Saving The Planet By Destroying It

Charles Krauthammer looks at Nancy Pelosi's attempts to "save the planet" (her words) and the absolute absurdity of her position. He is suitably unimpressed by what Pelosi's policies are doing to the United States - and to the planet.

Consider: 25 years ago, nearly 60 percent of U.S. petroleum was produced domestically. Today it's 25 percent. From its peak in 1970, U.S. production has declined a staggering 47 percent. The world consumes 86 million barrels a day, the United States, roughly 20 million. We need the stuff to run our cars and planes and economy. Where does it come from?

Places such as Nigeria, where chronic corruption, environmental neglect and the resulting unrest and instability lead to pipeline explosions, oil spills and illegal siphoning by the poverty-stricken population — which leads to more spills and explosions. Just this week, two Royal Dutch Shell pipelines had to be shut down because bombings by local militants were causing leaks into the ground.

Compare the Niger Delta to the Gulf of Mexico, where deep-sea U.S. oil rigs withstood Hurricanes Katrina and Rita without a single undersea well suffering a significant spill.

The United States has the highest technology to ensure the safest drilling. Today, directional drilling — essentially drilling down, then sideways — allows access to oil that in 1970 would have required a surface footprint more than three times as large. Additionally, the United States has one of the most extensive and least corrupt regulatory systems on the planet.

Does Pelosi imagine that with so much of America declared off-limits, the planet is less injured as drilling shifts to Kazakhstan and Venezuela and Equatorial Guinea? That Russia will be more environmentally scrupulous than we in drilling in its Arctic?

The net environmental effect of Pelosi's no-drilling willfulness is negative. Outsourcing U.S. oil production does nothing to lessen worldwide environmental despoliation. It simply exports it to more corrupt, less efficient, more unstable parts of the world — thereby increasing net planetary damage.

But the refusal to consider lifting the drilling ban has more to do with protecting Pelosi's Democrats than with saving the planet. Pelosi is trying desperately to keep her party from having to vote on drilling. But refusing to take action is the same as voting against drilling. That hammer will be applied - excuse the term - liberally by the Republicans in the run-up to the elections.

Democrats are wont to howl against the export of American jobs. But they appear to be in favor of exporting the entire economy of this nation - leaving nothing behind for Americans.

Absolute Horror In Canada

This one is ugly. A man beheaded a fellow passenger on a Canadian Greyhound bus in front of all the other passengers. The victim and attacker were apparently strangers to one another.

BRANDON - Thirty-six passengers of a Greyhound bus travelling from Edmonton to Winnipeg Wednesday night watched in horror as a fellow passenger stabbed another man sleeping next to him, eventually decapitating him and waving the man's severed head.

RCMP Staff Sgt. Steve Colwell told reporters this afternon that a 40-year-old man believed to be from out of province is in police custody in connection to the incident.

Despite having been arrested early this morning, the man has not been interviewed by police yet. Colwell wouldn't comment on the circumstances of this.

Police are not releasing any information at all about the attacker or the victim.

Keeping Track Of Time

More information about the Antikythera Mechanism has been revealed. (I first posted about this ancient device here). It turns out that the device could calculate the dates for the Olympics, as well as predict eclipses. All-in-all, this is a pretty sophisticated device. And its some 2,000 years old.

The new findings, reported Wednesday in the journal Nature, also suggested that the mechanism’s concept originated in the colonies of Corinth, possibly Syracuse, on Sicily. The scientists said this implied a likely connection with Archimedes.

Archimedes, who lived in Syracuse and died in 212 B.C., invented a planetarium calculating motions of the Moon and the known planets and wrote a lost manuscript on astronomical mechanisms. Some evidence had previously linked the complex device of gears and dials to the island of Rhodes and the astronomer Hipparchos, who had made a study of irregularities in the Moon’s orbital course.

The Antikythera Mechanism, sometimes called the first analog computer, was recovered more than a century ago in the wreckage of a ship that sank off the tiny island of Antikythera, north of Crete. Earlier research showed that the device was probably built between 140 and 100 B.C.

Here's the website for the Antikythera Mechanism Research Project. (The website is under redesign, so everything may not yet be functional.) This will require a little rethinking about how advanced the ancient world really was.

Taking A Victory Lap

I think I detect just a hint of media weariness with Obama's over-sized - and growing - ego. Dana Milbank at the Washington Post reveals a day in the life of the Democratic candidate. It is a somewhat less-than-flattering portrait of a man who is taking a victory lap before winning the big game.

Barack Obama has long been his party's presumptive nominee. Now he's becoming its presumptuous nominee.

Fresh from his presidential-style world tour, during which foreign leaders and American generals lined up to show him affection, Obama settled down to some presidential-style business in Washington yesterday. He ordered up a teleconference with the (current president's) Treasury secretary, granted an audience to the Pakistani prime minister and had his staff arrange for the chairman of the Federal Reserve to give him a briefing. Then, he went up to Capitol Hill to be adored by House Democrats in a presidential-style pep rally…..

…..The 5:20 TBA turned out to be his adoration session with lawmakers in the Cannon Caucus Room, where even committee chairmen arrived early, as if for the State of the Union. Capitol Police cleared the halls — just as they do for the actual president. The Secret Service hustled him in through a side door — just as they do for the actual president.

Inside, according to a witness, he told the House members, "This is the moment . . . that the world is waiting for," adding: "I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions."

This is not a pretty picture of Obama. I imagine that Dana Milbank is about to be uninvited from traveling with the campaign - that is the apparent punishment for media stepping out of line in Obamaland. Do read the whole thing, it really reveals a lot about Obama.

Escape Claws

Lewis the cat has been released from his probation. We first wrote about the feline menace way back in March of 2006. Then again in April and June of that year. Now, two years on, Lewis has changed his ways enough for a court to dismiss the charges against him.

A judge dismissed a reckless endangerment charge against Lewis's owner, Ruth Cisero, on Thursday, concluding she had met terms of a special probation for first-time offenders. Lewis is now an indoor pet, allowed outside only in a cat carrier.

"Unlike most of us, Lewis has learned to live with his limitations," said Eugene Riccio, Cisero's attorney.

The scratch-happy black-and-white cat drew widespread attention in 2006 when Cisero opted for a trial on the criminal charge rather than euthanize or declaw him. It became a national claws celeb, and some pet lovers even sported "Save Lewis" shirts.

Even the neighbor Lewis savaged is satisfied with the outcome. We are curious as to whether Lewis had to wear an orange jumpsuit while he was incarcerated. We rather like that mental image.

“Look For The Union Label!”

More people are having problem with the Jones boy:

Members of Russia's Communist Party are calling for a nationwide boycott of the new Indiana Jones movie, saying it aims to undermine communist ideology and distort history.

…

Communist Party members in St. Petersburg said on a web site this week that the Soviet Union in 1957 "did not send terrorists to the States," but launched a satellite, "which evoked the admiration of the whole world."

Party members added: "What is this place 'Hungary' that people keep talking about.  We've never heard of it."

I Forget… Which One Stands For “Change”?

Finally, something that would make the Democratic campaign new and interesting! Clinton to Obama: Let's debate like Lincoln

Sen. Hillary Clinton called for a Lincoln-Douglas-style debate with no moderator against her rival, Sen. Barack Obama, who says no more debates are needed before the May primaries.

In a TV interview to air Sunday, Obama flat-out denied any possibility that he would take part in a debate with Clinton before the next big round of primaries.

Shortly after maintaining that he isn't "ducking" debates with his Democratic rival, the Illinois senator admitted that the two hopefuls are "not going to have debates between now and Indiana."

Voters in Indiana and North Carolina will head to the polls May 6.

In the interview, Fox News' Chris Wallace asked Obama why he was ducking another one-on-one meeting.

"I'm not ducking one. We've had 21," Obama said. "We want to make sure we're talking to as many folks possible on the ground taking questions from voters."

How incredibly lame from Obama. This is the complete repudiation of the claim he represents any "new moment" in American politics. Ironically, he is now running as the "establishment" candidate. This would be fine were he crushing Clinton, but Obama's weaknesses are many and varied, and have directly contributed to this prolonged nomination battle. If Obama had the skills necessary to take on Clinton in a one-on-one-flying-by-the-seat-of-your-pants debate he could end this race here and now.

He doesn't have such skills. In fact, when forced off of his prepared material he has shown himself prone to spectacular pratfalls of, almost, George Bush quality. (All he needs is Bush's penchant for stupid nicknames to equal the President on this score.) Given this truth, Obama's handlers have him taking the cowards way out and have him avoiding political risks at all costs. It isn't a stupid thing to do were this a general election campaign, where you just need to win no matter the way you do it. But in a nomination process, where you want to launch yourself into the general election with as much positive momentum as possible, this comes across as incredibly weak.

Obama is basically a mystery meat lunch special, which we are just supposed to take as is without asking a lot of questions about its origins (or what it will do to our insides after we consume it.) The more scrutiny he receives the less appetizing he becomes.

Cross-posted at The Iconic Midwest

Taxing Patience

The Wall Street Journal reports on Arizona governor Janet Napolitano's not-so-secret plan to deal with the falling real estate values and mortgage problems in that state: raise property taxes even more. Napolitano is not alone, many states are doing the same thing. While crying to Washington for money for struggling homeowners, state politicians are cheerfully planting a tax boot on the necks of those same homeowners.

Arizona has been hit hard hit by the real-estate bust, with the average home value down 17% in a year and a record number of foreclosures. So Democratic Governor Janet Napolitano has devised a clever way to revive the housing market: Raise property taxes.

Last week Ms. Napolitano vetoed a bill that would have made a two-year suspension of the state property tax permanent. "It's untimely. It's untenable. It's unwise," she said of her untimely and unwise veto. So as housing values slide, Arizonans next year will get walloped with an extra $250 million property tax bill.

Arizona is one of a growing list of states and big cities looking to raise taxes on homes to close budget gaps in 2008 and 2009. Housing values are expected to decline by $1.2 trillion this year, according to Global Insight Inc., an economic consulting firm, and that means tens of billions of dollars in lost taxes.

In recent weeks, Fairfax County in northern Virginia, Washington state, Chicago and Memphis have announced proposals to increase residential property tax rates to offset declining revenues. So at the very time that states and cities are begging for money from Washington to help distressed homeowners pay their mortgages, property tax hikes could push hundreds of thousands of homeowners under water.

So the states are choking their residents with tax hike after tax hike. Both Democrats running for their party nomination for President are promising huge spending which will require higher taxes. And Charlie Rangel has already laid out his plan to raise Federal taxes by one trillion dollars. And the economy is already shaky.

Anyone beginning to see the problem here, yet?

Whining In The Big Apple

It seems that unions are behind the latest whining campaign - especially in New York City - over biometric scanning being used to clock employees in and out of their workplace. A new system is supposed to begin tracking city employees and the unions are unhappy.

NEW YORK - Some workers are doing it at Dunkin' Donuts, Hilton hotels, even at Marine Corps bases. Employees at a growing number of businesses around the nation are starting and ending their days by pressing a hand or finger to a scanner that logs the precise time of their arrival and departure — information that is automatically reflected in payroll records…..

….."They don't even have to hire someone to harass you anymore. The machine can do it for them," said Ed Ott, executive director of the New York City Central Labor Council of the AFL-CIO. "The palm print thing really grabs people as a step too far."

The International Biometric Group, a consulting firm, estimated that $635 million worth of these high-tech devices were sold last year.

Protests over using palm scanners to log employee time have been especially loud in New York City, where officials are spending $410 million to install an automated attendance tracking system that may eventually be used by 160,000 city workers.

Scores of civil servants who are members of Local 375 of the Civil Service Technical Guild rallied Tuesday against a plan to add the city medical examiner's office to the list of 17 city agencies which already have the scanners in place.

The scanners have rankled draftsmen, planners and architects in the city's Parks Department, which began using them last year.

Heaven forbid that a person drawing a government salary might actually have to be at work to get paid. In the nuclear industry, biometric scanners have been in use for more than a decade. I have to use an identity card and insert my hand into a reader every time I go on site and every time I leave. Those scans keep track of who is on site at any one time in case there is ever a need to evacuate, of course. But they can be used to check attendance as well. Those particular rules were enacted by the Federal government, incidentally. It seems more than a bit ridiculous for government employees, even those at the state or city level, to balk at the same rules that have been imposed on part of the civilian sector applying to them.

If the systems streamline payroll and ensure that workers are actually at their jobsite what is the whining really about?

Classless In Chicago

Six classless, self-absorbed attention seekers were arrested in Chicago after they disrupted a Catholic mass shouting antiwar slogans and spraying the congregation with fake blood.

Six people were arrested at Holy Name parish's auditorium Sunday after disrupting an Easter mass to protest the Iraq war.

The group—whose female and male members identified themselves as Catholic Schoolgirls Against the War—stood up at the beginning of Cardinal Francis George's homily and shouted their opposition to the conflict, which marked its fifth anniversary last week. As security guards and ushers tried to remove them from the service, the demonstrators squirted fake blood on themselves and parishioners dressed in their Easter finery.

The red substance, which one protester later described as "stage blood," initially drew gasps and a few terrified yelps from the 600 worshipers at the mass. The shock, however, quickly transformed into anger as people booed the six while they were escorted from the parish auditorium.

The six members of the group have been charged with felonies over their sleazy stunt. I hope they are convicted and sentence to serious jail time for this one. I would hope that even those who are against the war denounce this behavior. More from Gateway Pundit including mugshots of the thugs.

Camp Clinton: If We Top The Ticket, We’ll Team Up

None other than Bill Clinton himself is floating the idea that so long as Hillary tops the ticket, Obama is more than welcome to a secondary role. Or rather a tertiary role behind him and Hillary.

Today, however, the President seemed especially tickled by the answer, and chose to share with his personal thoughts on picking Obama as a VP.

"She said yesterday and she said the day after her big wins in Texas and Ohio and Rhode Island that she was very open to that and I think she answered explicitly yes yesterday," Clinton began, referring to Hillary's own answers on the topic in recent days.

"I know that she has always been open to it, because she believes that if you can unite the energy and the new people that he’s brought in and the people in these vast swaths of small town and rural America that she’s carried overwhelmingly, if you had those two things together she thinks it’d be hard to beat.  I mean you look at the, you look at the, you look at the map of Texas and the map in Ohio. And the map in Missouri or — well Arkansas’s not a good case because they know her and she won every place there. But you look at most of these places, he would win the urban areas and the upscale voters, and she wins the traditional rural areas that we lost when President Reagan was president. If you put those two things together, you’d have an almost unstoppable force," Clinton went on to say.   

All it will cost is for Obama to give up his lead in delegates. And his pride. And his hopes for a future in the big chair. All minor things to the Clinton ambitions.

Dean: Take A Mulligan - Or Else

Howard Dean appears to have intervened in the dispute about the void Michigan and Florida delegates in a way that may favor Obama. He will not allow the party rules to be bent retroactively to seat the delegates. The states will either have to hold a do-over vote or submit to the credentials committee. In other words, Hillary Clinton does not get to count - or count on - those delegates without a bruising fight in either the committee or in the new Mulligan primaries. On the other hand, Obama isn't completely immunized. He is not shielded from those two state's delegates completely. 

Howard Dean will not bend the party rules to grandfather in the disputed delegates from Michigan and Florida, the Democratic party chairman said in a statement today.

Instead, he put the state parties on notice: either they can wait and allow the credentials committee to decide whether to seat their delegates, or submit to a re-vote sanctioned under DNC rules. "We look forward to receiving their proposals should they decide to submit new delegate selection plans and will review those plans at that time," he said in the statement.

"Everyone seems to be asking what the DNC will do," a Democrat close to Dean said. "But the question is: what will the state parties do."

Dean's statement implies that he has no intention of changing the rules to accommodate any solution proposed by the candidates or the state parties. There has been some suggestion that the two remaining presidential candidates might try to broker a deal among themselves. His line in the sand narrows the options for Hillary Clinton's campaign because it is unlikely that a credentials committee would endorse a delegation congenial to her mathematical interests.

Dean will make the rounds of the network morning news shows tomorrow to explain his reasoning.

Unless someone comes up with a way to fund the two do-overs, the point may be moot. But this ensures a brutal fight scenario one way or the other.

Dean isn't exactly pouring oil on the waters here. But he's splashing a goodly amount of gasoline on the fire. 

Swamp Stompers Alert

Via Swampstompers and Dread Pundit Bluto:

Cry Havoc, and Let Slip the Blogs of War: U.S. Companies Hosting Terror Supporters (HELP NEEDED!)

The Jawa Report and The Dread Pundit Bluto declare war on the jihad forum that recently brought you "Does this bomb vest make me look fat?" and "Beheading Suspected Supporters of the Afghan Government is fun". The forum is run by Taliban supporters in Pakistan, but its membership is a mixed group of Salafi e-jihadis and infidel fellow travelers who support anyone willing to kill an American.

We call upon all able bodied patriots to complain to the American service providers that allow this forum to operate. Service providers should be e-mailed, called, or faxed until they agree to stop facilitating the enemies of the United States of America.

The forum features at least two videos which clearly violate the webhost's Terms of Service (TOS) and arguably U.S. and International Law. A gruesome "exclusive" Lee-Media Taliban beheading video, images from which are too graphic to post here but which can be referenced at: Lee-Media: Taliban Behead Three "Spies". A second graphic video which begins with a Taliban terrorist being outfitted with a suicide vest; not shown on the short clip posted is the Taliban homicide bomber blowing up a vehicle.

In addition, the site routinely encourages the murder of civilians and the killing of U.S., NATO, Coalition, & Russian troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, & Chechnya. It also distributes al Qaeda propaganda.

The full details of the forum are at Internet Haganah. Highlights:

Description: Dedicated to the distribution or re-distribution of high-quality jihadi recruiting videos, with a particular focus on subtitling videos to make them accessible to audiences of expatriate Muslims living in Western countries (for example from Urdu to English, or Arabic to Turkish). This network is notable for the considerable effort they have made from the very beginning to hide their existence. They obviously have not succeeded, but we give them an "A" for effort….

Membership: By invitation only, so there are no "innocent" members and no deniability for the administrators. Core members are known to scour other, better known sites for talent which they then recruit to the LEE Network.

More details here.

Another specialty of the group is uploading Taliban murder videos which are sold in Pakistan's tribal areas but not officially released on the internet. They have become the de facto distribution network for Taliban propaganda not officially produced by the group's central Shura Council.

Frames from the video can be found here and might be sent to webhosts as evidence of what happens behind Lee-Media's closed forum doors. This suicide vest video can also be used. Service providers can also be directed to the Internet Haganah's detailed analysis of Lee-Media here.

Please, we need your help on this one. Spread the word and encourage every one you know to complain to the service providers listed below. In any letter or conversation you have with these service providers please let them know that Lee-Media violates the TOS (terms of service), encourages acts of violence against U.S. troops, and encourages terrorism.

Several service providers for Lee Media, many of which are in Burlington, MA, and seem to be companies owned or operated by Endurance International Group.

leemedia.net = 65.254.250.106

Host/Registrar: Endurance International Group (Shared webhosting)
Burlington, MA
Contact: domains@yourhostingaccount.com
(866) 642-4678

Domain Admin: Powweb.com
Burlington, MA
Contact: support@powweb.com; domreg@powweb.com
(877) 476-9932

DNS/Registrar: Tucows, Inc.
Ontario, CA
Contact: domains@accountsupport.com
dnsadmin@tucows.com
Form contact.

Sad-Happy News

Sad because one of my go-to blogs will not be around much longer. Happy because the voice behind that blog is not falling silent, merely changing locations. Ed Morrisey, skipper of Captain's Quarters will be closing up shop at the old address. But fear not, he will be hanging out his shingle over at Hot Air.

Hot Air is proud to welcome blogger extraordinaire Ed Morrissey of Captain’s Quarters to the staff. He’ll start cross-posting here today and we’re opening up comment registration to help bring CQ members into the fold. (Go here to register.) In the next few weeks, Ed will close down CQ and make Hot Air his exclusive home. (Update: Ed’s Hot Air e-mail address is ed@hotair.com)

Ed began blogging at Captain’s Quarters in 2003. During the past five years, his work has been published in the Washington Post, New York Post, New York Times, Weekly Standard, and other national publications. In 2007, Ed made the leap to full-time employment in New Media when he became political director for Blog Talk Radio. You can see all of his past work in the archives at Captain’s Quarters.

Ed has lived in Minnesota for more than ten years after leaving his native California. He and his wife have a son and daughter-in-law finishing their college education and a beautiful five-year-old granddaughter. He has a weekly radio show on Minnesota’s AM 1280 The Patriot every Saturday afternoon.

Ed has been a friend and kindred spirit since I entered the blogosphere. He brings keen political insights, boundless energy and optimism, and invaluable investigative skills/enterprise reporting to the team. His pioneering citizen journalism helped expose government corruption in Canada and brought down a rotten Canadian Liberal Party administration. He’s been the subject of moonbat cartoonist Ted Rall’s class bigotry and a target of Vanity Fair jerk James Wolcott’s snobbery. Ever the gentleman, Ed joked in response: “Success is when all the right people hate you.”

They have opened registration over at Hot Air for commenters so Ed's loyal flock of readers (and he has a lot) can continue to comment on Ed's posts. I've sent Ed an email offering my personal congratulations. Consider doing the same.

Ed is one of the first bloggers I began reading back when I found the blogosphere. He will be a great addition to Hot Air. Congratulations, Ed, may the seas be calm and the winds fair.  

What Did The Leper Say To The Candidate?

"Welcome to Arkansas." There is a severe outbreak of leprosy spreading in Arkansas. Yes, you read that right. Leprosy.

SPRINGDALE - The medical community is warning the public: a leprosy outbreak in Springdale could blossom into an epidemic, if something isn't done soon.

Doctors say at least nine cases of leprosy have been confirmed in Springdale.  Local doctors say they would be shocked by even one case of leprosy in their entire career, so they say something must be done soon, in order to stop leprosy's spread.

Springdale MD Jennifer Bingham says, "my initial response was: I am shocked. I am shocked we are seeing this. It's a true reason to be very worried."

Medical specialists say the Marshall Islands have the most cases of leprosy, in the world. And the city with the largest number of Marshallese people, outside the Marshall islands, is Springdale. And Bingham says, it makes sense, then, that leprosy is spreading to the city. "It's from the Marshall islands; that's why we're seeing it."

Bingham says she is all for Marshallese people entering the United States, after proper medical tests. But whether they're immigrants or not, she says people must stick to treatment, when infected. And she says, when she treats those from the Marshall Islands, this doesn't happen. "We're not getting the compliance that is absolutely essential to take care of this process."

Bingham says without cooperation, leprosy, which has no vaccine, and is transmitted through the air, will spread, and could easily become an epidemic. "People absolutely should be concerned. What I'm afraid of, is when people start thinking about it enough, it will already be out of control."

This is not - at all - a good thing. This requires a public health clampdown - right now - if people are not following through on treatment.  Even though leprosy is treatable, the course of treatment must be followed exactly and can take up to two years to complete. Here's the Wikipedia entry on leprosy. Here's the CDC page on Hansen's Disease .

UPDATE: This is interesting. The story has completely disappeared. Spree smells a rat.