No Respect

Our problem in this country?  No Respect.  For anything.  We have lampooned and demeaned every last institution in the country, a slow motion French Revolution where even the highest offices of government and church leaders do not escape the rhetorical torches and pitchforks.  We've set it all ablaze and we dance with glee as we watch it burn.

We didn't earn it, so we don't respect it
We are ignorant of our history.  We only hear the Howard Zinn versions now, being screamed out by blasphemous preachers from their pulpits of anger and resentment. 

President Obama was proselytizing his fellow international cosmopolitans when he reduced American exceptionalism to patriotic self-delusion:

"I believe in American exceptionalism," Barack Obama said, "just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism."

"It's all in your minds, you jingoistic morons!  Get over it.  Your stinking country is no better than than Greece or West Stinkhole-istan!"
And the cognoscenti applaud...  (Read More)

Inside a Can of Whoop-Ass

Thanks, OD!

Stand With Israel

Israelis are also Western Heroes, standing guard on the Eastern frontier of tyranny, bigotry, murder, and ignorance.  And they refuse to surrender.  I'm proudly flying their flag on this blog to show my support

Israel is a tiny island of civility, completely surrounded by medieval torturers who still openly admire the nazis and seek to emulate their "final solution."  The 1.2 million Muslims living in the Jewish State enjoy freedoms their coreligionists in Muslim countries can only dream of.

Helen Thomas disagrees, which makes me even more sure that I am right...

WHY IS GREEN ENERGY GREEN ???

THERE'S GREEN IN THEM THAR TECHNOLOGIES !!!!!!!!!!!
President Barack Obama on Wednesday called on Congress to roll back billions of dollars in tax breaks for oil and pass a clean-energy bill that he says would help the nation end its dependence on fossil fuels.

And the plan is....

Drive up the price of existing energy sources to a level that makes immature and unreliable "green" alternative technologies a viable alternative, thus ending our dependence on fossil fuels and foreign oil.

Great for the environment, good for green technology investors and companies, bad for the American consumer.

So, which party is it that is in bed with big business? Oh yeah...that's right, BOTH OF THEM! They're just in bed with different businesses, lobbies, and donors.

As of 5/31 the average price of gas in the US was $2.73 of that 47.7 cents went to the government (18.4 cents federal). So, for a gallon of gas that average US worker had to work 7 minutes.

The average price of gas per gallon in the UK is currently 120p/liter, at 3.79 liters to the gallon the price per gallon in the UK is 4.54....but wait, that's in Pounds....at the current exchange rate of 1.4643 dollars to the pound the price of a gallon of gas in the UK is $6.66 USD (Honestly, that number is just coincidence...the price is 6.6596).

Of that 120p per liter, the UK petrol tax is 56.9p per litre, almost half (47.4%)....but wait, that's before the 17.5% VAT tax... with the VAT the total tax on petrol is roughly 65% of the cost versus 17.5% in the US.

Who gets hurt by higher gas prices? The average American worker.

With gas at $2.73 a gallon the US average hourly wage is $22.47

With gas at $6.66 a gallon the UK average hourly wage is $19.05 USD (Thats 488 pounds for 37.5 hours of work in 2009)

In real terms a gallon of gas is 7 minutes of work in the US and 20 minutes of work in the UK

British cars on average are 20% more fuel efficient than American cars, but gas cost roughly 140% more.

The average economy of 2009 new passenger cars was 32 MPG and the average US commute was 16 miles. That's 1 gallon of gas round trip (ideal), $2.73 cents, or 7 minutes of work. With British gas prices and fuel economy that would equate to $5.32 cents or 14 minutes of work.

Raising taxes or rolling back tax breaks for oil will both do the same thing, raise the price of gas, this will also cause price increases for everything else due to increased transportation costs. When the general prices of goods rise over time in respect to currency, that is inflation, plain and simple.

The false assumption is that when common market energy costs rise, the costs of alternatives won't. What is your viable alternative to fossil fuels? Electric cars? When the price of fossil fuels rise, the cost of the electricity used to charge them will also rise. A Toyota Prius currently gets 48-52 MPG under ideal circumstances. If the price of gas goes up 140%....are you going to be happy with a car that gets 60% better mileage? Even with a Prius the commute that now costs you $2.73 is going to cost you $4 (instead of $6.66) and that doesn't include the increased cost of charging due to increased fossil fuel costs for those of you with plug-ins.

Keep in mind that $6.66 petrol prices in England has not spurred a massive development and market of alternative fueled vehicles. The vast majority of cars in England still burn fossil fuels, albeit most are low displacement turbo diesel sub-compacts with mileage rates similar to the Prius and we all know how you environmentalists feel about diesel. The vast majority of high mileage turbo-diesels in the UK aren't for sale here because they can't pass the EPA standards for diesel emissions.

Take an easy example:

US Volkswagen Golf 2-DR 2.0 TDI/UK Volkswagen Golf Match 2-DR 2.0 TDI

US: 30 city/41 highway, MSRP $22,354 USD
UK: 46 city/70 highway, MSRP $30,625 USD

Another good example for you performance enthusiasts is the Mercedes C350

The British petrol version of the C350 has the same size engine (3.5 liter V6 200 kW (268 hp) has a top speed of 155 and a 0-62 of 6.4s (62 because that is 100 km/hr) it gets 20/38 mpg and has CO2 emissions of 232 g/km.

The American version has the same size engine (3.5 liter V6 268 hp (200kW) has a top speed limited to 130 mph and a 0-60 of 6.1 seconds but it only gets 17/25 mpg and has calculated* CO2 emissions of 487g/km. You can't say that American Mercedes enthusiasts wouldn't flock to a C350 that gets 38 mpg on the highway for a performance sacrifice measured in tenths of a second.

* The UK MB website provides the CO2 g/km figure, no figure provided on the US MB website, but the EPA provides a figure of 9.2 metric tons/year. A little research provided the EPA calculation is based on 11720 miles per year and is based on gallons of gas consumed (metric tons/gallon times gallons used). I converted the metric tons to grams (9200000), converted 11720 miles into kilometers (18862) and divided... coming up with 487.75 g/km. Now I have no idea how the Europeans calculate that, but I would guess it's measured. This is the best figure I can come up with for the American version... any engineers out there are free to correct me.

So the question is: Why can't you buy a European C350 in the USA?

And don't think it's just European manufacturers... the European Ford Focus Econetic gets 62 mpg, the best you can expect from the US version is 35 mpg.

That all comes down to NHTSA and EPA regulations, the US blocks the importation of vehicles built to the international ECE standard and it currently impossible to build a vehicle that meets both the ECE and US FMVSS. The two standards are not as divergent as you would think, one major sticking point in reconciliation being headlight design. I don't think many would argue that European model cars are not as safe as their American counterparts. Differences in environmental testing diverge less in end results than in testing methodologies and individual focus. A European clean diesel engine is arguably more environmentally friendly, yet will not pass US emission requirements.

Repealing oil tax breaks and driving up the price of gas is not a winning move for the American public. We don't need more fossil fuel regulations and taxes to promote green energy. The answer is less regulation not more. Want a 70 mpg car? adopt the international ECE vehicle standard and allow the importation of European models into the US. Afraid of killing off the rest of the automotive industry? Provide a 1-3 year window in which American manufacturers can retool, say allowing sale of ECE vehicles by American manufactures the first year, and gradually raise the number of allowed foreign ECE imports by 20% per year in subsequent years for 5 years until we are back to a free-market on sales.

If you're for penalizing fossil fuels to promote green technology, follow the money... Oil loses, Coal loses, the American Public loses, who wins? It's certainly not the environment.

Cheers!

Finntann

Islam for Dhimmis: Flotilla of Fools

Jihad Jackassery is a virulent strain of the same brain disease that spawned Latte Leftism.  Self-loathing liberals who hate the culture that nurtured them are the most susceptible.

Latte Leftists
Starting from the 60's we have had a phenomenon I call Latte Leftism.  Sanctimonious lefties who got their Latin America experience from Taco Bell U belligerently defend all manner of socialist terror going on south of our border.  Murderers Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, and Hugo Chavez are their heroes.


Now, a new strain has broken out: Jihad Jackassery

Ignorant liberals loudly defend Islam and make serial excuses for its bloody predations on the civilized world. 

They have never experienced the displeasure of living day to day in a shit-smeared Muslim hell-hole.  A place where goats and dancing boys are the main attraction for men.  A very illiberal place, where speaking your mind or doing what you want can get you killed.

We should sponsor an international field trip for these ignorant dingbats.  Dump them off where sharia reigns supreme and women are draped head to toe and chained to the kitchen.

Let that stupid little mental midget Jew-hating girl who confronted David Horowitz go live in Saudia Arabia or the Pashtun Belt for awhile.  I'd love to hear her stories when she returned.  If she returned.  She's pretty mouthy, and 7th century misogynists don't tolerate strong women.  Just ask Hirsi Ali.

Beyond Entertainment and into the Danger Zone

With the Palestinian "Freedom Flotilla" incident, these self-loathing western patsies have gone from entertaining to dangerous. 

It was a deliberate, premeditated provocation. 
Israel allows aid ships to dock at its ports.  They inspect the cargo, then allow it to go overland to Hamas-istan.  The only reason for violating this legal Israeli and Egyptian blockade was to give Israel a black eye.

This convoy was nothing but leftwing international agitprop mixed with Muslim passive-aggressive provocation.  Violently force a confrontation, then cry and scream when responsible people step in and smack you.

A New, New World Order
This is about Turkey rejecting the west and becoming the Hero of the Muslim World.  Worse, European dhimmis played a key role, doing the bidding of their Muslim overlords.

Europe is dying, demographically, financially and culturally.  America is vulnerable, with a naive and callow cosmopolitan at the helm.  Enemies are drawing long knives...

Here are the very best articles explaining what the Flotilla of Fools was really all about:
TNR - Marty Peretz
Daily Beast - Leslie H. Gelb
Liberal Zionists - Time to Choose

The Decline and Fall of Nothing

It's always been fun sport for Schadenfreudistas to predict America's decline.  Tim Cavanaugh at Reason has a wry take on it all: 

"The problem isn’t that things are collapsing. It’s that not enough things are collapsing. General Motors, AIG, and the government of California have committed enough errors to merit immediate extinction, but there they still are."

We've destroyed our constitution and replaced it with a progressive bulwark against Schumpeter's creative destruction.  America's centerpiece is now a Bill of Rights for the venal and the stupid, constantly updated by an elected criminal class.

Like the energizer bunny, America's failures keep going and going, while the successful pick up the tab.  

We have the government we deserve.

Five Myths of Green Energy

While government watchdogs did drugs and surfed porn, BP was busy wrecking the Gulf Coast.  Talk is turning again to "Green Energy."

I love the environment (it's where the tasty creatures are) and I am cheering for the good scientists struggling to advance "green energy." 

Despite what scientifically-ignorant charlatans like Al Gore and Van Jones say, "green energy" is simply too inefficient to compete with fossil fuels.  The science is advancing, but it's just not there yet.

Robert Bryce performs a public service by publishing Five Myths of Green Energy in The Washington Post.

Here are the Five Myths

1. Solar and wind power are the greenest of them all.
Wrong!  They are land hogs that actually destroy the environment by displacing natural habitat.

2. Going green will reduce our dependence on imports from unsavory regimes.
"China controls between 95 and 100 percent of the global market in" rare elements needed to construct batteries.

3. A green American economy will create green American jobs.

In a global market, American wind turbine manufacturers face the same problem as American shoe manufacturers: high domestic labor costs.

Meanwhile, the very concept of a green job is not well defined. Is a job still green if it's created not by the market, but by subsidy or mandate? 

Growth Energy, an industry lobby group, says increasing the percentage of ethanol blended into the U.S. gasoline supply would create 136,000 jobs. But an analysis by the Environmental Working Group found that no more than 27,000 jobs would be created, and each one could cost taxpayers as much as $446,000 per year. Sure, the government can create more green jobs. But at what cost?

Not to mention, Ethanol is Immoral.  Starving people to feed cars should give all human beings pause.  If that's not enough, the "Bio-fuels" industry destroys the biosphere, and there is not enough biosphere on the planet to support this government-sponsored corporate welfare travesty.

4. Electric cars will substantially reduce demand for oil.

Electric cars haven't been sidelined by a cabal to sell internal combustion engines or a lack of political will, but by physics and math. Gasoline contains about 80 times as much energy, by weight, as the best lithium-ion battery.

And in the absence of nuclear power, these cars that are plugged into the power grid are coal-powered.  How environmentally friendly is that?

5. The United States lags behind other rich countries in going green.

Over the past three decades, the United States has improved its energy efficiency as much as or more than other developed countries.

According to data from the Energy Information Administration, average per capita energy consumption in the United States fell by 2.5 percent from 1980 through 2006. That reduction was greater than in any other developed country except Switzerland and Denmark, and the United States achieved it without participating in the Kyoto Protocol or creating an emissions trading system like the one employed in Europe.

EIA data also show that the United States has been among the best at reducing the amount of carbon dioxide emitted per $1 of GDP and the amount of energy consumed per $1 of GDP.

This was just a sample.  Go read the whole thing here.