Hat tip: Autoblog Green
Are you concerned about damage that ethanol may be doing to your car’s engine or to your gas-powered equipment? Want to make a political statement against this rent-seeking practice? Here is a useful site. It lists and maps stations that sell ethanol-free gasoline. Unfortunately, there are no ethanol-free gas stations in the DC metropolitan area, but we can only hope that this situation changes soon. Anyway, check out the site:
According to the tabloid magazine Star, Al Gore allegedly had an affair with Laurie David, ex-wife of Larry David (creator of “Seinfeld” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm”). As of this writing, no one knows if this report is true, but tasteless humor can’t wait. Here are my thoughts about the alleged affair:
10. Lessons from Al’s old boss finally sunk in.
9. No cigars were harmed in this affair.
8. Gore got really good with “PowerPoint” presentations.
7. Here we always thought that Gore preferred “pie charts” to “bar graphs.”
6. “So I went to this climate change conference and . . . yada, yada, yada.”
5. Al must have viewed his marriage as “An Inconvenient Truth.”
4. Laurie affectionately calls Al mon petit chaud.
3. Al was just trying to prove that the “hockey stick” theory was for real.
2. Clearly, Al Gore was increasing more than his “carbon footprint.”
And the number one tasteless remark is . . .
1. Now we know what Phil Jones of the
Scenes from a Debate
This past fall, my congregation hosted a debate between David Marsden and Kerry Bolognese for the 41st House of Delegates seat. The congregation I attend is much more liberal than conservative, politically speaking, though people of all political stripes are always given a gracious welcome. Little did Mr. Marsden know that this blogger was present.
During the debate, the candidates were asked several questions submitted by congregation members. I am not going to recount every question and answer here. However, given Delegate Marsden’s claim to being “moderate,” I think that the highlights of his responses in a recent forum should be shared with the public.
David Marsden attacked the idea of a tax cut. He said that programs such as schools and roads that compete for funding would get hurt. He wants to give better funding to community colleges when the economy recovers. Unlike Kerry Bolognese, Marsden made no commitment to monitoring how money is actually spent.
Marsden insists that as a low tax State,
As far as public-private partnerships are concerned, David Marsden thinks that the “public” part is just not there. Apparently,
Marsden was most interesting when asked about waste that can be eliminated. When Kerry Bolognese recounted the Wilder Commission as well as specific items (and given the short time given for responses, no one can give a complete list), Marsden’s attitude was that it was like finding “$2.98 from couch cushions.” (his words) He thinks that we have reached a limit as far as cost savings are concerned while spending “needs” have been raised.
When asked about what pet project he would want to fund for the 41st District, Marsden responded that he had introduced three bills to help clean up the
On card check issues, when Bolognese noted what a disaster it would be, Marsden insisted that card check was compatible with small businesses. Of course, he gave the usual union line about how we owe having weekends to unions. He claims that he would only apply card check to large employers, though he did not give a specific figure.
When asked about fighting crime and gangs, David Marsden did support prosecution. He also mentioned having gang prevention activities and outlawing pneumatic weapons. Kerry Bolognese pointed out that Marsden opposed HB 1626, which would allow homeowners to protect themselves. Also, on crime issues, Marsden supports closing “loopholes” at gun shows and supports legislation to mandate background checks.
Finally, Marsden was amusing on other energy and environmental issues. He supports environmental initiatives that are “fiscally sound’ (of course), but then he said he supported setting up windmills in an old Ford plant. Marsden came out opposing drilling off the coast of
In summary, while Marsden has done a lot of admirable work in the juvenile justice field, has a long record of public service, and isn’t as radically pro-abortion as some of his Democratic colleagues, he is still very much out of touch with voters of the 37th District and rather uncurious about government accountability. You would think someone with the long public service record he claims would understand where to look for cost savings, but perhaps David Marsden has grown comfortable in the fact that government runs on someone else’s money. Perhaps, in front of an audience he perceives as more liberal, he could be more candid about the kind of person he is. Voters of the 37th District will be well-served by electing Steve Hunt as the next State Senator to get quality representation in
A few weeks ago I took some oil from my lawnmower to the recycle center just off I-66 in
Something is not quite right. Here is a closer look at the professionally-printed sign. Notice that it has a bit of an error in it (red circling added for emphasis):
As luck would have it, VA Blogger links to an opinion piece by Pat Herrity in the Connection Newspaper in which he (Herrity) rips Fairfax County for its overspending. I'm not saying that fixing up the recycling center isn't a laudable thing for the County to do. However, as we can see from the pictures,
What amazes me even more is that our supposedly environmentally conscious elected representatives (COUGH Gerry Connolly COUGH) have not caught this error. Maybe they don’t do the recycling that they preach to us. Poor dears wouldn’t want to get their hands dirty, would they? Something very Al Gore/Tom Friedman/Copenhagen about all this, don’t you think?
Better still, the
... while debating new, higher, 'voluntary' renewable energy requirements and the effect on higher prices, Chap said something to the effect of "this bill will both raise prices and help the environment." And he said it with this air of unveiling a pleasant surprise...
When I was asked earlier about the issue of coal…under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket…even regardless of what I say about whether coal is good or bad, because I’m capping greenhouse gasses, coal power plants, natural gas…you name it…whatever the plants were, whatever the industry was, they would have to retro-fit their operations.[Emphasis mine]
So what exactly is a shovel-ready project? As the Washington Post recently pointed out, the term “shovel-ready” may have been introduced in the 1990s by New York-based electric utility Niagara-Mohawk Power, which later became National Grid (it is the current owner of the URL shovelready.com). There are no specific parameters or requirements that define shovel readiness. But according to civil engineers, the idea behind this new buzzword could help scuttle the stimulus bill’s highly publicized, though secondary, goal of infrastructure reform. At issue is that 90-day restriction stipulated by Congress, an even narrower window than the bill’s original 180-day limit. “They’re well intentioned, and they know their infrastructure sucks, so they’re trying to do immediate reactive management to what is a very deep, endemic problem,” says Robert Bea, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. “If you want to patch some potholes in the road, this is a good program. But if you’re hoping for anything long-term with this approach, throw away all hope. It can’t happen.”I am not saying that more ambitious road and bridge projects (maintenance or construction) are unworthy. However, these projects take a lot of time in terms of manpower, material acquisition, project management, etc. Regulatory hurdles also exist to make even the most successful road or bridge project happen. (Witness how long it’s taken to get the Wilson Bridge Project or the Intercounty Connector started.) I’ve actually taken some courses in project management, and believe me, implementing PM concepts is very difficult in the private sector. In the government, success varies widely, but it is quite haphazard.
Warner, whose energy plan calls for getting tougher with OPEC and increasing regulation on investors who speculate in the oil market, did not rule out more drilling. He has said that he is skeptical of drilling for oil offshore, but during the debate he said he would support a bill to lift the moratorium on drilling and allow states to decide.
Later, when pressed by reporters, Warner said he would support drilling off Virginia once "environmental standards" were met, but he did not elaborate.
"Where I strongly differ from Jim Gilmore's position is that somehow that is the silver bullet that is going to solve all the nation's energy problems," Warner said.
The new ice cores show that in the past six global warmings over the past half a million years, the temperature rises occurred on average 800 years before the accompanying rise in atmospheric carbon. Which says something important about which was cause and which was effect.
None of these points are controversial. The alarmist scientists agree with them, though they would dispute their relevance.
The last point was known and past dispute by 2003, yet Al Gore made his movie in 2005 and presented the ice cores as the sole reason for believing that carbon emissions cause global warming. In any other political context our cynical and experienced press corps would surely have called this dishonest and widely questioned the politician's assertion.
The world has spent $50 billion on global warming since 1990, and we have not found any actual evidence that carbon emissions cause global warming. Evidence consists of observations made by someone at some time that supports the idea that carbon emissions cause global warming. Computer models and theoretical calculations are not evidence, they are just theory.
What is going to happen over the next decade as global temperatures continue not to rise? The Labor Government is about to deliberately wreck the economy in order to reduce carbon emissions. If the reasons later turn out to be bogus, the electorate is not going to re-elect a Labor government for a long time. When it comes to light that the carbon scare was known to be bogus in 2008, the ALP is going to be regarded as criminally negligent or ideologically stupid for not having seen through it. And if the Liberals support the general thrust of their actions, they will be seen likewise.
