Mystery Solved!

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"Jug Ears" Speak: The New "Communicator"

For several years now we have been treated to the derision of George W. Bush by members of the MSM as well as the leftist punditocracy for his propensity to mangle the spoken English language. Much of this derision can be dismissed as sour grapes due to Bush having bested their darlings in the political contests of 2000 and 2004.

Now that the contest for political power in 2008 is in the home stretch so to speak, one wonders what to make of the leftists reaction to the verbal faux paus of their designated messiah in his quest for political power: to wit Barak (jug ears) Hussein Obama who appears to be "challenged" when bereft of a teleprompter or a prepared script. A sterling example would be the following exchange on the messiah's recent overseas campaign swing. An ABC reporter posed the following question to the candidate:


In case our leftist friends believed they heard an intelligent reply to the reporter's query, here is a transcript:

Q: "If you had to do it over again, knowing what you know now, would you support the surge:"

A: "No, because keep in mind that question, you wouldn't ... but keep in mind that kind of hypothetical is very difficult to know hindsight is 20-20 ... later ... but I think that what I'm absolutely convinced of is that at that time we had to change the political debate because the view of the Bush administration at that time was one that I just disagreed with."

Fun and Government Games

DC Police Department: Sten gun acceptable? Colt Model 1911 not Acceptable!!!

File this under "we knew it was coming". The District of Columbia municipal government, in order to deny Richard Heller ( who recently cleaned their clock in the US Supreme Court) a natural right guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the Constitution, has had to assert the equivalence of a suspension the law of gravity by categorizing all magazine fed semiautomatic hand guns as "machine guns"!
(screen shot included in case the link vanishes)

"A spokesman for the DC Police says [Heller's] gun was a bottom-loading weapon, and according to their interpretation, all bottom-loading guns are outlawed because they are grouped with machine guns." Heller's gun appears to be a variation of the Colt model 1911. Who knew that there were several million "machine guns" in the hands of ordinary civilians here in the US? You can't make this stuff up. Perhaps the side loading British Sten submachine gun locked in semi auto mode would qualify for these cretins to register.

One commenter on the linked site asks: "So if DC redefines guns as 'footsies' and footsies are banned, is that OK?"

How do you spell "contempt of court"? Oh. I forgot. We're dealing with government here. In the immortal words of my friend Wollf: "Memo to self: time to buy more ammo"

ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ!

Copyright Stuff?

This humble writer is hesitant to enter into a copyright fray but the related example has raised his hackles sufficiently to generate the following exception:

As a California libertarian refugee and former resident of Humboldt County, California I have occasion to frequent several of the local blogs there. One said blog is Fred's Humboldt Blog.

Fred posts almost daily and on Saturday 12 July one of his postings, as is typical of Fred, was a light hearted posting on the election process in a rural community in North Dakota. The post was copied from a subscription-generated service to which I shall not link in Colorado. The post was in block quotes and linked by Fred.

The resulting response by the original author identified as "This is True" in the comments simply boggles the mind.

While the posting was a technical violation of the copy right law, Fred neither claimed authorship nor profited monitarily from it. Indeed, the posting would be construed by any sentient reader as a recommendation.

I am forced to conclude that the original author of the essay is either mentally challenged or a serious liberophobe. Unfortunately, he seems to enjoy a wider readership.

cross posted at: Eternity Road

Pointyheaded "Logic"?

This just in from one of those attempting to make sense of the Reid/Pelosi (Democratic party's) talking point that assures us that "We can't drill our way out of this fuel crisis":

Picture if you will, an attempt to address the problem of a food shortage in the nation by those advocating the planting of more crops:
"Plant, plant, plant"

World of Unwarranted Opinion Service
From the Woodpile Report

News that fell through the time warp:

"Plans to put in crops next year have been abandoned because food is scarce now," a Dept. of Agriculture spokesman said. "This is one problem we can't plant our way out of." She pointed to promising initiatives like stomach-staples, phasing out food-guzzling bipeds and switching to alternative sources of calories such as wood chips, termites and recycled street sweepings. "Tragically," she added, "death by starvation hits the poor and minorities the hardest."

"Brave" New World

Many years ago I had occasion to read several science "fiction" novels by Isaac Asimov. In one of his novels of the Foundation series he described the use by henchmen of the tyrant of a distant planet a device which he called a "neuronic whip". The whip as described by Asimov eerily resembled the tasers of today and were used essentially for discouraging groups of citizens who had congregated to protest the most recent ukase issued by the government the "Mule".

Enter stage left the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Regular readers of these postings will understand that the threshold precluding ΛΕΟΝΙΔΑΣ from utilizing commercial airlines for travel was reached when he was subjected to a body search some years ago by one of the recently nationalized incompetent minions of the Transportation Security Administration. Be that as it may, our rulers are now expressing interest in a device which would be required to be worn by all air travelers which would among other handy functions serve as the means to administer "a disabling shock" to the wearer by airline personnel. Imagine the potential for dealing with disgruntled, drunken or otherwise obstreperous passengers , not to mention wailing infants.

In the letter to the manufacturer/developer of this bracelet device Mr. Paul S. Ruwaldt of the US Department of Homeland Security (PDF) states regarding when further development of the "bracelet concept with the localized emitter/interrogator/restraint stations, will occur": "To make it clear, we are interested in the mobile read/write emitter in conjunction with the immobilizing security bracelet, and look forward to receiving a written proposal."


There you have it ladies and gentlemen. Our rulers public servants have plans for those of us unfortunate enough to be forced to engage in commercial air travel. Come to think of it, this is evidence they have plans for the rest of us as well. As for this old Spartan, he will fly again when he either sprouts wings or is allowed to board with his Glock model 23 .40 cal S&W with the 29 round magazine. In the mean time ΛΕΟΝΙΔΑΣ will not be holding his breath.

ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ!

"Big Oil" Part II

Your humble scribbler recently posted here on the real impact of US oil companies regarding the price of what consumers are being forced to pay for energy, specifically the fuel used in the transportation segment of our society. He pointed out the fact that 94% of the known petroleum reserves of the planet are controlled by various governments. This of course includes the US government whose vast public lands are blessed with enormous energy potential in the form of oil and natural gas.

The policies of the US and several state governments led by California beginning in the early 1960s up to the present time with regard to the extraction of these resources has been either outright prohibition or regulation to the point of driving up production costs beyond the point of economic feaseability.

What the US government also does not tell you is that it [the government] is the leaseholder and royalty recipient of most oil production, and receives 25% of the gross oil sales before we pay for electricity to lift the oil, and propane to keep the oil-water separators from freezing in the winters. We pay a pumper to visit each well everyday plus we have equipment failures all the time. We pay for that out of our 75% of gross sales. The government does not share in any expenses to run any production well. So, if the Big Oil Companies are making record profits, then so is the federal government from it's 25% tax on every molecule of oil sold to a refinery in this country. Why isn't the government on the stand for "record" profits? What you don't see is this 25% of the sales price of crude oil being siphoned away by the government. That money, plus the road taxes, state taxes, etc., amounts to over $1 per gallon of gasoline you are buying while the governments only admit to about 50 cents per gallon.

On top of all of the aforementioned taxes is added in many states, especially California, a sales tax amounting to as much as 8% of the gross.

Initially the rationale for these policies was to protect the natural environment from damage due to contamination from carelessly handled or accidentally spilled petroleum. The impact of those environmentally motivated regulations has resulted in the tremendous technological advances in the oil and gas industry's production methods. The Alaskan Prudhoe field development and the Alaskan pipeline are noteworthy examples of those improvements as are the offshore fields in the Gulf of Mexico and southern California. Indeed, the several thousand offshore wells in the Gulf have withstood nature's ravages in the form of major hurricanes with no significant impact on the environment other than the exponential increase in sea life habitat.

With the miraculous improvements in the production and handling of petroleum, the ecological objections of the environmentalists have begun to ring hollow in the ears of the public to the extent that they are not concealed or ignored. Enter the propagation of what can be described as a politician's wet dream and the greatest hoax in history, the concept of anthropogenically driven global warming.

It is beyond the scope of this posting to address the myriad refutations of this religiously held hypothesis but some of the best are here, here, here and here.

So America, enjoy your $4.00 per gallon gasoline [and it will be seen as cheap if the current gaggle of politicians of the Democratic party remain in power]. Your dollar is now worth 0.62 Euro-Cents. The lack of American production of GNP, the massive trade deficit (as labor markets have moved overseas to fight insanely high union imposed labor [and regulatory] costs in America) and the run away printing of money (backed by nothing of value here in America) has caused the dollar to become more worthless on the international market. And that's where our oil comes from. It's paid for with dollars that become more worthless everyday. If we had just kept par with the Euro, we'd be paying $62 dollars per barrel for oil (42 gallons) or about $1.50 instead of $2.50 a gallon for crude oil.

Superb Idea!

You're standing in line waiting for your flight to begin boarding as the arriving passengers debark. Suddenly one, two or perhaps a dozen or more military personnel come out off the plane and pass by you. You want to jump over there and shake their hands and tell them, "Thank you," but it just seems so awkward. You don't want to look like some grandstanding showboat.


OK! I have a personal policy that precludes the jail-like booking process of today's commercial air travel. I do however, frequently meet visiting travelers arriving at the local airport (the busiest in the US) and often encounter military personnel arriving and departing. This procedure seems to avoid a lot of potentially awkward situations.
Please steal this video. I did, from HERE.

The Religion of Economic Suicide

The greens/democrats frequently trot out the argument that even if we began drilling for energy in the areas that they have placed off limits for decades, it will be up to a decade before any such new sources will be available to relieve our current pain resulting from skyrocketing fuel prices. This argument is specious in light of the 2 year lapse in time between the the development of the north Alaska oil fields and the completion of the trans Alaska pipe line. They refuse on the other hand, to advise us of any specific date when their sources of as yet undiscovered "clean alternatives" will be available to relieve that pain. We are supposed to rely on their pie in the sky "alternative sources" while rejecting proven sources and technologies? Present energy sources from so called fossil fuels may be finite and exhaustible which over the long run will cause their costs to rise, but to artificially limit their exploitation by political fiat which has resulted in the present situation is insane.

The contradiction behind the green lifestyle [religion] fad is the idea that we can reject industrial civilization -- and the fuel that powers it -- while still enjoying a modern, prosperous, "First World" standard of living.

The more shallow followers of the green [religion] get around this contradiction through "greenwashing": finding a superficial "green" angle to rationalize buying expensive goods and living pretty much the same opulent lifestyle they enjoyed before. My favorite example is a magazine article on "green" houses that advocated buying more expensive, nicer-looking "architectural grade" asphalt roof shingles, because they won't have to be replaced as often and will therefore -- if you can follow this chain of reasoning -- use less resources over the long run. Maybe so, maybe not. But it gives well-off, upper-middle-class types an excuse not to feel guilty about telling the roofer to go with the upgrade.

Among more serious devotees, the green contradiction takes the form of endless, arbitrary debates about which lifestyle choices are really more-green-than-thou. They debate over whether to ask for paper or plastic bags at the grocery store, or whether to buy milk in glass jugs or cardboard cartons, and a whole host of other eco-theological conundrums that turn out to be more convoluted and harder to resolve than the [religious] debate over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

What both groups are trying to evade is that truly consistent environmentalism demands the sacrifice of all prosperity. The only genuine way to slash your "carbon footprint" is to stop consuming goods. The "lifestyle" it really demands is not about hemp bracelets, bamboo textile skirts, and reusable burlap grocery sacks-the entire Whole Foods scene. It's really about abject, Third World poverty.

source

Savonarola Is At NASA Now

Cross posted from Climate sceptic via Coyote Blog:

In 1497, Girolamo Savonarola tried to end the Italian Renaissance in a massive pyre of books and artwork (the Bonfire of the Vanities). The Renaissance was about inquiry and optimism, neither of which had much appeal to Savonarola, who thought he had all the answers he needed in his apocalyptic vision of man. For him, how the world worked, and particularly the coming apocalypse, was "settled science" and any questioning of his world view was not only superfluous, it was evil.

Fortunately, while the enlightenment was perhaps delayed (as much by the French King and the Holy Roman Emperor as by Savonarola), in mans questing nature was not to be denied.

But now, the spirit of Savonarola has returned, in the guise of James Hansen, a man who incredibly calls himself a scientist. Mr. Hansen has decided that he is the secular Savonarola, complete with apocalyptic predictions and a righteousness that allows no dissent:

“James Hansen, one of the world’s leading climate scientists, today June 23, 2008 called for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature, accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming in the same way that tobacco companies blurred the links between smoking and cancer.

Hansen used the symbolically charged 20th anniversary of his groundbreaking speech to the US Congress - in which he was among the first to sound the alarm over the reality of global warming - to argue that radical steps need to be taken immediately if the “perfect storm” of irreversible climate change is not to become inevitable.

Speaking before Congress again, he accused the chief executive officers of companies such as ExxonMobil and Peabody Energy of being fully aware of the disinformation about climate change they are spreading.”

It will be interesting to see if any champions of free speech on the left can work up the energy to criticize Hansen here. What we have is a government official threatening prosecution and jail time for Americans who exercise their free speech rights. GWB, rightly, would never get a pass on this. Why does Hansen?
[Does he believe that the US now treats speech which diverges from government orthodoxy in the same fashion as does the European Union presently or as National Socialist Germany in 1942? One wonders.]

Political Theatre

With the recent runup in the cost of energy, the politicians are scrambling about attempting to assure that they are seen as blameless for the negative consequences for their actions. While placing about 90% of the sources of energy off limits for development through legislative and regulatory fiat, the pols in the U.S. Congress haul privately owned energy firms' executives before their inquisitions for the sheer purpose of badgering them for attempting to provide a product that virtually everyone needs and is willing to purchase. The inference from this sorry display of political theatre is that profit is an evil motivational force for economic endeavour.

If profit is to be disparaged as these public "servants" aver; what, pray tell is their own motivation? Most all evidence tends to convince anyone who is sentient that the force driving most seekers of office and indeed a substantial portion of the regulatory bureaucracy is the exercise of power and the enjoyment of its concomitant perquisites.

The energy company executives underwent their grilling on 21 May in the Senate and the House of Representatives the next day. In what other venue would a semiliterate and ignorant member of congress such as Maxine Waters D (can we call them socialists yet?) south central Los Angeles, California be able to address a fellow citizen in terms lacking even a modicum of courtesy?

An excellent account of the Senate testimony is posted at Powerline by John Hindraker:

"Every once in a while, Congressional hearings turn out to be informative."

Politics or Justice?

Leonidas is confused. The confusion in this instance is the result of attempting to understand the "logic" of court decisions here in the wonderful U.S. of A. It all began many years ago in a court room in the South Bay judicial district of Los Angeles County.

As a young starry eyed deputy sheriff recently matriculated from a government university with a paper proclaiming to all interested parties (the Sheriff's Department was less than suitably impressed) that he had passed the required courses to be legally designated a "bachelor of arts" in political science and history, he was seated in the court room of one judge whom we shall name Smith. Leonidas' presence was the result of a subpoena to testify in the case of one John Doe to whom he had issued a traffic citation for proceeding through an intersection against a red traffic light.

The traffic court room was crowded with miscreants, officers of the law and a smattering of porch climbers attorneys. Apparently the Doe case was near the end of the calendar to be called so Leonidas settled down to be entertained by the unfolding human comedy. After the judge had disposed of several cases Leonidas was nudged by a colleague who whispered: "Do you see what's going on here?"

Sure enough, every other case resulted in a not guilty verdict. The testimony of the witnesses both police and defendant did not seem to be relevant. Often the defendants were tripped up in obvious lies by the prosecutor but this was apparently not germane to the verdict. Leonidas was at first incredulous, but having just completed a graveyard shift on the streets of the south central district of the Lennox Sheriff's station decided to extrapolate the anticipated decision of the judge in his case on the basis of this newly garnered logic. As luck logic would have it, by projecting the guilty/not guilty decisions down the calendar the Doe case would be decided as "guilty". Drat! It would make no sense for Leonidas to leave the court to retire to bed and have the judge simply dismiss the case. In the interest of "justice" he had to remain and participate in the charade.

Leonidas subsequently learned that Judge Smith had been appointed to the bench by Jerry Brown, California's then governor and now Attorney General.

Fast forward to a June 2008 Supreme Court decision. For the sake of analogy and a view of history let us examine the hypothetical case of Hans Backer. Hans is the highly trained skipper of a German U Boat in December 1941. He has the misfortune to have his boat sunk by depth charges from a British corvette in the north Atlantic. He and several crew members escape the doomed craft and are rescued/captured by the corvette's personnel. Due to overcrowding and security issues the brits turn Hans and his colleagues over to the Yanks who intern them in a POW camp in Alabama. In late 1942 Hans files a writ of habeas corpus with the US District court in Birmingham. The judge refuses to issue the writ and Hans appeals all the way up to the Supreme Court. Five of the 9 justices agree that as no "charges" have been brought against Hans and he was an enemy combatant captured on the battlefield by an ally, the US authorities must release him.

At this point there are two options: either return Hans to the Brits (who refuse to accept him) or release and repatriate him to Germany. For the sake of this hypothetical scenario let us assume that Hans is repatriated via neutral Spain to Germany where he is hailed as a hero and granted command of a newer and improved U boat which sinks an American troop ship carrying troops to England to be landed at Normandie.

These are the implications in the 5-4 decision in the Boumediene v. Bush decision. In a judicial/political coup to seize power from the legislative and executive branches, the 5 justices have rejected the concept that combatants captured during hostilities are to be held until the conflict ends to prevent them from reengaging in war against us. Wouldn't it be convenient if such a concept were accepted by our friends the Taliban, Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah et al?

A third alternative has been omitted here with regard to the Supreme Court's decision. In 1832 President Andrew Jackson objected to the Marshall Supreme Court decision in Worcester v. Georgia and refused to execute it saying: "John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it!". Imagine that.

cross posted at: Eternity Road

We Bake Therefore We Shake

We now have incontrovertible evidence for the validity of Mr Barnum's aphorism about suckers being produced on a minute by minute basis as the mainstream media appear to have been greatly infiltrated and successfully proselytized by warmista religion adherents. On June 18, CBS NEWS posted an article which it attributed to the Associated Press alleging that a "scientific study" has discovered that global warming has caused a sharp increase in the frequency and intensity of earthquakes since 1990. The story contained no byline for attribution. There is no link to the story as it has quietly been removed by CBS with no retraction after it was pointed out by real scientists to be a work of junk science by one Thomas Chalko. A screen shot of the "news" item can be viewed here (scroll up for the screen shot)

The real scientists pointed out that the global warming data attributed by Dr. Chalko to NASA orbiting instruments were in fact the product of computer models generated by the NASA (as in government employed) scientist Dr. James Hansen, the high priest extrodonaire of the warmista religion.

Dr. Chalko believes that events on Earth are influenced by beings from the planet Thaiaoouba who visit us regularly in order to abduct a single person to be taught their wisdom. Dr Chalko's web site may be visited here. and more data on the Thiaoouba Prophecy are here.

You can't make this stuff up.

ht: Marc Sheppard

A Good Laugh

Anecdotes illustrating and mocking the illogic and amusing aspects of collectivist i.e "progressive" societies actions are legion and sometimes amusing in a tragicomic sense. Long time readers of this blog may recall the true incident which occurred during your humble scribblers visit to the workers paradise of the Caribbean (Cuba) aboard his sailboat home of 23 years.

A shop at the marina near Havana selling items such as imported beer and canned goods to foreigners for hard currency had some lettuce which they refused to sell us saying that the scale to weigh it was broken. I estimated that the weight was 1 kilo and offered to buy it for the price of 2 kilos and this was refused. We returned on each of the next 2 days to buy the lettuce which was beginning to wilt. On the 3rd day with the scale still not repaired I asked to negotiate with the manager. Two phone calls were made to Havana and the merchant finally got permission to sell the head of lettuce for the 2 kilo price.

The humor engendered by the illogic and frustrating aspects of collectivist societies is also revealed in a recent book entitled: Hammer & Tickle: A History of Communism Told Through Communist Jokes by Ben Lewis reviewed recently in the British newspaper The Telegraph

No better example of the experiment in "progressive" government exists than in the late great USSR:
A story goes of a man who proceeds to buy a car in Moscow, pays for it, and is told by the salesman that he can collect it on a particular date in 10 years' time. The buyer thinks for a moment and then asks: 'Morning or afternoon?' The salesman, astonished by the question, asks: 'What difference does it make?' And the buyer answers: 'Well, the plumber is coming in the morning.'

Also there is the story of the sheep who try to leave an [East bloc] country, explaining to the border guards that they want to get out because the political police have received orders to arrest all elephants. 'But you're not elephants.'
The lead sheep replies:'Try telling that to the political police."

Another widely circulated anecdote concerns the question: Is it true that half the Central Committee [congress?] are idiots?' To which the progressive commissar replies: 'No, that's rubbish. Half the Central Committee [congress] are not idiots'.

A joke reminiscent of Kruschev's assurance that collectivism would "bury" the West avers: "Capitalism stands on the brink of the abyss. It will soon be overtaken by communism".

The following statement from Mr. Lewis' work congers up the current "Inconvenient Truth" of the warmista scam occupying center stage these days: "Is it true that Marxism-Leninism [human caused global warming] is scientific?' 'No, surely not. If it were, it would have been tested on animals first.'

Enviro Time Warp

The top graphic is of the Belmont oil field circa 1921 (click on image to enlarge). The wooden derricks date the photo as having been taken prior to 1925 when the addition of "runarounds" and crown "A" frames were included on wells drilled by the rotary method as opposed to the cable tool methods of the 19th and early 20th century. The field was approximately 4 miles west of the Los Angeles civic center. The enviros would have us believe that modern oil production results in scenes like this. The Belmont area has recovered sufficiently to be the battleground of two of the most violent latino street gangs in Los Angeles county.

The lower photo shows a recently completed energy well head in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming. The fencing is to prevent the local ruminants from damaging the sensative instrumentation and according to the enviro religion would inflict irreparable harm to the caribou (reindeer) population of the north slope of Alaska which has doubled since the development of the Prudhoe oil field in the 1970's.

The photo of the Belmont field evokes a certain nostalgia on the part of your humble scribbler as it much resembles the oil fields 20 miles to the south in Signal Hill and Long Beach which he grew up and worked in during a bygone era P.E. (pre environazi)
cross posted at: Eternity Road

Rocket Science?

The International Energy Agency estimates that worldwide [petroleum] production from older existing fields is now falling each year by about 4.5 million barrels a day. To stay even, let alone to meet rising demand from the new automobile drivers of Russia, [India] China and other countries, the world has to increase annual production by 4.5 million barrels a day.

While all this is happening Democrats in government and environmentalists are standing in the way of the United States' ability to increase the supply of oil. Left-leaning politicians and, unfortunately too many Republicans, are more concerned with erroneous beliefs in man-made global warming to focus on the real needs of our country. As we switch light bulbs, create a huge additional bureaucracy for cap-and-trade "carbon credits, and make inferior additions to dilute the gasoline fuel, our economy will undergo an enormous destructive effect and our way of life will be irreversibly altered for the worse.

The United States is blessed with an almost limitless capability to produce oil but we are prevented from recovering and producing it. Proven technology can be harnessed to extract oil from abundant coal reserves and large amounts of oil in place remain untapped. Americans have proven to be able to rise to national emergencies and overcome all obstacles by unleashing a market economy on any problem but American success is artificially thwarted by socialists masquerading as environmentalists.

The only thing that can be done is for Americans to waken to the threats we face and take all possible action to change the direction our leaders are taking us; God help us all if we don’t.
source

"Congress Must ACT"???

Last Monday, June 2nd, Senator Harry Reid (D Nevada) assured us: "It's clear that "global warming is real" and Congress must act." Wow! Senator Reid has always appeared to this writer to be a profound thinker with astonishing intellectual and logic gifts, (irony alert) but the preceding statement is so profound as to boggle the mind. What next may we expect; "Tectonic movement and continental drift are real and Congress must act."? While such a discussion may appear hyperbolic, if collectivist politicians perceived an opportunity to devise a tax or regulation which would benefit themselves, a governmental bureaucracy or a deep pocketed constituency, appropriate legislation would begin wending its way through the ozlike congressional labyrinth.

In a previous post I alluded to the "pork barrel" nature of the subject of the present debate on S 2191 a legislative "cap and trade" mandate to affect a regression of the US economy to pre industrial levels by the year 2050. In determining the motives behind such a proposal, the most important question to ask is: "qui bono" ( who benefits?). Consider the implication of the following report from Reuters:

"Generation Investment Management, an investor in green firms chaired by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, has bought a 9.6 percent stake in UK-listed Camco International Ltd, Camco said on Wednesday.

The stake is worth around 6.4 million pounds ($12.59 million) at Camco's current price of 40 pence a share.

While Gore, a politician turned environmental activist chairs Generation Investment, David Blood, a former CEO of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, is managing partner of the firm, which was founded four years ago."

Generation Investment Management is a cap and trade brokerage firm that Mr. Gore uses to "offset" the huge "carbon footprint" generated by his personal lifestyle and globetrotting activities to hype the catastrophic environmental consequences of man made global warming (e.g. the recently revealed warmista religion). Mr Gore has consistently refused to debate the validity of the tenets of his new religion with credited scientists such as Lord Moncton and a 15 year old honor student who question the computer generated dogmas of the warmista doctrine. To quote one wag on the efficacy of computer modeling for future climate change: "garbage in, dogma out". Gore simply states: "There is no need to debate. The science is settled". This reminds us of the "settled science" of the geocentric universe insisted on by religious and political leaders in the 14th century.

Bend Over When you Hear the Oink

Today the US Senate will begin debate on S.2191: "A bill to direct the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to establish a program to decrease emissions of greenhouse gases, and for other purposes (read the bill to learn the "other" purposes)." This is in fact a new record with regard to so called "pork barrel" spending in the legislative history of such outrages and is tacitly approved by the presidential nominee designate of the Republican Party.

For anyone who is interested, "greenhouse gases" include: H2O (water) which covers more than 70% of the globe and the lower atmosphere, CO2 (carbon dioxide), a necessary ingredient in plant photosynthesis which is the nutritional basis for all life forms on the planet and CH4 (methane) which is produced by the biodegradation of all nutrients.

Both the impact on global temperature of greenhouse gases as well as the extent of their anthropogenic sources is hotly debated by scientists of various persuasions but has been seized upon by politicians in order to advance their own agendas of increasing governmental power. In the United Kingdom a proposal has been put forward in Parliament to issue each citizen a "carbon ration card" which would allow each individual a stated amount of CO2 production and would be required to be presented at the purchase of any fossil fuel product, airline ticket or pay an energy utility bill. Given the chances of the Democratic Party soon achieving control of both the executive and legislative branches of the US government can such an outrage be excluded from being foisted upon our own population? How far down this green mile (pun alert) can we expect the requirement of an "exhale permit" for each individual? After all, the quantity of CO2 in the exhaled breath of living organisms is not inconsiderable.

Update: 13:49 Hrs.:

Law professor wants to use courts to fight global warming

EUGENE — University of Oregon law professor Mary Wood is tired of waiting for government officials to take action on global warming. So she’s devised a new legal tool to hurry them up.

Drawing on her background in both natural resources and property law, Wood has developed a theory that claims the atmosphere is an asset that belongs to all but is held in trust by the government. The government has a legal obligation to protect that trust from harm, she argues, just as financial managers have a legal obligation to protect the monetary assets in their care.

“The main problem with climate is that no government is taking responsibility for it and our government is sitting idle [but not for long] while this catastrophe is unfolding,” Wood said

Gentle reader, if you believed I was engaging in hyperbole regarding an "exhale permit", read more
here.

Liberty versus Democracy

I for one believe that a serious problem exists in a discussion of today's issues especially as they relate to liberty. All too many of those opining on the subject of governments (or national security) appear to equate liberty with "democracy" when no such equation is valid. For example, the United Kingdom is classified as a "democracy" simply due to its form of government being a parliamentary system having universal suffrage and more or less "fair" elections. Its form of government qualifies it to be characterized as a "democracy" but to what extent is an individual's liberty valued when he can be prosecuted for publicly expressing opinions which conflict with those of the ruling elite or are deemed "insulting" by this or that protected group or is denied the natural right of self defense? Here in the US the population has become inured to hearing the political system referred to as a "democracy" simply due to the widespread use of the suffrage to select government officials.

Even though the founding document of the nation provides for a ponderous and convoluted process for its amendment the unelected federal judiciary have circumvented the process to such an extent that in its present form our political system bears virtually no resemblance to the intent of its authors. In point of fact the bulk of legislation as well as the regulatory ukases enacted since 1913 have no justification in the original Constitution or its 27 ratified amendments except through the tortured interpretation by life tenured judges.

During the recent ongoing and apparently permanent national political campaign all of the remaining contenders for the presidency have endorsed not only the need to enact sweeping and disastrous economic regulations to avert the non catastrophe of so called "global warming" but also the establishment of another supra national organization of the world's "democracies" due to frustration with the corruption and inertia of the United Nations.

"Thomas Carothers, vice president for studies at Carnegie, said "the world has no appetite for a U.S.-led league and many countries do not want the U.S. going around the U.N."

In fact, Carothers said, the United States cooperates often with non-democracies in its foreign policy. China's help in trying to end North Korea's nuclear weapons program is just one example, he said.

President Bush's Iraq war policy was bitterly opposed by two leading democracies, France and Germany, among others. But Bush went ahead despite their strong objections.

"It is wishful thinking" that a league of democracies would any more readily approve U.S. military intervention in support of another U.S. president, Carothers said."

Carothers has a valid point. Furthermore, how does a nation qualify objectively as a "democracy" and who exactly dictates the criteria? I somehow suspect that the politicians touting such a concept would characterize those nations supporting their favored foreign and domestic policies as "democracies".

It has been said that... "nations do not have friends; they have interests."

"Big Oil"?

The following is reposted from a 23 May entry at Powerline by John Hinderaker.

I hadn't realized, until the hearings on energy that were held this week in House and Senate committees, that the United States doesn't have any big oil companies. It's true: the largest American oil company, Exxon Mobil, is only the 14th largest in the world, and is dwarfed by the really big oil companies--all owned by foreign governments or government-sponsored monopolies--that dominate the world's oil supply.

The graph [above] tells the story; you can barely see the American oil companies as minor players on the right side of the chart. The chart was presented to the House committee by Chevron; click to enlarge:

With 94% of the world's oil supply locked up by foreign governments, most of which are hostile to the United States, the relatively puny American oil companies do not have access to enough crude oil to significantly affect the market and help bring prices down. Thus, Exxon Mobil, a small oil company, buys 90% of the crude oil that it refines for the U.S. market from the big players, i.e, mostly-hostile foreign governments. The price at the U.S. pump is rising because the price the big oil companies charge Exxon Mobil and the other small American companies for crude oil is going up.

This is obviously a tough situation for the American consumer. The irony is that it doesn't have to be that way. The United States--unlike, say, France--actually has vast petroleum reserves. It would be possible for American oil companies to develop those reserves, play a far bigger role in international markets, and deliver gas at the pump to American consumers at a much lower price, while creating many thousands of jobs for Americans. This would be infinitely preferable to shipping endless billions of dollars to Saudi Arabia, Russia and Venezuela.

So, why doesn't it happen? Because the Democratic Party--[including both of its probable presidential nominees] aided, sadly, by a handful of Republicans--[including its presidential nominee designate] deliberately keeps gas prices high and our domestic oil companies small by putting most of our reserves off limits to development. China is now drilling in the Caribbean, but our own companies are barred by law from developing large oil fields off the coasts of Florida and California. Enormous shale oil deposits in the Rocky Mountain states could go a long way toward supplying American consumers' needs, but the Democratic Congress won't allow those resources to be developed. ANWR contains vast petroleum reserves, but we don't know how vast, because Congress, not wanting the American people to know how badly its policies are hurting our economy, has made it illegal to explore and map those reserves, let alone develop them.

In short, all Americans are paying a terrible price for the Democratic Party's perverse energy policies.

This situation will soon have enormous impact on the economic health of the United States.