Bending the Reality Curve

“Green Energy,” is a pipe dream.

The Center for American Progress (the Obama White House's unofficial think tank) argues for a federal "35 by 35" standard—mandating that 35 percent of America's energy come from renewables by 2035. This means the feds would force all utilities to generate more than a third of their electricity from renewables—a guarantee of far higher prices.

A Heritage Foundation study found that even a scaled-down version of the plan, a 22.5 percent renewable standard by 2025, would bump household-electricity prices 36 percent and industry prices 60 percent by 2035—producing a net GDP loss of $5.2 trillion between 2012 and 2035. ( Shikha Dalmia – Global Warming by Another Name)

But don't take Heritage and Reason Mag's word for it.  Listen to the liberal El Lay Times explain a green energy fiasco right in the heart of liberal la la land:

As head of a $5.7-billion, taxpayer-funded program to rebuild the college campuses, Eisenberg commanded attention. But his plan for energy independence was seriously flawed.

He overestimated how much power the colleges could generate. He underestimated the cost. And he poured millions of dollars into designs for projects that proved so impractical or unpopular they were never built.

These and other blunders cost nearly $10 million that could have paid for new classrooms, laboratories and other college facilities, a Times investigation found.

Instead of saving an advertised millions of dollars per year, a multi-billion dollar community college green energy project ended up wasting $10 million...

Get it? They blew $6 billion, expecting energy savings. Instead, they bled out another $10 million, in addition to the existing energy costs…

Here’s the fundamental truth that destroys the green energy myth:

“But Eisenberg's enthusiasm obscured an inconvenient reality: With the technology now available, the cost of renewable power exceeds that of energy derived from burning coal and natural gas.” (El Lay Times – Grand Dream)

For those who cheer on the absurd notion of government paying to create jobs… OK, why not have government blow two trillion and completely wipe out unemployment?

John Stossel – Obama’s Green Jobs Fantasy
Vincent Carroll – A Double Standard
AEI – The Myth of Green Energy Jobs

The Tripoli Trap

Libyans are crying for the The Great Satan to come and save them, and the neocons who've never so much as heard a shot fired in anger are beating the war drums. 



My answer? Va Fangoul!

Remember the lies Chalabi and other Saddam opponents told us? People would throw flowers at our feet and welcome us with kisses, the Iraqi people just wanted to be free, Saddam was building nuclear weapons…

He and other succeeded in goading us to action, at a high cost in lives and treasure. Now the oil is flowing, and contracts go to China, who did nothing to topple the old regime. In Afghanistan, our troops are making the country safe for Chinese and Russian mining companies, while our “friends” the Pakistanis provide safe haven for their friends the Taliban.

We saved the Kosovar and Bosnian Muslims from slaughter and are rewarded by a Balkan Muslim gunning down American Airmen at Frankfurt Main.

We saved Kuwait and Saudi Arabia from Hussein, Afghanistan from the Taliban, and our military is stationed in the Gulf at the request of the poobahs to protect them from Iran.  All we get is hatred in return.

If we were so stupid as to go in to Libya, we would end up being further castigated by the purple-faced Muslim Street and their fellow travelers in the international left.

Libyans are already trying to lure us in…

Not because they love America or admire our ideals; but because they need our firepower to topple Khaddafi. Once that is accomplished, welcoming smiles will turn to fleck-spittle hatred and we’ll be accused of war crimes. If we leave too early we will be abandoning the Libyan people. If we stay too long, we’re building an empire. Every bomb we drop will end up killing “civilians,” most likely in one of those ubiquitous wedding parties. Every troop killed by a wild-eyed Libyan fanatic we’re trying to help will be called an unfortunate aberration…

We’ve seen this movie before, and there’s no good ending. Here’s how it begins…

“A large French flag hangs on the front of the courthouse used as the revolutionary council's headquarters after Paris recognised the rebel leadership […]

“But Libyans are also increasingly vocal in their criticism of Washington in particular for what is seen as a failure to back up rhetoric against the regime. (Guardian – Libyan Rebels)

Awww… See? They love us, but now they’re becoming disappointed in their hero Uncle Sam… BS!

But we’d better rush in there, or these feckless, unstable people will fall into the arms of the radical Islamists!

“However, Gheriani said that if the west failed to offer practical help to the revolutionaries to free themselves from Gaddafi's rule it risked frustrated Libyans turning to religious extremists.

If the west takes too long – where people say it's too little, too late – then people become a target for extremists who say the west doesn't care about them," he said.

"Most people in this country are moderates and extremists have not been able to penetrate them. But if they get to the point of disillusionment with the west there will be no going back."

Screw ‘em! We’ve heard all that before and it’s all BS. 
They’re all extremists and they all hate us! We’ve already proven that using our military power to help them won’t change that.

We’ve witnessed how they really feel about us...
Dancing in the streets at the news of 9/11, nothing but a constant stream of vituperation spewed upon the civilized west, ignorant stinking hordes lapping up every outrageous lie and conspiracy theory the demagogic mullahs tell them…

No, this is not fertile ground for Western civilization to take root. This is not a bridge to new friendships. It’s just another venue for the bug-eyed bastards of the Religion of Pieces to stage their theater of the grotesque. Well, this is one opera the US should skip. Let someone else provide the kettle drums and the snares.

We’ve allowed these inhabitants of the armpit of the world to send us on too many fool’s errands
The Muslim dingbats have again set their house ablaze, and again they call the US Fire Department. And again, once the fire is out, they will criticize us for putting axes through the doors and soaking the walls and the furniture. It’s time for the fire department to stand back and let the house burn down. Maybe that will teach these crazy morons to stop playing with matches.

For a more reasoned and informed analysis, read Intelligence analyst Paul Pillar's article, Not So Limited Liability in Libya.

Eat the Rich?

Todd Frankel asks, Do the rich deserve what they get?

It’s a provocative question, especially in egalitarian America. I also have a problem with “deserve,” as I do with almost all of the article, but it’s a fairly cogent argument for “social justice.”

As you have greater inequality, you have a greater and greater risk of distorting democracy. If only a small group of people hold more and more resources and money, they're really able to put a lot of pressure on the system to play out their agenda alone. So widening inequality really is detrimental to the principles of democracy. (STL Today)

Progressives forged a social contract over 100 years ago

The wealthy were feeling increasingly threatened by the grimy hordes of unschooled hayseeds and boisterous immigrants crowding east coast cities to work the factories. The kids needed education and the adults needed economic security. There really was generalized fear of peasant revolts or worse, a growing permanent underclass given over to a life of crime.  Gangs of uneducated poor marauding rich neighborhoods like packs of feral beasts was a specter that haunted the nation into governmental noblesse oblige.

This has turned into a crass form of “fire insurance.” Keep the money flowing, and they won’t burn the place down. While I disagree with the class warfare rhetoric, we are facing conditions ripe for community troublemakers to mobilize millions demanding their “fair share.” We’ve built an entitlement culture and you can’t blame the entitled. Government has encouraged them.

People don’t need handouts and grand social programs. We need schools that teach useful skills, economic opportunity, and a strong dollar that holds its value so that life savings are still worth something when we get to our old age. Those three things will not guarantee equal outcomes (nothing will), but they will give everyone an equal shot in this most prosperous, egalitarian, and upwardly mobile country in the history of the world.

Liberals Can’t Handle the Truth

Liberals have a reality problem. They just can’t face it.

According to liberals, we're not broke, unions and government create jobs, the schools are just fine and we need to keep giving them more money, big government is great and we need more of it...  It's a catalog of lunacy.  No wonder moderates and independents last November ran screaming from the nuthouse known as the democratic party.

And the dems just don't get it.  They lost Keith Olberman's Countdown, but they now eagerly tune in each night for red-faced ranter Ed Schultz's Nightly Meltdown.

The latest spycam video showed progressive flagship NPR’s true colors, which all already knew anyway. It is a white, east coast, metrosexual effete, snobbish organization. They are anti-Jewish and anti-black. Just ask Juan Williams about the condescending treatment he received from them.

It's not about women, minorities and the oppressed--It's about advancing the statist agenda

Liberals are for women, just not conservative or religious ones like Sarah Palin, or threatened ones like Molly Norris, who is in hiding because 7th century islamists threatened to cut her head off over cartoons. They are for women standing up to powerful oppressors, unless those women live in the Muslim world. Then its ok that they’re oppressed. Liberals stand against sexual harassment and powerful men using their position to gain sexual favors, unless the man is a democrat president, then it’s ok.

Liberals are for blacks and gays, unless they are conservative or decide they want to attend a tea party rally.

You see, it’s not about blacks, or gays or women, it’s about advancing a statist progressive agenda. Minorities, the oppressed and the downtrodden are just extras, props cynically used to advance the agenda.

We want a do over!

Wisconsin is the latest theater of the absurd, where hysterical liberals display their inability to accept reality. The people voted, democrats lost, so they cried and scampered off to Illinois like the cowering cowards they are. Like petulant children refusing to take a bath, they stamped their feet and stuck out their tongues at the electorate.

Now, they are gearing up recall elections, crying “We want a do over!” They cannot accept reality, so they now seek to change it. Good luck with that, although their approach of siding with money-gobbling, capitol-wrecking unions, and standing against the taxpaying voter is a novel approach. More of that reality problem I guess...

FOX - Wisconsin

Are You, or Have You ever been a Muslim?

Look at those stooges protesting “Islamophobia.” Russell Simmons is the king stooge. He should try taking his booty shaking brand of music to Saudi Arabia or Pakistan. They also don’t like Buddhists there. I’d like to hear his view of Islam after being clubbed and jailed by religious police.

There is no islamophobia in America. Phobia implies “irrational fear.” First, we are not afraid, we are concerned, and the concern is a rational one.

I wish one reporter would have asked the dingbats in the crowd where Molly Norris is. She’s the American in hiding here in America because bug-eyed head cutters are threatening to kill her in the name of the religion of peace. All because of some cartoons.

It is telling that lefties turn out for prefab agitprop like this
They need something to justify their pathetic, empty little lives. Yeah, Simmons is a millionaire, but he’s a poor excuse for a human being.  He was able to attract only 200 nobodies who need to justify their worth by attaching themselves to someone famous while speaking out against “injustice,” “hate,” “homophobia,” whatever the politburo propagandists tell them is the issue of the day.

What They Won't Protest

It is also telling that you don’t see these people protesting a rotten education system that churns out illiterate and unemployable graduates, disproportionately minorities. They won’t protest the crime-infested sewers so many of our poor people are condemned to, and they contribute to the moral rot with their popular “culture” of bling, objectifying women, and glorifying violence, drugs, criminality and irresponsibility.

You won’t find these sanctimonious herd-mentality simpletons speaking out against female genital mutilation, honor killings or the stoning of women. Hell, they won’t even speak out about human trafficking, sex slavery, hunger or poverty. No, those issues are too pedestrian, no opportunity to let your freak flag fly and bash good Americans.

The rally was full of empty feel-good comments like this from a dhimmi rabbi…

“American Muslims are as fully American as any other faith community,’’

Who has said otherwise? Lefties love attacking those strawmen. Keith Ellison, America’s first Muslim congressman exemplifies how Muslims mischaracterize the issue:

“To say we’re going to investigate a religious minority, and a particular one, I think is the wrong course of action to take,’’

Rep King is not “investigating a religious minority,” and Islam is not on trial. The hearings are to investigate foreign influences radicalizing American Muslims. Muslims should welcome this as an effort to purge the violent and hateful elements that are a stain upon their religion. I know I would welcome any investigation into foreign elements attempting to infiltrate and subvert Christianity, especially if I thought my kids were vulnerable to it.


1% of the Population, 81% of the Terrorists

Representative Keith Ellison (Muslim-Minnesota) blubbered and wailed through his testimony Thursday.  He should have left aside the histrionic agitprop and instead wept over these Justice Department statistics:

more than 80% of all convictions tied to international terrorist groups and homegrown terrorism since 9/11 involve defendants driven by a radical Islamist agenda. Though Muslims represent less than 1% of the American population, they constitute defendants in 186 of the 228 cases the Justice Department lists. (NY Daily News)

It is a failure and a tragedy when an American citizen is enticed to murderous sedition against his country. Good people of all faiths should want to find the root cause so we could stop it. Looks to me like too many would rather keep their heads in the sand.

Asra Nomani – In Defense of Peter King’s Hearings
USA Today – Muslim Hearing Could Harm Us All!
Boston.com - Rally
http://www.ruthfullyyours.com/2011/02/10/on-capitol-hill-muslim-public-affairs-council-seeks-to-whitewash-terror-threat/
NY Daily News – Muslim Hysteria
John Hayward - The King Hearings

No War! No Logic. No God? No Women...

George Will makes an excellent case of staying the hell out of Libya

Some interventionists are Republicans, whose skepticism about government's abilities to achieve intended effects ends at the water's edge.

The world would be better without Gaddafi. But is that a vital U.S. national interest? If it is, when did it become so? A month ago, no one thought it was.

Libya is a tribal society. What concerning our Iraq and Afghanistan experiences justifies confidence that we understand Libyan dynamics?  (George Will - On Libya, Too Many Questions)

It's a brilliant article.  Every neocon should read it.  Beware those beating war drums who have never been to war.

Growing list of waivers an indictment against Obamacare

1400 waivers, over 2 million people exempted. This is an indictment against Obamacare. If it’s so great, why the exemptions? This was supposed to be manna from heaven!

Another indictment is the tortured logic put forth to justify government power to force everyone to buy a product. (The Hill – Health Care Waivers)

Eradicate Religion? A Fool’s Errand

David Warren explains…

“every human society, from the most primitive to the most outwardly sophisticated, accepts a doctrinal order, and a cosmology to explain it.”

Progressivism:  A Religion of Nothing

...we have an upside-down religion, in which there is no God, but that "Not God" commands an obedience more absolute than God ever required, stipulating everything from the sanctity of antinomian sexual behaviour, down to how we should sort our garbage.

It rides upon an inexhaustible series of mildly fluctuating, but invariably self-contradictory moral and epistemological premises (or more precisely, conceits); and because everything is "relative," nothing may be challenged. It is, as the lively Ann Coulter has suggested, a religion for which an extremely arid Darwinist materialism provides the founding cosmological myth. And abortion is its principal sacrament. (David Warren – We have an Upside Down Religion)

One More thing to worry about...

Niall Ferguson has written a well-documented and worrisome article about an overabundance of men in Asia, thanks to one-child policies, sex selection, and the devaluation of girls...

According to the United Nations, there are far more men than women on the planet. The gender gap is especially pronounced in Asia, where there are 100 million more guys than girls.

According to the German scholar Gunnar Heinsohn, European imperial expansion after 1500 was the result of a male “youth bulge.” Japan’s imperial expansion after 1914 was the result of a similar youth bulge, Heinsohn argues. During the Cold War, it was youth-bulge countries—Algeria, El Salvador, and Lebanon—that saw the worst civil wars and revolutions. Heinsohn has also linked the recent rise of Islamist extremism in countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan to an Islamic youth bulge.  (Newsweek – Men Without Women)

Too many men and not enough men always ends in trouble...

Now get off the computer and go enjoy the weekend!

Progressive Mistrust of The People

President Barack Obama’s budget willinclude $10.7 billion to build a nationwide wireless network foremergency workers and $5 billion to help Americans get mobileaccess to high-speed Internet service. (Bloomberg)

Like all progressive schemes, it sounds good, but there's a rat in there somewhere...

“High-speed Internet allows small businesses to reachmarkets beyond the one that they’re in, in the next town, in thenext state or even in a different country,” FederalCommunications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski said in aFeb. 8 interview. “We need to take that as seriously as we tookelectricity and telephone service in the 20th century.”

They declare the internet a public utility and they now own and control it. Their other angle is to put the internet on “the public airwaves” via WiMax, and the FCC now has a clear case for jurisdiction and control.

Also, businesses have discovered and leveraged the power of the internet all on their own.  They don't need Obama's Kommisars "helping" them.

This displays the fundamental fallacy of progressivism:  If government doesn't do it, it won't get done.

John Stossell quickly punctures this BS balloon, by explaining spontaneous order...

“Another way to understand spontaneous order is to think about the simple pencil. Leonard Read, who established the Foundation for Economic Education, wrote an essay titled, "I, Pencil," which began, "(N)o single person on the face of this earth knows how to make (a pencil)."

That sounds absurd -- but think about it. No one person can make a pencil. Vast numbers of people participate in making the materials that become a pencil: the wood, the brass, the graphite, the rubber for the eraser, the paint and so on. 

Then go back another step, to the people who make the saws and machinery that are used to make the materials that go into a pencil. And before that, people mine iron to make the steel that makes the machines that make the materials that go into a pencil. It's all without central direction, without these people even knowing they are all working ultimately to make pencils. 

Thousands of people mining, melting, cutting, assembling, packing, selling, shipping -- and yet you can buy pencils for a few pennies each.”  (Stossel – Spontaneous Order)

This is how the world works, and no single entity acts as a controller.  It is spontaneous order brought about by millions of self-interested people.  Not only does it work, it has worked to bring the price down on every consumer good imaginable.  Our homes are filled with luxuries our parents and grandparents only dreamed of.

I recommend you go read Leonard Read's little essay.  It only takes five minutes.  Better yet, have your kids read it as well.  I'll leave you with an excerpt:

Mail delivery is exceedingly simple when compared, for instance, to the making of an automobile or a calculating machine or a grain combine or a milling machine or to tens of thousands of other things. 

Delivery? Why, in this area where men have been left free to try, they deliver the human voice around the world in less than one second; they deliver an event visually and in motion to any person’s home when it is happening; they deliver 150 passengers from Seattle to Baltimore in less than four hours; they deliver gas from Texas to one’s range or furnace in New York at unbelievably low rates and without subsidy; they deliver each four pounds of oil from the Persian Gulf to our Eastern Seaboard—halfway around the world—for less money than the government charges for delivering a one-ounce letter across the street!  (I, Pencil – Leonard Read)

Bonus question.  Why does domestically-produced milk cost more per gallon that gasoline that is pumped out of the ground as crude overseas, shipped around the world, refined and shipped again to gas stations all across the nation?