All Those In Favor of Dirty Air and Dirty Water, Please Raise Your Hand!

Okay, put your hands down now, you filthy conservatives who are only concerned with raping the planet! That's the picture the Left paints, isn't it? As long as you can make a buck, it doesn't matter how many streams you pollute or how dirty the air gets, because...well, I'm not exactly sure why, because no one I know likes dirty air or water. It's been said that the anti-capitalist Left became "environmentalists" so that as they destroy our nation's economy, they could say they're doing it to "save the earth".



Balderdash! Capitalism has enabled the technology to keep our emissions down and keep the environment cleaner, because we can afford to! Back in the days of the old Iron Curtain and a partitioned Germany, some of the filthiest spots on the planet were in Communist countries that did not have the wealth to afford safeguards on pollution.



Obama's recent rescission of ludicrously high standards for "parts per billion" of ozone in this country, where even the air above our national parks might not meet the standards, got me to thinking, what would individuals who want to "save the earth" be willing to give up personally to make improvements in air quality that are nearly too small to measure?



(Think: Al Gore with his limo idling outside one of his global warming speeches, so he doesn't have to get into a cold car, to drive to airport where a private jet is waiting to take him back to his mega mansion with all the lights burning while he's gone, but on a smaller scale.)



And I thought, what can a good, honest (stop laughing!) green weenie do personally to improve the environment? First thing? Unplug the 'fridge. Your refrigerator runs 24/7 and is probably the largest energy consumer in your house. Unplug it and don't buy anything perishable that will not keep unrefrigerated.



Some of you will find this to be an inconvenience. (Talk about your "Inconvenient Truths"!) You may find that you need to go to the store a little more often. Perhaps daily. But, don't drive to the store. You cannot waste what precious little ground you gained by unplugging your 'fridge, if you pollute the air making multiple trips to the store. Find a store within walking or biking distance. Or work on those calf muscles, because you're not going to let a little thing like this deter you from saving the planet, are you? Think about it!!! The WHOLE PLANET!!!! That's better! Must keep things in perspective!



Buy locally. A typical modern supermarket has a wondrous assortment of fruits and vegetables from around the globe. My last trip, I noticed some wonderfully fresh rhubarb that had been grown in Canada. DO NOT BUY IT!

Do not buy anything that is not in season where you live. Some diesel belching truck brought those here and in good conscience, you must avoid contributing to that mindset.



Unplug your furnace and your air conditioner. This is a way to stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in the third world. Think of those poor, benighted people burning cow chips for cooking and heat. Of course, you could fire up the woodstove or a fireplace or a barbeque grill, but you know the prodigious amounts of soot put into the air by them, so you forego them. Wrap your self in a nice quilt in the winter (so long as all the fibers were grown and sewn locally) and console yourself with the fact that you are SAVING THE PLANET. Not just a portion of the planet, but the entire freaking planet. Feel free to shake your fist at your neighbors who are oblivious to the planet's plight.



Boycott "Big Water". Daily showers are overrated. It takes power to pump that water into your household. Try digging a well. Buy water from the store if you have to (whatever will fit on the back of your bicycle) but be sure to take a reusable container. Preferably not plastic, since those are made from byproducts from the evil petroleum industry. And you can turn off your water heater, too. That also runs 24/7 for most of us, whether we're using it or not. You can get a solar shower from most good camping stores. How often you take one is up to you, but, we are saving the entire planet!!!





Sit in the dark when the sun is not shining. Living off the grid used to mean using candles and kerosene lamps to avoid using electricity. No more. Light a candle sometime, invite your friends over (if you still have any after not showering so much), and watch the smoke that comes off them. Sometimes, people who burn a candle repeatedly in one place may notice a darkening on the ceiling above it. This is pollution. Your fireplace pollutes, your candles and oil lamps pollute (and just where did you think that oil came from, hmmm?). If you live in a city where there are streetlights, petition to have them turned off. In these tough economic times, cities are on a budget, too. This will lower their carbon footprint and might even save you a little on your property tax (or your evil Republican landlord's taxes, as the case may be.) Of, course, it will be a little harder to ride your bike to the store at night, but they've got these tiny generators you can attack to your bike's wheels to power a light. Some nights, you might even want to bring it inside and treat the family to a few extra minutes of carbon free lighting?



And since I'm sure you're going to unplug your computer and sell your TV right after you finish reading this, one last thought:



A large, coal fired generating plant, generating power for 10,000 homes, puts out far fewer emissions than 10,000 homes with woodstoves, candles, and oil lamps. So much less, that you can even plug in your 'fridge, if you want, and enjoy a few of the creature comforts we take for granted. Like the glowing screen you're staring at now.



No one wants dirty air or water, but some of us realize that regulations that cripple our economy are actually counterproductive to keeping the environment clean. I think our cities can live with the same amount of ozone found naturally over our national parks. I seem to recall a story about a small Alaskan town where they actually had to introduce small amounts of pollution into their waterways to keep them in compliance with what the federal government required of them. (Please don't ask for a citation, I've slept since then!)



We have made great strides in reducing pollution in our country over the last several decades. At some point, the diminishing returns of larger and larger investments for smaller and smaller gains should provide a wake up call for the green weenies.



Sometimes good is good enough. If not, I look forward to your reports on what you are doing personally to turn it around. Hand carried, of course, on paper made locally from locally grown fibers. Because, I'm sure you want to be consistent.



Cross posted at Lady Cincinnatus , LCR, Say Anything.

Would the Last Person to Leave the Department of Energy Please Turn Out the Lights?

All this talk about (and begrudging nostalgia for) Jimmy Carter and his handling of the "energy crisis" of 1977 should have taught us something.



Jimmy Carter established the Department of Energy, as a cabinet level office, in the seventies, which has been described as a "governmental department whose mission is to advance energy technology and promote related innovation in the United States". Because, according to Jimmy Carter, "...we are now running out of gas and oil", and because "...we can have an effective and comprehensive energy policy only if the government takes responsibility for it".



So, in the last thirty four years*, how far have we advanced? And when did we run out of gas and oil? I must not have gotten the memo. How's that whole "government taking responsibility for it" thing working out?



The Big Government types at the time, figured yet another government bureaucracy, accompanied by shoveling tons of money into finding a solution would be our salvation. After over forty years, are we any closer to finding a viable alternative to fuel our economy and our society other than coal and oil?



As has been pointed out countless times, neither solar nor wind is economically feasible, nor has the capacity to provide for our country's energy needs 24/7. Atomic power is anathema to most liberals, who incidentally are against hydroelectric power, because it involves damming waterways, nuclear because of the waste, and oil and coal, because they're idiots.



We have not achieved any breakthrough of any significance in the last thirty years*, is it reasonable to expect one in the next thirty*? No one would be happier than I if Doc Brown's "Mr. Fusion" came into being tomorrow, but does it make sense to hold our economy and our society "hostage" (to use the word the liberals like to use) to some Green pipe dream or fantasy that may never come true?



If we'd had a "Department of Lighting", back before Edison invented his marvelous bulb, I'm sure we'd have the finest kerosene conservation methodology on the planet by now. We could have score of bureaucrats cranking out memos on proper wick trimming, kerosene storage and tips on opening our curtains during the day to conserve kerosene. Government cannot mandate innovation. They can, however, stifle it through over-taxation and over-regulation.



As a young man, I was given the advice, If it is within your power, never quit a job until you have another one lined up. We should plan on using our oil, coal and natural gas until such time as a breakthrough is discovered, for two reasons:

1) It constitutes real wealth now. There is a need and a market for energy today. If coal does become obsolete in twenty years, then, how much is that coal worth sitting in the earth? It is real wealth, today, that can provide real jobs and lower the cost of energy to millions, thus increasing their standard of living and the profitability of American manufacturing.



2) Petroleum is used in manufacturing. The keyboard I am typing on was made from petroleum byproducts. Even if "Mr. Fusion" was invented tomorrow, there would still likely be plastic parts somewhere in the product, and if not there, then in other household goods, and we'd still need petroleum to make them.

It has been pointed out that the "Department of Energy" has never produced any. It has failed in its promise to do anything of any significance in reducing our dependence on foreign oil. In fact, it has done the opposite. It has stood in the way of oil exploration and production. It is said that insanity is "doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results". After thirty plus years*, can we now say that the Department of Energy was a crazy idea and defund it as soon as possible?



(The text of Carter's speech can be found here.)



Cross posted at LCR, Say Anything.

Obama Could Learn a Thing or Two From Jimmy Carter

Remember Jimmy Carter? 39th President. Billy Beer. Lust in his heart. Killer rabbits. That Jimmy Carter? Obama could learn a thing or two from Jimmy.



Remember the energy crisis of 1977? I know! There have been so many oil embargoes and crises, and still the government continues to hamstring energy producers. But, in 1977, President Carter took to the airwaves to rally the American people to conserve energy, "the moral equivalent of war".



Anyone here old enough to remember that speech? He sat there, looking into the camera sincerely, wearing a cardigan sweater, presumably, because he had turned down the thermostat in the White House to conserve energy. (As opposed to the current resident of the White House, who is known to keep his office quite toasty!) President Carter, long before Bill Clinton ever patented the line, was trying to communicate that he felt our pain, that he willingly shared in the sacrifice he was calling upon everyone to make. Now, it is possible that, after the cameras were turned off, he fired up the thermostat and ran around the Oval Office in his skivvies. (Sorry for the image!) But, at least Carter put up the appearance of empathizing with the people he was elected to lead.



Compare and contrast with a president who surrounds himself with all the trappings of power. Someone who doesn't deny himself a thing, but lives like a king or the dictator of some banana republic, throwing lavish parties for himself, hobnobbing with the rich and famous while the peasants beg for crusts of bread.



Think about it...other than his annoyance over not everyone doing what he wants them to do, have you seen any evidence at all in the last two and a half years, that Barack Obama is not really enjoying himself heartily? Parties, golf, lavish vacations, world travel, deluxe transportation, gourmet meals, (with chefs flown in from Chicago and Hawaii), people to wait upon his every whim, at his beck and call. Meanwhile, the country goes to Hades in a handbasket.



Obama talks the talk about 'shared sacrifice", but by that he means that others should share the sacrifice, not him personally. He doesn't walk the walk. He says his favorite Bible verse is Matthew 25:40 -

"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

(Think millions of dollars in book royalties and a half brother who lives in a hut for $12 a year.)



No one begrudges protecting the president. Some think a fleet of million dollar "rock star" buses was over the top. No one begrudges the President in taking time off to be with his family. Spending millions of tax dollars to do so is over the top.



Say what you will about Jimmy Carter, he was either smart enough and humble enough not to rub people's noses in his good fortune while the rest of the country suffered, or at least he gave that appearance. Little Lord Barackleroy and his wife, spend the nation's money like drunken Congressmen and don't seem to be the tiniest bit embarrassed in flaunting and wasting the wealth and power entrusted to them by their fellow citizens.



Some presidents lead by example. Others show great moral courage and integrity.



And then, there's Barack...

Prescriptions for Recovery and Disaster

There is a myth constantly going around about the sorry state of manufacturing in this country. Since I work for an American manufacturer, whose products sell worldwide, this has been of some interest to me. I recently engaged in a dialogue with a fellow over at Big Government who believes, from what I can gather, that a return to protectionist trade policies and tariffs is America's only hope. Please, don't take my word for it, his arguments in full are here.

I will post portions of the exchange, leaving out, perhaps a little more of the "colorful" language, and opting for brevity over a verbatim transcript, since I have not gathered anyone's permission but my own for the quotes. Forgive me if the following lacks the structure of a formal essay. I believe the material speaks for itself, without a large scale edit and re-writing and makes some valid points in the aftermath of the US's recent credit downgrade.

I merely mentioned the fact that Obama's hand picked adviser for job growth is busy exporting jobs as we speak. Obama also talks about "closing loopholes" where big companies avoid paying taxes, while Jeffrey Immelt is essentially making GE X-ray a Chinese subsidiary of GE, and whoops! not subject to US taxes. That enough hypocrisy for you?

We cannot "demand" that other countries raise their standards. Ever hear of the concept of "sovereign nations"? If you want to take a stand against other countries using cheaper labor and/or less than ideal working conditions, please feel free to boycott all products not made in the US. Hope you're not awfully fond of television. We haven't made any sets in the US since before the age of digital TV.

Your fantasies about tariffs are duly noted.

This was followed by the point that what had made the US "the greatest economic power in the world", was "fair trade policies".

My rejoinder:

"Do you believe it is fair to trade with a country that artificially pegs its currency?" Are you suggesting an embargo? Adopt the Cuban model? That would be one way to stop the US from "trying to compete" with these countries.

Tariffs start trade wars. The best one can hope for with tariffs, is for certain favored industries to benefit. Prices to consumers will go up (great time to raise prices, during a recession, right?) and the countries who are the targets of the tariffs will undoubtedly respond with tariffs of their own, making our goods less profitable to sell abroad.

Unless we can find some poor country who has nothing we want to buy. Then we can make their goods less profitable and our country can grow richer at their expense? Is that your idea of "fair"?

There are things that can be done to improve the business climate here in our favor. Eliminate unnecessary regulations, which raise the costs of doing business, (please note my use of the word "unnecessary" and spare me additional straw men.) lower the tax rates and make them permanent. Too many businesses are paralyzed into inactivity because of the uncertainty of tax laws, health care requirements and regulations.

Fair trade is when I trade what I have for what you have and both parties are satisfied. If business is to grow and unemployment is to recede, the government has got to get out of the way. Primarily in reducing the tax burden that feeds a bloated government filled with endless redundant departments, all of which combine to put the brakes on our economy.

Personally, I try not to buy goods made in China, for a number of reasons. I wouldn't have given them most favored nation status. But slapping any tariffs on them to protect any domestic industry is doomed to failure. It would only hurt the consumer and raise unemployment among low skilled workers and teenagers.

What made the US the greatest economic power in the world, was freedom. To the extent that government takes freedom away, it cripples economic recovery.

After a bit of back and forth, in typical liberal fashion, (whether he is one or not), he seems to take delight in dealing with what I haven't said, rather than what I did. A sort of Mind Read Fail. He advocated the return to the policies of Alexander Hamilton, and an 11 point plan... from the eighteenth century. (1791 for the math impaired)

My reply:

"Only through manufacturing, when $5 worth of iron ore is converted into a $2000 car door, or $1 worth of raw wool is converted into a $1000 Calvin Klein suit, is real wealth created" Sorry! I reject your premise. And if you thought about it for a minute, so would you. What makes a " $1 worth of raw wool... into a $1000 Calvin Klein suit"? The obvious answer is "Calvin Klein". That's what makes it different from a $100 Steve Garvey suit or from a $2 ball of yarn your granny uses to knit you a scarf.

Intellectual property creates "real wealth". You can manufacture $.25 CD-ROMs and Blu-rays all day long, but if you want to sell it for $10 or $25 or $200, you'd better put some music or a movie or some software on it that I want to buy. **

And there is "real wealth" in our resources as well. You scoff about $5 worth of iron ore, but no one mines just five dollars worth. There is real wealth created when it is mined and again when it is smelted and again when it is manufactured into something useful. And, if you do it right, once again when it is recycled.

And despite many myths and old wives tales, there is still a lot of manufacturing going on in this country. There are just not as many manufacturing jobs. By automating processes in their plants (and moving to right to work states), many manufacturers have been able to remain competitive with foreign labor. New Balance shoes, for example. http://www.newbalance.com/usa/

Energy creates wealth. Without energy, the $5 ore never gets mined or smelted or the wool stitched into an Armani suit. Without energy, the worker cannot get to the factory which cannot keep its doors open without it. Real wealth can be found in drilling and refining our own oil. Reducing energy costs would make every industry in the country more profitable, from the food on your table, to the shoes on your feet to the car that you drive.

This administration has chosen to hobble the energy industry at every turn, choosing instead to subsidize mythical* green energy and penalize every other existing source of energy. There is real wealth in the ground and more to be had in refining, manufacturing gasoline, if you will, if this administration and all the green weenies on the left would just get out of the way.

Reduce the pointless and counterproductive regulatory morass, lower corporate taxes, which are merely a hidden tax on the consumer, allow our nation's energy companies to drill and mine the resources we have and you will see a big turnaround in this country.

*In the sense of providing enough power to drive our current economy, much less the future.

** With high speed downloading, even the "manufactured" CD-ROM is virtually obsolete. (See: high button shoes/buggy whips)

FYI: "Since 1975, (US) manufacturing output has more than doubled"

In looking to document one of my points to "hockeynation" I ran across this (and the chart above):

Since 1975, manufacturing output has more than doubled, while employment in the sector has decreased by 31%. While these American job losses are indeed sobering, they are not an indication of declining U.S. competitiveness. In fact, these statistics reveal that the average American manufacturer is over three times more productive today than they were in 1975 – a sure sign of economic progress.

The true cause of dwindling American competitiveness is a tax code that puts domestic firms at a clear disadvantage – not a lack of skill or innovation on the part of the American worker.

- Veronique de Rugy

Cross posted at LCR, Say Anything.

Electric Car Maker Folds, City Loses $500,000

Aren't you glad that government is investing in "Green" technology, rather than promoting that nasty old oil that private industry is willing to drill for, pump, refine, pay taxes on, and increase the supply of gasoline to lower its cost? Yeah. Me, too!

A Salinas car manufacturing company that was expected to build environmentally friendly electric cars and create new jobs folded before almost any vehicles could run off the assembly line.

The city of Salinas had invested more than half a million dollars in Green Vehicles, an electric car start-up company. All of that money is now gone, according to Green Vehicles President and Co-Founder Mike Ryan.

The start-up company set up shop in Salinas in the summer of 2009, after the city gave Ryan a $300,000 community development grant. When the company still ran into financial trouble last year, the city of Salinas handed Ryan an additional $240,000. Green Vehicles also received $187,000 from the California Energy Commission.

Funny! I drove through Salinas a couple times today, never knowing they were snookered into investing with a Green Weenie. I was out in the fields with all those nasty gas powered tractors and harvesters and pumps and all the good things petroleum products provide to make American farms prosperous and productive. I even put 388 miles on my own POV just getting there and back.

If only we had a president who encouraged oil production in this country as much as he does in Brazil, or Columbia or China...

The start-up company promised city leaders that it would create 70 new jobs and pay $700,000 in taxes a year to Salinas.

Hope! Change!!

Including the California money, the company... burned through over $700,000 of taxpayer money.

Anyone want to bet that some of that $700,000 was spent on carbon spewing private jets and limos to impress the marks, er, investors, that this was a good deal?

Yeah. Me, neither!


H/T Newsbusters

Cross posted at LCR, Say Anything.

Obama is C-in-C of Dems Class Warfare Against Productive Members of Society

“The debt ceiling should not be something that is used as a gun against the heads of the American people to extract tax breaks for corporate jet owners, for oil and gas companies that are making billions of dollars because the price of gasoline has gone up so high.”

-Barack Hussein Obama II

Continuing with our theme of Democrat hypocrisy and class warfare, we have the words of Barack Obama, trying to incite hatred of the wealthy, all the while using the violent rhetoric of "a gun against the head", language which, incidentally, he assures us we ought not to be used. (Part of Obama's patented "civility", don'tcha know?)

Other than riffing on corporate jet owners, which is also hypocritical, since the "tax break" given to corporate jet owners was a part of the stimulus package that NO Republican voted for and Obama personally signed, Obama takes aim at the "oil and gas companies that are making billions of dollars because the price of gasoline has gone up so high".

Don't you think it's just the tiniest bit hypocritical for him not to mention the biggest recipient of cash from every dollar paid at the pump is government? That government receives a larger percentage of every dollar paid at the pump in taxes than is every realized as "corporate profit"?

And that those taxes ratchet up every time the price of petroleum and gasoline goes up?

That's like a thief pulling a semi trailer up to your house to rob it, pointing at your neighbor who's stealing your newspaper. Rather than deplete the strategic petroleum reserves of the United States, which are there in case of a real emergency and not just falling presidential poll numbers, why doesn't the millionaire who flies the largest US corporate jet from fund raiser to fund raiser consider lowering federal taxes on gasoline, oh, let's say to the amount of tax collected per gallon in 2008 when he was elected to office? (A time which more and more of us are thinking of as "the good old days".)

Obama and his party are spendaholics, so don't expect them to cut the common man relief any time soon from the regressive taxes at the pump which hit the poor hardest.

That might require leadership.



Cross posted at LCR, Say Anything.

Former Green Czar Van Jones Compares George W. Bush to Crack Addict - video

...for wanting to increase America's energy supplies. In light of $4.00/gallon gasoline, I want you to tell me who looks more like the crack addict now?



H/T Proof Positive: Van Jones in His Own Crazy Words

Dim Bulb Jokes About the Economy

President Obama's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness met today in Durham, NC at Cree Inc., a company that manufactures energy-efficient LED lighting (More than half of Cree’s employees work in China, mostly at the current Huizhou factory.).

"Shovel-ready was not as ... uh .. shovel-ready as we expected."


H/T Memeorandum

Obama No Longer Feels Your Pain about the Price of Gasoline

Saw this video over at Flopping Aces. I knew Congress and the Democrats were hip deep in hypocrisy over gas prices, and I knew the MSM were in the tank for Obama, but this video sums it up nicely!

Five Years, Four Billion Dollars Later, EPA Tells Shell: Don't Drill

Just how serious is the Obama Administration about reducing energy costs and reducing our dependence on foreign oil?

Shell Oil Company has announced it must scrap efforts to drill for oil this summer in the Arctic Ocean off the northern coast of Alaska. The decision comes following a ruling by the EPA’s Environmental Appeals Board to withhold critical air permits. The move has angered some in Congress and triggered a flurry of legislation aimed at stripping the EPA of its oil drilling oversight.

Shell has spent five years and nearly $4 billion dollars on plans to explore for oil in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas. The leases alone cost $2.2 billion. Shell Vice President Pete Slaiby says obtaining similar air permits for a drilling operation in the Gulf of Mexico would take about 45 days. He’s especially frustrated over the appeal board’s suggestion that the Arctic drill would somehow be hazardous for the people who live in the area. “We think the issues were really not major,” Slaiby said, “and clearly not impactful for the communities we work in.”

What kind of hazard to people just how close?

The closest village to where Shell proposed to drill is Kaktovik, Alaska. It is one of the most remote places in the United States. According to the latest census, the population is 245 and nearly all of the residents are Alaska natives. The village, which is 1 square mile, sits right along the shores of the Beaufort Sea, 70 miles away from the proposed off-shore drill site.

The EPA’s appeals board ruled that Shell had not taken into consideration emissions from an ice-breaking vessel when calculating overall greenhouse gas emissions from the project. Environmental groups were thrilled by the ruling.

Let me get this straight...245 people, seventy miles away might be put at hazard because an icebreaker wasn't taken into consideration in the calculation of greenhouse gas emissions? How about we shut down every freeway within seventy miles of any population of two hundred or more, because an extra tractor trailer or two might add to carbon emissions there! This is an incredible exhibition of abuse of federal power. Life is not zero emissions. It's time for the EPA to come to grips with the real world. Congress should take note and curtail the EPA. Voters should take note and curtail the politicians who allow such abuses to take place.

And when the demagogues tell you what obscene profits the oil companies are making (less in percentage than the taxes on a gallon of gas), ask them how the oil companies should handle multi-billion dollar losses imposed on them by arbitrary regulations from the federal government?

I'm sure they'll have a logical response!

H/T Pirate's Cove

Obama is Out of Touch, Just Not Out of Pocket

Remember back a few years to the days of Bush 41. There was a story that sought to depict George Herbert Walker Bush as "out of touch", with a picture of his open mouthed amazement over a grocery scanner. People maligned him as being so out of touch, he'd never seen a grocery scanner before. Of course, what they didn't mention was that what Bush was being shown wasn't a simple grocery scanner, but a prototype that would scan an entire basket of groceries in one pass! Yeah. That would be pretty spiffy, and an amazing piece of technology.

And I was wondering why the same "out of touch" label hasn't been applied to Barack Milhous Obama*? In several speeches, he has referred to people and their cars which only get "eight miles per gallon", telling them they could save gas by trading them in (ignoring the number of unemployed, underemployed and folk uncertain in the future of their jobs). Most recently, he referred to people commuting fifty miles to their jobs in a "beater" which only gets "eight miles per gallon".

Give me a break! Even if someone still had a car that only got eight miles per gallon, they wouldn't be using it as a commuter car unless that particular vehicle was an essential part of their work. Ten to fifteen years ago, I commuted sixty miles, one way, to work, and then used my car as part of my job. I drove "beaters". Most of my work cars were twelve to thirteen years old then. One I bought for as little as $200, and I routinely got 25 mpg out of them. Fifteen years ago.

Anyone who thinks that "eight miles per gallon" is typical for what most Americans are driving is severely out of touch. In fact, the only commuter car I can think of that might only get eight miles per gallon is this one:



*as Mark Levin would say.

Cross posted at LCR.

Are You Happy With The Price You Pay at the Pump?

Then, thank a Democrat! I know that sounds kind of like a partisan shot, but really! Remember the bilge and blather that Nancy Pelosi and her cohorts have been pumping for years? Gasoline was $2.32/ gallon the day before Nancy Pelosi became Speaker of the House. She said that the price of gas was too high, and the Democrats were going to change that!

Millions were invested in "green" energy, billions were funneled to ethanol subsidies, tax breaks were taken away from oil companies, all of which were calculated by the Democrats to "help our economy", increase national security, and drive gas prices down. How successful have they been so far?

And the reasons they gave for the "high" gas price of $2.32 (and rising)? One of them that you just don't hear much any more, (wonder why?) is that the President (Bush) was "too cozy" with the oil companies. Remember that one? Well, for more than two years we have had a president who is definitely not "cozy" with big oil companies. (At least, not the ones in this country. Brazil is another story!). If the Democrats weren't totally delusional or lying to us, getting rid of that "cozy" relationship should have, according to them, caused gas prices to go down. How's that working out for them? For you? For the country?

They say the classic sign of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and looking for different results. How much longer are we going to leave energy policy in the hands of those who cannot even properly identify the problem much less offer a sane or rational solution?

A couple of Golden Oldies From Nancy Pelosi and The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight:



2007


2008

Obama Solves the Energy Crisis!

I had forgotten Obama's solution to the high price of gas was to properly inflate your tires! Since there's nothing but hot air from this administration, did anyone wonder that this ineffectual solution would blow, too?

H/T The Weekly Standard

Mr. Boehner. Your First Test. Oh Hell No.

By Lady Cincinnatus

Message to Mr. Boehner

Don't even think about making Fred Upton chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. In 2007 Upton, together with Jane Harman (D-CA) sponsored a bill to phase out the 100 watt incandescent light bulb by 2012, closing light bulb plants across the nation and forcing us to buy bulbs that are full of mercury, only manufactured in China and cause headaches and eye problems.

Oh hell no.

Leftist Alarmist (Insert Disaster Here) Moment

Kaithy Shaidle, in examining 5 Leftist Lies About the Best Source of Oil on Earth, shares with us an excerpt from an actual Greenpeace press release:

‘In the twenty years since the Chernobyl tragedy, the world’s worst nuclear accident, there have been nearly [FILL IN ALARMIST AND ARMAGEDDONIST FACTOID HERE].’

Too funny! I've personally received emails from incompetents who want me to invest my money, along the lines of "Mr. (insert name here), we'd like to handle your investments"

We've always suspected that the environmentalist whacko crowd weren't exactly the sharpest knives in the drawer. I think this goes a long way to confirm that!

James Cameron: "DVDs are Wasteful"

I had forgotten about this story. James Cameron, director of "Avatar" (who is planning at least three different releases of his movie "Avatar" on DVD) said this in an interview with the Washington Post:

You’ve been very vocal about environmentalism, and certainly the themes in the film touch on environmentalism and eco-consciousness. Is it possible to put out the next DVD releases in an eco-conscious way?

Cameron: DVDs are wasteful. I think there’s less plastic in a DVD than there is in a VHS. It’s a consumer product like any consumer product. I think ultimately we’re going to bypass a physical medium and go directly to a download model and then it’s just bits moving in the system. And then the only impact to the environment is the power it takes to run the computers, run the devices. I think that we’re not there yet, but we’re moving that direction. Twentieth Century Fox has made a commitment to be carbon neutral by the end of 2010. Because of some of these practices that can’t be changed, the only way to do that is to buy carbon offsets. You know, which again, these are interim solutions. But at least it shows that there’s a consciousness that we have to be dealing with carbon pollution and sustainability.


I guess I was thinking in terms of the packaging. Some DVDs have come out with the slimmer packaging and are made out of recyclable materials, that sort of thing. Is that something that Fox could entertain for this next release?

Cameron: Yeah, exactly. I think that’s something that would be absolutely the right way to approach the 3-D release, which will be next year. We’ll have time to do that. And maybe it’s recyclable paper container, that sort of thing. There’s nothing much you can do about the disc proper, although it’s not a use-once-and-throwaway kind of medium. These are things that people hold onto. So it’s not like plastic water bottles or something like that which people need to get out of their lives as soon as possible.

But the release in November is a box set, so it’s just physically, structurally there are some limitations on that.

But you’re right. These are things the studios need to be thinking about. When I do my next film, we’re going to go much farther than we did in terms of running a green set. You know, look at a typical film set. There’s thousands of plastic water bottles that are used in a given week and that all needs to be revisited. Honestly, the truth is, we have to revisit almost every part of our lives and our existence over the next few years. Energy consumption, I think, being the biggest one. Energy and global warming are interlinked issues obviously, and global warming is going to take us out long before plastic pollution. Don’t get me started on that. I just got back from a two-day renewable energy conference in Aspen and it’s grim trying to get the needle of policy to move. You’re there in D.C. You see what goes on there. You see the paralysis of our leaders, even when there’s a Democratic majority. It’s still paralyzed.

If you've ever seen a movie being made, thousands of water bottles are the least of your "green" worries! Making movies requires a lot of energy consumption from start to finish, not to mention transporting all of those "wasteful" and non-biodegrable DVDs around!

I may have mentioned something similar this last April, when I noted that the Avatar DVD was scheduled to be released on "Earth Day":

For all of you that are "irony impaired", think about how many people are going to buy a plastic disc Tuesday, that is hardly biodegradable, and turn on their big screen TV's and DVD players and sit and suck electricity out of the grid for hours to watch a movie about how superior the simple, primitive life is.

I'm glad James is starting to come around to my way of thinking. But he still has a long way to go. He seems to be of the opinion that if his fortune is to be made polluting the planet, that as long as he makes it "not as bad as it could have been" and paying off his conscience with the indulgences of "carbon credits" that he can continue to pollute as long as he pleases.
Green (money) over "green". *Sigh*

Cross posted at Left Coast Rebel, Say Anything

Big News Today: Democrat-Socialists Drop Cap and Trade, Charlie Rangle Found Guilty of Ethics Violations

by the Left Coast Rebel

And why is no one talking about either of these things? The War Planner gives us a clue, (her name is media-saturated Shirley):

I mean, the woman has been reviled, revered, fired, re-hired, excoriated, gotten her obligatory interview on left-leaning media, called for Breitbart to be shut down, called FNS biased and racist, gotten her call from The Pantload..

..is there anything left to be done?

I'm thinking speechifyin' in front of a joint-session of congress and maybe convening the U.N. General Assembly?

Spare me.

Let's move on; I have Sherrod fatigue.

..unless, of course, we launch into some other aspect of this sorry episode of peristaltic gesticulations by the White House or some background investigation turning up the fact that she barbecues and serves Pomeranians at her weekend get-togethers.

Does anyone here know what a Pomeranian is? If not:

Awesome - oh the thought! Anyway the good news today that is all-but-forgotten is that, #1, the Democrat-socialists have dropped the holy grail of their neo-Bolshevik agenda and nobody's talking. It's called cap and trade and it's gone the way of the dodo, at least for now (Politico via Memeorandum):

Senate Democrats pulled the plug on climate legislation Thursday, pushing the issue off into an uncertain future ahead of midterm elections where President Barack Obama’s party is girding for a drubbing.

Rather than a long-awaited measure capping greenhouse gases — or even a more limited bill directed only at electric utilities — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) will move forward next week on a bipartisan energy-only bill that responds to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and contains other more popular energy items.

So seriously, conservatives, libertarians and indies - you should be popping a cork on this news today, instead of chasing Sherrod-barbecuing-pomeranian-rumors.

#2 - One of the biggest Democrat-socialist crooks finally got his comeuppance (or proverbial slap on the wrist), either way NYT, also via. Memeorandum:

WASHINGTON — After a nearly two-year investigation, a House investigative panel has found that Representative Charles B. Rangel probably violated a range of ethics rules, dealing a serious blow to Mr. Rangel, a Harlem Democrat, in the twilight of his political career.

The investigative subcommitee did not disclose any details about the nature of the violations that it found evidence, but one House official who has been briefed on the findings said that they included some of the most serious allegations that had been examined.

And once again, seriously - conservatives, libertarians, indies and anyone that cares about honesty, transparency, ethics, trustworthiness and otherwise, (not to mention adherence to limited government and the Constitution) should be popping the cork on a top-shelf bottle of something tonight.

Only in the Congress of the United States of America would it take 2 years to prove this:

Cross posted to War Planner, Left Coast Rebel.

Senate Democrats are Moving to Quintuple the Tax you Pay for Gas to Punish Those Evil BP Execs

By Lady Cincinnatus

How convenient...a tax on gas.




Cross posted at Lady Cincinnatus