With the death of my father, I’m probably going to take a few more days off from blogging and start fresh.
Today's News
After a long battle with first colon cancer and then Alzheimer’s, my father passed away on Sunday. He was 83 years old.
Of him I can say he was a kind and truly gentle man, who never once cursed in front of me as a child and who spent Saturday afternoons teaching his son how to play baseball.
Also, he was a man of his generation. He could fix a car, wire a house, and fix the plumbing–skills I wish I had learned.
Even though I miss him already, his essence as a person had faded dramatically in the last year. He existed, but he was not living and I firmly believe he is in a better place.
Here is a picture of him as a young man, probably in 1947
And here he is, after he was drafted into the Marines in 1951
Since most of our elected members of the House of Representatives refused to read and thus understand the consequences of H.R. 2454, also known as “cap and trade”, I thought I would do it for them.
Since this will take days, if not weeks, I will keep this post as a sticky and new posts will appear below the video news. H.R. 2454 can be found here.
Let’s start with Title I. Here is what the far left, in other words, the Democrats, consider acceptable forms of energy:
(18) RENEWABLE ENERGY RESOURCE- The term `renewable energy resource’ means each of the following:
(A) Wind energy.
(B) Solar energy.
(C) Geothermal energy.
(D) Renewable biomass.
(E) Biogas derived exclusively from renewable biomass.
(F) Biofuels derived exclusively from renewable biomass.
(G) Qualified hydropower.
(H) Marine and hydrokinetic renewable energy, as that term is defined in section 632 of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (42 U.S.C. 17211).
No nuclear, no coal, no shale oil, no offshore oil. In other words, the left is betting our energy future on niche methods of energy production. For starters, what do you do when the wind stops? What do you do when you have peak demand and there is no wind?
Are you willing to build a factory, a grocery store, a refrigerated plant in an area where power supplies are guaranteed? Very third world like if you ask me.
What in the Hell is wrong with this nation? We’ve blown trillions of dollars, frivolously on this recession and have nothing to show for it. Our House of Representatives passed the nation’s largest tax increase in the name of global warming, yet tens of millions of Americans are grieving over the death of a man who gave inordinate attention to children and was supposedly addicted to drugs.
The barbarians are at the gate and yet the masses are entertained by the spectacles at the Coliseum.
John Boehner, the last Republican standing?
John Boehner, using a parliamentarian maneuver, engineered a short lived filibuster of the cap and trade bill, by reading some of the 300 pages of amendments added to bill at 3 a.m.
If there’s one thing the American people should demand of their elected representatives, it’s that’s we should know what’s in bills before we vote on them. In February, the U.S. House passed a 1,100-page “stimulus” bill that was supposed to create 3.5 million jobs and keep unemployment no higher than 8 percent. Since that bill was signed into law, we’ve lost 1.6 million jobs and unemployment nationwide is now 9.4 percent. The so-called stimulus has been a disaster in Ohio where our unemployment is a record-breaking 10.8 percent.
The House late on Friday, June 26, passed Speaker Pelosi’s national energy tax – a more than 1,500 page bill that included 300 pages added to it fewer than 24 hours before the final vote. No one – not one single lawmaker – had read that entire bill before voting on it. So I did something unprecedented. I read portions of those 300 pages to the American people. By tradition, the Speaker of the House, the Majority Leader and the Minority Leader have the right to talk for as long as they like on the Floor. I used my prerogative as the Minority Leader to read to the American people parts of a bill that will raise their taxes, send American jobs overseas and punish hard-working, middle-class families with higher energy costs. Read more….
How does a Republic last when representatives vote on something they haven’t read? Who wrote it? Who is behind it? Obviously it wasn’t crafted by Congress.
Tags: Boehner, cap and trade
Steve Driehaus, Democrat, and House member for Cincinnati’s 1st district, has voted for the nation’s largest tax hike in the name of global warming.
As you SHOULD know, today, the Democrats passed the “American Clean Energy and Security Act”, otherwise known as cap and trade, by a margin of 219 to 212.
Sadly, eight Republicans also voted for this tax and economy killer of a bill and they should be booted out of office in the next election as well.
The vote can be read here.
Fellow Cincinnatians, you might call Steve Driehaus and ask him if he actually read all 1500 pages of this bill, which can referenced here. If he says yes, he is lying to you, as Rep. Waxman added over 300 pages in amendments sometime after midnight yesterday.
So your representative not only voted on a bill without reading it, he also just voted in the nation’s largest tax increase. It will cost the nation almost $100 billion dollars a year! That doesn’t come from Rush Limbaugh, that comes from the Congressional Budget Office.
Furthermore, ask Mr. Driehaus, if this bill is about the environment, why is the government making money on it? If this bill was about clean air, wouldn’t it be revenue neutral? Wouldn’t it just require lower emissions from industry?
The key is that it gives the leftist and social activists, aka the Democrats, $846 billion over 9 years to spend on their favorite programs, which of course you will finance through higher gas prices and higher home energy prices. The Democrats don’t really care about global warming, what they care about is the tax money and the power it gives them to reshape America into socialist utopia where the producers support the growing numbers of the non-productive members of society.
And while you are talking to Steve Driehaus, thank him for voting to lower your standard of living as well.
Tags: cap and trade, Steve Driehaus
So, how is the Obama/Democrat stimulus working out for you? Ohioans, looking a government job after being laid off from the private sector. You know, a government job created by the stimulus? Boy are you in luck! Obama has set up a website to help you find all the sweet, well paying government jobs created by the Obama/Democrat stimulus money.
Start here:
Once you click on the “recovery related jobs”, you are sent here:
Finally, you get to see all the government jobs promised and created by Obama and his stimulus:
Wow! Amazing! OH MY GOD! Oh, wait, ONE $%#@^ job! One lousy job!
So tell me again, how is the Obama/Reid/Pelosi/Democrat stimulus working out for you?
Maybe Obama’s next program, national health care will work out better….
The economy killing environmental lunacy and tax increase rolled into one, known as Cap and Trade will likely be voted on in the House this Friday.
House lawmakers are getting closer to a vote on a sweeping energy bill that would cap greenhouse gases, with a vote possible on Friday, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said Tuesday.
“It is quite possible and maybe even probable that we will go to the energy bill on Friday and complete the energy bill on late Friday,” said Hoyer on Tuesday. He also said that members could meet on Saturday.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee approved the bill — which aims to slash greenhouse gas emissions by more than 80% below 2005 levels by 2050 through a “cap-and-trade” system — on May 19. But the bill has had a slow path to the House floor as farm-state lawmakers led by Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson, D-Minn., sought concessions for farmers.
On Tuesday, Hoyer said he thought an agreement was very close.
“I am hopeful that by Wednesday, or maybe even by late tonight, we will have agreement and we will be able to move ahead on this piece of legislation before the July 4th break,” he told reporters.
The bill would also boost use of renewable energy and set new targets for energy-efficient buildings.
But climate-change is the most contentious part of the bill, and many Republicans and some Democrats say the bill would amount to a tax on consumers and businesses and even drive businesses overseas. Under the cap-and-trade system, companies would buy and sell pollution permits to meet the cap on greenhouse gases. Read more…
You can find your representative’s email or phone number at this link. Don’t hesitate. If you don’t make your voice heard, you will be paying higher energy bills in the near future.
Too see how much it will cost, check out this link at The American Institute for Economic Research, though this sentence ought to be enough: “The price increase for coal would range from 26 percent to 268 percent more than today’s prices.”
Trackposted to Rosemary’s Thoughts, Nuke Gingrich, third world county, Woman Honor Thyself, The World According to Carl, DragonLady’s World, The Pink Flamingo, , and Right Voices, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.
Tags: cap and trade
Smarter, conservative, energy expert, and dedicated to her family. Whereas Stanford, well we in Hell anoint him idiot of the week.
By his actions, Republican Mark Sanford of South Carolina, has shown that his judgment and thought processes are flawed, disqualifying him from running for the presidency. Running off to Argentina to get a piece of ass–STUPID. Not constructing a decent cover story–STUPID. Not notifying the Lt. Governor–BORDERS NEAR CRIMINAL. Running out on your family for a piece of ass thousands of miles away–AMAZINGLY STUPID AND UNCOUTH.
WHAT IN THE HELL WAS HE THINKING! AND THE BROAD BETTER BE HOT!
Here’s the news conference:
I took these on Sunday. The most interesting event, an art/craft show hosted on the Purple People bridge.
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- Mt. Adams
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- Great American Ball Park
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- Top of Roebling Suspension Bridge
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- Suspension Bridge from a distance
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- Purple People Bridge
Tags: Cincinnati, Mt. Adams, skyline
I don’t know what bother’s me the most about editorials written by one Leonard Pitts, Jr, that I read them or that he consumed by issues of race and no one ever calls him on his half truths written as gospel.
Here’s his latest:
And indeed Southern Democrats, who for a century had bombed schools, lynched innocents, perverted justice and terrorized millions in the name of intolerance, responded by leaving their ancestral party in droves. They formed the base of a new GOP, a reality acknowledged by Ronald Reagan when he opened his 1980 campaign at a segregationist fair in a town where three civil-rights workers were infamously martyred, by declaring, ‘I believe in states’ rights.”
In embracing its new southern base, the Republican Party became the Repugnant Party on matters of race, a distinction it has done little to shed.
So some of us were disappointed but not surprised last week when Sherri Goforth, an aide to Tennessee state Sen. Diane Black, came under fire for an e-mail she sent out. It depicted the 44 U.S. presidents, showing the first 43 in dignified, statesmanlike poses. By contrast, the 44th, the first African American, is seen as a pair of cartoon spook eyes against a black backdrop. Goforth’s explanation: the e-mail, which went to GOP staffers, was sent “to the wrong list of people.”
You may wish to let that one marinate for a moment.
And please, don’t bother reminding me of Democrat Robert Byrd’s onetime membership in the Ku Klux Klan; I make no argument that the Democrats are untainted by bigotry. Rather, my argument is that the GOP is consumed by it, riddled with it, that it has shown, sown, shaped and been shaped by it, to an abhorrent degree.
You think that’s unfair? Well, after Goforth’s e-mail, after ”Barack the Magic Negro,” and John McCain’s campaign worker blaming a fictional black man for a fictional mugging, and a party official in Texas renaming the executive mansion ”the black house,” and an official in Virginia claiming Obama’s presidency would see free drugs and ”mandatory black liberation theology,” and a Republican activist in South Carolina calling an escaped ape one of Michelle Obama’s ”ancestors,” it seems wholly fair to me. Indeed, overdue.
And keep in mind: All that is just from the last year or so. I could draw up a much longer list but space is limited, and there is a final point to make.
Which is that, yes, I am cognizant of the danger of painting with too broad a brush and no, I am not saying membership in the GOP is synonymous with membership in the KKK. I know there are Republicans of racial enlightenment and common decency. Indeed, I am counting on it, counting on them to search conscience and demand their party find ways of winning elections that do not depend on lazy appeals to the basest emotions of the hateful and the unreconstructed.
Do it because it’s the right thing. And do it because it is in the party’s long-term interest. As a 2008 Gallup poll indicates, black people are more religious than Republicans as a whole and just as conservative on some key moral issues. Yet only 5 percent identify with the party of religion and conservatism. The GOP’s ongoing inability to win over such a natural constituency speaks volumes. Read more….
Besides pointing out to Mr. Pitts, that the Democrats and their liberal social policies have done what slavery and Jim Crow never accomplished, the utter destruction of the “black” family, let’s take a look at some quotes by Democrats, that would they have been Republicans, Mr. Pitts would have included them among his proof:
•The Reverend Wright. The preacher of choice and mentor of one Barack Obama for twenty years. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree:
And don’t forget the Rev’s latest “Jew” comments.
•Mr. Pitts, no outrage at this local Democrat? “I want to go up to the closest white person and say: ‘You can’t understand this, it’s a black thing’ and then slap him, just for my mental health.” — Charles Barron, a New York city councilman at a reparations rally, 2002
•Some guy bemoaning that greedy white people run the world.
•Some other guy named Joe (Biden): “You cannot go into a Dunkin’ Donuts or a 7-Eleven unless you have a slight Indian accent.”
• Condi Rice depicted as a house slave. Silence from the Democrats:
• It’s alright to make racial attacks against a conservative black man:
-State Sen. Lisa A. Gladden (D), told the Times that party loyalties make racial attacks fair game: “Party trumps race, especially on the national level. It’s democracy, perhaps at its worst, but it is democracy.”
-State Delegate Salima Siler Marriott (D) told The Washington Times that, because Steele is conservative, “he is different than most public blacks.” When questioned about Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller, Jr. (D) — who is white — calling Steele an “Uncle Tom” in 2001, Marriott said, “that’s not racial.”
• Some Democrat: U.S. Representative Corrine Brown verbally attacked a top Bush administration official during a briefing on the Haiti crisis Wednesday, calling the President’s policy on the beleaguered nation “racist” and his representatives “a bunch of white men.”
• Another Democrat on them Jews: “If it were not for the strong support of the Jewish community for this war with Iraq, we would not be doing this. … The leaders of the Jewish community are influential enough that they could change the direction of where this is going and I think they should. “ Democrat Jim Moran.
• A soon to be Supreme Court member: “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” Cause you know, them white guys is clueless.
And like Mr. Pitts, I could go on and on.
Tags: Pitts
Considering Iran has been a thorn in our collective American rear end for the last 30 years–the hostage crisis, support for Hezbollah and Islamic terror, instigating attacks on our troops in Iraq, and now the race to acquire nuclear weapons, one would hope that the current administration would take a proactive approach that would serve the interests of the United States.
The most optimal approach would be the following:
In essence, this approach would be “payback” for 30 years of hostile Iranian foreign policy. Through a covert program, ship small arms across the Iraqi border to the protesters. With what resources we have on the ground, help organize the opposition and make them a more effective force against the current Islamic theocracy and its military apparatus. In addition, the White House would need to take a strong stance against the current theocracy.
The upside of this approach is at least twofold. One, it creates more pain and trouble for the ruling Imams and if the instability lasts for years, it would certainly divert Iranian resources from their worldwide terror apparatus and it even might well slow their nuclear program as the regime fights for its life.
If the opposition does win, and make no illusion that they are democrats, as we will still be dealing with Islamic fanatics, they might just well be less adversarial in consideration to the assistance we provided them.
Should the opposition fail and the Imams retain control, at the very least, their power will have been weakened and the U.S. will have lost nothing–as how much more adversarial could Tehran be to American anyway?
Unfortunately, it looks like the Obama administration will continue its policy of moral relativism (one cannot say that freedom is better than subjugation, for instance) and only issue weak policy statements like this:
In Washington, President Obama called the government’s reaction “violent and unjust,” and, quoting Martin Luther King Jr., warned again that the world was watching what happened in Tehran. Read more…
“Unjust”? Do you know what unjust is? Unjust is giving an 18 year old an 11 pm curfew. Unjust is your boss making you work on Sunday. Unjust is some doughnut eating cop giving you a speeding ticket while crack deals are happening a mile down the street.
Yet, “unjust” is probably as much as we can expect from a President schooled in Islam and Marxist ideology. Too bad Obama is incapable of citing the basic philosophy of the American political tradition which defines the limits of government and the rights of the people:
…whenever the legislators endeavour to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any farther obedience… Whensoever therefore the legislative shall transgress this fundamental rule of society, and either by ambition, fear, folly, or corruption, endeavour to grasp themselves…an absolute power over the lives, liberties, and estates of the people, by this breach of trust they forfeit the power the people had put into their hands for quite contrary ends, and it devolves to the people; who have a right to resume their original liberty and by the establishment of a new legislative, such as they shall think fit, provide for their own safety and security, which is the need for which they are in society. John Locke, The Second Treatise
It is a shame that weapons from our vast arsenal of republican theory are seldom used. These words are powerful, Obama’s are just plain weak and his actions will be even weaker.
Tags: elections, Iran, revolution
Wonder if this will make through the Obama administration?
Members of the 413th Flight Test Squadron, Hurlburt Field, Fla., and contractor Boeing recently successfully fired the high-power laser aboard the Advanced Tactical Laser aircraft for the first time in flight.
The combined effort between Boeing and the 413th was instrumental to the “first light” of the high power ATL.
“This successful test is a major step toward bringing directed energy capability to the warfighter,” said Gary Fitzmire, vice president and program director of Boeing’s Directed Energy Systems. “We have demonstrated that an airborne system can fire a high-power laser in flight and deliver laser beam energy to a ground target.”
During the test, the specially modified 46th Test Wing NC-130H aircraft equipped with the ATL weapon system took off from Kirtland and fired its laser while flying over White Sands Missile Range, N.M., successfully hitting a target board located on the ground. ATL is equipped with a chemical laser, a beam control system, sensors and weapon-system consoles.
“We have taken technology from the laboratory to reality and have now demonstrated that directed energy is on a path toward a safe and viable option for the warfighter with very unique capabilities,” said Eric Van Dorn, 413th FLTS lead flight test engineer.
More tests are planned to demonstrate ATL’s military utility. The system is designed to damage, disable or destroy targets with little to no collateral damage. These demonstrations support development of systems that will conduct missions on the battlefield and in urban operations.
“The time and effort from the entire team exhibited the cooperation and professionalism between the U. S. Air Force and Boeing. The culmination of this event is fantastic,” said Master Sgt. Scott Wollitz, mission flight engineer. “I feel extremely fortunate to have been a part of the crew for this test. The laser shot was amazing!”
The ATL program is managed by the 687th Armament Systems Squadron, which is part of the 308th Armament Systems Wing at Eglin AFB, Fla., and supported by the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Directed Energy Directorate at Kirtland.
“It’s another case of science fiction becoming reality,” said Maj. James Stahl, 413th FLTS test pilot. “As a kid growing up I was fascinated by the lasers in the movie Star Wars; to be the first to fire this laser in flight is truly an honor.” Link
Tags: Advanced Tactical Laser
