To raise awareness for the endangered species, a design company has come up with a life-vest for displaced polar bears. From Inhabitat.com, part of the Guardian Environment Network
As the climate crisis mounts and Arctic icebergs slip away, polar bears are suffering starvation, population declines, and drowning as they must swim further and further to find food. Seeking to raise awareness for the endangered species' plight, ADDI Concepts has taken wildlife preservation literally by designing a life-vest for displaced polar bears struggling to stay afloat as their homes sink into the sea.
Polar bears are facing a bleak future as Arctic icebergs continue to melt and ancient shelfs of ice collapse. The species inhabits only the Arctic Ocean and its surrounding areas, and they and can hunt consistently only from sea ice.
ADDI Concepts conceived of their polar bear life jackets not as a solution for the endangered species, but as a means to increase awareness about global warming and inspire action. Their portfolio states: "A dog who lives most of its days carried around in an expensive handbag doesn't need a camouflage hoodie and a small cap over its ears. There are a few other [creatures] who we should give at least the same attention"
Many Obama supporters decry what they view as unfair criticism by conservatives this early in his Administration. He has only been in office for little over 60 days, give him a chance they plead.
If the criticism of Obama is unduly harsh, as many of his supporters claim, it is only because the standards established by his followers, and against which he should ultimately be judged, have been so unrealistically high. It was Obama's supporters, who, despite an abundance of evidence to the contrary, falsely hailed him as not merely a candidate for the presidency, but as a transcendent figure, post-racial, post-partisan, with remarkable qualities to unite us and heal the nation. They placed him on a marble pedestal replete with all the splendor reserved for Greek Gods. And all this was based upon what? That he enraptured an audience with his soaring speeches?
Throughout the campaign, Obama himself chose not to disabuse his adoring fans in the media of his seemingly immortal powers. He basked in the adulation. The culmination of all this giddy nonsense was his speech in Berlin — an exercise in solipsism for which he was mercilessly and justifiably mocked. Although he toned down the rhetoric thereafter, the central premise of his candidacy remained intact: Barack Obama was an extraordinary politician capable of great things.
Not content that the object of their affections won the election, the mythologizing and hyperbole propounded by Obama's obedient servants in the media continued anew. Before he had served one day in the Oval Office, the comparisons to Lincolnwere proffered. What was the factual basis for this speculative and unwarranted assertion? An examination of his actual political background and limited experience? No rational justification was offered in support of this preposterous thesis.
As I noted in a previous column, when you start out your term from the heights of Mt. Olympus, there is only one way to go — down. In their quest to help nominate the country's first African-American president, the media propped up Obama to be something that he was not. It is not the fault of his detractors that Obama now flounders, his reach exceeding his grasp.
Now that he occupies the Oval Office, the contrast or contradictions between Obama the candidate and Obama the President are as stark as they are numerous: Obama, the great speaker, incapable of performing the most basic of executive ministrations without the aid of his TelePrompter; Obama as the post-partisan politician, outsources the drafting of one of the most important pieces of fiscal legislation in our history to his party's left-wing congressional delegation with predictable results: the instrument is chock-full of liberal pork and garners not a single Republican vote in the House of Representatives.
What is transpiring during the early stages of the Obama Administration is a phenomenon unprecedented and unique in American political history: due diligence is being applied now to a president that should have occurred while he was a candidate during the campaign. Like a Popsicle in the hot Florida sun, the Obama facade, no longer buttressed by the incessant adulation of the campaign, has wilted rather quickly under the rigors of the presidency. Although the deconstruction of the myth of Obama may be disconcerting and disquieting to his supporters, it was inevitable.
It is Obama himself who is largely responsible for his rapid fall from grace. Obama as wordsmith, as silver-tongued orator, no longer seems able to captivate audiences when he speaks or proclaims, but rather, swells the ranks of skeptics. His words are subject to a scrutiny that was wholly absent from the campaign, and what the scrutiny has revealed about Obama is that he now, as president, has a rather large credibility problem.
We all expect that there will be a contest in Congress this year over global warming and a "cap-and-trade" bill limiting carbon dioxide emissions. After all, the government cannot impose sweeping new controls on our lives without extensive public debate and a vote in Congress that must gain the support of a clear majority of the representatives of the people.
Or can it?
Yesterday, the EPA issued a "finding" that carbon dioxide is a pollutant that threatens human health and can thus be regulated under the 1990 Clean Air Act.
This is a scientific farce. How can a basic constituent of the atmosphere that all humans constantly exhale be designated a "pollutant"? Moreover, water vapor is a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, yet the EPA has not yet declared dihydrogen monoxide gas to be a threat to mankind.
This is also an assault on the entire structure of representative government. Controls on emissions of carbon dioxide will reach into every nook and cranny of the economy, creating a fine network of restrictions on economic activity that will make the recent regime of bailouts, salary caps, and business seizures look like laissez-faire by comparison. But it will all be done — in effect, it has just been done — by the decree of executive agency bureaucrats, without an opportunity for public debate or a legislative vote. Sure, Congress will be invited to "participate" in drafting carbon dioxide controls, but it will do so under the threat that the EPA can simply create those controls on its own, without needing to consult the people's representatives.
Ayn Rand warned that the environmentalist movement constitutes an "Anti-Industrial Revolution," but the term "revolution" implies a broad base of popular support. Instead, this is an anti-industrial coup, a seizure of power by a small elite who seek to bypass the institutions and procedures of legitimate government.
How did this happen? Through a usurpation of legislative power by the other two branches of government: the courts and the regulatory agencies of the executive branch.
The contribution from the courts is the 2007 Supreme Court ruling requiring the EPA to regard carbon dioxide as a potential "airborne pollutant" under the 1990 Clean Air Act — a law passed by Congress almost two decades ago with no intention of regulating carbon dioxide.
The executive branch's response was a document released last year that stopped short of declaring carbon dioxide a pollutant. But it did establish the legal foundation for the next administration to plan out and implement a comprehensive scheme for regulating carbon dioxide emissions, coordinating the actions of dozens of regulatory agencies.
Do you suffer from a bad case of Obamunism? Take our simple test to find out.
You might be an Obamunist if:
You have tingles running up your legs when President Obama reads from a TelePrompTer.
You believed excessive government spending on President Bush’s watch was going to bankrupt the country (What about the deficit? Think of The Children!), but President Obama’s spending us into oblivion is actually going to save us.
You thought President Bush’s cabinet members were evil, (Rice, Ashcroft, Rumsfeld, etc.) but Obama’s rogue’s gallery of tax cheats and Bush holdovers is no big deal.
You believe President Bush’s “war on terror” was the invention of a crazed warmonger, but President Obama can continue the same activities as long as he doesn’t call it a “war on terror.”
The continued daily existence of Guantanamo Bay was a horror for you under Bush, but President Obama leaving it open is a snoozer.
You believe the bloated wastefulness of companies like AIG should be punished by putting them under the control of the bloated wastefulness of the buffoons in Congress.
You dislike dealing with large, inefficient, uncaring government bureaucracies like the DMV or the IRS, but hope Obama will give you “free” healthcare provided by a large, inefficient, uncaring government bureaucracy.
You consider yourself post-racial but have yet to come down off of your “I still can’t believe we elected the (half) black guy! Let’s celebrate by giving him whatever he wants without question!” euphoria.
You feel that speaking truth or asking questions is “hate” if it makes President Obama look bad.
You think Keith Olbermann is a professional journalist.
If you find yourself exhibiting some of these symptoms, you may be an Obamunist. Do not be alarmed, but Obamunism is a dangerous phenomenon not to be taken lightly. Symptoms are generally expensive, with taxes and costs rising in the infestation phase. During gestation an inflammation of the rhetoric may be accompanied by acute fear of capitalism. When full manifestation occurs, Obamunist agents will become agitated and highly mobile. Any irritant will be sought out and neutralized immediately. Tingling in the extremities can be expected to continue unabated even after government control is fully established.
Sadly, treatment for Obamunism is limited. The illness will generally have to run its course, with the typical length of action being four years, though there are examples lasting much longer. Administration of regular doses of truth may in some cases be useful in mitigating symptoms, but the patient may actively resist such measures. Things may simply have to get much worse before they get better.
The Left cheered as George Bush left office, as they believed him to be scornful of the Constitution and obsessed with secrecy. Barack Obama promised to bring a new era of openness, one in which the government would no longer hide intelligence programs from court scrutiny. Secret surveillance would become a thing of the past!
They should have asked Jim Geraghty about expiration dates. As the Washington Post reported yesterday, not only has Obama reneged on that particular promise, he’s actually arguing for a broader state-secrets privilege than Bush did:
Civil liberties advocates are accusing the Obama administration of forsaking campaign rhetoric and adopting the same expansive arguments that his predecessor used to cloak some of the most sensitive intelligence-gathering programs of the Bush White House.
The first signs have come just weeks into the new administration, in a case filed by an Oregon charity suspected of funding terrorism. President Obama’s Justice Department not only sought to dismiss the lawsuit by arguing that it implicated “state secrets,” but also escalated the standoff — proposing that government lawyers might take classified documents from the court’s custody to keep the charity’s representatives from reviewing them. …
In his campaign plan to “change Washington,” Obama criticized the Bush administration, saying that it had “ignored public disclosure rules” and that it too often invoked the state-secrets privilege, according to his Web site.
Now, Obama’s claim of state secrets has prompted criticism.
How much outrage will we hear from the Left over this? Not too much, I suspect. A few like Glenn Greenwald, who has made this a particular focus, will blast Obama for falling back on his promise for openness. The rest had little real interest in the topic outside of a chance for some serious Bush bashing.
And on the Right? Those who accepted unquestioningly the state-secrets doctrine of Bush may now want to make hay out of Obama’s expansion of them. After all, what Obama wants to do here is to essentially lock the judiciary out of the decision loop forever on whether the government has a legitimate right to the claim of state secrets in any case. That will warp the separation of powers between the executive and judicial branches, and could set a precedent for massive abuses of power. How many conservatives and center-right people want to trust Obama with those powers now?
When Democrats demanded and got concessions during the FISA reform effort to strengthen the role of the FISA court over the Bush administration’s initial proposal, I supported that change while supporting the reforms that allowed for more efficient ability to track international calls. So did a few other conservatives on the same grounds of limiting executive reach. Some criticized that position, but we knew eventually that we would have a President that we didn’t like, which is why the balance of power issue is so important. That day is now.
I believe that the government needs a state-secrets doctrine that’s broad and enforceable, but I also think that the judiciary has to have some role in determining its limits. The threat by the Obama administration to withdraw that question from the judiciary is at least troubling — and while I’m glad to see that they’ve quickly accepted the Bush position on state secrets, the effort to cut out the judiciary should worry everyone on both sides of the aisle.
On March 20, only two months after the cosmic anointing, Vanity Fair, of all people, unloaded on Barack Obama, in the terms it had reserved for the past four or five years for the likes of George W. Bush.
Well, not the whole magazine, but one of its writers, media writer Michael Wolff, took an axe to the president, in a posting beginning “Sheesh, the guy is Jimmy Carter,” ending “This guy is leaden and this show is in trouble,” and titled “Barack Obama is a Terrible Bore.”
The same day, ex-fan Peggy Noonan called him “insubstantial and weightless...not fully focused...jumping from issue to issue and venue to venue from day to day.” “The administration’s difficulties...have created an unfortunate impression of incompetence,”
said The Economist. Politico noted that his skills as a salesman have begun to desert him.
It all came at the end of what Rick Klein of ABC News called Obama’s ‘lost week,’ which got worse on Sunday, when he was attacked by the New York Times in three columns and one editorial. One warned of an oncoming fall of Katrina dimensions. And these were his friends.
Actually, since he was sworn, in most of his weeks have been lost ones, or at least weeks headed downward, the problem being that three or four variations on the theme of incompetence have had time to harden and set.
First, the financial crisis he was hired to fix has only grown worse under his tutelage, losing another 2,000-plus points on the Dow since his ascension. Second, the ‘smoothest transition on record’ stopped being smooth when Bush went back to Texas, and has since been a mélange of scandals and dithering. Third, the immense sums in his budget are starting to stun the more moderate Democrats, not to mention the Obamacons, who once put their hopes in his ‘moderate’ temperament.
Fourth, he and some of his high-profile picks have shown a repeated addiction to unforced errors and slights---mixing up names, misplacing dates, dissing Nancy Reagan, dissing the British Prime Minister, dissing the Special Olympics, created and run by John Kennedy’s sister—giving the impression the administration is run by the under-informed and the boorish and socially compromised.
Would Caroline’s father, who took part in his family’s effort to raise his retarded sister as normal, and who as president put great store in his special relationship with “Uncle Harold” McMillan, have found this amusing? One rather thinks not.
In short, the idea of Obama, the eloquent, elegant, trans-racial hero, able to inspire his way around anything, ran into reality and was dissolved by it, revealing a not-well-prepared neophyte politician with an embarrassing penchant for gaffes.
The markets are down, the price tags are up, the British are piqued, and the independents are heading back to the Republicans, who now have a (slight) lead in the generic ballot, for the first time in nearly three years.
Obama’s teleprompter has its own blog, its own code name---Totus--- and is building a following. One laughs with it, and at him, which cannot be promising. For a would-be Messiah, this is hardly good news.
The Obama administration will ask Congress to give the Treasury secretary unprecedented powers to initiate the seizure of non-bank financial companies, such as large insurers, investment firms and hedge funds, whose collapse would damage the broader economy, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said this morning.
Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner is set to argue for the new powers at a hearing today on Capitol Hill about the furor over bonuses paid to executives at American International Group, which the government has propped up with about $180 billion in federal aid. Administration officials have said that the proposed authority would have allowed them to seize AIG last fall and wind down its operations at less cost to taxpayers.
The government at present has the authority to seize only banks.
Geithner will testify alongside Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke at a hearing before the House Financial Services Committee that begins at 10 a.m. Although the stated focus of the hearing is the controversial bonus payments AIG awarded its employees after receiving the government bailout, Geithner will try to advance the argument that the government needs more tools in its arsenal in order to right the nation's economic ship.
"We need resolution authority to go in and be able to change contracts, be able to change the business model, unwind what doesn't work," Gibbs said on CNN in one of several morning television interviews aimed at promoting the administration proposal. " ... This is the exact type of authority that will allow us to deal with the problems in AIG ... that will address the systemic risk without having to put [a failing firm] in bankruptcy."
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The Obama Administration's Department of Justice, with former RIAA lawyers occupying the 2nd and 3rd highest positions in the department, has shown its colors, intervening on behalf of the RIAA in the case against a Boston University graduate student, SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum, accused of file sharing when he was 17 years old. Its oversized, 39-page brief (PDF) relies upon a United States Supreme Court decision from 1919 which upheld a statutory damages award, in a case involving overpriced railway tickets, equal to 116 times the actual damages sustained, and a 2007 Circuit Court decision which held that the 1919 decision — rather than the Supreme Court's more recent decisions involving punitive damages — was applicable to an award against a Karaoke CD distributor for 44 times the actual damages. Of course none of the cited cases dealt with the ratios sought by the RIAA: 2,100 to 425,000 times the actual damages for an MP3 file. Interestingly, the Government brief asked the Judge not to rule on the issue at this time, but to wait until after a trial. Also interestingly, although the brief sought to rebut, one by one, each argument that had been made by the defendant in his brief, it totally ignored all of the authorities and arguments that had been made by the Free Software Foundation in its brief. Commentators had been fearing that the Obama/Biden administration would be tools of the RIAA; does this filing confirm those fears?"
Volunteers fanned out across the Birmingham area and Alabama Saturday to pump up enthusiasm for President Barack Obama's budget proposal in much the same way they did to win over voters during the presidential campaign.
About 30 volunteers in Birmingham canvassed shopping areas and other high-traffic locations to talk about the need for health care reform, an education overhaul and environmentally friendly energy development.
"If we don't change these three things in the next 10 to 15 years, America is over as we know it," Chris DeHaven, told the group of volunteers before they went their separate ways.
According to a report in USA Today, “In securities filings, Freddie said it will pay a retention award of $1.5 million to Executive Vice President Michael Perlman by March 2010. Perlman, whose base salary is $500,000, already collected $300,000 of his bonus. Interim CFO David Kellermann will get an $850,000 bonus, and Senior Vice President Michael May will get $700,000.”
“Just as with the extravagant bonus pay at AIG, it’s important to make sure that taxpayer support isn’t enabling unreasonable compensation arrangements that would never have been possible without taxpayer assistance,” Grassley said.
From the Fannie Mae letter:
“Because I am concerned with maximizing taxpayers’ investment in Fannie Mae, I am requesting (1) the official documents outlining the Retention Program and any other bonus compensation arrangements; (2) records of any communications related to the formation and implementation of the Retention Program and other bonus compensation arrangements; and (3) any contracts that have been executed in accordance with the Retention Program or other bonus compensations arrangements that would bind Fannie Mae to making bonus payments in the future.”
In yet another problem with Treasury Secretary and TurboTax cheat Timothy Geithner’s structure of bailouts as head of the New York Federal Reserve, it was disclosed Thursday that at least 13 of the 470 financial firms receiving bailout money from taxpayers owe more than $220 million in unpaid federal taxes. All 470 firms have not yet been vetted. At the time Geithner was head of the New York Fed and acting as the architect of the bailout structure, he was actively participating in serial tax evasion himself. Firms applying for bailout funds were merely required to sign paperwork stating they had paid all of their federal taxes, ironically the same honor system that Geithner used to avoid paying his income taxes.
Sounds like a good idea, but I harbor no illusions about where this will go under the Democrats...
It’s as if these things were living entities that had spawned an epidemic of economic pornography.
Subprime mortgages are as much a cause of the current financial chaos as bullets were for the death of JFK.
Someone planned the assassination and someone pulled the trigger.
The media, J. Edgar Hoover and the Warren Commission tried to push Lee Harvey Oswald off on the American public. They didn’t buy it.
They shouldn’t buy subprime mortgages either.
Someone planned the assassination and someone pulled the trigger.
Only this time the target is the international financial structure and the bullets are still being fired.
Oh yes, people took out adjustable-rate mortgages they could ill afford, that were then sold to Wall Street bankers. The bankers bundled them up like gift wrappers at Nordstrom’s during the Holidays and sold them to other banks after raking off billions in fees. The fees? They were for…well…th ey were for wrapping the mortgages in the haute couture of Wall Street.
But it didn’t start there. No, no, not by a long shot.
And as the late, great Paul Harvey would say, “And now you’re going to hear the Rest of the Story.”
Are subprime mortgages part of some larger agenda?
And if so, what is it?
Stay with me here, because Alice is about to slide down the rabbit hole into the looking-glass world of international finance.
Barack Obama was elected commander in chief promising to run the most transparent presidential administration in American history.
This achievement and the overall promise of his historic administration caused the National Newspaper Publishers Assn. to name him "Newsmaker of the Year."
The president is to receive the award from the federation of black community newspapers in a White House ceremony this afternoon.
The Obama White House has closed the press award ceremony to the press.
From the president's official schedule:
"Later in the afternoon, the President and the First Lady will attend a reception with the National Newspaper Publisher Association in the State Dining Room, where they will be presented the Newsmaker of the Year award. This event is closed press."
Maybe they'll let the newspaper people pass the award through the fence.
-- Andrew Malcolm
Wow! Even the LA Times is getting snarky towards the "One?"
This is absolutely unbelievable. You recall the embarrassment over the Obama administration's incompetent treatment of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown during his state visit to the U.S. The last link in that chain of ineptitude was Obama's parting gift to Brown, a box of 25 Hollywood CDs. Hey, when Sarkozy comes to town, maybe we can get him a Netflix subscription.
At the time, some wondered whether North American DVDs will even play in European machines. But that seemed too wacky to be true. As Mark Steyn says, "at the back of my mind, I didn't quite believe that even the Obamateur Hour crowd at the White House could be that clueless."
While not exactly a film buff, Gordon Brown was touched when Barack Obama gave him a set of 25 classic American movies - including Psycho, starring Anthony Perkins on his recent visit to Washington. Alas, when the PM settled down to begin watching them the other night, he found there was a problem.
The films only worked in DVD players made in North America and the words "wrong region" came up on his screen. Although he mournfully had to put the popcorn away, he is unlikely to jeopardise the special relationship - or "special partnership", as we are now supposed to call it - by registering a complaint.
Well, one good thing--thank goodness we have smart, sophisticated Democrats on the White House staff now, instead of those yahoo Republicans. Then again, maybe not:
A White House spokesman sniggered when I put the story to him and he was still looking into the matter when my deadline came last night.
By the way, when Obama's unlikely gift was disclosed, a reader emailed me to ask if Clueless was among the films. Funnily enough, it was not.
The Obama administration is rapidly earning a reputation for incompetence. We'll leave the last word to Mark Steyn:
But don't forget, folks: Somewhere in Texas a village has been reunited with its idiot, and we now have the whip-smartest administration of David Brooks' lifetime.
ONE MORE THING: Can you imagine the Democrats' reaction if the Bush White House had given a European head of state a set of DVDs that can only be played on North American machines? It would have been conclusive proof of Bush's provincialism, lack of sensitivity to our allies' sensibilities, ignorance of the wider world, techno incompetence, failure to appreciate the superiority of European civilization, blah blah blah. That's how it would have been reported and editorialized on in every newspaper. So let's check tomorrow's papers and see whether that's how Obama's gaffe is covered. Or whether it's covered at all.
WASHINGTON In another high-profile administration bungle, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner admitted yesterday that he asked Sen. Christopher Dodd to include a loophole in a bill to protect bonuses doled out by AIG.
Geithner in a finger-pointing match with Dodd told CNN, "What we did is just express concern about the vulnerability of a specific part of this provision, the legal challenge, as you would expect us to do. That's part of the legislative process."
The day before, Geithner was silent when Dodd (D-Conn.) insisted that he was forced by Treasury to include the AIG exemption and Obama administration officials told many news outlets that Dodd's account, which he had changed from the previous day, was not true.
Dodd said the administration insisted that he modify his proposal to rein in bonuses at companies getting billions of dollars in financial bailouts so that it would apply only to payments agreed to in the future thus clearing the way for the AIG payouts.
Geithner also appeared to back away from the administration's previous assertion that he first learned of the bonuses just last week.
His new admissions are likely to bring a new wave of criticism at the embattled Treasury boss.
House Republicans moved yesterday to force him to provide an accounting of all of his communications with and about AIG.
Despite the dispute, Dodd said that he remained confident in Geithner's performance as secretary.
"I do, and the president does, and that's what's key," Dodd said.
Despite harsh rhetoric, Republicans have stopped short of calling for Geithner's resignation.
Recovery: Don't look now, but the economy is starting to turn. Recent data suggest it may start making up lost ground as early as the third quarter. A triumph of government policy? Hardly.
The economy's hard take-down last year was due almost entirely to a longstanding government policy that forced banks to lend to unworthy borrowers plus missteps in Fed interest-rate policy.
The combination of soaring oil prices, bad mortgages, a collapsing housing market and rising interest rates crushed much of our financial infrastructure, causing mass bankruptcies, layoffs and a financial crisis that hammered economies around the globe.
But now, after months of seemingly nonstop bad news, there are hopeful signs on the horizon. They include:
• A broad rally in stocks, confirmed last Thursday, continuing into this week and led by the beaten-down financials.
• A surprising 22% surge in February housing starts to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 583,000 units.
• A back-to-back jump in retail sales ex autos, in both January and February.
• A return to profitability at several major banks, including Citigroup, Bank of America and JPMorgan.
• A doubling in the obscure but important Baltic Dry Index, a key indicator of global trade flows.
• An upwardly sloping yield curve, which Fed research suggests all but ensures a rebound by year-end.
• A Housing Affordability Index that has hit an all-time high.
• A two-month improvement in wholesale used-car prices, measured by the Manheim Index.
• A rise in Monster's Employment Index in February, suggesting a turn in the job market may be around the corner.
• A 4 1/2-year high in the dollar against other major currencies, on a trade-weighted basis.
• A sharp increase in the money supply, as measured by M2 and M1. Weekly M2 growth has averaged 10.1% year-over-year since the start of 2009, while M1 has grown at a 14.6% rate.
• A two-month rally in the Index of Leading Indicators.
• A growing body of evidence that the "liquidity crunch" is dead. Data show nearly $14 trillion in liquidity on the sidelines of the markets, ready to boost consumer spending, credit growth or further stock market gains.
This list could go on, but you get the general idea: Below the surface of gloom, there are signs of a new vibrancy.
Before their massive new spending plans were approved, Obama & Co. saw nothing but economic disaster everywhere they looked. Now that they've gotten what they wanted, the tone has changed.
On Friday, the president called the economy "fundamentally sound," an assessment that his top economic adviser, Christina Romer, echoed on Sunday.
The U-turn followed months of relentlessly negative comments, with repeated and inapt comparisons to the Great Depression. But the apocalyptic rhetoric served a purpose.
It helped pass the biggest expansion of government since the New Deal — with a pork-laden "stimulus" package of $787 billion, a permanent boost in spending of $1 trillion over a decade, another $275 billion bank bailout, $8 trillion in new debt and a $1.4 trillion, 10-year tax hike.
But these measures won't help our economy. If anything, they may just enfeeble the recovery that's now shaping up. No politician who voted for these job- and growth-killing measures should claim any credit for our eventual rebound.
America's workers and businesses took the pain. And, as usual, they — and not our saviors in Washington — will bring us back.
Global warming alarmists love to tell us that the debate is over, that “climate change” — their new term for a catchall theory that allows them to stick their noses into literally everything — is established fact. “Do not believe your lying senses!” we are commanded, because the unusually cold winter we are enjoying here in North America isn’t really cold; it’s, uh, just a lull! This is much like the family of the overweight child telling everyone that their son isn’t fat but big-boned; everyone knows the kid is obese, but the parents refuse to admit it. Well, anthropogenic global warming is just big-boned.
Global warming stopped in 1997 and we have had no statistically significant warming since 1995, according to Richard Lindzen; meanwhile the Gang Green, the alarmists with such big-boned ideas, twist themselves into pretzels to argue otherwise. (Of course, it doesn’t help to have Al Gore jetting around the world, bringing temperature drops that make Dante’s Cocytus feel sultry.) Sea levels refuse to increase their rate of rise; some glaciers and sea ice have melted but more ice has been added elsewhere to counterbalance this. Of course, keeping track of all that ice is tricky; the National Snow and Ice Data Center inconveniently lost 193,000 miles of such ice the other day and was quite fortunate to find it — doubtlessly hidden by the girth of our big-boned theory. For that matter, Roy Spencer has spun out some calculations suggesting that a good portion of the CO2 increase we’ve seen in the Earth’s atmosphere may be natural. We’ve had the predictions of doom founder on the iceberg of reality for the global warming crowd. Mostly, it’s been just plain cold!
But our friends haven’t given up; at least, not yet.
The ace in the hole for global warming alarmists of every shape and size is that the Earth has warmed (by under one degree Fahrenheit) during the 20th century and solar irradiance does not seem to adequately account for the temperature increase.
Solar irradiance is measured in watts/meter-squared (W/m2). The solar constant is estimated at 1,366 W/m2, which is an average based on measurements taken at the top of the atmosphere and is a measure of the entire electromagnetic spectrum — not just visible light. It is an average because this varies depending on the time of year, based on the Earth’s position and angle.
During the first half of the 20th century, scientists, most notably Charles Greeley Abbot, labored to obtain accurate measurements of total solar irradiance (TSI). He corrected the work of Samuel Pierpoint Langley, who had estimated the solar constant at 2,903 W/m2, making measurements based on high-altitude studies (Abbot had to content himself with surface observations, since his work came before airflight) and determined values between 1,318 and 1,548 W/m2. Since 1978 satellite data has given us a good picture of solar irradiance, although we have much to learn about the direct impact. For example, it seems we haven’t understood how solar flares contribute to the overall energy balance.
Our knowledge of solar irradiance prior to 1978 is based on radiosonde (balloon) and other high-altitude measurements, and our knowledge of solar irradiance prior to high-altitude research is based entirely on proxy data (inferred). We cannot state confidently that solar irradiance was “thus” because it is mere guesswork.
But the GW crowd will boldly claim that prior to the 20th century it was indeed “thus” and will then show charts that suggest we have somehow changed, with the Earth warming despite a lack of solar increase. Yes, they will admit that the sun got a bit more energetic in parts of the 20th century, but it does not account for the increase in temperature, or so they claim.
House Speaker Issued Unprecedented Demands for Military Aircraft and Wasted Taxpayer Resources with Last Minute Cancellations
Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it has obtained documents from the Department of Defense (DOD) detailing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's multiple requests for military air travel. The documents, obtained by Judicial Watch through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), include internal DOD email correspondence detailing attempts by DOD staff to accommodate Pelosi's numerous requests for military escorts and military aircraft as well as the speaker's last minute cancellations and changes. The following are a few highlights from the documents, which are linked in full below:
In response to a series of requests for military aircraft, one Defense Department official wrote, "Any chance of politely querying [Pelosi's team] if they really intend to do all of these or are they just picking every weekend?...[T]here's no need to block every weekend 'just in case'..." The email also notes that Pelosi's office had, "a history of canceling many of their past requests."
One DOD official complained about the "hidden costs" associated with the speaker's last minute changes and cancellations. "We have...folks prepping the jets and crews driving in (not a short drive for some), cooking meals and preflighting the jets etc."
The documents include a discussion of House Ethics rules and Defense Department policies as they apply to the speaker's requests for staff, spouses and extended family to accompany her on military aircraft. In May 2008, for example, Pelosi requested that her husband join her on a Congressional Delegation (CODEL) into Iraq. The DOD explained to Pelosi that the agency has a written policy prohibiting spouses from joining CODEL's into combat zones.
Documents obtained from the U.S. Army include correspondence from Speaker Pelosi's office requesting an Army escort and three military planes to transport Pelosi and other members of Congress to Cleveland, Ohio, for the funeral services of the late Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones. Pelosi noted in her letter of August 22, 2008, that such a request, labeled "Operation Tribute" was an "exception to standard policy."
The documents also detail correspondence from intermediaries for Speaker Pelosi issuing demands for certain aircraft and expressing outrage when requested military planes were not available. "It is my understanding there are no G5s available for the House during the Memorial Day recess. This is totally unacceptable...The speaker will want to know where the planes are..." wrote Kay King, Director of the House Office of Interparliamentary Affairs. In a separate email, when told a certain type of aircraft would not be available, King writes, "This is not good news, and we will have some very disappointed folks, as well as a very upset [s]peaker."
During another email exchange DOD staff advised Kay King that one Pelosi military aircraft request could not be met because of "crew rest requirements" and offered to help secure commercial travel. Kay King responded: "We appreciate the efforts to help the codel [sic] fly commercially but you know the problem that creates with spouses. If we can find another way to assist with military assets, we would like to do that."
Speaker Pelosi came under fire in 2007 for requesting a 42-seat Air Force carrier to ferry the Speaker and her staff back and forth between San Francisco, CA and Washington, DC. Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert was allowed access to a 12-seat commuter jet for security reasons after the events of 9/11.
"Taken together, these documents show that Speaker Pelosi treats the Air Force like her personal airline," said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. "Not only does Speaker Pelosi issue unreasonable requests for military travel, but her office seems unconcerned about wasting taxpayer money with last minute cancellations and other demands."
Oversight: Congressman Barney Frank says he wants some of those responsible for our current financial meltdown to be prosecuted. And we couldn't agree more. First up in the court dock: Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass.
Even by the extraordinarily loose standards of Congress, it takes some chutzpah for someone such as Frank to suggest that he'll seek prosecutions for those behind the housing and financial crunch and for what he called "a strongly empowered systemic risk regulator."
For Frank, perhaps more than any single individual in private or public life, is responsible for both the housing market mess and subsequent bank disaster. And no, this isn't partisan hyperbole or historical exaggeration.
But first, a little trip down memory lane.
It was Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two so-called Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs), that lay behind the crisis. After regulatory changes made to the Community Reinvestment Act by President Clinton in 1995, Fannie and Freddie went into hyper-drive, channeling literally trillions of dollars into the housing markets, using leverage and implicit taxpayers' guarantees.
In November 2000, President Clinton's Housing and Urban Development Department would trumpet "new regulations to provide $2.4 trillion in mortgages for affordable housing for 28.1 million families." The vehicles for this were Fannie and Freddie. It was the largest expansion in housing aid ever.
Still, from the early 1990s on, many people both inside and outside Washington were alarmed by what they saw at Fannie and Freddie.
Not Barney Frank: Starting in the early 1990s, he (and other Democrats) stood athwart efforts by regulators, Congress and the White House to get the runaway housing market under control.
He opposed reform as early as 1992. And, in response to another attempt bring Fannie-Freddie to heel in 2000, Frank responded it wasn't needed because there was "no federal liability there whatsoever."
In 2002, Frank nixed reforms again. See a pattern here?
Even after federal regulators discovered in 2003 that Fannie and Freddie executives had overstated earnings by as much as $10.6 billion in order to boost bonuses, Frank didn't miss a beat.
President Bush pushed for what the New York Times then called "the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago."
If it had passed, the housing crisis likely would have never boiled over, at least not the extent it did, taking the economy with it. Instead, led by Frank, Democrats stood as a bloc against any changes.
"Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are not facing any kind of financial crisis," Frank, then the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee, said. "The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing."
This "man" should be frog marched off the Hill, and into a cozy cell.
Introduction Background on problems caused by government intervention in the health care market. PLEASE NOTE: THIS INCLUDES the UNITED STATES health care industry, which is HEAVILY regulated...with the usual results.
Worldwide Experiments in Socialism Links, articles and figures detailing widespread and specific problems in countries with varying degrees of socialized health care.
Americans Blindly Supporting More Government Socialist health care system supporters often point to sky rocketing health insurance prices in the U.S. as a problem with a "capitalist" system. However, all of the pervasive problems within the U.S. health care system are a direct result of statism.
I once believed in the lofty goal of "universal health care". Who wouldn't support that goal? Doesn't everyone have a "right" to health care?
It was easy to agree with a meaningless campaign promise such as "Affordable Health Care for All". It takes effort to research the topic and understand economic reasoning and history.
Once I questioned the sound bites, I realized that government intervention in the market (e.g., Medicare, FDA regulations, physician licensing, insurance regulations) is the reason for artificially high health care prices.
So-called Universal Healthcare amplifies all problems:
1) Reduces patient incentives to find the best possible prices for the best possible services/products available. Patients in the U.S. who receive "free" (taxpayer-funded) health care have no incentive to conserve their health care dollars. Care is "free" so they visit the doctor's office several times a month or request "free" prescriptions for over-the-counter medication such as Tylenol.
2) Reduces physician incentives to provide competitive care and reduces drug companies' incentives to provide new drugs and treatments. With no incentive to provide quality care, physicians and nurses leave the government-monopolized area for better opportunities in a freer country. Shortages result. Drug companies are hindered by price controls and regulations and soon cease research and development of new medication. In the U.S., start-up drug companies cannot afford to run the FDA gauntlet, so the market is dominated by a few established corporations.
3) Steals from your wallet to pay for my health care. Yes, you do have a right to health care, just as you have a right to food, shelter and property. However, you have no "right" to force others to provide these things for you - All "free" medical care is subsidized through taxes stolen from other people.
4) The quality of "free" health care will deteriorate and the average citizen will get sicker. As the poor and middle-class wait in agony for simple procedures, those with resources can travel to other countries for treatment.
6) Destroys your liberty. When you blindly support a system that bestows power on politicians and bureaucrats, they will receive their orders from those with the most money - and this will not be you, your friends or your family. The power of government will be used against you as you are forced to use medicines or accept treatments from well-connected health care companies.
Conversely, if government power is eliminated (e.g., abolish the FDA - whose restrictions benefit the most powerful companies by eliminating most competition), those same companies would have to use their funds and resources to sell their drugs to the most people in the least expensive, most reliable and safest way. They would need to outperform their competitors to get your money - otherwise they lose business.
Most links below direct you to newspaper articles from different established sources and different countries, including the New York Times, the BBC, the Daily Mail, ABC or CNN. These articles show widespread problems such as physician shortages or increased waiting times that are inevitable when businesses are monopolized by the government.
Other links below direct you to articles from free-market institutes and groups. The authors use facts and logic to explain the superiority of the free-market process when compared to government bureaucracies. You can dismiss these links as "libertarian propaganda" or you can read the reports and question your own emotionally-based opinion, as I did. Please see Harry Browne's excellent Compassion of the mind and ask yourself if you are hurting others with your socialism.
British Prime Minister Brown wanted to make a good first impression in his first meeting with President Obama. So he gave him an ornamental penholder hand-carved from the timbers of a Victorian anti-slave ship once called the HMS President.
President Obama reciprocated by giving Brown a handful of DVDs. Seriously. President Obama gave the prime minister of our closest ally, a nation that reveres the “special relationship” between our two countries, a bunch of DVDs.
In Obama’s defense, they were all classic American films. And they came in a special boxed set. And Michelle was probably up half the night making sure the ribbon looked real pretty. Unfortunately, it turns out Brown isn’t much of a film fan.
Britain’s Daily Mail reports that Brown could have gone to the Blockbuster store down the road from 10 Downing Street and picked up the same DVDs for about $352 (plus tax).
Becaue they want you to pay for the mortgage your spendthrift neighbor can’t, the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives last night voted 234-190 in favor of President Obama’s plan to bail out home owners, which bet too heavily on a continuous boom in the housing market, even if they lied on their mortgage applications.
To do this, they will empower bankruptcy judges to rewrite mortgages to decrease the principal obligation, thus ordering already-ailing banks to take the losses.
Whether you are struggling to pay your own mortgage in these turbulent financial times or couldn’t afford the down-payment to purchase your own home and are thus renting, should this plan now pass the Senate, your tax dollars will go to bail out those who were given the sub-prime, no down payment NINJA loans (no income, no job or assets) through Democrat-driven Community Reinvestment Act policies to buy homes they could not afford.
The Democrats’ sub-prime mortgage fiasco would allow judges to adjust mortgage rates as well as the principle loan amount down -- even if the mortgage holder in default lied about their income on their mortgage application. There are no measures in this bill to give relief to responsible homeowners who now find themselves underwater, struggling to make exorbitant adjustable mortgage rate payments for a home now worth much less than the cost of their mortgage -- other than using their money to bail out their neighbors.
The Democrats, by this action, all but guarantee that the only shot you have at a bank negotiation to lower your mortgage interest rate is to go into default.
House Republican Conference Chairman Mike Pence of Indiana told HUMAN EVENTS after the vote, “More than 90 percent of Americans are paying their mortgages on time and meeting their financial obligations, even in these difficult days. We should all be willing to make the sacrifices necessary to put our economy back on track. But we need to begin by reaffirming the principle of personal responsibility. The bill passed tonight fails this essential standard. Rewarding bad behavior will not solve our problems, it will only worsen them.”
Seven Republicans crossed over to vote with Democrats to pass this mortgage bailout for the irresponsible (Castle, both Diaz-Balarts, Jones, McHugh, Ros-Lehtinen, Turner) while 24 Democrats voted against: Arcuri, Berry, Boren, Boucher, Bright, Carney, Childers, Dahlkemper, Davis (TN), Edward TX, Ellsworth, Gordon (TN), Griffith, Hill, Holden, Kind, Kissell, Kratovil, Markey (Co), Massa, Matheson, Stupak, Taylor and Teague.
Of the bill’s passage, House Republican leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said, “Owning a home is the heart and soul of the American Dream, and Republicans believe that we need to help families who acted responsibly stay in their homes. But this legislation doesn’t do that. What it really does is punish those who played by the rules to subsidize those who didn’t. Democrats even defeated a Republican proposal that would have protected taxpayers from bailing out those who lied on their mortgage applications. Taxpayers are fed up with what they are seeing in Washington.”
Before the vote on final passage, Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) offered a motion to recommit which would have explicitly prohibited taxpayer assistance to any borrower that lied about their income on their mortgage application. It also would have prohibited taxpayer assistance to any lender that failed to follow proper underwriting standards, prohibited taxpayer funds from being used as incentives to lenders to rework loans for irresponsible borrowers, and prohibited taxpayer funds from being used unless the President submits a plan that provides equitable treatment of all mortgage holders. The measure failed 182-242 with all House Republicans voting in favor of this equitable treatment.
Of the motion’s failure, Boehner told HUMAN EVENTS, “The American people are sick and tired of Washington forcing responsible taxpayers to pay for the actions of those who have been irresponsible. The taxpayer tea parties that are popping up all across America are a reflection of this growing outrage. Defeating this motion will pour gasoline on a fire that is already starting to smolder.”
ARTICLE 7. THE MAKING OF NOMINATIONS BY POLITICAL PARTIES 10 ILCS 5/7-2) (from Ch. 46, par. 7-2) Sec. 7-2.
[...]
A political party, which at the municipal election in any other municipality or political subdivision, (except townships and school districts), for municipal or other officers therein then next preceding a primary, cast more than 5 per cent of the entire vote cast in such municipality or political subdivision, is hereby declared to be a political party within the meaning of this Article, within said municipality or political subdivision, and shall nominate all municipal or other officers therein under the provisions hereof to the extent and in the cases provided in section 7--1.
Provided, that no political organization or group shall be qualified as a political party hereunder, or given a place on a ballot, which organization or group is associated, directly or indirectly, with Communist, Fascist, Nazi or other un-American principles and engages in activities or propaganda designed to teach subservience to the political principles and ideals of foreign nations or the overthrow by violence of the established constitutional form of government of the United States and the State of Illinois. (Source: Laws 1943, vol. 2, p. 1.)
...If you've ever watched any three nights of his show, you know that Olbermann went to Cornell. But he always forgets to mention that he went to the school that offers classes in milking and bovine management.
Indeed, Keith is constantly lying about his nonexistent "Ivy League" education, boasting to Playboy magazine, for example: "My Ivy League education taught me how to cut corners, skim books and take an idea and write 15 pages on it, and also how to work all day at the Cornell radio station and never actually go to class."
Except Keith didn't go to the Ivy League Cornell; he went to the Old MacDonald Cornell.
The real Cornell, the School of Arts and Sciences (average SAT: 1,325; acceptance rate: 1 in 6 applicants), is the only Ivy League school at Cornell and the only one that grants a Bachelor of Arts degree.
Keith went to an affiliated state college at Cornell, the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (average SAT: about that of pulling guards at the University of South Carolina; acceptance rate: 1 of every 1.01 applicants).
Olbermann's incessant lying about having an "Ivy League education" when he went to the non-Ivy League ag school at Cornell would be like a graduate of the Yale locksmithing school boasting about being a "Yale man."
President Obama wants to pay you to support global warming regulation. What he isn’t saying, however, is that his enticement won’t come close to covering what the regulations will cost you.
In his 10-year budget released this week, the President proposed a so-called cap-and-trade scheme to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Under the proposal, 100 percent of the permits to emit greenhouse gases would be auctioned to coal and natural gas-burning electric utilities, industrial plants and other emitters-to-be-designated . The proceeds from the auctions would then distributed to individual Americans “to help the transition to a clean energy economy,” according to his budget proposal.
But what does this proposal mean for the average person in terms of actual dollars and cents?
Maybe the economics of Obama’s cap-and-trade rip-off don’t bother you, but the fact that the rip-off will accomplish nothing should give you pause.
It’s difficult to work out the precise financial impacts, but you can get an idea by doing some back-of-the-envelop calculations with some of the facts and figures that have recently been bandied about.
Based on past global warming legislation, like the Lieberman-Warner bill that failed in the Senate last June, a cap-and-trade plan would probably cover about 80 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions — about 5.8 billion tons based on a total of 7.3 billion tons emitted during 2007.
Assuming that permits are auctioned at a price of $12 per ton — a safety valve price included in past climate bills — the Obama plan would raise about $70 billion in its first year. Given that President Obama has proposed to spend about $15 billion per year of the auction proceeds on “clean energy” projects, about $55 billion would be leftover for distribution to individuals– in other words, every American with a Social Security number. Dividing the $55 billion among more than 300 million Americans, then, works out to about $180 per person and $720 per family of four per year.
It’s not like winning the lottery, but it’s better than nothing — or is it?
The liberal think tank Center on Budget Priorities and Policy estimated this week that reducing greenhouse gas emissions would cost the poorest families in America $750 per year as higher energy prices ripple through the economy affecting all goods and services. So if the poorest families, who use far less energy than the rest of America, are in a financial hole under the president’s plan, one can easily imagine how the rest of us will end up. Consider the potential consequences on just your electric bill.
The proposed Lieberman-Warner bill would have auctioned only 25 percent of the permits — not 100 percent as President Obama is proposing. The remaining 75 percent of the credits would have been distributed for free to electric utilities and other designated greenhouse gas emitters. But even under that scheme, Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers told The New York Times last summer that electricity rates would rise by 40 percent in the first year to cover his utility’s $2 billion outlay for credits. So a 100 percent auction could increase electricity bills for Duke’s 4 million customers by 160 percent — meaning a $100 monthly electric bill becomes, perhaps, a $260 monthly bill. Based on these calculations, a family of four that pays more than $40 per month for electricity — that is, every family — is a net loser under President Obama’s plan.
And those are the potential increases for just your electric bill. Not included are other likely price hikes for goods and services — gasoline, food, travel, etc. — that will necessarily be passed along to consumers. As you can readily see, your share of President Obama’s auction proceeds don’t come close to breaking even on greenhouse gas regulation.
Maybe you’re thinking that these extra costs are worth it as they will be dwarfed by the environmental benefits of tackling the much-dreaded global warming.
Think again. There will be no detectable or tangible benefits from reduced greenhouse gas emissions.
First, carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas targeted by regulation is invisible, colorless and odorless. Since it exists in the atmosphere at levels measured in the parts per million, unless you’re a plant that needs CO2 to live, you’re not going to notice it.
Next, there is no evidence that human emissions of carbon dioxide are causing detectable changes, much less any harm, to the climate. Check out my YouTube video on this issue:
San Franciscans have recently been finding themselves in the uncomfortable position of riding around on public buses plastered with the words “ISLAM - Submission to God.” I say “uncomfortable&rdqu o; because San Francisco is famously amongst the most secular and non-religious cities in the nation. But there has been nary a peep of comment or protest about these ubiquitous in-your-face ads, which are shown here in photos taken on March 2 in San Francisco.
Such was not the case a few weeks ago in Ft. Lauderdale, however, which is one of the cities where the ads first appeared on buses. As reported in the Miami Herald, Fort Lauderdale mayor Jim Naugle joined a protest against the same ad campaign. While the protest did not succeed in getting the ads removed, it highlighted the fact the the ads were co-sponsored by the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) — a fact which can be easily confirmed with a little research: The ads themselves link to www.whyislam.org, which states at the bottom of the page that it is a project of ICNA; ICNA’s local chapter has a page on its own site about creating the ISLAM ad campaign in San Francisco; that page also lists CAIR as a co-sponsor (along with many other Muslim groups); and CAIR’s own site “Calling Islam” has many photos, links, and press releases about the ad campaign on its home page. So there’s no question that the ads are an ICNA and CAIR co-project.
The goal of ICNA shall be to seek the pleasure of Allah (SWT) through the struggle of Iqamat-ud-Deen (establishment of the Islamic system of life) as spelled out in the Qur’an and the Sunnah of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)
The phrase “establishment of the Islamic system of life” means living under sharia (Islamic law) in a caliphate (Islamic political structure). Even the briefest of Web searches turns up any number of links about ICNA which show that it is among the most extreme of all fundamentalist Islamic groups in the United States.
But even more noteworthy is the involvement of CAIR in this concerted effort at dawah (Islamic proselytizing). CAIR derives its political credibility from supposedly being a respectable civil rights nonprofit organization:
CAIR’s literature describes the group as a “leading advocate for justice and understanding”, a mission which includes promoting the understanding of Islam, and protecting Muslim civil liberties. Their stated core principles include supporting freedom of religion, protecting the civil rights of everyone, and encouraging inter-faith dialogue.
But as their association with ICNA and this ad campaign now reveals, CAIR’s real goal is to convert Americans to Islam — with the eventual goal of turning the United States into a fully Islamic society (i.e. one operating under sharia).
There’s nothing wrong or illegal about religious groups trying to convert non-believers, but such activities become unethical when the groups try to pass themselves off as something else entirely — for example, when Scientologists set up innocent-looking “personality assessment” and “stress testing” booths in shopping malls, or when CAIR tries to pretend that it is a civil rights organization.
Go read the rest, and see the photos at Zombietime
The Japanese government could deploy two arsenal ships equipped with the latest Aegis radar system and interceptor Standard Missile in the East Sea if North Korea continues to prepare for a missile test, the Kyodo news agency reported Tuesday citing a senior official at the Japanese Ministry of Defense.
But Kyodo added if a North Korean missile targets the United States, it will be difficult for Japan's SM-3 to intercept it.
Tokyo warned North Korea it would intercept not only missiles but also a satellite launched by the communist country. The Sankei Shimbun quoted Japanese Minister of Defense Yasukazu Hamada as saying, "It is natural to react to even a satellite if it can cause serious damage when it falls down to Japan."
Based on the progress of North Korea's preparations, Japan's Defense Ministry predicts the missile test will happen in mid-March, the Sankei said.
A long pipe which appears to be used to supply fuel was detected near a base in North Hamgyong province by a spy satellite, and it is highly likely that North Korea will start putting fuel into the launch rocket between Thursday and Saturday. Once the fuel is in, the launch must happen before the fuel begins to decay, probably no later than mid-March.
Rep. Hastings is the ranking member on the House Natural Resources Committee.
Using a massive $410 billion spending bill as a cloak, Democrat leaders in Congress have been caught attempting to create almost limitless new federal powers to regulate climate change without any public notice, public comment, or public debate. The provision slipped into this bill would allow the Department of Interior to regulate all greenhouse gas emissions across the entire country based on the listing of the polar bear as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
Democrats are distorting the intention of the ESA to give the federal government vast new climate change powers, and are trying to do it behind the backs of the American people by exempting their actions from multiple federal laws requiring public notice and participation in government decisions.
What is especially alarming is the significant threat this provision poses to job creation and our economy. All economic activity that results in greater greenhouse gas emissions would be in jeopardy of lawsuits. To illustrate the far-reaching potential economic consequences of this provision, it could even be used to stall, halt or block the “shovel ready” job-creating projects in the trillion dollar economic stimulus bill.
Unfortunately, House Democrats would not allow me to offer an amendment to strike out this provision. It’s now up to the Senate to take action this week to remove this dangerous language.
We all want to conserve and protect the polar bear. There’s no argument on that point. This provision, however, is not about the polar bear, but rather using the listing of the polar bear as a threatened species in order to regulate greenhouse gas activities throughout the U.S.
As the Washington Post commented last year, “Though the polar bear deserves protection, the Endangered Species Act is not the means and the Fish and Wildlife Service is not the agency to arrest global warming.”
Under this provision, any project or action that increases carbon dioxide or greenhouse gas emissions could face potential lawsuits if they do not consult with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service regarding potential impacts on global warming and harm of the polar bear. In certain circumstances, the Fish & Wildlife Service could stop the activity.
This reaches far beyond the scope of polar bears in the Arctic and could put jobs and economic activity across the entire nation at risk. Projects that could be targeted include energy production, agricultural practices, increases in livestock numbers, or construction of new buildings and infrastructure projects such as schools, roads and bridges.
Think about it. A new factory that will create jobs is going to be built in the Midwest, do they really need to seek permission from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to ensure that construction won’t harm polar bears in Alaska?
This provision threatens the creation of new jobs in every state and can do real harm to our already troubled economy.
But don’t take my word for it. In 2007, an environmental group published an article explaining a strategy on how to use Endangered Species Act lawsuits to stop individual projects emitting greenhouse gases. It selected the polar bear as a test case because it is a “high-profile&rdquo ; species, an “iconic example” of a species that causes a “media frenzy.”
Democrats evidently know this provision is extremely controversial, so they slipped it into this spending bill without any hearing, debate, or consideration by the Natural Resources Committee. Evidently, Congress is not to be entrusted with an open and transparent process to consider the Democrats’ proposal to regulate greenhouse gas emissions in the midst of the worst economic recession in decades.
This policy rider has no business being snuck into law through this massive spending bill. It deserves to be debated, and it deserves to be taken out of this legislation before it’s enacted.
Last week, the junior Democrat senator from Alaska wrote to Senate Democrat leadership expressing his deep concern and objections to this provision, stating that it should be removed from this legislation. That’s exactly what should be done, and I encourage everyone to contact your senators and tell them to oppose this Democrat grab for vast new climate change powers.
