The Sierra Club versus Electricity

By Alan Caruba

In early July the Sierra Club celebrated the fact that, “Today, 100 of those planned coal plants have been defeated or abandoned.”

They crowed over the fact that a year ago there were plans for 150 new plants and that they had successfully thwarted the provision of electrical power around the nation. As for as the Sierra Club is concerned, “This milestone marks a significant shift in the way Americans are looking at our energy choices. Cities, states, businesses and electric utilities are all moving away from the polluting coal power of the past.”

Today’s coal-fired plants are all equipped with very expensive technology that eliminates the pollution of the past, “scrubbing” their massive stacks before any is emitted. They are not polluting anything, but they are providing affordable electrical energy.

Coal represents just a shade over fifty percent of all the electricity Americans use. It is so abundant here in America that the provision of those 150 plants would have ensured that the nation had a significant portion of the additional power it requires for a growing population and our manufacturing sector.

Why does the Sierra Club oppose coal-fired plants? It says that “carbon dioxide pollution, a main cause of global warming” is the reason, but CO2 is not a pollutant. It is the gas of life because without it not one single blade of grass or any other vegetation grows on planet Earth. Our food supply, crops and the livestock that depend upon them, is the result of CO2.

And, of course, there is NO global warming. The planet has been cooling for the past decade and the science of CO2 demonstrates that it plays no role whatever with regard to major climate trends.

The Sierra Club’s opposition to coal-fired plants is entirely based on a LIE.

It doesn’t stop there, however. As far back as 1974, the Sierra Club has been opposed to nuclear energy as well. They called for “adequate national and global policies to curb energy over-use and unnecessary economic growth.”

“Unnecessary economic growth”? If a nation does not maintain its economic growth it also does not provide jobs. It does not have the means by which to fund defense, infrastructure, and to compete globally in manufacturing and exports. This is an idiotic policy, but not if your aim, your purpose is to attack the most essential element of growth, the provision of energy.

A visit to the Sierra Club website provides ample evidence of its objection to all forms of energy except the least practical and effective, the so-called “renewable” forms such as wind and solar. Even T. Boone Pickens who gambled on the largest wind farm in the Texas Panhandle has thrown in the towel, announcing that his $2 billion investment is now, in retrospect, rather foolish given the need to get the power from the farm to where it is needed.

Pickens is now stuck with 687 giant wind turbines, each of which is taller than a 30-story building.

The same may be said of solar power that, like wind, is not dependable and must be located far from the transmission lines and the nation’s urban areas that are most in need of electricity.

At what point will Americans begin to realize that the giant Green organizations like the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, and others stand in opposition to the very thing they most desperately need, energy?

At what point will Americans begin to realize that failing to access its own vast natural resources, coal, oil and natural gas, is suicidal?

One hopes it will not be before the economy is so severely damaged that we cannot borrow or fund the coal-fired and nuclear plants that we need to keep us from being figuratively and literally in the dark.

Electing a Moron

By Alan Caruba

It’s not that long ago that former President George W. Bush was being characterized as a dimwit. In truth, because he was not a smooth talker, he often came across as less than a deep thinker. I am not sure the job requires a deep thinker because those who fit that description often turned out to be a disaster. The job’s best description is “leader.”

It is important to remember that the decade in which Bush served was one of consumer confidence, a healthy economy, marred initially by 9/11 and later by the decision to invade Iraq and depose a vicious despot who had warred with Iran and invaded Kuwait. Many Americans grew tired of the war and the subsequent occupation.

Only at the very end of Bush’s term, September 2008, did the nation suddenly encounter the financial turmoil that the mortgage “bubble” generated. It was long in coming and fearful in its immediate consequences. Congress voted a $700 billion bailout program for banks and insurance companies.

Candidate Obama had almost nothing to say about the crisis, but all during the campaign the mainstream media kept telling us that he had a giant IQ. He had already written two books even if both were about himself.

And, yes, he had taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago, but few on the faculty have any recall of him. Indeed, his college transcripts, as well as his birth certificate, are all still carefully hidden from public view.

So we have only the last six months by which to judge him by his actions. A delightful blog by Theo Sparks has posted two lists demonstrating that just over half the voters in 2008 elected a moron.

So far on Obama’s watch:

He has doubled the national debt.

Announced the termination of the space defense system the day after the North Koreans launched an ICBM.

Against the advice and urgings for his own CIA director and the prior four directors, he released information on intelligence gathering.

Announced that he would close Guantanamo without having any idea what to do with its detainees, all of whom are hard-core jihadists. Several of those released have since returned to the terrorist trade.

Spent a lot of time in foreign nations apologizing for things about which most Americans take pride.

Told Mexicans that the violence in their country was our fault because some of the guns they use to kill each other had been purchased in the U.S.

Appointed an Attorney General who orchestrated the forced removal and return to Cuba of a nine-year-old whose mother died to give him a life of freedom in America.

Caused panic in New York by authorizing the flight of Air Force One over New York for a photo you can purchase with Photo Shop for less than a dollar. The flight cost $400.000.

Told the Iranian protesters in the streets of Tehran that the U.S. would not “meddle” in the affairs of their nation, but did not hesitate to tell the Prime Minister of Israel that his nation had to stop building new settlements to house its growing population.

Initiated the nationalization of the U.S. auto industry and gave a lot of money to insurance giant AIG without any pre-conditions.

Intends to nationalize the health insurance industry.

Is pushing a Cap-and-Trade bill that would be the largest tax in the history of the nation.

When the Honduran Supreme Court deposed a communist president, he sided, along with Cuba’s Raul Castro and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, with the exiled president.

President Obama, a former community organizer, claimed through a spokesperson that he was unaware of the initial nationwide “tea party” tax protests involving thousands. On July 4, an estimated million Americans participated in still more protests coast to coast.

Among his choice of friends, he was unaware that he started his political career in the living room of a former domestic terrorist, a member of the Weather Underground.

He was unaware that the pastor of the church he attended for twenty years was a racist who hates America.

He was unaware that his own aunt was living in the U.S. illegally or that his brother lives on pennies a day in a hut in Kenya.

Among his first choices for cabinet positions, he was unaware that he nominated a man to be Secretary of Commerce who was under investigation in a bribery scandal.

He was unaware that his choice for Secretary of Treasury was a tax cheat. Indeed, he was unaware that several of his top choices fit that description.

As President and the representative of the American people, he managed to offend the Queen of England, insult the British people by returning a bust of Winston Churchill, and make a deep bow to the King of Saudi Arabia, something no President in history has ever done before any monarch.

It is evident to all that President Obama is (a) incapable of delivering any kind of speech without the use of a TelePrompter and (b) incapable of answering any question from a member of the press in under ten minutes’ time.

So what do we know about the people who voted for him? According the Rasmussen Consumer Index, among Democrats confidence is up from 53.7 a year ago to 79.5 this year. Among Republicans, it has dropped from 99.4 last year to 68.6 today,

Democrats apparently think the economy has improved despite the loss of more than 2.5 million jobs in the first quarter of 2009. Under Obama, the U.S. unemployment rate has risen from 7.6 to 9.5%, the highest in 26 years.

To put it another way, the U.S. has lost 16,000 jobs each day since Democrats passed a multi-billion dollar “stimulus” bill. The nation’s Gross Domestic Product fell at 5.5 percent in the first quarter of 2009.

The stock market is down 3,000 points from a year ago.

This means that Democrats, voters and members of Congress, are either deluded and/or as moronic as the man they elected President.

The only justification for the debacle the President has offered thus far has been to blame everything on George W. Bush.

Meanwhile, his Vice President is candidly telling anyone who will listen that the geniuses Obama selected to advise him are clueless, having failed to grasp the gravity of the situation or offer solutions other than those that will put more people out of work, raise taxes, increase inflation, and further bankrupt a bankrupt nation.

How do I know it’s bankrupt? Because President Obama is on record saying, “We’re out of money.”

When you’re in a hole, stop digging.

Unless, of course, you’re a moron.

The Saudis Choose Sides

By Alan Caruba

Bit by bit the news is getting out. First it was a news report of Israelis, Egyptians, and Saudis getting together to discuss their mutual interests and concern. In other words, Iran!

Now The Times (UK) is reporting that “The head of Mossad, Israel’s overseas intelligence service, has assured Benjamin Netanyahu, its prime minister, that Saudi Arabia would turn a blind eye to Israeli jets flying over the kingdom during any future raid on Iran’s nuclear sites.”

This was followed by news of an ABC News interview with Vice President Biden who said, “Look, Israel can determine for itself—it’s a sovereign nation—what’s in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else, whether we agree or not.”

Translation: We hope they will bomb the heck out of Iran’s nuclear facilities because we do not have the guts to do it ourselves. The President then said Biden had misspoken and that no “green light” had been given. Apparently, it’s okay to “meddle” in Israel’s internal affairs, but not Iran’s.

The least likely partners in the Middle East are Israel and the Saudis, but both have a common enemy and the Saudis have always been shrewd in their judgment as to whom to back in a fight. They also prefer having others do their fighting for them. Unless you haven’t checked lately, Saudi Arabia shares a very long border with Iraq and is just across the Persian Gulf from Iran, along with Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.

So now the Saudis are in league with the Israelis, just like they coordinate with the oil-importing United States of America. Why not? We’re too stupid to tap our own extensive national oil reserves, so they are perfectly happy to sell us theirs.

Iran is a direct competitor to the Saudis and cannot be expected to play nice at OPEC meetings. The good news for the Saudis is that the Iranians have so mismanaged their oil industry that they don’t even have a refinery to make their own gasoline. Their equipment is getting old and their income from oil is surely dwindling as a result. It doesn’t help them that the price per barrel is falling of late.

But they sure do know how to make some great long-and-short range missiles and have been hell-bent on acquiring nuclear weapon capability for some twenty years or more. While they have poured billions into that little project, they have ignored their own population which has high unemployment and a host of other problems, not the least of which is a shaky hold on power.

A serious international boycott of the current Iranian regime would bring it to its knees. The protests in the streets may have been crushed, but the spirit of protest has not. Iranians are angry with their Supreme Leader and the rest of the stooges in their allegedly elected government.

I have no doubt whatever that the Israelis will choose the day and hour to attack the Iranian nuclear facilities. It’s no great secret where they are, but I bet the Mossad has blueprints!

It is ironic that Iran has managed to do what sixty years of Arab warfare on Israel has not. It has brought two antagonists to the table to discuss an even greater common enemy.

The "Secret" Tea Party Protests

By Alan Caruba

An estimated 2,000 “Tea Party” nationwide protests against excessive taxation did not get much coverage in the nation’s mainstream media.

You had to visit World Net Daily to get the story. According to WND, between 3,000 and 4,000 gathered in San Antonio while more than 2,000 gathered in Marietta, Georgia. There were a reported 1,500 in Louisville, Kentucky, and 1,500 in Olympia, Washington. In Reno, 3,000 showed up.

If you Googled for “Tea Party” on July 5th, the day after the many events scheduled for Independence Day, you would come up empty except for a brief story in the Newark, NJ Star-Ledger, “Thousands take part in ‘tea party’ protest against high taxes in Morristown.”

While the Star-Ledger deserves credit for its coverage it was a tad short on its tally of those held in New Jersey, calling it “more of more than a dozen.” According to the Tea Party website, there were 37 such events in New Jersey planned for the day. Many states had comparable numbers.

With the exception of a few local Associated Press stories there was, in effect, a news blackout of coverage turning the tea parties into the equivalent of secret events. Watching television news throughout the Fourth, one would scarcely have been aware of them.

In my lifetime, it is a massive departure from the coverage given the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam War protests that dominated the 1960s and 70s.

The failure to provide coverage further exacerbates the growing distrust of the mainstream media.

The fact that hundreds of thousands of people can peacefully gather to protest the Cap-and-Trade bill that passed the House and to oppose the proposed healthcare reforms, along with the many bailouts and limpid “stimulus” bill results thus far, and not generate any coverage among the media is extremely troubling. It makes Rush Limbaugh’s charge that they are now “government” newspapers ring true.

It amounts to a cover-up and a very deliberate one at that. The lack of news of the tea parties would surely cause many to assume they either did not occur or represented only a small number of protesters.

There is no way to estimate how many participated, but it is foolhardy to ignore the numbers which, together, were very likely a million or more.

If the economy continues to tank, there will be even greater participation in these events in the months and years ahead.

Despite the constant media coverage of Obama as singularly blessed with the skills to solve the nation’s problems, a growing number of Americans are not fooled and, indeed, Rasmussen polling that tracks opinions of his performance is now showing that more people disapprove than approve. It has taken barely six months for the disenchantment to set in.

Put all those people at the protests together with all those who share their discontent and you have a huge voting bloc in 2010 that is going to be eager to vote out any member of Congress who participated in these policies.

Sarah! Sarah! Sarah!

By Alan Caruba

Sarah Palin’s stunning announcement on July 3rd that she would step down as Governor of Alaska at the end of the month left all the political pundits gazing into their crystal ball desperately looking for an explanation.

The most obvious answer was the one she offered. She had done as much as she thought she could do for Alaska and now she wanted some time with her family. We are conditioned to never believe what politicians tell us and, in most cases, that is the wisest thing, but Palin breaks the mold in many ways.

The first thing everyone wants to know is whether she will run for President? She is enormously popular with many rank and file Republicans, but probably not with the power brokers within the party. She is, unlike John McCain, a true “maverick” because she actually believes in the major tenets of conservatism, limited government, strong defense, and fiscal prudence.

The GOP has long since strayed from those Reaganesque values and there is no better recent example than George W. Bush. For the life of me, I still have no idea how McCain got the nomination and things got really bizarre when he plucked Palin out of the wilds of Alaska and near total obscurity.

She was, after all, a woman. The last time a presidential candidate selected a woman as his running mate was Walter Mondale who chose Geraldine Ferraro and that turned out to be a Democrat disaster. What was McCain thinking? Of course, that’s what Republicans keep asking no matter what McCain says or does as he seems like some kind of stealth Democrat most of the time.

Palin was an instant hit; a sudden political superstar and, at the same time, also a candidate in over her head when it came to a national election. The press quickly lampooned her as a Moose-shooting rube from the only state less far away from the lower 48 than Hawaii. Even so, she was dynamite on the stump. And she still draws large, enthusiastic crowds to the consternation of Democrats and some Republicans.

Palin suffered from one of the worst political campaigns in recent memory. McCain had no central message, few new ideas, and poor delivery whether delivering a speech or in an interview. The man was painful to watch. He looked old. He sounded old. The contrast with his young running mate made some think the wrong person was on the top of the ticket running for president.

Palin was, by virtually any political standard, unique. Plain-speaking, possessed of a photogenic family and with personal, religious, and political values that rang true with a lot of people who sensed she was the real deal as a conservative.

She also did not appear to have much depth when it came to the major issues challenging the nation. She tended to speak in clichés and still does.

She brought out the very worst in Democrats/liberals. I cannot recall when a candidate was so viciously attacked. The mainstream media parachuted reporters into Wasilla, Alaska in a desperate effort to find anything bad to say about her. On Saturday Night Live, a devastating satirical portrait by Tina Fey turned her into a joke; someone who “could see Russia” from her front porch.

If the GOP could bottle whatever it is she does that drives liberals like New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd insane, we could begin to win some elections again. Citing another hit job, a profile by Todd Purdum in Vanity Fair, Dowd notes that some regard Palin as suffering from narcissistic personality disorder, but clearly has not noticed any evidence of this in President Obama.

So why did she quit and what will she do now? I think the girl from Wasilla wants some time with her family while she and they are still young. She has five children and one grandchild. They are Track, Trig, Bristol, Willow and Piper. Unwed, teenage Bristol is the mother of Tripp. This is definitely not the Brady Bunch.

She probably also needs time away from the horrid attacks. I don’t think most of us give much thought to the toll such savagery takes on a public figure. She surely has done nothing to deserve it other than to become a rising star among a fairly dull Republican roster of potential presidential candidates.

Larry Kudlow, the columnist and radio host with a brilliant take on economic issues, thinks she is the new head of the Republican Party and I think he may be right.

And, finally, I keep thinking she would really like to take off the gloves and tear into Barack Hussein Obama. The Alaskan Governor’s office is not the right place to do that. Combine that will a quarter million in legal expenses to defend against spurious charges, and the reason for leaving early seems fairly obvious.

She needs a bigger platform and her new freedom gives her one.

The President becomes more vulnerable to serious criticism with every passing day and, so far, Republicans have been too quiet. Palin is likely to do politically to Obama what she has already done to a Moose.

As California Goes....

By Alan Caruba

As a lifelong resident of New Jersey, one of the most fiscally imprudent states, it may be deemed unfair for me to say bad things about California, but having lived in a state that has “been there, done that” it also endows me with an understanding of what happens when a state is taken over by its public service unions and indulges in stupid environmental policies that have nothing to do with a sound economy.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declared an economic crisis last week in order to demand some fiscal sanity that has not been forthcoming from its legislature. By the end of the month, California will be forced to pay bills with IOUs and we all know that won’t work. The U.S. Constitution reserves to the federal government the right “to coin money, regulate the value thereof…” As a form of currency, IOUs are forbidden to California.

A recent issue of The Heartland Institute’s “Budget & Tax News” monthly newspaper had a disturbing article by Jason Sorens and William Ruger, two members of the University of Buffalo faculty who studied the issue of personal and financial freedom in the nation’s 50 States. Their study ranked states on government spending, taxes, and regulations on market transactions and private behavior.

Since Americans pride themselves as a free people, the actions of state government have a direct impact on how much actual freedom they have because “states and local governments regulate workplaces, land use, and health insurance. They tell individual citizens how to educate their children, where they are permitted to smoke, which kinds of firearms they may own, and when they are allowed to buy liquor.” And, of course, they levy taxes.

The five least-free States, from the bottom up, are New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, California, and Maryland. New York State’s legislature has been in a complete meltdown, unable and unwilling to tend to business. New Jersey is locked in the run-up to an election pitting an ultra-liberal Governor, Jon Corzine, against a Republican candidate who promises to do a better job of governance, but in New Jersey that is no guarantee of any improvement.

California, ranked fourth from the bottom in terms of freedom, reflects the study’s finding that “Liberal states tend to be nanny states when it comes to issues of personal choice.” Linked to economic freedom, states that impose excessive taxation and regulation tend to chase people and business away.

New Jersey has had more people leaving than coming to live there and, in the 1990s California saw 2.08 million more people leave than moved there from other parts of the nation. According to the U.S. Census, this loss was offset by a net immigration of 2.02 million from Latin America. To put it another way, California imported poverty along with an increase in the social services these new immigrants (many illegal) require.

One of the factors contributing to the population loss was the high cost of housing in California, about 53.1% above the February 1999 median of $129,300 in the rest of the nation, making housing in California less affordable than anywhere else. When the housing bubble burst in late 2008, California’s homeownership rate was only 55.7% as compared to 66% for the entire nation. In more blunt terms, California’s white (non-Hispanic) population has been leaving in droves.

The result of this has been a dramatic increase in costs relative to the rise of its population of illegal aliens. By 2004, a study by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) that examined the costs of education, health care, and the incarceration of illegal aliens committing crimes in California, concluded it costs Californians $10.5 billion per year. The K-12 education system spent approximately $7.7 billion to school the children of illegal aliens and another $1.4 billion in taxpayer’s money went toward providing healthcare to them and their families, about the same spent on incarcerating illegal alien criminals.

Doing nothing about immigration comes with a big price tag and this is increasingly true of the entire nation that is estimated to have some 12 million illegal aliens. Neither the Bush administration of the passed eight years, nor the new Obama administration will stem this wholesale invasion of the nation, not just burdening taxpayers, but reducing the number of jobs available to natural born and naturalized citizens. Amnesty would double or triple the number of new citizens as family members join them.

Of equal concern are the nation’s energy policies and, in this regard, California is the template for doing everything possible to restrict the development of its own energy sources and reserves.

The state’s oldest oil refinery, the massive 104-year-old Richmond facility was in the process of modernization, but environmentalists sued and a judge ordered Chevron Corporation to stop work for yet another “environmental impact report.” A hundred workers have been laid off and as many as a thousand more may lose their jobs as the project shuts down. That is insanity.

California is highly dependent on imported electricity. As of 2008, its failure to provide for the energy needs of its citizens meant it was short by 23% of the total demand for power. California has been loath to permit the building of coal-fired plants and slow to build those based on nuclear power. California has been a big proponent of wind and solar energy; the least practical means of providing electricity.

Today, California consumes 65% more electricity than it did in 1980. Coal-based electricity imports from other states grew by 60% from 1998 to 2005. Intent on emphasizing “efficient” power use policies, California has discovered that efficiency improvements do not reduce its overall energy consumption and, as often as not, leads to more energy use because people perceive such “efficiency” savings as freeing up more dollars for other energy-consuming devices and activities.

Meanwhile, demands for greater energy “efficiency” have driven up the cost of housing and driven out manufacturing firms because of high energy prices. If the states from which it imports electricity were to reduce or cut off supplies, California would swiftly decline to the status of a third world nation.

Estimates of the amounts of untapped oil off its coast on the continental shelf are in the millions of barrels, possibly billions. A reversal of this policy would generate lots of high-paying jobs and reduce the nation’s dependence on imported oil.

As this is being written, California faces a $21.3 billion deficit. Its citizens have defeated all of the proposed measures to close it, probably in retaliation for the spendthrift insanity of its legislature.

These are the same policies—immigration, education¸ housing, energy—being pursued by the Obama administration and, if California is a template for what will occur nationwide, it portends a very grim future.

Happy Fourth of July!

Happy Fourth of July!

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