Lies, Damned Lies and Carbon Dioxide

The US government says 2014 was the hottest year on record, and the fourth such record since 1997. Skeptics say global warming stopped 18 years ago. Who is full of it? The graph shows temperatures since 1950 with El Niños in red. (It does not include 2014, which was the warmest year yet, and not an El Niño.)

Both the government and skeptics are trying to mislead us.

Rubio gets it. Stewart struggles to keep up.

On Tuesday, Jon Stewart interviewed conservative senator Marco Rubio. This sketch from before the interview provides context for some of the banter that follows:

http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/dic6af/florida-haters

Here's the interview:

http://thedailyshow.cc.com/extended-interviews/d7iye4/marco-rubio-extended-interview

Rubio is working on bills that aren't just bipartisan alternatives to liberal proposals that Jon Stewart tries to inject into the conversation (like free community college and raising the minimum wage.) Rubio has actually done some homework and found smarter ideas. Two examples:

Before Obamacare: the only constant is change

How was American health insurance changing before Obamacare?

According to the US Census Bureau, between 2005 and 2010, 18 million Americans stopped getting health insurance from a job. About a third of this was people switching to government insurance (mostly retirees.) Some of it was part of a longer trend of fewer insured dependents, but mostly it was because of people being unemployed for more than 6 months or not getting insurance from their new job.