no. ObamaCare was the completely wrong approach to helping a small percentage of Americans who either lacked access to insurance or refused to buy it. The president and Democrats in Congress created a monstrosity worthy of a Marvel comic book, literally ruining everyone's health care to force coverage upon the few million people who aren't insured at any given time. House Republicans seeking to defund ObamaCare despite many in their party being too weak-kneed to do so should continue that push. Repeal and replace. Period.

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The case for killing Obamacare

t the risk sk of trivializing the task before the fedral government, allow me to quote Tracy Marrow, the bard of rap and the gritty street cop of "Law and Order: SVU," better known as Ice-T: "The truth is, everybody I've ever met who's successful is a workaholic." So now I ask you: When it comes to Congress and the Obama administration, does the word "workaholic" immediately leap to mind? Hell, no. That's not to say Congress and Team Obama are lazy, but they don't work hard enough in preparation, or in finding common ground, to consistently find success. That's why everyone ought to worry how our federal government will cope with matters that require attention this fall. Here's what's on our plate as a nation: Obamacare exchanges begin selling insurance Oct. 1, and they are nowhere near ready for prime time. It's a crap shoot whether the government can get millions of uninsured people to sign up and pay for their own health care. If that fails, the law doesn't pencil out. Before Oct. 1, hammer out a stop-gap promise. Republicans in the House find themselves divided between a conservative approach to fiscal get-along and the Tea Party's growing preference to blow everything up and start over again. This has "massive pileup" written all over it. Even Obamacare supporters, like Warren Buffett, see the dangers ahead. We need "something else," Buffett says. "Attack the costs first, and then worry about expanding coverage," he said last week. "I would much rather see another plan that really attacks costs. And I think that's what the American public wants to see. I mean, the American public is not behind this bill." Brothers and sisters, he's not kidding about the unpopularity of ObamaCare. A recent poll reported that, by a 2-to-1 ratio, Americans favor delaying the individual mandate the part of the law that taxes citizens who do not purchase government-approved health insurance. That's the foundation of Obamacare. We knew Obamacare had the potential for unintended consequences. The erosion of the 40-hour work week is the worst of them all. Obamacare actually encourages employers to convert full-time jobs into part-time jobs as much as possible. Finally, big unions jumped into the fray. Once huge supporters of Obamacare, they began to recognize the perverted incentive for part-time work and the provision that deems union health care plans "rich" under Obamacare and therefore subject to a steep "Cadillac" tax. But instead of calling for scrapping Obamacare, or at least calling for a significant delay in implementation to rework it, Big Labor audaciously demanded government grant them an exemption. The Obama administration reportedly responded by offering union workers a subsidy. That's no answer. If we try to move forward now, Obamacare will damage the private insurance market, incentivize the end of employer-based health coverage, make parttime work the new normal and generally lessen the quality of health care in America. The sane bet is to delay Obamacare implementation, or as Warren Buffett advocates, scrap it and come up with "something else."

Sherman Frederick
STEPHENS MEDIA COLUMNIST

Bartlesville EXAMINERENTERPRISE
Stephens
LLC A Member of Stephens Media LLC CHRIS Rust' - Editor & Publisher KELLI WILLIAMS Managing Editor
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The opinions of "Our View" are those of the newspaper. All other opinions are those of the artist or author.

funding plan to keep the federal government open and running. Increase the debt ceiling by November to allow the U.S. Treasury to continue financing the government's budget deficits. And finally, before January, Congress must again (as it has for the past 10 years) eliminate the 30 percent cut in Medicare payments required under current law as part of spending cuts. Anyone feel good about President Barack Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker John Boehner getting all that done? Even if they were willing to put in the work (golf, anyone?), the politics of the moment spell doom. We have a dithering White House trying to salvage the Syria debacle. Democrats in the Senate hold only a slim majority and are showing no appetite for corn-