Monday, April 30, 2012

Not-So-Green Green Jobs

When people are employed to clean up HazMat sites left in the wake of another Obama debacle, do these count as ‘green jobs’??

The Obama administration funded Solyndra to the tune of $500MM in taxpayer funds.  It promptly went belly up, leaving behind a giant mess and a half a billion dollar hole in our pockets.

The also left behind a huge HazMat site:

MILPITAS (CBS 5)Three months ago, CBS 5 caught Solyndra tossing millions of dollars worth of brand new glass tubes used to make solar panels. Now the bankrupt solar firm, once touted as a symbol of green technology, may be trying to abandon toxic waste. . . .

CBS 5 found the building locked up, with no one around. At the back, a hazardous storage area was found. There were discarded buckets half filled with liquids and barrels labeled “hazardous waste.”
The building’s owner, a company called iStar, claimed in court documents, “there may be serious environmental, health and safety issues” at the premises. According to the documents, they include, “numerous containers of solvents and chemicals. . . and processing equipment contaminated with lead.”

 
This exposes a few things that the Left would rather not let you see:

Green Technology Ain't So Green:  The Left likes to tout solar and wind as the 'energy of future' that does little or no damage to the environment.  We already know that wind power is useless because power companies cannot rely upon it and have to keep an equivalent amount of carbon-based generation running at all times to make up for the variability of output.  Plus the blades of the wind turbines mince up a few hundred thousand birds every year, including raptors on the endangered species list.  This is a net-negative to the environment no matter how you slice it.... (what, too soon?)

Solar panels are supposed to be benign, passive devices that reduce our impact on the planet. Now we see that the processes used to manufacture them are soaked in hazardous chemicals. So much for being green.

Green Jobs Are a Myth:  We 'invested' $500MM in Solyndra which went bankrupt less than 2 years later.  It created a few thousand 'green jobs' for a few months before the fraudulent business model doomed the enterprise.  It would have been cheaper just have given each employee a few hundred thousand and told them to take the year off.  We would be $250MM ahead, and without a giant mess to clean up.

Government can Invest Wisely: It should be obvious by now that private investors jump on all the 'good' ideas early.  Many of these ventures go broke anyway.   By the time Solyndra came begging at the public trough they had already been turned down by every private venture fund and every bank.   There was a reason that no one would fund it: It was a bad idea.  The business model for Solyndra was broken, new technology had superseded it.  It was doomed to fail and no rational investor would touch it.   But that did not stop the Obama administration from pouring a half billion down that sewer.  It is easy to bet wrongly when you are betting other people's money. 

Political investment with other people's money will NEVER work. 


Green People Ain't So Green:  The executives Solyndra were on a crusade to free mankind from the shackles of carbon based energy.  They would sacrifice everything and stop at nothing to make the planet a little greener.  Unless, of course, they were going to lose some money. Then they don't have quite as much environmental fervor. 

Team Obama set up the loans so that the equity investors got paid back first (unheard of in non-fraudulent loans, by the way).  Now that the 'green investors' might have to pay to clean up the HazMat mess they left behind, they run away screaming like selfish children that they should not be held accountable.

It seems their devotion to the planet is closely aligned with their personal financial interests. If they can be 'green' in a get rich quick scheme, they are all in.  But the moment that they might lose money, they run for the exits, leaving the taxpayers to foot the bill.



Saturday, April 28, 2012

Obama Bans Free Speech, No One Notices

President Obama recently signed into law a measure that effectively ends First Amendment protections for political speech.  The law says that it is now a felony to protest in the vicinity of anyone that is under Secret Service protection.

Given that the Secret Service protects a number of people, and that the President has the authority to grant protection to anyone at any time, this is a major limitation to free speech. 




The fact that this is a felony charge is outrageous.  

A felony conviction means:
  • You can never vote again for the rest of your life
  • You can never own a gun again for the rest of your life
  • You will have a felony on your record whenever you apply for a job
  • You will have 'one strike' down in states that have Three Strikes laws, potentially sending you to prison for the rest of your life.
  • Professional licenses such as lawyer, doctor, plumber, hairdresser can all be revoke due to felony convictions
In effect, your life is completely shattered by a felony conviction.

All because you happened to say something when the Secret Police Service are nearby.

This law has enormous potential for abuse. 

The enforcement of the law is at the discretion of the protectee.  This means that the President can order the arrest of his enemies, while tolerating the protests of his pals. 

When Joe Biden was booed at a parade last summer it was shrugged off as a sign of the general discontent of the people.  Today, the Secret Service can sweep into the crowd and arrest people for the thought-crime of booing the person that is under their protection.

When Michelle Obama got booed at a baseball game recently it was embarrassing for the First Lady.  Now she has the power to order the mass arrests of everyone in the stadium.

This is no different than the secret police in North Korea arresting people for the crime of not crying hard enough when the Dear Leader passed away.

I used to be optimistic that the Supreme Court would strike down nonsense like this. But the court has been very unreliable on matters of free speech.

The way the laws are interpreted currently, strippers and degenerate artists dunking things in urine enjoy unlimited First Amendment protections, but people taking out political ads and holding political protests are subject to arrest at any time.

We are standing by and watching the dismantling of America, the stripping of our Liberties, and the end of our way of life.












Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Lovelock Lied, People Died

Global Warming's leading 'scientist' has finally come clean -- he was lying the entire time.

From MSNBC:
James Lovelock, the maverick scientist who became a guru to the environmental movement with his “Gaia” theory of the Earth as a single organism, has admitted to being “alarmist” about climate change and says other environmental commentators, such as Al Gore, were too.
 http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/23/11144098-gaia-scientist-james-lovelock-i-was-alarmist-about-climate-change?lite:

He goes on to admit that he has no idea what is really going on with the climate:

The problem is we don’t know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago. That led to some alarmist books – mine included – because it looked clear-cut, but it hasn’t happened,” Lovelock said.

“All right, I made a mistake.”

So here we have one of the leading experts in Climate Change admitting that he was wrong, and that his claims are wildly overblown.  He also names names, pointing out that Al Gore and other's claims are grossly exaggerated and false.

Can we put a fork in this topic yet?

Seriously. 

Apparently not:
This self-evident truth is not enough to stop the true believers in Climate Change.  Just today President Obama announced that he wants to spend $700MM to combat Global Warming in Africa.

This would be insanity if we had the $700MM laying around with nothing better to so with it.  In a time when when are running trillion dollar deficits, it is beyond insane, it is tantamount to treason.

When we are taking resources out of the private economy and squandering it on global warming studies and other crap, and when we are create carbon taxes and dump cash into solar companies that go bankrupt within weeks of being funded, we are destroying the economy and making us all poorer.

When money diverted into cars that won't drive and wind turbines that won't spin, we lose the chance to invest in lifesaving drugs, or to buy a better air conditioning unit, or save for the future.

When that happens people die.  Life expectancy is correlated to wealth, and when you destroy wealth people die younger.

Since the Left likes stupid chants, perhaps they can shout this one when then gather for their next inane protest:

Lovelock Lied, People Died

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Republicans are Better People, and Smarter, too.

As if it was not enough that studies show Republicans are better human being than Democrats, now we know Republicans are better informed as well.

From the Daily Caller:
Yet another new survey shows that Republican supporters know more about politics and political history than Democrats.

On eight of 13 questions about politics, Republicans outscored Democrats by an average of 18 percentage points, according to a new Pew survey “Partisan Differences in Knowledge.”
The Pew survey adds to a wave of surveys and studies showing that GOP-sympathizers are better informed, more intellectually consistent, more open-minded, more empathetic and more receptive to criticism than their fellow Americans who support the Democratic Party.

“Republicans fare substantially better than Democrats on several questions in the survey, as is typically the case in surveys about political knowledge,” said the study, which noted that Democrats outscored Republicans on five questions by an average of 4.6 percent.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/04/22/science-say-gop-voters-better-informed-open-minded/#ixzz1spOMgOdP


There have been many studies in the past that have shown Republicans are better, more compassionate, more civic minded people than the Democrats.

Republicans vote more often, contribute more to charity, contribute more to charity even if you exclude donations to religious organizations, donate blood more often, coach little league more often, and beat their wives less often.   OK, so, I made that last one up, but the point is that in every dimension that defines actual compassion and humanity, Republicans trounce Democrats.

It comes as no surprise that that Republicans are better informed.  We have the facts, truth, logic, and history on our side.  They have emotion, greed, and envy on their side.

Since the cannot win a debate or even prevail in a friendly conversation without any facts or logic, their only recourse is to call you names, shout you down, or refuse to talk to you: 

A Republican tries to speak on a college campus: Shout them down, ban them, or throw pies at them.

A Republican proposes a reasonable budget (something Democrats have failed to do for three years: call him a racist, create ads showing him pushing old women off cliffs, and denounce him as a zealot.

A Republican points out that Obama has not been a very effective President based on the economy, foreign policy, and the deficit: call him a racist, accuse him of using racial code words to hide his racism, and call him a racist.

Time to face the facts, Democrats: Republicans are better people, and smarter, too.



LIberal's Idea of Helping: Get someone else to help

Tipper Gore is a typical rich Liberal.  She cruises around in limos, lives in mansions, and feels morally superior to the rest of us.

Gore, like many Liberals, adopts pet causes and makes an ostentatious display of 'caring' and helping all while personally doing very little other than showing up at parties and testifying before Congress.

This behavior is the exact opposite of true charity and reveals the spiritual and moral depravity of the Left.

From the Post Gazette:
Gore, who is the wife of former Vice President Al Gore, started work as an advocate for the homeless in the mid-1980s, after her children -- who were in grade school at the time -- asked her about a homeless woman they saw on the street.

They wondered how they could help the woman and asked why she had no home. Eventually, Gore decided to take action.

"In their childhood innocence, they were absolutely right," she said. "There's a moral imperative for all of us to end homelessness."

Gore herself bragged in speeches that her daughters caught sight of a homeless woman from their limo one day, and demanded that they stop and help.  Tipper, presumably horrified at the thought of bringing a filthy stinking alcoholic inside their little bubble, suggested an alternative. 

She had the girls write letters to Congress about the plight of the homeless and demanded that something be done.   That's right.  She can't be bothered to slow down and offer the woman some Grey Poupon, but she can demand Congress take action!

Note the word 'eventually'. This means she left that woman to die in the gutter, and when it was convenient, she decided to take decisive action and write some beautifully crafted letters on her very expensive personally engraved stationary. 


Charity begins in other people's wallets!!!  -- Tipper Gore*
Sure enough, Congress responded by increased funding for the homeless, and Tipper Gore set up a foundation to receive these grants and begin the arduous task of aiding these poor creatures. 

With other people's time and money, of course.

This is the definition of Liberal compassion: speed past the homeless laying in the gutter, but demand that taxpayers pony up some of their hard earned cash so you can grab some headlines as the 'defender of the homeless'.

Real charity would have looked very different.  Real charity would have been to stop the limo and save that woman at your own expenses and in your own home.  And to never speak a word about it in public.

Instead, Gore confuses compulsion for charity, and fawning headlines for good deeds.  She thinks that by forcing you, the taxpayer, to give your money to the homeless that she is the paragon of virtue.

The opposite is true.  She is a selfish, immoral harpy who lives off of self-promotion and stealing credit from other people.

In other words, she is a Democrat.





*Note from our attorney: Not an actual quote.

Saturday, April 14, 2012

A Night to Regulate

Chris Berg claims that a failure of regulations sank the Titanic. (The Real Reason for the Tragedy of the Titanic, Friday April 13)

This is narrowly true, but it misses the real point and allows us to draw the wrong conclusions.

The disaster was caused not because the regulations were too lax, but because the regulations existed at all.

What happens in the real world is that the regulatory 'minimums' become the maximums as well. When the designers of the Titanic were determining the number of life boats the conversation centered on what was required, not what was prudent or safe.

The presence of the regulations relieved the builders and designers of the burden of reason and thought. They did not build the ship to be safe, only to comply with the safety regulations.

Thus a a great tragedy was born. 1,500 people perished in the cold dark waters of the North Atlantic, but the myth of 'safety regulations' lives on.



Regulations are pure evil.  They do nothing to increase actual safety.  And many regulations are shown to decrease safety.  CAFE standards for vehicle mileage lowering vehicle mass and increasing death is the classic example.

Regulations are the slow gentle path to tyranny.  The people become accustomed to government officials hold power over every aspect of their lives.

It is hard to reconcile the idea that we are a free people when you look at the hundreds of thousands of pages of Federal, State, and local regulations that govern every aspect of our lives.

From the mundane to the inane, regulations have been slowly destroying our liberties for over a century.  

Monday, April 9, 2012

Here it comes!

Several months ago I told you that Romney was unelectable, and that the Democrats would use his Mormon faith against him.

Well, here it comes....

Senator: '[Obama] Going to Throw the Mormon Church at [Romney] Like You Can’t Believe It'
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/senator-obama-going-throw-mormon-church-romney-you-can-t-believe-it_635549.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

I hate being right all the time.

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Destruction of the Country, Obama Style


There have been rivers of cyber ink spilled discussing Obama's apparent campaign to destroy the country. Most of it has really been a discussion of opposing philosophies. Socialism against Capitalism. Progressivism opposed to Conservatism.
It has been easy to view many of the things he has done as destructive, even anti-American.
  • Race baiting
  • Class warfare
  • Disrespect for he rule of law
  • Ruinous deficit spending
  • Coddling of terrorist and terrorism
But there has been little evidence of a naked assault on the core values of the country.
Until now.
He is launching a direct assault on the separation of powers and the very foundations our Republic.
The Supreme Court is poised to undo the crowning achievement of his administration: Obamacare. Rather than accept the fact the Constitution does not permit the Federal government to wield such powers, he and is allies in the media and the congress have launched an unprecedented assault on the court.
           PRESIDENT OBAMA: So there is not only an economic element and a legal element to this, but there is a human element to this, and I hope that is not forgotten in this political debate. Ultimately, I am confident the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a Democratically-elected Congress. I just remind conservative commentators that for years we have heard the biggest problem on the bench was judicial activism or a lack of judicial restraint. That an unelected group of people would somehow return or overturn a duly constituted and passed law. Here’s a pretty good example. Well, I am confident that this court will recognize that and not take that step. As I said, we are confident this will be over, this will be upheld. As I said, we are confident this will be upheld because it should be upheld. Again, that’s not just my opinion. That’s the opinion of a whole lot of constitutional law professors and academics and judges and lawyers who have examined this law, even if they’re not particularly sympathetic to this particular piece of legislation or my presidency.
  
Said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D), a former attorney general of Connecticut. “The court commands no armies, it has no money; it depends for its power on its credibility. The only reason people obey it is because it has that credibility. And the court risks grave damage if it strikes down a statute of this magnitude and importance, and stretches so dramatically and drastically to do it.”

The Cover of Newsweek: Will the Supreme Court Bertay Us?
 
This is disgusting behavior from Obama and his allies. They routinely applaud when the courts overturn laws they do not like. If he really believes this he is profoundly ignorant of the Constitution. Since he supposedly taught Constitutional Law at Columbia, ignorance of the content of the document he is sworn to uphold is unlikely.
Which leave the obvious: he knows full well what the Constitution provides, but he does not like the limitation on his power. And therefore he aims to destroy the Supreme Court.
He and his allies are waging a war with two objectives:
  • Intimidate the court into keeping the law on the books
  • Create a campaign narrative that somehow the will of the people has been usurped by a small group of 1 percenters.
It is understandable that he would want to keep the law from being overturned, and he wants to get reelected. To do this by diminishing the authority and the position of one of the other branches of government is in excusable.


Sunday, April 1, 2012

Worst Demagogue Ever

President Obama is surely the worst demagogue we have had as a President.  Ever.

He seems incapable of normal speech and reasoning.  Everything out of his mouth is warped and twisted to the point of being the opposite of the truth.

For example:
Via Beltway Confidential:

Obama said that Republicans have “one message and that is, we’re going to make sure that we cut people’s taxes even more — so that by every objective measure our deficit is worse and we will slash government investments that have made this country great,” he argued, “not because it’s going to balance the budget, but because it’s driven by our ideological vision about how government should be. That’s their agenda, pure and simple.”


Government investments have made this country great? 

Silly me.  All along I thought it was Freedom and Capitalism that made this country great.

But before we discuss that, let's look at his other points:


"one message and that is, we’re going to make sure that we cut people’s taxes even more"

The Ryan budget includes tax cuts.  But it also includes spending cuts.  Not enough spending cuts, mind you, but they are there.  To claim that Republicans have one message is a lie.


"so that by every objective measure our deficit is worse"

The Reagan tax cuts produced record receipts to the Federal Treasury.  The Clinton tax cuts produce a surplus.  Tax revenues are at historical averages.  20% of GDP or so.  It is spending that has risen out of control at 27% of GDP. To claim that tax cuts increase the deficit 'by every objective measure' is a lie.


"will slash government investments that have made this country great"

The only 'investments' the government has made that can be argued as increasing our greatness are roads, bridges, and dams.  These actually do add value, even if they are not exactly Constitutional. The Republicans have not proposed cuts to the highway program. Even if they did, the highway bill is such a small fraction of the budget that it would not make our deficit materially worse.  To claim that Republicans will "slash government investments that have made this country great" is a double lie.

Obama has proposed a budget that was such a farce it was voted down 414 to 0.  That's right.  Not a singly Representative voted in favor of his budget.   Not ONE.  Not even the looniest Democrat in the House would go on record as supporting Obama's budget.

The Democrat controlled Senate has not proposed or passed a budget in over three years.

So Republicans produce a plan while the Democrats do not.  Ryan proposes budget that gains support from his own party at least.  Obama proposes such a ridiculous budget that NO ONE votes for it. 

Who are the ideologues, Mr. Obama?  Who is agenda driven, pure and simple?

Worst.  President. Ever.