Corruption Is Good, In the Right Hands
I listened to every word of President Obama’s statement on signing the financial institutions’ “reform” law, Wednesday morning. This was a filthy job, but somebody had to do it. The longest applause during the entire charade was when Obama thanked Rep. Barney Frank and Sen. Christopher Dodd for their “tireless work” in getting this bill passed.
Now, class, let’s conduct a brief review. First, not every Act that contains the word “reform” actually reforms or improves anything. As your grandma used to say, “Just because the cat has kittens in the oven, doesn’t make them biscuits.”
Second, this “reform” law doesn’t lay a finger on the two federal lending corporations, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which were at the heart of the phony financial instruments which nearly crippled the national economy. Why would they, of all institutions, be left out?
Back up a bit. Senator Dodd, both then and now, is Chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee that handles finance legislation. As such, he helped write and pass the original laws which required lending institutions to make increasing numbers of bad loans to increasingly dubious homeowners, in the interests of “fairness.” Continue reading Corruption Is Good, In the Right Hands
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July 24, 2010
Posted by Congressman Billybob in: Accountability, Commentary, Current Events, Democrat, Finance, Global Warming, Opinion, Politics, The Economy
 Leave a comment March 15, 2010
It rained hard this weekend in New York and the surrounding area. Sometimes the drops were huge as they pounded against the windows. The wind assisted in making each day a bit more frightening, especially Saturday when power went out, trees fell and streets filled with water. At JFK Airport the winds were up to 72 MPH. In the city it was a scary 55 MPH. The Staten Island Ferry stopped running. Amtrak stopped trains between New York and Philadelphia and several subway stations closed under many feet of water. It was awful but there was no flood, no hurricane, no earthquake. It was powerful wind and a lot of rain. Continue reading The Weekend There was No Flood March 9, 2010
Posted by Muhammad Cohen in: Business, Cap and Trade, Current Events, Energy, Environment, Environmental Issues, Foreign Affairs, Global Warming
Leave a comment Sustainable palm oil production shouldn’t be an oxymoron. [...] March 8, 2010
Posted by Minnette Coleman in: Commentary, Diet, Energy, Environment, Global Warming, Health & Fitness, Uncategorized
3 comments The daffodils just phoned in a complaint. If they make an early appearance to the party they may die from the future cold. The birds sitting on my windowsill refuse to shut up. They are discussing their friends who flew south and are missing the fine weather. The trees have decided to wait to see how long this warm spell with last. Nature is being teased by a preview of spring in New York and we are all watching and waiting for the real thing. Continue reading A Tease from Spring February 24, 2010
Posted by Prentiss Gray in: Environment, Environmental Issues, Geopolitical Events, Global Warming, Habit Change
3 comments
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! February 7, 2010
Posted by Alan Caruba in: Commentary, Congress, Current Events, Economic Crisis, Environment, Global Warming, Opinion
One comment I Prefer Local to Global By Alan Caruba Perhaps it is just the product of the times in which I grew up and my experience with the events of the world. Or perhaps it is the spin that has been added to the word “global”, endowing it with an almost spiritual quality. Mostly, though, I think it is my utter disgust with “global warming”, having spent the better part of three decades striving to defeat this plot to enable all forms of governmental intrusion into people’s lives and choices. A bit of personal history; as a child I recall riding the train to and from the Jersey shore when it was filled with young men in uniform, all destined to fight in far-off places whose names even then seemed exotic to me; Iwo Jima, Guadalcanal, Normandy, and Sicily. It was the harsh geography of war, but to a youngster it only meant someplace far away. By the time I was a teenager, an older brother was already in Japan at the headquarters from which the Korean conflict was conducted. There were new names to deal with, Seoul, Incheon, and the Yalu River. By then the Cold War was well on its way. Continue reading I Prefer Local to Global February 3, 2010
Posted by Alan Caruba in: Commentary, Congress, Current Events, Democrat, Economic Crisis, Energy, Environment, Global Warming, Governance, Opinion, Politics
2 comments The National Madhouse By Alan Caruba If you think that you are going mad, based on the statements out of the White House and Congress, let me assure you that you are sane, but those in charge of governing the nation appear to have lost their wits. The Democrat’s third-ranking House leader, Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC), during an appearance on Fox News asserted that “We’ve got to spend our way out of this recession.” It is his view that “We’re not going to save our way out of this recession.” So saving money is bad. Spending money we are borrowing at a rate of a billion dollars a day is good. If that sounds insane, you’re right. Continue reading The National Madhouse February 1, 2010
Posted by Alan Caruba in: Commentary, Current Events, Environment, Global Warming, Opinion
Leave a comment Global Warming Makes the Case Against Global Government By Alan Caruba The utterly baseless case for “global warming” is melting a lot faster than the glaciers in India’s Himalayas which, by the way, are not melting. It is time for the Nobel Committee to rescind the Peace Prize given to Al Gore and the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It is time for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences committee to take back Al Gore’s Oscar for “An Inconvenient Truth”, an alleged documentary that became mandatory viewing for students in the U.S. and around the world. Purporting to “prove” that the Earth was rapidly warming due to the rise in “greenhouse gases”, it is a fraud. In the event the news hasn’t reached you, in mid-August 2009, after repeated requests for the Climate Research Unit’s raw data from which it calculated global temperatures, the CRU at the University of East Anglia (UK), a key element of the UN’s IPCC, announced that it had discarded the data, thereby making it impossible to determine if their assertions of rising global temperatures were accurate and true. Or not. In October 2009, in the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America, it was demonstrated that the IPCC’s tree ring data from Russia that showed a cooling after 1961 had been disguised in its report (AR4) that, of course, asserted the Earth was warming. Continue reading Global Warming Makes the Case Against Global Government January 8, 2010
Not by Fire but by Ice By Alan Caruba Some say the world will end in fire; – Robert Frost, American Poet Considering the thousands of absurd claims made about the discredited fraud of “global warming”, a recent National Geographic News story, “North Magnetic Pole Moving East Due to Core Flux”, struck me as potentially far more significant. “Earth’s north magnetic pole is racing toward Russia at almost 40 miles a year due to magnetic changes in the planet’s core, new research says.” The article by Richard A. Lovett, noted that “The core is too deep for scientists to directly detect its magnetic field, but researchers can infer the field’s movements by tracking how Earth’s magnetic field has been changing at the surface and in space.” Continue reading Not by Fire but by Ice January 6, 2010
Posted by Muhammad Cohen in: Cap and Trade, China, Commentary, Current Events, Environment, Environmental Issues, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Relations, Geopolitical Events, Global Warming
Leave a comment China and US have taken the lead in saving earth away from the UN and fellow travelers that were bungling the job. [...] December 18, 2009
Posted by Alan Caruba in: Accountability, Commentary, Congress, Current Events, Economic Crisis, Energy, Foreign Affairs, Global Warming, Governance, Opinion
2 comments Questions, Questions, Questions By Alan Caruba I am frequently asked how I come up with something new to write about every day, but in fact I write about the same things, the Constitution, energy issues, the global warming fraud, education, immigration, et cetera. There is, however, always something new to address within these and other ongoing topics. As another weekend beckons, I have any number of questions rambling around in my brain about current events. Is 2010 the year in which global warming will be officially declared dead? How is it that the Obama administration can announce it is ready to given $10 BILLION DOLLARS a year to developing nations to help them cope with climate change? First of all, the U.S. is for all intents and purposes broke. We exist off of the billions we have to BORROW DAILY just to function and meet enormous obligations such as Medicare and Social Security payments, pensions, the entire U.S. military, and countless pork projects. We don’t have the money to give and climate change has been around 4.5 billion years. Why can’t these so-called developing nations—which have been developing since I was born over seventy years ago—start developing a few things themselves, like water purification programs, supporting agriculture through the use of genetically modified seeds so crops can resist drought or insect depredation, or just ensuring that, in some cases, the riches from oil royalties actually gets used to build some schools, health clinics, et cetera? Continue reading Questions, Questions, Questions December 10, 2009
Posted by Alan Caruba in: Commentary, Current Events, Environment, Environmental Issues, Global Warming, Opinion
3 comments Baby, It’s Cold Outside By Alan Caruba One of the great ironies of the Climate Change Conference taking place in Copenhagen is that its focus is on “global warming” at a time when Planet Earth has been in a cooling cycle for the passed decade. That fact alone is testimony to another one; the United Nations conference has nothing to do with the climate and everything to do with a binding treaty that would ultimately transfer power from the individual sovereign nations whose representatives are attending to centralized governance by unelected bureaucrats. Just as Communism concentrates all power in the “State” and relegates its citizens to “property” of the state, the UN Climate Change program would subjugate entire nations in the name of “saving the Earth.” It needs saving, but not from a fraudulent “global warming”. The present greatest danger to mankind is the various power centers represented by the delegates to the conference. There is, however, another danger and it is the climate; not a warming one, but one that is at the tail end of the latest interglacial period between ice ages. The last ice age ended about 11,500 years ago, though some argue it was only 10,000 years. The late Dr. Theodore Landscheidt, founder of the Schroeter Institute for Research in Cycles of Solar Activity in Waldmuenchen, Germany, was a giant in the field of climatology. This science looks at climate trends in terms of millions or thousands of years. Continue reading Baby, It’s Cold Outside December 9, 2009
Save the planet for the holidays. [...] December 4, 2009
You can blame it all on…. by Bob Grant
Got bats in your hats, or gum on your cats. Got dents in your car, or goop on your bar. Got fleas on your dog, or snakes in your bog. Got zits on your nose, or runs in your hose. Got cracks in your [...] November 30, 2009
Posted by Alan Caruba in: Commentary, Current Events, Environment, Global Warming, Opinion
Leave a comment Let the Great Global Warming Cover-Up Begin! By Alan Caruba Now that some enterprising and possibly conscience-stricken soul has served up the emails and other data of the Climate Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia, revealing the deliberate efforts to hide the corrupted research that justifies the “global warming” fraud, all the various journalists and alleged climate scientists who have been a party to it are trying desperately to cover up or minimize the scandal. Others like the U.S. “Climate Czar” Carol Browner have announced their faith in the disputed data, but Browner, who served as EPA Director in the Clinton administration has never shown any interest in honest science and is not likely to have left a paper trail in her present position. No word yet from Obama’s loony “Science Czar”, John Holdren. The truth is, those closely allied with the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have been suppressing the real science, substituting their own corrupted data, and trying to avoid the process of “peer review” by which other scientists, the real ones, can test the data for accuracy and validity. Thousands of real scientists have signed petitions over the years demanding that global warming claims be submitted to rigorous examination. Continue reading Let the Great Global Warming Cover-Up Begin! November 27, 2009
Posted by Alan Caruba in: Cap and Trade, Commentary, Current Events, Energy, Environment, Global Warming, Opinion
4 comments A Political Who’s Who of Global Warming Liars By Alan Caruba As the global warming fraud unravels, it’s a good time to look at the politicians who have been some of the most outspoken advocates, using global warming/climate change to advance “Cap-and-Trade” legislation and other related laws and regulations. Top of the list is President Barack Obama who has made many references to “climate change” and “global warming” to further this national and international fraud. He’ll pick up his Nobel Peace Prize in December; the same one given to Al Gore and the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change a few years back. Further proof of his mendacity will be his attendance at the UN Climate Change Conference in Denmark. Speaking on World Environment Day last June, Obama said of global warming, “We’re going to have to make some tough decisions and take concrete actions if we are going to deal with a potentially cataclysmic disaster.” This mirrors years of similar doomsday statements by former Vice President Al Gore. This is the kind of drivel Americans and others around the world have heard from their supposed “leaders” for far too long. Continue reading A Political Who’s Who of Global Warming Liars November 25, 2009
Global Warming Fraud: Somebody Needs to Go to Jail By Alan Caruba The revelations that scientists at the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (CRU) doctored the data supporting the global warming claims of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) means that EVERYTHING attributed to or based upon “global warming” is invalid. It means the Kyoto Climate Protocols that nations agreed to on December 11, 1997 and which entered into force on February 16 2005, and all subsequent agreements based on “global warming” have no validity, scientifically or as the basis for public action by any nation, state, province, city or town. It means that Al Gore’s pusillanimous “documentary” is a fraud along with just about every other statement uttered by any scientist, academician, or politician claiming that something, anything, should be done to avoid “global warming.” There is no “global warming”, if by that discredited term, you mean a dramatic increase in the Earth’s temperature, the vast rising of ocean levels, the melting of the polar ice caps, and the thousands of other things attributed to a massive fraud orchestrated by the IPCC and a vast network of scientists and environmental groups that benefited from the billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars they received in grants and other payments for their “research.” Continue reading Global Warming Fraud: Somebody Needs to Go to Jail November 23, 2009
Posted by Alan Caruba in: Commentary, Current Events, Environment, Environmental Issues, Global Warming, Opinion
5 comments Global Warming Meltdown: Climategate! By Alan Caruba For those of us “skeptics” and “deniers” who have been jumping up and down, pointing at the Sun, and saying, “See, it’s the Sun that determines how warm or cool the Earth is. See it? Up there in the sky?” The truth about some of the scientists behind the global warming hoax has finally arrived. The hoax has its roots in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an instrument of the United Nations Environmental Program, for whom global warming was the open sesame to achieving a one-world-government by scaring nations into signing a treaty that would control their use of energy, the means of producing it, and require vast billions to be sent to less developed nations in exchange for “emitting” greenhouse gases. Energy is called “the master resource” because, if you have lots of it, you can call your own shots. If you don’t, you are condemned to live in the dark and keeping people in the dark about the global warming hoax was essential. For years the IPCC has been controlled by a handful of the worst liars in the world, utterly devoted to taking actual climate data and twisting it to confirm the assertion that the Earth was not only warming dramatically, but that humanity was in peril of rising oceans, melting glaciers and polar ice caps, more hurricanes, the die-off of countless animal species, and every other calamity that could possibly be attributed to “global warming”, including acne. Continue reading Global Warming Meltdown: Climategate! November 22, 2009
Posted by Alan Caruba in: Commentary, Current Events, Environment, Environmental Issues, Global Warming, Opinion
Leave a comment The Global Carbon Footprint Scam By Alan Caruba I never cease to marvel at the environmental alarmists who create one “crisis” after another using wretchedly bad “science” to support their scams. On Tuesday, November 24, the Global Footprint Network is going to “release new data on the Ecological Footprint of 100 nations and humanity as a whole, and the current ledgers are sobering.” Well, of course, they’re sobering. Everything the Greens announce is sobering because, as you well know, the oceans are rising, the glaciers and polar caps are melting, we’re running out of oil, every animal on Earth is endangered, incandescent light bulbs and global warming will destroy all life on Earth, yada, yada, yada. “The figures provide a data-driven look at some of the most pressing issues facing humanity, from climate change to equitable distribution of resources.” Is the “equitable distribution of resources” the same as Barack Obama’s “redistribution of wealth”? Is this shorthand of every liberal’s wet dream, communism? Oh, yeah. Been there, seen it, don’t want any part of it. After giving communism a try for over seventy years, the Soviet Union imploded because it doesn’t work, never has, and never will. After Chairman Mao Zedong introduced communism to China, his various programs managed to kill off several millions through starvation until his death allowed a revision toward capitalism that initiated the transformation that holds out vastly improved lives for its 1.3 billion citizens. Continue reading The Global Carbon Footprint Scam November 14, 2009
Posted by Alan Caruba in: Commentary, Current Events, Energy, Environment, Environmental Issues, Global Warming, Opinion
Leave a comment Solar Powered Lies By Alan Caruba I lived in Florida for some five years between attending the University of Miami and returning after service in the Army for a job I left on news of JFK’s assassination. Some five years ago my older brother, a resident of Boynton Beach, urged me to relocate. As the exit doors of the Palm Beach Airport slid open, I was hit with a soggy blast of hot air that instantly told me I would not be taking up residence there again. I returned to New Jersey which shares with Florida, California and ten other States the dubious honor of being on the brink of financial collapse and default. Like others, New Jersey requires that some part of electricity production must came from “renewable” sources such as solar or wind. Other States have a similar mandate. Utilities have embraced it because the costs are heavily subsidized with taxpayer dollars. It is an enormous waste of money made worse by the unreliable aspects of both plus the need to always have a backup supplier, usually in the form of a coal-fired plant. Continue reading Solar Powered Lies November 12, 2009
Posted by Alan Caruba in: Accountability, Commentary, Current Events, Energy, Environment, Environmental Issues, Global Warming, Opinion, The Pundit's Corner
2 comments Polar Bear Balderdash By Alan Caruba I received an email from the Sierra Club urging me to sign a petition to declare the polar bear an endangered species. The Department of the Interior is considering this and it would cover much of the Arctic, including the sea ice of the Arctic Ocean. The Sierra Club is worried because Shell Oil wants to drill for oil in the Beaufort Sea, a part of the “critical habitat for the bear.” So, for anyone who doesn’t think that thwarting all attempts to drill for oil in the Arctic isn’t the real reason to “save” the thriving polar bear population, the answer is that it has nothing to do with polar bears and everything to do with the primary goal of all environmental organization, denying energy sources to Americans and everyone else. Indeed, the Sierra Club said declaring the polar bear endangered was “necessary to stop harmful activities such as oil drilling.” So I guess it doesn’t get any more plain than that. The Sierra Club went on to blatantly lie about the status of polar bears, claiming that “survival rates for polar bear cubs are plunging.” It is common knowledge that male polar bears are known to kill cubs, but the survival rates have much more to do with the mother bear’s ability to catch ringed seals. Continue reading Polar Bear Balderdash November 8, 2009
Posted by Alan Caruba in: Commentary, Congress, Current Events, Democrat, Economic Crisis, Economics, Education, Energy, Environment, Global Warming, Opinion, Politics
Leave a comment Wrecking America By Alan Caruba I am always wary of conspiracy theories. Most can be explained away as shared ideologies which, in the case of the current and recently past Congresses and White Houses, can be described as socialism. It did not and does not matter which Party was or is in power. The other explanation for the national car wreck we’re in is just plain “stupidity.” Another way of describing this is “willful ignorance.” Both apply when the President, Senators or Representatives say things that have no basis in fact either historically or empirically. We all know, for example, that it is getting colder no matter where we live, but the President has been lying about “global warming” and “greenhouse gas emissions” for some time now. Similarly, Congress, going back to 1979 or so, has been doing everything in its capacity to thwart access to the tremendous reserves of energy in America, thus forcing Americans to pay more for imported oil and to subsidize the worst possible way to generate electricity, wind and solar power. It has banned the manufacture or import of incandescent light bulbs starting in 2010. Continue reading Wrecking America October 27, 2009
Posted by Alan Caruba in: Cap and Trade, Commentary, Current Events, Energy, Environment, Global Warming, Governance, Opinion
Leave a comment How to be a Jerk By Alan Caruba Let us begin with a fact that whole legions of global warming alarmists cannot wish away or hide from public view. The Earth has been cooling since 1998 and it is getting demonstrably cooler almost everywhere in the world. The cooling will continue for decades. So it follows that the best way to be a complete jerk is to have your book, “Climate Cover-Up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming”, published at the same time that a recent Public Strategies Inc/Politico poll revealed that “Just four percent (4%) ranked climate change as the top issue.” If the congressional election—-next year’s midterms—-were held today the economy would be the top issue (45%), followed by insane government spending (21%) Another survey, one by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, conducted between September 30 and October 4, found that “fewer respondents see global warming as a very serious problem,; 35% say that today, down from 44% in April 2008.” James Hoggan, the cofounder of DeSmogBlog, along with Richard Littlemore are the proud authors of what has to be the silliest book of the year. It actually has a blurb on the back cover from Leonardo DeCaprio, famed actor and, until now, an unknown meteorological savant. Continue reading How to be a Jerk October 24, 2009
Posted by Alan Caruba in: Cap and Trade, Commentary, Congress, Democrat, Energy, Environment, Environmental Issues, Global Warming, Opinion, Politics
Leave a comment Taking Away Your Choice 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 23, 2009
Where are the Hurricanes, Mr. Gore?
By Alan Caruba
That god among men and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Al Gore, told us in “An Inconvenient Truth”, his Oscar-winning documentary, that we had to brace for increasing numbers of hurricanes as the result of global warming. So, where are the hurricanes of 2009, Mr. Gore? The hurricane season that runs from June through October is about to end with nothing more than one weak to borderline moderate tropical storm that hit Florida’s panhandle, but there have been NO hurricanes. So, where are the hurricanes of 2009, Mr. Gore? Trying to predict how many hurricanes there will be each year is probably fun, but is a highly risky undertaking. I have a lot of friends among the meteorological and climatological community, men of science, but I always cross my fingers for them when they take a run at it. This year, Bill Gray of Colorado State, perhaps the best known among the hurricane forecasters, thought there would be at least 7 hurricanes of which 3 would be major. Weather Services Inc. agreed with Dr. Gray and, over at Accuweather, the prediction was for 8 hurricanes of which 2 would be major. NOAA and the National Weather Service do not predict hurricanes, but as political as well as scientific entities they have a very bad track record of trying to confirm Al Gore’s global warming claims. In March, William J. Broad, reporting in The New York Times, noted that Gore’s “scientific audience is uneasy” in the wake of his global warming documentary. “These scientists argue that some of Mr. Gore’s central points are exaggerated and erroneous. They are alarmed, some say, at what they call his alarmism.” Continue reading Where are the Hurricanes, Mr. Gore? October 22, 2009
Posted by Alan Caruba in: Cap and Trade, Commentary, Current Events, Environment, Environmental Issues, Global Warming, Opinion
Leave a comment Using “Global Warming” to Steal your Rights 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
Leave a comment The “Rent Seekers” – Green Corporations 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 19, 2009
Posted by Alan Caruba in: Current Events, Environment, Foreign Affairs, Global Warming, Opinion, Politics
5 comments Only Idiots Listen to these “Leaders” By Alan Caruba
Not long ago U.N. Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, told everyone they only had a few weeks in order to save the Earth from “climate change” and this week it’s the Prime Minister of Great Britain, Gordon Brown. Ever since he was Vice President and a defeated candidate for the presidency, Al Gore has been telling people the Earth is doomed. President Obama talks about climate change—remember when it used to be global warming?—and will no doubt sign the treaty coming out of a “climate” conference in Copenhagen in December. The real problem will be whether the Senate will ratify it because, if it does, the U.S. Constitution will be nullified in favor of a global government. Ever since the first United Nations conference on “global warming” the only goal has been to establish a global government so that the “leaders” could grow wealthy while the rest of mankind is treated like cattle. Why would anyone believe anything as preposterous as the claims being made regarding global warming or climate change? Consider what happens when climate and natural events occur? If it’s a drought, people have to flee to find sources of water. If it’s a flood, people have to flee to avoid being drowned. If it’s a hurricane, they often have to evacuate and, even if they don’t, their homes can be flattened by the winds. Anybody remember Hurricane Katrina? Continue reading Only Idiots Listen to these “Leaders” October 14, 2009
Posted by Alan Caruba in: Commentary, Current Events, Energy, Environment, Global Warming, Governance, Opinion, Politics
7 comments Global Warming? The “Deniers” are my Heroes By Alan Caruba
It has been nearly three decades since I first wrote that “global warming” was a hoax and I have had to repeat myself countless times since then. Along the way I met many of the so-called “deniers” and dissenters. I had correspondence with others. We all knew that Al Gore was lying. We all know that President Obama is lying, And yet the lies continue. The most amazing aspect of the hoax is that, despite a decade of global cooling, the mainstream media, print and electronic, relentlessly continue to write about “greenhouse gases” as if they have anything to do with the Earth’s climate. The primary greenhouse gas in the Earth’s atmosphere is 95% WATER VAPOR. The primary source of warming and cooling on Earth is the SUN. The claim that carbon dioxide (CO2) has anything to do with the climate, other than to react to changes in it hundreds of years after they occur, is totally discredited, but I still read magazines like Business Week or The Economist, Time and Newsweek, as well as newspapers, whose reporters and editors demonstrate an astonishing ignorance—a willful ignorance—by continuing to publish global warming lies saying that CO2 emissions must be reduced.. Even the advocates of global warming began to speak and write about “climate change” several years ago in order to avoid the obvious fact that the Earth began cooling in 1998. Climate change! Continue reading Global Warming? The “Deniers” are my Heroes October 12, 2009
Posted by Alan Caruba in: Accountability, Comments & Discussion, Current Events, Foreign Affairs, Global Warming, Governance, Healthcare, Military, Opinion, Politics
Leave a comment Mr. President, Please Do NOTHING By Alan Caruba
I had a strange epiphany the other day. If I were to write a letter to President Obama, it would say, “Please do nothing.” It seems to me that Obama’s forte is to do nothing much of the time. Well, not “nothing.” He is giving speeches, but those incessant, self-referencing speeches do nothing to change the minds of America’s critics and enemies. They have rapidly reached a point where Americans find them an object of ridicule. I am not concerned about his playing golf; a lot of presidents did that. The pick-up basketball game is okay, too. The man is under a lot of pressure to “do something” about problems here in America and around the world, so it is only reasonable that he relax in ways that best suit him. The effort, however, to do something is what worries me about President Obama because he is so wrong about his top two issues, healthcare reform and his renamed cap-and-trade tax on energy use. He is wrong about the latter because there is no “global warming” (now called “climate change”) to justify penalizing everyone for turning on a light, watching TV, using their computer, and the million other ways we all use electricity. He is wrong about healthcare reform because all the polls demonstrate that Americans want to (1) have a choice about whether to have health insurance and (2) like the insurance plans they’re in. He’s wrong, too, because (3) the government is incapable of “cutting waste and fraud” out of Medicare and because adding thousands more to the rolls (4) will require that other thousands are denied treatments they need in a timely manner. Continue reading Mr. President, Please Do NOTHING October 10, 2009
Posted by Alan Caruba in: Commentary, Current Events, Energy, Environment, Global Warming, Opinion
Leave a comment Saving the Earth by Hating Humanity
By Alan Caruba
As the greatest hoax of the modern era, “global warming”, bites the dust around the world, it behooves us all to contemplate why environmentalists—Greens—would attempt to hoodwink the world’s population into believing they could do anything to “control” the planet’s climate. One singular fact stands out in all Green propaganda and permeates all the legislation and other programs they sponsor. It is a contempt and disdain for the Earth’s human population. The leaders of the movement hate humanity. Obsessed with population growth, anything that can reduce it—disease, poverty, famine, or lack of energy is pursued as part of the Green agenda. The Green movement grew out of an earlier, more salutary one, conservation. We can surely thank Americans such as John Muir and others who sought to preserve tracts of wilderness such as Yellowstone and the nation’s forested areas from the rampant depredations of the 1800s and early 1900s. The nation owes a debt of gratitude to President Theodore Roosevelt for the initial creation of national parks and forests. Continue reading Saving the Earth by Hating Humanity October 3, 2009
Posted by Alan Caruba in: Accountability, Comments & Discussion, Congress, Current Events, Energy, Environmental Issues, Global Warming, Opinion
4 comments EPA: The Blob that Ate America By Alan Caruba
No single government agency has grown so big and so fast as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and no single agency threatens constitutionally guaranteed property rights and nationwide economic growth than the EPA. It is the Blob that ate America. Signed into law by Richard M. Nixon in 1970, the EPA has so consistently twisted the truth about the environment that its announcements must be dissected like a cadaver to find any verifiable facts. This agency of the government is so brazen that it is currently trying to bully Congress, the seat of government, into passing the horrid Cap-and-Trade bill so that it might then regulate stationary sources that emit more than 25,000 tons of greenhouse gases per year. In its endless quest for more and more power over all aspects our lives, the EPA wants to rewrite the 1970 Clean Air Act to include so-called greenhouse gases. That is why its Senate sponsors have obligingly renamed it a “Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act.” It is based entirely on the global warming hoax. The EPA has been the spear point for the global warming hoax, the creation of many worldwide and domestic environmental groups that continue to lie, saying it is caused by humans. There is, however, NO global warming. The Earth has been into a cooling cycle for the past decade. The current cooling is predicted to last for decades to come. Continue reading EPA: The Blob that Ate America October 1, 2009
Posted by Bill Hazelgrove in: Democracy, Environment, Environmental Issues, Geopolitical Events, Global Warming, History, Sociology, Television, The Pundit's Corner
One comment Ken Burns newest film is amazing. The parks are amazing. We watch and watch and I have been at it eight 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 30, 2009
Posted by Alan Caruba in: Cap and Trade, Congress, Current Events, Democrat, Energy, Environment, Global Warming, Opinion
Leave a comment Cap-and-Switch: Hello Sucker! By Alan CarubaHere’s a look at the introduction of a draft bill co-sponsored by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), co-sponsored by John Kerry (D-MA). It is the Senate alternative to the horrid “Cap-and-Trade” bill authored by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA). Call it “Cap-and-Switch.” IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES All those who believe Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Jolly Green Giant are real should stop reading now. Let’s look at the objectives of the Senate version of a huge tax on all energy use by every American. As I will note later, the bulk of the cost will fall on low-and-middle income households. “To create clean energy jobs.” This is pure bunk. Such jobs would be primarily in the production of solar and wind energy. Other such jobs involve biofuels such as ethanol. Combined, solar and wind represent barely one percent of all the electricity generated daily in the nation. If solar and wind were profitable, you can be sure that American entrepreneurs would have long ago become more active, but if it were not for taxpayer dollars subsidizing solar and wind, neither would likely exist. The only thing ethanol has done has been to raise the cost of the corn from which it is made and reduce the mileage of every gallon of gasoline to which it is added. Continue reading Cap-and-Switch: Hello Sucker! September 29, 2009
Posted by Alan Caruba in: Accountability, Comments & Discussion, Current Events, Energy, Global Warming, Governance, Opinion, Politics
2 comments When Did Energy Become the Enemy? By Alan Caruba
One of the most curious and, frankly, frightening aspects of environmentalism is its hatred of the use of energy. One can draw a straight line between the Carter administration that imposed a windfall tax on the U.S. oil industry and the present Obama administration that is all for offshore oil drilling just as long as it takes place in Brazil, not America. There is, in fact, offshore oil exploration and drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, particularly near Florida. The problem is that it is being undertaken by China and Russia. In America, Ken Salazar, Obama’s Secretary of the Interior, is likely to slow offshore development, but it should be noted that 85% of the nation’s continental shelf has long been under a ban against exploration and development, and was throughout the eight years of the Bush Administration. The same holds true for vast oil deposits in Alaska’s ANWR area. Until the 1970s, America’s economy thrived on affordable energy. Fully 85% of all the energy we need and use comes from coal, oil and natural gas. That is not going to change despite all the blather about “renewable energy” sources such as solar or wind. Neither of these has proven to be either reliable or affordable without huge government subsidies wherever they have been tried. As Seldon B. Graham, Jr. notes in his book, “Why Your Gasoline Prices Are High”, in 1981 a windfall profits tax was imposed, “This tax, in effect, sent U.S.A. Oil’s exploration and drilling budgets straight to the government to spend as it pleased; thereby leaving little or no exploration and drilling budgets for USA Oil.” Continue reading When Did Energy Become the Enemy? September 28, 2009
Posted by Alan Caruba in: Comments & Discussion, Current Events, Democrat, Economic Crisis, Energy, Entertainment, Foreign Affairs, Global Warming, Governance, Healthcare, Opinion, Politics
Leave a comment All Obama, All the Time By Alan Caruba
You know things are amiss when a British newspaper takes President Obama to task in an editorial titled, “Too much Obama.” America and the rest of the world have had nine months of President Obama and all the flaws that were hidden by campaign rhetoric and coverage are now on daily display. The problem, specifically, is too much rhetoric, too many speeches in too many places. “One of these is to be everywhere, all the time. Five television interviews in one day, an unprecedented appearance on a late-night talk show and eight speeches in two weeks have guaranteed him blanket coverage since his summer holiday. But what is on show is the personality of the office holder, not the authority and mystique of the office, which dissipate with every soundbite.” In classic English understatement, The Times noted “He is somewhat vain”, but suggested most presidents were. That’s like saying all columnists or editorial writers are occasionally vain. In Obama’s case, it goes beyond vanity. There is something creepy about Obama. He doesn’t just enjoy the spotlight; he craves it like an addict. Continue reading All Obama, All the Time September 26, 2009
Posted by Alan Caruba in: Cap and Trade, Congress, Current Events, Democrat, Energy, Environment, Global Warming, Governance, Healthcare, Opinion, Politics
8 comments Liberals are Killing America By Alan Caruba
It is not a new observation, but it is one that needs review and repeating every so often. Why do liberals always seem to get on the side of any issue concerning America’s future? Its sovereignty? Its financial security? Its defense? I think this question is particularly timely given the public discussion of Obamacare that included a huge peaceful protest march on Washington September 12th. The President’s non-stop campaign to get “reform” passed and the heated exchanges in Congress do not represent actual healthcare reform, but are testimony to a liberal obsession with a very bad idea. You know something is desperately wrong when Democrats will not permit the proposed bill to enjoy a grace period of 72 hours during which both the public and members of Congress can actually read it before a vote is taken. The irony of the current battle is that the bill will significantly change Medicare, a program advocated by liberals and, like Social Security, established by Democrats in Congress. It will destroy a free market for insurance programs individuals may choose to purchase. Or not. There is no dispute that both programs, safety nets for Americans, have been helpful. Neither is voluntary There is no doubt that both are insolvent because they are unsustainable. This has been exacerbated by the way Congress has dipped into the funds intended to be set aside for them. Obamacare will end up killing a lot of the people that Medicare was intended to save from the diseases and accidents that afflict the elderly. Continue reading Liberals are Killing America September 25, 2009
Posted by Alan Caruba in: Cap and Trade, Comments & Discussion, Current Events, Energy, Global Warming, Opinion
Leave a comment Making Law, Ignoring Science, Taxing via Ignorance By Alan Caruba
You begin with bad science, the kind that has no basis in fact. You get corporations to promote that bad science in order to increase their profits. Then you get the courts involved to rule on what those corporations are doing and when they incorporate the bad science in their judgment, you complete the circle of ignorance. Somebody always ends up with the bill for this and it is always either the consumer and/or the taxpayer. The process is called “rent seeking” when corporations attempt to manipulate public opinion and policy for their personal gain. Recently, Marlo Lewis, a senior fellow with the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a free market think tank, wrote gleefully about a decision of the Second U.S. Court of Appeals, State of Connecticut et al v. American Power et all, that concluded that states and other plaintiffs have the right to sue five electric utilities for creating a “public nuisance” by emitting carbon dioxide (CO2), thus contributing to global warming. As I am wont to point out almost every day, there is NO global warming and CO2 plays no role whatever in the process by which the Earth warms. It is, however, the most hyped “greenhouse” gas, alleged to be responsible for the planet’s warming. No, the Sun is the most responsible for that and right now it is in hibernation, producing far fewer sunspots (magnetic storms) than in previous years. The result is that the Earth has been cooling for the past decade. September 24, 2009
Posted by Alan Caruba in: Accountability, Cap and Trade, Comments & Discussion, Current Events, Energy, Global Warming, Governance, Opinion, Politics
2 comments Unbearable Arrogance By Alan Caruba
As the months pass by in the Obama administration, some traits are beginning to emerge that inform us in a general way what we’re up against. To the astonishment of many, it is an administration filled with Marxists. The “Green Jobs” czar Van Jones was exposed as one and resigned. Now it has been revealed that yet another, Mark Lloyd, designated as the “Diversity” czar, holds the Venezuelan dictator, Hugo Chavez, in high esteem, calling his power grab “an incredible revolution.” Even before these two, it was learned that Carol Browner, the “Environmental” czar, was a highly regarded member of the Commission for a Sustainable World Society, which is part of the Socialist International. As various members of the Obama administration expressed their views on events and issues, we discover that they hold most Americans in low esteem. David Axelrod, the communications advisor to President Obama, dismissed an estimated 1.8 million Americans who participated in the September 12 protest march saying, “They’re wrong.” There hasn’t been a comparable event in years, but “They’re wrong.” Continue reading Unbearable Arrogance 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
Leave a comment 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 22, 2009
WHY DO WORLD LEADERS SUPPORT THE CO2 GREENHOUSE GAS MYTH?
By Ben Cerruti
It is disturbing to hear the President of the United States propagate that which is not true. In his speech to the United Nations today he advanced the Global Warming/Climate Change myth. At the same time appearing in the New York Times an article by Andrew Revkin contains the fact that “global temperatures have been stable for a decade and may even drop in the next few years”, In addition, there are many scientists, meteorologists and weather experts who have debunked the notion that the creation of excessive amounts of Carbon Dioxide is the cause of global warming if, in fact, it actually exists.
When leaders in all major countries in the world including ours claim there is climate change that has been created by mankind caused green house gasses our citizens tend to believe them. When they claim that man made Carbon Dioxide is a green house gas and must be reduced markedly people tend to accept that as a fact. In fact, established evidence proves the propaganda which they are conveying is not the truth. Why would our leaders and others in high places lie to us since on the surface there appears no reason to do so? There is a reason and it should be shocking to those who are willing to acknowledge it. Especially since it could lead to the loss of our country’s sovereignty. Let’s look at some interesting history on this subject.
In a speech to the UN relating to the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change in 2000, French Prime Minister Jacques Chirac said ”For the first time, humanity is instituting a genuine instrument of global governance, one that should find a place within the World Environmental Organization which France and the European Union would like to see established.” Adding on to this rhetoric was climate change advocate and former VP Al Gore’s statement that the proposed Congressional Carbon Cap and Trade bill will help bring about “Global Governance”. In a speech made in 1991 we also also heard former President George Herbert Bush refer to a “New World Order”. Continue reading WHY DO WORLD LEADERS SUPPORT THE CO2 GREENHOUSE GAS MYTH? September 20, 2009
Posted by Alan Caruba in: Comments & Discussion, Current Events, Foreign Affairs, Global Warming, Opinion
One comment Just How Awful is the UN? By Alan Caruba
It is hard to imagine a more nauseating assemblage than those who gather for a meeting of the General Assembly of the United Nations. Belonging to such an organization—and the United States does—is an insult to humanity. When the General Assembly votes, it puts nations such as Liechtenstein and Tonga on an equal footing with the United States. It is one vote, one nation. The United States has more people living in Florida than live in more than 130 member nations of the UN. The United Nations is so corrupt and so devoid of any sense of decency that it should have been abandoned by the United States long ago. By 2003, there had been 291 wars resulting in 22 million deaths and during that time, the UN had authorized military intervention only twice; once in response to North Korea’s invasion of South Korea and following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990. In both cases, the United States bore the brunt of the fighting. Despite 17 resolutions, the UN disapproved of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 to remove Saddam Hussein and the Baath regime. Now long since swept under the carpet was the Iraq’s corrupt “Oil for Food” program during Kofi Annan’s stewardship as Secretary General, but it’s well to remember that Saddam benefited to the tune of $21 billion while UN officials looked the other way. Continue reading Just How Awful is the UN? September 18, 2009
Posted by Muhammad Cohen in: Current Events, Environment, Environmental Issues, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Relations, Global Warming, Nature/Wildlife
Leave a comment 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
2 comments “Technically” We’re Out of a Recession 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 13, 2009
Posted by Alan Caruba in: Cap and Trade, Current Events, Energy, Environment, Global Warming, Opinion
One comment The Great Copenhagen Liar’s Conference By Alan Caruba
From December 6 through the 18th, a conference sponsored by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will gather in Copenhagen, Denmark, to explore ways to “prevent global warming” and I would like to be among the first to tell all those idiots checking their passports and deciding what to pack that they can all stay home. This is not an original thought on my part and, in fact, is occasioned by Prof. Henrik Svensmark. He is director of the Center for Sun-Climate Research at the Technical University of Denmark and, not surprisingly, knows a lot about the Sun and climate. Permit me to share some of his thoughts. In a September 9th opinion titled, “While the Sun Sleeps”, Prof. Svensmark wrote, “Last week, the scientific team behind the SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) reported that the number of sunspot-free days suggest that solar activity is heading towards its lowest level in about 100 years.” September 13, 2009
Posted by Alan Caruba in: Congress, Current Events, Democracy, Economic Crisis, Energy, Freedom, Global Warming, Governance, Heroes, Opinion, Politics
One comment The Fine Art of American Protest By Alan Caruba
There have been many mass marches on Washington, D.C., so the locals know how to make plans to anticipate the congestion and the police are polite and skillful in the science of crowd control. They can afford to be polite because the crowds, no matter how large, are too. Oh, sure, they shout a lot, but that’s what a protest march is all about. Back in April 1894 unemployed workers known as “Coxey’s Army” showed up to demand that Congress do something. It was the second year of an economic depression that would last another two years, but it was the worst that had hit the nation barely three decades since the end of the Civil War. Americans know where to head when they are at odds with their government and most know or suspect that the source of their problems can be found in Washington, D.C. and they are always right. Bloodshed has been extremely rare at such events. On June 17, 1932 a “Bonus Army”, some 20,000 World War One veterans and their families massed in the Capitol seeking advance payment of bonuses from the Hoover administration. The year is significant. It was four years passed the beginning of the Great Depression that began in 1929. Continue reading The Fine Art of American Protest September 3, 2009
Posted by Prentiss Gray in: Attitude, Communications, Diet, Entertainment, Freelance Author, Global Warming, Health & Fitness, Humor, Lifestyle, Marketing, Motivation, Non-Fiction, Sociology, Television, The Media, Uncategorized
One comment
Is it a problem that negative journalism is read, viewed, discussed more than positive reporting? Well, more viewers means more money and as a race, it would seem that we are more attracted to the negative than the positive. Just a few nights in front of the TV around any election will demonstrate to the viewer that when money is being spent, it’s the negative ads that get made. This is a good measure of effectiveness of the “right type” of marketing. Consultants and campaign managers are paid to win campaigns, they have to use what sells in order to be effective. Their overwhelming choice; a good smear campaign. Everyone can name their favorite, there is almost no need cite examples. The news media also knows this key strategy, in the form of “bad news sells.” We only have to count the number of bad news stories as compared to good news stories to see. What’s the average, 98 to 1? Which is why morning news/entertainment shows all vie for the worst (read “best”) stories they can find. They have an insatiable appetite for fires and floods, murders and kidnappings, and bad war news. Even the so-called entertainment segments of the programs cover only the best fear producing topics. Are you being ripped off at the store? Why you are more likely than the next guy to die at an early age (insert too fat, too sedentary, bad diet, bad genes, bad habits). Of course, that brings us to the latest media love affair, reality medical shows. Doctors giving advice and commentary, on all the medical or psychological problems we may have. Medical fear mongering for the “snake fascinated” audience. Continue reading It pays to be mean August 27, 2009
Posted by Alan Caruba in: Cap and Trade, Current Events, Economic Crisis, Energy, Global Warming, Governance, Healthcare, Opinion, Politics
One comment Don’t Just Stand There. Panic! By Alan Caruba
I am rather tired of having to panic every other day courtesy of the U.S. government. It started with seeing the former Secretary of the Treasury sweating profusely while demanding the Congress give him a blank check for $700 billion to bail out some financial institutions that probably should have been allowed to fail. Many were given gobs of taxpayer money to avoid bankruptcy. Others were merged with those that hadn’t been as profligate. In October 1929, Variety, the show business newspaper, had a headline that said “Wall Street Lays an Egg.” What followed was some ten years of a Depression that would not go away because the government did everything possible to prolong it in the name of ending it. The so-called “brain trust” around Franklin D. Roosevelt made every wrong decision available. The Supreme Court had to step in to limit some of the damage at one point. Constitution? What Constitution? About the only thing we are being told is not a cause for panic is the “war on terror”, a phrase that is no longer allowed to be used in official Washington where, apparently, if you don’t call a duck a duck it is no longer a duck. Nonetheless, we are also told that Afghanistan is the “front line” of the war on you-know-what even though there are no “front lines” in insurgencies or guerrilla wars. Continue reading Don’t Just Stand There. Panic! August 22, 2009
Posted by Alan Caruba in: Current Events, Environment, Environmental Issues, Global Warming, Healthcare, Opinion, Politics
Leave a comment Saturday’s Random Thoughts
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 18, 2009
Posted by Alan Caruba in: Cap and Trade, Congress, Current Events, Democrat, Energy, Environment, Global Warming, Opinion, Politics
Leave a comment Cap-and-Trade Insanity By Alan Caruba
To understand how insane the Cap-and-Trade bill really is you need to know that it based on the belief that carbon dioxide emissions must be reduced to avoid a global warming that is NOT happening. The American Clean Energy and Security Act is a giant scam involving “carbon credits” to be sold and traded. It is also about billions in taxpayer’s dollars being wasted on wind and solar generation of electricity. If this was a sensible way to produce energy, it would be a dominant producer, but it isn’t. Short of producing electricity by peddling bicycles, it is as inefficient and impractical as possible. So-called “clean energy” accounts for just over one percent of all the electricity Americans use every day and it exists only because the government subsidizes it by taking your tax dollars and giving them to wind and solar energy producers. Some States require utilities to buy electricity from them. As for “security”, how much energy security does the United States enjoy if it must import 60% of the oil it uses for transportation and a wide range of products, not the least of which is anything made from plastic? Real security means drilling and mining right here, right now. There’s plenty of oil in ANWR and offshore. The government forbids access to it. And, where’s there’s oil there’s natural gas as well. As for coal, the U.S. has enough for centuries of affordable electricity, but the environmental organizations have in recent years stopped the building of a hundred coal-fired plants and they brag about it. Continue reading Cap-and-Trade Insanity August 8, 2009
Posted by Alan Caruba in: Accountability, Congress, Current Events, Energy, Environmental Issues, Global Warming, Opinion, Politics, The Economy
Leave a comment I Accuse! By Alan CarubaIn 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 3, 2009
Posted by Alan Caruba in: Accountability, Cap and Trade, Current Events, Energy, Environment, Global Warming, Opinion, Politics
Leave a comment Obama’s Big Lie: “Green” Jobs
By Alan Caruba
If there is one thing Americans began to rapidly conclude following his inauguration in January, it is that President Barack Obama lies all the time and that those lies are often blatant. In pursuit of the “Cap-and-Trade” act that is a huge tax on all energy use in America, Obama’s favorite mantra is that massive subsidies to wind and solar energy producers, as well as biofuel producers, will generate millions of new “green” jobs. Perhaps the worst part of this lie is that they will actually destroy jobs. In the July edition of Energy Tribune, Michael Economides and Peter Glover co-authored “Green Jobs: Fast-Tracking Economic Suicide.” I know Economides and he is internationally recognized as one of the world’s authorities on energy issues. “Creating ex nihilo—literally, out of nothing—used to be a theological concept, God’s prerogative. Today, it seems, President Obama and certain Western politicians claim to possess the ability to do it,” write the article’s authors. “Against all the laws of economics and the marketplace, President Obama and others believe they can create millions of ‘green’ jobs ex nihilo, literally out of thin air, via cap and trade.” Continue reading Obama’s Big Lie: “Green” Jobs July 31, 2009
Posted by Alan Caruba in: Current Events, Education, Global Warming, Opinion, Politics
Leave a comment Teaching U.S. Kids the U.N. Way By Alan Caruba
It’s horrible enough to think of the way school children have been deliberately and unnecessarily frightened by the teaching in American schools about “global warming.” Since the 1980s it has been part of the curriculum in schools throughout the nation, convincing a lot of children that the Earth was doomed. It was difficult enough to grow up as I did knowing that the Soviet Union could annihilate most of the population with nuclear missiles or that their brand of communism could destroy the liberties Americans take for granted. Ever since Jimmy Carter created the Department of Education, the nation’s educational systems, once among the best in the world and answering directly to local school boards, have produced a dismal record of general failure to teach the fundamentals of reading, writing and arithmetic. It was taken over by the National Education Association, a union, and a curriculum of liberalism has existed ever since. American children grew up learning that the Founding Fathers were slave owners. They were forced to learn “fuzzy math” and “whole words”, two systems that left them unable to add or subtract sums without a calculator in hand and to read without some difficulty. Schools became increasingly dangerous places, often requiring the fulltime presence of a police officer. In sum, schools, i.e. administrators and faculty, increasingly sought to place themselves between the student and his parents as the primary authority. Now we learn that the Obama administration is imposing “education reform efforts” that will adopt “internationally benchmarked education standards.” They will become national standards. The incentive will be federal “stimulus” dollars. There’s more to learn about this at http://www.edwatch.org/, Continue reading Teaching U.S. Kids the U.N. Way July 28, 2009
Posted by Alan Caruba in: Congress, Current Events, Energy, Environmental Issues, Global Warming, Opinion, Politics
Leave a comment It’s Getting Colder Everywhere 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 23, 2009
Posted by Alan Caruba in: Accountability, Cap and Trade, Current Events, Energy, Global Warming, Opinion
Leave a comment Green Desperation By Alan Caruba
The environmental movement and, in particular, “global warming”, has become a joke. That is always a sign of decline. Unless you’re a comedian, when people start laughing at you it’s never a good thing. There are often defining moments in the death of a movement and I think I may have spotted one when the Australian July issue of Rolling Stone featured a naked Miranda Kerr on its “Green Issue” cover, chained to a tree while demurely covering her naughty parts to advance the cause of koala bears. Ms. Kerr is described as a “super model” and terribly concerned that there are only 100,000 koalas left. Apparently, “global warming” has something to do with that. If you have to use nudity to sell your nonsense, you are scrapping bottom; People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals does it all the time. Back in the U.S. one of the biggest idiots in the U.S. Senate, a former candidate for President, John Kerry, had convened a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee which predicted that “massive crop devastation, melting glaciers, water shortages, (and) millions of displaced people…will drag the U.S. military into conflict if global climate change goes unchecked.” Observers may have noticed that Greens no longer refer to “global warming” much anymore as opposed to “climate change.” This is because (a) there is NO global warming and (b) the climate has always been in a process of change over the past 4.5 billion years. If you wanted to ensure that the U.S. military continued to receive billions for defense, claiming that “rising sea levels” will lead to conflicts is a pretty silly way of justifying it, given the threats to peace in the Middle East and elsewhere. Continue reading Green Desperation July 16, 2009
Liars and the Global Warming Lies They’re Telling By Alan Caruba
It must be that the believers in “global warming” all live in caves and do not wander out to discover what is really happening on the planet. The constant and hysterical cries from the global warming crowd claim that we have merely months, weeks and days before we’re toast. Of course, the “solution” they offer is the appalling “Cap-and-Trade” bill that the Obama gang is trying to rush through Congress. We are supposed to believe that a huge tax on all use of electricity will “solve” the peril of global warming by cutting “greenhouse gas emissions.” We are supposed to believe it is wise policy to slow or stop the building of coal-fired or nuclear plants to generate electricity. We are supposed to believe that the vast coal, oil, and natural gas resources throughout the nation are not to be extracted to keep us warm in the coming years of cold weather or to fuel the nation’s vast fleet of cars and trucks. For many throughout the nation and the world, a walk outside tells them a very different story. Over at ClimateDepot.com the headlines read: “Baltimore: ‘Record low temp tied, another on the way—a summer without much heat.’” And “Not so peachy: Ohio cold snap takes bite out of local peach crop.” Remember, it’s JULY. Continue reading Liars and the Global Warming Lies They’re Telling July 13, 2009
Posted by Alan Caruba in: Current Events, Energy, Environment, Environmental Issues, Global Warming, Opinion
Leave a comment Greening Our Schools and Nation 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
Posted by Alan Caruba in: Cap and Trade, Congress, Current Events, Energy, Environment, Global Warming, Opinion, Politics
Leave a comment The U.S. Weather Service Says… By Alan Caruba
Below is a recent post by the U.S. Weather Service. I have added some boldface to elements of the text.
· Due to the unusually cool and wet conditions in June…here are some interesting facts to note:
· This June is tied for the 8th coolest on record. The average temperature was 67.5. (That’s) 3.7 degrees below normal…which also occurred in 1897.
· This was the coolest June since 1958…when the average temperature as 67.2 degrees.
· Below average temperatures occurred on 23 out of 30 days this June…or 75 percent of the month
· Central Park has not hit 90 degrees in the month of June this year. The last time this occurred was back in 1996.
· Central Park has not hit 85 degrees in the month of June this year. The last time this occurred was back in 1916. This has only occurred two other times…1903 and 1886.
· The low temperature dipped below 60 degrees eleven times in the month of June. The last time this occurred was in 2003 when it occurred seventeen times.
· It was the second wettest June on record with 10.06 inches of rain. The wettest June on record is 2003 with 10.27 inches. Continue reading The U.S. Weather Service Says…
July 9, 2009
Posted by Alan Caruba in: Accountability, Current Events, Energy, Environmental Issues, Global Warming, Opinion
Leave a comment The Sierra Club versus Electricity 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 29, 2009
Posted by Alan Caruba in: Cap and Trade, Congress, Current Events, Democrat, Energy, Global Warming, Opinion, Politics
Leave a comment The Lying EPA By Alan Caruba
June 26, 2009, Investor’s Business Daily “A suppressed EPA study says old U.N. data ignore the decline in global temperatures and other inconvenient truths. Was the report kept under wraps to influence the vote on the cap-and-trade bill? “This was supposed to be the most transparent administration ever. Yet as the House of Representatives prepared to vote on the Waxman-Markey bill, the largest increase in U.S. history on 100% of Americans, an attempt was made to suppress a study shredding supporter’ arguments. “On Friday, the day of the vote, the Competitive Enterprise Institute said was releasing ‘an internal study on climate science that was suppressed by the Environmental Protection Agency.’” You can read the EPA document at June 28, 2009
Posted by Alan Caruba in: Cap and Trade, Congress, Current Events, Energy, Environment, Global Warming, Opinion
One comment Betrayed by Congress By Alan CarubaMark it on your calendar, June 26, 2009 was the date that the House of Representatives betrayed every American in the name of saving the nation and the Earth from global warming. It was the day that 219 Representatives voted for the obscenely misnamed “American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009.” Only eight Republican members of the House voted for it and 44 Democrats voted against it. The bill, some 1,200 pages, was not read by those men and women voting on it because they were not permitted the time to do so or have their staffs do it. The co-author of the bill, Rep. Henry Waxman, admitted that even he did not know its full contents. The vote was not based on science, on economics, or simple common sense. It was an exercise in raw political power exercised by the Speaker of the House and her minions. Continue reading Betrayed by Congress June 25, 2009
Posted by Alan Caruba in: Cap and Trade, Current Events, Environment, Environmental Issues, Global Warming, Opinion, Politics
Leave a comment Save the Earth! Get Rid of Your Refrigerator! 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 24, 2009
Posted by Alan Caruba in: Accountability, Cap and Trade, Congress, Current Events, Democrat, Energy, Global Warming, Governance, Opinion, Politics
Leave a comment Cap-and-Trade Bill: Villainy on a Grand Scale By Alan Caruba
Supported by outright lies by the President about “clean” or “renewable energy”, and based on the greatest hoax of the modern era, “global warming”, on Friday Congress is reportedly going to vote on the 1,200-page Waxman-Markey “Cap and Trade” bill (H.R. 2454). It would impose a huge tax on the provision and use of electricity in the nation. Energy is the most vital resource America has and we have enjoyed abundant and affordable energy for our long history. That will all change if the Waxman-Markey bill becomes law. There is no “global warming.” The Earth is presently ten years into a cooling cycle and it is predicted to last a very long time. Calling carbon dioxide “a pollutant” is a lie. All vegetation on Earth is dependent on carbon dioxide. Putting Limits on carbon dioxide emissions is idiocy and lunacy. Continue reading Cap-and-Trade Bill: Villainy on a Grand Scale June 20, 2009
Posted by Alan Caruba in: Congress, Current Events, Energy, Environmental Issues, Global Warming, Governance, Opinion, Politics
Leave a comment Am I Boring You? 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. June 18, 2009
Posted by Alan Caruba in: Cap and Trade, Current Events, Democracy, Energy, Environment, Global Warming, Opinion, Politics
Leave a comment Reasons to Distrust Your Government
By Alan Caruba
In the normal course of events, when voters no longer have confidence in the President, their Senators and their Representatives, they vote them out of office, but there are whole agencies of government that continue on no matter who is in office and, since their budgets and existence depend on the politics of whoever holds power, they bend to serve their policies. A democracy is most in peril when citizens conclude they can no longer trust their government and there is no better example of that than a recent report, “Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States”, issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It is sheer rubbish. It is typical of the deliberate distortions and outright lies that have been put forth to an increasingly doubting public regarding “global warming.” It is part and parcel of the deceptions perpetrated for decades now by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, all of which feature tortured data of dubious quality and, since 1998, have ignored the Earth’s cooling trend. The increasing reports from around the nation of “freaky” weather, of snow in June, and other anomalies are, in fact, a reflection of this cooling trend and it is likely to last at least thirty years or more. John P. Holdren, Assistant to the President on Science and Technology, and a man who holds some of the most outlandish and baseless views on climate change, said “This new report integrates the most up-to-date scientific findings into a comprehensive picture of ongoing as well as expected future impacts of heat-trapping pollution on the climate experience of Americans, region by region and sector by sector.” Continue reading Reasons to Distrust Your Government June 7, 2009
Weather Malarkey By Alan Caruba
I have never been able to figure out why people who know that the forecast for the local weather is likely to be wrong by the afternoon of the same day or within 48 hours still believe that the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change can accurately predict what it will be ten, twenty or fifty years from now. At the third Conference on Climate Change held last week in Washington, DC., an event sponsored by the non-profit, free market think tank, The Heartland Institute, “Climate Change Reconsidered: The 2009 Report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change” (NIPCC) was announced. It offers a very different picture from the endless scare campaigns of the leading environmental organizations or, for that matter, from the White House and Congress. Edited by Craig Idso and S. Fred Singer, two climatologists, it runs a whopping 900 pages that includes 35 contributors and reviewers of climate data. Its final 200 pages are mostly appendices, including a directory of all scientists who signed the Global Warming Petition that, in March, numbered 31,478 of them. Continue reading Weather Malarkey |
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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.
The Union of Concerned Propagandists
The Union of Concerned Propagandists
By Alan Caruba
On July 11, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) announced that it had launched “a national advertising campaign as part of a broader effort to showcase the dedication and personal histories of scientists studying climate change.”
I know quite a few climatologists and meteorologists and the ones I know have been courageously refuting the global warming fraud for years, even decades. Beyond them, thousands of comparable scientists have signed petitions and statements to the effect that global warming was and is a hoax.
The UCS campaign, however, is “an effort to educate the public about the work scientists undertaken in their efforts to document and understand human-caused global warming.” Excuse me, but there isn’t any human-caused global warming. There isn’t any global warming insofar as the Earth has been cooling for the past decade.
The UCA is part of a broad pushback against the November 2009 revelations that have since become known as “Climategate.” Thousands of leaked emails among a tiny band of rogue scientists, primarily from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (CRU) and Penn State University ripped away their curtain of respectability.
Continue reading The Union of Concerned Propagandists