Monthly Archives: May 2011

Obama’s Commerce Secretary Nominee Is A Big Time Supporter Of Cap And Trade

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Really?

John Bryson, nominated by President Barack Obama today to head the Department of Commerce, once said it was “incredibly important” that the United States pass cap and trade legislation and that America needed to become a global leader in combating man-made global warming.

“I regard it as incredibly important that the United States comes forth in this year with federal climate change legislation as a foundation for moving ahead,” Bryson told the U.N. International Energy Conference in late August 2009. “I think we in the U.S. have an obligation to assist in significant ways in providing leadership in this community of nations that you represent and addressing energy and climate change.”

And it gets better…

Bryson, a co-founder of the liberal environmentalist group Natural Resources Defense Council, was most recently a member of the United Nations’ Advisory Group on Energy and Climate Change, a panel of scientific and industry experts tasked with providing advice on combating global warming.

2012 can’t get here fast enough.

Van Halen (w/ Gary Cherone) performing Mean Street

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I wasn’t a big fan of Gary Cherone joining Van Halen back in the day. That being said, I ran across this version of the classic Van Halen song Mean Street with Gary Cherone on vocals and it is fantastic.

YouTube Preview Image

Hope And Change: Paying for gas today is eating up nearly 9% of the average American’s PRE TAX income

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By a continuing process of inflation, government can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.

John Maynard Keynes

Friday, the AP published its obligatory “hey everyone, it’s Memorial weekend, and wow gas is really expensive” story. Mostly, it is the same story they publish almost every year. However, this year’s story did contain an interesting factoid:

The median household income in the U.S. before taxes is just below $50,000, or about $4,150 per month. The $369 that families spent last month on gas represented 8.9 percent of monthly household income, according to an analysis by Fred Rozell, retail pricing director at Oil Price Information Service. Since 2000, the average is about 5.7 percent. For the year, the figure is 7.9 percent.

Only twice before have Americans spent this much of their income on gas. In 1981, after the last oil crisis, Americans spent 8.8 percent of household income on gas. In July 2008, when oil price spiked, they spent 10.2 percent.

Average hourly earnings, meanwhile, have risen just 1.9 percent in the past year. That’s only just enough to keep up with inflation.

Paying for gas today is eating up nearly 9% of the average American’s PRE TAX income. Considering the average American who earns $50,000 will pay nearly 50% of that income on taxes (Federal, State, property, sales tax etc.) the net income bite on that gas bill is more like 18%.

Also, that 1.9% earnings increase “that’s only just enough to keep up with inflation” statement in the AP blurb isn’t entirely accurate.

If you are a regular reader of MCT, you know one big theme here is that energy is a key component to having a strong economy. From a MCT post on December 1st, 2010:

Real energy (not the wind or solar nonsense) and raw material production is the foundation of a strong economy. Obama’s latest oil drilling ban is not only going to destroy all the direct and indirect jobs in the effected areas, this ban will spread higher prices for virtually everything across the entire economy, causing further damage.

Six months later we are still have 9% unemployment and gas prices eating up nearly 18% of an average American’s take home pay. This, coupled with out of control spending coming out of Washington, is not a recipe for economic growth.

Washington can’t create economic activity. It can only redistribute income through taxation and borrowing. What Washington can create is inflation and since the beginning of our era of “hope” and “change” we have lost 5% of our purchasing power through inflation.

Going back four years we have lost 8% of our purchasing power due to inflation.

Great, isn’t it?

Sunday Morning Links: The Office Propaganda Poster Edition

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I found these fantastic posters @ Steve Thomas [Illustration]:

These posters are something I’ve wanted to do for a while. I just haven’t had a lot of time lately. But I finally got around to doing a few. I went ultra minimalistic (for me anyway) and kept the colour palette down.

They are perfect for your office walls, especially if you have an office manager with a sense of humour. Or decorate your cubicle with one or more of them. I’d say they even work in a home office. Need a new mouse pad? Grab one of these to remind yourself not to tweet what you had for lunch, while at work.

Sentry Journal has a great post about the green energy scam: Environmentalists Are All About Green $$$

WCW: Freakin’ Economics 101 Lesson 1

Profiles in Useful Idiocy: Meghan McCain Blames Sarah Palin for her Failed Love Life

Now You See It, Now You Don’t __ How The Liberals Have Taken Away Your Freedom

Liberals – don’t look here!

Bunkerville: Memorial Day Remembrance

I Am Curious; CP Poll – Who Do YOU Want as the Next President?

The Eye: Formspring Question #171–Raising Herman Cain Edition

Green Scams Part 2: LEED

Fleece has his top 5 most beautiful movies. I would add Blade Runner to the list and make it a top 6.

L.D. Jackson has an up-close story about the Tornadoes in Oklahoma.

If “we the people” weren’t getting stuck with the tab, this would be funny:

It seems that London is hellbent on keeping congestion to a minimum and it’s willing to do so at the cost of more than £5.3 million to American taxpayers. That’s the tab the US Embassy has run up in “C-Charges”; and the London Mayor, Boris Johnson, says he intends to collect.

But wait, it gets even better. The Mayor also says President Obama and his “Beast” – you know, the Cadillac that bottomed out the other day – will also get hit with a fine.

Gypsies, Tramps And THIEVES

More good news: UN Warns of Possible “Collapse” of US Dollar

Gator: Newest threat to mankind? White T-shirts!

Has Romney Been Chosen To Lose To Obama?

This is bizarre… Italian Seismologists Charged With Manslaughter for Not Predicting 2009 Quake

WWTFT: The Great Virginia Triumvirate

Last but not least… Wyblog vs. Andrew Reinbach, Cub Reporter

Back to the emails. One thing I won’t do is publish Andrew Reinbach’s emails to me. Good thing too, he needs to reacquaint himself with spellcheck. Dude didn’t even spell my name right! Would you trust the accuracy of a “journalist” who’s too lazy to spell your name right?

I’d put my money on Cris Wysocki every time.

Are Some Conservatives Jumping On The Governance By Intellects Bandwagon?

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I’d rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University.

William F. Buckley, Jr.

One of my daily political blog reads is Ace of Spades. I find myself agreeing with Ace much of the time. However, a couple of days ago, I ran across a post that Ace did about Sarah Palin and her supposed lack of ‘gravitas’ on things more intellectual.

This passage in particular bothered me:

A lot of Palin’s supporters blow this off and essentially offer an anti-intellect defense: Well that stuff doesn’t matter anyway.

Well, for some of us it does. And if Palin could put these questions to rest, but doesn’t, she’s alienating a lot of potential supporters. Some of us can’t just tell ourselves, “I don’t care about what’s in her head, I care about what’s in her heart” or some pablum like that.

So you tell me if it matters. I think it does. 90% of the Palin critics, skeptics, and now outright opponents find little fault with her policy portfolio, or her bio, or her cultural background, or her charisma. (Obviously on the latter.)

For 90% of us it’s this one thing.

So you tell me it doesn’t matter.

I don’t have to tell you it doesn’t matter, history will tell you that what matters. Looking at history, what matters most is core beliefs, principles and adherence to the ideals of limited government.

Take a look at Woodrow Wilson. In the late 1800′s they didn’t grant Ph.D’s like they do today. So, the fact that Woodrow Wilson earned a Ph.D. in history and political science in 1886, is quite an academic accomplishment. No one would doubt his intellect.

What did Wilson accomplish with his superior intellect during time in office? He created the League of Nations (the forerunner to the UN), the Federal Reserve and got us involved in WWI. He also backed a slew of legislation that put new controls on big business and supported unions. The repercussions of Woodrow Wilson’s superior intellect are still being felt today (and not in a good way).

Would any conservative vote for Woodrow Wilson today? He certainly had a lot going on in his head.

Looking at the other side of the coin, would conservatives support someone like Calvin Coolidge who had a solid conservative ideology:

Coolidge’s nickname was “Silent Cal.” He was known for his silence. He believed that the government should have as small a role as possible in the country. He believed that the country’s well-being was best preserved by allowing business to create wealth. His most famous remark was in a speech that he made in 1925 in which he stated: “The business of America is business.”

Wilson had Ph.D. from Princeton University and Coolidge graduated from Amherst College. I think its safe to say, Wilson was ‘smarter’ (in a strictly academic sense) than Calvin Coolidge. However, like most conservatives I would vote for Coolidge every time.

Looking at recent history, Ronald Reagan, who graduated from Eureka College, endured continuous mocking as not being too bright. However, he possessed a strong , conservative world view and ended up a fantastic President.

History demonstrates that it is more important that a President have a conservative world view rather than being perceived as an intellectual (i.e the what is in their heart pabulum Ace spoke of).

Since Reagan left office, we have been subjected to an unbroken string of Ivy League elites setting the tone for our nation. Look at this list: George H.W. Bush (Yale), the skirt chasing Bill Clinton (Georgetown, Oxford – Rhodes Scholar and Yale), George W. Bush (Yale and Harvard Business – MBA) and Obama (Occidental College, Columbia and Harvard Law School), all Ivy League intellects. With all this supposed intelligence and education at the top, is our nation better off? Do we have less government encroaching in our daily lives and work? Is our economy stronger?

The skirt chasing Rhodes Scholar gave us the housing bubble that helped crash our economy.

George Washington had a surveyor’s certificate from William & Mary College.*

*I know this is not the perfect example, since we know from Washington’s writings he was very intelligent. However, he is remembered and revered because of what was in his heart.

Green Fail: I have a light-enough carbon footprint in the other aspects of the design, so I can allow myself a lighting splurge

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No one likes the light from those stupid CFL bulbs.

One group that has taken up hoarding incandescent light bulbs are interior decorators. It seems even the most trendy interior decorators can’t work with the sub standard lighting generated by the CFL’s or the more expensive (and monochromatic) LED lighting.

“Every time I go to Costco, I buy more wattage,” Ms. Williams said the other day. She is as green as anybody, she added, but she can’t abide the sickly hue of a twisty compact fluorescent bulb, though she’s tried warming it up with shade liners in creams and pinks. Nor does she care for the cool blue of an LED.

It should be noted that, like most decorators, Ms. Williams is extremely precise about light. The other day, she reported, she spent six hours fine-tuning the lighting plan of a project, tweaking the mix of ambient, directional and overhead light she had designed, and returning to the house after dusk to add wattage and switch out lamps like a chef adjusting the flavors in a complicated bouillabaisse.

Another designer dislikes the light from the CFL and LED lighting so much that he is willing to compromise his green ‘cred’ by using incandescent in his designs. He justifies it this way:

So does John Warner, a restaurateur in Washington whose new bistro, Le Zinc, will open next month on Wisconsin Avenue. He has signed a 15-year lease on the place, which is layered in warm woods, with lots of art and photographs and 50 light fixtures, 16 of them designed to hold a 40-watt soft-white G.E. incandescent bulb. By estimating that his lights will be on for 15 hours a day, and factoring in the package’s promise of a 2,000-hour life span per bulb, Mr. Warner has calculated that he will need 600 of these bulbs to last through his lease.

“I have a light-enough carbon footprint in the other aspects of the design,” he said, “so I can allow myself a lighting splurge.

Wow, he is ‘green’ enough in other areas to splurge on incandescent lights. I thought the entire planet is in danger from global warming. What about the polar bears and rising sea level? I guess our restaurateur isn’t that serious about global warming.

More Nanny State Run Amok: New Fuel Economy Labels

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Today, the EPA, DOT and NHTSA jointly rolled out the ‘new and improved’ fuel economy labels to much contrived fanfare:

These improvements will give consumers better, more complete information to consider when purchasing new vehicles that are covered by the increased fuel economy standards. Starting with model year 2013, the improved fuel economy labels will be required to be affixed to all new passenger cars and trucks – both conventional gasoline powered and “next generation” cars, such as plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles.

Upon taking office, President Obama directed DOT and EPA to prioritize the development of new fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions standards, resulting in the historic standards that will be represented by these new labels. This is the latest step in EPA’s and DOT’s joint efforts to improve the fuel economy and environmental performance of vehicles and to provide consumers with useful information to inform their purchasing decisions

I don’t know what us poor, confused consumers did before we had the new and improved fuel economy labels ‘to help us make better decisions‘ when purchasing a new vehicle (as if we are children who need guidance).

Who knew a Smart Car is more fuel efficient than a Mustang GT?

And you thought you were in control of your own retirement account

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Don’t look now, the Federal Government now wants to regulate how often you can withdraw from your own 401k account. Via U.S. News:

A new bill aims to make it more difficult for workers to take out 401(k) loans, but easier to pay them back. Senators Herb Kohl, a Wisconsin Democrat, and Mike Enzi, a Wyoming Republican, introduced a bill on Wednesday with provisions intended to prevent the leakage of savings from 401(k)s before retirement.

Reduce early access. The Savings Enhancement by Alleviating Leakage in 401(k) Savings Act of 2011, or SEAL Act, reduces the number of loans that 401(k) participants can take to three at a time. Currently employers determine the number of loans available. “While having access to a loan in an emergency is an important feature for many participants, a 401(k) savings account should not be used as a piggy bank,” says Kohl . “As the frequency of retirement fund loans have gone up, the amount of money people are saving for their retirement has gone down.” The legislation also bans products that actively encourage 401(k) participants to tap into their savings before retirement, such as a debit card linked to a 401(k) account.

Nanny stateism running wild.

Makes you wonder why the Fed’s are so concerned about how much money is in private 401k’s.

Do Musicians Have More Developed Brains?

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Frequent visitors to MCT know I’m a big music fan, so you know this caught my eye while I was perusing the Freakonomics blog:

A new study (abstract here; summary here) argues that musicians have more highly developed brains than the rest of us. The research relates the concept of high mind development to the potential to become really good at something:

New research shows that musicians’ brains are highly developed in a way that makes the musicians alert, interested in learning, disposed to see the whole picture, calm, and playful. The same traits have previously been found among world-class athletes, top-level managers, and individuals who practice transcendental meditation.

Very interesting stuff.

Scientists made global warming solutions look easy and we the unsophisticated rubes relaxed

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By most accounts the public is becoming less supportive of their prescription to save the entire planet. The latest theory from global warming scientists (these guys are always creating new theory’s) is they oversimplified the ‘solutions’ to global warming. Since they made the so-called solutions look too easy we, the unsophisticated rubes, simply kicked back and relaxed.

The Princeton physics and engineering professor, along with his colleague, ecologist Stephen Pacala, countered the gloom and doom of climate change with a theory that offered hope. If we adopted a series of environmental steps, each taking a chunk out of the anticipated growth in greenhouse gases, we could flatline our emissions, he said. That would at least limit the global temperature rise, he said in a 2004 paper in the journal Science.

The Princeton colleagues even created a game out of it: choose your own strategies, saving a billion tons of emissions each, to compile at least seven “wedges,” pie-shaped slices that could be stacked up in a graph to erase the predicted doubling of CO2 by 2050.

It was a mistake, he now says.

“With some help from wedges, the world decided that dealing with global warming wasn’t impossible, so it must be easy,” Socolow says. “There was a whole lot of simplification, that this is no big deal.”

He said his theory was intended to show the progress that could be made if people took steps such as halving our automobile travel, burying carbon emissions, or installing a million windmills. But instead of providing motivation, the wedges theory let people relax in the face of enormous challenges, he now says.

What a bunch of pompous asses.

I’m sure that the dwindling public support for global warming has to do with their dire prediction not coming true and the overwhelming proof that global warming is not happening. I can look in my back yard and see that over the last 70+ years the temperature has remained remarkably stable.

If the ENTIRE planet is warming uncontrollably, wouldn’t global warming be occurring in my back yard?