Col. Dan Nolan (Ret.) at Big Government:

My participation in “Carbon Nation” came about quite fortuitously.  After I retired from the Army, I was working as a government analyst, looking at the tactical implications of energy security. I was leaving that position to try to encourage commercial interest to get involved with the Department of Defense to help solve what had been a strategic dilemma since the ‘70s: oil dependance.   A friend asked me to speak to a documentary film maker about my concerns.  I met Pete Byck outside the U.S. Capital building on a bright spring day and tried to tell the story of DOD’s efforts to solve a national security issue. 

Having received a post graduate degree in National Security and Strategic Planning from the U.S. Naval War College, I put those tools to work to understand the larger implications of our addiction to fossil fuels.   What I concluded was that climate change was a concern, the economic drain was unfortunate and that the national security implications were terrifying.  …

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Can we blame Jon Stewart for the economy now?

Regardless, this might help explain the post below (and Saturday’s “Restore Sanity” rally), why Stewart found Republican victories so much more high-larious than the Dems losses…

Satirist, Economist

Per Bloomberg, here’s more evidence of just how co-opted Jon Stewart is and pathetic the Obama administration’s become — off-the-record meetings with our nation’s Treasury Secretary “to discuss the economy“:

In the midst of debates on financial regulation and China’s currency in April, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner sat down to discuss the U.S. economy — with comedian Jon Stewart.

Geithner and Stewart, host of Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” held an off-the-record meeting at Stewart’s office in New York on April 2, according to Geithner’s appointments calendar, updated through August on Treasury’s website.

Geithner didn’t stay for a television interview with Stewart although other administration officials — most notably President Barack Obama last week — have turned up for on-camera chats.

“Jon Stewart is influential in America, so we took the opportunity for the two to meet and to discuss the economy,” Treasury spokesman Steve Adamske said in an e-mail yesterday. Stewart’s program has poked fun at Geithner, including a segment last year about the Treasury secretary’s trouble selling his New York home.

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So, despite high unemployment, a crappy economy, and double-digit inflation affecting the cost of therapeutic massage, recent college grads aren’t sweating it. Nope, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers (losers), 41 percent of job seekers this year turned down employment offers – which is like 41 out of a 100.

Yep, instead of joining the work force, grads are turning their Ipods up, and flip flops homeward, to sponge off mom and dad, because, according to the Times, “the work offered doesn’t match their self-assessed market value.”

Meaning, they’re special, so their jobs must be special. I mean, you can’t have a precious one-of-a-kind snowflake working in the mailroom! Snowflakes can’t open packages! Snowflakes can’t make coffee! Snowflakes are there to be appreciated, as snowflakes!

And so the job becomes another spoke in the wheel of self-fulfillment, something to accentuate the belly button ring and Asian lettered tattoo on your pelvis (which reads “stupid white person”).

You could say this is the ultimate consequence of self-love buoyed by a safety net. It’s not the kid who’s doing this, but the parents who indulge them. Kick ‘em out, they’ll find work. (more…)

A funny thing happened on the way to a global conspiracy. Reality killed it. Funny how that happens.

Not long ago people like Al Gore were jetting around the globe taking in vast speaking fees, winning awards, telling everyone that they must give up the things they enjoy to save the planet. These doomsayers all told us we were stupid if we doubted them. They knew better, you see. These people claimed all “real” scientists agreed that mankind was destroying the planet with global warming. That we humans were at fault and the only way to save ourselves is bow down to a world government, pay lots of taxes and give up our cars, our electricity, air travel, light bulbs, blah blah blah.

There was a vast left wing conspiracy in other words. One designed to scare people into giving more power and wealth to statist bureaucrats who were employing the oldest trick in the book. Using fear and guilt to manufacture consent.

They began by locking down major institutions like NASA and Britain’s Climate Research Unit (CRU). Then they got the media on board, the science magazines, the cable networks. They started churning out articles and documentaries supporting the global warming meme. Millions were spent selling the idea, because many of these groups knew that fear, like sex, sells. There are two main motivations that human beings have. The desire to have something and the fear of losing something. They used both to pitch the notion that we could create a “green utopia” by changing the way we did things, and in doing so we would prevent the end of the world. Who doesn’t want to be a hero? Who doesn’t love the environment? How can you argue with that? (more…)

And does the self-proclaimed defender of the working and middle classes actually know anything about them and how they live?

My questions were prompted after a “letter from Michael Moore” popped into my inbox.  It was promoting the DVD launch of his documentary Capitalism – A Love Story.

Mr. Moore acknowledges that some may not have watched it in the movie theater because they were working too hard but then blames poor ticket sales on the behaviour of the very workers he pretends to defend in his documentaries.

He seems to detest working people and how he thinks they behave in the movie theater.

But for those of you who didn’t get to the theater, what’s your excuse? Didn’t want to sit through 20 minutes of TV ads up on the screen before the movie started? Don’t like sitting next to people who have 6 important cell calls to make during the film? Feet get stuck to the floor after two hours of people spilling their 164 oz. sodas, thus preventing you from getting up when the film’s over?

So in Mooreland the workers of the world are boorish, inconsiderate slobs who eat and drink to excess and mess up their theaters.

It is clear Michael Moore despises his audience, but perhaps even more tellingly, he does not even seem to know how they live or even what the inside of a movie theater looks like these days. (more…)

So every day another embarrassing revelation exposes climate change experts as confused bumble-heads. The latest? Apparently the UN panel on climate change based recent conclusions regarding vanishing ice from mountain tops on anecdotes found in a “mountaineering” magazine.

Now, this would be hilarious, if it wasn’t for the fact that quadrillions of dollars are at stake. (And just so you know: quadrillions can buy a lot of unicorn porn.) I’m not going to use this latest revelation to hammer these “experts,” even though they’d do that to a “skeptic” like me, if they had the chance. I just want to nail two key points:

*this news shows exactly why climate change researchers must release data and reveal methods. If they have nothing to hide, then their work’s credibility will only increase. The fact that they’re trying to avoid that makes me think they’re basing their data on articles from Cosmo. FYI: global warming can and does make it harder to find your g-spot, says Darla, age 23, data analyst. (more…)

(with deep apologies to Frank Capra)

**************

Scene 14: Christmas Eve, inside Bedford Falls Town Hall. Senator George Bailey confronts an angry mob of constituents protesting his vote on the new health care bill.
MAN #1
Come on Bailey, you can’t hide forever! Let us in!

WOMAN #1
Yeah, what is this mandatory insurance nonsense? Stop cowering behind that podium George! We want answers!

crowd erupts into shouting

GEORGE BAILEY
Now now now, everybody calm down, see? If you’ll, well, see, just let me explain…

MAN #2
You should’ve explained these death panels before we elected you! Let’s get ‘em! (more…)

President, it has to happen today, Obama is up to his tricks again.  In February, the stimulus bill had to be passed immediately or disaster was waiting.  “Cap and Trade” had to pass immediately or another crisis would occur.  Now, it’s time for health care.  The House must pass a health care bill this week or the American people will be in for another disaster.

So, Obama asks and Congress obeys!  Here we have another 1,000 plus page bill winding its way through the House of which I am sure almost no member of Congress has read.  Just get it done before anyone knows what’s going on.  Make it happen fast!  That appears to be the logic behind the President’s legislative agenda.  If you get the ball rolling, pass it and sign it before anyone reads it.

We all know how much good the February stimulus bill did; none.  If anyone had a chance to analyze it and the pork associated with it, it would have never passed.  It looks like “Cap and Trade” may be dead in the Senate.  People must have read it and told their Senators to make sure it dies.  I guess things did not move fast enough.

Now, let us look at the health care bill.  The rich are in for it again per the Democrats.  The Democrats are proposing that the top income earners will see their income taxes increase in order to pay the approximate one trillion dollars that this bill will cost our future generations.  The top tax rate would go up by 5.4%.  This would be on couples earning more than one million dollars.  The smallest increase would be on couples earning more than $350,000.  They would get an additional tax bill of one percent of their income. (more…)

Inspired by an article in today’s Wall Street Journal.

[click to enlarge]

For more on my work, visit my blog.

- Summer, 1987:  In a stunning and unprecedented move, President Walter Mondale has stepped in and saved the Broadway musical “42nd Street” from eviction at the Majestic Theatre.  The theatre’s owners had earlier announced that they were using a standard clause in the production’s booking agreement and had given an eviction notice to the show due to low ticket sales.  Subsequently, the theatre owners have also announced that in January of next year, the Majestic will be the new home to British import “The Phantom of the Opera.”

But, in an effort to “save American jobs” and keep an American musical from having to make way for an imported show, President Mondale has deemed “42nd Street” “too big to fail”: “This show has been running since 1980 and has been providing jobs for hundreds of working families in New York.  My administration is determined to keep this production running and to keep these long-suffering, union workers on the job,” the President said. (more…)

News broke last week that Laurie David, former wife of Larry David (of Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm fame), was fined for wetlands violations at her Martha’s Vineyard home – and it wasn’t the first time, either:

The property owned by Ms. David off North Road was the subject of a series of wetlands violations in 2005, when construction of a stone fire pit, barbecue grill area and wooden stage for a children’s theatre with seating was begun in a wetland without a permit.

Ms. David, as you may recall, produced the Goracle’s epic documentary, An Inconvenient Truth.  She also wrote The Down-to-Earth Guide to Global Warming for children (doing her part to convince one in three frightened children that the earth will implode before they grow up), and went on a much ballyhooed bus tour with fellow greenie Sheryl “One Sheet” Crow in order to help Save The Earth™ a couple of years back. How riding around the country in an exhaust-spewing bus and using up oodles of electricity for Sheryl’s musical stylings was supposed to “help” is beyond me. But wait, the bus was powered by vegetable oil instead of that dastardly fossil fuel, and pal Sheryl is committed to being green by driving a hybrid and using cold water to wash her clothes. Forgive my cynicism; I’m convinced. (more…)

Remember way back in 2008 when George Bush was still the President and everyone on the left was screeching about lies?  If you can’t remember that far back just flip over to MSNBC and wait a few minutes they’ll be happy to remind you. I thought I would write a short piece about the lies we have already heard from President Obama. I did little research and there are plenty of websites that focus on a lot of picayune stuff and things from long ago.

I decided to stick to direct quotes from the President within the last 18 months. Some I have commented on, the others, as they say at Harvard Law, res ipsa loquitur.    

1)  ”…not because I believe in bigger government — I don’t — not because I’m not mindful of the massive debt we’ve inherited — I am.”   Speech to Congress, February 24, 2009

2) “And that is why I have ordered the closing of the detention center at Guantanamo Bay and will seek swift and certain justice for captured terrorists…” Speech to Congress, February 24, 2009 (more…)

So, an EPA memo has just surfaced, and apparently it tells the White House that any effort to regulate the output of C02 will screw an already screwed up economy. Basically, if the economy was an old lady, instead of helping her across the street, we’d be pushing her in front of a train.

Now, I apologize – this has to be the 50th Gregalogue I’ve done on global warming -it’s basically the little black dress of Red Eye – and I’m just as sick of the topic as you are. But it gripes me that despite the lack of evidence showing that curbing these gases will do anything to help the environment – it doesn’t matter. I give up.

See, arguing about global warming is like arguing about religion. You will never change the mind of a true believer, and if you’re a skeptic, you’re seen as a soulless heathen. But in a way, the global warming religion is worse – because at least the Pope isn’t demanding we damage our economy to sustain his belief in a higher power. (more…)

If you call 411 or customer service for almost any service-related company today, you’re greeted with, “Thank you for calling. Press #1 to continue in English.” Excuse me, but when did English cease being the default language in this country?  And this is just one of the politically correct or (PC) aspects invading our culture and stifling free speech.

Today, PC attacks are the foundation of the left’s approach to politics and policy. Examples are everywhere. If you didn’t vote for Obama you’re racist, if you oppose gay marriage you’re homophobic, and if you voted for Bush or McCain  — according to Janeane Garofalo  — you’re an anti-intellectual a**hole (and she said this in such an intellectual way, too).

This is where we have failed and where the left has succeeded. Conservatives ideas are simply branded as politically incorrect and when we fear a backlash to speak up about Obama releasing a terrorist who killed American soldiers, we have not only lost all intellectual thinking, we have all but surrendered the US to whoever might want to destroy it.  (more…)

Shangri-la and Brigadoon and Bipartisan.  Three mythical places.  One of which few Republicans have seemingly ever heard.  Because if there is one thing we can take from the first weeks of the “New” Washington, it’s that the (liberal) Democrats are incompetent (old news, really) and the Republicans are disingenuous when it comes to bipartisanship.  Oh, sure, they talk up the swellness of President Obama every chance they get.  And will continue to do so as long as his approval numbers are above fifty percent.  But most GOPers tend to become like children who dance hysterically in a sandbox when it comes time to play with others.

Despite all the sit-downs Obama had with the Republicans – apparently too many for Speaker Pelosi’s tastes – and despite the fact that the House version of the Stimulus Bill contained specific tax breaks for which the Republicans had asked – though not to the degree they wished – not a single GOPer would break ranks, step up and vote for the bill.  A surprisingly “my way or the highway” attitude for the minority party whose eight years of good cogitating was a major factor in whipping America into the stellar fiscal shape we find ourselves. (more…)

During the election the chants of “Hope” from Mr. Obama and his followers always seemed to be said with a smile. Today those smiles are gone and have been replaced by the stern condescending look of someone very frustrated that a socialist agenda is being met with resistance from the right and conservatives all around the country. Thankfully, conservatives have finally spoken up and we can only “hope it’s not too late to reverse course. (more…)

I’ve been out at sea on a working cruise all week and get limited television in my cabin. Two of my five choices are CNN and Fox News so I get my fill of every news cycle, but never more than during this past week when every other talking head on Fox and every single one on CNN was some important Democrat repeating the Obama line of the week: “We have to do something!” Usually this is followed by one of the following sub-talking points: (more…)