Sunday, November 27, 2011

Public utility commission and FERC board slam EPA: it "ambushed" utilities, will cause "widespread and uncontrolled blackouts"

The electric grid is in grave danger thanks to the EPA's arbitrary and draconian new regulations for utilities. Oh, and that's not just according to the utilities impacted by the agency's hastily constructed rules, it's a message echoed by public utility boards and the Midwest's seven-state Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Kansas electric utility Westar Energy contends that meeting a mid-December Environmental Protection Agency deadline on new air emission regulations will result in rolling blackouts for its customers.

“We asked the EPA for more time, but they tell us they're enforcing the Dec. 15 deadline,” said Westar Energy CEO Mark Ruelle. “So we're pushing back. KCPL, Sunflower and us have asked a court to stay the rule. It's not our style, but we've sued through the court in D.C. and the Kansas Attorney General has filed his own lawsuit... We've cut sulfur by 80 percent and NOX (nitrogen oxide) by 50 percent,” Ruelle said, from highs in the years 2002 and 2003. “We've still a ways to go, but we have a plan to get there. Then this rule came out based on emissions crossing state lines. It came out in July and it says we must comply by Jan. 1. You can't.”

...The company can meet the more stringent regulations, but not until 2018, Ruelle said... A separate study by the Southwest Power Pool agrees with Westar's assessment... [the] seven-state regional transmission organization [was] mandated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to ensure reliable supplies of power, adequate transmission infrastructure, and competitive wholesale prices of electricity for its region.

In a September letter to the EPA, which used the word concern seven times, the organization warned an initial “reliability analysis” of utility operations under the EPA timeline pointed to hundreds of potential system overloads in the region and more than a thousand cases of system voltages going too low to meet mandated levels.

The result, the letter advised, could include “the potential of cascading blackouts... or localized rolling blackouts initiated by utilities within the SPP region, to avoid more widespread and uncontrolled blackouts and to remain in compliance with reliability standards... SPP encourages the EPA to work with generation owners to develop flexible compliance schedules to ensure equipment installation is completed in a timely, safe, reliable and cost-effective manner without an arbitrary deadline..."

...Even the Citizens' Utility Ratepayer Board, which represents customers in utility rate requests, voiced sympathy to Westar's situation... “The EPA really kind of ambushed the utility, in terms of the process,” said David Springe, CURB's consumer counsel. “Clearly they're all working toward reducing emissions to the level the EPA wants. In their final order they were really radically different than the preliminary. They changed the mark they were supposed to hit and made it under a timeline that is simply not reasonable.”

Whether the EPA sticks with its deadline or works with utilities, it's ultimately the consumer that pays, Springe said... “Whether it's January or 2015, they have to retrofit the plants and rates will go up,” he said. “I don't know that I've seen a full rate estimate, but it won't be small.”

If we don't begin defunding the Environmental Protection Agency -- first by handing a pink-slip to President Obama in 2012 -- the damage to the electric grid will be catastrophic.

We can see that the eco-Marxist Left is well on its way to shredding America's energy infrastructure. 2012 may be the last chance we have to save this country from the Cloward-Piven Leftists bent on -- in President Obama's words -- "transforming this society".

What this society would ultimately be transformed into under Obama I leave as an exercise for the reader.


Larwyn's Linx: Michelle Obama’s warning to gun owners

Have a news tip or great story? Drop me an email. Bloggers: you can install a Larwyn's Linx blog widget!

Nation

Michelle Obama’s warning to gun owners: DC
Order of the Reich President for Protection of People and State: GreenMnts
Thanks for the absurd but true: Will

The Absent President: The World Burns, Obama Plays: Bruce
Occupy Nut Arrested After Threat To Murder Gov. Nikki Haley: Ace
Rangel’s ‘rehabilitation’ is a travesty: Milbank

Bold Leadership Versus Political Parasites: BigGovt
Gingrich on Fire in Naples: Shark Tank
Texas court refuses to hold GOP-contested redistricting map: Hill

Economy

The Biggest Entitlement of All: Emerging Corruption
The Grover Norquist tax myth: Krauthammer
Government Stress Tests For Banks May Hurt Recovery: IBD

What really happened at UC Davis?: ProWis
How the War on Drugs Creates Perverse Incentives for Police: Volokh
The Spanish bank run has started: EuroIntelligence

Gunrunner & Energygate

Somebody figured it out: "Behind the fall of Operation Fast and Furious": SSI
What it is like Trying to Reveal Truths in the Blogsphere: WSE
Allianz: ‘Green’ energy could trigger catastrophic blackouts: JunkScience

Climate & Energy

More Leaked ClimateGate Emails Suggest Politics Reigned In "Science": Ace
More bad news for the global warming scam artists: WZ
Scientists in Revolt against Global Warming: AT

Obama nixes UN climate fund: Surber
Climategate II Emails: US, UK Colluded to Suppress Anti-Warming Data: Lid
Proposed initiative on nuclear plants would spur blackouts, state says: LAT

Media

Sarah Palin Lied!: Rottweiler
Predictable: Politico Asks If Newt Gingrich Is Really Smart: Ace
Heh: Obama And MSNBC Mouth-Breather Ed Schultz Make GQ’s “25 Least Influential People Alive”: NB

Why Do Liberals Keep Sanitizing the Obama Story?: Atlantic
CNN Hack, Gabby Giffords' Husband Slam Palin For Not Apologizing For... ??!@!?!??: WZ
The View from Moonbase Whoopi: Driscoll

An Accumulation of Little Extravagances: William F. Buckley Jr. on Barack Obama: Kimball
Tebow, Palin, and the Pain of Remorse: AT
The Mob And Media War On Police: BigJourn

World

The Ally From Hell: Atlantic
Pakistan Demands U.S. Vacate Suspected Drone Base Within 15 Days: NatlJrnl
Pakistan Closes NATO Supply Lines Into Afghanistan Following Attack On Two Outposts: Ace

Looting the Egyptian Currency: Democracy in Action: Spengler
Guns Better Investment Than Gold?: Mead
157 Air Force Majors terminated without retirement benefits: AT

Britain's Foreign Office Prepares For Riots In Europe; Sees Euro Collapse "When, Not If": ZH
It is now becoming clear Germany has had enough of this euro mess: Telegraph
New Death Threats from Islamic Supremacists and their Leftist Enablers Show How Much They CAIR: Zilla

Sci-Tech

Manila says arrested hackers funded by Saudi group: Reuters
U.S. Authorities Seize Domain Names: AtlWire
FBI, DHS say no evidence of a hack in an Illinois water district pump failure: NetworkWorld

Cornucopia

Revenge of the Turkey: JPA
Black Friday You Can Believe In! : MOTUS
Want to See the Human-Sized Hobbit House That Costs Less Than $5,000 to Build?: Blaze

Image: Sondrakistan
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: The Call For A Summit

QOTD: "This [scramble for firearms among civilians in Syria and Lebanon] is the pattern I saw at work in Yugoslavia and the Caucasus twenty years ago as ethnic groups geared up to butcher their neighbors and drive them from their homes; I will never forget the night a Georgian poet asked me how much guns cost on the Istanbul black market; he was arming himself against what he called the “Abkhazian menace.”

I made a note to myself at that time: when poets buy guns, tourist season is over. They are buying them now in Damascus; something wicked this way comes." --Walter Russell Mead

Saturday, November 26, 2011

Circle Quirk: how the EPA takes your money, gives it to the eco-Marxist Left, which then uses it to sue... the EPA

Item 1: EPA sued over unenforced ozone standards


...In a suit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, the environmental group [WildEarth Guardians] said the Clean Air Act requires the Environmental Protection Agency to adopt regulations by March 2010 requiring states to meet the new ozone levels... Because of the EPA's inaction, air quality is still measured by weaker standards enacted in 1997, the suit said.

...WildEarth Guardians has about 5,000 members, mostly in the Southwest, and is based in Santa Fe... The EPA did not respond to a request for comment on the suit.

Item 2: WildEarth Guardians Annual Report 2010 (PDF)


...WildEarth Guardians’ goal has been and continues to be simple: To help clean energy take root by exposing the true cost of fossil fuels.

• Filed lawsuits to overturn billions of tons of new coal mining in the nation’s largest coal producing region, the Powder River Basin of Wyoming.
• Brought pressure to bear against the region’s largest coal-fired power plants, including New Mexico’s San Juan Generating Station and Four Corners Power Plant, two of the largest coal-fired power plants in the American West.
• Applied pressure until Xcel Energy committed to retiring four coal-fired power plants in Colorado.
• Halted 41,000 acres of oil and gas drilling in Montana.
• Successfully pressured the Environmental Protection Agency to adopt the first-ever rules to limit greenhouse gas emissions from industrial sources of air pollution.
• Filed first-ever lawsuit challenging global warming impacts of coal mining in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin.

Item 3: Public Sources of Funding for WildEarth Guardians (PDF)


Major Contributors

make our work possible from January 1 - December 31, 2010.

GOVERNMENT GRANTS
City of Santa Fe
NM Enviromental Department
Santa Fe County
US Environmental Protection Agency
US Fish and Wildlife Service
US Forest Service

Item 4: The Executive Summary


The federal government, already spending more than a trillion dollars every year that it doesn't have, is devoting substantial funds to groups like "WildEarth Guardians" so they can sue... the federal government.

Oh, but there's nothing to cut -- right, liberals?

Think about it. The EPA takes your money -- without your permission, mind you -- and then redistributes it to the flat-earth, no growth, anti-civilization eco-Marxists. The flat-earthers then use your money to turn around and sue the federal government! And, at this point, the federal government steals more of your money to "defend" against these insane, self-flagellating lawsuits and hire more bureaucrats!

The federal government already owns nearly a third of all land in the country. And these enemies of humanity want still more, so they can continue to kill hundreds of thousands of jobs and continue their mission to turn America into a centrally-planned, socialist-style, agrarian, third-world country.

Consider: the U.S. is the only country in the world that restricts access to its own vast treasure troves of energy.

If this kind of insanity doesn't make you scream in anger, then -- I'm sorry -- you're simply not paying attention.

2012 is coming. And it's high time we nuke these bureaucracies' budgets from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.


Related: Genocide in Green

One Chart to Rule Them All

Before you click to enbiggen the chart (below), please consider this Los Angeles Times article by Ronald Brownstein, which appeared in print on page A-5 of the May 31st, 1999 morning edition.

"It’s one of the hidden success stories of the Clinton era. In the great housing boom of the 1990s, black and Latino homeownership has surged to the highest level ever recorded. The number of African Americans owning their own home is now increasing nearly three times as fast as the number of whites; the number of Latino homeowners is growing nearly five times as fast as that of whites.

These numbers are dramatic enough to deserve more detail. When President Clinton took office in 1993, 42% of African Americans and 39% of Latinos owned their own home. By this spring, those figures had jumped to 46.9% of blacks and 46.2% of Latinos.

That’s a lot of new picket fences. Since 1994, when the numbers really took off, the number of black and Latino homeowners has increased by 2 million. In all, the minority homeownership rate is on track to increase more in the 1990s than in any decade this century except the 1940s, when minorities joined in the wartime surge out of the Depression.

This trend is good news on many fronts. Homeownership stabilizes neighborhoods and even families. Housing scholar William C. Apgar, now an assistant secretary of Housing and Urban Development, says that research shows homeowners are more likely than renters to participate in their community. The children of homeowners even tend to perform better in school. Most significantly, increased homeownership allows minority families, who have accumulated far less wealth than whites, to amass assets and transmit them to future generations.

What explains the surge? The answer starts with the economy. Historically low rates of minority unemployment have created a larger pool of qualified buyers. And the lowest interest rates in years have made homes more affordable for white and minority buyers alike.

But the economy isn’t the whole story. As HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo says: “There have been points in the past when the economy has done well but minority homeownership has not increased proportionally.” Case in point: Despite generally good times in the 1980s, homeownership among blacks and Latinos actually declined slightly, while rising slightly among whites.

All of this suggests that Clinton’s efforts to increase minority access to loans and capital also have spurred this decade’s gains. Under Clinton, bank regulators have breathed the first real life into enforcement of the Community Reinvestment Act, a 20-year-old statute meant to combat “redlining” by requiring banks to serve their low-income communities. The administration also has sent a clear message by stiffening enforcement of the fair housing and fair lending laws. The bottom line: Between 1993 and 1997, home loans grew by 72% to blacks and by 45% to Latinos, far faster than the total growth rate.

Lenders also have opened the door wider to minorities because of new initiatives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac–the giant federally chartered corporations that play critical, if obscure, roles in the home finance system. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac buy mortgages from lenders and bundle them into securities; that provides lenders the funds to lend more.

In 1992, Congress mandated that Fannie and Freddie increase their purchases of mortgages for low-income and medium-income borrowers. Operating under that requirement, Fannie Mae, in particular, has been aggressive and creative in stimulating minority gains. It has aimed extensive advertising campaigns at minorities that explain how to buy a home and opened three dozen local offices to encourage lenders to serve these markets. Most importantly, Fannie Mae has agreed to buy more loans with very low down payments–or with mortgage payments that represent an unusually high percentage of a buyer’s income. That’s made banks willing to lend to lower-income families they once might have rejected.

But for all that progress, the black and Latino homeownership rates, at about 46%, still significantly trail the white rate, which is nearing 73%. Much of that difference represents structural social disparities–in education levels, wealth and the percentage of single-parent families–that will only change slowly. Still, Apgar says, HUD’s analysis suggests there are enough qualified buyers to move the minority homeownership rate into the mid-50% range. [Ed: brilliant.]

...But with discrimination in the banking system not yet eradicated, maintaining the momentum of the 1990s will also require a continuing nudge from Washington. One key is to defend the Community Reinvestment Act, which the Senate shortsightedly voted to retrench recently. Clinton has threatened a veto if the House concurs.

The top priority may be to ask more of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The two companies are now required to devote 42% of their portfolios to loans for low- and moderate-income borrowers; HUD, which has the authority to set the targets, is poised to propose an increase this summer... Barry Zigas, who heads Fannie Mae’s low-income efforts, is undoubtedly correct when he argues, “There is obviously a limit beyond which [we] can’t push [the banks] to produce.” But with the housing market still sizzling, minority unemployment down and Fannie Mae enjoying record profits (over $3.4 billion last year), it doesn’t appear that the limit has been reached.

The breathless mainstream media and the race-obsessed Democrat Party hyped the kind of no-documentation, loosely underwritten loan that formed the core of the housing crisis.

In July of 2009, according to The New York Times, Andrew Cuomo's Department of Housing and Urban Development mandated that half of all loans purchased by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were to have originated with low- and moderate-income borrowers. In 1998, 44% of all Fannie loans had already met those criteria.

Consider the chart in that context.

On the way: more central planning, more social engineering, more Democrat-inspired disasters, but this time with your health care, not just your home.


The ancestor of #OWS: "The Other 95%", a Democrat propaganda arm

The birth of Occupy Wall Street's "99 percenters" may have occurred early in 2010. It was then that a group called "The Other 95%" came into being. The group was funded by Democrats and appeared explicitly designed to counter the Tea Party movement.

And the group also fit a template for propaganda marketed by a man named Cass Sunstein. Sunstein, Barack Obama's 'Regulatory Czar', has a long history of left-wing advocacy. Unfortunately for Americans, it's for the kind of Statism that would make Mussolini cringe. Sunstein, among other egregious activities, supports the establishment of government propaganda ministries.

Writing on January 15, 2010, Glenn Greenwald at Salon noted Barack Obama’s new head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Cass Sunstein, had championed creating fake websites and using outside 501(c)(3) interest groups to act as alleged independent champions of government policy and to “cognitively infiltrate” opposition websites, etc...

Sunstein advocates that the Government’s stealth infiltration should be accomplished by sending covert agents into “chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups.” He also proposes that the Government make secret payments to so-called “independent” credible voices to bolster the Government’s messaging

These tactics may explain websites like The Other 95, which itself was a thinly veiled propaganda site hawking White House talking points. Some would call it astroturf.

Why this sort of site was needed, when Democrats already have The New York Times, is a question for the DNC. Or its contributors, who appear happy to throw money into a sinkhole.

In 2010, RedState's Erick Erickson reported the website designer was affiliated with MoveOn.org and other Soros-controlled groups. You know, grassroots.

Let’s also remember that Center for American Progress, led by Obama’s transition team director John Podesta, has regular 8 a.m. phone calls to coordinate activity on the left.

It’s a play right out of Lenin’s handbook, forget Alinsky, to call the authentic “inauthentic” and then create something inauthentic demanding it be called “authentic.”

We would do well to consider the probable genesis of "The Other 99%": it's as genuine a pro-America movement as astroturf is real grass.


Climategate 2.0 emails: Warming "Scientist" Michael Mann Eviscerated by the Late John L. Daly

The author of the infamous -- and now debunked -- "hockey stick" graph that purported to prove global warming is a climate "scientist" by the name of Michael Mann.

Mann's work depended in great part upon tree ring data. The relative width of tree rings, in Mann's estimation, could be used as proxy data for reconstructing past temperatures.

Newly revealed by the Climategate 2.0 email drop: the late John L. Daly eviscerated Mann's use of tree rings, in language as terse and powerful as one could imagine (emphases mine).

A tree only grows on land. That excludes 70% of the earth covered by water. A tree does no grow on ice. A tree does not grow in a desert. A tree does not grow on grassland-savannahs. A tree does not grow in alpine areas. A tree does not grow in the tundra. We are left with perhaps 15% of the planet upon which forests grow/grew. That does not make any studies from tree rings global, or even hemispheric.

The width and density of tree rings is dependent upon the following variables which cannot be reliably separated from each other. sunlight – if the sun varies, the ring will vary. But not at night of course.

• cloudiness – more clouds, less sun, less ring.

• pests/disease – a caterpillar or locust plague will reduce photosynthesis

• access to sunlight – competition within a forest can disadvantage or advantage some trees.

• moisture/rainfall – a key variable. Trees do not prosper in a droughteven if there’s a heat wave.

• snow packing in spring around the base of the trees retards growth temperature – finally!

The tree ring is a composite of all these variables, not merely of temperature. Therefore on the 15% of the planet covered by trees, their rings do not and cannot accurately record temperature in isolation from the other environmental variables.

...Mann’s theory simply does not stack up. But that was not the key issue. Anyone can put up a dud theory from time to time. What is at issue is the uncritical zeal with which the industry siezed on the theory before its scientific value had been properly tested. In one go, they tossed aside dozens of studies which confirmed the existence of the MWE and LIA as global events, and all on the basis of tree rings – a proxy which has all the deficiencies I have stated above.

The worst thing I can say about any paper such as his is that it is `bad science’. Legal restraint prevents me going further. But in his case, only those restraints prevent me going *much* further.

Cheers
John Daly

The entire global warming movement was the product of an utterly corrupt United Nations; it can be considered a follow-on project to "Oil-for-Food" and other ripoffs designed to redirect billions of dollars into the pockets of global bureaucrats.

And some "scientists" -- eager to cash in on immense grants offered by governments to strengthen their case for more regulations and more control -- were happy to oblige. The fact is, man-made global warming is the new alchemy -- and the Climategate emails reinforce the raw greed and criminality behind this pseudo-scientific religion.


Larwyn's Linx: Experts: CIA Penetration by Terrorist Group is 'Catastrophic'

Have a news tip or great story? Drop me an email. Bloggers: you can install a Larwyn's Linx blog widget!

Nation

Experts: CIA Penetration by Terrorist Group is 'Catastrophic': HE
McCaskill calls for probe into vaccine boondoggle: Hot Air
Gingrich Shows 'Compassion' for Illegals He Helped Stay in U.S.: NUSA

Jihadist convicted in 2009 NYC plot nowhere to be found: Creeping
Obama Plays Golf for the 30th Time This Year: Dossier
The Return of Van Jones: Politico

Economy

Trust, Growth and Obama: BigGovt
Crony Capitalism: Palin Was Right Again: C4P
NY Fed Issues Mea Culpa That Nobody Saw at 6PM on Black Friday: ZH

And Now They Want To Occupy Christmas: RWN
Terrorist Bill Ayers to Teach Radicalism at #Occupy Harrisburg: GWP
Occufail: SF Shoppers Ignore Protesters: JWF

Climate & Energy

John L. Daly’s message to Mike Mann and The Team: Watts
Measuring Precipitation on Willis' Boots: ClimateAudit
The Non-Green Energy and Jobs Boom: Carpe Diem

Climategate scientists colluded with govt. officials to hide data that disproved warming: Daily Mail
Obama Administration Approving Only 35 Percent of Gulf Drilling Plans: Foundry
U.S. And Europe threaten their own energy independence: RWN

Media

Obama’s Thanksgiving Tune: Dossier
Obama: I ran for President to serve self-absorbed poo-flinging rapists: Owens
The Unelectable Mitt Romney, Part II: RS

Some things in this world, you just can't explain: AT
The Call For A Summit: TL in Exile
Mitt v. Newt: '76, '80 and '92: Hewitt

World

Cairo rally: One day we'll kill all Jews: ynet
Romney Versus Gingrich on Jihad and Sharia: A Clear Contrast: Big Peace
EMPs: The Next Great Threat to America: Foundry

Eurogeddon Approaches: AT
Kuwait's constitutional showdown: ForPol
In Arab Spring, a Young Man’s Fancy Turns to…: Steyn

Sci-Tech

The Tricorder Lives: Belmont Club
Meet Curiosity, NASA's New $2.5 Billion Mars Rover: Wire
AT&T readies a Hail Mary pass on T-Mobile--report: CNet

Cornucopia

Incredible 10-Year-Old Mexican Singer Rocks the World With Music Video: RSM
Bad-Ass: Alpine Roller Coaster With No Brakes: Dollard
Police Blast Pepper Spray At Unruly Black Friday Shoppers Inside NC Wal-Mart: Mediate

Image: ynet - Cairo rally: One day we'll kill all Jews: ynet
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Build the Border Fence Donation Site

QOTD: "We can now see where such [Keynesian, public sector] profligacy has led Europe — and, indeed, where it has led the United Kingdom. Our treasury is empty, our credit exhausted, and we are reduced to relying on inflation to erode a deficit which we daren't tackle with spending cuts. Yet, broke as we are, it is seriously being proposed by our immaculately educated officials and ministers that we borrow billions more in order to prop up a currency union which is asphyxiating its participants. My masters, are you mad?" --Daniel Hannan

Friday, November 25, 2011

Full Transcript: Neurosurgeon Briefed by HHS Reveals Obamacare's Death Panels (Hint: Patients Are Called 'Units')

A caller -- "Jeff" from Chicago, Illinois -- spoke with Mark Levin on November 22nd regarding advanced neurological care under the auspices of the new health care law.

Junior Cub Reporter Biff Spackle transcribed the entire conversation (only excerpts had been published before).

Every American concerned with health care needs to read this conversation.

I heard you talk earlier about the government not knowing how to make pencils and you talked about brain surgeons. And I happen to be a brain surgeon, so I found your topic quite interesting.

I just returned from Washington, DC, where we were reading over what the Obama health care plan would be for advanced neurosurgery for patients over 70, which we all found quite disturbing. As our population gets older, the majority of our patients are getting over 70. They'll require stroke therapy, aneurysm therapy, and basically what the document stated is that if you're over 70 and you come into an emergency room... if you're on government-supported health care, you'll get "comfort care".

ML: Wait a minute... what’s the source for this?

Jeff: This is Obama’s new health care plan for advanced neurosurgical care.

ML: And who issued this? HHS?

Jeff: Yes. And basically they don’t call them patients, they call them units. And instead of, they call it “ethics panels” or “ethics committees”, would get together and meet and decide where the money would go for hospitals, and basically for patients over 70 years of age, that advanced neurosurgical care was not generally indicated.

ML: So it’s generally going to be denied?

Jeff: Yes, absolutely... If someone comes in at 70 years of age with a bleed in their brain, I can promise you I’m not going to get a bunch of administrators together on an ethics panel at 2 in the morning to decide that I’m OK to do surgery.

ML: Is this published somewhere where the general public could get a hold of it?

Jeff: Not yet.

ML: So this was just discussed with your community of neurosurgeons?

Jeff: Yes, the AANS [Ed: the American Association of Neurological Surgeons] and the Congress of Neurosurgeons, because everybody knows that cuts are coming in Medicare and medical reimbursement. And we're the most expensive out of all the fields in medicine. And we're the smallest field. But at two, three, four in the morning, we're the ones in the operating room. And we have to wait for an ethics panel to convene, which are not made of physicians -- they're made of administrators. To decide whether a patient should receive our care.

ML: So Sarah Palin was right. We're going to have these "death panels", aren't we?

Jeff: Oh, absolutely. I'm German by heritage, and I've read The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, and -- basically, they don't call them patients, they call them units. And if you're a unit above a certain age, you get comfort care instead of advanced neurosurgical intervention.

ML: You went to a seminar in Washington, DC?

Jeff: Yes. Where a few of my former partners, two of them, have gone to work... one for the Veteran's Administration and one for the Congress of Neurosurgeons out of DC.

ML: And this information is based, you're certain, on representations and information provided by HHS and other government officials?

Jeff: Yep.

ML: And when will the rest of us become aware of it? After the [presidential] election?

Jeff: Probably. I mean, there's so many things that the government keeps under control that are used -- things called H.U.D. devices -- humanitarian use devices that we're allowed to use now because they haven't undergone full FDA approval. And they're used in surgery because people know it's the right thing to do. But the government can step in at any time, like they did two months ago with a device, and say, 'this device hasn't met what we want' and there's no exact criteria, and can therefore take it away from us.

ML: And the people telling you what to do -- they don't know how to make a pencil, do they?

Jeff: Exactly. That's what I'm saying. You know, we always joke around -- 'it's not brain surgery' -- but I did nine years after medical school, I've been in training ten years, and now I have people who don't know a thing about what I'm doing telling me when I can and can't operate.

The unintentionally satirical "Politifact" website hardest hit.


Found Video: Milton Friedman Obliterates the Communist Shrew Frances Fox Piven

I had no idea that Milton Friedman and Thomas Sowell once publicly battled Leftists like Frances Fox Piven in a televised debate. Which explains my surprise in happening upon this video.

Piven, for those unaware of her despicable background, was one of the authors of the "Cloward-Piven Strategy". Put simply, Piven helped create an architecture for collapsing capitalistic economic systems through the exploitation of their social welfare systems.

It is this strategy that many astute observers believe that Barack Obama is executing as he follows through on his promise to "fundamentally transform" America.


Fortune 500 companies come and go -- it's the federal government that never shrinks

Professor Mark J. Perry points us to some fascinating historical data concerning corporations, the amorphous collections of individuals so often demonized by the Left.

What do the companies in these three groups have in common?

Group A. American Motors, Studebaker, Detroit Steel, Maytag and National Sugar Refining.

Group B. Boeing, Campbell Soup, Deere, IBM and Whirlpool.

Group C. Cisco, eBay, McDonald's, Microsoft and Yahoo.

All the companies in Group A were in the Fortune 500 in 1955, but not in 2011.

All the companies in Group B were in the Fortune 500 in both 1955 and 2011.

All the companies in Group C were in the Fortune 500 in 2011, but not 1955.

Comparing the Fortune 500 companies in 1955 and 2011, there are only 67 companies that appear in both lists. In other words, only 13.4% of the Fortune 500 companies in 1955 were still on the list 56 years later in 2011, and almost 87% of the companies have either gone bankrupt, merged, gone private, or still exist but have fallen from the top Fortune 500 companies (ranked by gross revenue).

Perry notes that the cause is creative destruction -- the continual economic upheaval necessary for the advancement of humankind. Yes, these changes include ATMs and automated car washes, which certain politicians believe cause unemployment.

What Perry doesn't say is that over the same period of time, the federal government has swallowed more and more of the private sector. Through its unelected fourth branch of government -- the federal bureaucracies -- its agencies, offices, bureaus, czars, departments, committees, and countless other groups have spewed forth millions of pages of regulations, all with the force of law.

For those who demonize corporations, I ask you to consider:

• It is the U.S. government, not a corporation, that is the most powerful monopoly on the planet, for it is the largest insurer, guarantor, pension provider, banker, health care system, debtor, etc.

• It is the U.S. government, not a corporation, that grows always larger -- never shrinking -- as temporary politicians attempt to construct a Utopian society that never was and never can be.

• It is the U.S. government, not a corporation, that constantly seeks to evade the laws, the bonds and constraints placed upon it by the Constitution.

• It is the U.S. government, not a corporation, that has the ability to imprison, to punish, to fine under force of law, almost always for the sole purpose of growing larger and confiscating more and more private property.

Those on the Left would do well to consider the government as the world's largest, most powerful corporation. And now that it has breached the firewalls of the Constitution, it is a corporation on the road to total control over its citizens. In fact, some would call it tyranny.


Image: AdClassix.

Larwyn's Linx: #Occupy Black Friday?

Have a news tip or great story? Drop me an email. Bloggers: you can install a Larwyn's Linx blog widget!

Nation

#Occupy Black Friday?: RSM
Stealing as Policy, from the Iron Curtain to Robert Byrd: Pacepa
House Judiciary asks for Elena Kagan documents: Politico

Bravest teacher in Wisconsin: LI
The Real Prison Industry: RWN
Anarchy in the U.S.A.: WS

Russia's Middle Finger for Hillary's Reset Button: PJM
Oops: POTUS unwittingly bans FBI/CAIR cooperation: JihadWatch
Male Nurse Files Lawsuit in Dearbornistan: Creeping

Economy

MF Global Indirectly Ruins The Futures Industry: P&F
FDA Considers Mandatory Salt Reductions: Cato
Insight: Fidelity's expensive debt raises eyebrows: Yahoo!

Milton Friedman Responds To OWS Protestors : Carpe Diem
#OWS Celebrates Thanksgiving By Spitting On Cops: GWP
Leftist: 'Tea partiers out-organized Occupy Wall Street': Volpe

Gunrunner & Energygate

U.S. Seals Court Records Of Border Patrol’s Murder: JW
Gov. Rick Perry Has Come Out Swinging Against Obama and Fast and Furious: BigGovt
Obama's the Target of Mexico Gunrunning Probe: Hedgecock

Climate & Energy

Google Abandons “Renewable Energy Cheaper Than Coal” Project: VS
Going green gets the green: Surber
Eat Your Leftovers, Or The World Will Die: RWN

Media

Decades Instead Of Centuries; Republicans Instead Of Conservatives: Camp o' the Saints
Katie Couric Excited Over The Prospect Of Ruining ABC News, Too: BigJourn
The Tea Party versus the Occupiers: Ricochet

“The Anti-Wall Street Movement That Has Gripped a Nation Consumed by Economic Despair”: JWF
"The Most Insane Job-Interview Tips Ever"... from Duke's Women Law Students Association.: Atlhouse
Rewarding Rotten Ricky Gervais: RWN

World

‘They Stole Our Land’ vs. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem: FPM
Turkey, Israel clash over gas drilling: DefenceGreece
Christians in imminent danger across the world are refused refugee status (not so much for Muslims): JihadWatch

Twilight of the Eurocrats : Hannan
European banks' asset sales face disastrous failure: IFRe
UK Banks Brace for Eurozone Break-Up; Eurogeddon and the Death of a Currency: Mish

Sci-Tech

Carrier IQ apologizes, drops threat to security researcher: CNet
AT&T braces for T-Mobile deal collapse: Reuters
Stolen certs an issue for Malaysia, a security reminder for all of us: Symantec

Cornucopia

Los Angeles OWSers Make Video Addressing President Obama: Spew
A flight on a B-17: Boing Boing
The Presidency I Always, Always Wanted: Dossier

Image: Maktoob
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Senate Conservatives Fund

QOTD: "Indeed, it should be obvious at this point that the main inhibitors to the building of any large project whatsoever are regulatory overreach and complexity and the exploitation of the legal and regulatory environment by precisely the kind of activists that Obama the community organizer has spent much of his life encouraging. Obama’s complaints about us not building things resemble the plea of the defendant who killed both of his parents and then asked for mercy because he was an orphan." --Chicago Boyz

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Embarrassing: Fiat 500 Driven by Jennifer Lopez Body Double Breaks Down During Commercial Shoot

Fiat's public relations department hardest hit:

With a Jennifer Lopez lookalike seated behind the wheel, a Fiat 500 actually broke down on a Bronx street during the recent filming of a TV commercial purportedly showing the actress driving around the borough in which she grew up.

As seen above, the Fiat came to a halt during filming in September on East 136th Street in Mott Haven. While two men tinkered with the engine, the J. Lo stand-in sat patiently at the wheel, her face obscured by honey-colored hair styled just like Lopez’s.

I happened to be given a rental Fiat 500 Sport accidentally a couple of weeks ago and got to drive it in a variety of urban and rural settings for a few days:

It was so small, it literally occupied only half of a normal parking spot. Slightly smaller than a Mini Cooper and slightly bigger than a Smart ForTwo, the car has a number of disappointing qualities:

• The Sport starts at $17,500
• The car is woefully underpowered, pumping out 101 horses while weighing a relatively staunch 2,400 pounds (for comparison purposes, the 2012 Mazda Miata generates 167 HP and weighs only 100 pounds more). The answer to the 0 to 60 question is... uhm, yes, it can go 0 to 60. I think.
• The build quality is spotty; the sunroof liner was falling apart in the unit I rented (with only 3,000 miles on it)
• The backseat is so small it's just a rumor; the front is plenty cramped for anyone over 6-feet tall

The price is what really gets me: you could buy a base Nissan Altima for $20,270 or a base Nissan Sentra for $1,500 less than the Fiat ($16,060). In fact, the sport version of the Sentra -- the SR -- is only $17,990.

Both the Sentra and Altima are infinitely larger, more comfortable, and drivable than the Fiat 500. And you would certainly feel safer in either Nissan.

The Fiat may be fine if you live in inner-city Rome, where the streets were designed for horse-drawn carts. But in this country, it feels like you're driving a scale-model of a real car.


A Traditional Thanksgiving...

The "All-You-Can-Eat" Thanksgiving dinner at Mike Ditka's, just like the one the Pilgrims enjoyed:

Except for the Pinot, the Filet Mignon, the spinach and mushrooms, the Maker's Mark, and pumpkin pie cheesecake. I ate so much, I think I wrenched my spleen.


While America Gave Thanks, the Fat Lady Sang in the Eurozone

Contagion continued to rake the Eurozone today, reflected in 10-year bond yields and elsewhere:

...we thought we would once again remind readers just what the very simple math behind the entire spectacle is, which Europe tries so hard to ignore with each passing day. Because at the end of the day it is a very simple tension: there is massive demand for fresh cash in the form of 1.7 EUR trillion in maturing debt (ignoring interest payments)...

Of this Morgan Stanley says, "Policy makers and investors have consistently underestimated the bank funding roll as a transmission mechanism of sovereign fears into the banks and real economy."

...[The rollover funding crunch] is precisely what Europe is now fighting each and every day with, coming up with crazier and crazier plans to mask the fact that no matter what, there simply is not enough cash...

...Because while the [above] chart shows cash demand needs, the ... one [below] shows that when it comes to cash 'supply', or said otherwise issuance of unsecured debt, the market is now completely and totally dead. Indeed, November issuance is just laughable as the red-boxed region so vividly demonstrates.

...And that, in two charts is that - everything else is hype, rhetoric, smoke and mirrors.

Or, in terms even progressives can understand, it's Game Over for the grand European Democrat Social Welfare State™ experiment they desperately tried to make America emulate for lo these many decades.


A Love Letter to Ahmedinejad

"Do me a favor. Don't be a good neighbor to her anymore. Or I'll send you a love letter... [shouting] ...straight from my heart, f***er! Do you know what a love letter is? It's a bullet from a f***ing gun, f***er! You receive a love letter from me, and you're f***ed forever! You understand, f***? I'll send you straight to hell, f***er!" --Frank Booth in the motion picture Blue Velvet

From these lips to Mahmoud Ahmedinejad's ear:

Rogue states with nascent nuclear weapon programs (cough, Iran, cough), consider yourselves on notice. The Air Force has started taking delivery of Massive Ordnance Penetrators. Yup, the 30,000-pound bunker busters, known as MOPs, designed to penetrate 30 stories of reinforced concrete (Oh, and the massive bomb’s name is almost as charged as the term, Pre-Dawn Vertical Insertion, if you get what I’m sayin.)

The service apparently got its first production MOP in September and has been stockpiling them ever since. That’s a decent turnaround since April when the Air Force gave Boeing a $28 million contract to deliver eight MOPs and their associated loading equipment. The service gave Boeing a follow-on $32 million contract for eight more MOPs in August. No word on why that deal cost an extra $4 million when it appears otherwise identical to the April contract.

The Air Force has modified several B-2 stealth bombers to carry two of the GPS-guided bombs, apiece. This pretty much tells you all you need to know about the type of mission the MOP will be used for; a super bunker-buster carried by our most survivable heavy bomber. It’s meant to threaten nations like Iran and North Korea with the prospect of an air strike that can take out their most hardened targets.

I’ve got to say, this is pretty timely, given the recent flood of publicity surrounding Iran’s alleged progress toward building a nuclear weapon. While the MOP is big and costly, the West may have more subtle ways of putting kinetic pressure on states like Iran.

God Bless Our Troops This Thanksgiving Day and Those Who Support Them*.


*The delusional Ron Paul hardest hit


Larwyn's Linx: The Real Story of Thanksgiving

Have a news tip or great story? Drop me an email. Bloggers: you can install a Larwyn's Linx blog widget!

Nation

The Real Story of Thanksgiving: EIB
Ex-Dem Congressman: Voter ID is the cure for Vote Fraud: BigGov
Bachmann: By Now, Michelle O. Would Have Gotten an Apology: Malkin

Obama’s Zip-a-Dee-Do-Dah Black Agenda: ConBlkChk
Interviewing Rick Perry on Immigration: RWN
Wasserman-Schultz flustered by question from Univision: Shark Tank

Economy

The CBO Quietly Downgrades Obama's $825 Bil Stimulus : IBD
I’ll Gladly Pay You Tuesday For a Tax Increase Today: Coulter
Donald Berwick, Rationing Advocate, Quits Obama Admin Post: LifeNews

Why My Wife and I will not Send Our Kids to L.A. Public Schools: Ricochet
'Company Policy: We are not hiring until Obama is gone': 11Alive
U.S. may lose second triple-A rating within months: MarketWatch

Viriginia's Gov. McDonnell could be making a huge mistake: Heartland
Poll: by 48-40 margin, voters want Obamacare repealed: WZ
The Occupiers In Two Sad Photos: Power Line

Gunrunner & Energygate

Armed illegals stalked Border Patrol: Times
NYT Says New Climate E-Mails Are A Crime: S&L
Ex-Solyndra Employees Eligible For $14.3M in Federal Aid: NewAm

Climate & Energy

Obama Administration Pressures Contractor To ‘Soften’ Mining Job Losses: EPA Abuse
Hello, President Windmill? The Dutch Have Turned Sour on Wind Power, Because it’s Too Expensive: Marfdrat
Mr. David Palmer Explains the Problem: Watts

Media

Piers Morgan Trashes Sarah Palin in Interview With Gabby Giffords' Husband: NB
The Ghost of Thanksgiving Yet to Come: Feral Irishman
Townhall Exclusive: The Invisible President: Townhall

Why Is JournOlister Ezra Klein Briefing Dem Chiefs Of Staff Behind Closed Doors?: BigJourn
FDU Poll: Fox News Makes You Stupid (Ignore Our Margin Of Error): BigJourn
Exclusive: Sarah Palin's Thankgsiving Message: CBN

CNN: 50% of White Blue-Collar Dems Don’t Want To Renominate Obama: WZ
John Kerry Flat Out Lies on Meet the Press: ATR
Newt Gingrich and the Latino Vote: Bettinainclan

World

About Barack Obama's Grand Adventure in Libya: AmSpec
Medvedev: Russian Missiles May 'Take Out' U.S. Missile Defenses: ABC
Romney’s Iran Gaffe: McCarthy

The euro crisis: The screw tightens: Economist
Arabs Like Saddam, Hugo Chavez, More Than Obama : USN&WR
Perry: We should consider a Syrian no-fly zone if we’re serious about stopping Iranian nukes: Hot Air

Iran Training Palestinians with New Missiles: IPT
Irish Prime Minister Begs EU for Debt Relief in Disgraceful Performance: Mish
'A Complete Disaster' - Sovereign Bond Auction Fizzles in Germany: Spiegel

Sci-Tech

25 "Worst Passwords" of 2011 Revealed: Forbes
Apple Cult Mocked by Samsung in Galaxy S II Ad: CNet
AT&T/T-Mobile withdraw FCC merger application: Politico

Cornucopia

Happy Thanksgiving From Sea to Shining Sea: MOTUS
Worst Flight Ever? Passenger Forced to Stand 7 Hours Due to 400lb Seat-Mate: Blaze
Forms are going fast! Sign up today!: C&S

Image: Curmudgeonly & Skeptical
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: DEMAND an apology from Senators Schumer and Alexander!

QOTD: "Let me tell you what I find most terrifying: we’re having this discussion about a risk of recession at a time when unemployment is already too high, at a time when a quarter of homeowners are underwater on their mortgages, at a time when the fiscal deficit is 9%, a time when interest rates are at zero. These are all conditions coming out of a recession, not going into a recession." --Mohamed El-Erian

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Webcam captures photos of airplane crash at Superstition Mountain, AZ

KKTV reports that a plane crash occurred minutes ago in the area of Superstition Mountain. A webcam recorded the crash from afar:







Our thoughts and prayers go out to the crew, passengers and their families.

The Truth About Ron Paul: Delusional, Power-Hungry and Dangerous

Interviewed on Neal Cavuto's Fox News show this afternoon, GOP presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul claimed that "a third of the crowd was with me last night [at the debate] and more than a third of the country is with my ideas."

Really?

So a third of the country agrees with:

• A man who claims that bloodthirsty Islamist terrorists are morally equivalent to Americans?

• A man who vocally encourages the despicable 9/11 Truther movement?

• A man who embraces virulent anti-semites and is inspired by those who despise Jews?

• A man whose foreign policy prescriptions are so "far left" that they are outright dangerous?

• A man whose strongest supporters vilify Ronald Reagan, William F. Buckley, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Ed Meese, Sarah Palin, etc.?

• A man who despises Israel, a beacon of freedom in an otherwise barbaric Middle East?

• A man so power-hungry that he refuses to rule out a third-party run, which would very likely help reelect Barack Obama?

Jeffrey Lord offers the quintessential summary of Ron Paul for conservatives:

The Ron Paul campaign is really about re-educating America to what can only be called Neoliberalism. Which, based on the evidence and writings of its supporters, appears to be a thin gruel of free markets and non-interventionism seasoned heavily with anti-Semitism, morally obtuse Neo-Confederates, and an outspoken contempt for both conservatism and conservative leaders past and present.


Progressivism, Illustrated

These are the geniuses who claim they can run the health care industry, the energy industry, the auto industry, the banking industry, and much, much more.

The fact that some of these people vote is, at the end of the day, somewhat terrifying.


Ode to the Welfare State, 1949 [Papa B]

Papa B:


Related: Welfare Kills.