The Wheels Continue To Wobble…

“The chairman of the leading climate change watchdog was informed that claims about melting Himalayan glaciers were false before the Copenhagen summit, The Times has learnt.

Rajendra Pachauri was told that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment that the glaciers would disappear by 2035 was wrong, but he waited two months to correct it. He failed to act despite learning that the claim had been refuted by several leading glaciologists.”

(BTW – Rajendra Pachaur is not a scientist – he is an engineer and economist!)

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7009081.ece

Thinking, Thinking, Thinking….

I think that I have heard this rant before…I wonder who this sounds like…thinking, thinking, thinking…

Bin Laden blasts US for climate change

Jan 29, 7:46 AM (ET)

By SALAH NASRAWI
“CAIRO (AP) – Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden has called for the world to boycott American goods and the U.S. dollar, blaming the United States and other industrialized countries for global warming, according to a new audiotape released Friday.

In the tape, broadcast in part on Al-Jazeera television, bin Laden warned of the dangers of climate change and says that the way to stop it is to bring “the wheels of the American economy” to a halt.

He blamed Western industrialized nations for hunger, desertification and floods across the globe, and called for “drastic solutions” to global warming, and “not solutions that partially reduce the effect of climate change.”

Bin Laden has mentioned climate change and global warning in past messages, but the latest tape was his first dedicated to the topic…”

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100129/D9DHDH582.html

Well, you have to admit, he has a pretty low “Carbon Footprint!”

(I wish it was lower still…)

On YOUR Dime!

Arghhhh! I am beginning to understand the excesses of the French Revolution:

Speaker Pelosi is not just a disaster in the House – she is a disaster to our pocketbooks when she travels.

Just in case you don’t get to the end of the article from Judicial Watch, which got the information through the Freedom of Information Act, on just ONE flight she brought along – on YOUR DIME – “Johnny Walker Red scotch, Grey Goose vodka, E&J brandy, Bailey’s Irish Crème, Maker’s Mark whiskey, Courvoisier cognac, Bacardi Light rum, Jim Beam whiskey, Beefeater gin, Dewars scotch, Bombay Sapphire gin, Jack Daniels whiskey, Corona beer and several bottles of wine.”

This is from Judicial Watch’s website:
“According to the documents obtained by Judicial Watch through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the Speaker’s military travel cost the United States Air Force $2,100,744.59 over a two-year period — $101,429.14 of which was for in-flight expenses, including food and alcohol. The following are highlights from the recent release of about 2,000 documents:

— Speaker Pelosi used Air Force aircraft to travel back to her district at an average cost of $28,210.51 per flight. The average cost of an international CODEL is $228,563.33. Of the 103 Pelosi-led congressional delegations (CODEL), 31 trips included members of the House Speaker’s family.

One CODEL traveling from Washington, DC, through Tel Aviv, Israel to Baghdad, Iraq May 15-20, 2008, “to discuss matters of mutual concern with government leaders” included members of Congress and their spouses and cost $17,931 per hour in air craft alone. Purchases for the CODEL included:
Johnny Walker Red scotch, Grey Goose vodka, E&J brandy, Bailey’s Irish Crème, Maker’s Mark whiskey, Courvoisier cognac, Bacardi Light rum, Jim Beam whiskey, Beefeater gin, Dewars scotch, Bombay Sapphire gin, Jack Daniels whiskey, Corona beer and several bottles of wine.”

http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/Judicial-Watch-Uncovers-New-Documents-Detailing-Pelosis-Use-of-Air-Force-Aircraft-1108841.htm

The New Superhero — Collectivetrain!

The Feds are dangling $8 BILLION to get more emphasis on the construction of a high speed train in California.

Now don’t get me wrong, but do we lack the ability to go from San Diego or Los Angeles to San Francisco or Sacramento?

I think not.

We have – let’s see…cars, trains, planes and buses.

Lots of all of them.

It is that collective-thought again – yes, we can travel but we don’t do it enough…TOGETHER!

So, along comes our new Superhero…COLLECTIVETRAIN!

Wonderful.

Not as fast as planes, not as comfortable as your own car, but it creates jobs.

(Unfortunately, it loses money month after month FOREVER!)

Sigh!

Running Low on Cash

Commenting today in the San Jose Mercury News, State Controller John Chiang says that the State of California will run out of money (again!) on April 1.

That is not only April Fool’s Day, it is the day I temporarily flee California for Kauai an island in a union-controlled Democratic state that ranks BELOW California in public schools ( no mean fete) and is just as corrupt and broke – but is warmer.

The California Controller says California must do something like delaying income-tax returns to the residents to whom they are owed, and perform other magic tricks or by June we will be back into paper vouchers instead of cash.

Can’t anyone around here play this game?

Trading the Power of Persuasion for the Persuasion of Power

In another venue, a Blogger said the Massachusetts voters attitude was “I’ve got mine!”

I replied: Do you prefer the: “You who already have yours will share whatever I deem “necessary” with those who I deem to have too little?”

He replied: I prefer answer “C” – it is not a “Yes” “No” situation.

And I answered: We had answer “C” for many years – it was called “charity” and despite the fact that Americans are the most generous givers in the entire world, even too much would never have been enough for Compulsory Utopians.

There was a confluence of churches whose pastors were not able to wring a sufficient amount of charitable money from their flock (in their personal opinion), and the natural need for government to expand – more employees equals greater responsibility equals more pay.

So the churches (and other charitable institutions) traded their powers of persuasion for the persuasion of power, and now wring the charity from the productive to give to the unproductive on penalty of law.

Stealing from some to give to others (while taking a middle-man cut) is not an honorable policy.

Being generous with other people’s money is not an honorable pursuit for an honorable man.

I Could Not Have Said It So Well

A paragraph from an editorial in the Weekly Standard pretty much sums up the current situation:

“It is nothing short of amazing that the Democrats let things get this bad. They have spent a year trying to cram down the throat of the country an incomprehensibly convoluted, misguided, and anachronistic liberal dream, which grew increasingly unattractive (even to its advocates) with every iteration until even Massachusetts voters turned to a Republican for relief. Democrats have managed to make our existing health care arrangements look downright brilliant by comparison. They have wasted the first year of the Obama administration, and a filibuster-proof Senate majority they will likely not see again for decades. And they have achieved nothing: not on health care, and not on the rest of their agenda. “

Feb. 1 Weekly Standard Page 8

He May Be Hearing Us NOW

White House orders Justice Department to look for other places to hold 9/11 terror trial

“The White House ordered the Justice Department to consider other places to try the 9/11 terror suspects after a wave of opposition to holding the trial in lower Manhattan.

The White House took the action hours after Mayor Bloomberg called Attorney General Eric Holder to say he would “prefer that they did it elsewhere.”

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2010/01/28/2010-01-28_white_house_orders_justice_department_to_look_for_other_places_to_hold_911_terro.html#ixzz0dxqSjkDR

Comment: Think the Scott Brown election isn’t having an impact?

The President Was “Imprecise”

Perhaps some of you remember Linda Greenhouse – a brilliant lawyer (now a real Yale Professor of Law)  who once covered the Supreme Court for the McNeil-Lehrer Report and  covered SCOTUS for the NY Times 1978-2008, and won a Pulitzer in 1998 ..

Today she writes an opinion piece in the NT Times (a medium for which she is far more suited than TV), and she says the President was “imprecise” in his criticism of the SCOTUS decision.

(Imprecise” is what liberals call other liberals – when it is conservatives they analyze, they say “lied!” – but even “imprecise” is a slap when referring to a “Constitutional Lawyer.”)

“Indeed, Mr. Obama’s description of the holding of the case was imprecise. He said the court had “reversed a century of law.”

The law that Congress enacted in the populist days of the early 20th century prohibited direct corporate contributions to political campaigns. That law was not at issue in the Citizens United case, and is still on the books. Rather, the court struck down a more complicated statute that barred corporations and unions from spending money directly from their treasuries — as opposed to their political action committees — on television advertising to urge a vote for or against a federal candidate in the period immediately before the election.”

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/27/justice-alitos-reaction/?scp=5&sq=supreme%20court&st=cse

The State of What?

There is some public discussion about the kerfuffle between the President and the Supreme Court decision, and the reaction to it in his speech.

It is simply untoward to publically criticize someone who cannot respond (either immediately, or ever!) – either the Supremes or the military brass.

Actually, I don’t believe either the brass or the Supremes should attend the event, because they are not permitted by tradition to show any political bias – cannot even politely clap.

They should stay home and watch on TV, or not.

(I did not – I just watched the CNN, MSNBC reactions. It doesn’t matter what a president says, it only matters what the listeners believe the president says.)