March Madness and the election

What’s new Today

Story #1 tells you what you will see for anti-Obama commercials in the fall.  #2 describes where the good paying jobs are coming from and it isn’t green energy.  #3 has a new CBO estimate and the cost of Obamacare has nearly doubled.  #4 relates some of the real facts about Oil.  #5 relates how we are being buried in laws and regulations.  #6 has a Reuter’s Poll which shows how Obama is up, but also how to tilt a poll to show that.  Finally #7 looks at the electric car and asks if it’s time has come or not.

1.  Commercials you will see this fall

…There is no need to rehash all the steps that the Obama administration has taken over the last three years that have helped supercharge the price it takes to fill our cars. These would include slow-walking drilling permits, shutting down much offshore development, closing off federal lands, and killing Keystone XL. There are many more that could be listed and have been by others. The Republicans should also point out that Obama has wasted three-plus years on passing two very unpopular pieces of legislation (ObamaCare and the Stimulus) rather than taking the steps needed to bring us affordable gasoline.

But there is a delicious irony in taking advantage of Obama's Obama Obsession. He has been so busy bloviating over the last few years, so eager to display his omniscience when it comes to energy, that there is plenty of visual material to cull from the public domain that can and will be used against him as the campaign season rolls on, if the GOP has any brains. Call it divine justice that the man who seemingly can never stop talking can be hoisted on his own petard.

One can start with a graph of how gas prices have gone from $1.84 when Obama took office to $3.79 and climbing during March (and this is before the summer driving season spikes them upward). Then there's the voice we have heard so many times over the years that it seems to come straight from George Orwell's 1984: Barack Obama talking during the campaign about his wish to see higher gas prices. Fade to Ken Salazar, Obama's choice to head the Department of Interior -- the department that has done so much to stop oil exploration and development on federal land. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell proposed a bill to encourage offshore oil drilling. Ken Salazar kept objecting to the bill even when McConnell suggested that the amendment be triggered when gas prices hit $10 a gallon at the pump. Even when gas prices hit $10 a gallon, Salazar was opposed to allowing more offshore drilling. The YouTube clip can be found here.

Then pair it up with Energy secretary Chu telling us in 2008 that his desire is to figure out "how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe." He is well on his way to accomplishing his goal. Nor is he showing much repentance in the face of high gas prices ruining people's budgets (it won't ruin his -- he doesn't drive). He recently testified before Congress that reducing gas prices was not a top priority for his department. Remind me again: why do they call it the Department of Energy? Then flash "Solyndra: $550 million wasted," "Beacon Power: out of juice," "Karma: The Cool Car that won't work no matter how many taxpayer dollars are bundled into it." Show Obama beaming inside a Volt on a factory visit, and then a Volt on fire….

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/03/coming_soon_the_commercials_that_obama_fears.html#ixzz1p54KygN6

It’s kind of like watching a trial where the prime suspect over and over again told the victim what he planned to do (in front of witnesses) and then when it happened he feigns any knowledge of how it could have happened. 

2.  Where the Jobs are

…A $38.6 billion loan guarantee program that the Obama administration promised would create or save 65,000 jobs has created just a few thousand jobs two years after it began, government records show. The program — designed to jump-start the nation’s clean technology industry by giving energy companies access to low-cost, government-backed loans — has directly created 3,545 new, permanent jobs after giving out almost half the allocated amount, according to Energy Department tallies.  (that comes to almost $1.2 million per job).

So where are the new jobs coming from, at least the good-paying ones? From the industry Obama wants to replace as much as possible with “clean” energy: oil and gas. A new report from the World Economic Forum estimates the sectors “added approximately 150,000 jobs in 2011, 9% of all jobs created in the United States that year.”

Those numbers are even more impressive once you realize that some 40% of all new jobs are being added in low-pay sectors such as retailing and leisure. So nearly 20% of new “good jobs” are in oil and gas….

http://blog.american.com/2012/03/the-entire-obama-presidency-in-one-anecdote/

Ideology is getting in the way of practicality for the American worker. 

3.  Obamacare:  Cost doubles

Today, the CBO released new projections from 2013 extending through 2022, and the results are as critics expected: the ten-year cost of the law's core provisions to expand health insurance coverage has now ballooned to $1.76 trillion. That's because we now have estimates for Obamacare's first nine years of full implementation, rather than the mere six when it was signed into law. Only next year will we get a true ten-year cost estimate, if the law isn't overturned by the Supreme Court or repealed by then. Given that in 2022, the last year available, the gross cost of the coverage expansions are $265 billion, we're likely looking at about $2 trillion over the first decade, or more than double what Obama advertised.

http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/cbo-obamacare-cost-176-trillion-over-10-yrs/425831

Nothing new here if you’ve been paying attention. 

4.  The Truth about Oil

…According to statistics provided by the IER, the United States has 1,442 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil.

As CNSNews.com has reported, oil production on federal lands declined in fiscal year 2011 from fiscal year 2010 by 11 percent, and natural gas production on federal

In contrast, oil production on private and state lands accounted for the entire increase, reported the IER, as production was up 14 percent from 2010 to 2011. Natural gas also was up 12 percent from 2010 to 2011.

On Sunday, John Hofmeister, author of “Why We Hate the Oil Companies: Straight Talk from an Energy Insider,” spoke on C-Span’s Washington Journal  about the rising costs of gasoline in the United States.

“The problem is that we have had no plan in this country to take care of ourselves. We have been living off imports for most of the last 30, 40 years,” Hofmeister said.

“And while we are in a nation that has more oil than Saudi Arabia, that has more oil than we’ll ever need, we have a government  policy, Republican and Democratic governments alike, that have prohibited oil companies from accessing natural resources in this country,” he said….

… Hofmeister, a registered Democrat, explained that the United States is producing more oil than when President Obama took office because of “decisions made in the 3-to-5 year period looking backward -- not the last three years.”

He explained that it takes about three to five years to bring on production in oil fields...

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/obama-s-claim-energy-production-all-time-high-selective-facts-experts-say

Not the Democratic narrative of what is going on with oil, but it is the truth. 

5.  Complex Societies Need Simple Laws

"If you have 10,000 regulations," Winston Churchill said, "you destroy all respect for law."

He was right. But Churchill never imagined a government that would add 10,000 year after year. That's what we have in America. We have 160,000 pages of rules from the feds alone. States and localities have probably doubled that. We have so many rules that legal specialists can't keep up. Criminal lawyers call the rules "incomprehensible." They are. They are also "uncountable." Congress has created so many criminal offenses that the American Bar Association says it would be futile to even attempt to estimate the total.

So what do the politicians and bureaucrats of the permanent government do? They pass more rules.

That's not good. It paralyzes life….

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2012/03/14/complex_societies_need_simple_laws_113470.html

The next time you hear Liberals claim that Republicans want to eliminate all regulations and let polluters kill children, etc. read this article and realize what they are trying to hide.  You can also look at the link below to watch Stossel’s program Illegal Everything.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuIahM4mB-8

6.  Reuter’s Poll Obama approval up

For the first time since early July, more Americans approve of the job President Barack Obama is doing than disapprove, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll that shows his approval rating now at 50 percent.

The poll, taken March 8-11 on the heels of reports that 227,000 jobs were added to the U.S. economy in February, indicates that Obama's rating has risen by 2 percentage points during the past month. The percentage of Americans who disapprove of the Democratic president was 48 percent, down from 49 percent in February.

Some other polls have shown a recent dip in Obama's approval rating, and linked that to rising gasoline prices.

But for most Americans, other economic trends during the past month have been relatively positive. Obama appears to be benefiting from that, and perhaps from a bitter Republican presidential campaign that at times has focused on divisive social issues such as abortion.

"The economy is improving," said Ipsos pollster Cliff Young. "Not by leaps and bounds but people feel that things are getting better." The Reuters/Ipsos poll also found that Americans' confidence in the direction of the country is ticking upward. In the poll, 37 percent of those surveyed said the United States is headed in the right direction, up from 32 percent in February.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41915469/ns/politics/t/obamas-approval-rating-pct-reutersipsos-poll/#.T1_K36SwLNw.twitter

Do you remember Paul Harvey and how he would talk about an incident and then he would say and now for the rest of the story.  Well the rest of the story comes at the end of their announcement.  “The Reuters/Ipsos telephone poll of 1,084 adults included 554 respondents who identified themselves as Democrats, 421 as Republicans, and 109 as independents. The total respondents included 937 registered voters.”  So in a survey with 51% Democrats, Obama gathers 50% approval.

7.  Who’s killing the Electric Car this time? 

Is there pent-up demand for a $75,000 electric SUV that can outrun a Porsche? South African entrepreneur Elon Musk is gambling that there is. Other entrepreneurs are making similar bets: More than a dozen countries and thousands of incumbent and startup entrepreneurial companies around the world have placed competing chips on the table with the conviction that advanced batteries and electrified vehicles are the next new thing. All together, they will park some two dozen models in Asian, European, and U.S. showrooms in 2012 and 2013.

But a nagging dread is creeping in among the first-mover electric crowd. GM and Nissan, the first out with new electrified vehicles, had combined sales of just 26,000 Volts and Leafs last year. On March 4, GM announced a five-week suspension of Volt Production because of low sales numbers. Startup Aptera Motors  shut down in December; battery-maker Ener1 filed for Chapter 11 protection in January; and Bright Automotive—spun out of a consortium consisting of Google.org, the Rocky Mountain Institute, and the Turner Foundation—announced its closure on Feb. 29. These troubling signs have led some with skin in the game to start doubting their investment….

…Or, worst of all, maybe electric cars will never take off at all. The mood was so glum at a big annual battery convention that I attended in Orlando, Fla., last month that some industry hands suggested their work has been a complete waste of time. Electrified vehicles are serving “a small niche, and that’s probably all they’re ever going to be,” David Raney, a former executive of Honda Motors, told me….

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2012/03/chevy_volt_nissan_leaf_will_the_electric_car_ever_be_a_success_.html

It is good to see people putting skin in the game.  That is the way it’s supposed to be without government mandates and subsidies. 

Obama's 2012 campaign strategy and tactics

Panetta to Pentagon, Petraeus to CIA

ADMINISTRATION SOURCES SAY PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA PLANS THIS WEEK TO NAME CIA DIRECTOR LEON PANETTA TO REPLACE DEFENSE SECRETARY ROBERT GATES, AND GEN. DAVID PETRAEUS, NOW RUNNING THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN, WOULD TAKE THE CIA CHIEF'S JOB.

The officials all spoke on condition of anonymity because the changes are not final.

The changes would probably take effect this summer. Gates has already said he will leave this year….

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/top/all/7539013.html

Neither will have any problem with confirmation, but I do remember Moveon.org’s General Betray us campaign.


Obama’s 2012 campaign strategy

Jim Messina, who is running Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign, told supporters in an Internet video released yesterday that they will have to “scratch and claw” to get the U.S. president re-elected.

“We have to act like an insurgent campaign that wakes up every single day trying to get every single vote we can,” Messina said in the video, which was described as a “sneak peek at 2012 strategy.”

Messina, who earlier this year resigned his position as deputy White House chief of staff to manage the campaign, LAID OUT TACTICS THAT HE SAID HAD WORKED IN 2008, including expanding the electorate to register more voters than Republicans. He said CAMPAIGN WORKERS SHOULD RECONNECT WITH PAST SUPPORTERS THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA SITES, ALONG WITH USING MORE TRADITIONAL METHODS SUCH AS CALLING VOTERS ON THE TELEPHONE AND KNOCKING ON THEIR DOORS.

“We’ve got to assume every single day that we need to build something new, better, faster and sleeker,” he said in the video message e-mailed to supporters and posted on Obama’s campaign website. “Republicans are going to be fired up to take on President Obama…..”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-26/messina-gives-sneak-peek-at-obama-s-2012-re-election-strategy.html

This sounds less like a campaign strategy than a pep talk before a football game. “We are going to have to act like the underdog. We’ve got to be better, faster and sleeker than team X. We have to scratch and claw to win this game. They are fired up for us.” Hope and change and vague promises aren’t going to cut it this time.



Now here is a campaign tactic

We have an election coming up. We also have $5/gallon gasoline and $5/loaf bread coming up. I DO NOT EXPECT THE REAL UNEMPLOYMENT RATE TO FALL, ALTHOUGH THERE WILL BE FRANTIC ATTEMPTS TO MAKE IT LOOK LOWER, LARGELY THROUGH STATISTICAL MANIPULATIONS based on the definition of unemployment: if you’re not looking for work, you aren’t unemployed even if you have no job and never again expect to find one. As more give up looking, the unemployment rate goes down. And since the unions do not intend to lower their wages and perks, and the states are out of money, there will be “furloughs” among public employees including teachers. YOU CAN MANIPULATE THOSE NUMBERS SO THE “FURLOUGHED” ARE NOT UNEMPLOYED. It promises to be an interesting summer, but it will end with $5/gallon gasoline and $5/loaf bread. Look for the price of a can of beans to get higher….

http://jerrypournelle.com/view/2011/Q2/view672.html#Monday

What?  Politicians lying? Who could ever have seen that coming.


Campaign tactic number two: FEAR

Faced with a fork in the road, President Obama and the Democrats have decided to take it, trying to do two things at once: REKINDLE THE GLOW OF THE 2008 RAPTURE, AND RECAPTURE THE RAGE OF THE TOWN HALLS A YEAR LATER, AND UNLEASH IT, THIS TIME FOR THEIR SIDE.

Phase one is not going brilliantly, as one can run on Hope and Change only once in one's lifetime, and AFTER THAT CHANGE MEANS VOTING ONESELF OUT OF OFFICE.

Phase two -- the hope that the MEDICARE-CUTTING PLAN ADVANCED BY HOUSE BUDGET COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN PAUL RYAN WILL KINDLE THE RAGE-IN-REVERSE THAT OBAMACARE ONCE DID -- may also be problematic.

It worked before, but, as Jonah Goldberg points out, ALL SORTS OF THINGS THAT WORKED BEFORE HAVE CEASED DOING SO SINCE OBAMA TOOK OFFICE. There have been mutterings, but, so far, few signs of mass outrage. Why not?

First of all, there's NO SENSE OF AN IMMINENT THREAT. In 2009, people correctly saw that Democrats were going to ram health care through regardless of anything, which only increased the frustration.

Today, there is NO CHANCE OF RYAN'S PLAN PASSING BEFORE 2013 AT THE EARLIEST, and it would not pass in its present form in any case. It is stage one of what will be a long conversation, with many adjustments and alternative theories. Plenty of time to weigh in before then.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/2011/04/ryan-being-boosted-obamas-opposition#ixzz1Kj3tCUJX

My own personal opinion is that while the “experts” see Obama as the favorite for reelection, they seem to think the American public has no short term memory. If the election were held today, Obama would lose it and I don’t see anything coming up that will change that.



Gallup: Seniors Most Favorable To Ryan Budget

A NEW GALLUP/USA TODAY POLL CONTAINS A COUNTERINTUITIVE FINDING: THE AGE GROUP MOST RECEPTIVE TO HOUSE BUDGET CHAIR PAUL RYAN'S PLAN TO DEAL WITH THE BUDGET - SENIORS..

The poll finds 48 percent of seniors (those 65 and over) support Ryan's plan over President Obama's plan, while 42 percent back the president.

That's the highest total among the age groups tested - a 47 percent plurality between the ages of 50 and 64 backed Ryan, and a 45 percent plurality of those between 30-49 backed Ryan. But young voters overwhelmingly sided with Obama by a 23-point margin, 53 to 30 percent.

OVERALL, 44 PERCENT BACK OBAMA'S PLAN, WHILE 43 PERCENT SUPPORT RYAN.

Republicans hold a double-digit lead over Democrats in public perception of which party would do a better job dealing with the federal budget, according to the survey. 48 percent prefer Republicans, while 36 percent prefer Democrats in Congress.

The poll, conducted between April 20-23, surveyed 1,013 adults and has a four percent margin of error.

http://hotlineoncall.nationaljournal.com/archives/2011/04/gallup-seniors.php


I remember a song from the sixties with the line, “The old rules are rapidly changing…” I think the Democrats are suffering from Future Shock.



Stump rhetoric may hamper compromise

PRESIDENT OBAMA’S FIERY CAMPAIGN RHETORIC COULD MAKE IT DIFFICULT FOR HIM TO NEGOTIATE AND COMPROMISE WITH REPUBLICANS BACK IN WASHINGTON.

As Obama travels to New York City on Wednesday for another round of fundraisers and red meat, Republicans are blasting the “campaigner in chief” for blurring the lines between campaigning and governing.

After fighting with a liberal base Obama needs to turn out in 2012, the balance between governing and firing up Democratic supporters adds another challenge — especially when Obama needs to work with House Republicans to get anything done.

Since announcing his reelection campaign, OBAMA HAS SHIFTED BETWEEN OFFICIAL EVENTS AND FUNDRAISERS, ALTERNATELY EXPRESSING HIS HOPES FOR BIPARTISAN COOPERATION ON REDUCING THE DEFICIT AND BLASTING REP. PAUL RYAN’S (R-WIS.) BUDGET PLAN AS “FAIRLY RADICAL….”

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/157893-obamas-rhetoric-could-make-compromise-tough


This may not work out for Obama. He came into office by claiming he would change the tone in Washington. This however looks like it is business as usual. It may attracted his base but it is bound to turn off a lot of independents.



The Problem with high priced Oil

It's about time the administration began taking on the ogres of the left's imagination seriously. ATTORNEY GENERAL ERIC HOLDER HAS FORMED THE "OIL AND GAS PRICE FRAUD WORKING GROUP TO FOCUS ON ENERGY MARKETS" TO EXPOSE THE SPECULATORS, THE GOUGERS AND THOSE FAT CAT MILLIONAIRES. And if we can't confront make-believe distractions with "working groups," well, we are surely a nation in decline.


But of course, Holder will find the biggest frauds right in his administration, which -- as a matter of policy, as a matter of faith -- BELIEVES THE PRICE OF FOSSIL FUELS OUGHT TO BE EXTORTIONATE AND HAS DONE ALL IT CAN TO ENSURE IT.


The left's "energy" initiatives of the past decade -- the entire purpose of energy policy, in fact -- have been aimed at ARTIFICIALLY DRIVING FOSSIL FUEL PRICES UP TO INCENTIVIZE THE BITTER CLINGERS TO EMBRACE THE GOVERNMENT'S UTOPIAN ENERGY SCHEMES. No secret has been made of it. In 2008, candidate Barack Obama was asked by CNBC's John Harwood, "So could the (high) oil prices help us?" Obama: "I THINK THAT I WOULD HAVE PREFERRED A GRADUAL ADJUSTMENT." SUDDEN SPIKES ARE BAD (POLITICALLY SPEAKING), BUT GRADUAL PRICE SPIKES? HELPFUL. That same year, current U.S. "Energy" Secretary (then just a zany professor) STEVEN CHU CLARIFIED THAT "SOMEHOW WE HAVE TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO BOOST THE PRICE OF GASOLINE TO THE LEVELS IN EUROPE."

http://townhall.com/columnists/davidharsanyi/2011/04/27/why_isnt_obama_celebrating_high_oil_prices


The real problem with high priced oil is the extra money is going to the suppliers rather than the government. Expect Obama to propose a gas tax hike to help balance the budget.



Oil and Obama

Take a look at this chart:

http://www.metalprices.com/pubcharts/PublicCharts.aspx?metal=cl%20nymex&type=C&weight=&days=60&size=s&bg=EDF2F8

It’s the price of a barrel of crude oil over the past 5 years.

See that big peak in the middle? That was the last oil spike, in the summer of 2008. Notice how the price hit a high point, then fell off a cliff afterward?

THE DAY CORRESPONDING TO THAT PEAK, AN ALL-TIME HIGH OF $145.16/BARREL, WAS JULY 14, 2008. BY SOME STRANGE COINCIDENCE, THAT WAS THE VERY SAME DAY THEN-PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH LIFTED, BY EXECUTIVE ORDER, A FEDERAL BAN ON OFFSHORE OIL DRILLING…..

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/thanks-to-obama-gas-jumps-in-a-flash/


Funny how that works. Speculators go away when you start to actually try to find oil.



What Professor Obama Doesn't Understand

President Obama's self-congratulatory "economic recovery" is way too little, way too late. BY HISTORICAL STANDARDS FOR THE AMERICAN ECONOMY, WE SHOULD BE IN THE SECOND YEAR NOW OF A BOOMING ECONOMIC RECOVERY. Instead the economy is still struggling to get off the ground, and WHAT IS BOOMING INSTEAD IS PRICES AND INFLATION.

If you listen to what President Obama is saying in his reelection campaign, which is already underway in his town hall tour across America, the reason for this is clear. PRESIDENT OBAMA DOES NOT UNDERSTAND THE BASICS OF ECONOMICS. What he says repeatedly is that increased government spending is the foundation of economic recovery and growth. But the economic reality is that incentives for increased production are the foundation for recovery and booming growth.

As a result, what we are witnessing is a historical reenactment of the 1970s, if not the 1930s, with the same throwback economic policies that caused the dismal economic downward spiral of those years. But this is not all that President Obama doesn't understand. HE ALSO DOESN'T UNDERSTAND THE BUDGET, TAXES, BUSINESS, THE ENERGY AND OIL MARKETS, AND EVEN HEALTH CARE…..

http://spectator.org/archives/2011/04/27/what-professor-obama-doesnt-un

Ideology trumps IQ in Obama’s mind. Welcome back to the Carter years.



The sensitive left

Those smarmy elitists at Gawker.com have outdone themselves in an article belittling a bill just passed by the Texas state legislature. IT SEEMS THAT TEXANS, THROUGH THEIR ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES, HAVE DECIDED THAT ANY STATE-FUNDED UNIVERSITY THAT HAS A STUDENT CENTER PROMOTING ALTERNATIVE SEXUAL LIFESTYLES MUST ALSO HAVE A CENTER DEVOTED TO PROMOTE "TRADITIONAL VALUES." That would seem pretty even-handed to most observers.

But not to the sneering leftists at Gawker! To Hamilton Nolan and the editorial staff there, THE PASSAGE OF THIS BILL IS AN OUTRAGE TO THEIR DELICATE SENSIBILITIES. Mr. Nolan's parenthetical description of what might constitute traditional values in Texas: (beer, barbecue, date-rape,(and) cow-f***ing) is as insensitive and bigoted as one could imagine from the dark underbelly of our media elite.

Why is it anymore absurd to establish a student center for traditional American values than it is to have publicly funded centers for lifestyles most Americans consider to be immoral? Especially with reports indicating that homosexuals really only constitute somewhere between 2 and 3% of the American population….

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/04/gawker_shouldnt_mess_with_texa.html

What you have to understand is that according to the left you can’t have men only clubs, white’s only clubs, scholarships for whites only, etc because that would be bigotry. But you can have women only organizations, black, Hispanic, etc clubs and scholarships because that would be fair. You can have affirmative action where one minority group is given special consideration while another (Asians) are systematically discriminated against because too many of them are good students. Welcome to what the left describes as a “just society.”



Worldwide Communist movement

While CLAIMING THE AMERICAN FLAG REPRESENTS RACISM AND DISCUSSING TODAY’S PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT’S EFFORTS TO DEFEAT AMERICA BOTH AT HOME AND ABROAD, including on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan to help their international “comrades,” Communist Tony Pecinovsky pulls the mask off today’s Progressive Movement in two new exclusive Big Government videos of a University of Missouri course offering, already much in the news….

http://biggovernment.com/driehl/2011/04/26/college-course-us-flag-is-racist-how-to-defeat-america-in-iraq-and-afghanistan/


You can skip the music (first 41 seconds). Kind of reminds me of the “Flat Earth Society.”



Electric cars and reality

....When it comes to electric cars, that age-old saying — "YOUR MILEAGE MAY VARY" — NEVER RANG TRUER.

"It's almost a game to see what you can do to get the best mileage out of it," Wojtanek said of his Volt.

Wojtanek told me he's changed his driving style to boost the Volt's efficiency. QUICK STARTS OR STOPS ARE KEPT TO A MINIMUM. IT ALSO HELPS THAT MOST OF HIS TRIPS ARE SHORT JAUNTS AROUND BOCA RATON, which provides plenty of opportunities for charging up between drives. Pretty much THE ONLY TIME THE GAS ENGINE TURNS ON IS when the 55-year-old commercial actor (and retired airline pilot) TAKES A TRIP TO FORT LAUDERDALE OR MIAMI. THE ROUND TRIP TO MIAMI IS 98 MILES, and generally the GAS KICKS IN AFTER ABOUT 40 MILES OF ALL-ELECTRIC DRIVING. "Forty-three miles is about the best I get on the battery," he said....

http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/04/25/6530514-electric-cars-meet-the-real-world


If you don’t have a lot of long trips and you have a lot of money, this could be the car for you.



Massachusetts House votes to restrict Public Employee Unions bargaining rights

HOUSE LAWMAKERS VOTED OVERWHELMINGLY LAST NIGHT TO STRIP POLICE OFFICERS, TEACHERS, AND OTHER MUNICIPAL EMPLOYEES OF MOST OF THEIR RIGHTS TO BARGAIN OVER HEALTH CARE, saying the change would save millions of dollars for financially strapped cities and towns.

THE 111-TO-42 VOTE FOLLOWED TOUGHER MEASURES TO BROADLY ELIMINATE COLLECTIVE BARGAINING RIGHTS FOR PUBLIC EMPLOYEES IN OHIO, WISCONSIN, AND OTHER STATES. But unlike those efforts, the push in Massachusetts was LED BY DEMOCRATS who have traditionally stood with labor to oppose any reduction in workers’ rights....

“It’s pretty stunning,’’ said Robert J. Haynes, president of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO. “These are THE SAME DEMOCRATS THAT ALL THESE LABOR UNIONS ELECTED. THE SAME DEMOCRATS WHO WE CONTRIBUTED TO IN THEIR CAMPAIGNS. The same Democrats who tell us over and over again that they’re with us, that they believe in collective bargaining, that they believe in unions. . . . It’s a done deal for our relationship with the people inside that chamber.’’

“We are going to fight this thing to the bitter end,’’ he added. “Massachusetts is not the place that takes collective bargaining away from public employees.’’

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/articles/2011/04/27/house_votes_to_limit_bargaining_on_health_care/


Perhaps now the hard core leftist who think this is a plot by the Republicans and that a crisis doesn’t exist will realize it does.

SOTU and other natural and not so natural disasters

Obama Stung by SOTU Plagiarism Rap

Kudos to presidential historian Alvin Felzenberg for his tug on Obama's cape. A Ph.D. from Princeton and the former spokesman for the 9/11 commission, Felzenberg is the first intellectual insider to suggest publicly that President Barack Obama is not the writer the literati have anointed him to be.


In his review of the State of the Union speech posted on the U.S. News website, FELZENBERG GOES SO FAR AS TO ACCUSE THE PRESIDENT AND HIS SPEECHWRITERS OF PLAGIARIZING IT.

"PRESIDENT OBAMA'S SECOND STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS CONTAINED ENOUGH RECYCLED IDEAS AND LINES LIFTED FROM SPEECHES OF OTHERS TO MAKE HISTORIANS WINCE," writes Felzenberg. "Had the president submitted the text of his second State of the Union Address in the form of a college term paper, he would have been sent forthwith to the nearest academic dean."….

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/01/obama_stung_by_sotu_plagiarism.html


An interesting look at what appears to be a growing story.

To Boldly Go Where No Party Has Gone Before...

I figured out which position President Obama could play for the Steelers on Super Bowl Sunday. HE’D MAKE A GREAT PUNTER.

Decades of overspending and overpromising by the federal government, combined with a plunge in tax revenues, are pushing America to the brink of fiscal crisis. Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, and interest on the national debt are gobbling up the gross domestic product. The aging Baby Boomers, meanwhile, are waiting in the wings.

PRESIDENT OBAMA KNOWS THE NATURE AND EXTENT OF THE CRISIS. His own debt commission reported in December, “If the U.S. does not put its house in order, the reckoning will be sure and the devastation severe.” And the debt commission offered plenty of intriguing ways to address the problem. Its plans to overhaul the tax code and Social Security were especially bold. Commissioners Paul Ryan and Alice Rivlin, moreover, delivered their own proposal to turn Medicare into a sustainable defined-contribution system. And a separate presidential commission, led by Paul -Volcker, outlined a corporate tax reform that would lower rates while closing loopholes.

OBAMA COULD HAVE ADOPTED ANY OF THESE POLICIES AS HIS OWN. HE COULD HAVE USED THE STATE OF THE UNION TO CHALLENGE REPUBLICANS TO WORK WITH HIM ON BRINGING THE GOVERNMENT’S FINANCES INTO BALANCE WHILE ENCOURAGING ECONOMIC GROWTH. He could have seized the deficit-hawk middle ground and possibly split the GOP in the process. INSTEAD, HE PUNTED. HE LEFT IT UP TO REPUBLICANS TO TAKE THE BALL AND RUN.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/boldly-go-where-no-party-has-gone_537578.html


I loved the analogy. BHO, punter in chief.



New Black Panther Party case: The facts are in

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights came out in December with a draft of its interim report on the New Black Panthers Party scandal. Earlier today a final report was posted on the commission's website, and with it, a flurry of rebuttals and separate statements from a number of the commissioners. The import of these statements should not be minimized.

The statements indicate several points: 1) the New Black Panther Party case brought by career Justice Department employees WAS MERITORIOUS ON THE LAW AND THE FACTS; 2) there is voluminous evidence of the OBAMA ADMINISTRATION'S POLITICAL INTERFERENCE IN THE PROSECUTION OF THE NEW BLACK PANTHER PARTY case; 3) there is ample evidence that the OBAMA ADMINISTRATION DIRECTED JUSTICE DEPARTMENT EMPLOYEES NOT TO BRING CASES AGAINST MINORITY DEFENDANTS WHO VIOLATED VOTING RIGHTS LAWS or to enforce a provision requiring that states and localities clean up their voting rolls to prevent fraud; 4) the JUSTICE DEPARTMENT STONEWALLED EFFORTS TO INVESTIGATE THE CASE; And 5) vice chairman Abigail Thernstrom has, for reasons not entirely clear, ignored the evidence and tried to undermine the commission's work.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/right-turn/2011/01/the_us_commission_on_civil.html


It will be interesting to see where this ends up. Will there be indictments against those who stonewalled and worse in this case? After Scooter Libby was indicted for lying to the FBI, it appears we have a much more serious case here.

Obama and Egypt

As protests spread against the regime of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, the Obama administration faces a choice: which side of history does it want to be on?

Does the United States want to support a dictator to the end, or does it stand with protesters demanding relief from decades of emergency rule, police torture, corruption and economic stagnation?

The administration already missed a chance to show the Arab world that it can live up to its rhetoric. President Obama failed to speak out in support of Tunisia's popular uprising until it was too late - after Tunisian strongman Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali fled the country.

Political realists will argue that favoring stability and long-term allies like Mubarak is more essential to America's national interests than the uncertain and difficult task of promoting an inclusive democracy. But if we have learned anything over the past few weeks, it is that the status quo in the Arab world is not stable.

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2011/01/29/2011-01-29_riots_in_egypt_president_obama_must_choose_between_support_of_hosni_mubarak_and_.html


We saw Obama ignore the demonstrations in Iran. It appears if you don’t want Obama to speak out against your regime, you need to be an enemy of the US. If you are an ally, well that’s a different story.



If Healthcare is so good, why all the waivers?

At the end of last year, the Department of Health and Human Services had granted some 222 temporary waivers to businesses small and large, insurers, and labor and other organizations that offer affordable health insurance or prescription-drug coverage with limited benefits. On Wednesday, THE AGENCY QUIETLY UPDATED ITS ONLINE LIST, WHICH NOW REVEALS A WHOPPING TOTAL OF 729 OBAMACARE ESCAPEES — in addition to four states, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio, and Tennessee — that collectively cover about 2.1 million enrollees.

At least one eyebrow-raising waiver recipient — THE LEFT-LEANING, NATIONALIZED-HEALTH-CARE-PROMOTING ROBERT WOOD JOHNSON FOUNDATION — has direct ties to the White House. Obama health-care czar Nancy-Ann DeParle sits on the foundation’s board of trustees.

Most noteworthy: ONE-FOURTH OF ALL THE WAIVERS (182) SO FAR HAVE GONE TO LABOR GROUPS.

The Teamsters Union, which hailed Obama last March for “enacting historic health care reform, providing health insurance to millions of Americans who don’t have it and controlling costs for millions more who do,” obtained waivers for 17 different locals.….

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/258240/waivers-favors-michelle-malkin


Perhaps one size doesn’t fit all?

Spain's jobless rate surges to 20.33%

Spain announced Friday its jobless rate surged to a 13-year record above 20 percent at the end of 2010, the highest level in the industrialized world, as the economy struggled for air.

It was more bad news for an economy fighting to regain the trust of financial markets and avoid being trapped in a debt quagmire that has engulfed Greece and Ireland and now menaces Portugal.

Another 121,900 people joined Spain's unemployment queues in the final quarter of the year, pushing the total to 4.697 million people, said the national statistics institute INE.

The resulting unemployment rate was 20.33 percent for the end of the year -- easily exceeding Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's target of 19.4 percent.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110128/bs_afp/spaineconomyunemployment_20110128120624

Part of the reason Spain is in so much trouble is they decided to become the “green” capital of Europe “investing” heavily in green jobs. It seems they found the down side of this.

Cold truths about electric cars' cold-weather shortcomings

Count me among the many thousands of Washington area residents who spent Wednesday night stuck in traffic as a snowstorm sowed chaos all around us. Being car-bound in sub-freezing weather for six hours can make a guy think. I counted my blessings. The situation could have been worse, I realized: MY FELLOW COMMUTERS AND I COULD HAVE BEEN TRYING TO MAKE IT HOME IN ELECTRIC CARS, LIKE THE ONES PRESIDENT OBAMA IS CONSTANTLY PROMOTING, MOST RECENTLY IN HIS STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS.

It is a basic fact of physical science THAT BATTERIES RUN DOWN MORE QUICKLY IN COLD WEATHER THAN THEY DO IN WARM WEATHER, and the batteries employed by vehicles such as the Nissan Leaf or the Chevy Volt are no exception.

The exact loss of power these cars would suffer is a matter of debate, partly because no one has much real-world experience to draw on. But there would be some loss. RUNNING THE HEATER TO STAY WARM, OR THE CAR RADIO TO STAY INFORMED, WOULD DRAIN THE BATTERY FURTHER.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/27/AR2011012706170.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

If you want the scientific explanation why batteries run down more quickly, click the link and read it.

Hillary and Climate Change

In August, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told reporters that the floods that were ravaging Pakistan at the time were linked to global warming.

“You can’t point to any particular disaster and say, ‘it was caused by [global warming],’ BUT WE ARE CHANGING THE CLIMATE OF THE WORLD,” Clinton told Pakistan’s Dawn TV, adding, “I think the predictions of more natural disasters are unfortunately being played out.”

Well, guess what, kids? There’s A PEER-REVIEWED PAPER ABOUT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE BULLETIN OF THE AMERICAN METEOROLOGICAL SOCIETY, and in the press release about the paper, they don’t even mention the word “climate.” Simply put, A ROGUE STORM SYSTEM, PART OF THE NORMAL CHAOTIC NATURE OF WEATHER ON THIS PLANET, WAS THE CAUSE OF LAST SUMMER’S DEVASTATING FLOODS. NOTHING ELSE. Anyone who claims that the storm was part of “climate change” is simply flat wrong, and that includes Hillary

.
http://dailycaller.com/2011/01/27/hillarys-foot-in-mouth-moment-as-a-climate-scientist/#ixzz1CL1KjCa1



Himalayan glaciers advancing?

Himalayan glaciers are actually advancing rather than retreating, claims the first major study since a controversial UN report said they would be melted within quarter of a century. RESEARCHERS HAVE DISCOVERED THAT CONTRARY TO POPULAR BELIEF HALF OF THE ICE FLOWS IN THE KARAKORAM RANGE OF THE MOUNTAINS ARE ACTUALLY GROWING RATHER THAN SHRINKING.

The discovery adds a new twist to the row over whether global warming is causing the world’s highest mountain range to lose its ice cover.

It further CHALLENGES CLAIMS MADE IN A 2007 REPORT BY THE UN’S INTERGOVERNMENTAL PANEL ON CLIMATE CHANGE THAT THE GLACIERS WOULD BE GONE BY 2035.

Although the head of the panel Dr Rajendra Pachauri later admitted the claim was an error gleaned from unchecked research, he maintained that global warming was melting the glaciers at “a rapid rate”, threatening floods throughout north India.

The new study by scientists at the Universities of California and Potsdam has found that half of the glaciers in the Karakoram range, in the northwestern Himlaya, are in fact advancing and that GLOBAL WARMING IS NOT THE DECIDING FACTOR IN WHETHER A GLACIER SURVIVES OR MELTS

.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/8284223/Himalayan-glaciers-not-melting-because-of-climate-change-report-finds.html

Does anyone else hear the sound of a hammer? Another nail in the AGW coffin?