Cap and Trade Bill Leaves Committee
A Cap and Trade bill that just left committe, could add a $1.50 a gallon to the price of gas. Our elites are more concerned with polar bears than with people. The left wants you miserable and the right just has no alternative program.
Worried about gas prices hitting $4 a gallon and beyond? Imagine if they were $6, $7 or even $8 a gallon. Those levels are a certain possibility should Congress pass cap-and-trade legislation, which could face a vote in early June.
Oil is trading at record levels, in excess of $120 a barrel. Leading Republican Sens. James Inhofe (Okla.) and Jeff Sessions (Ala.) both told the Business & Media Institute (BMI) energy prices would drastically increase if the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act (S. 2191) is signed into law.
“The studies show it would be directly affected, would be a $1.50 a gallon, in addition to what it is today,” Inhofe, the ranking Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said to (BMI).
Inhofe spoke at a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. on May 15 to introduce the “We Get It!” campaign – a program founded by evangelical Christians that question the merits of global warming alarmism. According to Inhofe, the bill will make it to the floor of the Senate on June 2. Read more….
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Good News: Congress Puts More Offshore Drilling Sites Off Limits
Coal is bad. Nuclear power is bad. Oil is bad. Congress and the President have no program to produce more oil. Instead, get a load of this. More offshore waters are being put off limits.
Our elites are crazy. When are we going to regain control of the asylum?
A stretch of the Pacific Ocean off California’s wild north coast seems poised to get permanent federal protection from oil exploration and other development, in recognition that the area lies within one of the four richest marine feeding grounds in the world.
The US Senate is expected this week to vote in favor of extending two marine sanctuaries to cover ocean waters off a 76-mile stretch of the Sonoma County and south Mendocino County coasts – a move that would be a major victory for California in its 50-year battle to restrict offshore oil drilling. The House of Representatives approved the measure April 1.
“After decades of struggle, the door has opened to the national significance of this region,” says Richard Charter of the environmental group Defenders of Wildlife. He says 25 years of give and take by oil interests, environmentalists, and politicians have finally aligned, even as public interest in beach protection is rising.
President Bush is likely to sign the bill because of its many supporters, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, state and local governments, the fishing industry, conservation groups, and marine scientists, say close observers. Read more….
Gay Marriage in California: Going Straight to Hell
Look, We in Hell have no malice towards homosexuals. We don’t care what people do behind closed doors.
But We do care when people force their lifestyles down our throats and We do care when we are forced to give governmental approval to perversion.
Let’s call homosexuality what it is–two men screwing each other in the ass, two men sucking each other off, or two broads exchanging spit and then some.
Exactly what is the socially redeeming part of two men screwing each other in the ass? Sodomy is not an expression of love, it is an expression of vice, perversion, lust, but not love.
It is a coarse act that adds nothing to our society and by legitimizing the act of two men screwing each other in the ass, our nation’s tattered social fabric will be further torn.
Furthermore, the legitmization of this selfish, perverted act will lead to other currently socially unacceptable acts being given governmental approval by our courts; polygamy and child marriage come to mind.
Who are you to say that a 14 year old can’t make their own decisions concerning marriage? Who are you to say one man and ten women can’t be married? Who are you to say that brothers and sisters can’t be joined? Who are you to say that mother and son can’t marry? Who are you to say that some 50 year old can’t marry your 15 year old daughter? Who are you to say that some 60 year old man can’t marry your 15 year old son?
If you take individual rights to their end, social norms will have to be abandoned.
A virtuous republic can’t remain strong when its moral foundation is decaying.
In essence, moral equivalence rules. There is no right, there is no wrong. Anything and everything you do is okay.
I’ll ask again, what does two men screwing each other in the ass contribute to society?
The Moral from Cincinnati: Law Abiding Citizens Not Wanted
This a good news/bad news story from the Cincinnati Enquirer.
The bad news, is that city prosecutors tried to destroy the life a productive member of society because he defended his business and his person and his employess against criminals that roam this city’s streets unchallenged by our police.
The good news is that a local judge found him not guilty, said he had a right to defend himself, and said the the case should never had brought against him in the first place.
The moral of the story? Cincinnati’s leaders prefer the thugs, the murderers, the thieves, and the basest of cultures over hard working citizens. If you are able, leave the City of Cincinnati as fast as you can.
That’s when he tried to break up a fight between two thugs inside his Avondale convenience store by calling police and then firing a shot in the air.
But Jahaq was the only one arrested, charged with discharging a gun in city limits.
Jahaq “deserves credit for defending himself and his employees,” Hamilton County Municipal Judge Brad Greenberg said Tuesday in finding the clerk not guilty.
On April 19, two men entered Jahaq’s J&W Market in the 3500 block of Burnet Avenue in Avondale. They fought and broke merchandise. One man had a stick, the other a knife.
“Everyone who was outside came inside (the store) to watch the fight,” said Jahaq, 25, of Clermont County.
A store employee was threatened by one of the men. The man with the knife also swung it several times at Jahaq as the store owner tried to break up the fight. An employee called 911 as Jahaq went to the store’s back room to get his gun.
Jahaq stood in the store’s entry and fired a warning shot from his .45-caliber semiautomatic into the air, scattering the crowd. Some people in the crowd stayed outside, though, to throw rocks at Jahaq’s store in retaliation.
Who in the Hell Am I Going to Vote For? McCain on Global Warming
The Republicans, as a home to social, economic, and fiscal conservatism, is no more.
Today’s Republicans are big spenders, who are willing to expand the role of government to increase their electoral chances.
Today’s Republicans are socialists, who have bought into global warming, which means market forces will be replaced by government planning.
The best that can be said for Republicans is that unlike Democrats, they still love their country and are willing to sustain a great military to do so.
Today’s Republican Party has abandoned its conservative philosophy, the very philosophy which allowed it to go from a perpetual minority party to the nation’s majority party.
Somehow, sometime, somewhere, the country club Republicans have regained control the party–the same people who were losers in the 60’s and 70’s and they think they can win votes by promoting new social programs and by interfering with market forces.
Unfortunately, this strategy is doomed to failure. Why?
Because there is already a party of big government and socialism, the Democratic Party. And they do socialism better the blue blood Republicans. The Republicans will face electoral defeat this fall, and they have no one to blame but themselves.
Which brings us to McCain and global warming. McCain has adopted the socialism of global warming. He is no different than Al Gore, Hillary Clinton, or Barrack Obama.
First, McCain buys into the global warming hoax:
Today I’d like to focus on just one of those challenges, and among environmental dangers it is surely the most serious of all. Whether we call it “climate change” or “global warming,” in the end we’re all left with the same set of facts. The facts of global warming demand our urgent attention, especially in Washington. Good stewardship, prudence, and simple commonsense demand that we to act meet the challenge, and act quickly.
Some of the most compelling evidence of global warming comes to us from NASA. No longer do we need to rely on guesswork and computer modeling, because satellite images reveal a dramatic disappearance of glaciers, Antarctic ice shelves and polar ice sheets. And I’ve seen some of this evidence up close. A few years ago I traveled to the area of Svalbard, Norway, a group of islands in the Arctic Ocean. I was shown the southernmost point where a glacier had reached twenty years earlier. From there, we had to venture northward up the fjord to see where that same glacier ends today — because all the rest has melted. On a trip to Alaska, I heard about a national park visitor’s center that was built to offer a picture-perfect view of a large glacier. Problem is, the glacier is gone. A work of nature that took ages to form had melted away in a matter of decades.
Global temperatures haven’t risen in 10 years John! The science isn’t settled, in fact, some might say the realities point to a different truth.
Our scientists have also seen and measured reduced snowpack, with earlier runoffs in the Pacific Northwest and elsewhere. We have seen sustained drought in the Southwest, and across the world average temperatures that seem to reach new records every few years. We have seen a higher incidence of extreme weather events. In the frozen wilds of Alaska, the Arctic, Antarctic, and elsewhere, wildlife biologists have noted sudden changes in animal migration patterns, a loss of their habitat, a rise in sea levels. And you would think that if the polar bears, walruses, and sea birds have the good sense to respond to new conditions and new dangers, then humanity can respond as well.
From 1870 to 2004, sea levels, hold on to your tin foil hats, rose only 7.6 inches. And that coincides with the end of the “Little Ice Age.”
But you know what is even worse, is that we have a presidential candidate that is taking his cues from polar bears, walruses, and sea birds!
We have many advantages in the fight against global warming, but time is not one of them. Instead of idly debating the precise extent of global warming, or the precise timeline of global warming, we need to deal with the central facts of rising temperatures, rising waters, and all the endless troubles that global warming will bring. We stand warned by serious and credible scientists across the world that time is short and the dangers are great. The most relevant question now is whether our own government is equal to the challenge.
But John, if temperatures haven’t risen in ten years and waters are rising, what is the challenge? To bring our economy to a grinding halt?
For the market to do more, government must do more by opening new paths of invention and ingenuity. And we must do this in a way that gives American businesses new incentives and new rewards to seek, instead of just giving them new taxes to pay and new orders to follow. The most direct way to achieve this is through a system that sets clear limits on all greenhouse gases, while also allowing the sale of rights to excess emissions. And this is the proposal I will submit to the Congress if I am elected president — a cap-and-trade system to change the dynamic of our energy economy.
Sounds like state planning. I heard that worked out well for the Soviet Union. Maybe you will model yours on the “Great Leap Forward.”
We will cap emissions according to specific goals, measuring progress by reference to past carbon emissions. By the year 2012, we will seek a return to 2005 levels of emission, by 2020, a return to 1990 levels, and so on until we have achieved at least a reduction of sixty percent below 1990 levels by the year 2050. In the course of time, it may be that new ideas and technologies will come along that we can hardly imagine today, allowing all industries to change with a speed that will surprise us. More likely, however, there will be some companies that need extra emissions rights, and they will be able to buy them. The system to meet these targets and timetables will give these companies extra time to adapt — and that is good economic policy. It is also a matter of simple fairness, because the cap-and-trade system will create jobs, improve livelihoods, and strengthen futures across our country.
So, in essence, you want me to revert to the standard of living I had in 1990?
As part of my cap-and-trade incentives, I will also propose to include the purchase of offsets from those outside the scope of the trading system. This will broaden the array of rewards for reduced emissions, while also lowering the costs of compliance with our new emissions standards. Through the sale of offsets — and with strict standards to assure that reductions are real — our agricultural sector alone can provide as much as forty percent of the overall reductions we will require in greenhouse gas emissions. And in the short term, farmers and ranchers can do it in some of the most cost-effective ways.
Is this plan any different than Al Gore’s vision of a pre-industrial America?
Over time, an increasing fraction of permits for emissions could be supplied by auction, yielding federal revenues that can be put to good use. Under my plan, we will apply these and other federal funds to help build the infrastructure of a post-carbon economy.
Did you get that, a “post-carbon economy!” A pipe dream. A post carbon economy means everyone will be plowing a field following a team of oxen.
As we move toward all of these goals, and over time put the age of fossil fuels behind us, we must consider every alternative source of power, and that includes nuclear power. When our cap-and-trade policy is in place, there will be a sudden and sustained pursuit in the market for new investment opportunities in low-emission fuel sources. And here we have a known, proven energy source that requires exactly zero emissions. We have 104 nuclear reactors in our country, generating about twenty percent of our electricity. These reactors alone spare the atmosphere from about 700 million metric tons of carbon dioxide that would otherwise be released every year. That’s the annual equivalent of nearly all emissions from all the cars we drive in America. Europe, for its part, has 197 reactors in operation, and nations including France and Belgium derive more than half their electricity from nuclear power. Those good practices contribute to the more than two billion metric tons of carbon dioxide avoided every year, worldwide, because of nuclear energy. It doesn’t take a leap in logic to conclude that if we want to arrest global warming, then nuclear energy is a powerful ally in that cause.
If you are for nuclear power, then why do we need a “cap and trade” program? Do you really think environmentalists will allow nuclear power? The left is anti-capitalist. They don’t want high standards of living as they view mankind as the problem.
In addressing the problem of climate change, cooperation from the government of China will be essential. China, India, and other developing economic powers in particular are among the greatest contributors to global warming today – increasing carbon emissions at a furious pace – and they are not receptive to international standards. Nor do they think that we in the industrialized world are in any position to preach the good news of carbon-emission control. We made most of our contributions to global warming before anyone knew about global warming.
This set of facts and perceived self-interests proved the undoing of the Kyoto Protocols. As president, I will have to deal with the same set of facts. I will not shirk the mantle of leadership that the United States bears. I will not permit eight long years to pass without serious action on serious challenges. I will not accept the same dead-end of failed diplomacy that claimed Kyoto. The United States will lead and will lead with a different approach — an approach that speaks to the interests and obligations of every nation.
Does he really think China and India will agree to curb their economic growth? THEY DO NOT CARE ABOUT THEIR PEOPLE! As for China, economic and military expansion is their goal. So while you destroy our economy, they will continue to grow.
Senator McCain is the new Republican. Socialist light.
How can I vote for a Republican who sponsored amnesty? How can a vote for a Republican that believes in global warming? How can I vote for Republican that believes in a global test for our foreign policy? How can I vote for a Republican that wants to close Guantanamo? How can I vote for a Republican that limited free speech with McCain-Feingold?
Who can I vote for?
Operation Chaos in Cincinnati
To be honest, I think that Republicans switching over the Democratic side in the primaries was more of an instinctual reaction that Limbaugh simply attached himself to.
Here in the Cincinnati metropolitan area, almost 28,000 Republicans voted in the Democratic primary. Bottom line, conservatives know that Hillary Clinton is the weaker candidate.
Newly released numbers show that more than 28,000 of the Democrats in Southwest Ohio who voted in the March 4 presidential primary previously voted Republican - a number higher than the state average.
The numbers, obtained from the Ohio secretary of state by the Associated Press, show that statewide, about 8 percent of the Democrats who voted in the presidential primary previously cast Republican ballots.
In the four Southwest Ohio counties - Hamilton, Butler, Warren and Clermont - the percentage was even higher - 10.6 percent.
Leaders of both the Republican and Democratic parties in Southwest Ohio agree that many of those crossover voters were Republicans who wanted to keep the battle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama going, knowing that their own party had already chosen its nominee, John McCain.
“Those people are coming back to the Republican Party this fall,” said Scott Owens, executive director of the Butler County Republican Party. “A lot of them did it just to keep Hillary in the race. But they’ll be back. We’re not losing any sleep over it.”
Tim Burke, the Hamilton County Democratic Party chairman, said that while many Republicans crossed over to keep the Obama-Clinton battle going, he thinks that many of those Republicans “were positively attracted to one or the other of the Democratic candidates.” Read more….
Al-Qaeda Destroyed in Kirkuk
I bet the AP or Reuter’s won’t be carrying this story.
Commander Says al-Qaida ‘Virtually Destroyed’ in Kirkuk
By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press ServiceWASHINGTON, May 12, 2008 – Violence in Iraq’s Kirkuk province has dropped by 70 percent, and coalition and Iraqi forces have “virtually destroyed” al-Qaida in Iraq in the region, the commander of the U.S. brigade combat team in the area said today. VideoArmy Col. David Paschal, commander of 1st Brigade, 10th Mountain Division, said that as security improves in the strategic northern province, changes are happening in the economy and in governance that help cement the security progress in place.
Four developments have helped the battle against insurgents in the Rhode Island-sized province of 1.5 million, Paschal told Pentagon reporters in a teleconference from his headquarters at Contingency Operating Base Speicher. The developments are:
– Precision targeting against insurgent leadership;
– The growing capabilities and capacities of the Iraqi police and army;
– Establishment of a “Sons of Iraq” program, in which citizens aid in the security effort; and
– Partnership with Kirkuk’s provincial reconstruction team, composed of State Department and military personnel working along with experts from other governmental and nongovernmental agencies to aid local development.
The brigade arrived in September 2007 and has killed or captured 20 high-value targets. U.S. soldiers also captured 63 “persons of interest” in the area, the colonel said. Enemy activity began trending down in August and remains low, he added.
None of this would be possible without the improvement in the Iraqi security forces, Paschal said. Iraqi police are responsible for maintaining security in Kirkuk, a city of roughly 800,000 people. The 15th Brigade of the 4th Iraqi Army Division conducts independent, intelligence-driven operations outside the city. The Iraqi army unit has also conducted joint operations with the fledgling Iraqi air force.
The Sons of Iraq program has been a cornerstone to security in the region, he said, noting that 400 men who were part of the Sons of Iraq program from the brigade’s Arab areas are graduating from two months of police training this week. They’ll be reassigned to the outer district on the western side of the province.
With more security, the Iraqi people are feeling more confident, Paschal said.
“The information and actionable intelligence that they provide has grown exponentially,” he said. “That actionable intelligence is in the form of the turning of caches, location of [roadside bombs] and, in many cases, instances of insurgent or terrorist leaders throughout the province,” he said.
The reconstruction team helps rebuild the province and gives the Iraqis the tangible benefits of peace.
Kirkuk is the northern oil center of Iraq, and it is providing the lifeblood to the country. “Since our arrival, there has not been an interdiction on the oil pipeline,” Paschal said. “In fact, we have exceeded all … pre-war level exports. Just last month, the Northern Oil Company exported 13 and a half million barrels of oil, which has been a phenomenal increase in its capacity.”
Kirkuk may turn over to provincial Iraqi control in November or December this year. “That will be based on the capability of the Iraqi security forces to maintain the security gains that we’ve achieved and continue to defeat the insurgents,” the colonel said. “I think it all ties back into the economic opportunities that we are working in conjunction with the provincial reconstruction team.”
The PRT is working with the Iraqi government in sponsoring a technical training school in the province, and it is working on an adult literacy course. The team also is encouraging outside investors to come to the province. “With the increased security, we’ve had some outside investors come that are interested in … conducting some projects within the Kirkuk province,” Paschal said.
The Iraqi government also is hosting a small-loans program, anywhere from about $2,500 to $10,000, which opens up small businesses. “With the increased security, what we’re starting to see is some of these that I would refer to as smaller ‘mom and pop’ businesses that are coming back into play,” Paschal said.
The Kitty Hawk Finishes Its Last Deployment
The U.S. Navy’s last non-nuclear carrier goes into retirement. Really sad to see this fine carrier with no planes on its deck.
YOKOSUKA, Japan (May 12, 2008) The aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk (CV 63) enters Truman Bay after completing its last deployment before being replaced this summer by the nuclear aircraft carrier USS George Washington (CVN 73). U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Kyle D. Gahlau
Hubble Looks at Saturn
April, Cooler Than Normal
Coolest April in a hundred years for the U.S. of A. See the report here.
A-10’s Life to Extended with New Wings
by Tech. Sgt. Russell Wicke
Air Combat Command Public Affairs5/9/2008 - LANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE, Va. (AFPN) – New wings are the answer to Air Force concerns on the aging A-10 Thunderbolt II, an airframe flying since 1975.
Air Force officials awarded a contract to Boeing last year requiring 242 new A-10 wings constructed and delivered to depots for installment on the thin-skinned airframes by 2011.
Not all 356 of the Air Force’s A-10s require new wings because more than 100 airframes were constructed in the 1980s with “thick skin,” giving them a stronger structure, said Master Sgt. Steven Grimes, A-10 maintenance liaison for Air Combat Command.
Those aircraft are rated for 16,000 flying hours, which is estimated to keep them airworthy sometime into 2030, according to Sergeant Grimes. The original thin-skinned A-10s were designed for 8,000 hours and were extended beyond that in the 1990s with depot repairs.Based on the rate flying hours accumulate, the extension is expected to expire in 2011, which is when the new wings are scheduled to be installed. The new wings will extend the thin-skinned A-10 fleet to 16,000 hours, keeping them flying until about 2030.
Replacing the wings saves the Air Force “a great deal of money over a long period of time,” said Lt. Col. Ralph Hansen, ACC A-10 program element monitor and pilot. The value of the Boeing contract is more than $1 billion between 2007 and 2018. Colonel Hansen said that equates to about $4 million per aircraft, a price far below what it would cost to recapitalize the A-10.
“You can’t buy a business jet for that price,” he said.
Maintaining the old wings would require repeated removal, inspection and installation of beef-up straps at A-10 depots, said Tony Mizar, an A-10 depot mechanic and maintenance scheduler.
According to Sergeant Grimes, continually repairing old wings, as opposed to replacing them, would cost approximately $1.3 billion more than the Boeing contract.
The A-10 was designed and produced by Fairchild Republic, which discontinued aircraft production in 1984. This created complications in reproduction of the wings because there are limited extant engineer drawings, said Sergeant Grimes.
For this reason Boeing engineers have developed a three-phase process for the contract, said Jennifer Hogan, Boeing spokeswoman. The first phase is in progress now. It involves modeling the wing and scanning it to duplicate the 3-D model of existing wings. Colonel Hansen said the new wing will be no different from the current wings and will be transparent to pilots and maintainers. The one exception is “incorporation of reliability, maintainability and (production) improvements learned over the years,” said Ms. Hogan.
The second phase is manufacture and assembly, and the third phase, set for 2011, is full-rate production and installation on the aircraft.
Wing installations will occur during regularly scheduled depot inductions which will preserve the mission capable rates, said 1st Lt. Nancy Dias, A-10 wing replacement program manager. The wings will fly 10,000 hours, or approximately 25 years, without inspection.
The A-10 is a valuable asset to the Air Force and Army because of its unique capabilities, said Colonel Hansen. It can deliver precision guided weapons at high altitudes, as well as surgical close air support at low altitudes. It’s also the only fighter wielding the renowned 30mm cannon, capable of firing about 65 rounds a second. Colonel Hansen said the 30mm Gatling gun is the commanders’ weapon of choice because it can be used much closer to friendly forces than bombs, and it is four times more powerful than the 20mm cannon (on other fighters).
A-10s also are undergoing modernization. The old airframe is midway through a major upgrade to a more capable A-10C by loading it with newer capabilities. It boasts the latest technology of smart weapons: GPS guided bombs, and all weather capability.
Furthermore, the sturdy airframe design enables the A-10 to operate from austere airfields and take battle damage without degrading capability.
Examples of its survivability include self-sealing fuel cells protected by foam, manual flight control systems that back up hydraulic controls, armor and a ballistic tub surrounding the cockpit.
“I’ve seen A-10s with very large holes in them that have survived just fine,” said Colonel Hansen.
U.S. General Calls for More NATO Troops in Afghanistan
I guess I’m the minority here, but Afghanistan is America’s war. Al-Qaeda, supplied and sheltered by the Taliban attacked the United States in 2001.
It was an attack on our soil, against our people. Why are we asking others do to what we should be doing?
If a nation of 300 million people with a GDP of over 12 trilliion dollars can’t muster the necessary force for Afghanistan, then we are deep trouble.
Maybe if President Bush had called for a million volunteers to man the occupying army, we wouldn’t have this problem today.
U.S., NATO and Afghan forces’ efforts are preventing Taliban insurgents and transnational terrorists from regaining a foothold in Afghanistan, but more support is required from NATO and the international community, a senior U.S. military officer told members of a local think tank here yesterday.
“NATO has not failed, and I assure you that we are succeeding and we will continue to succeed” in Afghanistan, Army Gen. Bantz J. Craddock remarked during his speech at the Heritage Foundation.
However, NATO and the international community “can and must do more” to support the mission in Afghanistan, said Craddock, who wears two hats as NATO’s supreme allied commander for Europe and as chief of U.S. European Command.
NATO “has not yet completely filled” its agreed-to commitment of troops and capabilities to Afghanistan, Craddock said, noting there’s still a shortage of key military functions and skills such as intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; communications; and air support.
“Each nation has its own internal issues that it must address, but a completely resourced force sends a clear message to our adversary and to the Afghan people,” Craddock explained. “And, the message is: NATO is committed to achieving success.” Read more….
Time Says “Invade Burma”
So it is okay to invade a country because it is run by a bunch a jerks, but it isn’t okay to invade, cough, cough, another country that was run another jerk?
Consistency isn’t the hallmark of liberalism, is it?
That’s why it’s time to consider a more serious option: invading Burma. Some observers, including former USAID director Andrew Natsios, have called on the US to unilaterally begin air drops to the Burmese people regardless of what the junta says. The Bush Administration has so far rejected the idea — “I can’t imagine us going in without the permission of the Myanmar government,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday — but it’s not without precedent: as Natsios pointed out to the Wall Street Journal, the US has facilitated the delivery of humanitarian aid without the host government’s consent in places like Bosnia and Sudan. Read more….
