Sunday, September 25, 2011

In the name of global warming, 20,000 Ugandan villagers burned out of their homes

It's not enough that the environmental agenda has wasted billions on phony "green jobs"; or made millionaires out of the U.N.'s ethically challenged climate change panel; or helped cause the deaths of tens of millions with its senseless ban of DDT. No, not enough.

Now, tens of thousands of Ugandans have been burned out of their homes to help a company issue "carbon credits", the fraudulent currency of the climate scam.

According to the company’s proposal to join a United Nations clean-air program, the settlers living in this area left in a “peaceful” and “voluntary” manner...

...People here remember it quite differently... villagers described gun-toting soldiers and an 8-year-old child burning to death when his home was set ablaze by security officers... “They said if we hesitated they would shoot us,” said William Bakeshisha, adding that he hid in his coffee plantation, watching his house burn down. “Smoke and fire.”

According to a report released by the aid group Oxfam on Wednesday, more than 20,000 people say they were evicted from their homes here in recent years to make way for a tree plantation run by a British forestry company, emblematic of a global scramble for arable land.

...Across Africa, some of the world’s poorest people have been thrown off land to make way for foreign investors... in this case, the government and the company said the settlers were illegal and evicted for a good cause: to protect the environment and help fight global warming.

The case twists around an emerging multibillion-dollar market trading carbon-credits under the Kyoto Protocol, which contains mechanisms for outsourcing environmental protection to developing nations.

The company involved, New Forests Company, grows forests in African countries with the purpose of selling credits from the carbon-dioxide its trees soak up to polluters abroad. Its investors include the World Bank, through its private investment arm, and the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, HSBC.

Carbon trading is -- provably -- a scam. The Chicago Climate Exchange went bust late last year. The European Union has seen billions lost to fraudulent carbon trading.

Remember, though, it's all worth it because "this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow...."


Hat tip: Climate Depot.

Georgia Middle School Textbook Marketing Sharia-based Misogyny to Children

Take a read, courtesy of Atlas Shrugs, and we'll discuss.

To summarize:

• The West should stop criticizing Sharia-based mistreatment of women

• Women aren't allowed to drive cars... cool!

• Women must cover themselves completely with a black tent, leaving only a slit for the eyes... cool (plus: protection from the sand)!

• Parents choose a girl's husband... cool!

• She is "happy to obey"! Cool!

• She will be one of her husband's four wives... cool!

• Sharia protects women... cool!

Curiously, the text omits mentions of female genital mutilation, marriages of 8-year-old girls to older men, ritual self-mutilation, child slave labor, stoning of women and girls for ill-defined and/or bogus "crimes", legalized pedophilia, normalization of the practice of wife-beating, "honor" killings, gender-based segregation, mandatory clothing, and exclusion from formal educational opportunities.

I'm hesitant to post the attribution for the list, above, but it is necessary [Caution: extremely graphic and disturbing images!]

You can see the rest of the text and workbook here. Put simply, if a curriculum is going to purport to describe how women live in Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Muslim-controlled world, it should at least report the facts.


Hat tip: JihadWatch.

California's Version of the 'Buffet Rule' Working Out Beautifully. Oh, Wait: It's Actually an Unmitigated Disaster.

'Progressive' left hardest hit.

The state's over-reliance on taxing the rich has been a disaster during bad times


If President Obama really wants to see the "Buffett Rule" in action, he should look at California's tax system. The state has been plagued by it for years.

The revenue stream is unstable and the state budget has been a deficit disaster... In California, we've got what you could call a Buffett Rule-Plus. There's an extra tax bracket — at 10.3% — for income exceeding $1 million.

...California relies heavily on rich investors for its income tax revenue, which fuels half of the general fund... Some examples of this over-dependence, based on the 2009 tax year:

• The top 1% earned 18% of California's income but paid 37% of the income tax.

Illustrating the volatility of the California income tax, however, the top 1% paid 48% of the total take in 2007 before the stock market collapsed. In the next two years, the state's income tax revenue fell 25%.

• The top 10% earned 45% of the income but paid 72% of the taxes.

During the recession, the middle class paid a slightly larger share of the declining income tax take. Those earning between $45,000 and $84,000 kicked in 11% of the total revenue in 2009, compared to 9% two years earlier. But one could argue they still were under-taxed. They earned 19% of the income.

"The real people who don't get taxed enough in California are the middle-income folks," says Steve Levy, director of the left-leaning Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy...

...Meanwhile, if Buffett really wanted to live by his own rule, he could leave Nebraska, move to California and pay our state taxes.

The math is actually pretty simple, unless you're a Democrat:

• If you punish success, you drive successful people away.

• If you reward sloth, you get more sloth.

• If you promote illegal behavior (such as illegal immigration), you get more illegal behavior.

But you can be sure that none of the tautological facts describing human behavior will ever influence a single progressive. Because for drones, ideology always trumps facts, logic, history and reason.


Image: HillBuzz.

Larwyn's Linx: Conservatives, Sisyphus, and the Renewed Constitutional Movement

Have a great link you'd like me to review? Drop me an email. Bloggers: you can install a Larwyn's Linx blog widget!

Nation

Conservatives, Sisyphus, and a Renewed Constitutional Movement: AT
On the Border and the Texas DREAM Act: Tatler
Cain wins GOP FL straw poll; Perry in second place: Times

Run, Chris Christie, Run!: Bruce
GA middle school pushes polygamy, burkas: RWN
Gov. Perry All But Invited Gov. Palin to Enter the Race: BigG

Obama harangues Congressional Black Caucus: WZ
The Push For Christie Is About Romney, Not Perry: Riehl
Obama Hits The Links With Bubba for His 82nd Round: WZ

Economy

Will Health Care Bankrupt The Country?: Mead
AFL-CIO Defends Violence As A ‘Legitimate’ Union Activity: LUR
Solyndra Lessons Which Won’t Be Learned Until 2013: Bizzy

Immense Euro Bailout "in the Works"; Plan Has Failed Already: Mish
The Global Double Dip and the French Bank Run: CW
Obamacare Report: Patients will wait (much) longer for care: Tenn

Gunwalker & Solyndra

A message from Sipsey Street Irregulars to the Gun Rights Policy Conference: SSI
No, Bush Really Didn’t OK Any Solyndra Loans: IBD
GOP steps up pressure on Obama with Fast and Furious investigation: Hill

Climate & Energy

Let the inhaler hoarding begin: WUWT
Obama Administration Set to Ban Asthma Inhalers Over Environmental Concerns: WklyStd
Is the EPA regulating ozone after all?: WaPo

Media

From Democratic Promoters to Republican Destroyers: MRC
Cop-Killer is Media's Latest Baby Seal: Coulter
Rep. Walsh: Media vested in 'President not being a failure': NB

Safer Streets 2012: Repeal All Gun Laws: BigG
Times tries to muddle the Solyndra scandal: RWN
Herman Cain Takes On Morgan Freeman For Calling Tea Party Racist: NB

World

Clinton Reinvents Israel: Elliot Abrams
U.K.: Up to 20,000 Muslim polygamous unions robbing welfare system blind: JihadWatch
Bill Clinton: Netanyahu killed the peace process: ForPol

Transnationalist Green Army Begins Land Grab: GardenSerf
Saudi Columnist: Hitler Was Right about the Jews: MEMRI
West tells Obama that Israeli PM is 'a real leader': Hill

Attack on Marines Linked to Seattle Terror Plot: IPT
Partners in Peace: Palestinian Children Trade “Martyr Cards” Instead Of Pokemon Cards: WZ
Map of States with In-State Tuition Laws: NUSA

Sci-Tech

“Government Motors” To Track Drivers With OnStar, Sell Data to Police: NewAm
Hewlett-Packard, Mark Hurd and the butterfly effect: ITbusiness
Facebook changes creeping out some customers: CNet

Cornucopia

The Redline: A Tale Of Collapse: Alt-Market
Race to the Top: I Thought We Were Supposed To Be Post-Racial?: MOTUS
Chicago, 1949, by Stanley Kubrick: How to be a Retronaut

Image: Colour photographs of London after Air Raid Attack, September 1940
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Sign The US Oil Drilling Petition!

QOTD: "This scandal coverage has been driven from the bottom up, from the very beginning. No one thought we'd get "mainstream" news coverage, but we did. No one thought we'd get the GOP seriously involved in finding out the truth, but we did. No one thought we'd ever get hearings, but we did. You did that -- by demanding it.

You did it before, you can do it again.

Let's finish these criminal bastards' cover-up, once and for all.

Demand a second front in the Gunwalker Scandal investigation." --Sipsey Street Irregulars

Saturday, September 24, 2011

One chart to rule them all: the provable idiocy of the "green energy" agenda

A House of Representatives report entitled "The Empty Promise of Green Jobs" eviscerates the entire Obama environmental agenda.

In the fall of 2008, then-candidate Barack Obama made a campaign promise to jumpstart the economy with an influx of green jobs... The President has kept his promise to spend billions of borrowed dollars on green energy, but his promises that such spending would create a new, self-sufficient industry capable of providing millions of jobs for Americans have proven empty.

...Two years later, the President’s promise of millions of jobs stands in stark contrast with reality. As a recent report from a Bay-Area news organization made clear, green jobs predictions are “proving a pipe dream.”

...Since its introduction in the 2009 stimulus bill, the Department of Energy (DOE) has issued $40 billion in new loan guarantees for private-sector loans for renewable energy projects that might not otherwise have been market-viable. Already, multi-million dollar projects, initially labeled as successes, have failed:

• The first renewable energy loan guarantee recipient, solar start-up Solyndra, received a loan guarantee for $535 million in the fall of 2009, even after repeated warnings from federal financial analysts. In the spring of 2010, it failed to complete its initial public offering after an independent audit questioned the ongoing viability of the firm. Then, in the fall of 2010, the firm closed one of its manufacturing facilities and laid off 180 workers. Finally, the firm declared bankruptcy and laid off 1,100 employees only 15 months after Obama visited a company factory.

• Beacon Power, received a $43 million loan guarantee in July of 2009. Since then, its stock price has dropped by 90 percent – a period during which the NASDAQ exchange on which it is listed has increased by 40 percent. The company has not been in compliance with NASDAQ listing requirements, leading to a delisting determination from the exchange.

• First Wind Holdings, received a $117 million loan guarantee in March of 2010. First Wind withdrew its initial public offering in October of 2010, due to a lack of investor demand. According to the Boston Globe, investors shied away from the company because “First Wind owes more than $500 million, loses money on a steady basis, and reports a negative cash flow.”

Even in the midst of these failures, DOE has been advertising additional loan guarantee recipients, announcing a $1.2 billion loan guarantee to another solar company just one day after the FBI raided Solyndra’s offices. Congressional investigators are initiating a review to examine how many future Solyndras have been already financed by this loan-guarantee program or approved through shoddy review, and how can we prevent future examples of this kind of wasteful federal spending.

Did government invent the wheel?

Did government invent the steam engine?

Did government invent the automobile?

Did government invent the airplane?

No, drones: the free market did. The free market, private property rights, supply and demand, all contributed to individuals making decisions that changed the nature of power generation and consumption over the centuries.

It wasn't a central planner cutting checks. It wasn't a bureaucrat dictating a five-year plan. It wasn't an accountant placing bets on unproven technologies.

It was the free market.

Tell your friends, tell your family, tell your co-workers: in 2012, we must eradicate the Obama Democrats' culture of corrupt, crony capitalism.

That is, if you want America to survive.


Hat tips: TrendingRight and Power Line.

Photos: Arab scimitars chemically painted onto the jet engines of dozens of Southwest Airlines planes [Updates]

Updates below

Creeping Sharia relays ominous airline security news from KMOX St. Louis:

Southwest Airlines is confirming an investigation is underway into suspicious markings on the underbellies of a number of its passenger planes... The markings are not in English, possibly Arabic and first appeared several months ago but the number of incidents have become more frequent. Southwest spokeswoman Brandy King calls it an “internal vandalism issue.”

King says it would appear that the incidents are originating from someone with safety and security access to airplanes.

The questions that are not being answered: which airports are being affected and if other airlines are being targeted. Though sources tell KMOX News that two or three Southwest planes with the markings have been seen at Lambert Airport.

King denies that there are any risks to the flying public even though Southwest is not revealing how the person or persons is gaining access to airplanes.

Tipster Xerxes emails:

I was sent this by someone who can’t be named. SWA has clamped down on anything coming from internal staff.

All this Arabic markings crap. They all know they are swords. My source says that some flights will only make $20.00 (why they like carry on dogs) and this could cause many to not fly and hurt business.

Thought you might like to see a real photo of what they look like. And, they only show when the engine is hot.

Emphases mine.

Arabic-style swords painted on airline engines?

This is the flag of Saudi Arabia, just for your reference.

And this is the classic Arab scimitar, just for your reference.

CBS is helping Southwest do its level best to minimize the issue, calling the markings "graffiti".

Some mysterious graffiti has been appearing on the outside of some Southwest Airlines planes... The airline released this statement about the situation: "Southwest takes this behavior very seriously, and we will continue to involve local and federal law enforcement agencies as needed until the situation is resolved. We want to reassure customers and employees that safety is always our primary consideration, and the safety of our aircraft is in no way impacted by this act of vandalism."

Thank goodness we have the crack homeland security chief Janet Napolitano watching out for us. What could go wrong?

Update: "It's NOT Arabic but experts say mystery marks on Southwest Airlines planes ARE graffiti - so how did they get there?"

The airline had suggested the symbols, which only show up with heat and are believed to be vandalism, looked like Arabic writing... However the Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies at Georgetown University in Washington D.C. looked at the photos for MailOnline and a spokesman concluded they are ‘not Arabic script’.

...Most of the affected planes appear to be flying out of Los Angeles, California. Southwest Airlines said the markings are not seen as a threat, but began appearing on the bellies of its jets earlier this year...

...a Southwest employee, who said the markings are usually seen on the exhaust pipe of engines and look like swords... said he had not seen any 'Arabic' writing.

Oh, good. I feel much better now.

Update II: Xerxes writes:

Here are some common “markings” found under jets. Left by ground crew on the nose gear cover. Very different from what they are finding now. Ground crews do this on many airlines. (heck, you should see what some passengers leave in the bathroom!)




Notice, too, the flourishes on the scimitars. They are anything but crosses: the north-south alignment is wrong and the curved handles and blades are giveaways.

These scimitars are different.


Good news for asthmatics: Obama administration set to ban over-the-counter inhalers to save ozone layer

"“Everybody knows that it makes no sense that you send a kid to the emergency room for a treatable illness like asthma, they end up taking up a hospital bed, it costs, when, if you, they just gave, you gave them treatment early and they got some treatment, and a breathalyzer, or inhalator, not a breathalyzer. I haven’t had much sleep in the last 48 hours.”" --Barack Obama, 9 October 2008


Wonderful news from the environmental do-gooders in Washington: the Obama administration is poised to ban over-the-counter breathalyzers, I mean inhalators, I mean inhalers in order to save the ozone layer

Remember how Obama recently waived new ozone regulations at the EPA because they were too costly? Well, it seems that the Obama administration would rather make people with Asthma cough up money than let them make a surely inconsequential contribution to depleting the ozone layer:

Asthma patients who rely on over-the-counter inhalers will need to switch to prescription-only alternatives as part of the federal government's latest attempt to protect the Earth's atmosphere.

The Food and Drug Administration said Thursday patients who use the epinephrine inhalers to treat mild asthma will need to switch by Dec. 31 to other types that do not contain chlorofluorocarbons, an aerosol substance once found in a variety of spray products.

The action is part of an agreement signed by the U.S. and other nations to stop using substances that deplete the ozone layer, a region in the atmosphere that helps block harmful ultraviolet rays from the Sun.

But the switch to a greener inhaler will cost consumers more. Epinephrine inhalers are available via online retailers for around $20, whereas the alternatives, which contain the drug albuterol, range from $30 to $60.


As Anthony Watts observes, "Let the hoarding begin":

The eco-world has gone beserkers with this one, even CBS News is asking: Why? Me too especially since global ozone is predicted to recover [according to a 2004 EPA Report].

...What will really happen is that this will turn regular people and children into scofflaws, and they’ll buy over the counter inhalers in other countries like Mexico and have them shipped here. It will be another giant sucking sound.

So when some kid dies in 2012 because they couldn't get access to an inexpensive, over-the-counter inhaler, let's all give thanks to President Obama -- because that's one less ozone destroyer that we have to worry about.


Car Quiz [Papa B]

Papa B:

After following this car with multiple messages on its rear end, I was
fascinated with what type of person the driver would be?

A. A young Caucasian female ?
B. An African American male?
C. An African American female?
D. A rotund white "hippie-type" female who escaped from the sixties?

If you guessed "D", you guessed right!

One minor correction for Papa B: we don't call them hippies any more.

We call them drones. Which is the term they prefer, I hear.

Because they still believe that government can make everyone's lives "fair" and that our beloved First Family really cares about the "middle class".


Photo o' the Day: Complexity

Via Bob McCarty*:

* With a few tiny touch-ups by Commander Biff Spackle, most recently of Her Majesty's Royal Marines.


The nut doesn't fall far from the tree: Debbie Wasserman-Schultz's parents involved in all kinds of skulduggery

DNC Chief and radical leftist Debbie Wasserman-Schultz has an interesting genealogical tree that (surprise!) hasn't been covered at all in legacy media. The Broward/Palm Beach News's exceptional investigative reporter Bob Norman offers the background on the cases involving Wasserman-Schultz's mother and step-dad:

...it's been five years since I busted Wasserman-Rubin and sparked the investigation that is dogging her today. The story was called Cash Cow, and it had to do with gaming of the new town of Southwest Ranches by Wasserman-Rubin; her husband, Rick Rubin; and a slew of other well-heeled manipulators...

...Rick Rubin was paid obscene amounts of money -- something like a million dollars -- by the town to write county and state "green space" grants that Wasserman-Rubin voted on. Based on one grant approval by Wasserman-Rubin and her colleagues, Rick Rubin received a $15,000 bonus.

A citizen named Ray McKinney got pissed off when he read it and sent it to the Florida Ethics Commission. Incredibly, the commission, one of the most useless governmental agencies ever created, actually hit Wasserman-Rubin with administrative charges and fined her $15,000... It was a small victory for anticorruption forces in Broward County -- a largely toothless dog bit Wasserman-Rubin and gave her a little bruise...

...The [scandal] effectively ended Wasserman-Rubin's career. Not long after we reported the existence of the criminal investigation, she announced in early April that she was abandoning her reelection campaign...

The Broward State Attorney's Office charged her with seven felonies.

Wasserman-Schultz's father is an equally fine, upstanding citizen. A couple of months ago, CBS Miami reported that Richard Rubin "was sentenced to 10 months in prison on Wednesday for tax evasion".

The husband of former Broward Commissioner Diana Wasserman-Rubin was sentenced to 10 months in prison on Wednesday for tax evasion... Sixty five year Richard Rubin, who pleaded guilty, was also ordered to serve three years probation and pay $104,671.08 in restitution.

...According court documents, Rubin willfully failed to report real estate commissions [and] and the sale of a condominium in Hollywood on his federal tax return...

Last July, Rubin’s wife resigned her post on the commission shortly before she was charged with seven counts of unlawful compensation.

According to investigators, Wasserman-Rubin voted at least 15 times to support of fund grants prepared by her husband on behalf of the Town of Southwest Ranches. In addition to his normal compensation, Rubin reportedly received three $15,000 bonuses for his work on successful grants that were supported by his wife.

Under Florida law, elected officials are not allowed to vote on matters that could benefit them or their spouse.

On September 1st, Rubin began his federal prison term.

Perhaps these articles help explain some of the lawless, unconstitutional and unethical behavior of Debbie Wasserman-Schultz. She seems to hold the citizens of America in contempt and is willing to lie over and over again to retain her white-knuckled grip on power.

What can you do? Please support Karen Herrington for Congress and put the rhetorical boot to Debbie's prodigious posterior.


Hat tip: RF.

Delightful: Ex-Romney Official Now Directing EPA Air Quality Oversight

Well, this should get you pumped up about Mitt's campaign. GovExec reports:

President Obama can thank Republican Mitt Romney for more than the Massachusetts health care law that helped shape Obama's national health care plan.

One of Romney's former top state environmental officials during his tenure as Massachusetts governor now oversees air quality at Obama's Environmental Protection Agency, playing a key role in the march of environmental regulations to fight climate change and slash pollution from coal-fired power plants that is regularly blasted by Republicans seeking Obama's job. Sometimes, even Romney himself.

...Gina McCarthy, EPA's top air pollution official... the EPA assistant administrator of the Office of Air and Radiation, has taken on much of the heavy lifting of writing, structuring, and implementing the rules.

"[EPA Administrator] Lisa [Jackson]'s the coach and Gina's the quarterback" in the work of rolling out new clean air regulations, said Daniel Weiss, an energy and climate policy expert at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank with close ties to the Obama administration. "She's running the plays, improvising on the line."

...In his book, No Apology, Romney wrote: "I believe that climate change is occurring -- the reduction in the size of global ice caps is hard to ignore. I also believe that human activity is a contributing factor. I am uncertain how much of the warming, however, is attributable to man and how much is attributable to factors out of our control."

...Earlier this week, the Memphis Daily News reported that at a Tennessee fundraiser closed to the press, an attendee said that Romney "lambasted federal agencies -- specifically calling out the EPA -- as hamstringing businesses with regulations that he says are getting in the way of job creation."

With his shape-shifting policy positions and alignment with Leftist policies, Mitt Romney increasingly strikes me as Obama-Lite.


Larwyn's Linx: 'Perry’s Winning Glow Dims After Poor Debate Reviews'

Have a great link you'd like me to review? Drop me an email. Bloggers: you can install a Larwyn's Linx blog widget!

Nation

'Perry’s Winning Glow Dims After Poor Debate Reviews': Patterico
Only 58% of Blacks 'strongly favorable' on Obama: GrnRm
Obama drops $5 dinner raffle to $3 – again: LI

Obama's Insidious Approach to America: Diogenes
Romney’s Electability Card Is a Joker to Perry’s Four Aces: Shiver
National Right-to-Carry Bill Under Attack: NRAILA

Another Day, Another Power Grab: Dossier
Fat Romney May Enter Race: Ace
Couple Fined for Discussing Bible in Their California Home: RWN

Economy

Bill Clinton, Home Wrecker: IBD
Republicans Want to See Warren Buffett’s Tax Return: Malkin
'Buffett Rule' a bust in California: LAT

Behind the Scenes: Jesse Jackson's Lurid Grievance Empire: RWN
About those evil oil company tax breaks: JPA
How Gold Performs During A Financial Crash: SeekingAlpha

Gunrunner & Solyndra

$535 million U.S. Loan to Solyndra was predicted to be a failure: Between the Numbers
Government Loans to Nowhere: Malkin
How Many Solyndras Are There?: Instapundit

Climate & Energy

Ugandans Expelled from Their Land so Multinational Corporations Can Grow... Carbon Credits: Marfdrat
Ptolemy MMXI And The Epicycles Of Consensus: Soylent
Judge questions honesty of Interior Department scientists: Exam

Media

Walter Russell Mead Bitchslaps Andi Sullivan: AmInt
CBS's Hill Lobbies Bachmann For DREAM Act-Type Amnesty: NB
Bring It On, Fat-boy: Michael Moore Threatens Violence Against ‘Rich’: Breitbart

John Mearsheimer Endorses a Hitler Apologist and Holocaust Revisionist: Atlantic
Soldier Stephen Hill Honors America: Gay Progressive Hate-Mongers, Not So Much: AmPower
Morgan Freeman: Obama's Election Has Made Racism Worse: Ace

Return of the Real Obama: Instapundit
The Next Gen of Lefty Journos?: RWN
Popular Mechanics Report on Reno Air Show Crash: Ace

World

Can Israel Survive?: JoshuaPundit
Pali Official: Bringing Jerusalem Back Under Muslim Control Is Main Objective of Islamic Awakening: GWP
I don't know that you'll be seeing much of what Abbas said after his UN speech: BrutHon

Sci-Tech

TurboCharge your health, lose weight in minutes a day: Denver Post
TWITTER ADS: What They Are And How They Work: Insider
LulzSec Hacker Exposed by the Service He Thought Would Hide Him: Atlantic

8 Laser Weapon Systems to Zap Planes, Boats—And People: PopMech
Yes, Google really should worry about Facebook: CNet
A Galaxy S Sequel With Big-Screen Ambitions: WSJ

Cornucopia

Five Ways to Screw Up Your Life with the Internet: PJM
Your Obama U.N. class photo of the day: Malkin
Seattle As Rarely Seen: AmDigest

Image: Abandoned Technology - DeviceMag
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Please support the Senate Conservatives Fund

QOTD: "I've advised my kids to sneak into Mexico, then smuggle themselves back into Texas so they can save $20,000 a year on college tuition." --Me, just now.

Friday, September 23, 2011

Drill, Cuba, Drill: Chinese-built Oil Rig Positioned 50 Miles Off Key West

Illegal, Obama-inspired oil-drilling moratorium hardest hit:

Deep-water drilling will resume in the Florida Strait when a giant, semi-submersible oil rig en route from Singapore arrives later this fall. The bad news is it will not be American.

While U.S. oil and energy prices "necessarily skyrocket," as President Obama once said they would under energy policies that have imposed a de facto ban on offshore drilling, a massive Chinese-built semi-submersible oil rig is on its way from Singapore to a drilling position off northwest Cuba... as little as 50 miles from Key West....

...Normally, what are called "economic zones" extend 200 miles off a country's coastline. In some cases, there are conflicts based on resources and geography. In 1977, President Carter signed a treaty with communist Cuba that essentially split the difference and created for Cuba an "exclusive economic zone" extending from the western tip of Cuba northward virtually to Key West. Cuba then divided its side of the Florida Strait into 59 parcels and put them up for lease.

The U.S. Geological Survey recently estimated the North Cuban Basin contains as much as 9 billion barrels of oil and 22 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Other estimates range from 5 billion to 20 billion barrels of crude. Pools of oil and natural gas tend not to obey lines drawn on a map. It's certain that at least some of Cuba's wells will be tapping oil pools that straddle the boundary separating our zone from Cuba's, meaning Havana will be getting oil that should be ours.

But fret not, peons: our thrifty President is carefully investing taxpayer dollars in savvy energy investments like Solyndra.


Elizabeth Warren, Totalitarian Moron, Translated

Harvard Law professor Elizabeth Warren is somehow able to run for the U.S. Senate while "educating" students. A recent video captured her bizarre, un-American comments that smack more of a totalitarian regime than anything rooted in Constitutional law.

I hear all this, you know, "Well, this is class warfare, this is whatever."--No!

There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody.

You built a factory out there--good for you! But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for.

You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea--God bless. Keep a big hunk of it.

But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.

As Daniel Indiviglio observes, "When you're too liberal for Senate Republicans to confirm you as a top regulator, what do you do? You run for Senate in Massachusetts, of course."

Thankfully, Vanderleun relays this brilliant riposte:

Elizabeth Warren is a moronic hack who will use any excuse to justify the theft of your money.

And I can prove it.

Warren, I know you're reading this. Why don't you start by "paying forward", say, 25% or 50% of your net income -- whatever you think the corporate tax rate should be -- by writing a check to the federal government?

C'mon: you've gotten all those same benefits in your life: police, the civil society, a Constitutional Republic that you take for granted and dismiss. Send me a copy of the cancelled check.

Otherwise, take a straw, stick it in a glass and drink yourself a big tall helping of shut-up juice.


It's Unanimous: "The Irvine 11" All Found Guilty

CAIR and other terror apologists hardest hit:

After more than two days of deliberation, an Orange County jury on Friday found 10 Muslim students guilty of two misdemeanors to conspire and then disrupt a February 2010 speech at UC Irvine last year by the Israeli ambassador to the United States.

There was crying as the verdict was read in Superior Court Judge Peter J. Wilson’s courtroom. The students showed no visible emotion, although they hugged each afterward. Some also stormed out.

In a case that garnered national attention over free-speech rights, the trial centered on conflicting views of who was being censored. Prosecutors argued that Ambassador Michael Oren was “shut down” when his speech was interrupted by students who took turns shouting preplanned phrases in a crowded UC Irvine ballroom.

U.C. Irvine is a hotbed of Muslim extremism.

The United States Department of Education has investigated more than a dozen incidents of harassment at UC-Irvine in the last decade:

• Rocks thrown at Jewish students;
• The destruction of Holocaust memorial displays;
• Threats and harassment of Jewish students;
• Recurring swastikas painted on campus;
• Official events including "Zionist Awareness Week", which promoted antisemitism;
• Exclusion of Jews during "anti-hate" rallies;
• Graduation apparel that offered support for Hamas and other terrorist groups;
• And five other "isolated acts" that could not be addressed because they were reported more than 180 days after they occurred.

But at long last, school officials appear to be fighting back against the extremists: the administration officially proposed suspending the MSU for its litany of intolerant behavior.

UC-Irvine is infamous as one of the most antisemitic campuses in the country. A series of incidents involving harassment and abuse of Jews -- over many years -- has cemented its notoriety. The unrest culminated in the arrest of 11 MSU members last February, who had verbally abused and continually interrupted a speech by Israel's Ambassador to the U.S.

Tensions are high at the University of California-Irvine after the school recommended suspending a Muslim student group for its role in the disruption of an Israeli ambassador's speech earlier this year.

Doesn't it go without saying? Tensions are always high when Jihadists don't get to express their "feelings" towards Jews, Christians, Buddhists and other infidels.

...the proposed suspension of the Muslim Student Union for at least a year has made an already hostile situation worse... The school revealed this week that it had recommended suspending the Muslim group after 11 students were arrested in February for repeatedly disrupting a speech by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren, who was repeatedly interrupted and called "murderer" and "war criminal" by pro-Palestinian students as he gave a talk on the Middle East peace process...

Oh, plus they roughed up a few cops for good measure, but we can leave that out of the story.

But these idiots must be outliers, because we all know that Islam is a "Religion of Peace."


Hat tip: Memeorandum.

Health care premiums to leap as much as 85% in Ohio; HHS response: spend $100MM investigating insurers

In states like Ohio -- "the heart of it all", if its license plate is to be believed -- health care premiums are slated to leap by as much as eighty-freaking-five percent:

At the request of the Ohio Department of Insurance, benefit consultants Milliman, Inc. prepared an estimate of the impact on coverage and rates of ObamaCare when major provisions take effect in 2014... 660,000 are forecast to lose their group coverage from employers... The percentage of all covered with some type of government coverage is forecast to increase to 31% from 20% in 2010.

Although the percentage of residents with coverage could rise by about 7.9%, the price of individual health insurance coverage might rise about 55% to 85%, excluding the impact of medical inflation, the Milliman consultants predict.

Just in time to combat the negative publicity, our beloved Department of Health and Human Services has cut checks worth $109 million (thankfully, only one-fifth of what the feds spent on Solyndra) to help states "fight unreasonable premium increases and protect consumers."

As of Sept. 1, the Affordable Care Act requires health insurers seeking rate hikes of 10% or more in the individual and small group market to submit their request to experts to determine whether the rates are unreasonable... ACA also requires insurance companies to publicly justify unreasonable premium rate increases...

...Another provision of ACA requires health insurers to spend at least 80% of premium dollars on healthcare and quality-improvement activities as opposed to overhead, advertising, and executive bonuses. If they don't they must reduce premiums or pay rebates to consumers and employers.... Also in 2014, insurance exchanges created by ACA supposedly will use competition and transparency, including information on unjustified premium increases, to help make insurance more affordable, HHS said.

I can save them some money. The root cause of these massive premium increases is a bunch of Statist, totalitarian masterminds trying to centrally plan a full one-sixth of the economy.

This is akin to the task of the Soviet Politburo, circa the sixties, announcing yet another successful wheat-growing season when, in fact, a large portion of the population was starving to death.

• When they said, "If you like your health care plan, you can keep it" -- they lied.

• When they said, "On average, families will see their health care premiums drop by $2,500 a year" -- they lied.

• When they said, "My health care plan will be one of the greatest job-creating programs ever" -- they lied.

Everyone rational citizen -- which excludes you drones and other irregular Americans -- knew the Democrats were lying and said so at the time.

Central planning can't work, won't work and, in fact, has never worked in all of world history. That is why we need a GOP candidate with the backbone and drive to repeal Obamacare, soup to nuts. And a personal aside: Mitt Romney doesn't strike me as that person.


Related: Good news: 83% of Obamacare Grants Awarded to Local Health Centers In States That Supported Obama in 2008

Larwyn's Linx: Would Romney Repeal ObamaCare?

Have a great link you'd like me to review? Drop me an email. Bloggers: you can install a Larwyn's Linx blog widget!

Nation

Would Romney Repeal ObamaCare?: Ace
Debate Analysis: Winners And Losers Of The Fox/Google Debate: RWN
Perry’s cringe-worthiest debate moment: Malkin

Florida Debate: the Score: Tatler
West: "We Need Black Fathers, Not Washington D.C.": RCP
The Truth About the Booing at the Debate: Sunshine

Economy

The Federal Debt Mess - Tea Party Perspective: Ace
Panic?: Mead
Driven Mad: Trucking Industry Collapsing Under Regulation: PJM

Malaise in Michigan: TheDaily
Phoenix taxpayers foot the bill for union work: Goldwater
America Will Return to the Gold Standard within 5 Years: GldStdNow

Hey GM: How about paying back the $15 billion first?: Kaus
How We Pay $3,700 Per Passenger to Subsidize Airline Tickets: PJM
HHS Gives States $109M to Bolster Premium Hike Oversight: HLO

Gunrunner & Solyndra

Issa: Fast And Furious Has Seriously Damaged Our Relationship With Mexico: NiceDeb
Holder's Hell Week: Post
Solyndra hearing to go on, despite execs' silence: Boston

Climate & Energy

IPCC, models, HadCRUT, and cherrymandering: WUWT
List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming: Wikipedia
EPA’s Jackson Says She Respects Obama’s Decision on Ozone: Bloomberg

Media

Obama's Got a Problem With Women, and Men Have A Problem With Obama: Ace
"I, I, I, I, I'm, I'm a warrior for the middle class!": RCP
‘When It Comes to Beating the Corrupt Media, Romney Shows Real Promise’: Driscoll

Anti-Palin ‘Doonesbury’ Comics Result of Collaboration Between Trudeau, Disgraced McGinniss: BigJourn
Explosive Email Shows Anti-Palin Author McGinniss, Random House Likely Published Literary Hoax: BG
Democracy Corps (D): Obama 41/55: RS

Why Do Liberals Have Such a Soft Spot for Cop Killers Like Troy Davis?: RWN
Head of Al Jazeera resigns (prediction: New boss coming to MSNBC): Powers
Trojan Horses, Obamacare And A Single-Payer Health System: HayRide

World

Bill Clinton: Netanyahu killed the peace process: ForPol
“Palestine” to Deny Citizenship to 45 Percent of its Palestinian Residents: Commentary
The United Nations Should Not Recognize an Apartheid, Judenrein, Islamic Palestine: Dershowitz

The Great Euro Swindle: Driscoll
Southwest Airlines calls Arabic-type markings on jet underbellies “internal vandalism”: Creeping
Air Force Tests Electronics-Frying Missile: DefTech

Sci-Tech

Speed-of-light experiments give baffling result at Cern: BBC
'Stingray' Phone Tracker Fuels Constitutional Clash : WSJ
RHT: Microsoft’s Ship Has Sailed In ‘Cloud Computing’: Barron's

Cornucopia

Homemade Robot Has a Minor Flaw: FailBlog
First Chevy Camaro ZL1 advertisements hit the web - 580HP: TorqueNews
Get Away From That Campaign Sign!: Dale Peterson

Image: Phlegn
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Allen West for Congress

QOTD: "When the government came for my illegal shower-heads, I couldn't even flush them down the toilet because those are low-flow too." --Me, just now.

Thursday, September 22, 2011

As America Struggles to Survive, Michelle Obama Models a $42K Bracelet

Empathy: that's what I see when I look admiringly at Michelle Obama:

That was no ordinary bling on the wrist of First Lady Michelle Obama at the DNC fundraiser in New York Tuesday night. Those fancy diamond cuffs were the creation of 23-year-old Katie Decker, whose namesake jewelry line has been making a serious splash since her graduation from Texas A&M two years ago.

...If you've been saving your nickels and dimes, the cuffs are available locally at Judith Ann Jewels. The First Lady wore Katie's Lotus cuff priced at $15,000 with 2.9 carats of diamonds, her Gothic cuff at $15,350 with 2.17 carats in diamonds and the Quatrefoil bracelet at $11,800 with 1.73 carats in diamonds.

As one wag headlined the news: Barack "Middle Class Warrior" Obama brings Michelle to fundraiser wearing $42,398 worth of jewelry.

In unrelated news, a global meltdown is underway.

Thank heavens we can watch FLOTUS from our hovels and dream of better days.


Hat tip: Dan Riehl.

Fox-Google Debate: Top 10 Questions, By Number of Votes Received

At the time of the debate (roughly 8:37P ET), these were the top 10 questions based upon number of votes received:

10 [Govt. Spending & Debt] Our Founding Fathers created a limited federal government to protect the citizens from a large bureaucracy. What are you going to do, specifically,to downsize the federal government and help reduce the deficit? Gerry, Mount Laurel, New Jersey

9 [Immigration] With so many people waiting years if not decades to enter this country legally, why do we give illegals so many benefits, like free health care, schooling, and in-state-tution while denying these things to American citizens and legal residents? John, Bronx, New York

8 [Immigration] Barack Obama decreed without congressional approval that hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens will receive a reprieve from deportation. Many members of Congress say this is a backdoor Amnesty. As President, will you rescind this order? William, Raleigh, North Carolina

7 [Social Issues] Why does America give away our citizenship? When a child is born here it should have to have a least one parent that is here legally or a US citizen before citizenship is just automatically given. Do you agree? Cypress, Texas

6 [Other] Americans are concerned about the size of the fed government and its infringement on state rights. How will you restore the 10th Amend., hold the fed gov’t only to those enumerated powers in the Constitution, and allow states to govern themselves? Spencer, Spencer, Indiana

5 [Jobs & Economy] In the last debate a young man asked the question, "of every dollar that I earn, how much do you think that I deserve to keep?" That question was never answered. Can any of you directly answer that question? Craig, Holmesville, Beatrice

4 [Govt. Spending & Debt] Members of Congress get paid 15,000 a month after only one term for the rest of their life. Wouldn't it be just and save the US a lot of money if we cut the Congress's paychecks? Jessica, Ventura, California

3 [Govt. Spending & Debt] On 10/8/10, IBM offered the President, at no charge, their services to uncover $900 billion in waste and fraud in Medicare. President Obama turned them down. How would you have reacted? Wayne, Iron Springs, Prescott

2 [Govt. Spending & Debt] Would you favor repealing the golden parachute retirement benefits that Congress now enjoys and make them subject to Social Security and Medicare just like everyone else? Anyone, Flowery Branch, Georgia

1 [Immigration] With so many people waiting years if not decades to enter this country legally, why do we give illegals so many benefits, like free health care, schooling, and in-state-tution while denying these things to American citizens and legal residents? John, Bronx, New York

Actually, I'm a bit surprised by these questions. I'd have thought that concerns with the economy would have dominated the Q&A.


Dave Chappelle as Barack Obama in "Solyndra Testimony"

Mr. President, what about people who say that you gave Solyndra half-a-billion dollars -- more than the amount 35 states received for infrastructure under your Stimulus program -- as a reward to one of your top contributors? And, worse still, that everyone knew Solyndra was doomed from the start?

What?

Huh? Solyndra?

Who said something about Solyndra, b****?

Solyndra?

Sol--...

===---SMAAASSHHH!!!---===

Get the hell out of here.........


Hat tip: Dave Chappelle Show