And now, some words of inspiration and wisdon from Al Gore

Earlier this week, Al Gore was on "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" and with respect to the debt ceiling deal that had just passed, he thought it cause for a “reinvigoration of democracy” or an “American spring,”:

"[I]want to focus on one particular suggestion you had about using the wonderful digital tools that are newly available for the reinvigoration of democracy,” Gore said. “Now, they have been around for a while, but they are spreading far and wide and more people are getting involved. We need to have an American spring — you know, the Arab spring. The non-violent part of it isn’t finished yet, but we need to have an American spring, a kind of an American non-violent change where people on the grassroots get involved again. Not the, you know, not in the Tea Party-style.”

Gore took his attack to favorite left-wing targets: the Fox News Channel, and David and Charles Koch.

“There are people who are genuinely upset in the Tea Party,” Gore continued. “I understand that, but that movement was funded with seed money from right-wing billionaires, the Koch Brothers, and promoted on Fox News and turned into a stalking horse for this right-wing agenda that a lot of people have been trying to push on this country for a long time.”

After reading this, it struck us: What it is algore desires is a call to arms to.... protect the status quo. Imagine that: a revolution to keep things just as they are!

Record debt and deficits? Apparently, they're all for it. Unsustainable entitlement programs? More, please. Increased government power? Right on, man. Power to the people? Hell, no.

It shouldn't surprise anybody then that it would be Al Gore at the intellectual spear tip of the most counter-intuitive democratic uprising in history. No change!

All this begs the question, then: who are the real progressives in this battle we have seen joined over the past 2-1/2 years with respect to the growth and influence of government power? Who are the progressives who are demanding change and who are the, and we hate to do this but, who are the "conservatives" who are fighting tooth and nail for the good ol' days when it was cool to saddle future generations with insurmountable debts and when in the name of "equal access" and "affordability" everyone thought it quite righteous that the government force its citizens to purchase a service from a private entity such as health care insurance?

In the effort to prevent the Leviathan of the federal government from imploding on itself and thus taking the entire country with it, the lexicon of political terminology has been turned on its head.

Al Gore: Hey, sorry about that whole ethanol thing

Alternate headline: I pimped corn ethanol for the votes, otherwise corn ethanol is a complete loser.

Maybe it's the fact that the man has no designs of ever getting back into politics or perhaps it's because he has now made millions off of taxpayer-subsidized green investment - because whatever it is, this recent bout of truth-spasming, though, quaint is too little, too late.

Former U.S. vice-president Al Gore said support for corn-based ethanol in the United States was "not a good policy", weeks before tax credits are up for renewal.

U.S. blending tax breaks for ethanol make it profitable for refiners to use the fuel even when it is more expensive than gasoline. The credits are up for renewal on Dec. 31.

Total U.S. ethanol subsidies reached $7.7 billion last year according to the International Energy Industry, which said biofuels worldwide received more subsidies than any other form of renewable energy.

"It is not a good policy to have these massive subsidies for (U.S.) first generation ethanol," said Gore, speaking at a green energy business conference in Athens sponsored by Marfin Popular Bank.

"First generation ethanol I think was a mistake. The energy conversion ratios are at best very small.

"It's hard once such a programme is put in place to deal with the lobbies that keep it going."
He explained his own support for the original programme on his presidential ambitions.

"One of the reasons I made that mistake is that I paid particular attention to the farmers in my home state of Tennessee, and I had a certain fondness for the farmers in the state of Iowa because I was about to run for president."

Wishing to drive up the price of food worldwide in return for an alternative energy that you know is bad policy is just what a man has to do in order to be President, we suppose.

A food-versus-fuel debate erupted in 2008, in the wake of record food prices, where the biofuel industry was criticised for helping stoke food prices.

Gore said a range of factors had contributed to that food price crisis, including drought in Australia, but said there was no doubt biofuels have an effect.

"The size, the percentage of corn particularly, which is now being (used for) first generation ethanol definitely has an impact on food prices.

"The competition with food prices is real."

A slow clap for this tool is definitely in order.

He supports 2nd generation biofuel technologies, however, as it does not compete with food. 2nd generation technologies such as cellulosic technologies which use chemicals or enzymes to extract sugar from the fiber in wood, waste or grass, as examples.

As we will take a look at later, however, these 2nd generation technologies are just as energy intensive or even more so to produce than corn ethanol. Forgive us for thinking then, that this supposed "come to Jesus" moment is less that than Big Al signaling he's merely moving on to the next big taxpayer-subsidized gravy train.


H/T: Hot Air

The Big Post, Part I: "Sorry Al, You may be Selling, but We aren't Buying."

"When I think of all the crap I learned in high school, it's a wonder I can think at all." - Paul Simon

This post is dedicated to my nieces and nephews of whom I hope I am worthy.

So Al Gore wins the Nobel Peace for his work on global warming. Now what global warming has to do with peace, I’m not exactly sure. And I’m not entirely sure that Al Gore is correct in his assessment that we are to blame for global warming (well, you are – not me. I’ve kinda absolved myself of any responsibility - and let me tell ya, it feels good). So, why aren't you? Well, I guess I could reference all sorts of books, studies, articles and essays that would debunk Algore's contention but I'm sure the You-are-to-blame-for-global-warming crowd could come up with their own data to counter the skeptics... and all that would be boring - besides who has time to read anymore?

The biggest reason I think Algore is probably full of it is because of Paul Ehrlich. Paul Ehrlich and the fact that I've been down this road before and you know what?... it was all B.S.

Who's Paul Ehrlich? I was introduced to Paul Ehrlich back in the 70s when I was in public elementary school. More accurately, I had Paul Ehrlich shoved down my throat. Every month, the class would get those paper-back pamphlets, the Weekly Reader, that was supposed to be filled with all sorts of word and number games, stories and fun facts for kids. And it seemed that in every issue, this guy Paul Ehrlich was espousing imminent environmental and global doom. Great Britain will be under water by the year 2003.. There will be rampant world-wide famine by 1997... fun facts, alright.

Turns out ol' Paul wrote some books that were chock full of this doom-saying of famines, overpopulation and running out of natural resources. Also turns out he was wrong. In fact, because he was so wrong on about every one of his predictions, like Gore, he was bestowed with all types and manner of awards and honors. (That's just the way things work in some circles - I don't make the rules). It was all B.S. All of it.

Another concept that was accepted as an article of faith and which was repeated mantra-like to me at school was: "Yours will be the first generation in the history of this country to not achieve a higher standard of living than your parents." I remember sitting there listening to that and feeling cheated and a little betrayed... feeling like, "hey, I didn't sign up for this trip, man - what gives?" Wasn't this America? Wasn't this, as our parents told us, the greatest country in the world? What's this business of being in decline... of being in a malaise?

And guess what... it was all B.S., too? Every single shred of doom and gloom that was predicted to plague us Gen-Xers was wrong.... flat-out wrong! And you know why? Because "they" were wrong and people like my parents, older brothers and Ronald Reagan were right. America is the greatest country in the world and Americans are fundamentally hard-working, decent and innovative can-do people. (You have no idea what a transition from a Carter Presidency to a Reagan Presidency did to shape the outlook on life and the general world-view of a 12-13 yr. old kid. Perhaps you do).


“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”

Folks, its all right there. This is our own Ground Zero mantra. Can it fight global warming? Maybe, but to be honest, I don’t care. I care more that we forget about our mantra and are forced to listen to and are dealt the consequences of “their” mantra.

Their mantra that justifies sticking a boot into the backs of our children, shoving them onto a cross-town school bus to appease their own god, Diversity. Their mantra which rationalizes shutting down political speech 30 days before an election because our benevolent electees don’t want us to hear anything “negative” and don’t think we have the God-given ability to process information right up until election day. Their mantra that justifies tossing us out onto the street because tax revenue from the retail complex to be built on the dirt where our home once stood trumps our property rights.

Sorry. I can’t get too impassioned about global warming when the above is the current state of affairs in this country.

So I wish Al the best of luck with this whole global warming thing. I think he’s full of it but I’ve been wrong many times before. I will say, though, that if any of his “initiatives” or “protocols” run afoul of the above phrase from the Declaration of Independence, I’m going to slug him.

Apologies for the self-indulgent nature of this post. You are now returned to the regularly-scheduled, collegial, fraternal and, of course, royal “We” programming.

Investment tips from big Al

Back in September we blogged about the investment prowess of Al Gore and how he was able to secure a $529 million loan from the U.S. government (see also: you) in order to build a hybrid sports car in Finland that will sell to the tune of $89,000.

Well, friends, that appears to be mere chump change as the former Veep has been retained as an unpaid corporate advisor for an electric grid component manufacturer in which Gore’s investment firm invested $75 million and which was followed quickly by $3.4 billion in smart grid grants by the Energy Department.

Silver Spring Networks is a foot soldier in the global green energy revolution Mr. Gore hopes to lead. Few people have been as vocal about the urgency of global warming and the need to reinvent the way the world produces and consumes energy. And few have put as much money behind their advocacy as Mr. Gore and are as well positioned to profit from this green transformation, if and when it comes.

Critics, mostly on the political right and among global warming skeptics, say Mr. Gore is poised to become the world’s first “carbon billionaire,” profiteering from government policies he supports that would direct billions of dollars to the business ventures he has invested in.

Again, we don’t know what all the bitching and whining is about. If there is anything we know about Big Green and the Environmental-Industrial complex is that it has served only for the benefit of the egos and backpockets of the politically connected on too expensive and not-yet-ready-for-primetime technology.
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Socialism, communism, fascism…. Whatever. The more we see, the more we are convinced this administration’s policies really aren’t driven by any particular ideology but rather good old fashion influence peddling in exchange for monetary and political gain that is dressed up in the finery of progressive activism.

Crony capitalism: an allegedly capitalist economy in which success in business depends on close relationships between businesspeople and government officials.

Quickies

A round-up of articles, columns, news items and blog posts that caught our eye this past week.




Say it ain't so. A pub crawl ban in the NYC?









With more waning domestic political support on the horizon, expect more mid-90s-white-supremacists-in-the-flyover-provinces-scare-journalism from the legacy media. Here.





Walter Russell Mead on the train wreck that is Al Gore:

Once out of office, he assumed the leadership of the global green movement, steering that movement into a tsunami of defeat that, when the debris is finally cleared away, will loom as one of the greatest failures of civil society in all time.

Gore has the Midas touch in reverse; objects of great value (Nobel prizes, Oscars) turn dull and leaden at his touch. Few celebrity cause leaders have had more or better publicity than Gore has had for his climate advocacy. Hailed by the world press, lionized by the entertainment community and the Global Assemblage of the Great and the Good as incarnated in the Nobel Peace Prize committee, he has nevertheless seen the movement he led flounder from one inglorious defeat to the next. The most recent, failed global climate meeting passed almost unnoticed last week in Bonn; the world has turned its eyes away from the expiring anguish of the Copenhagen agenda.

Wait, there was a climate confab in Bonn and we missed it? Whatever flaming wreck the faith-based AGW movement is currently on the world stage, we are living with the real-world consequences of it here in California with AB 32, CARB and its agenda-driven, jobs-killing sham of an existence.



And here's Prince on religious freedom and tolerance:

Prince, the Grammy Award-winning artist behind “Purple Rain,” told the Guardian in an interview that women forced to wear burqas in Islamic countries are happy to wear them.

“It’s fun being in Islamic countries, to know there’s only one religion,” Prince told the British newspaper. “There’s order. You wear a burqa. There’s no choice. People are happy with that.”

Religious fundamentalism is dandy for other folks, we suppose.








Don't forget gang, the SLOBs (San Diego Local Order of Bloggers) has a continually-updating aggregator site giving copious amounts of love to the radical and extremists notions of free markets, limited government and personal responsibility. We've got it rolled in the right-hand margin but why wait when you can click and check, right here and right now.




Hey, Southern Californians (minus those in Los Angeles County), who's up for seceding from the rest of the state?

Southern Californian culture (is) the land of materialistic con-artistry with a paper thin veneer of pop enlightenment overlaid upon some few who would pretend to be other than parasites looking for a host.

Probably does not have an ice cube's chance in succeeding but we can dream, can't we? Besides, it's always nice to rattle some chains every once in a while. Left Coast Rebel has the details, here.



OK, so the President shouldn't be referred to as a "dick", especially on national television, but Leslie over at Temple of Mut believes that he does rate equivalence to another part of the body that, well, uhh... as Leslie puts it:

a vestigial organ that serves no significant function, yet under certain circumstances can cause life-threatening health problems that need prompt treatment.

OK. That's it for now unless we check in later in the day. Please enjoy the rest of this glorious July 4th weekend.

Cars from the masses for the masses?

(Scheduled post... such are the perils of being on the road and posting on something that has been covered elsewhere. Oh, well. Enjoy.)

A tiny car company backed by former Vice President Al Gore has just gotten a $529 million U.S. government loan to help build a hybrid sports car in Finland that will sell for about $89,000.

The award this week to California startup Fisker Automotive Inc. follows a $465 million government loan to Tesla Motors Inc., purveyors of a $109,000 British-built electric Roadster. Tesla is a California startup focusing on all-electric vehicles, with a number of celebrity endorsements that is backed by investors that have contributed to Democratic campaigns.

The awards to Fisker and Tesla have prompted concern from companies that have had their bids for loans rejected, and criticism from groups that question why vehicles aimed at the wealthiest customers are getting loans subsidized by taxpayers.

We’re not really sure what all the yapping would be about. Hasn’t the Environmental-Industrial complex pretty much established their bona fides in spending your money on the politically-favored/connected on technology that is not yet ready for prime-market time all for the benefit of the well-heeled’s self-esteem?

Matt Rogers, who oversees the department's loan programs as a senior adviser to Energy Secretary Steven Chu, said Fisker was awarded the loan after a "detailed technical review" that concluded the company could eventually deliver a highly fuel-efficient hybrid car to a mass audience. Fisker said most of its DOE loan will be used to finance U.S. production of a $40,000 family sedan that has yet to be designed.

It’s not entirely clear to us that $40,000/unit falls under the mass audience category but who the hell cares about the masses when one of the main beneficiaries of your largesse has dutifully signed up.

The Karma will target an exclusive audience -- Gore was one of the first to sign up for one. Mr. Fisker says all new technology starts out being expensive. He pointed to flat-screen televisions that once started at $25,000 but are now affordable to the mass market.

Way to dig deep, Al! And what are these flat-screens they speak of? Its damn-near miraculous that these T.V.s have dropped in price by order of magnitude in just the 10 or so years since they have been commercially available. Seriously, how was that possible?

Read more about the joys of crony subsidization, picking winners and losers and the self-congratulatory joys of Big Green, here.

Inconvenient questions

Al Gore’s a busy man. When he’s not securing hundreds of millions of tax-payer dollars to fund a car company he backs, he’s continuing to not answer questions regarding the errors in his movie An Inconvenient Truth.



One would’ve hoped for a little more transparency from a Government Sponsored Entity as Mr. Gore. And we’re sure that the irony of the mic getting cut at a convention of journalists was not lost on you… a convention that spent much of its time devoted to the question of why journalism is dying.

"Farm, baby, farm!"

Bjorn Lomborg writes:

On a family visit to Kenya long before he became president of the United States, Barack Obama declared that he wanted to go on safari. His Kenyan half sister, Auma, chided him for being a neocolonialist.

"Why should all that land be set aside for tourists," she asked, "when it could be used for farming? These wazungu care more about one dead elephant than they do for a hundred black children." Obama had no answer to her question, he would later write in Dreams from My Father. Why are rich countries more concerned about poor nations' nature reserves than about farms that would ward off starvation?

It would appear that this lesson learned by the President has not been implemented into action by his administration.

While nations, such as India which received a visit from Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, is emerging from the backwaters of civilization, they look at our standard of living and say, “yeah, we want some of that”. So imagine the incredulity of India’s leaders and citizens when we tell them to ease up on that whole progress thing by urging them to reduce their carbon emissions.

There’s a reason Al Gore doesn’t go to India sermonizing town hall style. Tarring, feathering and run out of town on a rail all come to mind.

Desiring to see more land set aside for Western eco-tourists at the expense of arable land and requesting countries trying to lift themselves out of grinding poverty and into at least the 20th century to reduce their carbon footprint are birds of a feather and represents a form of high brow condescension under which developing nations chafe.

President Obama and other world leaders face a clear choice. They can continue on their current path — what we might call the "Gore solution" to climate change, given that the former vice-president is the fiercest advocate of cutting CO2 emissions, whether through a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade scheme.

Or, here's the truth: There are better, more cost-effective ways to fight global warming. And if we want to fight the problems that will be made worse by global warming, the solutions have very little to do with cutting CO2 emissions.

Read more of Lomborg's piece, here.

Yet another green technology (overseas) boondoggle

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On the bright side of things, we guess we should be thankful that they have not yet gone out of business like Solyndra or are massively in debt like SunPower.

With the approval of the Obama administration, an electric car company that received a $529 million federal government loan guarantee is assembling its first line of cars in Finland, saying it could not find a facility in the United States capable of doing the work.

Vice President Joseph Biden heralded the Energy Department's $529 million loan to the start-up electric car company called Fisker as a bright new path to thousands of American manufacturing jobs. But two years after the loan was announced, the job of assembling the flashy electric Fisker Karma sports car has been outsourced to Finland.

"There was no contract manufacturer in the U.S. that could actually produce our vehicle," the car company's founder and namesake told ABC News. "They don't exist here."

This really is old news as this loan to Fisker and the fact the cars would be built over in Finland was reported out on these very pages over two years ago..


And political connections, you ask? But, of course:

The loan to Fisker is part of a $1 billion bet the Energy Department has made in two politically connected California-based electric carmakers producing sporty -- and pricey -- cutting-edge autos. Fisker Automotive, backed by a powerhouse venture capital firm whose partners include former Vice President Al Gore, predicts it will eventually be churning out tens of thousands of electric sports sedans at the shuttered GM factory it bought in Delaware. And Tesla Motors, whose prime backers include PayPal mogul Elon Musk and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, says it will do the same in a massive facility tooling up in Silicon Valley.

Tens of thousands of luxury sedans and mass-produced sedans at... $97,000 and $57,400 a copy? Let us know how that works out.


And proving just how affordable green technology is becoming, the reported prices for those cars two years ago was $89,000 and $40,000, respectively.

And here's what was said with respect to the prices of the cars at the time (link above):

The Karma will target an exclusive audience -- Gore was one of the first to sign up for one. Mr. Fisker says all new technology starts out being expensive. He pointed to flat-screen televisions that once started at $25,000 but are now affordable to the mass market.

And our response:

It’s not entirely clear to us that $40,000/unit falls under the mass audience category but who the hell cares about the masses when one of the main beneficiaries of your largesse has dutifully signed up to have that thing sit in his driveway?

Think about it: billions upon billions of dollars in subsidies and the prices are going in the wrong direction unlike other areas of the tech sector (TVs and cell/smart phones) where no subsidies were received and real skin was in the game and the market determined the winners and losers.

Federally-subsidized green technology: Rising consumer prices, shipping jobs out of country and hooking up your buds... What's not to like about that?




* The Karma, Fisker's luxury sedan at the San Diego Auto Show in December of 2009. Yep, Karma's a bitch.

Dedicated public servant, Dr. James Hansen, would appreciate it if bloggers would just mind their own business.

"A surreal scientific blunder last week raised a huge question mark about the temperature records that underpin the worldwide alarm over global warming. On Monday, Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which is run by Al Gore's chief scientific ally, Dr James Hansen, and is one of four bodies responsible for monitoring global temperatures, announced that last month was the hottest October on record."

If by “blunder” one means “cooking the books” then, yes, Dr. Hansen’s outfit would appear to have blundered.

"In the US, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration registered 63 local snowfall records and 115 lowest-ever temperatures for the month, and ranked it as only the 70th-warmest October in 114 years.
So what explained the anomaly? GISS's computerised temperature maps seemed to show readings across a large part of Russia had been up to 10 degrees higher than normal. But when expert readers of the two leading warming-sceptic blogs, Watts Up With That and Climate Audit, began detailed analysis of the GISS data they made an astonishing discovery. The reason for the freak figures was that scores of temperature records from Russia and elsewhere were not based on October readings at all. Figures from the previous month had simply been carried over and repeated two months running."

(emphasis ours)

Wait, it gets better. In order to save face and stubbornly cling to their own falsity that this past October was the hottest on record, the GISS revised the Russian figures downward and to balance-out those new lower numbers mysteriously claimed to have discovered a new “hot spot” in the Arctic - in a month when satellite images were showing Arctic sea-ice recovering so fast from its summer melt that three weeks ago it was 30 per cent more extensive than at the same time last year.

Hey, where are you going… there’s more. When you get on a roll like the GISS is, there’s just no telling when the “blundering” will stop.

A GISS spokesman lamely explained that the reason for the error in the Russian figures was that they were obtained from another body, and that GISS did not have resources to exercise proper quality control over the data it was supplied with. This is an astonishing admission: the figures published by Dr Hansen's institute are not only one of the four data sets that the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) relies on to promote its case for global warming, but they are the most widely quoted, since they consistently show higher temperatures than the others.

We didn’t experience what we have been told is the pure bliss of a statistics course but isn’t one of the basic principles of the discipline to (where applicable) throw out the high and low scores. “… but they are the most widely quoted, since they consistently show higher temperatures than the others.” Nope. No agenda, here.

Excellent. National and global policy decisions on the environment and the economy will be made in part from data presented by an outfit so inept and corrupt (quite possibly, both) they are not quite sure whether to lie about their own figures or blame it on someone else.

Read entire article here, which recounts another time Hansen was nailed by those damn bloggers and about another one of Big Al’s buddies, a choo-choo engineer turned climate science expert.

A Senate committee on the Environment and Public Works is considering legislation designed to combat global warming. This legislation will put in place a system of caps and credits, similar to what countries in Europe enacted in the wake of adopting the Kyoto protocol, as a mechanism for industries to reduce green-house gas emissions. (The language in the legislation uses "market-driven system" to, we suppose, draw our type in.)

We see, however, a system of caps and indulgences that similar to what ultimately happened in Europe as a bureaucracy subject to graft and corruption and which here stateside, provides cover for Al Gore to continue to live the good life while he's spreading his Gospel.

Awww, who are we kidding? We only posted this as an excuse to get in some great "environmental" shots of Monument Valley and Zion National Park from our roadie in September.

More great moments in the history of crony capitalism

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Who's up for a Fisker update?

You all remember Fisker, right? The Al Gore-backed recipients of a $529 million loan guarantee from the federal government in order to build $100,000 electric sedans in Finland. Let us know when this stops looking like a business model in which to poor that amount of tax-payer money because it just keeps getting better.

It would appear that there really is nothing greener than a car that doesn't run.

Here's the test drive report from Consumer Reports:

Our Fisker Karma cost us $107,850. It is super sleek, high-tech—and now it’s broken.

We have owned our car for just a few days; it has less than 200 miles on its odometer. While doing speedometer calibration runs on our test track (a procedure we do for every test car before putting it in service by driving the car at a constant 65 mph between two measured points), the dashboard flashed a message and sounded a “bing“ showing a major fault. Our technician got the car off the track and put it into Park to go through the owner’s manual to interpret the warning. At that point, the transmission went into Neutral and wouldn’t engage any gear through its electronic shifter except Park and Neutral.

We let the car sit for about an hour and restarted it. We could now engage Drive and the same error message disappeared. After moving it only a few feet the error message reappeared and when we tried to engage Reverse the transmission went straight to Park and again no motion gear could be engaged. After calling the dealer, which is about 100 miles away, they promptly sent a flatbed tow truck to haul away the disabled Fisker.

We buy about 80 cars a year and this is the first time in memory that we have had a car that is undriveable before it has finished our check-in process.

(italics, ours)


Because nothing says boondoggle like not even test driving your own vehicle before handing it over for a third-party assessment.


Think about it: billions upon billions of dollars in green technology subsidies and the prices are going in the wrong direction and, in this case, for products that don't even work unlike other areas of the tech sector (computers, TVs and smart phones) where no subsidies were received and real skin was in the game and the market determined the winners and losers.




* As an unintended safety feature, Karma drivers will enjoy the increased visibility.

Quote of the day

"That's going to cause us to make some real decisions as to who gets how much health care and when they get it… To the extent we need to raise taxes down the road we're going to have to sort of work our way down that income level starting with people making over $250,000 and maybe even going further down. I hope we don't have to do too much of that."

We actually posted this quote back in April of this year. It’s from Lawrence J. Haas, the former communications director for Al Gore and who, you can imagine, is a big fan of government-managed healthcare.

Consider this a reminder that even before “rationing” and “death panels” entered the rhetorical fray of the healthcare debate, proponents of Obamacare knew in their hearts, even if they denied it in public, that government-managed healthcare would indeed entail the same government picking winners and losers with respect to healthcare services.

Consider this also a reminder of the blatant hypocrisy of a set of people that occupy a band on the political spectrum that have conveniently tucked away displays of bumper sticker politics to the basement of their convictions.

Newt's Triangle Offense

If you haven’t seen it, here is the ad for Al Gore’s group that has Newt Gingrich sitting down with Nancy Pelosi making nice over Global Warming/Climate Change (which from here on out will be referred to as “GW/CC”).



But at Newt’s website he appears to be singing a different tune:
“I completely understand why many of you would have questions about this, so I want to take this opportunity to explain my reasons. First of all, I want to be clear: I don't think that we have conclusive proof of global warming. And I don't think we have conclusive proof that humans are at the center of it.”

So what gives? As far as we can surmise, this is just Newt’s way of a well-intended and good faith effort to alter the course of a run-a-way freight train. Yeah, exactly. But at least he’ll always be able to claim he made an honest effort to get the true believers to at least acknowledge market-based green technological solutions and “way-aheads”.

We remain suspect, though. If he is truly skeptical of the GW/CC conventional wisdom then his stunt with the ad is disingenuous… and for a man for which we have a tremendous amount of respect, we wish he wouldn’t triangulate in this manner and simply, as WFB exhorted, stand athwart history and yell “stop”.

So why does it seem that GW/CC seems to attract the greatest amount of grandstanding? Why the headlong rush to get out in front of the GW/CC PR wave. It is because of this: GW/CC is the single largest issue out there where an abundance of activity can be hustled and bustled about without having any actual measurable consequences and which is completely risk-free AND which comes with it, free of charge, the advantage of the self-stroking that is part and parcel for “doing something” about GW/CC.

Well, there ARE measurables and there ARE consequences but those are highly deflectable. High food and fuel prices? Don’t blame ethanol – blame India and China’s huge and growing populations. Global Warming continues to rise and/or Climate Change becomes more volatile? Obviously, you are not doing enough or not pulling your share. Global warming subsides? See… we knew what we were doing all along.

After all, if you think coupling human activity to GW/CC is a dubious enterprise, then attempting to measure the positive benefits to GW/CC from “going green” becomes a mathematical impossibility.

What is there not too like about all that? How is this not a powerful elixir for politicians and celebrity activists alike?

Its too bad that one of the sharpest minds out there has apparently decided to start slugging back the pink liquid.

H/T: American Thinker

Your California high-speed choo-choo update

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Since we didn't put our marker down, we can't take any credit for seeing this one coming but we really should've seen it such was the predictableness of it all.

In what looked like merely shuffling of the deck furniture when the California High-Speed Rail Authority swapped out HMFICs, turns out to be quite juicy if you're into political intrigue, arm-twisting, conflicts of interest and cronyism.

The California High-Speed Rail Authority on Tuesday named Jeff Morales, an executive for a contractor working on the bullet train project, as its chief executive, filling a position that has been vacant since early January.

Morales, a former Caltrans director, had been working on the project as an executive of Parsons Brinckerhoff, the project manager for the rail authority.

Morales, a 1983 biology graduate of George Washington University, was appointed Caltrans director by then-Gov. Gray Davis. Morales left Caltrans 31/2 years later when Davis was voted out of office. Morales has also served as executive director of the Chicago Transit Authority, the Obama transition team and former Vice President Al Gore's attempts to improve federal efficiency.

Of course, he did.

And what of the outgoing boss?

Morales will fill the job that was last occupied by Roelof van Ark, who had shunned the political aspects of his post and attempted to focus on the engineering challenges. But that approach led to a wholesale loss of confidence in the Legislature, and ultimately Gov. Jerry Brown asserted greater control over the project, jettisoning Van Ark in January.

For the largest engineering/construction project in this nation's history and all the troubles that have befallen it, the previous paragraph illustrates perfectly how it's no longer about building the skids rather greasing them.



Back to the article:

The hiring of Morales appears to further strengthen the ties between the rail authority and its top contractor, Parsons Brinckerhoff. The contractor, which was a major contributor to the 2008 campaign to approve a $9-billion bond for the bullet train, has hundreds of employees assigned to the project, compared with fewer than 50 for the authority.

Outside activists say that although Morales may be a good choice, they are increasingly concerned about the tight relationship the authority has created with Parsons Brinckerhoff and the larger revolving door between the authority and its contractors.

"Those lines are becoming more blurred every day," said Elizabeth Alexis, a co-founder of Californians Advocating Responsible Rail Design.

(italics, ours)

... further strengthen the ties...

Yes, that would be one way of putting it.



Skepticism is bipartisan:

"The rail authority claims it conducted a nationwide search just to end up with an executive from its biggest contractor?" asked state Sen. Doug LaMalfa (R-Richvale). "How can we expect this insider to provide an independent review of the project, when he helped write the plan that's already doubled the cost to taxpayers? It's difficult to believe that Mr. Morales can be counted on to drive a hard bargain with the company that has been paying his salary."

Senate transportation committee Chairman Mark DeSaulnier (D-Concord) said, "I am troubled by the relationship. It is hard to separate the conflicts."

Good god. Does this all stink to high heaven or what? Massively over-budget, massively behind schedule and massively understaffed so they do the only thing they can do at this point: they bring in a politically-connected fixer from the project's largest contractor to get this thing done by hook or by crook regardless of the shady appearances it bears.

Of course, they did. Of course, they did. And we never saw it coming. Shame on us.

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Quote of the day

Against the backdrop of an unwarranted and unnecessary release of oil from our Strategic Petroleum Reserve and a troop draw-down in Afghanistan informed, in part, because of "waning domestic political support" , Victor Davis Hanson wonders just who are the socialists?:

All this raises some questions. The strangest things about the global statist crack-up are socialists’ unhappiness with their socialist utopia, and their subsequent efforts to avoid the consequences of the very redistributive state that they themselves once so gladly crafted.

This discussion is, of course, a belabored example of why and how socialists do not like socialism. Indeed, statism is not a desired outcome, but rather more a strategy for obtaining power or winning acclaim as one of the caring, by offering the narcotic of promising millions something free at the expense of others who must be seen as culpable and obligated to fund it — entitlements fueled by someone else’s money that enfeebled the state, but in the process extended power, influence, and money to a technocratic class of overseers who are exempt from the very system that they have advocated.

Who are socialists?

There are none. Only technocratic overseers who wish to give someone else’s money to others as a means of winning capitalist-style lifestyles and power for themselves — in a penultimate cycle of unsustainable spending. When this latest attempt at statism is over, Barack Obama will enjoy a sort of Clintonism, a globe-trotting post officium lifestyle of multimillion dollar honoraria to fund a lifestyle analogous to “two Americas” John Edwards, “earth in the balance” Al Gore, a tax-exempt yachting John Kerry, a revolving-door Citibank grandee like Peter Orszag, or a socialist Strauss-Kahn in $20,000 suits doling out billions to the “poor.”

That is just the way it has been and will always be.

So, Marx had it wrong. It has turned out that statist-inspired entitlements are the opiate of the masses.

Apparently, no one took away any lessons from the Cold War. That wasn't just the global brand of the Soviet Union that was defeated. One of the take-aways should've been the acknowledgement of the unsustainable nature of over-regultated, top-down, command and control economies that guarantee a "right" to work, housing, health care and pensions.

Some 20 years on, looks like we're playing some catch-up on the lesson plan.

Winning friends and er, influencing people

As you will find out at the end of the clip, this video was made by the faith-based AGW set in support of their carbon-reduction initiative.




Charmed, we're sure, because nothing garners support for your cause like absolute intolerance of dissent of your cause especially in such a grotesquely violent nature.

If you're asking yourself, "what were they thinking?", don't bother because thought had nothing to do with it as this represented, rather, the logical if extreme conclusion to Al Gore's shrill "The time for debate is over".

When they told us that indifference or inaction to faith-based AGW would bring dire consequences, they weren't lying.

And as much as moderate greenies out there will denounce this ad, we sense that much like moderate Muslims with respect to speaking out against terrorism, there will be the "yes, but..." rationalizations that follow.

When lying about and fudging the facts won't do, simply fast forward to totalitarian threats and intimidation to impose your agenda.

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences.” –C.S. Lewis

H/T: Hot Air

Saturday at the auto show

Saturday we spun on down to the San Diego Auto Show which was being held at the convention center. With the opportunity to check out some cool wheels we were also very interested to see how our tax dollars were being spent, particularly at the General Motors displays.

Long story short, heavy on the Camaro, Corvette and their SUVs.

Here’s a nice look at the Camaro at one of GM’s central displays.




And here’s the Chevy Tahoe Hybrid.

You know, for $54,000, we better be getting more that 22 highway and 21 city.
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It gets better.

For a mere $59,000, you can roll off the lot in an ethanol-burning Tahoe getting 21 highway and 15 in the city.


And while we’re on a green theme, here’s the Fisker, available in the fall of this year. Fisker you will recall is an automotive company backed by Al Gore which received a $529 million U.S. government loan to manufacture in Finland this little hybrid gem upon which you are affixing your gaze.

Copy price: $89,000.

Hey, no one said going green was going to be cheap. Or ethical. Or sensical.






Jeep had a cool little obstacle course set up.





The man on the left is off-road legend and El Cajon native, Ivan “Iron Man” Stewart. The guy just emanates a rugged, western dudesmanship. People young and old alike were coming up to Stewart, chatting, taking pictures with him and getting his autograph.

Quickies

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A round-up of articles, news items, columns and blog posts that caught our eye this past week.





Don Draper, where have you gone?

A glass of something fizzy over lunch with an American executive now means sparkling water. The three-Martini lunch fell into decline in the 1970s, the victim of sober economic times that demanded clear-headed executives, and also of political pressure: Jimmy Carter made it an issue in the 1976 presidential campaign. Morgan Stanley’s New York bankers, for example, were instructed to avoid the drinks cabinet except when entertaining European clients (who could hardly be expected to make it through the day without a snifter). Many modern contracts expressly forbid the consumption of alcohol.

After years of having an occasional beer with lunch on a Friday, say, our organization instituted a zero-tolerance policy on booze. It certainly would appear that the kill-joys have beaten booze entirely out of the American work place.

Was it Oscar Wilde who said: work is the curse of the drinking class?






You may not have heard of George Lakoff but he is an academic and the architect of the President's "You Didn't Build That" campaign battle cry.

Sir Charles of DooDoo Economics has an excellent take-down, here, of a piece he wrote for The Huffington Post.

As you will see, Lakoff is firmly in the camp that our individualism springs forth as a result of the efforts of the collective. There is no starker contrast to the ideals of freedom and individual liberty and initiative than what is represented by this guy. We commented to Charles as such:

The contention that we don't become "individuals" until we build enough roads and bridges or something would be laughable if it wasn't so dangerous.

It confounds me that the ideas of someone who is so ignorant of our founding documents can inform the philosophy of this country's president.

Be sure to check out Sir Charles' site and pick up some cotton while your there.






We know it's the dog days of August but... dude.

The shocker among all the films was Rocky Mountain Pictures’ political documentary 2016 Obama’s America which opened July 13th in very limited release and expanded into theaters across America this weekend. It wound up in 4th place Friday and 8th place for the weekend. That’s stunning because it was playing in 2/3 fewer theaters across North American than the other wider release films. (See below for more details). Due to its hot pre-sales, the pic proved frontloaded which explains why its ranking started out #1 and then fell steeply by end of Sunday. But the doc’s new cume of $9.2M makes it the #1 all-time biggest-grossing conservative political documentary, besting Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed’s $7.7M. And the 6th all-time biggest political documentary behind liberal docs by Michael Moore and Al Gore.

It's coming after you, fat boys!




And speaking of cotton:

Also related: from Iowahawk: "Paul Ryan represents Obama's most horrifying nightmare: math."


Math wins. Math always wins.






W.C. Varones has some thoughts on a readers' poll from the San Diego Union-Tribune asking them to pick the five greatest Americian Presidents.

We won't give it away but the readers also picked the worst Presidents: Obama, GW Bush, Nixon, Carter and LBJ.






How about a visual?

Yep.



Totally related:

Seagate Technology Plc (STX.O), maker of hard drives and storage devices, has agreed to pay $90.3 million for the former manufacturing plant and headquarters building of bankrupt Solyndra LLC, which was financed by a controversial government loan, according to bankruptcy court documents.

Seagate's offer will be considered an initial bid, or "stalking horse," which could be topped by a competing offer of at least $1 million more when an auction is held, according to court documents filed late Wednesday. A hearing to set the terms and date for the auction and declare Seagate's offer the stalking horse has been set for September 24.

Solyndra's Fremont, California, building cost more than $300 million and was completed in 2010, according to prior court documents.

How can we be blamed for piling-on Solyndra when they keeping giving us this 30 cents on the dollar awesomeness?



OK, gang. That's it for today. We'll catch up with you all tomorrow.


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Its all fun and games until someone loses their Irony

We’re clearly late to the whole Obama “Bittergate” episode so any opinion we may have has probably been vented a dozen times over on radio, TV and internet, so... what’s a slacking little blog like ours to do except react to the reaction.

But first, in case any of you have been comatose for the past few days, here are the words spoken by Obama at a San Fran fundraiser that have got him into so much trouble:

“You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them (editor: go cry that tune to the buggy whip manufacturers, pal). And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

A look at the Bittergate dust-up here by George Will who claims “Obama may be the fulfillment of modern liberalism”. With assistance from the indespensible pollster/demographer Michael Barone, Will traces a line from what we’ll call bread’n’butter FDR liberalism through the smug Adlai Stevenson to today’s Obamamania whose campaign’s spritual overtones combined with his desire for governmental hyper-activity recalls the quote from Socialist/Communist pioneer Moses Hess: “The Christian… imagines the better future of the human species…in the image of heavenly joy… We, on the other hand, will have this heaven on earth”.

And here is an interesting and ultimately bizarre piece from WaPo columnist E.J. Dionne. Dionne takes Obama to task for his choice of words but not necessarily its intent or purpose. He then goes after Clinton for parroting Republican talking points about Al Gore, John Kerry and Obama not really respecting values/faith voters. But then in the last few lines, he completely loses it:

“It has been sickening over the years to watch Republicans, who always rally to the aid of the country's wealthiest citizens, successfully cast themselves as pork-rind-eating, NASCAR-watching, gun-toting populists. To have the current White House occupant (Yale, Harvard Business School, son of a president) run as a good old boy should have been the final straw. But here are the two remaining Democratic candidates, Obama by speaking carelessly and Clinton by piling on shamelessly, doing all they can to make it easy for Republicans to pretend one more time that they are the salt of the earth.”

Look. In a two party system there is naturally going to be that inherent “big tent” membership whereby each party will attract people across the economic spectrum so to start claiming which party is for the big guy/little guy will start looking like an endless tennis volley. We do have our thoughts on the matter but its beside the point of this post.

And by no means is this meant to be any cheerleading for the Republican Party as their collective behavior over the past few years has us feeling like, ironically enough, RINOs ourselves... but how does Dionne square his disgust with reality?

This reality, of course, is a Party whose leadership has consistently fought tooth and nail against any sensible restrictions on abortion (parental notification and the gruesome practice of late-term abortion), has consistently voted against tax cuts, has consistently campaigned for more gun control laws, has consistently been in silent consent with those who want to wipe religion from the public square, has consistently opposed school choice/voucher programs, has consistently offered, at best, tepid support for the military when not deriding it obliquely or directly…. Issues all that could by varying degrees be considered under the big tent of “traditional values” for rank and file Democrats and Republicans, alike.

And Dionne has the unmitigated gall to feel disgusted and sickened that despite all the above, those wascalwy Wepublicans have somehow slithered their way to the mantle of Party of the common man?

Dionne is either being intellectually dishonest with his readers or he’s been asleep at the wheel for the last 30-40 years. Policy, planks, positions… throw’em all out the window. Dionne’s attitude is perfectly exemplary of the biggest electoral problem Democrats have had since the late 60s and why it is they are setting themselves up for their 8th presidential election defeat in the last 11: condescension.

In that statement and by conveniently neglecting the choices and the battles Democratic Party leadership has fought in charting a course for the Party, Dionne exhibits the EXACT same condescension he takes Obama to task for in his choice of words and the poor dolt, most likely, doesn’t even realize it.

They still don’t get it. Its amazing. You just can’t make up this stuff.