Monday, June 8, 2009

No Energy from this Executive

Watch what Obama does, not what he says. by Fred Barnes 06/15/2009, Volume 014, Issue 37

"As I've often said, in the short term, as we transition to renewable energy," President Obama stated in April, "we can and should increase our domestic production of oil and natural gas. .  .  . We still need more oil, we still need more gas. If we've got some here in the United States that we can use, we should find it and do so in an environmentally sustainable way."
Does anyone believe Obama was serious about this? Given his practice of misdirection--saying one thing, doing another--no one should have. Now, nearly five months into the Obama presidency, it's clear he didn't mean a word of it. His administration is impeding, not promoting, increased production of oil and gas, as it is of coal and nuclear power.
This is a crazy policy. It's likely to drive up gasoline and electricity prices while making America more dependent than ever on foreign oil--three bad trends. Energy independence becomes still another of Obama's stated policies being championed in words but not deeds.
Higher prices on oil and gas may make wind and solar power, the renewable sources of energy the Obama administration is promoting, more competitive, but only slightly. They would still be heavily reliant on large subsidies from the federal government, face severe technical problems, and produce energy only intermittently.
At the moment, demand for oil and gas is down and so is our capacity to produce them. As the economy improves, demand is bound to rise quickly. But capacity can be increased only gradually, and that's if more production is being encouraged rather than prevented.
To think that wind and solar or other alternative fuels can fill the energy gap requires a belief in what Adriel Bettelheim of Congressional Quarterly has called the "Tinkerbell effect," as in Peter Pan. It consists of believing something will happen just because you wish it would.
Wind and solar now provide less than 1 percent of America's energy needs. Obama has called for doubling this in three years, still leaving them as marginal sources of energy. The likelihood, based on projections by experts, is that oil and gas must be relied on overwhelmingly to meet the country's energy needs for at least two more decades.
But amazingly enough, the Obama administration is worried about domestic "overproduction" of oil and gas. According to its budgetary "green book," that would be "detrimental to longterm energy security and is also inconsistent with the administration's policy of reducing carbon emissions and encouraging the use of renewable energy sources."
So Obama has proposed removing all tax incentives to produce oil and gas, slapping a 13 percent excise tax on all energy derived from the Gulf of Mexico, and increasing the corporate tax rate by 3 percent on all companies that produce or process oil and gas.
Then there's what he's already done, starting with a delay for 180 days (and maybe more) in the five-year, outer continental shelf leasing plan.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar isn't excited about exploring and drilling for oil and gas. He boasted instead last week to Politico about finalizing "the rules for the development of offshore wind [power] here in the United States."
Salazar has cancelled 77 oil and gas leases that had been issued in Utah. He halted plans to lease the oil shale region in five states after a Shell Oil study concluded there are 1 to 2 trillion barrels there of recoverable oil. He declared the listing of the yellow-billed loon as an endangered species justified, which could limit the development of a huge oil-rich region off the west coast of Alaska.
But that's not all. The Obama administration has decided not to issue leases for gas well drilling on the Roan Plateau in Colorado and has shown little interest in developing the "Chukchi" region offshore north Alaska. (It is bogged down in the permitting process.)
Nuclear power? Obama has often said he's for it, but not until a way to deal with waste from nuclear power plants is found. In fact, one has been found and so designated by Washington at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Obama, however, has proposed to eliminate all federal funds for building a waste site there.
Coal? A Bush administration rule covering mountaintop coal mining was thrown out by the Obama administration as "legally defective."
One way to reduce the use of coal for electricity (thus limiting greenhouse gas emissions) is conversion of power plants to natural gas. For that to happen, the logical policy would be to spur more gas production. But that's not the Obama policy. On the contrary, the Obama policy is to make gas, oil, and coal more difficult to produce and more expensive for consumers. As for more nuclear power, the policy is, in effect: Forget it.
True, this isn't the way Obama describes his energy policies. With Obama, the trick is to watch what he does, not what he says.
Fred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

Saturday, June 6, 2009

Charles Krauthammer!

'women beaten in the street in Saudi Arabia who show an ankle or stoned for audultery in Iran'
Truth is spoken here

Obama figures out that Bush was right, AGAIN!

But we hear nothing of it from the Obama Media..

Last Friday night, the Department of Justice filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court stating that the Uighurs have no legal basis to be released into the United States.

Let that sink in. That’s the same position the Bush administration was defending for years.

And where is the outrage that greeted the Bush administration’s identical position? Where are the editorials in The Washington Post and The New York Times decrying the Obama administration’s “abandonment” of the rule of law? Keith Olbermann and other liberals have been suspiciously silent on this issue.

But don’t hold your breath. This is, after all, the Obama administration.

Read it here.

Never Forget D-Day


July 4, 1776. December 7, 1941. September 11, 2001. These dates that were seared into hearts and minds of the collective American consciousness now seem -- to some -- distant, faded, even unimportant. But those who care to learn from history will always remember them, and teach their children.There remains one other date in American -- no, world history -- that signifies good over evil, freedom over tyranny, liberty over oppression. That date is June 6, 1944. For as long as the world shall exist, June 6, 1944 will be forever known as D-Day.As you read this, 65 years ago almost to the exact day, tens of thousands of scared young American soldiers were crammed together on landing craft in the English Channel heading for the beaches of Normandy, France. Their mission: save the world. Though they surely didn't know it, these young men in all those landing craft would be forever known in American history as the Greatest Generation.Just prior to the invasion that would ultimately liberate Europe and save civilization from the dark evil of Nazism, General Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander, transmitted a message to the young men who would fight and die in the coming hours. It read in part: You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you.As their landing craft pitched in the waves of the English Channel, in front of them on the high ground above the beaches known as Sword, Utah, Juno, Gold and Omaha was the Nazi war machine. Omaha beach was the most heavily fortified by Hitler's war machine, and Omaha beach was the objective of the American military.As the landing craft full of the Greatest Generation warriors came closer to Omaha beach, the Nazis aimed their machineguns, artillery, rifles and mortars at the landing craft full of 19, 20, and 21-year-old young American infantry soldiers. As the gates of the landing crafts fell, the Nazis unleashed Hell upon the Greatest Generation. In mere minutes, hundreds had been killed or wounded. By day's end the American military would suffer 5,000 casualties on Omaha beach, all in the name of freedom. Know it.The American dead and wounded on Omaha beach was so severe that American commanders considered abandoning the beach. But what our commanders had not counted on was the tenacity and fighting spirit of the Greatest Generation. Just as the firemen on 9/11 kept rushing up the stairs of the burning Twin Towers into the hands of God, the landing craft full of American infantry kept coming.Under withering Nazi machine gun fire, the Greatest Generation slowly inched forward silencing the Nazi war machine on the bluffs above Omaha beach. By the end of June 6, Omaha beach would be largely secured. In less than a year the Nazi war machine would be crushed, Hitler dead.Those young Americans who stormed Omaha beach on that morning 65 years ago on June 6th accomplished their mission: they saved the world.June 6 is D-Day. Do not ever forget this day. Teach your children, make sure no one forgets how good wins over evil and the price that is paid. God bless the warriors.

Since I 'borrowed' the Star Wars theme..


I figured I better link to a Harrison Ford video.
The Casablanca reference is fantastic. "I'm shocked, shocked!"
Watch it here

Thursday, June 4, 2009

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Obama declares Gitmo detainees to be 'fetuses'

By: Scott Ott ScrapppleFace.com

In an effort to shut down the U.S. Naval Detention Center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, thereby restoring America's moral standing in the world, President Barack Obama today declared some 240 enemy combatants held at Gitmo to be 'human fetuses'.

In an executive order, the president said, "Since I ordered Gitmo shut down, and people don't want us to bring the inmates here, the only way to extract them from the facility is to change their legal status to one that offers us more choices."

While accused terrorists have access to attorneys, and nearly-limitless legal appeals, a fetus has no legal standing, cannot speak for itself, and is subject to the death penalty without regard to guilt or innocence.

Civil rights advocates have pressured Obama to follow through on campaign promises to shutter Gitmo, but even Democrats in Congress have resisted bringing the inmates to U.S. soil for trials and incarceration.

"We can debate whether enemy combatants have access to protections under the U.S. Constitution," said Obama. "However, no serious person would grant such protection to an embryo or fetus. The loss of 240 fetuses wouldn't raise an eyebrow in a nation where more than 3,000 of them hit the Dumpster daily."

The president noted that America's global reputation has been devastated by U.S. treatment of terror suspects, but that "our treatment of a million fetuses each year earns us nothing but admiration, and requests for clinic-funding from those who aspire to be like us."

Sources acknowledged continuing White House debate about whether a terrorist who escapes from Gitmo alive can still be treated as a fetus.

Answering Peggy Noonan: Why Sotomayor Should Withdraw


By Jeffrey Lord in TheAmericanSpectator.org WOW, what an article! Read the entire article here.


When one takes a good long look at the arc of the Democratic Party from its founding by Thomas Jefferson in 1800 (historians generally credit, as you know, both Jefferson and Andrew Jackson as co-founders of the modern-day Democrats) up until today there is one very, very disturbing constant. The politics of race.

Beginning with slavery, moving on to segregation, lynching, racial quotas and what today is called "identity politics," the one straight line through each and connecting each is racial politics. Clustered along that line are all manner of people with varying historical reputations. The clusters begin with slave-owners Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson -- the latter appointing his friend, fellow slave-owner, decided racist and ex-Attorney General Roger Taney as Chief Justice. There are people like Woodrow Wilson (who segregated the federal government) and Josephus Daniels (FDR's boss at the Wilson Navy Department). Then the FDR Supreme Court picks of segregationists Black and James Byrnes. Keep moving along the line and you find George Wallace and eventually Al Sharpton, and Obama allies like Jeremiah Wright and Father Michael Pfleger. The skin color may change, but the core of the message does not.

What all of these people (and so many, many more) have in common is their political party -- the Democrats. A party with an unbelievably vivid history of the most brutal racism imaginable and its obsession to one degree or another with race. An obsession they have, with devastating consequence, practiced from no less a place than the Supreme Court of the United States. Judge Sotomayor, she who believes a "wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male" is only the latest in this line. Racism, as I also learned long ago, is not only blind to geography, it can be found festering among all races and both genders as well.

Do I feel I am an "idiot" as you say of those who believe Sotomayor should be vigorously opposed based on her racial sentiments? Sorry, Peggy, I just can't agree. I am absolutely agog at those who speak of moderation on this subject, who speak of tone. Tone? Tone?!!!! This judge has expressed her views in such a way as to make it crystal clear she is the lineal descendant of those who have acted on the beliefs behind one of the worst traits in American life -- racism. A trait that glistens from the breast of identity politics with a scarlet "R." Racism has more than had its day on the Supreme Court, and from Dred Scott to Plessy --to Korematsu the results have been absolutely little short of traumatic for the country. It should never, ever see the light of day on a federal bench -- or any judicial bench -- again. Much less the bench that sits the Supreme Court of the United States.

If you don't believe in God, then I guess you must believe in Government!

Do Liberals Crave A Master?
By Andrew Thomas in AmericanThinker.com

Everybody's looking for something...
Some of them want to abuse you
Some of them want to be abused
Sweet dreams are made of these
Who am I to disagree? - Eurythmics

Contemporary liberals, having abandoned the belief in God-given inalienable rights, masochistically crave a worldly master. This master is a sadistic god-substitute who will provide the stern discipline needed to force economic equality and "fairness" by requiring painful sacrifices and bestowing government-created rights onto obedient and acquiescent groups of left-leaning masochists.

Of course, I am not referring to the sexual variety of masochism, but rather the recognized psychosis of moral masochism. Large segments of the population, and even entire nations can suffer from this illness as described in Daniel Rancour-Laferriere's book, "The Slave Soul of Russia: Moral Masochism and the Cult of Suffering".

First, some re-definitions: In the same derogatory fashion liberals refer to contemporary Conservatives as "neocons", I will label this group as "neolibs" going forward. I feel this is appropriate, as the Liberal movement has taken a decidedly leftward leap and become more radicalized in their outward behavior in the last few years, and is therefore a new phenomenon.

In most conservative writing (Thomas Sowell, Ayn Rand, and more recently Mark Levin) the common theme is the sanctity of individual freedom and liberty. The conservative is an individualist and an independent thinker, as opposed to those who primarily identify themselves as members of a group. The term "conservative" is a misnomer for this philosophy, as it connotes a preservation of the status quo, or even a "regressive" yin to the "Progressive" yang. This is why I believe a more appropriate label for conservative philosophy is "individualist", and I will refer to it in this manner for the remainder of this article.

Next, a pop-psychology primer: individualists gravitate toward existential thinking, or a view of the world where individuals have complete freedom of choice and take full responsibility for the results of those choices. This mandates that choices must be made with a logical evaluation to determine the potential consequences. The impartial evaluation of phenomena to determine the truth is an offshoot of existentialism known as phenomenology. The phenomenologist is rational and emotionally detached from the subject of analysis, eliminating judgment and perception. Once the perceptions of reality are stripped away as much as possible, the phenomenologist then attempts to perform an insightful analysis of the object to determine what is real or "true". I believe that many individualists tend to be effective phenomenologists due to their ability to separate themselves from group-think and emotional judgment. Therefore, let's use the phenomenological process to analyze the "Neolib as masochist" theory.

In our first analysis, we will impartially examine Neolib behavior. Objectively listen to Janeane Garofalo in the Youtube video linked to her name. In listening to neolibs such as Janeane speak, it is evident that they appear to be driven predominantly by emotion rather than logic. Just reviewing an alphabetical list of emotions, as extracted from a list in Wikipedia, lends itself to describing neolib behavior:

Anger,
Angst,
Anxiety,
Compassion,
Contempt,
Despair,
Disgust,
Empathy,
Envy,
Guilt,
Hatred,
Hope,
Hostility,
Hysteria,
Rage,
Shame,
Suffering,
Worry.

Anyone who views the world through these emotions would naturally feel threatened when interpreting individualists' behavior. The neolib typically projects hatred, bigotry, selfishness, and greed onto the individualist when there is no physical evidence to support the interpretation. The strong passions exhibited by neolibs, coupled with delusions of persecution, foster these masochistic tendencies.

Now let's objectively review the initiatives in the neolib agenda: Environmentalism, global passivism, overpopulation, socialized healthcare, and promoting government intervention into all aspects of life. All of these priorities require individuals to sacrifice their lifestyles, their income, and/or their basic comforts.

This past week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi exhorted, "Every aspect of our lives must be subjected to an inventory..." in order to sacrifice ourselves to the gods of global warming. As presidential candidate Obama said, "We can't drive our SUVs and, you know, eat as much as we want and keep our homes on, you know, 72 degrees at all times..." He seems to indicate that he wants us to starve and freeze.

Most of these initiatives involve the inflicting of pain and misery. Tom Daschle, in his book "Critical: What We Can Do About The Health Care Crisis" says health-care reform "will not be pain free" and that seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of having them treated. In other words, you will suffer a slow agonizing death under government mandate.

As a final phenomenological exercise, impassively observe the level of neolib support for this agenda. It has not appeared to wane. In fact, neolib fervor continues to increase as the promised level of suffering increases.

According to Rancour-Laferriere, increasing Russian masochism coincided with the rise of the Soviet Union and Communism, although it was pervasive in the soul of Russia prior to that. The conclusion to this analysis is that as neolib moral masochism increases, so does the emotional need for an all-powerful master to govern them. As the governing master becomes more dominant and disciplinarian, the masochism is reinforced and the spiral continues.

Is there a cure? Self-destructive behavior is very difficult to overcome. Many years ago in an Abnormal Psychology class, I studied the case of a group of young adults who would continually pound their heads against a wall until they became bloody pulps. Psychologists found that the only thing that would interrupt their behavior was a 9,000 volt shock from a cattle prod.

This is probably an impractical solution. Since 45% of the nation thinks we are going in the right direction, there are too many neolibs and too few cattle prods.

Andrew Thomas blogs at Darkangelpolitics.com.

Monday, June 1, 2009

Why is it you only see these stories published in the UK?



How Obamas' romantic £120 trip to Broadway racked up a £45,000 bill...that's for three private jets, two helicopter rides, extra planes for security and closing roads for motorcade.

Read it here.

UPDATE:
Because I'm Entitled
I did it because I'm entitled to burn a jet-load full of fuel, even though:
  • I plan to cap industry's production of carbon emissions regardless of whether it destroys our global competitiveness
  • My carbon emission caps will cost consumers thousands of dollars per family in higher energy costs
  • I have made independence from foreign oil our nation's top priority
  • I took over the auto industry and will force you to buy itsy-bitsy cars
  • I hated it when auto executives took private planes to Washington, those pigs
  • We all need to cut back in these hard times

You see, I'm just like that. And there's nothing you can do about it.

Correction: I'm sorry. I made a mistake. I actually burned three jet-loads of fuel. I forgot about the two planes full of commoners with things in their ears who talk into their sleeves, who follow me everywhere I go.

The Obama flip-flops you don't know

by Alex Conant

Since winning the election, President Barack Obama has famously flip-flopped on many of the major issues that he championed on the campaign trail. But did you know he’s also flip-flopped on a myriad of less publicized issues? This much everybody knows: Even before taking office, Obama broke his promise to not appoint lobbyists to his administration. Since then, he’s abandoned his promises to pay for every dollar of new government spending and bring home all combat troops from Iraq within 18 months. And in recent days, he’s outraged his political base by reversing his earlier commitments to eliminate military tribunals and release photos depicting prisoner abuse. All those well-publicized reversals have overshadowed the administration’s flip-flops on a host of additional positions. Here are just some of the biggest flip-flops that you may not have noticed: Osama bin Laden: During the presidential debates last year, Obama declared that capturing or killing Osama bin Laden “has to be our biggest national security priority.” In his first TV interview after winning the election, he said the terrorist leader was “not just a symbol. He’s also the operational leader of an organization that is planning attacks against U.S. targets,” and that the additional troops being sent to Afghanistan would hunt him down because “capturing or killing bin Laden is a critical aspect of stamping out Al Qaeda.”

Bin Laden’s significance to Obama dissipated during the transition. By the time Obama gave another interview in early January, he said killing or capturing bin Laden was not necessary to “meet our goal of protecting America.” A few months later, when he announced his Afghanistan troop surge, he made no reference to the hunt for bin Laden. On human space exploration: Early in his presidential campaign, Obama had great reservations about the costs and risks of human space flight. He said he would delay NASA’s plans to send humans to the moon and, eventually, Mars and, instead, spend that money on education. But, as Florida, Ohio and Texas became more politically important, Obama began to walk back his proposed NASA cuts, promising to fund unmanned space exploration and some other scientific missions. Now that he’s in office, Obama’s reversal is complete: The White House budget, released earlier this month, provides a healthy increase in NASA funding and explicitly endorses the “goal of returning Americans to the moon and exploring other destinations.” On the Armenian genocide: In the U.S. Senate and on the campaign trail, Obama firmly declared that the death of 1.5 million Armenians during World War I was “genocide” — a touchy topic between Turks and Armenians and a political priority for Armenian-Americans — and promised that “as president, I will recognize the Armenian genocide.”

Nonetheless, during his recent trip to Turkey as president, Obama broke his promise. Instead, he tried to muddy the waters, announcing that “my views are on the record and I have not changed views” but refusing to state what those views actually are. On business tax cuts: Even though he unapologetically promised to raise taxes on entrepreneurs (and everybody else) making more than $250,000 per year, Obama offered small businesses some solace by promising several specific tax cuts. One, which became a cornerstone of his campaign’s jobs plan, would eliminate capital gains taxes for small businesses. Another, which he proposed as the economy crashed in the waning days of the campaign, would offer businesses a $3,000 tax credit for every employee they hired. The economy has not improved since Obama’s election, but he nevertheless shelved both proposals: His budget puts off the capital gains tax cut until after his term in office ends and makes no mention of his new-job tax credit. These four examples only scratch the surface of Obama’s reversals since taking office. Other flip-flops include everything from federally funding needle-exchange programs (which he supported in the campaign but his budget does not), allowing five days of public review before bill signings (he broke the promise with his first bill signing) and ordering the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Obama’s senior adviser, David Axelrod, recently told POLITICO that “Obama’s governing is completely consistent with the way he campaigned.” A cursory comparison between his campaign promises and administration policies shows that’s not true. Alex Conant is a communications consultant who served as the Republican National Committee’s national press secretary during the 2008 presidential campaign. Previously, he was a spokesman at the White House and in the U.S. Senate.