Chance favors the prepared mind - Louis Pasteur

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Well they are getting real, real bad. Revenue is way down compared to what was collected same time last year. And remember how last year, according to the MSM, we were in a horrible recession and doomed - also Bush was in the WH, and the media had a vested interest in getting a dmeocrat elected - but are we hearing anything about how much worse things are now from them? Heh, don’t bother. They would likely blame Bush for it still. But the numbers don’t lie:





And as they project these numbers for the rest of the year, it gets even worse! The government is going to come up short. Way short.

The short story is that things are getting worse. Much worse. And while I am sure the moonbats will blame Bush, the fact is this is happening because of them. Do not forget to put this revenue shortfall into perspective either. We have borrowed $4 trillion, plan to borrow as much as $10 trillion - so far, there is room for a lot more according to the left - over the next 10 years, and that doesn’t include the healthcare takeover by government. The housing market is also still heading south, despite, or perhaps exactly because of, all the government meddling and hocus pocus. Couple that with the massive new “Cap and Tax” hike, and you are now looking at horrible economic killers. The stock market is showing that. And energy prices are coming back up. Inflation is inevitable, and when it comes it will hurt. I should mention that my credit card company yesterday sent me a notice that they were moving away from a fixed annual rate to a varying monthly interest rate that would be tied to a fixed number plus prime. This is the stuff you expect to see when people are worried about rampant inflation.

Welcome to a repeat of the Carter years!

Cross posted at Wasting time with Alex

You know America is heading in the wrong direction when the Germans figure out they need tax cuts to create economic growth, the one and only indisputable proven way to do it BTW, while in America, the nanny state where the WH regulates lighting, the new spending and taxes keep on piling on and are already seen as game changers for the 2010 elections. Seriously. Our economy is imploding, government is doing its best to make it keep heading south, people are losing work left and right, and Obama’s priority, well other than having government grab control of healthcare for everyone but democrats and politicians, is lighting efficiency standards?

WASHINGTON—Aiming to keep the focus on climate change legislation, President Barack Obama put a plug in for administration efforts to make lamps and lighting equipment use less energy. “I know light bulbs may not seem sexy, but this simple action holds enormous promise because 7 percent of all the energy consumed in America is used to light our homes and businesses,” the president said, standing alongside Energy Secretary Steven Chu at the White House.

Obama said the new efficiency standards he was announcing for lamps would result in substantial savings between 2012 and 2042, saving consumers up to $4 billion annually, conserving enough energy to power every U.S. home for 10 months, reducing emissions equal to the amount produced by 166 million cars a year, and eliminating the need for as many as 14 coal-fired power plants.

Yeah, this sure makes me believe this is about stopping AGW. My bet is GE, or some other big democrat donor, has a new light bulb that nobody really wants and the WH is going to help them sell a lot of them. In return for a nice large donation, indirectly and well hidden, to the donkey’s campaign coffers, of course. This is not the first payback for services rendered, anyway. We Americans are now subsidizing “big and greedy” corporations, the ones democrats love to demonize but then cozy up with, and making them rich. All courtesy of that massive 1500 page bill, most of it still unwritten and definitely unread, that will stick US taxpayers with a $161 billion dollar annual tax hike, the largest single tax ever levied in our history, that was passed by the house, in the dark of night and by the hairs on Pelosi’s ugly mug, while the MSM had everyone focused on Michael Jackson’s freak death. Let’s hope the bill crashes and burns in the Senate. Today it’s California, a not too distant tomorrow considering where the collectivists are taking us, it will be the U.S. of A.

Cross posted at Wasting time with Alex

Monday, June 29, 2009

One of the risks of having a glorified ward heeler in charge of the country is that sometimes the left hand won’t know what the farther left hand is doing.  Such is the case with the Obama administration.  Witness this little gem from Teleprompter Obumbles:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama said on Monday the coup that ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was illegal and would set a “terrible precedent” of transition by military force unless it was reversed.

“We believe that the coup was not legal and that President Zelaya remains the president of Honduras, the democratically elected president there,” Obama told reporters after an Oval Office meeting with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.

Why is Obama’s terminology significant?

Under U.S. law, no aid—other than for the promotion of democracy—may be provided to a country whose elected head of government has been toppled in a military coup.

And if you ACT NOW, you’ll recieve a statement from one of Obama’s cabinet members that undermines US Law, ABSOLUTELY FREE!!!! (h/t Billy Mays):

“We do think that this has evolved into a coup,” Clinton told reporters, adding the administration was withholding that determination for now.

Asked if the United States was currently considering cutting off aid, Clinton shook her head no.

The State Department said it was unable to immediately say how much assistance the United States gives Honduras.

So just like Iran, Obama is hedging his bets that somehow this will be resolved in a manner in which he doesn’t have to display the convictions expressed by his big flappy mouth, despite the fact that the military in Honduras was following a court order issued because the Zelaya was violating his own country’s laws.  He’s proved to be just as pathetic of a scholar of the Honduran constitution as he was of the American one.  Furthermore, he has stood by and hasn’t said a fucking word about Hugo the Pock-faced Howler Monkey threatening to invade Honduras, um, unilaterally.

This administration wears clown shoes 24/7.  They could pull the chimps from the Washington Zoo and the chimps would end up doing better than Obama and his three-ring circus just by sheer accident.

Among the many ways Obama is proposing to pay for his healthcare debacle is limiting the tax deductibility of some health care plans—the so-called “gold plated” plans.  Guess who, besides the politicians themselves, will be exempt from this tax.

Yup, got it in one:

The U.S. Senate proposal to impose taxes for the first time on “gold-plated” health plans may bypass generous employee benefits negotiated by unions.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, the chief congressional advocate of taxing some employer-provided benefits to help pay for an overhaul of the U.S. health system, says any change should exempt perks secured in existing collective- bargaining agreements, which can be in place for as long as five years.

The exception, which could make the proposal more politically palatable to Democrats from heavily unionized states such as Michigan, is adding controversy to an already contentious debate. It would shield the 12.4 percent of American workers who belong to unions from being taxed while exposing some other middle-income workers to the levy.

“I can’t think of any other aspect of the individual income tax that treats benefits of different people differently because of who they work for,” said Chris Edwards, director of tax policy studies at the Cato Institute, a Washington research group that often criticizes Democrats’ economic proposals. Edwards said the carve-out “smacks of political favoritism.”

Smacks?  Smacks?  This doesn’t smack of political favoritism, it’s punches in the balls.  You will hardly find a definition of political favoritism that is more precise than “we are taxing everybody except these guys”.  Those healthcare benefits, incidentally, are one of the principal factors bankrupting the automakers.

Later in the article, they defend this idea by noting that unions negotiated their healthcare benefits expecting a certain tax structure and it’s not fair to change the tax structure on them in midstream.  But that could be said of everyone.  We all negotiate our pay and benefits with certain expectations about taxes and regulations.  Many of us invest our life savings or years of work in a field expecting a certain fiscal environment. Whether this negotiation takes place collectively or individually shouldn’t make a difference.  I don’t see the Democrats getting all worked up by doctors being hurt by cuts in Medicare fees.  Or retirement funds being gutted by the Chrysler/GM bankruptcy shenanigans.

Let’s also clarify what, in the liberal mind, constitutes “gold-plated”:

The policy is aimed at so-called “gold-plated” plans such as the $40,543 in health benefits paid to Lloyd Blankfein, chief executive of New York-based Goldman Sachs Group Inc., the fifth largest U.S. bank by assets.

It can also affect companies such as Henderson, Nevada- based Zappos.com, where workers’ $11 per hour pay is supplemented by employer-paid health insurance plans worth about $7,500. Federal workers’ health benefits are worth about $4,200 for individuals and $13,000 for families.

Now think about this for a moment.  Obama’s healthcare plan—despite his claims—may make you upgrade your insurance.  If your health insurance does not meet the federal guidelines, you will have to buy a more expensive one.  And it is very likely that the mandated federal plan will be expensive.  As a State Senator, Obama voted 18 times to mandate insurance coverage of such things as laughing gas.  Massachusetts has seen healthcare costs skyrocket, in part, because they put a hard maximum of $2000 on deductibles. If Obama gets his way—with both healthcare mandates and taxes—there may be very narrow window in which you will not be taxed for your healthcare coverage.

Unless you’re a union member.

Or, I suspect, you buy into the “public option” which, as you know, is definitely not going to be subsidized by the government, no sir.

Actually, that last part make some sense.  Whatever the public option is, I expected the only “gold plating” will be on the coffins of its poor subscribers.

There is now a SCOTUS ruling on the Ricci case, and it contradicts by a 5-4 vote that ruling by Sotomayor that dismissed the complaint of the white firefighters claiming discrimination. For more details and comments check out the entry ”What Ricci says about the Supreme Court’s views of Judge Sotomayor” over on the SCOTUS Blog:

I am struck by the extent to which the majority opinion largely treats the court of appeals’ ruling as a non-event. To the contrary, Justice Kennedy almost seemingly goes out of his way not to criticize the decision below, notwithstanding that the Supreme Court takes a dramatically different view of the legal question. The Court indicates that the state of the law before today’s ruling was “a difficult inquiry,” and that its “holding today clarifies how Title VII applies.” It rejects the plaintiffs’ outright attack on the Second Circuit’s decision as “overly simplistic and too restrictive.”

Anyhow, basically the SCOTUS judges are saying that no employer can just discriminate based on race, so they can avoid lawsuits claiming racial discrimination, without real proof of said discrimination. Especially when the suits claiming racism are going to be based on flimsy accusations of racism. That’s what the city of New Haven claimed was their reason for throwing out the firefighter exams: lawsuits claiming discrimination. But what struck me as ludicrous was that while the lawyers agree, by a thin margin I guess, that Sotomayor was way off and needed to be reversed, that they did not want to hurt her feelings or come down on her stupid decision to hard? This is too much PC nonsense for me, man.

One thing I sure hope comes from this is a lot of directed questions during the Sotomayor confirmation hearing to make sure she understands what she got wrong and why. I guess that Latina woman was not as wise as she thought she was, and she needs to be reminded of that.

Cross posted at Wasting time with Alex

Sunday, June 28, 2009

While Iran’s government was cracking down on the country’s protestors for speaking out against a fraud election, Obama adopted a “watchful waiting policy.” After a week of Iran and its hired thugs murdering its citizens, Obama finally issued a milquetoast statement of “concern” that the world “would bear witness,” culminating in a disinvitation of Iranian diplomats to his July 4th weenie roast (no, that’s not where they cook Robert Gibbs and David Axelrod on a spit, more’s the pity).

Obama didn’t exactly distinguish himself as a statesman during this period, holding off on saying anything that could be construed as provocative because he didn’t want to be seen as “meddling,” while simultaneously trying promote his Cairo speech as the spark that started the protest which he refused to support.  Leftists and some conservatives praised him for this stance, saying he was “setting the right tone,” (and the number of lefties stating this on blogs was so ubiquitous it was undoubtedly issued by Axelrod’s astroturfing organizations). 

That disinclination towards meddling seems to have suddenly abandoned Obama this week, however:

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — Soldiers seized the national palace and flew President Manuel Zelaya into exile Sunday, hours before a disputed constitutional referendum. Congress appointed a successor, but Zelaya, a leftist ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, said he was the victim of an illegal coup....

Zelaya was arrested shortly before polls were to open in a referendum on whether to change the constitution. The Supreme Court ruled the referendum illegal and everyone from Congress to members of his own party opposed it. Critics said Zelaya wanted to remove limits to his re-election

Essentially, what happened was that the Honduran Supreme Court ruled that the referendum on whether Zelaya could extend his term was a violation of the country’s constitution, (Dan Collins explains it here in more detail)and when the general who would have been responsible for distributing the ballots was sacked, a court order was issued to detain Zelaya “for repeated violations of the constitution,” and he was subsequently kicked out of the country after resigning. (Fausta has been following this in great detail here--check the blog entry for his translations and links to other sources of information on this)

Seeing a fellow communist sympathizer ousted, Obama immediately sprang into action:

President Barack Obama said he was “deeply concerned” by Zelaya’s expulsion and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the arrest should be condemned.

“I call on all political and social actors in Honduras to respect democratic norms, the rule of law and the tenets of the Inter-American Democratic Charter,” Obama’s statement read.

Remember, folks, “meddling” is only okay when one of Obama’s left-wing buddies is removed for violating his country’s constitution.  Maybe the President had been hoping to get some pointers for future reference.

June has not been a good month for celebrities:

Spirited TV pitchman Billy Mays was found dead at his Tampa home earlier this morning, police said.

Mays, 50, lent his trademark booming voice to infomercials for products like OxiClean and Orange Glo.

Everyone, of course, knew Billy Mays for his VERY LOUD SALES DELIVERY STYLE, and he was mocked relentlessly for it.  He wasn’t above poking fun at himself, though, as his ESPN commercials proved.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled political fussing and fighting.

Oh, that wonderful Canadian system:

A critically-ill premature-born baby from Hamilton is all alone in a Buffalo, N.Y., hospital after she was turned away for treatment at local facility and transferred across the border without her parents, who don’t have passports.

Ava Stinson was born Thursday at St. Joseph’s Hospital, 14 weeks premature.

A provincewide search for an open neonatal intensive care unit bed came up empty, leaving no choice but to send the two pound, four ounce baby to Buffalo.

In a socialized system with sensible distribution of healthcare, I guess it doesn’t make sense to stock up on NICU beds.  Just not cost-effective you see.  Plus, I’m sure their beds are filled with all the premature American babies being smuggled across the border to take advantage of free healthcare.

I’m genuinely curious—does anyone have a story about a premature infant being turfed out of the hospital by the cold, calculating, corporate US healthcare system?  Because I personally know doctors who’ve done tens of thousands of dollars of unpaid work to save a premature uninsured baby.  What the fuck good is “universal healthcare” if you have to take your baby to a foreign country to get him critical medical care?

I just can’t wait until critical (and timely) decisions like this are made by a federal review board.  Parents will be able to avoid the sturm and drang and just watch their baby die knowing that some federal chart says that NICU isn’t worth it for a baby born that early.  Plus, if we just call the preemies stillborn, we’ll both improve our infant mortality rate and save money.

(I’ll leave aside, for the moment, out stupid Canadian passport law.)

If you want to know why, despite my environmentalist tendencies, I oppose radical action like the Waxman Bill—I mean apart from Washington’s tendency to turn even the most benign intentions into cesspools of pork, corruption, influence peddling and, according to Alex’s post, VaporLaw—here’s why:

Scientists think they have resolved one of the most controversial environmental issues of the past decade: the curious case of the missing frogs’ legs.

Around the world, frogs are found with missing or misshaped limbs, a striking deformity that many researchers believe is caused by chemical pollution.

However, tests on frogs and toads have revealed a more natural, benign cause.

The deformed frogs are actually victims of the predatory habits of dragonfly nymphs, which eat the legs of tadpoles.

Yes, the environmentalist view of nature as cute and cuddly has once again run into the reality of nature as red in tooth and claw.  Yes, it turns out that dragonflies have taste for baby frog legs.

I used to hear about this frog leg business all the time from greens.  They never had an idea of precisely what was causing the problem—just that it had to be some, like, chemicals or stuff, dude.  And it was, of course, all the fault of Reagan, Bush or Congressional Republicans, depending on who was occupying the White House at the time.

No one is in favor of pollution and I’m all for getting chemicals out our water.  But when people scream for action NOW NOW NOW NO QUESTIONS! we need to keep the frog legs in mind.  Some environmental concerns—lead, acid rain, polluted water, overfishing—are real (although rarely solved by the preferred policies of liberals).  Some—like overpopulation—are bullshit.  Thankfully, this one turned out to be bullshit.  And even more thankfully, we didn’t turn our economy upside down because someone had to do something, anything!! about the poor damned frogs.  Instead, we combined sensible enforcement of Clean Water provisions with further scientific research.

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Well we deserve what we get. It looks like that Cap and Tax bill that congress just passed, adding $161 billion dollars to what government now can waste, through the largest tax increase in American history, isn’t even written out yet! WTF??? Here is the entire text:

By all appearances, the House is about to vote on a very long bill of which it has no completed official copy. Texas Republican Reps. Joe Barton and Louie Gohmert have just asked the chair whether there exists a complete, updated copy of the Waxman-Markey carbon-cap bill. “If a bill for which there is no copy were to actually pass this body,” Barton asked, “could the bill without a copy be sent to the Senate for its consideration?”

Through a series of parliamentary inquiries, the Republicans learned that the 300-plus page managers’ amendment, added to the bill last night in the House Rules Committee, has not even been been integrated with the official copy of the 1,090-page bill at the House Clerk’s desk, let alone in any other location. The two documents are side-by-side at the desk as the clerk reads through the instructions in the 300 page document for altering the 1,090 page document.

But they cannot be simply combined, because the amendment contains 300 pages of items like this: “Page 15, beginning line 8, strike paragraph (11)...” How many members of Congress do you suppose have gone through it all to see how it changes the bill? Global Warming is apparently so urgent that we can’t even wait until members of Congress know what they’re voting on.

Did I already point out how crazy this stuff is? Can you imagine the outcry from the media and from the left if Bush had done something like this? This is not governing, this is shafting the American people before they can figure out they are being shafted. This is evil.

Cross posted at Wasting time with Alex

(*But We’re Not Going To)

What the hell, man?

The Obama administration, fearing a battle with Congress that could stall plans to close the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, is drafting an executive order that would reassert presidential authority to incarcerate terrorism suspects indefinitely, according to three senior government officials with knowledge of White House deliberations.

Such an order would embrace claims by former president George W. Bush that certain people can be detained without trial for long periods under the laws of war. Obama advisers are concerned that bypassing Congress could place the president on weaker footing before the courts and anger key supporters, the officials said.

After months of internal debate over how to close the facility in Cuba, White House officials are increasingly worried that reaching quick agreement with Congress on a new detention system may be impossible. Several officials said there is concern in the White House that the administration may not be able to close the facility by the president’s January deadline.

White House spokesman Ben LaBolt said there is no executive order and that the administration has not decided whether to issue one. But one administration official suggested that the White House was already trying to build support.

Of the many wrong-headed policies of the Bush Administration, the policy of grabbing someone—hundred or perhaps thousands of whom were innocent—and detaining them indefinitely (e.g, for years) was one of the worst and most destructive to ultimate victory in the War on Terror.  Read about Boumediene, a man who was imprisoned and likely tortured for eight years after it became clear he was not a terrorist.

If this policy is enacted—and it’s just trial balloons right now—we have a triple betrayal from Obama.  First, a betrayal of his commitment to changing detainee treatment; second a betrayal of his commitment to not doing things by executive order and restoring the primacy of Congress in determining the rules regarding prisoners (as specifically stated in the Constitution); and third, a political betrayal of empowering the neocons.  Once this policy becomes official, Obama will be smugly congratulated by the likes of Kristol and Krauthammer for finally seeing the light and vindicating their abusive and illegal policies.  I have no idea why Obama wants to be patted on the head by the poltroons, but it seems to be a desire of his.

This is very fitting with the overall trend in this Administration.  As Balko noted:

By my count (and some of this is certainly subjective) of the of the 31 promises the site says Obama has kept thus far, 20 in some way grow or expand the federal government. Just six make the government smaller, more transparent, or more accountable. The remaining five have no effect, or amount to a wash.

Of the six campaign promises PolitiFact says Obama has unquestionably broken, five would have limited his own power, provided tax breaks, or provided more accountability and transparency to the federal government. One was mostly symbolic (recognizing the Armenian genocide). So far, he hasn’t broken a single promise that would grow or expand the government, though he has compromised on a few, and many have been stalled.

...

In short, I think it’s safe to say that Obama has been willing to spend plenty of political capital on his promises that vastly expand the size and scope of the federal government, and relatively little on promises related to eliminating waste, putting limits on his own power, or making the government more transparent and accountable.

The more things “change”, the more they stay the same.

Update: As you would expect, Greenwald is all over this.  Money quote:

There has now emerged a very clear—and very disturbing—pattern whereby Obama is willing to use legal mechanisms and recognize the authority of other branches only if he’s assured that he’ll get the outcome he wants.  If he can’t get what he wants from those processes, he’ll just assert Bush-like unilateral powers to bypass those processes and do what he wants anyway.  In other words, what distinguishes Obama from the first-term Bush is that Obama is willing to indulge the charade that Congress, the courts and the rule of law have some role to play in political outcomes as long as they give him the power he wants.  But where those processes impede Obama’s will, he’ll just bypass them and assert the unilateral power to do what he wants anyway.

The bankruptcy courts spring immediately to mind.  Also, the ongoing efforts to bypass the filibuster.

Friday, June 26, 2009

It looks like John Conyers, a powerful democrat congressman and House Judiciary Committee Chairman will be abandoning his plans to probe ACORN.

Mr. Conyers, Michigan Democrat, earlier bucked his party leaders by calling for hearings on accusations the Association of Community Organization for Reform Now (ACORN) has committed crimes ranging from voter fraud to a mob-style “protection” racket. “The powers that be decided against it,” Mr. Conyers told The Washington Times. The chairman declined to elaborate, shrugging off questions about who told him how to run his committee and give the Democrat-allied group a pass. Pittsburgh lawyer Heather Heidelbaugh, whose testimony about ACORN at a March 19 hearing on voting issues prompted Mr. Conyers to call for a probe, said she was perplexed by Mr. Conyers’ explanation for his change of heart.

It took a lot of balls for Conyers to come out and go after ACORN. This group of thugs & crooks are real well connected. They are directly responsible for some shady voting that helped elect Obama president. They have also been rewarded with billions of dollars of tax payer moneys for that effort. The list of seriously questionable things they are involved in is long. So I was impressed when Conyers, a democrat himself, came out in favor of investigating them. But, while I was worried some foul play might be involved, I felt perplexed by this turn around. A little research led me to find out that Conyers’’ wife, Monica Conyers, recently pled guilty to conspiracy charges and things came together immediately.

Oh sure, this could be a coincidence, but considering the pattern set where any media that gave the Obama people a hard time was banned and the shady IG firings, just to name a few retaliatory strikes that these people have taken, you will forgive me for suspecting a connection. One I am sure the MSM isn’t interested in pursuing or researching, I bet. This is one hell of a coincidence. Can you imagine the news cycle if something like this had happened during the Bush Admin years?

Cross posted at Wasting time with Alex

As congress gets ready to rush through the biggest tax ever passed in America’s history - the hurry because congress can not afford more people to read their disastrous 1201 page bill, including their own members, for fear of the backlash - it needs to be point out that as we in America are heading for an economic disaster tied to this “Cap and Tax” bill, others are backing off.

Steve Fielding recently asked the Obama administration to reassure him on the science of man-made global warming. When the administration proved unhelpful, Mr. Fielding decided to vote against climate-change legislation. If you haven’t heard of this politician, it’s because he’s a member of the Australian Senate. As the U.S. House of Representatives prepares to pass a climate-change bill, the Australian Parliament is preparing to kill its own country’s carbon-emissions scheme. Why? A growing number of Australian politicians, scientists and citizens once again doubt the science of human-caused global warming.

Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system through Congress is because the global warming tide is again shifting. It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who disagreed with them as “deniers.” The backlash has brought the scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan and even, if less reported, the U.S

In April, the Polish Academy of Sciences published a document challenging man-made global warming. In the Czech Republic, where President Vaclav Klaus remains a leading skeptic, today only 11% of the population believes humans play a role. In France, President Nicolas Sarkozy wants to tap Claude Allegre to lead the country’s new ministry of industry and innovation. Twenty years ago Mr. Allegre was among the first to trill about man-made global warming, but the geochemist has since recanted. New Zealand last year elected a new government, which immediately suspended the country’s weeks-old cap-and-trade program.

The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the U.N.—13 times the number who authored the U.N.’s 2007 climate summary for policymakers. Joanne Simpson, the world’s first woman to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement last year that she was finally free to speak “frankly” of her nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made warming “the worst scientific scandal in history.” Norway’s Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the “new religion.” A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton’s Will Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position that the science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have refused to run the physicists’ open letter.)

The collapse of the “consensus” has been driven by reality. The inconvenient truth is that the earth’s temperatures have flat-lined since 2001, despite growing concentrations of C02. Peer-reviewed research has debunked doomsday scenarios about the polar ice caps, hurricanes, malaria, extinctions, rising oceans. A global financial crisis has politicians taking a harder look at the science that would require them to hamstring their economies to rein in carbon.

There is a reason Al Gore shouted down the “deniers”. There is a reason congress needs to push through this abomination, in a hurry and in the middle of the night, too. Remember that practically nobody in congress has even read this damned behemoth yet! And the reason is the same: people are starting to get real science that disputes the “consensus science” crap that has been used by people like Gore and the people that want to have government take more of our income and control our lives, and this AGW thing looks less and less like science and more and more like a cult.

Cross posted at Wasting time with Alex

Update:: This monstrosity is now up to 1501 pages because Waxman added another 300 pages and only 3 hrs to debate these changes. Here are the details:

* The original bill, H.R. 2454, approximately 1,000 pages, was reported out of the Energy & Commerce Committee.
* It was replaced this week by H.R. 2998, 1,201 pages, which will be voted on as an amendment in the form of a substitute.
* The Rules Committee, last night, released a committee report that includes a 300-page amendment to H.R. 2998. This 300-page amendment, the Waxman amendment (#121), is considered as adopted upon an affirmative vote for H.R. 2998, the amendment in the form of the substitute.

The description of what’s in the new amendment (#121) reads like a massive laundry list of special interest’s wish-lists, other such exemptions and goodies, and was likely added to make this sh*t sandwich palatable for some of the other democrats now on the opposite side. In the end though you can bet this went from a terrible idea to even worse than terrible.

Update:: We are hosed. So freaking hosed!

Democrats narrowly passed historic climate and energy legislation Friday evening that would transform the country’s economy and industrial landscape. But the all-hands-on-deck effort to protect politically vulnerable Democrats by corralling the minimum number of votes to pass the bill, 219-212, proves that there are limits to President Barack Obama’s ability to use his popularity to push through his legislative agenda. Forty-four Democrats voted against the bill, while just eight Republicans crossed the aisle to back it.

So the democrats know this bill is both destructive and will hurt the economy, as their attempt to protect the demco-rats up for r-election in 2010, and still they stick us with it.

Despite the tough path to passage, the legislation is a significant win for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca.) and the bill’s two main sponsors – House Energy and Commerce committee chairman Henry Waxman (D-Ca.) and Massachusetts Rep. Edward Markey (D) – who modified the bill again and again to get skeptical members from the Rust Belt, the oil-producing southeast and rural Midwest to back the legislation.

Yes, it is. And it is also a significant loss for the American people and the American economy in general.

“We passed transformational legislation which takes us into the future,” Pelosi said at a press conference following the vote, after she and other leaders took congratulatory phone calls from Obama, former Vice President Al Gore and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

They sure did. If the future is a weaker and bleaker economy, 12% or higher unemployment, more people with less money in their pockets, and the power of government, which will now control even more of our behavior, drastically increased. In short, the future is going to make the Carter years look good. Emboldened by this win I am now certain they will also push true the new healthcare plan they want, and America is now finally on the way to becoming that “has been” the left so desperately want it to be, one that makes Zimbabwe look good, so that they can feel good about being victims.

Thursday, June 25, 2009

A great video, in case you think the claim that the “public option” healthcare will destroy private insurance is the product of a deranged mind:

They know it just as well as we do.  This is not idiocy at work; it’s strategery.