Why Renewable Energy Is Simply A Boondoggle

By William Teach June 21, 2012 – 11:59 am

Andy’s Rant exposes the true cost of energy (via The Climate Nonconformist)

Whilst the Carbon Tax is as welcome as a turd in a swimming pool, there is no doubt whatsoever that the bipartisan support for the 20% Renewable Energy Target (RET) is the real culprit in allowing the price of power to skyrocket. The RET is illogical and economically reckless. Why Abbott and his shadow cabinet think its worth staying committed to the 20% RET is just mind boggling.

Below are the statistics on the cost of power generation in 2010 from the Australian Government’s own Productivity Commission:

  • Coal fired power station $79 per kw/h (kilowatt/hour)
  • Gas fired power station $97 per kw/h – or 1.2 times the cost of coal power
  • Wind power $1,502 per kw/h – or 19 (nineteen) times the cost of coal power
  • Solar power $4,004 per kw/h – or 50 (fifty) times the cost of coal power

You don’t need to be Einstein to work out that the high cost of Wind and Solar is the reason the public are being screwed with high electricity prices. The Carbon Tax just adds further pain.

No, you don’t. You just have to be a rational thinking person, which obviously leaves most Warmists out.

Read: Why Renewable Energy Is Simply A Boondoggle »

Posted in Energy, Global Warming | 5 Comments | Trackback URL

Right Wing News Features The 20 Hottest Conservative Women

By William Teach June 21, 2012 – 11:56 am

Go check it out here.

Read: Right Wing News Features The 20 Hottest Conservative Women »

Posted in Conservativism | 1 Comment | Trackback URL

High Court’s Decision On ObamaCare Could Seriously Bum Out Progressives

By William Teach June 21, 2012 – 8:19 am

Awwwwwww, what a shame

(The Hill) A Supreme Court decision striking down President Obama’s healthcare law would be a blow not just to Obama, but to the decades-long push for universal healthcare.

As most realize, that is what ObamaCare is about: a step towards putting the federal government in charge of the health care decisions of 300,000,000+ Americans. It doesn’t work very well in nations with a fraction of the US’s population, and would be worse here, where the federal government is barely responsive to The People as it is.

Universal coverage has been a staple of the progressive movement since Theodore Roosevelt ran for president. To finally realize that dream, only to have it taken away just two years later, would be an especially bitter defeat even for a movement that has seen its share of disappointment.

They’ve seen their share of disappointment because the majority of Americans realize that Progressives stand for Big Government tyranny and not only intrusion, but control of individual lives.

The politics of healthcare are already treacherous. Democrats lost the House in 1994 partly because they failed to pass a healthcare bill, then lost it again in 2010 because they succeeded. Now the Supreme Court could help deny Obama a second term while also wiping out the policy that came at such a steep price.

It’s so treacherous that Democrats mostly avoided discussing ObamaCare in the run-up to the 2010 midterms, and are mostly ignoring it now. Poll after poll show that the American People do like a few parts of the bill, but are mostly against the whole thing, which they deem goes way too far, interfering with their health care decisions, involves the federal government too much, and will raise costs and cause their companies to drop their insurance offerings. And the darned sure do not like the federal government forcing them to purchase health insurance or be fined.

If that happens, it’s easy to see why elected officials might view healthcare as a bad use of political capital.

“It will make the process of providing healthcare for the American people even more difficult,” said Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), who leads the House Progressive Caucus.

And there’s part of the problem: Progressives think they it’s the job of the government to provide healthcare, even if it means that the healthcare quality will be reduced and waiting times will increase exponentially, just like in countries with socialized healthcare systems. They think it’s their job to be daddy for everyone and make the decisions.

There’s no way the Mandate stands. Obviously, most of the Liberals will ignore the Constitution and the horrible arguments from Obama’s lawyers in front of the Supreme Court and vote to uphold the Mandate. The federal government was never meant to have this much power, as the Framers knew that such an all-encompassing federal government would be unresponsive to the American people, hence the reason most of the power was reserved for the States and the People. Remember, most of the original states were the size of most European countries. That’s why they are called “states”. As in “nation-states”. As in “chief of state”.

Read: High Court’s Decision On ObamaCare Could Seriously Bum Out Progressives »

Posted in Current Affairs, Healthcare, Liberal World | 2 Comments | Trackback URL

Holder Contempt Vote Forces Media To Finally Cover Fast And Furious

By William Teach June 21, 2012 – 7:28 am

Ever since Operation Fast and Furious came out, most of the media have avoided mentioning the scandal as much as possible, and, yes, it is a scandal. The operation was bad enough in that the federal government was making straw purchases of guns and sending them across the border without alerting the Mexican government with no intention to actually track said guns. As a result, at least two federal agents and over 300 Mexicans have been killed with guns linked to F&F. Then the stonewalling began. Had Eric Holder been a Republican appointee, the media would have been all over this. One of the few to cover it was CBS News, mostly due to the work of Sharyl Attkinson.

When the minor Valerie Plame affair came up, it was wall to wall coverage, even though everyone pretty much knew who leaked her name. And no one died. F&F? Barely a peep.

The leading US newspaper, the New York Times, has a whopping nine articles that reference F&F since this began in late 2010. Today, the editorial board has, unshockingly, come out and said that this is a “useless partisan fight.” Because getting to the root of how two federal agents died due to a botched DOJ operation and what the Attorney General knew after so much stonewalling is obviously a bad idea.

ABC News, MSNBC, the LA Times, and so on have now all been forced to cover this issue as front page stories and during their national news broadcasts, (though ABC News led with the NE heatwave on the day a House committee held the AG in contempt) which will make people say “hmmmm, what’s this all about, and why would Congress hold the AG in contempt?” Many of the media reports and op-eds are negative, saying the Republicans are big meanies and there is no point to investigating this issues, which will make people do a Google search for F&F, learning about the whole sordid affair. The Washington Post points out that invoking “executive privilege” exposes Obama 5 months out from the November elections

President Obama’s decision Wednesday to assert executive privilege to shield his attorney general and the Justice Department from congressional investigators reignited a long-running Washington debate over the limits of White House power in which Obama has argued both sides.

In 2007, Obama, then a senator with higher ambitions, chided President George W. Bush for employing his executive authority to block then-senior White House adviser Karl Rove from testifying before Congress in a scandal involving the firing of nine U.S. attorneys.

Speaking to CNN host Larry King, Obama declared that the Bush administration had a tendency to “hide behind executive privilege every time there’s something a little shaky that’s taking place.”

Obama urged Bush to consider “coming clean,” adding that “the American people deserve to know what was going on there.”

On Wednesday, his role had changed, but the debate was the same: Republican were asking what exactly Obama was trying to hide by invoking his right to executive privilege for the first time. The administration is refusing to turn over documents related to the Justice Department’s “Fast and Furious” operation, which involved the flow of illegal guns to Mexico. A House committee on Wednesday voted to find Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. in contempt of Congress for failing to turn over the documents.

One has to wonder, why exactly did the Obama administration invoke executive privilege? This is primarily used for national security issues. And it will make people wonder what they’re hiding

That might be the legal definition, but the political calculus for the White House is whether what Obama is seeking to keep private is more damaging to him than failing to publicly disclose the documents.

Only around 8% of the relevant documents have been made available to Congress, in a fight that could have been ended had Eric Holder been forthcoming during the initial investigation. One also has to wonder if Team Obama has decided to use the potential contempt charges against Holder and the subsequent use of executive privilege as yet another way to attack Congress with a shiny object distraction campaign. Team Obama really doesn’t want to discuss the track the US is heading down, which ends in disaster.  But, if Team Obama tries to demonize Congressional Republicans, and by extent, Mitt Romney, over this contempt vote, it will backfire, as the American citizens will get massive doses of this fight within the media which will be forced to cover the issue, and they will want to know exactly why those guns were walked across the border and why the operation was covered up. And why the AG and Obama White House are refusing to cooperate with the investigation.

Even coming out and saying “this is no big deal, Republicans are big meanies”, the media will be forced to highlight what happened with F&F. Dana Milbank attempts to take the side of Obama and Holder, and unintentionally exposes just why Holder needs to be held in contempt.

More: referring back to the NY Times editorial mentioned near the beginning, Doug Mataconis at Outside The Beltway contrasts it with an editorial along the same lines from 2007, which was all for contempt charges. Doug asks “what could have changed?”

I find it interesting that liberals like those at the Times seem to have no problem with the Attorney General for the USA stonewalling and misleading Congress if said AG, the top cop in the nation, is a Democrat.

Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.

Read: Holder Contempt Vote Forces Media To Finally Cover Fast And Furious »

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Girl Who Took Long Unnecessary Fossil Fueled Flight Tells Rio+20 To “Do Something”

By William Teach June 20, 2012 – 6:14 pm

I mentioned before how a New Zealand girl, Brittany Trilford, won a trip to attend the Rio+20 taxpayer funded vacation conference and speak to them, writing

Said trip (both ways) from New Zealand to Rio would produce over 6,100 pounds of CO2. The average citizen of the world puts out 4 tons of CO2. That means that this one trip for a 3 minute video puts out 3/4ths of what most world citizens put out per year.

Here’s how it went, via Treehugger

What would you say if given the opportunity to tell world leaders your thoughts on climate change? For 17 year-old New Zealander, Brittany Trilford, that opportunity became a reality this morning at the Rio+20 Earth Summit. Invited to provide the opening speech, Trilford delivered a polite, but stern address to the 130 heads of state and representatives in attendance. Her demand: Do something.

Here’s part of her speech

“I stand here with fire in my heart, though I’m a bit bushed from my long unnecessary fossil fueled flight. I’m confused and angry at the state of the world and having had to walk from the airport instead of being picked up in a limo and I want us to work together now to change this. We’ve all taken unnecessary fossil fueled to solve the problems that we have caused by taking unnecessary fossil fueled flights as a collective, to ensure that we have a future in which Other People are charged ridiculous amounts if they are allowed take unnecessary fossil fueled flights.

You and your governments have promised to reduce poverty and sustain our environment by taxing the bejesus out of individuals who dare charge their iPhones, like this one in my pocket. You have already promised to combat climate change, ensure clean water and food security, and that’s a pretty awesome spread you have out in the reception room. Is that Chilean Sea bass? Multi-national corporations have already pledged to respect the environment, green their production, compensate for their pollution, and pass the costs on to the consumers. These promises have been made and yet, still, our future is in danger from a whopping zero degrees F rise in temperatures during this century after a massive 1.4 degrees F during the 20th Century.

We are all aware that time is ticking and is quickly running out. You have 72 hours to decide the fate of your children, my children, my children’s children, but, then, you’ve already f*cked us with your debt and deficit policies that have mortgaged our futures so you could get re-elected. And I start the clock now… tck tck tck.”

Or something like that. What the speech was about was basically the usual warmist speech telling Someone Else to pay the piper, while the Warmists live high on the hog.

As Tom Nelson points out from a tweet, the audience yawned.

Read: Girl Who Took Long Unnecessary Fossil Fueled Flight Tells Rio+20 To “Do Something” »

Posted in Climahypocrites, Global Warming | 3 Comments | Trackback URL

Washington Post Frets Over Norfolk Being Flooded By Sea Level Rise And Sinking Land

By William Teach June 20, 2012 – 3:38 pm

Warmists just can’t help themselves. The sea level gauges show that, yes, there has been sea level rise since the beginning of the 20th century, above average rise, mostly because those gauges have been subsiding because Norfolk was built on sinking land. The WP even mentions in its headline that Norfolk was built on sinking ground, but, everybody panic, globull warming is causing the sea to rise!!!!!!1!!!

(Washington Post) In Norfolk, Virginia’s second-largest city, with 250,000 residents, Faella’s concerns aren’t the isolated fears of one woman living on the river’s edge. The entire city is worried. Miles of waterways that add to Norfolk’s charm are also a major threat in the era of increased global warming and relative rising sea levels, as well as its odd and unique sinking ground.

But, it has to be because someone drove an SUV.

Along the southeast coast, other cities in Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina and Florida are monitoring Norfolk’s response to the flooding, knowing they could soon face similar challenges. Low-lying Gulf and Pacific coast cities are also watching.

Except, in most of those areas, the sea level rise has been flat or well within the historical norms of the past 7,000 years, after the massive sea level rise leveled off post-ice age. But, of course, Warmists say “it could happen! Our crystal balls and tea leaves tell us so!”

Tides rise daily, but as the climate warms, seas have risen and pushed up the Chesapeake Bay around Norfolk a few inches each year, scientists said. In the spring tidal cycle, waters sometimes rise a foot or more above normal.

Worse, the ground is sinking in Tidewater, as Hampton Roads is also known. It sits in the nation’s largest known geologic impact crater, an Ice Age formation that’s causing land to drop about seven inches every century, accounting for about one-third of the sea-level change.

Except, that crater is about 35 million years old. So much for the rest of the “science” in the article.

Essentially, Norfolk sits in swampy area which has been subsiding and sees lots of erosion from being on the ocean and at the mouth of so many waterways. Much like New Orleans and Venice, it wasn’t a particularly wise place to build.

Read: Washington Post Frets Over Norfolk Being Flooded By Sea Level Rise And Sinking Land »

Posted in AGW Scaremongering, Global Warming | 3 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach June 20, 2012 – 1:00 pm

…is a fossil fueled speed boat ruining the climate, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is American Glob.

Read: If All You See… »

Posted in If All You See | 1 Comment | Trackback URL

White House Grants DOJ “Executive Privilege” On Fast And Furious Documents

By William Teach June 20, 2012 – 11:27 am

Most Transparent Administration Ever!

(Fox News) Rep. Darrell Issa said Wednesday that he is pressing ahead with a committee vote to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress, despite an 11th-hour move by President Obama to exert executive privilege over the Fast and Furious documents at the heart of the dispute.

The announcement immediately touched off a caustic debate on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, as Democrats accused Issa of prosecuting a “political witch hunt” and Republicans stepped up their criticism of Holder’s “stonewalling” over the Fast and Furious probe. Even for Washington, the tone at the hearing was decidedly bitter and accusatory.

One wonders how this will play in the media as the inform the American people of this….oh, wait, most media outlets have been ignoring F&F. Now they are having to cover this story, and the viewers have no reference. As Erika Johnson points out

Here’s another thought: Invoking executive privilege on this case is going to come off as a very dodgy and arrogant move. But the White House is willing to take on that bad press, and I can only presume that’s because whatever is in those documents… is much more damning than the alternative.

Erika also has a copy of the letter sent to Representative Issa.

It does make one wonder what Eric Holder and the Obama administration are hiding in refusing to produce all the relevant documentation. When it comes to government, there is nothing wrong with the saying “if they have nothing to hide, they would produce the documents.” Except when it is national security.

Phineas at Sister Toldjah compares this to the Nixon administration, and notes that 2 federal officials and at least 300 Mexicans have been killed due to F&F.

Michelle Malkin points out that Obama attacked the GOP over executive privilege.

The PJ Tatler offers this quote from Chuck Grassley: “How can the president assert executive privilege if there was no White House involvement? How can the president exert executive privilege over documents he’s supposedly never seen? Is something very big being hidden to go to this extreme? The contempt citation is an important procedural mechanism in our system of checks and balances,” he said.

Ace: There’s been more talk of Fast And Furious on CNN and MSNBC in the last 5 minutes than in the last year and half. All 9 of their viewers must be confused as to what this is all about and why it’s so important.

Jammie: They probably won’t need to worry. The Democrats and most of the media are on record in support of the mass murder of Mexicans thanks to Obama’s gun-running scandal.

Read: White House Grants DOJ “Executive Privilege” On Fast And Furious Documents »

Posted in Barry Obama, Current Affairs, Democrats | 5 Comments | Trackback URL

Complaint Demands Investigation Into “Climate Of Fear” At EPA

By William Teach June 20, 2012 – 8:12 am

Now, this is interesting. One of the things I have written about many times, as have others, is why there is a need for public sector unions. One of the main purposes of unions is to protect the workers from harsh bosses and companies and make sure working conditions are within excepted norms. Liberals always tell us government is super mega-awesome and benevolent, so why would we need a union for government workers? We, um, because of this, perhaps?

(Daily Caller) The Daily Caller has obtained an internal “report of violence in the workplace” notifying top officials at the Environmental Protection Agency about the abusive behavior of a political appointee close to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson.

The report and call for an independent investigation and action highlights the behavior of Stephanie Owens, an EPA deputy associate administrator in the Office of the Administrator’s Office of External Affairs and Environmental Education. It details a March 14 incident in which Owens, a political appointee, verbally attacked a bargaining unit employee to the point that the union member was afraid to return to her office — for the second time in two weeks.

The memo is dated March 15 and was penned by Steve Shapiro, the executive vice-president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Local 3331 — the largest bargaining unit at EPA. It goes on to explain that this is just one of many incidents involving Owens that have created a “climate of fear” in the department.

According to the document, while the union has officially complained about Owens’ behavior in the past, she has remained in her position and EPA has not addressed the union’s concerns about her behavior or the “climate of fear. (snip)

The document calls on the EPA to launch an “immediate, independent, credible, outside investigation” into the incident and the “climate of fear” staff has been reporting to their union. AFGE further notes that the moment the incident is corroborated, Owens should be immediately removed from the OEAEE premises — if not the entire EPA campus — until an investigation is completed.

So, the “climate of fear” has nothing to do with globull warming, but with abuse by high ranking EPA officials of which the EPA has done nothing to stop. The story goes on to highlight that many more employees feel that the political appointees are arrogant and abusive to the EPA employees.

“Communities, small businesses and others subjected to EPA’s torrent of regulations under Administrator Jackson have had to deal with their own ‘climate of fear,’” (Bonner Cohen) continued. “Now, it appears that same phenomenon prevails within the agency.”

Maybe there is a need for public sector unions in order to protect the workers from “management”, at least when Democrats are in charge.

Read: Complaint Demands Investigation Into “Climate Of Fear” At EPA »

Posted in Democrats, Enviroweenies | 4 Comments | Trackback URL

Democrat Adults Heckle Kids Singing “God Bless The USA”

By William Teach June 20, 2012 – 7:56 am

It’s hard to be shocked by anything the modern political Left does anymore. They clamor for more “civil discourse”, then go ahead and pull a stunt like this

(Examiner) On Monday, a group of about 20 children got a lesson in political speech when they were heckled by adults as they waved small flags and sang Lee Greenwood’s patriotic song, “God Bless the U.S.A.”

The children, some of whom were banned from singing the song at their graduation earlier this month, were led by Congressman and U.S. Senate hopeful Bob Turner (R-NY), who held a press conference adjacent to the school that banned the song.

Parents of Coney Island’s P.S. 90 had organized a protest to express outrage over principal Greta Hawkins’ decision to ban the song. Turner, who is running against Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), was invited by the parents.

Over to Politicker, which transcribes some of the heckling

“You Republicans come go to a Republican area and do that, we don’t do that here,” one of the several hecklers yelled out early on. “This is ridiculous, this is sad. This is so crazy. This is sad.”

“Excuse me sir, can you let the kids sing please?” Mr. Turner’s staffer interjected.

“No!” came the bolted response. “The kids don’t even know what they’re singing! They got something you tell them to say! It’s ridiculous! It’s sad, sad, sad. Y’all are going to burn in hell! You all burn in hell! Shame on you! Shame on you!”

At one point the kids start chanting “USA! USA! USA” to drown out the heckler, but that doesn’t exactly cause him to quit yelling at the crowd of small children and organizers.

Democrats should feel ashamed of themselves, heckling kids. But they won’t.

Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.

Read: Democrat Adults Heckle Kids Singing “God Bless The USA” »

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