There’s tautology:
In grammar, the use of redundant words. In logic, a tautology is a formula which is true in every possible interpretation. Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein first applied the term to redundancies of propositional logic in 1921
and then there is tauntology:
The practice of making remarks in order to anger, wound, or provoke someone.
Which one do you think our ‘commander in chief’ prefers? Obama gave a speech to an audience of college graduates at University of California, Irvine in which he expounded on his advanced views of climate change:
“They say, ‘Hey, look, I’m not a scientist.’ And I’ll translate that for you: what that really means is, ‘I know that manmade climate change really is happening but if I admit it, I’ll be run out of town by a radical fringe that thinks climate science is a liberal plot,'” he said.
“There’s going to be a stubborn status quo and people determined to stymie your efforts to bring about change. There are going to be people who say you can’t do something. There are going to be people who say you shouldn’t bother trying. I’ve got some experience with this myself,” Obama said.
“It’s pretty rare that you’ll encounter somebody who says the problem you’re trying to solve simply doesn’t exist. When President Kennedy set us on a course to the moon, there were a number of people who made a serious case that it wouldn’t be worth it,” he continued.
“But nobody ignored the science. I don’t remember anybody saying the moon wasn’t there or that it was made of cheese,” Obama said.
Wow, grade school level logical fallacy. How…unpresidential.
I’m sure Obama’s mind, the taunting of the significant percentage of people in the United States who don’t think climate change is a significant problem worth doing something about is a winning strategy.
From: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/03/12/new-gallup-poll-shows-climate-change-near-the-bottom-of-things-worth-worrying-about/
From: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/06/11/despite-climate-edicts-from-the-white-house-even-liberals-dont-think-climate-change-is-a-top-priority/
Except in this case, Obama isn’t smart enough to realize that divide and conquer isn’t a winning strategy. Of course when you feel like you can do things without a mandate, and just dictate policy instead of following the path of democracy, I suppose the phrase “what difference does it make?” might apply to unpresidential tauntology.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Well, we did indeed get to the moon. We will all have to wait another century (or so) to see if B. H. Obama actually controlled the climate…..
“He has made Jimmy Carter look absolutely brilliant and competent …”
No, that’s impossible. Obama may be “The Return of Jimmuh” but remember, it’s taken the Lite-Worker six years to do as much damage as Carter did in four.
==============================================================
Back in those days Rush Limbaugh had a TV show. I remember he showed a clip of of Hiel Hillary before Congress answering a question. To the best that I can recall it went like this:
A Congressman (Maybe Rostinkowski?): “Would you control people’s behavior through taxes?”
Hillary: “I would if I could.”
I don’t remember the context of the question but how often does a First Lady appear before Congress?
I’ve looked for the clip but can’t find it. Any link would be appreciated.
what Tanya ^ said .
Obama is the worst leader of any country in the world in history.
You clearly are not Australian, our last two would play him on a break.
P.S.
Both of them sacked by their own party BEFORE they went to election.
I believe that is not the correct definition of tautology. “I personally…”
Yes old44, KR and JG ( allegedly soon to be known as prisoner 4523476 ) were pretty bad, arguably worse than Obama. But Obama has been proven to be particularly inept, and seems to have a penchant for breaking the law, that KR never had, JG, not so much (allegedly)
Friends:
People in all countries like to disdain their politicians and in this thread some Americans have been discussing which of their series of Presidents has been least good.
The discussants may be amused by the following story.
Three American ex-Presidents found themselves at the end of the Yellow Brick Road.
Carter said,
“I will go along it to Oz so I can ask the Wizard to give me a brain”.
Bush the elder said,
“I will come with you because I want to get a heart”.
Clinton said,
“where is Dorothy?”.
Richard
tauntology – great word, Thanks for bringing it to my attention
Thank goodness the great orator and the supreme money printer is your “Commander In Chief” and not ours (God bless you all fro Aus).
toorightmate
Thank goodness the great orator and the supreme money printer is your “Commander In Chief” and not ours (God bless you all fro Aus).
Could be worse. They could have Tony Abbott. The man who already had a book full of laughable quotes.
Really what he is saying, is that like a good Swiss cheese, the data is full of holes….
Would it be taunting to note that the President gave speech number 5,723 about energy prices needing to necessarily skyrocket for the middle class, right before boarding his private jet to California, for another weekend of CO2 spewing, partying and loafing?
I like the fact that the liberal gestapo has moved away from Global Warming to Global Climate Change, then they can point to a snowflake and scream that it’s a manmade disaster. Liberal Democrats are going to push the Global Climate Change fairy tale for a very good reason – they can take control of manufacturing and invoke Stalinesque restrictions on countries they want to punish forcing manufacturing to move to countries that kowtow to the Liberal benevolent rule of iron. Don’t believe me? Ever hear of a whiny sniveling ecotard complain about the megatons of carbon China and India are pumping into the atmosphere? of course not. ‘Nuff said.
This kind of abrasive behavior and bullying stems from the knowledge he will not be in office when the truth catches up. It is the policy equivalent of a model or forecast that cannot be checked as long as the braggart is in play with job hopping. The truth is someone else’s problem. This is also the first time a President has demanded everyone else conduct themselves in a way that involves unlearning science methods of model verification and reasonable forecast error evaluation. In a backhanded way the President seems to be classifying science and science policy in the same courtroom tactics of win the day. Alternatively he is saying as did Mao to wave the little red book in the air comrade for the cultural revolution or we will bully you into total submission.
BHO is a Useful Idiot very much in the same vein as Walter Duranty.
That’s all I’m gonna say about it.
Since this post is about climate and young college grads, typically age 22 or 23, the following presents a dozen questions for the grads to consider.
http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/climate-questions-for-teens-and-20s.html
Here are a few of those questions:
– The Roman warm period, and the Medieval warm period were both much warmer than today, so how did Polar bears survive those warm periods? PETA and WWF were not around back then.
– Why is the sea level decreasing off the coast of California?
– Why are sunspots so very critical to earth’s average climate? Why were there so few sunspots during both the recent cold events (Maunder and Dalton)? Why were there so many sunspots during the 1980’s and 1990’s?
– Why do climate scientists (Mann, Hansen, and others) hide their data for years, and never reveal their calculation methods? What are they hiding?
– Why is the Main Stream Media so silent on Chiefio’s blog results, the March of the Thermometers? see http://chiefio.wordpress.com
– Why do thousands of scientists say (signed their names) that man-made global warming is junk science?
– Why do process control engineers know that increasing CO2 above 350 ppm cannot possibly have any role in changing earth’s climate?
– If the science is settled, why are governments funding additional research in the billions of dollars per year?
The use of Greenhouse gas emission revenue in the California budget is a very good guide for what motivates Obama speeches and policy. The deniers are just in the way of the massive money train push and related spending advocates. It’s no contest, science loses.
Quinn the Eskimo on June 15, 2014 at 6:15 am
One who ends all wars and brings back peace for our time has enough time on his hands to fix the weather.
I wonder how effective it is to taunt nearly 50% of the American people who are not sold on man-made climate change. Me, I don’t think that is an effective tactic in a free country. I say let the fool keep talking. He will convert more people to skeptics with his taunting…. And the undecided people will likely be offended by his bullying. So let him talk…we need more skeptics to stop the madness over CO2…
Obama said snow pack is declining and drought worsening.
I guess he hasn’t seen the data. That’s understandable since finding all that stuff takes some time and effort and his advisers have clearly never seen it. I keep basic data in this file. If you have a suggestion of what I should add, please pass along.
https://www.dropbox.com/sc/ofcl5g9r00bhfyf/AAAa7MpBm1zUsmm4D_qnWRbfa
Tom J says:
June 15, 2014 at 7:36 am
Well said!
I kind of welcome the taunts actually. Soon enough, the Obama brand will be so sullied and toxic, it will make the heretics look like heroes.
We must also take note of the recent push in the MSM in the POTUS’ “War on Carbon”: http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/bd4379a92ceceeac8525735900400c27/5bb6d20668b9a18485257ceb00490c98!OpenDocument and his “Clean Power Plan” (is that carbon soot? Or the gas carbon dioxide?) – and specifically my local left-leaning daily pulp (printed with environmentally friendly soy based ink), The News Tribune (Tacoma, WA – http://www.thenewstribune.com/), affiliated with The McClatchy newspaper syndicate. While left-leaning articles are the papers’ norm as they attempt to sway local hearts and minds (or is that just to pander to those like-thinking locals – less in number here in T-Town than in San Francisco North I mean Seattle), in the last couple of weeks they have really doubled-down on the rhetoric concerning the “New World Order” and the need to shift to “Clean Energy”. Extolling the benefits of and the multitudes of jobs that will be created through the benevolent steerage of the federal government control programs (as if that has worked very often – except maybe for the Civilian Conservation Corps or CCC: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_Conservation_Corps – it worked on some level from what I recall. You can still hike and/or hunt along the old CCC roads laid down through the forests around here). But I digress…The amount of biased “reporting” that I pay for with my Trib subscription is now bordering on the intolerable. It would be easier to accept should there be “pro” and “con” opinion pieces concerning specifically environmental subject matter – but what we are fed is a constant, watermelon based one-sided party line of propaganda. I am to the point of cancelling the subscription – I know, most of you all out there in WUWT land are saying to yourselves “why is that Roberts guy even paying for pulp? What a dinosaur!” – but I still like the feel and convenience of paper. That is until I feel ill and fly into a rage whenever I read the editorials….what I am trying to say is, the rhetoric is getting thicker and seems to be flowing faster. I get the impression this is the next phase of the “Grand Plan”, to push us through to the next phase – elimination of cheap, readily available energy sources. What’s next, firewood cops? Don’t laugh, that will be next…
http://www.epa.gov/burnwise/pdfs/20120209NSPSpresentation.pdf. Be ready. Be informed. The fight is intensifying.