Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Funny quote
A brave new world: "President Obama suggested at a town hall event Wednesday night that one way to shave medical costs is to stop expensive and ultimately futile procedures performed on people who are about to die and don't stand to gain from the extra care." --Los Angeles Times columnist Peter Nichols **"But don't worry. A 'panel of experts' (Barney Frank and two executive vice-presidents from ACORN) will make that determination. So relax: You'll be able to 'opt out' of government health care, in a very permanent sense." --columnist Mark Steyn
Monday, July 6, 2009
Prepare for higher electricity prices due to cap and trade
"Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket ... because I'm capping greenhouse gasses, coal power plants, natural gas ... you name it ... whatever the plants were, whatever the industry was, they would have to retro-fit their operations. That will cost money. ...They will pass that money on to the consumers." -- Barack Obama, January 17, 2008, San Francisco Chronicle
It seems that the Obama administration has claimed that this will be a neutral because of tax credits or deductions that they'll be adding, $500 or something. This may work for the average but it is going to hurt some people much more than average. For instance, in the North West where there is a lot of hydro power, cap and trade may be a benefit to them because the cost of electricity won't go up because they're not producing C02, and they'll still get the "$500 benefit". However, in places getting their power from coal, their costs will go up more than average, hurting them disproportionately. So rather than evenly distributing the costs of cap and trade we're going to punish a subset of the American population, not for anything that they've done, but rather because of what the power company servicing where they live is using.
In addition, perhaps my power bill will go up $500, but what about second order effects? My groceries, dining out, etc are going to go up because those businesses are going to have their expenses go up as well.
And then there is the question about the true cost and does government ever get the cost right.
Just seems like a disaster.
It seems that the Obama administration has claimed that this will be a neutral because of tax credits or deductions that they'll be adding, $500 or something. This may work for the average but it is going to hurt some people much more than average. For instance, in the North West where there is a lot of hydro power, cap and trade may be a benefit to them because the cost of electricity won't go up because they're not producing C02, and they'll still get the "$500 benefit". However, in places getting their power from coal, their costs will go up more than average, hurting them disproportionately. So rather than evenly distributing the costs of cap and trade we're going to punish a subset of the American population, not for anything that they've done, but rather because of what the power company servicing where they live is using.
In addition, perhaps my power bill will go up $500, but what about second order effects? My groceries, dining out, etc are going to go up because those businesses are going to have their expenses go up as well.
And then there is the question about the true cost and does government ever get the cost right.
Just seems like a disaster.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Climate of Extremes
This is from a Cato event, you can get an mp3 of the discussion here:
Climate of Extremes: Global Warming Science They Don’t Want You to Know
Thursday, March 12, 2009 12:00 AM
There's a whole new world of global warming science today-but few ever hear about it. In recent years, an internally consistent body of scientific literature has emerged that argues cogently for global warming but against the gloom-and-doom, apocalyptic vision of climate change. Not that you would know. Consult the daily newspaper or evening newscast: dire predictions are nearly all we see or hear.
In their new book, Climate of Extremes, coauthors Patrick J. Michaels and Robert C. Balling Jr. illuminate the other side of the story, the science we aren’t being told. This body of work details how the impact of global warming is far less severe than is generally believed and far from catastrophic. However, because it is not infused with horrific predictions and angst about the future, regardless of its quality it is largely repressed and ignored. This in-depth exploration illustrates the crucial unreported forecasts: that changes in hurricanes will be small, that global warming is likely to be modest, and that contrary to daily headlines, there is no apocalypse on the horizon.
Climate of Extremes is a book for all who are intent on exploring the evidence and the arguments in the climate change debate.
Climate of Extremes: Global Warming Science They Don’t Want You to Know
Thursday, March 12, 2009 12:00 AM
There's a whole new world of global warming science today-but few ever hear about it. In recent years, an internally consistent body of scientific literature has emerged that argues cogently for global warming but against the gloom-and-doom, apocalyptic vision of climate change. Not that you would know. Consult the daily newspaper or evening newscast: dire predictions are nearly all we see or hear.
In their new book, Climate of Extremes, coauthors Patrick J. Michaels and Robert C. Balling Jr. illuminate the other side of the story, the science we aren’t being told. This body of work details how the impact of global warming is far less severe than is generally believed and far from catastrophic. However, because it is not infused with horrific predictions and angst about the future, regardless of its quality it is largely repressed and ignored. This in-depth exploration illustrates the crucial unreported forecasts: that changes in hurricanes will be small, that global warming is likely to be modest, and that contrary to daily headlines, there is no apocalypse on the horizon.
Climate of Extremes is a book for all who are intent on exploring the evidence and the arguments in the climate change debate.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Too funny! Differences between God and Obama
"What do Obama and God have in common? Neither has a birth certificate. How do they differ? God does not think he's Obama. And there's another difference between God and Obama, and that is that liberals love Obama. We have some more differences for you here between President Obama and God. God asks for only 10 percent of your money. God gives you freedom to live your life as you choose. God's plan to save us is actually written down for people to read." --radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh
Great quote from Walter Williams
"Many Americans want money they don't personally own to be used for what they see as good causes such as handouts to farmers, poor people, college students, senior citizens and businesses. If they privately took someone's earnings to give to a farmer, college student or senior citizen, they would be hunted down as thieves and carted off to jail. However, they get Congress to do the identical thing, through its taxing power, and they are seen as compassionate and caring. In other words, people love government because government, while having neither moral nor constitutional authority, has the legal and physical might to take the property of one American and give it to another. The unanticipated problem with this agenda is that as Congress uses its might to take what belongs to one American to give to another, what President Obama calls 'spreading the wealth around,' more and more Americans will want to participate in the looting. It will ultimately produce something none of us wants: absolute control over our lives." --George Mason University economist Walter E. Williams
I am all for wealth redistribution, but only voluntary wealth redistribution. People say that Jesus would be for wealth redistribution, and they're right, but in Matthew 19 when the young rich man comes and asks Christ what he should do, Christ says, "If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me." The young man leaves, doesn't do what the Lord asked of him. However, Christ DID NOT SEND PETER, JAMES, AND JOHN TO FORCEFULLY TAKE AWAY HIS RICHES. Try not contributing to the government's redistribution (taxes) and see how fast you get thrown in jail.
I am all for wealth redistribution, but only voluntary wealth redistribution. People say that Jesus would be for wealth redistribution, and they're right, but in Matthew 19 when the young rich man comes and asks Christ what he should do, Christ says, "If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me." The young man leaves, doesn't do what the Lord asked of him. However, Christ DID NOT SEND PETER, JAMES, AND JOHN TO FORCEFULLY TAKE AWAY HIS RICHES. Try not contributing to the government's redistribution (taxes) and see how fast you get thrown in jail.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
$50 For the Homeless
I just read the following from the Patriot Post's humor email. You can find it at http://patriotpost.us/images/broadcasts/humor/060909.htm. Anyway, here it is:
I recently asked my friend's little girl what she wanted to be when she grows up. She said she wanted to be president some day.
Both of her parents, liberal Democrats, were standing there, so I asked her, "If you were president what would be the first thing you would do?"
She replied, "I'd give food and houses to all the homeless people."
Her parents beamed.
"Wow... what a worthy goal." I told her, "But you don't have to wait until you're president to do that. You can come over to my house and mow the lawn, pull weeds, and sweep my yard, and I'll pay you $50. Then I'll take you over to the grocery store where homeless guys hang out, and you can give them the $50, you earned, to use toward food and a new house."
She thought that over for a few seconds, then she looked me straight in the eye and asked, "Why doesn't the homeless guy come over and do the work, and you can just pay him the $50?"
I said, "Welcome to the Republican Party."
Her parents still aren't speaking to me.
I recently asked my friend's little girl what she wanted to be when she grows up. She said she wanted to be president some day.
Both of her parents, liberal Democrats, were standing there, so I asked her, "If you were president what would be the first thing you would do?"
She replied, "I'd give food and houses to all the homeless people."
Her parents beamed.
"Wow... what a worthy goal." I told her, "But you don't have to wait until you're president to do that. You can come over to my house and mow the lawn, pull weeds, and sweep my yard, and I'll pay you $50. Then I'll take you over to the grocery store where homeless guys hang out, and you can give them the $50, you earned, to use toward food and a new house."
She thought that over for a few seconds, then she looked me straight in the eye and asked, "Why doesn't the homeless guy come over and do the work, and you can just pay him the $50?"
I said, "Welcome to the Republican Party."
Her parents still aren't speaking to me.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Interesting idea - House of Representatives with 6000 Representatives
The basic idea is then it gets even harder to do pork or wasteful projects because instead of 50 pet projects to bribe enough people to go along, you need 3000, and at some point it gets just too hard to get that many people together. The reduction in government spending would more than offset the paychecks of the new representatives. Apparently they did some studies and found states that have larger House of Representatives have less waste, smaller government. Sounds great to me!
http://www.thirty-thousand.org/
http://www.thirty-thousand.org/
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