BlogRoll & Follow Policy
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Robert Gibbs being groomed for Axelrod’s, job? Failing Upward. He stutters like his boss without a teleprompter, can you imagine them trying to get something done in an emergency?
The REAL party of no. With the Democrats on the defensive and getting beaten up in the polls by their constituents, they are doing what any vicious scared animal does when cornered: lash out
Thank goodness our Homeland Security people are on the job after the EunuchBomber botched attack on Christmas Day. We certainly don’t want to have independent war correspondents passing through our airports without revealing their annual income:
Got arrested at the Seattle airport for refusing to say how much money I make. (The uniformed ones say I was not “arrested”, but they definitely handcuffed me.) Their videos and audios should show that I was polite, but simply refused questions that had nothing to do with national security. Port authority police eventually came — they were professionals — and rescued me from the border bullies.
When they handcuffed me, I said that no country has ever treated me so badly. Not China. Not Vietnam. Not Afghanistan. Definitely not Singapore or India or Nepal or Germany, not Brunei, not Indonesia, or Malaysia, or Kuwait or Qatar or United Arab Emirates. No county has treated me with the disrespect can that can be expected from our border bullies.
Dear President Obama,
My name is Harold Estes, approaching 95 on December 13 of this year. People meeting me for the first time don’t believe my age because I remain wrinkle free and pretty much mentally alert.
I enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1934 and served proudly before, during and after WW II retiring as a Master Chief Bos’n Mate. Now I live in a “rest home” located on the western end of Pearl Harbor allowing me to keep alive the memories of 23 years of service to my country.
One of the benefits of my age, perhaps the only one, is to speak my mind, blunt and direct even to the head man.
So here goes.
I am amazed, angry and determined not to see my country die before I do but you seem hell bent not to grant me that wish.
I can’t figure out what country you are the president of. You fly around the world telling our friends and enemies despicable lies like:
” We’re no longer a Christian nation”
” America is arrogant” – (Your wife even announced to the world,”America is mean-spirited. ” Please tell her to try preaching that nonsense to 23 generations of our war dead buried all over the globe who died for no other reason than to free a whole lot of strangers from tyranny and hopelessness.)
I’d say shame on the both of you but I don’t think you like America nor do I see an ounce of gratefulness in anything you do for the obvious gifts this country has given you. To be without shame or gratefulness is a dangerous thing for a man sitting in the White House.
After 9/11 you said,” America hasn’t lived up to her ideals.”
Which ones did you mean? Was it the notion of personal liberty that 11,000 farmers and shopkeepers died for to win independence from the British ? Or maybe the ideal that no man should be a slave to another man that 500,000 men died for in the Civil War ? I hope you didn’t mean the ideal 470,000 fathers, brothers,husbands,and a lot of fellas I knew personally died for in WWII, because we felt real strongly about not letting any nation push us around because we stand for freedom.
I don’t think you mean the ideal that says equality is better than discrimination. You know the one that a whole lot of white people understood when they helped to get you elected.
Take a little advice from a very old geezer, young man. Shape up and start acting like an American.If you don’t, I’ll do what I can to see you get shipped out of that fancy rental on Pennsylvania Avenue .You were elected to lead not to bow, apologize and kiss the hands of murderers and corrupt leaders who still treat their people like slaves.
And just who do you think you are telling the American people not to jump to conclusions and condemn that Muslim major who killed 13 of his fellow soldiers and wounded dozens more. You mean you don’t want us to do what you did when that white cop used force to subdue that black college professor in Massachusetts who was putting up a fight ? You don’t mind offending the police calling them stupid but you don’t want us to offend Muslim fanatics by calling them what they are, terrorists.
One more thing. I realize you never served in the military and never had to defend your country with your life but you’re the Commander-in-Chief now, son. Do your job. When your battle-hardened field General asks you for 40,000 more troops to complete the mission, give them to him. But if you’re not in this fight to win, then get out. The life of one American soldier is not worth the best political strategy you’re thinking of.
You could be our greatest president because you face the greatest challenge ever presented to any president. You’re not going to restore American greatness by bringing back our bloated economy. That’s not our greatest threat. Losing the heart and soul of who we are as Americans is our big fight now. And I sure as hell don’t want to think my president is the enemy in this final battle.
Sincerely,
Harold B. Estes
Duh One will getting a special teleprompter built into the podium for press conferences and special White House events so his handlers can tell him what to say. He has proven to be less than average when he has to think for himself. Just Words? Just Speeches? I’d have to say, Yes.
One wouldn’t know it from reading theWashington PostorNew York Times, but some inside the White House don’t think that President Barack Obama hit a home run with his first national press conference last week.
“It looked scripted beyond the scripted part, the speech,” says one former communications adviser, who has been feeding notes and suggestions to the White House team and worked with them on the inauguration. “Every president has gone into one of these things knowing that there were some pre-arranged questions or journalists to be called on, but this one was pretty ham-handed.”
To that end, he says, the White House is looking to install a small video or computer screen into the podium used by the president for press conferences and events in the White House. “It would make it easier for the comms guys to pass along information without being obvious about it,” says the adviser.
The screen would indicate whom to call on, seat placement for journalists, pass along notes or points to hit, and so forth, says the adviser.
Using a screen is nothing new for Obama; almost nothing he said in supposedly unscripted townhall events during the presidential campaign was unscripted, down to many of the questions and the answers to those questions. Teleprompter screens at the events scrolled not only his opening remarks, but also statistics and information he could use to answer questions.
“It would be the same idea with the podium,” says the adviser.
Obama had a teleprompter set up for his remarks last week, before taking questions, but the White House couldn’t use the teleprompter for anything but the remarks, because the journalists were so close to the screens. Further complicating matters, teleprompter copy can’t be easily updated in real time, in a setting like a White House press conference.
We know what happens when he has to think for himself.
It’s a sad state of affairs when the leader of the free world doesn’t have an original thought in his head and has to be fed the answers from the people that pushed him into office.
If you think back a few years there was quite an uproar over a bad fitting suit that President Bush wore at a press conference. The press was all up in arms saying he wore a wire to get signals from offstage. Lets see how this tingles their legs.
While my fellow contributers here have extraordinary skills in expressing their views, alas, I have few. I must confess to a bit of ADD. Therefore I try to find articles that reflect my thoughts, and this is one of those. Jim Towey has a fine article in the Wall Street Journalthat gives us a bit of an inside look at the man I call My President.
President Bush will soon be heading home and for many that day cannot come soon enough. Count me among those who will miss him and his bedrock decency.
AP
He had a rough road from day one. His first inauguration struck me as a portent. I was there, shivering in the grandstands on Pennsylvania Avenue. At the exact moment the president heard “Hail to the Chief” for the first time and was announced to the audience, a sleet storm descended from the skies.
It has never let up.
Through it all Mr. Bush kept his head up and soldiered on. He took the criticism in stride. I remember riding with him in his presidential limousine to the Washington Hilton for a speech. A woman standing at an intersection directed an obscene gesture at him that I had hoped he missed. The president waved to her and with a bemused look said to me, “Did you see what she did?”
Many other Americans, particularly the “values voters” who helped elect him twice, will miss him because of what he achieved: Samuel Alito and John Roberts on the Supreme Court, children in schools that now are better because they are accountable, African women who now have medicines for their HIV-infected babies, and religious charities that are finally being treated by government as partners instead of rivals.
I remember coming to the West Wing one morning before the daily 7:30 senior staff meeting and seeing Mr. Bush at his desk in the Oval Office, reading a daily devotional. I remember the look of sorrow on his face as he signed letters to the families of the fallen. When he met with recovering addicts whose lives were transformed by a faith-based program, he spoke plainly of his own humiliating journey years ago with alcohol. When a Liberian refugee broke into tears after recounting her escape to freedom in America, the president went over and held and comforted her.
Little acts behind the curtain like these inspired intense loyalty by staff members. They spoke of someone never too busy or burdened to care — like when he took time on Air Force One to call my wife when she was sick. The president’s true character rendered his media image pure caricature.
Mother Teresa was asked at the end of her life whether she was discouraged because after decades of caring for the dying and destitute in Calcutta little seemed to have changed. She replied, “No. God doesn’t call me to be successful. God calls me to be faithful.”
History will decide whether George W. Bush was a successful President. But he was faithful. He had a charge to keep and he kept it.
That’s a glimpse at the man I will miss. He never wavered in the face of evil. He never had a bad word for the ones that called him and his family vile names. He Is the definition of class. I wish there were more like him.
Dangit, I tried. I was really trying to get away from the politics and get back to other issues. But THIS is just beyond believable. See the videos below.
I am THE ONE
I really cannot believe the arrogance of That One. Only a plumber? Who the HECK does he think he is? Oh yeah, he’s The MessiUH.
WASHINGTON — Unqualified home buyers were not the only ones who benefitted from Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank’s efforts to deregulate Fannie Mae throughout the 1990s.
So did Frank’s partner, a Fannie Mae executive at the forefront of the agency’s push to relax lending restrictions.
Now that Fannie Mae is at the epicenter of a financial meltdown that threatens the U.S. economy, some are raising new questions about Frank’s relationship with Herb Moses, who was Fannie’s assistant director for product initiatives. Moses worked at the government-sponsored enterprise from 1991 to 1998, while Frank was on the House Banking Committee, which had jurisdiction over Fannie.
Both Frank and Moses assured the Wall Street Journal in 1992 that they took pains to avoid any conflicts of interest. Critics, however, remain skeptical.
“It’s absolutely a conflict,” said Dan Gainor, vice president of the Business & Media Institute. “He was voting on Fannie Mae at a time when he was involved with a Fannie Mae executive. How is that not germane?
“If this had been his ex-wife and he was Republican, I would bet every penny I have – or at least what’s not in the stock market – that this would be considered germane,” added Gainor, a T. Boone Pickens Fellow. “But everybody wants to avoid it because he’s gay. It’s the quintessential double standard.”
A top GOP House aide agreed.
“C’mon, he writes housing and banking laws and his boyfriend is a top exec at a firm that stands to gain from those laws?” the aide told FOX News. “No media ever takes note? Imagine what would happen if Frank’s political affiliation was R instead of D? Imagine what the media would say if [GOP former] Chairman [Mike] Oxley’s wife or [GOP presidential nominee John] McCain’s wife was a top exec at Fannie for a decade while they wrote the nation’s housing and banking laws.”
Frank’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Frank met Moses in 1987, the same year he became the first openly gay member of Congress.
“I am the only member of the congressional gay spouse caucus,” Moses wrote in the Washington Post in 1991. “On Capitol Hill, Barney always introduces me as his lover.”
The two lived together in a Washington home until they broke up in 1998, a few months after Moses ended his seven-year tenure at Fannie Mae, where he was the assistant director of product initiatives. According to National Mortgage News, Moses “helped develop many of Fannie Mae’s affordable housing and home improvement lending programs.”
No conflict of interest? What a “Crap Sandwich” that is.
There’s been a lot of activity around here as of late. And on the occasion of Nuke’s 200,000 milestone it looks like we’re all going to visit. So here’s an overview of the fires burning in my neck of the woods.
Firefighters at last got some help from the air Monday, thanks to a respite from nearly a week of smoky skies.
Throughout the afternoon, the giant Martin Mars bomber dumped its 7,200-gallon tank on fires being fought on Lime Complex, while smaller air tankers and helicopters pounded fires elsewhere. Mary Loan, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Forest Service, said that the Martin Mars made five drops in five and a half hours, with more drops scheduled for today.
On Monday, the last of the evacuations were lifted in many fire-threatened communities in Shasta and Trinity counties, including Junction City, Helena and the Big Foot Campground and Trailer Park.
Below are updates on fires burning in the north state. All information comes from the U.S. Forest Service, National Park Service and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection:
The Deerlick Complex:
The Deerlick Complex of fires west of Ono was 16,000 acres and 5 percent contained.
The Democrat and Motion fires:
The Democrat and Motion fires, which have grown together near Keswick and Shasta dams, are at 16,000 acres and 20 percent contained.
Firefighters lit backfires Saturday to divert the flames from the areas around power lines and the powerhouse at the dam. Power lines continue to be a concern. Crews are especially looking out for the community of Keswick.
Zogg Mine Fire:
This fire in the Igo-Ono area was still listed as 80 percent contained at 74 acres. No structures have been lost. On Sunday, Shasta County sheriff’s deputies initiated a “soft closure” on Zogg Mine Road and South Fork Road, leaving open the roads for residents only.
Moon Fire Complex:
The Moon Fire, northwest of Ono, burned 17,000 acres and was 5 percent contained Monday evening. Fire behavior is considered extreme.
Hard closures are still in effect in the Buell and Platina road areas, but no structures have been lost.
The Pine and Donkey fires:
The Pine and Donkey blazes, which also have merged, are at 1,230 acres and 95 percent contained.
Barley Fire:
This fire in southwest Shasta County held at 1,000 acres in the Graves Ranch area. It continued at 5 percent containment Monday.
Lower Grass Valley Fire:
The Upper Grass Valley Fire near Buckhorn Summit has merged with the Lower Grass Valley Fire, taking on its name. Firefighters gained the upper hand on the blaze Sunday, knocking it down to 375 acres with 95 percent containment.
The Stein Fire:
The Stein Fire near the Pit River arm of Lake Shasta is 90 percent contained and has burned 667 acres.
The Iron Complex:
Some 18,117 acres had burned here by Monday, and the complex was 55 percent contained. Evacuation orders were lifted Sunday for the Helena and Canyon Creek areas.
Ziegler Fire:
Fire line work also continues on the Ziegler Fire, which could threaten the community of Hawkins Bar. Periodic closures for fire debris clean-up are expected on Highway 299.
Trails are closed at the Canyon Creek Trailhead, which is in the Granite Fire area. Fire managers said they expect the Eagle Fire will continue to grow to the south, and the Ironsides and Don Juan fires will grow east and north.
The Ziegler Fire is moving slowly southward and could also spread west.
Backfires are being lit on the north side of the fire to block a spread in that direction. The Cedar Fire will continue to spread east and north.
Alps Complex:
Most of the fires in this complex continued to grow. The Alps Complex changed Monday from 15 fires to 13, with 2,650 acres burning and containment at 2 percent.
The Buckhorn fires:
The Buckhorn fires are moving north and east toward the Clem Fire and have reached a dozer line protecting the Brooks Ranch.
Trail cleaning and clearing will take place on the Granite Creek Fire in an effort to hold that blaze in Bear and Canyon creeks. That fire also is growing north and east.
Lime Complex:
Fires across 35,445 acres in eastern Trinity County were 36 percent contained. Firefighters planned to set backfires in the next several days to strengthen containment lines around the Miners and Lime fires. Twenty-two fires remain unstaffed within the Lime complex. Crews will focus on the Telephone, Noble, Lime, Iron (within the Yolla-Bolly Wilderness), other wilderness fires, Miners, Deadshot and Rainbow fires.
SHF June Lightning Complex:
Crews had contained 31 of the 34 fires in the group, with about 250 acres burning. The Murphy and Rey fires were still going.
Whiskeytown Complex:
Four wildfires on Shasta Bally have charred nearly 4,000 acres and were 20 percent contained on Monday.
All ranger-guided programs were cancelled through Sunday. Oak Bottom public launch ramp, the marina, the marina boat rentals and stores will remain open to the public. Brandy Creek beach, marina, and the Whiskey Creek launch ramps are open despite smoky conditions. The Oak Bottom Tent and RV Campground, and Oak Bottom Beach areas will be closed to support a base camp for firefighters. Visit www.nps.gov/whis for updated information on the Whiskeytown fires.
Siskiyou Complex:
These fires continue to burn near Highway 96 but away from homes and property.
The fires Monday morning were at 7,725 acres and 20 percent containment.
Highway 96 along the Klamath River was opened Monday to traffic, but cars needed to follow a pilot vehicle through the smoke.
Tehama County:
The Antelope Creek Fire was contained at 3,410 acres. The Mill Fire had charred 13,580 acres and was also fully contained.
The Noble Fire burned 12,500 acres on Tehama County land. Firefighters in that county had it 80 percent contained.
Peterson Complex:
The Popcorn and Peterson fires southwest of McArthur in eastern Shasta County merged into a single 7,824-acre blaze, which was fully contained on Saturday.
I’ve been promoting this petition drive whenever I can. Now Chuck Norris joins the crew and I hope this will get some attention. Take a look at the petition at the link down yonder and join us.
As gas prices are at an all-time high, the American people are demanding that Congress take action to drill here and drill now. More than 650,000 Americans have signed the “Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less” petition, and that number keeps growing rapidly each day.
Increasing domestic energy resources is not a Republican or Democrat issue; it’s about lowering gas prices for hard-working American families. With more than 650,000 Americans on board, a groundswell of grassroots support is rising up to pressure Congress to stop playing partisan politics and start using more of our domestic energy resources.
We’re excited to announce today that Chuck Norris is supporting our “Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less” campaign. Watch him talk about it in this new YouTube video:
Video proof of Barack Hussein Obama’s plans to destroy America.
That’s some scary stuff right there. I’ve been saying all along that without security we have nothing, and in 52 seconds he explaines his plan to disarm America. He can’t lie his way out of this one, it’s all right there on video. He’ll make Carter look like an upstanding American and THAT is really hard to do. The more I hear him speak, the more I dislike and distrust him.
H/T American Thinker.
He’s not as conservative as most would like. He’s not against illegal immigration as much as I would like. He believes in the global warming hoax a little too much for my taste. But I have seen what the other two candidates have to offer, and they pale in comparison. To me the major issue is Protecting This Country, and if you look at that fact alone, Hillary will let us be slowly overrun by the terrorists, with Obama, they will be here overnight. Read a little about the toughness of my candidate, and decide for yourself who will keep us safer.
John McCain rarely speaks about his experiences as a POW in Vietnam, but one of his cell mates at the Hanoi Hilton on Thursday described some of the conditions and character traits that earned McCain the commendations he received for his war service.
Col. George “Bud” Day, 83, is the most decorated service man since Gen. Douglas MacArthur, with more than 70 medals. A living legend, Day was blown out of the sky two months to the day before the North Vietnamese shot down a propaganda prize, whose father and grandfather were renowned American admirals.
“They told me we were gonna get a roommate and it was gonna be the prince. The Vietnamese called him the prince so I asked my nurse what was his name? They said John McCain,” Day told FOX News.
Both he and McCain were taken captive in 1967, and held until their release in 1973.
Day said the first time he saw McCain, he believed the future senator was close to death and that the only reason for the chance encounter was part of a Vietnamese ploy to break the morale of U.S. servicemen already in captivity.
“I took one look at him, and my brain instantly said, ‘They dropped this guy off on me to claim that we let him die,’” Day said. “He was just emaciated. Very, very skinny, in this full body cast. Just filthy.”
The U.S. soldiers were held sometimes five to a cell, barely big enough for two.
“He had this gimpy knee where he’d busted his knee, this arm had been fractured in a couple places, he’d been bayoneted in the leg, this arm was out at the shoulder and, in fact, during that time it was out at the shoulder so long it wore a hole in this bone,” Day said.
During captivity, they were tortured mercilessly, Day said, describing one tactic that McCain has also recalled.
“They roped me under the arms, tied my hands behind my back, ran another rope to that, got me up on a chair, threw that rope up over a rafter and jerked the chair out from under me and your own weight just tears your body apart,” he said.
Day’s broken arm was re-broken during torture so he would never fly again. McCain played physical therapist.
“John said, ‘Well we’ll gather up some bamboo, and he was in a bandage on his leg at that time. So I got some strips of bamboo, smuggled them into the room, John put his foot in my arm pit and pulled on my wrist ’till we could get the bone forced back down … it wasn’t exactly perfect but it worked out he got it back to where it was functional,” Day said.
But nerve damage was extensive — his crushed hands were useless. Meanwhile, McCain was treated no better than the trash they were fed in the form of a soup.
“I mean you could smell him for 25 feet. Bunch of food and nasty stuff in his hair, and down his neck and inside his cast. The cast was not lined so every time he would move inside this cast, it was just eating a hole in his arm or his elbow or someplace, and he was just in — he was in pain,” Day recalled.
Yet McCain, now 71, made efforts to help Day recover from his own injuries, Day said.
Day said he had limited use of his arms, which was a result of a combination of torture and the initial plane crash that put him in the hands of his captors — an ordeal that earned Day the Congressional Medal of Honor.
“And when I finally did regain use of that, it was after months and months of dragging this hand and finger on the wall of the prison cell,” Day said, walking his fingers up the air like he did many years ago.
“John would help me. … John would pull my fingers out straight. They would just instantly recurl. And finally, one morning, I had just the slightest bit of movement in this hand — finger — and we both cried,” Day said.
McCain, whose military record was released to the Associated Press on Wednesday, received 17 commendations over his career from 1951-81. They included the Silver Star for his conduct in captivity. He also received the Legion of Merit, the Distinguished Flying Cross and a Bronze Star.
Day said by any humane standard, McCain would have been a good candidate for early release from the camp, but that wasn’t in his playbook.
“It also wasn’t in his playbook to die. In fact he quickly became a leader.”
Day said he asked McCain if he would be one of his preachers.
“He said sure. He had a great handle on the Episcopalian liturgy, he could just repeat it verbatim,” he said.
But repeating what he went through during his incarceration is something McCain almost never does as a presidential candidate. Day said he thinks he should.
“I’ve never seen any shortcomings or any shortfall out of him talking about that, but he just doesn’t trade on that. I think he feels that it’s wrong to trade on being a hero, but he is,” Day said.
I’ll keep in mind that no candidate for any office has ever done everything I wanted them to. But looking at the choices, John McCain stands head and shoulders above the other choice.
The world’s first attack aircraft to employ stealth technology is slipping quietly into history.
The inky black, angular, radar-evading F-117, which spent 27 years in the Air Force arsenal secretly patrolling hostile skies from Serbia to Iraq, will be put in mothballs next month in Nevada.
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, which manages the F-117 program, will have an informal, private retirement ceremony Tuesday with military leaders, base employees and representatives from Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico.
The last F-117s scheduled to fly will leave Holloman on April 21, stop in Palmdale, California, for another retirement ceremony, then arrive on April 22 at their final destination: Tonopah Test Range Airfield in Nevada, where the jet made its first flight in 1981.
The government has no plans to bring the fighter out of retirement, but could do so if necessary.
“I’m happy to hear they are putting it in a place where they could bring it back if they ever needed it,” said Brig. Gen. Gregory Feest, the first person to fly an F-117 in combat, during the 1989 invasion of Panama that led to the capture of dictator Manuel Noriega.
The Air Force decided to accelerate the retirement of the F-117s to free up money to modernize the rest of the fleet. The F-117 is being replaced by the F-22 Raptor, which also has stealth technology.
Fifty-nine F-117s were made; 10 were retired in December 2006 and 27 since then, the Air Force said. Seven of the planes have crashed, one in Serbia in 1999.
Stealth technology used on the F-117 was developed in the 1970s to help evade enemy radar. While not invisible to radar, the F-117’s shape and coating greatly reduced its detection.
The F-117, a single-seat aircraft, was designed to fly into heavily defended areas undetected and drop its payloads with surgical precision.
A total of 558 pilots have flown the F-117 since it went operational. They dub themselves “bandits,” with each given a “bandit number” after their first flight.
Feest, who is Bandit 261, also led the first stealth fighter mission into Iraq during Desert Storm in 1991. He said the fire from surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft guns was so intense that he stopped looking at it to try to ease his fears.
“We knew stealth worked and it would take a lucky shot to hit us, but we knew a lucky shot could hit us at any time,” he said.
Incredibly, not one stealth was hit during those missions, he said.
I saw this one coming months ago when California wanted to make these little toxic bombs mandatory. Now people are waking up to the fact that not every energy saving idea that comes down the ‘pike is a good one. Remember when mercury was going to kill us all? Mercury from the old mines in our ground water, mercury in our homes, mercury in the fish we eat, and the Mercury parked in your driveway. (just kidding about the driveway) Anyway, the powers that be thought it would be good to bring it right back into your house via the CFL bulb. But the good news is people have noticed.
The speeding freight train carrying toxic waste liability for makers, sellers and purchasers of compact fluorescent lightbulbs, or CFLs, was only faintly audible in the distance last spring when this column first warned of it. Now we’re beginning to see that environmentalist-stoked train speed toward its victims, whom President Bush and Congress just finished tying to the tracks.
CFLs and all other fluorescent lightbulbs require special clean-up and disposal procedures because they contain small amounts of mercury, which is neurotoxic at sufficiently high exposures. For example, you’re not supposed to vacuum breakage or toss used bulbs in household trash.
Despite these clean-up and disposal hassles, environmental groups, bulb makers and retailers relentlessly have promoted CFL use as a strategy for reducing electricity consumption and the power plant emissions allegedly causing global warming.
Eco-activist groups, such as Environmental Defense, which historically have agitated to banish toxic substances from homes, workplaces and the environment, surprisingly have said that the mercury in CFLs is nothing to worry about.
But this new posturing flies in the face of the multitude of scary activist-inspired studies that hyperventilate about potential health risks from the slightest exposures to mercury, not to mention a 1987 article in Pediatrics reporting real-life mercury poisoning of a 23-month old from a broken fluorescent light bulb.
Bush and Congress joined the CFL promotion racket, too. The energy bill enacted last December mandates that traditional incandescent bulbs be phased out starting in 2012. CFLs pretty much are the only alternative.
Now here’s the part I was talking about. Mercury bad, but if we can make money, mercury good. As always, Follow The Money
But while CFL-mandating legislation was pending in Congress, the enviros did a temporary flip-flop: Environmental Defense began pooh-poohing mercury concerns stating, “In short, the exposure from breaking a CFL is in about the same range as the exposure from eating a can or two of tuna fish.”
Two ounces of tuna used to be a horror, but in the name of CFLs, two cans became no problem.
The Associated Press reported in 1992 that fluorescent light bulbs were helping to “poison the Everglades with toxic mercury, threatening humans [and wildlife].”
In December 2000, a Massachusetts newspaper reported in an article entitled “Environmentalists Call for Mercury Product Ban” that the Massachusetts governor had proposed that trash-burning incinerators develop plans to separate fluorescent light bulbs and other mercury-containing consumer products from waste.
The business fantasy is for the nation’s 4 billion-plus light sockets to sport CFLs. There’s much more ka-ching in selling 4 billion $5 light bulbs as opposed to incandescent bulbs costing $0.75. But what about the mercury problem that may impose substantial liabilities on businesses and consumers faster than CFL light bulbs turn on?
First mercury was dangerous. Then, temporarily, it became no big deal. Now that the Greens have caught us in the CFL trap, they’re reverting to form on mercury — all to cause the sort of chaos resulting in increased government control of our lives.
As Johnny Cash sang, “I hear the train a-comin’, it’s rollin’ round the bend. …” The question is: Will President Bush and Congress just leave us on the tracks?
Will global warming increase hurricane activity? Two studies published in the last week arrived at opposite conclusions.
Well Imagine that, two studies don’t agree. Let’s take a look at what they say, and who studied what.
A link between warmer sea surface temperatures and increased North Atlantic hurricane activity “has been quantified for the first time,” according to a study by University College London researchers that was published in Nature (Jan. 30). They claim to have associated a 0.5 degree Celsius increase in sea surface warming with a 40 percent increase in Atlantic hurricane activity during 1996-2005 as compared to the average activity during 1950-2000.
“The scientists who have linked global warming to stronger storms said the study makes sense, and is, if anything, just repeating and refining what they have already said,” the Associated Press reported (Jan. 30).
But the study result isn’t surprising considering it was derived from a computer model that included only two variables — sea surface temperature and atmospheric wind field — which the researchers claim explain about 75 percent of the variance in Atlantic hurricane activity between 1965-2005. They claim to have teased out the association between sea surface temperature and hurricane activity by statistically removing the influence of wind from the model.
University College London. Strike one.
The scientists who have linked global warming to stronger storms said the study makes sense. Strike two
The study only included two out of at least five variables. Strike three.
The other side.
The other hurricane study, published in Geophysical Research Letters (Jan. 23) and not widely reported by the media, comes from climate scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
The NOAA researchers compared sea surface temperatures with hurricanes that made U.S. landfall — the most reliable hurricane measurement over the long-term, according to the researchers. They found a slight decrease in the trend of landfalling hurricanes with warmer sea surface temperatures.
“This paper uses observational data to demonstrate that the attribution of the recent increase in Atlantic hurricane activity to global warming is premature and that global warming may decrease the likelihood of hurricanes making landfall in the United States,” the researchers concluded.
As leading hurricane forecaster William Gray of Colorado State University put it, “Meteorologists who study tropical cyclones have no valid physical theory as to why hurricane frequency or intensity would necessarily be altered by small amounts (plus/minus 0.5 degrees Centigrade) of global mean temperature change.”
Here’s two points in the first sentence.
Not widely reported, and it comes from NOAA. (not known for being against the global warming BS)
They found a slight decrease in hurricanes with the warmer temps.
Anda leading hurricane forecaster, William Gray, says there is no valid reason as to why .05 degrees centigrade would have any effect.
Here’s some more on this.
And, of course, Al Gore learned this lesson the hard way. His attempt in “An Inconvenient Truth” to link manmade greenhouse gas emissions with the Hurricane Katrina tragedy was sound[ly] rejected by a British High Court judge who succinctly ruled that, “In scene 12 Hurricane Katrina and the consequent devastation in New Orleans is ascribed to global warming. It is common ground that there is insufficient evidence to show that.”
Poor Algore, wrong again. And we even get John McCain to admit to pandering to the global warming crowd.
As Sen. John McCain emerged from the Florida Republican primary as the Republican front runner, Politico.com observed that “After hitting it in most every appearance he made in New Hampshire and Michigan, John McCain now rarely brings up the topic of global warming.” In talking to reporters after a campaign event in West Palm Beach, McCain said, “I try to bring it up in areas that I think that it is of great import to people.”
And they even mention SwampWoman’s opinion. (I hope it’s her opinion)
Given the scientific evidence, it’s quite easy to understand why Floridians might not think that alleged global warming-hurricane link is of great import.
Something to read on a lazy Sunday. Ham is in the oven and football is on the TV.
ThisIs the best solution yet. It’s from Pat Sajak , and it is Great!
There are apparently tens of millions of people around the world who are convinced global warming is real, and mankind (particularly American mankind) is responsible. Further, they believe utterly catastrophic results are imminent unless we drastically alter our lifestyles—and soon. These alterations include the things we eat, our transportation, our daily work and leisure habits, and even the number of children we should have. The problem is there are also tens of millions of people around the world who are skeptical of this theory, and, despite one side’s claims the debate is settled, a significant and growing number of climate experts keep challenging their conclusions.
So, those who believe disaster is around the corner face a dilemma: while they’re educating their fellow citizens and demanding governments regulate believers and non-believers alike, the problem continues, and the date of the world’s doom draws ever closer. But there is a solution. It’s relatively simple, can begin immediately, and will change the dynamics of global warming overnight. Instead of continuing to preach to the rest of us, the true believers need to step forward and set an example. I’m not talking about recycling Evian bottles; I’m talking about giving up cars and moving into smaller houses or apartments, or even forming communes where people can live simpler, more Earth-friendly lives. Yes, I’m talking about living the kinds of lives they want all of us to live.
Such a movement could literally start tomorrow. It would need a leader, of course; someone who could inspire others to choose a more spartan lifestyle. The obvious choice would be Al Gore, who already has a loyal following. If he would eschew large homes, gas-guzzling cars, private jets and the consumption of meat, millions more would likely do the same. If enough people joined the cause, Mr. Gore and his followers would be able to demonstrate the results of this new way of living in very short order. They could lead by example. They could create a movement. They could have uniforms and badges and secret handshakes. The could have their own reality TV show. In short, they could become a major force for change. Carmakers would be driven out of business or forced to dramatically alter their products to meet the demands of this eco-friendly Gorian tsunami. Companies of all stripes would, similarly, have to adapt or perish.
Once the rest of us saw the presumed reversal (or at least slowing-down) of global warming, it would do more to convince us than any lecture or study signed by UN scientists, and it would likely add millions more to the cause. So what if you can’t get one-hundred percent co-operation initially? Wouldn’t half (or a third or a quarter) of the population make a huge difference if they made substantial sacrifices? You could argue it wouldn’t be fair to have some of us going on abusing the planet and leading our lives of consumption and gluttony while others are putting aside the trappings of modern life, but this isn’t about fairness; it’s about survival.
The time for talk is over. The time for action is now. Just think of millions and millions of committed Americans making the personal sacrifices necessary to demonstrate their resolve to combat man-made global warming. And, most important, thanks to their efforts, theory would be replaced by fact. It’s much easier to argue about a study than it is to refute the demonstrable results when the temperature drops and the ocean levels stabilize. When future generations write of the sacrifices of these men and women, they’ll use words like “inspirational” and “heroic”.
And so, I urge the advocates for change to embark on this important mission. Do it for the children. Godspeed.
“I’ve made up my mind. Don’t confuse me with the facts.” That saying most appropriately sums up the year in climate science for the fanatic global warming crowd.
As Al Gore, the United Nations, grandstanding politicians and celebrities, taxpayer-dependent climate researchers, socialist-minded Greens, climate profiteers and other members of the alarmist railroad relentlessly continued their drive for greenhouse gas regulation in 2007, the year’s scientific developments actually pointed in the opposite direction. Here’s the round-up:
1. Cracked crystal balls. Observed temperature changes measured over the last 30 years don’t match well with temperatures predicted by the mathematical climate models relied on by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), researchers reported.
The models predict significantly warmer atmospheric temperatures than actually occurred, despite the availability of more and better quality data and improved modeling efforts since the late-1970s.
“We suggest, therefore, that projections of future climate based on these models be viewed with much caution,” the researchers concluded. Read more…
2. The big yellow ball in the sky. The Sun may have contributed 50 percent or more of the global warming thought to have occurred since 1900, according to a new historical temperature reconstruction showing more variation in pre-industrial temperatures than previously thought.
The researchers found that “the climate is very sensitive to solar changes and a significant fraction of the global warming that occurred during the last century should be solar induced.” Read more…
3. Pre-SUV warming. Another new temperature reconstruction for the past 2,000 years indicates that globally averaged temperature 1,000 years ago was about 0.3 degrees Celsius warmer than the current temperature. Since that climatic “heat wave” obviously wasn’t caused by coal-fired power plants and SUVs, the current temperature is quite within natural variability, deflating alarmists’ rash conclusions about the warming of the past 50 years. Read more…
4. A disciplined climate. Runaway global warming — the alarmist fantasy in which a warmer global temperature causes climatic events that, in turn, cause more warming and so-on in a never-ending positive feedback loop — was cornered by new data from researchers at the University of Alabama-Huntsville (UAH). The new research sheds light on the mechanism by which the atmosphere self-regulates. Read more…
5. A gnarly wipeout. Climate alarmists gleefully surfed a 2005 study that claimed greenhouse gas emissions would slow Atlantic Ocean circulation and cause a mini ice age in Europe. But an international team of researchers reported that the intensity of the Atlantic circulation may vary by as much as a factor of eight in a single year. The decrease in Atlantic circulation claimed in the 2005study falls well within this variation and so is likely part of a natural yearly trend, according to the new study. Read more…
6. A pollution solution. A new study reported that the solid particles suspended in the atmosphere (called “aerosols”) that make up “brown clouds” may actually contribute to warmer temperatures — precisely the opposite effect heretofore claimed by global warming alarmists.
“These findings might seem to contradict the general notion of aerosol particles as cooling agents in the global climate system …,” concluded the researchers. Read more…
7. Lazy temperature? Researchers reported that the rate of manmade carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions was three times greater during 2000 to 2004 than during the 1990s. Since increasing atmospheric C02 levels allegedly cause global warming, the new study must mean that global temperatures are soaring even faster now than they did during the 1990s, right?
Wrong. According to the most recent data from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Climatic Data Center, ever-changing global temperatures are in no way keeping pace with ever-increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. Read more…
8. Don’t plant that tree! Researchers reported that while tropical forests exert a cooling influence on global climate, forests in northern regions exert a significant warming influence on climate. Based on the researchers’ computer modeling, forests above 20 degrees latitude in the Northern Hemisphere — that is, north of the line of latitude running through Southern Mexico, Saharan Africa, central India and the southernmost Chinese Island of Hainan — will warm surface temperatures in those regions by an estimated 10 degrees Fahrenheit by the year 2100. Read more…
9. The Tropical Arctic. Dutch researchers reported that during a period of intense global warming 55 million years ago — when the Arctic Ocean was as warm as 73 degrees Fahrenheit — there was a tremendous release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. But which came first, the warming or the greenhouse gases?
It was the warming, according to the researchers. Read more…
10. Much ado about nothing. In a report to Congress, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency revealed greenhouse gas regulation to be quite the fool’s errand. In estimating the atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases 90 years from now under both a scenario where no action is taken to reduce manmade emissions and a scenario where maximum regulation is implemented, the estimated difference in average global temperature between the two scenarios is 0.17 degrees Centigrade.
For reference purposes, the estimated total increase in average global temperature for the 20th century was about 0.50 degrees Celsius.
That’s what researchers have reported this year. And let’s not forget the spanking a British high judge gave Al Gore’s movie for all its scientific inaccuracies and the thrashing non-alarmist climate scientists gave to alarmist climate scientists in a debate sponsored by the New York debating society Intelligence Squared.
Al Gore and the alarmist mob claim the debate about the science of global warming is “over.” Given the developments of 2007, it’s easy to see why they would want it that way.
Three days ago, maybe four by the time I get done here, I wrote about the U.S. caving to the demands of some third world nations wanting welfare. Link. I have since learned that I was a little quick to react. (dangit I hate when that happens) There is some behind the scenes stuff going on that may give us a little time to head off the Gorbal Warming nuts. It’s by Christopher Monckton, and it is very long and detailed. It is also worth your time if you care about the fraud of global warming. Here’s the important quote:
The day Gore spoke in Bali, I received an email (one of hundreds from all over the world in response to my article in the Jakarta Post) from one of the Port Commissioners of Washington State. He said his fellow-Commissioners, solely on the basis of Gore’s rantings, were proposing to increase the height of the sea-walls by 20 feet. Real economic and environmental harm is now being caused by these unscientific exaggerations, which have gained credence among the zombies merely by their repetition on the lips of a former Vice-President of the United States.
The US delegation did not crumble in Bali. It stood firm in the cause of right and truth and common sense. So it was not possible for the zombies to go as far as they wanted in inflicting pointless, economically-disastrous and climatically-irrelevant policies on the world. For the sake of being seen to do something while they wait for Copenhagen, they have laboriously drawn up a “Bali Roadmap”. Like the Middle East Roadmap, the Bali Roadmap is a non-map of a non-existent road to nowhere. Meantime, we have alarmed the alarmists, and that is a first step towards the dawn of truth.
There is also a list of 50 new lies the alarmists have come up with, and the truth about them. Here’s a few.
Gore needs to pretend that the situation is urgent when it is becoming increasingly plain to everyone that it isn’t. The robust corn-stalk chewers of Iowa, polled recently about election issues, ranked “global warming” so low that fewer than one in 200 thought it mattered at all.
Therefore, to whip up the flagging panic that keeps the gravy-train of “global warming” rolling, Baron Thursdi came up with a new, improved list of 50 errors and exaggerations:
• Floods in 18 countries, plus Mexico: Four errors in one. First, individual extreme-weather events cannot be attributed to “global warming”. Secondly, the number of floods is not unprecedented, though TV makes them more visible than before. Thirdly, even if the floods were caused by warming, the fact of warming does not tell us the cause. Thirdly – and it was astonishing how few of the zombies knew this – there has been no statistically-significant increase in mean global surface temperature since the last IPCC Holy Book in 2001. “Global warming” has stopped.
• The Arctic ice-cap will be gone within 5 to 7 years: Six errors in one. First, as a paper published by NASA during the conference demonstrates, Arctic warming has nothing much to do with “global warming”: instead, as numerous studies confirm, it is chiefly caused by decadal alterations in the ocean circulation affecting the region. Thirdly, it was warmer in the Arctic in the 1940s than it is today. Fourthly, thinner pack-ice is surprisingly resistant to melting, so the ice-cap will probably be still there for many years to come, even if (which is unlikely) the warming trend resumes. Fifthly, the ice-cap was probably absent during the mediaeval warm period, and almost certainly absent during the Bronze Age climate optimum, when temperatures were higher than today’s for almost 2,000 years. Sixthly, the Greenland ice sheet melted completely away 850,000 years ago. There cannot have been an Arctic ice-cap then. So the disappearance of the Arctic ice-cap, even if it occurred, would be neither unprecedented nor alarming.
• Forest fires are causing devastation: Five errors in one. First, most forest fires are caused by humans – power-lines sparking in the wind, carelessly-tossed cigarette-butts, or even arson. Secondly, individual events of this kind cannot be attributed to “global warming”. Thirdly, warmer weather is generally wetter weather, because – as the Clausius-Clapeyron relation demonstrates – the space occupied by the atmosphere can carry near-exponentially greater concentrations of water vapour as the weather becomes warmer. Fourthly, it has not got warmer since 2001, so there is no factual basis whatsoever for attributing more forest fires to warmer weather. Fifthly, the fact of warming does not tell us the cause.
Just what kind of people are representing us these days? Wimps, that’s what kind. After being booed for rejecting global welfare, to be paid mostly the US, Undersecretary of State Paula Dobriansky caved to a couple of third world countries that want to be on the welfare roll.
The head of the U.S. delegation, Undersecretary of State Paula J. Dobriansky objected, setting off loud, long boos in the hall.
Next, delegate after delegate took aim at the United States, with South Africa saying Dobriansky’s intervention was “most unwelcome and without any basis,” and Uganda saying “We would like to beg them” to relent.
Then the delegate from Papua New Guinea leaned into his microphone.
“We seek your leadership,” Kevin Conrad told the Americans. “But if for some reason you are not willing to lead, leave it to the rest of us. Please get out of the way.”
The U.N. climate conference exploded with applause, the U.S. delegation backed down, and the way was cleared Saturday for adoption of the “Bali Roadmap.”
And once again, It’s all Bush’s fault.
A turning point may come a year down the road following the U.S. election of a new president, who many environmentalists hope will support deeper, mandatory emissions cuts in contrast to President Bush, who favors only voluntary approaches to reining in greenhouse gases.
Never mind the fact that the Senate voted 98-0 not to join the Kyoto treaty while Clinton was president, it is always Bush’s fault. See how the dhems have exported their BDS throughout the world? Uganda and New Guinea make the United States back down? Pitiful, just pitiful. There’s more in this AP story that riles me, such as the lie that the US was the only major industrial nation not to sign Kyoto, but I’ll let you read it for yourself.
Today we are not showing a hot nail design look or a trendy nail polish color, but a new manicure trend! The Russian manicure is all the hype at the moment. Here we will tell you how you should do your manicure and what risks it poses. What is a Russian manicure? New color trends […]
Have you ever wondered what a mammoth actually tastes like? In theory, you might soon find out for yourself. Because: An Australian food company made a primitive meatball from the meat of a long-extinct woolly mammoth. Prehistoric meatballs were produced by the Vow Company. Vow biopsies from extinct – or non-traditional – animals to produce […]
insalzach24-de health creature: 03/28/2023 at 8:30 p.m iPhone: Judith Brown is divided If you feel itching in some parts of your body, you can relieve this annoying ailment with a simple home remedy: apple cider vinegar can help you here. Itching on the skin is annoying. Suffering can have different causes. Triggers such as an […]
As of 03/28/2023 4:02 PM The Russian Soyuz MS-22 was commissioned to the International Space Station in September and the crew should also be brought back. Then it got damaged. It has now landed on Earth – but without the astronauts. The Russian Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft has returned safely to Earth. The Russian Space Agency […]
Sometimes it needs to be fast, for example in the morning when the snooze button is hit at once a few times. Or in the middle of the day, when you suddenly feel hungry without warning. Or in the evening, when you don’t feel like long cooking sessions on the stove after a long day. […]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~"ONE HELL OF A WRITER"--Derrick Jensen, award-winning author of Endgame~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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