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August 24, 2010
Posted by Carla René in: Accountability, Advice, African-American, Attitude, Biography & Memoir, Book Marketing Online, Book Review, Books, Business, Business Management, Cancer, Cap and Trade, Children, China, Climate Change, Commentary, Comments & Discussion, Communications, Communism, Community, Computers, Congress, Contributor's Audio/Video, Creative Writing, Current Events, Democracy, Democrat, Diet, Economic Crisis, Economics, Education, Energy, Entertainment, Environment, Environmental Issues, Faith, Family, Fiction, Finance, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Relations, Freedom, Freelance Author, General Topics, Geopolitical Events, Global Warming, Governance, Habit Change, Health & Fitness, Healthcare, Heroes, History, Homeland Security, Humor, Inspiration & Motivation, Internet, Internet Advice, Interview, Islam, Journalism, Latino & Hispanic, Legal, Life Experiences, Lifestyle, Literature, Marketing, Marriage, Medical, Men's Issues, Mental Health, Mexico, Military, Minorities, Morality, Motivation, Music, Native American, Nature/Wildlife, Non-Fiction, Nutrition, Opinion, Personal Experiences, Philosophical Genres, Poetry, Politics, Publishing, Question of the Day, Recovery, Relationships, Religion, Republican, Rhyme, Satire, Self-Help, Sex, Short Stories, Social Aspects, Social Classes, Social Issues, Sociology, Spirituality, Sports, Technology, Television, Terrorism, The Economy, The Media, The Pundit's Corner, The Writer's Corner, Travel, Uncategorized, Website Instructions, Weight loss, Wellness, Women's Perspective, Women's Rights, Working Women, Workplace, World Issues, Writing Essentials
 Begun back sometime in 2001, this book was originally a fluke of an idea… [...]
May 26, 2010
To paraphrase something Thich Nhat Hanh once said, “Everything inter-is.”
Everything in nature is interconnected, including humans. We are a part of nature, not separate from it, set apart from and above it to do with it what we will. Like every other species, we are deeply embedded in nature and dependent on it [...]
March 9, 2010
Sustainable palm oil production shouldn’t be an oxymoron. [...]
February 24, 2010
Despite shrinking ice sheets, melting glaciers and Island nations disappearing under water, many sensible people still find climate change totally unbelievable. We’re not talking about some incomprehensible 3000 page theory here, we’re talking the disappearance of the North polar ice pack. You know, where Santa lives? Continue reading Climate change – Nah!
January 6, 2010
China and US have taken the lead in saving earth away from the UN and fellow travelers that were bungling the job. [...]
December 9, 2009
Save the planet for the holidays. [...]
November 8, 2009
By Alan Caruba
I have long harbored strong doubts about the knowledge that most Americans possess regarding the sources of energy they largely take for granted. We flip a switch and the lights go on. We pull up to the gas pump and drive away. We use machines that are totally dependent on having enough electricity to power entire cities as well as rural communities.
Since all successful economies depend on abundant, affordable energy, why is the Congress preparing to pass a cap-and-trade bill, renamed to suggest “clean energy” and “national security” has anything to do with a huge tax on the use of energy by all Americans?
There are some fundamental facts about energy in America you need to know. The Congressional Research Service recently released a report on U.S. energy reserves. To begin:
The U.S. has 1,321 billion barrels of oil (or barrels of oil equivalent for other sources of energy) when combining its recoverable natural gas, oil and coal reserves. This is oil known to exist and oil estimates in fields as yet untapped. Between Alaska and the continental offshore potential, we could literally be self-sufficient. Continue reading Energy ABC’s: Playing Americans for Fools
October 24, 2009
 By Alan Caruba
I am always amazed at the variety of choice that exists in my local supermarket. There are other supermarkets in the area, but the one I frequent most has lower prices on most items and almost anything you want to purchase allows one to select among several brands available.
We Americans may not think much about choice when it comes to what we buy because we have so many choices. It is the mark of a free marketplace where competition determines winners and losers. It says a lot about a society that puts a high premium on freedom.
Your government, however, has decided that, in 2012, you can no longer choose to purchase and use Thomas Edison’s iconic invention, the 100 watt incandescent light bulb. By 2014, all such bulbs will be banned from sale. That’s right, they will vanish from the shelves of supermarkets and other outlets.
As this is being written, your government is debating taking away your choice to purchase health insurance. Or not. If it gets its way, everyone, old and young, healthy or ill, everyone will have to buy health insurance—most likely the brand issued by the government because it will drive most present insurance companies out of business. That is so un-American as to defy belief. Continue reading Taking Away Your Choice
October 22, 2009
 By Alan Caruba
By now, anyone paying any attention whatever to the weather has begun to notice that it is getting colder earlier in the U.S. and that this is occurring around the world.
On www.iceagenow.com, Robert W. Felix, the author of “Not by Fire, but by Ice” and “Magnetic Reversals and Evolutionary Leaps”, reports on current weather events. A recent visit contains these items:
Storm now heading for Ireland & Britain predicted 100 days ago Snow likely to follow – 18 Oct 09
Significant snow in Argentina’s Southern Andes – 19 Oct 09
Czech Republic: Most snow in 100 years – 16 Oct 09
Snow across Central and Eastern Europe – 15 Oct 09
Earliest October Snowfall on record in Southern Germany – 15 Oct 09
Why then is a United Nations conference on climate change to be held this December in Copenhagen still claiming that the Earth faces the dreaded “global warming”? Continue reading Using “Global Warming” to Steal your Rights
October 20, 2009
Posted by Alan Caruba in: Business, Cap and Trade, Commentary, Current Events, Economics, Energy, Environment, Environmental Issues, Global Warming, Opinion, Politics
 By Alan Caruba
In economics, “rent seeking” is a term that describes the process by which corporations, unions, trade groups, and individuals try to gain unfair advantages through politics and lobbying rather than via competitive trade in the free marketplace.
Going “Green” has proven to be one of the favorite ways by which corporations position themselves to benefit.
“Global warming” and the reduction of “greenhouse gas emissions”, primarily carbon dioxide from various forms of energy use, is the reason given for the hideous “Cap-and-Trade” legislation making its way through Congress. It will enrich some corporations that have rolled the dice on “renewable” energy (solar and wind) and, in particular, the utilities supporting its mandatory system of “carbon credits” to be traded among energy producers and users.
Business Week recently took note of the way global warming positions are rather dramatically dividing the business community. Apple became the fifth large member company to resign or reduce its role in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce because of the Chamber’s “aggressive opposition to climate change legislation.” Nike also resigned.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Al Gore is a member of the board of Apple and that Apple’s Chief Operating Officer, Tim Cook, “happens to sit on the board of Nike.” The Journal further noted that “Both companies may figure they can afford a U.S. carbon tax because most of their manufacturing is done outside the U.S.”
This is a classic example of rent seeking, giving them an advantage over competitors whose manufacturing is U.S.-based in the event they (and the rest of us) have a carbon tax imposed on them. Continue reading The “Rent Seekers” – Green Corporations
October 1, 2009
Ken Burns newest film is amazing. The parks are amazing. We watch and watch and I have been at it eight .jpg) hours now after four episodes. At times it is like a marathon with the people and parks running by you in a mind stream of sequences of people and events that you struggle to keep straight as the Juggernaut of Burnsian vignettes hits you. Still…you want more.
It is that these people are no longer with us and they are just like us. The couple who tried to go to every park in five different Buick’s and took pictures and kept them in albums is heartbreaking to know that the husband died and she kept going and found herself at the end alone in the vast wilderness she knows she will never see again. Or the couple who went down the Colorado on their honeymoon and disappeared forever. Or the man who went to the Smokies after losing his family and found himself and then began to campaign to turn the area into a national park. Continue reading America’s Best Idea is Us–Ken Burns Film
September 23, 2009
Posted by Muhammad Cohen in: Current Events, Environment, Environmental Issues, Faith, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Relations, Geopolitical Events, Global Warming, Islam, Opinion, The Economy, The Pundit's Corner
The spirit of this holy season for Muslims and Jews, rather than the angry rhetoric of religious zealots on both sides, could help bring peace to the Middle East. [...]
September 18, 2009
The UN and green groups are sabotaging meaningful progress to combat climate change. [...]
September 16, 2009
Posted by Alan Caruba in: Accountability, African-American, Business, Cap and Trade, Congress, Current Events, Democracy, Economic Crisis, Energy, Environmental Issues, Global Warming, Governance, Healthcare, Opinion, The Economy
 By Alan Caruba
I cannot tell you how relieved I was to hear Ben Bernake, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, announce that the United States is “technically” out of the recession. I spent much of the day waiting for my phone to ring with offers of work.
Chairman Bernake did add that jobs would lag, but all the experts say that jobs always lag and, if that’s the case, I am thinking this time around jobs are not only going to lag, they are going to disappear, run away, and leave much of the work force unable to live the “American dream.”
There was a time when the American dream included the opportunity for everyone to own their own home. That dream was based on having a steady job and a decent wage. It was dependent on people saving some of their income for a down payment. It was not dependent on federal government programs that put pressure on banks and mortgage lenders to make loans to people that ACORN had dragged in off the street.
I would feel a lot better about Bernake’s announcement if Congress wasn’t right now getting ready to pass a piece of legislation that every single poll says the MAJORITY of Americans do not like and do not want.
I speak of course of Obamacare. The same polls also suggest that the more Obama shows up on television giving speeches, being interviewed, and otherwise sucking all the air out of the room, the more a MAJORITY of Americans distrust and dislike him. Continue reading “Technically” We’re Out of a Recession
September 15, 2009
Posted by psuedowriter in: Accountability, Current Events, Democracy, Economic Crisis, Economics, Education, Environmental Issues, Family, Finance, Geopolitical Events, Latino & Hispanic, Opinion, Recovery, Social Aspects, The Economy
In the greater scheme of global brotherhood and advancement, all of the aims of these “special schools” are wonderful things. In the meanwhile, the taxpayers of today are suffering, and I don’t think most of us like it. [...]
August 26, 2009
How often do people do things thinking they are doing something good, healthy, useful, and end up with just the opposite effect? Often, the effect is opposite to what we want because mainstream media has not been very forthcoming, for the sake of the corporations supporting it, who would prefer to keep the truth silent.
“Opposites Day” (based on the childrens’ game) is a title you’ll see here from time to time, as I’m noting the irony in some little known but very well documented facts, and will go into these and others in more detail in later articles. Though there is a kind of dark humor in this list, the factual ones are assertions are you may want to look into yourself in alternative media if there is something you haven’t discovered yet. A few personal observation in the mix just make it more human. I’m a very positive person, but once in awhile these days, some of my good humor comes from shaking my head and laughing at the human condition we all share.
- Reading online about dehydration causes dehydration because the computer sucks moisture from our bodies. Electromagnetic radiation from the screen depletes us of water. Amazing. Continue reading Opposites Day
August 22, 2009
By Alan Caruba
Nine Trillion Dollars. That is what the Obama administration now says will be the national budget deficit in ten years. Our current GDP, give or take a trillion, is fourteen trillion a year so you do the math. In seven months President Obama and his Democrat minions in Congress have plunged the nation into debt not seen since the waging of World War II.
Medicare. A million Baby Boomers a year will sign up to receive their Medicare “entitlements” because the members of the population bulge that followed the end of World War II is now officially old. In 1965 Medicare was signed into law as part of the older Social Security system. The enrollment age was based on the fact that 65 was about when people started dying off back then. Now the average life expectancy is 78. And that’s just the average! Little wonder anyone with any sense doesn’t want a rationed Obamacare that will, indeed, let old people suffer in lieu of caring for them. And these are people who paid into the system.
Obesity. I still cannot understand why government at any level should have anything to say about what you eat, how much you eat, and whether you are fat. A lot of fat people had fat parents and fat grandparents. Much of the condition is genetic. The rest involves lots of very affordable and tasty so-called “junk food.” Your weight is your responsibility. Continue reading Saturday’s Random Thoughts
August 16, 2009
 By Alan Caruba I have long believed that the environmental movement, particularly in America, is quite literally an internal enemy, no less insidious that the efforts of the former Soviet Union to infiltrate spies and agents of influence our government to affect policy,
I know that sounds harsh, but one needs only look at Great Britain where environmentalism has turned that once great nation into a virtual police state where every bizarre and insane environmental policy is culminating in a nation that will soon be experiencing blackouts and brownouts to its entire system of providing electricity.
“In the frigid opening days of 2009, Britain’s electricity demand peaked at 59 gigawatts. Just over 45% of that came from power plants fuelled by gas from the North Sea. A further 35% or so came from coal, less than 15% came from nuclear power and the rest from a hotchpotch of other sources.” The problem England faces, according to the August 8th edition of The Economist, is that it will soon be dependent on “Vladimir Putin’s deeply unreliable and corrupt Russia.”
This report comes when both the Russians and the Chinese have signed agreements with Cuba, just ninety miles from Florida, to begin to explore and extract its offshore oil. America, however, denies access to 85% of all of its offshore oil and natural gas reserves along its extensive east and west coasts. It further denies access to its huge deposits of coal in its Midwestern States. We import 60% of the oil we consume; much of it comes from Canada, Mexico, and Venezuela.
Continue reading The New Dark Ages of Britain & The U.S.
August 8, 2009
 By Alan Caruba In 1898, an article by the great French novelist, Emile Zola was published in L’Aurore. It was addressed to the President of France. Zola accused the military of having wrongly convicted Capt. Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish artillery officer, of treason, incarcerating him for years on Devil’s Island. The title of the article was “J’Accuse!” Zola’s courage has been an inspiration for writers ever since.
It is in this spirit that I issue my own version of “I Accuse.”
I accuse the United Nations environmental program in general and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in particular of creating a huge hoax, “global warming”, in order to reduce energy use and to create a phony market for so-called “carbon credits,” based on the lie that carbon dioxide plays a role in the alleged warming process.
The Earth is not warming. It is cooling. Meteorologists, climatologists, and solar physicists agree that it has been cooling for at least a decade and predict the cooling will continue for several decades to come.
I accuse the President of the United States and politicians from both political parties for engaging in this deception for their own purposes, while ignoring the peril to the nation’s economy and future. Billions have been and continue to be misallocated to bogus “solutions” such as solar and wind power, the mandate for an ethanol mixture with gasoline, and the construction of a vast regulatory and grant-making apparatus based on the global warming hoax. Continue reading I Accuse!
August 5, 2009
 By Alan Caruba
We are going to go from cotton fields to bedrooms in order to connect the dots on the many ways the Environmental Protection Agency and environmental groups have conspired to deprive Americans of beneficial chemicals that protect crops and humans from insect pests.
Only a scant two percent of the U.S. population engages in the farming that feeds all the rest of us and provides a bounty for export. Farm kids will tell you how they were on a tractor by the age of eight or nine, working the fields from early morning until dusk. When they get older, a lot of them decide to take up another way of making a living because farming is very hard work.
Since the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, not to mention the Department of Agriculture, a life spent farming has become increasingly more difficult thanks to the endless regulations regarding land and water use, what products they can use to fend off the pests and weeds that attack crops, and the manner in which they can be applied.
Why should this matter to you? Ask yourself that question while you are prowling the aisles in your favorite supermarket. Here’s the equation to keep in mind: No farmers. No food. And that includes livestock that depend on feed like hay and grains. If you like a nice cotton shirt or dress, remember that it started in a farmer’s field.
On August 3, the Western Environmental Law Center sent out a news release to brag about that way the 6th Circuit had issued an order denying the pesticide industry’s petition for rehearing in National Cotton Council v. EPA No. 06-4630. The order upheld the Court’s earlier finding that pesticide residuals and biological pesticides constitute pollutants under the Clean Water Act. Continue reading Killing Pesticides, Not Pests
July 28, 2009
 By Alan Caruba
There’s an ancient Scandinavian legend that says, “A long time ago, the universe was made of ice. Then one day the ice began to melt and a mist rose into the sky. Out of the mist came a giant made of frost and the earth and the heavens were made from his body. This is how the world began and this is how the world will end, not by fire, but by ice. The seas will freeze and winters will never end.”
Thus begins “Not by Fire, but by Ice”, a book by my friend, Robert W. Felix, published initially in 2005. You can pick up a copy from www.iceagenow.com. While you’re there, pick up “Magnetic Reversals and Evolutionary Leaps” as well. Taken together, both books explain why the Earth, now at the end of an interglacial cycle, is heading into its next ice age and why Darwin got it wrong with his theory of slow, evolutionary mutations accounting for various species being different from one another.
The Earth is some 4.5 billion years old. Homo sapiens, the human race as we know it, have been around for about 40,000 years. We date our modern ancestry back to the Cro-Magnon man who superseded the Neanderthals. The development of agriculture, growing food rather than hunting it, dates back some 7,000 years and civilization in the form of city-states and nations is relatively new; only about 5,000 years. Continue reading It’s Getting Colder Everywhere
July 18, 2009
 By Alan Caruba Among the many books in my office is the “Handbook of Pest Control”, seventh edition, edited by Arnold Mallis. Its contributing editors are a who’s who of the leading authorities on pest control and its encyclopedic text includes thousands of references to the diseases that insect and rodent pests routinely spread in the course of their daily lives.
In one fashion or another for some three decades or more, I have provided public relations services to various elements of the pest control industry; manufacturers of pesticides and my own state’s trade association which is affiliated with the National Pest Management Association.
I tell you this so you don’t think I am evading an obvious bias that favors a profession that dates its history back to medieval times when being a “ratcatcher” was so highly regarded that the Queen of England designated one to keep the castle free of the nasty beasties.
Over the years, these men developed formulas for killing off rodent and insect pests. When you contemplate that the Black Death that swept Europe and England killed a third of the entire population and was caused by a combination of fleas and rats spreading the bubonic plague, the need to control such pests is obvious. Continue reading Of Mice and Men (and Pest Control)
July 14, 2009
 By Alan Caruba
England had “Mad King George” who was probably bipolar and eventually went completely insane around 1810. It would take another ten years before his suffering ended and he passed away, but his powers had passed to the Prince of Wales by then. In those days they knew when people were crazy and even provided an asylum from which we get the word “bedlam.”
As the days and week go by, they might as well post a sign outside of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue where our President conducts the affairs of state. It should simply say, “Welcome to Bedlam.”
One example of the kind of dangerous insanity circulating like swamp gas around the White House is Dr. John P. Holdren, Obama’s science advisor. He is so nuts that even The New York Times reporter, John Tierney, asked “Does being spectacularly wrong about a major issue in your field of expertise hurt your chances of becoming the presidential science advisor?”
When Bjorn Lomborg published “The Skeptical Environmentalist”, Holdren joined in an attack published in Scientific American that The Economist called “strong on contempt and sneering, but weak on substance.” Continue reading The Horrid Dr. Holdren
July 13, 2009
 By Alan Caruba
If those of you who have doubts that the Earth is dramatically warming and that the planet is about to be plunged into the kind of heat that will likely destroy all life, then it must be puzzling that so many people continue to believe that “global warming” is happening when the planet is quite obviously into a decade-old cooling cycle that is likely to last for several more decades.
A large component of this belief is the indoctrination in the nation’s schools in which virtually every subject area has been given a “green” component and textbooks are filled with references to drowning polar bears, disappearing rain forests, rising sea levels, and the usual claptrap about “global warming.” No child could pass through such an avalanche of junk science without becoming convinced of its authenticity.
An example of this occurred when Michael Kundu, “a whale photographer” and school board president in Marysville, Washington, threw a fit after receiving The Skeptic’s Handbook by Australian science communicator, Joanne Nova. Continue reading Greening Our Schools and Nation
July 12, 2009
 By Alan Caruba
If you can have a pride of lions and a gaggle of geese, then I suggest that the forthcoming July 17-20 meeting of the National Governors Association can be described as a “crisis” of Governors.
This once-esteemed office, a platform from which some launched campaigns to become President, has become a sinkhole of sexual misconduct and corruption; witness New York’s unlamented Eliot Spitzer, New Jersey’s James McGreevey, and now South Carolina’s pathetic, moon-struck Mark Sanford and Illinois’ Rod Blogovitch whose alleged sins involved money.
Because states are sovereign republics and because being governor is primarily a “local” responsibility, the job requires significant administrative and political skills to ensure the state meets those obligations closest to voters. Infrastructure must be maintained. Issues of public safety, health, and education are paramount concerns.
With a few exceptions, today’s Governors are struggling with bloated budgets and huge deficits despite the fact that most states require a balanced budget or at least the semblance of one. Watching Arnold Schwarzenegger announce that California will be paying its bills with IOUs would be comic if it were not so serious. Continue reading A “Crisis” of Governors
July 9, 2009
 By Alan Caruba
In early July the Sierra Club celebrated the fact that, “Today, 100 of those planned coal plants have been defeated or abandoned.”
They crowed over the fact that a year ago there were plans for 150 new plants and that they had successfully thwarted the provision of electrical power around the nation. As for as the Sierra Club is concerned, “This milestone marks a significant shift in the way Americans are looking at our energy choices. Cities, states, businesses and electric utilities are all moving away from the polluting coal power of the past.”
Today’s coal-fired plants are all equipped with very expensive technology that eliminates the pollution of the past, “scrubbing” their massive stacks before any is emitted. They are not polluting anything, but they are providing affordable electrical energy.
Coal represents just a shade over fifty percent of all the electricity Americans use. It is so abundant here in America that the provision of those 150 plants would have ensured that the nation had a significant portion of the additional power it requires for a growing population and our manufacturing sector. Continue reading The Sierra Club versus Electricity
June 25, 2009
 By Alan Caruba
On June 22, Greenpeace USA put out the word that “A new study published today in the Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences shows that refrigerant chemicals, so called F-gases, are a more dangerous global warming threat than previously predicted.”
Apparently, in order to save the Earth, we must all unplug and get rid of our refrigerators and air conditioners.
The study was authored by scientists from the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, the United States government agencies, NOAA and EPA, along with a scientist from “the chemical company Dupont.” You don’t suppose that Dupont has come up with a new refrigerant that it would like to sell, do you?
As to anything NOAA and the EPA has to say about the environment, at this point anyone older than a kindergartner knows that virtually everything these agencies say about global warming is pure fiction. They long ago abandoned any pretence about offering science-based information on anything. Continue reading Save the Earth! Get Rid of Your Refrigerator!
June 20, 2009
 By Alan Caruba
Years ago, beginning around 1984, I became “famous” as the creator of The Boring Institute, a media spoof that literally garnered international attention for its annual list of “The Most Boring Celebrities of the Year.” Until around 2002 I averaged a thousand radio shows and television appearances as the result of the Institute’s spoofs.
Along the way, I became an expert on the subject of boredom and was astounded at the links between boredom and many social problems. It is a frequent factor in various addictions, in crime, as a reason why children drop out of school, why marriages fail, and a host of other problems in people’s lives. It can be an indicator of depression.
You can criticize people in many ways, but telling them they’re boring are fighting words.
We spend a lot of time avoiding boredom because it is such a constant factor in our lives. Watching television is for the most part boredom avoidance. Almost anything that does not require us to actively use our brains falls into this category. Thinking is scary.
So, because I tend to write about certain topics and am increasingly convinced that Barack Obama is just about the worse thing to happen to this nation since the horrid Jimmy Carter, my question is—am I boring you? Continue reading Am I Boring You?
June 16, 2009
There was a time when a shopping bag determined one’s status. Women took their lunches, extra shoes, whatever they needed that didn’t fit into their often enourmous purses, and placed it in a bag from a popular store. They didn’t know it but it was a way to recycle while looking important. You may have not purchased anything from that store in six months but your bag made everyone think you were a recent shopper. Until it started to wear or the handles frayed. Then you tossed it while finding another status symbol bag from a store you probably couldn’t afford. It was the most important of fashion accessoriesshopping bags from elite stores.
Most of these bags were plastic based. None were made from recyclable material. That would have been considered gauche at that time. It was fashionable to have these bags for a single use, forgetting the environment. Just as it was fashionable at one time to smoke cigarettes after dinner at the table. What is fashionable is not always healthy for us or this earth. The bag idea went the way of the platform shoe, which recently returned. But this reincarnation of bag people is different. We are starting to use bags over and over again because we are starting to understand how we are destroying the environment. We are not our grandmothers with one dying bag inside four others to carry everything we need. We have created a new type of bag from materials we disgard. Our grandmothers would be proud that we have become new age bag people. Continue reading Bag People
June 2, 2009
Posted by Alan Caruba in: Accountability, Business, Business Management, Current Events, Democrat, Economic Crisis, Energy, Environmental Issues, Governance, Opinion, Politics
 By Alan Caruba
Growing up as a teenager in the 1950s, I could not wait to get my license to drive and I liked the sporty look of the British MG. These days I drive a Volkswagen. In that short tale can be found the seeds of the end of the American auto industry.
Here’s some history. In 1952, the merger of several British auto companies resulted in the British Motor Corporation. It was the largest of its day with 39% of British output. Despite established dealerships for the various models, a series of poor management decisions resulted in the loss of market share.
By 1968, British Leyland was formed out of British Motor Corporation and became British Leyland Motor Corporation Ltd. In 1975, it was partially nationalized and the government became a holding company. UK market share barely changed and despite brands such as Jaguar, Rover and Land Rover, the government motor company continued its decline.
By 2005, the MG Rover Group went bankrupt, bringing to an end the production by British owned companies. The MG became part of Chinese Nanjing Automobile. Continue reading The US is Committing National Suicide
May 21, 2009
 By Alan Caruba Watching the debate of the Waxman-Markey “Cap-and-Trade” bill that would impose limits on “greenhouse gas” emissions, allegedly to deter “global warming” one Congressman, reading from the script in front of him, said that there is no further debate on whether “global warming” is real and that “a consensus” of scientists concur. He lied.
Everything about “global warming” is a lie and has been since the United Nations created the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to provide the basis for the destruction of the world’s great, industrialized nations while exempting developing nations such as China and India from its mandates.
On my desk is a Global Warming Petition signed by 31,478 American Scientists. It says “There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate.”
“Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmosphere carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.”
Continue reading USA on the Precipice of Destruction
May 21, 2009
That Coal-Fired Furnace in the Sky
by John Armor
Did anybody else notice that the phrase “global warming” has largely disappeared from public discourse? All but the slowest enviromentalists have dropped that phrase because for the last three years the globe as been cooling off. So, the new phrase is “climate change.”
As a public service, I’d like to explain this phrase by reference to a pair of coal-fired furnaces, one in Birmingham, Alabama, the other one in Baltimore, Maryland. My mother grew up in Birmingham almost a century ago, in a rambling, wood-framed house on Warsaw Street. It had sleeping porches for summer heat, and a coal furnace for winter cold.
There was no thermostat in the house. When you wanted more heat, you went to the basement and stoked the fire. When you wanted less heat, you went down and banked the fire. Either way, the temperature was roughly higher, or lower, after a serious delay.
A full century ago, my father grew up in a row house on South Broadway in Baltimore. It, too, had a coal furnace. The third floor was always the coldest place in the house. I remember that cold from brief but impressive experiences. Continue reading That Coal-Fired Furnace in the Sky
May 19, 2009
Posted by Alan Caruba in: Accountability, Business, Business Management, Current Events, Democrat, Energy, Environmental Issues, Governance, Opinion, Politics, The Pundit's Corner
 By Alan Caruba
Why would the leaders of U.S. auto companies, two of whom are facing bankruptcy, gather around the President as he signed legislation requiring higher mileage per gallon when surely each knew that there is a finite amount of energy to be secured from a single gallon of gasoline?
They knew, too, they would have to build smaller, lighter, deadlier cars for anyone driving or who is a passenger in them; if, indeed, anyone will want to buy them or will be able to afford to buy them because their cost will increase with this new useless, senseless government mandate.
To meet a 35.5-mile-per-gallon standard by 2016 they might as well make cars out of papier-mâché. The new standards are yet another environmental delusion that the laws of thermodynamics can be replaced by ideology. Approximately 40,000 Americans die on the highways every year. Watch that number increase as the new standards kick in.
You and every other American is being taken for a fool because those who conjure up the stupidity these standards represent know you were never taught enough in school to understand what a fraud is being perpetrated against you. Continue reading Government is Bad for Business
May 17, 2009
 By Alan Caruba
I know you’re thinking the title refers to Al Gore, but no, it belongs to Paul Krugman, an economist best known as a New York Times columnist, and winner in 2008 of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science. He is widely regarded as an expert in international economics and has very impressive curriculum vitae. By all the standards of our times, the man is a genius.
Anyone who has worked for an institution of higher learning as I once did soon loses his awe of PhDs. Their expertise is usually very narrow. The intellectual hot house which they share also includes immense pressure to demonstrate through research and publication that they are productive. There is a herd mentality and some vicious politics that goes on as well.
Krugman may know about economics, otherwise known as the “dismal science” because I suspect the capacity to be very wrong is equal to or greater than the chance of getting things right. Most certainly, his May 15 column, based on a trip to China demonstrated he knows nothing about meteorology, climatology, the science of the Earth’s atmosphere. Continue reading Our Nobel Prize Moron
May 14, 2009
 By Alan Caruba At first I thought it was just my imagination, but three prime time press conferences in three months, several overseas events, and the seemingly daily announcement that new billions would be spent on stimulus packages, bailouts and new programs has become a dizzying onslaught.
The Obama administration is, in so many ways, the culmination of efforts dating back to the middle of the last century to render Americans so docile, so illiterate, so prepared to blame themselves, that a really big push is on to ram through programs that would be the fulfillment of liberal dreams for decades.
The emergence of “Tea Parties” and other expressions of widespread protest must have taken Obama and the intellectual dunces around him by surprise. The opposition to gay marriage, the continued resistance to abortion-on-demand, and other social issues suggest that Americans are not as dumbed-down as liberals had hoped. They especially pay attention when told their taxes will rise and more taxes will be imposed on everything they purchase.
As the cost of a First Class postage stamp becomes forty-two cents and the cost of a pack of cigarettes apparently will be the equivalent of a porterhouse steak, life in Obama’s America is going to become prohibitively expensive. Consumers are already beginning to hold back on purchases of all kinds. If Obama’s secret agenda is to crash the economy, he’s succeeding.
Continue reading What’s the Rush, Obama?
May 13, 2009
 By Alan Caruba
It is little wonder that Americans increasingly distrust their government.
Contrary to the fundamental conservative principle that the federal government is limited by the U.S. Constitution and should, as a matter of course, not intrude on those rights allocated to the States, the federal government has become a monster demanding to control every square inch of our land mass, all its energy reserves, and now all its water!
I track a lot of this egregious acquisition of power to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970. Its initial mandate was to ensure that our air and water was protected against pollution and to take remedial steps to clean both to the extent they were not a threat to health. Additionally, the EPA was given control over toxic substances. From that point on, the EPA has grown faster than any other government agency.
That said, the Interior Department is even older and done a great job of expanding control of the landmass, a huge percentage of which is owned outright by the federal and state governments. Continue reading A New Threat: Federal Control of All U.S. Water
May 12, 2009
 By Alan Caruba
Every so often The New York Times slips up and lets some truth appear on its hallowed and vastly over-rated pages.
Such was the case on May 2nd when reporter John M. Broder wrote “Seeking to Save the Planet, With a Thesaurus.” As he put it in the first sentence, “The problem with global warming, some environmentalists believe, is ‘global warming.’” This is a very real problem, especially when the word is getting out that the planet has been cooling for a decade.
The problem worsens for them as word leaks that the ice at the North Pole is a lot thicker than earlier suspected—something that does not happen if it’s supposed to be melting. And the same holds for the South Pole whose ice is growing, along with many of the world’s glaciers.
Having spent the past twenty years or so blaming “global warming” for everything happening on Earth, the public has grown tired of the endless blather about it. Since it has provided much of the funding that Green organizations have pulled in from the gullible, not to mention from millions in government grants to study something that is not happening, the time has come to “re-brand” global warming into something that will still generate the money these charlatans depend upon.
Continue reading Slippery Green Words
May 8, 2009
Posted by Alan Caruba in: Accountability, Current Events, Economic Crisis, Environmental Issues, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Relations, Geopolitical Events, Governance, Homeland Security, Opinion, Politics, The Pundit's Corner
 By Alan Caruba Whenever I am feeling a bit despondent and need to shake off the mood, I remind myself that I did not vote for Barack Hussein Obama.
The other day, feeling buyer’s remorse, I returned an item I had purchased and requested credit. It looked so good in the catalog, but turned out to be a bad idea. While those who voted for Obama are said to still regard him quite fondly, one suspects large numbers of them are experiencing the same feeling. I, however, did not vote for Barack Hussein Obama.
I did not vote for the feckless lad who sent Air Force One to buzz New York City, accompanied by a fighter jet, neglectful of the panic that would ensue among people who had a sudden frightening flashback to 9/11.
I did not vote for the man whose choices for his cabinet and advisors included tax cheats and others who have been an on-going succession of embarrassments. His science advisor went on record suggesting we shoot stuff into the atmosphere to stop global warming. His Environmental Advisor and EPA Director want to regulate carbon dioxide as “a pollutant” and threat to health. (We each exhale about six pounds of CO2 every day.)
Continue reading I Did Not Vote for Barack Obama
May 6, 2009
By Alan Caruba
Ever since the “global warming” lie began, for at least two decades or more, I have been writing about what a huge hoax it was and is. For all that time I believed that if the truth got out and reached enough people, they would conclude it was a lie.
The entire credibility of major so-called environmental organizations and institutions such as the United Nations rests on whether there ever was a greater than natural warming cycle; one that would cause harm to the world. Patiently I pointed out that the most recent natural warming cycle had begun around 1850 following a lengthy little ice age of some five hundred years duration. Continue reading Die, Global Warming, Die!
April 30, 2009
Vancouver, BC Canada – The tidal flats at Spanish Bank, English Bay in Vancouver, are beginning to experience their yearly record-low tides. The lowest tide during the day is usually around the beginning of June.
The importance of this time of year is that the bald eagle activity increases greatly; the chicks have just [...]
April 28, 2009
By Alan Caruba
If some found fault in George W. Bush’s muscular approach to foreign affairs which included the belief that the entire West had a stake in fighting al Qaeda and the general threat of resurgent Islamic fundamentalism, the policy pendulum has now swung to the view that the United States of America is to blame for everything that is wrong in the world.
Those who think the USA is to blame for 9/11 need read no further. Blaming America now includes “global warming.”
Unfortunately, the United Kingdom’s Guardian newspaper deliberately distorted Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s statement at a UN climate change conference to make it sound like the USA was taking responsibility in its words, as the leader “of the world’s polluters.” What Secretary Clinton actually said was that the United States “wants you to grow” and is intent on finding solutions that will allow countries to combat climate change without stunting development.” Continue reading USA Becoming Leading Apologist for Everything
April 28, 2009
Recientemente recibí el correo de un familiar acerca de la epidemia de INFLUENZA en México. Anoto y añado algunas precisiones que bien cabe aclarar. Sirva este texto a modo de aportación. [...]
April 26, 2009
Last night, my wife and I went to the movies and saw Earth. My interest in nature documentaries is usually fairly tepid, but we’d seen the previews and we thought the cinematography might be worth the ticket price. It was.
Having said that, the movie was somewhat disappointing in a number of ways.
For one, the musical score was irritating. It consisted of repetitive, grandiose, fanfares of brassy cliches. My wife commented afterward how much better it would have been if Disney had gotten someone else, maybe Cliff Martinez, to do the music.
Continue reading Earth: A Short Review
March 24, 2009
Posted by James BlueWolf in: Children, Current Events, Education, Environmental Issues, Family, General Topics, Inspiration & Motivation, Lifestyle, Native American, Nature/Wildlife, Non-Fiction, Philosophical Genres, Politics, Relationships, Religion, Social Aspects, Social Classes, Social Issues, Sociology, Spirituality, Uncategorized
Of all the words that Traditional People favor, Respect is the one used the most. It implies many things: values, morality, character, compassion, commitment, relationship, and more that is unspoken, but understood. We think it is the foundation of Traditional Life.
It begins with family and extended family, blossoming from an understanding of the importance of each generation’s contribution to the Peoples needs—physical, mental, and spiritual. By acknowledging the importance of each relationship—elder to child, child to provider, provider to elder, etc.—the balance of relatives maintain a civil and structured harmony.
The role each age group plays in the People’s life, with all its complex and interactive relationships and responsibilities, demands there be a formal process of recognizing, approaching, and acknowledging the contributions of each age group and relative. Indians speak in terms of those relationships. Personal names were seldom used, and even today the words which identify relationship within the family structure–aunt, uncle, cousin, brother, sister, grandmother, grandfather, husband, wife—are often used in place of common names. This is a measure of respect descended from the days when personal names were often unspoken, having greater meaning than the simple identification tags Europeans placed upon themselves. A name had Power. To respect that power and the individual who utilized it, our words for expressing relationship were used instead.
Respect extends into relationships in other ways: One does not touch another person or their belongings without invitation. One does not walk in the space between someone and the fire without acknowledgement. One offers only a clean Pipe to another to smoke. One knows that sometimes it is appropriate to be silent and sometimes it is appropriate to speak. One knows when a gift is necessary to accompany a request. Continue reading Cornerstone Words
February 19, 2009
Posted by James BlueWolf in: Business, Economics, Education, Environmental Issues, General Topics, Geopolitical Events, Governance, Inspiration & Motivation, Native American, Philosophical Genres, Politics, Social Aspects, Social Classes, Social Issues, Sociology, The Economy, Uncategorized
I do a lot of criticizing modern western civilization and its time that I began to write a little bit beyond the doom and gloom. Yes, I believe the civilization is headed for crisis beyond our present comprehension, and yes, I also believe that the suicidal adherents to nationalism will eventually cause the [...]
February 12, 2009
You tell yourself you don’t have a dime to spare. You wish the man in the ragged coat would withdraw his hand and not ask for your help. You are tired of seeing the homesless person with the dog sleeping outside on the cold ground. You wish the agencies to assist the needy would [...]
February 3, 2009
Posted by James BlueWolf in: Current Events, Economics, Education, Environmental Issues, General Topics, Geopolitical Events, Governance, Native American, Philosophical Genres, Politics, Social Issues, Sociology, Spirituality, Uncategorized
In the summer of O8, after numerous years of discussion over Mascot issues and general problems between Native and non-Native communities locally, I wrote this article. Reading it now, it seems a little disjointed, but it is a way I can familiarize readers with my general philosophies so I don’t have to rely on [...]
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China Cleaning their Environment
America Goes Buggy Over Bed Bugs
America Goes Buggy Over Bed Bugs
By Alan Caruba
When The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and all other media in America begin to devote lots of space and time to the subject of bed bugs, you know America has a real pest problem.
Uniquely, I know a lot of pest control professionals because I have worked closely with the industry for a quarter century providing public relations services.
So let me say that I have the ANSWER to the nation’s plague of bed bugs.
It’s called PESTICIDES. Continue reading America Goes Buggy Over Bed Bugs